Shanti Sena

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Shanti Sena is Sanskrit for Peace (Shanti) Army (Sena). The term was coined by Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi to describe his idea of ​​a "nonviolent reaction force". In fact, the “official” Indian Shanti Sena was not formed until the year of Gandhi's murder. The movement in India still exists today in various approaches, but has been weakened considerably since the 1980s. She is a role model for worldwide movements of nonviolent intervention such as Peace Brigades International . The members of the Shanti Sena are called Sainiks.

Origin and history

Forerunner of Khudai Khidmatgar

Very early on, Gandhi had the idea of ​​consolidating his nonviolent campaigns through an appropriate organization. Nevertheless, a forerunner organization did not emerge in the Hindu, but in the Muslim part of British India, in the Pashtun tribal area. Abdul Ghaffar Khan , built up a troop called "Red Shirts" from 1929, which also took part in the famous Salt March. The self-designation was Khudai Khidmatgar (Servant of God), they were organized analogously to the military, with "oath of the flag" and uniform. Their non-violent struggle was not only against British rule, but also against the backwardness and illiteracy of their own society.

Origin in India

In what is now India, the first “spontaneous” Shanti Sena was formed in 1946 in Calcutta , where Hindus and Muslims massacred each other. The Shanti Sena played a vital role in restoring peace. In January 1948 - India was now independent - Gandhi called for a large conference to found Shanti Sena as an India-wide continuously working organization. The conference took place almost immediately after his assassination, and the leaders of India were involved. Nevertheless, the formation of the planned troops stalled. In 1957 Vinoba Bhave took over the organization. 70,000 "Sainiks" were planned, one for every 5000 people. They were meant to be full-time, lifelong peace workers bound by a pledge. Because this way of life does not fit the traditional image of Indian women, no women were planned for this phase. The Sainiks were supposed to secure their livelihood through voluntary donations from the surrounding village population: The people for whom the Sainiks worked should also give something, and so the bond between them should be strengthened, which also worked perfectly. However, the development remained sluggish: in 1962 there were 2,500 Sainiks, too few for the numerous unrest that shook the young state.

Change of strategy under Narayan

Jayaprakash Narayan ("JP") succeeded Vinoiba Bhaves at the head of Shanti Sena. He was less spiritually inclined than his predecessor and saw the Shanti Sena more practically and politically as a non-violent reaction force and an alternative to the military, which he wanted to abolish worldwide. That is why he fought for non-violent peace operations in the UN. Many young people now came to the Sena service for one year, whereas previously there had only been lifelong full-time employees. The ministry was also possible for women. 1975 saw the first - and only - international peace operation of Shanti Sena in the Cyprus Resettlement Project in Cyprus. The experience from this was not rated positively.

Controversy over strategy and decline

The first leader of the Sena, Vinoba, was not interested in the question of what role the military should play in Indian society, since external wars were rare. He devoted himself above all to the land donation movement, which was supposed to fight the enormous social differences in the Indian villages. Many Sainiks were mainly on duty here. Others took care of the numerous conflicts in the communities. But when Chinese troops crossed the Indian border on November 20, 1962, India suddenly found itself in an undeclared war . JP immediately wanted to move Sainiks to stand between the fronts without violence, while Vinoba shared the position of the Indian government: "If India maintains an army, it must be used to repel an armed attack". JP continued to fight for nonviolent intervention, but when he organized people for it, the war was over, India had suffered defeat, and a stretch of land in northeast Jammu and Kashmir ( Aksai Chin ) remained under permanent Chinese occupation. In the later wars of India against Pakistan , the Shanti Sena no longer intervened.

When the Indian Prime Minister Indira Gandhi declared a state of emergency in 1975 in order to remain in power, the Gandhian movement, which was traditionally closely associated with the Congress Party - and with it the Shanti Sena, split apart. JP dedicated the rest of his life to fighting for democratic rights and against the state of emergency and was one of the founders of the Janata Party , which also won the 1977 election . Other members of the movement embarked on a more spiritual journey. The Sena disintegrated and, even after starting over in 1985, could not really recover.

Western adaptations

The concept of Shanti Sena was also taken up in the German and European peace movement , for example in Germany by the Stuttgart Nonviolent Civil Army (GZA) initiated by Theodor Ebert .

“In 1961 the Stuttgart Association of Conscientious Objectors constituted a pacifist nonviolent civil army that tried to network with similar nonviolent action groups in other German cities. She published after the program publication The Nonviolent Civil Army. Voice of the Young Generation (1962) consistently issued a newsletter . Messages from the Action Groups Nonviolent Resistance (1963 to 1964). These action groups used cases of non-violent resistance to occupation regimes and coups (initially outside of academic peace research) to investigate whether democratic achievements could also be asserted through non-violent resistance to dictatorial or even totalitarian attempts at harmonization. The Stuttgart action group tried to set an example of how such a counterpart to Gandhi's Shanti Sena could live and work in Germany. "

- Theodor Ebert : Shanti Sena in Germany ?: Social defense as a social mandate and educational option , in: Norbert Frieters-Reermann and Gregor Lang-Wojtasik: Peace Education and Nonviolence: Food for thought for a culture of communication and conflict that is sensitive to difference , Verlag Barbara Budrich, 2015, Pp. 63-78.

literature

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ https://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctvbkk0rs.7?seq=4#metadata_info_tab_contents Online on JSTOR]