Major Contemporary Issues: Gandhian Relevance

Major Contemporary Issues
Gandhian Relevance
Anurag Gangal, Major Contemporary Issues: Gandhian Relevance 2
Major Contemporary Issues: Gandhian Relevance
Anurag Gangal
Professor, Department of Political Science,
and
Director, Gandhian Centre for
Peace and Conflict Studies,
University of Jammu,
Jammu - 180006
Gandhian Centre for Peace and Conflict Studies

University of Jammu, Jammu-180006,
J&K, India.

Copy Right © 2008 Author and I-Proclaim Publishers

About The Author
Anurag Gangal is Professor of Political Science and also Director of the Gandhian
Centre for Peace and Conflict Studies (GCPCS) at University of Jammu, Jammu, Jammu and
Kashmir, India. Author has spent nearly quarter of a century as a teacher in the Indian University
system.
He has been a Visiting Professor at University of Calcutta, Banaras Hindu University
and at University of Madras. For three years he has served as member of the Advisory Board of the
Jury of Mahatma Gandhi International Peace Prize.
Author has had practical experience in applying the Gandhian techniques in the
resolution of varied challenges faced by the Indian civil society and the local population of Jammu
and Kashmir. In this context, he has been fortunate to work with noted activists and academics like
Dr Kiran Bedi, Dr Savita Singh, Dr N. Radhakrishnan, Shri Tushar Gandhi, Professor David
Cortwright, Professor Yunus Samad, Professor Amitabh Mattoo, Professor Priyankar Upadhyaya,
Professor Anju Sharan Upadhyaya, Professor Frank Thakurdas, Professor William S. Titus,
Professor Vaid Ghai and so many others.
As an academic, the author is an established and widely recognised writer on
international affairs. He is known as a prolific writer and authority in the area of Mahatma Gandhi
and world peace; conflict resolution and conflict transformation. He has to his credit four published
books and about 25 research articles in national and international journals and also online
international research websites of academic institutions. He has published hundreds of topical
articles in various national and international newspapers and also in Peace and Conflict Monitor of
the University of Peace, Costa Rica. He is currently the Executive Editor, Gandhi Ganga, Research
and Activities Journal, GCPCS, Jammu University. He figures on the experts’ panel of several
institutions. Whatever author has been able to do till now is mainly the result of his academic
training he received from his father, Professor S. C. Gangal who was globally an acclaimed
authority on international relations and a renowned Professor of International Politics at the Centre
for International Politics, Organisation and Disarmament (CIPOD), School of International
Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi. Author of this book is also privileged to have
had his academic and research training learning at the feet of his teachers in University of Delhi
from 1976 to 1984.
Author has also been engaged in various national and international collaborations for
peace and conflict resolution studies and exchanges with institutions like students and faculty of
Fletcher School of Law, Boston University (United States), McMaster University, Hamilton,
Canada and Gandhi Smriti and Darshan Samiti, New Delhi, India.

About the Book
This book is about Gandhian humanitarian view of challenges to life in a national and
international scenario today. Humanity cannot survive without the twin values of truth and
nonviolence even for an instant. Despite this self-evident facet of our lives, we humans are akin to
go for massive and diabolical violence and ever new inventions towards creating newer weapons
of mass destruction on public fronts, and in national and international politics. This is a great
paradox.
Politics without these values of truth, nonviolence and judicious self-sacrifice is a
perverted form of what we generally know as politics. Politics is entirely opposed to any kind of
perversion. In effect, the main task of politics is to set right all perversions and disorders. This is
what people like Gandhi were doing all their lives.
Answers to present day diverse political and other dilemmas, indeed, lie in further
normalisation of the role and effectiveness of values and ethics in society and international politics.
History has very clearly given us at least two thousand and six years to keep
remembering our “golden” and “not so golden past”. We have nothing to lose but our modern
susceptible “captive minds” if we come out of this “dynamic historicity” – where we believe that
history repeats itself.
There is an oft quoted saying of Gandhi: “There is no way to peace. Peace is the only
way.” However, Peace is not what the term “peace” means in semantics. Peace is a crusade. It is a
movement – continuous and perennial – bringing about so many conflicts enroute. Peace is not
realisable without conflicts. Highly interactive conflict resolution attempts represent peace process
only.
These processes lead to development as well. It is mainly political development that
affects every other sphere. It comprises a number of concerns such as nature of democracy,
political processes, economic policies and processes, people’s participation in social, political and
economic activities. Political development – as such – when observed and examined, takes us to
other related questions of international politics. These are relating to impact of population growth,
environmental pollution, widespread poverty, unemployment, proliferation of armaments,
expanding terrorist mafia and network, weapons of mass destruction and nature of conflicts in
different regions of the world.
Such matters imprint upon our mind diverse perils to world peace today. Mahatma
Gandhi has always been deeply involved in tackling these issues of global, national and regional
importance relating to peace and development. The present work, therefore, is an attempt to touch
upon various current issues and its relevant perspectives.

Preface
This work relates to a few aspects anent

relevance of the philosophy of Mahatma Gandhi or
Mohandas Karmchand Gandhi in the twenty-first
century. As regards his values of truth and
nonviolence – “as old as hills”, they are entirely
replete with moment to moment practical utility in
our day to day life. Humanity cannot survive
without these twin values even for an instant.
Despite this self-evident facet of our lives, we
humans are akin to go for massive and diabolical
violence and ever new inventions towards creating
newer weapons of mass destruction on public
fronts, and in national and international politics.
This is a great paradox. Human beings tend to
behave differently in interpersonal, national and
international perspectives.
In view of this continuing predicament,
world teachers and stalwarts like Robi Da, Gandhi,
Neta Ji, Nehru and such others in different fields
must be forgotten now for, by just remembering
them, we are demeaning their value and
importance. Why should they be recalled
hypocritically as a mere ritual when they all have

given us already so much without ever expecting
even an iota of anything in return? Indeed,
“elephants can never forget a good turn done to
them”. Indeed, human memory is not elephantine!
Examples that these Indian leaders have set
and values of selflessness that they have put on rails
are missing in the present-day national and
international politics. Once in a while a few sudden
and momentary sparks of altruism do emerge here
and there. But they do not last. Politics without
these values of truth, nonviolence and judicious
self-sacrifice is a perverted form of what we
generally know as politics. Politics is entirely
opposed to any kind of perversion. In effect, the
main task of politics is to set right all perversions
and disorders. This is what people like Gandhi were
doing all their lives. Answers to present day diverse
political and other dilemmas, indeed, lie in further
normalisation of the role and effectiveness of values
and ethics in society and international politics.
History has very clearly given us at least two
thousand and six years to keep remembering our
“golden” and “not so golden past”. We have
nothing to lose but our modern susceptible “captive

minds” if we come out of this “dynamic historicity”
– where we believe that history repeats itself.
Whatever I am saying here is coming out of
my own utterly captive mind. I do not possess any
element of originality. I am not a wise person. I owe
all my ideas and analyses and observations to
Gandhi’s Hind Swaraj or Indian Home Rule,
Paramhansa Yoganand’s Autobiography of a Yogi,
George Orwell’s 1984 and other such writings.
There are so many other individuals who
have influenced me in diverse ways. Amitabh
Mattoo, Savita Singh, Priyankar Upadhyaya, Anjoo
Upadhyaya and a few others can be regarded as
contemporary inclines or influences upon me.
Above all others, my father S. C. Gangal;
and my versatile genius mentor Ram Dutt Magotra /
friend Ashutosh Magotra alias “Duwanee Wale
Hakeem Ji” is among those without whom my
existence is worthless.
I have learnt a lot from Tushar Gandhi and
Kiran Bedi also. My various visits to villages
around Delhi and Jammu have all led me to think on
the lines of the need for moving beyond Gandhi’s
time now. David Cortright has also had an influence

upon me specially through his book Gandhi and
Beyond.
There is an oft quoted saying of Gandhi:
“There is no way to peace. Peace is the only way.”
However, Peace is not what the term “peace” means
in semantics. Peace is a crusade. It is a movement –
continuous and perennial – bringing about so many
conflicts enroute. Peace is not realisable without
conflicts. Highly interactive conflict resolution
attempts represent peace process only.
These processes lead to development as
well. It is mainly political development that affects
every other sphere. It comprises a number of
concerns such as nature of democracy, political
processes, economic policies and processes,
people’s participation in social, political and
economic activities. Political development – as such
– when observed and examined, takes us to other
related questions of international politics. These are
relating to impact of population growth,
environmental pollution, widespread poverty,
unemployment, proliferation of armaments,
expanding terrorist mafia and network, weapons of
mass destruction and nature of conflicts in different

regions of the world. Such matters imprint upon our
mind diverse perils to world peace today.
Mahatma Gandhi has always been deeply
involved in tackling these issues of global, national
and regional importance relating to peace and
development. The present work, therefore, is an
attempt to touch upon various current issues and its
relevant Gandhian concerns and explanations based
largely on how to go for establishing and enhancing
nonviolent truths and their efficacy in our life.
Several people and institutions have helped
me in writing this work or book in different ways.
Apart from my colleagues at the Department of
Political Science and at the Gandhian Centre for
Peace and Conflict Studies at University of Jammu,
I am specially indebted to Amitabh Mattoo, Savita
Singh, Priyankar Upadhyaya, Anjoo Sharan
Upadhyaya. I also owe a lot to my students and
researchers working with me in the pursuance of
their academic strides into the world. David
Cortright, Yunus Samad and University of Tuft
Group visiting our Gandhian Centre for Peace and
Conflict Studies in August 2007 have also added in
their own way to my understanding of realities of

international politics and peace and conflict studies.
Sandhya Gupta from Fletcher School of Law and
Neeraj from University of Boston have also brought
me out from Platonic shadows of the cave into the
light of day.
My wife Renu Gangal and my son Purvansh
Gangal have put so much of efforts into my
academic and every other type of evolution that I
cannot but express my utmost sense of gratitude to
them. Without them and their support, I just cannot
move even an inch forward. There are so many
others who have helped me differently in my
extended family of blood relations. From a small
little child to the eldest member of this network,
everyone, has helped me even at the cost of their
own physical and material loss while forgetting
their all other difficulties for my sake. As such
Surbhi Gupta, my sister and her husband Atul
Gupta, my brother-in-law; Rama Agarwal, my
mother-in-law; O.P. Agarwal, my father-in-law;
Pradeep Agarwal, Rajeev Agarwal and Sunil
Agarwal – my brother-in-laws, Alka Agarwal, Abha
Agarwal and Kanchan Agarwal – my sister-in-laws,
Sanjeev Aggarwal, my very special brother-in-law

and his wife Rekha Aggarwal – my very special
sister-in-law; our children Anant, Ankita, Arush,
Akshi, Anushka, Arnav, Aman, Shivangi and
Shreya -- I owe them, each one of them, so much
that I cannot really repay what they have done for
me despite my best of efforts in this direction.
My publisher, office and library persons of
the Department of Political Science and of the
University of Jammu have also extended full
cooperation to me. I express my heart felt thanks for
all that they have showered upon me from time to
time. Some of my colleagues have been of more
help than others, specially, Karuna Thakur, Ellora
Puri, B. B. Anand, Kishor Sharma, Vishal Sharma,
Yog Raj Sharma and Ranjeet Kalra among several
others. I owe them all a lot for all the support
coming from them throughout.
Despite all help from various quarters
coming to me in writing this book, I, alone, am
responsible for my work and any mistakes or
anomalies that may appear in the book in spite of all
care that has gone into the final publishing of the
manuscript.

I am dedicating this book to my parents,
namely, my Father, Professor S. C. Gangal and my
Mother, Mrs Saroj Gangal and to my mentors
Duwanee Wale Hakeem Ji Shri Ram Dutt Magotra
and Pundit Ashutosh Magotra. Without their
Blessings, I would not have been able to devote my
life to creative pursuits at all. They are the doer(s)
not “I”. Their will be done, not mine.
Anurag Gangal

Content
Chapters Pages
About the Author 5
About the Book 7
Preface 9
Content 17
1. Introduction: Major Issues 19
2. Globalisation 37
3. Kashmir Question 65
4. Terrorism 101
5. Conflict Resolution 121
6. Human Security 157
7. World Peace 197
8. Conclusion: Beyond Perversions 217
Bibliography 235

Chapter One
Introduction: Major Issues

Chapter One
Introduction: Major Issues
Relevance of the ideas of Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi is

self-evident in view of massive disputes, conflicts, warfare and
massacres taking place in different parts of the world. These as well
as other challenges to world peace have only one option today. This is
the option of realising the truth and going the nonviolent way. Even if
Gandhi is put aside on the shelf, there are but the Gandhian openings
only.
The question of relevance actually must not arise. Absolute
nonviolence in intent is necessary while nonviolence in general in
action will have to be observed. The nonviolence of the brave
alongwith violence of the brave will have to be there. Violence of the
brave is required when a person or group of people do not have
sufficient courage to go for nonviolent methods bravely. Such
violence may be used to deal with utter violent and criminal
exceptions in a given society.
Nonviolence and peaceful methods are not merely tools for
bringing more permanent peace for a society with more positive
orientation but they are our only alternatives to go for a normal,
healthier, creative and productive civil society.
On the other hand, the present day technological development
and its quest for “excellence” and efficiency are leading to a crises-
syndrome. It is aggravating a number of crises and problems all over

the world such as over population, proliferation of armaments,
pollution, poverty, peculiar unemployment, educational void,
starvation, malnutrition and ever increasing acquisitive instincts.
Aforesaid contexts are further subjected to the “toppings” of
corruption in corridors of power, plagiarism and cheating in
education, pervasive trends in the practice of hypocrisy and
sycophancy appear to be main reasons behind most of our problems
today. All this combined with increasing efficiency and technological
excellence further aggravates the situation. Technology is widening
its horizons without fulfilling basic needs of drinking water,
electricity, food for all and employment for all. Amartya Sen, an
Indian Nobel Laureate in Economics, presents a very interesting and
highly readable work entitled Development as Freedom, OUP,
Oxford, 1999. He rightly says that freedom includes nearly every type
of social, political, economic and individual standpoints.
Development is possible only when all these freedoms including
diverse facilities and opportunities are made duly accessible to
common people.
The scenario in India is still going in the different direction.
India has entered into its sixtieth year of independence on 15 August
2007. Yet the condition of a few handful of people is improving only
while majority of them are still suffering and reeling under great
scarcities and socio-economic and political burdens. India is known to
have set examples for other developing and poorer nations, especially,

in the area of technological upliftment and heavy industrialisation of
the economy in such a short time. In the latest context of
globalisation, civil society, good governance, human security, and
culture of peace as well, India is doing much better vis-à-vis a number
of other poorer countries in Asia, Africa and Latin America (AALA
nations).
Yet realities within the Indian social, economic and political
ethos cannot be ignored. One cannot but become quite sarcastic when
writing about such concerns. By all means, India is moving to fulfil
development, energy, communication and basic needs of the country
uniquely. India has technology and human resources both. No doubt
there are nearly seven 07 million Indian citizens who do not get
drinking water at all even after 60 years of independence. Is this not a
crisis situation!!! These Indians without water are apparently Yogis
who can live without water and food. Is that really so? What they do
not get for themselves, they are haplessly leaving it for others to
consume – provided food and water are made available for millions of
other citizens. Apparently, this is the situation.
This peculiar circumstance is their in other areas as well.
Leaders and businessmen are becoming ever richer not only in India
but also in the entire South Asia. India’s is merely a representative
case to understand the larger picture in Africa, Asia and Latin
America.

Drinking Water Front
Again, in India, basic need of water presents an appalling
condition. A bit of sarcasm and satire naturally enters into its
explanation. This is an exercise by 07 million people into natural
voluntary (?) preservation of drinking water for those who need it
more. However, does fulfilling the need of one means sacrificing the
requirement of the other needy persons? This results into highly
saddening phenomenon. Urban dwellers then get at least a few drops
of soiled water in their glowing taps in tiled bathtubs and shining
kitchens. This is resulting from the sacrifice of “07 million Yogis”
who do not get any drinking water at all. This water is further
preserved into household utensils drip by drip by needy urban
dwellers. One utensil is filled up very fast in about twenty four hours.
Thus, taking a full bath may not be possible. But at least the purifying
touch of water can be felt by dipping fingers in the fulsome water
filled cans! Is this not a great achievement for a poor though speedily
developing India. Indeed, the credit goes to our water management
departments, power ministers, political energy boosters and power
brokers. Is this not an instance of sacrifice of the people, by the
people for the people? Clearly, power enriches and absolute power
enriches absolutely!
Save (?) Electricity and Energy
Indian Government has gained a lot in energy saving through
least possible use of electricity in particular. That is why Indian

Government, through its media, is on a special spree to teach its
population how to save electricity in “voltage banks” for posterity to
use it in an emergency. What apparently Government wants here is
that people must learn to put off all their lights and electronic gadgets
whenever electricity comes alive for a little while again and again
after scheduled and un-scheduled cuts. This is the best way to practice
“limits to degenerating growth” and set examples for developed
nations not to waste their electricity 24 hours a day every week.
Developed nations, therefore, are going into a pit of modernity with
inherent threats of ever more chances of electrocution due to
continuous supply of deadly electric currents. Such free use and
supply of electricity is dangerous for the precious life of every Indian
citizen. Indian Government knows it fully well.
In India, threat of electrocution is much lesser because it is
provided to urban areas only about 05 to 06 hours a day, effectively
speaking. Therefore, the threat of electrocution is reduced with a boon
for longer and safer life for common Indian citizens and individuals.
This shows how really caring the Indian Government is! One wonders
if India intends to enter into the nuclear power generation also only in
this too caring a way.
Even during the 05 to 06 hours a day of palpitating electric
supply, it keeps coming and going every 15 to 30 minutes in order to
ensure safety and security of the people using it. Such caring electric
supply is also giving people training in national defence. This training

will come handy at times of warfare and bombardment by an enemy
country. People thus become well trained for “black outs” during
strategic air-strikes.
This electric rigmarole as a child’s play is carried on so
enthusiastically by our technicians and electricity linemen that it
ensures fully the quick discharge of inverter batteries at home and
offices in view of repeated defence training through recurring “black
outs”. Therefore, the electricity generation pattern and its intermittent
supply is also helping employment generation by providing ample
opportunities to expansion of inverter and battery production units.
The connection between them is growing day by day.
Education in Intuition and Logic
Aforesaid water and electricity perspective is closely linked to
educational priorities of India. In view of governmental stress more
on saving electricity than on using it, our belief in the development of
intuitive power of children is also emerging very clearly. Indian
Government is providing repeated and ample opportunities for self-
styled meditation specially when unscheduled electricity cuts take
place not only during the day but also at night. This is obvious
because above mentioned water and electricity saving does not allow
children even to study under the street light. Hence, there is no other
option but to go for meditation only. This helps them grow vastly
their intuitive power. As such, they pass their various examinations
through perspiration, inspiration, meditation and intuition! A highly

visionary population, indeed, is on the anvil in the sixtieth year of
India’s independence. India has a very bright future especially
through water and electricity projects of Government of India. What
to talk of the nuclear aspect then? It is also likely to go for similar
type of a very bright future!!!
The best part of this Governmental policy of learning through
perspiration and inspiration emerges when they teach to save what is
not there at all. In other words, Indian citizens learn to save electricity
although it is not with them fully for about 17 to 18 hours a day.
Graphical Savings in Banks
This training in developing a habit to save energy, electricity
and water is having multi-fold dimensions. This can also lead to very
strong financial base for the Indian nation. Such a continuous training
from their childhood, teaches our unemployed youth how to save
income without earning anything much! That is why our national
savings in the banks are now having an upward graph with
unparalleled positive magnitudes. Indians thus learn to save through
logic. They have learnt to create from nothing and that is what logic is
about! Saving energy, water, electricity and income is necessary even
though we may not be having them with us fully and permanently.
Yet, one wonders whether electricity can be put in a bank to be used
when needed! This policy of electricity saving may protect it from
ongoing electric thefts as well.

Indian Revenue and Income Tax
This is combined with Indian Revenue and Income Tax
kaleidoscope also. There are only a few big business houses that are
known not to be paying their taxes fully through maintaining multiple
level of accounts and projections. This is possible only in the private
sector and also in the public undertakings. Otherwise, in the area of
governmental and semi-governmental employees in thousands of
institutions, all levied taxes have to be paid to government. No
duplicate accounts can be maintained here.
However, in this area of salaried people in the government and
semi-government concerns and institutions, salaries are about five to
six times less vis-à-vis the private concerns and the corporate sector.
In comparison to equivalent jobs in developed countries like United
States, United Kingdom and Canada etcetera, salaries in India in
private and corporate sector are about four to five times less. While in
the public and governmental sector, salaries are about ten times less.
Despite this situation, taxes appear to be five to ten times higher in
terms of simple and objective mathematical calculations. Despite such
a pattern of taxes and salaries, Indian Government has to face
tremendous challenges in the generation of funds for national
development.
Interestingly, a university teacher who gets around 30,000
thousand rupees salary per month in India will get nearly $ 5,000 per
month in a university in United States or Canada. This will mean

about rupees 2, 00,000 per month. Out of this monthly amount, about
60, 000 rupees will be given to taxes to the US or Canadian
governments. Their, even today, one can get a reasonable house on
monthly rent of about $ 1,000 and a brand new car for a small family
for about $ 2,000. Daily expense per person in United States comes to
be between $ 20 to $ 50 on an average.
In India, a person who gets a salary of 30,000 thousand rupees
per month, will be giving nearly 5,000 rupees for house rent every
month. A small car will cost him rupees 2, 00,000. His daily expense
per person will be between rupees 200 to 500. On this amount of
salary, an Indian citizen pays taxes to the tune of about 5,000 rupees
monthly after all the maximum savings and so-called rebates. Hence,
even the magnitude of taxes in India is also superlative in a peculiar
way.
This simple and day to day mathematics is making Indians go
berserk. Their appear to be emerging prospects of a civil war in India
in view of such situations.
What does it signify? It shows discrepancy, imbalance, matter
of fact ways of the Indian Government and its advisors and experts.
They don’t see the common citizen while formulating their policies.
They are more involved in their theoretical excellence vis-à-vis other
international conceptualisations and practices. They are more
concerned with presenting a beautiful picture on paper and print.
Hyperbolic surveys are entered into and their explanations are

presented – and policies are formulated. Standards are also set for
action mostly on paper.
One very popular example of such performance of Indian
Governmental institutions can be seen in the actual functioning of
Bhartiya Sanchar Nigam Limited (BSNL).
Mobile Communication and Networking
This logic of improvisation and creation from without has
provided great support and strength to the communication networking
of the Indian Government. One small sample of success in this field
can be seen in the mobile phones networking of Bharat Sanchar
Nigam Limited (BSNL). This example is merely a tip of the iceberg.
The reality is, however, profound and even vast and massive. What is
this real instance of success? This is a continuous paradigm.
Recurring specially in smaller towns and border areas. Using BSNL
Cellone then becomes a matter of pride for common people. These
Cellone connections leads to marvellous responses form BSNL when
mobile numbers are dialled. This becomes a spectacular exercise in
ringing literary music!
“Try later”, “…not answering”, “Network busy”, “Error in
connection”, “Cannot allowed”, “Out of range”, “User unavailable”
etcetera. Recurrence of such things by themselves becomes rhapsody
musical errors!
Despite all this mis-management and policy dis-orientation,
India is still the best among all other developing and poorer nations of

Asia, Africa and Latin America (AALA). This, indeed, is a commonly
known fact.
South Asian and AALA Countries’ Challenges
Poverty, pollution, proliferation of armaments, increasing
population, drinking water scarcity, unemployment, globalisation’s
onslaught, mutual and other nuclear threats, modern technology and
illiteracy etcetera are the major problems in South Asian and AALA
nations alongwith modern terrorism. These troubles further lead to
other mutual conflicts, tensions and skirmishes. At times, such
problems and conflicts result into massive mutual warfare as well –
causing vast destruction of precious human lives and material
valuable property. Most of these conflicts and challenges become ever
more complex and permanent in nature with every effort of resolving
them.
For example, terrorism in India, Sri Lanka, Pakistan and Nepal
is turning into one of the most disastrous phenomena to deal with in
South Asia, South West Asia and West Asia. This problem has now
engulfed United States, United Kingdom, Italy and Australia also in a
very serious way.
The situation is such that political systems in almost all South
Asian, South West Asian and West Asian countries have failed
completely. Mafia is freely functioning while, specially in India,
judiciary is becoming hyper-active – crossing its own limits and
framework. On the one hand mafia is filling the power vacuum

created by political perversion and, on the other hand, judiciary is
functioning like an executive branch of government. Is it advisable
that each branch of government does not function on its own and its
work may be done by another branch? In these countries, only the
politicians, mafia dons and business community are prosperous. All
others are suffering from one or the other kind and level of poverty.
The poverty thresh-hold or the poverty line in India is generally an
income below 45 Rupees a day, i.e., about 1350 Rupees a month. Al
those earning this much or less than this amount are much below the
poverty line. About 25% of Indian population is therefore below the
poverty line. While, in reality, even those who earn even ten times of
this amount every month, they are also very poor with highly
dissatisfactory standards of living. In this sense, nearly 60%
population of India is very poor. In other words, about sixty crore or
600 billion Indian population is very poor. One wonders whether
Indian political decision makers ever see this reality.
Such is the case in other South Asian countries also. They are
actually worse than India. All the data mentioned above are also,
indeed, commonly known to all concerned based on various
governmental and nongovernmental sources.
Method and Purpose
The purpose of writing this book is three fold. First, it is to
bring together author’s scattered strands of ideas and thought together
into one volume. Secondly, it is to put forward quite a few un-written

and hither-to-fore un-spoken perspectives on issues like poverty, basic
needs thesis, proliferation of armaments, ecology and environment
and population explosion vis-à-vis questions of development and
human security and globalisation etcetera. Thirdly, the purpose is to
bring forth a meaningful debate on the ideas presented in this work.
The major present-day issues in national and international
contexts are discussed within the larger framework of the Gandhian
philosophy and its relevance today. This is being done here in an
analytical mould while giving more importance to ideas and themes in
comparison to statistical and mathematical data.
More space is given here to certain issues like globalisation,
Kashmir question, Human Security and other such aspects while
issues like poverty, pollution, proliferation of armaments and
population are generally discussed mainly in relation to other detailed
perspectives. Various issues that are not discussed into separate
chapters do show their lesser importance at all. These issues will be
taken up in a different volume latter. In the present volume, main
emphasis is on India, South Asia, Conflict Resolution and World
Peace including Human Security.
Conclusion
India and other AALA countries, specially South Asian
nations, face so many other challenges also alongwith above
mentioned anomalies of poverty and development. Some of these
challenges are common to all countries of the world, specially the

problems of proliferation of armaments, terrorism, human security,
globalisation, pollution, ecological decay and expanding mosaic of
diversified conflicts among and within nations. This set of problems
and challenges is further leading to emerging gaps, peculiar
syndromes and varied discrepancies between ever rising expectations,
technological requirements, existing social, economic and political
traditions and levels of development in AALA countries.
The only way to see the ‘light of day’ appears to be the road to
nonviolence, love and peace. Such a nonviolent option is commonly
known as the Gandhian way. Whether the world wants this or not –
there is no other way. As Gandhi often said’ “Peace is the only way”.
Gandhi’s way is straight and his path is seen easily. But it is difficult
because complexities of modern life make it so.
If political leaders and other official and non-official
functionaries of political systems in AALA countries keep on adding
one after the other complexity upon complications, then these
political systems will never be able to come to fruition for posterity.
Set standards, set goals, set and simplified methods will have to be
established in reality and not just on paper and files. Most of the
governments and leaders in these countries, specially in South Asia,
are ‘paper governments and paper leaders’ quite like ‘paper tigers’.
They will have to rise above their ‘paper nature’. Otherwise, the
present state of affairs will continue to haunt poor people and poor
nations of these countries forever – a situation where only politicians

are minting money and mainly they are becoming prosperous at the
cost of their own fellow poor citizens.
Further continuance of these paradoxical circumstances is
going to pose a very serious threat to those who are prosperous today.
They are soon likely to face a full circle civil war like the well known
‘French Guillotine’! This is not too far away. It is going to happen in
next ten years in South Asia. West Asia and South West Asia is
already suffering from it. Hence, let the political system in South Asia
and AALA countries start functioning, otherwise, as a political
scientist I can predict, only just about a decade is left to set things
right. No one is going to gain from a ‘guillotine’ and a civil war.
There is need for effective regeneration of political system in
AALA countries – such a system which is away from present-day
well established perversions of politics. This is possible only through
realising of the Gandhian values of nonviolence, truth and modernity.
Gandhi, essentially, is not against modernity, machines,
mechanisation and technology. No doubt Gandhi has criticised them
vehemently a number of times. Even then he is very much in favour
of these tools of modernisation.
Concurrent global trends are also somewhat Gandhian in
nature as regards the benevolent aims of globalisation and
liberalisation towards excellence, good governance, and evolving of a
civil society the world over. In other words, the ultimate aim is to do
away with the labyrinthine system of governments into evolution of a

civil society based on nonviolence because there is no room for
violence in anything even distantly related to a civilised world.
Violence of any sort is primarily linked to inhumanity, illiteracy,
crime, uncivil and animal like. Violence is never human. State and
government are institutions largely based on brute force and infliction
of fear on its inhabitants and citizens. As such, movement towards
civil society is a Gandhian aim while looking forward to a globalised
world. The world has to move only in the Gandhian direction if it has
to survive and prosper.

