Part 5 (1/2)

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.