IN RESPONSE TO A COMMENT BY A VENERABLE ONE

But Gandhi's repudiation of violence as a necessary instrument in State policy did lead to India's capitulation in the Indo-China War of 1962 as also it led to Partition. Had he listened to saner voices of militant nationalism at the right time, Jinnah's perfidy would not have won the day and amputated India. Gandhi is not greater than India and it is his weak policy of appeasement that led to the creation of Pakistan. A virile leader ought not to capitulate under pressure and bring about the motherland's destruction like this. What Pakistan's creation has thereafter done to India need not be recounted. No one is bringing Gandhi to disrepute but historical narratives ought to take a dispassionate view of things and not get over-affected by personal admiration of otherwise venerable personalities. No one is taking Gandhi's greatness away but as Swami Vivekananda had himself blamed the Buddha for India's future debilitation owing to over-emphasis on non-violence among other things, despite his adoration of the Tathagata and his acceptance of him as the first great democratiser of the Indian civilisation, so also did Gandhi's fascination for non-violence at all costs led to India's downfall. If this had happened to any other country worth the salt, such a stance of non-violent posturing would not have been taken up by most. It is a lack of strong blood in us that prompts us to continue to harp on in this way despite the motherland bleeding like anything. Moreover, Gandhi was in strong variance to Vivekananda's virile stance of necessary violence and Sister Nivedita's too. The leonine Swami had advocated to Tilak the necessity of making a bomb to drive out the British from India. He had famously said, ''What India needs today is a bomb.'' International politics necessitates pragmatism and not impractical idealism carried to the extreme as was the wont of Gandhi for which India has been suffering for over seven decades.