Gandhian concept of human security

Gandhian Human Security 1of 22

THE GANDHIAN CONCEPT OF HUMAN SECURITY AND PEACE

QUEST FOR AMITY AMIDST GLOBALISATION AND WEAPONS OF MASS DESTRUCTION

Anurag Gangal,

Professor and Head, Department of Political Science, and

Director, Gandhian Centre for Peace and Conflict Studies,

University of Jammu, Jammu – 180006,

Jammu and Kashmir, INDIA.

I

Introduction: Holistic Security

Security for Gandhi is a holistic phenomenon. In his Ideal society, there is no

room for weapons other than nails of a woman. Security has nothing to do with weapons

of any sort in the Gandhian arrangement of things. As regards atom bomb – of Hiroshima

and Nagasaki type – Gandhi says, “I regard the employment of the atom bomb for the

wholesale destruction of men, women and children as the most diabolical use of

science….. Unless now the world adopts nonviolence, it will spell certain suicide for

mankind.”1 For him, it is more a matter of opting for a way of life. Gandhi is in favour of

a nonviolent and more civilised life style. In today’s world, human security is possible

only when the basic requirements of freedom and development are fulfilled. Gandhi adds

yet another aspect to the concept of human security. Wielding weapons for any purpose

shows a great sense of insecurity and fear among those who possess them. Otherwise,

weapons may not be needed for “security”. German Action Committee is also demanding

similar type of security by saying that “Security is not war, torture and terror”.2

That’s what even Amartya Sen also says in a different way. For Amartya Sen,

considering and measuring development on the basis of GDP, national per capita income

and other such widely accepted economic yardsticks is misleading and improper. For

him, a nation with people having widespread education, necessary leisure time, proper

and fulsome food, electricity for everyone, shelter for all and clothing for everyone along

with near complete human security and a great inner sense of security can be regarded as

developed instead of a country having high GDP etc without the fulfilment of basic

needs. Among poor and rich nations alike, basic needs can be fulfilled only when there is

a great sense of self-respect and high regard for moral values among leaders and


administrators in the government. That is why Nobel laureates like Amartya Sen regards

Development as Freedom (Oxford, 1999).

Highest form of security is possible in a civilised and gentle world where even

armed battalions do not coerce. Until there is widespread voluntary effort towards

conflict-transformation by individuals and states alike, the cities of the world will not

have rest from armed conflicts, wars and mass murders. Weapons cannot provide

security. It is the morale and faith in God and truth that leads to real sense of security.

Modern weapons and technology is leading to widening net of insecurity among peoples

and modern armies. The Gandhian conception of security can provide a great sense of

strength and conviction to modern global citizen. However, for this, a process of

transformation has to begin for helping evolve a general confidence in the ways of

Gandhian nonviolence.

“Change is the law of nature.” It is a widely and universally accepted fact of

human life over the ages. This law, however, does not change. Change involves

innovation and zest for life. Modern technology is indeed its most glaring example. The

ultimate end of this surging ahead of modern technology is in the “changelessness and

timelessness” of the need for security, prosperity, development and peace. Ephemeral

nature of change moves forth towards fulfilling the perennial needs of this spaceship

Earth. ‘What changes’ is subject to a cycle of moving forward to attain the utmost need

and truth. ‘What does not change’ attracts endless exploration for ageless human need of

a permanent security.

Can there ever be an enduring sense of security “as a living fact” for all

individuals in this world replete with recurring experiences leading to innovations and

acts of mass destruction through terror, mishaps and cold blooded, planned or schematic

onslaughts against humanity at large?

Quest for an answer to this query cannot but lead us to largely an unexplored

perspective of nonviolence in the Gandhian conception of realities of human life. Present-

day global needs and diverse scenarios of WMDs, depletion of resources, pollution,

terrorism, increasing promiscuity in modern “civil society”, balance of terror and mutual

suspicions among peoples and nations alike appear to be self-defeating.


Mahatma Gandhi is a known proponent of nonviolence and peace in the world.

He has widely written on war, peace and security vis-à-vis individuals, states and vaster

global perspectives. Gandhi, however, is not a system builder in thought and action. He is

a perceiver of reality as a “practical idealist” interweaving the two cords of human

knowledge and dynamics in life. Gandhian vision is alive with holistic perception of truth,

foresightedness and scientific analysis.

Gandhi sees an inherent linkage between knowledge, virtue or wisdom on the one

hand, and security of a civil society comprising understandably connected individual(s),

groups, administrative units, polis of different magnitudes, provinces, sovereign states,

international and global organisations, on the other hand. There is very clear line of

thinking and continued relationship amongst these aspects of security from the level of an

individual to an international establishment and global order. Security, defence, apt

strategic environs and peace have to begin with the individual first. Other levels of

security will have to follow suit. That is why Gandhi says, “There cannot be

internationalism without nationalism.” This is the Gandhian order of holistic logic that

must be adopted for a securer and more peaceful world.

