Meeting of Minds: Gandhi and Mandela on Non-Violence
Total Page：16
File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb
Odisha Review August- 2014 Meeting of Minds: Gandhi and Mandela on Non-Violence Dr. Bishnupriya Padhi This article is not a comparison between Mahatma ‘symbol of anti-apartheid who dedicated his life Gandhi and Nelson Mandela as the latter once to fight injustice and racial discrimination. He was told, “It would not be right to compare me to a great advocate of humanism and a symbol of Gandhi. None of us could equal his dedication or struggle for justice, service, dedication and his humility. He showed us it’s necessary to brave sacrifice. He had strong faith in Gandhiji’s belief imprisonment if truth and in truth and non-violence. justice were to triumph The world has lost a great over evil.” It is a modest Gandhian.1 attempt to recollect the Was he a Gandhian? In legacies of both the a sense, yes. In many ways. leaders in terms of the He was a man of courage, impacts they each had of passion, of struggle and on non-violence as a indomitable spirit like means of addressing Gandhiji who learned from problems of their times life at every turn and on the occasion of harboured no ill-will against India’s 68th Independence Day. Both were men those who hurt him. Robert Koenig, in his article,2 of different times, yet they drew upon similar Gandhi inspired Mandela on South Africa’s -Long principles in their quests to help humanity. While Road to Freedom, has said, one man was felled their causes were distinct to each of their by an assassin’s bullet after a lifetime of nonviolent homelands, they inspired similar reverence among struggle to gain independence for his country, the followers, eventually standing as inspiration other man survived until age 95 after emerging worldwide. While each of these men took unique from prison to lead his nation’s mostly peaceful paths to prominence, a shared sense of equality revolution to end apartheid and become its first and belief that society’s oppressed citizens must black President. It was no coincidence that Gandhi stand together; provide fundamental cornerstones and Mandela, whose paths never crossed directly, of their philosophies for bringing change for the both embarked on their campaigns against masses. With the passing of Mandela, the Odisha discrimination in South Africa — the land of Alan Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik hailed him as a Paton’s “Cry, the Beloved Country,” where 26 August - 2014 Odisha Review apartheid domination had oppressed the black the Satyagraha campaign of nonviolent refusal to majority as well as the South Asian minority for cooperate with the government; arranging marches so many years. In a fitting coincidence of history, against the discriminatory poll tax and marriage the two leaders were both lawyers who spent time laws; and enduring months in jails for defying the in stinking jail cells in Johannesburg’s Old Fort authorities. prison — Gandhi in 1906, Mandela in 1962. It Gandhi received a hero’s welcome when later became a museum to reveal the brutality of he returned to India in 1915 and started a apartheid abuses. On the same hilltop where the decades-long campaign of nonviolent resistance prison’s notorious wards still stand, South Africa against British colonialism that led to the nation’s has built a gleaming new high court, the independence in 1947. Mandela, who was born Constitutional Court. to a Xhosa family in the village of Mvezo three Gandhi was “the archetypal anti -colonial years after Gandhi left South Africa, seemed to revolutionary,” Mandela once wrote, describing be an unlikely candidate to inherit the moral legacy the Indian leader as a role model. “Both Gandhi of the great Indian leader – and it took many years and I suffered colonial oppression, and both of for Mandela to adopt the nonviolent resistance us mobilized our respective peoples against strategy and to lead what he later called the “long governments that violated our freedoms.”3 walk to freedom.” He and his ally Oliver Tambo Eventhough Gandhi was born in India and were expelled from South Africa’s Fort Hare studied law in London, he made his name as a College – the first South African University for young man fighting discrimination against Indians blacks – in 1940 for their political activism. He in South Africa from 1893 to 1914. He was worked as a night watchman in a gold mine in thrown off trains. He had organized protests and Johannesburg, then clerked in a law firm, studied was jailed several times during his two decades law and began his political career by joining the of South African activism. While Gandhi at first African National Congress. Accusing the ANC’s supported the British colonial regime and urged leadership of “appeasement and compromise,” Indians to fight on their side during the Anglo- the fiery Mandela started up an ANC youth Boer War (now called the South African War) in league, rising to become its president in 1951. 