English for the New millennium - a text book of B.Ed. First Year of TU Four Year B.Ed.

1. Non-Violence. Aldous Huxley. Essay
Reintroduced. P.S.Remesh Chandran.
Whennational policies conflict,thereis war. Italways
has been so, in spite of the world’s nations’ attempts
to settle things amicably. Violence is the sister of war
and mighty nations are not shameful to release
violence on their next door neighbors, next day
brothers.Non-violencehas been the cherished dream
of mankind since the first sunrise after the dawn of
civilization.Even then the realizationof this dream is
remaining far distant due to psychologicalsettings of
the world’s mind.
A row of successful non-violent struggles
before us to imitate; still we are reluctant to
adopt this proven principle.

2. Thomas Arnold Teacher, a great grand uncle of
Aldous Huxley.
Hereand therea few humanitariansandphilosophers
have occasionally looked into the prospect of
moulding a new world order based on the lines of
non-violence. Novelists like Tolstoy, essayists like
George Orwell, H.G.Wells, Arnold Toynbee, Aldous
Huxley and many others have inculcated the

3. principles of non-violence which is fit to be adopted
in international crises management.We have the fine
political examples of many mighty empires having
been brought down by non-violent revolutions
carried out by peasants and agricultural laborers as
those led by Gandhi and his contemporaries in India.
Still we are reluctant to accept the principles of non-
violence as our political problems solving policy. It is
dueto the deceitful and treacherous basictraits latent
in man as an animal that nations still resort to
violence when they have to address a problem, social,
political, economical or ethnical.
Aldous Huxley was born into a family of
generations of great intellectuals.

4. Thomas Huxley,senior brother of Aldous Huxley
Aldous Huxley was a British essayist, novelist and
critic. He belonged to a family of distinguished
scientists and thinkers. The celebrated scientist
Thomas Huxley was his great grand-father and the
famous educationalist Thomas Arnold was his great
grand-uncle. Poet Matthew Arnold was his grand
uncle. His mother was a distinguished educationalist

5. and his father Leonard Huxley was a writer. The
famous biologist Sir. Julian Huxley was his elder
brother. The Burning Wheel , Chrome Yellow, Brave
New World , Proper Studies and MusicAt Nightare a
few of his majorworks. Aldous Huxleywas one of the
chief intellectual driving forces of his times. His
essays are gentle and imaginative. The present essay
discusses how non-violence is applicable to
individuals,groups,nationsand thepeopleof thenew
industrial age.
Non-violence comes to prisons and asylums
in the nineteenth century in England.
Bethlehem Mental Hospital in London in 1896.

6. Non-violence is the policy of passive resistance.
Resistanceindeed is there, only that it is not active. It
has thepowerto overcomeevil,angerand hatred.The
principles of non-violence have been applied
systematicallyin solving social and medical problems
which were considered to be completely insoluble.In
the past, violence prevailed over the handling of the
insane, the criminal and the savage. It made the
victim only incurable. Asylums and prisons were
places where inmates were treated with cruelty and
violence. Asylums were filthy places with dungeons,
chains and torture chambers. The insane were
subjected to violenceas if they werecriminals.In1815
a committeeof theBritish M.P.s investigated thestate
of Bethlehem Hospital in London and found it
appalling.Sincethen, non-violenttreatmenthas been
adopted, showing kindness and sympathy. Similarly,
in prisons, torture made the innocents demoralized
and the criminals morecriminal.WhenJohnHoward
began his investigations on prison life in the 18th
century, the only decentprisons in Europewere those
in Amsterdam, Holland being a country with lesser
crimes. Since then, there have been many prison
reforms. Thus Huxley expertly proves that non-
violence is applicable in relations of individuals with
other individuals.

7. Missionarygossip and the role of
anthropologistsin the practice of non-
violence.
Torture Chamber in Spis Castle. By Dariusz
Wozniak.

8. Anthropologists study the origin, development and
social behavior of mankind. In the past they
depended on baseless news given by travelling
missionaries, i.e. ‘missionary gossip’ to form their
theories. Missionaries returning from foreign lands
after failed missions won’t attribute reasons for their
failure to their wrong policies but would portray
people of those lands as brutal intolerant savages
holding pagan beliefs who brought down the
missionaries’ works. As a result, colonial
administrations remained violent and cruel to their
subjects in the conquered lands. But later, the
anthropologists practically began living with the
objects of theirstudyand learned therealities in those
lands. They discovered that intelligent and
sympathetic non-violence is the best and most
practical policy to be adopted on subjects by an
administration.Thus the colonial rule of the Belgian,
Dutch, English and French became more humane,
non-violent and efficient. Only the Italian Fascist
Mussolini remainedaggressive.His hideous methods
of bombs and poisongas employed in the conquest of
Abyssinia were brought to light and condemned by
all.

