Justice Matters: Passive Resistance

This weekend marks the anniversary of Mahatma Gandhi’s birth.  He preached and enacted non-violence, earning ridicule and contempt as well as steadfast allegiance.   Many will have heard his quotes, such as “Earth provides enough for all man’s needs but not for all man’s greed”. 

Could his beliefs be any more relevant to today’s world as we struggle to come to terms with the climate emergency and witness the outbreak of war and the coming to power of extremist governments, such as blossomed in the 1930s?

See: Gandhi was born in India and studied law in the UK.  He practised law in South Africa for two decades and here he experienced real and violent racial discrimination which shaped his activism. The passive resistance movement was born in the early 20th century as a response to proposed legislation that all Indians must carry papers displaying their names and fingerprints. At a huge meeting in September 1906 people agreed that they wouldn’t submit and would take the consequences of their actions.  What is passive resistance? “Instead of inflicting injury on the ruling power… it aimed at disobeying the laws enacted by it, thereby inviting injury or punishment on oneself." As Gandhi said, “Passive Resistance is a method of securing rights by personal suffering. It involves the sacrifice of self.”

 Although most people know Gandhi because of his philosophy of non-violence, he was also critical of how economies were treating the earth.  “God forbid that India should ever take to industrialism after the manner of the West. If an entire nation of 300 millions took to similar economic exploitation, it would strip the world bare like locusts….” (YI, 20-12-1928, p. 422). Sadly it would seem that Gandhi was correct and today pollution in India is at dangerous levels.

Reflect:      Over 70 years ago Gandhi said “What we are doing to the forests of the world is but a mirror reflection of what we are doing to ourselves and to one another”.  Such writing is consistent with what Pope Francis says in Laudato si'.   He writes “the book of nature is one and indivisible”, and includes the environment, life, sexuality, the family, social relations, and so forth. It follows that “the deterioration of nature is closely connected to the culture which shapes human coexistence”.  As Christians we are lucky to have the good news that interconnectedness comes down simply to love God and love thy neighbour as thyself.   How simple and how difficult? 

Action:  Interconnectedness is a theme that runs throughout Gandhi’s writings and throughout what Pope Francis writes.  Today such interconnectedness can be demonstrated by learning about others’ situations, by writing letters, signing petitions.  It can be demonstrated practically by active service – the community lunches advertised in the newsletter last week, the Saint Vincent de Paul society.   It can also be demonstrated by political choice – is our vote for ourselves or for the common good?