Yet Gandhi believed that the fast of the Irish leader, MacSweeney, when he was imprisoned in Dublin, was an act of violence.[84]
In practice, Satyagraha is a mixture of expediency and principle. It is firmly based on the Hindu idea of ahimsa, and hence avoids physical violence. Despite Gandhi's insistence upon respect for and love for the opponent, however, his equal insistence upon winning the opponent completely to his point of view leads one to suspect that he is using the technique as a means to an end which he considers equally fundamental. He accepts suffering as an end in itself, yet he knows that it also is a means to other ends since it arouses the sympathy of public opinion. He regards non-cooperation as compatible with love for the opponent, yet we have already seen that under modern conditions it is coercive rather than persuasive in nature. Despite Gandhi's distinction between his own fasts and those of others, they too involve an element of psychological coercion. We are led to conclude that much of Gandhi's program is based upon expediency as well as upon the complete respect for every human personality which characterizes absolute pacifism.
FOOTNOTES:
[82] See the list given by Haridas T. Muzumdar, Gandhi Triumphant! The Inside Story of the Historic Fast (New York: Universal, 1939), vi-vii.
[83] Ibid., 89.
[84] Ibid., 90. Lewis quotes Gandhi thus: "You cannot fast against a tyrant, for it will be a species of violence done to him. Fasting can only be resorted to against a lover not to extort rights, but to reform him." Case Against Pacifism, 109.
The American Abolition Movement
The West also has had its movements of reform which have espoused non-violence as a principle. The most significant one in the United States has been the abolition crusade before the Civil War. Its most publicized faction was the group led by William Lloyd Garrison, who has had a reputation as an uncompromising extremist. Almost every school boy remembers the words with which he introduced the first issue of the Liberator in 1831:
"I will be as harsh as truth, and as uncompromising as justice.... I am in earnest—I will not equivocate—I will not excuse—I will not retreat a single inch—AND I WILL BE HEARD."
He lived up to his promise during the years that followed, and it is no wonder that Parrington called him "the flintiest character amongst the New England militants."[85] In the South they regarded him as an inciter to violence, and barred his writings from the mails.