1899-1902, he became disillusioned with British He and Tambo founded South African rule after he organized fellow Indians into a first black law practice, but the apartheid stretcher-bearer corps to carry wounded soldiers 4 government – fearful of a revolution – late in 1956 during a Zulu revolt in 1906. “British brutality arrested him and 155 other black leaders who against the Zulus roused his soul against violence had called for an end to apartheid. He was as nothing had done before,” Mandela wrote later. acquitted of treason in 1961, then went “The sight of wounded and whipped Zulus, underground and formed an ANC military wing mercilessly abandoned by their British (“Spear of the Nation”) and commanded its persecutors, so appalled him that he turned full guerrilla army. circle from his admiration for all things British to celebrating the indigenous and ethnic.” After his After 17 month underground, Mandela experience as a stretcher-bearer, Gandhi became was arrested again and sent to prison for another an outspoken but nonviolent advocate of the rights five years. And in 1964, he and seven other ANC of South African Indians, championing activists were convicted again and sentenced to 27 Odisha Review August- 2014 life in prison. He would spend the next 18 years non possession of property or any other material in Robben Island prison, off the coast of Cape or non material thing, restraining one’s senses, Town. adoption of the principle of non-stealing, abolition After pressure mounted on the apartheid of untouchablity, promotion of communal government, South African President P.W. Botha harmony and above all anchoring life on the moral 6 offered to free Mandela if he renounced violence; principles and higher ideals. Sahu is of the opinion but Mandela refused unless the government ended that non-violence does not mean the non-use of apartheid. It took many more years, and behind- force, it is deeper in connotation and practice. It the-scenes negotiations with the nation’s leaders, involves changing the whole way of life and before the 71-year-old Mandela was released, consciousness and remaining in communion with without conditions, in 1990. The ANC suspended the nature and feeling that everything in this world its guerilla campaign but street violence continued. including the crawls of the world is throbbing with the divine spirit of which the individual is a part. After years of negotiations – during which This identification of the individual with the whole Mandela and President de Klerk were awarded cosmos and at the same time retaining the the Nobel Peace Prize – a new constitution individuality constituted the core meaning of non- banning apartheid was finally agreed to in 1993 violence.7 Nonviolence provides us with tools, the and Mandela won election as South Africa’s first positive means to oppose and stop wars and black president a year later. That is when the preparations for war, to resist violence, to struggle influence of Gandhi became apparent, as Mandela against racial, sexual and economic oppression – instead of punishing those who had imprisoned and discrimination and to seek social justice and him and his compatriots – moved to try to genuine democracy for people throughout the reconcile South Africa’s black majority and white world. minority. Gandhi provided the world with his “His journey from a prisoner to a timeless philosophy. It was not meant for the president embodied the promise that human independence of India only. Nonviolence is itself beings — and countries — can change for the normative. It applies to any situation. He was a better. His commitment to transfer power and fearless advocate of the dignity of the human reconcile with those who jailed him set an example person. This involves recognizing the unique that all humanity should aspire to, whether in the endowments of the human person-in-community lives of nations or our own personal lives. and providing a foundation for Human Rights. He “And the fact that he did it all with grace is therefore called the emancipator of the and good humor, and an ability to acknowledge oppressed. He helped millions of the discriminated his own imperfections, only makes the man that poor to discover meaning in life and live a life much more remarkable.”5 worthy of the true human calling. The clarity of Non-violence : A way of life - the conviction of the transcendental goal of Nonviolence which Gandhi followed is no everyman led him to affirm the dignity of the human ordinary idea or belief. It was born of conviction person at every level. and was based on the purification of body and In his article, Nelson Mandela and mind. It evolved through the control of the palate, Mahatma Gandhi, Nitin Mehta, wrote 8 that the 28 August - 2014 Odisha Review death of Nelson Mandela has moved people all Nelson Mandela wrote an article for the over the world.