Chapter Two
Globalisation

Chapter Two
Globalisation
Mahatma Gandhi has seldom written about strictly modern

process of globalisation. He could not because present-day
globalisation was far away in his own time. He has still reflected on
related areas of international federation, world peace, exploitation of
the weak by the stronger nation, freedom, equality, dignity of the
individual, primacy of the individual in a socio-political system,
mechanisation, media and trade etcetera. As such, Gandhi has a vision
for unity of mankind, universal brotherhood and “…living association
of human beings…” the world over.
Similarly, contemporary globalisation encompasses
phenomenological paradigmatic evolution of technological trends
from the late-nineteenth to twenty-first century in the fields of
information, communication, multi-media, trade, commerce, finance,
international institutions / relations, national development, political
systems, and ecological patterns etcetera.
A common special feature of these predispositions anent
globalisation is the apparent unity of mankind found, among
others, in the “coming together” of even distant nations through
technology regulated regimes of internet, satellites, supersonic jets,
multinational corporations and constantly receding international
trade barriers. The modern surging ahead in multi-media

technology is bringing in its wake a global transformation. Entire
world has now become a “Global Village"1
International organisations and kindred activity towards
common global ends of sharing, knowing and coming together
through mutual excellence are manifest processes of “globalisation”.
The “Global Village” phenomenon is obviously an integral
part of globalisation. Marshall McLuhan coined this term “Global
Village” in 1960s to express his belief that electronic communication
would unite the world by brining together diverse cultures and distant
people of the world. Therefore, global village does not really
represent the “shrinking of the world” but widening of the electronic
instantaneous communication network for brining people into
togetherness. Nearly, all information and communication rests upon
the click of a “mouse”! Globally established really open society
without any walls is in the “offing”. This Global Village is very
different from the decentralised village-based economy and polity
preferred by India’s Father of the Nation – Mohandas Karmachand
Gandhi. For him:
• It is the individual(s) who compose a village, town,
city, municipality, metropolis, cosmopolis, megalopolis,
necropolis, state, nation-state and international society of nations.2
• It is their (individuals’) vows of satya (truth), ahimsa
(nonviolence), astaeya (non-stealing), aparigraha (non-
possession) and brahmcharya (chastity) that characterise the

foundation of the larger socio-political and economic edifice.
These are also known as panch yama of Patanjali’s Yogsutra.
• Gandhi begins with the individual in the village and
ends up with the individual in the comity of nations.3
• Discipline, vows and values are accorded highest place
in Gandhi’s “experiments with truth”. If these values and the
individual are “intact” in any system of technology and politics,
Gandhi is ready to embrace it fondly although he is generally
known to have written in his Hind Swaraj, “ I cannot recall a
single good point in connection with machinery”.4
The current movement towards Globalisation also appears to
be having a number of APPARENT Gandhian values such as:
1) global unity and integration,
2) fast growing antipathy to mass-violence (at least in
principle on a wider plain) specially in the aftermath of the
terrorist attack on New York’s trade centre on 11 September
2001,
3) an evidently receding trend in ideological clashes
among nations (specially between liberalism and socialism),
4) globally expanding mosaic of acceptance of the
Gandhian principle of nonviolence among nations and their
leaders (see specially India’s response and patience to terrorist
violence and attacks) and

5) end of or doing away with “war as an instrument of
national policy” at least among countries of the European Union.
In this age of Globalisation and increasing regional
cooperation, Canada appears to be functioning like a great catalyst in
the observance of Gandhi’s principle of the fusion of precept and
practice for attaining higher aims of human welfare. Gandhi’s
“practical-idealism” is reflected in a number of projects financed by
the Canadian Government in India and other developing and poorer
countries.5 Canadians are also extending their hands of friendship to
Indian Non-Governmental Organisations (NGOs). Canadians have
helped NGOs like Manav Kalyan Sansthan, and Conflict-
transformation and Peace Awareness Gandhian Society of India
(COPEAP) to deal with the menace of landmines in border areas
during 1999 to 2000.6
In this sense, at least, globalisation is certainly adding to the
solution of numerous challenges facing the humanity at large.
This hypothesis, however, needs to be systemically analysed.
Certain pointers arise. What else is Globalisation? What are the
‘other’ major characteristics of “globalisation”? Is globalisation really
necessary? Has it really become a part of our lives? Are there any
disparaging indicators of globalisation? Does globalisation serve the
cause of billions of poor people in Afro-Asian and Latin American
(AALA) countries? What is the relationship of globalisation with the

five “Ps”, namely, Population, Poverty, Pollution, Proliferation of
armaments and Peace of the world?
The Other Side of Globalisation
Gobalisation has its other aspects too. This refers to the
primacy of technology in the process of globalisation and its
pejorative impact.
First, it is technology and ideology. Secondly, it is
obsolescence in technology. Thirdly, it is inherent exploitation of
poorer people through technology. Fourthly, it is the environmental
threats through technology. Fifthly, modern technology is blind to
human values. Sixthly, this technology is leading to social and
political disruptions through utter materialism and ever-growing quest
for modern armaments. Seventhly, modern technology is creating
several problems like population explosion, poverty and
unemployment etcetera for poorer nations. Last but not least, it is
believed that globalisation is a continuous process towards a “new
and just world order”.7
Will it be a new world order or just a movement for inception

of a captive mind society and “think police state” of George Orwell?.8
Indeed, these posers need to be examined here, especially, on the
basis of Gandhi’s Indian Home Rule or Hind Swaraj first published in
1908. Gandhi has provided a very severe critique of industrialism,
modernisation, railways, allopathy and modern parliamentary
democracy etcetera.

44
1. Science of techniques or technology has entered the

realms of meta-rationality and meta-materialism focussing on
speed, comfort, efficiency, accuracy, information, fusion and
fission leaving behind the philosophy of science based on twin
parameters of knowledge and reason. Technology is racing ahead
of “time” and “space” in the twenty-first century after cutting
across the limits of “philosophy” and biases of “ideology” from
sixteenth to twentieth centuries.
There are countless examples with latent and manifest
interconnections. One invention and concomitant development(s)
lead(s) to a further action, reaction and causal outcome(s).
• From the age of gunpowder, bullets and bombs to imperialism.
• From the age of aeroplanes, atom bombs, machine guns, radio,
telephone and electricity to colonialism, neo-colonialism and
effective “socialism of the vanguard of proletariat”.
• From the age of light machine guns, AK-47s, AK-57s, nuclear
arsenals, inter-continental ballistic missiles, cyber-warfare,
global terrorist network, satellites, computers, information
explosion and information dissemination multi-national
regimes to disintegration of erstwhile Soviet Union,
universalisation of technologies functioning alike in every
type of political system and globalisation through World

45
Trade Organisation, United Nations, European Union and

multi-national corporations (MNCs) etcetera.
2. Fast growing rate of obsolescence in modern
technology is generating a storehouse of dumps upon dumps of waste
material. It is not only the storage aspect but also the question of the
need for keeping pace with “technological convulsions”. It is very
obvious when ink cartridge of a desktop printer bought today would
not be available in another two years time. Even if it would be
available, users of the latest DTP flash will look down upon the
earlier DTP model and its cartridges.
• This trend is there in foreign trade and international
politics also. Whenever there emerges – on an average,
every second year – a new version of an aircraft and
warplane in a developed country, the old one is either sold
cheaply or “gifted” to a developing or poorer nation for its
“state-of-the-art” national security and defence from a
neighbouring regime.
• This craze for the “latest” is visible in academics and in
the modern “love life” as well. Knowledge is becoming
not so much of virtue and wisdom but more of an
“amount, quantity and quality of information”. This
collectivity of information is now being regarded as
knowledge! Older and classical masterpieces of literature

46
in almost every subject or discipline are treated as

completely outdated.
• The materialistic process of globalisation looks askance at
the science of spiritualism. Even the modern “love” is
increasingly becoming a “quick fix” affair. “Time” and
“space” are needed and time and space are scarce!9 What a
dichotomy? Man is turning subservient to technology. An
unseen Frankenstein is hovering over us and we do not
want to recognise its shadows sapping our reflexes!
• George Orwell’s 1984 and its “think police” appears to be
in the offing.10 He shows in this novel that a time would
come when the entire world will be integrated into three
continents with the withering away of modern States. This
will be a situation of continental sovereignty and not the
sovereignty of nations or States. The network of
information dissemination will be so penetrating that it
will be able to detect what citizens of a continent would be
thinking. As such, whenever there will be a digression in
the prescribed standards of thinking the rulers will send
their Think Police to arrest the violator of thinking-codes!
Is globalisation moving in that direction?
3. “Technology” originates from two Greek words
“tekhne” and “logos” i.e. “craft” or “art” and “science” of craft and
art for practical purposes. Concise Oxford Dictionary brands it as “the

47
application of scientific knowledge for practical purposes”.11 Clearly

“science” is away from “good” or “bad”. Does it mean that “little
thinking” goes into scientific use of a technology? How dangerous
such technology can be!
That is why technology is generally silent about the needs of
an individual due to implicit vested interests of “technological
sustenance” and incessant expansion. Modern technology, otherwise,
cannot work profitably. As such, individual needs and comforts are
converted into a requirement of masses. Only then technology works
wonders through mass-production, mass media, mass-democracy,
mass-education, mass-culture, massive-warfare and destruction
etcetera. This massive and top-heavy technology is very sweetly
spreading automotive glamour, comfort and efficiency across an
international network of poor nations via multinational corporations
and “needy” governments.
4. Despite widespread governmental and international
organisational environmental protection machinery, rationality of
human ingenuity is perspiring to reach even the “space” environs to
bring viruses like Respiratory Virus (SARS) and Acquired Immuno
Deficiency Syndrome (AIDS) etcetera. All these viruses are lately
known to have travelled from Space through satellites and space
shuttles.

48
Technology is, therefore, polluting not only this spaceship

earth but also Space with “rebound impact”. One wonders what type
of rationality is this?
It is known in the vernacular that modern transport system and
air conditioning equipments are breaking the ozone layer time and
again as a result of adding chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) to atmosphere.
It is causing several skin diseases and ultra violet radiation. Still the
world is continuing with what is really not required in the present
technological form.
The need of the time is to realise the “end or limits of
rationality” where human beings can live safely.
The Gandhian thought has a ready-made prescription for these
ills of modernity. What we require is simply to evolve a bridge
between materialism of the West and “moralism” of the Orient.12
5. Modern technology is generally blind to human values
since “science” is “value-free”. One instance relating to prevention of
AIDS may suffice in this matter. Most of the governments use mass
media to drive home a message that it is “necessary to use condoms to
prevent AIDS” today. None of them stress the need to enhance power
of self-restraint! Why? Clearly if they do so then who will buy
condoms? People are, thus, being encouraged towards ever-greater
“indulgence” in favour of technological and related vested interests!

49
The essence of social cohesiveness is being forgotten.

Indulgence in social immorality is becoming a fashionable act and a
social norm for everyone to follow and cherish. Is this a sign of
“modernity and technological advancement”?
6. Social disruption and promiscuousness is transforming
into a global phenomenon in the name of technological
“professionalism”! Human relationships are being projected into
biological and emotional needs through Internet and mass media.
Does this signify a feather in the development of civilisation? This
author has experimented with Internet and mass media for about five
years to pose this pointer now.
Familial fragmentation, especially, in the developed world is
so apparent that it is leading to mercurious dimensions. This trend is
infectious. In the name of technology, this inclination is widening
with the pace of human thought and imagination. Dissatisfied men
and women are seeking solace in momentary information
dissemination and exchange of ideas.
Is it really “modernisation”?
7. Modern technology is also creating several problems like
population explosion, poverty and unemployment etcetera for poorer
nations.13 Increasing birth rates, decreasing death rates, illiteracy and
mass-deprivation of education and displacement of labour and people
-- as a result of technological efficiency syndrome -- leading to
widespread unemployment etcetera are factors responsible for

50
multiplying population among poorer nations of the world. The world

population is about 6.6 billion today. Nearly 70% population of the
world is living in the so-called third world developing and “under-
developed” nations. These nations have also about 70% natural
resources of the world as well!
Wide spread poverty and gross starvation among poorer
nations requires their poor population to go for God-given fertility to
empower their economic prospects and enlighten their sources of
easily available natural entertainment or relaxation. Any other type of
“development” is beyond their perception until “development” affects
their lives in any “meaningful” terms.
More than one billion population in the world is starving
14
today. Not more than one billion dollars are required for this
purpose. If the entire world goes fully vegetarian then this problem
can be solved almost “instantly”, as it were.15 Such a “sojourn” needs
commitment, devotion, sense of conviction and massive media-
attention. Who will bell the cat? This is, indeed, a difficult question.
8. Technology requiring globalisation for its mere sustenance,
as such, has become a gargantuan bird of prey leading to moral
degradation and uncalled for exploitation of natural resources
including manpower. This is disturbing a natural order of things,
human beings and inherent system engulfing even the rule of law.
One of the most glaring stances of such fundamental failure can be
seen in wide spread professionalisation of terrorism in the world.16

51
Gandhi on Globalisation
The prospects of present-day globalisation in the Gandhian

traditions of thought and practice are not very difficult to see today. A
few quotations from Gandhi’s writings may help open Platonic
“shadows of the cave” as it were. Writings and sayings of Mahatma
Gandhi and majority of commentators and critics of Gandhian
philosophy have shown not only inherent but also explicit
significance of the idea of oneness of humanity, individual’s dignity
and self-reliance for Swaraj in Gandhi’s practical-idealist perspective
of politics. Gandhi has never regarded himself as a system builder.
His experiments, however, have led him to evolve – for several
commentators and analysts like S. C. Gangal, Mahendra Kumar,
Raghavan Iyer, Savita Singh, Ramjee Singh, Johan Galtung and
others – a Predominantly Nonviolent State as his second best Ideal
and a Nonviolent Society as his ultimate Ideal for establishing a
vibrantly creative global and just political ethos where cooperation,
equality and nonviolence has replaced exploitation, inequality and
bloody warfare and mutual hatred.
Similar 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.17
What is Gandhi’s concept of holistic process of globalisation?
It is a practical-idealist concept. Gandhi called himself a practical-
idealist. Gandhi has never written or said much about globalisation in

52
particular as a term with specific meaning that is being attached to it

currently. Yet he had foreseen almost all major trends and strands of
globalisation today in a positive and creative mould. For him:
It is impossible for one to be an
internationalist without being a
nationalist… Our nationalism can be no
peril to other nations inasmuch as we
will exploit none just as we will allow
none to exploit us.18
The satyagrahi must maintain personal

contact with people of his locality. This
living association of human beings is
essential to a genuine democracy.19
I have no doubt that unless big nations

shed their desire for exploitation and the
spirit of violence of which war is the
natural expression and the atom bomb
the inevitable consequence, there is no
hope for peace in the world.20
Mechanisation is good when hands are

too few for the work intended to be
accomplished. It is evil where there are
more hands than acquired…21
I entertain no fads in this regard [i.e.,

his avowed opposition to mechanisation
and capital-intensive technology]. All
that I desire is that every able-bodied
citizen should be provided with gainful
employment. If electricity and even
automatic energy could be used
without…creating unemployment, I will

53
not raise my little finger against it…. If

the Government could provide full
employment to our people without the
help of Khadi hand-spinning and hand-
weaving industries, I shall be prepared
to wind up my constructive programme
in this regard.22
Under Swaraj (self-rule) of my dream,

there is no necessity of arms at all.23
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.24
Decentralisation of political and

economic power, reduction in the
functions and importance of State,
growth of voluntary associations,
removal of dehumanising poverty and
resistance to injustice … will bring life
within the understanding of man and
make society and the State
democratic….. The nonviolent State
will cooperate with an international
organisation based on nonviolence.
Peace will come not merely by
changing the institutional forms but by
regenerating those attitudes and ideals
of which war, imperialism, capitalism
and other forms of exploitation are the
inevitable expressions.25

54
[I am not against all international trade,

though imports should be limited to
things that are necessary for our growth
but which India -- and for that matter
any poorer country -- cannot herself
produce and export of things of real
benefit to foreigners.]26
Gandhian Prospects of Globalisation
On the basis of the above-mentioned parts of this research

work, an attempt is being made here to evolve a Gandhian strategy for
prospective road to globalisation especially in the light of quite a few
existing relatively harmful trends and patterns. 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
Gandhi has a holistic approach to human problems, in which
reform or reconstruction should concentrate, more or less at the same
time, at all levels of human existence and activity, i. e, individual,
local, national and international levels.
Globalisation is an ever-accelerating trend of modern
“civilisation”. Gandhi, going much beyond Bill Clinton, finds in this
civilisation:

55
I. “…. people living in it make bodily welfare the object

of life.
II. “…. If people of a certain country, who have hitherto

not been in the habit of wearing much clothing, boots
etc., adopt European clothing, they are supposed to
have become civilised out of savagery.
III. “…. [Ever increasing mechanisation] is called a sign of

civilisation.
IV. “Formerly, only a few men wrote valuable books.

Now, anybody writes and prints anything he likes and
poisons people’s minds.
V. “…. As men progress,… [they] will not need the use of

their hands and feet…. Everything will be done by
machinery.
VI. “…. Formerly, when people wanted to fight…they

measured between them their bodily strength; now it is
possible to take away thousands of lives by one
man…. This is civilisation.
VII. “….. [Earlier] men were made slaves under physical

compulsion. Now they are enslaved by the temptation
of money and of the luxuries that money can buy.
VIII. “ There are now diseases of which people never dreamt

before, and an army of doctors is engaged in finding
out theirs, and so hospitals have increased. This is a
test of civilisation.
IX. “…. Today [not earlier when special messengers were

needed to send a letter], anyone can abuse his fellow

56
by means of a letter [of email] for one penny. True, at

the same cost, one can send one’s thanks also.
X. “…now, [people] require something to eat every two

hours so that they have hardly leisure for anything else
[more meaningful].
XI. “….. This civilisation is such that one has only to be

patient and it will be self-destroyed.” 28
Gandhi has said and written anent vast areas of life and human
concerns. In this context, he has made a very bold exposition in his
Hind Swaraj or Indian Home Rule. On 24 April 1933, he says – on
page 04 in the beginning of this booklet, “I would like to say the
diligent reader of my writings and to others who are interested in
them that I am not at all concerned with appearing to be consistent.
In my search after Truth I have discarded many ideas and learnt many
new things. Old as I am in age, I have no feeling that I have ceased to
grow inwardly or that my growth will stop at the dissolution of the
flesh. What I am concerned with is my readiness to obey the call of
truth, my God, from moment to moment, and, therefore, when
anybody finds any inconsistency between any two writings of mine, if
he still has faith in my sanity, he would do well to choose the later of
the two on the same subject.”29
Real globalisation for Gandhi is possible only through Panch
yama of Patanjali, i.e., nonviolence, non-stealing, Truth, non-
possession and chastity. Global though sectoral reformation

57
programme for regeneration of every individual is needed for

balancing the negative effects of the process of globalisation.
It was Gandhi’s conviction that individuals – of whom the
nations and global communities are constituted – must have priority
in any scheme of reform or reconstruction.
Yet another idea in Gandhi’s scheme is that any durable
programme of reconstruction must be marked by a measure of
coordination and integration at various levels of social action through
voluntary effort. 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.
The cultivation of nonviolence by the individual and the
establishment of non-exploitative economy at different levels will
lead eventually to the emergence of what he calls nonviolent
nationalism. Ultimately, these nonviolent nations will function under
a world federation or international organisation on the basis of:
• Political and economic independence without any type of
colonialism or imperialism and exploitation.
• Voluntary effort with dedication and commitment.
• Goals and means not imposed from above but developed from
within.
• Equality for all. As such every nation must feel as tall as the
tallest.
• Decentralisation at political and economic spheres.
• General disarmament.
• Unilateral disarmament.
• International society as a voluntary organisation.

58
• Common good of all.

• Bigger nations ready to “give” to the smaller nations.
• Amicable and peaceful settlement of all disputes.
• Small international police as long as the world is able to develop a
general belief in nonviolence.
• Free, open, alert and impartial Media.
• Preponderance to mutual sense of service.30
Such a blue print should be the guiding spirit of present-day

globalisation. In this pattern of globalisation, the individual has
specially a two-fold significance for Gandhi.
First, proper education and training to the individual for
understanding and imbibing the values of a normal society. A normal
fraternity, for Gandhi, is one where development does not pose
diverse types of threats to the individual and humanity. For evolving
such a normal course of life for true globalisation, 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.
Secondly, Gandhi emphasises the role of the individual in
decision-making and in sharing the national and international
responsibilities. There is no place for undemocratic or authoritarian
regimes in Gandhi’s agenda for globalisation. To steer clear of
undemocratic or authoritarian tendencies, Gandhi suggests two more

59
correctives of (i) limited State power and (ii) socio-economic

decentralisation. As regards the former, Gandhi is one with
Thoureau’s principle that “that government is best which governs the
least.”31 To quote Gandhi:
I look upon an increase in the power of

the state with the greatest fear
because…it does the greatest harm to
mankind by destroying individuality
which lies at the root of all progress.32
In order to curb emergence of authoritarianism, the size and

role of police and military, for Gandhi, has to be limited to dealing
with thieves, robbers, raiders from without and a few emergencies
only. It would be better if police and military perform largely the role
of a body of reformers.33 Gandhi looks forward to the emergence of a
world where “no state has its military.”34
Socio-economic decentralisation is yet another corrective
measure to curb undemocratic tendencies. Gandhi’s global vision
moves upward from the individual and a federation of village
republics to an international federation of nations in a society marked
by voluntary cooperation and decentralisation. Aldous Huxley, while
supporting Gandhi, says, “…democratic principles cannot be
effectively put into practice unless authority in a community has been
decentralised to the utmost extent possible.”35
The modern inter-linking of people and economies under
contemporary globalisation must give careful attention to the

60
Gandhian pointers in this age of technology for keeping away from

the pejorative aspects of concurrent science and development patterns.
Otherwise, globalisation will prove to be a “nine days wonder” only.

