Introduction to Non-Violence Part 6

Non-Cooperation

It will be impossible for us here to consider in detail the great movements of non-cooperation on which Gandhi's followers have embarked in order to throw off British rule. In 1919 and again in the struggle of 1920-1922, Gandhi felt forced to call off the non-cooperation campaigns because the people, who were not sufficiently prepared, fell back upon violence.[80] In the struggle in 1930, Gandhi laid down more definite rules for Satyagrahis, forbidding them to harbor anger, or to offer any physical resistance or to insult their opponents, although they must refuse to do any act forbidden to them by the movement even at the cost of great suffering.[81] The movement ended in a compromise agreement with the British, but the terms of the agreement were never completely carried out. Repressive measures and the imprisonment of Gandhi checked the non-cooperation movement during the present war, at least temporarily.

FOOTNOTES:

[80] Gandhi, _Experiments_, II, 486-507; Shridharani, 126-129.

[81] The rules, first published in _Young India_, Feb. 27, 1930, are given by Shridharani, 154-157.

Fasting

Gandhi also made use of the fast in 1919, 1924, 1932, 1933, 1939, and 1943 to obtain concessions, either from the British government or from groups of Hindese who did not accept his philosophy.[82] Of fasting Gandhi has said:

"It does not mean coercion of anybody. It does, of course, exercise pressure on individuals, even as on the government; but it is nothing more than the natural and moral result of an act of sacrifice. It stirs up sluggish consciences and it fires loving hearts to action."[83]

Yet Gandhi believed that the fast of the Irish leader, MacSweeney, when he was imprisoned in Dublin, was an act of violence.[84]

In practice, Satyagraha is a mixture of expediency and principle. It is firmly based on the Hindu idea of _ahimsa_, and hence avoids physical violence. Despite Gandhi's insistence upon respect for and love for the opponent, however, his equal insistence upon winning the opponent completely to his point of view leads one to suspect that he is using the technique as a means to an end which he considers equally fundamental. He accepts suffering as an end in itself, yet he knows that it also is a means to other ends since it arouses the sympathy of public opinion. He regards non-cooperation as compatible with love for the opponent, yet we have already seen that under modern conditions it is coercive rather than persuasive in nature. Despite Gandhi's distinction between his own fasts and those of others, they too involve an element of psychological coercion. We are led to conclude that much of Gandhi's program is based upon expediency as well as upon the complete respect for every human personality which characterizes absolute pacifism.

FOOTNOTES:

[82] See the list given by Haridas T. Muzumdar, _Gandhi Triumphant! The Inside Story of the Historic Fast_ (New York: Universal, 1939), vi-vii.

[83] _Ibid._, 89.

[84] _Ibid._, 90. Lewis quotes Gandhi thus: "You cannot fast against a tyrant, for it will be a species of violence done to him. Fasting can only be resorted to against a lover not to extort rights, but to reform him." _Case Against Pacifism_, 109.

The American Abolition Movement

The West also has had its movements of reform which have espoused non-violence as a principle. The most significant one in the United States has been the abolition crusade before the Civil War. Its most publicized faction was the group led by William Lloyd Garrison, who has had a reputation as an uncompromising extremist. Almost every school boy remembers the words with which he introduced the first issue of the _Liberator_ in 1831:

"I _will_ be as harsh as truth, and as uncompromising as justice.... I am in earnest--I will not equivocate--I will not excuse--I will not retreat a single inch--AND I WILL BE HEARD."

He lived up to his promise during the years that followed, and it is no wonder that Parrington called him "the flintiest character amongst the New England militants."[85] In the South they regarded him as an inciter to violence, and barred his writings from the mails.

Garrison's belief in "non-resistance" is less often stressed, yet his espousal of this principle was stated in the same uncompromising terms as his opposition to slavery. In 1838 he induced the Boston Peace Convention to found the New England Non-Resistance Society. In the "Declaration of Sentiments" which he wrote and which the new Society adopted, he said:

"The history of mankind is crowded with evidences proving that physical coercion is not adapted to moral regeneration; that the sinful dispositions of men can be subdued only by love; that evil can be exterminated from the earth only by goodness."[86]

Throughout his long struggle against slavery, Garrison remained true to his principles of non-resistance. But his denunciations of slavery made more impression on the popular mind, and aided in stirring up much of the violent sentiment in the North which expressed itself in a crescendo of denunciation of the slave owners. In the South, where anti-slavery sentiment had been strong before, a new defensive att.i.tude began to develop. As Calhoun said of the northern criticism of slavery:

