The Gandhi Project by Nashid Fareed-Ma’at

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Mohandas K. Gandhi, Non-Violent Resistance (Satyagraha), 1961, p. 165, excerpt from Young India, June

1, 1921.

Mohandas K. Gandhi, An Autobiography: The Story of My Experiments with Truth, 1957, p. 482.

Mohandas K. Gandhi, Non-Violent Resistance (Satyagraha), 1961, p. 163, excerpt from Young India, June

1, 1921.

251

realization of Truth will provide more relevant guidance to our specific circumstances than

anything I can devise in these pages written for a more general audience. But there are certainly

some guiding principles that can be extracted from Gandhi’s Swaraj efforts in colonized India

that can be considered by all. The next two chapters will draw from these experiences to provide

a series of guiding principles that, while not complete, will hopefully be comprehensive enough

to provide useful guidance to civil resisters offering civil disobedience.

STAGES OF CIVIL DISOBEDIENCE

“In my humble opinion, rejection is as much an ideal as the

acceptance of a thing. It is as necessary to reject untruth as it is

to accept truth. All religions teach that two opposite forces act

upon us and that the human endeavour consists in a series of

eternal rejections and acceptances. Non-co-operation with evil

is as much a duty as co-operation with good.”

As has been a theme in the past few chapters, cooperation with just laws is the foundation

from which all Satyagraha-guided civil disobedience (and non-cooperation) emanates. It is

within this context that Gandhi stated: “It is an inalienable right of the people thus to withhold

co-operation.”

He also noted: “Non-co-operation is a protest against an unwitting and unwilling

participation in evil.”

But his application of non-cooperation was always specific in its focus.

For example, in protesting the implementation of a tax on salt Gandhi didn’t start off by refusing

to pay any and all taxes to the British colonial government. Instead, he focused initial efforts on

targeting the salt tax: such as not paying that tax and engaging in activities that highlighted

(sometimes symbolically) the injustice of this tax. Only when initial efforts with a limited focus

proved ineffective would he look to expand the scope of civil disobedience. Even then, he didn’t

proceed from not paying the salt tax to refusing to pay all forms of taxes; instead he expanded

Mohandas K. Gandhi, Non-Violent Resistance (Satyagraha), 1961, p. 160, excerpt from Young India,

August 18, 1920.

Mohandas K. Gandhi, Non-Violent Resistance (Satyagraha), 1961, p. 160, excerpt from Young India,

August 18, 1920.

252

the scope of civil disobedience in measured steps. As he explained, “I am resorting to non-co-

operation in progressive stages because I want to evolve true order out of untrue order.”

And

this call for orderly progressive steps was even more vital when it involved large groups of

people, as reflected in the continuation of the previous quote:

“I am not going to take a single step in non-co-operation unless I

am satisfied that the country is ready for that step, namely, non-co-

operation will not be followed by anarchy or disorder.”

His reference to “the country” can be applied to any collective, whether a family, community, or

organization, whether large or small. And the quote implied that enough members of the

collective be ready so that the overall (or prevailing) state of the collective is such that the whole

can be described as ready. This state of readiness does not need to include every individual, but

the overall demeanor of the collective should be such that it prevents “unready” individuals from

acting contrary to the collective state of readiness. And, perhaps more importantly, Gandhi

realized that any progression in escalation must meet the readiness of the collective so that the

increased intensity or expansion of activities remains within the bounds of order. One clear

reason for exerting great care to avoid anarchy and disorder is that, within an environment

charged with violence, the presence of disorder significantly increases the potential for violence.

Even if civil resisters do not commit such violence themselves, conducting an act that creates

disorder (such as a disorganized protest) increases the likelihood that others (i.e. the police) will

respond to the disorder with violence. If this can be avoided (such as remaining clearly within

the bounds of order), it should be.

