Gandhi influenced minds

The argument

This argument redefines power before applying it, and the redefinition is what makes the case. Gandhi was the undisputed leader of 390 million Indians and he never picked up a sword or a gun. He held no offices or titles, but simply the will of the people — which means every conventional instrument by which power is usually measured was absent. What remained was influence, and proponents argue that influence is not a lesser substitute for power but the thing that coercion and office are ordinarily used to obtain. The evidence offered is the scale of what followed. He changed the way an entire generation thought and perceived the world around them, and he was responsible for the birth of a nation — an outcome armies are usually required to produce. On this reading the absence of force makes the achievement larger rather than smaller, because nothing compelled compliance: what moved hundreds of millions of people was persuasion, and persuasion leaves no one to be coerced back. The durability of the effect is the argument's strongest element. Gandhi's intellectual leadership did not only influence his contemporaries but also generations that followed, and his teaching influenced leaders like Martin Luther King Jr. and Nelson Mandela, who applied it in circumstances he never saw. Power that travels that way compounds, since each person persuaded becomes a further source of persuasion. That is contrasted with the alternatives. Intellectual and ideological contributions often last much longer than arbitrary wealth or power over a kingdom, both of which end with the ruler or the treasury that sustained them. Because his power rested on enduring influence over minds rather than on force or position, this argument holds that Mahatma Gandhi is the most powerful person of all time.

Context

A true sign of power is the ability to influence and coerce without the need for violence or military force. Anybody can amass an army and force people to do their bidding under the threat of death, but a truly powerful being can influence minds without picking up a weapon.

Premises

Counter-arguments

Even if Gandhi had a strong influence over the entire population of India (which is highly debatable), others on this list controlled populations far larger. Additionally, Gandhi was merely a vessel for a sentiment felt by many people. He was the voice and the face of a movement that required the peoples' will to mobilize. Gandhi would have been unable to exercise any power outside of what the people wanted, so his power was reliant on their ideological alignment. Most importantly, his "power" was too abstract to be compared to other historical figures. He controlled no land, wealth, and military. He would have been unable to take control over any place or people by force, and his movement was defenseless to external physical acts of power.

Rejecting the premises

[Rejecting P1] Gandhi's support was predicated on the will of the people, not his individual power. [Rejecting P2] Other historical figures could mobilize support across a larger population than Gandhi. [Rejecting P3] Ideological contributions do not necessarily reflect on the "power" of the individual in their lifetime.

Framing

The most powerful force on earth is the love of the public. Gandhi secured the support of the entire nation of India and could, therefore, shape ideology.