As such, Gandhi’s view of security for both an individual and a state can be have

meaningful only through certain inter-related measures taken by the world community of

nations over a period of time. These measures are:

Global conventional and nuclear disarmament.

Preservation of environment and ecology.

Resolving the population, poverty and unemployment menace.

Thinking more of peace than about war and weapons.

Globalisation with a human face.

Evolving a world culture where smallest should feel the tallest.

II

Security without Weapons

Security for Gandhi is not merely strategy and technique of defeating an invading

army. It is not an international, as it were, wrestling among nations with weapons of mass

destruction. Security, for him, does not mean disbandment of modern armies and other

disciplined forces. It is also not merely self-defence. Security, for him, initially is a notion

based on logic of why should there be a threat in the absence of some solid political and


economic gain. In other words, gainful motive has to be there. The nature and perception

of such a motive emerges here as more important.

Peace and development through security are the essence of modern conception of

security. Instead, for Gandhi, security is possible through peace and development only.

The major difference in these two views is primarily that of emphasis. The Gandhian

perspective considers security as a natural corollary of development and peace. It is not

weapons and machines but pulsating human beings who are of real significance.

Everything else is secondary. An inherently ever widening twenty-first century

contradiction and security predicament is there in available stockpiles of weapons

providing a peculiar sense of security replete with threats of complete human extinction.

Modern security is possible through mutual assured destruction (MAD). What a dilemma

it is! This trend shows a specific direction of thinking. This needs transformation. That is

why Barash and Webel say:

However one judges the desirability of peace or

legitimacy of (at least some) wars, it should be clear that

peace and war exist on a continuum of violent / nonviolent

national behaviours and that they constantly fluctuate.

Neither should be taken for granted, and neither is

humanity’s “natural state.” The human condition – whether

to wage war or to strive to build an enduring peace – is for

us to decide.3

Similarly, nonviolence is the Gandhian way of life. Nonviolence comes naturally

to human beings. This is part and parcel of their existence, survival and evolution.

Violent behaviour is always an exception. Albert Einstein is also one with Gandhi when

he says:

We need an essentially new way of thinking if

mankind is to survive. Men must radically change their

attitudes toward each other and their views of the future.

Force must no longer be an instrument of politics….

Today, we do not have much time left; it is up to our

generation to succeed in thinking differently. If we fail, the

days of civilised humanity are numbered.4

A noted botanist in the mid twentieth century, Luther Burbank, explains a very

sensitive aspect of security and peace through an experiment for developing a spineless

and thornless variety of cactus. He says:


While I was conducting experiments to make

‘spineless’ cactus, I often talked to the plants to create a

vibration of love. ‘You have nothing to fear.’ I would tell

them. ‘You don’t need your defensive thorns. I will protect

you.’ Gradually the useful plant of the desert emerged in a

thornless variety.5

The need is to make experiments with an open mind and objective scientific

outlook. Gandhi had this faith in social and political experimentation. A positively

practical attitude to evolution of ever new avenues and vistas of knowledge must never be

put aside.

There are quite a few masterly works by Gandhi and his commentators anent his

views on discipline, life style, political, military and economic decentralisation, stateless

society, development, peace and a federation of nations leading to security, i.e., social,

military, political, legal, economic and ecological etcetera. A two volumes study by M.

K. Gandhi, Nonviolence in Peace and War; Gopinath Dhawan’s The Political Philosophy

of Mahatma Gandhi; H. J. N. Horsburg’s Nonviolence and Aggression: A Study of

Gandhi’s Moral Equivalent of War; S. C. Gangal’s Gandhian Thought and Techniques in

the Modern World; Joan Bondurant’s Conquest of Violence: The Gandhian Philosophy of

Conflict; Johan Galtung’s “A Gandhian Theory of Conflict”, in David Selbourne (Ed.), In

Theory and Practice: Essays on the Politics of Jayaprakash Narayan and Gene Sharp’s

Gandhi as Political Strategist: With Essays on Ethics and Politics are a few noted and

well known works throwing ample light on Gandhi’s concept of conflict, security and

peace. It is primarily on the basis of these studies that an attempt is being made here to

recapitulate major pointers in the area of Gandhi’s nonviolent conception of security,

conflict, peace and development.6

These studies, among others, point understandably to a Gandhian security strategy

comprising three concentric and systemic spheres or circles leading to a securer world.

Human relations are not hierarchical, horizontal, vertical and pyramidal. They are

spherical and ocean like. It is perennial process. Each thought and act interacts from

within and without. This is an endless mutually interwoven melting of one into another.

Moving to and from one to another. Inner energies must be provided creative outlet not

only for all purposes but also for defence policy, security network and foreign policy etc.


Questions of racism, sex, gender exploitation and colour etc must be done away with a

global education and foreign policy networking. Gandhian viewpoint in international

affairs may be put in the form of the following diagram:

Gandhian Security Paradigm7

These spheres, as in above mentioned diagram, in an international perspective,

represent:

Immediate neighbours as immediate sphere.

