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Anurag Gangal,
Director,
Gandhian Centre for Peace and Conflict Studies,
Department of Political Science,
University of Jammu,
Jammu – 180006,
Jammu and Kashmir,
INDIA.
I
Introduction: Holistic Security
Can there ever be an enduring sense of security “as a living fact” for all
individuals in this world replete with recurring experiences leading to
innovations and acts of mass destruction through terror, mishaps and
cold blooded, planned or schematic onslaughts against humanity at
large?
As such, Gandhi’s view of security for both an individual and a state can
be have meaningful only through certain inter-related measures taken by
the world community of nations over a period of time. These measures
are:
2
֠ Global conventional and nuclear disarmament.
II
Security without Weapons
Peace and development through security are the essence of modern conception
of security. Instead, for Gandhi, security is possible through peace and development only.
The major difference in these two views is primarily that of emphasis.
The Gandhian perspective considers security as a natural corollary of
development and peace. It is not weapons and machines but pulsating
human beings who are of real significance. Everything else is secondary.
An inherently ever widening twenty-first century contradiction and
security predicament is there in available stockpiles of weapons
providing a peculiar sense of security replete with threats of complete
human extinction. Modern security is possible through mutual assured
destruction (MAD). What a dilemma it is! This trend shows a specific
direction of thinking. This needs transformation. That is why Barash and
Webel say:
3
“natural state.” The human condition – whether
to wage war or to strive to build an enduring
peace – is for us to decide.2
There are quite a few masterly works by Gandhi and his commentators
anent his views on discipline, life style, political, military and economic
decentralisation, stateless society, development, peace and a federation
of nations leading to security, i.e., social, military, political, legal,
economic and ecological etcetera. A two volumes study by M. K. Gandhi,
Nonviolence in Peace and War; Gopinath Dhawan’s The Political
Philosophy of Mahatma Gandhi; H. J. N. Horsburg’s Nonviolence and
Aggression: A Study of Gandhi’s Moral Equivalent of War; S. C. Gangal’s
Gandhian Thought and Techniques in the Modern World; Joan
Bondurant’s Conquest of Violence: The Gandhian Philosophy of Conflict;
4
Johan Galtung’s “A Gandhian Theory of Conflict”, in David Selbourne
(Ed.), In Theory and Practice: Essays on the Politics of Jayaprakash
Narayan and Gene Sharp’s Gandhi as Political Strategist: With Essays on
Ethics and Politics are a few noted and well known works throwing ample
light on Gandhi’s concept of conflict, security and peace. It is primarily
on the basis of these studies that an attempt is being made here to
recapitulate major pointers in the area of Gandhi’s nonviolent conception
of security, conflict, peace and development.5
5
Bigger, more developed, developed, militarily and otherwise very
powerful great powers or superpower countries constituting the
outer sphere.
As Gandhi says, in this global security buffer design, there will be:
6
It [nonviolence] is of universal applicability.
Nevertheless, perfect nonviolence, like Absolute
Truth, must forever remain beyond our reach.8
Such simple but effective steps can be taken up at the level of Central
and State Governments only when India has evolved a defence policy.
These simple Gandhian solutions to complex current tangles certainly
need spirited and sincere long-term initiatives for transforming prevalent
meta-conflict orientation towards a belief that despite continued
struggles, conflicts, war and weapons of mass destruction-peace and
nonviolence as a way of life are practical options. Despite mass violence
and increasing crime graph, we are all living a nonviolent life in our
routine affairs.
(i) What we need is merely to think and act in the most common and
obvious terms. We are not doing it anent resolving our more
serious and potentially volatile conflicts.
(ii) This is possible even in this age of globalisation. We are also not
opting for nonviolent ways when most of the nations and majority
of population in the world are reeling under one or the other type of
overt, covert and subtler exploitation in politics, trade and mass media.
(iii) We must learn to sit together like common human beings without
attaching unnecessary airs to our own persons.
7
in ‘Gandhi's nonviolence a possible antidote to
the massive violence unleashed by the fission of
the atom’.
