Non-Violent Resistance Read online

  NON ENGLISH WORDS WITH THEIR MEANINGS

  Abkari: a tax on spirituous liquors and narcotics

  Anand: bliss

  Abhyasa: repetition, study

  Ahimsa: non-violence

  Bhajan: a religious song

  Bhang: an intoxicant drink made from a kind of hemp

  Brahmachari: a celibate

  Brahmacharya: celibacy, continence

  Bhakti: devotion

  Brahma: the Divine Reality

  Brahmavidya: knowledge of the Divine Reality, the Upanishads

  Charkha: a spinning wheel

  Chit: knowledge

  Diva-dandi: a light-house

  Dhurana: mode of extorting compliance to any demand

  Dukkha: misery

  Duragraha: foolish obstinacy

  Ganja: a kind of hemp

  Goonda: a ruffian

  Goondaism: reign of ruffians

  Gumasta: a shop-assistant

  Guru: a teacher

  Hai Hai: shame, shame

  Harijans: literally, the people of Hari, i.e. God; the name which Gandhiji gave to untouchables

  Harijan, Harijanbandhu, Harijansevak: names of weekly journals in English Gujarati and Hindi respectively, conducted by Mahatma Gandhi

  Hartal: cessation of work; a strike

  Hathayoga: a rigorous mode of religious meditation

  Hijrat: exodus or going away from one's native land

  Himsa: violence

  Jam-i-Jam: universal provider

  Kalpadruma: a tree supposed to grant all desires

  Khaddar, Khadi: hand-spun and hand-woven cloth

  Lathi: a long stick

  Lotaful: potful (lota, a metal pot)

  Mahajan: a trade guild, elders of a trade guild

  Mahatma: a high-souled man

  Mahayajna: a great sacrifice

  Mantra: a sacred incantation meant for recitation and meditation

  Mukti: emancipation

  Navajivan: literally new life; name of a weekly journal in Gujarati edited by Mahatma Gandhi

  Neti, Neti: not this, not this

  Nirvana: extinction

  Panchama: a fifth-caste man, an outcaste

  Pan: a kind of leaf chewed with lime and betel nut

  Pardanashin: sitting behind a purdah (veil), veiled

  Purna Swaraj: complete independence

  Raj: a kingdom

  Rishi: a seer

  Salaam: a salute

  Sanatani: orthodox

  Sangha: a commune, an association

  Sarkari: governmental

  Sat, Satya: Truth

  Satyagraha: clinging to truth; civil or non-violent disobedience or resistance

  Satyagrahashram: Ashram founded by Gandhi at Ahmedabad in 1915

  Satyagrahi: a follower of Satyagraha

  Savarna: belonging to one of the four castes

  Sena: an army

  Shastra: a scripture

  Shethia: a merchant, a wealthy man

  Shraddha: ceremony in honour of departed spirits of dead relatives

  Swadeshi: of indigenous or native make; the principle of using goods made locally or in one's own country

  Swaraj: self-government, home-rule

  Tahsil: a district

  Takli: a wooden or metal device for spinning

  Talati: a village revenue officer

  Tapa, Tapasya: penance, religious austerity

  Thana: a police station

  Tonga: horse-carriage

  Vairagya: aversion or indifference to worldly interests, desirelessness

  Varnashrama: the four castes and stages in life

  Yajna: a sacrifice

  Young India: name of a weekly journal in English edited by Gandhi

  Zoolum: oppression

  SATYAGRAHA

  SECTION FIRST: WHAT SATYAGRAHA IS

  1. SATYAGRAHA, CIVIL DISOBEDIENCE PASSIVE RESISTANCE, NON-CO-OPERATION

  Satyagraha is literally holding on to Truth and it means, therefore, Truth-force. Truth is soul or spirit. It is, therefore, known as soul-force. It excludes the use of violence because man is not capable of knowing the absolute truth and, therefore, not competent to punish. The word was coined in South Africa to distinguish the non-violent resistance of the Indians of South Africa from the contemporary 'passive resistance' of the suffragettes and others. It is not conceived as a weapon of the weak.