"It has compelled us to the South to look into the nature and character of this great inst.i.tution, and to correct many false impressions that even we had entertained in relation to it. Many in the South once believed that it was a moral and political evil; that folly and delusion are gone; we see it now in its true light, and regard it as the most safe and stable basis for free inst.i.tutions in the world."[87]

In the North the violent statements of the abolitionists aroused a physically violent response. Mobs attacked abolition meetings in many places, and on one occasion Garrison himself was rescued from an angry Boston mob. This violence in turn aroused many men like Salmon P. Chase and Wendell Phillips to espouse the anti-slavery cause because they could not condone the actions of the anti-abolitionists.[88] Garrison himself proceeded serenely through the storms that his vigorous writings precipitated.

Feelings rose on both sides, and many who heard and accepted the Garrisonian indictment of slavery knew nothing of his non-resistance principles.[89] Others, who did, came reluctantly to the conclusion that a civil war to rid the country of the evil would be preferable to its continuance. In time the struggle was transferred to the political arena, where men acted sometimes on the basis of interest and not always on the basis of moral principles. The gulf between the sections widened, and civil war approached.

As abolitionists themselves began to express the belief that the slavery issue could not be settled without bloodshed, Garrison disclaimed all responsibility for the growing propensity to espouse violence. In the _Liberator_ in 1858 he said:

"When the anti-slavery cause was launched, it was baptized in the spirit of peace. We proclaimed to the country and to the world that the weapons of our warfare were not carnal but spiritual, and we believed them to be mighty through G.o.d to the pulling down even of the stronghold of slavery; and for several years great moral power accompanied our cause wherever presented. Alas! in the course of the fearful developments of the Slave Power, and its continued aggressions on the rights of the people of the North, in my judgment a sad change has come over the spirit of anti-slavery men, generally speaking. We are growing more and more warlike, more and more disposed to repudiate the principles of peace.... Just in proportion as this spirit prevails, I feel that our moral power is departing and will depart.... I will not trust the war-spirit anywhere in the universe of G.o.d, because the experience of six thousand years proves it not to be at all reliable in such a struggle as ours....

"I pray you, abolitionists, still to adhere to that truth. Do not get impatient; do not become exasperated; do not attempt any new political organization; do not make yourselves familiar with the idea that blood must flow. Perhaps blood will flow--G.o.d knows, I do not; but it shall not flow through any counsel of mine. Much as I detest the oppression exercised by the Southern slaveholder, he is a man, sacred before me. He is a man, not to be harmed by my hand nor with my consent.... While I will not cease reprobating his horrible injustice, I will let him see that in my heart there is no desire to do him harm,--that I wish to bless him here, and bless him everlastingly,--and that I have no other weapon to wield against him but the simple truth of G.o.d, which is the great instrument for the overthrow of all iniquity, and the salvation of the world."[90]

Yet Garrison's fervor for the emanc.i.p.ation of the slaves was so great that when the Civil War came, he said of Lincoln and the Republicans:

"They are instruments in the hand of G.o.d to carry forward and help achieve the great object of emanc.i.p.ation for which we have so long been striving.... All our sympathies and wishes must be with the Government, as against the Southern desperadoes and buccaneers; yet of course without any compromise of principle on our part."[91]

Although Lincoln insisted that the purpose of the North was the preservation of the Union rather than emanc.i.p.ation, eventually he did free the slaves. It would seem that Garrison, for all his non-resistance declarations, bore some of the responsibility for the great conflict.

In this case, as in the case of Satyagraha, the demand for reform by non-violent means was translated into violence by followers who were more devoted to the cause of reform than they were to the non-violent methods which their leaders proclaimed.

FOOTNOTES:

[85] Vernon Louis Parrington, _Main Currents in American Thought_ (New York: Harcourt Brace, 1930), II, 352.

[86] The "Declaration" is reprinted in Allen, _Fight for Peace_, 694-697.

[87] Quoted in Avery Craven, _The Coming of the Civil War_ (New York: Scribners, 1942), 161.

[88] Jesse Macy, _The Anti-Slavery Crusade_ (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1919), 69-70.

[89] For the many elements in the abolition movement, see Gilbert Hobbs Barnes, _The Antislavery Impulse, 1830-1844_ (New York: D.

Appleton-Century, 1933).

[90] Wendell Phillips Garrison, _William Lloyd Garrison_ (New York: Century, 1889), III, 473-474.

[91] Letter to Oliver Johnson, quoted in Allen, _Fight for Peace_, 449-450.

VI. NON-RESISTANCE