Duane Elgin, the author of yesterday’s article on Choosing Simplicity, was strongly influenced by the writings of Richard Gregg. In 1936, Gregg wrote a book titled The Power of Nonviolence. I found a later edition on the net from which the following is excerpted.
Richard Gregg
There have been many instances of the successful use of nonviolent resistance in different countries and at different times. Because the taste of historians inclines more toward politics and wars, these other events have received but slight attention at their hands, and the records of many of them have been lost. In some instances the nonviolent resistance was by individuals, in other instances it took a mass or corporate form. The latter form is rarer and perhaps more significant. For this reason and because this book is not primarily a history, I will attempt to tell of only a few outstanding successful modern examples of the latter sort.
Hungary
The first to be considered occurred in Hungary during the mid-nineteenth century. The emperor Franz Josef was trying to subordinate Hungary to the Austrian power, contrary to the terms of the old treaty of union of those two countries. The Hungarian moderates felt helpless, as they were too weak to fight. But Ferenc Deak, a Catholic landowner of Hungary, protested to them: “Your laws are violated, yet your mouths remain closed! Woe to the nation that raises no protest when its rights are outraged! It contributes to its own slavery by its silence. The nation that submits to injustice and oppression without protest is doomed.”
Deak proceeded to organize a scheme for independent Hungarian education, agriculture and industry, a refusal to recognize the Austrian government in any way, and a boycott against Austrian goods. He admonished the people not to be betrayed into acts of violence nor to abandon the ground of legality. “This is the safe ground,” he said, “on which, unarmed ourselves, we can hold our own against armed force. If suffering must be necessary, suffer with dignity.”
The advice was obeyed throughout Hungary. When the Austrian tax collector came, the people did not beat him or even hoot him they merely declined to pay. The Austrian police then seized their goods, but no Hungarian auctioneer would sell them. When an Austrian auctioneer was brought, he found that he would have to bring bidders from Austria. The government soon discovered that it was costing more to distrain the property than the tax was worth.
The Austrians attempted to billet their soldiers upon the Hungarians. The Hungarians did not actively resist the order, but the Austrian soldiers, after trying to live in houses where everyone despised them, protested strongly against it. The Austrian government declared the boycott of Austrian goods illegal, but the Hungarians defied the decree. The jails were filled to overflowing. No representatives from Hungary would sit in the Imperial Parliament.
The Austrians then tried conciliation. The prisoners were released and partial self-government given. But Hungary insisted upon its full claims. In reply, Emperor Franz Josef decreed compulsory military service. The Hungarians answered that they would refuse to obey it. Finally, on February 18, 1867, the Emperor capitulated and gave Hungary her constitution.
The campaign seems to have been defective because of some violence of inner attitude on the part of the Hungarians. But even so, it provided a remarkable example of the power of nonviolent resistance, even though the principle was imperfectly realized and applied.
South Africa
The next example occurred in South Africa. It lasted eight years, beginning in 1906. For many years previously, Indians had been coming to Natal as manual workers in the mines and elsewhere, originally at the invitation of the Europeans who wished to develop the country. Many thousands of the Indians came as indentured laborers, whose term of service was five years. They were industrious, entered into farming and trade, and thereby began to compete with the Europeans. By 1906 some 12,500 of them had crossed the border and settled in the Transvaal. They were subject to many unfair laws.
In 1906, the Transvaal government introduced a bill in the legislature which would require every Indian to be registered by fingerprint, like criminals, and to produce his certificate of registration upon demand of any police officer at any time. Failure to register meant deportation, and refusal to produce the certificate would be punished by fine. The Indians had always been subject to severe restrictions, but this proposal meant their complete subjection and probably their destruction as a community. Under the leadership of an Indian lawyer, M. K. Gandhi, they held meetings of protest and asked for hearings on the bill. But the government said no and passed the bill Thereupon the leading Indians, at a huge mass meeting, took an oath that they would all refuse to register and would go to jail rather than obey a law that they regarded as an attack upon the very foundations of their religion, their national honor and their self-respect.
They stuck to their resolve, and Gandhi and many others went to jail. The Prime Minister, General Jan Christian Smuts, then undertook to have the law repealed if the Indians would register voluntarily. The Indians agreed and did their part, but General Smuts did not carry out his side of the agreement. Moreover, the government introduced a further bill which applied the old registration law to all Asians who had not registered voluntarily. The Indians then resolved to renew the struggle.
