NON-VIOLENCE OR NON-ACTION
Some Gandhian Truths About the Tibetan Peace Movement
by Jamyang Norbu
In the tireless drive of the Dalai Lama and his supporters to promote the Tibetan struggle as a wholly non-violent affair conducted by a race of uniquely spiritual people (who would rather give up their country than commit any act of violence) truth has, unfortunately, become the first of casualties. However pious and arguably necessary, this mission to project Tibetan history and contemporary events through the rose-tinted lens of official pacifist ideology ignores the sacrifice and courage of the many thousands of Tibetan freedom fighters, monks and lamas included, who took up arms for the freedom of their country. But I have commented at length on this in a couple of other articles and it is perhaps unnecessary to go into it again.
I touch on the subject here primarily to bring to the readers attention some
observations on "truth" and on "non-violence" by a person eminently qualified to pronounce on them. Mahatma Gandhi believed that the love of truth was a more important human quality than non-violence. He called his methods Satyagraha or "firmness in truth", and felt that terms like "pacifism" or "non-violence" did not fully convey the essential spirit of his philosophy of action.
Gandhi's ideas on ahimsa or non-violence were not simplistic. He acknowledged
that the very fact of living involved some himsa, destruction of life, be it ever so minute. He served as a stretcher bearer in the Boer War, the Zulu Rebellion and in the Great War and later explained his actions: "It was quite clear to me that participation in war could never be consistent with ahimsa. But it is not always given to one to be equally clear about one's duty. A votary of truth is often obliged to grope in the dark."
He did not attempt to excuse his personal role in these wars merely because that
role was a limited one. "I make no distinction, from the point of ahimsa" Gandhi argued, "between combatants and non-combatants. Those who confine themselves to attending to the wounded in battle cannot be absolved from the guilt of war. The question is subtle. It admits of differences of opinion, and therefore I have submitted my argument as clearly as possible to those who believe in ahimsa and who are making serious efforts to practise it in every walk of life."
At the beginning of World War II Gandhi supported a resolution for recruiting
Indians in the war effort. He even went around raising recruits himself, though many people were upset by this. "You are a votary of ahimsa," some of his followers asked him "how can you ask us to take up arms?"
Gandhi's reply indicates how he considered a person's social responsibility and
his duty to his country to sometimes override even a powerful moral conviction as non-violence. He said: "I recognize that in the hour of its danger we must give, as we have decided to give, ungrudging and unequivocal support to the Empire of which we aspire in the near future to be partners in the same sense as the Dominions overseas...I would make India offer all her able-bodied sons as a sacrifice to the Empire at its critical moment, and I know that India by this very act, would become the most favoured partner in the Empire, and racial distinctions would become a thing of the past."
One of Gandhi's arguments when recruiting Indians to join the army was not too
well received by the British. "Among the many misdeeds of the British rule in India" Gandhi claimed, "history will look upon the act depriving a whole nation of arms as the blackest. If we want the Arms Act to be repealed, if we want to learn the use of arms, here is a golden opportunity."
When Pakistani raiders invaded Kashmir and began to approach Srinagar, after
Kashmir's accession to India on October 26th 1947, appeals were made to prime minister Nehru by leaders of Kashmir, including the Maharajah and Sheikh Abdullah, but Nehru dithered. Finally at the insistence of Patel, Nehru ordered military help to proceed. Patel, through a broadcast over AIR commandeered all aircraft available in India and started air operations. A relieved Gandhi told Patel, "At one time I was feeling very miserable and oppressed when I heard this
(the Pakistan invasion). But when the Kashmir operation began, I began to feel
proud of them, and every aeroplane that goes with materials and arms and ammunition and requirements of the Army, I feel proud." Gandhi justified his view, "Any injustice on our land, any encroachment on our land should be defended by violence, if not by non violence... If you can defend by non
violence, by all means do it; that is the first thing I should like. If it is
for me to do, I would not touch anything, either a pistol or revolver or anything. But I would not see India degrading itself to be feeling helpless." (Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel; India's Iron Man, B.Krishna, Harper Collins India, 1996.)
But whatever exception Gandhi may have considered allowable to nations and
individuals in the matter of self defense, he was himself, of course, a committed and unwavering adherent of ahimsa. He died by an assassin's bullet because he considered having a bodyguard as condoning violence for one's personal safety. The point I am trying to make here is that though Gandhi was himself unwaveringly committed to his non-violent ideology he did not allow it to blind him to reality nor lead him into dishonesty in its propagation. He did not hesitate to state that recourse to violence was not something that could be entirely avoided in the course of human affairs.
