Nonviolence on the part of an individual or a social group does not mean abolition of social violence or of violence in society. Gandhi’s nonviolence did not envisage nonuse of violence by the colonial and imperialist power. Nonviolence was conceived as a moral force (soul-force) to transform the adversary, to touch his heart, to bring out the divine in him, to disarm him, to make him see reason, the justice of the cause, and finally, to concede the demand.
Nonviolence also implies noncooperation with the adversary in his violence, in his politics, in the maintenance of his power. in the acceptance of his influence and thus to make him feel his essential weakness which force of violence cannot make up.
Violence is endemic in an unjust society. To Gandhi, violence did not mean just use of physical force or use of arms. It went deeper and further. Any undue coercion, any unreasonable restraint, any unjustifiable limitation of freedom, oppression or exploitation in any form, racism, colonialism and imperialism all constituted violence organized, systematized, sometimes socially approved, like the practice of untouchability or of marriage without consent or of prohibition on remarriage of widows or divorcees.
“The issue then is how to move from the Violent to the Nonviolent Society, from the Unjust to the Just Society, from the Unequal to the Equal Society? By what route? By what stages? By which methods?”
If politics is defined as redistribution of resources, goods and services of a society, or as management thereof, then a nonviolent society must be defined as a utopia of social justice, which would not only eliminate discrimination and disparity but also meet the essential needs of all the members of the society, of all its constituent groups and subgroups. The issue then 1s how to move from the Violent to the Nonviolent Society, from the Unjust to the Just Society, from the Unequal to the Equal Society? By what route? By what stages? By which methods?
This implies that nonviolence is not merely descriptive of the static society today or tomorrow but of the “dynamic” society, the society in a State of transition a society under transformation, Nonviolence is a question of the means and methods used for such transformation, Thus, nonviolence not only defines the end; it also defines the means.
Here, in my view, we come to a logical dead end. Can we so limit the means and yet achieve the end? Can the negative forces be so easily overcome? Can the opposite forces, the forces of status quo, the forces endeavoring to move the society in a different way, in an opposite direction, be so easily neutralized, particularly if they feel equally “right” and if their faith is so culturally rooted that very often the social forces are blind to the direction in which the society is moving.
If then the “negative” forces assert themselves and are ruthless in the choice of means and methods, can the positive forces relying on their historical perception or moral self-righteousness accept martyrdom on the altar of History, or of Truth or of Freedom Justice and Equality? Can soul force alone conquer? Can soul force alone protect and defend and advance the Cause?
I do not think even Gandhi had the final and absolute answer to this dilemma. That is why he conceded that defense was better than cowardice; that is why he supported armed intervention in Jammu & Kashmir to defend it against tribal invasion, Could Gandhi’s nonviolence be effective against a more ruthless, more bloodthirsty imperialism? Would it work against a Hitler, riding the crest of a pan Germanic assertion, against a Zionism intent on creating a Jewish Homeland on the dead bodies and the charred bones of the Palestinians? Would 1: work against the capitalist system when the essential class interests are at stake? Nonviolence it works against a religious establishment which exploits myths and superstitions & is intent on capturing state power?
“Yes, there comes a point when goodwill melts away; bhai-bhai-ism does out; slogans of human dignity and social equality lose meaning and the oppressed and the deprived, are seen as upstarts, as invaders, as aggressors, as adversaries, fit only to be fought and destroyed. Can nonviolence then help the Cores a the deprived?”
Democracy is a system, not for maintaining the statuesque but for changing the society gradually and peacefully in the direction desired by a majority of people at a given time. But there are inherent contradictions and built-in dangers. The pace may be too slow or too fast for one or more of the social groups concerned which are involved in the process of change? The progress of change may come too close to the heart of the matter, touch the line of essential interest and send a shiver down the spine of some group or the other and trigger a violent resistance to the next quantum of change however, logical and rational it may appear in the light of the preceding path of change. Yes, there comes a point when goodwill melts away; bhai-bhai-ism does out; slogans of human dignity and social equality lose meaning and the oppressed and the deprived, are seen as upstarts, as invaders, as aggressors, as adversaries, fit only to be fought and destroyed. Can nonviolence then help the oppressed and the deprived?
It is a fact of history that the dominant groups do not mind accommodation, sharing, participation, window-dressing, up to a point, Indeed, it makes them feel nice but when the essence of dominance is threatened, iron enters their soil. The State is then, no more than an agent of the dominant groups, an instrument in their hands, to stop the march from crossing the line, to block the path of progress. Laws, administrative regulations, policy announcements, welfare schemes, statistical jugglery, promise of utopia, yes; but no real change in our lifetime.
That is when state unleashes violence against the people or against a section, a class, of the people. How do the people resist the onslaught? Does History stop at the red-light? How does it move forward, without taking note of the signal or without violating the traffic rule?
That is how revolutions occur. That is where violence become inevitable.
In India we are reaching the intersection, the point of explosion. The tribal unrest, the militancy among the Dalits, the upsurge among the Other Backward Classes the disaffection among the religious minorities are no more than signals.
We have the beginning of State violence in the form of encounters as in Punjab, massacres as in Moradabad & Hashimpura, military occupations as in the peripheral regions. We have the beginning of militancy beyond the RSS model in Bajrang Dal, Shiv Sena and Hindu Shakti Sena; we have the caste Sen as in rural Bihar. The cycle of violence blurs the distinction between action and reaction
“Indeed, the unprecedented level of communal polarization and revivalist chauvinism in the country can be explained only in terms of a diversionary move by the besieged but dominant groups who exploit patriotic emotions, playing upon primeval passions by questioning the patriotism & loyalty of the dominated group & by organizing bands of sycophantic drumbeaters, by holding out prospects of a return to the Golden Age etc…”
and therefore, the moral responsibility. But the fact is that 40 years after independence we are reaching the critical limits of change through democratic consensus. Perhaps as a nation we have concentrated too much on industrial peace, bribing the urban proletariat till they turn into a middle class, on keeping towns safe, on maintaining peace in the heartland. A time comes when villages besiege towns; the peripheries march on the hinterland; the dispossessed and the exploited stand up and demand their due from those who wish to defy the logic of democracy and shall not be content with any thing short of a regime of dignity for all.
Indeed, the unprecedented level of communal polarization and revivalist chauvinism in the country can be explained only in terms of a diversionary move by the besieged but dominant groups who exploit patriotic emotions (foreign threat to national security and sovereignty), playing upon primeval passions (they came to plunder, to destroy our temples, to rape our women and to convert our ancestors on the point of the sword), by questioning the patriotism & loyalty of the dominated group & by organizing bands of sycophantic drumbeaters by holding out prospects of a return to the Golden ‘Age (Ramayana, Mahabharata on the TV), they promise all that everything except land to the tiller, living wages to the worker, proportional reservation of public employment; universal and compulsory education to equal and uniform standard! No, do not rock the boat, we are caught in a storm of course, the dance goes on, on the upper deck!
The dominated groups will never consciously and deliberately take to violence except the lunatic fringe because the dominant groups are not ably well armed, in every sense of the term, but because they control the State and all its apparatus of coercion. But the democratic system has generated pressures, raised expectations, brought society to the crossroad of confrontation: When dominant groups take to violence, with and through state power, what choice is left for the dominated groups, including Muslim Indians?
Mr, Shahabuddin is a Member of Parliament in India. He is also the editor of Muslim India, where this editorial was first published.
Article extracted from this publication >> May 12, 1989
