The irony of saintliness
There’s a prominent irony in Orwell’s opening sentence of the essay that “Saints should always be judged guilty until they are proved innocent,” and in the broader critique of saintliness that plays out through the essay (209). The idea that a saint is not inherently or automatically “innocent” is the obvious irony; but beyond this, the qualities that may potentially exempt the “saint” from their humanness are the very qualities deserving of suspicion.
The irony of Satyagraha
Satyagraha as a form of civil disobedience contains apparent irony; at least there seems a logical contradiction in the idea of facing violence with non-violence; it seems that this may be a way of simply acquiescing to violence. The opposing logic of the principle also holds, however: the absence of physical resistance to violence may indeed quell the original aggression. This was essentially the principle that Gandhi tested out.
The irony of Gandhi's assassination
For a man who lived by a principle of non-violence, Gandhi’s death by assassination seems cruelly ironic. Yet perhaps such a death was inevitable, considering that he placed his body, undefended or protected, in the center of the extreme violence of partition. Perhaps it was only a matter of time that someone took the life of the man who offered his life.
The irony of partition
Near the end of the essay, Orwell refers to a point that he says many critics consider to be a tragic irony of Gandhi’s non-violent struggle: namely that when he died, India had reached the height of its worst period of violence in modern Indian history, during partition. While this indeed seems a striking irony, Orwell argues that it remains a separate matter from the main political mission of Gandhi’s life, and it doesn’t negate the success of that mission. Indeed Gandhi lived to see the non-violent decolonization of India. Partition, Orwell suggests, marks another period in Indian history distinct from decolonization. While the massive bloodshed that came with partition was certainly tragic, it may not in fact have been an 'ironic' aspect of Gandhi’s political struggles, as many presume it to be.
