Search for an Appropriate Game Model for Gandhian Satyagraha

Among different forms of 'nonviolent direct action', an extensive taxonomy for which has been provided by Gene Sharp (1959), Gandhian satyagraha occupies a unique place. This is due to both historical and substantive reasons. A factor analysis of the ingredients of different forms of nonviolent direct action (Chatterjee and Bhattacharjee 1971) shows that satygraha has high loading on Factor III which the authors identify as 'something like active principled striving toward total transformation' of the individual, group, community, or state. Satyagraha has second highest loading on Factor I, identified as 'some sort of absolutist stand toward moral-ethical commitment to nonviolence'. This emphasis on total transformation, on dynamism, and on unswerving commitment to nonviolence may have contributed to some of its success in historical reckoning. First Gandhi and then Martin Luther King have demonstrated the value of nonviolent satyagraha as an effective weapon for correcting untenable positions, when obtaining redress through constitutional means is slow, difficult, or beset with hurdles. In recent times social scientists have started taking an interest in analyzing the processes underlying satyagraha. Some members of the 'strategic community' who utilize approaches from game theory, decision theory, and general systems theory in elucidating complex social processes have also tried to apply such methods for a deeper understanding of the satyagraha process. The present paper, while reviewing some of these attempts to analyze the strategic aspects of satyagraha, seeks to show that more sophisticated effort is required for finding the most appropriate game model for Gandhian satyagraha. Some of the observations will be supported with empirical evidence, collected by the author, on a series of three satyagrahas resorted to by a group of encroachers in a government grazing reserve in Angarkata in north-eastern Assam. A brief account of the three Angarkata satyagrahas is given in the Appendix. For a fuller account, the reader may refer to a report by Chatterjee and Sudarshan Kumari (1969); a short journalistic rendering has been published by Chatterjee (1970).