In an essay placing the Capitol riot in the context of White supremacy violence, Bill Mckibben wrote in the New Yorker today that “Mahatma Gandhi [was] arguably the most important political leader of the twentieth century.”
I paused to give that a little thought, trying to fathom why he might have been greater than, say, the Yalta trio of Roosevelt, Churchill, and Stalin. First, he led the Indian subcontinent out of the centuries-long clutches of the most extensive empire the world has ever seen. The three resulting countries are home to one-fifth of humanity. He did this while developing an effective means of non-violent opposition to an entrenched outside ruling force. Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. adopted those principles as he led our own country in adopting Civil and Voting Rights laws which began to implement the promise embodied in Lincoln’s proclamation of 1863, and the 13th and 14th amendments to our Constitution. Gandhi’s success in India opened the door to the creation of dozens of new countries in Africa and South-east Asia. One might also argue that his vision of non-violent revolution inspired the events of 1989, the beginning of the break-up of the Soviet Union and its satellites.
That’s a fairly large influence.
Who might else be in the running? Based on population alone, China might be a place to look. McKibben’s assertion has an unspoken side – “important” requires “improvement”, not merely affecting the lives of a large number of people. So Mao is out. China’s remarkable growth in it’s economic status, and improvement there in the lives of so many of its citizens began when Deng Xiaoping said, “To get rich is glorious.”
What about in the USA? With 20 years cushion between us and the 20th century, a sober assessment is possible. Who’s actions or words empowered the biggest improvement in the lives of the most people between 1900 and 2000?