It may be helpful to remember that Satyagraha-guided civil disobedience is an intensely

active means geared toward specific purposes. Addressing the active nature of such civil

disobedience, Gandhi explained:

“Non-co-operation [or civil disobedience] is not a passive state, it

is an intensely active state -- more active than physical resistance

Mohandas K. Gandhi, Non-Violent Resistance (Satyagraha), 1961, p. 161 - 162, excerpt from Young

India, August 25, 1920.

Mohandas K. Gandhi, Non-Violent Resistance (Satyagraha), 1961, p. 163, excerpt from Young India, June

1, 1921.

253

or violence. ... Non-co-operation in the sense used by me must be

non-violent and, therefore, neither punitive nor vindictive nor

based on malice, ill-will, or hatred.”

He also explained one of the key purposes of Satyagraha-guided civil disobedience in the

following:

“non-co-operation [or civil disobedience] is intended to pave the

way to real, honorable and voluntary co-operation based on mutual

respect and trust. The present struggle is being waged against

compulsory co-operation, against one-sided combination, against

the armed imposition of modern methods of exploitation

masquerading under the name of civilization.”

Keeping these factors in mind, all Satyagraha-guided civil disobedience should incorporate

sufficient and intense actions that change the prevailing dynamics to create a situation where

civil resisters can cooperate with their opponents in mutual respect and trust, and vice versa.

This rejects any approach that seeks victory and domination to enable civil resisters to impose

their will on others -- just as civil resisters refrain from cooperating with the domination and acts

of imposition (compulsion) by unjust opponents. This approach also rejects punishment,

revenge, or other situations that place either side in a position of having ill-will against the other.

Within the approach of Satyagraha-guided civil disobedience, civil resisters must exercise the

greatest care and insight to insure that what they seek will be truly beneficial to all, even their

opponents. Anything that falls short of this measure falls short of what is necessary to engage in

Satyagraha-guided civil disobedience. This standard doesn’t negate that there may be

inconveniences to be tolerated by all involved (i.e. loss of privileges by either side), but it must

be in the context of what is genuinely beneficial for all (as informed by the quest for Truth).

Understanding the elements of orderly progression, intense action, and the goal of

creating an atmosphere for just cooperation, we may have a better appreciation for the types of

Mohandas K. Gandhi, Non-Violent Resistance (Satyagraha), 1961, p. 175, excerpt from Young India,

February 9, 1922.

254

civil disobedience. People have devised a range of such types throughout modern history, but

Gandhi identified and made clear distinctions between aggressive civil disobedience and

defensive civil disobedience. Let’s begin with defensive civil disobedience, which he defined as:

“involuntary or reluctant non-violent disobedience of such laws

as are in themselves bad and obedience to which would be

inconsistent with one’s self-respect or human dignity. Thus

formation of volunteer corps for peaceful purposes, holding of

public meetings for like purposes, publication of articles not

contemplating or inciting to violence in spite of prohibitory orders,

is defensive civil disobedience. And so is conducting of peaceful

picketing undertaken with a view to wean people from things or

institutions picketed in spite of orders to the contrary.”

(emphasis

mine)

Defensive civil disobedience was the usual starting point for Swaraj campaigns. Civil resisters,

who had demonstrated their obedience to just laws, realized the need to withdraw cooperation

from unjust laws and orders, particularly those that targeted the dignity and aspirations of

Indians to practice Swaraj (self-rule). This included government laws and orders implemented to

target civil disobedience campaigns, such as in the midst of a campaign the government

outlawing public meetings and community newspapers -- tactics the British colonial government

in India implemented repeatedly. In the earlier example of the salt tax, defensive civil

disobedience would target the salt tax but not expand to other just taxes, even if these just taxes

were unpopular. Defensive civil disobedience would include publishing leaflets criticizing the

salt tax even if the government outlawed the publishing and distribution of such leaflets, but it

would not include picketing British-owned businesses that did not sell salt. Defensive civil

disobedience sought to avoid unnecessary escalation of civil resistance: if this type of

disobedience was sufficient to affect change in the government to withdraw or change an unjust

law, so be it. As Satyagrahis voluntarily comply with just laws, they prefer to not have to

withhold cooperation from just laws in order to change unjust laws.