61
References and Notes

1
V. A. Patil and D. Gopal, Politics of Globalisation, (Authors Press, Delhi: 2002), pp. 01 –
11. “The term ‘globalisation’ was first coined in the 1980s, but the concept stretches back
decades, and even centuries, if you count the trading empires by Spain, Portugal, Britain and
Holland. The resolve of Western states to build and strengthen international ties in the
aftermath of World War II laid the groundwork for today’s globalisation. It has brought
diminishing national borders and the fusing of individual national markets. The fall of
protectionist barriers has stimulated free movement of capital and paved the way for
companies to set up several bases around the world. …. Supporters of globalisation say it has
promoted information exchange, led to greater understanding of other cultures and allowed
democracy to triumph over autocracy. Critics say that even in developed world, not everyone
has been a winner. The freedoms granted by globalisation are leading to increased insecurity
in workplace….. Many see globalisation as a primarily economic phenomenon, involving the
increasing interaction, or integration, of national economic systems through the growth in
international trade, investment and capital flows…, one can also point to rapid increase in
cross-border social, cultural and technological exchange as part of the phenomenon of
globalisation. The sociologist, Anthony Giddens, defines globalisation as a decoupling of
space and time, emphasising … instantaneous communication, knowledge and culture …
shared around the world simultaneously.” See pp 01 – 02. World Trade Organisation
(WTO), International Monetary Fund (IMF), International Bank for Reconstruction and
Development IBRD) or World Bank, United Nations (UN) and Organisation for Economic
Cooperation and Development (OECD) etcetera are a few major international organisations
regulating the process of globalisation.
2
Mahatma Gandhi places an individual at a prime spot in the social, political and economic
setup in society. There is a widespread misconception that Gandhi stresses “de-emphasis of
individual self in pursuit of higher goals.” David P. Brash and Charles P. Webel, Peace and
Conflict Studies (Sage, California: 2002), p. 05. Individual’s self-knowledge is the highest
goal and the best instrument to bring inner, national and global peace and development for
Gandhi. G. N. Dhawan, The Political Philosophy of Mahatma Gandhi (Navajivan,
Ahmedabad: 1957), Chapters 03 – 07 and pp. 312 – 351.
3
Ibid.
4
Young India, 17 June 1926; 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), p. 181. Gandhi is
against “destructive” and “exploitative” mechanisation only.
5
See Business Times, April 1998.
6
Kashmir Times, Daily Excelsior, (both daily newspapers from Jammu, J&K, India),
Hindustan Times, files concerning such programmes in Jammu, Samba, R. S. Pura and
Akhnoor border areas alongwith a few seminars in Udhampur in J&K and also in Nagpur in
Maharashtra in India during 1995 to 2000.
7
Robert Jackson and Georg Sorensen, Introduction to International Relations (OUP, Oxford:
1999), pp. 206 – 212. See Nicholas Crafts, “Globalisation and Growth in the Twentieth
Century” , IMF Working Paper, WP/0044, Washington DC, April 2000; However, for
Gandhi, globalisation “ is SWARAJ when we learn to rule ourselves ….. But such swaraj
has to be experienced by each one for himself.” G. N. Dhawan, op. cit. n. 2, p. 281. The three
pillars of this one and integrated global world are: (i) It should be nonviolent, (ii) It should be

62
non-exploitative and cooperative and (iii) It should be based on the reform, regeneration or
education of the individual, and work its way up to the international and global level. See M.
K. Gandhi, Nonviolence in Peace and War, (Navajivan, Ahmedabad: 1948), Volume – I, pp.
28, 308 – 310. See also The Hindu (New Delhi), 05, 06 and 07 January 2003.
8
The famous novel 1984 by George Orwell, noted writer of political fiction whose relevant
work was published in 1948.
9
One wonders whether a “moral doctor” is needed today? This is suggested by Kimberly
Hutchings, International Political Theory: Rethinking Ethics in a Global Era (Sage, London:
1999), pp. 182 –184, see p. 183 particularly.
10
George Orwell, 1984 (Penguin: 1948), see especially the Appendix of the novel where
characteristics of the “think police” are explained in great detail.
11
Judy Pearsall (Ed), The Concise Oxford Dictionary (Oxford University Press, New York:
1999).
12
There is need for set global standards and well-established norms under the dynamics of
globalisation. Global Education Pattern (GEP), Global Ethics and Justice (GEJ), Global
Values (GV) etcetera are required to be evolved at regional and global levels despite evident
diversity of society, language and culture in the world. Only then globalisation can really lead
to the Gandhian oneness of humanity and the world. This will be a distinct move towards
justice and dignity of the individual away from dominance and exploitation. Even the current
agenda of research in international politics is moving towards studies on establishing
“justice” in global society. This is how a movement to bridge the gap between ethics and
material development appears to have already begun. See Robert Jackson and Georg
Sorensen, Introduction to International Relations (OUP, Oxford: 1999), pp. 171 – 174.
13 Anurag Gangal, New International Economic Order: A Gandhian Perspective (Chanakya,
Delhi: 1985), Chapter – II, pp. 34 – 64. Also V. T. Patil and D. Gopal, op. cit., n. 1. pp. 07 –
21.
14 Jan Tinbergen, Reshaping the International Order (London: 1977), p. 30, 46. This figure
has currently doubled to nearly 02 billion people starving in the world today. See Brash and
Webel, op. cit. n. 2, p. 498.
15 Jan Tinbergen, Ibid.
16 Anurag Gangal, "Forms of Terrorism", B.P. Singh Sehgal (ed.),
Global Terrorism: Political and Legal Dimensions (Deep and Deep,
New Delhi: 1995). See also Peter Wallensteen, Understanding
Conflict Resolution (Sage, London: 2002), pp. 228 – 230.
17 Bill Clinton, Amartya Sen, Kofi Annan, George Bush, Atal Behari Vajpayee, Tony Blair,
Dalai Lama and so many others. In this age of gross and massive conventional / non-
conventional violence, Gandhi’s nonviolence is becoming highly relevant although it is not
being put to meaningful practice. Gandhi has had little to say about globalisation. He had
certainly written anent international federation of nations of the world.
18 S. C. Gangal, The Gandhian Way to World Peace (Vora, Bombay: 1960), p. 90.
19 G. N. Dhawan, op. cit., n. 2, p. 284. Emphasis added.
20 M. K. Gandhi, op. cit. , n. 7, Volume – II, pp. 163 – 164. Emphasis added.
21 Harijan, 16 November 1939.

63
22 Quoted in Ram K. Vepa, New Technology: A Gandhian Concept (New Delhi: 1975), p.
170.
23 S. C. Gangal, “Gandhian Approach to Disarmament” paper presented at a seminar on “
Perspectives on Disarmament” held under the auspices of Gandhi Peace Forum(GPF),
Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi, 11 April 1978.
24 From Yervada Mandir ( Navajivan, Ahmedabad: 1933), p. 96 – 97.
25 G. N. Dhawan, The Political Philosophy of Mahatma Gandhi (Ahmedabad: 1957), p. 341.
26 G. N. Dhawan, op. cit., n. 25, p. 96.
27 Brash and Webel, op. cit., n. p. 113. Emphasis added.
28 Raghavan Iyer, op. cit., n. 4., pp. 212 – 214. Parentheses and Emphasis added.
29 Hind Swaraj or Indian Home Rule (Navajivan, Ahmedabad: 1938), p. 04.
30 Anurag Gangal, op. cit., n. 13, pp. 29 – 30.
31 Young India, 02 July 1931.
32 N. K. Bose, Selections from Gandhi (Ahmedabad: 1948), p. 42.
33 M. K. Gandhi, Nonviolence in Peace and War (Ahmedabad: 1948), 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.
34 S. C. Gangal, Ibid. , p. 100.
35 Encyclopaedia of Pacifism, (London: 1937), p. 100.

64

65
Chapter Three
Kashmir Question

66

67
Chapter Three
Kashmir Question
Any Kashmir watcher can say that majority of Pakistanis want

to be a part of a “sovereign democratic” Pakistan and not the one
ruled by military dictators. India must assure Pak citizens her full
moral support in realising this vision. Otherwise the Kashmir tangle
will never be solved. Indeed, as such, there are several related
contours anent the Kashmir question especially from a Gandhian
perspective.
Only about one hundred and sixty years of the history of
Jammu and Kashmir since the Treaty of Amritsar is replete with
instability and blood-bath. This is not a very long time-span in
international politics. It - especially -“instability” generally occurs
from the very inception of a newly established political setup. But
why this blood-bath, time and again? Pakistan’s “non-Islamic”
desire for the merger of entire Jammu and Kashmir (J&K) with
her Motherland is not the reason for it. Even religion and the so-
called “two nation theory” are also not the real cause of it. In effect,
Pakistan means continuous expansion until the goal is reached
specially in the eyes of its rulers. How? It will be seen in the following
pages in this chapter.

68
Gandhi Relating to Kashmir

For Pakistan, this precarious situation is necessary for her
sheer existence and endless search of identity. This is also a
GANDHIAN perception not just because a few novices like are
saying so. Instead, Mahatma Gandhi has had very clear views on
diverse dimensions in this matter. The most relevant among
such opinions and Gandhi’s analyses are being reproduced
here in brief in his own words:
--Mahatma Gandhi had given his “consent” to

Indian Government’s defence measures in
Kashmir in 1947 because the Government was
not committed to nonviolence or “pacifism”.1
--For Gandhi, in the absence of a general belief in

nonviolence, it would be well to defend a
nation with all its violent might bravely instead
of surrendering cowardly. 2
--“I am firmly convinced that the Pakistan demand as

put forth by the Muslim League is un-Islamic. I
have not hesitated to call it sinful. Islam stands
for the unity and brotherhood of mankind, not
for disrupting the oneness of the human
family.” 3
--“There may be arguable grounds for maintaining

that Muslims in India are a separate nation. But I have
never heard it said that there are as many nations as
there are religions on Earth.” 4

69
--“The ‘two nations’ theory is an untruth. The vast

majority of Muslims of India are converts to Islam
or descendants of converts.” 5
--“As a man of nonviolence cannot forcibly resist the

the proposed partition if the Muslims of India
really insist upon it .But I can never be a
willing party to the vivisection.” 6
--“If eight corers of Muslims desire it, no power on

earth can prevent it, notwithstanding opposition violent
or non-violent.” 7
--“To undo Pakistan by force will be to undo

Swaraj.”8
--“If India and Pakistan are to be perpetual enemies

and go to war against each other, it will ruin both the
Dominions and their hard-won freedom will be soon
lost .I do not wish to see that day.”9
--“To drive every Muslim from India and every

Hindu and Sikh from Pakistan will mean war and
eternal ruin for the Country.”10
--“What is the situation? It was right for the Union

Government to rush troops, even a handful, to
Srinagar. That must save the situation to the
extent of giving Confidence to the
Kashmiris….The result is in the hands
of God . Men can but do or die. I SHALL
NOT SHED A TEAR IF THE LITTLE
UNION FORCE IS WIPED OUT, LIKE THE
SPARTANS

70
BRAVELY DEFENDING KASHMIR NOR

SHALL I MIND …. MUSLIM, HINDU AND
SIKH COMRADES, MEN AND WOMEN,
DYING AT THEIR POST IN DEFENCE OF
KASHMIR. THAT WILL BE A
GLORIOUS EXAMPLE TO THE REST OF
INDIA.” “Such heroic defence will infect the
whole of India and we will forget that the
Hindus, the Muslims and the Sikhs were ever
enemies.”11
--“I am amazed to see that the Government of

Pakistan disputes the veracity of the Union’s
representation to the
UNO and the charge that Pakistan has a hand in the
invasion of Kashmir by the raiders. Mere denials cut
no ice. It was incumbent upon the Indian Union to go
to the rescue of Kashmir when the latter sought its
help in expelling the raiders, and it was the duty of
Pakistan to co-operate with the Union. But while
Pakistan professed its willingness to co-operate, it
took no concrete steps in that direction….”
“A war will bring both the Dominions under the

sway of a third power and nothing can be worse. I
plead for amity. And goodwill…. The understanding
should however be genuine. To harbour internal
hatred may be even worse than war.” 12
An attempt to bring above-mentioned select-references in a

nutshell will focus our attention on the major directions of an obvious
and clear Gandhian perspective in this matter. The major pointers
anent this entire context are apparently very challenging and

71
gratifying in nature. They call for wider perception on the part of our
Governments and people. What are these challenging though
highly gratifying Gandhian pointers? Are they having the
potential of enlightening our darker age-in several ways today?
First, Gandhi never wanted partition of India. It was personal
and political rivalry between Jawaharlal Nehru and Mohammed Ali
Jinnah that ultimately led to India’s vivisection while religion, so-
called two nations’ theory and protection of minorities’ interests etc.
became easy instruments used for serving one’s own personal
political aggrandizement through the public postures of fighting for
securing the cause of the people at large.
Secondly, Mahatma Gandhi would opt for violence
of the brave instead of nonviolence of a coward. Even in the current
Indian phase of proxy-war-and-invasion against Indian territory and
people by Pakistani agents/forces, Gandhi would go for-despite his
inner wish to the contrary-effective, brave and obviously violent
retaliation by our Army, Air Force, Navy, Police and other para-
Military forces.
Thirdly, Kashmir (i.e. all the Jammu and Kashmir
including the Pak Occupied Kashmir) rightfully belongs to India.
India, however, must be ready to part with her rightful claim if
magnanimity on her part so requires as the largest and most powerful
country in South Asia. If Pakistan has a few reasonable needs and
wants which India can help satisfy, it must be done with a sense of

72
duty towards younger partner. This is also a diplomatic and political

requirement.
Fourthly, there is no truly original Muslim person
in the entire South Asia. All are converts to Islam. May be it is for this
reason that Pakistan is wrongly directing its national and external
forces of Jihad towards India.
Fifthly, rivalry between India and Pakistan is
continuously attracting other powers to enter the realms of
cooperation and conflict in South Asia. Therefore, this Kashmiri-
bone-of-contention is clearly having its very grave international
ramifications also.
Sixthly, the nuclear power and armaments race has
further complicated the India-Pakistan tangle and the larger South
Asian peace.
Just see how could Pakistan claim Jammu and
Kashmir when Pakistan-by itself-had always been one small
though important part of the larger whole i.e. India. How can one
part of a whole ask for sovereign rights over another part of a
larger nation like India? Is it possible through persistent violence
and terrorism in Kashmir? The beauteous land of Kashmir, despite
political instability, has mostly been without bloodshed with the
exception of the years after 1989.What a great tragedy of blood bath
is occurring now in Jammu and Kashmir almost on routine or daily

73
basis. All this is just because Pakistani Governments and agents do

not want India to move on peacefully towards continuous
development and prosperity. Pakistan is simply proving to be a
nuisance for India. Nuisance is like a bullying attitude which does not
end until the bullied decides to call it a day. This is high time when
India must decide to end this bullying by Pakistan. Otherwise, we
should be ready for our tryst with never ending terror and militancy
on Indian soil because the very existence of any Pakistani
Government and its governors appear to be depending more on Indian
discomfiture and loss of precious Indian lives than on anything else.
Gandhian Options
How to go for it? There are several ways and options. All of
them have apparently not been considered or tried till now,
especially, the Gandhian ones. We can see and analyze them one by
one :
(1.) Mahatma Gandhi will prefer a nonviolent
action in this regard provided it does not come out of cowardliness
and one’s helplessness. One such suggestion can be of finding more a
political solution to the entire problem than largely a military
option. The first option in this matter is to openly involve our
political scientists for finding political solutions in this regard.
This applies even to current-- about more than a decade old --
militancy in Kashmir. Military, in reality, should not be involved in
dealing with a situation like that of Kashmir. When we have very

74
clearly identified forces of invaders only then our military can be

given orders straightway to throw away the aggressors outside the
Indian borders. Otherwise, involvement of military will prove to be
quite fruitless. What we need here is proper development of
infiltration detection and counter-terrorism measures including
commando operations at the behest of Indian Government. Such
“Counter Terrorism Commando Operations” can be planned
regionally and sector-wise in view of strategic location, language and
over-all attitudes of citizens of a particular area. However, at every
stage of development of such counter terrorist forces and at every
possible level of operations, the political scientists of the concerned
area must be continuously consulted because they are the best judge
in all matters relating to political strategy, war, peace, order and
disorder in society etc.
Other social scientists cannot do this job for that sharp
edge of political acumen rests with a political philosopher and
academic only. Politicians are merchants of political perversions in
the main today. Our military and politicians, therefore, need
deeper and real political expertise for having positive and
meaningful scenario before them. Real politics is away from
perversions and manipulations. 13
(2.) Another option for resolving the Kashmir
question is of opening all borders freely for respective citizens of all
the South Asian nations. There is an inherent people’s political-

75
psychology in such cases which works and resolves the immediate

problems threatening the socio-political order. Obviously, some
strategic and political vigil will be needed for a very long time in
the beginning. This aspect can be taken up at the level of a South
Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) Foreign
Ministers meet and at a Summit meeting.
(3.) There is nothing wrong in conducting a
plebiscite in the whole of Jammu and Kashmir. According to the
concerned United Nations resolution, such a plebiscite can be
conducted only when all Pakistani foreign troops move out from
there. Otherwise, plebiscite cannot be conducted. Since Pakistan has
not removed its forces from our Kashmir till today, it is incumbent
upon us to fight these foreign forces tooth and nail until they are
pushed out of our territory. If we are not doing it for the last fifty-
three years then we are clearly not performing even our national duty.
(4.) However, Pakistan must never be merged
militarily with India completely in order to save the nation, region and
the world from ultimate ruin. Yet, Pakistan must be stopped from
spreading fear and terror in the name of Jihad. Otherwise, increasing
foreign interference in South Asia will soon transform this land of
traditional peace into a region worse than West Asia.
The above mentioned options are completely
Gandhian in nature inasmuch as they are to be opted for in the
absence of a general belief in the power of nonviolence. If any

76
other options are tried, the result will be further complicating the web
of Kashmir again and again. Even the option of maintaining the status
quo is also not going to solve the crisis. This approach is actually
escalating the situation year after year. This is the similar approach,
which Britain had adopted towards Hitler’s Germany. This policy was
later maligned as uncalled for “appeasement”. This policy of
“appeasement” is known as one of the major causes of the Second
World War.
Original Scheme of Pakistan
Historically, every Pakistani is, in essence, “an Indian first and
everything else afterwards.” These are Jinnah’s words about the
original scheme for the creation of Pakistan. Apparently, the very act
of the creation of Pakistan shows, in a way, acceptance of some or the
other kind of appeasement policy towards a handful of Muslim elite
by the Britishers and leaders of Indian National Congress. The
Kashmir Question is merely an extension of that policy today.
The original scheme of Pakistan, put forward by
Choudhary Rahmat Ali--post-graduate student-was an ambitious
plan to conquer a large part of the world from Myanmar to Turkey-
including entire West Asia-in the name of Islam, Musalman and
Jihad. For Jinnah, it was a “crazy scheme”.14
Jinnah's patriotism for India can be easily seen in:
United Kingdom, British Parliament’s Minutes of Evidence
given before the Joint Committee on Indian Constitutional Reforms

77
( session 1932-33 ),Volume-II,p.1496;Sangat Singh,

Pakistan’s Foreign Policy ( Delhi:1970 ), pp. 3-4, 55, 56, 57-70;
Sharifuddin Pirzada, Evolution of Pakistan ( Lahore: 1963 ),p.30.
These references tell us that: This Emmanuel College student
at Cambridge University had extended a very ambitious plan for the
creation of PAKISTAN obviously at the behest of the Britishers at
large. As such, each LETTER in the name of “P” “A” “K” “I” “S”
“T” “A” “N” represents a particular territory or geographical area.
Jinnah is on record to have called this plan “a crazy scheme” only in
these references. According to this proposal :
“P” = Punjab,
“A” = Afgania ( North West Frontier Province ),
“K” = Kashmir,
“I” = Iran,
“S” = Sindh ( including Kutch and Kathiawar ),
“T” = Turkistan,
“A” = Afganistan,
“N” = Baluchistan (representing last letter in Baluchistan).
THIS IS WHAT IN REALITY CALLED “PAKISTAN PAINDABAD

OR ZINDABAD”.

78
Pakistani intentions appear to be clear from the very

beginning. Accordingly, Pakistan is moving only in that direction
very cautiously. Calculated moves are there. See, first, the Pakistani
movement in Kashmir, Punjab and the whole of India in the form of
repeated armed intrusions, the so-called proxy-wars and several other
violations of international law from time to time. For Pakistan,
Kashmir is a window to the world for achieving her original plans of
conquering the planet, as it were!
Erstwhile Apple of an Eye
United Kingdom and United States are realizing their folly
now. Pakistan is bent upon destroying even its creators (United States,
United Kingdom etc.) like a Frankenstein currently in the name of
politics of Jihad. There is nothing bad in it if one’s intentions are
clear. But the foundations of Jihad cannot be laid down on
motivated political self-interests. IN THIS MATTER ABSOLUTE
SELFLESSNESS HAS TO BE GIVEN TOP MOST PRIORITY. This
is not to be seen as a cherished value now-a-days. Pakistani rulers are
using religion not as a purifying mechanism for ultra-perversion of
personal political ambitions but they are applying religion merely as a
utility or tool to subserve their very own interests.
A pertinent question, here, arises. Why the United
states, United Kingdom and other Western powers have somewhat
suddenly taken an about turn from favouring their erstwhile “apple of
the eye”-Pakistan? It is mainly because Pakistan is now openly

79
adopting dangerous postures towards them in league with quite a few

“religious minded” billionaires from West Asian part of the world. On
the other hand, major Western nations appear to be strategically
interested in Kashmir - especially its higher reaches - for a few
military/satellite related bases to keep, as it were, “an
instantaneous eye” on China, Russia and other Commonwealth of
Independent States, West Asia, Pakistan, Afganistan and on India’s
emerging nuclear and economic power status in the world. Even in
this age of “information explosion”, “ inter-continental ballistic
missiles” and “ laser weapons”; conventional elements and sources of
national interest and national power still have their own place and
importance: land, location, strategic environment, overall geography,
natural security and the “global reach factor” are amply available in
Kashmir , especially, for an “high-tech giant” like the United States.
In this presentation, it has been stated that Gandhi
was not totally opposed to India’s military help to Kashmir in 1947,
and would not have minded continuing it if necessary. Strictly
speaking, this is not in accordance with Gandhi’s widely known
approach to the resolution of conflicts -- national or international. But
the reason why he did not oppose it was because India as a nation of
the modern world was not a nonviolent State. Therefore, it could not
but provide its assistance in the defence of Kashmir only in this way
rather than sit back in a cowardly manner. It must be stressed, and

80
stressed strongly, that for Gandhi violence was always preferable to

cowardice.
Last but not least, Gandhi would have wanted (
like he advised the North West Frontier Province-NWFP-Government
in 1935 in the context of tribal raiders’ attack ) to find out
Pakistan’s legitimate grievances, if any, and remove them as best
as it can be possible to do so. It must be stated that this last
mentioned approach has also not yet been fully tried out. It’s high
time that a beginning is successfully made in this direction also at the
earliest and with an open mind. Despite all confidence building
measures, this all out approach is indeed missing.
Indeed, Gandhi’s nonviolence is not a set theory for
all times to come. It is highly dynamic in nature. It is always evolving
in essence. According to Gandhi, it can be practised by individuals,
by groups of persons and by nations alike. Thus he writes, “It is
blasphemy to say that nonviolence can only be practised by
individuals and never by nations which are composed of
individuals.”15
One has to see Pakistani rulers and people from different
angles. The rulers in Pakistan have mostly been adopted the policy of
crescent oriented geographical and religious expansionism in the
name of the ‘unity and oneness of Islam’. That is what we have seen
in these pages here. Their crescent ranges from Myanmar to Turkey.
This is the most dangerous aspect of Pakistan’s foreign policy. Every

81
nation has to be careful of this underlying phenomenon behind the

creation of Pakistan.
There, also appears a distant possibility of Pakistani people
rising against their own government for the final reunification with
India in view of the successful and highly stable and secular nature of
latter’s democracy. The Government of Pakistan itself has become a
Frankenstein for its own nation. One has to be patient, and the result
will soon be their in another twenty years time!
Indian Kashmir: Governing Follies
The governance of Kashmir, especially in India, has always
been very bad. Pakistani side of Kashmir is also equally bad if not
worse. It will, however, be better to see the Indian side because one
can hope for some improvement here. The nature of governance has
also further compounded the Kashmir tangle for the people in
Kashmir and Indian citizens in general.
There is de facto and de jure governance in Jammu and
Kashmir (J&K).Governmental system and infrastructure is very much
in vogue. Yet, it is a mix of modern and traditional feudal practices
and presumptions that really run the government and various
departments. Ethnic biases, family ties and unaccounted financial
exchanges impress upon the functioning of the government and
institutions.
Very peculiar characteristic trends have surfaced since the
launching of Indian Railways from Jammu in 1979. People and

82
citizens of J&K are at least as much rich as they are not poor
individually and in familial terms. Starvation and poverty is not there
in this sense. Almost everyone has food to eat. However, the
Government of Jammu and Kashmir is nearly always bankrupt.
Indeed, there is no need to point out the apparent relationship within
this perceptible paradoxical situation.
The micro level and macro level perspective of the State
Government and people are highly un-Gandhian although certain
exceptions are there relating to personal values and functioning.
Otherwise, Jammu and Kashmir State is going towards a civil war in
the years to come. Mainly the disciplined soldiers of Indian Army are
responsible for whatever little positive nuances that may be there in
the State. Yet all soldiers of the Indian Army are not fully disciplined.
In essence, violence and money power are ruling the roost.
Only nonviolence and upright Gandhian values combined with strict
discipline of individuals and professionalism can save the people of
the State from the threat of a civil war.
Gandhi is known to have visited Srinagar and Jammu also on
1 – 2; and 3 and 4 August 1947 respectively.16 Gandhi’s visit to J&K
apparently added and additional impetus to Maharaja Hari Singh
finally deciding to join the Indian union. Gandhi also extended his full
support to the Indian army attacking the Kabailies invading Kashmir
in the autumn of 1947 later. It was only around this time that Gandhi
had seen in Jammu and Kashmir a shining example and a ray of hope

83
anent communal harmony when entire India was under the spell of
communal hatred, violence and massacre. Gandhi was also wholly
against India’s partition. Indeed, India’s partition in 1947 was mainly
the result of mutual political aspirations of Mohammad Ali Jinnah and
Jawaharlal Nehru. None of them were ready to sacrifice their own
vested interest for one another and for the welfare of a united India
although both of them made several other contributions to the cause
of independence of India and Pakistan. Nehru and Jinnah were not
ready to listen to Gandhi’s wisdom on the question of India’s
partition.
The legacy of India’s partition is still hovering over the state
of Jammu and Kashmir even today in diverse ways.
Vested Interests
First, in view of a peculiar hobnobbing of local and national
vested interests, Indian Army could not go ahead with its strategy to
throw out invaders from the original and united Indian Kashmir, i.e.,
including the so called Pakistan Occupied Kashmir. Had this
occurred, a number of leaders and stalwarts in J&K would not have
been there on the political horizon at all. As such, J&K would have
had not merely 7 but at least 17 seats in Indian Sansad or Parliament!
Vested interests in J&K – in league with the national political set up –
have inflicted an unparalleled blow to the cause of political freedom
and representation of the people of Jammu and Kashmir. Gandhi was

