Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi held office in no government, and led no terrorist gang or rebel army. He developed a novel conceptual framework and outline of a comprehensive program for social change to reconstruct society by voluntary self-help outside the ruling institutions and State apparatus. He called it the constructive program. He claimed "to be no more than an average man with less than average ability." He placed his confidence in the application of an alternative nonviolent means of struggle to fight political evil, which he called satygraha [also known as "militant nonviolence"]. The term is best translated as "a firmness which comes from from reliance on truth." (Here truth has connotations of essence of being.) He was constantly experimenting, and his advocacy of nonviolent action in crises wasn't always convincing to hard-headed realists. Gandhi's primary contribution was not only to argue for, but to develop practical nonviolent means of struggle in politics for those situations in which war and other types of political violence were usually used.
Gandhi was neither a conscientious objector nor a supporter of violence in politics. He was an experimenter in the development of "war without violence." He had dreamt that a free India would be able to defend her freedom without military means. The idea of non-military national defense is currently receiving serious study within the peace-oriented community. His basic assumption was that one must not not "accept" evil or "understand" evil but fight it. In India, such an idea was near blasphemy, for the conflict between good and evil was seen as something which ultimately contributes to a higher development. This idea gave evil a sort of metaphysical "rightness," and suggested one should not be too concerned about it.
Gandhi's activity and sense of struggle not only ignored or challenged much of established Hindu thought, but also widely established patterns of common action. He found that passivity and submission, common traits among Indians of his day, were really the main enemy blocking the path to independence. He is widely credited with playing a BIG part in their fade and subsequent replacement by action, determination, and courageous self-reliance:
Non-violence [wrote Gandhi in 1920], does not mean meek submission to the will of the evil-doer, but it means the pitting of one's whole soul against the will of the tyrant. . . . And so I am not pleading for India to practice nonviolence because she is weak. I want her to practice nonviolence being conscious of her strength and power.One of the most remarkable developments of the twentieth century was the development an spread of the technique of nonviolent action. Nonviolent action includes behaviors known as nonviolent resistance, Gandhi's own satygraha, nonviolent direct action, and a large variety of specific methods of action such as strikes, boycotts, political noncooperation, civil disobedience, nonviolent obstruction, and their like. The technique has a very long history; but because historians have usually been more concerned with violent conflicts and wars than with nonviolent struggles, much information has been lost.
Rather than ignoring the need to wield political power, Gandhi sought to exercise it in ways that maximized the Indian strength and weakened that of the British. By withdrawing cooperation and obedience of the subjects, Gandhi sought to cut off the important sources of the rulers' power. Simultaneously, people's noncooperation and disobedience created severe enforcement problems. In this situation, severe repression against nonviolent people would be likely to not strengthen the government, but to alienate even more Indians from the British Raj and at the same time create - not unity in the face of an enemy - but dissent and opposition at home. This was a form of political jiu-jitsu which used maximum Indian strength, while applying British strength against them. He wrote: "I believe, and everybody must grant, that no government can exist for a single moment without the cooperation of the people, willing or forced, and if people suddenly withdraw their cooperation in every detail the government will come to a standstill."
This strange and markedly unorthodox man, together with the movements he engendered, challenged and ultimately defeated the British Empire, then the greatest in the world. For nearly fifty years he challenged first the European masters of South Africa, then the British Empire, and finally even the basic tenets of orthodox politics. He was a great formative influence for the young Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr. The man was a most formidable political strategist, even if not appropriately ranked as such by our society: One man. Gandhi changed a whole world - for the better. Like many who have contributed to the advancement of humanity throughout history, he drew upon and expanded the ideas of his predecessors. After his liberation of India showed the power of his thought, his nonviolent methods inspired multitudes. He was operating on the basis of a novel theory of political power: "For even the most powerful cannot rule without the consent of the ruled," Gandhi wrote in November 1905. He continued: "The governance of India is possible only because there exist people who serve." This view of power asserts that all governments depend on sources of power that come from the society and are made available because of the assistance, cooperation, and obedience of members of that society. When such assistance, cooperation, and obedience are withdrawn effectively, the government's power is weakened. When the sources of power are severed permanently, the government's power is destroyed. Hence, all government, no matter how tyrannical, is potentially subject to control by the citizenry if they are willing to withhold their support despite repression until the regime, with no further sources of power available, disintegrates. This view of the power of rulers remained the fundamental political insight throughout Gandhi's life, upon which his entire struggle rested. As Dr. Sharp remarked, the relationship of that theory of power to nonviolent struggle is, and one day will be recognized as as comparable to Einstein's theory of relativity for nuclear energy. Dr. Sharp also observed that "Once grasped, and when the associated corollaries of nonviolent discipline, the necessity of wise choice of methods, strategy and tactics, preparations and training, development of internal strength, and persistence in face of repression are also understood and implemented, it becomes possible to end both war and oppression in our lifetimes."