Mohandas K. Gandhi, Non-Violent Resistance (Satyagraha), 1961, p. 175, excerpt from Young India,

February 9, 1922.

255

Gandhi defined aggressive civil disobedience as follows:

“Aggressive, assertive or offensive civil disobedience is non-

violent, wilful disobedience of laws of the State whose breach

does not involve moral turpitude and which is undertaken as a

symbol of revolt against the State. Thus disregard of laws

relating to revenue or regulation of personal conduct for the

convenience of the State, although such laws in themselves inflict

no hardship and do not require to be altered, would be assertive,

aggressive or offensive civil disobedience.”

(emphasis mine)

Aggressive civil disobedience expands disobedience beyond targeted unjust laws into the realm

of disobeying just laws to change unjust laws. This approach was usually applied only after

defensive civil disobedience failed to affect just and beneficent change. Gandhi contemplated

progression into the realm of aggressive civil disobedience with great care, holding the principle

of obedience to just laws as something to be violated with specific focus and limited precision.

In fact, aggressive civil disobedience is one of the rare circumstances in which it is appropriate

for Satyagrahis to not cooperate with just laws. Consideration of aggressive civil disobedience

posed significant and profound questions, one of them being: which just laws should be violated

to affect the change of unjust laws? Gandhi avoided pondering this and other weighty questions

in the midst offering civil disobedience. Instead, he often contemplated these questions in the

planning stage of civil disobedience campaigns. He made it a regular practice to identify the

stages of progressing into aggressive civil disobedience (including which laws would be

violated) prior to engaging in any form of civil disobedience. He also informed the government

(or his opponents) of these stages prior to offering any civil disobedience: partly to fulfill his

virtue of conducting Satyagraha work with complete openness as well as to demonstrate that any

escalation to a next stage of aggressive civil disobedience wasn’t a vindictive act in want of

revenge or retribution.

Below is an actual progression of stages for aggressive civil disobedience in a Swaraj

campaign. Note that the listed actions went beyond disobedience of the targeted unjust law,

which in this case was the Railed Act of 1919. This law expanded government powers to arrest

Mohandas K. Gandhi, Non-Violent Resistance (Satyagraha), 1961, p. 115 - 116, excerpt from Young

India, May 5, 1920.

256

and imprison anyone suspected of being part of a group deemed a threat to British colonial rule -

- sound familiar? Also note, that the following statement was published in a newspaper for the

entire Indian public to read, including the colonial government which was known to monitor

such newspapers. Gandhi presented the stages of progression into aggressive civil disobedience

for this as follows:

“The fact however is that the organizers have fixed definite,

progressive four stages. The first is the giving up of titles and

resignation of honorary posts. If there is no response or if the

response received is not effective, recourse will be had to the

second stage. The second stage involves much previous

arrangement. Certainly not a single servant will be called out

unless he is either capable of supporting himself and his

dependents or the Khilafat Committee [an organizing committee]

is able to bear the burden. All the classes of servants will not be

called out at once and never will any pressure be put upon a single

servant to withdraw himself from Government service. Nor will a

single private employee be touched, for the simple reason that the

movement is not anti-English. It is not even anti-Government. ...

The second stage must be entirely successful, if the response is at

all on an adequate scale. For no Government -- much less the

Indian Government -- can subsist if the people cease to serve it.

The withdrawal therefore of the police and the military -- the third

stage -- is a distant goal. The organizers however wanted to be

fair, open and above suspicion. They did not want to keep back

from Government or the public a single step they had in

contemplation even as a remote contingency. The fourth, i.e.

suspension of taxes, is still more remote. The organizers recognize

that suspension of general taxation is fraught with the greatest

danger. It is likely to bring a sensitive class in conflict with the

police. They are therefore not likely to embark upon it, unless they

can do so with the assurance that there will be no violence offered

by the people.”