  Passive resistance is used in the orthodox English sense and covers the suffragette movement as well as the resistance of the Non-conformists. Passive resistance has been conceived and is regarded as a weapon of the weak. Whilst it avoids violence, being not open to the weak, it does not exclude its use if, in the opinion of a passive resister, the occasion demands it. However, it has always been distinguished from armed resistance and its application was at one time confined to Christian martyrs.

  Civil Disobedience is civil breach of unmoral statutory enactments. The expression was, so far as I am aware, coined by Thoreau to signify his own resistance to the laws of a slave State. He has left a masterly treatise on the duty of Civil Disobedience. But Thoreau was not perhaps an out and out champion of non-violence. Probably, also, Thoreau limited his breach of statutory laws to the revenue law, i.e. payment of taxes. Whereas the term Civil Disobedience as practised in 1919 covered a breach of any statutory and unmoral law. It signified the resister's outlawry in a civil, i.e., non-violent manner. He invoked the sanctions of the law and cheerfully suffered imprisonment. It is a branch of Satyagraha.

  Non-co-operation predominantly implies withdrawing of co-operation from the State that in the non-co-operator's view has become corrupt and excludes Civil Disobedience of the fierce type described above. By its very nature, non-co-operation is even open to children of understanding and can be safely practised by the masses. Civil Disobedience presupposes the habit of willing obedience to laws without fear of their sanctions. It can, therefore, be practised only as a last resort and by a select few in the first instance at any rate. Non-co-operation, too, like Civil Disobedience is a branch of Satyagraha which includes all non-violent resistance for the vindication of Truth.

  Young India, 23-3-'21

  2. DOMESTIC SATYAGRAHA

  I had read in some books on vegetarianism that salt was not a necessary article of diet for man, that on the contrary saltless diet was better for health. I had deduced that a brahmachari benefited by a saltless diet. I had read and realized that the weak-bodied should avoid pulses. I was very fond of them. Now it happened that Kasturba,{1} who had a brief respite after that operation, had again begun getting hemorrhage and the malady seemed to be obstinate. Hydropathic treatment by itself did not answer. Kasturba had not much faith in my remedies though she did not resist them. She certainly did not ask for outside help. So when all my remedies had failed, I entreated her to give up salt and pulses. She would not agree, however much I pleaded with her, supporting myself with authorities. At last she challenged me saying that even I could not give up these articles if I was advised to do so. I was pained and equally delighted,—delighted in that I got an opportunity to shower my love on her. I said to her: "You are mistaken. If I was ailing and the doctor advised me to give up these or any other articles I should unhesitatingly do so. But there! Without any medical advice, I give up salt and pulses for one year, whether you do so or not."

  She was rudely shocked and exclaimed in deep sorrow: "Pray forgive me. Knowing you, I should not have provoked you. I promise to abstain from these things, but for heaven's sake take back your vow. This is too hard on me."

  "It is very good for you to give up these articles. I have not the slightest doubt that you will be all the better without them. As for me, I cannot retract a vow seriously taken. And it is sure to benefit me, for all restraint, whatever prompts it, is wholesome for man. You will therefore leave me alone. It will be a test for me, and a moral support to you in carrying out your resolve."

  So she gave me up. "You are too obstinate. You will listen to non
e," she said, and sought relief in tears.

  I would like to count this incident as an instance of Satyagraha and as one of the sweetest recollections of my life.

  Medically there may be two opinions as to the value of a saltless and pulseless diet, but morally I have no doubt that all self-denial is good for the soul. The diet of a man of self-restraint must be different from that of a man of pleasure just as their ways of life are different.

  The Story of My Experiments with Truth, Part IV—Chapter XXIX

  3. SATYAGRAHA{2}

  For the past thirty years I have been preaching and practising Satyagraha. The principles of Satyagraha, as I know it today, constitute a gradual evolution.