Other poor less developed, underdeveloped, developing and countries of

Asia, Africa and Latin America (AALA) are in the mid sphere.

Developed -- economically militarily and otherwise very powerful great

powers or superpower -- countries constituting the outer sphere.

As Gandhi says, in this global security buffer design, there will be:

…ever widening, never ascending circles. Life will

not be a pyramid with the apex sustained by the bottom.

But it will be an oceanic circle whose centre will be the

individual always ready to perish for the village, the later

for the circle of villages, till the last … becomes one life

composed of individuals, never aggressive in their

arrogance but ever humble, sharing the majesty of the

oceanic circle of which they are integral parts. Therefore,

the outermost circumference will not wield the power to

crush the inner circle but will give strength to all within and

derive its own strength from it… No one… [will] be the

first and none the last.8


Utmost priority, apparently, is to be given to good understanding and relations

with immediate neighbours like Pakistan and others. A holistic security climate has to be

expanded from the inner most circle of neighbours and beyond. That is how three broad

security buffer spheres must be created through very friendly relations based on utter

mutual faith and nonviolence.

In the absence of a general belief in the power of nonviolence and love, i.e., truth,

this pattern must still be strengthened despite continuing armaments race and “overkill”

capacities of WMDs or nuclear, biological and chemical (NBCs) weapons. These

weapons cannot provide us security inasmuch as they are there for mutual massive

destruction and spreading terror. These weapons do not defend us. They are meant to kill

during wars and terrorise during peacetime. About thirty countries already possess these

WMDs. Anti-tank nuclear bullets are also in use. Nearly 100, 000 nuclear bombs are also

there among these states. United States and Russia alone share more than half of this

arsenal.9

Only less than an iota of present-day stockpiles of armaments was there in

Gandhi’s time. Practical-idealism of Gandhi emerges even more clearly when he says in

this context:

It [nonviolence] is of universal applicability.

Nevertheless, perfect nonviolence, like Absolute Truth,

must forever remain beyond our reach.10

Perfect nonviolence is impossible so long as we

exist physically, for we would want some space at least to

occupy. Perfect nonviolence whilst you are inhabiting the

body is only a theory like Euclid’s point or straight line, but

we have to endeavour every moment of our lives.11

This impossibility of “perfect nonviolence” does not prevent an initiative in this

direction. As long as there is absence of general, fundamental, practical and political

belief in the efficacy of nonviolence as a way of life, till then at least a Nonviolent

National Defence Army, Navy and Air Force can be evolved on Gandhian lines of

nonviolent spirit and nonviolence of the brave. This nonviolent national defence system

can work alongside existing defence forces.

Such simple but effective steps can be taken up at the level of Central and State

Governments only when India has evolved a defence policy. These simple Gandhian


solutions to complex current tangles certainly need spirited and sincere long-term

initiatives for transforming prevalent meta-conflict orientation towards a belief that

despite continued struggles, conflicts, war and weapons of mass destruction-peace and

nonviolence as a way of life are practical options. Despite mass violence and increasing

crime graph, we are all living a nonviolent life in our routine affairs.

(i) What we need is merely to think and act in the most common and

obvious terms. We are not doing it anent resolving our more serious and

potentially volatile conflicts.

(ii) This is possible even in this age of globalisation. We are also not

opting for nonviolent ways when most of the nations and majority of population

in the world are reeling under one or the other type of overt, covert and subtler

exploitation in politics, trade and mass media.

(iii) We must learn to sit together like common human beings without

attaching unnecessary airs to our own persons.

That is why Albert Einstein has said, ‘Generations

to come will scarce believe that such a man as this, in flesh

and blood, ever walked upon this earth.’ One of the greatest

admirers of Gandhi is Albert Einstein, who sees in

‘Gandhi's nonviolence a possible antidote to the massive

violence unleashed by the fission of the atom’.

B R Nanda writes in the 2001 edition of Britannica

Encyclopaedia, ‘In a time of deepening crisis in the

underdeveloped world, of social malaise in the affluent

societies, of the shadow of unbridled technology and the

precarious peace of nuclear terror, it seems likely that

Gandhi's ideas and techniques will become increasingly

relevant’.

This relevance has to be put in action as Gandhi

always said, ‘My life is my message.’ This action is

possible at least at three levels without affecting adversely

the current surging ahead of modernisation and

globalisation. First, at individuals’ unilateral and voluntary

level. Secondly, at the level of voluntary organisations.

Last but not least, at the level of a national government

voluntary mobilisation and necessary socialisation on a

vaster plane. The international perspective will follow suit

on its own as a logical outcome or natural corollary of other

three levels.12


III

Security Dilemma

There is also a related aspect of a ‘security dilemma’ or striker’s falling into the

pit instead of scoring a few points through excessive rebound play in the carom board

game among inter-state “patrons” of civil society today. One’s security becomes a threat

to another player in the globalising twenty-first century’s global civil culture (?). Politics

by all means is an integral part of such activities. Security then becomes a menace to its

preserver itself.

