Gandhi & Churchill

This is an interesting book, to say the least. Arthur Herman had an excellent idea, trace the careers of two of the giants of the 20th century from the angle of how their lives intersected with each other (even though the two only met once, when they were both quite young). So, the focus of the book, as the subtitle indicates, is on India. The use of the word "destroyed" in reference to the Empire gives some indication of where Herman's sympathies lie. Though he is an American, he seems to have much regret that the British empire fell by the wayside.For a massive, scholarly volume by a professional historian, this book reads remarkably well. Herman has a fascinating story to tell--and tell it well he indeed does. The book follows a pretty straight chronology, and even a person pretty familiar with the outline of the events will still find new information and provocative interpretive moves throughout.Just as Herman himself clearly has a distinctive perspective that shapes how he presents this material, so readers will bring their perspectives that shape how they will respond to this book. From my perspective as one decidedly unfriendly to empires and their champions (such as Churchill), and friendly to Gandhi's pioneering work in the philosophy and practice of nonviolence, Herman comes across as a pretty unreliable witness in the Gandhi half of this double biography. Yet, even though Herman likes Churchill much better than I do, his treatment of the man is much more objective and believable than his corresponding account of Gandhi's career.That is, I felt I learned enough about Churchill to be able to form my own judgment. Herman is thorough and clear in providing ample bases for seeing Churchill as a deeply problematic influence on the world of the 20th century--even as Herman himself generally views this influence as more positive. Churchill drank deeply of imperial grandiosity (along with other more mundane spirits) and, at the cost of untold lives, exerted every ounce of his considerable power and influence to keep the British Empire intact long after even the British people themselves believed it was time to let go. Churchill was an unrepentant racist, also with deadly consequences for India and other part of the Empire. And he was apparently the person most responsible for several terrible military disasters (most notably the infamous fiasco at Gallipoli during World War I).To Herman's credit, we get Churchill warts and all. In fact, I am not quite sure why Herman respects Churchill so much. He certainly does not provide a persuasive case for why we should see Churchill as a great man--that seems to be Herman's assumption, one he does not really allow the evidence he has presented here (which does not show Churchill as a great man) to challenge.Whereas with Gandhi, it's kind of the opposite problem. We do learn a great deal about many of the events of Gandhi's life--but I simply don't know how much of what Herman says about the Indian leader is to be believed. Time after time he asserts that the standard account of Gandhi's career is wrong, but almost never presents evidence to support his assertion. If he were trustworthy on Gandhi, such assertions would be quite helpful for all who want the most accurate account of one who certainly has been the object of much hagiography. But the best I can bring myself to say about Herman's Gandhi sections is that they raise provocative questions and challenge one to look more closely at the sources.Throughout the book Herman combines two types of comments regarding Gandhi that seem deeply in tension--one is how just about every major campaign or other initiative Gandhi took was essentially a failure or at least of negligible significance (going back to the emergence of sayagraha in South Africa down to Gandhi's last days of seeking for Hindu/Muslim reconciliation); the second was how powerful and highly influential Gandhi was in India and globally. The significance for Herman of Gandhi's influence is almost always to suggest how problematic that influence was, how Gandhi bore so much responsibility when events turned bad. But how can both of these dynamics be true-Gandhi's utter ineffectiveness and Gandhi's powerful and regrettable influence? If Gandhi was always so ineffective, how did he come to have so much influence?Part of the problem is that Herman makes no attempt whatsoever to account for Gandhi's philosophy, other than occasional disparaging comments often pointing either to Gandhi's hypocrisy or out of touch idealism. The reader of this book will learn virtually nothing about the meaning that satyagraha had for Gandhi, where it came from and how he sought to apply it. There are no reflections on Gandhi's powerful influence on various social change efforts around the world.Here is one quote that captures a great deal of Herman's sensibility: "The confrontation [between Churchill and Gandhi] was between two different conceptions of life. One rested on secular and humanistic traditions that had been tested by history and centuries of human conflict. The other rested on a vision of spiritual purity in which history and material things (including Gandhi's own body) counted for nothing. Churchill valued human liberty as the product of struggle, as man's supreme achievement. Gandhi, by contrast, valued liberty as God's supreme achievement. It was man's duty to live up to that standard. Without it, Gandhi believed, life was meaningless, including his own" (page 507).The idea that a racist and imperialist such as Churchill, who fought bitterly to keep India's hundreds of millions of people under the dominance of Great Britain, valued "liberty" supremely seems ludicrous. And we can ask how "humanistic" any tradition is that undergirds such racism and imperialism and that so comfortably resorts to such violations of standards of restraint in warfare as seen in the Churchill-approved saturation bombing of civilian populations in cities such as Dresden and Hamburg during World War II.The relation between Gandhi's philosophy and practice of nonviolence and "history and material things" is a point of major debate--a debate that will be extremely difficult to resolve in part due to the incomplete evidence we have concerning where history actually is going and in part due to the importance of our assumptions in how we address such a question. However, I want to argue that in fact Gandhi's philosophy is extraordinarily important for human history, is at its core anchored in history, and is actually our best hope for on-going human existence in history.As I mentioned above, I did find this book highly enjoyable to read. And I think Herman deserves our gratitude for taking on such an interesting and important project. In the end, though, I don't really think that what the world today needs is an exaltation of Churchillian imperialism combined with an attempted debunking of Gandhian satyagraha--rather, what we need is an account of this story that take the opposite tack in dealing with each of its main characters.