Whether one admires Gandhi for his non-violence, his spirituality, or his love
of truth and courage (the last two qualities are what I find most appealing in the man) I do not think there can be any arguments that Tibetans and friends can learn much from his life and mission for our own struggle. In Tibetan exile society routine and somewhat ritual accolade is paid to Gandhi by leaders and politicians but little serious effort is expended in studying his works, which is the real pity. However one may disagree with some of Gandhi's ideas (I have problems with his views on vegetarianism and celibacy) the clarity and honesty of his thinking are what shines through in all his books and articles.
Tibetan ideas on non-violence are by comparison confused, naive, and in certain
cases seem to derive from magical beliefs inherent in traditional Tibetan thinking. For instance the speaker of the Tibetan People's Assembly, Samdhong Rimpoche, who has come out with his own version of Gandhi's Satyagraha doctrine (but which Rimpoche has translated somewhat awkwardly as "Truth Insistence") once made the somewhat fantastic pronouncement that if 50% of the Tibetan
people were able to comprehend his doctrine of "Truth Insistence" the Chinese
would be compelled to leave Tibet in less than three months." The Dalai Lama does not make as extravagant a claim for the efficacy of his "Middle Way" doctrine. Both views, however, reflect their roots in traditional metaphysical thinking and clearly reveal an imperfect understanding of the politics of nation states and the darwinian realities of our modern world. Gandhi, with his legal training in London, his subsequent practise and activism in South Africa, and his reading of Western thinkers of his time, certainly seems to have had a better grasp of the realities of his day. As such he was capable of developing a non-violent strategy that, whatever its shortcomings as viewed by some Indian intellectuals at present, was able to achieve its main task of freeing India of British rule.
However strongly Gandhi represented himself as a product of his own ancient culture -- even in externals with his loin-cloth, bamboo staff and wooden slippers -- much of his political and social thinking owed more to 19th century European liberalism than to anything indigenous or traditional. His faith in non-violence was by no means typical of Hinduism. By his own admission Gandhi's pacifism was inspired primarily by the Sermon on the Mount and Tolstoy.
His championing of women's rights and his antipathy to caste is also certainly derived from contemporary Western thinking. Even his first deep insight into Buddhism seems to have come from reading Edwin Arnold's Light of Asia.
In South Africa Gandhi used British methods of political agitation: writing
letters to the newspaper, leading a petition drive, founding a political organization with membership drives, carefully kept accounts, a small library, and regular meetings for lectures, debates and group decisions. He also wrote two pamphlets.
Three thinkers of his time impressed Gandhi profoundly. His ideas on civil disobedience and non-cooperation came from Thoreau. His belief in pacifism, as mentioned earlier, came in part from Tolstoy -- especially Tolstoy's book, The Kingdom of God is Within You. Gandhi's social philosophy was certainly inspired by Ruskin's Unto This Last. Gandhi was tremendously impressed by this book. He read it on a train journey from Johannesburg to Durban in one sitting, not getting any sleep that night and became determined to change his life in accordance. "Of these books, the one that brought about an instantaneous and practical transformation in my life was Unto This Last. I translated it later into Gujurati, entitling it Sarvodaya (The Welfare of All)".
In the course of human history other "votaries of truth", beside Gandhi have, at
some time or the other in their lives, most probably had to "grope in the dark" when attempting to reconcile duty to nation and people with love of peace. Not all great leaders, of course made the Gandhian choice, yet do we regard them as any lesser than the Mahatma in moral stature? The closest thing American democracy has to a saint is Abraham Lincoln. He presided over the most bloody war in American history. That he fought the war for democracy, for the integrity of the nation and to end slavery, does not easily cancel out the terrible price paid by the American people for Lincoln's refusal to accept a separate Confederate nation. We must also bear in mind that Lincoln was not bulldozed into the war by aggressive generals and politicians around him. In fact during the first years of the war Lincoln had considerable difficulty trying to get his
overcautious generals to pit the Union army in any serious battle against the Confederate army.
Joan of Arc would, by pacifist lights, no doubt be regarded as a violent woman.
Before her arrival on the scene the conflict between the French and the English was, to borrow from American military parlance, "a low intensity conflict", primarily because of French disunity and loss of morale. Her leadership and inspiration escalated the violence dramatically, but it also eventually freed France of the English yoke.
