Did gandhiji made a mistake by winning freedom for your country?

Answer 1

The question should be - did Gandhi win freedom for India? It is a nice story. The truth is a lot more complex - two world wars and multi-billion dollar debts to the USA (interest bearing) had just about bankrupted the UK - Britain could no longer afford the Empire and its significance had moved from being both strategically and financial important had moved on to being an expensive nice-to-have. England was pulling out - no matter who was there, Britain would not have been in India by the 50's.

The world had moved on and the need to own lands across the globe to conduct trade and raise large armies was no longer the goal (mechanised infantry, planes and missiles - the A-Bomb - and international trade, ability to fly in produce and goods from anywhere in the world etc had made such notions somewhat defunct). Pressure was applied from the USA too - which was much more of an impact than Gandhi (which was why he had no real impact in South Africa where his efforts largely failed - before he returned to India).

So, the mistake was not his - in fact the mistake was India's for not listening to him and taking his advice for post freedom - there would have been a united Indian sub-continent now.

Gandhi was a wise man and a passionate, but passive, leader - we should all have much respect for him.

India is placed well to be one of the major financial super powers over the next few generations - if corruption, in-fighting, neighbour disputes and plain old bull-headed incompitance (exacerbated by neoptism) doesn't get in the way.