Gandhi’s
Truth – on the origins of militant non-violence by Erik H. Erikson
Published in
1970 by Faber and Faber Limited, London
Mahatma Gandhi had often called
‘non violence’, a weapon of the brave rather than the weak. Militant non-violence would sound a misnomer,
especially in these times with its overtones of coercion and intolerance. In this book, Erikson looks at the little
known textile strike of 1918 in Ahmedabad and Gandhi’s assumption of leadership
of it to trace the origins and contours of ‘militant non-violence’, of how
Gandhi’s evolved and perfected the techniques of non-violence. What is more interesting is that the author
dwells into the childhood of Gandhi to reveal how non-violence was embedded in
the daily life of Gandhi’s family and the community to which he belonged.
Erikson, the psychoanalyst
provides the theoretical basis for dwelling into the childhood of Gandhi. He says in the introductory chapter that the
images and ideas are absorbed early in life as a kind of space-time which gives
coherent reassurance against the abysmal estrangements emerging in each
successive stage and plaguing man throughout life; against early mistrust as
well as against a shame and doubt, against a sense of guilt as well as against
a sense of futility of effort and finally against a confusion of identity as
well as against a sense of isolation, stagnation or senile despair. It is
to the credit of Erikson that he seamlessly stitches the early experiences of
Gandhi into the wider canvas which Gandhi’s life became, especially after 1918.
The effort of Erikson to chart
the future course of Gandhi’s political behavior to his childhood experiences
might sound close to ‘predestination’ or ‘determinism’, but he declares that child training does no more than
underscore what is given to the child by his environment. The future ideology is, in his opinion, a
projection on these experiences. In a
significant commentary, Erikson says that deep down, nobody in his right mind
can visualize his own existence without assuming that he has always lived and
will live hereafter and the religious world views of old only endowed this
psychological given with images and ideas which could be shared, transmitted
and ritualized. This is an integration
of childhood, religion and eastern-western world views.
The agitation against the mill
owners of Ahmedabad is the least of the interesting aspects of the episode, but
the insights brought into the affair by the author certainly are. One of the major Gandhian techniques of
non-violence was his insistence on negotiations, even with his
adversaries. The other aspects are his organizational skills and his ability to attract women into his movement to
mention only two more. It is not known
whether Gandhian techniques are studied and taught to the students of IIMs at a
time when Lalu Prasad’s leadership skills seem to attract them more!
There is the often repeated
theory which postulates that Gandhi’s ‘non-violence’ not just defeated the
imperial power but also saved it from total humiliation. What was the psycho analytical insight into
such a claim? We know that Gandhi nursed his father when he
was sick. One day he asked his uncle to
look after his father and went to be with his pregnant wife. That was the day his father breathed his last. Gandhi felt very bad about his absence at the
moment his father died. After a few
days, his wife also aborted. He felt
that his wife’s abortion was a curse incurred because of his negligence to
perform a son’s duty. The lengthy explanation offered by Erikson
needs to be quoted in full, thus: “This curse is what is called ‘cover memory’
which projects one pervasive childhood conflict on one dramatized scene. In
individual cases this may seem to be the cause in childhood of a set of dangerous
and pathogenic developments in later life; but we may do well to ask what the
propensity for such dramatization may mean in phylogenetic development. A dark preoccupation with the death of the
old seems unavoidable in a species which must live through a period of infantile
dependence unequaled in length elsewhere in nature, which develops a sensitive
self-awareness in the very years of immaturity, and which becomes aware of the
inexorable succession of generations at a stage of childhood when it also
develops the propensity for intense and irrational guilt. To better the parent thus means to replace
him; to survive him means to kill him, to usurp his domain means to appropriate
the mother, the ‘house,’ the ‘throne.’
If such guilt is, as religions claim, of the very essence of revelation,
it is still a fateful fact that mankind’s Maker is necessarily first
experienced in the infantile image of each man’s maker. In Gandhi’s case the ‘feminine’ service to
his father would have served to deny the boyish wish to replace the father in
the possession of the mother and the youthful intention to outdo him as a
leader in later life. Thus, the pattern
would be set for a style of leadership which can defeat a superior adversary
only non-violently and with the express intent of saving him as well as those
whom he oppressed.”
To the commoners like us, this is
a tortured explanation for a behavior trait, nevertheless an explanation worth
pursuing and understanding!
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