I think you and Hitchens are both overly enamored of the provocative opening line of Orwell's "Reflections on Gandhi," which reads:

"Saints should always be judged guilty until proven innocent..."

Go back and read the entire essay, which I treasure. To say, in the end, that Orwell dismissed Gandhi's "pacifism" as "idiotic" is simply wrong. Written on the occasion of Gandhi's murder, it is the intersection of two of the towering figures of decency of the 20th century. Their mutual intellectual honesty always cheers me up. For one, Orwell clearly acknowledges Gandhi himself utterly rejected the concept of "pacifism" and advocated something much closer to aggressive "non-violent warfare."]]>