One does have to wonder if MLK and Gandhi would have been successful, if they weren't alternatives to something much more violent.
Or if their opponents weren't willing to ramp violence up enough. The thing about Gandhi in particular is that he is famous precisely because he won. How many like him were there that didn't win, and we have no idea that they even existed, because their body was dumped into a ditch behind a prison tucked away in the middle of nowhere?
And sometimes we do know about them, because they did survive to tell the story - but it's not a very inspiring story when they lose, and so it gets eclipsed. This guy was a Gandhi to his people before Gandhi was even born: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kunta-haji - how many have heard of him?
MLK's "Letter from a Birmingham Jail" basically says that one reason that the non-violent movement should be supported is because the alternative is violent Black Nationalism.
As an aside, if you haven't read it I highly recommend it.
I think it's an excellent example of arguing that a position is consistent with people's existing worldview instead of trying to force them to adopt a different worldview.
It's a gambit that can be used as leverage. I think they were expecting those in power to cave to their demands when those in power realized that people realized that peacefully protesting wasn't going to work, which is ironically what made it work.
Furthermore, in other cases, people don't have to realize the purpose of the strategy that they're applying in order to apply it. Intention isn't function.
Probably not, but there were other leaders within those larger protests who did believe in violence and called for it, but were not followed as much. From the government perspective, those leaders did present a threat of violence. Meaning that at any point Gandhi/MLK could fade into irrelevance and one of those leaders could lead the charge.
I don't think that's necessarily accurate. The Nazi's conquered many countries without exterminating their population. As I understand it they only attempted to exterminate Jewish people, homosexuals, and the disabled.
Granted even that is deeply evil, but it doesn't mean that they would wipe out any given people group that they conquered.
They also planned on wiping out 100% of Latgallians, 85% of Poles, 85% of Lithuanians, 75% of Belarusians and large portions of most of the rest of Eastern Europe[1]. The groups you listed were some of their top priorities, but by no means where they intended to stop.
> The Nazi's conquered many countries without exterminating their population.
On top of Generalplan Ost the holocaust had 12 million victims, 5 million of whom were Slavs. The only reason why they aren't counted as genocide victims in the West is because it was not convenient to admit that during the cold war.
As a percentage of the population of the time it would have been similar to the British gassing 17 million Indians after starving another 45 million. And that would have been in three years of occupation, not a century and a half.
So yes, India was incredibly lucky to have the UK as their colonial overlord.
You believe that MLK and Gandhi were really in it for the violence?