Introduction to Non-Violence Part 5

The second step in Satyagraha is agitation, the purpose of which is to educate the public on the issues at stake, to create the solidarity that is needed in the later stages of the movement, and to win acceptance, by members of the movement, of the methods to be employed.[62] According to Fenner Brockway, the failure of Satyagraha to achieve its objectives is an indication that the people of India had not really caught and accepted Gandhi's spirit and principles.[63] This means that on several occasions the later stages of Satyagraha have been put into action before earlier stages of creating solidarity on both purpose and method have been fully completed. Despite Gandhi's tremendous influence in India, the movement for Indian independence has not yet fully succeeded.

In view of the fact that so many of the people who have worked for independence have failed to espouse Gandhi's principles whole-heartedly, if independence be achieved in the future it will be difficult to tell whether or not it was achieved because the Indian people fully accepted these principles. Many seem to have done so only in the spirit in which the American colonists of the eighteenth century employed similar methods during the earlier stages of their own independence movement.[64]

Only after negotiation and arbitration have failed does Satyagraha make use of the techniques which are usually a.s.sociated with it in the popular mind. As Shridharani puts it, "Moral suasion having proved ineffective the Satyagrahis do not hesitate to s.h.i.+ft their technique to compulsive force."[65] He is pointing out that in practice Satyagraha is coercive in character, and that all the later steps from ma.s.s demonstrations through strikes, boycotts, non-cooperation, and civil disobedience to parallel government which divorces itself completely from the old are designed to _compel_ rather than to _persuade_ the oppressors to change their policy. In this respect it is very similar to the movements of non-violent resistance based on expediency which were considered in the preceding section.

FOOTNOTES:

[59] Shridharani, 4. Italics mine.

[60] _Ibid._, 192-209.

[61] _Ibid._, 5-7.

[62] _Ibid._, 7-12.

[63] A. Fenner Brockway, "Does Noncooperation Work?" in Devere Allen (Ed.), _Pacifism in the Modern World_ (Garden City, N. Y.: Doubleday, Doran, 1929), 126.

[64] Nehru in his autobiography expresses strong differences of opinion with Gandhi at many points. In one place he says: "What a problem and a puzzle he has been not only to the British Government but to his own people and his closest a.s.sociates!... How came we to a.s.sociate ourselves with Gandhiji politically, and to become, in many instances, his devoted followers?... He attracted people, but it was ultimately intellectual conviction that brought them to him and kept them there. They did not agree with his philosophy of life, or even with many of his ideals.

Often they did not understand him. But the action that he proposed was something tangible which could be understood and appreciated intellectually. Any action would be welcome after the long tradition of inaction which our spineless politics had nurtured; brave and effective action with an ethical halo about it had an irresistible appeal, both to the intellect and the emotions. Step by step he convinced us of the rightness of the action, and we went with him, although we did not accept his philosophy. To divorce action from the thought underlying it was not perhaps a proper procedure and was bound to lead to mental conflict and trouble later. Vaguely we hoped that Gandhiji, being essentially a man of action and very sensitive to changing conditions, would advance along the line that seemed to us to be right. And in any event the road he was following was the right one thus far; and, if the future meant a parting, it would be folly to antic.i.p.ate it." Jawaharlal Nehru, _Toward Freedom_ (New York: John Day, 1942), 190-191.

[65] Shridharani, 12. He lists and discusses 13 steps in the development of a campaign of Satyagraha, pp. 5-43.

The Philosophy of Satyagraha

It seems clear that Satyagraha cannot be equated with Christian pacifism. As Shridharani has said, "In India, the people are not stopping with mere good will, as the pacifists usually do, but, on the contrary, are engaged in direct action of a non-violent variety which they are confident will either mend or end the powers that be," and, "Satyagraha seems to have more in common with war than with Western pacifism."[66]

Gandhi's campaign to recruit Indians for the British army during the First World War distinguishes him also from most western pacifists.[67]

In an article ent.i.tled "The Doctrine of the Sword," written in 1920, Gandhi brought out clearly the fact that in his philosophy he places the ends above the means, so far as the ma.s.s of the people are concerned:

"Where the only choice is between cowardice and violence I advise violence. I cultivate the quiet courage of dying without killing.

But to him who has not this courage I advise killing and being killed rather than shameful flight from danger. I would risk violence a thousand times rather than the emasculation of the race.

I would rather have India resort to arms to defend her honour than that she should in a cowardly manner remain a helpless victim of her own dishonour."[68]

Both pacifists and their opponents have noted this inconsistency in Gandhi's philosophy. Lewis calls Gandhi "a strange mixture of Machiavellian astuteness and personal sanct.i.ty, profound humanitarianism and paralysing conservatism."[69] Bishop McConnell has said of his non-violent coercion, "This coercion is less harmful socially than coercion by direct force, but it is coercion nevertheless."[70] And C.

