That’s the truth. Ghandi was luckier than he knew, in that he dealt with men at whose civilization he sneered. I suspect that deep down, he understood this.
Actually, no. Ghandi was the right person to fight against the right enemy
Gandhi was a "a smart operator" -- he realised that India, truly speaking is not a country but a collection of countries with multiple cultures, histories, languages and religions.
He was a lawyer by trade and part of the Gujarati business community -- if India had a violent uprising, the next step would be balkanisation
Also, he knew that the English prided themselves on being law-abiding and "following human rights", so he played the colonizer in the right way
jmc: Gandhi had the good fortune of making his ‘civil disobedience’ against a leader with a conscience. If he had tried his non-violence against Hitler or Stalin, he would have been obliterated. -- but you forget that it was precisely NOT Hitler or Stalin nor Churchill (who would have done something a lot more violent than the other Brit PMs).
how did the BRitish get to rule India? They started off in the 1600s as a very minor trading company, very minor even compared to the Portuguese, French and Dutch. The Mughals under their tolerant rulers (until Augrangzeb) were too powerful for any European power or combination of powers to oppose in any way, so they were peaceful
By 1757, they had a couple of trading areas in Madras, Bombay (given to them as dowry for the Portuguese wife of Charles II), Calcutta
The Marathas who replaced the Mughals came from a different stock -- Aurangzeb was the last great Mughal Emperor, but he started off by overthrowing and imprisoning his father (the guy who built the taj mahal) and then went basically on jihad. Aurangzebs ancestors had been very tolerant -- one, Akbar even wanted to create a syncretic religion, and they had Hindu war ministers, etc.
But Aurangzeb was a fanatical Moslem who tried to forcibly convert his population
And that had an adverse reaction with the Rajputs and especially the Marathas
The Maratha CONFEDERATION replced the Mughal empire -- but it was a very loose confederation.
The English played it well, playing off one side against the other
The best example I like to give is that in 1810 they defeated the Sikhs after many wars, yet 50 years later, the Sikhs were fighting FOR the English against North Indians.
Smart, very smart -- the English never could have stood up militarily if all the Indians arose militarily and they did not seek to do so, they realised their needs were served best by letting people rule for them, police for them and share with them
They educated the locals to become pukka englishmen -- both Nehru and Jinnah were for all purposes upper-class Englishmen --> Jinnah, the founder of Pakistan smoked, drank, danced, ate pork, dressed in a suit and tie and married a non-Moslem. Most likely he never practised Islam or believed it
The only way to defeat the English was to make them think twice -- a war would mean that many Indians would have fought on the side of the English
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though note the one major incident that convinced the British they had to leave was when the Indian navy went on strike -- the Brits realised that without the support of the millions of Indian military men, they would not be able to keep the subcontinent, so they wisely left (wisely -- compare this to the French or Dutch) and remained friends with the sub-continent
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you talk of Hitler, but remember that his empire basically last only from 1938 (conquering Czechia) to 1945. He was brutal against the locals and the locals were brutal too. In the end the Germans who had been living in Eastern Europe for centuries were thrown out. Hitler destroyed the German nation as much as he destroyed Poland.
Against Hitler, civil disobedience would not work, but more importantly it would not work against the Germans who since the conquering by Prussia were not really democratic. Force was the only means
Stalin's case was different -- this was ideological, so he could call on greater cross-national resources.
In either case, remember that India had a guy called Subhas chandra Bose who wanted to fight the Brits -- most Indians disregarded him
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To fight the Brits who in the 1900s prided themselves on being morally upright, you had to hit them on that. To fight the communist you had to fight (see Piłsudski in 1920 when Poland saved Western Europe from becoming communist)