Gandhi and Liberalism

Satyagraha and the Conquest of Evil

Vinit Haksar

• Publisher: Routledge India
• Year: 2017
• ISBN:
  9781351593205
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Sociology
• Index: Social Sciences

One of the main themes running through Gandhi's life and work was the battle against evil. This book offers a fascinating reconstruction of Gandhi and the doctrine of Ahimsa or non-violence. Gandhi's moral perfectionism is contrasted with other forms of perfectionism, but the book stresses that Gandhi also offered a doctrine of the second best. Following Gandhi, the author argues that outward violence with compassion is intrinsically not as good as non-violence with compassion, but it is a second best that is sometimes a necessary evil in an imperfect world. The book provides an illuminating analysis of coercion, non-co-operation, civil disobedience and necessary evil, comparing Gandhi's ideas with that of some of the leading western moral, legal and political philosophers. Further, some of his important ideas are shown to have relevance for the working of the Indian Constitution.

This book will be essential for scholars and researchers in moral, legal and political philosophy, Gandhi studies, political science and South Asian studies.

Part I

1
Violence in a Spirit of Love

Gandhi and the limits of non-violence^*

This chapter considers how Gandhi’s Law of Ahimsa (or non-violence) can be reconciled with the necessity of violence; some of the strategies that Gandhi adopts in response to this problem are critically examined. Gandhi was willing to use (outward) violence as an expedience (in the sense of necessity) but he was opposed to using non-violence as an expedience. There are two versions of Gandhi’s doctrine. Gandhi makes a distinction between outward violence and inner violence. Both the versions of his doctrine grant that outward violence is often necessary and must be administered with compassion. On the more demanding version outward version is never justified, not even when it is necessary; it is at best excused or pardoned. On the less demanding version outward violence under certain conditions is justified.

We saw in the introduction that Gandhi provided us with a two-pronged strategy for dealing with evils. He provided us with an ideal of absolute non-violence towards which we must move in the long run but he also provided us with a second best which may be needed in the short or medium run. This second best includes the use of outward violence when that is a necessary evil and he stressed that the long-term strategy must never be lost sight of even when we resort to outward violence. The long-term solution involves going to the root causes of the evils. But as we saw he interpreted this in a way that does not abandon the use of violence against the evil-doer when that is necessary. For instance, he supported the 1947–48 war against Pakistan. However, in the case of civil disobedience as we shall see in the second part of this book, he did not compromise with his view that there should be no violence, neither outer nor inner.

Gandhi was once asked if it is ever possible to administer violence in a spirit of love. His reply was an emphatic ‘No. Never’. I suggest that sometimes we may have to administer violence in a spirit of love (or at least compassion) and that in an important sense Gandhi’s philosophy does allow for this possibility, at least as a second best. Of course, Gandhi’s reply does have an initial plausibility: violence is terrible while love is wonderful and is typically associated with non-violence. But we shall see that things are more complicated, even as an interpretation of Gandhi; his views on non-violence were in effect, less extreme and more complex than those who greatly influenced him, such as Christ and Tolstoy. Unlike the extreme pacifist, Gandhi was aware of the necessity of violence and killing. But he was sometimes unaware of the complexity of his own views. A person is not an infallible interpreter of his own philosophy!

Gandhi distinguished between outward or bodily violence and inward violence. Outward violence involves the actual infliction of injury on the victim. Inward violence involves harbouring hatred or ill will or malice towards others. On the standard interpretation of Gandhi (the demanding version), both forms of violence are always wrong: ‘Non-violence is both an attitude of mind and action consequent upon it. No doubt, there is life in vegetables. But the taking of vegetable life is inevitable. But it is none the less destruction of life. Only it may be regarded as excusable.’¹ For Gandhi Ahimsa did not just consist in the absence of violence; it was a positive state that involved love, even of the evil-doer.² He rejected the doctrine that the ends justify the means. For Gandhi since violence is always evil, it can never be justified however good the alleged results. This creates a problem. For as Gandhi was aware violence is sometimes necessary or unavoidable in life even against human beings. The Gandhian answer is to say that expediency in the sense of necessity never justifies the use of evil means, but it can sometimes excuse or pardon the use of evil means.

