Gandhi and World War II
World War II forced Gandhi into impossible choices: oppose fascism by supporting the empire that oppressed India, or demand freedom while the world burned.
The Impossible Dilemma
When Britain declared war on Germany in September 1939, the Viceroy Lord Linlithgow simultaneously declared India at war without consulting a single Indian leader. For the Indian National Congress, this was an outrage that crystallized the fundamental injustice of colonial rule: 400 million people conscripted into a war for democracy by a government that denied them democracy.
Gandhi was personally sympathetic to the Allied cause. He abhorred Nazism and fascism and recognized them as far greater evils than British imperialism. But he could not bring himself to support a war for freedom waged by an empire that refused freedom to India. His initial response was characteristically idiosyncratic: he offered 'moral support' to Britain but refused material support, and proposed that Indians resist the Japanese through nonviolent non-cooperation if they invaded. This satisfied no one.
