E-Book - Mahatma Gandhi

186 Contextualising Gandhian Thoughtviolent struggle can be waged without total and extremesecrecy. This means the constant need to maintain groups thatfunction in secret and remain linked through a secret chain ofcommand. Since the units as well as the command have to beprotected from infiltration, and betrayal, vigilance and mutualsuspicion become necessary for collective security, and beginto be regarded as legitimate. Secondly, since ideologicalauthority as well as tactics and operational details aredetermined by the same secret group or nucleus, there occurs acontraction of the base of consent, and participation, and anincrease of the area of enforcement through 'military discipline'and liquidation. This has been the common lot of all or almostall insurgent forces that have depended on violence or secrecy.Thus we see that all the four variants of violent strugglehave become counter-productive and suicidal as far as theobjectives of social transformation-freedom from exploitation,freedom from fear, the creation of a society based on consentand participation, etc.-are concerned. As in the case of warbetween nations, here too, in the area of the conflict betweencitizens' groups and the state, in the area of struggle for socialjustice too, the very consequences of the use of sophisticatedtechnology, the very nature of the weapons at the disposal ofthe State and the citizens' groups has made all citizensvulnerable, made both the combatant and the non-combatantuncertain and vulnerable, and made society itself vulnerablewithout any reasonable hope of transformation in the desired ordeclared direction. In fact, it has therefore become necessary tolook for a new method that will lead to the elimination ofexploitation, and the establishment of a democracy that willassure control of authority by the unarmed people whom itclaims to represent.In this analysis, it may be pointed out that I have notbrought in questions of ethics, philosophy, psychology and the