Ask Metta

Question:

Hello! I have been speaking with my friend about naxalites/maoists in India that want to separate from India. My friend (who is Indian) asked this question: “I wonder if nonviolence would work in Northeast India [where the maoists are active]? Not because I doubt the power of Ahimsa (nonviolence), but only because Indians have lost the true meaning of Ahimsa. It has become this trendy word from the Gandhi era that has been carried forward. The problems here are so complex that one doesn’t know where to begin from!”

Now, I was thinking that there are several separatist groups in India. And obviously they have their reasons to want to govern themselves. But all their strugles are violent. It’s sad that that’s the case in Gandhi’s birth place. How can separatists be stimulated to use nonviolent menthods? Or, as my friend asked, ‘Where to begin…?
 
 

Answer:

The first thing to do to begin to answer is take this apart!!

What stands out to me is that there are two questions– 
a. Could nonviolence work in the NE with separatists? 
b. Could it work given that Indians seem to have lost the meaning since Gandhi?
that influence your asking two more questions–
c.How can separatists be stimulated to use nonviolent methods? 
d. Where to begin? 
—-
The questions themselves leave no reason to suggest that nonviolence couldn’t work, depending on who you are asking! The simple answer to (a) and (b) is: ‘yes’ in so far as Gandhi knew that nonviolence is “as old as the hills,” it’s meaning is not completely ever lost, nor was it the case that  he invented it meaning that we could lose it when he shed his body. As you know, what Gandhi showed us that nonviolence when taken upon oneself –strategically, responsibly, and systematically– works. And his life, legacy, and even points of constructive program have encouraged us to look at separatism and violence.  
As to the layers of complexity (and question (d)) We can begin by reminding ourselves that we have different mechanisms for handling conflict and that while we resort to separation to make a point, it is not our true nature and hence will never bring us true happiness. The Truth of our being cannot, by unalterable law, tend toward separation.  
We can also begin by acknowledging human history’s engagement in struggle, more precisely in terms of questioning our means in a context, not our means alone: why violence has been the chosen means to effect struggle and whether there is some cognitive content in our collective histories and popular culture we passively take in leading us to believe that the right way to engage in struggle is to use violence, and that it could ever bring us what we really want. There is work for us here.
The question begs (borrowing your method): could anyone create the space where nonviolence can be the popular solution? It depends on how we envision the end of our struggle as much as it depends on who you ask. Again, the short answer is “yes,” and suggest that to be concrete we would need to be very clear about what that end actually looks like in detail; and that can be fruitful only to the extent that both sides were to deal with the core issues that are manifesting socially through the relentless and on-going processes of re-humanization and principled mediation and negotiation.