84
not a party to such an apparent plan of political exploitation and

perversion against the inhabitants of Jammu and Kashmir.
Gandhi is also known as the greatest apostle of peace and
nonviolence in the world today. Gandhi is globally popular as a
proponent of practicable nonviolence. Yet his ideas and philosophy
are often put forward in a vernacular way mostly based on hearsay
and rumours. That is why Gandhi is frequently equated with the real
cause behind partition of India and the hanging of noted patriots like
Sardar Bhagat Singh and others. Gandhi never favoured partition and
hanging of patriots like Bhagat Singh.17
However, most of the hanged Indian patriots during the
period of British regime admired Gandhi for his nonviolent strength
and dedication to values of patriotism, humanity, nonviolence,
honesty and integrity. It was, however, unfortunate for the entire
Indian subcontinent that the two most dynamic leaders like Nehru and
Jinnah did not pay any heed to Gandhi’s words and vision of an
independent and united India. One wonders whether some of the
noted leaders of Jammu and Kashmir were also party to this obvious
“personal rivalry plan” of Jinnah and Nehru.
Article 370…
Secondly, Article 370 of the Constitution of India and
provisions of Instrument of Accession of Jammu and Kashmir to India
are such that they mainly represent the historical compulsions of the
J&K State. If the J&K State so desires, Article 370 – its parts related

85
to J&K -- can be abrogated anytime in favour of its complete merger

with the mainstream Indian territory and the larger Indian ethos. Of
course, it is the Indian Parliament that will have to make an
amendment to this effect. But there has to be a demand from the
people and Assembly of the J&K State.
All this primarily rests with the Vidhan Sabha (Legislative
Assembly) and Vidhan Parishad (Legislative Council) of the J&K
State and not so much with the Sansad especially where such a
demand from the people of J&K is concerned. Otherwise, J&K and its
citizens will always remain at a distance from the Indian mainland
and the larger Indian political and effective cultural assimilation.
As a result of the concerned instrument of accession, citizens
of J&K have seldom been able to develop a natural and fuller sense of
belonging to India specially in view of the historical compulsions of
the State so clearly reflected in the instrument of accession and in the
Article 370 of the Constitution of India. Therefore, the essence of the
so called Kashmir problem lies in this twin syndrome of constitutional
and historic differences between Indian citizens and citizens of
Jammu and Kashmir.
All citizens of J&K are Indian citizens but all Indian citizens
are not citizens of Jammu and Kashmir – constitutionally,
historically, politically and sociologically speaking. It is so despite all
the glorious sacrifices that a number of citizens of J&K have made for
the defence of India and also for the growth and development of the

86
nation. Any sane and thinking mind is forced to think – in this overall
perspective of J&K – that why at all an instrument of accession was
entered into when Jammu and Kashmir has always – since ancient
times – been an integral part of India. The instrument of accession in
its existing form appears to be a political vendetta against the people
of Jammu and Kashmir who wanted to go for fuller democratic
regime on the lines of egalitarianism under a wholly united India.
Instrument of Accession, indeed does not represent wishes of the
people of J&K.
As such, it is quite un-Gandhian in nature and an imposition
from above. So clearly Gandhi has indicated that:
Our nationalism can be no peril to
other nations inasmuch as we will exploit
none just as we will allow none to exploit
us.
Relatively Richer People :: Backward State
Thirdly, the J&K State is very poor and highly backward
although its citizens are reasonably richer than majority of other
Indian citizens in other Indian states. This is a very interesting
paradox. The Indian and Jammu and Kashmir Governments have
been engaged more in offering diversified subsidies to the people of
J&K instead of creating an environment where people learn to stand
on their own feet. The general trend here is to look up to Government
even for every routine thing and need. The Government, specially

87
those who run it, on the other hand, care more for their own needs
than the requirement of its citizens. Hence, Government is poor and
its people are rich due to various well known reasons.
There is, therefore, need to train most of the administrators
and leaders in Government in the fundamentals and application of
Gandhian philosophy leading them not only to see but also really go
for the “light of day”. It is necessary to understand the value of
sincerity, accountability, loyalty and service to people. Citizens of the
state also need to realise that it is the government which depends upon
them and not vice versa. The Gandhian idealism may not be necessary
today. Gandhian practical-idealism is, indeed, a must for real
development – especially in this age of globalisation. It is a well
known fact that globalisation rests on efficiency, excellence, set
standards, good governance and fulfilling what citizens need in their
basic routine life.
In reality, if citizens of a state do not have a need fulfilled,
then leaders of that state cannot have that need fulfilled for
themselves. If people in a state are living on footpaths, the political
leaders and administrators are also to follow suit until they are able to
provide for basic needs of their people. That is why, in general, it is
often said that most of the politicians and administrators are
somewhat unabashed in their attitude to people and devoid of any
fundamental sense of self-respect for themselves. They continue to
enjoy what other citizens cannot. If citizens do not get what they need

88
for their basic needs, then there is something drastically wrong with
the government of the state and the people who are running it. It does
not mean that every citizen has to be provided with a uniformed
chauffer driven limousine like the president or governor of a state.
Yet, certain norms of professionalism have to be followed and ever
new opportunities to citizens will have to be provided for basic
growth and development on an impartial basis.
What Amartya Sen also says is required. For Amartya Sen,
considering and measuring development on the basis of GDP,
national per capita income and other such widely accepted economic
yardsticks is misleading and improper. For him, a nation with people
having widespread education, necessary leisure time, proper and
fulsome food, electricity for everyone, shelter for all and clothing for
everyone along with near complete human security and a great inner
sense of security can be regarded as developed instead of a country
having high GDP etc without the fulfilment of basic needs. In J&K,
basic needs can be fulfilled only when there is a great sense of self-
respect and high regard for moral values among leaders and
administrators in the government. That is why Nobel laureates like
Amartya Sen regards development as freedom and the fulfilment of
basic needs of the people.18
Violence and Militancy
Fourthly, violence is a challenge which has massive contours
and expanse in J&K. Terrorists’ violence is there not only in J&K but

89
also the world over. However, in J&K, it is of special nature. As

against insurgency and terrorism, the J&K is having militancy and
state sponsored violence. This militancy appears to have its links not
only on South Asian regional level but also global levels of
networking. The immediate cause behind this rise of militancy is near
non-functioning of state and national governments in fulfilling the
basic needs of the people. One historical reason or cause of militancy
in the J&K State is also the legacy of partition of India and highly
conflictual vested political interests of political leaders of India and
Pakistan. Yet another reason behind militancy is massive and easy
availability of destructive armaments and their distribution network
through weapons mafia spread all over the world. Going to the very
depth of resolving this menace of terrorism and militancy is necessary
instead of any policy of appeasement and “carrot and sticks”. In this
context also, Gandhian practical-idealism based on nonviolence is the
only way ahead for permanent solutions in this regard. There is no
other way.
Modern violence and militancy cannot just be gunned down.
There has to be a policy and strategy for this purpose. It should be
short, medium and long term policy dealing with all aspects from the
human security angle of development and nonviolence both.
Modern terrorists are not usual criminals. They represent an
international network spread globally with massive global reach,

90
capacity, intent to attack any part of the world almost in a jiffy –

maybe more quickly than the army of United States.
Any ad hoc treatment of any problem has never been dear to
Gandhi. Proper link has to be established between human values,
policy options material readiness, actual action and strategy to deal
with a challenge. One must also be ready to deal with probabilities of
the future. It seems that the Indian government and J&K State are
neither ready to face existing challenges nor the prospective
eventualities.
It means that mere force and its blatant use will not solve
problems of humanity. Even Albert Einstein is one with Gandhi when
he says:
We need an essentially new way of
thinking if mankind is to survive. Men
must radically change their attitudes
toward each other and their views of the
future. Force must no longer be an
instrument of politics…. Today, we do not
have much time left; it is up to our
generation to succeed in thinking
differently. If we fail, the days of civilised
humanity are numbered.19

91
Unemployment
Fifthly, Jammu and Kashmir is also plagued with the ever
widening menace of unemployment. In every village only about 20%
population appears to be meaningfully and fruitfully employed. There
is need to expand the horizon of local employment generation because
Government of J&K is not able to offer jobs to all aspiring youth and
other citizens in the State. More opportunities for purposeful
employment on a professional and impartial basis are necessary.
Governmental agencies do not function properly in this matter.
Widespread corruption at highest levels is generally known to have
entered in a very systematic form. Established institutions like J&K
Public Service Commission also suffer from these diseases of
corruption and malfunctioning. In other words, parallel governments
are known to be functioning within the official system. This is the
most disgraceful aspect of the public service in J&K. It is also said
that J&K is the most corrupt State in India next to Bihar.
What the J&K require is village to village level planning to
deal with the problem of unemployment. It is necessary even for
dealing with prospective militancy as well because it is mostly the
unemployed youth who is more likely to become easy pray to
enrolment in various terrorist outfits. Unemployed youth is more
susceptible to be lured to violence and militancy. Unemployment
becomes a tool for militant groups to recruit its cadres and expand
their reach in almost every nook and corner the world.

92
Unemployment is also one of the reasons behind militancy

emerging as a modern profession among youth today. Quite like
professions of military, police and para-military forces of the State,
militancy has also become a parallel underground profession for our
misguided youth. Such an emerging situation has very dangerous
portents. This can lead to socio-political anarchy on a massive and
wide scale. The J&K Government does not appear to have been
working on these lines for a securer future.
Tourism and Cottage Industries
Sixthly, tourism, carpet weaving, food, dairy farming, silk
products, honey products and Khadi industries can provide the nodal
point for resolving the unemployment peril. This aspect has also been
exploited only partially. Several departments have already been
opened by the Government in the State in this regard. These are
functioning in their own way. What, however, is needed is largely the
de-governmentalisation and more activation of the people in solving
their own problems. Governments have become mainly an instrument
of force and deeply ingrained corruption. Indeed, Gandhi is known to
agree to an oft quoted epitaph: “That government is best that governs
the least.” As such, Gandhi says:
I look upon an increase in the
power of the state with the greatest fear

93
mankind by destroying individuality which

lies at the root of all progress.20
In the field of employment generation, institutions and
individuals other than belonging to the Government must be
encouraged more than ever earlier. The bureaucratic and other strings
should not be attached while giving more space to people and their
increased participation.
The main industries of the State, namely, tourism, farming and
animal husbandry are largely dependent on governmental initiatives
mostly subjected to red-tape bureaucratic orientation and corruption.
Full potential of the State even in these areas has yet not been
explored.
Education
Seventhly, Jammu and Kashmir is the only State in India
where education is avowedly free up to the university level. This is
partially true mainly in the autonomous institutions and
establishments of the State Government. As against the national
literacy rate of 44.18% for males and 19.55% for females, the J&K
State has a literacy rate of only about 26.67% -- and we know that
merely being literate does not mean education by it self.21
Education necessitates a number of other things also such as
vocabulary; perception; information; efficiency in using modern tools
of information technology; set standards of excellence in acquiring
knowledge and proficiency in dissemination of information; impartial

94
and highest standards of examination; global and common standards

of syllabi at every level of education; regular periodic exchange of
ideas and activities through multiple levels of mutual collaboration
among educational institutions, people and community and effective
involvement of educators, researchers and students in policy making
and implementation etcetera.
In this perspective of education, not even 1% population of
J&K is educated at all! That is why, on a rough estimate based on
more than twenty years experience in the J&K education system,
competence, merit, efficiency, talent, qualifications and expertise are
of little consequence in the State. There is a parallel system of
underground degree, diploma and certificate acquisition system
having a price tag on so many aspects of otherwise due processes of
perspiration, diligence and competence. An Animal Farm of
incompetence is churning its vigour and vitality day after day.
Here, Gandhi’s Constructive Education Programme can be of
great benefit for the vast majority of the J&K State. It can be a source
of great practical inspiration though it may be modified according to
the requirements of the present contexts. 22
Displaced Persons
Last but not least, almost 10% population of J&K falls in the
category of displaced persons today. About ten Lakhs are displaced
persons. Among these, nearly three Lakhs are Kashmiri pundits.
Other people are from the categories of migrants since 1947, Sikhs,

95
Hindus, Muslims and Scheduled Castes etcetera. Added to these are

also the displaced persons belonging to border areas and militancy
inflicted areas of R.S. Pura, Akhnoor, Manwal, Sambha, Kishtwar,
Badarwah and other regions of the State. All these are being
represented voluntarily by Panun Kashmir (Ajay Chirangoo, Kuldeep
Raina, M.K. Teng and others) and Kaushal Sharma etcetera.
There are different camps and several villages inhabited by
displaced persons in J&K. Their problems are such that they can be
understood only when political leaders at state and central level stay a
few days of their lives in the concerned camps and villages.
Otherwise problems of displaced persons can never be grasped
fully. Gandhi has been doing this when needed. For example, Gandhi
went to Champaran to understand challenges faced by the indigo
workers in 1917 under the British Raj. As a result, the problems of the
indigo farmers were resolved with the interjection of Gandhi at that
moment. Hence, some sacrifice is needed on the part of political
leaders. Only a few surveys for knowing the plight of displaced
persons will not really serve the purpose. Action and sacrifice is
needed on the part of political leaders and people of the State of J&K.
Sacrifice is essential. It is a practical device to deal with numerous
challenges. The current trend of political leaders enjoying power and
comforts will not do. Political leaders and bureaucrats have to come
out of their comfortable shells and experience what displace persons
are suffering from.

96
Gandhi – as a practical-idealist -- always lived his life with the

sufferers. He never enjoyed power despite opportunities available to
him.
One is reminded of an oft quoted line from Plato’s Republic,
“Until philosophers are kings and kings and princes of the world have
the power of philosophy, cities will never have rest from evils.”
Hence, let the populism of democracy gain its wisdom from
the merit and genuine talent from competent, diligent and practical
visionaries of society. Otherwise, anarchy will prevail ever more.
What Gandhi Wants
What a man wants from birth till death is primarily peace and
prosperity. Gandhi is also for peaceful prosperity of individuals and
nations alike. All essential needs of every individual must be fulfilled
first. Other things must follow. This is the key to Gandhian peaceful
life. That is why Gandhi, after his years in South Africa, is always
seen wearing just one small piece of cloth upon his person in order to
feel the real and practical difficulties of vast Indian masses suffering
from gross poverty. Gandhi believes in the doctrine of opting for
voluntary poverty when our other compatriots in India are poor at
large. From here flows his ideas of Trusteeship and mutual sharing of
wealth and resources.
What Gandhi is suggesting are very easy and common options
for dealing with diverse challenges. From fulfilling basic need of salt
at very low cost for every poor and common individual, he moves on

97
to national security and international peace in the similar vein. As

long as there is absence of general, fundamental, practical and
political belief in the efficacy of nonviolence as a way of life, till then
at least a Nonviolent National Defence Army, Navy and Air Force
can be evolved on Gandhian lines of nonviolent spirit and
nonviolence of the brave. This nonviolent national defence system
can work alongside existing defence forces.
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.
What we need is merely to think and act in the most common
and obvious terms. We are not doing it. This is possible even in this
age of globalisation. We must learn to sit together like common
human beings without attaching unnecessary airs to our own persons.
That is why Albert Einstein has said, ''Generations to come will scarce
believe that such a man as this, in flesh and blood, ever walked upon
this earth.'' One of the greatest admirers of Gandhi is Albert Einstein,
who sees in ''Gandhi's nonviolence a possible antidote to the massive

98
violence unleashed by the fission of the atom.'' B R Nanda writes in

the 2001 edition of Britannica Encyclopaedia, ''In a time of deepening
crisis in the underdeveloped world, of social malaise in the affluent
societies, of the shadow of unbridled technology and the precarious
peace of nuclear terror, it seems likely that Gandhi's ideas and
techniques will become increasingly relevant.''

99

1 Hindu Dharma, pp. 61-62. See also S. C. Gangal, Gandhian Thought and
Techniques in the Modern World, New Delhi, Criterion Publications, 1988, pp. 62-
73, 115-120.
2 S. Radhakrishnan, The Bhagadgita, London, 1948, “Introduction”, pp.
24-25.
3 Harijan, 06 October 1946, p. 339.
4 Ibid., 11 November 1939, p. 336
5 Ibid., 06 April 1940, p. 76.
6 Ibid., 13 April 1940, p. 92.
7 Ibid., 04 May 1940, p. 117.
8 Ibid., 05 October 1947, p. 335.
9 Ibid., 28 September 1947, p. 339.
10 Ibid., p. 332.
11 Ibid., 09 November 1947, p. 406.
12 Ibid., 12 January 1948, p. 509.
13 Gandhi’s Hind Swaraj; Mary E. Clark, Ariadnae’s Thread: Search for
New Modes of Thinking, New York, St. Martin’s Press, 1989.
14 United Kingdom, British Parliament’s Minutes of Evidence given
before the Joint Committee on Indian Constitutional Reforms (session 1932-1933),
Vol. 2, p. 1496.
15 M. K. Gandhi, For Pacifists, p. 69.
16 Ikbal Kaul, “The Mahatma’s Kashmir Mission”, Kashmir Sentinel,
Jammu and Srinagar, 16 August – 15 September 2000.
17 Paresh R. Vaidya, “Of Means and Ends”, Frontline, Vol. 18, No. 08,
April 14 – 27 2001.
18 Amartya Sen, Development as Freedom, Oxford, OUP, 1999.

100
19 Barash and Webel, Peace and Conflict Studies, Sage, Thousand Oaks,
2002, p.3.
20 N. K. Bose, Selections from Gandhi Navajivan, Ahmedabad, 1948, p.
42.
21 Government of Jammu and Kashmir State sources mainly.
22 http://www.gandhimanibahvan.org/gandhiphilosophy/philosophy_consprogrammes_bookwritten.htm

101
Chapter Four
Terrorism

102

103
Chapter Four
Terrorism
Author is highly grateful to Mark Juergensmeyer for his
timely publication “Gandhi vs. Terrorism” in Daedalus, Vol.136,
No.1, 2007, pp. 30-41. But for the relatively negative approach of
Juergensmeyer when he reasons out his preference for Gandhian
nonviolence to deal with the menace of terrorism today, he has
written a bold piece in recognition of the power of nonviolence in the
modern world – specially for tackling the challenge of terrorism after
9/11 attacks on New York Trade Tower and the Pentagon and the
recent terrorists’ attack on India’s trade capital of Mumbai.
Gandhi is known to have lived amidst violence and terrorism
quite like the type that we see in the world today. India has come
across a lot of violence when Gandhi returned from South Africa in
1915. Before coming to India, Gandhi had suffered from violence in
South Africa. Yet he never resorted to retort through violence. It is
indeed in historical records that Gandhi has always succeeded while
using his own precept and practice of nonviolence against violence.
Gandhi’s views on violence leads us to think that violence
seldom succeeds. Gandhi, as such, has written and debated widely on
the themes of violence and terrorism. It would be well to reproduce
quite a few paragraphs from Juergensmeyer’s above mentioned article
here:

104
India was on the verge of a violent

confrontation with Britain when, in 1915,
Gandhi was brought into India's
independence movement from South
Africa, where as a lawyer he had been a
leader in the struggle for social equality for
immigrant Indians. In India, as in South
Africa, the British had overwhelming
military superiority and were not afraid to
use it. In 1919, in the North Indian city of
Amritsar, an irate British brigadier-general
slaughtered almost four hundred Indians
who had come to the plaza of Jallianwala
Bagh to protest peacefully.
But the nationalist side was
countering with violence of its own. In
Bengal, Sub-has Chandra Bose organized
an Indian National Army, and, in Punjab,
leaders of the Ghadar movement --
supported by immigrant Punjabis in
California -- plotted a violent revolution
that anticipated boatloads of weapons and
revolutionaries transported to India from
the United States. These Indian anarchists

105
and militant Hindi nationalists saw

violence as the only solution to break the
power of the British over India.
Terrorism Versus Nonviolence Debate
Gandhi's views about violent
struggle were sharpened in response to
Indian activists who had defended a
terrorist attack on a British official. The
incident occurred in London in 1909,
shortly before Gandhi arrived there to
lobby the British Parliament on behalf of
South African Indian immigrants. An
Indian student in London, Madan Lal
Dhingra, had attacked an official in
Britain's India office, Sir William H.
Curzon-Wylie, in protest against Britain's
colonial control over India. At a formal
function, Dhingra pulled out a gun and, at
close range, fired five shots in his face.
The British official died on the spot.
Dhingra was immediately apprehended by
the police; when people in the crowd
called him a murderer, he said that he was
only fighting for India's freedom.

106
Several weeks after Gandhi arrived

in London, he was asked to debate this
issue of violence with several of London's
expatriate Indian nationalists. His chief
opponent was Vinayak Savarkar, a militant
Hindu who would later found the political
movement known as the Hindu
Mahasabha, a precursor to the present-day
Hindu nationalist party, the Bharatiya
Janata Party. At the time of the 1909
assassination Savarkar was reputed to have
supplied the weapons and ammunition for
the act, and to have instructed the ardent
Hindu assassin in what to say in his final
statement as he was led to the gallows. The
young killer said that he was "prepared to
die, glorying in martyrdom."1
Shortly before the debate, Gandhi
wrote to a friend that in London he had
met practically no Indian who believed
"India can ever become free without
resorting to violence." 2 He described the
position of the militant activists as one in
which terrorism would precede a general

107
revolution: Their plans were first to

"assassinate a few Englishmen and strike
terror," after which "a few men who will
have been armed will fight openly." Then,
they calculated, eventually they might have
to lose "a quarter of a million men, more or
less," but the militant Indian nationalists
thought this effort at guerrilla warfare
would "defeat the English" and "regain our
land." 3
During the debate, Gandhi
challenged the logic of the militants on the
grounds of political realism. They could
hardly expect to defeat the might of the
British military through sporadic acts of
terrorism and guerrilla warfare. More
important, however, was the effect that
violent tactics would have on the emerging
Indian nationalist movement. He feared
that the methods they used to combat the
British would become part of India's
national character.

108
Hind Swaraj
Several weeks later Gandhi was
still thinking about these things as he
boarded a steamship to return to South
Africa. He penned his response to the
Indian activists in London in the form of a
book. In a preliminary way, this essay,
which Gandhi wrote hurriedly on the boat
to Durban in 1909 (writing first with one
hand and then the other to avoid getting
cramps), set forth an approach to conflict
resolution that he would pursue the rest of
his life. The book, Hind Swaraj, or, Indian
Home Rule, went to some lengths to
describe both the goals of India's emerging
independence movement and the
appropriate methods to achieve it. He
agreed with the Indian radicals in London
that Britain should have no place in ruling
India and exploiting its economy.
Moreover, he thought that India should not
try to emulate the materialism of Western
civilization, which he described as a kind
of "sickness."

109
The thrust of the book, however,

was to counter terrorism. Gandhi sketched
out a nonviolent approach, beginning with
an examination of the nature of conflict.
He insisted on looking beyond a specific
clash between individuals to the larger
issues for which they were fighting. Every
conflict, Gandhi reasoned, was a
contestation on two levels--between
persons and between principles. Behind
every fighter was the issue for which the
fighter was fighting. Every fight, Gandhi
explained in a later essay, was on some
level an encounter between differing
"angles of vision" illuminating the same
truth. 4
It was this difference in positions--
sometimes even in worldviews--that
needed to be resolved in order for a fight to
be finished and the fighters reconciled. In
that sense Gandhi's methods were more
than a way of confronting an enemy; they
were a way of dealing with conflict itself.
For this reason he grew unhappy with the

110
label, 'passive resistance,' that had been

attached to the methods used by his protest
movement in South Africa. There was
nothing passive about it--in fact, Gandhi
had led the movement into stormy
confrontations with government
authorities--and it was more than just
resistance. It was also a way of searching
for what was right and standing up for it,
of speaking truth to power.
In 1906 Gandhi decided to find a
new term for his method of engaging in
conflict. He invited readers of his journal,
Indian Opinion, to offer suggestions, and
he offered a book prize for the winning
entry. The one that most intrigued him
came from his own cousin, Maganlal,
which Gandhi refined into the term,
satyagraha. The neologism is a conjunct of
two Sanskrit words, satya, 'truth,' and
agraha, 'to grasp firmly.' Hence it could be
translated as 'grasping onto truth,' or as
Gandhi liked to call it, "truth force."

