Gandhi was more directly influenced on freedom, as on non-violence, by Tolstoy. We saw earlier, in A Letter to a Hindoo, the influence of Tolstoy’s view on non-violence, that Indians would be free from British rule, if they internalised the law of love and stopped cooperating on violent projects. Tolstoy saw freedom in recognition, when he said that Indians are enslaved by violence only because they do not recognise the eternal law of love inherent in humanity. Similarly, in Gandhi’s other favourite work by Tolstoy, The Kingdom of God is Within You (1894), Tolstoy writes that you will be free as soon as you recognise that the role you play in a violent society is not needed for the public good. The reference to love, we saw above, was brought into the Stoic Epictetus’ account of the Cynic’s response to injustice.
Tolstoy was more immediately influenced by the Stoics. He had in his library a book about the Stoics, Epictetus and Marcus Aurelius and other Greek moralists, and had marked a translation of Marcus Aurelius with numerous underlinings. One of Tolstoy’s remarks in The Kingdom of God is Within You is reminiscent of Epictetus on freedom as an inviolability of the rightly directed will, when he says: ‘It is impossible for a man to be placed against his will in a situation repugnant to his conscience.’ Gandhi’s own remark in 1926 seems to echo this when he says: ‘No power on Earth can make a person do a thing against his will.’ In both views, the will cannot be forced, although Epictetus had said this only of the rightly directed will. Gandhi’s comment is presumably not meant to deny that one can act reluctantly, as in his example above, in which non-violence is seen as even worse than violent action.
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I have already given an example to show why I think Gandhi’s philosophy needs to be studied if his politics are to be understood. It is not opportunism that he sometimes allows violence yet often forbids it too. His belief is subtle (and, to my mind, correct) that, although violence is always wrong, it does not give us exceptionless laws of how to act. As already mentioned, he did not think of himself as a philosopher. But neither, for that matter, did he care for politics, which he once called a ‘botheration’, even though he was a great tactician. He put politics below spiritual values, and would give up political objectives if they clashed with spiritual ones.
Nonetheless, his conclusions about non-violence were to have an enormous impact on India, and not only there. It was partly because he had won worldwide admiration that Britain, weakened by the Second World War, had no choice but to leave India. By the count of Gene Sharp, founder of the Albert Einstein Institution, which is dedicated to advancing the study of non-violent action, there have been 23 non-violent resistance movements influenced by Gandhi in the 20th century and beyond, up to 2005; Martin Luther King, Jr’s was only one. Some have used Sharp’s analysis of Gandhi’s techniques as a handbook. Sharp regards about half of these resistance movements as having succeeded. I think one further effect of Gandhi’s non-violent approach was that there was so little bitterness among first-generation Indians towards the British once they had left, although later generations could well be much more upset when they read the history of British occupation.
- Gandhi the philosopher
Tolstoy was more immediately influenced by the Stoics. He had in his library a book about the Stoics, Epictetus and Marcus Aurelius and other Greek moralists, and had marked a translation of Marcus Aurelius with numerous underlinings. One of Tolstoy’s remarks in The Kingdom of God is Within You is reminiscent of Epictetus on freedom as an inviolability of the rightly directed will, when he says: ‘It is impossible for a man to be placed against his will in a situation repugnant to his conscience.’ Gandhi’s own remark in 1926 seems to echo this when he says: ‘No power on Earth can make a person do a thing against his will.’ In both views, the will cannot be forced, although Epictetus had said this only of the rightly directed will. Gandhi’s comment is presumably not meant to deny that one can act reluctantly, as in his example above, in which non-violence is seen as even worse than violent action.
[---]
I have already given an example to show why I think Gandhi’s philosophy needs to be studied if his politics are to be understood. It is not opportunism that he sometimes allows violence yet often forbids it too. His belief is subtle (and, to my mind, correct) that, although violence is always wrong, it does not give us exceptionless laws of how to act. As already mentioned, he did not think of himself as a philosopher. But neither, for that matter, did he care for politics, which he once called a ‘botheration’, even though he was a great tactician. He put politics below spiritual values, and would give up political objectives if they clashed with spiritual ones.
Nonetheless, his conclusions about non-violence were to have an enormous impact on India, and not only there. It was partly because he had won worldwide admiration that Britain, weakened by the Second World War, had no choice but to leave India. By the count of Gene Sharp, founder of the Albert Einstein Institution, which is dedicated to advancing the study of non-violent action, there have been 23 non-violent resistance movements influenced by Gandhi in the 20th century and beyond, up to 2005; Martin Luther King, Jr’s was only one. Some have used Sharp’s analysis of Gandhi’s techniques as a handbook. Sharp regards about half of these resistance movements as having succeeded. I think one further effect of Gandhi’s non-violent approach was that there was so little bitterness among first-generation Indians towards the British once they had left, although later generations could well be much more upset when they read the history of British occupation.
- Gandhi the philosopher
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