Unfortunately today, at a time when that feeling of awareness and preparedness for disobedience is most needed, we have become zombies of obedience. “If the machine of government is of such a nature that it requires you to be the agent of injustice to another, then, I say, break the law,” said Henry Thoreau.
Modern society has been built on the back of so much exploitation that most of us have to perforce participate as agents of injustice in our actions every day. But we have forgotten that such a thing as non-violent Civil Disobedience even exists, we have forgotten what it is to participate and act in voluntary Non-Cooperation against the State for the sake of society.
Modern liberal education is a primary cause for this inaction; it has isolated us and stripped us of our communal feelings, it has made us believe in the supremacy of individual rights. Modern economics deepens this feeling of isolation; it has destroyed self-sufficient local communities and made people insecure job-slaves, selfish and profit-minded. And all this is happening within the ambit of the Indian Constitution, and yet we unconsciously keep parroting the slogan that ours is a great Constitution.
As we are pushed towards more individualistic behaviour, our moral imagination is getting stifled, and our soul-force is getting weakened. The energy of soul-force comes not from individualistic ambition, but from the vision of community, whose mantra is ‘in the happiness of community lies my own happiness’.
The evidence of soul-force is the presence of joyful acceptance of individual discomfort or inconvenience while participating in the act of Non-Cooperation for the sake of the society. The soul – force inspires one to dissolve the self into the existence.
There are enough opportunities today for non-cooperation at various levels. But this is not merely an intellectual exercise, it comes from participation in community. To Gandhi’s thoughts and deeds on non-cooperation, may I add some words from the great philosopher J. Krishnamurthy, who said, “You must first know how to cooperate, only then can you know when not to cooperate”.
Best wishes.
(First published as Editorial in the journal Raibar – Volume 6-7, January 2017)
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