MAHATMA GANDHI’S CONCEPT OF GLOBAL SECURITY AND PEACE

QUEST FOR HARMONY IN AN AGE OF GLOBALISATION AND WEAPONS OF MASS DESTRUCTION

Anurag Gangal,
Director,
Gandhian Centre for Peace and Conflict Studies,
Department of Political Science,
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.

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:

2
 ֠ 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

3
 “natural state.” The human condition – whether
to wage war or to strive to build an enduring
peace – is for us to decide.2

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.3

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.4

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;

4
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.5

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.

Gandhi’s Security Buffer

These spheres, in an international perspective, represent:

India’s immediate neighbours as immediate sphere.

Other poor, less developed, underdeveloped, developing and

smaller countries like India are in the mid sphere.

5

Bigger, more developed, developed, 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.6

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.7

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:

6
 It [nonviolence] is of universal applicability.
Nevertheless, perfect nonviolence, like Absolute
Truth, must forever remain beyond our reach.8

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.9

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

7
 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.10

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

8
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.11

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.

9
  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.12

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

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

10
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.13

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.14

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.15

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.16

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

necessity of arms at all.17

11
 Alas, in my swaraj of today there is room for
soldiers…. I have not the capacity for preaching
universal nonviolence to the country.18

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.19

[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.20

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

12
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.

13
 …. 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.”21

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.

14
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.22

15
Such a blue print should 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.”23 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.24

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.25 Gandhi looks forward to the emergence of a world where “no
state has its military.”26

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

16
practice unless authority in a community has been decentralised to the
utmost extent possible.”27

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.28

The satyagrahi must maintain personal contact

with people of his locality. This living association
of human beings is essential to a genuine
democracy.29

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.30

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…31

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.32

17
 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.33

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.34

[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.]35

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:

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.

18
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 a comprehensive security environ 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

19
 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.

V
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.36

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,

20
(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 begin in the minds of men, it is in the

minds of men that the defence of peace must be
constructed.37

21
 References and Notes
1 Harijan, 29 September 1946.

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

Thousand Oaks, 2002, p. 25.

3 Ibid. p. 3.

4Paramahansa Yogananda, Autobiography of a Yogi, Jaico Publishing House, Bombay,

Second Indian Edition, 1975, Twelfth Impression, p. 353.

5 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.

6Pyarelal, Mahatma Gandhi: The Last Phase, Ahmedabad, Navajivan Publishing House,
1958, Volume – II, pp. 580 – 581.

7E.J. Hogendoorn, A Chemical Weapons Atlas, Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists,

September/October 1997 Vol. 53, No. 5.

8 Harijan, 05 September 1936, p. 236.

9 Harijan, 21 July 1940, p. 211.

10 Daily Excelsior, Jammu, 08 April 2004 (Edit page).

11 Barash and Webel, Op. Cit., n. 1, p.203.

12
Harijan, 12 May 1946. Raghavan Iyer (Ed.), The Moral and Political Writings of
Mahatma Gandhi, Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1986, pp. 448 – 450.

13 Ibid.

14 Ibid.

15 Ibid.

16 “Disarmament and Development”, Gandhi Marg, New Delhi, May – June 1982.

17 M. K. Gandhi, For Pacifists, Ahmedabad,1949, p. 43.

18 M. K. Gandhi, Nonviolence in Peace and War, Op. Cit., n. 5., Volume – I, p. 28.

19 Hind Swaraj or Indian Home Rule, Navajivan, Ahmedabad: 1938, p. 04.

22
20 Harijan, 21 June 1942.

21 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.

22Anurag Gangal, New International Economic Order: A Gandhian Perspective

(Chanakya, Delhi: 1985), Chapter – II, pp. 29 - 30.

23 Young India, 02 July 1931.

24 N. K. Bose, Selections from Gandhi (Ahmedabad: 1948), p. 42.

25M. 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.

26 S. C. Gangal, Ibid. , p. 100.

27 Encyclopaedia of Pacifism, (London: 1937), p. 100.

28 S. C. Gangal, Op. Cit., n. 24, p. 90.

29 G. N. Dhawan, op. cit., n. 5., p. 284. Emphasis added.

30 M. K. Gandhi, op. cit. , n. 5., Volume – II, pp. 163 – 164. Emphasis added.

31 Harijan, 16 November 1939.

32 Quoted in Ram K. Vepa, New Technology: A Gandhian Concept (New Delhi: 1975), p.
170.
33 From Yervada Mandir ( Navajivan, Ahmedabad: 1933), p. 96 – 97.

34 G. N. Dhawan, op. cit., n. 5., p. 341.

35 Ibid., p. 96.

36T. Schelling, “The Diplomacy of Violence”, in R. Art and R. Jervis (Eds), International
Politics, fourth edition, Harper Collins, New York, 1996, pp. 168 – 182.
37
UNESCO Preamble

23