International Journal of Academic Research ISSN: 2348-7666; Vol.3, Issue-9(2), September, 2016 Impact Factor: 3.656; Email: [email protected]

M.Hari Prasad, Head, Dept. of History, BGBS Womens’ College, Narsapur

D.D.N.Prasad, Asst. Professor in Public Administration, PG Centre, Sri Y.N.College, Narsapur

methods as well as evolve suitable strategies for transforming violent Although there has been a conflicts into non-violent ones. There is rethinking in different parts of the a need to undertake measures on a world about the use of violent methods continual basis at different levels in this to achieve social and political goals, it regard. has not reached the mass for capturing the imagination of policy makers and Humanity is passing through a civil society. There is a need to put very difficult period. Violence and forward strategic efforts by the terrorism have become the catch words international agencies, educators, of international politics. After the 9/11 academicians, activists, civil society attacks on World Trade Centre and actors and policy makers to take the Pentagon, there is increasing non-violent agenda. It is necessary to realization that existing military examine the instances of successful solutions are inadequate to provide application of non-violence methods but security to the people concerned. People also analyse conflicts in terms of their all over the world are living in constant potential for applicability of non-violent fear and insecurity. This precarious International Journal of Academic Research ISSN: 2348-7666; Vol.3, Issue-9(2), September, 2016 Impact Factor: 3.656; Email: [email protected] situation and the futility of the weapons one has truth-force. He also called it love- of mass destruction in ensuring peace force and he continues to call Satyagraha prompt one to think about non-violent as soul force. Truth force is based on the methods. principle of justice. He looked upon the whole concept of non-violence as a force The growing concern of for radical change. In Sanskrit language international community has been the word for truth is Satya and the root is reflected in the declarations and ‘Sat’. Sat means one that exists. For decisions of international organizations many who understand these two including the United Nations. The concepts, there is no difference in truth United Nations in its 61st General and existence. Love force can move Assembly declared October 2, the mountains. Soul force envisages the unity birthday of Mahatma Gandhi, as the of soul of all people. Satyagraha is the international Non-Violence Day. The philosophy based on voluntary suffering. wide co-sponsorship of the draft resolution reflected the universal His concept of peace and non- acceptance of the non-violent method violence is integrally related to his successfully employed by Gandhi in world view. Gandhi evolved his world South Africa and later in India. view from a concept of ‘self’ and human Mahatma Gandhi has now become a nature. Acknowledging the inherent synonym for non-violence and peace. goodness of human beings, Gandhi emphasized the capacity of all human beings to develop their full potential of Many of us use peace and non- non-violence. The path of violence was violence as synonyms. But during the last seen by him as a downward path away few decades these words have from our humanity and closer to that of transformed their meanings. Peace no brute while the path of Non-violence longer means the absence of war. The was closer to humanness. He believed in Peace conveys the meaning of Peace with the unity and oneness of all including justice. Non-violence is no longer passive. the sentient and non-sentient beings. It is a radical force. But these ideas have He believed that all human beings are transformed and we now have different part of the divine and they are meanings of these terms. While interdependent and interrelated. If one innumerable people have contributed in person gains in Non-violence, the entire changing the concept of peace, Gandhi, humanity gains with him and vice perhaps was the only person who versa. In such an interrelated and changed the concept of non-violence. relational framework, Non-violence Ahimsa, the Indian word for non-violence becomes the cardinal principle is commonly understood as doing no governing human relations. harm or injury to the other people. But Gandhi visualized it as a radical force. Even during the initial stages he Gandhi’s concept of non-violence explained the idea of positive non- is closely linked with his understanding violence. It was such an original idea that of the above interrelatedness. Truth term was Satyagraha. He gave three was fundamental in his philosophy of synonymous words for Satyagraha. First life. He also wanted to make the truth International Journal of Academic Research ISSN: 2348-7666; Vol.3, Issue-9(2), September, 2016 Impact Factor: 3.656; Email: [email protected] discovery as the principle around which Gandhi, it was not a weapon of the differences among human beings expediency. It was a spiritual weapon could be sorted out. Throughout his life and he successfully employed it at the he was experimenting and perfecting mundane level. He made it clear that it his notion of truth. For him Truth was is not a weapon of the weak and the a sovereign principle and it includes coward. The application of this principle numerous other principles. Gandhi needs greater courage and moral called Truth realization as the strength. He believed that Ahimsa or realization of the God. This quest for Love has a universal application and it truth can be carried out not through can be employed in one’s own family, any means. Violence is based on a society and the world at the larger level. notion that the person who employs it Through the technique of non-violence has the sole possession of Truth. a seeker or Truth tries to convert his Gandhi was of the view that the Truth opponent by the force of moral known to human beings is never character and self suffering. A absolute but relative. Therefore a practitioner of non-violence has to seeker of Truth has to adhere to the undergo suffering to penetrate into the path of non-violence because unless he heart of the opponent. Gandhi looked uses the method of Non-violence, he will upon self-less suffering as the law of no to be able to be receptive to the human beings and war as the law of notions of Truth held by others. Gandhi jungle. How you can avoid pain and wanted that all struggles and conflicts suffering is based on a utilitarian should be approached as a contestation thinking, which is the basis of the much between the notions of relative truth of the liberal thinking of the West. held by the conflicting parties. Only Suffering for a worthy cause in non- through a non-violent method you will Western cultures is often seen as be able to pursue a struggle of this kind liberative, even if it emerged as the because in it truth contestation result of the application of violence becomes a joint effort of both conflicting against an oppressor. The redemptive parties. In other words it becomes a character of self-suffering was joint search for Truth by the conflicting emphasized by Gandhi and a parties. There is no imposition of your constituted a key element of his notion of Truth. Just as you envisage Satyagraha technique. Gandhi’s the possibility of the conversion of other commitment to Non-violence evolved side to your position, the reverse also from a careful reading of history possibility also cannot be ruled out. and its interpretation. He came to the conclusion that it is Non-violence that For Gandhi, non-violence was a has sustained the world so far and will creed or an article of faith. He sustain it in future too. subscribed to non-violence on the basis of a deep faith in it. His complete adherence to non-violence was based on Gandhi’s concept of peace is principles rather than opportunism or also a broad one. For him peace purely based on cost benefit emerged from a way of life. Therefore considerations, although he was not peace is intimately linked up with unaware of its strategic value. For justice, development and environment. International Journal of Academic Research ISSN: 2348-7666; Vol.3, Issue-9(2), September, 2016 Impact Factor: 3.656; Email: [email protected]

