In the context of civil disobedience and morality, two incidents come to mind:
One: Prof. Ramachandra Gandhi, distinguished Professor of Philosophy and grandson of Mahatma Gandhi, went to England on an invitation to deliver a series of talks; the immigration Officials at the Heathrow airport did not accord the respect the Professor commanded. Prof. Gandhi felt insulted and immediately sat on a Dharna, a sit-in protest, at the airport itself! Others intervened after a considerable time and the issue was resolved amicably. Two: An incident at the medical school I went to in south India. A group of socially disadvantaged students went to meet the director of the school to air their grievances as the fellowship due to them had not been dispersed putting them into a lot of hardship. The director was unyielding citing procedural regulations. Examinations were to commence the next day. The group decided on the spur of the moment to have a peaceful ‘sit-in’ protest, sat down as a group, blocked the whole corridor and would not budge. The director relented and the grants were released soon.
‘Sit-in’ protests or ‘Dharna’ as they are known in India are peaceful demonstrations resorted to quite often in India: – this is a legacy popularized by Gandhi. This was formulated and perfected over the years as a consequence of the humiliation he was subjected to while travelling in a I class compartment in Apartheid-South Africa. This was only a part of the Satyagraha movement (literally, agitation for truth). Gandhi acknowledges the influence of Thoreau’s essay, ‘Resistance to Civil Government’ on him in formulating this resistance. This, in turn, influenced Nelson Mandela and Martin Luther King in formulating their resistance movements.
MLK’s discussion with James Kilpatrick on ‘Civil disobedience and Morality’ is interesting at least for two reasons. One, King’s repeated assertion that the ‘sit-in’ strikes of the 1960’s were in conformity with the American tradition and, by implication, should not be construed as something alien to it. Second, and perhaps more important, King’s assertion that these were in conformity with the ‘moral laws of the universe’; this insistence upon the ‘moral centrality’ in any action seems central to the American ethos. Ralph Waldo Emerson, eminent American philosopher, says in his essay ‘Nature’:
Sensible objects conform to the premonitions of Reason and reflect the Conscience. All things are moral; and in their boundless changes have an unceasing reference to spiritual nature.
(Norton Anthology of American Literature, Nina Baym et al. [editors], New York 1979, P.338)
In this discussion he held with James Kilpatrick, MLK insists upon clearing the misconception that Kilpatrick subtly suggests that these ‘sit-in’ strikes are essentially black-population centered, and therefore, in a sense, ‘un-American’! In the larger perspective, the implication was that it was opposed to the ‘moral-centrality’ that the American tradition so earnestly sustains. MLK insists upon dispelling all these three undercurrents in Kilpatrick’s question when he asks MLK if the ‘sit-in’ strikes were selfish in orientation. MLK seems to imply that these protests by the people are to ensure that the ‘soul’ of America remains intact and well-guarded. The suggestion being that these protests were meant to ensure the well-being of the American soul. To substantiate this, he quotes St. Augustine – “An unjust law is no Law at all”. An unjust law demands that a conscientious citizen needs to take a stand against it. There is a moral compunction behind assertion of the moral centrality of the Universe. In this, he reminds us of Emerson’s views on action and thought:
The same central unity is still more conspicuous in action. Words are finite organs of the infinite mind… An action is the perfection and publication of thought.
(Emerson, Ralph Waldo. Nature and other essays. Courier Corporation, 2012.)
MLK’s words suggest much more than what appears merely in print – that all these actions, physical as they are, mirror the ‘Meta-physical’. In his essay, ‘Resistance to Civil Government’, Thoreau says:
The Government itself, which is only the mode which the people have chosen to execute their will, is equally liable to be abused and perverted before the people can act through it.
(Thoreau, Henry David. Civil Disobedience: Resistance to Civil Government. The Floating Press, 2009.)
In other words, MLK implies that the civil disobedience America was witnessing in the 1960’s such as the ‘sit-in’ strikes were a reaction against the ‘perversion’ of the Government, a ‘moral derailment’ the society was going through. This in effect, for MLK, was an attempt to ‘save the soul of America’. In this age of Globalization where the danger is not so much of the Market economy dictating terms of life to us as much as we the citizens completely losing the moral centrality that has sustained human existence, MLK’s words are all the more relevant. This, coupled with the fact that MLK was aware of the need to relate the life of the ‘Individual’ at the micro-cosmic level to ‘Life’ at the macro-cosmic level makes it all the more relevant to us.