Nonviolence

“ Over the past few years I have consistently preached that nonviolence demands that the means we use must be as pure as the ends we seek. I have tried to make clear that it is wrong to use immoral means to attain moral ends. But now I must affirm that it is just as wrong, or perhaps even more so, to use moral means to preserve immoral ends. ”

“ But much of the present pacifist argument in favor of non-violence is based rather upon its expediency. Here, we are told, is a means of social action that works in achieving the social goals to which pacifists aspire. Non-violence provides a moral force which is more powerful than any physical force. Whether it be used by the individual or by the social group, it is, in the long run, the most effective way of overcoming evil and bringing about the triumph of good. The literature is full of stories of individuals who have overcome highwaymen, or refractory neighbors, by the power of love. ”

“ But why then, so many vigorous arms to make an end of one dying man? Why these outcries? this fury? this violence? Is it thus that the people, the strong and equitable people, are wont to execute their judgments? No, no; when sure of their right, they strike their enemies, it is with the calmness of the judge, who, in freedom of soul and conscience, passes sentence. No, the strong and equitable people do not deal their blows like men blind or mad, uttering cries of rage, as if to drown the sense of some cowardly and horrible murder. ”

“ We are gradually emerging from the night of blind prejudice and of brutal force; and, day by day, rational liberty and cultivated refinement, win an accession of power. Violence yields to benevolence, compulsion to kindness, the letter of law to the spirit of justice; and, day by day, men and women become more willing, and better prepared, to entrust the most sacred duties (social as well as political) more to good feeling and less to idle form—more to moral and less to legal keeping.
It is no question whether such reform will come: no human power can arrest its progress. ”

“ The means we have adopted is to declare a hartal from which all violence should be excluded. We have adopted the doctrine of non-violence after great deliberation. We believe that it is the only way of success. ”

“ So that however sad it is to say so, the only explanation of the non-understanding of the significance of the principle of non-resistance to evil by violence consists in this, that the conditions of human life are so distorted that those who examine the principle of non-resistance imagine that its adaptation to life and the substitution of persuasion for coercion would destroy all possibility of that social organisation and of those conveniences of life which they enjoy. ”

“ I am endeavoring to show to my countrymen that violent non-cooperation only multiplies evil and that as evil can only be sustained by violence, withdrawal of support of evil requires complete abstention from violence. Non-violence implies voluntary submission to the penalty for non-cooperation with evil. I am here, therefore, to invite and submit cheerfully to the highest penalty that can be inflicted upon me for what in law is a deliberate crime and what appears to me to be the highest duty of a citizen. ”

“ There should be no violence in the country. The Government officials are provoking the people in many ways. Courage, patriotism and regard for duty all demand that we should remain non-violent even in the face of the gravest provocation. There is every danger that at the present moment violence might lead to internal dissension, which is bound to ruin us. I, therefore, with the utmost respect and sincerity of purpose, urge on my countrymen to restrain their feelings. ”

“ One can see why those in power say that without employing violence there can be no order, or decent life, meaning by the word ‘order’, that structure of life wherein the minority can indulge in excess through the labor of others, and by ‘decent life’, the lack of any impediment to leading such a life. However unjust what they say is, one can see that they are able to speak thus because the suppression of violence would not only deprive them of the possibility of living in the way they do, but would expose all the age-old injustice and cruelty of their life. ”

“ Is violence or total surrender the only choice open to any people to whom Freedom or Justice is denied? Violence at a time when the whole world has learnt from bitter experience the futility of violence is unworthy of a country whose ancient people's privilege, it was, to see this truth long ago. ”

“ Non-violent methods pursued with the same commitment and vigor would be just as likely to succeed in the immediate situation as violence, without bringing in their train the tremendous human suffering attendant upon violence. More important is the fact that a social order based upon consent is more stable than one based upon coercion. If we are interested in the long range results of action, non-violence is much more likely to bring about the new society than is violence, because it fosters rather than destroys the sense of community upon which any new social order must be founded. ”

“ The truth is that love of power is a formidable factor to be reckoned with, and those who secure that power by violence will retain that power by violence. The use of violence degenerates them who use it and it is not easy for them, having seized the power, to surrender it. And they find it easier to carry on the work of their predecessor, retaining their power in their own hands. Non-violence does not carry with it that degeneration which is inherent in the use of violence. ”

“ Perhaps political violence was necessary to man’s former existence, perhaps it is still necessary now, but people cannot help seeing, and foreseeing, a way of life where violence can only interfere with peaceful existence. ”

“ But the fact that you ruin thou sands of men in prisons, fortresses, galleys, and exile, break up millions of families and ruin millions of men, physically morally, in the army, that fact is not an imaginary but a real act of violence, which, according to your own argument, one ought to oppose by violence. And so you are yourselves these wicked men against whom, according as well as to your own argument, it is absolutely necessary to use violence," the oppressed are sure to say to their oppressors. ”

“ In this atmosphere of force and violence, of authority and obedience, of duty, fear and punishment we all grow up; we breathe it throughout our lives. We are so steeped in the spirit of violence that we never stop to ask whether violence is right or wrong. ”

“ Non-violence is the underlying principle which has been put forward by Mahatma Gandhi in the clearest possible manner and with the clearest possible conviction. It is the very essence, the very centre of the whole movement. ”