9. Non-violent non-cooperation successfully
prevented in England a war with Russiain
1920.
Torture Rack in Spis Castle in Slovakia. By
Podzemnik.

10. Non-violence is applicable in the relations of
populations with governments. Gandhi’s non-violent
mass movements in South Africa and India were
brilliant successes. He effectively trained very large
groups of people in non-violent non-cooperationand
boycott, who courageously responded to brutal
treatment. This impressed all and gained him favorof
public opinion and support of the entire world. In
England, in 1920, non-violent non-cooperation
successfully prevented a war. Labor Movement
declared War Boycott and refused to transport men
and materials to war front. Faced with this
ultimatum,the Lloyd Georgegovernmentabandoned
its plans of war on Russia.
Man leads a dual life as a private individual
and as representative of a social group.

11. Spanish Boot in Spis Castle in Slovakia. By
Podzemnik.
In relations of governments with other governments,
non-violence is often considered impractical.
Examples of genuine non-violent behavior between
governments are rare. This is because of the dual

12. nature and behavior of man as a private individual
and as member of a group. He has two systems of
morality. In private life, man is honest, humane and
considerate. But as citizens of a nation, he thinks his
nation can go to any extreme. We all do. The nationis
personified in our imagination as a being,
superhuman in power and glory, but sub human in
morality.
Notes:
Standing on a land that is India wherethe firstknown
poet and philosopher Valmiki wrote Ma Nishada, or
You Never Kill, we can certainly speak to the world
the gospel of non-violence and human love. The
Father of the Nation,Mohandas KaramchandGandhi
was, along with Rabindranath Tagore and Count Leo
Tolstoy, and also George Bernard Shaw, was the
greatestproclaimerof the gospel of humanloveto the
world since the time of Jesus Christ. India through
the ages disseminated the message of Gods' affection
and consideration for man. Even though somewhat
diminished in the rush for prospects and physical
pleasures, the tendency to sacrifice one’s life for the
welfare of others is still prominent and dominant in
Indian lives, especially in the lives of the poor people

13. of India. Gandhi also sacrificed his life for his ideal of
embracing the divided Indians and the Pakistanis at
the sametime.When Indiaspendsbillionsonaccount
of preparing a warand defensemachineryagainstthe
nation of Pakistan and Pakistan diverts precious
national revenue for purchasing missiles and war
machines against sister India, Pakistanis think how
natural theIndian film stars actand the Indians think
how majestic and enchanting the Pakistani Ghazal
singers sing. Governments in the modern day world
no more reflect the will of their people. Objectives of
people which could easily and quickly have been
realizedthroughart,literature,music,cinema,cricket
and football are objected to by governments, for they
wish there shall be two governments to rule, two
parliaments to spend time in and two judiciaries to
pronounce the same universal human law in two
conflicting ways. Unification of the divided German
nations is their lesson for the future. Why waste
precious people's money for running two
governments? Theworld is changing,and eliminating
the evils of the ill famous Second World War one by
one. Aldous Huxley's thoughts are more important
than ever in the present times.
When we read the articles written by many
philosophers like Bertrand Russell, Arnold Toynbee,

14. Bernard Shaw, Aldous Huxley and H.G.Wells, we
think how fortunate the world is for having tones of
beautiful pages written by learned and tasty geniuses
for us all to read without stop. We also will feel lonely
at the thought of living at a time, with the total
absence of such eminent thinkers and writers
continuously conversing to us all around us in our
society. It is our consolation and luck they wrote
profusely before they passed away, so that the
intellectually impoverished we can read something
refreshing, till the end our days.
Writers like Arnold Toynbee, Robert Lynd, Aldous
Huxley and Bertrand Russell produced excellent
literature which captivated generations including
mine. But the world now does not read them as
frequentlyand regularlyas before. I pay them respect
in my simple way of reintroducing them in layman's
terms, for the sole reason they inspired me, so that
they will be continued to be read and read and read.
No one shall have to leave them unread. The praise
goes to those excellent authors who are now gone
from among us. We can onlykeep the world's interest
in them live.
The concept of non-violence works when the
concerned opponent is somewhat equal or

15. sophisticated. It did work with the British in India
when the British became convinced that India would
become the country where the greatest number of
dead British are burried if violence in India reached
its full manifestation. The Irish Republican Army
tried non-violence in British prisons by turning to
non-eating fasts but found that they were only
weakeningtheirbody.After thedeath of sevenof their
comrades in a days-long relay fast in Maize prison,
they returned to guerrilla warfare and violence.