III
Security Dilemma
8
predicament. Nations and statesmen and nations are bound to ignore it
for they have to act otherwise. Security for peace is relentlessly negating
its purpose. Amassing of WMDs, terrorism of different types including
nuclear terrorism further proves this glaring logic and reality. No state
has ever achieved the security it desires without becoming a menace to
its neighbours.
Apart from ‘genuine’ concerns about security needs of a state, there are
other reasons also leading to ever widening arms race. They are all
practical pointers to national leaders’ strong belief in military might as
their only real protection when they are facing an irritating and hostile
opponent:
9
Terrorist groups having their own share from state-of-the-art
weapons.
IV
Nonviolent Security Pointers
10
This is a contradiction in terms. There can be no
non-violence offered by the militarily strong….
What is true is that if those, who are at one time
strong in armed might, change their mind, they
will be better able to demonstrate their
nonviolence to the world and, therefore, to their
to their opponents. Those who are strong in
nonviolence will not mind whether they are
opposed by the militarily weak or the
strongest.13
11
Alas, in my swaraj of today there is room for
soldiers…. I have not the capacity for preaching
universal nonviolence to the country.18
12
ideas are currently being propagated and discussed by internationally
acclaimed authors and statesmen alike even if they are apparently not so
much directly influenced by Gandhi.
Gandhi is one with former United States (US) President Bill Clinton’s
statement: “ the central reality of our time is that the advent of
globalisation and the revolution in information technology have magnified
both the creative and destructive potential of every individual, tribe
and nation on our planet.” 27
Security of every individual citizen of the world today has its globalised
dimensions too. Ever new weapons, trading and economic network
unfolding newer and subtler exploitative ways of human comforts,
mutual destruction and domination. This is an ever-accelerating trend of
modern “civilisation”. Gandhi, going much beyond Bill Clinton, finds in
this civilisation:
13
…. As men progress,… [they] will not need the
use of their hands and feet…. Everything will be
done by machinery.
Real holistic security for Gandhi is possible only through Panch yama of
Patanjali, i.e., nonviolence (ahimsa), non-stealing (astaeya), Truth
(Satya), non-possession (aparigraha) and chastity (brahamcharya).
Global though sectoral reformation programme for regeneration of every
individual is needed for balancing the negative effects of the process of
globalisation.
14
Press and media have a very significant role in this sphere. Media, for
Gandhi, must be having unmistakable autonomy and self-reliance with
little dependence on advertisement revenue.
3. Goals and means not imposed from above but developed from
within.
4. Equality for all. As such every nation must feel as tall as the
tallest.
6. General disarmament.
7. Unilateral disarmament.
15
Such a blue print should be the guiding spirit of present-day quest for
security and globalisation. In this security perspective, the individual has
specially a two-fold significance for Gandhi.
For evolving such a normal course of life, a Global Education Order must
be established through value-related and need based education. Nearly
all aspects of human life are to be covered in this programme ranging
from material, moral, emotional and cultural to spiritual needs of the
individual. The individuality, creativity, identity and voluntary efforts
have to be the fundamental terms of reference in the launching of such a
global education order.
16
practice unless authority in a community has been decentralised to the
utmost extent possible.”27
17
To reject foreign manufactures merely because
they are foreign, and to go on wasting national
time and money on the promotion in one’s own
country of manufactures for which it is not
suited would be criminal folly, and a negation of
the Swadeshi spirit.33
1. Army, Navy, Air Force, Police and other related forces may be
there in the absence of a general belief in the power of
nonviolence.
18
3. Security without weapons is necessary as an ultimate aim. It is
inherent and increasing sense of insecurity that goes for
weapons. Real security is when one does not even have to think
of armaments. That means a very positive and healthy security
environ.
19
the greatest possible extent.
V
Conclusion: Whither Security
Several thousand people are being massacred daily in the world today.
This is quite a war like situation on a larger plane. This is no small
matter when it relates to precious human life of so many global citizens.
Every human life is as precious as the life of all other individuals. It is
not only weapons, wars and terrorists but also diplomatic instruments of
peace are also singing the ‘cacophony’ of violence. That is why T.
