8 - Gandhi Revisited: Overcoming Barriers to Civil Resistance in South Africa and India

Summary

This chapter turns to cases from South Africa and India to highlight the challenges inherent in trying to launch and sustain a civil resistance campaign within a highly divided society. In both contexts, movements refrained from even attempting national campaigns with maximalist goals when they had only insular networks, preferring instead to either try to work for reforms within the system or to pursue more limited goals during these periods. When they had established grassroots ties and were able to engage in massive nonviolent mobilizations, they encountered massive repression from the regime and struggled to constrain violence within their own ranks. But in the end, both movements were successful in achieving their goals. The cases therefore offer valuable lessons for how challengers, especially those from excluded groups, may be able to overcome some of the social barriers to civil resistance that have presented in this book.