It may be noted that the well known Gandhi. However in west peace studies peace researcher Johan Galtung have taken a very different path to that acknowledged his debt to Gandhi in the of Gandhi. Probably the reason was that evolution of his concept of structural Gandhian peace demands a great deal of and cultural violence. His advocacy of sacrifice from the practitioner. He calls it ideas such s self-reliance and models of Satyagraha i.e. ‘adherence to truth’ and development focused on basic needs also truth and non violence are the main have a strong Gandhian imprint. planks of Satyagraha. A person who Gandhi’s influence could also be found resolves to adhere to truth cannot remain in the ideas of Bjorn Hettne who has silent at the sight of violence which is tried to focus on the relationship negative of truth. Truth functions in between models of development and form of non violence or love. While the peace. Similarly, Arne Naess who coined lover of truth ought to oppose violence the term, deep ecology has such an opposition would mean ‘fight the acknowledged his indebtedness in the evil’ while ‘love the evil doer’. It is a formulation of the term. dynamic soul force based on the concept of self- suffering. As there are many A search for the philosophical forms of injustices there are many forms basis of Gandhian concept of peace of satyagaha too such as- non should begin with a careful reading of cooperation, civil disobedience, fasting, his seminal work Hind Swaraj which he hijrat, hartal, picketing, boycott, and wrote in1909, where he criticized the renunciation of titles, honours and modern model of development as positions. inherently violent. One who scrutinizes Gandhi’s speeches, writings and actions will understand his deep commitment Globalization instead of for the cause of peace and non-violence creating a global family has created a which was a part of his philosophy of global market. The market is life and his world view. In the ideal bargaining hard. There is no trust on society of Gandhi’s vision the the other side. Liberalization of the organization and relationship of the poor world means the liberty to die. members of the society must be based Economic force joined hands with on the law of non-violence or love. The military forces and they control the real task before those who dream a political power. All this together means peaceful and non-violence, Gandhi forces of death. We have gathered here placed before humanity and contributes because all of us want to live. The towards transformation of the existing human kind does not want to commit society into a peaceful non-violent one. suicide. We do not want to find the way This task is a challenging one, but it is to death. I am trying to explain the worth pursuing. Gandhian method of solving these problems. The essential point of Gandhian method is to conscientize the people. By and large people of West and The people who established peace even many Indians looks upon the studies in the west- Johan Galtung and Gandhian method as a mere technique . Kenneth Boulding were admirers of But to Gandhi, non-violence was a International Journal of Academic Research ISSN: 2348-7666; Vol.3, Issue-9(2), September, 2016 Impact Factor: 3.656; Email: [email protected] technique as well as a way of life. You superior to brute force. It is a living force cannot just use non-violence without of power and no one has been or will ever loving the adversary. Non-violent action be able to measure its limits or it's is action without anger and hatred extend. Gandhi's nonviolence is the within oneself. Gandhi described search for truth. Truth is the most Satyagraha as love force. The three fundamental aspect in Gandhi's essential elements in Satyagraha are, Philosophy of nonviolence. His whole life one firm faith in truth, two overflowing has been “experiments of truth”. It was love for the adversary and three the in this course of his pursuit of truth that capacity to undergo any amount of Gandhi discovered nonviolence, which he suffering. further explained in his Autobiography thus “Ahimsa is the basis of the search for truth. I am realizing that this search When Gandhi says that in the is vain, unless it is founded on ahimsa as course of fighting for human rights, one the basis.” Truth and nonviolence are as should accept violence and self-suffering, old as the hills. For nonviolence to be he does not applaud