He had a similar experience in 1896 when his refusal to prosecute the leaders of a mob which had beaten him aroused a favorable reaction on the part of the public.[75] Gradually the principle developed that the acceptance of suffering was an effective method of winning the sympathy and support of disinterested parties in a dispute, and that their moral influence might go far in determining its outcome.
On his return to India after his successful campaign for Indian rights in South Africa, Gandhi led a strike of mill workers in Ahmedabad. He established a set of rules, forbidding resort to violence, the molestation of "blacklegs," and the taking of alms, and requiring the strikers to remain firm no matter how long the strike took—rules not too different from those that would be used in a strike by an occidental labor union.[76] Speaking of a period during this strike when the laborers were growing restive and threatening violence, Gandhi says:
"One morning—it was at a mill-hands' meeting—while I was still groping and unable to see my way clearly, the light came to me. Unbidden and all by themselves the words came to my lips: 'Unless the strikers rally,' I declared to the meeting, 'and continue the strike till a settlement is reached, or till they leave the mills altogether, I will not touch any food.'"
Gandhi insisted that the fast was not directed at the mill owners, but was for the purification of himself and the strikers. He told the owners that it should not influence their decision, and yet an arbitrator was now appointed, and as he says, "The strike was called off after I had fasted only for three days."[77] The efficacy of the fast was thus borne in on Gandhi.
In the Kheda Satyagraha against unjust taxation, which was the first big movement of the sort in India, Gandhi discovered that "When the fear of jail disappears, repression puts heart into people." The movement ended in a compromise rather than the complete success of Gandhi's program. He said of it, "Although, therefore, the termination was celebrated as a triumph of Satyagraha, I could not enthuse over it, as it lacked the essentials of a complete triumph."[78] But even though Gandhi was not satisfied with anything less than a complete triumph, he had learned that when a people no longer fears the punishments that an oppressor metes out, the power of the oppressor is gone.[79]
FOOTNOTES:
[74] Ibid., I, 268-269.
[75] Of the incident he says, "Thus the lynching ultimately proved to be a blessing for me, that is for the cause. It enhanced the prestige of the Indian community in South Africa, and made my work easier.... The incident also added to my professional practice." Ibid., I, 452-457.
[76] Ibid., II, 411-413.
[77] Ibid., II, 420-424.