E-Book - Mahatma Gandhi

180 Contextualising Gandhian Thoughtviz., (i) assassination; (ii) terrorism; (iii) insurgency; and (iv)guerrilla warfare. Each of these has its own effect on the mind,organisation and command-structure of the group that initiatessuch action; on the minds of the so-identified perpetrators ofinjustice; on the minds and responses of those who have totake, and implement decisions on behalf of the government,including the ministers, the bureaucracy, the police, officers onthe spot and the like; and on the minds of the people at large. Itis not possible here to examine all these in detail. But a fewobservations have to be made about the processes that they setin motion, their effect on the social psyche, and theireffectiveness as instruments of social transformation.To take up assassination first-and the number ofpolitical assassinations has increased spectacularly in the lastfew years-,its object is removal or retaliation. The target isidentified, and the deed is executed as a result of an individualdecision or a secret conspiracy. It may succeed in the removalof the target, but it does not achieve the object of changing thesystem or bringing about social transformation. The one who isassassinated may be followed by another who is even moretyrannical or ruthless, and who may utilise the atmosphere ofsympathy that the assassination may generate, to resort to evenmore ruthless suppression of dissent. Assassinations aretherefore never adopted as the single-point programme of anyrevolutionary or radical group. They may become part of a warplan,never the whole of it. In fact, they are used in terrorism aswell as insurgency or guerrilla warfare.This leads us to an examination of terrorism. Terrorismuses assassinations as well as massacres; but its main objectiveis not the removal of individuals. Its main objective is to useterror as a weapon, to create terror in the minds of theperpetrators of injustice, in the minds of those who formulate