Certainly, peace is preferable to war, and non-violence to violence. Only someone with serious mental or moral shortcomings would dispute the general rightness, even righteousness, of the proposition. But people and nations are sometimes confronted with problems where violent action seems to be not only the only possible solution but the heroic and wise one as well. Was the illusory peace that Chamberlain and Daladier bartered from Hitler at Munich worth the price of betraying Czechoslovakia? On the other hand was President Roosevelt's efforts to push a reluctant America into World War II the evil machinations of a warmonger, as the German propaganda ministry might have put it, or an act that probably saved mankind from Nazi domination.
Or closer home, was it wrong for the people of Lhasa to rise up in armed rebellion to protect the life of the Dalai Lama? Was it wrong of the Dalai Lama to use the armed escort of resistance fighters to escape from Lhasa? What would have happened had he remained? He might have been killed in the fighting, or suffered imprisonment, torture and public humiliation like the Panchen Lama. In the opinion of his brother Tendzin Choegyal, had the Dalai Lama remained in Tibet "...they (the Chinese) would have used His Holiness just as the Japanese use poor Pu Yi (the last Manchu Emperor). That's what he would have become, another Pu Yi." (Kundun, Mary Craig, Harper Collins, 1997). So, in a sense the Dalai Lama owes his freedom, his present international stature and maybe even his Nobel Peace Prize to violent men who rescued him not only from physical danger but from a situation that was politically and morally compromising. They also freed him from a relationship with the Communist Chinese that was not only hopeless
but unhealthy as well.
This article does not seek to advocate that Tibetans take up arms here and now,
but to point out to our leaders and friends that the complexities of human affairs calls for a more eclectic and robust approach to the Tibetan problem than the current pacifist inertia. Even if, let us say, we eventually adopt a non-violent strategy by consensus, this decision should come through study,
discussion and appreciation of realities, not merely as an article of religious
faith nor because it is being applauded by celebrities and world leaders, for whom peace, trade with China, and maintenance of the status quo, is definitely more important than Tibetan freedom.
But getting back to Gandhi. When all's said and done, the Mahatma's brand of non-violence towers above ours because his was a doctrine of sacrifice, courage and above all action; qualities, which in the Tibetan non-violent movement are conspicuous only by their absence -- unless one counts the heroic courage of some lone activists inside Tibet. Otherwise, in the rank and leadership of the movement in exile, non-violent activism seems to have become entirely an affair of conferences, careers, and conveniences. The ultimate convenience being the giving up of our main gaol of independence in order to save "Tibetan Buddhist culture" -- a euphemism, if I have ever heard one, for the power of the theocracy.
We should also remember that Gandhi led by example. The genuine simplicity of the Mahatma's lifestyle, his readiness to face police batons, endure imprisonment, even face death for his convictions were doubtless more inspirational to his followers than just words and teachings. Such fearlessness and integrity is, to be brutally frank, nonexistent in our leadership circles. But the Tibetan Satyagraha movement seems to have discovered a substitute. In a
document I have which seems to be a manifesto of the movement, Samdhong Rimpoche expresses the conviction to be able to instill the requisite qualities of courage, endurance, forbearance and compassion in his followers through the wonderfully vague yet impressive sounding method of "philosophical understanding". If I know anything about how things are done in Dharamsala we are definitely in for more nebulous,"feel-good" conferences (with silk-lined folders and expensive colour souvenir magazines for delegates), seminars and workshops, all of which will probably be underwritten by some well-meaning foreign foundation with more enthusiasm and funds than awareness of the real and frightening dangers assailing Tibetan society.
Inside Tibet courageous souls still defy Chinese might with courage worthy of
Gandhi. Still the question must be asked whether any of those brave activist are, in any true sense, non-violent activists. In conversations with a number of new arrivals in Dharamsala I received the definite impression that nearly all of the demonstrators and activists in Tibet adopted non-violent methods (up to a point: they threw stones and burnt down a police station) because they were
not in a position to do anything else; and that if the time came where violent
insurrection would be possible against the Chinese they would welcome it. Orville Schell, who secretly interviewed a number of activists inside Tibet for the Frontline film Red Flag Over Tibet, told me that an important Tibetan lama he interviewed had told him that the only way to stop the Chinese was through violence.
And this is beginning to happen, albeit in a modest way. Judging by the few
bombs that went of in Tibet in recent years, some stubborn Tibetans definitely seem to lack appreciation of our official non-violent philosophy. If Gandhi were still around one might suppose that he would, as a matter of course, condemn our bombers and applaud the exile peace movement. But I am not sure. In the Aug 11, 1920 issue of Young India he wrote:
I do believe that where there is only a choice between cowardice and
violence, I could advise violence. I would rather have India resort to arms than she should become a helpless witness to her own dishonour.
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