Gandhi's Non-Violence as a Tactic Author(s): Robert E. Klitgaard Source: Journal of Peace Research, Vol. 8, No. 2 (1971), pp.

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Gandhi's Non-Violence as a Tactic

ROBERT E. KLITGAARD HarvardUniversity

I. Introduction

The recent centenary of Gandhi's birth has rekindled an interest in his theory of satyagraha, usually translated as 'non-violent resistance'. Glowing eulogies elevating Gandhi to near the stature of a saint simultanously praise his very this-worldly use of non-violent techniques for social and political change. Satyagraha is often seen as the hope of the future, a long-awaited means of peaceful conflict resolution. There is no denying that satyagraha has been successful. Yet the question of why and how satyagraha works has not been dealt with analytically.' How could such a tactic work at all in this era of so-called power politics? How can a group get what it wants by inflicting punishment not on the enemy but on itself? What are the analytic features of satyagraha as a tactic? These questions are important, for even if Gandhi the saint cannot be analyzed (or even imitated), perhaps Gandhi the tactician can. This paper will use two-party conflict models to analyze why satyagraha is successful as a practical technique. In addition to exploring some of the analytic features, it will attempt to specify some psychological and social aspects of satyagraha's success. Finally, it will endeavor to make a judgement of satyagraha as a tactic: is non-violent resistance really the hope of the future? 2. Two-party conflict: An example Let us assume that there are two parties in conflict and that each has two courses of action. To say that the parties are in conflict is to say that each party's choice affects the result of the other party's choice and that their interests are at least partially opposed. That is, if party A chooses course of action I, B might

then choose i; but if A chooses course of action II, B might be better off choosing ii, given that both players are attempting to maximize their own payoffs. We can see the situation best, perhaps, via the matrix model of game theory. Let the upper right-hand number in each of the four cells represent A's pay-offs and the lower left-hand number B's pay-offs.2 Then we might have the matrix in Fig. 1 to represent a conflict situation. Here we see that if A chooses between his courses of action before B, B's choice will depend on which one A has chosen. (If A chooses I, B should choose i because his pay-off for I, i is 2 and for I, ii is 1; if A chooses II, B should choose ii because II, ii yields him 2 while II, i yields only 1.) Likewise, if B is able to choose before A, A's course of action will depend on B's choice. As an example, let us imagine two rival businesses in the process of deciding where to put their next franchise in a given town. Each knows that the other is going to open a unit, too; each wants to be away from the other in order to avoid having his competition right next door. Suppose there are only two choices, the north end of town and the south end, and suppose the north end is a better market as far as this business is concerned. The conflict facing the two rivals is: who gets the northern location? Both can't get it, because two businesses there would not provide as much profit for either firm as one in the south would (though both together might have more profit than either alone). The matrix might be the one shown in Fig. 2. The question of who 'chooses first' is crucial. If A can begin building in the north before B, he in effect chooses first, and B may reckon that A can no longer afford to move to the south just because B begins to build in the north alongside him. So, given A's 'choice' of the north course of action, B will build in the

144

Robert E. Klitgaard

A
l

II

r
B
ii

-2
2 1 1

-i
0

1
Fig. 1.

south (because 2 is better than 1). A's being the first to build is the equivalent of taking the first move and, consequently, 'wins' him the desirable northern site. Note why A's maneuver is successful in 'choosing first'. It commits him to a certain course of action. By building in the north, A in effect is lowering his own pay-off for his south course of action; he is saying, in effect, that if he now builds in the south, his pay-off there will be even lower because the expense already undertaken in the north will be for naught. And it is this which makes B realize that A cannot now build elsewhere: B is consigned to the south because A has credibly committed himself to the north. Another way A might get the desirable northern location is by threatening B - saying, in effect, that he would somehow greatly lower B's pay-offs if B were to build in the north. Then B might reckon it would be better to build in the south anyway, since the desirability of the northern site would be more than counterbalanced by the negative effect of A's threatened action. The key to the success of A's threat is making B believe that A will carry it out. This may be a difficult task, since actually carrying out the threat will inevitably be costly to A, too (the cost of the bomb, etc.). To make such a threat credible, especially when it involves a significant cost to the threatener to carry it out, may involve appearing irrational in terms of the pay-offs: that is, appearing to believe that the pay-off numbers don't matter. Then A may say, credibly. 'I shall pursue course of action I no matter

