For Global Peace with Social Justice in a Sustainable Environment

Mussolini and Mahatma Gandhi

Prof. Dr. Yogendra Yadav

Senior Gandhian Scholar, Professor, Editor and Linguist

Gandhi International Study and Research Institute, Jalgaon, Maharashtra, India

Contact No. – 09404955338, 09415777229

E-mail- dr.yadav.yogendra@gandhifoundation.net;

dr.yogendragandhi@gmail.com

Mailing Address- C- 29, Swaraj Nagar, Panki, Kanpur- 208020, Uttar Pradesh, India

Mussolini and Mahatma Gandhi

Mussolini was known as one of the creator of Fascism. He was an Italian politician, journalist and leader of National Fascism Party. He was ruled country from 1922 to 1943. In 1926, Mussolini seized total power as dictator and ruled Italy as II Duce. From 1930 to 1943, he was one of the key figures of Fascism Party. He met with Mahatma Gandhi when he was returning to India after participating Second Round Table Conference. I have neither the ambitions of Mussolini nor can I have his powers. If dictatorship were thrust on me, I should cut a sorry figure as an Indian Mussolini. Moreover, you can’t impose by force any reforms, social or otherwise. In other words, you cannot make people good by force. 1 Now you have touched the tenders spot in human nature. This question touched me as author of non-co-operation in the initial stage. And before I could make up my mind, I said to myself: I co-operate with the State in two ways. There is no State, run either by Nero or Mussolini, which has no good points about it. We have in India what is called the Grand Trunk Road. It provides facility for millions of travelers; well-equipped hospitals, grand palaces built for schools. These we may consider to be good points. But I said, if the whole thing crushes the nation, I should not have anything to do with them. They are like the snake with a jewel but with poison fangs. So I came to the conclusion that British rule in India had stunted the nation and so I denied myself all the privileges. The gentlemanly way was to deny them. 2

I beg you to write to the daughter of Tolstoy and satisfy her curiosity concerning Bolshevism. The General and Mrs. Moris were extremely kind to us all. We felt as if we were one of the families as soon as we entered the house. Mussolini is a riddle to me. Many of his reforms attract me. He seems to have done much for the peasant class. I admit an iron hand is there. But as violence is the basis of Western society, Mussolini’s reforms deserve an impartial study. His care of the poor, his opposition to super-urbanization, his efforts to bring about co-ordination between capital and labour, seem to me to demand special attention. I would like you to enlighten me on these matters. My own fundamental objection is that these reforms are compulsory. But it is the same in all democratic institutions. What strikes me is that behind Mussolini’s implacability is a desire to serve his people. Even behind his emphatic speeches there is a nucleus of sincerity and of passionate love for his people. It also seems to me that the majority of Italian people love the iron government of Mussolini. I do not wish that you should take the trouble of replying to me immediately. Take your time, I beg of you. It is not necessary to say that I do not propose to write publicly on this subject at this moment. I have simply put these questions before you as before someone who knows infinitely more than I do about the subject, and now I think, if you come during the cold season between January and March, you can easily bear the climate and probably derive some good out of it. 3

Last, but not least, was my pilgrimage to Romain Rolland, the sage of Villeneuve. Could I have left India just to visit him and his inseparable sister Madeleine, his interpreter and friend, I would have undertaken the voyage. But that could not be. The excuse of the Round Table Conference made this pilgrimage easily possible, and chance threw Rome in my way. And I was able to see something of that great and ancient city and Mussolini, the un-questioned dictator of Italy. And what would not I have given to be able to bow my head before the living image at the Vatican of Christ Crucified! It was not without a wrench that I could tear myself away from that scene of living tragedy. I saw there at once that nations like individuals could only be made through the agony of the Cross and in no other way. Joy comes not out of infliction of pain on others, but out of pain voluntarily borne by one. 4

