"A question that now stalks the mind is: what if Gandhi also had a pistol instead of an innocuous walking staff. A less absurd counterfactual query could be: what if Ambedkar, Gandhis political rival and iconic leader of Dalits, had canvassed for guns to protect his campaign against an upper-caste hegemony of the national movement?"

The Dawn's New Delhi correspondent on the politics of non-violence. Read