111
What Gandhi found appealing

about the winning phrase was its focus on
truth. Gandhi reasoned that no one
possesses a complete view of it. The very
existence of a conflict indicates a deep
difference over what is right. The first task
of a conflict, then, is to try to see the
conflict from both sides of an issue. This
requires an effort to understand an
opponent's position as well as one's own--
or, as former U.S. Secretary of Defence
Robert McNamara advised in the
documentary film The Fog of War,
"Empathize with the enemy."
Gandhi’s View of Conflict
The ability to cast an empathetic
eye was central to Gandhi's view of
conflict. It made it possible to imagine a
solution that both sides could accept, at
least in part--though Gandhi also
recognized that sometimes the other side
had very little worth respecting. In his
campaign for the British to 'quit India,' for
instance, he regarded the only righteous

112
place for the British to be was Britain. Yet

at the same time he openly appreciated the
many positive things that British rule had
brought to the Indian subcontinent, from
roads to administrative offices.
After a solution was imagined, the
second stage of a struggle was to achieve
it. This meant fighting--but in a way that
was consistent with the solution itself.
Gandhi adamantly rejected the notion that
the goal justifies the means. Gandhi argued
that the ends and the means were
ultimately the same. If you fought
violently you would establish a pattern of
violence that would be part of any solution
to the conflict, no matter how noble it was
supposed to be. Even if terrorists were
successful in ousting the British from
India, Gandhi asked, "Who will then rule
in their place?" His answer was that it
would be the ones who had killed in order
to liberate India, adding, "India can gain
nothing from the rule of murderers." 5

113
A struggle could be forceful--often

it would begin with a demonstration and "a
refusal to cooperate with anything
humiliating." But it could not be violent,
Gandhi reasoned, for these destructive
means would negate any positive benefits
of a struggle's victory. If a fight is waged
in the right way it could enlarge one's
vision of the truth and enhance one's
character in the process. What Gandhi
disdained was the notion that one had to
stoop to the lowest levels of human
demeanour in fighting for something
worthwhile. This brings us to the way that
Gandhi would respond to terrorism. To
begin with, Gandhi insisted on some kind
of response. He never recommended doing
nothing at all. "Inaction at a time of
conflagration is inexcusable," he once
wrote. 6
Beneath Contempt
He regarded cowardice as beneath
contempt. Fighting--if it is nonviolent--is

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"never demoralizing," Gandhi said, while

"cowardice always is."7
And perhaps Gandhi's most
memorable statement against a tepid
response: "Where there is only a choice
between cowardice and violence, I would
advise violence."8
Occasionally violence does indeed
seem to be the only response available.
Gandhi provided some examples. One was
the mad dog. On confronting a dog with
rabies, one must stop it by any means
possible, including maiming or killing it.9
Another case that Gandhi offered
was a brutal rapist caught in the act. To do
nothing in that situation, Gandhi said,
makes the observer "a partner in violence."
Hence violence could be used to counter it.
Gandhi thus concluded, "Heroic violence
is less sinful than cowardly nonviolence."
10

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Gandhian Strategy
A Gandhian strategy for
confronting terrorism, therefore, would
consist of the following:
Stop an act of violence in its tracks.
The effort to do so should be nonviolent
but forceful. Gandhi made a distinction
between detentive force--the use of
physical control in order to halt violence in
progress--and coercive force. The latter is
meant to intimidate and destroy, and
hinders a Gandhian fight aimed at a
resolution of principles at stake.
Address the issues behind the
terrorism. To focus solely on acts of
terrorism, Gandhi argued, would be like
being concerned with weapons in an effort
to stop the spread of racial hatred. Gandhi
thought the sensible approach would be to
confront the ideas and alleviate the
conditions that motivated people to
undertake such desperate operations in the
first place.

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Maintain the moral high ground. A

bellicose stance, Gandhi thought, debased
those who adopted it. A violent posture
adopted by public authorities could lead to
a civil order based on coercion. For this
reason Gandhi insisted on means
consistent with the moral goals of those
engaged in the conflict.
These are worthy principles, but do
they work? This question is often raised
about nonviolent methods as a response to
terrorism--as if the violent ones have been
so effective. In Israel, a harsh response to
Palestinian violence has often led to a
surge of support for Hamas and an increase
in terrorist violence. The U.S. responses to
jihadi movements after the September 11
attacks have not diminished support for the
movements nor reduced the number of
terrorist incidents worldwide. Militant
responses to terrorism do not possess a
particularly good record of success.
Violence begets violence and absolute violence leads to
complete extinction. Nonviolence, on the other hand, cuts at the roots

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of violence. Nonviolence paves the pathway to peace and ultimate

victory in which even the loser is not hurt. Gandhi, therefore, even
while dealing with state “terrorism” of the British, always succeeded
in his nonviolent attempts to resolve numerous conflicts.11
Sometimes violence has to be used under certain inevitable
circumstances as already shown in this chapter earlier. Yet violence is
the way to self-destruction. Nonviolence is an ever alive process – it
never ends and it is timeless. Violence kills and nonviolence never
kills. That is why vast international resources are being spent on
establishing the processes of nonviolence for resolving conflicts and
tensions through multi-track diplomacy and instruments of institutions
like the United Nations etc.
What is really required is also benevolent intent of political
will, determination, patience, perseverance and a general belief in the
force of nonviolence. Violence does not succeed.12
Modern terrorism is indeed not a random response of an
individual or a group of individuals. Terrorism has become an army
of disciplined and well trained soldiers beyond national frontiers.
They have their own philosophies, morals and ethics. In addition to
their networking and armaments, their real strength comes from their
philosophies – ethically sound and morally soothing to them though
esoterically. Hence, the terrorists will have to be dealt with
nonviolently – with nonviolence providing the strong base for
confronting the terrorists ethically as well. Otherwise, terrorism will

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flourish ever more. Terrorists go for massive violence with ethical

base beneath their act.

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References and Notes:

1 James D. Hunt, Gandhi in London, New Delhi, Promilla and Co. Publishers,
1973, p. 134.
2 Government of India, Ministry of Information and Broadcasting, Collected Works

of Mahatma Gandhi, Vol. 9, Delhi, Publications Division, 1958,p. 509.
3 M. K. Gandhi, Hind Swaraj or Indian Home Rule, 2nd ed., Ahmedabad,

Navajivan, 1938, p. 69.
4 Young India, 23 September 1926. See specially Mark Juergensmeyer, Gandhi's

Way: A Handbook of Conflict Resolution, rev. ed., Berkeley, University of
California Press, 2005.
5 Op cit. n. 1.
6 Harijan, April 7, 1946.
7 Young India, October 31, 1929.
8 Young India, August 11, 1920.
9 Gandhi, Collected Works, Vol. 14, 505.
10 Gandhi, Collected Works, Vol. 51, 17.

Note: References 1-10 in this chapter are almost wholly reproduced from Mark
Juergensmeyer, “Gandhi vs. Terrorism” in Daedalus, Vol.136, No.1, 2007, pp. 30-
41 with emphasis added in different ways. I express deep sense of gratitude to Mark
for writing such a commendable piece on Gandhi and terrorism.
11 Erik H. Erikson, Gandhi's Truth: On the Origins of Militant Nonviolence, New

York, W. W. Norton, 1993, pp. 413-416.
12 Michael J. Nojeim, Gandhi and King: The Power of Nonviolent Resistance,

Westport, CT, Praeger, pp. 91, 288.

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Chapter Five
Conflict Resolution

122

123
Chapter Five
Conflict Resolution
Existing system of conflict resolution appears to be too

distant from deeper nuances of conflicts. These include such aspects
as unique and peculiar area, locality and culture specific dimensions
amongst the involved parties to a conflict. For example, in India –
Pakistan conflict, short term and long term vested interests and human
psyche of the people and political elites have seldom been taken into
account in any conflict resolution venture. Even so-called confidence
building measures (CBMs) are also somewhat superficially hyped
about with all ice-creams, sweet-limes, rare wines and crowd-
collecting cultural gatherings where only those are able to come who
form an elite – and thus, they have generally remained away from the
realities and pains of more recent and emerging as well as prolonged
conflicts.
Conflicts: Types and Resolution
There are at least about 250 ways of conflict resolution.
Quite a few recent editions / publications have enlisted these methods.
For instance, among others, Gene Sharp and Joan V. Bondurant have
written extensively in this matter.1 There is, among several others,
also a very comprehensive conflict resolution portal – extremely
informative and very dependable. Malaviya Centre for Peace
Research is yet another institution providing highly useful

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information and exercises in applied theory of conflict resolution –

with special orientation towards Afro-Asian and Latin American
concerns of poorer countries.
Conflicts, disputes, proxy wars, wars, guerrilla warfare,
cyber warfare, terrorism, militancy, insurgency, drugs and
armaments’ trade mafia and ecological degradation among nations
pose greatest threats to prospects of conflict resolution today. Related
to these is also the question of violation of human rights in different
ways. This further leads to infliction of diverse injustices especially
on weaker sections of this spaceship earth.
About 41 major and perpetual conflicts are on in the world
today in the form of wars, terrorism, civil wars, insurgency, sporadic
occasional violence etcetera. These conflicts are there mainly in 33
countries of Asia, Africa, America and Europe – including North
America, Latin America, West Europe, West Asia and Central Asia.2
If we look deeper into these countries and their conflicts
(as mentioned above), it will be easy to find that most of the major
racial, ethnic, language related and perennial religious conflicts have
not found their way into the common categorization and listing of
conflicts. Therefore, in reality, the world is facing at least estimated
300 different and sustained conflicts of serious nature. Every country
is having at least – on an average – two serious conflicts of different
type.

125
Every conflict must, however, be treated as yet another

opportunity for positive conflict resolution with the help of a few
select techniques from among the available nearly 250 methods. One
thing must be very clear. Waging war and finally winning it just
cannot be regarded as a method of resolving a conflict. Crushing a
revolt is also not a method of conflict resolution. Any method not in
line with a “civil society” is not to be regarded as a way of resolving
conflict. Conflict Resolution is primarily a nonviolent civilian way of
solving a conflictual tangle. Otherwise, no conflict in the world can
ever be solved.
There are quite a few common and established ways of
resolving conflicts especially among nations on international plane.
On the social and interpersonal levels, the law of the land and diverse
pulls, pressures and communication options – formal and informal –
constitute various methods of resolving conflicts. Governmental, non-
governmental and semi-governmental channels of nine tracks of
diplomacy also comprise this list.
Variation
Set standards and roadmap to conflict resolution through
negotiation, mediation, arbitration, and adjudication are not new to
this world. These established methods and ways of conflict resolution
do not suffice in view of present-day international, common global,
regional and other local challenges and conflicts. See, for instance,
conflicts in Africa, Asia and Latin-America. West-Asian, Central

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Asian, South-West Asian conflictual field is different from what can

be seen in Latin-America and in Africa (minus South Africa).
Moreover, conflicts in United States, Canada and European Countries
(minus Turkey) are quite similar. Yet their range, intensity and
circumstances differ a lot. Conflicts in Turkey, South Africa and Italy
are entirely different not only from one another but also from any
other country of the world. There are also some conflicts that are very
much built into the modern systems of efficiency and excellence!
These conflicts emerge from prolonged personal and institutional
tensions and depressions. Social, cultural, political and economic
ethos is of great significance in understanding and resolving conflicts.
Therefore, merely having and applying a ‘given and set’
system of conflict resolution will not be able to do much in the face of
mundane and varied problems such as ‘Islamism’ and not Islam,
Ethnicity, Racialism, Linguistic conflicts, Jews and Palestinian tangle,
India-Pakistan conflicts, Terrorism, prolonged religion oriented
cleavages, socio-political threats emerging from modern technology
and ‘modernity’, environmental and ecological hazards, degeneration
of values in society combined with other international conflicts
relating to territorial disagreements etcetera.
These conflicts and challenges alongwith questions of
poverty, starvation, continued and extended population explosion,
proliferation of armaments, widespread pollution of air, water and
soil, increasing unemployment, deep-rooted corruption, massive

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illiteracy, and armaments trade global and national nexus further

require more thoughtful conflict resolution modus operandi or ever
new modes of conflict resolution.
New Thinking
A new thinking has to go into this – away from vested
interests of current type. Real vested interest that must go into
evolving this innovative global plan must be resolution of conflicts in
a better and more sustained way. Otherwise, the ongoing process of
globalization will also not succeed – for obvious reasons of prevailing
conflicts in the world. Existing conflicts keep generating divisive
impetus and forces among nations and people alike. This trend has to
be stopped or at least creatively impeded through proportionate
digression and productive regeneration towards global and federated
unification.
Application of conflict resolution methods needs wider
people to people transnational active participation and continued
interaction. It must not remain nearly an exclusive domain of
academic experts, political negotiators, and diplomatic officers only.
Otherwise, conflicts and their resolution will make possibilities of
peace ever more conflictual through their methodological and
technical expertise quite away form realities of conflicts. Methods and
technical profundity is required absolutely. This knowledge must,
however, percolate down to every common person. That is how things

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have to be planned for future. This, indeed, is a field of international

and global policy making.
Even the exercise of theory building in conflict resolution
has to be more exhaustive, comprehensive and all inclusive
democratically and voluntarily. Establishment of democracy in every
country has to be a real universal truth for conflict resolution to
succeed.
Even the present-day process of globalization also
necessacitates a primarily “border-less and conflict-free world”, as it
were, for the emergence of a global civil society. This is a pre-
qualification of a globalized world. Prolonged conflicts hamper good
governance, excellence and efficiency – so necessary for globalization
through free flow of interactive information, goods, technology and
efforts of people. The essence of globalization is seen in a nonviolent
and largely peaceful world. Conflict resolution and globalization are
mutually interdependent and closely linked to one another. These two
are so much intertwined that they march forward together.
In the seriously conflict ridden areas, meaningful activities
relating to agriculture, food production, employment opportunities,
technological development etcetera become, as it were, “out of
bounds” for the concerned population and inhabitants. Multiple
regions of such anarchistic conflicts are not difficult to see especially
in Africa, Southeast Asia, West Asia and Central Asia etcetera. Such
regions of conflicts and pockets are living examples of “Hell on

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Earth!” Future “Hells” on Earth must, however, be discouraged and

not pampered in any way what so ever.
Conflict Provention
There are several ways. This is also possible through John
Burton’s “provention” and proactive prevention of prospective
conflicts.3 For Burton, provention (not merely prevention) includes
better education from the time of early school days in understanding
causes of conflicts. A well groomed culture of conflict resolution is,
therefore, needed in the global civil society today. The global
community of nations is, however, not giving serious and concerted
thought to the need of a ‘well groomed international system of
conflict resolution and prevention’.
Events of 11 September 2001 are logical corollary of
massive violence and weapons of mass destruction available to the
institution of State and their apparent smuggling and clandestine trade
through various channels. How to relate this challenge of conflict
resolution to realities of conflict “provention” and long term
streamlining?
In this matter, on the governmental plane in particular, it is
mainly the intelligence agencies’ input and filtered reports that
generally form the basis for gathering information. On this basis,
steps and policies are formulated for prevention of conflicts in future.
This by itself is an incomplete exercise. Intelligence gathering is
always insufficient because it is done by professionals who are

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generally not integral actors and participants in the concerned

conflict. Instead, they are involved, at best, merely as involuntary
duty bound observers.
Clash of Civilisations!
Quite a few authors and noted experts like Samuel P.
Huntington and others have also extended a thesis of clash of
civilisations in the twenty-first century. Huntington says:
It is my hypothesis that the
fundamental source of conflict in this new
world will not be primarily ideological or
primarily economic. The great divisions
among humankind and the dominating
source of conflict will be cultural. Nation
states will remain the most powerful actors
in world affairs, but the principal conflicts
of global politics will occur between
nations and groups of different
civilizations. The clash of civilizations will
be the battle lines of the future.4
Indeed, it is not always easy to agree with Huntington.
Civilisations do not clash. Ideology, economy and culture are highly
technical terms and they do not entirely constitute a civilisation.
When modern nation-states and globalisation oriented international
politics were not there, ‘civilisations’ still prevailed. The essence of a

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civilisation are in the particular ‘way of life’, societal values, ethical

ethos, set and evolved standards of an individual’s character, popular
ways and standards of social entertainment, and preservation, creation
and evolution of knowledge (and not so much of ‘information’) in a
given social and political regime. However, the political aspects are
but off-shoots of the essence of civilisation. Therefore, civilisations
can never clash. They are permanent and ever evolving. Yes, they
maybe destroyed physically by an eventuality of the dropping of a
nuclear bomb upon them as it nearly happened in the case of
Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August 1945 when about 80,000 living
and pulsating human beings were killed and exhumed into thin air
almost instantly. This example is merely an example of the possibility
of annihilation of a civilisation in future especially in view of
maddening 50,000 nuclear arsenals resting with the United States and
Russia minus other nuclear powers today. “Every such warhead has
nearly twenty times the destructive power of the atom bomb dropped
at Hiroshima on 06 August 1945”. 5
Conflict resolution will have to be “preventive” and
futuristic as well. An international authority for conflict resolution on
the basis of the principle of a world federation of nations may be
created with in the United Nations system of independently.
Exclusive task of such an authority must be only conflict resolution.
Otherwise, civilizations will not clash but they will be completely
destroyed and annihilated.

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Gandhian Conception
However, the Gandhian perception on conflict resolution
is more straightforward especially when he suggested the Jews
community in Palestine they should have never left their country
Germany under any circumstances.
Conflict resolution stands mid-way between conflict
management and conflict transformation in international politics.
Mahatma Gandhi regards nonviolence as the main approach to
resolution of nearly every type of conflict among nations, races and
human beings. He observes in Harijan in 1938:
German persecution of the Jews
seems to have no parallel in history. The
tyrants of old never went so mad as Hitler
seems to have gone. And he is doing it
with religious zeal. For he is propounding
a new religion of exclusive and militant
nationalism in the name of which many
inhumanity becomes an act of humanity to
be rewarded here and hereafter. The crime
of an obviously mad but intrepid youth is
being visited upon his whole race with
unbelievable ferocity.

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If there ever could be a justifiable

war in the name of and for humanity, a
war against Germany, to prevent the
wanton persecution of a whole race,
would be completely justified.
But I do not believe in any war. A

discussion of the pros and cons of such a
war is therefore outside my horizon or
province.
But if there can be no war against

Germany, even for such a crime as is being
committed against the Jews, surely there
can be no alliance with Germany. How can
there be alliance between a nation which
claims to stand for justice and democracy
and one which is the declared enemy of
both? Or is England drifting towards
armed dictatorship and all it means?
Germany is showing to the world
how efficiently violence can be worked
when it is not hampered by any hypocrisy
or weakness masquerading as
humanitarianism. It is also showing how

134
hideous, terrible and terrifying it looks in

its nakedness.
Can the Jews resist this organized
and shameless persecution? Is there a way
to preserve their self-respect, and not to
feel helpless, neglected and forlorn? I
submit there is no person who has faith in
a living God need feel helpless or forlorn.
Jehovah of the Jews is a God more
personal than the God of the Christians, the
Musalmans or the Hindus, though, as a
matter of fact in essence, He is common to
all …one without a second [one] and
beyond description. But as the Jews
attribute personality to God and believe
that He rules every action of theirs, they
ought not to feel helpless.
If I were a Jew and were born in
Germany and earned my livelihood there, I
would claim Germany as my home even as
the tallest gentile German may, and
challenge him to shoot me or cast me in
the dungeon; I would refuse to be expelled
or to submit to discriminating

135
treatment. And for doing this, I should

not wait for the [other] fellow[s] Jews to
join [you] me in civil resistance but would
have confidence that in the end the rest are
bound to follow my example.
If one Jew or all the Jews were to
accept the prescription here offered, he or
they cannot be worse off than now. And
suffering voluntarily undergone will bring
them an inner strength and joy which no
number of resolutions of sympathy passed
in the world outside Germany can. Indeed,
even if Britain, France and America were
to declare hostilities against Germany, they
can bring no inner joy, no inner strength.
The calculated violence of Hitler may even
result in a general massacre of the Jews by
way of his first answer to the declaration of
such hostilities.
But if the Jewish mind could be
prepared for voluntary suffering, even the
massacre I have imagined could be turned
into a day of thanksgiving and joy that

136
Jehovah had wrought deliverance

of the race even at the hands of the tyrant.
For to the god fearing, death has no
terror. It is a joyful sleep to be followed by
a waking that would be all the more
refreshing for the long sleep.
It is hardly necessary for me to
point out that it is easier for the Jews than
for the Czechs to follow my prescription.
And they have in the Indian
satyagraha campaign in South Africa an
exact parallel. There the Indians occupied
precisely the same place that the Jews
occupy in Germany. The persecution had
also a religious tinge. President Kruger
used to say that the white Christians were
the chosen of God and Indians were
inferior beings created to serve the whites.
A fundamental clause in the Transvaal
constitution was that there should be no
equality between the whites and coloured
races including Asiatics.
Indians were consigned to ghettos
described as locations. The other

137
disabilities were almost of the same type as

those of the Jews in Germany.
The Indians, a mere handful,
resorted to satyagraha without any
backing from the world outside or the
Indian Government. Indeed the British
officials tried to dissuade the satyagrahis
(soldiers of non-violence) from their
contemplated step. World opinion and the
Indian Government came to their aid after
eight years of fighting. And that too was
by way of diplomatic pressure not of a
threat of war.
But the Jews of Germany can offer
satyagraha under infinitely better auspices
than Indians of South Africa. The Jews are
a compact, homogeneous community in
Germany. They are far more gifted than
the Indians of South Africa. And they have
organized world opinion behind them.
I am convinced that if someone
with courage and vision can arise among
them to lead them in nonviolent action, the
winter of their despair can in the twinkling

138
of an eye be turned into the summer of

hope.6
Nonviolence and Conflict Resolution

Ours is an era replete with human comforts, luxuries and mass
consumerist cultural milieu. These trends are also germinating into
fertile conflictual fields sowed with seeds of perennial massive
warfare, professional terrorism, nuclear blackmailing and global
super monitoring.7
Effective democratic values and ideological conflicts are being
sidelined for good. The in thing is globalisation of the order of George
Orwell’s 1984. But for apex human activity and profession of politics,
everything else is on its way to utmost professionalisation and
technical and managerial training for technological excellence.
Despite state-of-the-art professional fashioning of every
human activity, two major areas, namely, politics and nonviolence,
still need global attention anent training and disciplining. Otherwise
cities are least likely to have rest from their evils of promiscuity,
social insecurities and recurring emotional breakdowns. This is
required even for recent econological adjustments and research.
Nonviolence is a way of life while politics is an act of
bringing order to human existence.
Former is present in our daily routine though it is seldom
noticed for it comes to us inherently and naturally. We tend to notice

139
merely exceptions of violence, conflicts and tensions. Our continued

and primary attention to exceptions of perversion in politics also
applies to us similarly.
It is because of our tendency of noticing only the uncommon.
Modern media is also covering mainly those happenings as “news”
which are exceptionally perverse, violent, negative and superhuman.
Abnormalcy thy name is news! It sells in the form of advertisements
and other media activities. Perversion is being read, seen, heard and
even consumed by most of us nearly all the while. Humanity is
becoming ignorant of what is normal.
Normal life style and politics is away from gross perversion
and nearer to religion or universal values of common ethics. While
the modern and secular democratic trend is leading this spaceship
earth astray from fundamental values of daily human life. This is
being done in the name of keeping politics clean from personal
religious faiths. That is how politics – the main spirit behind all
activity – moves into scientific realms of objectivity and truth today!
Fanaticism is not religion. Religion is also not fanaticism,
prejudice and bigotry. The highest form of self-realisation needs
similar religious type of discipline, training and scientific outlook in
every religion. Even spiritual self-realisation is not entirely different
from political statesmanship and professionalism.8 Religion must,
therefore, be given its due place as a source of fundamental common

140
human values. These values need to be systematically absorbed and

applied in every sphere of modern life.
The Road to Nonviolent Conflict Resolution
This is possible through a mathematical and scientific
practical course of step-by-step individuals transformation on a local,
national, international and global plane. This has to be tried and
researched in a practical way. This is the road to Mahatma Gandhi’s
practical-idealism. Despite embracing quite a few ideas of “no-tax
campaign” or non-cooperation of David Thoreau, John Ruskin’s
“individual’s good in good of all”, “barber’s work is as valuable as
that of a lawyer” and “eat thy bread by the sweat of thy brow” and
Leo Tolstoy’s “extreme nonviolence”, Gandhi added dynamic
uniqueness to all these propositions through his own experience and
application. His practical route to conflict-resolution and
transformation, therefore, resides in a very unique Gandhian action
programme through:
i) Nonviolence
ii) Satyagraha
iii) Sarvodaya
iv) Education
v) Discipline
This is Gandhi’s vibrant pentagon. No terrorist can even try
dismantling it once it is applied in a proper practical perspective.

141
Here, some relevant quotations of / for Gandhi may be of interest for

us:
My honour is the only thing worth
preserving.9
Standing on the brink of social
disaster in our western world, it would be
rather glorious thing if we could humble
our pride sufficiently to appropriate from
the east what we need most desperately in
the west, a strong enough faith in the
efficacy of ethical forces to achieve social
justice without wading through blood to
get.10
It is a blasphemy to say that
nonviolence can only be practiced by
individuals and never by nations which are
composed of individuals.11
Gandhi’s nonviolence is a dynamic concept inasmuch as its
theory and practice went on growing and evolving as long as he lived.
That is why his ideas are often considered to be mutually
contradictory. What Gandhi says here is that he and his perceptions
are always developing across diverse experiences. For him, in Hind
Swaraj, whenever there appears a contradiction in his writings and

142
even otherwise, the later context or view must be given precedence

over the earlier ones.12
Continuity and change are the two systemic features of
nonviolence. It grows with human tryst with challenges, trials and
conflicts. This Gandhian nonviolence is a positive concept for it is the
nonviolence of the brave that is being aspired for. Nonviolence of a
coward has no room in the Gandhian order of things. Gandhi prefers
violence of the brave instead of nonviolence of a coward.13
This concept or precept of nonviolence is put into practice
through individual and corporate satyagraha. That goes for endless
quest for truth alive and not static. Humility and requestful attitude is
the cornerstone of this strategy for peace and harmony. There are
several stages and levels of satyagraha. A number of prerequisites are
also there. A satyagrahi is known as a nonviolent soldier. He has to be
trained as such.
This training includes education and discipline. Only a select
lot of determined individuals with unflinching faith in the power of
nonviolence can be a part of such a nonviolent army of satyagrahis.
Nonviolence cannot succeed without this faith and universal belief in
the efficacy of nonviolence or ahimsa.
What are these discipline, training and education in the
Gandhian mould? These are fundamental principles of Patanjali’s
Yogapradeep known as Pancha Yama. Ahimsa, Satya, Asteya,
Brahamcharya and Aparigrah are Pancha Yamas.

