Satyagraha: Gandhian weapon of victory

In the vortex of Indian politicsas well as of human civilization, Mahatma Gandhi popularized the theory of unique philosophy and technique of noniolence – ‘Satyagraha’. Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, while assem-

bling  the  Indian  community  in South Africa against racial discrimination and ‘Khilafat Movement’ in India against the British regime, adequately propounded the philosophy of non-violence or Satyagraha as a weapon of protest. In South Africa,  the  saga  of  Satyagraha sprouted during the period 19061914 and in India during the period of 1915- 1947 as Lokmanya Balgangadhar Tilak, the stalwart political figure, and Gandhi then without any political clout, had plunged

into the field. The pitiable plight of the Indian labourer class, numerous revilements meted out to him and  the  community  as  a whole transformed Gandhi and made him determined  to  protest  against these  injustice  and  exploitation through  non-violent  resistance. None but Gandhi knew  the  true essence  of  non-violence  and  he used to say that non-violence is not a cover of cowardice, but it is the supreme  virtue  of  the  brave  for which he propounded  the example of Jesus Christ, Daniel and Socrates who represented the purest form of passive resistance or soulforce. Albert Einstein while commenting on Gandhi’s philosophy of Satyagraha remarked that Gandhi’s notion of non-violent ways of solv-ing political problems was honest and significant. Einstein remarked about Gandhi that he is ‘a leader of his  people,  unsupported  by  any outward  authority;  a  politician whose success rests not upon craft nor the mastery of technical devices, but simply on  the convincing power of his personality; a victorious fighter who has always scorned the use of force; a man of wisdom of humanity, armed with resolve  and  inflexible

consistency, who has devoted all his strength to the uplift of his people and the betterment of  theirlot; a man who has confronted  the  brutality  of Europe with the dignity of the simple human being, and thus at all times risen superior.’’ Mahatma  Gandhi’s non-violent  philosophy worked miraculously in the  event  of  ‘Khilafat Movement’  organized by  the Muslim Mullahs and Aligarhi intellectuals to  protest  against  the British  hegemony  as  a whole and as a part to dethrone the Turkish empire stripping the Sultan of Turkey of his leadership of

the Islamic world as the ‘Khilafat of  Islam’. The Arabian Muslims considered the Sultan of Turkey to be a foreign ruler and were reluctant  to  preserve  the  khilafat.  In India too, only a handful of Muslim people belonging to foreign origin were  intensified  in  Islamic  rule over India hankering after extraterritorial  loyalists  and  political

benefits. Mahatma Gandhi, who was invited to this movement extended his support without knowing the history and fundamentals of Islam. Gandhi inculcated the protesters to launch a demonstration of nonviolence and non-cooperation with the British Government in India. Some of the Mullahs did not agree to this suggestion of Gandhi as they did not like the ideology  and methodology  of  non-violence. Gandhi advised them to take non-violence as a temporary policy and not as a principle and he was capable of convincing the khilafat leaders to adopt non-violence as a tool for their protest. Thus, Gandhi became the uncrowned leader of the movement.

Mahatma Gandhi believed that non-violence is not a cover of cowardice, but it is the supreme virtue of the brave. Einstein first recorded his admiration of Gandhi’s nonviolent movement and on his 75th birthday, Einstein wrote  the universally quoted words: “Generations to come, it may be, will scarce believe that such a one like this ever in flesh and blood walked upon this earth.’’

Gandhi stressed on non-violence as a creed to be followed in  all circumstance  and wrote that Satyagraha has had ample scope in India. There had been an inevitable series of struggles beginning with the rather local  questions.  In  the struggle of khilafat, Gandhi declared that he had fought to win Swaraj and his  confidence was  unshaken, that even if a single Satyagrahi held out to the end, victory is absolutely certain. Gandhi remarked that Satyagraha is applicable for all situations; from interpersonal to the group and national and in ternational conflicts, from micro to macro conflicts.

The  fundamental  concepts  of Satyagraha,  in  accordance with Gandhi, are four – truth, non-violence, faith in human goodness and creative elf suffering.  Gandhi considered  that  the ultimate  goal  of human life is ‘truth’ and it denotes self-realization or maximizing one’s human potential. Violence begets violence and at any cost  it  is not possible to differentiate violence as justified and unjustified ones. The idea that violence against another is violence against oneself is best made out by Gandhi when he wrote that Satyagraha  aims  at  seeking truth in any situation using non-violent means to reach the goal. While talking about goodness in man, Gandhi used to say that everyman is a mixture  of good  and  evil  and  for the very reason, belief in the goodness of human nature as well as the operation of reason is the optimist’s act of faith. Regarding self-suffering, Gandhi  opined that reative selfsuffering does not mean meek submission to the will of the evil doer but rather it means putting of one’s whole soul against the target of the tyrant. The beauty of Satyagraha lies in the fact that it comes up to oneself; one does not have to go out  in search  for  it and  it  is a virtue inherent in the principle itself. Satyagraha may be considered a science in the making, just as the violent ways of resolution conflict are with the development of ever more  destructive weapons. The struggle which has to be previously planned  is not a righteous one and Mahatma Gandhi believed that in a righteous struggle, God himself plans campaigns and conducts battle. Therefore, it may be inculcated that it is the duty of all of us who believe in non-violent resolution of conflicts, to follow Gandhi’s ideals of non-violent resistance and to continue to experiment with and evolve ever more effective methods to the resolution of conflicts.

<Dr Dinamani Kalita>