When ‘security’ is leading to ‘insecurity’ then why this hullabaloo and concern

for security of individuals and nations alike? Whom who is benefiting? Why this is

happening? No doubt, security is a must for all as a fundamental need and human right to

life. This need has to be fulfilled. Security beyond this need emerges into an utterly self-

aggrandising global nexus and Mafia causing loss of precious human lives of brave

soldiers and common citizens alike. Indeed, “How much land does a man require ?”

Individuals among peoples of the world understand this predicament. Nations and

statesmen and nations are bound to ignore it for they have to act otherwise. Security for

peace is relentlessly negating its purpose. Amassing of WMDs, terrorism of different

types including nuclear terrorism further proves this glaring logic and reality. No state

has ever achieved the security it desires without becoming a menace to its neighbours.

Apart from ‘genuine’ concerns about security needs of a state, there are other

reasons also leading to ever widening arms race. They are all practical pointers to

national leaders’ strong belief in military might as their only real protection when they are

facing an irritating and hostile opponent:

…the financial profits to be made, desire for

advancement on the part of individuals whose careers

depend on success in administering or commanding major

new weapons programmes, political leaders pandering to

bellicose domestic sentiment, and inter-service rivalry

within a state.13

All these are realities of modern deep-rooted political perversion. Politics -- as

political thinkers, actors and Gandhi in particular say – is concerned primarily with

establishing truth and order in society. Ongoing diverse manipulations in politics


represent something different than what is political. Manipulations and perversions of

civil society in this age of globalisation are presenting intriguing trends:

Bringing together of global trade and economy to a notable extent.

Smaller traders, investors, entrepreneurs, and industrial units

facing far greater challenges.

Increasing burden of poverty, population, pollution, proliferation

of armaments and (precarious) peace, i.e., ‘five Ps’ on Afro-Asian and Latin

American (AALA) countries.

Emergence of United States and Europe as relatively more stable

global economic and political peace zones of the world.

Widening framework of work and space for international actors,

organisations and operators.

World peace through WMDs deterrence based on dwindling

foundations of mutual terror.

Terrorist groups having their own share from state-of-the-art

weapons.

Preventing a situation of a third world war through institutionalised

terror.

Security threat from terrorism and ‘War on Terrorism’.

These trends further complicate quest for a comprehensive security perspective

when most of the states in the world are able to ensure at best ‘a pretence of security’

despite their constantly burgeoning military budgets. Even for their limited military

security needs, these countries depend, expressly or implicitly, either on other great

powers or on so-called ‘collective defence / security’.

Such wasteful security scenario point to a need for a more comprehensive policy

of defence and security especially for poorer AALA countries in general and South Asia

in particular.

IV

Nonviolent Security Pointers

Gandhi has spoken and written profusely on nonviolence, security, peace, war,

conflict, world order and world federation of nations etcetera. He, however, has never

explained any aspect singularly or in piecemeal fashion. He has never written exclusively

on security issues alone or separately. May be, it is for this reason, Gandhi has evolved a

holistic and a very comprehensive vision of security and world peace.

Accordingly, political, economic and military decentralisation of resources and

power is necessary for his concept of Swaraj based on self-reliance, self-sufficiency and


really effective independence and freedom. Only such independence can assure security.

Gandhi’s second best ideal is for a democratic system driving its strength directly from

villages especially in the Indian context.

It is not possible for a modern State based on force,

nonviolently to resist forces of disorder, whether external

or internal…. (However,) it is possible for a State to be

predominantly based on nonviolence.14

Gandhi, in reply to a question – “Is not nonviolent resistance by the militarily

strong more effective than that by the militarily weak?” – says:

This is a contradiction in terms. There can be no

non-violence offered by the militarily strong…. What is

true is that if those, who are at one time strong in armed

might, change their mind, they will be better able to

demonstrate their nonviolence to the world and, therefore,

to their to their opponents. Those who are strong in

nonviolence will not mind whether they are opposed by the

militarily weak or the strongest.15

As regards training of the nonviolent army, Gandhi

says: A very small part of the preliminary training received

by the military is common to the nonviolent army. These

are discipline, drill, singing in chorus, flag hoisting,

signalling and the like. Even this is not absolutely

necessary and the basis is different. The positively

necessary training for a violent army is an immovable faith

in God, willing and perfect obedience to the chief of the

nonviolent army and perfect inward cooperation between

units of the army.16

A nonviolent State must be broad based on the will

of an intelligent people, well able to know its mind and act

up to it. In such a State the assumed section can only be

negligible. It can never stand against deliberate will of the

overwhelming majority represented by the State. … If it is

expressed nonviolently, it cannot be a majority of one but

nearer 99 against one in a hundred.17

In such a state, armaments race is not required. As

V. K. R. V. Rao puts it: unless the armaments race is

brought to an end and effective steps are taken towards

disarmament… there is no use talking of a new

international order (or security)…. This was Gandhi’s view

and it becomes truer and more urgent in its need for

recognition today.18

Under Swaraj (self-rule) of my dream, there is no

necessity of arms at all.19


Alas, in my swaraj of today there is room for

soldiers…. I have not the capacity for preaching universal

nonviolence to the country.20

Gandhi has seldom given a piecemeal treatment to challenges he faced in his life.