“ Whence is it, I ask, that the peaceable inhabitants of the country are left a prey to violence and rapine? Why do we daily hear of riots, massacres, and other atrocities committed without number? And why is it so difficult to repress these offences, and to punish the guilty? ”

“ Non-violence.—Mahatma Gandhi had insisted on Non violence as an essential feature of the movement and it was this insistence which had kept the people in spite of the great upheaval and the great indignation from committing acts of violence. ”

“ Intolerance, the spirit of violence, are at work among the extremists on both sides, both narrow-minded and ignorant, both asking for trouble, both believing in force rather than in argument, arbitration, and law. In England, by the grace of God and long tradition, there is between these two extremes a great body of middle class, moderate, reasonable, and steady opinion which is the safeguard of the nation against all violent revolution. ”

“ Although, I freely acknowledge that the leader of the movement to paralyse authority, persistently, and, as I believe, in all earnestness and sincerity, preaches the doctrine of non-violence and has even reproved his followers for resorting to it, yet again and again it has been showed that his doctrine is completely forgotten and his exhortations absolutely disregarded when passions are excited as must inevitably be the consequence among emotional people. ”

“ They have organized hate and violence. They use force not only in secret, but in broad daylight. I have seen how they use it on the human body, its life and health, imposing monstrous and destructive tasks on human beings! ”

“ Our non-violence must not breed violence, hatred or ill-will.
“If we approach our program with the mental reservation that, after all, we shall wrest power from the British by force of arms, then we are untrue to our profession of non-violence. ... If we believe in our program, we are bound to believe that the British people are not unamenable to the force of affection, as they undoubtedly are amenable to the force of arms. ”

“ Thanks to this reform, we might again see the State triumphing by the hand of the executioner.
Proletarian acts of violence have no resemblance to these proscriptions; they are purely and simply acts of war; they have the value of military demonstrations, and serve to mark the separation of classes. Everything in war is carried on without hatred and without the spirit of revenge: in war the vanquished are not killed; non-combatants are not made to bear the consequences of the disappointments which the armies may have experienced on the fields of battle ”

“ In the cases of non-violence by necessity the purposes of the resisting groups were defensive and negative, designed to induce the withdrawal of the invader rather than to induce him to follow actively a different policy.
In this section we are concerned with the action of groups designed to modify the conduct of others in order to promote their own ideals. We are concerned with people who presumably have a possible choice of methods to accomplish their purposes. They might rely upon persuasion and education of their opponents through emotional or intellectual appeals ”

“ And so, those who, like the working populace, believe in the lawfulness of the existing structure of society, as too the so-called educated people who try, either gradually or by revolutionary processes, to change the existing order, believe equally in the necessity of violence as a chief weapon for structuring society. ”

“ In social change or interchange, we find violence to be abhorrent because it requires generally the transformation of the target, be it a human being or a community of people, into a depersonalized object of hate. It is imperative that the means of violence be abolished and the institutions--local, national, international--that encourage non-violence as a condition of conflict be developed. ”

“ The judge of everything, the fundamental force which moves men and nations, has always been the one invisible, impalpable force,—the resultant of all the spiritual forces of a certain aggregate of men and of all humanity, which is expressed in public opinion.
Violence only weakens this force, retards, and distorts it, and puts in its place another activity, which is not only not useful, but even harmful for the forward movement of humanity. ”

“ This latter consideration gives a great advantage to the practitioners of non-violence, since in our own day people generally are disposed to oppose violence, or at least "unlawful" violence, and to sympathize with the victims of violence, especially if they do not fight back. A definite commitment on the part of the reformers not to use violence may go far toward winning the initial support of the group neutral in the conflict. ”

“ This is the crucial factor which, I submit, utterly destroys the doctrine that the use of violence is in itself wrong. The right or wrong is not in the employment of force, but simply in the purpose for which it is used. ”

“ The contradictions of consciousness and the resulting wretchedness of life have reached the extremest point, beyond which it is impossible to go. The life which is built up on the principles of violence has reached the negation of those very principles in the name of which it was built up. The establishment of society on the principles of violence, which had for its aim the security of the personal, domestic, and social good, has led men to a complete negation and destruction of this good. ”

“ But I am convinced that it cannot bring the desired relief to the dumb millions. And the conviction is growing deeper and deeper in me that nothing but unadulterated non-violence can check the organized violence of the British Government. Many think that non-violence is not an active force. My experience, limited though it undoubtedly is, shows that non-violence can be an intensely active force. It is my purpose to set in motion that force as well against the organized violent force of the British rule as [against] the unorganized violent force of the growing party of violence. ”

“ The decision of the resisters to use non-violent means of opposition to gain their ends may be based either upon principle or upon expediency. In the former case they would say that the purposes they have in mind would not be worth attaining if their achievement were to involve physical violence toward other human beings; in the latter they would act on the basis of the conclusion that in view of all the factors involved their purposes could best be served by avoiding violence. ”

“ There can be no reconstruction or hope for this land of ours, unless we eradicate the worship of force in all its forms, and establish work on a basis other than violence. A refutation of the doctrine of violence is, in the present situation of the affairs of our country, more necessary than ever. ”

“ Non-violence demands the strictest honesty, cost what it may. The public have therefore to suffer my weakness, if weakness it be. I could not be guilty of asking the Allies to take a step which would involve certain defeat... ”