Schelling says:
This “diplomacy of violence” is not the only concern of security in this age
of globalisation and emerging “global village”. Major security dimensions
are there in varied areas of rising human needs and expectations such as
(i) threats to political stability of different regimes, (ii) operational aspects
of democracy, (iii) widespread terrorism for avowed self-determination,
20
(iv) ethnic crises, (v) economic exploitation and determinism, (vi) political
and economic violence, (vii) expanding frontiers of security and threat
perception of modern states, (viii) widespread economic deprivations, (ix)
dangerous fallout of modern technology, (x) population imbalances,
(xi) widening gamut of corruption in higher echelons of economic and
political power, and (xii) poverty, (xiii) unemployment and (xvi)
proliferation of armaments etcetera.
In the light of these major security threats, Gandhi suggests that there
are four pillars of a peaceful Gandhian world order:
It should be nonviolent.
What Gandhi is emphasising here relates very closely to the well known
UNESCO aphorism that says:
21
References and Notes
1 Harijan, 29 September 1946.
2 David P. Barash and Charles P. Webel, Peace and Conflict Studies, Sage Publications,
3 Ibid. p. 3.
Ahmedabad, Third Edition, 1948; M. K. Gandhi, Nonviolence in Peace and War, Volume
– II, Navajivan Publishing House, Ahmedabad, First Edition, 1949; Gopinath Dhawan’s
The Political Philosophy of Mahatma Gandhi, Navajivan Publishing House, Ahmedabad,
1957; H. J. N. Horsburg’s Nonviolence and Aggression: A Study of Gandhi’s Moral
Equivalent of War, OUP, London, 1968; S. C. Gangal’s Gandhian Thought and
Techniques in the Modern World, Criterion Publications, 1988; Joan Bondurant’s
Conquest of Violence: The Gandhian Philosophy of Conflict, Princeton, 1958; Johan
Galtung’s “A Gandhian Theory of Conflict”, in David Selbourne (Ed.), In Theory and
Practice: Essays on the Politics of Jayaprakash Narayan, OUP, New Delhi, 1985 and
Gene Sharp’s Gandhi as Political Strategist: With Essays on Ethics and Politics, Boston,
1979.
6Pyarelal, Mahatma Gandhi: The Last Phase, Ahmedabad, Navajivan Publishing House,
1958, Volume – II, pp. 580 – 581.
12
Harijan, 12 May 1946. Raghavan Iyer (Ed.), The Moral and Political Writings of
Mahatma Gandhi, Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1986, pp. 448 – 450.
13 Ibid.
14 Ibid.
15 Ibid.
16 “Disarmament and Development”, Gandhi Marg, New Delhi, May – June 1982.
18 M. K. Gandhi, Nonviolence in Peace and War, Op. Cit., n. 5., Volume – I, p. 28.
22
20 Harijan, 21 June 1942.
21 Harijan, 22 June 1935 and 15 September 1946; M. K. Gandhi, Hind Swaraj or Indian
Home Rule, Navajivan, Ahmedabad: 1938), p. 08, Preface by Mahadev Desai. See also
Raghavan Iyer (ed.), The Moral and Political writings of Mahatma Gandhi: Truth and Non-
violence, Volume – II, (Oxford, London: 1986), pp. 212 – 214., Parentheses and
Emphasis added.
25M. K. Gandhi, Nonviolence in Peace and War , Op. Cit., n. 5., Volume – I, Chapter – II
and pp. 145, 324. See also S. C. Gangal, The Gandhian Way to World Peace (Vora,
Bombay: 1960), pp. 100 – 101.
30 M. K. Gandhi, op. cit. , n. 5., Volume – II, pp. 163 – 164. Emphasis added.
32 Quoted in Ram K. Vepa, New Technology: A Gandhian Concept (New Delhi: 1975), p.
170.
33 From Yervada Mandir ( Navajivan, Ahmedabad: 1933), p. 96 – 97.
35 Ibid., p. 96.
36T. Schelling, “The Diplomacy of Violence”, in R. Art and R. Jervis (Eds), International
Politics, fourth edition, Harper Collins, New York, 1996, pp. 168 – 182.
37
UNESCO Preamble
23