Not long after, in 1913, a European judge in the Transvaal Supreme Court made a court decision that invalidated all Hindu and Mohammedan marriages, thus rendering all Indian children illegitimate and incapable of inheriting property. This roused the Indian women. A group of them, at Gandhi’s suggestion, crossed from the Transvaal into Natal, and picketed the Natal mines, which were worked by Indian laborers. Since Indians were forbidden by law to cross the boundary without permission, the women were imprisoned. The men, numbering about five thousand, all came out on strike as a protest. Under Gandhi’s leadership they proposed to march on foot across the border into the Transvaal, by way of a nonviolent protest.
Gandhi notified the Government of this proposed action and asked for a revocation of the law, several days before the march, and again just before it started, but to no effect.
They marched, some four thousand strong, about twenty-five miles a day, living on the charity of Indian merchants. During the march three times, released on bail twice, and finally put in jail. The border was crossed and the army continued, leaderless, but still nonviolent. Finally they were all arrested and taken back by train to Natal. They were impounded at the mines and beaten and ill-treated. Still they remained firm and nonviolent.
This brutal affair aroused a tremendous storm of public opinion both in South Africa and India. Lord Hardinge, the Viceroy of India, in a public speech at Madras, praised and defended the conduct of the nonviolent resisters and protested against the acts of the Union _ of South Africa. Two Englishmen, C. F.’ Andrews and W. W. Pearson, went to South Africa from India at the request of the Indian public. Later, the Viceroy sent Sir Benjamin Robertson to represent the Government of India. But the negotiations with the protesting Indians remained entirely in Gandhi’s hands.
General Smuts, seeing that he had to retreat, appointed a committee of investigation to save the face of the government, and at the same time released Gandhi and two other leaders of the Indians. The Indians requested representation on the committee as surety of good faith. When Smuts refused, Gandhi prepared to renew the struggle.
Just then a strike broke out among the European railway men in South Africa. Gandhi saw that the government was in a very difficult situation, but instead of taking advantage of the incident, he chivalrously suspended the Indian struggle until the railway strike was over, an act that won much admiration for the Indians.
After the strike ended, Smuts found it necessary to yield, and the Indians won all the major parts of their demands: namely, the abolition of the registration, the abolition of the three-pound head-tax, the validation of their marriages, the right of entry of educated Indians, and an assurance of just administration of existing laws. Thus the whole struggle was won by nonviolent resistance.
INDIA: Champaran
In northern India, in 1917, the peasants had been compelled by law to plant 15 percent of all their land in indigo and also were subject to other oppressive exactions by the planters. Gandhi, who had returned to live in India in 1914, was invited to investigate the conditions of the workers on the indigo plantations and the treatment given them by their employers. He began his inquiry without publicity, but the planters much resented his activities there and persuaded the district magistrate that the presence of Gandhi was dangerous to the peace of the district. The magistrate served an order upon Gandhi to leave the district by the next available train. Gandhi replied that he had come there from a sense of duty, that nothing was being done except carefully and quietly to ascertain facts, and that he would stay and, if necessary, submit to the penalty for disobedience.
He and his companions then proceeded quietly to take down in writing the statements of the peasants who carne flocking to tell of their grievances. The witnesses were questioned to elicit the exact truth. The government sent police officers who were present at these proceedings and took notes of what happened. Gandhi and his assistants arranged that if he should be jailed or deported, two of them would go on taking the peasants’ testimony; and if those two were arrested, then two more should take up the work, and so on.
Gandhi was Summoned to court and tried. He simply pleaded guilty, and stated that he was faced with a conflict of duty-whether to obey the law or his conscience and the humane purposes for which he had come-and that under the circumstances he could only throw the responsibility of removing him upon the administration. The magistrate postponed judgment, and before it was rendered the lieutenant-governor gave orders that Gandhi should be permitted to proceed with the investigation. Then the governor of the province interested himself in the case and, after, conferring with Gandhi, appointed a government commission of inquiry with Gandhi as a member. The commission reported unanimously that the law was unfair and the exactions of the big planters unjust. The law was repealed and justice given to the peasants. All this was wholly nonviolent. This was a struggle for economic justice, with no political implications.
INDIA: Vykom
Another nonviolent struggle, this time for social rights, took place in a village called Vykom, in the State of Travancore in southern India. It was also directed by Gandhi, through some of his followers. A highway ran through the low-lying country around Vykom and through the village and close by the Brahman quarter and a temple. For centuries the Brahmans had refused to permit any low caste “untouchable” people to use this road. The followers of Gandhi decided that this custom must be ended and the road thrown open to all human beings alike. Gandhi was ill, many hundred miles away, but the young leaders came north to consult with him, and as the campaign proceeded he instructed them by letters and telegrams from his sickbed. Later he visited Vykom personally.
