Was Gandhi a Strategist ?

Mahatma Gandhi as a person and a movement has been discussed a lot in history. As a colossus, he created ripples across the british empire during his time and those ripples that created huge waves battering on the coasts of colonialism, are yet to sub-side. Those waves can been seen, debated, talked about and even practiced today - the waves non-violence.

How did Gandhi come up with this. What went through his mind when he concluded that non-violence was the only solution to the goal of attaining "purna swaraj" ?

The Mahatma was a strategist. He devised a lot of ways of implementing his pet non-violence theory against the British Raj. Even a casual reading of the freedom movement of India would show a lot of instances where the Mahatma used non-violent ways to "strike" at the roots of the mighty British.

Prof. CK Prahalad is an internationally recognized specialist on corporate strategy. He is the Harvey C. Fruehauf Professor of Business Administration at the University of Michigan. He has been named among the top ten management thinkers of the world in every major survey for over ten years.

Lets recall the words of Prof. Prahalad on his take on the Mahatma.

"...More recently India’s fight for freedom. Of all the great initiatives in India’s freedom struggle, the salt satyagraha remains the most innovative. Think of Gandhi, for a moment, as a strategist. He had to fight the British Empire. He understood his competition. He was resource constrained, if we consider military or financial resources. He needed a cause to unite people- the rich and the poor. He needed a public demonstration of defiance. He did not want a defiance that would involve any technological requirements. Salt was it. It unified all castes and economic levels. Salt is God’s gift. Salt water and the Indian sun could do the trick. The Dandi march and the crowds in the beaches attracted more people. The British learned for the second time not to underestimate the power of common symbols – tea in Boston and Salt in Dandi...."

This year is the 75th anniversary of the Dandi March. One more opportunity to debate the strategies adopted by Mahatma Gandhi and how relevant it is to today's India.