Ghulam server shaheen
The history of mankind shows how great men have always struggled and fought against prevailing social evils and human sufferings. Out of those men in human history, the 20th century produced one outstanding personality – Mahatma Gandhiji. Gandhiji responded to the challenges of the given historical situations, realized the historical necessities of their time and tried to actualize the needs and aspirations of the people of his times in his own ways. Gandhiji tried to evolve a revolutionary approach to political and social change. His originality lay in the formulation of a new technique of non-violent, non-cooperation and Satyagraha for social action. Traditionally, we understand that there are two types of forces, physical and spiritual forces. Gandhiji said that in general, people are familiar with the physical force.Physical force is based on violence. Violence cannot be solved any issue, it created more violence. Physical force promoted only one side victory and it defeated the other side. The real issue of conflict does not resolve this approach. Gandhi was opposed to this physical force”. Joan V Bondurant, an international peace researcher; said that force can be used in either violent or nonviolent ways. With violence, force is used to intentionally harm the opponent. But with nonviolence, force is used to make changes in the opponent. Michael J. Nojeim has written extensively on the nature of violence and nonviolence. This concept of nonviolence is defined as using force to provoke opponents into changing their actions, without intentionally harming them, but instead of exercising the transforming of power by intentional self-suffering. In turn violence is using force to deliberately harm, if not destroy, an opponent’s physical and psychological well-being in order to compel a change in their behaviour. Gandhiji had given his theories on resolving the conflicts to this changing world. Gandhiji’s method of conflict resolution was based on Satyagraha and non-violence.
Mahatma Gandhi
Basic Principles of Satyagraha in Gandhian Perspective Satyagrahi need not wait forever. When the limit is reached he takes risks and conceives plans of active Satyagraha. A satyagrahi never misses, can never miss a chance of compromise on honorable terms, because I can never be sure I am right. Gandhi asserted: Human life is a series of compromises and it is not always easy to achieve in practice what one had found to be true in theory. Conflict resolution through Satyagraha is based on the beliefs and assumptions that:.Some elements of common needs to the disputants always exist. Disputants could be amenable to an 'appeal to the heart and mind'. Satyagrahis are capable of carrying Satyagraha to the end. Concepts of Satayagraha in Gandhian Perspective Gandhiji said that truth is God. God is absolute truth. But at the same time, he said that I have not realized absolute truth, so long I must hold to the relative truth as I have conceived it.
Gandhian conflict resolution philosophy is an outcome of his own life experiences, but his model of conflict resolution does not meet with the parameters of a universal and holistic model of conflict resolution. His techniques for conflict resolution, though simplistic, but can be misleading, as it is self-contradictory from many aspects
Mahatma Gandhi
Gandhiji’s philosophy of conflict resolution following concepts:
Patience
One can be patience if there are no confusion and contradiction in belief and assumptions. Satyagraha campaigns are methods of fighting where conflict has reached the grievance stage. Fighting is related to being violent, so contrary. Gandhiji ethics stems from the injunction that what you do to others, you also do to yourself. Gandhiji preached and practiced, if single individual is morally strong, it can bring about transformation in an environment in which he lives. Faith in God The basis of Satyagraha is that the opponent is open to reason and has a conscience and that human nature is bound, or at least likely, to respond to any noble and friendly action. Belief in the goodness of human nature and the operation of reason is the optimist's act of faith.
No violence –
non violence is means, truth is end. If we take care of the means we will surely reach end sooner or later is one of the main belief of Gandhiji. Nonviolence is never a method of coercion; it is one of the conversions. Fearlessness For Gandhi, possession of arms was a sign of fear and cowardice. Cowards could never be moral. Nonviolence and cowardice are contradictory terms. The courage in Satyagraha "is a matter of heart" and not physical strength. Self-suffering Self-suffering "is used in a course that is unjust, only the person using it suffers. He does not make others suffer for his mistakes." And it keeps the resistance nonviolent.
Evaluation of Gandhian Philosophy of Conflict Resolution Mahatma Gandhi's thoughts seem to be attracting more and more attention at first glance, but the practicality of the Gandhian philosophy of conflict resolution requires complete verification, on the basis of some universal parameters. By going through the literature survey, we would say Gandhi’s simplicity, as confirmed in his apparently inadequate philosophical stand on conflict resolution, can be misleading. It has been found that Gandhi is not a philosopher in any specialized sense, and he has little have to do for highly abstract and technical philosophical formulations. Most important, his thoughts on conflict resolution serve as a challenge and as a catalyst for having re-thought dominant positions and have more value for significant philosophical thought than most mainstream ‘‘academic’’ philosophy. With respect to conflict, violence, nonviolence and peace, Gandhiji’s philosophy does not give all the answers. One has to be selective not only in terms of Gandhiji’s writing, but also in comparing Gandhiji with other philosophical thoughts and evaluating their respective contributions. This also because much of this challenge comes from the sheer volume of writings by and about mahatma
Although, he never wrote a lengthy book, The Collected Works of Mahatma Gandhi comes to one hundred volumes of very assorted and highly fragmented articles, correspondence, speeches, and other writings. After noting the importance of Gandhiji’s analysis of self, self-other relations, and Swaraj or ‘‘self-rule,’’ we conclude by suggesting that Gandhiji’s approach to conflict resolution faces many significant challenges and difficulties. Nevertheless, his approach has much of value in challenging dominant philosophical approaches and offering creative alternatives. In many writings it has been mentioned that whatever Gandhiji said, Gandhiji believes that. But our proposal is all the conflicts all around us is because of us starts believing whatever we get from outside, from parents, teachers, society, friends, media, advertisement, etc., which are the sources of beliefs & assumptions, but the resolution is if we start knowing the realities through self exploration. Our beliefs and assumptions play a very important part in the way we behave with other human beings and we work with the rest of nature (comprising of air, soil, water, plants, animals etc.). There is a direct relationship between what we believe & assume with our behavior and work. As we get older, we start living with these beliefs & assumptions by expressing these through our behavior and work. We found sometimes these beliefs & assumptions are true and sometimes false. Because these beliefs & assumptions are not evaluated on some basis with which we can verify, that’s why we are not sure of either our beliefs & assumptions are right or wrong. So this is the need of hour to evaluate the beliefs & assumptions. Gandhiji has given the philosophy of conflict, by dividing the conflict situations from interpersonal to groups to national to international levels. But we have tried to see the conflict by putting the individual in the center. If we look at our lives, it becomes clear that an individual’s living can be seen as encompassing at the four levels as an Individual, Family, Society and Nature/Existence. Whenever an individual lives, he lives at the above mentioned four levels. Each one of us lives at all these levels, whether we are aware of it or not. If an Individual is not able to understand itself, so he is in conflict with all the four levels. We can easily see the conflicts of an individual at different four levels all around us like conflicts with own self, conflicts in families, conflicts in society and conflicts in nature/existence. So conflicts start from conflicts in the individual and its expression is the conflict at all four levels. Gandhiji mentioned that the path of satyagrahi demands self suffering. But we can ask ourselves that either we want self suffering or not by using the universal process for self exploration. No body wants suffering, everyone wants happiness and prosperity. So the path of Satyagraha is not the universally accepted technique for conflict resolution.
