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The non-violent 9/11

Today also marks the centenary of a powerful weapon called Satyagraha

PHOTO OF GANDHI STATUE BY K. GOPINATHAN

FIRST STEP Mahatma Gandhi pioneered the notion of Satyagraha in South Africa

Call it one of those grand ironies of history. The day that has come to symbolise terrorist acts of violence, 9/11, also marks the anniversary of the Satyagraha. And this is the centenary year of the idea. It's an even bigger irony that while the fall of the twin towers is etched in the collective psyche of Indians, the birth of non-violent resistance pioneered by Mahatma Gandhi is nearly forgotten in a country that takes pride in its protracted, non-violent struggle to freedom.

Satyagraha traces its root to a historic meeting in Johannesburg in September 1906 when the Transvaal Assembly introduced the Asiatic Law Amendment Ordinance which made it mandatory for Asians to carry identity cards. It subjected all Indians to compulsory registration and identification by means of fingerprints. They had to carry passes all the time and produce them on request to a police officer. On September 11, 3,000 Indians gathered at the Empire Theatre in Johannesburg to voice their outrage against this. The word "Satyagraha", though, was a later coinage and went on to influence the greatest of leaders like Nelson Mandela and Martin Luther King.

Gandhiji writes about what he meant by Satyagraha, which became his only tool of resistance all his life: "In the application of Satyagraha, I discovered, in the earliest stages, that pursuit of Truth did not admit of violence being inflicted on one's opponent, but that he must be weaned from error by patience and sympathy. For, what appears to be truth to the one may appear to be error to the other. And patience means self-suffering. So the doctrine came to mean vindication of Truth, not by infliction of suffering on the opponent but one's own self."

The concept has been a much debated one in more recent times, with many arguments for and against its relevance in the present. In his article titled "The other 9/11" in Outlook, Ashish Nandy writes: "Only a few cultures like Sparta and the Third Reich celebrate violence unconditionally. In the rest, violence and non-violence exist as human potentialities. Life experiences determine which potentiality is actualised. Only by negotiating these experiences can you battle the ideologies that organise these experiences into a work plan for terror. If you cannot, you contribute to the sense of desperation and abandonment."

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