Brute Force In Gandhi

As I was reading the passages in Gandhi and Beyond: Nonviolence For a New Political Age, the theme that kept coming up was that nothing has ever been solved by violence. Gandhi, a man with less earthly belongings than anybody I have ever met or ever read about, dedicated his entire life promoting the importance of peace amongst us.

Mahatma Gandhi is a trailblazer for change thru nonviolent resistance and compassion for others, even for his oppressors, that made a large impact on the world.

While when discussing the history of the world’s power forces, violence makes for stimulating discussion, other tactics were put to good use, one of these alternatives being non-violence. With the guidance of three worldwide heroes - Mohandas Gandhi, Martin Luther King Jr., and Nelson Mandela - with contagious optimism and high spirits, it became apparent just how much of a difference could be made carried out through non-violent terms. Mankind was introduced to another way to resolve major problems just as effectively, if not more, than violence could.

Gandhi was an Indian lawyer, politician, social activist and writer who would lead the independence movement of India to free the country of British rule (“Mahatma Gandhi,” 2017). He would prove that a single person could change the course of history and take on the entire British Empire. Gandhi’s principles of nonviolence and civil disobedience are attributed to his success in gaining independence for India. The act of passive resistance allowed Gandhi to generate more support for his movement for independence while making it difficult for the British to find reasons to arrest them. He argued that although violence could be more effective than peaceful

“If you make laws to keep us suppressed in a wrongful manner and without taking us into confidence, these laws will merely adorn the statue books. We will never obey them”(1). Mohandas Gandhi expressed this in his writing “On Nonviolent Resistance”. “Civil disobedience” is when people use their voice by protesting, non-violently, to stick up against unjust laws and unjust movements. The truths and values are proven and brought to attention in the writings of Gandhi, Martin Luther King Jr, and Henry David Thoreau. Civil disobedience can be the solution to unjust laws and violence around the world.

There is proof that acts of civil disobedience have been effective. On March 12, 1930, Mahatma Gandhi lead a nonviolent protest against the British government’s salt monopoly when Indians were prohibited from collecting and selling salt, and were forced to buy it from the British, who heavily taxed the product. Gandhi and his supporters walked to the Arabian sea to collect salt from the ocean, and over 80,000 Indians were arrested for breaking the salt law. Initially, his goal was to change the salt monopoly, but his actions received worldwide attention and he ultimately achieved and influenced the gaining of Indian independence from the British. Mahatma Gandhi demonstrated that “civil disobedience becomes a sacred duty when the state become

Throughout history, many conflicts have happened, some with resolution, and other without. We often tend to think of solving conflicts with war, since most of our history classes are based around World War I, World War II, and so forth, but many conflicts were fought, and successfully won using nonviolent resistance. Many people would use Gandhi as a well known example. Gandhi’s plan of civil disobedience revolved around this big idea called “satyagraha,” which he explains as, “a satyagrahi should always possess civility and humility, qualities that indicated self-control and an humble approach to truth” (Gandhi 50). He later explains that satyagraha is “truth-force” and that truth is soul and spirit, or “spirit-force.” “It excludes the use of violence because man is not capable of knowing the absolute truth and, therefore, not competent to punish” (51). He used this strategy to fight for indian independence. Many other incidents in the world have been fought using civil disobedience, including Women’s Suffrage.

M.K. Gandhi was an Indian who protested successfully against Britain and ultimately influenced future events around the world. Gandhi’s most successful tactic to gain Indian independence was “Satyagraha” or passive resistance because the majority of society would disagree with the opponent, they will continue to protest no matter what, and it was successfully used in the Salt March. Firstly, using this tactic, about 80 Indian citizens were publically brutalized by British authorities which greatly influenced the world against them because an eyewitness wrote and sent thousands of newspapers, talking about British police brutality, around the world. For example, in Source 3 the text says, “Webb Miller’s eyewitness account was published in over a thousand newspapers around the world.”

What is essential here for Gandhi is that nonviolence is inherently linked to sacrifice, not struggle. This is to say that while a warrior participates in violence in an attempt to prevent potential harm to himself (we might term this the courage of self-defense), the practitioner of nonviolence instead learns to accept the harm, and in doing so participates in a higher act of virtue—the courage of willing self-sacrifice.

When Gandhi was trying to prove a point he did two main things, he would get arrested or he would stop eating. One of the main ways he got the Indians to stop using violence against the English was through not eating. He would not eat for days and sometimes weeks just to get his people to stop fighting. Although the founding father of civil disobedience was Henry David Thoreau but Gandhi was the first to really adopt the lifestyle of non-violence, he took constant beatings to show that being violent wa snot the answer. There was two different ways that Gandhi looked at violence, passive and physical. Passive meaning that you get under someone's skin and provoke the physical violence from the person. Physical obviously meaning physically harming someone or something. Gandhi used the term “Ahimsa”, which translates to nonviolence in english, when talking about nonviolence. The term means that no violence is okay passive nor physical. Gandhi also believed that violence was not a natural thing of humans, he believed it was learned through experience.

Mohandas Gandhi brought positive change to India without using violence. He once said, “There are two ways of countering injustice.

Many of which Mahatma lead was putting himself in great danger. Gandhi severely beaten and even put in prison many time but he never resulted in violence against his Enemies/oppressors. When Gandhi was older and unable to lead his youth physically, Gandhi was always well-spoken and wrote in defense of those in need. He also went on hunger strikes or fast to make his point. Gandhi was so loved by the people of India that even the Muslims would stop acts of violence so that he would eat again and stay with the Indian Peoples. His assassination by a religious and political rival was a great tragedy for the entire world. Using Gandhi method in today’s protesting is very helpful, no matter how much the opposite side results in violence doesn’t give protesters the right to turn

Aroused by the massacre of Amritsar in 1919, Gandhi devoted his life to gaining India’s independence from Great Britain. As the dominant figure used his persuasive philosophy of non-violent confrontation, he inspired political activists with many persuasions throughout the world (Andrews 23). Not only was Mahatma Gandhi a great peacemaker, but also his work to achieve freedom and equality for all people was greatly acknowledged. Gandhi’s unconventional style of leadership gained him the love of a country and eventually enabled him to lead the independence movement in India.

Man, he traveled to England to receive his college education and law degree. Upon returning to India he set out to change how the West was colonizing and industrializing his country, and set life to a new sort of technique that would change India, and give a new perspective, and shed light on Indian culture, and civilization. His techniques revolved around passive and calm responses instead of wild and violent responses to the British. His term "satygraha" meant "truth and firmness" which was a method of passive resistance to provoke a response. This is how Gandhi received respect and honor from his followers, and the people of Indian civilizations. He

Mahatma Gandhi once said, “Nonviolence is not a garment to be put on and off at will. Its seat is in the heart, and it must be an inseparable part of our being". The book The Essential Gandhi expresses Gandhi’s views on issues like untouchability, religion, nationality, his movements like civil-disobedience are deeply shown in this book. Readers can learn about Gandhi’s childhood, his early married life, his realization and transition in South Africa, and his ways of approach towards attaining Independence in India. The book did a fantastic job in showing the Gandhi’s principles like non-violence with exemplary contexts.