  Satyagraha differs from Passive Resistance as the North Pole from the South. The latter has been conceived as a weapon of the weak and does not exclude the use of physical force or violence for the purpose of gaining one's end, whereas the former has been conceived as a weapon of the strongest and excludes the use of violence in any shape or form.

  The term Satyagraha was coined by me in South Africa to express the force that the Indians there used for full eight years and it was coined in order to distinguish it from the movement then going on in the United Kingdom and South Africa under the name of Passive Resistance.

  Its root meaning is holding on to truth, hence truth-force. I have also called it Love-force or Soul-force. In the application of Satyagraha I discovered in the earliest stages that pursuit of truth did not admit of violence being inflicted on one's opponent but that he must be weaned from error by patience and sympathy. For what appears to be truth to the one may appear to be error to the other. And patience means self-suffering. So the doctrine came to mean vindication of truth not by infliction of suffering on the opponent but on one's self.

  But on the political field the struggle on behalf of the people mostly consists in opposing error in the shape of unjust laws. When you have failed to bring the error home to the lawgiver by way of petitions and the like, the only remedy open to you, if you do not wish to submit to error, is to compel him by physical force to yield to you or by suffering in your own person by inviting the penalty for the breach of the law. Hence Satyagraha largely appears to the public as Civil Disobedience or Civil Resistance. It is civil in the sense that it is not criminal.

  The lawbreaker breaks the law surreptitiously and tries to avoid the penalty, not so the civil resister. He ever obeys the laws of the State to which he belongs, not out of fear of the sanctions but because he considers them to be good for the welfare of society. But there come occasions, generally rare, when he considers certain laws to be so unjust as to render obedience to them a dishonour. He then openly and civilly breaks them and quietly suffers the penalty for their breach. And in order to register his protest against the action of the law givers, it is open to him to withdraw his co-operation from the State by disobeying such other laws whose breach does not involve moral turpitude.

  In my opinion, the beauty and efficacy of Satyagraha are so great and the doctrine so simple that it can be preached even to children. It was preached by me to thousands of men, women and children commonly called indentured Indians with excellent results.

  Rowlatt Bills{3}

  When the Rowlatt Bills were published I felt that they were so restrictive of human liberty that they must be resisted to the utmost. I observed too that the opposition to them was universal among Indians. I submit that no State however despotic has the right to enact laws which are repugnant to the whole body of the people, much less a Government guided by constitutional usage and precedent such as the Indian Government. I felt too that the oncoming agitation needed a definite direction if it was neither to collapse nor to run into violent channels.

  The Sixth April

  I ventured therefore to present Satyagraha to the country emphasizing its civil-resistance aspect. And as it is purely an inward and purifying movement I suggested the observance of fast, prayer and suspension of all work for one day—the 6th of April. There was a magnificent response throughout the length and breadth of India even in little villages although there was no organization and no great previous preparation. The idea was given to the public as soon as it was conceived. On the 6th April there was no violence used by the people and no collision with the police worth naming. The hartal was purely voluntary and spontaneous. I attach hereto the letter in which the idea was announced.

  My Arrest

  The observance of the 6th April was to be followed by Civil Disobedience. For the purpose the committee of the Satyagraha Sabha had selected certain political laws for disobedience. And we commenced the distribution of prohibited literature of a perfectly healthy type, e.g., a pamphlet written by me on Home Rule, a translation of Ruskin's Unto This Last, The Defence and Death of Socrates, etc.

  Disorder

  But there is no doubt that the 6th of April found India vitalized as never before. The people who were fear-stricken ceased to fear authority. Moreover, hitherto the masses had lain inert. The leaders had not really acted upon them. They were undisciplined. They had found a new force but they did not know what it was and how to use it.

