By Dr Bhaskar Dasgupta
London, April 30 – The concept of non-violence is a strange one. For us, accustomed to generations and centuries of violence as perhaps the only way for people to get their freedom, rights, desires, wants and needs; the fact that non-violence is a legitimate channel to achieve these objectives sits uneasily. Putting it in another way, violence has become a science. It has university schools and huge blocks of people in the form of armies and paramilitary forces, who study, research and apply the knowledge gained. There are military industries dedicated to the science of violence. There are ministries of war and defence, explicitly charged with the management of violence. On the other hand, the concept of non-violence is very amorphous, very laudable, but whenever we have a “situation”, the first thing that we reach for is the gun! What can be done? What’s the story?
Let us take a quick run through what non-violence has achieved, who were the main players in applying this philosophy and what lessons can we draw for current conflicts. Non-violence does not mean passivity or inaction. It does not mean following laws blindly, simply because there are just and unjust laws and the latter are patently worth protesting against. Non-violence simply means that the participants abjure the use of violence and violent confrontation to solve problems or achieve their objectives. The typical non-violent techniques range from refusal to pay taxes, sit-ins, civil disobedience, filling jails, refusing to purchase articles, boycotts, demonstrations, strikes etc.
In the last century, there have been four main apostles of non-violence namely: Mahatma Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi of India, Martin Luther King Jr. of USA, the Dalai Lama of Tibet and finally Nelson Mandela of South Africa. There have been plenty non-violent movements which have overthrown governments lately and while there were no recognised leaders for them, they were successful, such as with the velvet revolution in Hungary, Iran and more recently in Georgia. Surprising, eh? The word “revolution” brings to mind the bloody revolution in France and the sadly frequent revolutions in South America, Cuba, Russia and so on and so forth. Most of the independence movements have a fair amount of violence involved. USA is a case in point, 200 odd years ago, and some of the recent ones, such as Algeria, were extremely bloody. Look at the countries which have become independent in the past 1-200 years and you’ll notice that most of the leaders have been military leaders.
I do not have to delve deeper into what the Dalai Lama, Gandhi, King and Mandela did, as what they did is very well known. Gandhi used non-violence as a way to deliver independence to India, King used non-violent techniques to push forward the civil rights campaign in the USA, while Mandela used non-violence as a way to remove the despicable apartheid from South Africa. At this point, I should refer to the essential difference between the state and the general public. The general public is not allowed to use violence, only the state reserves the right to use and apply violence. This is the cornerstone of civilisation. In most cases this works, as the general public understand the laws and punishment are there to protect them from anarchy and societal breakdown. But in some cases, the contact between the state and the general public breaks down. This can be because of many reasons, either the public feels that the laws are unjust, or their aspirations are not met, or their essential freedoms are not allowed etc. This can arise from the general public as was the case in India, or from a particular minority such as in the case of African Americans in USA or a majority which is put upon by a minority such as in Rwanda, Bangladesh, South Africa and Kosovo.
There does not seem to be any pattern behind cases where non-violence can be always applied or violence is always successful. For example, I cannot see how non-violence can or could be used in the case of fighting against the Nazi’s. When there is overwhelming force being applied and there is a danger of extermination, simply using non-violence may not just be appropriate or sufficient. In addition, one has to recognise the ground reality. If the opposing party is very heavily armed and is using these arms in a very forceful way, then resisting in a non-violent way will not work. The basic concept of non-violence works in a much longer time perspective. Gandhi had to work with non-violence for decades before it wore down the British enough to decide to leave. King had to struggle for years and decades to achieve the civil rights aims, while Mandela had the same long term path to furrow. That is the beauty of violence, if I may call it that. Violence produces results in a much shorter time period. The results may be good or bad, but definitely results are produced. Non-violence requires patience and even so, the results may not turn out exactly the way one expected. The Uighur rebels in Xinjiang Province in China know what this means and so do the Tibetan exiles in Dharmshala, India.
