Today is Dussehra - the day of the victory of good over evil. Today is also Gandhi Jayanti – the birthday of Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi. These days the nation is echoing with the fundas of ‘Gandhigiri’ from the recent Bollywood flick Lage Raho Munnabhai. The movie has done a real good job of illustrating how Gandhiji’s philosophy can be applied to social reform and civil disputes. Indeed Gandhiji himself said that ‘Independence of the nation is just a part of my Goals – the actual objective is the freedom of the individual’.
Nevertheless, Satyagraha is a political tool and its proponents argue that it is much superior to other forms of warfare because it ‘ensures’ a ‘permanent’ victory over the enemy. However, of late there have been many claims that Satyagraha and non-violence are no more practical tools and cannot be employed in the present day political scenarios.
Opponents also argue that the success of Satyagraha against the Raj in India was primarily due to the fact that the British were ‘worthy’ opponents who (at least in principle) propounded that they wanted to run a ‘just’ government in India (and South Africa). The sustained uses of violence post the WW-II in liberation movements from Ireland to Kosovo, has seemingly given credence to these arguments.
However, one cannot take limited examples to support any facts; further one cannot overlook how violence has failed to deliver desired results from Vietnam to Sri Lanka. But then the question arises, whether non-violence has succeeded in the same or not?
While the Indian Freedom struggle, South African freedom movement, and Martin Luther King’s civil rights movement happen to be the most popularised campaigns based on non-violence, the more recent ones are movements in East European countries and Russia which led to the fall of Soviet Union and the unification of Germany. Being political struggles not directed against any dynasty and/or imperial power, these movements are often overlooked. Nonetheless, in all these cases the change of governance systems and leaderships has indeed been effected by civilian campaigns without any bloodshed but the in-effect these campaigns were as effective as any military coup.
Satyagraha has demonstrated that is the slower but surer way to 'victory' - Vijay.
Nevertheless, Satyagraha is a political tool and its proponents argue that it is much superior to other forms of warfare because it ‘ensures’ a ‘permanent’ victory over the enemy. However, of late there have been many claims that Satyagraha and non-violence are no more practical tools and cannot be employed in the present day political scenarios.
Opponents also argue that the success of Satyagraha against the Raj in India was primarily due to the fact that the British were ‘worthy’ opponents who (at least in principle) propounded that they wanted to run a ‘just’ government in India (and South Africa). The sustained uses of violence post the WW-II in liberation movements from Ireland to Kosovo, has seemingly given credence to these arguments.
However, one cannot take limited examples to support any facts; further one cannot overlook how violence has failed to deliver desired results from Vietnam to Sri Lanka. But then the question arises, whether non-violence has succeeded in the same or not?
While the Indian Freedom struggle, South African freedom movement, and Martin Luther King’s civil rights movement happen to be the most popularised campaigns based on non-violence, the more recent ones are movements in East European countries and Russia which led to the fall of Soviet Union and the unification of Germany. Being political struggles not directed against any dynasty and/or imperial power, these movements are often overlooked. Nonetheless, in all these cases the change of governance systems and leaderships has indeed been effected by civilian campaigns without any bloodshed but the in-effect these campaigns were as effective as any military coup.
Satyagraha has demonstrated that is the slower but surer way to 'victory' - Vijay.
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