what', forcing B to choose an action which he would not otherwise wish to undertake. It turns out that a credible threat can best be made by lowering one's own pay-offs in the unthreatened course of action. That is, if A threatens I, it helps if he lowers his own payoffs for II. This makes B understand that even if A is not irrational, even if the pay-offs do matter to him, it is now rational for A to do only I. Thus, lowering one's own pay-offs may be the key to a successful threat and the consequent attainment of the outcome one desires. To make more than one credible threat, however, appearing irrational from the point of view of the pay-offs may be more important than the device of lowering one's own pay-offs in the unthreatened course of action. For, over repeated plays of the same sort of game as Fig. 2, B will begin to understand the mechanism of lowering pay-offs and will counter with similar maneuvers of his own. To avoid this counter-tactic, A must see to it that B believes that A s motivation is not strategic but a matter of (non-economic) principle. When B believes that A doesn't care about maximizing pay-offs, then any strategic ploys B himself might try will seem to B to be in
vain.

A perfect threat, then, steals the first move in a game like Fig. 2 and thereby yields the optimal result for the threatener. It involves convincing the opponent that the course of action I is the only real choice one has, because one is motivated by higher principles (economic irrationality) andl/or because one lowers oth-

A
North
I

South
1

North
1 B 13

3
South
Fig. 2.
,e '

Gandhi's Non-Violence as a Tactic er pay-offs, thus making it irrational even from the point of view of pay-off maximizing to do other than I.3

145

Citizen (Gandhi)
(obey) (don't)
--3

3. Aspects of Gandhi's saryagraha: conflict models 3.1 Disobeying an unjust law: a commitment and a threat Let us now examine Gandhi's satyagraha by means of this sort of two-player model. The two players in our first archetypal game are Gandhi (and his followers) and the government. The choices of action will vary from instance to instance, but they will fall into something like the pattern in Fig.3. Let us discuss this matrix, cell by cell. Suppose this is the case of a citizen (Gandhi) who believes he must disobey an unjust law and a government which feels it must enforce the laws. The upper left-hand cell represents the best result for the government, where it enforces the law (a positive pay-off) and the citizen obeys it (occasioning no negative pay-off for the government via the expenses of incarceration and so forth). In the case of a just law, the citizen's pay-off (here -1) might well be positive, for the citizen would realize that laws provide for his own welfare. In the present example, however, the citizen feels that to obey the law is bad. The -1 is circled because the value of this pay-off is crucial as to which action will be taken. The upper right-hand cell is the worst box for both players: Gandhi and his followers will be punished for disobeying the law, and the government will have the cost of carrying out its 'threat' of enforcing the law plus the disutility of a number of citizens refusing to participate in the body politic. The -2 circled is a crucial variable. Its magnitude will depend on the extent of the disobedience and the nature of the government (these will be discussed at length below). The lower left-hand cell is irrelevant, since it is quite unlikely. (The -2 for the citizen is predicated on the assumption that if laws are not enforced for other citizens, it would be
5. J. P. R.

i
2

(9"o

(enforce) Government

1
-2 2
-

ii
(don't)
Fig. 3.

economically foolish for one to follow the law.) Finally, the lower right-hand cell represents the best outcome for the disgruntled citizen, for he forces the government not to enforce an objectionable law and he does not have to obey it. The -1 for the government occurs because it is presumably forced to take costly steps in changing the law. This matrix is pregnant with strategic possibilities. If either player can steal the first move, he can assure his optimal pay-off. The government, by its very nature as enforcer of the law, has a standing commitment to i. But the citizen also has room to maneuver. If he can credibly commit himself to II, he makes the government choose between a -2 pay-off (for 'enforce') and a -1 (for 'don't enforce'); if the government is a pay-off maximizer, it is rational for for it not to enforce. Can the citizen make a credible commitment? Can he believably threaten to disobey the law? We saw in Fig. 2 how credibility is established by appearing 'irrational' from the point of view of the pay-offs. One means to this end is to make the choice of action appear to come from higher principles. It also helps, we saw, to lower the other pay-offs to make the committed action appear to be the only one possible. Gandhi's satyagraha did both things. First, satyagraha was derived from 'higher principles'. It was not just a politically expe-

