Gandhi's Concept of Non-Violent Resistance, a. k. a. Satyagraha or Soul Force Artwork

StocktonAfterClass

Ron Stockton was a professor of political science at the University of Michigan-Dearborn for 48 years. His specialty was non-western politics and political change. He taught classes on the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict, Religion and Politics, the Politics of Revolution, Non-Western politics, and American politics. He also taught in the Honors Program, focusing upon foundational readings from the 18th and 19th centuries. He has an interest in religion and politics and in the role of religio-ethnic groups in the political system. The listener can anticipate talks on Arab-Americans, Jews, African-Americans, the Scots-Irish, and Evangelicals. He has lectured and written on American politics, public opinion, and voting behavior and on the role of religious organizations and ideologies in the political system. There will be occasional discussions of books and films that address serious issues. And he has lectured and published and even taught a class on gravestones, especially those of different ethnic and religious groups such as Muslims, African-Americans, Jews, and Native Americans. The goal of the podcast series is to provide analysis and commentary by a political scientist to explain and make accessible political, historical, and cultural developments in the United States and around the world, and to give the listener analytical tools to understand those developments. It is also to entertain the listener.

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Gandhi's Concept of Non-Violent Resistance, a. k. a. Satyagraha or Soul Force

July 17, 2023 • Ronald Stockton

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I have a two-part podcast on Gandhi. This is Part I. It focuses on Gandhi's concept or strategy of Satyagraha. He invented that term himself. It means Soul Force. We might say non-violent resistance. It is pacifist, but not passive. it is definitely confrontational. It was rooted in deep moral concepts, but also in Indian culture and history. Maybe this podcast will make you want to read the book by Rudolph and Rudolph which discusses those cultural traditions in depth.

Gandhi assumed that within every opponent there were good forces with which one could negotiate. Think of Martin Luther King in Selma. He assumed that most white people did not like what was going on in the South but they were simply unaware. If they saw the ugly side of racism with their own eyes, they would do something. MLK had taken his inspiration and strategy from Gandhi. And it worked.

The second podcast, which I will post in a couple of weeks, is entitled "Why I Killed Gandhi." It is the statement Gandhi's assassin read to the court when he was sentenced to die. I suspect you will find it shocking, given that it is logical and reasonable and spoken by a very literate intellectual person.