Gandhi's Birthday – Lessons for Today's Movements

Today we celebrate the 156th birthday of Mohandas Ghandi, whose leadership helped undermine the British Empire and lead to Indian Independence.

Like all of us, Gandhi was imperfect, but his experiments with active nonviolence, Satyagraha in his words, shook the world and continue to offer valuable guidance today. While most known for leading massive nonviolent direct action campaigns and for his personal commitment to simple living, Gandhi was also a brilliant political strategist.  

He wove together the nonviolent direct action campaigns with a powerful “constructive program” – creating liberatory alternatives to the current existing economic and social structures – and work to build lasting organizational structures to challenge dominant institutions. His example and work inspired Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., Dorothy Day, Bayard Rustin, Nelson Mandela and many other critical practitioners of nonviolent resistance.

Eight years ago,  Waging Nonviolence described Gandhi's “ability to bring together a variety of different types of organizing. He was able to cultivate what can be called a healthy 'ecology of change,' in which groups with diverse theories and practices for changing their society could each expand the capabilities of the movement as a whole.”

These lessons are critical for us today as we face escalating threats of fascism. 

Gandhi embraced nonviolence as a spiritual life commitment, as well as a political tactic. Others don't need to accept such a personal ethic of nonviolence to realize that the MAGA forces are itching to characterize all our resistance movements as violent, so they can increase their growing militaristic repression. By engaging in thoughtful, well organized strategic action, we can undercut those efforts and build stronger movements.

Andy Mager
SCW Coordinator

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