If one looks at the current world hot-spots, Afghanistan, Iraq, Palestine, Chechnya, almost all have been inflicted with huge doses of violence, and this too over decades and centuries. They have been fighting against something or other for aeons. Let us look at some examples like Palestine, Sri Lanka, Kashmir and Chechnya. The reason for selecting them is that it is relatively straight forward. We have a minority fighting for independence/freedom against a majority. All have seen suicide bombing and religion is involved. Palestine has Muslims against Jews, Sri Lanka has Hindus against Buddhists, while Chechnya has Muslims against Christians or atheists. Kashmir is mainly Muslims against a secular state in a Hindu Majority country. Each country is relatively small, and the current “problem” is of relatively recent provenance, even though the roots may lie in the mists of antiquity. Palestine’s problems went violent about 50 years ago, Sri Lanka about 30 years ago, while Chechnya went violent about 15 years ago.
Russia wants to keep Chechnya for various reasons. The funny thing is that neighbouring internal Russian republics such as Ingushetia and others got defacto independence by working internally within the system. But Chechnyans picked up the gun and were obliterated, not once but twice. Palestine and Israel were born out of the WW2 violence, while Sri Lankan Tamil Hindu’s picked up their arms after their attempts to get political representation and non discrimination failed. Kashmir erupted into flames when the twin hydra’s of Islamic militancy and Indian political corruption met together.
Can non-violence be adopted in these cases? Can they achieve their political goals using non-violence? What are the factors that are required? One of the major factors behind usage of non-violence is that there has to be a major figure involved in the entire campaign. This ‘leader’ has to be almost larger than life, almost saintly, with absolutely titanium sheathed belief and capable of excellent communications. They have to strike a chord with their people, appeal to them across a broad base. Not only that, but their message and their personality have to cut across all kinds of barriers. They have to appeal to not only their people, but also to people outside their immediate group. Given the innate tendency of people to become violent to get their results, this leader has to be extraordinary to convince his people to work against their natural instincts. “Violence breeds violence” is a term frequently used. Standing on a non-violent basis against the violence wrecked by the other side takes a far greater amount of courage than just reacting back with violence. Look at the examples we selected, Arafat is a corrupt man who made his cojones by propounding violence, Prabhakaran is also a violent man, Chechnya doesn’t really have any visible leaders right now and finally, Kashmir doesn’t have any leaders to speak off after Sheikh Abdullah died.
Secondly, the sheer impact of religion in this business influences is to a great extent. Jihad, for whatever the apologists and purists say, is simply fighting for your rights. Whatever the difference between greater or lesser Jihad, for somebody to be non-violent towards their oppressors is simply not done. The concept of non-violence does not sit easily with Islamic culture, where rights were won by the sword most of the time or not at all. While this is not the case in Sri Lanka, it was simply a way that the Tamils (who, by the way, are a pretty irreligious lot) went after the Buddhist army, which they found very effective. Mix in the Buddhist strictures against killing of any nature, and you find a weapon that is extraordinarily effective. Thirdly, non-violence won’t work for nations who don’t have any limits to the level of violence that you can use. Non-violence can only work in countries who value peaceful measures or have limits against violence. When you have countries which are prepared to go to any lengths to protect the state’s power, then it is tough to put in a non-violent approach.
Finally, non-violence would not work where the media is not free. The power of non-violence is mainly based on the ability to take the message to the masses and to outside parties. If the publicity is not available to transmit sometimes gruesome images of the state massacring peaceful, non-violent protestors, then it will not work, because then there is no pressure on the violent state. If we look around the examples which I mentioned, the press is heavily censored in each of those areas. Perhaps Palestine is the most exposed, but it is still very much controlled.
How will the state react? If the people manage to get a non-violence campaign going, the chances of them succeeding in achieving their political goals is very high. Why do I say so? Because the state operates on the basis of political processes and violence towards people who do not follow the state’s laws and strictures. If the people refuse to participate in the political process and overwhelm the violence aspect with non-violence, then the state does not know how to react. The state does not have any other ‘weapons’. Hannah Arendt, US political philosopher wrote in her book, Crisis of the Republic, saying: “Power and violence are opposites; where the one rules absolutely, the other is absent. Violence appears where power is in jeopardy, but left to its own course it ends in power’s disappearance.” Most of these people have tried violence, perhaps it’s time for non-violence to be given a chance, even though I am rather doubtful and cynical whether this can happen there.
All this to be taken with a grain of salt!
(Dr Bhaskar Dasgupta, currently working on a doctorate at Kings College in International Relations and Terrorism, also holds a Doctorate in Finance and Artificial Intelligence from Manchester Business School. He works in the City of London in various capacities in the Banking Sector. He also lectures at several British Universities.)
