Book Review: Gandhi on Non-Violence edited by Thomas Merton

By Chandra Ganguly

Gandhi on Non-Violence was first published in 1965. It would be hard for any book on Gandhi not to be full of Gandhi’s own seemingly rather intractable views on non-violence as well as the author’s views, either in support or not, of the activist. The author, Thomas Merton (1915-1968), was well-known in the fields of spirituality, philosophy and social justice. In this book he brings forth a collection of Gandhi’s quotes on non-violence along with a couple of essays with his own views, mainly in support of Gandhi and non-violence as a doctrine.

In many ways, regardless of one’s own personal take on the man or the doctrine, this book is a fascinating read because it brings together effectively for the reader so many of Gandhi’s ruminations, convictions and sometimes contradictions about non-violence as a political act of defiance. Non-violence as a revolutionary act can be an excuse for the weak who do not wish to protest or fight, and the book reveals how this troubled Gandhi. It is not oft-publicized and these little-known quotes are what makes this a valuable read. Morton ends the book with quotes that reveal a more vulnerable and unsure Gandhi — “I failed to recognize, until it was too late, that what I had mistaken for ahimsa was not ahimsa, but passive resistance of the weak, which can never be called ahimsa even in the remotest sense.”(p.143)