Happy New year to you all. I just returned from India.
Meaning of Mahatma Gandhi's wording “Satya graha " cannot just be nonviolence or Ahimsa. Satyagraha has to be more than Ahimsa. Ahimsa is generally seen as not intentionally inflicting physical pain or killing other living creatures. Gandhi was indeed influenced by his family who were vegetarians like most Hindu families. Gandhi went further, beyond the concept of Ahimsa. When he was in South Africa, he witnessed how the British treated him and fellow Indians and searched for an answer to fight the mighty British. It appears Russian author Tolstoy did influence him a great deal. He was also after Truth. Gandhi’s idea of rigorously seeking and practicing truth was much more than Ahimsa. By coining the word Satyagraha, Gandhi took the concept of non violence to a much higher level, it was not just a theory, and he started to put this in to action and forcefully practicing it. Satyagraha literally means “Truth in an aggressive action”. This truth in action drove the British out of India.
Let me explain how I viewed this:
I guess most Hindus think of nonviolence as not inflicting pain or killing any animals. Himsa is intentionally inflicting suffering on another living creature. There is no question this is indeed a noble thing to do. But I wonder how good is good enough to be violence free? How about intentionally killing some nuisance flies or mosquitoes? How do we explain animal sacrifice or Yagas in the ancient times? People could not be that barbaric then. How did Pandavas justify in killing Kauravas or Rama justified in killing Ravana? I know these people were mean violent people and had to blown away from the face of the earth. But once we have a standard of non violence how can we justify violence in ANY form? How about capital punishment? In so called civilized societies like US and India, how can we justify capital punishment? Violence cannot be just killing some human or animal. How about emotional or psychological violence that happens among relatives and friends almost in every home much more than physical violence we see on TV or media? Sometimes people in this forum alone (perhaps including me) abuse our opponent calling their views “Rubbish” “nonsensical’ “trash” etc…Don’t those amount to subtle psychological violations? My question is how good one has to be good enough to remain nonviolent in any form? My point is there is no easy answer. I guess MK Gandhi must have considered these and I do not know whether he thought of the short comings of the idea of pure nonviolence.
To me it appears Ahimsa as I described above was very little to do with Gandhi’s struggle for freedom.
I love his term ‘Satyagraha’ (True Force). In truth he said “I recognize no one as my enemy on the face of the earth. In the dictionary of satyagraha, there is no enemy. It calls for the strength and courage to suffer without retaliation, to receive blows without returning any”
For me these statements do not make any sense. If some one hurts I want to hurt him/her back. He also humorously said Eye for an eye makes everyone blind and tooth for a tooth makes every one toothless ! Gandhi not only found this radical truth, he also put this into action. Not only he went to jail several times, he also made his followers to take repeated blows from the enemy. Wasn’t that insane or not? It goes very opposite to the human nature. Isn’t that amazing this wild thing was put into practice and made the mighty British no match for this little skinny brown man? It was indeed unbelievable. Sad thing was his acceptance (not tolerance!) of people of all religions alike was too much for some people of his own faith; he was killed in cold blood.
So, this Gandhian work was not some Dharma duty of not killing animals, but to resist the enemy courageously without raising a hand and hitting the enemy right in his heart and to waken his/her false moral superiority. I do not think this was ever tried in the human history. This is the biggest contribution India has made to this world and we should be very proud of it.
Gandhi’s work was soon followed by ML King in US. His work in American Civil right movement is fascinating. As an immigrant in US , I am deeply indebted to MLK for his work. I suggest people especially living in US and Canada make time to visit MLK’s museum in Memphis TN. I guarantee it would be a humbling experience.
King said “Gandhi resisted evil with as much vigor and power as the violent resister, but he resisted with love instead of hate. True pacifism is not unrealistic submission to evil power. It is rather a courageous confrontation of evil by the power of love.”
Love....................VC [/font]
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