So much ink has been spilled in writing about the independence of India and the interaction between the two great legends Gandhi and Churchill. Yet this new book by Arthur Herman adds still more details to an old and familiar story with interesting revelations. Rather than reviewing the lengthy details one should perhaps focus on a brief comparison of the two legends especially now that the dust has long settled and the fog cleared making the view clearer and more objective.No feature is perhaps more contrasting than the backgrounds from which the two leaders emerged. Churchill came from a well known family in an upper British society. In his biography he bemoans the little attention his father gave him and the love he was deprived of, an issue which affected his adulthood. To add insult to injury, his mother was more concerned about her love affairs than about her son and saw it best to leave Winston in boarding schools for most of his childhood. By contrast, Gandhi grew up in a simple, middle class, loving family who cared much about his education to send him to Britain for his law degree. Unfortunately, he was always conscious about his backward and his impoverished people (how despicable my people are!), especially in view of the highly civilised British communities.From the start it was clear that both men were devoted to improving the conditions and prestige of their own people. But both had serious stumbling blocks. Churchill, who was obsessed with the art of war ( '...I know how miserable it can be but I love every second of it ' ) started his career being rash and impetuous. He rushed his government into trying to save Antwerp and later, to defend the Dardanelles against the Germans, with heavy losses and failures in both. The name Churchill quickly became a bad word. As for Gandhi, contrary to general belief, he spent 75% of his career trying to improve the lot of the Indian minorities in South Africa. He tried to change the laws, to organise his people and to show them how to strike, but with little success. Frustrated, many people turned against him. At one point he was even physically attacked by his people. The government imprisoned him for inciting trouble.What kind of rapport did these two leader have with their people? The fact is that they both had mixed results. Gandhi, back home from Africa, was much misunderstood by his native Indians. On one hand, he loved the British Empire and took pride in belonging to it. On the other, he hated its arrogance and reluctance to expedite India's independence. His own people were confused and many could not trust him. Even his political philosophy concerning non-cooperation and peaceful resistance was not well received or understood. Churchill, after his initial disasters, also had a tough time trying to regain the trust of his party. But his tough stand against Indian independence for forty long years ( 'Britain is nothing without India') was not diminished causing much frustrations to his people and to Gandhi himself.The author focuses also on the two leader's personal differences even in their eating habits. Churchill loved his Cuban cigars, whiskies with his meaty foods, a combination which Gandhi steered away from following his mother's advice to avoid English food ( 'they eat animal meat' !!). He stayed a vegetarian all his life. But, at home Churchill cherished his wife, Clementine, and remained in close touch with her throughout his career. Gandhi was not as lucky; he fought frequently with his wife, Kasturbai, once even having to send her back to her father for a while (recalling the old popular song: Angelico! Mama got to take you back, and teach you all the things you lack...). The fact that she was illiterate must have stood in the way of their attempt at harmony until later in their lives.If good temperament is crucial to charisma, how did these two leaders fair on this score? For Churchill, his rash attitude got him in trouble early on, especially at the Dardanelles where Britain lost over 400,000 lives following his plans and suggestions. Having been disgraced he was avoided and remained inactive for some time. Later on he was known for his excitement and aggressiveness in handling matters as well as in his attachment to tobacco and alcohol. (Later during WWII he regained his popularity thanks to his elocution as when he promised his people nothing but ' blood,sweat and tears' ). Vis-a-vis Gandhi, he was disrespectful calling him names and urging his destruction. To him Gandhi was nobody and his actions no more than an act. Gandhi himself was mostly calm, collected and peaceful in spite of his frequent imprisonments. He stayed away from all forms of excesses. His main concerns were to rid India of the clutches of the British and to pacify and unite his own people. He excelled in the former task through peaceful resistance but stumbled on the latter due to entrenched, tenacious, racial differences which led later to his assassination. Sadly, he did not live to witness his country's full independence for which he fought so hard.The author should be commended on his extensive research and his engaging style.Fuad R. QubeinOct. 2016

This is the best book I have come across so far describing the historic developments since the great mutiny, leading up to Gandhi's life time, how he was affected by it, and likewise the same for Churchill.It explains the personal circumstances and lives and the broad historic trends and movements. It illustrates through 100s of quotes and adorned with minute and detailed references how over the span of their respective lives, Churchill and Gandhi left their mark on history.It reads like a novel, it is one of the rare books that manage to combine true historic facts with the readability of a novel.And one of the biggest benefits must surely be that it increases your understanding of the political situations of the middle east and the far east tremendously. Suddenly wars, political deadlocks, national interests and actions - both present day and past - become so much clearer.Very well done!

An excellent, probably the most accurate account of the Indian road to independence and an insight into the mindset of two important statesmen of the era. This book is too good to miss, however it should have included Nehru's speech "at the midnight hour", but read this book if you are at all interested in the great country of India.

This books is a great comparison between the two great leaders and a lot of in depth detail is discussed regarding their early lives and how they entered into politics. What comes across is that Churchill hated Gandhi as he wanted the Empire to continue as like Randolph Churchill maintained that without it Britain would no longer exist or be of any consequence in world affairs. Gandhi was almost on a divine mission to achieve Indian independence and nothing stopped him from achieving this mission.

Brilliant book particularly on Gandhi as a lot of Gandhi books and the movie are pure hagiographies!

Brilliant book. One of the best I’ve read. Unbiased views on Gandhi & Churchill. Well written and very interesting. A must for anyone with an interest in the history of Britain and India. Political and moving at the same time.