Gandhi, the Failure

When one thinks of “Gandhi,” they usually think of an incredible man who was an intellectual leader, and a brave representative for India's independence in the 20th century. When I think of Gandhi, I think of a failure. I believe that although Gandhi did help India in their goal towards independence, his main goal, a united India, failed. Although Gandhi had some success with his campaigns, his success was more in his ‘legacy,’ because he is so well known for his movements towards independence.

In my opinion, Gandhi is a major failure. He set out to achieve one of the biggest tasks in the history of mankind, an independent and united India, and failed miserably. This was a huge challenge and Gandhi had unrealistic opinions if he truly believed that unification could be achieved. To believe that he could have convinced people who had been fighting for years to live amicably, respect each other’s differences, and tolerate diversity, was absurd. Although Gandhi stated that people are always different, he did believe that unification was the only way that independence would be achieved properly. I believe that Gandhi could not deal with the issue of diversity, since he wanted everyone to be alike. One can see this in the example of the spinning wheels. Gandhi wanted everyone to have a spinning wheel in his or her home so that they could create and wear the same garments – making everyone alike, and eliminating the class system.

Unfortunately, this did not go according to plan, and Gandhi could not keep the partition from happening. Gandhi’s main goal failed, and as a result there were close to a million deaths from people fleeing their homes during the time of the partition.

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