Gandhi admits that his message of non-violence is as old as the hills. What is distinctive about his approach is that he stresses the power of compassion, suffering and self-sacrifice as a method of promoting this aim; and the use of non-violence as a creed as opposed to a convenient policy or expedience. These two features are connected in the sense that one should passionately practise non-violence in all spheres of life and such dedication involves self-sacrifice. Those like Gandhi who believe in non-violence as a creed do so because they believe that they have a duty to follow the non-violent ideal to the best of their abilities in all areas of life. The power of non-violence, which includes the wonderful transformative consequences of non-violence, comes from a duty-based adherence to non-violence in all spheres of life. The voluntary suffering, the self-sacrifice and the adherence to truth of the Satyagrahis, rooted in love or compassion, moves the oppressors to change their ways and sets an example for all.

Gandhi rightly conceded that ‘outward violence’ is sometimes unavoidable. Those who regard non-violence as a creed must keep outward violence to a minimum, when necessary by voluntary suffering and self-sacrifice. Gandhi explicitly talks the language of violence in the spirit of compassion. When violence is unavoidable it ‘must be spontaneous, must be the lowest minimum, must be rooted in compassion, must have discrimination, restraint, detachment at its back, and must lead us every moment to the path of Ahimsa’³ (italics mine). And to the path of Satya (or truth), he might have added.

He attributed the failure of many non-violent movements to the fact that they were dominated by opportunists who used non-violence as an expedient device in a specific area such as non-cooperation with the rulers. In a nutshell, Gandhi was willing to use (outward) violence as an expedience (in the sense of necessity) but he was opposed to using non-violence as an expedience. This is a perfectly plausible and coherent position.

He associated violence with revenge or retaliation and thought violence breeds violence in a vicious circle; in the long run the only way out of this circle is to follow the ideal of non-violence. Non-violence too is infectious but the circle here is a virtuous one. Non-violence is the law of our being, it encourages through the power of example, non-violence in the opponent and the spectator. The sincere suffering and sacrifices of the practitioner in the practice of Ahimsa opens the eyes of the understanding of the opponent through the heart.

His non-violence is closely linked to Satyagraha (i.e. holding on to the truth) and compassion for the opponent.⁴ The parties to the dispute do not claim to have the monopoly of the truth, they appreciate the opponent’s point of view and engage in a dialectical search for the truth with the opponent; unlike violence which at best leads to a temporary settlement based on a modus vivendi. An important advantage of non-violence over violence (e.g. capital punishment, terrorism) is that when the practitioners are mistaken, the cost and the suffering are borne by the practitioners, not the opponent. Gandhi sometimes (not always!) forgets that this consideration alone provides at best a presumption in favour of non-violence, the presumption may be defeated, for instance, if and when there are lives of innocent third parties at stake, which are in imminent danger unless we resort to violence. In his moderate moments, he grants that the use of even manslaughter can sometimes be necessary to protect innocent people from an aggressor.

Gandhi thought that non-violence was the law of our species and violence was the law of the brute; violence is against the law, not the man-made law but ‘the law made by Nature for man’.⁵ The relationships of non-violent love are much more fundamental and commonplace in human evolution than violence and antagonism. If this were not the case, he says in Hind Swaraj, the human race would have perished ages ago.

He believed that violence was evil in itself and in its results and that non-violence was good in itself and in its results. He thought that violence, at least in its outward form, involved injuring or harming the victim of violence. He included psychological injuries as part of injuries. Injuries involve pain, suffering, disablement, death, etc.; so we can see the plausibility of the view that violence is inherently evil. He believed in the sanctity of life and thought that harming a person or indeed any sentient being was never justified unless it was for the good of the victim or with the consent of the victim.⁶

It is sometimes suggested that Gandhi allows exceptions to the view that violence is always wrong and never justified. He frequently said that though non-violence was the best morally speaking, when the choice is between cowardice and violence, violence is preferable: ‘if you cannot act non-violently, you should defend yourself violently rather than be cowards. But the ability to die smiling at the hands of a brother without retaliation, physical or mental, is the highest bravery’.⁷ However this is not necessarily an exception to the view that violence is always wrong; it could be that though violence is not as bad as cowardice, it is still wrong; it is at best the lesser of the evils. This is the standard interpretation of Gandhi as we shall see in the next chapter.⁸

Perhaps one way of reconciling the absolute non-violent view with the view that there have to be some exceptions in practice would be as follows: According to Gandhi the law of non-violence does not admit of exceptions, so violence is indeed always wrong and never justified. Given human limitations and imperfections some amount of violence is necessary and unavoidable, but the ideal of non-violence ‘must not be lowered because of our weakness or imperfection’.⁹ For Gandhi the law of non-violence was an ideal, but it also contained the principle that violence was always wrong. The ideal of non-violence by itself does not imply that departures from non-violence are necessarily morally wrong; the principle against violence does. Gandhi derives this principle from the principle of the sanctity of life,¹⁰ which in some version or the other is at the basis of many civilized legal and moral codes.