146

Robert E. Klitgaarmd Our model shows why this seemingly pointless martyrdom can be the best of hard-nosed strategies because of its ability to make credible commitments and threats.

dient, strategic tool; it was a religion, a sacred cause, a way of life. Insofar as Gandhi could expound this philosophy, live it in his own life, and connect it with Indian religious thought, he could make his commitments and threats credible. By his ascetic denial of mundane economic pleasures, he could make it felt that his actions were motivated by higher principles and not by pay-off considerations. Thus, Gandhi's actions appeared to be irrational from the point of view of the pay-offs; yet their close connection with deontological norms made this 'irrationality' eminently understandable. It terms of our model, this occasioned a perfect threat and consequently obtained the maximum pay-off for the seemingly irrational citizen who 'didn't care about the pay-offs'. Second, Gandhi's self-denial and self-inflicted suffering acted, in our model, to lessen the threatener's own pay-offs, thereby making threats even more credible. Suffering by the threatener was the key. 'Satyagraha', wrote Gandhi, 'is self-suffering and not inflicting violence on others.' 'For satyagraha and its off-shoots, Non-Cooperation and Civil Resistance, are nothing but names for the law of suffering', Gandhi said.5 Suffering by the protesting citizen would influence the entire atmosphere within which the conflict took place: 'The basic assumption of Satyagraha (is) that self-sacrifice releases psychological and physical energies which influence the sufferer's surroundings and contemporaries.'6 Not only was it clear from this that no threat of punishment would impede the satyagrahi in the pursuit of his goal, but also through self-inflicted suffering the unthreatened course of action was made to appear an unattractive alternative for the satyagrahi. Instead of action designed to reduce the pay-offs of the opponent in this situation, satyagraha reduces one's own pay-offs. James E. Bristol comments: It is important to bear in mind that nonviolent action does not mean the absence of violence, nor the acsence of anguish and suffering, but that the agony involved is taken upon one's self and not visited upon an opponent.7

3.2 Gandhi's fasts as coercive threats Gandhi also employed a second sort of threat. After he became a popular symbol throughout India and the world, he often went on fasts which compelled his opponents to act quickly and as he pleased, or else have his death on their hands. These fasts committed Gandhi to a course of action and left the next move and the responsibility for his life - to the opponent. Thus, the other player's choice was not just one of issues and their 'pay-offs', but one of life or death for a great man. In this way, Gandhi's fasts greatly affected the opponent's pay-offs. The effect of the fasting strategy on Fig. 3 is shown in Fig. 4. Gandhi is saying, in effect, 'Do ii or my death will be on your hands'. To the opponent this action appears irrational, for Gandhi is risking the large negative pay-off of death; but Gandhi's character and previous actions made even this commitment credible. And Gandhi's large following made government responsibility for his death a very undesirable pay-off indeed. Thus, as a pay-off maximizer, the government must avoid the -10 pay-off assured by i and follow Gandhi's instructions to do ii. This type of action is markedly different from that in Fig. 3. In Fig. 3 Gandhi could

Gandhi
I 11

-1 -10
Government

-3 -10

-2 ii
Fig. 4.

-1

Gandhi's Non-Violence

as a Tactic

147

commit himself to disobedience by lowering his own pay-offs. This made the threat to disobey credible and 'stole' the first move. Here the threat is directly coercive: it threatens to give the opponent negative pay-offs if he does not do as one says. Instead of stealing the first move for himself, Gandhi in effect eliminates one of the other's moves. This may only be effective if there is veiled violence waiting - if Gandhi died, the results would not just be massive mourning but some form of retaliation against the state by his grief-stricken followers. The mechanism of this second sort of threat is not that Gandhi was fasting for a principle or that he was reducing his own pay-offs, but that the opponent's pay-offs were directly altered: once Gandhi could connect his expiration with the opponent's action (or lack of action), he had a coercive tool of great power. Thus, while Gandhi's 'irrationality' made his fast till death credible, it was the effect of the opponent's responsibility for his death that distinguished this sort of satyagraha as a coercive threat. The opponent could not afford to let him die.