When I said that I did not see any harm in organizations running parallel Governments, I did not mean usurpation. My friend has put a word into my mouth which I never used. If these organizations run a parallel Government for the good of the people, I would certainly give them all encouragement. See what Dictator Mussolini is doing in Italy. He never interferes with voluntary activities for the betterment of the country. 5 Mussolini was a blacksmith’s son who did hard labour in his home and who, in his youth, worked as a labourer in a factory carrying bricks to the second floor of the building 120 times a day and went to jail eleven times. But this hard life gave him valuable training. His mind was not slumbering when he did all this labour. If it had been slumbering, why, there have been millions and millions of labourers who have carried bricks and farmers who have worked in the fields but have left behind them no mark in the world. 6

Even Mussolini pretends to run a government. Nobody should object to a declaration that the Durbar, that is, Bhavnagar State, does not recognize untouchability. Sanatanists may, if they wish, continue to follow the practice and enforce it by social sanctions. You follow many principles in your own family, but try and see if you can enforce them in your immediate circle in which you have influence. You will not succeed. You can declare, without hurting anybody, that for the Ruler all subjects are equal. Having done that, don’t mind if no child from the so-called untouchable communities can attend your schools. I have written a note in the Gujarati Harijan about the problem of carcasses. Find some time and read it. Some of what I have said there is addressed to you, though no particulars of name or place are mentioned. 7 My first aim is to change the mentality of the people, not to coerce them as Roosevelt, Hitler or Mussolini is doing in their countries. As the mentality of the people has changed today towards khadi, so I hope to turn their mind in favour of indigenous industries. 8

No. One exception will lead to another till it finally becomes general. In the cases stated above, it is better that the husband and the wife live apart. Contraceptives which are being tried in the West are leading to hideous immorality and I am sure after a few years, the Westerners themselves will realize their mistake. Do you not know that Mussolini in Italy is giving donations to parents with large families? MRS. N. Perhaps Mussolini wants more fodder for cannon. G. What about the English and the Dutch among whom contraceptives are popular? Are they against war? 9 Mussolini on the one hand and Stalin on the other are able to show the immediate effectiveness of violence. But it will be as transitory as that of Jhenghis’s slaughter. But the effects of Buddha’s non-violent action persist and are likely to grow with age. And the more it is practiced, the more effective and inexhaustible it becomes, and ultimately the whole world stands agape and exclaims, ‘a miracle has happened.’ All miracles are due to the silent and effective working of invisible forces. Non-violence is the most invisible and the most effective. 10

I want you to give your close consideration to what I am saying and reject what does not appeal to you. If what I say does not appeal to our Mussalman brethren, they may reject it summarily. The nonviolence I want is not non-violence limited to the fight with the British but is to be applied to all our internal affairs and problems true active non-violence from which will issue live Hindu-Muslim unity and not a unity based on mutual fear like the pact, for instance, between Hitler and Mussolini. 11 I shall take up the Abyssinian question first. I can answer it only in terms of active resistant non-violence. Now nonviolence is the activist force on earth, and it is my conviction that it never fails. But if the Abyssinians had adopted the attitude of nonviolence of the strong, i.e., the non-violence which breaks to pieces but never bends, Mussolini would have had no interest in Abyssinia. Thus if they had simply said: ‘You are welcome to reduce us to dust or ashes but you will not find one Abyssinian ready to co-operate with you’, what would Mussolini have done? He did not want a desert. Mussolini wanted submission and not defiance, and if he had met with the quiet, dignified and non-violent defiance that I have described, he would certainly have been obliged to retire. Of course it is open to anyone to say that human nature has not been known to rise to such heights. But if we have made unexpected progress in physical sciences, why may we do less in the science of the soul? 12

