|
Ahimsa, not arms
The advertisement issued by the department of
information and broadcasting, government of India, on Gandhi Jayanti day is
mischievous
The minister
of information and broadcasting, government of India issued an advertisement
on 2nd October 2003, in
almost all newspapers in which Gandhi was quoted as having said: “I would rather
have India resort to arms in order to defend her honour than that she should in
cowardly manner become or remain a helpless witness to her own dishonour.”
We were
horrified to see the advertisement issued by the government of India on Gandhi
Jayanti, quoting Gandhi on the need to take up arms rather than suffer
dishonour. The mischievous intent of the advertisement is obvious. Given its
preoccupation with reinventing histories to suit its agenda and the discomfort
of living with the internationally-famed Gandhian legacy of non-violence, it is
no surprise that the present government should choose a line from Gandhi’s
writings, totally removed from its context, to prove that even the great Apostle
of Peace endorsed violence in the name of nationalism.
The quote used
in the advertisement is a line from Gandhi’s article in Young India dated August
11, 1920, titled, ‘The Doctrine of the Sword’. The article was written by Gandhi
in the wake of countrywide violence following the passing of the Rowlatt Bills
and the Jallianwalla Baug massacre in 1919, and centred on the call for
non-cooperation from August 1, 1920. It sought to explain his concept of
non-violent non-cooperation, and the spirit of non-violence itself. The article,
unlike its misrepresentation by the line used in the advertisement, is devoted
to the real possibility of non-violence as a political strategy, and its moral
significance.
The opening
sentence of the article reads: “In this age of the rule of brute force, it is
almost impossible for anyone to believe that anyone else could possibly reject
the law of the final supremacy of brute force.” Gandhi goes on to explain how
violence can be resorted to where there is only a choice between cowardice and
violence. However, the real intent of the article is made clear in the sections
following the line quoted in the advertisement issued by the government on
Gandhi Jayanti: “But I believe that non-violence is infinitely superior to
violence.”
Gandhi goes on
to explain how violence is resorted to by the helpless, whereas the people of
India should not see themselves as being helpless. The advertisement could just
as well have quoted his other famous lines in this article: “I am not a
visionary. I claim to be a practical idealist. The religion of non-violence is
not meant merely for the rishis and saints. It is meant for the common people as
well. Non-violence is the law of our species as violence is the law of the
brute. The spirit lies dormant in the brute and he knows no law but that of
physical might. The dignity of man requires obedience to a higher law, to the
strength of the spirit; or, I am not pleading for India to practise non-violence
because it is weak. I want her to practise non-violence being conscious of her
strength and power. No training in arms is required for realisation of her
strength. We seem to need it because we seem to think that we are but a lump of
flesh. I want India to recognise that she has a soul that cannot perish and that
can rise triumphant above every physical weakness and defy the physical
combination of (the) whole world.”
Perhaps the
most apt quotation that could have been used to honour Gandhi in these
conflict-ridden times would have been one of the closing lines from the same
article: “India’s acceptance of the doctrine of the sword will be the hour of my
trial.” More than 80 years later, this is precisely what is coming about: we
seem to be accepting the doctrine of the sword, subverting Gandhi’s ideals to
legitimise an agenda of violence. That this is now being done even through an
official agency of the government like the department of I & B, is a shame and a
tragedy. Gandhi could only have grieved if he were alive today.
(The above
statement was issued jointly by human rights activists Rohit Prajapati, Nandini
Manjrekar, Anand Mazgaonkar, Johannes Manjrekar, Trupti Shah, Deeptha Achar on
October 4, 2003).
|
