Mahatma Gandhi's Second Principle A Policy of Nonviolence

Mahatma Gandhi was in no way the originator of the principle of non-violence. But he was the first to apply it in the political field on a huge scale.[26] The concept of nonviolence (ahimsa) and nonresistance has a long history in Indian religious thought and has had many revivals in Hindu, Buddhist, Jain, Jewish and Christian contexts. Gandhi explains his philosophy and way of life in his autobiography The Story of My Experiments with Truth. He was quoted as saying: When I despair, I remember that all through history the way of truth and love has always won. There have been tyrants and murderers and for a time they seem invincible, but in the end, they always fall think of it, always. What difference does it make to the dead, the orphans, and the homeless, whether the mad destruction is wrought under the name of totalitarianism or the holy name of liberty and democracy? An eye for an eye makes the whole world blind. There are many causes that I am prepared to die for but no causes that I am prepared to kill for. In applying these principles, Gandhi did not balk from taking them to their most logical extremes in envisioning a world where even government, police and armies were nonviolent. The quotations below are from the book For Pacifists. The science of war leads one to dictatorship, pure and simple. The science of non-violence alone can lead one to pure democracyPower based on love is thousand times more effective and permanent than power derived from fear of punishment.It is a blasphemy to say non-violence can be practiced only by individuals and never by nations which are composed of individualsThe nearest approach to purest anarchy would be a democracy based on non-violenceA society organized and run on the basis of complete non-violence would be the purest anarchy I have conceded that even in a non-violent state a police force may be necessaryPolice ranks will be composed of believers in non-violence. The people will instinctively render them every help and through mutual cooperation they will easily deal with the ever decreasing disturbancesViolent quarrels between labor and capital and strikes will be few and far between in a non-violent state because the influence of the non-violent majority will be great as to respect the principle elements in society. Similarly, there will be no room for communal disturbances. A non-violent army acts unlike armed men, as well in times of peace as in times of disturbances. Theirs will be the duty of bringing warring communities together, carrying peace propaganda, engaging in activities that would bring and keep them in touch with every single person in their parish or division. Such an army should be ready to cope with any emergency, and in order to still the frenzy of mobs should risk their lives in numbers sufficient for that purpose. Satyagraha (truth-force) brigades can be organized in every village and every block of buildings in the cities. [If the non-violent society is attacked from without] there are two ways open to non-violence. To yield possession, but non-cooperate with the aggressorprefer death to submission. The second way would be non-violent resistance by the people who have been trained in the non-violent wayThe unexpected spectacle of endless rows upon rows of men and women simply dying

rather than surrender to the will of an aggressor must ultimately melt him and his soldieryA nation or group which has made non-violence its final policy cannot be subjected to slavery even by the atom bomb. The level of non-violence in that nation, if that even happily comes to pass, will naturally have risen so high as to command universal respect. In accordance with these views, in 1940, when invasion of the British Isles by Nazi Germany looked imminent, Gandhi offered the following advice to the British people (Non-Violence in Peace and War): I would like you to lay down the arms you have as being useless for saving you or humanity. You will invite Herr Hitler and Signor Mussolini to take what they want of the countries you call your possessionsIf these gentlemen choose to occupy your homes, you will vacate them. If they do not give you free passage out, you will allow yourselves, man, woman, and child, to be slaughtered, but you will refuse to owe allegiance to them. In a post-war interview in 1946, he offered a view at an even further extreme: The Jews should have offered themselves to the butchers knife. They should have thrown themselves into the sea from cliffs. However, Gandhi was aware that this level of nonviolence required incredible faith and courage, which he realized not everyone possessed. He therefore advised that everyone need not keep to nonviolence, especially if it were used as a cover for cowardice: Gandhi guarded against attracting to his satyagraha movement those who feared to take up arms or felt themselves incapable of resistance. I do believe, he wrote, that where there is only a choice between cowardice and violence, I would advise violence. At every meeting I repeated the warning that unless they felt that in non-violence they had come into possession of a force infinitely superior to the one they had and in the use of which they were adept, they should have nothing to do with non-violence and resume the arms they possessed before. It must never be said of the Khudai Khidmatgars that once so brave, they had become or been made cowards under Badshah Khans influence. Their bravery consisted not in being good marksmen but in defying death and being ever ready to bare their breasts to the bullets.