Gandhi

[Janani Dhinakaran]

Hello,
I read and thought a bit more about Gandhi´s life and what made him so popular in India.
 
a) he came in with some amount of fame from his work and success in movements in South Africa
b) he was taken under the wing of Gokhle who was a leader in the INC so he started off at a higher position of fame and influence
c) he started off with relatively smaller projects in Gujarat and Bihar which were important successes to people- land tax, indigo related etc.
d) he also worked on uniting hindus and muslims, and promoted social equality and women´s rights, so appealed to many people, increased sense of common identity
e) only after 5 years of being back in India, travelling and solving smaller than national scale problems, did he begin non-cooperation in response to the Jalianwala Bagh Massacre. Great timing!
f) as he became more popular, he directed attention to simple things people Could Do like spinning wheels, decentralised self sufficiency, peaceful non-cooperation, civil disobedience; philosophies that worked for small-scale setups and poor people
And people saw this worked. He traveled a lot and people talked about him and he got big time media attention, not to mention attention from the british.


On second thoughts this doesn´t look like a viral progression to me. It looks like the nation, the way it was being treated, just needed a strong, respectable leader and any feasible philosophy and things they could do themselves to feel empowered and united and they would´ve responded. Thankfully he chose a sensible philosophy which was more unifying, nonviolent and tried to solve some very real economic and social problems the country was facing at the time apart from or related to the british rule.

It may relate more to the ´Purple hats´ thing Scott Page talks about in his early lectures.

So for something like Gandhi-like leadership to happen again, a whole lot of other factors need to be in place for a small flame to spread. And it did take years for this to spread nationwide so it is a lot slower than what we refer to as things that go ´viral´ nowadays in a matter of days and weeks. Or perhaps this was just the time scale of how virality worked back in those years? What do you think?

Anyone else worked on/pondered about virality or Gandhi since our Thinkbinder session?

JD

[Uber Mensch]

Hi!

I amn't a famed or learned historian so these are just my thoughts

• Speaking in pure theoretical terms, the phenomenon is more of a tipping point (quite a slow one rather) rather than the purple hats. The Independence Movement has gained a lot of steam since the inception of congress and its just a matter of time before somebody led them to their freedom.
• Also, the second world war has had a major impact and most nations got their freedom as imperialism in its original form came to an end.
• And there is a whole lot of reasons given by historians for independence apart from the leadership of Gandhi

So it can't be a purple hat model. Even tipping point isn't exact but it comes close since it altered the nation's equilibrium. Most nations got their freedom in a much lesser time than India. And I am also not sure of the famed tale that the independence movement is widespread among public and Gandhi is responsible for it. (The British army in India is much much less when compared to the Indian population. That's why SC Bose believed that the sight of an Indian army would just turn the British loyal troops in India against them)

Regarding the second case for a fresh wave of revolution, I don't think its imminent in this form. A nation takes a vigorous turn when majority people feel frustrated and need a change. This is the case when there is a clear distinction between the powerless and powerful. Some of the powerful in the powerless raise and create a revolution (the classic case of communism). Going by the present scenario in India, it seems the ideals and goals of the middle class and the poor class seems to be in conflict (the elite always get over the line) and in such a society its difficult for a major uprising. 

I am a skeptical pragmatist and believe in realpolitik and I sense that there isn't a single ubiquitous problem that's being felt in India to make a U-turn. Its hard to make people without food to understand that the reason they are without food is corruption.