Ghandi Birthday Celebration: Open Remarks
George Wolfe, Director, Center for Peace and Conflict Studies
During my two trips to India, I was able to visit the major cities of New Delhi, Bangalore, Calcutta and Chennai which formerly was known as Madras. While in these cities I saw many impressive temples, museums, ashrams, and of course, the well known landmarks of India such as the Taj Mahal in Agra and the Red Fort in Delhi. But I also was shown, somewhat to my surprise, numerous structures made by the British during the period of colonial rule. These included the Queen Victoria Memorial in Calcutta, the High Court Building and Governor's Mansion in Bangalore, and the huge India Gate in New Delhi. These British remnants have been well-preserved by the government of India. By way of contrast, I also saw ancient Hindu temples that had been disrespectfully desecrated by invading Moguls centuries earlier.
I asked myself, 'Why were the British monuments still standing and unscathed?' It is because the revolution in India to gain independence was predominantly non-violent. Led by the inspired leadership of Mahatma Gandhi, India was the first country to show the world on a scale of the masses, that non-violence could succeed over violence, that good could overcome evil.
So when British rule ended in 1948, India was not a war-torn country. There was no need for expensive reconstruction. Despite many tragic and ruthless events such as the Amritsar massacre, when General Dyer of the British army ordered his troops to fire on an crowd of unarmed Indian citizens killing hundreds of innocent civilians including women and children, or the beating and jailing of thousands of Indians who protested the British ban on making salt by following Gandhi on his march to the sea, the British monuments have been preserved, and the statue of Queen Victoria still stands in the city of Bangalore.
In contrast to India's non-violent victory over the British, the violent methods so often resorted to by countries and political groups today when confronting injustice are sloppy, demoralizing, expensive, uncertain in their outcomes, and inevitably result in resentment and a conflicting love/hate relationship between the liberated and the liberators. Consider for example the following scenario.
You are an Iraqi father or mother who has three children. When the American military enters your town after removing Saddam Hussein from power, you are glad, and you wave to the troops as they pass by. Two weeks later though, one of your children dies, a victim of collateral damage that resulted from the US led attack. Now which event would have greater impact on your life? Which would affect you more deeply on an emotional level?
While the initial change you witnessed seemed positive, the latter was highly negative. Certainly the loss of a child for most people would by far overrule the satisfaction of conquest and the hope for a better life. Such predicaments are what give rise to the love/hate relationship between the liberated and their liberators.
This love/hate relationship is noticeably absent when non-violent strategies of reform are aggressively applied, and this is undoubtedly one reason why the great spiritual leaders and political thinkers of the world such as Zoroaster, Buddha, Jesus, Asoka, and more recently Gandhi and Martin Luther King, taught us to choose the higher moral ground of non-violence. As it says in one of the Christian gospels, "He who takes up the sword will die with the sword," and it is the two edged nature of the sword that gives rise to the love/hate relationship. By taking on the role of sacrificial lamb, the oppressed bring public attention to the injustice they are enduring and by their restraint, gain the undying admiration of the world.