Gandhi Trust Don't 1 Trust

1 -1

Opponent -1 Don't 2
Fig. 5.

'0

3.3 The Prisoners' Dilemma There is one more analytic feature of satyagraha to consider. Gandhi felt that the pay-offs in a particular conflict are subordinate to vastly more important considerations, even from a maximizing point of view. Gandhi was not so much concerned (at least, sometimes he was not)8 with the strategic outcome as he was with what would happen after a particular solution was reached. Would winning a shortrun 'game' hurt the winners in the long run? Would attaining power bring all that was desired or needed? For Gandhi, what mattered was how the game was played, how the opponent felt about his antagonist after the game was over. Or, to put it in another way, every tactical situation could be viewed as a choice between trusting or not trusting one's opponent. This attitude can be illustrated by Gandhi's advice for proper play in the matrix in Fig. 5.

This is the famous 'Prisoners' Dilemma'. If both players trust each other, both will be rewarded. If neither trusts, neither will benefit. But if one trusts the other and the other violates this trust, the other may be able to gain even more than if both trusted, while the one who trusts will be penalized even more than if both don't trust. Gandhi felt that, regardless of consequences, one should always trust. 'A Satyagrahi bids goodby to fear. He is never afraid to trust the opponent. Even if the opponent plays him false twenty times, the Satyagrahi is ready to trust him the twenty-first time...' Gandhi said in 1907.9 He was willing to risk the -1 pay-off in order to make the optimal 1,1 solution possible. If all men trusted, we would have no more non-optimal solutions to 'Prisoners' Dilemmas'; thus, it is my obligation to trust. This is a model of the kind of argument Gandhi also applied to non-violence and love. In our terms Gandhi was arguing that satyagraha was the way to long-run optimality.

4. Social and psychological aspects of successful satyagraha A great deal can be learned from examining these formal models of non-violence. But, like most non-zero-sum games, we cannot merely 'compute' the result of the game. As has been hinted all along, the psychology of the parties in conflict is often the key to a strategy's success or failure. The circled pay-offs in Figure 3, for example, will vary widely depending on

148

Robert E. Klitgaard

the players and on social characteristics. What such features make satyagraha a successful tactic? One's opponent must have two psychological characteristics. First, he must be a maximizer, not an absolutist. If the opponent can absolutely commit himself to enforcing the law in Fig. 3, then satyagraha could be the equivalent of suicide. Gandhi realized this; to combat it, he made absolute commitments of his own, even to the point of saying that human life was of no value to him. 'I would risk, if necessary, a million lives so long as they are voluntary sufferers and are innocent, spotless victims.'"0 These maneuvers were not, of course, merely tactical in Gandhi's eyes; they followed his from 'higher principles.' Nevertheless, it is important that he did recognize that satyagraha would not work in the strategic sense against a fanatical adversary. Gandhi once said, 'You cannot fast against a tyrant,'11 precisely because a tyrant will not maximize. He will act from his own principles, deducing his actions from them and not from changes in pay-offs. Against such an opponent neither could Gandhi have employed the secone kind of threat - putting his death in his opponents hands - because to him Gandhi's death and its consequences would mean nothing. In many situations, like Figs. 3 and 4, it is inefficient to be an absolutist if your opponent is one, too. Gandhi's tactic probably works best in a democracy, where the role of the state as an enforcer is tempered by the nature of popular sympathy, with its great respect for human life and equality.12 There must be a second psychological feature: potential sympathy for the plight of the protestor. Communication is one key. Without wide publicity and public support, the threats, especially of the coercive second type discussed above, would lose their veiled violence and thus their ability to lower the opponent's payoffs. Gandhi thought all men were potentially sympathetic; indeed, his optimistic view of human nature often exasperated his more militant followers. Some such sympathy is necessary for satyagraha's success. The satyagrahi himself should have certain

characteristics if he is to succeed. First, it is important that his movement have a large popular base. Gandhi was not always clear on this point: sometimes he acted as if only a few protestors of sufficient 'purity' could guarantee success. Thus he told a mass meeting in Johannesburg in 1906: '.. I can boldly declare