  At Delhi the leaders found it difficult to restrain the very large number of people who had remained unmoved before. At Amritsar, Dr. Satyapal was anxious that I should go there and show to the people the peaceful nature of Satyagraha. Swami Shraddhanandji from Delhi and Dr. Satyapal from Amritsar wrote to me asking me to go to their respective places for pacifying the people and for explaining to them the nature of Satyagraha. I had never been to Amritsar and for that matter to the Punjab before. These two messages were sent by the authorities and they knew that I was invited to both the places for peaceful purposes.

  I left Bombay for Delhi and the Punjab on the 8th April and had telegraphed to Dr. Satyapal whom I had never met before to meet me at Delhi. But after passing Mathura I was served with an order prohibiting me from entering the Province of Delhi. I felt that I was bound to disregard this order and I proceeded on my journey. At Palwal I was served with an order prohibiting me from entering the Punjab and confining me to the Bombay Presidency. And I was arrested by a party of Police and taken off the train at that station. The Superintendent of the Police who arrested me acted with every courtesy. I was taken to Mathura by the first available train and thence by goods train early in the morning to Siwai Madhupur, where I joined the Bombay Mail from Peshawar and was taken charge of by Superintendent Bowring. I was discharged at Bombay on the 10th April.

  But the people of Ahmedabad and Viramgam and in Gujarat generally had heard of my arrest. They became furious, shops were closed, crowds gathered and murder, arson, pillage, wire-cutting and attempts at derailment followed.

  Young India, 14-1-'20

  4. MEANS AND ENDS

  Reader: Why should we not obtain our goal, which is good, by any means whatsoever, even by using violence? Shall I think of the means when I have to deal with a thief in the house? My duty is to drive him out anyhow. You seem to admit that we have received nothing, and that we shall receive nothing by petitioning. Why, then, may we not do so by using brute force? And, to retain what we may receive we shall keep up the fear by using the same force to the extent that it may be necessary. You will not find fault with a continuance of force to prevent a child from thrusting its foot into fire? Somehow or other we have to gain our end.

  Editor: Your reasoning is plausible. It has deluded many. I have used similar arguments before now. But I think I know better now, and I shall endeavour to undeceive you. Let us first take the argument that we are justified in gaining our end by using brute force because the English gained theirs by using similar means. It is perfectly true that they used brute force and that it is possible for us to do likewise, but by using similar means we can get only the same thing that they got. You will admit that we do not want that. Your belief that there is no connection between the means and the end is a great mistake. Through that mistake even men who have been considered religious hav
e committed grievous crimes. Your reasoning is the same as saying that we can get a rose through planting a noxious weed. If I want to cross the ocean, I can do so only by means of a vessel; if I were to use a cart for that purpose, both the cart and I would soon find the bottom. "As is the God, so is the votary is a maxim worth considering. Its meaning has been distorted and men have gone astray. The means may be likened to a seed, the end to a tree; and there is just the same inviolable connection between the means and the end as there is between the seed and the tree. I am not likely to obtain the result flowing from the worship of God by laying myself prostrate before Satan. If, therefore, any one were to say: "I want to worship God; it does not matter that I do so by means of Satan," it would be set down as ignorant folly. We reap exactly as we sow. The English in 1833 obtained greater voting power by violence. Did they by using brute force better appreciate their duty? They wanted the right of voting, which they obtained by using physical force. But real rights are a result of performance of duty; these rights they have not obtained. We, therefore, have before us in England the force of everybody wanting and insisting on his rights, nobody thinking of his duty. And, where everybody wants rights, who shall give them to whom? I do not wish to imply that they do no duties. They don't perform the duties corresponding to those rights; and as they do not perform that particular duty, namely, acquire fitness, their rights have proved a burden to them. In other words, what they have obtained is an exact result of the means they adopted. They used the means corresponding to the end. If I want to deprive you of your watch, I shall certainly have to fight for it; if I want to buy your watch, I shall have to pay for it; and if I want a gift, I shall have to plead for it; and, according to the means I employ, the watch is stolen property, my own property, or a donation. Thus we see three different results from three different means. Will you still say that means do not matter?