If I have called the arrangement with Herr Hitler “peace without honour”, it was not to cast any reflection on British or French statesmen. I have no doubt that Mr. Chamberlain could not think of anything better. He knew his nation’s limitations. He wanted to avoid war, if it could be avoided at all. Short of going to war, he pulled his full weight in favour of the Czechs. That it could not save honour was no fault of his. It would be so every time there is a struggle with Herr Hitler or Signor Mussolini. 13 Similarly Mussolini is neither ‘Mr.’ nor ‘Herr’, he is ‘Signor’. Why we should have dropped our own nomenclature I do not know. But a moment’s detachment from the prevailing habit should show us that the use of ‘Mr.’ and ‘Esquire’ before or after Indian names sounds ludicrous. 14 Your argument presupposes that the dictators like Mussolini or Hitler are beyond redemption. But belief in non-violence is based on the assumption that human nature in its essence is one and therefore unfailingly responds to the advances of love. It should be remembered that they have up to now always found ready response to the violence that they have used. Within their experience, they have not come across organized non-violent resistance on an appreciable scale, if at all. Therefore, it is not only highly likely, but I hold it to be inevitable, that they would recognize the superiority of non-violent resistance over any display of violence that they may be capable of putting forth. Moreover the non-violent technique that I have presented to the Czechs does not depend for its success on the goodwill of the dictators, for, a non-violent resister depends upon the unfailing assistance of God which sustains him throughout difficulties which would otherwise be considered insurmountable. His faith makes him indomitable. 15

I do not think that Hitler and Mussolini are after all so very indifferent to the appeal of world opinion. But today these dictators feel satisfaction in defying world opinion because none of the so-called Great Powers can come to them with clean hands, and they have a rankling sense of injustice done to their people by the Great Powers in the past. Only the other day an esteemed English friend owned to me that Nazi Germany was England’s sin and that it was the Treaty of Versailles that made Hitler. 16 I do not want Britain to be defeated, nor do I want her to be victorious in a trial of brute strength, whether expressed through the muscle or the brain. Your muscular bravery is an established fact. Need you demonstrate that your brain is also as unrivalled in destructive power as your muscle? I hope you do not wish to enter into such an undignified competition with the Nazis. I venture to present you with a nobler and a braver way, worthy of the bravest soldier. I want you to fight Nazism without arms, or, if I am to retain the military terminology, with non-violent arms. I would like you to lay down the arms you have as being useless for saving you or humanity. You will invite Herr Hitler and Signor Mussolini to take what they want of the countries you call your possessions. Let them take possession of your beautiful island, with your many beautiful buildings. You will give all these, but neither your souls, nor your minds. If these gentlemen choose to occupy your homes, you will vacate them. If they do not give you free passage out, you will allow yourself, man, woman and child, to be slaughtered, but you will refuse to owe allegiance to them. 17

I told the Viceroy that the British, if they succeed, will not be better than Mussolini or Hitler. If there is peace with Hitler India will be exploited by all powers. But if we are non-violent and Japan comes we will see that they do not get anything without our consent. Nonviolence has worked wonders in 20 years. We cannot do any such thing with violence. 18 But if we can do this, freedom is in our pocket and not only this. We can also set a magnificent example to the world. Hitler’s astuteness baffles me. But this astuteness is of no worth to me. The thing I have placed before India today is such that even if Hitler, Mussolini, Stalin and Churchill all put together oppose it they cannot defeat it. 19 You cannot cure a lesser evil by a greater evil. You might have succeeded in wiping out Italy, but how would that have helped? Britain’s success in the exploitation of non-European races raised the ambition of Bismarck and later Mussolini and others. 20

If you go to the house of one who has use for violence you will find his drawing-room decorated with tigers’ skins, deers’ horns, swords, guns and such like. I have been to the Viceregal Lodge, I also saw Mussolini. In the houses of both I found arms hanging on the walls. I was given a salute with arms, a symbol of violence. 21 What is a war criminal? Was not war itself a crime against God and humanity and, therefore, were not all those who sanctioned, engineered, and conducted wars, war criminals? War criminals are not confined to the Axis Powers alone. Roosevelt and Churchill are no less war criminal than Hitler and Mussolini. 22

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