cowardice. strong and effective, it must begin with Cowardice for him is “the greatest the mind, without which it will be violence, certainly, far greater than nonviolence of the weak and cowardly. A bloodshed and the like that generally go coward is a person who lacks courage under the name of violence.” For when facing a dangerous and unpleasant Gandhi, perpetrators of violence (whom situation and tries to avoid it. A man he referred to as criminals), are products cannot practice ahimsa and at the same of social disintegration. Gandhi feels that time be a coward. violence is not a natural tendency of humans. It is a learned experience. There is need for a perfect weapon to combat violence and this is nonviolence. Gandhi understood nonviolence from its Sanskrit It will be good here to examine what root “Ahimsa”. Ahimsa is just translated Stanley E. Jones calls "the centre of to mean nonviolence in English, but it Gandhi's contribution to the world". All implies more than just avoidance of else is marginal compared to it. physical violence. Ahimsa implies total Satyagraha is the quintessence of nonviolence, no physical violence, and no Gandhism. Through it, Gandhi passive violence. introduced a new spirit to the world. It is the greatest of all Gandhi's contribution Gandhi translates Ahimsa as love. to the world. This is explained by Arun Gandhi in an interview thus; “He (Gandhi) said ahimsa Satyagraha (pronounced sat-YAH- means love. Because if you have love graha) is a compound of two Sanskrit towards somebody, and you respect that nouns satya, meaning truth (from 'sat'- person, then you are not going to do any 'being' with a suffix 'ya'), and agraha, harm to that person.” For Gandhi, meaning, "firm grasping" (a noun made nonviolence is the greatest force at the from the agra, which has its root 'grah'- disposal of mankind. It is mightier than 'seize', 'grasp', with the verbal prefix 'a' – any weapon of mass destruction. It is 'to' 'towards). Thus Satyagraha literally International Journal of Academic Research ISSN: 2348-7666; Vol.3, Issue-9(2), September, 2016 Impact Factor: 3.656; Email: [email protected] means devotion to truth, remaining firm www.markshep.com/ nonviolence/ on the truth and resisting untruth books/ myths. html. actively but nonviolently. according to Siby K Joseph, 'Contemporary Michael Nagler Satyagraha literally Perspectives on Peace and Non- means 'clinging to truth,' and that was violence', 2010. exactly how Gandhi understood it: “clinging to the truth that we are all one Pooja Katariya, Conflict Resolution, Deep under the skin, that there is no such and Deep, Delhi, 2007, pp- 68- 73. thing as a 'win/lose' confrontation Narayan Desai, “Non-violence : A Force because all our important interests are for Radical Change” in really the same, that consciously or not Contemporary Perspective On Peace every single person wants unity and and Non-violence, 2010. peace with every other.” Put succinctly, Satyagraha means 'truth force' , 'soul M.K.Gandhi, Young India, 20-12-1928, force' or as Martin Luther Jr. would call p.247. it ‘love in action’. Satyagraha has often The New Zion’s Herald, July/August, been defined as the philosophy of 2001, Vol.175, Issue-4, p.17. nonviolent resistance most famously employed by Mahatma Gandhi, in forcing M.K.Gandhi, An Autobiography or The an end to the British domination. Gene Story of My Experiments with Sharp did not hesitate to define Truth, Ahmedabad, Navjivan Trust, Satyagraha simply as “Gandhian 2003, p.254. Nonviolence.” Nirmal Kumar Bose, Selections from Today as Michael Nagler would Gandhi, Ahmedabad, Navjivan say, when we use the word Satyagraha Trust, 1948, p.154. we sometimes mean that general Mahatma Gandhi, Judith M.Brown, The principle, the fact that love is stronger Essential Writings, Oxford, Oxford than hate (and we can learn to use it to University Press, 2008, p.20, also in overcome hate), and sometimes we mean Pyarelal Papers, EWMG, p.60. more specifically active resistance by a repressed group; sometimes, even more Michael N.Nagler, Hope or Terror?, specifically, we apply the term to a given Minneapolis, METTA Center for movement like Salt Satyagraha etc. It is Nonviolence Education, 2009, p.7. worthwhile looking at the way Gandhi T.Weber and R.J.Burrowes, Nonviolence, uses Satyagraha. An Introduction, http://www.nonviolenceinternatinal. net/seasia.

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