Gandhi, a Success or Failure?

http://www.norcalblogs.com/post_scripts/gandhi.jpg

Mohandas Gandhi, the leader of the Indian independence and the founder of Satyagraha was, undoubtably, a great and virtuous man. He advocated constantly for the use of non violence instead of fighting and was responsible for many peaceful protests that might have otherwise been laden with violence. But when I think of Gandhi, one question really gets stuck in my mind. Although a great man and source of inspiration for many others, was Gandhi, as a leader and to himself, a failure? The question of whether he was a failure to himself has a very simple and short answer, yes. After the tragedy of Partition, where all his values were completely ignored, in my mind it would be impossible to continue to se yourself as a success. This is especially true for a man like Gandhi, who valued truth so much. He would never lie to himself or ignore the facts to create a false truth. With that part of the question answered, its time to address the more complicated of the two. Was Gandhi a failure as a leader. My personal outlook on this question is yes. Gandhi's values and rules, if you will, as a leader were no violence, at all. However, throughout the course of the Indian independence movement, these proved to be very far fetched and somewhat ineffective. After WWII, England was leaving India, no questions asked. That takes away the common misconception that Gandhi was responsible for the independence of India. After the British were out, Gandhi had one major goal, to get the new nation of India on its feet and walking. Well unfortunately for millions of Indians, something very grave was about to happen. As mentioned before, the tragedy of partition was about to take place. In this tragedy 500,000 people would lose their lives with another 1,000,000 displaced. It was Gandhi's duty as a leader to prevent this tragedy from happening. Seeing as he didn't prevent these thousand upon thousands of deaths, he failed. How could someone be considered a strong leader when they can;t protect their people from slaughter. In my humble and completely unqualified opinion, one cannot.