and with certainty that so long as there is even a handful of men true to their pledge, there can be only one end to the struggle- and that is victory'.'3 We saw in Fig. 3, however, that the government's action is determined in part by the cost of enforcing - this was the circled -2. While Gandhi is right in saying that the firmness of the satyagrahi's absolutist stand is a key to the success of the movement - in Fig. 3 this is the circled -1 and, as explained, determines the credibility of the threat - the number of disobedients will often have to be large to outweigh the government's commitment to enforcement. Otherwise, the government might reckon that its negative pay-off in this game (i.e. enforcing the law even though it leads to a -2) will be outweighed by the longrun benefits of setting an example. Thus, the number of disobedients can affect the movement's success. Second, the movement should contain true believers. It is a rare person who can threaten to lay down his life for a principle he doesn't believe in, no matter how strategic. Gandhi's satyagraha was 'derived' from a number of sources. The most important of these was his own Hinduism: present in the Indo-Aryan institution of yagna, the Vedas, the Upanishads, and especially the Bhagavad Gita are many of the deontological norms of non-violence and sacrifice.14 One of the important aspects of Gandhi's position and its success was its religious origin: this origin made satyagraha more credible, and it made it easier to attract a large popular following of true believers by connecting the tactics with the religion of the masses. Third, the movement must act as a single player. Unity of will is necessary in order to make absolute commitments; the satyagrahi movement must appear unwavering both in its principles and its composition. Such unity requires dynamic, preferably charismatic, leader-

Gandhi's Non-Violence

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ship like Gandhi's. The mass relationship to him was a highly emotional one, transcending logic; Gandhi's long propaganda journeys for non-cooperation had all the attributes of religious revivalism. Perhaps only through such a charismatic leader can non-violence succeed as a mass movement. A final psychological characteristic of the successful satyagrahi is his personal purity: his chastity, poverty, autonomy, and disinterestedness. For Gandhi, this was necessary because only through such behavior could one fulfill the deontological mandate. In our model, such behavior makes it more credible that one's actions are derived from a higher law, that the pay-offs really don't matter. In our analysis we have noted again and again how the personal qualities necessary to fulfill Gandhi's absolute prescriptives are precisely those which make satyagraha a successful strategy. It is almost a Platonic lesson: acting virtuously leads to the greatest utility. Our models explain why this is so and help us understand some social and psychological features of satyagraha's success. Yet they also enable us to discover flaws in the logic of this non-violent strategy for change. It is to these flaws we now turn.

not involve coercing the opponent. 'In other words', a reporter asked, 'obstruction is no stage in non-cooperation?' 'No', replied Gandhi.7 'I have always opposed obstruction as being anti-Satyagraha', he said on another occasion.18 'Such blocking the way will be sheer compulsion. And there should be no compulsion in religion or in matters of any
reform' .19

Yet, as we have seen, often this was the very mechanism by which satyagraha succeeded. Many times his fasts did result in what one British Viceroy called 'political blackmail'. Our model, then, shows that Gandhi's second type of threat was inconsistent with his own desire to avoid compulsion. Such a threat contradicted a fundamental tenet of Gandhism. A second, closely related inconsistency involves 'violence' instead of ' compulsion'. Gandhi had a deep aversion to violence. Yet what is violence? The term is very difficult to define. Does it mean direct action against an opponent? Not to Gandhi, for satyagraha was certainly direct. Is violence the physical harm of the opponent's person? It often seems to mean this, if we try to define the word by its context in Gandhi's writings. As Shridharani says: The adjustment of the line of demarcation between Satyagrahic compulsion and the coercion employed by war, between nonviolent direct action and violence, will always remain a moot question unless the distiction is made on the broad basis of the non-physical and the physical.20 Yet this seems arbitrary: in the same way that warfare is not just military, it seems that violence is not just harm to the opponent's body. 'There is surely often more violence in burning a man's property than doing him physical injury'. Gandhi recognized.2' Yet many of the boycotts, sit-downs, marches, and non-cooperation tactics could not help but inflict property damage, even to innocent third parties. Furthermore, it is very likely that satyagrahic tactics will open the door not to peace and understanding but to violence and massive law-

