Mahatma Gandhi: The Experiment Between Violence and Nonviolence

Mahatma Gandhi did not leave a tome of theory but a model of experimentation that is available to us, thus placing this dialectical drama between violence and nonviolence beyond the realm of myth and into history. The time is opportune to understand his process before he passes on to the pantheon; he still is a man with his fallacies and pitfalls, trying to scale the raging tsunamis of emotions with his reason and benevolence.

Mahatma Gandhi knew that ‘History is a record of discord and not harmony,’ and that is what he was creating—harmony within and without. He realised that confrontation between emotional urges and will is a waste of energy, and the war between the conscious and unconscious can be won only by incessantly modulating the latter to the tune of the will. He experimented at the micro but expanded to the macro, from the individual to the cosmic. Traditional yet radical, ascetic yet worldly, political yet saintly, Gandhi walked many such tightropes in his life simultaneously, but his continuous struggle was in the duel between violence and nonviolence—even his struggle with sexuality was subsumed in it.

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Mahatma Gandhi accrued labels ranging from ‘stupid’ to ‘seditious,’ ‘Mahatma’ to ‘Bapu’ from his admirers and detractors. He himself could have been his best biographer even beyond his ‘experiments with truth.’ His life was full of focus yet inconsistent (that he himself explained and urged—his latest version on any issue should be believed), always evolving in thought—a sign of rationality, a deep believer yet not an idol worshipper, traditionalist yet ready to reject the irrelevant from scriptures, believing in the division of labour (varna in the orthodoxy of India) yet against the hierarchy of caste, and many other contradictions.

He indeed symbolised Walt Whitman’s poetry lines—

Do I contradict myself? Very well then I contradict myself, (I am large, I contain multitudes.)……

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Mahatma Gandhi: A Journey From Fear to Freedom and Nonviolence

Gandhi's angst and suffering in his struggle were no less than Buddha’s or Krishna’s or of anyone who has ever stepped out of his/her selfish survival to change the world selflessly. In his case, it was a journey from a fearful, anxious, mediocre existence to a fearless old man, from a colonial subjugate to a self-ruled man, who had defined Swarajya in a modern context. He not only self-actualised but mutualised; he took along depressed masses with him and infused self-respect and dignity in the great experiment in South Africa and then India.

Mahatma Gandhi experimented, expanded his area of concern to the last man, faltered, fell, yet took each beating as a lesson to emerge as the Gandhi we know at the ripe old age of 60. Gandhi knew the fallacy and the destructive power of violence, so his choice of non-violence was a well-thought-out strategy but required a human effort. He knew that Indians may erupt in spurts of rage and engage in violent acts, but given the guilt-ridden psyche of the nation from ancient days, neither would they be able to tolerate emotions nor the retaliatory violence from the state.

Socio-politically, he was out to redeem the glory, but not by a delusional extolling of past virtues, but by transforming the deep psyche to what is of universal value—sacrifice, tolerance, love, and sharing, the pillars that had sustained India through centuries of domination. But all this without hatred, even towards the enemy. The world indeed was looking with wonder at the India of Gandhi’s time. His movements came at a gap of a decade—non-cooperation in the 1920s, the Salt March in 1930, and Quit India in 1942. A close observation shows the behaviour of people who grew not only more non-violent but more tolerant and sacrificing (satyagraha, charkha, dispossession, and truth got infused into that generation), for Gandhi was connected to all—rich and poor, elite and rustic, urban and rural. His India was for all, but his insistence was on sharing and forming a continuous gradient between people irrespective of caste, gender, or wealth (his trusteeship may have failed, but he is alive in today’s philanthropy as he is in all modern non-violent struggles).

Probably the 2-3 decades of his life in India may have been the best for the mental health of the country as the energies were channeled towards freedom and constructive programs. Gandhi knew the thin line between relative and absolute truth, how God can make people fight, but each one’s truth can be a God. He knew the biological rage and aggression of survival and self-centered biology, but he also realised the potential of altruism beyond those for kin, extending to the enemies (indeed his opponents too received love from him, barring a few like Churchill, Jinnah, and later fanatics. But his first major adversary, Gen Smuts, even received sandals made by him).