He has said and written anent varied aspects of life and human concerns. In this context,

he has made a very bold exposition in his Hind Swaraj or Indian Home Rule. On 24 April

1933, he says – on page 04 in the beginning of this booklet:

I would like to say the diligent reader of my

writings and to others who are interested in them that I am

not at all concerned with appearing to be consistent. In my

search after Truth I have discarded many ideas and learnt

many new things. Old as I am in age, I have no feeling that

I have ceased to grow inwardly or that my growth will stop

at the dissolution of the flesh. What I am concerned with is

my readiness to obey the call of truth, my God, from

moment to moment, and, therefore, when anybody finds

any inconsistency between any two writings of mine, if he

still has faith in my sanity, he would do well to choose the

later of the two on the same subject.21

[In 1942, Gandhi said that if he survived the

attainment of freedom by India, he would] … advise the

adoption of nonviolence to the utmost extent possible and

that would be India’s greatest contribution to the peace of

the world and the establishment of a new world order.22

Writings and sayings of Mahatma Gandhi and majority of commentators and

critics of Gandhian philosophy have shown not only inherent but also explicit

significance of the idea of essential harmony and oneness of humanity. Gandhi has never

regarded himself as a system builder. His experiments, however, have led him to evolve –

for several commentators and analysts like S. C. Gangal, Mahendra Kumar, Raghavan

Iyer, Savita Singh, Ramjee Singh, Johan Galtung and others – a Predominantly

Nonviolent State as his second best Ideal and a Nonviolent Society as his ultimate Ideal

for establishing a vibrantly creative global and just political ethos where cooperation,

equality and nonviolence have replaced exploitation, inequality and bloody warfare and

mutual hatred. Similar ideas are currently being propagated and discussed by

internationally acclaimed authors and statesmen alike even if they are apparently not so

much directly influenced by Gandhi.


Indeed, Gandhi’s holistic notion of security is a practical-idealist concept. Gandhi

has never written or said much about security in particular as a term with specific

meaning that is being attached to it in the strictly military sense. Yet he had foreseen

almost all major trends and strands.

Gandhi is one with former United States (US) President Bill Clinton’s statement:

“ the central reality of our time is that the advent of globalisation and the revolution in

information technology have magnified both the creative and destructive potential of

every individual, tribe and nation on our planet.” 27

Gandhi has a holistic approach to human problems, in which reform or

reconstruction should concentrate, more or less at the same time, at all levels of human

existence and activity, i. e, individual, local, national and international levels.

Security of every individual citizen of the world today has its globalised

dimensions too. Ever new weapons, trading and economic network unfolding newer and

subtler exploitative ways of human comforts, mutual destruction and domination. This is

an ever-accelerating trend of modern “civilisation”. Gandhi, going much beyond Bill

Clinton, finds in this civilisation:

…. people living in it make bodily welfare

the object of life.

…. If people of a certain country, who have

hitherto not been in the habit of wearing much clothing,

boots etc., adopt European clothing, they are supposed to

have become civilised out of savagery.

…. [Ever increasing blindfolded

mechanisation] is called a sign of civilisation.

….Formerly, only a few men wrote valuable

books. Now, anybody writes and prints anything he likes

and poisons people’s minds.

…. As men progress,… [they] will not need

the use of their hands and feet…. Everything will be done

by machinery.

…. Formerly, when people wanted to

fight…they measured between them their bodily strength;

now it is possible to take away thousands of lives by one

man…. This is civilisation.

….. [Earlier] men were made slaves under

physical compulsion. Now they are enslaved by the

temptation of money and of the luxuries that money can

buy.


….There are now diseases of which people

never dreamt before, and an army of doctors is engaged in

finding out theirs, and so hospitals have increased. This is a

test of civilisation.

…. Today [not earlier when special

messengers were needed to send a letter], anyone can abuse

his fellow by means of a letter [of email] for one penny.

True, at the same cost, one can send one’s thanks also.

…now, [people] require something to eat

every two hours so that they have hardly leisure for

anything else [more meaningful].

….. This civilisation is such that one has

only to be patient and it will be self-destroyed.”23

Real holistic security for Gandhi is possible only through Panch yama of

Patanjali, i.e., nonviolence (ahimsa), non-stealing (astaeya), Truth (Satya), non-

possession (aparigraha) and chastity (brahamcharya). Global though sectoral

reformation programme for regeneration of every individual is needed for balancing the

negative effects of the process of globalisation.

It was Gandhi’s conviction that individuals – of whom the nations and

global communities are constituted – must have priority in any scheme of reform or

reconstruction.