5. Satyagraha as a tactic The analysis in section 3 used three different models to analyze various aspects of satyagraha. These models turn out to overlap in their application to various situations and imply inconsistent strategies. The first inconsistency involves coercive threats. As we saw in Fig. 4, certain satyagraha tactics are coercive. The opponent is forced to do something because of a threat to his own pay-offs - a direct, destructive threat pregnant with violence.'5 Yet as we have seen, the doctrine of satyagraha explicitly opposed any compulsion or coercion. There could be no violence lurking behind the satyagrahi's actions. 'A Satyagrahi resists', Gandhi preached, 'when there is a threat of force behind obstruction'.16 The types of non-cooperation and civil disobedience he recommended could

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Robert E. Klitgaard crucial role in our matrices. It was this aura which insured public sympathy, enabled Gandhi to lower his pay-offs to make more credible threats, and lent authenticity to his absolutist position. Even if satyagraha was 'violent', then, the fact that it was thought to be nonviolent is tne important thing in understanding why it worked. A third inconsistency involves Fig. 3 and Fig. 5. In Fig. 3 we saw that an absolutist would be successful in terms of the pay-offs only if his opponent were not also an absolutist; indeed, if both were absolutists, the result would be the calamitous upper right-hand cell. Yet the logic of a Gandhian solution to the 'Prisoners' Dilemma' of Fig. 5 justifies playing the ideal strategy of trusting at any cost by arguing that if the other player were similarly an absolutist, the optimal solution would be reached. My obligation to trust, Gandhi claimed, is based on the fact that if everyone trusts, we will reach the optimal solution and that if I don't I can't say that anyone else should. But imagine having two players following this logic in the non-'Prisoner's Dilemma' situations of Figs. 3 and 4. If both decide that the best strategy is to 'do their duty', come what may, the solution will be disastrous for both. We often condemn an absolutist strategy used against us because it is 'unreasonable' or 'fanatical', but we often praise its use by our side because it is 'non-violent. Surely this is unfair. And its unfairness points to a contradiction in the logic of satyagraha: it only 'wins' in Fig. 3 if the opponent is a maximizer but it only triumphs in Fig. 5 if he is an absolutist. The very absolutism which leads to its success as a tactic in Fig. 3 leads to its failure in Fig. 5. A final inconsistency is revealed by a close examination of what is meant by 'playing the ideal'. At first it seems elementary: if one wants peace as an ideal, be peaceful, because that is the only way peace will ever be attained; and so on for love, trust, and the rest. This is the model of Fig. 5. But the question of obeying laws, for instance, is no so simple (see Fig. 3). On the one hand, Gandhi was in-

lessness. Fairly early in his career, Gandhi felt that 'Civil disobedience is never followed by anarchy,'22 despite his 'Himalayan miscalculation' of the mood of the country in 1919 when his call for disobedience led to rioting and bloodshed. Almost without exception, however, later events pointed to the empirical truth that violence followed disobedience, even if the original disobedience was motivated by non-violent prinsiples. Gandhi came to see that non-violent resistance could not be undertaken too often without the risk of disastrous results. In 1939 he wrote: This narrative clearly shows that the atmosphere is surcharged with violence. I hope it also shows that non-violent mass movement is an impossibility unless the atmosphere is radically changed. To blind one's eyes to the events happening around us is to court disaster. . . If any mass movement is under-

taken at the present moment in the name of nonviolence, it will resolve itself into violence largely unorganized...23 This was the tragedy of Gandhi's life: his following was not large enough to absorb all those who opposed the government, and his platform of disobedience became the springboard for lawlessness and rioting. 'I have not convinced India', he said, not long before his death. 'There is violence all around us. I am a spent bullet.24 Thus, 'for all its high norms the Gandhian tactic of disobedience may have weakened the better institutions of the world, i.e. those which are more rather than less
democratic' .25

Satyagraha's legacy of violence has been documented elsewhere;26 important for us is that this legacy further obscures the already fuzzy line between violent and non-violent means. It appears that no sharp, relevant distinction can be made.27 Thus Gandhi's philosophy of non-violence seems contradicted by the 'violent' nature of some of his tactics and by the violence his tactics spawned. The distinction between violence and non-violence does not seem crucial in describing what satyagraha does; but we must remember that the aura of non-violence has a

