E-Book - Mahatma Gandhi

104 Contextualising Gandhian Thoughtblow to violence, and Al Quaeda has been quick in releasing avideo supporting the Arab Spring.In Zunes’s list of cases, ‘most [of the unarmedinsurrections] have not been exclusively nonviolent” , but ineach case violent incidents were “not the primary or mostpolitically significant elements of the struggle’. 7 In line withthis, Schock argues that “it would be a grave mistake for socialscientists to limit their analysis of nonviolent action to onlythose rare struggles that were completely nonviolent or tooverlook or dismiss the power of nonviolent action in struggleswhere violence occurred”. 8Nonviolent action has not always been successful.Failed movements include Hungary(1956), Czechoslovakia(1968), Tiananmen Square (1989), and Tibet and perhapsBurma where the banner is still held aloft by Aung San Sui Chi.Partially successful ones include the Palestinian first intifadaand the US civil rights movement, which contributed to endingofficial segregation in the deep South, but did not change theeconomic and social discrimination suffered by AfricanAmericans.Nonviolent campaigns do not guarantee that a spirit ofnonviolence will continue to prevail once the struggle is over,especially if the activists adopt them for purely tactical reasons.In many instances, people’s power fell short of achieving thetype of social transformation that would lead to a moreparticipatory society. There could be scenarios in whichviolence leads to desirable ends, often due to factors other thanthe application of violence per se. Hence should we not say thatnonviolence is superior rather than saying that violence willalways fail? Then there are also deficiencies of the consenttheory in non-democratic non-Western societies. For example,China and Burma where political power is not just astraightforward relation between the ruler and the ruled will be