TEDx Youth @ Copper River Drive

Truth Force, Love Force

Veena Howard

Opening

The Rickshaw Story

Imagine a busy street in India, filled with rickshaws, cars, and pedestrians. In the middle of one, in my hometown of Muradabad, my mother and I were riding a man-pulled rickshaw — and my mother suddenly yelled at the rickshaw-wallah to stop. I must have been about ten or eleven years old, and I was totally confused by my mother's action.

Noticing a man on the street corner hitting a young boy, my mother — dressed in a bright color, sorry, I still remember she was wearing a yellow sari — leapt out of the rickshaw and went straight to the stranger. "Brother," she said in a commanding voice, standing right in front of the child. "Please don't hit him — he's too young to understand his mistake."

I still remember how afraid I was as I watched this scene. I thought the man would become angry with my mom for interfering in their personal family matter. But to my surprise he was not angry at all. The man did give a strange look at my mother — this woman standing right between him and his son. He stopped hitting and grumbled something under his breath. The boy ran away and disappeared into the crowd of the street.

In this instance, my mother appeared to have disrupted this father's anger toward a little boy who was not her own. I could not grasp how she was able to stop this father's anger. To be honest, I was a bit annoyed with her for risking her life and embarrassing me in this very public scene that she had created.

Now, many years later, I came to realize a different understanding of that act of intervention through my study of Mohandas Gandhi. Gandhi introduced me to his method of truth force — or love force — and it forever changed how I saw what my mother did on that busy street in Muradabad.

Concept

What Is Truth Force?

But what is truth force, you may ask? Gandhi teaches us that truth is more than simply speaking the truth. For Gandhi, truth is life force — it is love force, it is soul force — which manifests itself in all kinds of acts of courage. Gandhi's term for holding on to the truth is satyagraha. Holding on to truth manifests itself in the courage to intervene nonviolently. This may require a willingness, at times, to take suffering upon oneself in those acts of courage.

Scholars of civil resistance and nonviolent struggle define truth force as nonviolent action, which can take many forms. Gene Sharp, a prominent scholar of nonviolent theory, supplies us with an extensive list of terms for these acts — what he defines as nonviolent direct action and civil resistance. Sharp elaborates on the tactic of physical intervention: it is the act of placing one's body as a barrier between a person and the objective of that person's work or activity. Such action makes the actor physically vulnerable. What happened in my mother's case — this intervention is a kind of emotional pressure. While Sharp provides the theoretical interpretation, Bell hooks, the feminist thinker, classifies such interventions in terms of love that is in action.

History

Satyagraha in Action

Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. visited India — Gandhi's land — to find inspiration for his fight against the hatred and injustice inflicted upon African Americans. He connected nonviolent action with Jesus's ethic of love. King preached that love is the only force that is capable of transforming an enemy into a friend. Think about that. Throughout Dr. King's life he was humiliated, imprisoned, and attacked — but he never wavered from his commitment to the force of truth and love.

In 1962, at an event, Dr. King was thrown a blow on his jaw by a white man — his name was James — who was angered by the idea of desegregation and interracial marriages. When an angry crowd lunged at James, a brave African-American woman threw her arms around him and shouted:

In her one act of wrapping her arms around him, the woman had manifested the power of truth force — love force — which King had been teaching and had mirrored in his own life and actions. Not an easy task to do.

While in the popular Star Wars films, Yoda tries to explain to his young apprentice Luke Skywalker that the Force is not domination — but it is energy that is around us and binds us — Yoda taught Luke that to use this kind of force requires fearlessness. Well, I'm not surprised that George Lucas was influenced by the many tales of Hindu, Buddhist, and Jain mythology: tales that show the power of satyagraha, the power of this truth that love is always more powerful than mighty weapons that only destroy and perpetuate the cycle of hate.

Framework

Two Foundational Principles

Truth force is founded on two fundamental principles.

One: recognize that we are part of one family. It is our moral duty to uphold the dignity and protection of every member of this collective family. However, what is most challenging in living this truth force practice is that this family circle includes everyone — yes, everyone: the friend, the oppressor, the enemy. Think about that.

The Dalai Lama — the esteemed leader of Tibet and the living example of compassion in our times — proclaims: "We, seven billion human beings — emotionally, mentally, physically — are the same."

The second principle of truth force involves faith in the power of love and justice. Diana Prince says in Wonder Woman: "If loss makes you doubt your belief in justice, then you never truly believed in justice at all." We can lean into this faith when we appeal to the moral conscience of the wrongdoer and use methods of resistance strategically — holding on to the faith that they will withdraw their support of the wrong acts and laws.

In practice, truth force faithfully deploys various tactics — civil disobedience, marches, non-cooperation tactics, dialogues, sit-ins (for example the ones we saw recently, in recent months) — to expose and question structures of all that is opposite of love and life: the hatred that shows itself in laws, institutions, socioeconomic systems, and the keepers of those laws and systems.

Clarification

What Truth Force Is Not

As a scholar of Gandhi's philosophy, I have become acutely aware that truth force has not been widely or consistently understood. T-shirts like "Gandhi says peace," "Gandhi says relax" — Gandhi will never say relax. Rosa Parks's image with slogans like "If I can sit down for freedom, you can stand up for children" — all of these misconstrue the power of this potent force of truth and revolutionary love.

Truth force is more than the protests, more than the boycotts. It is the power that is generated through being on the right side — being on the side of justice, being on the side of love — that is mobilized through various tactics, but always grounded in love force. Gandhi emphasized that this force may be used by individuals as well as by communities. It may be used as well in political as in domestic affairs.

Personal

Truth Force in Political and Domestic Life

So when I was eighteen, nineteen years old, each time a prospective suitor came to our home I became upset and humiliated. It was not the traditional custom of arranged marriage I found upsetting, because it served its purpose. I really wanted to pursue higher education, and marriage would mean the end of my schooling and the career I had dreamed of. I also found certain social norms dishonorable.

Well, I argued with my elders in the family, reminding them of their own legends of learned and independent women in Hindu traditions, and questioned this custom that I saw as unjust and dehumanizing — of course, I did all that with love. As a young woman I had not yet studied the methods of truth force, but I considered it immoral to reject a girl because of her skin color or because she could not bring a big dowry.

Even though it was unconventional to question the marriage traditions, my elders recognized the truth of my objection to these systems. Truth force prevailed — and I went on to pursue higher education. Of course, they supported me in this journey. Now I stand here before you — and back home, systems have begun to change.

Closing

The Force You Already Carry

Truth force across political as well as personal lives has the potential to transform our social norms of division and hatred into genuine mutual respect, dignity, justice, and love. Having witnessed the forces of hate and violence — remember the Wonder Woman film — Diana Prince proclaims: "Now I know that only love can truly save the world. So I stay. I fight. And I give — for the world I know can be."

A world in which we realize that we are interconnected members of one human family — and carry truth force within us. We may not understand this truth force. This force surrounds us all. Yoda did not give Luke the force. He taught him to awaken the force that was already present in him.

We have countless opportunities to embrace truth force in our daily lives — our domestic affairs, our professional contexts, and our interpersonal relationships. The truth is that not all of us are able to do the work of justice in public protests. But most of us are able to see the difference between what is right and just and what is wrong and inhumane.

May truth force be with you.