Gandhi's Non-Violentceus a Tactic deed saying that the present law was not ideal; therefore, to 'play the ideal', it seems that one must disobey the present law. But, on the other hand, Gandhi did not believe that any man could possess absolute truth. He felt very humble and properly Lockeian in his sentiment that all men would only be able to grasp a part of the truth and that no man had the right to force his part on another. Through such reasoning Gandhi arrived at a classic democratic picture of tolerance and majority rule with minority rights. He was not an anarchist. The facts of life were not lost to Gandhi: he saw that even in an ideal state, not everyone would agree with every law, yet that laws had to exist. But this realization implies an obligation to follow the law, for only in this way can the ideal of a stable democracy be reached. We have the paradox of civil disobedience: one side says that a particular law is unjust and thus one is obligated to disobey it; while the other side realizes that some sort of legal mechanism is necessary to make ideal democracy possible and, since no man can prescribe absolute truth, one is obligated to obey the law. Yet in spite of realizing the necessity for an orderly society, Gandhi was convinced that a citizen had the right to disobey. 'I wish I could persuade everybody that civil disobedience is the inherent right if the citizen. He dare not give it up without ceasing to be a man.' 'It is the inherent right of a subject to refuse to assist a government that will not listen to him.' 'I do not consider non-cooperation to be unconstitutional.'28 Such disobedience was obviously illegal, for the government would punish the resistors .'In most cases', writes the sympathetic Shridharani, 'these mass actions have been extra-legal and extra-constitutional; they have outgrown parliamentary procedure and become revolutionary.' We find, then, lthe contradiction of trying to play two 'ideals' at once, each pulling in an opposite direction. As a standard of behavior, the simple logic of playing the ideal becomes self-contradictory: lawlessness is not only justified but legitimized and elevated to the status of a right.

151

We have discussed four inconsistencies which point to the dangers of embracing nonviolent resistance too quickly. Impressed as we must be with the success of satyagraha as a social tactic, we must still be wary of paeans. Satyagraha's attractiveness stems in part from its disavowal of coercion and violence; yet our models have shown us how both were involved in Gandhi's tactics. Coercion is directly present in the matrix of Fig. 4, which is analytically the same as threatening to put a bomb in a rival's store: there is an overt threat to lower the opponent's pay-offs. Violence is hard to separate from coercion unless one takes too simple a view of what violence is. Not only do Gandhi's threats rely on veiled violence, but his legimation of disobedience has led to near anarchy. Unfortunately, the logic which justified non-compliance was not the same logic which demanded self-suffering and 'purity'; thus, the former could be accepted wholeheartedly by reckless zealots who felt that they, too, had the right to disobey in the name of the Mahatma. Perhaps one cannot be responsible for those who follow only part of one's philosophy and not the whole. But even the person who embraces Gandhi's satyagraha completely will be led to contradictions. It is true that in some situations absolutism is the best strategy (as long as the opponent is not likewise an absolutist): but in another situation it can be the worst. The tactician interested in satyagraha must understand that even when all the psychological and social prerequisites are met, the results may be disastrous (Fig. 5). In addition, the attractive solution to 'Prisoners' Dilemma' situations prescribes contradictory courses of action in many cases, like disobeying the law. In such cases, satyagraha is at best inconclusive, at worst the justifier of any action whatever. Thus, both as a strategic and a political norm, satyagraha is difficult to defend. 6. Concluding remarks This completes our analysis of satyagraha. Our models avoided the error of dismissing satyagraha as ineffectual idealism and have hope-

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Robert E. Klitgaard

fully led to a greater understanding of why this tactic may work. We have seen some of the psychological and social factors which are instrumental in its success. And, finally, we have realized that, despite its success, satyagraha contains many contradictions and inconsistent strategic implications. This paper, however, has dealt with satyagraha as a tactic, purely from a hard-headed utilitarian point of view. It has not attempted to explore the validity of the deonotological arguments mustered for satyagraha, and Gandhi was interested in satyagraha for precisely those absolute reasons. In our analysis, then, we have not passed judgement on Gandhi; we have analyzed the effectiveness of satyagraha as a tactic of political change and what the logic of this tactic qua tactic implies. In the process, we may have missed Gandhi's greatness. But we have not mislocated it. NOTES 1. Possible exceptions are J. V. Bondurant 1958:
Conquest of violence: the Ganudhian philosophy

the chance for a long-run reconciliation, as, for example, in his rejection of the British Mission's plan to divide India in 1946.
9. Cited in L. Fischer 1954. Gandhi: his life and message for the world: Mentor, New York. 10. Young India, June 2, 1920.