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Ahimsa is compassion for all living beings. Satya is

truthfulness. Asteya means not to steal. Brahamcharya is control of
senses. Brahamcharya is used mostly in the sense of abstinence,
particularly in relationship to sexual activity. Brahamcharya does not
necessarily imply celibacy. Rather, it means responsible behavior
with respect to our goal of moving toward the truth. Aparigraha is not
even to aspire to acquire and hoard wealth and mundane things of this
world such as comforts etcetera. Aparigraha means to possess only
what is necessary, and not to take advantage of a situation or act
greedy. Aparigraha also implies letting go of our attachments to
things and persons.
There is a process of soldier like training of satyagrahis for
attaining the ultimate goal of Sarvodaya or good of all. This is not a
Bethamite principle of “the greatest happiness of the greatest
number”.
Gandhian nonviolence has to be practiced. Reading alone
would not do. Even otherwise, from a scientific perspective, a real
researcher is one who goes into the field and tests the practicability of
an idea already proven in a particular situation.
Limitations of Existing Conflict Resolution
Long established methods of conflict management,
conflict resolution and conflict transformation are mostly arising from
a present day context of a sheer helplessness in view of numerous
national, regional, international and global conflicts and challenges to

144
peace and “prosperity”. The Gandhian nonviolence, on the other

hand, is such an area of managing, resolving and transforming diverse
types of conflicts that it starts not from helplessness but from courage
of conviction and essential belief in the caressing power of
nonviolence.
Nonviolence cannot be discussed on and on. It needs i)
courageous negotiators, ii) soldiers without weapons iii) unflinching
faith in ahimsa iv) self-confidence with patience and perseverance and
v) certainly not the bullish audaciousness.
Such nonviolence is replete with great potential to deal
with a number of modern day dangerous conflictual human concerns.
Nonviolence empowered with the tools of satyagraha has succeeded,
among others, in gaining political independence both for India and
Pakistan form our dear British counterparts upon whom “Sun never
set”!
The usual conflict resolution is a well established process of
resolving a dispute or a conflict by providing each side's needs, and
adequately addressing their interests so that they are satisfied with the
outcome. Conflict resolution aims to end conflicts before they start or
lead to physical fighting. Resolution methods can include
conciliation, mediation, arbitration or litigation.
Sometimes disputes and conflicts may simply be avoided
without actually resolving them. At times, it may even be desirable

145
that the concerned parties may disagree. However, one thing is clear.
It is that a conflict is a state of opposition between two parties.
There are different types of conflicts. This list can never be
fully exhaustive. Broadly speaking, about eleven types of conflicts are
recognized: i) intra-personal conflict, ii) interpersonal conflict, iii)
group conflict, iv) organizational conflict, v) community conflict, vi)
intra-state conflict, vii) inter-state conflict, viii) international conflict,
ix) global conflicts, x) regional conflicts, xi) “communal” or conflicts
between different religions, xii) racial conflicts.
For resolving these conflicts, several diplomatic tracks are also
already there. As regards quite a few apparent and friendly conflicts
between United States (US) and India, Track 6 diplomacy is also
proving to be highly fruitful for evolving short-term and long-term
relationship of mutuality and growing commitment and faith.14
All these methods of conflict resolution are also highly
dynamic. These are being applied widely for several years now. The
present day conflict resolution methods are, however, not really so
nonviolent for they arise from an intense interest based orientation of
cooperation and ever more cooperation out of a mutual assured fear
among nations and individuals alike.
Nonviolence of the Gandhian order, on the other hand, does
not suffer from such a, as it were, cliché. Therefore, what is the harm
if this approach is also developed alongside other prevalent ways of
conflict resolution? Nonviolence is also highly free from any religious

146
bias in nature inasmuch as it is presently coming from a secular mind

of Gandhi who is regarded as an undisputed leader not only the
downtrodden but also of the saner minds in the world.
Scientific Experimentation
The need is to make experiments with an open mind and
objective scientific outlook. Gandhi had this faith in social and
political experimentation. A positively practical attitude to evolution
of ever new avenues and vistas of knowledge must never be put aside.
There are quite a few masterly works by Gandhi and his
commentators anent his views on conflict resolution, 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; 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

147
works throwing ample light on Gandhi’s concept of conflict, security

and peace.15
These studies, among others, point understandably to a
Gandhian security and peace strategy comprising three concentric and
systemic spheres or circles leading to a securer world.
Human relations are not hierarchical,
horizontal, vertical and pyramidal. They are
spherical and ocean like. It is perennial
process. Each thought and act interacts from
within and without. This is an endless mutually
interwoven melting of one into another.
Moving to and from one to another. Inner
energies must be provided creative outlet not
only for all purposes but also for defence
policy, security network and foreign policy etc.
As Gandhi says, for the global conflict reduction, there must be:
…ever widening, never ascending

circles. Life will not be a pyramid with the
apex sustained by the bottom. But it will
be an oceanic circle whose centre will be
the individual always ready to perish for
the village, the later for the circle of
villages, till the last … becomes one life

148
composed of individuals, never aggressive

in their arrogance but ever humble, sharing
the majesty of the oceanic circle of which
they are integral parts. Therefore, the
outermost circumference will not wield the
power to crush the inner circle but will
give strength to all within and derive its
own strength from it… No one… [will] be
the first and none the last.16
Utmost priority, apparently, is to be given to good
understanding and relations with immediate neighbours like Pakistan
and others. A holistic security climate has to be expanded from the
inner most circle of neighbours and beyond. That is how three broad
conflict reduction security buffer spheres may be created through very
friendly relations based on utter mutual faith and nonviolence.
Armaments Race
In the absence of a general belief in the power of nonviolence
and love, i.e., truth, this pattern must still be strengthened despite
continuing armaments race and “overkill” capacities of WMDs or
nuclear, biological and chemical (NBCs) weapons. These weapons
cannot provide us security inasmuch as they are there for mutual
massive destruction and spreading terror. These weapons do not
defend us. They are meant to kill during wars and terrorise during
peacetime. About thirty countries already possess these WMDs. Anti-

149
tank nuclear bullets are also in use. Nearly 100, 000 nuclear bombs
are also there among these states. United States and Russia alone
share more than half of this arsenal.17
Only less than an iota of present-day stockpiles of armaments
was there in Gandhi’s time. Practical-idealism of Gandhi emerges
even more clearly when he says in this context:
It [nonviolence] is of universal
applicability. Nevertheless, perfect
nonviolence, like Absolute Truth, must
forever remain beyond our reach.18
Perfect nonviolence is impossible
so long as we exist physically, for we
would want some space at least to occupy.
Perfect nonviolence whilst you are
inhabiting the body is only a theory like
Euclid’s point or straight line, but we have
to endeavour every moment of our lives.19
This impossibility of “perfect nonviolence” does not prevent
an initiative in this direction. As long as there is absence of general,
fundamental, practical and political belief in the efficacy of
nonviolence as a way of life, till then at least a Nonviolent National
Defence Army, Navy and Air Force can be evolved on Gandhian lines
of nonviolent spirit and nonviolence of the brave. This nonviolent

150
national defence system can work alongside existing defence forces in

every country.
Action Programme
What more is needed today concerns not so much the conflict
resolution outlook for Gandhi. It is the conflict reduction, conflict
prevention, nonviolent perception and action, and Gandhian
nonviolent foreign and defence policy orientation among nations is
required more than anything else. An action programme on a global
scale can also be developed on following lines:
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.
2. Conflict Reduction Comprehensive Security will be
the most fruitful phenomenon when citizens and
nations of the world do not have to bother about it as
their top most priority.
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.
4. Concentric spheres of conflict reduction and security
must be grasped properly for creating a comprehensive
security environ globally step by step.

151
5. Development, Environment protection, Employment

for all, Balanced population, Eat thy bread by the
sweat of thy brow, Universal disarmament, Unilateral
disarmament, doing away with nuclear and other
weapons of mass destruction.
6. Security must not become a fetish of an age or era.
7. Nonviolence is possible only in a gallant and brave
world of citizens.
8. Cowards cannot be nonviolent.
9. Violence is preferred vis-à-vis nonviolence of a
coward.
10. Highly decentralised pattern of economy will be less
prone to instantaneous and long-term conflicts.
11. Highly decentralised political setup helps wider
participation alongwith lesser abuse of political power.
12. Nonviolent Brigades must also be developed and
trained in panch yama.
13. All armed forces and Nonviolent Brigades must be
given training in panch yama discipline.
14. Comprehensive Conflict Reduction policy must be
visionary based on experiences of history, present-day
situation and prospective possibilities and every
potential visualisation.
15. The most powerful country in the world must be an

152
important aspect of a defence policy formulation.

16. Collaborations with foreign mercenaries must be
avoided to the greatest possible extent.
17. Exports from foreign countries must be made only in
such areas where there is no other alternative in the
interest of citizens of a country.
18. Mechanisation and modern technology is to be adopted
in areas where it is necessary for national self-reliance
and not otherwise.
19. Open borders with immediate neighbours must be
preferred.
20. Free people to people contact must be given priority.
War like Situation
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 lives 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:
The power to hurt is nothing new in
warfare, but… modern technology…
enhances the importance of war and threats
of war as techniques of influence, not of

153
destruction; of coercion and deterrence, not

of conquest and defence; of bargaining and
intimation… War no longer looks like just
a contest of strength. War and the brink of
war are more a contest of nerve and risk
taking, of pain and endurance… The threat
of war has always been somewhat
underneath international diplomacy...
Military strategy can no longer be thought
of ... as the science of military victory. It is
now equally, if not more, the art of
coercion, of intimidation and deterrence...
Military strategy ... has become the
diplomacy of violence.20
This “diplomacy of violence” is not the only concern of
conflict reduction in this age of globalisation and emerging “global
village”. Other major 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, (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

154
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.
Conflict resolution must be given a sustained release booster
of nonviolence through a systemic understanding of conflict
reduction, foreign policy, defence policy and econological aspects.
Otherwise, Platonic dwellers of the cave will not be able to come out
unto the open skies.

155

1
Sharp, Gene, The Methods of Nonviolent Action, Porter Sargent, Boston, 1973, pp.
60-70; see also Joan V. Bondurant, Conquest of Violence: The Gandhian
Philosophy of Conflict, Princeton University Press, New Jersey, 1988, pp. 36-104.
2
Http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/world/war/index.html see also
http://www.crinfo.org
3
Burton, John, Conflict: Resolution and Provention, New York: St. Martin's Press,
1990; see also John Burton and Frank Dukes, Conflict: Practices in Management,
Settlement & Resolution, St. Martin's Press, New York, 1990, specially Chapter 20.
4
Huntington, Samuel P., “The Clash of Civilisations?”, Foreign Affairs, 1993. See
also
http://history.club.fatih.edu.tr/103%20Huntington%20Clash%20of%20Civilizations
%20full%20text.htm
5
Gangal, S.C., Gandhian Thought and Techniques in the Modern World, Criterion,
New Delhi, 1988, pp.14-15.
6
Harijan, 26 November 1938 (emphasis added).
7
United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO),
Declaration and Programme of Action on a Culture of Peace, UNESCO's Office of
Public Information, Paris, 2000.
8
It is because both have to pave the way for self-government.
9
Ronald J. Terchek, Gandhi: Struggling for Autonomy, Vistaar, New Delhi, 1998,
n. 3, p. 214.
10
Reinhold Niebuhr, “What Chance has Gandhi?”, Christian Century, 1931, p.
1276.
11
For Pacifists, Navajivan, Ahmedabad, 1949, p. 89.
12
Hind Swaraj, Navajivan, Ahmedabad, 1948, preliminary pages just before
“Contents”.
13
Nonviolence in Peace and War, Volume – I, Navajivan, 1948, pp. 303, 451; See
also Young India, 12.08.1926, p. 201.
14
There are currently nine tracks of diplomacy recognised more widely: i)
government to government, ii) unofficial policy oriented non-governmental
exchanges, iii) businessman to businessman, iv) citizen to citizen exchange
programmes of all kinds, v) media to media based efforts and exchanges, vi)
religion, vii) activism, viii) research, ix) training, and education.
15
M. K. Gandhi, Nonviolence in Peace and War, Volume – I, Navajivan Publishing
House, 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.

156
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.
16Pyarelal, Mahatma Gandhi: The Last Phase, Ahmedabad,

Navajivan Publishing House, 1958, Volume – II, pp. 580 – 581.
17E.J. Hogendoorn, A Chemical Weapons Atlas, Bulletin of the
Atomic Scientists, September/October 1997 Vol. 53, No. 5.
18 Harijan, 05 September 1936, p. 236.
19Harijan, 21 July 1940, p. 211.
20T. Schelling, “The Diplomacy of Violence”, in R. Art and R. Jervis

(Eds), International Politics, fourth edition, Harper Collins, New York,
1996, pp. 168 – 182.

157
Chapter Six
Human Security

158

159
Chapter Six
Human Security
Security for Gandhi is a holistic phenomenon. In his Ideal

society, there is no room for weapons other than nails of a woman.
Security has nothing to do with weapons of any sort in the Gandhian
arrangement of things. As regards atom bomb – of Hiroshima and
Nagasaki type – Gandhi says, “I regard the employment of the atom
bomb for the wholesale destruction of men, women and children as
the most diabolical use of science….. Unless now the world adopts
nonviolence, it will spell certain suicide for mankind.”1
For him, it is more a matter of opting for a way of life. Gandhi
is in favour of a nonviolent and more civilised life style. In today’s
world, human security is possible only when the basic requirements of
freedom and development are fulfilled. Gandhi adds yet another
aspect to the concept of human security. Wielding weapons for any
purpose shows a great sense of insecurity and fear among those who
possess them. Otherwise, weapons may not be needed for “security”.
German Action Committee is also demanding similar type pf security
by saying that “Security is not war, torture and terror”.2
Highest form of security is possible in a civilised and gentle
world where even armed battalions do not coerce. Until there is
widespread voluntary effort towards conflict-transformation by
individuals and states alike, the cities of the world will not have rest

160
from armed conflicts, wars and mass murders. Weapons cannot

provide security. It is the morale and faith in God and truth that leads
to real sense of security. Modern weapons and technology is leading
to widening net of insecurity among peoples and modern armies. The
Gandhian conception of security can provide a great sense of strength
and conviction to modern global citizen. However, for this, a process
of transformation has to begin for helping evolve a general confidence
in the ways of Gandhian nonviolence.
“Change is the law of nature.” It is a widely and universally
accepted fact of human life over the ages. This law, however, does not
change. Change involves innovation and zest for life. Modern
technology is indeed its most glaring example. The ultimate end of
this surging ahead of modern technology is in the “changelessness
and timelessness” of the need for security, prosperity, development
and peace. Ephemeral nature of change moves forth towards fulfilling
the perennial needs of this spaceship Earth. ‘What changes’ is subject
to a cycle of moving forward to attain the utmost need and truth.
‘What does not change’ attracts endless exploration for ageless human
need of a permanent 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?

161
Gandhian Precept
Quest for an answer to this query cannot but lead us to largely
an unexplored perspective of nonviolence in the Gandhian conception
of realities of human life. Present-day global needs and diverse
scenarios of WMDs, depletion of resources, pollution, terrorism,
increasing promiscuity in modern “civil society”, balance of terror
and mutual suspicions among peoples and nations alike appear to be
self-defeating.
Mahatma Gandhi is a known proponent of nonviolence and
peace in the world. He has widely written on war, peace and security
vis-à-vis individuals, states and vaster global perspectives. Gandhi,
however, is not a system builder in thought and action. He is a
perceiver of reality as a “practical idealist” interweaving the two
cords of human knowledge and dynamics in life. Gandhian vision is
alive with holistic perception of truth, foresightedness and scientific
analysis. What matters here is mutual compatibility between intent,
aims and means used for security in a larger human context
Gandhi sees an inherent linkage between knowledge, virtue or
wisdom on the one hand, and security of a civil society comprising
understandably connected individual(s), groups, administrative units,
polis of different magnitudes, provinces, sovereign states,
international and global organisations, on the other hand. There is
very clear line of thinking and continued relationship amongst these
aspects of security from the level of an individual to an international

162
establishment and global order. Security, defence, apt strategic

environs and peace have to begin with the individual first. Other
levels of security will have to follow suit. That is why Gandhi says,
“There cannot be internationalism without nationalism.” This is the
Gandhian order of holistic logic that must be adopted for a securer
and more peaceful world. United Nations adopted such a human
concept of security only in 1998 while Gandhi had it in his writings
and speeches since 1908 when he wrote his Hind Swaraj.
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:
-- Global conventional and nuclear disarmament.
-- Preservation of environment and ecology.
-- Resolving the population, poverty and unemployment
menace.
-- Thinking more of peace than about war and weapons.
-- Globalisation with a human face.
-- Evolving a world culture where smallest should feel the
tallest.
Security without Weapons !
Security for Gandhi is not merely strategy and technique of
defeating an invading army. It is not an international, as it were,
wrestling among nations with weapons of mass destruction. Security,

163
for him, does not mean disbandment of modern armies and other
disciplined forces. It is also not merely self-defence. Security, for
him, initially is a notion based on logic of why should there be a
threat in the absence of some solid political and economic gain. In
other words, gainful motive has to be there. The nature and perception
of such a motive emerges here as more important.
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:
However one judges the
desirability of peace or legitimacy of (at
least some) wars, it should be clear that
peace and war exist on a continuum of

164
violent / nonviolent national behaviours

and that they constantly fluctuate. Neither
should be taken for granted, and neither is
humanity’s “natural state.” The human
condition – whether to wage war or to
strive to build an enduring peace – is for us
to decide.3
Similarly, nonviolence is the Gandhian way of life.
Nonviolence comes naturally to human beings. This is part and parcel
of their existence, survival and evolution. Violent behaviour is always
an exception. Albert Einstein is also one with Gandhi when he says:
We need an essentially new way of
thinking if mankind is to survive. Men
must radically change their attitudes
toward each other and their views of the
future. Force must no longer be an
instrument of politics…. Today, we do not
have much time left; it is up to our
generation to succeed in thinking
differently. If we fail, the days of civilised
humanity are numbered.4
A noted botanist in the mid twentieth century, Luther
Burbank, explains a very sensitive aspect of security and peace

165
through an experiment for developing a spineless and thornless

variety of cactus. He says:
While I was conducting experiments
to make ‘spineless’ cactus, I often talked to
the plants to create a vibration of love. ‘You
have nothing to fear.’ I would tell them.
‘You don’t need your defensive thorns. I
will protect you.’ Gradually the useful plant
of the desert emerged in a thornless variety.5
The need is to make experiments with an open mind and
objective scientific outlook. Gandhi had this faith in social and
political experimentation. A positively practical attitude to evolution
of ever new avenues and vistas of knowledge must never be put aside.
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; Johan Galtung’s “A

166
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.6
These studies, among others, point understandably to a
Gandhian security strategy comprising three concentric and systemic
spheres or circles leading to a securer world.
Human relations are not hierarchical, horizontal, vertical and
pyramidal. They are spherical and ocean like. It is perennial process.
Each thought and act interacts from within and without. This is an
endless mutually interwoven melting of one into another. Moving to
and from one to another. Inner energies must be provided creative
outlet not only for all purposes but also for defence policy, security
network and foreign policy etc.
As Gandhi says, there will be:
…ever widening, never ascending
circles. Life will not be a pyramid with the
apex sustained by the bottom. But it will
be an oceanic circle whose centre will be
the individual always ready to perish for

167
the village, the later for the circle of

villages, till the last … becomes one life
composed of individuals, never aggressive
in their arrogance but ever humble, sharing
the majesty of the oceanic circle of which
they are integral parts. Therefore, the
outermost circumference will not wield the
power to crush the inner circle but will
give strength to all within and derive its
own strength from it… No one… [will] be
the first and none the last.7
Utmost priority, apparently, is to be given to good
understanding and relations with immediate neighbours like Pakistan
and others. A holistic security climate has to be expanded from the
inner most circle of neighbours and beyond. That is how three broad
security buffer spheres must be created through very friendly relations
based on utter mutual faith and nonviolence.
In the absence of a general belief in the power of nonviolence
and love, i.e., truth, this pattern must still be strengthened despite
continuing armaments race and “overkill” capacities of WMDs or
nuclear, biological and chemical (NBCs) weapons. These weapons
cannot provide us security inasmuch as they are there for mutual
massive destruction and spreading terror. These weapons do not
defend us. They are meant to kill during wars and terrorise during

168
peacetime. About thirty countries already possess these WMDs. Anti-

tank nuclear bullets are also in use. Nearly 100, 000 nuclear bombs
are also there among these states. United States and Russia alone
share more than half of this arsenal.8
Only less than an iota of present-day stockpiles of armaments
was there in Gandhi’s time. Yet, practical-idealism of Gandhi
emerges even more clearly when he says in this context:
It [nonviolence] is of universal
applicability. Nevertheless, perfect
nonviolence, like Absolute Truth, must
forever remain beyond our reach.9
Perfect nonviolence is impossible
so long as we exist physically, for we
would want some space at least to occupy.
Perfect nonviolence whilst you are
inhabiting the body is only a theory like
Euclid’s point or straight line, but we have
to endeavour every moment of our lives.10
Impossibility of Perfect Nonviolence
This impossibility of “perfect nonviolence” does not prevent
an initiative in this direction. As long as there is absence of general,
fundamental, practical and political belief in the efficacy of
nonviolence as a way of life, till then at least a Nonviolent National
Defence Army, Navy and Air Force can be evolved on Gandhian lines

169
of nonviolent spirit and nonviolence of the brave. This nonviolent

national defence system can work alongside existing defence forces.
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
(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.
That is why Albert Einstein has
said, ‘Generations to come will scarce
believe that such a man as this, in flesh and

170
blood, ever walked upon this earth.’ One

of the greatest admirers of Gandhi is
Albert Einstein, who sees in ‘Gandhi's
nonviolence a possible antidote to the
massive violence unleashed by the fission
of the atom’.
B R Nanda writes in the 2001
edition of Britannica Encyclopaedia, ‘In a
time of deepening crisis in the
underdeveloped world, of social malaise in
the affluent societies, of the shadow of
unbridled technology and the precarious
peace of nuclear terror, it seems likely that
Gandhi's ideas and techniques will become
increasingly relevant’.
This relevance has to be put in
action as Gandhi always said, ‘My life is
my message.’ This action is possible at
least at three levels without affecting
adversely the current surging ahead of
modernisation and globalisation. First, at
individuals’ unilateral and voluntary level.
Secondly, at the level of voluntary
organisations. Last but not least, at the

171
level of a national government voluntary

mobilisation and necessary socialisation on
a vaster plane. The international
perspective will follow suit on its own as a
logical outcome or natural corollary of
other three levels.11
Security Dilemma
There is also a related aspect of a ‘security dilemma’ or
striker’s falling into the pit instead of scoring a few points through
excessive rebound play in the carom board game among inter-state
“patrons” of civil society today. One’s security becomes a threat to
another player in the globalising twenty-first century’s global civil
culture. Politics by all means is an integral part of such activities.
Security then becomes a menace to its preserver itself.
When ‘security’ is leading to ‘insecurity’ then why this
hullabaloo and concern for security of individuals and nations alike?
Whom who is benefiting? Why this is happening? No doubt, security
is a must for all as a fundamental need and human right to life. This
need has to be fulfilled. Security beyond this need emerges into an
utterly self-aggrandising global nexus and Mafia causing loss of
precious human lives of brave soldiers and common citizens alike.
Indeed, “How much land does a man require ?” Individuals among
peoples of the world understand this predicament. Nations and
statesmen and nations are bound to ignore it for they have to act

172
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:
…the financial profits to be made,
desire for advancement on the part of
individuals whose careers depend on success
in administering or commanding major new
weapons programmes, political leaders
pandering to bellicose domestic sentiment,
and inter-service rivalry within a state.12
All these are realities of modern deep-rooted political
perversion. Politics -- as political thinkers, actors and Gandhi in
particular say – is concerned primarily with establishing truth and
order in society. Ongoing diverse manipulations in politics represent
something different than what is political. Manipulations and
perversions of civil society in this age of globalisation are presenting
intriguing trends:

173
Bringing together of global trade and economy to a

notable extent.
Smaller traders, investors, entrepreneurs, and industrial
units facing far greater challenges.
Increasing burden of poverty, population, pollution,
proliferation of armaments and (precarious) peace, i.e.,
‘five Ps’ on Afro-Asian and Latin American (AALA)
countries.
Emergence of United States and Europe as relatively
more stable global economic and political peace zones
of the world.
Widening framework of work and space for
international actors, organisations and operators.
World peace through WMDs deterrence based on
dwindling foundations of mutual terror.
Terrorist groups having their own share from state-of-
the-art weapons.
Preventing a situation of a third world war through
institutionalised terror.
Security threat from terrorism and ‘War on Terrorism’.
These trends further complicate quest for a comprehensive
security perspective when most of the states in the world are able to
ensure at best ‘a pretence of security’ despite their constantly
burgeoning military budgets. Even for their limited military security

174
needs, these countries depend, expressly or implicitly, either on other

great powers or on so-called ‘collective defence / security’.
Such wasteful security scenario point to a need for a more
comprehensive policy of defence and security especially for poorer
AALA countries in general and South Asia in particular.
Nonviolent Security Pointers
Gandhi has spoken and written profusely on nonviolence,
security, peace, war, conflict, world order and world federation of
nations etcetera. He, however, has never explained any aspect
singularly or in piecemeal fashion. He has never written exclusively
on security issues alone or separately. May be, it is for this reason,
Gandhi has evolved a holistic and a very comprehensive vision of
security and world peace.
Accordingly, political, economic and military decentralisation
of resources and power is necessary for his concept of Swaraj based
on self-reliance, self-sufficiency and really effective independence
and freedom. Only such independence can assure security. Gandhi’s
second best ideal is for a democratic system driving its strength
directly from villages especially in the Indian context.
It is not possible for a modern State
based on force, nonviolently to resist
forces of disorder, whether external or
internal…. (However,) it is possible for a

175
State to be predominantly based on

nonviolence.13
Gandhi, in reply to a question – “Is not nonviolent resistance
by the militarily strong more effective than that by the militarily
weak?” – says:
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.14
As regards training of the
nonviolent army, Gandhi says: A very
small part of the preliminary training
received by the military is common to the
nonviolent army. These are discipline,
drill, singing in chorus, flag hoisting,
signalling and the like. Even this is not
absolutely necessary and the basis is

176
different. The positively necessary training

for a violent army is an immovable faith in
God, willing and perfect obedience to the
chief of the nonviolent army and perfect
inward cooperation between units of the
army.15
A nonviolent State must be broad
based on the will of an intelligent people,
well able to know its mind and act up to it.
In such a State the assumed section can
only be negligible. It can never stand
against deliberate will of the
overwhelming majority represented by the
State. … If it is expressed nonviolently, it
cannot be a majority of one but nearer 99
against one in a hundred.16
In such a state, armaments race is
not required. As V. K. R. V. Rao puts it:
unless the armaments race is brought to an
end and effective steps are taken towards
disarmament… there is no use talking of a
new international order (or security)….
This was Gandhi’s view and it becomes

177
truer and more urgent in its need for

recognition today.17
Under Swaraj (self-rule) of my
dream, there is no necessity of arms at
all.18
Alas, in my swaraj of today there is
room for soldiers…. I have not the
capacity for preaching universal
nonviolence to the country.19
Gandhi has seldom given a piecemeal treatment to challenges
he faced in his life. He has said and written anent varied aspects of
life and human concerns. In this context, he has made a very bold
exposition in his Hind Swaraj or Indian Home Rule. On 24 April
1933, he says – on page 04 in the beginning of this booklet:
I would like to say the diligent
reader of my writings and to others who
are interested in them that I am not at all
concerned with appearing to be consistent.
In my search after Truth I have discarded
many ideas and learnt many new things.
Old as I am in age, I have no feeling that I
have ceased to grow inwardly or that my
growth will stop at the dissolution of the
flesh. What I am concerned with is my

178
readiness to obey the call of truth, my God,

from moment to moment, and, therefore,
when anybody finds any inconsistency
between any two writings of mine, if he
still has faith in my sanity, he would do
well to choose the later of the two on the
same subject.20
[In 1942, Gandhi said that if he
survived the attainment of freedom by
India, he would] … advise the adoption of
nonviolence to the utmost extent possible
and that would be India’s greatest
contribution to the peace of the world and
the establishment of a new world order.21
Writings and sayings of Mahatma Gandhi and majority of
commentators and critics of Gandhian philosophy have shown not
only inherent but also explicit significance of the idea of essential
harmony and oneness of humanity. Gandhi has never regarded
himself as a system builder. His experiments, however, have led him
to evolve – for several commentators and analysts like S. C. Gangal,
Mahendra Kumar, Raghavan Iyer, Savita Singh, Ramjee Singh, Johan
Galtung and others – a Predominantly Nonviolent State as his second
best Ideal and a Nonviolent Society as his ultimate Ideal for
establishing a vibrantly creative global and just political ethos where

179
cooperation, equality and nonviolence have replaced exploitation,

inequality and bloody warfare and mutual hatred. Similar 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.
Holistic Approach
Indeed, Gandhi’s holistic notion of security is a practical-
idealist concept. Gandhi has never written or said much about security
in particular as a term with specific meaning that is being attached to
it in the strictly military sense. Yet he had foreseen almost all major
trends and strands.
Gandhi is one with former United States (US) President Bill
Clinton’s statement: “…globalisation and the revolution in
information technology have magnified both the creative and
destructive potential of every individual, tribe and nation on our
planet.”
Gandhi has a holistic approach to human problems, in which
reform or reconstruction should concentrate, more or less at the same
time, at all levels of human existence and activity, i. e, individual,
local, national and international levels.
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-

180
accelerating trend of modern “civilisation”. Gandhi, going much

beyond Bill Clinton, finds in this civilisation:
…. people living in it make bodily
welfare the object of life.
…. If people of a certain country,
who have hitherto not been in the habit of
wearing much clothing, boots etc., adopt
European clothing, they are supposed to
have become civilised out of savagery.
…. [Ever increasing blindfolded
mechanisation] is called a sign of
civilisation.
….Formerly, only a few men wrote
valuable books. Now, anybody writes and
prints anything he likes and poisons
people’s minds.
…. As men progress,… [they] will
not need the use of their hands and feet….
Everything will be done by machinery.
…. Formerly, when people wanted
to fight…they measured between them
their bodily strength; now it is possible to
take away thousands of lives by one
man…. This is civilisation.

