Mohandas Gandhi effectively developed hartals and strikes as practical applications of his powerful concept of civil resistance through Satyagraha (soul-force) to fight the gross injustices and violations of human rights perpetrated on Indian laborers by the British officials in South Africa. Later on reading Henry Thoreau’s essay on civil disobedience he thought his Satyagraha was better described by Thoreau’s civil disobedience than by civil resistance. When after many years he was invited to lead the national struggle for independence in India from the yoke of British colonialism, he fine-tuned hartals, and fashioned after his own unique and rigorous sadhana (ascetic spiritual practices). He foresaw the massive exploitation of hard-working laborers by greedy, self-seeking, and unprincipled politicians for their own selfish interests and hidden agenda in the name of legitimate grievances, violation of human rights, and injustice. It is also important to note that these megalomaniac politicians are truly cowards as they, in the comfort of luxurious settings surrounded by a bunch of goondas (hoodlums) as their bodyguards, incite the unthinking laborers who alone get into the harsh consequences of their own orgy of senseless and purposeless violence.

             Gandhiji considered this to be Duragraha (evil-force). In his journal, Young India, of 1924 he named Politics without Principles as the first of Seven Social Sins or Evils. He established stringent conditions and norms for those who lead and embark on hartals and strikes as he foresaw abuse of these powerful tools and wrote about it in the Young India of 1920. Definitely capital is helpless without labor. No capital can stop labor when it wakes up from its slumber like a giant, and becomes aware of its rights. Then capital will not be able to ride on the back of labor. Interestingly today, September 3, 2012, the first Monday in September, marking the end of Summer and the beginning of the school year, as I drive from Boston to New York, the whole of the USA is celebrating labor day being little aware that the foundation of this nation was built on the sweat and blood slave labor of the African Americans and the decimated, contained, horrendous, rooted-out, and re-settled Native Americans (known as Red Indians in India) in reservations. Labor aware of its rights does not want to self-destruct running amok like a mad elephant led by blind politicians without principles. Gandhiji wrote in the Young India of 1932 that labor instead of sterilizing capital often fails by seizing capital and becoming the worst kind of capitalists themselves. Politicians coming out of abject poverty have become filthy rich in Idukki district and other parts of Kerala (India) riding on the back of labor unions engage quotation teams (hired hoodlums) to do their sinister jobs, and to maintain their privileged status.

What Gandhiji conveyed

            Gandhiji expressed in his speeches, writings, and journals: “Strikes are the order of the day. They are a symptom of the existing unrest……The labor world in India, as elsewhere, is at the mercy of those who set up as advisers and guides. The latter are not always scrupulous, and not always wise even when they are scrupulous. The laborers are dissatisfied with their lot. They have every reason for dissatisfaction. They are being taught, and justly, to regard themselves as being chiefly instrumental in enriching their employers. And so it requires little effort to make them lay down their tools. The political situation too is beginning to affect the laborers in India. And there are not wanting labor leaders who consider that strikes may be engineered for political purposes. In my opinion, it will be a most serious mistake to make use of labor strikes for such a purpose. I don’t deny that such strikes can serve political ends. But they do not fall within the plan of non-violent non-cooperation. It does not require much effort of the intellect to perceive that it is a most dangerous thing to make political use of labor until laborers understand the political condition of the country and are prepared to work for the common good…..The conditions of a successful strike are simple…. 1. The cause of the strike must be just. 2. There should be practical unanimity among the strikers. 3. There should be no violence used against non-strikers. 4. Strikers should be able to maintain themselves during the strike period without falling back upon union funds and should therefore occupy themselves in some useful and productive temporary occupation. 5. Strike is no remedy when there is enough other labor to replace strikers. In that case in the event of unjust treatment or inadequate wages or the like, resignation is the remedy.” Gandhiji laid down his conditions of work in the Young India of 1921 (India of My Dreams, pp 36-39, and p.41). Much as the labor leaders despise the Western principle of “Might is Right” they use that very principle to attain their ends. They conveniently disregard the Eastern principle: “Truth alone conquers”. Gandhiji insisted that all public sympathy should be withheld from unjust strikes, that the arbitration of impartial persons enjoying public confidence should be respected by all the parties, that economic betterment should never have a political end as an ulterior motive, and that political strikes must be open, and should never be led by goondaism, and must never lead to violence.

            According to Gandhiji, economic betterment of workers, just cause, purity of intention, common good of the country, impartial arbitration binding all the parties, and non- violence were essential requirements of strikes. In I942 with his Quit India movement Gandhiji employed strike as part of the civil disobedience against the British government. When the strike gaining some measure of success began to lead to violence, Gandhiji stopped it even against the strong protests of some of his staunch followers.