11. Cited in Fischer, 76. 12. See, for example, Shridharani, ch. XI ('Direct action in a democracy'); and R. B. Gregg: Satyagraha as a mirror mirror. In Ramachandran & Mahadevan 1967, 124-8. 13. Cited in Fischer 1954, 36. 14. See, for example, Shridharani,ch. VI ('The folklore of non-violence'); and W. S. Nelson: The tradition of nonviolence and its underlying forces. In Ramachandran& Mahadevan 1967, 3-20. 15. The problem of coercion in Gandhian tactics is a difficult one. Some of the complexities are dealt with in G. Sharp: Mechanisms of change in nonviolent action. In H. A. Hornstein, et al. (eds.):
Strategies for social intervention. Free Press., New

York, forthcoming, and Galtung, J. & Nsss, A:

Gandhi and Group Conflict: An Exploration coming. 16. Young India, July 2, 1931. of

Satyragraha. Universitetsforlaget, Oslo. Forth17. Young India, August 18, 1920. 18. Harijan, June 25, 1940.
19. Harijan, April 15, 1933.

of conflict. (Princeton University Press, Princeton,

N. J.) and G. Sharp: The politics of nonviolent action: an encyclopedia of thought and action

20. Shridharani1962, 264-5. 21. Harijan, April 13, 1940.

22. Young India, January 5, 1922.

(Pilgrim Press, Philadelphia, forthcoming), which take a completely different approach than the present offering. 2. What these pay-off numbers represent is an involved topic in game theory, but, for our rough purposes, they can be imagined as some sort of gain or loss in economic utility. They do not encompass the 'pay-offs' of a non-economic sort which result from such things as adherence to absolute principles. See J. Marschak 1964: Scaling of utilities and probability. In Shubik, M. (ed):
Game theory and related approaches behavior. Wiley, New York. 95-109. to social

23. Harijan, July 8, 1939. 24. Cited in Fischer, 155. 25. Power, P. F.: A Gandhian model for world politics. In Ramachandran 1967, 290. 26. See, for example, S. P. Aiyar (ed.) 1967: The politics of mass violence in India. Manaktalas, Bombay. Especially chapters 1, 3, and 6. 27. On this point see, for example, H. L. Nieburg 1963: Uses of violence. Journal of Conflict
Resolution 7, 43-52. 28. Young India, January 5, 1922; Young India,

May 5, 1920; Young India, August 18, 1920. SUMMARY Three two-party conflict models are advanced to explain how and why Gandhian non-violent resistance (' satyagraha') can work in a utilitarian sense. It is shown how seemingly pointless asceticism, 'irrationality',and absolutism can lead to optimal utilitarian results for the satyagrahi because such behavior makes credible threats and commitments possible. Certain social and psychological aspects of successful non-violent resistance are explained in terms of the models. Finally, four serious contradictions in the use satyagraha as a tactic are exposed and discussed in light of the models.

3. This analysis of threats and commitments follows that of T. C. Schelling. See especially The strategy of conflict. Oxford University Press,
New York, 1963.

4. In his magazine Harijan, April 13, 1940. 5. In his magazine Young India, August 11, 1920. 6. S. Shridharani 1962: War without violence. BharatiyaVidya Bhaven, Bombay. 161. 7. Nonviolence as a positive concept. In Ramachandran, G. & Mahadevan, T. K. (eds.) 1967:
Gandhi: his relevance for our times. Gandhi Peace

Foundation, New Delhi. 8. Sometimes, I fear, Gandhi was too concerned with a particular outcome and thereby damaged

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