The leaders started the struggle by taking several of the “untouchable” friends with them along this road and into the Brahman quarter. They were immediately beaten by the Brahmans, and one was seriously hurt. But the young reformers offered no violence in return. Then the police arrested several of these young men for encouraging trespass. They were condemned to prison for different periods of time, up to one year. At once, volunteers came pouring in from all parts of the country to take the place of those who were arrested. The State then forbade any further arrests but ordered the police to prevent any more of the reformers from entering the road. The police formed a cordon across the road. Thereupon, by instructions from Gandhi, the reformers stood opposite the police barrier in an attitude of prayer. They organized themselves into shifts, taking turns in standing there for six hours at a time. They built a hut nearby, undertook their duties on a religious basis and did hand spinning while not on active duty. At no time did they use violence. This program continued for months. Gandhi told them it must continue indefinitely until the hearts of the Brahmans were melted. When the rainy season came, the road, being on low ground, was flooded. Still the volunteers continued to stand, at times up to their shoulders in water, while the police kept up the cordon in small boats. The shifts had to be shortened to three hours.
The endurance and the consistent nonviolence of the reformers was finally too much for the Brahmans. In the autumn of 1925, after a year and four months, their obstinacy broke down, and they said, “We cannot any longer resist the prayers that have been made to us, and we are ready to receive the untouchables.” The Brahmans opened the road to all comers and the low-caste people were allowed to walk at any time past the temple and past the Brahman quarters. This change of policy had reverberations all through India and aided in removing similar restrictions against “untouchables” in other parts of India, and in strengthening the cause of caste reform.
INDIA: Kotgarh
In the Himalayas, north of Simla, there is a little district called Kotgarh, with a population of only a few thousand. This district is on the highway between India and Tibet. As the scenery is of surpassing beauty and grandeur and some good hunting ground is not far beyond, the road was frequented by hunters and government officials on vacations. Here, in 1921, another nonviolent struggle for economic justice was won.
For years there had been a custom known as Begar, whereby any government official or European could demand from any village headman along the road the services of as many men as the traveler desired, at any time, for as long a period as he wanted, for carrying luggage or messages at an utterly inadequate wage. Also the people could be required to drive their cows to the dak bungalow (a sort of inn) and supply as much milk as the traveler desired, also at ridiculously low prices. Thus farmers, many more than were needed, could be haled away from plowing, or sowing or harvesting their crops or any other pressing business, to suit the whims of any European who was on the road.
One of the local Indian leaders protested, but he was immediately jailed and the villagers were threatened with talk of machine guns and the like. An ex-American resident of the district, S. E. Stokes, decided to organize the resistance against this injustice. He was in sympathy with Gandhi’s ideas and worked out the plan on nonviolent lines. Gandhi himself had no part in the struggle.
The district elected a Small committee or panchayat to direct the movement, of which Stokes was a leading member. In every village in the district all the people took an oath by their village gods to obey the orders of the committee and not to negotiate with the government in this matter except through the committee.
The committee wrote out a long and carefully worded statement of the situation and its injustices and sent it to the district commissioner. They requested hearings, but no notice was taken of it by the commissioner. Letters were written to all the responsible officials. Copies of all letters were retained by the committee. Still the Begar exactions continued. The committee then notified the commissioner that if the exactions were not ended on a stated date the entire district would refuse all requests for service.
This brought action. The commissioner came up from Simla and called a large meeting. He threatened and used every stratagem he could to cause division between the different villages and castes, so as to break down the authority of the committee. But every man who was asked a question declined to answer except through the committee. Moreover, they all refused to give food or any service to any government official or European traveling on that part of the road.
In a few weeks the district commissioner had acceded to every single demand of the villagers’ committee, and had to post all along the road printed rules which strictly limited the amount of service that could be asked and specified the wages. The struggle lasted several months, without the least violence by the farmers, and the outcome was a complete success in the district.
INDIA: Bardoli
In a small district near Surat in Bombay Presidency, 88,000 peasants undertook a nonviolent campaign in 1928 to correct an economic injustice.
