Lakhimpur Kheri: When political impotence breeds violence

The farmers' protest has by and large demonstrated patience and spirit. This moment of grief and rage will test all these qualities

Does the wanton violence at Lakhimpur Kheri make nonviolence look fragile and insignificant? Or does it instead expose the futility of violence?

These questions need to be processed before we can re-examine that old and persistent doubt — namely that nonviolent protest can only work against somewhat responsive rulers, not against those who appear indifferent.

In a moment of acute outrage, of the kind triggered by the Lakhimpur Kheri killings, there is a wide spectrum of responses.

At one end of the spectrum are those who reacted by killing some of the occupants of the vehicles that mowed down the protesters. This response may be rooted in our most primitive instincts of raw rage and a surge of energy to lash out at the assailants. This is the ‘eye for an eye’ approach that would surely make the world blind.

At the opposite end of this spectrum are those who know that to choose the path of nonviolent political action is to risk life and limb. For those who do so by practice and training this moment of grief is also a call to reaffirm and strengthen resolve.

In between are probably the vast majority of people who admire nonviolence as an ideal but see it as impractical for ordinary humans. They believe that nonviolence is for mahatmas and they may see the tragic incidents of last week as proof of this.

Also read: Lakhimpur Kheri case: Union Minister Ajay Mishra's son arrested after 11 hours of questioning

It is, therefore, vital to first look at nonviolence as a phenomenon in nature — rather than as a moral and ethical ideal.

Margaret Mead, the cultural anthropologist, was once asked which artefact she would identify as marking the beginning of civilisation. She did not point to a stone tool or the beginnings of the human ability to make and tame fire. Mead referred to a 15,000-year-old human fossil which had a broken and healed femur bone. This fossil is proof that some people fed, protected and nurtured that injured person long enough for the bone to heal.

At a time when humans were mostly wandering herds, stopping for those who fell marked the beginning of civilisation.

In the mid-1980s, a group of natural and social scientists examined a wide range of evidence to conclude that the human brain is not hardwired to be violent.

Of course, violence is one of our instincts, but it is not our dominant tendency. The collective statement issued by that group of scientists, known as the Seville Statement on Violence, was later endorsed by the UNESCO and many academic bodies.

However, when some of the key academics behind the Seville Statement took their findings to mainstream media, they were rebuffed. Some journalists said they would be more interested if the scientists had found a gene for violence.

Also read: Follow 'raj dharma' and sack Ajay Mishra: Congress to PM Modi

The reason for this is obvious. Violence has drama and action.

The wars and conflict in history get far more attention than what happened in peace times. But it is violence that requires as much or more training than nonviolence.

Lt Col Dave Grossman, a one-time officer in the American army, wrote a book titled ‘On Killing: The Psychological Cost of Learning to Kill in War and Society’. Grossman’s key insight is that most people have an inbuilt resistance to killing people. This resistance, wrote Grossman, “exists as a result of a powerful combination of instinctive, rational, environmental, hereditary, cultural, and social factors”.

By contrast, practitioners of nonviolence, when they accept suffering without retaliation, become more fearless.

Collective action

For this to happen in any substantial way the nonviolent action must be collective — as the farmers’ struggle is, however disparate it may be internally.

But there is a possible divide that can undermine such a collective. This is between a nonviolence based on the power of love and nonviolence that is merely a tactic or even thinly veiled passive resistance.

Gandhi tirelessly reiterated that passive resistance is not nonviolence — because it tends to be provisional and can turn into violence when faced with an extreme provocation or a ‘winning’ opportunity.

Over the last 70 odd years, there has been a wide variety of innovations in nonviolent political action which fills the space between nonviolence based on love-thy-enemy and utterly pragmatic tactical nonviolence. Gene Sharp was probably the most prolific scholar and ideologue of nonviolent action that does not depend on winning over or loving the opponent. It was Sharp’s teachings that informed the nonviolent struggle known as the Arab Spring.

Power vs protest

Either way, the obvious assumption behind nonviolent political action is that any ruler finds it harder to unleash physical force on unarmed and nonviolent protesters.

Though this assumption has sometimes proved to be wrong, it is broadly validated by protest movements across the world. This happens when, as Ashis Nandy said in a recent Ahimsa Conversation, the patience of the protesters is greater than the impatience of those in power.

Also read: Those who killed BJP workers in Lakhimpur not culprits, says Rakesh Tikait

The farmers’ protest has by and large demonstrated patience, persistence and unflinching valour. The pain of grief and rage at this moment will test all these qualities. But there is a glow of light at the other end of this tunnel. The source of this light is the knowledge that ahimsa strengthens faith in the eventual victory of justice.

This faith may be based on the historical certainty that no brute force lasts indefinitely. Or it can be anchored in an awareness about the far greater power of love and compassion.

Above all, the Lakhimpur Kheri incident illustrates the key insight of political philosopher Hannah Arendt — that it is impotence that breeds violence. This is because, Arendt wrote, “Politically loss of power tempts men to substitute violence for power.”

From this perspective, it is the collective power of the farmers and of nonviolent protest that now appears stronger.

(Rajni Bakshi is an author and founder of the online platform ‘Ahimsa Conversations’)

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