My Non-violence

Chapter 30: Is Non-violence Ineffective?

In dealing with my answer to the criticism that the Jews had been non-violent for 2,000 years, The Statesman says in the course of an editorial:
“The whole world has heard of Pastor Niemoeller and the sufferings of the Lutheran Church; here many pastors and indivi­dual Christians bore themselves bravely before People's Courts, violence and threats; without retaliation they bore noble witness to the truth. And what change of heart is there in Germany? Buried in prisons and concentration camps are today, and have been for five years, members of the Bible Searchers' League who rejected Nazi militarism as conflicting with Christ's Gospel of peace. And how many Germans know of them or, if they know, do any­thing about it?
"Non-violence, whether of the weak or of the strong, seems, except in very special conditions, rather a personal than a Social gospel. A man's salvation may be left to himself; politicians are concerned with causes, creeds and minorities. It is suggested by Mr. Gandhi that Herr Hitler would bow before courage ' infinitely superior to that shown by his own Storm Troopers'. If that were so, one would have supposed that he would have paid tribute to such men as Herr Von Ossietzky. Courage to a Nazi, however, seems a virtue only when displayed by his own supporters: elsewhere it becomes ' the impudent provocation of Jewish-Marxist canaille'. Mr. Gandhi has produced his prescription in view of the inability of the Great Powers effectively to move La the matter, an inability we all dep­lore and would see remedied. His sympathy may do much for the comfort of the Jews, but seems likely to do less for their enlarge­ment. Christ is the supreme example of non-violence, and the indig­nities heaped upon Him at His tortured death proved once and for all that in a worldly and temporal sense it can fail hopelessly."
I do not think that the sufferings of Pastor Niemoeller and others have been in vain. They have preserved their self-respect intact. They have proved that their faith was equal to any suffering. That they have not proved suffici­ent for melting Herr Hitler's heart merely shows that it is made of harder material than stone. But the hardest metal yields to sufficient heat. Even so must the hardest heart melt before sufficiency of the heat of non-violence? And there is no limit to the capacity of non-violence to generate heat.
Every action is a resultant of a multitude of forces even of a contrary nature. There is no waste of energy. So we learn in the books on mechanics. This is equally true of human actions. The difference is that in the one case we generally know the forces at work, and when we do, we can mathematically foretell the resultant. In the case of human actions, they result from a concurrence of forces, of most of which we have no knowledge. But our ignorance must not be made to serve the cause of disbelief in the power of these forces. Rather is our ignorance a cause for greater faith. And non-violence being the mightiest force in the world and also the most elusive in its working, it demands the greatest exercise of faith. Even as we believe in God in faith, so have we to believe in non-violence in faith.
Herr Hitler is but one man enjoying no more than the average span of life. He would be a spent force, if he had not the backing of his people. I do not despair of his responding to human suffering even though caused by him. But I must refuse to believe that the Germans as a nation have no heart or markedly less than the other nations of the earth. They will some day or other rebel against their own adored hero, if he does not wake up be-times. And when he or they do, we shall find that the sufferings of the Pastor and his fellow-workers had not a little to do with the awakening.
An armed conflict may bring disaster to German arms; it cannot change the German heart even as the last defeat did not. It produced a Hitler vowed to wreak vengeance on the victors. And what a vengeance it is! My answer, therefore, must be the answer that Stephenson gave to his fellow-workers who had despaired of ever filling the deep pit that made the first railway possible. He asked his co­workers of little faith to have more faith and go on filling the pit. It was not bottomless, it must be filled. Even so I do not despair because Herr Hitler's or the German heart has not yet melted. On the contrary I plead for more suffering and still more till the melting has become visible to the naked eye. And even as the Pastor has covered him­self with glory, a single Jew bravely standing up and refus­ing to bow to Hitler's decree will cover himself with glory and lead the way to the deliverance of the fellow-Jews.
I hold that non-violence is not merely a personal vir­tue. It is also social virtue to be cultivated like the other virtues. Surely society is largely regulated by the expres­sion of non-violence in its mutual dealings. What I ask for is an extension of it on a larger, national and inter­national scale.
I was unprepared to find the view expressed by The Statesman writer that the example of Christ proved once and for all that in a worldly and temporal sense it can fail hopelessly!! Though I cannot claim to be a Christian in the sectarian sense, the example of Jesus's suffering is a factor in the composition of my undying faith in non-violence which rules all my actions wordly and temporal. And I know that there are hundreds of Christians who believe likewise. Jesus lived and died in vain, if he did not teach us to regulate the whole of life by the eternal Law of Love.
- On the train to Bardoli, 2-1-'39

Harijan, 7-1-1939