Posted by shar on February 23, 2004, at 0:37:21
In reply to Satyagraha, posted by EmmyS on February 22, 2004, at 11:45:47
Gandhi and Satyagraha
http://www.pbs.org/weta/forcemorepowerful/india/satyagraha.html
For Gandhi, who saw all life as arising from a unity of being, there was no division between spiritual and practical activity, and he tried to live that way. One spiritual principle that had practical value for him was that of ahimsa or (loosely translated) "nonviolence". If no individual or group could claim absolute knowledge of the truth, no one should use violence to compel others to act against their different but also sincere understanding of it. Ahimsa had deep roots within Buddhist, and Hindu thinking, but Gandhi also found vigorous expressions of the same precept in Christian thought, especially in the Sermon on the Mount and in the writings of Leo Tolstoy. He read Tolstoy's book, The Kingdom of God Is Within You, in 1894 and found himself "overwhelmed" by the Russian's argument against violence. [1]Ahimsa had clear implications for political conflict. Violence used against oppression, Gandhi believed, was not only wrong, it was a mistake. It could never really end injustice, because it inflamed the prejudice and fear that fed oppression. For Gandhi, unjust means would never produce a just outcome. "The means may be likened to a seed, the end to a tree," he wrote in 1909, "and there is just the same inviolable connection between the means and the end as there is between the seed and the tree. . . We reap exactly as we sow." [2]
Yet Gandhi had to find methods of political action that would also be effectual. In South Africa his early actions as an Indian leader had been nonviolent, but speeches, petitions, letters, and meetings with officials had barely dented racist attitudes and laws. What he sought, and found, was a way to compel whites to see the truth that Indians would have to be treated as equals.
At first he called it "passive resistance" (a term he disavowed in later years). The technique was simple: Declare opposition to an unjust law (such as restrictions on free movement), break the law (by crossing a border illegally), and suffer the consequences (arrest, physical abuse, prison). Resisters' calm and dignified suffering, Gandhi believed, would open the eyes of oppressors and weaken the hostility behind repression; rather than adversaries being bullied to capitulate, they would be obliged to see what was right, and that would make them change their minds and actions. Gandhi named this concept of action "satyagraha" (combining the Hindu words for "truth" and "holding firmly.") [3]
But satyagraha soon took on a larger dimension, one that was less a function of its spiritual provenance than its feasibility. Gandhi recognized that there were limits to the exemplary value of personal sacrifice: even the most committed resisters could absorb only so much suffering, and the pride and prejudices typical of entrenched regimes could not be dissolved quickly. If satyagraha was to become a practical political tool, Gandhi realized, it had to bring pressure to bear on its opponents. "I do not believe in making appeals," he wrote, "when there is no force behind them, whether moral or material." [4]
The potential of satyagraha to change an opponent's position, Gandhi believed, came from the dependence of rulers on the cooperation of those who had the choice to obey or resist. While he continued to argue that satyagraha could reveal the truth to opponents and win them over, he often spoke of it in military terms and planned actions that were intended not so much to convert adversaries but to jeopardize their interests if they did not yield. In this way he made satyagraha a realistic alternative for those more interested in what could produce change than in what conscience could justify. [5]
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------1 Brown, Gandhi: Prisoner of Hope, pp. 78-89, 84; Dalton, Mahatma Gandhi, pp. 10-11; Bhikhu Parekh, Colonialism, Tradition, and Reform: An Analysis of Gandhi's Political Discourse (New Delhi: Sage, 1989), p. 156.
2 Dalton, Mahatma Gandhi, p. 9.
3 Brown, Gandhi: Prisoner of Hope, pp. 55-57; Dalton, Mahatma Gandhi, pp. 9, 14-16; Bhikhu Parekh, Gandhi's Political Philosophy (Basingstoke: Macmillan, 1989), pp. 55-57.
4 Parekh, Gandhi's Political Philosophy, p. 153.
5 Ibid., pp. 153-158.
...........on an interesting note, these ideas are related to Yoga, probably because of the Hindu roots. For further info (yoga-wise), one can probably Google "Patanjali" or "patanjali sutras" or "eight limbs of yoga" to get more info.Shar
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URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/social/20040219/msgs/316733.html