181
….. [Earlier] men were made

slaves under physical compulsion. Now
they are enslaved by the temptation of
money and of the luxuries that money can
buy.
….There are now diseases of which
people never dreamt before, and an army
of doctors is engaged in finding out theirs,
and so hospitals have increased. This is a
test of civilisation.
…. Today [not earlier when special
messengers were needed to send a letter],
anyone can abuse his fellow by means of a
letter [of email] for one penny. True, at
the same cost, one can send one’s thanks
also.
…now, [people] require something
to eat every two hours so that they have
hardly leisure for anything else [more
meaningful].
….. This civilisation is such that
one has only to be patient and it will be
self-destroyed.”22

182
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.
It was Gandhi’s conviction that individuals – of whom the
nations and global communities are constituted – must have priority
in any scheme of reform or reconstruction.
Yet another idea in Gandhi’s scheme is that any durable
programme of reconstruction must be marked by a measure of
coordination and integration at various levels of social action through
voluntary effort. 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.
The cultivation of nonviolence by the individual and the
establishment of non-exploitative economy at different levels will
lead eventually to the emergence of what he calls nonviolent
nationalism. Ultimately, these nonviolent nations will function under
a world federation or international organisation on the basis of:
1. Political and economic independence without any type of
colonialism or imperialism and exploitation.
2. Voluntary effort with dedication and commitment.

183
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.
5. Decentralisation at political and economic spheres.
6. General disarmament.
7. Unilateral disarmament.
8. International society as a voluntary organisation.
9. Common good of all.
10. Bigger nations ready to “give” to the smaller nations.
11. Amicable and peaceful settlement of all disputes.
12. Small international police as long as the world is able to
develop a general belief in nonviolence.
13. Free, open, alert and impartial Media.
14. Full employment.
15. Preponderance to mutual sense of service.23
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.
First, proper education and training to the individual for
understanding and imbibing the values of a normal society. A normal
fraternity, for Gandhi, is one where development does not pose
diverse types of threats to the individual and humanity.

184
Normal Order of Things

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.
Secondly, Gandhi emphasises the role of the individual in
decision-making and in sharing the national and international
responsibilities. There is no place for undemocratic or authoritarian
regimes in Gandhi’s agenda of security and peace. To steer clear of
undemocratic or authoritarian tendencies, Gandhi suggests two more
correctives of (i) limited State power and (ii) socio-economic
decentralisation. As regards the former, Gandhi is one with
Thoureau’s principle that “that government is best which governs the
least.”24 To quote Gandhi:
I look upon an increase in the
power of the state with the greatest fear
mankind by destroying individuality which
lies at the root of all progress.25
In order to curb emergence of authoritarianism, the size and
role of police and military, for Gandhi, has to be limited to dealing

185
with thieves, robbers, raiders from without and a few emergencies

only. It would be better if police and military perform largely the role
of a body of reformers.26 Gandhi looks forward to the emergence of
a world where “no state has its military.”27
Socio-economic decentralisation is yet another corrective
measure to curb undemocratic tendencies. Gandhi’s global vision
moves upward from the individual and a federation of village
republics to an international federation of nations in a society marked
by voluntary cooperation and decentralisation. Aldous Huxley, while
supporting Gandhi, says, “…democratic principles cannot be
effectively put into practice unless authority in a community has been
decentralised to the utmost extent possible.”28
The modern inter-linking of people and economies under
contemporary security debate must give careful attention to the
Gandhian pointers in this age of technology for keeping away from
the pejorative aspects of concurrent science and development patterns.
Otherwise, it will prove to be a “nine days wonder” only. For Gandhi,
in the larger context of security, peace, freedom, equality and non-
exploitative society, there are several other important realities. Such
as:
…Our nationalism can be no peril
to other nations inasmuch as we will
exploit none just as we will allow none to
exploit us.29

186
The satyagrahi must maintain

personal contact with people of his
locality. This living association of human
beings is essential to a genuine
democracy.30
I have no doubt that unless big
nations shed their desire for exploitation
and the spirit of violence of which war is
the natural expression and the atom bomb
the inevitable consequence, there is no
hope for peace in the world.31
Mechanisation is good when hands
are too few for the work intended to be
accomplished. It is evil where there are
more hands than acquired…32
I entertain no fads in this regard
[i.e., his avowed opposition to
mechanisation and capital-intensive
technology]. All that I desire is that every
able-bodied citizen should be provided
with gainful employment. If electricity and
even automatic energy could be used
without…creating unemployment, I will
not raise my little finger against it…. If the

187
Government could provide full

employment to our people without the help
of Khadi hand-spinning and hand-weaving
industries, I shall be prepared to wind up
my constructive programme in this
regard.33
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.34
Decentralisation of political and
economic power, reduction in the functions
and importance of State, growth of
voluntary associations, removal of
dehumanising poverty and resistance to
injustice … will bring life within the
understanding of man and make society
and the State democratic….. The
nonviolent State will cooperate with an
international organisation based on
nonviolence. Peace will come not merely

188
by changing the institutional forms but by

regenerating those attitudes and ideals of
which war, imperialism, capitalism and
other forms of exploitation are the
inevitable expressions.35
[I am not against all international
trade, though imports should be limited to
things that are necessary for our growth
but which India -- and for that matter any
poorer country -- cannot herself produce
and export of things of real benefit to
foreigners.]36
Gandhi is clearly having a very comprehensive view and
understanding of security based on a nonviolent way of really
civilised life. He is presenting an out line of normal human behaviour
away from cut-throat conflicts and massive wars of mutual hatred. In
this attempt, he is visualising security as a manifold concept running
into every aspect of life. An action plan may well be in line with the
larger tenor of this research piece here:
Gandhian Comprehensive Security Action Plan
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.

189
2. Comprehensive Security will be the most fruitful

phenomenon when citizens and nations of the world do not have to
bother about it as their top most priority.
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.
4. Concentric spheres of security must be grasped properly
for creating a comprehensive security environ globally step by step.
5. Development, Environment protection, Employment for
all, Balanced population, Eat thy bread by the sweat of thy brow,
Universal disarmament, Unilateral disarmament, doing away with
nuclear and other weapons of mass destruction.
6. Security must not become a fetish of an age or era.
7. Nonviolence is possible only in a gallant and brave world
of citizens.
8. Cowards cannot be nonviolent.
9. Violence is preferred vis-à-vis nonviolence of a coward.
10. Highly decentralised pattern of economy will be less
prone to instantaneous devastation at one go in the event of
bombardment by the enemy forces.
11. Highly decentralised political setup helps wider
participation alongwith lesser abuse of political power.

190
12. Nonviolent Brigades must also be developed and trained

in panch yama.
13. All armed forces and Nonviolent Brigades must be given
training in panch yama discipline.
14. Comprehensive Security policy must be visionary based
on experiences of history, present-day situation and prospective
possibilities and every potential visualisation.
15. The most powerful country in the world must be an
important aspect of a defence policy formulation.
16. Collaborations with foreign mercenaries must be avoided
to the greatest possible extent.
17. Exports from foreign countries must be made only in such
areas where there is no other alternative in the interest of citizens of a
country.
18. Mechanisation and modern technology is to be adopted in
areas where it is necessary for national self-reliance and not
otherwise.
19. Open borders with immediate neighbours are preferred.
20. Free people to people contact must be given priority.
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

191
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:
The power to hurt is nothing new in
warfare, but… modern technology…
enhances the importance of war and threats
of war as techniques of influence, not of
destruction; of coercion and deterrence, not
of conquest and defence; of bargaining and
intimation… War no longer looks like just
a contest of strength. War and the brink of
war are more a contest of nerve and risk
taking, of pain and endurance… The threat
of war has always been somewhat
underneath international diplomacy...
Military strategy can no longer be thought
of ... as the science of military victory. It is
now equally, if not more, the art of
coercion, of intimidation and deterrence...
Military strategy ... has become the
diplomacy of violence.37
This “diplomacy of violence” is not the only concern of
security in this age of globalisation and emerging “global village”.

192
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, (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.
 It must be non-exploitative and cooperative.
 It has to be based on the reform, regeneration and
education of the individual.
 It must work its way up to the global or international level
through reform or nonviolent reorganisation (including
democratisation) at other (or preceding) levels of society, such as
local or national.

193
What Gandhi is emphasising here relates very closely to the

well known UNESCO aphorism that says:
Since war begins in the minds of
men, it is in the minds of men that the
defence of peace must be constructed.38

194

1Harijan, 29 September 1946.
2
http://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2008/03/06/18483933.php
3 David P. Barash and Charles P. Webel, Peace and Conflict Studies,
Sage Publications, Thousand Oaks, 2002, p. 25.
4 Ibid. p. 3.
5 Paramahansa Yogananda, Autobiography of a Yogi, Jaico

Publishing House, Bombay, Second Indian Edition, 1975, Twelfth
Impression, p. 353.
6 M. K. Gandhi, Nonviolence in Peace and War, Volume – I, Navajivan
Publishing House, 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.
7Pyarelal,Mahatma Gandhi: The Last Phase, Ahmedabad, Navajivan

Publishing House, 1958, Volume – II, pp. 580 – 581.
8 E.J. Hogendoorn, A Chemical Weapons Atlas, Bulletin of the Atomic

Scientists, September/October 1997 Vol. 53, No. 5.
9 Harijan, 05 September 1936, p. 236.
10 Harijan, 21 July 1940, p. 211.
11 Daily Excelsior, Jammu, 08 April 2004 (Edit page).
12Barash and Webel, Op. Cit., n. 1, p.203.

195
13Harijan, 12 May 1946. Raghavan Iyer (Ed.), The Moral and Political
Writings of Mahatma Gandhi, Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1986, pp.
448 – 450.
14 Ibid.
15 Ibid.
16 Ibid.
17“Disarmament and Development”, Gandhi Marg, New Delhi, May –
June 1982.
18M. K. Gandhi, For Pacifists, Ahmedabad,1949, p. 43.
19M. K. Gandhi, Nonviolence in Peace and War, Op. Cit., n. 5.,

Volume – I, p. 28.
20Hind Swaraj or Indian Home Rule, Navajivan, Ahmedabad: 1938, p.
04.
21 Harijan, 21 June 1942.

22 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.
23Anurag Gangal, New International Economic Order: A Gandhian

Perspective (Chanakya, Delhi: 1985), Chapter – II, pp. 29 - 30.
24 Young India, 02 July 1931.
25 N. K. Bose, Selections from Gandhi (Ahmedabad: 1948), p. 42.
26 M. 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.
27 S. C. Gangal, Ibid. , p. 100.

196
28Encyclopaedia of Pacifism, (London: 1937), p. 100.
29 S. C. Gangal, Op. Cit., n. 24, p. 90.

30 G. N. Dhawan, op. cit., n. 5., p. 284. Emphasis added.
31M.K. Gandhi, op. cit. , n. 5., Volume – II, pp. 163 – 164. Emphasis
added.
32Harijan, 16 November 1939.
33 Quoted in Ram K. Vepa, New Technology: A Gandhian Concept

(New Delhi: 1975), p. 170.
34 From Yervada Mandir ( Navajivan, Ahmedabad: 1933), p. 96 – 97.
35 G. N. Dhawan, op. cit., n. 5., p. 341.
36 Ibid. p. 96.
37T. Schelling, “The Diplomacy of Violence”, in R. Art and R. Jervis

(Eds), International Politics, fourth edition, Harper Collins, New York,
1996, pp. 168 – 182.
38
UNESCO Preamble

197
Chapter Seven
World Peace

198

199
Chapter Seven
World Peace
In this age of professionalism and globalisation, “professional

politics” is needed for peace in this century. It requires, for true
politics of world peace today, dedication of revolutionaries like
Mahatma Gandhi, Mao, Lenin, Marx (not necessarily violence as a
tool used by some of these great men) and others. Otherwise,
Hiroshima and Nagasaki may always be there. In this age of
technology only a great sense of professional discipline, training,
education and establishment of a systemic carving out of prospective
political leadership can save coming generations for posterity.
Amateurism and "adhocism" of previous century has no takers today.
Exceptional dedication, devotion and training pave their way towards
charismatic mass appeal. The professional help of political scientists
must be sought in this matter. They can help establish precedents and
set trends. After all, politics must be the domain of political scientists
at large. Isn't it? Without their overwhelming wisdom and support
based on socio-political values, no democratic setup can ever achieve
peace in the present age of technologicalisation and globalization.
Politics and Peace
Despite inherent uncertainty of politics, its omnipresence and
ubiquitous nature can never be put aside. "Politics" is a highly
specialized field of activity. Such a specialized field must not be left

200
to the mercy of self-styled political leaders emerging either overnight

or almost from-no-where in the history of their own peculiar political
experience. The need of the hour is well-embedded political niche of
properly equipped political scientists and their commitment,
dedication, devotion and determination. Political knowledge and
discipline of a political scientist must become the raging path-finder.
This is necessary to grasp the true meaning of politics. Politics must
never be misunderstood as highly manipulative activity replete with
corruption, violence, exploitation, terrorism, extortions and murders
upon murders-of precious human lives and values for power, and
power for ever more power. THIS IS NOT POLITICS AT ALL.
POLITICS IS POWER AS AN INSTRUMENT FOR THE
ULTIMATE END OF SARVODAYA OR WELFARE OF ALL.
POLITICS, AS SUCH, IS PEACE. THIS, INDEED, IS THE WELL
KNOWN GANDHIAN CONCEPTION OF PEACE AND
POLITICS.
It is apparent that diehard politicians of today are not likely to
agree for their professional training and education. For them, their
experience and rendezvous with life are providing real ground for
lifetime training and dedication. What we need today is a "practical-
idealist" Gandhian approach to peace. This is necessary at all levels of
planning, formulation, legislation, execution, judiciary, and policy-
making. All such aspects need to be examined with a meaningful
participation of political scientists. This appears to be the only

201
recourse "for cities" to have their long-over-due rest from their

widespread EVILS.
Politics is there not merely by virtue of modern politicians and
their political parties etc. The theory and practice of politics is in
reality an exclusive realm of political scientists. However, the current
perversion of "politics-as-it-is" does not depict the reality. Indeed,
"Until political scientists and trained political actors are rulers or the
rulers and governors of this world take recourse to wisdom-of-
political-scientists, cities will never have rest from their perversion of
politics today."
"Beware the fury of the patient man,' John Dryden had warned
three hundred years ago. Unfortunately, the ruling authorities have
excellent reason to ignore that piece of ancient wisdom."1
Politics means ecological settings of man and society and even
much beyond. Any imbalance and ignorance is a very serious threat to
a normal and peaceful world order. As such, along with the current
rage of information explosion and craze and fashion for the latest,
more important is going for knowledge and wisdom that rest in
virtues and values. There is a general phenomenon quite popular
among modern academics. It is that they regard the present system of
university-education and institutions of higher learning as storehouses
of knowledge.2

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Limits to Growth
Mahatma Gandhi, however, is more in favour of delving deep
into the realities of life. He does not support the present-day
university system of higher learning .This is his position in essence.
For him, simple and an activist approach to life leads to real depths of
knowledge. Life must not depend so much-as it is today-upon
acquisitive instincts but on self-restraint, Aristotelian mean/balance
and widespread normalcy in socio-political order emanating from the
individual.3 Such ideas for the followers of Gandhi are known as the
Gandhian view of life.
When similar ideas are extended by others without reference
to Gandhi then they are generally not called Gandhian. Yet Mahatma
Gandhi's relevance anent pertinent questions and their answers does
not increase or decrease.4 Hence -- for ulterior reasons -- if we do
away with Gandhi in the absence of larger belief in nonviolence,
truth, nonstealing, nonpossession and brahmcharya etc. , even then it
is the following main concerns and development paradoxes which are
likely to dominate human minds throughout the twenty-first century:
i) limits to growth
ii) impact of information technology upon man
iii) over-production of conventional/other weapons
iv) over-exploitation of natural/other resources and
ever widening consumerism
v) professionalization of conventional and nuclear

203
terrorism and similar acts

vi) modern technology, environmental pollution,
human survival
vii) preservation of depleting resources
viii) preserving political-ecological balance for a
normal life with least possible socio-political tensions
ix) religion of equality and humanity and not merely
rituals
x) preserving dignity of man
xi) quality of life without degenerating aspects of
modernity
xii) above mentioned threats to local, national,
regional, international and global peace
Practical Idealism Inevitable
As such Gandhian "practical-idealism" is going to be the real
IN thing of human rationality and vision in the twenty-first century.
Whether we want it or not Mahatma Gandhi will be there -- either in
name or in deeds of the generations to come. No "commitments" can
run away from this reality.5 Priorities of our commitment must
change knowingly. Indeed, "commitment" is always necessary for
becoming a professional activist in any area of life. Gandhi has
always been an activist and a political worker. His philosophy or
"way of life" is also primarily derived from his lessons of life and
"experiments" through diverse experiences. Most of the present-day

204
political leaders, however, are not able to learn so much from their
life. Maybe because "politics" is currently considered more as an
instrument of subversion, exploitation and manipulations instead of
the Gandhian sarvodaya or welfare of all.
Sarvodaya is not possible when almost every nook and corner
of world politics is having a “political leader” by virtue of birth,
criminal activities, money power or sheer bullying of the gentle and
weaker lot. It is happening among nations also .Gandhi had
unmistakably foreseen this predicament in his Hind Swaraj in 1909.
In this booklet, Gandhi characterizes modern civilization as a
"disease" and "a nine days wonder". Even around the time of his
assassination on 30 January 1948 - especially just about two weeks
earlier-Gandhi said, "this (modern) civilization is such that one has
only to be patient, and it will be self-destroyed." Given the present-
day widespread "balance-of-terror"- with its plans for mutual assured
destruction (MAD) even outside the purview of the erstwhile "cold
war" today -- disintegration and destruction is continuing. We have it
from so knowledgeable a source as Jan Tinbergen's Report to the
Club of Rome: "in the rich countries there is growing concern about
the conservation of non-renewable resources and … about how to
keep the world in a stationary state." In the above mentioned contexts,
a beginning has to be made. For Gandhi, "one step is enough" to start
an effort.

205
The world into the twenty-first century is going to realize its

past follies of giving the reigns of politics to "Tom, Dick and Harries"
from time to time. Politics as an activity and as a discipline is at the
apex of Aristotelian, Hobbesian, Marxian and Gandhian
phenomenology. There is an oft-quoted phrase in English: "Let fools
contest for forms of government." Indeed, if matters relating to
government are left to "fools" then who will govern! Therefore, a first
step in this direction must be high degree of commitment to politics
by the modern political scientists. Political leaders must seek their
help in every related area regularly. Political scientists must extend
specially designed courses and training programmes to politicians --
obviously on a voluntary basis in the beginning. Such a first step can
bring the modern "Bizarre Politicians" nearer to realities of a normal
political order away from manipulations and extortions etc. After all,
the company one keeps is also very important.
Predicaments and Challenges
The twenty-first century has numerous other predicaments,
perversions and emerging perspectives, namely, high conflict
orientation of society and politics, technologicalised human creativity,
the forgotten missing link between two hithertofore apparently
separate concepts of conflict and cooperation and George Orwell's
idea of a "THINK POLICE" in future! Along with this there is also
the larger question of global degeneration of our combined "global

206
village". These are the major five directions of challenges before

humanity today.
The first challenge is in the area of the prevailing Darwinian
and functionalist notion of conflict, especially, the particular way in
which man is generally trained, over several past centuries now, to
THINK on certain given lines of thought. This view of conflict/war is
based on Heraclitus's noted aphorism: "War (or conflict) is the father
of all things. "The basic principle here is that "as there are contending
elements in nature, so there are conflicting ideas and interests among
men .To Darwin … conflict is a constant phenomenon and the cause
of evolution." 6
Johan Galtung has, however, presented a very interesting tenor
of "A Gandhian Theory of Conflict" in David Selbourne (ed.), In
Theory and in Practice: Essays on the Politics of Jayaprakash
Narayan.7 For him, "What makes Gandhi different from other
thinkers … is his insistence that there are no barriers among men
which the goal of integration cannot transcend … an integration
directed against no one, but rather … an integration for humanity”.
Moreover, Gandhi is optimistic about the prospects for approaching,
if not completely realising, the ideal here in this world.
In the case of compromise, Gandhi very often spoke in favour
of it even at points where it seemed as if the struggle could be won,
all grievances redressed, and the claims of a campaign of Satyagraha
met in full. Such readiness to compromise can only be understood in

207
the light of Gandhi's belief that the point is not to 'win' the conflict,
but so to proceed in the entire struggle that the best possible basis for
post-conflict life is established. A general inclination in favour of
compromise, however, does not imply any willingness to engage in
compromise over fundamentals."8
This is clearly a departure from the prevailing and widespread
Darwinian as well as functionalist mode of thought. Accordingly
there are enough repulsions, wars, struggles, contradictions,
disagreements, confrontations, opposition and conflicts in Nature. For
Gandhi, each conflict is merely the result of uncalled for imbalances
occurring through diverse human interactions. How can it be the basis
of "all things" then? The real questions are: How these imbalances
can be prevented? How imbalances occur? What is the real basis of
human nature in its interactions from within and from without?
Nature lives more by attraction, inherent mutual love and
peaceful orientations for Gandhi. Other things are largely resulting
from misconceptions drawn on the basis of ages old continuous
search for modernity in terms of ephemeral additions of information
upon every latest piece of information - mainly numerical piling up
and "loading/downloading". Gandhi is for permanent knowledge and
truth. As such, each conflict is an opportunity for its "creative
resolution" for peace and wholesome development.9 Hence, for
Gandhi," Conflict was a challenge (which) offered (greater)
possibilities of contact… with whom you stand in an interesting and

208
significant relation." Such creative understanding of conflicts (and not

just functional cooperation from moment to moment) is likely to
become the foundation of the ensuing century. It is already
scientifically seen, in above mentioned analysis, that how modern
technological world is going towards a logical end of having created a
Frankenstein for itself in the form of uncontrolled surging ahead of
technology today.
Violence Scientifically not Necessary
The only saving grace for us here is in an interesting answer of
346 members out of 378 members of the American Psychological
Association. The question: "Do you hold…..there are present in
human nature in eradicable instinctive factors that make war between
nations inevitable?" About 91% 0f members replied "NO".10 This
answer reflects the essential elasticity and teachability of man's mind.
It all depends upon the training of human mind; body and spirit from
the very beginning .We are teaching ourselves - till now -- the
conflict-prone Darwinian and functionalist syndrome. We all need to
go out of this rut. T.H. Pear, J.P. Das, J.R. Anderson and, even earlier,
Sigmund Freud are a few noted psychologists of the previous and
current centuries - among several other contemporary academics -
who believe in the basic need of keeping a balance between
aggressive and loving instincts of man . Otherwise, for them, conflict
will always be the outcome. Excess of "love" and "aggression" both
lead to situations of conflict and war.11