Mohandas K. Gandhi, Non-Violent Resistance (Satyagraha), 1961, p. 172, excerpt from Young India,

August 4, 1921.

257

Note the stages of progression were clearly laid out and reflected a sense of deliberation and

planning. And once stated publicly, Gandhi would be hard-pressed to abandon or change these

stages. In this campaign, the planned aggressive civil disobedience included surrendering

honorary posts, resigning from government employment, and the non-payment of general taxes.

The potential embrace of these forms of non-cooperation against the government included the

responsibility of civil resisters to not place themselves in positions of dependency and need.

Therefore, anyone who quit a government job had to have means to provide for themselves and

their families. Even the distant stages of withdrawing from the police and military and not

paying taxes would require civil resisters to devise means to provide alternative services to

replace what they received from the government via police, military services, and the payment of

taxes (i.e. public sanitation, schools, court services, etc.) I also point out that Gandhi saw the

need to be open and fair with the government the non-cooperation was targeted against,

including mentioning distant stages that may be years away from implementation. This example

reflected how he normally dealt with the potential of engaging in aggressive civil disobedience

and reflects the great importance he put into planning.

Aggressive civil disobedience also incorporates what Gandhi called complete civil

disobedience. He defined it as:

“Complete civil disobedience is a state of peaceful rebellion -- a

refusal to obey every single State-made law. It is certainly more

dangerous than an armed rebellion. For it can never be put down if

the civil resisters are prepared to face extreme hardships.”

(emphasis mine)

This stage of aggressive civil disobedience is rarely employed. And, in accordance with the

previous example of stages of progression, complete civil disobedience would be an even more

distant stage than that of refusing to pay general taxes. The progression to complete civil

disobedience places the onus upon civil resisters to devise alternative means to provide all the

services a government provides. Although a daunting challenge, it certainly remains a viable

option to be used against governments (or other entities) that are stubbornly rooted in injustice.

Gandhi emphasized this point referring to the example of two evil governments under tyrannical

rulers:

Mohandas K. Gandhi, Non-Violent Resistance (Satyagraha), 1961, p. 359, excerpt from Young India,

December 31, 1931.

Mohandas K. Gandhi, Non-Violent Resistance (Satyagraha), 1961, p. 172 - 173, excerpt from Young

India, August 4, 1921.

258

“I said to myself, there is no State either run by Nero or Mussolini

which has not good points about it, but we have to reject the

whole, once we decide to non-co-operate with the system. There

are in our country grand public roads, and palatial educational

institutions, said I to myself, but they are part of a system which

crushes the nation. I should not have anything to do with them.

They are like the fabled snake with a brilliant jewel on its head, but

which has fangs full of poison.”

Even if we never employ complete civil disobedience, there are lessons to be garnered

from the approach Gandhi took to it. He explained that complete civil disobedience:

“is based upon an implicit belief in the absolute efficiency of

innocent suffering. By noiselessly going to prison a civil resister

ensures a calm atmosphere. The wrong-doer wearies of wrong-

doing in the absence of resistance. All pleasure is lost when the

victim betrays no resistance. A full grasp of the conditions of

successful civil resistance is necessary at least on the part of the

representatives of the people before we can launch out on an

enterprise of such magnitude. The quickest remedies are always

fraught with the greatest danger and require the utmost skill in

handling them.”

For Gandhi, Satyagraha was a quicker remedy than all paths that involved the use of violence.

The willingness to bear innocent suffering and provide disobedience that presents no resistance

to our opponents are lessons that can be applied to all forms of civil disobedience, although they

may be most dramatic and evident in the context of complete civil disobedience. It can be

challenging to devise means of disobedience that do not provide resistance to forms of injustice,

but this is the standard Gandhi challenged all Satyagrahis to adhere to. To this aim, he placed

great emphasis on not cooperating or providing obedience to unjust laws and accepting whatever

Mohandas K. Gandhi, Non-Violent Resistance (Satyagraha), 1961, p. 301, excerpt from Harijan, January

20, 1940.

