According to Mahatma Gandhi, democracy can only be saved through non-violence because ‘democracy, so long as it is sustained by violence, cannot provide for or protect the weak’. “My notion of democracy is that under it the weakest should have the same opportunity as the strongest. That can never happen through violence.”[37] “Western democracy as it functions today,” continues Gandhiji, “is diluted Nazism or Fascism”. “At best it is merely a cloak to hide the Nazi or fascist tendencies of imperialism”. Again: “democracy and violence can ill go together. The states that are today nominally democratic have either to become frankly totalitarian, or, if they are to become democratic, they must become courageously non-violent”.[38] Otherwise, constitutional democracy would remain a distant dream. The capitalist society is exploitation personified, and the essence of all kinds of exploitation is violence. In order to root out exploitation, therefore, a non-violent society or state has to be established. Such a society, of necessity, must be based on economic freedom and equality, because without economic equity there can exist no real political democracy.