209
A general notion about human thinking is that no earthly force

should ever try to control it for such an act would be in gross violation
of the current and established democratic norms .Yet even the modern
democratic life-styles and education are deliberately being
"implanted" into the minds of homosapiens! Is it not indoctrination?
Or is it "education"? WHY CAN'T THEN A GANDHIAN WAY OF
LIFE SHAPE THE FUTURE OF OUR PROGENY? This will be
more optimistic and fruitful way of carving out our more peaceful and
brighter prospects. We have interestingly already seen that Gandhian
ideas without bringing in his name are being proposed by the modern-
day saner elements also. Actually, the socialists, Marxists, capitalists
and several others are in reality talking in a Gandhian vein, at least, in
the ultimate analysis. Isn't it there a common global vision emerging
here in Gandhi's "practical-idealism"?
The functionalist and Darwinian conceptions of conflict and
cooperation consider these two aspects as mutually opposite realities
(as if the twins shall never meet!) . While, in the Gandhian way of
life, there is a link between these two apparent opposites. This link is
to be seen in the "self-restraint" and need of a balanced or normal life.
Therefore, conflict and cooperation are not like two separate parallel
lines of geometry. They are mutually and positively interlinked.12
What after all is this normal life in a Gandhian vision? Answer
to this question is clearly inherent in the aforesaid major twelve points

210
of this research article. Even otherwise this article is replete with the
conception of a Gandhian normal socio-political order.13
The twenty-first century is still in its phase of infancy. It is
growing despite a vast multitude of technology related problems. On
the one hand, the world is getting "connected" into becoming a global
village while on the other hand; there is “Internautian" phenomenon
of privacy versus information-explosion. Similarly, there is also a
very well-known "captive-mind" thesis of Syed Hussain Altas vis-à-
vis modern education and on going endless automation leading to
degeneration of human brain cells due to technological-product-
radiation, over-exposure and under-utilization of natural human
creativity etc. These are but a few examples of the "unfolding" of the
present century. In view of these realities, Mary E. Clark and A.K.
Saran are interested in "new modes of thinking" and for a real
"metanoia".14 This metanoia involves grass-root movements and
root-and-branch transformation of current direction of man's thinking.
Such action and thinking, however, would not involve massive efforts
towards "de-technologicalisation" and "de-industrialisation".
Peace, Global Quest and Education
In contrast to aforesaid possibilities, our present century is
racing towards "intercontinental integration and regionalization" of
global society and politics. The European Union is apparently one of
the first to go in this direction by attempting to evolve common
currency, security, foreign policy and by upgrading the European

211
Parliament. George Orwell had foreseen this type of division of the

world into three major continents under the overall governance of a
“think-police". This think-police -- obviously through technological
modern tools of audio-video paraphernalia - is supposed to police
human thinking in George Orwell's 1984. As such, widespread
expansion, compression, technological and global integration along
with a possibility of an optimistic though logical metanoia appears to
be expected trends of the twenty-first century. Of all these prospective
happenings, only those can be regarded as creative for world peace
which make the concerned imbibe and assimilate the spirit of the
Gandhian way by applying it meaningfully to the contemporary
situation.15
Some socio-political experimentation may be sought for
securing a better and more peaceful future. "…a small, autonomous
Centre should be established, preferably by non-governmental public
effort, charged with the following tasks: one, promoting Gandhian
thinking through creative and holistic research; two, designing and
conducting an educational programme in Gandhian thinking for
voluntary novices; and, three, devising and conducting a programme
for educators in Gandhian thinking. … The Centre will take only a
small number of students who evince a minimum competence and
real keenness to be initiated into Gandhian thinking and the Gandhian
way. Their material needs will be met during the programme, but no
inducements or attractions will be offered. The method of education

212
will be one that makes sufficient demands on students for self-

education. Dialogue, discussion, meditation, thinking and guided
reading, field work and lectures too, if necessary, may be mentioned
here as educational devices to be used in the Centre. This is only by
way of illustration. Different methods may be followed for individual
students. The idea is to keep the system as flexibly structured as may
be consistent with the discipline required for the effectiveness of any
serious educational enterprise.
The aim of this educational programme will be to create
maieutic design and a moral support-system for metanoia. The
students will gradually experience a transformation of their mind -- a
turning away and turning towards, of their consciousness and a
change in the centre of their thinking. A change in their character is
bound to follow. … It should be clearly understood that in so far as an
educational programme of this kind is at all successful, the graduate
(will have to be a very determined person to succeed in life). … it is
through … (patience) of such graduates that a Gandhian, that is, a
normal, ethos may slowly come to be formed."16
Indeed, "new modes of thinking" for world peace are the real
requirements of the twenty-first century.17 Which way should we go?
It is for us to decide. The world is already going in one particular
direction of ever higher degree of technological advancement. Despite
this, the modern technology has not yet touched the level of
refinement of having created a human-being (despite cloning): full of

213
life and vibrating with energy through medulla oblongata. Only birth,
live humans, death and blood are perhaps a few areas where modern
technology has not yet been able to enter fully. Everywhere else it is
there today. How long this current surging ahead of high technology
can continue? Such technology by nature is ephemeral in essence for
what it maybe today; tomorrow it may become obsolete.
A basic poser here is how long can we continue and sustain
ourselves vis-à-vis hyper-dynamic modern technological
perspectives? Is it merely a question of sustenance? Can we go even
beyond the problems of survival and sustenance? Can't there be a
global technological world resting on true freedom and dignity of the
individual without any type of fear and terror? Until we go beyond the
rut, the Gandhian conception of peace cannot become lifetime
"practical-idealism" of our age. Wither world peace? It is not
difficulty to see and perceive. "When can we begin to act?" is the
question of essence. How long this shying away is possible?
Establishing Gandhian link between our needs for Knowledge,
Information, Technology and Peace is the top priority today. Nothing
else can succeed.

214

1 Amartya Sen and Jean Dreze, The Amartya Sen and Jean Dreze Omnibus (Oxford
University Press, New Delhi: 1999); see specially India: Economic Development
and Social Opportunity, p. 87, the third portion of this omnibus volume.
2 Immanuel Wallerstein and Others, Open the Social Sciences, (Vistaar, New Delhi:
1997). Another aspect of this reference number two also needs further explanation
relating to the real meaning of politics. "Ecology" literally means "planetary
housekeeping" and not merely environmental and other types of pollutions.
"Politics" is an all inclusive master science with its continuous concern for
establishing harmony in socio-political system at different levels from local to
global perspectives. That is why political science cannot but enter the "political-
ecological" paradigm for proper grasp of reality today. See also: O.P. Dwivedi,
"Political Science and the Environment", International Social Science Journal
(Canada: 1980), p.377; Vandana Asthana, Politics of Environment, (New Delhi:
1995). In the modern interdisciplinary age, political science must put more
emphasis on studies such as highly systematic explorations in political-ecology,
political-sociology, political-economy, political-psychology, political-anthropology
and political-history etc. For this purpose, opening up of The Department of
Political Interdisciplinary Studies can also be initiated at the behest of the
University Grants Commission (UGC) in all the recognized universities interested
in such an exercise.
3 Robert Jackson and Georg Sorensen, Introduction to International Relations,
(Oxford University Press, New York: 1999). See also Mary E. Clark, Ariadnae's
Thread: Search for New Modes of Thinking,( St. Martins Press, New york:1989 ).
Jag Preet Singh, "The Political Ecology of India", M.Phil. Dissertation submitted to
the University of Jammu (Department of Political Science), Jammu [India] on 05
June 1998 (the World Environment Day).
4 Kanti Bajpai and Harish C. Shukul (eds), Interpreting World Politics: Essays for
A.P.Rana, (Sage &Vistaar, New Delhi: 1995). Ronald J. Terchek Gandhi:
Struggling for Autonomy, (Vistaar, New Delhi: 2000). S.C. Gangal and K.P. Misra
(eds), Gandhi and the Contemporary World: Studies in Peace and War, (Chanakya
Publications, New Delhi: 1981). Ashish Kothari, Understanding Biodiversity: Life,
Sustainability and Equity (Orient Longman, New Delhi: 1997).
5 Sumi Krishna, Environmental Politics: People's Lives and Developmental Choices
(Sage/Vistaar, New Delhi: 1996); Vandana Shiva, Ecology and Politics of Survival:
Conflicts Over Natural Resources in India (Sage/Vistaar, New Delhi: 1991).Also
Anurag Gangal, New International Economic Order: A Gandhian Perspective,
(Chanakya, New Delhi: 1985).
6 Krishanlal Shridharani, War Without Violence: A Study of Gandhi's Method and
its Accomplishments (London: 1939). Charles Darwin, The Origin of Spices by
Means of Natural Selection or Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for

215
Life(London:1968);Johan Galtung, "Pacifism from a Sociological Point of View",

The Journal of Conflict Resolution,(1959) No. 3,p.67. See also Johan Galtung,
"Gandhi's Views on the Political and Ethical Pre-condition of a Non-violent
Fighter", Pran Chopra (ed.), The Sage in Revolt: A Remembrance (New Delhi:
1972), p.203.
7 Johan Galtung, "A Gandhian Theory of Conflict", In Theory and in Practice:
Essays on the Politics of Jayaprakash Narayan, (Oxford, Bombay: 1985).
8 ibid. 100-101.
9 UNESCO Yearbook on Peace and Conflict Studies: 1980(Connecticut: 1981), Pp-
145-165. Ibid. Op. Cit. n.7.
10 Quincy Wright, A Study of War, Vol. 1. (Chicago: 1942), p.27; Karl Mannheim,
Man and Society (London: 1942), pp.122-123.
11 T.H.Pear (ed.),Psychological Factors of Peace and
War(London:1950),p.162;J.P.Das,The Working Mind: An Introduction to
Psychology,(Sage, New Delhi:1998);J.R.Anderson,Cognitive Psychology and its
Implications(W.H.Freeman and Company, New York:1995).
12 Joan V. Bondurant, Conquest of Violence (Princeton: 1958); also her book (ed.),
Conflict: Violence and Nonviolence (Chicago: 1971).
13 G.N.Dhawan, The Political Philosophy of Mahatma Gandhi (2nd edition),
(Navajivan, Ahmedabad: 1957); S.C.Gangal, Gandhian Way to World Peace
(Bombay: 1960); Op.cit.n.4.
14 A.K.Saran, "On the Promotion of Gandhian Studies at the University Level",
S.C.Gangal and K.P.Misra (eds), Gandhi and the Contemporary World, (Chanakya,
New Delhi: 1981), pp.-177-200, esp.-189,190.
15 E.F.Schumacher, Small is Beautiful (New York: 1973); Ivan Illich, Deschooling
Society (Harmondsworth: 1973); Arne Naess, Gandhi and the Nuclear Age
(London: 1960).
16 A.K. Saran, Op.cit. n.14. See also: M.K.Gandhi, Hind Swaraj or Indian Home
Rule (Ahmedabad: 1939).
17 Mary E. Clark, Ariadnae's Thread: Search for New Modes of Thinking, (St.
Martins Press, New York: 1989).
Note: More stress here is being put on showing how even the so-called non-
Gandhian (not admirers and followers) authors of our present-day world are
thinking on somewhat Gandhian lines.

216

217
Chapter Eight
Conclusion: Beyond Perversions

218

219
Chapter Eight
Conclusion: Beyond Perversions
The latest global contexts in international politics relate to
special focus on seven concerns of human security. These have come
into vogue with the publication of the Human Development Report of
1994.
Seven Heavens!
These are known as economic, food, health, environment,
personal, community and political security and development matters
of high priority including energy needs and sustainable development
for ensuring a fulsome and secure future. Only in this perspective,
United Nations Framework Conference on Climate Change was also
held in Bangkok from 31 March to 04 April 2008. All this in line with
the follow up of the Kyoto Protocol brought into force with effect
from 2005 – having about 175 signatories as member nations and
institutions.. In view of this quest for security and development, it
may be said that the “Gandhian option of politics away from generally
widespread perversions of politics” is now appearing to be in the
offing. Indeed, there is no other way to peace but for the Gandhian
way.
Dandi Spirit
Interestingly, it was only in the month of April 1930 that
Gandhi had completed his historic Dandi March successfully. This

220
march also symbolised the victory of “right over might” according to

Gandhi. It this Gandhian nonviolent determined spirit that the world
leaders need today. When looking for hope and positive forces among
nations – who otherwise are marred with diversified vicious violence
against humanity – one tends to question whether there is still an iota
of Gandhi in every individual and nation! The answer appears to be in
the affirmative.
On 05 April 1930, 61 years old Mahatma Gandhi reached
Dandi in Gujarat after walking 241 kilometres in 24 days. He then
defied the law by making salt. It was a brilliant, non-violent strategy
by Gandhi. To enforce the law of the land, the British had to arrest the
satyagrahis in millions. As such, Indian freedom struggle finally
gathered momentum both inside and outside India. Dandi Civil
Disobedience Movement had started on 12 March 1930.
Is Mohandas Karmachand Gandhi worth his name and fame in
this age of Weapons of Mass Destruction, Missile Warfare, Nuclear
Warheads, Modern Networking of Human Hearts and Culture,
Information Technology, Satellites, Globalisation, ''Think Police'' and
the versatile ''Drink, Dance and Dine'' scenario ? This is an obvious
query in the minds of millions of Indian and global youth and ''saner'
intellect.
Answer to this ''interlocution'' rests on our own courage of
conviction and degree of commitment.

221
Gandhi is known as a ''practical-idealist''. Gandhi's life is,

indeed, his message. He is also known as a ''prohibitionist'', a
teetotaller and a protagonist of ''no-smoking''. Yet, Mahatma Gandhi
entertained quite a few smokers and alcohol-takers like Maulana Azad
and Jawaharlal Nehru respectively.
Gandhi, similarly, is a great critic of modern mechanisation
and also of centralisation of political, economic and any other type of
power and resources. He wants a nonviolent society and not the State
paraphernalia (representing force and might) in the ultimate analysis.
Gandhi is in favour of a self-governing civil society.
Despite this, he seldom used his status and mass-popularity to
impose his beliefs on others. When required, he had the mettle to
stand all alone against the world. As regards mechanisation and
centralisation of power and resources also, Gandhi was always
sensible and ready to make necessary humanitarian adjustments
where details of a matter were concerned, especially, in the interest of
poorer individuals and national welfare. Similarly, in trade, industry
and economic development also, Gandhi is in favour of imports of
goods, services and materials despite his fundamental objection to
such activities.
Gandhi, in essence, is not a Mahatma. He is a common person
like all of us. He never liked this title of Mahatma given to him by
Robindra Nath Thakur and Indian people.
Gandhian Ethics

222
However, the Gandhian ethics of life are not the sole property
of the so-called Mahatma Gandhi. Every person is inherently a
Mahatma Gandhi even in this age of massive and widespread
conflicts and wars. What a man wants from birth till death is primarily
peace and prosperity. Gandhi is also for peaceful prosperity of
individuals and nations alike. All essential needs of every individual
must be fulfilled first. Other things must follow. This is the key to
Gandhian peaceful life. That is why Gandhi, after his years in South
Africa, is always seen wearing just one small piece of cloth upon his
person in order to feel the real and practical difficulties of vast Indian
masses suffering from gross poverty. Gandhi believes in the doctrine
of opting for voluntary poverty when our other compatriots in India
are poor at large. From here flows his ideas of Trusteeship and mutual
sharing of wealth and resources.
What Gandhi is suggesting are very easy and common options
for dealing with diverse challenges. From fulfilling basic need of salt
at very low cost for every poor and common individual, he moves on
to national security and international peace in the similar vein. As
long as there is absence of general, fundamental, practical and
political belief in the efficacy of nonviolence as a way of life, till then
at least a Nonviolent National Defence Army, Navy and Air Force
can be evolved on Gandhian lines of nonviolent spirit and
nonviolence of the brave. This nonviolent national defence system
can work alongside existing defence forces.

223
Such simple but effective steps can be taken up – not only

globally but also at the level of Central and State Governments from
within -- when India is able to evolve a defence policy worth its
name. These simple Gandhian solutions to complex current tangles
certainly need spirited and sincere long-term initiatives for
Thinking Beyond Perversions
What we need is merely to think and act in the most common
and obvious terms. We are not doing it. This is possible even in this
age of globalisation. We must learn to sit together like common
human beings without attaching unnecessary airs to our own persons.
That is why Albert Einstein has said, ''Generations to come will scarce
believe that such a man as this, in flesh and blood, ever walked upon
this earth.'' One of the greatest admirers of Gandhi is Albert Einstein,
who sees in ''Gandhi's nonviolence a possible antidote to the massive
violence unleashed by the fission of the atom.'' B R Nanda writes in
the 2001 edition of Britannica Encyclopaedia, ''In a time of deepening
crisis in the underdeveloped world, of social malaise in the affluent
societies, of the shadow of unbridled technology and the precarious

224
peace of nuclear terror, it seems likely that Gandhi's ideas and

techniques will become increasingly relevant.''
This relevance has to be put in action as Gandhi always said,
''My life is my message.'' This action is possible at least at three levels
without affecting adversely the current surging ahead of
modernisation and globalisation. First, at individuals unilateral and
voluntary level. Secondly, at the level of voluntary organisations. Last
but not least, at the level of a national government voluntary
mobilisation and necessary socialisation on a vaster plane. The
international perspective will follow suit on its own as a logical
outcome or natural corollary of other three levels. Otherwise, ''cities
will never have rest from their evils.'' Be it the ''Kashmir'' or any other
issue, they all can be streamlined in this way.
In this centenary year of the writing of Gandhi’s Hind Swaraj,
it is necessary to recapitulate a little from this magnum opus. Mahatma
Gandhi’s Hind Swaraj or Indian Home Rule is relatively a prosaic
presentation from a literary, linguistic and stylistic perspective. Almost
all its translations are also like this only. This is not a masterly work in
this sense. Its dialogue form is quite esoteric. It appears as if all answers
to questions asked were formulated much before the asking of queries.
Questions were apparently inserted afterwards. It is more of a monologue
than a dialogue in real sense of its actual impact upon a reader of Hind
Swaraj. This is, indeed, just one aspect of this unprecedented and,
otherwise, excellent work.

225
Hind Swaraj
As we know, 2008 is centenary year of its writing in 1908; and
2009 will be the centenary year of the first publication of Hind Swaraj.
This booklet -- of about 96 pages – has had two editions and
umpteenth number of reprints in Hindi and English languages alone. It
has been published in all constitutionally recognised Indian languages as
well. Nearly 200, 000 copies of Hind Swaraj have been printed in
English and Hindi since its first publication.
There are also so many pertinent issues raised in this small
booklet that its relevance is continuously increasing manifold with the
passage of every year. Hind Swaraj has shreds of strands from modern,
post-modern to post-post-modern trends of writing and analysis. These
visionary themes, interestingly, are also replete with vehement criticism
of modern mechanisation, industrialisation and technologicalisation.
Hind Swaraj is, thus, beyond the limitations of time, space and locale.
However, reading of this booklet alone does not suffice to grasp Gandhi
and his ideas in fuller terms.
Satyagraha and Poverty
Atul Chandra Pradhan has further explained Gandhi’s relevance
anent Gandhian Satyagraha as an instrument of dealing with several
perversions in modern times. Orissa Review, September-October 2007
from pages 52 – 55 presents his views as follows:
Satyagrahi has to pass through five
difficult phases: "First people will greet

226
you with indifference; next they will

ridicule you; then they will abuse you; next
they will put you in jail or even try to kill
you. If you go through these five stages
successfully, you will get to the most
dangerous phase — when people start
respecting you. Then you can become your
own enemy unless you are careful."
Gandhi considered Satyagraha to
be a positive movement. During the
struggle for freedom he placed before the
Satyagrahis a constructive programme. He
is reported to have said that "if once
constructive work was accomplished there
would not be any need left for outward
Satyagraha."
…..violence and disruptive forces
sometimes seem to threaten the very
foundation of our social fabric. In such a
situation constructive work needs to be
intensified as the only remedy for social
maladies. As pointed out by K.G.
Mashruwala constructive work will create
"proper conditions for the urge for

227
goodness, inherent in man to grow and

gather strength to effectively check the
forces of violence and to put on the right
track man's age-long endeavour to
eradicate poverty, ignorance, filth, disease,
narrow-mindedness, inequality and open or
concealed slavery which makes his earth a
living hell.
Indian PM on Gandhi
Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, during his visit to
South Africa on 02 October 2006 gave highly momentous views on
the subject of relevance of Gandhian Philosophy today as reported by
the Times of India:
‘Every generation has rediscovered
the relevance of Gandhiji's message. I was
heartened to see recently that back home in
India the most popular movie this festival
season is a film about a young man's
discovery of the universal and timeless
relevance of the Mahatma's message,’
Singh said in an obvious reference to the
use of Gandhian methods in modern times
termed as 'Gandhigiri' in the movie.

228
On a day packed with sentimental

visits to memorials to the Mahatma,
Singh's schedule included a tour of the
settlement established by Gandhi in 1904
on the outskirts of Durban and culminated
in a ceremony to celebrate the centenary of
the Satyagraha at the Kingsmead stadium
here, the famous venue of international
cricket matches.
With South African President
Thabo Mbeki and other dignitaries present
at the stadium, the Prime Minister said that
today's commemoration was a reminder
that no one must forget the scene where
Satyagraha was born "particularly when
9/11 has become imbibe with horrific
significance". Posing the question as to the
relevance of Gandhi's message today,
Singh answered it by saying, "What of the
relevance of his message today?
‘Genocide, ethnic cleansing,
religious and territorial wars and the ever-
growing menace of international terrorism
are afflicting many parts of the world. In

229
this background, the Mahatma's

philosophy of peace, tolerance and the
interdependence of humankind is surely
even more relevant than a hundred years
ago.’
Recalling his visit to Petersburg,
where Gandhi was thrown out of an all
white train compartment and to the
Phoenix settlement, Singh said Gandhi
practiced the values he preached--self-
help, dignity of labour and community
living. He expressed India's gratitude to the
Government of free South Africa for what
it had done to preserve the legacy of
Gandhi in this country
[http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/articleshow/2062181.cms].
A Few Quotes of Gandhi’s

Gandhi has written widely on the question of the relevance of
nonviolence and Satyagraha. Here are a few more of his quotations in
this regard. These are taken from Harijan, vol. 7, pp. 301-302; vol. 5,
p. 41; vol. 9, p. 156. and Collected Works vol. 17, p. 460; vol. 26, p.
140; vol. 48, p. 416.:

230
I hope also to show to India and the

Empire at large that given a certain amount
of capacity for self-sacrifice, justice can be
secured by the peacefullest and cleanest
means without sowing or increasing
bitterness between the English and Indians.
. . . [These qualities of self-sacrifice and
justice] alone are immune from lasting
bitterness. They are untainted with hatred,
expedience or untruth [Emphasis added].
Let the philosophy I represent be

tested on its own merit. I hold that the
world is sick of armed rebellion.
History shows that when a people

have been subjugated and desire to get rid
of the subjection they have rebelled and
resorted to use arms.
In India, on the other hand, we

have resorted to means that are
scrupulously non-violent and peaceful and
strangers have testified and I am here to

231
give my testimony that in a great measure

we seem to have succeeded in attaining our
goal. I know that it is still an experiment in
the making. I cannot claim absolute
success as yet but venture to suggest that
experience has gone so far that it is
worthwhile to study the experience. I
further suggest that if that experience
becomes a full success, India will have
made a contribution towards world peace
for which the world is thirsting.
Indeed, whether Gandhi’s name is proclaimed or not and his

philosophy is adopted or not, his ways provide the only option for the
world to follow if it wants to survive and prosper.

232

233
Bibliography

234

235
Bibliography

236

237
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Gandhian Centre for Peace and Conflict Studies

Anurag Gangal, Major Contemporary Issues: Gandhian Relevance 3

Anurag Gangal, Major Contemporary Issues: Gandhian Relevance 4

Anurag Gangal, Major Contemporary Issues: Gandhian Relevance 5

Anurag Gangal, Major Contemporary Issues: Gandhian Relevance 7

This work relates to a few aspects anent

Anurag Gangal, Major Contemporary Issues: Gandhian Relevance 9

Anurag Gangal, Major Contemporary Issues: Gandhian Relevance 10

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Anurag Gangal, Major Contemporary Issues: Gandhian Relevance 12

Anurag Gangal, Major Contemporary Issues: Gandhian Relevance 13

Anurag Gangal, Major Contemporary Issues: Gandhian Relevance 14

Anurag Gangal, Major Contemporary Issues: Gandhian Relevance 15

Anurag Gangal, Major Contemporary Issues: Gandhian Relevance 16

About the Author 5

About the Book 7

1. Introduction: Major Issues 19

5. Conflict Resolution 121

6. Human Security 157

7. World Peace 197

8. Conclusion: Beyond Perversions 217

Anurag Gangal, Major Contemporary Issues: Gandhian Relevance 17

Introduction: Major Issues

Anurag Gangal, Major Contemporary Issues: Gandhian Relevance 19

Introduction: Major Issues

Relevance of the ideas of Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi is

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Mahatma Gandhi has seldom written about strictly modern

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Will it be a new world order or just a movement for inception

Anurag Gangal, Major Contemporary Issues: Gandhian Relevance 43

1. Science of techniques or technology has entered the

Anurag Gangal, Major Contemporary Issues: Gandhian Relevance 44

Trade Organisation, United Nations, European Union and

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in almost every subject or discipline are treated as

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application of scientific knowledge for practical purposes”.11 Clearly

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Technology is, therefore, polluting not only this spaceship

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The essence of social cohesiveness is being forgotten.

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multiplying population among poorer nations of the world. The world