Mahatma Gandhi was aware of spikes of rage and lust, but also the structural violence in society that never allowed people autonomy or the realisation of their potential. This subsequently generated further violence in minds, expressing itself in oneself even before it hurts the other, often leading to cruelty in the fight for social dominance. This is what he wished and worked to change, a model that worked for India and will work for the human race if applied and experimented with.

He was in the lineage of great thinkers and mystics like Kabeer, Nanak, Buddha, and the pragmatic Krishna—utopian, idealist, or idiosyncratic, depending on the lens one chooses. This is exactly the lineage Vinayak Savarkar uses in defining Hindu but without Gandhi. He includes Buddha but criticises him for ahimsa and the subsequent Muslim and Mughal invasions that India could not respond to. He ignored that India survived despite these invasions and subjugation because of tolerance and held Gandhi responsible for emasculation. It was a delusion that the Hindu Mahasabha and later RSS held, trying to create an alternative imagined reality of Hinduism (even against their own grain from Golwalkar, who explained it by an invisible feeling and thread). The militant and aggressive Hindu was an imagination derived from a partial reading of elite ancient and medieval history that never talked of the people.

They pointed at Gandhi’s inconsistencies but forgot the relative understanding of the man who would have allowed an army without war and violence to protect but not cruelty. One simple question they had to answer was—Why didn’t India aggressively liberate itself before Gandhi? But to find an answer, one needs an intention of reconciliation, even that was Gandhian expertise. So they resorted to violence and his murder.

Gandhi and Savarkar’s differences on violence and nonviolent ways had started much before he wrote Hind Swaraj. But not only Savarkar; the priestly class and the princely class, who were in positions of power, hated Gandhi because the uprising and awareness of the masses were threatening their comfort. The status quo of the priest was challenged as he got the temple opened for untouchables and dissolved the princely states. Even the Muslim zamindars created Pakistan to rule over the masses. He had to die not as a man but as a symbol of what was good and inclusive in humanity.

Not only the right but the left also disagreed with him on the issue of violence, without realising that he had experimented in communes long before the revolution. If the right hated him as an elite, the left did so with a different view of justice for the masses. The same untouchables that he fasted for hated him because of Ambedkar’s anti-Gandhi stance. Godse shot him, and then the country killed him every day. The world was expecting a different way of living, but India chose the same path that never allows peace to the human mind.

The opposite thoughts of Gandhi, Savarkar, and socialism were the options for the country at the time of Independence. Gandhi was slowly relegated to tokenism; under the surface of socialism, a militant Hindu image and Muslim hatred kept simmering, with both sides refusing to reconcile. We are now in the first quarter of the 21st century, living with a divided mind full of gaps that cause violence. If partition was a hate-filled spurt of violence, it is more structural now, with hearts reflecting hatred.

In a wider perspective, Gandhi’s experiment of non-violence in India was unfolding while another experiment in violence was raging in the world—Adolf Hitler. The world had a choice even then. But do we learn as victims become perpetrators and the infinite cycle continues in reactionary and systematised violence that threatens to pervade daily life and heighten the uncertainty? The fear gets enhanced and leads to more violence and injustice.

Worldwide, hatred seems to be taking over despite improved economic conditions. The gaps in minds are increasing in the face of better, or over, communication. These gaps are the seeds of violence.

We would not expect Mahatma Gandhi the person to be alive now, but Gandhi the thought, the deep spiritual philosophy, is never dead. As long as we are hurting each other and violence is systematised, as long as we wish for peace and care, we need to revisit him, to train ourselves in empathy at the least. For the future may bring more inequality.

Homo sapiens wish to be Homo Roboticus or Homo Empathicus—that is the choice.

Choice is autonomy.

About the Author

Dr. Alok Bajpai is a psychiatrist trained at NIMHANS, Bangalore, currently practicing in Kanpur after several stints abroad. In addition to his clinical work, he has a consistent focus on children, adolescents, and youth, and is affiliated with various institutions and schools. His work extends beyond the clinic into freelance teaching on mental health issues and life skills. Psychiatry, physics, film, music, literature, and teaching are among the many interests that occupy Dr. Bajpai’s diverse world. He has played a crucial role in organizing numerous awareness campaigns and workshops, particularly in schools, and has trained teachers to enhance sensitivity toward childhood issues in many Indian cities.

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