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Mahatma Gandhi
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mahatma_Gandhi
Mahatma Gandhi Google VideosMohandas Karamchand Gandhi was a major political and spiritual leader
of India and the Indian independence movement. He is commonly known
around the world as Mahatma Gandhi or "Great Soul". He is officially
honored in India as the Father of the Nation - his birthday
commemorated there as Gandhi Jayanti, a national holiday, and
world-wide as the International Day of Non-Violence.
Nonviolence
Although Mahatama Gandhi was in no way the originator of the
principle of non-violence, he was the first to apply it in the
political field on a huge scale. The concept of nonviolence (ahimsa) and nonresistanceThe Story of My Experiments with Truth. He was quoted as saying:
"When I despair, I remember that all through history the way of
truth and love has always won. There have been tyrants and murderers
and for a time they seem invincible, but in the end, they always fall —
think of it, always."
"What difference does it make to the dead, the orphans, and the
homeless, whether the mad destruction is wrought under the name of
totalitarianism or the holy name of liberty and democracy?"
"An eye for an eye makes the whole world blind."
"There are many causes that I am prepared to die for but no causes that I am prepared to kill for."
In applying these principles, Gandhi did not balk from taking them
to their most logical extremes in envisioning a world where even
government, police and armies were nonviolent. The quotations below are
from the book "For Pacifists."
The science of war leads one to dictatorship, pure and simple. The
science of non-violence alone can lead one to pure democracy...Power
based on love is thousand times more effective and permanent than power
derived from fear of punishment....It is a blasphemy to say
non-violence can be practiced only by individuals and never by nations
which are composed of individuals...The nearest approach to purest
anarchy would be a democracy based on non-violence...A society
organized and run on the basis of complete non-violence would be the
purest anarchy
I have conceded that even in a non-violent state a police force may
be necessary...Police ranks will be composed of believers in
non-violence. The people will instinctively render them every help and
through mutual cooperation they will easily deal with the ever
decreasing disturbances...Violent quarrels between labor and capital
and strikes will be few and far between in a non-violent state because
the influence of the non-violent majority will be great as to respect
the principle elements in society. Similarly, there will be no room for
communal disturbances....
A non-violent army acts unlike armed men, as well in times of peace
as in times of disturbances. Theirs will be the duty of bringing
warring communities together, carrying peace propaganda, engaging in
activities that would bring and keep them in touch with every single
person in their parish or division. Such an army should be ready to
cope with any emergency, and in order to still the frenzy of mobs
should risk their lives in numbers sufficient for that purpose.
...Satyagraha (truth-force) brigades can be organized in every village
and every block of buildings in the cities. [If the non-violent society
is attacked from without] there are two ways open to non-violence. To
yield possession, but non-cooperate with the aggressor...prefer death
to submission. The second way would be non-violent resistance by the
people who have been trained in the non-violent way...The unexpected
spectacle of endless rows upon rows of men and women simply dying
rather than surrender to the will of an aggressor must ultimately melt
him and his soldiery...A nation or group which has made non-violence
its final policy cannot be subjected to slavery even by the atom
bomb.... The level of non-violence in that nation, if that even happily
comes to pass, will naturally have risen so high as to command
universal respect.
In accordance with these views, in 1940, when invasion of the
British Isles by Nazi Germany looked imminent, Gandhi offered the
following advice to the British people (Non-Violence in Peace and War):
"I would like you to lay down the arms you have as being useless for
saving you or humanity. You will invite Herr Hitler and Signor
Mussolini to take what they want of the countries you call your
possessions...If these gentlemen choose to occupy your homes, you will
vacate them. If they do not give you free passage out, you will allow
yourselves, man, woman, and child, to be slaughtered, but you will
refuse to owe allegiance to them."
In a post-war interview in 1946, he offered a view at an even further extreme:
"The Jews should have offered themselves to the butcher's knife. They should have thrown themselves into the sea from cliffs."
However, Gandhi was aware that this level of nonviolence required
incredible faith and courage, which he realized not everyone possessed.
He therefore advised that everyone need not keep to nonviolence,
especially if it were used as a cover for cowardice:
"Gandhi guarded against attracting to his satyagraha movement
those who feared to take up arms or felt themselves incapable of
resistance. 'I do believe,' he wrote, 'that where there is only a
choice between cowardice and violence, I would advise violence.'"
"At every meeting I repeated the warning that unless they felt that
in non-violence they had come into possession of a force infinitely
superior to the one they had and in the use of which they were adept,
they should have nothing to do with non-violence and resume the arms
they possessed before. It must never be said of the Khudai Khidmatgars that once so brave, they had become or been made cowards under Badshah Khan's
influence. Their bravery consisted not in being good marksmen but in
defying death and being ever ready to bare their breasts to the
bullets."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mahatma_Gandhi
