The Last Article

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"The Last Article", a short story by Harry Turtledove, is an alternative history tale that describes a Nazi invasion of India and the brutal reaction of the Germans to the nonviolent resistance and pacifism of Gandhi and his followers.

[edit] Plot summary

Germany's success in World War II has led to their invasion of the British Raj, and rather than struggling for independence from the Crown, Gandhi and Nehru find themselves in the position of resisting Nazi occupation using the techniques that in our history were successfully employed against the British.

Unfortunately, they discover that appealing to the humanity of their Nazi oppressors in the hope that they will be unable to execute large numbers of peaceful protestors is an ineffective strategy. The story discusses why non-violent resistance would likely fail when confronted with Nazism.

(In fact, Martin Luther King Jr once said: "If your opponent has a conscience, then follow Gandhi. But if your enemy has no conscience, like Hitler, then follow Bonhoeffer.".)

In large part it concerns how an important part of Gandhi's, and later Martin Luther King, Jr.'s, non-violence movement required exposing the hypocrisy of the communities that oppressed them. This was a plausible strategy against British imperialism or American institutional racism, as these oppressions were hypocritical given that the UK and US societies espoused freedom and equality for all.

However, the story details how the Nazis, led by Field Marshal Walter Model, are almost completely unmoved by Gandhi's strategy. The Nazis view themselves as a master race and have no moral qualms about killing those who resist non-violently (or even those who do not resist at all, if they are of a certain race). In the end the movement collapses as it proves unable to deal with the savagery of Nazism.

The story then takes what could be deemed an intensely bleak tone. In the story, Gandhi draws a moral equivalence between the Nazis and British imperialists, something that seems consistent with what the actual Gandhi believed and suggests at best a kind of naivete, and other elements of the story are critical of Gandhi's real-world beliefs.

In essence, the story posits that violent resistance to things like Nazism, such as the uprising in the Warsaw Ghetto, is more valid a response than a Gandhi approach.