Contrary to the advice of the Joint Parliamentary Committee appointed to consider the Government of India Bill, 1919, and contrary to, a resolution of the Legislative Council of the Bombay Presidency in 1924, the Bombay Provincial Government in 1927 raised the rate of rural taxation very severely-nominally 22 percent but in actual application in some instances over 60 percent. The peasantry claimed that the investigation upon which the increase had been based was wholly inadequate, that the tax official’s report was inaccurate and carelessly compiled, and that the increase was unwarranted and unjust. They asked the governor to appoint an independent and impartial committee of inquiry to hold a thorough public investigation of all the evidence. The government paid no attention to the request. Then, after giving due notice of their intentions, the peasants of the entire district refused to pay the tax.
At the initiative and request of the local people, the movement was led by Vallabhbhai Patel, with the inspiration and advice of Gandhi. Patel held several large conferences with representatives from more than half the villages and of every class and religious community. He questioned these representatives very closely to estimate their determination and strength, and the cohesion and staying power of each and every village of the entire district. He explained in detail the history of the case, their legal rights and the justice of their demands. He described clearly and fully to the villagers the possibilities and terrors of government power. He told them that the struggle might be prolonged indefinitely. He gave them several days to think it all over, to count the cost, and to discuss it among themselves. Later, they returned to a still larger meeting and after further discussion resolved to enter upon the struggle.
For several years there had been four or five social service centers in different parts of the district, headed by well-trained and disciplined workers. These were the beginning of the organization. Sixteen “camps” were located at convenient places through the district, and about 250 volunteer leaders were placed in these camps. In addition, there were volunteers in each village. These volunteers were to collect the news and information about the struggle in each village and forward it promptly every day to the headquarters of the movement. The volunteers also kept careful watch of the movements of all government officials and warned the people of their coming and intentions. A news bulletin was printed every day and distributed to every village. Eventually, 10,000 copies a day were distributed in the district and 4,000 to subscribers outside. Patel’s speeches were also distributed in pamphlet form. For the first month the volunteers spent much time getting signatures to a printed pledge in which the signers promised to stick together under their leaders, to adhere to truth and to remain nonviolent no matter what happened. Almost everyone signed the pledge. The women were organized as well as the men and took just as active a part.
The government did its best to compel the peasants to pay the tax. It tried flattery and bribery with some; fines, floggings and imprisonment of others. It tried to divide the communities against each other. The government officers seized and sold goods of the peasantry. It caused much of the peasants’ land to be forfeited, and sold over 1,400 acres of such land at auction. It brought in numbers of Pathans, Moslems of the Northwest Frontier Province, who insulted and tried to terrorize the villagers, who were mostly Hindus. There were but few waverers or weaklings. The oppression solidified the feeling of the people. A strong social boycott was maintained against all government representatives and any one who purchased disdained goods or forfeited lands. The boycott did not interfere with the supply of physical necessities to such people.
The publicity all over the country was enormous, and the sympathy of Indians of all kinds was almost universally with the peasants. The matter was discussed very fully in the provincial legislature, and several members of the legislature resigned in protest against the government’s stand. The matter was discussed even in Parliament in London.
Through it all, the peasants stood firm and nonviolent. After five and a half months, the government had to yield to practically every one of the demands. The governor appointed a committee of inquiry, agreed to restore all the land that had been sold or forfeited, and reinstated the village officials who had resigned. When the committee of ‘inquiry made its report, it “substantially justified” the original complaints of the peasants and recommended a tax increase less than that which had been assessed by the government.
INDIA: The Struggle for Independence
Other instances of the successful use of organized mass nonviolent resistance include the Ahmedabad mill strike in 1917 and the struggles against the government at Kheda in 1916-17 and at Borsad in 1923 against unjust taxes, and at Nagpur in 1927 for the right to parade with an Indian Nationalist flag. All of these were conducted or supervised by Gandhi.
Besides these there was the all-India non-cooperation struggle of 1921-22 which was unsuccessful in its immediate objective and yet immensely successful in awakening that country with its population of 350,000,000 people to desire freedom and to work concretely for its attainment. It profoundly altered the entire political situation in India, and thereby in the British Empire. Here are portions of press dispatches about two incidents in the continuing struggle of 1930.
The New York Telegram carried a long dispatch from Webb Miller, special correspondent for the United Press. I quote only a part:
Dharasana Camp, Surat District, Bombay Presidency, May 22 (by mail)Amazing scenes were witnessed yesterday when more than 2,500 Gandhi ‘volunteers’ advanced against the salt pans here in defiance of police regulations.
The official government version of the raid, issued today, stated that ‘from Congress sources it is estimated 170 sustained injuries, but only three or four were seriously hurt.’