Yet another idea in Gandhi’s scheme is that any durable programme of

reconstruction must be marked by a measure of coordination and integration at various

levels of social action through voluntary effort. Press and media have a very significant

role in this sphere. Media, for Gandhi, must be having unmistakable autonomy and self-

reliance with little dependence on advertisement revenue.

The cultivation of nonviolence by the individual and the establishment of

non-exploitative economy at different levels will lead eventually to the emergence of

what he calls nonviolent nationalism. Ultimately, these nonviolent nations will function

under a world federation or international organisation on the basis of:

1. Political and economic independence without any type of

colonialism or imperialism and exploitation.

2. Voluntary effort with dedication and commitment.

3. Goals and means not imposed from above but developed from

within.

4. Equality for all. As such every nation must feel as tall as the tallest.

5. Decentralisation at political and economic spheres.


6. General disarmament.

7. Unilateral disarmament.

8. International society as a voluntary organisation.

9. Common good of all.

10. Bigger nations ready to “give” to the smaller nations.

11. Amicable and peaceful settlement of all disputes.

12. Small international police as long as the world is able to develop a

general belief in nonviolence.

13. Free, open, alert and impartial Media.

14. Full employment.

15. Preponderance to mutual sense of service.24

Such a blue print may as well be the guiding spirit of present-day quest for

security and globalisation. In this security perspective, the individual has specially a two-

fold significance for Gandhi.

First, proper education and training to the individual for understanding

and imbibing the values of a normal society. A normal fraternity, for Gandhi, is one

where development does not pose diverse types of threats to the individual and humanity.

For evolving such a normal course of life, a Global Education Order must

be established through value-related and need based education. Nearly all aspects of

human life are to be covered in this programme ranging from material, moral, emotional

and cultural to spiritual needs of the individual. The individuality, creativity, identity and

voluntary efforts have to be the fundamental terms of reference in the launching of such a

global education order.

Secondly, Gandhi emphasises the role of the individual in decision-

making and in sharing the national and international responsibilities. There is no place for

undemocratic or authoritarian regimes in Gandhi’s agenda of security and peace. To steer

clear of undemocratic or authoritarian tendencies, Gandhi suggests two more correctives

of (i) limited State power and (ii) socio-economic decentralisation. As regards the former,

Gandhi is one with Thoureau’s principle that “that government is best which governs the

least.”25

To quote Gandhi:

I look upon an increase in the power of the state

with the greatest fear because…it does the greatest harm to

mankind by destroying individuality which lies at the root

of all progress.26


In order to curb emergence of authoritarianism, the size and role of police and

military, for Gandhi, has to be limited to dealing with thieves, robbers, raiders from

without and a few emergencies only. It would be better if police and military perform

largely the role of a body of reformers.27

Gandhi looks forward to the emergence of a

world where “no state has its military.”28

Socio-economic decentralisation is yet another corrective measure to curb

undemocratic tendencies. Gandhi’s global vision moves upward from the individual and a

federation of village republics to an international federation of nations in a society

marked by voluntary cooperation and decentralisation. Aldous Huxley, while supporting

Gandhi, says, “…democratic principles cannot be effectively put into practice unless

authority in a community has been decentralised to the utmost extent possible.”29

The modern inter-linking of people and economies under contemporary security

debate must give careful attention to the Gandhian pointers in this age of technology for

keeping away from the pejorative aspects of concurrent science and development

patterns. Otherwise, it will prove to be a “nine days wonder” only. For Gandhi, in the

larger context of security, peace, freedom, equality and non-exploitative society, there are

several other important realities. Such as:

…Our nationalism can be no peril to other nations

inasmuch as we will exploit none just as we will allow

none to exploit us.30

The satyagrahi must maintain personal contact

with people of his locality. This living association of human

beings is essential to a genuine democracy.31

I have no doubt that unless big nations shed their

desire for exploitation and the spirit of violence of which

war is the natural expression and the atom bomb the

inevitable consequence, there is no hope for peace in the

world.32

Mechanisation is good when hands are too few for

the work intended to be accomplished. It is evil where there

are more hands than acquired…33

I entertain no fads in this regard [i.e., his avowed

opposition to mechanisation and capital-intensive

technology]. All that I desire is that every able-bodied

citizen should be provided with gainful employment. If

electricity and even automatic energy could be used

without…creating unemployment, I will not raise my little

finger against it…. If the Government could provide full


employment to our people without the help of Khadi hand-

spinning and hand-weaving industries, I shall be prepared

to wind up my constructive programme in this regard.34

To reject foreign manufactures merely because they

are foreign, and to go on wasting national time and money

on the promotion in one’s own country of manufactures for

which it is not suited would be criminal folly, and a

negation of the Swadeshi spirit.35

Decentralisation of political and economic power,

reduction in the functions and importance of State, growth

of voluntary associations, removal of dehumanising

poverty and resistance to injustice … will bring life within

the understanding of man and make society and the State

democratic….. The nonviolent State will cooperate with an

international organisation based on nonviolence. Peace will

come not merely by changing the institutional forms but by

regenerating those attitudes and ideals of which war,

imperialism, capitalism and other forms of exploitation are

the inevitable expressions.36

[I am not against all international trade, though

imports should be limited to things that are necessary for

our growth but which India -- and for that matter any

poorer country -- cannot herself produce and export of

things of real benefit to foreigners.]37

Gandhi is clearly having a very comprehensive view and understanding of

security based on a nonviolent way of really civilised life. He is presenting an out line of

normal human behaviour away from cut-throat conflicts and massive wars of mutual

hatred. In this attempt, he is visualising security as a manifold concept running into every

aspect of life. An action plan may well be in line with the larger tenor of this research

piece here:

V

Gandhian Comprehensive Security Action Plan

1. Army, Navy, Air Force, Police and other related forces may be there in the

absence of a general belief in the power of nonviolence.

2. Comprehensive Security will be the most fruitful phenomenon when

citizens and nations of the world do not have to bother about it as their top most priority.

3. Security without weapons is necessary as an ultimate aim. It is inherent

and increasing sense of insecurity that goes for weapons. Real security is when one does


not even have to think of armaments. That means a very positive and healthy security

environ.

4. Concentric spheres of security must be grasped properly for creating

comprehensive security environs globally step by step.

5. Development, Environment protection, Employment for all, Balanced

population, Eat thy bread by the sweat of thy brow, Universal disarmament, Unilateral

disarmament, doing away with nuclear and other weapons of mass destruction.

6. Security must not become a fetish of an age or era.

7. Nonviolence is possible only in a gallant and brave world of citizens.

8. Cowards cannot be nonviolent.

9. Violence is preferred vis-à-vis nonviolence of a coward.

10. Highly decentralised pattern of economy will be less prone to

instantaneous devastation at one go in the event of bombardment by the enemy forces.

11. Highly decentralised political setup helps wider participation alongwith

lesser abuse of political power.

12. Nonviolent Brigades must also be developed and trained in panch yama.

13. All armed forces and Nonviolent Brigades must be given training in panch

yama discipline.

14. Comprehensive Security policy must be visionary based on experiences of

history, present-day situation and prospective possibilities and every potential

visualisation.

15. The most powerful country in the world must be an important aspect of a

defence policy formulation.

16. Collaborations with foreign mercenaries must be avoided to the greatest

possible extent.

17. Exports from foreign countries must be made only in such areas where

there is no other alternative in the interest of citizens of a country.

18. Mechanisation and modern technology is to be adopted in areas where it is

necessary for national self-reliance and not otherwise.

19. Open borders with immediate neighbours are preferred.

20. Free people to people contact must be given priority.


VI

Conclusion: Whither Security

Several thousand people are being massacred daily in the world today.

This is quite a war like situation on a larger plane. This is no small matter when it relates

to precious human life of so many global citizens. Every human life is as precious as the

life of all other individuals. It is not only weapons, wars and terrorists but also diplomatic

instruments of peace are also singing the ‘cacophony’ of violence. That is why T.

Schelling says:

The power to hurt is nothing new in warfare,

but… modern technology… enhances the importance of

war and threats of war as techniques of influence, not of

destruction; of coercion and deterrence, not of conquest and

defence; of bargaining and intimation… War no longer

looks like just a contest of strength. War and the brink of

war are more a contest of nerve and risk taking, of pain and

endurance… The threat of war has always been somewhat

underneath international diplomacy... Military strategy can

no longer be thought of ... as the science of military victory.

It is now equally, if not more, the art of coercion, of

intimidation and deterrence... Military strategy ... has

become the diplomacy of violence.38

This “diplomacy of violence” is not the only concern of security in this

age of globalisation and emerging “global village”. Major security dimensions are there

in varied areas of rising human needs and expectations such as

(i) threats to political stability of different regimes, (ii) operational aspects

of democracy, (iii) widespread terrorism for avowed self-determination, (iv) ethnic crises,

(v) economic exploitation and determinism, (vi) political and economic violence, (vii)

expanding frontiers of security and threat perception of modern states, (viii) widespread

economic deprivations, (ix) dangerous fallout of modern technology, (x) population

imbalances, (xi) widening gamut of corruption in higher echelons of economic and

political power, and (xii) poverty, (xiii) unemployment and (xvi) proliferation of

armaments etcetera.

In the light of these major security threats, Gandhi suggests that there are

four pillars of a peaceful Gandhian world order:


It should be nonviolent.

It must be non-exploitative and cooperative.

It has to be based on the reform, regeneration and education of the individual.

It must work its way up to the global or international level through reform or

nonviolent reorganisation (including democratisation) at other (or preceding)

levels of society, such as local or national.