Gandhiji said whatever I say are my experiences or beliefs and I realized the relative truth not the absolute truth. Empowerment It should be able to infuse some hope and confidence in an individual and prevent them from lapsing into misanthropy or worse. Gandhiji’s methods of conflict resolution do not provide any hope to implement on modern types of conflicts. Feasible A good philosophy must be socially feasible: and must be demonstrably so, without any repressive or coercive methods being used. But the Gandhian model of conflict resolution is based on the coercive method of conflict resolution. a good philosophy must be open source, so that once an individual is able to understand the fundamentals, can participate in the process of developing, documenting, and application of philosophy. Gandhian philosophy of conflict resolution is not a self exploratory model so there is no possibility of proliferation of the model. So the Gandhian philosophy of conflict resolution, is not according to the universal parameter. The wrong identification of needs and desires are rising in human beings due to unevaluated beliefs and assumptions. This is the main reason for various kinds of conflicts all around us. The desires and needs of human beings are linked to the physical facilities. Most of the conflicts at different levels of human beings are related to the needs of physical facilities. Lack of understanding and fulfillment of relationship with others is also the other reason that gives birth to various conflicting situations. Everybody wants a good relationship with all. When we have problem in these relationships, it troubles us; we remain in contradictions, which form conflicts.
As far as the role Gandhian philosophy in national struggle is concerned.no doubt,the circumstances in which Gandhi twisted his philosophy was quite pragmatic and successful.
Before Gandhi arrival in india many movements were launched and failed after one another except congress.reason was only that their strategy were not able to lead movement too longer.in other words movements were politically very immature.but when Gandhi led movement with the idea of non violent and satyagarha it was quite successful in champaran,kheda and ahmedabad and at a subsequent stages.although his philosophy was difficult to follow for common men even for politician to some extent but it was successive at many time during the freedom struggle.according to dr.oslo "Gandhian poverty is very costly"its true to some extent.because boycott of foreign products and spinning khadi,used indian crafts and replace them by domestic products was very costlier for poor men.same way his idea about modern education,economy,polity and developing industrialisation was very complicated to follow. thats why free india replaced it by the path of modernisation.
Another reason for successful of his philosophy in india because the formation of labour party in england during 1920-30 It’s also the case that one powerful segment of British opinion, represented by the Labour party, was always for Indian independence. From about 1905–6, well before Gandhi returned to India, Keir Hardie committed the Labour party to independence. Then, as the Labour party grew in influence within Great Britain through the 1920s and 1930s, there was an influential constituency of politicians and intellectuals supporting the Indian freedom movement. There were writers like George Orwell, Kingsley Martin of the New Statesman, Fenner Brockway and Vera Brittain (the remarkable pacifist who was a friend of Gandhi’s) writing in the British press about the legitimacy of the Indian demand for independence. It’s not clear whether Ho Chi Minh had similar people lobbying for him in France. So it is true that non-violence had a better chance against the British as compared to the Dutch in Indonesia or the French in Vietnam.
as Ho Chi Minh coming to India in the 1950s and telling a gathering in New Delhi that if Mahatma Gandhi had been fighting the French, he would have given up non-violence within a week.
At the same time Gandhi was violating to his own idea at several occasion.at the outbreak of Boer war,he raised an all indian ambulance corps 11000 volunteers to support the british.he was arguing that "if indians expected to have full right of citizenship in british empire,they also needed to shoulder their responsibilities"similarly during second world war Gandhi was willing to abandon his doctrinal commitment to non-violence and to tell the British ‘Hitler is evil, he must be defeated, we will help you defeat him.’ ‘We’ here means the Congress party, India’s main political vehicle, led by Gandhi and Nehru. They said to the British, ‘We will work with you, but you must assure us that you will grant us independence once the war is over.
To sum up Gandhian philosophy and give an ultimate statement about his philosophy is very hard.but,yes it can be concluded with these remarks in light of above analysis that he was his own style statesmanship and on the other hand it is tough for others to follow the same idea in the era of multidimensional world.
in the word of sigmund freud "may the coming generations of india refused to accept that person like Gandhi was born in india"
writer hailing from surnkote poonch J&K and pursuing bachelor degree from AMU(CAS department of history AMU)