About noon yesterday I visited the temporary hospital in the Congress camp and counted more than 200 injured lying in rows on the ground. I verified by personal observation that they were suffering injuries. Today even the British owned newspapers give the total number at 320. . . .
The scene at Dharasana during the raid was astonishing and baffling to the Western mind accustomed to see violence met by violence, to expect a blow to be returned and a fight result. During the morning I saw and heard hundreds of blows inflicted by the police, but saw not a single blow returned by the volunteers. So far as I could observe the volunteers implicitly obeyed Gandhi’s creed of non-violence. In no case did I see a volunteer even raise an arm to deflect the blows from lathis. There were no outcries from the beaten Swarajists, only groans after they had submitted to their beating.
Obviously it was the purpose of the volunteers to force the police to beat them. The police were placed in a difficult position by the refusal to disperse and the action of volunteers in continually pressing closer to the salt pans.
Many times I saw the police vainly threaten the advancing volunteers with upraised lathis. Upon their determined refusal to recede the lathis would fall upon the unresisting body, the volunteer would fall back bleeding or bruised and be carried away on a stretcher. Waiting volunteers, on the outskirts of the pans, often rushed and congratulated the beaten volunteer as he was carried off the field. It was apparent that most of the injured gloried in their injuries. One leader was heard to say, ‘These men have done a great work for India today. They are martyrs to the cause.’
“Much of the time the stolid native Surat police seemed reluctant to strike. It was noticeable that when the officers were occupied on other parts of the line the police slackened, only to resume threatening and beating when the officers appeared again. I saw many instances of the volunteers pleading with the police to join them.
At other times the police became angered, whereupon the beating would be done earnestly. During several of these incidents I saw the native police deliberately kick lying or sitting volunteers who refused to disperse. And I saw several instances where the police viciously jabbed sitting volunteers in the abdomen with the butt end of their lathi. . . .
Once I saw a native policeman in anger strike a half-submerged volunteer who had already been struck down into a ditch and was clinging to the edge of the bank. This incident caused great excitement among the volunteers who witnessed it.
My reaction to the scenes was of revulsion akin to the emotion one feels when seeing a dumb animal beaten-partly anger, partly humiliation. It was to the description of these reactions that the Bombay censorship authorities objected among other things.
In fairness to the authorities it must be emphasized that the Congress volunteers were breaking laws or attempting to break them, and that they repeatedly refused to disperse and attempted to pull down the entanglements with ropes, and that the volunteers seemed to glory in their injuries.
In eighteen years of reporting in twenty-two countries, during which I have witnessed innumerable civil disturbances, riots, street fights and rebellions, I have never witnessed such harrowing scenes as at Dharasana. The Western mind can grasp violence returned by violence, can understand a fight, but is, I found, perplexed and baffled by the sight of men advancing coldly and deliberately and submitting to beating without attempting defense. Sometimes the scenes were so painful that I had to turn away momentarily.
One surprising feature was the discipline of the volunteers. It seemed they were thoroughly imbued with Gandhi’s nonviolence creed, and the leaders constantly stood in front of the ranks imploring them to remember that Gandhi’s soul was with them.
The Chicago Daily News published the following account from Bombay, June 21:
Heroic, bearded Sikhs, several with blood dripping from their mouths, refusing to move or even to draw their ‘kirpans’ (sacred swords) to defend themselves from the shower of lathi blows.
Hindu women and girls dressed in orange robes of sacrifice, flinging themselves on the bridles of horses and imploring mounted police not to strike male Congress volunteers, as they were Hindus themselves.
Stretcher bearers waiting beside little islands of prostrate unflinching, immovable Satyagrahis, who had flung themselves on the ground grouped about their women upholding the flag of Swaraj.
These were the scenes on the Maidan Esplanade, Bombay’s splendid seafront park, where the six-day deadlock between police and Mahatma Gandhi’s followers has broken out in a bewildering brutal and stupid yet heroic spectacle.
The scene opened at six o’clock outside the Esplanade. At the police station facing the park some hundreds of yellow turbaned blue-clad, bare-legged Mahratti policemen were leaning on their dreaded bamboo lathis under the command of a score of English police sergeants in topees and cotton drill.
At 6:45, marching in good formation down the tree-lined pleasant boulevard, came the first detachment of volunteers. This was the ambulance unit, mostly boys and young doctors, dressed in khaki with Red Cross badges on their arms. They marched past the waiting police without a glance to the south side of the playing field, where they parked their ambulances and brought out their stretchers.
