POLITICAL LESSONS FROM INDIA WITH MAHATMA GANDHI

SOCIAL media has been circulating a troubling story about a 14-day pending attack on the monarchy by solidarity forces with an ultimatum to force democratic changes in Eswatini. These treats were very disturbing and should be extremely worrying to all peace loving emaSwati. Maybe we should take some lessons from India. In August 1947, the British decided to end their 200-year long rule in the Indian subcontinent and to divide it into two separate nations, Muslim-majority Pakistan and Hindu-majority India. The process of partition, however, cost a lot of lives . In addition to the British-controlled territories, the subcontinent also consisted of many other territories under French, Portuguese or Omani rule, as well as more than 500 sovereign princely states ruled by local monarchs.

Mahatma Gandhi

Mahatma Gandhi was the most famous Indian leader regarded as the father of Indian independence but interestingly had a net worth of US$1 at his death.  Mahatma Gandhi was born in Porbandar, Kathiawar Agency, British India in October 1869 and passed away in January 1948 from an assassin’s bullet. He was the leader of the Indian independence movement in the British-ruled India and employed nonviolent civil disobedience. He led the country to independence and inspired civil rights and freedom movements across the world. He worked as an expatriate lawyer in South Africa and then returned to India where he assumed leadership of the Indian National Congress. He led Indians in the Dandi Salt March in 1930 to challenge a British imposed salt tax. Gandhi also led Indians in the Quit India movement in 1942.

Nonviolence is a weapon of the strong

There are emaSwati who feel talking has not born any fruits and maybe it is time for force and violence. These are the extremist but emaSwati, nevertheless. This is contrary to the false belief that this culture of violence is not Swati culture but foreign influences. Any group of people can do anything when pushed too far.  This is what Gandhi says to those who have reached that level and I quote. “I object to violence because when it appears to do good, the good is only temporary; the evil it does is permanent.” ― Mahatma Gandhi He goes on to add “The cause of liberty becomes a mockery if the price to be paid is the wholesale destruction of those who are to enjoy liberty. Gandhi, quoted in Merton, p.68” Simply put, if we burn a community school laboratory, (most expansive part of any school)   a clinic, homes in the name of the cause for liberty the price to  be paid in the future  is too high . The very people we are fighting for, our children, ordinary and the elderly emaSwati are now suffering double the effect.

Planting the seed of violence

“My faith, in the saying, that what is gained by the sword will also be lost by the sword, is imperishable.” ― Mahatma Gandhi, The fact that someone can believe that change can be gained through violence, forgets that there is no monopoly to violence. The seed of violence would have been planted and it can only grow, regardless of who is in power then.
“Non-violence is the summit of bravery.” Gandhi brough the great British Empire to its knees through nonviolence defiance campaigns. What could show more bravery than that? What is most intriguing is that fact that he never compromised on his principles.  “The first principle of non-violent action is that of non-cooperation with everything humiliating.” ― Mahatma Gandhi, One must never cooperate with humiliation, injustice and anything that compromises the dignity of a person. Mahatma (The Great Soul) Gandhi lived what he preached. Never compromising the truth. If our Monarchy or our government has to be told the truth, it must be told with respect , collectively in a mass movement  of emaSwati marching peacefully  together for a cause they believe in. Police brutality will aways be there Gandhi and Martin Luther King Jr faced it and still won.  

Was Gandhi not racist?

This question must be asked and answered if we are to understand this great man and learn from his life. The short honest answer: before 1906, emphatically yes; from 1906 to 1913, qualifiedly yes; but after 1913 or so, defiantly  NO . We usually locate a turning point or epiphany in Gandhi’s biography at the famous incident in 1893 when he was thrown off a train at Maritzburg. As an ‘educated native’ he considers himself entitled to travel in first class. By 1906, he helped the British by volunteering and setting up an Ambulance Corps during the Bhambatha uprising. He believed that it was his responsibility to do so as a British citizen. He initially had a colonially damaged perspective of life, just like many Africans even today . Those that refuse to teach their children their African language, even looking down upon their own culture and tradition.

However, he begins protesting the ‘injustice’ towards ‘Kaffirs.’ In 1910, he decided to travel in third-class train carriages, partly in empathy with ‘the hardships that the Kaffirs had to suffer’ in them. After around 1913, the word ‘Kaffir’ disappears from his vocabulary, to be replaced by ‘Zulu.’ By 1928, the narrative of Satyagraha in South Africa casts his solidarities strongly with the ‘Zulus’; as seen in his Autobiography. The man changed greatly, back in India, denouncing western style clothing and his mind ascending above race to a higher level, embracing humanity as equal and one. A decolonised Gandhi emerges to fight racism and injustice. Civil right leader Dr Martin Luther King Jr considered Gandhi as his mentor, how could he be racist?.

It is not a mistake to commit a mistake, for no one commits a mistake knowing it to be one. But it is a mistake not to correct the mistake after knowing it to be one. If you are afraid of committing a mistake, you are afraid of doing anything at all. You will correct your mistakes whenever you find them. Mahatma Gandhi . The legacy of Mahatma Gandhi remains intact as a human and one of the greatest leaders to walk the planet. Eswatini political party leaders can learn a great deal from his nonviolence resistance strategies difficult as it is. They may find mass support from ordinary emaSwati leading from the front like Gandhi.  Comment septembereswatini@gmail.com

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