Gandhi, Apostle of Nonviolence

The shock of what happened made such a revolution in the soul of the young man that he decided to devote his life to the struggle for justice. However, this struggle was of a special nature. Faced with monstrous discrimination, Gandhi did not become a radical and a terrorist – he chose the path of non-violent action, which he called “satyagraha” – translated from Sanskrit, “perseverance in truth.”

Among his teachers, Gandhi counted Leo Tolstoy, with whom he corresponded and named a farm in South Africa after him. However, in the first place, the roots of his teachings still lie in the sphere of Indian culture: first of all, it relies on the key Hindu concept of “ahimsa” (doing no harm) and on traditional methods of moral persuasion. However, despite its local, Indian origin, Gandhi’s doctrine turned out to be extremely universal. “Wherever a quarrel arises, wherever an opponent confronts you, conquer him with love. Spontaneously, I have worked this out in my life. This does not mean that all my problems are solved. But I found that this law of love works in a way that the law of destruction never did,” wrote Gandhi. The law of love turned out to be equally vital for both the East and the West. India, under the spiritual guidance of her mahatma, gained her independence; America, inspired by Gandhi’s follower Martin Luther King, abandoned racial discrimination. Now other times have come, and the struggle for justice, both in society as a whole and in relations between individuals, unfortunately, often turns out to be inseparable from forceful pressure. But this does not mean that the law of love has ceased to operate: mankind has not yet come up with another way to break the vicious circle of violence.

Five keys to understanding

The language of non-violence

Through love and non-violence, it is indeed possible to achieve goals that are unattainable in any other way. However, non-violence can only be effective when those against whom it is directed also have a moral sense. Although Winston Churchill ridiculed Gandhi as a “half-naked fakir”, Britain’s ruling elite could not calmly order the killing of unarmed people involved in campaigns of defiance. At the same time, non-violence is useless in relation to those whose morals it is pointless to appeal to, and this must be remembered.

Idealism in practice

Idealism and belief in the original nobility of human nature do not preclude a certain practicality. In the case when an absolute victory is impossible, a reasonable compromise is preferable to an uncompromising struggle. At the same time, Gandhi always emphasized: the more people learn non-violence (and it is quite possible to learn it, because the craving for good is inherent in every person), the more likely it is that anger and enmity will leave the world and it will change for the better.

Be indifferent

Gandhi insisted that Satyagraha had nothing to do with passivity and did not like it when his teachings were called “passive resistance”. He considered apathy and indifference to be the most dangerous enemies of man, and once in his heart he remarked that indifference is worse than violence. Indeed, everything is indifferent to an apathetic person, which means that it is much more difficult to convince him and turn him to goodness than the one who committed violence, obeying his impulses and passions.

Learn from women

Non-violence, of course, requires courage, but courage of a special kind – completely devoid of aggression. Gandhi noted that this kind of courage is more often inherent in women, focused primarily on the preservation of existing values, than in men, aimed at conquering a new one. Therefore, he urged his supporters not to be afraid of accusations of female weakness and to learn stamina and patience from the weak half of humanity.

Avoid blackmail

The doctrine of non-violence must be applied with caution, because it has its own pitfalls. The most serious is that it is very difficult to determine when voluntary suffering ceases to be an appeal to the opponent’s moral sense and turns into conscious blackmail, that is, into a form of psychological violence. Gandhi understood this danger and warned about it, but insisted that a person can only cope with it on his own, based on his own feelings.