What Gandhi is emphasising here relates very closely to the well known

UNESCO aphorism that says:

Since war begins in the minds of men, it is

in the minds of men that the defence of peace must be

constructed.39


References and Notes

1 Harijan, 29 September 1946. 2 http://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2008/03/06/18483933.php

3 David P. Barash and Charles P. Webel, Peace and Conflict Studies, Sage Publications,

Thousand Oaks, 2002, p. 25. 4 Ibid. p. 3. 5 Paramahansa Yogananda, Autobiography of a Yogi, Jaico Publishing House, Bombay,

Second Indian Edition, 1975, Twelfth Impression, p. 353. 6 M. K. Gandhi, Nonviolence in Peace and War, Volume – I, Navajivan Publishing House,

Ahmedabad, Third Edition, 1948; M. K. Gandhi, Nonviolence in Peace and War, Volume

– II, Navajivan Publishing House, Ahmedabad, First Edition, 1949; Gopinath Dhawan’s The Political Philosophy of Mahatma Gandhi, Navajivan Publishing House, Ahmedabad, 1957; H. J. N. Horsburg’s Nonviolence and Aggression: A Study of Gandhi’s Moral Equivalent of War, OUP, London, 1968; S. C. Gangal’s Gandhian Thought and Techniques in the Modern World, Criterion Publications, 1988; Joan Bondurant’s

Conquest of Violence: The Gandhian Philosophy of Conflict, Princeton, 1958; Johan

Galtung’s “A Gandhian Theory of Conflict”, in David Selbourne (Ed.), In Theory and Practice: Essays on the Politics of Jayaprakash Narayan, OUP, New Delhi, 1985 and

Gene Sharp’s Gandhi as Political Strategist: With Essays on Ethics and Politics, Boston,

1979. 7 Adapted from Baljit Singh, Indian Foreign Policy: An Analysis, Asia Publishing House, 1976. He has

explained the three concentric circles of foreign policy of a nation like India. 8 Pyarelal, Mahatma Gandhi: The Last Phase, Ahmedabad, Navajivan Publishing House,

1958, Volume – II, pp. 580 – 581. 9 E.J. Hogendoorn, A Chemical Weapons Atlas, Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists,

September/October 1997 Vol. 53, No. 5. 10 Harijan, 05 September 1936, p. 236. 11 Harijan, 21 July 1940, p. 211. 12 Daily Excelsior, Jammu, 08 April 2004 (Edit page). 13 Barash and Webel, Op. Cit., n. 1, p.203. 14 Harijan, 12 May 1946. Raghavan Iyer (Ed.), The Moral and Political Writings of Mahatma Gandhi, Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1986, pp. 448 – 450. 15 Ibid. 16 Ibid. 17 Ibid. 18 “Disarmament and Development”, Gandhi Marg, New Delhi, May – June 1982. 19 M. K. Gandhi, For Pacifists, Ahmedabad,1949, p. 43. 20 M. K. Gandhi, Nonviolence in Peace and War, Op. Cit., n. 5., Volume – I, p. 28. 21 Hind Swaraj or Indian Home Rule, Navajivan, Ahmedabad: 1938, p. 04. 22 Harijan, 21 June 1942. 23 Harijan, 22 June 1935 and 15 September 1946; M. K. Gandhi, Hind Swaraj or Indian Home Rule, Navajivan, Ahmedabad: 1938), p. 08, Preface by Mahadev Desai. See also

Raghavan Iyer (ed.), The Moral and Political writings of Mahatma Gandhi: Truth and Non-violence, Volume – II, (Oxford, London: 1986), pp. 212 – 214., Parentheses and

Emphasis added. 24 Anurag Gangal, New International Economic Order: A Gandhian Perspective

(Chanakya, Delhi: 1985), Chapter – II, pp. 29 - 30. 25 Young India, 02 July 1931. 26 N. K. Bose, Selections from Gandhi (Ahmedabad: 1948), p. 42. 27 M. K. Gandhi, Nonviolence in Peace and War , Op. Cit., n. 5., Volume – I, Chapter – II

and pp. 145, 324. See also S. C. Gangal, The Gandhian Way to World Peace (Vora,

Bombay: 1960), pp. 100 – 101. 28 S. C. Gangal, Ibid. , p. 100.

http://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2008/03/06/18483933.php


29 Encyclopaedia of Pacifism, (London: 1937), p. 100. 30 S. C. Gangal, Op. Cit., n. 24, p. 90. 31 G. N. Dhawan, op. cit., n. 5., p. 284. Emphasis added. 32 M. K. Gandhi, op. cit. , n. 5., Volume – II, pp. 163 – 164. Emphasis added. 33 Harijan, 16 November 1939. 34 Quoted in Ram K. Vepa, New Technology: A Gandhian Concept (New Delhi: 1975), p.

170. 35 From Yervada Mandir (Navajivan, Ahmedabad: 1933), p. 96 – 97. 36 G. N. Dhawan, op. cit., n. 5., p. 341. 37 Ibid., p. 96. 38 T. Schelling, “The Diplomacy of Violence”, in R. Art and R. Jervis (Eds), International Politics, fourth edition, Harper Collins, New York, 1996, pp. 168 – 182. 39

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