259

consequences sprung from such. Note that he employed the terms civil disobedience and non-

cooperation more often than the terms civil resistance or passive resistance, which he eventually

dropped completely. With this emphasis, he trusted that the injustice of unjust laws would

reveal itself, particularly when innocent and pure persons suffered for withdrawing obedience

and cooperation to such laws. Within this approach, there is no need to attack an unjust law: no

need to oppose or try to beat something that will reveal its own reason for demise by being

unjust. And the validity of this reason will be even more potent when those who are living

examples of Truth and justice suffer to expose these laws. Gandhi acknowledged the need for

“utmost skill” to meet this aim and other challenges involved with offering Satyagraha-guided

civil disobedience. These skills can be developed along the Satyagraha path and the larger quest

for Truth. But in regards to these challenges, he warned:

“But as the most experienced Satyagrahi I must be allowed to utter

a note of warning to all concerned that whoever declares civil

resistance without the proper training and a full appreciation of the

conditions of Satyagraha is likely to bring disaster to the cause he

espouses.”

This section on the stages of civil disobedience clearly illustrated that for Gandhi there

was an order and science as to how he employed civil disobedience. In most campaigns, he

targeted disobedience at unjust laws and utilized symbolic actions to highlight the injustice of

these laws. He offered such defensive civil disobedience in a limited manner for an appropriate

amount of time before expanding campaigns into the realm of aggressive civil disobedience.

Even then, the progression to such stages were clearly defined and announced before any acts of

civil disobedience were offered. He avoided unnecessary increases in the intensity of

disobedience and non-cooperation and made great efforts to ensure that these did not offer

resistance to his opponents or the injustices they enacted. He also accepted the responsibility of

insuring that the increased intensity of campaigns did not put civil resisters and their families in

situations of dependency and need. The great care he exercised in applying the orderly science

of Satyagraha-guided civil disobedience was accompanied by a great and unending

encouragement that civil resisters commit no acts of violence.

Mohandas K. Gandhi, Non-Violent Resistance (Satyagraha), 1961, p. 61, excerpt from Young India,

December 15, 1921.

260

NO VIOLENCE FROM OUR SIDE

“As I have often stated in these pages what strikes me down is

not the sight of blood under every conceivable circumstance. It

is blood spilt by the non-co-operator or his supporters in breach

of his declared pledge, which paralyses me as I know it ought to

paralyse every honest non-co-operator.”

Gandhi was very forthright in stating repeatedly to civil resisters and their supporters that

offering civil disobedience included a significant risk of bearing a violent response by their

opponents, particularly in an age of open and brutal violence. But in spite of the very real

possibility of enduring violence from the other side -- most likely in words and thoughts, but also

in the form of physical violence that can result in death -- Gandhi was adamant that there must

be no violence from the side of the civil resisters and their supporters: no violent words,

thoughts, or deeds. As has been addressed earlier in the book, he saw the utter uselessness of

violence for Truth-guided and ahimsa-based efforts to confront and eliminate violence. And the

complete illogic of Satyagrahis and their supporters using violence becomes more evident when

viewed in light of the guaranteed success to be arrived at by remaining within the bounds of the

Satyagraha way. Thus, Gandhi required civil resisters and their supporters to take affirmative

pledges that they would not commit any acts of violence. He also made it an unending and

consistent practice to warn pledge-takers of the importance of the pledge and the reasons behind

it (based in the spiritual science of Satyagraha). He held this pledge among the most sacred of

pledges Satyagrahis and their supporters could take; and regarded violations of these pledges

with the deepest of disappointment.

Gandhi acknowledged that there were people who were unsure of or knew they could not

fulfill a pledge to not commit violence, whether in a general state or within certain

circumstances. He held high regard for such persons refraining from participating in Satyagraha

activities in which they may commit violence. It was no sign of weakness or lack of

commitment for persons who knew they would respond violently (words, thoughts, or deeds) to

being arrested to not participate in activities that might result in arrest. Note Gandhi’s response