The need for violence

Gandhi sometimes justifies killing but never violence: ‘the good use of violence is inconceivable’,¹¹ the law of non-violence admits of no exceptions. He says he has ‘never permitted violence. The only thing lawful is non-violence’.¹² This extreme view has to deal with the objection that violence is often necessary. Gandhi sometimes (in a humorous vein) called himself a crank but he was quite different from the typical crank who refuses to consider difficult cases for his views.

Gandhi admits that even killing is sometimes justified on paternalistic grounds: ‘Should my child be attacked with rabies and there was no helpful remedy to relieve his agony, I should consider it my duty to take his life.’¹³ He allows mercy killing of animals also; such cases are not really cases of violence in the evil sense, since they are motivated by compassion; and they do not involve harm to the victim. He even considers the objection that on his view it would follow that Indians could kill their English rulers and justify it on the grounds that to do so would be good for the soul of the English rulers since their death will prevent them from doing evil, which is a fate worse than death. Gandhi replies (see Hind Swaraj) that such arguments involve self-deception since the real motive for killing the English was not to promote their good. He might have added that there are other better ways of promoting their good.

The really difficult cases for Gandhi’s doctrine of non-violence are cases where we need to use violence against the aggressor in self-defence or in order to protect innocent third parties from the aggressor. Typically, in the case of using violence against the aggressor, the aggressor is injured and harmed; that is why such cases present more of a problem for Gandhi than cases of justified paternalism. He thinks we should love even our enemies and he takes this to imply that we must not harm anyone, not even our enemies. He was against violence in the sense which involves harm or injury. For Gandhi a necessary condition of justifying the use of intense force, as in killing, is that we attempt to benefit rather than harm the individual against whom the force is used. He criticized the revolutionary for killing or robbing people not for their own good but ‘for the supposed good of society’.¹⁴

But there is a problem here for Gandhi. Gandhi rightly admits that sometimes there is a need to inflict outward violence to protect innocent third parties. Could the revolutionary not say that he too can appeal to this necessity, especially when the state fails to perform its function of ensuring the security and welfare of its citizens? Gandhi was against the use of violence as a means for social and political change. But the revolutionary could complaint that he too believes in the need to inflict violence as a lesser of the evils, not for self-interested reasons but in the interests of innocent victims of social injustice.

Admittedly, much of terrorist and revolutionary violence is motivated by hatred, revenge or malice. But what if the revolutionary gets converted to the view that he should only administer violence when it is motivated by love or compassion? Such a revolutionary will resort to violence with great care. The danger involved to third parties must be clear and present and the violence should be essential for substantially reducing this danger. Robbery (à la Robin Hood) includes violence or the threat of violence but it may sometimes be necessary when all other options have failed. But killing people in order to establish a utopia in the future is much more controversial even from a purely consequentialist point of view. As so often happens with violent revolutions, the hope for utopia remains a dream. This is one of the several reasons why the Isis terrorists are deeply misguided.

Perhaps, there would be more scope for optimism if the revolutionaries administered violence in a spirit of love or compassion. Violence with love may not have much of the wonderful transformative effects pure non-violence has, but it is less likely than violence without love to lead to the brutal cycle of violence. Violence with love can preserve some (not all) of the important features of Gandhian Satyagraha, such as adherence to the truth. If we go in for war or for violent resistance to a regime, one should admit one is liable to make mistakes and try to create opportunities for a just solution to the problem with the opponent. Bhagat Singh is an example of a violent revolutionary who, especially towards the end of his short life, was moving in the direction of combining violence with compassion. After throwing the bomb in the legislative assembly he gave himself up volu...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• Copyright
• CONTENTS
• Acknowledgements
• Introduction
• PART I
• PART II
• Index