Even the most despotic government cannot stand except for the consent of the governed, which consent is often forcibly procured by the despot. As soon as the subject ceases to fear the despotic force, the ruler's power is gone.This view of the relation between the dominating group and its subordinate group, in Gandhi's opinion, applies to economic exploitation as well as to political domination: "No person can amass wealth without cooperation, willing or forced, of the people concerned."I believe, and everybody must grant, that no Government can exist for a single moment without the cooperation of the people, willing or forced, and if people suddenly withdraw their cooperation in every detail, the Government will come to a standstill. . . . It remains to be seen whether their [the masses' and the classes'] feeling is intense enough to evoke in them the measure of sacrifice adequate for successful non-cooperation.
The popular saying, "as is the king, so are the people," is only a half-truth. That is to say, it is not more true than its converse, "as are the people, so is the prince." Where the subjects are watchful, a prince is entirely dependent upon them for his status. Where the subjects are overtaken by sleepy indifference, there is every possibility that the prince will cease to function as a protector and become an oppressor instead. Those who are not wide awake have no right to blame the prince. The prince as well as the people are mostly creatures of circumstance. Enterprising princes and their peoples mold circumstances for their own benefit. "Collective cojones" consist in making our circumstances subservient to ourselves. Those who will not heed themselves - perish: To understand this principle is not to be impatient, not to reproach Fate, not to blame others. He who understands the doctrine of self-help blames himself for failure. It is on this ground that I object to violence. If we blame others when we should blame ourselves and wish for or bring about their destruction, that does not remove the root cause of the disease, which on the contrary grows all the deeper for ignorance thereof.
The rich cannot accumulate wealth without the cooperation of the poor in society. If this knowledge were to penetrate to and spread among the poor, they would become strong and would learn how to free themselves by nonviolent means from the crushing inequalities which have brought them to the verge of starvation.In this context, it's most instructive to observe the details of Gandhi's 1930-1931 phase of the struggle for independence: In January, 1930 he wrote: "The British people must realize that the Empire is to come to an end. This they will not realize - unless we in India have generated power within to enforce our will. . . . The real conference [= change] therefore has to be among ourselves." As noted in Wikipedia, "The last stages of the freedom struggle from the 1920s saw the [Indian National] Congress adopt the policies of nonviolence led by Mohandas Gandhi." In his view, the 1930-1931 campaign was aimed not so much as forcing the grant of specific political demands as at raising the quality and stature of the Indian people: "The present campaign is not designed to establish Independence, but to arm the people with the power to do so." Satygraha [or "militant nonviolence"], then was aimed at influencing power relationships between the British Raj and the Indian nation by (1) the introduction of psychological and moral pressures by the people's determined defiance of British rule, coupled with non-retaliatory acceptance of the repression and suffering imposed by the regime; (2) the political impact of a large section of non-cooperating disobedient subjects on the functioning and maintenance of the regime; and (3) the improvement of the moral stature of the Indian people through their self-suffering, defiance without retaliation, and their casting off the attitude of submission. Simultaneously, the constructive program (for producing social and economic changes without assistance by the government) was also a continuing means for producing self-rule and weakening of ties to the British Raj.All exploitation is based on cooperation, willing or forced, of the exploited. However much we may detest admitting it, the fact remains that there would be no exploitation if people refused to obey the exploiter. But perceived self-interest comes in, and we hug the chains that bind us. This must STOP.