It was like nurses and orderlies preparing an operating theater.
At 7 o’clock began to come processions of white-robed volunteers bearing red, green and white banners, singing ‘We will take Swaraj-India Our Motherland.’ At the head of each walked a tiny detachment of women and girls dressed in orange robes, many garlanded with jasmine. They marched steadily on past the policemen and actually lined up behind the stretchers.
They waited there in a long front down the boulevard for the order to march on the field.
I shall not forget the scenes which followed. Dark faced Mahratti policemen in their yellow turbans marched along in column led by English sergeants across the field toward the waiting crowd. As they neared it the police went faster and faster. The Hindus, who may be willing to die but dread physical pain, watched them approach with frightened eyes. Then the police broke into a charge.
Many Hindus at once ran, fleeing down the streets-but most stood stock still.
Crash! Whack! Whack! Whack At last the crowd broke. Only the orange clad women were left standing beside the prostrate figures of crumpled men. Congress volunteer ambulances clanging bells, stretcher bearers running helter-skelter across the field. Whack! Whack! Whack!
A minute’s lull and then, with flags flying another column of volunteers marched onto the vast green field. A column of Mahrattas marched to meet them. They clashed-a clash, a rattle, dull thuds, then the faint-hearted ran and again there was the spectacle of the green field dotted with a line of fallen bodies and again the same islands of orange clad Hindu women holding up the flags of Swaraj.
And here in the center of one of these islands sat a little knot of men, their heads bowed, submitting to a rain of lathi blows-refusing to move until on a stretcher and completely laid out. And there were stretchers within two feet of the suffering men, waiting for them.
Then came a band of fifty Sikhs-and a heroic scene. The Sikhs, as you know, are a fierce fighting brotherhood. As soon as he can raise one, every man wears a beard which he curls around a cord or ties to his ears. The Sikhs also wear their hair long like women and curl it in a topknot under their turbans. These Sikhs were Akalis of a fanatic religious sect. They wore the kirpan, or sacred sword.
With them were fifteen of their young girls and women. The women also wore sacred swords, and although dressed in orange saris like Hindu women, they wore little cotton trousers which reached to their tiny, sandaled feet. They were pretty girls and not so loud voiced and excited as the Hindu ladies. They simply smiled-as if they liked danger-which they do.
One of them had her little baby, which she wanted to hold up before the police to dare them to come on. She laughed at me when my remark was translated that it was terrible to drag a child into this.
Coming from all districts as representatives of the fighting Punjab, these Sikhs swore they would not draw their kirpans to defend themselves, but they would not leave the field. They did not.
‘Never, never, never!’ they cried, to the terrific delight of their Hindu brothers, in Swaraj. We will never retreat. We will die, we will!’ The police hesitated before hitting the Sikhs. They asked their women would they not please, please, leave the field.
‘No!’ said the women, ‘we will die with our men.’
Mounted Indian policemen who had been galloping across the field, whacking heads indiscriminately, came to a stymie when they faced the little cluster of blue Akali turbans on the slender Sikh men.
‘The Sikhs are brave men-how can we hit them?’ It was not fear, but respect.
But the police, determined to ‘try to clear the field, at last rushed around .the Shikh women and began to hit the men. I stood within five feet of a Sikh leader as he took the lathi blows. He was a short, heavily muscled man.
The blows came-he stood straight. His turban was knocked off. The long black hair was bared with the round topknot. He closed his eyes as the blows fell-until at last he swayed and fell to the ground.
No other Sikhs had tried to shield him, but now, shouting their defiance, they wiped away the blood streaming from his mouth. Hysterical Hindus rushed to him, bearing cakes of ice to rub the contusions over his eyes. The Sikh gave me a smile-and stood for more.
And then the police threw up their hands. ‘You can’t go on hitting a blighter when he stands up to you like that.’
In 1947, after twenty-six years of nonviolent struggle under Gandhi’s leadership, India won her political freedom from Britain. Not a single Briton, so far as I know, was killed by Indians as part of this struggle. It was the Indians who voluntarily endured the necessary deaths and suffering. This was the first time in the history of the world that a great empire had been persuaded by nonviolent resistance to grant freedom to one of its subject countries. Of course, as in all great and complex events, there were many reasons for the result, but the nonviolent method is what eventually unified all Indians and gave them the necessary self-respect, self-reliance, courage and persistence, and also resulted in mutual respect and good feeling between Great Britain and India at the end.
Read more of Richard Gregg’s The Power of NonViolence