Ghandi Speaks On Non-Violence

During the final phase of the campaign when the Tolstoy Farm was established Gandhi's own growth became noticeable. During his three months of jail in 1909, first at Volksrust and then at Pretoria, he read about thirty books. He made further acquaintance of the works of Leo Tolstoy 1828-1910) and Henry D. Thoreau (1817-1862), among others, and of the Hindu religion. Gandhi had read of Thoreau when he was a student in London, and had summarised the American's essay on Civil Disobedience in an issue of Indian Opinion in 1907. Now in jail, he eagerly explored Thoreau further.

But it was Tolstoy's writings that impressed him the most. The Russian's ideas about renouncing force as a means of opposition were akin to Gandhi's own thoughts, although he did not share Tolstoy's intense dislike for organised government. The Indian had read Tolstoy's The Kingdom of God is Within You in 1894. This had stimulated his search for truth and non-violence in his own religion. It had set him upon a kind of thinking that was to mature into satyagraha later. Now in prison, he had another opportunity to read more deeply into the Russian author's works.
http://www.anc.org.za/ancdocs/history/people/gandhi/bhana.html

To Gandhi.

I HAVE just received your very interesting letter, which gave me much pleasure. God help our dear brothers and co-workers in the Transvaal! Among us, too, this fight between gentleness and brutality, between humility and love and pride and violence,.....
http://dwardmac.pitzer.edu/Anarchist_Archives/bright/tolstoy...

thanks for that. Maybe a tattoo to come. :)

I mostly think that they were collapsing under their own weight. The British were in decline and Ghandi was only a convenient or useful excuse for the history books.

An extract from a letter written by P.V. Chuckraborty, former Chief Justice of Calcutta High Court, on 30 March 1976, reads thus:[34]

When I was acting as Governor of West Bengal in 1956, Clement Attlee, who as the British Prime Minister in post war years was responsible for India’s freedom, visited India and stayed in Raj Bhavan Calcutta for two days. I put it straight to him like this: ‘The Quit India Movement of Gandhi practically died out long before 1947 and there was nothing in the Indian situation at that time which made it necessary for the British to leave India in a hurry.

Why then did they do so?’ In reply Attlee cited several reasons, the most important of which were the INA activities of Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose, which weakened the very foundation of the British Empire in India, and the RIN Mutiny which made the British realise that the Indian armed forces could no longer be trusted to prop up the British. When asked about the extent to which the British decision to quit India was influenced by Mahatma Gandhi’s 1942 movement, Attlee’s lips widened in smile of disdain and he uttered, slowly, ‘Minimal’.

There is, however, no basis for the claim that the Civil Disobedience Movement directly led to independence. The campaigns of Gandhi… came to an ignoble end about fourteen years before India achieved independence… During the First World War the Indian revolutionaries sought to take advantage of German help in the shape of war materials to free the country by armed revolt. But the attempt did not succeed. During the Second World War Subhas Bose followed the same method and created the INA.

In spite of brilliant planning and initial success, the violent campaigns of Subhas Bose failed… The Battles for India's freedom were also being fought against Britain, though indirectly, by Hitler in Europe and Japan in Asia. None of these scored direct success, but few would deny that it was the cumulative effect of all the three that brought freedom to India.

In particular, the revelations made by the INA trial, and the reaction it produced in India, made it quite plain to the British, already exhausted by the war, that they could no longer depend upon the loyalty of the sepoys for maintaining their authority in India. This had probably the greatest influence upon their final decision to quit India.

Majumdar, R.C., Three Phases of India's Struggle for Freedom, Bombay, Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan, 1967, pp. 58–59.

My point is that we can study these techniques for useful purposes. Am I deluded to think that Ghandi is the superman that drove out the British, no.

Just because the first try at something fails, does not necessarily mean that the next one fails. There is always a possibility for success when methods are perfected for current situations.

IMHO

Do you have an opinion on the subject regarding non-violent resistance or were just wanting to bump the post?

The whole point was that there are other means to get one's point across. I see the protests around the world and when I look at the ones here in the states, I see a woefully weak response.

People are too fearful to have a meaningful protest. It takes discipline to practice civil-disobedience. It takes practice to to have discipline. For one to educate oneself on the art of passive resistance to evil might be useful in the near future. Arm yourself with knowledge as well as Truth.

Gandhi on Truth:

# What may appear as truth to one person will often appear as untruth to another person. But that need not worry the seeker.

# Use truth as your anvil, nonviolence as your hammer and anything that does not stand the test when it is brought to the anvil of truth and hammered with nonviolence, reject it.

#Truth without humility would be an arrogant caricature.

#The quest of truth involves self-suffering, sometimes even unto death.

I don't know how that quote fits in with the rest of his philosophy, but I know he believed in non-violence. He took non-violence to an extreme and insisted that his followers never strike back. Like many Indians, he was also a vegetarian- no violence against animals.

Maybe the British just became more aggressive and belligerent after they got all the guns.

"BE the change you wish to see in the world." My favorite Gandhi quote.