J. Cadoux has declared:

"The well-known work of Mr. Gandhi, both in India today and earlier in Africa, exemplifies rather the power of non-co-operation than Christian love on the part of a group; but even so, it calls for mention ... as another manifestation of the efficacy of non-violent methods of restraint."[71]

Gandhi's own a.n.a.lysis of his movement places much emphasis on the mystical Hindu idea of self-inflicted suffering. In 1920, he said, "Progress is to be measured by the amount of suffering undergone by the sufferer."[72] This idea recurs many times in Gandhi's writings. The acceptance of such suffering is not easy; hence his emphasis upon the need of self-purification, preparation, and discipline. Because of the violence used by many of his followers during the first great campaign in India, Gandhi came to the conclusion that "before re-starting civil disobedience on a ma.s.s scale, it would be necessary to create a band of well-trained, pure-hearted volunteers who thoroughly understood the strict conditions of Satyagraha."[73]

FOOTNOTES:

[66] _Ibid._, xxvii, x.x.x.

[67] Speech at Gujarat political conference, Nov., 1917, quoted by Case, _Non-violent Coercion_, 374-375. See also Shridharani, 122, note.

[68] Quoted in Lewis, _Case Against Pacifism_, 107. A slightly different version is reprinted in Nehru, _Towards Freedom_, 81.

[69] Lewis, _Case Against Pacifism_, 99. He goes on to say, "He is anti-British more than he is anti-war. He adopts tactics of non-violence because that is the most effective way in which a disarmed and disorganized mult.i.tude can resist armed troops and police. He has never suggested that when India attains full independence it shall disband the Indian army. The Indian National Congress ... never for one moment contemplated abandoning violence as the necessary instrument of the State they hoped one day to command." Pp. 99-100.

[70] Francis J. McConnell, _Christianity and Coercion_ (Nashville: c.o.kesbury Press, 1933), 46.

[71] Cadoux, _Christian Pacifism_, 109.

[72] _Young India_, June 16, 1920, quoted by Shridharani, 169.

[73] Gandhi, _Experiments_, II, 509-513.

The Empirical Origins of Gandhi's Method

Gandhi's autobiography brings out the origins of many of his ideas. We have already noted the importance of his Hindu training. He arrived empirically at many of his specific techniques. For instance, he describes in some detail a journey he made by coach in 1893 in South Africa, during which he was placed on the driver's seat, since Indians were not allowed to sit inside the coach. Later the coachman desired his seat and asked him to sit on the footboard. This Gandhi refused to do, whereupon the coachman began to box his ears. He describes the rest of the incident thus:

"He was strong and I was weak. Some of the pa.s.sengers were moved to pity and they exclaimed: 'Man, let him alone. Don't beat him. He is not to blame. He is right. If he can't stay there, let him come and sit with us.' 'No fear,' cried the man, but he seemed somewhat crestfallen and stopped beating me. He let go my arm, swore at me a little more, and asking the Hottenot servant who was sitting on the other side of the coachbox to sit on the footboard, took the seat so vacated."[74]

He had a similar experience in 1896 when his refusal to prosecute the leaders of a mob which had beaten him aroused a favorable reaction on the part of the public.[75] Gradually the principle developed that the acceptance of suffering was an effective method of winning the sympathy and support of disinterested parties in a dispute, and that their moral influence might go far in determining its outcome.

On his return to India after his successful campaign for Indian rights in South Africa, Gandhi led a strike of mill workers in Ahmedabad. He established a set of rules, forbidding resort to violence, the molestation of "blacklegs," and the taking of alms, and requiring the strikers to remain firm no matter how long the strike took--rules not too different from those that would be used in a strike by an occidental labor union.[76] Speaking of a period during this strike when the laborers were growing restive and threatening violence, Gandhi says:

"One morning--it was at a mill-hands' meeting--while I was still groping and unable to see my way clearly, the light came to me.

Unbidden and all by themselves the words came to my lips: 'Unless the strikers rally,' I declared to the meeting, 'and continue the strike till a settlement is reached, or till they leave the mills altogether, I will not touch any food.'"

Gandhi insisted that the fast was not directed at the mill owners, but was for the purification of himself and the strikers. He told the owners that it should not influence their decision, and yet an arbitrator was now appointed, and as he says, "The strike was called off after I had fasted only for three days."[77] The efficacy of the fast was thus borne in on Gandhi.

In the Kheda Satyagraha against unjust taxation, which was the first big movement of the sort in India, Gandhi discovered that "When the fear of jail disappears, repression puts heart into people." The movement ended in a compromise rather than the complete success of Gandhi's program. He said of it, "Although, therefore, the termination was celebrated as a triumph of Satyagraha, I could not enthuse over it, as it lacked the essentials of a complete triumph."[78] But even though Gandhi was not satisfied with anything less than a complete triumph, he had learned that when a people no longer fears the punishments that an oppressor metes out, the power of the oppressor is gone.[79]

FOOTNOTES:

[74] _Ibid._, I, 268-269.

[75] Of the incident he says, "Thus the lynching ultimately proved to be a blessing for me, that is for the cause. It enhanced the prestige of the Indian community in South Africa, and made my work easier.... The incident also added to my professional practice." _Ibid._, I, 452-457.

[76] _Ibid._, II, 411-413.

[77] _Ibid._, II, 420-424.

[78] _Ibid._, II, 428-440.

[79] See the quotation from Gandhi in Shridharani, 29.