**4. Breaking with the Cycle of Violence: Progressively Substituting Force with Nonviolence**

Girard's recognition of an apocalyptic escalation of violence made him understand the urgency to renounce violence and retaliation, as recommended by the Sermon on the Mount: "The definitive renunciation of violence [ ... ] will become for us the condition *sine qua non* for the survival of humanity itself and for each one of us." (Girard 1987, p. 137; cf. pp. 97, 258; 1991, p. 282; 2014b, p. 20). Reflecting on Jesus' demand to overcome retaliation and renounce violence in Mt 5:38–40 and in Lk 6:33–35, Girard shows its plausibility from a mimetic perspective, even questioning self-defence, much like Judith Butler in her recent book on nonviolence:

To leave violence behind, it is necessary to give up the idea of retribution; [ ... ] we think it quite fair to respond to good dealings with good dealings, and to evil dealings with evil, but this is precisely what all the communities on the planet have always done, with familiar results. People imagine that to escape from violence it is sufficient to give up any kind of violent *initiative*, but since no one in fact thinks of himself as taking this initiative—since all violence has a mimetic character, and derives or can be thought to derive from a first violence that is always perceived as originating with the opponent—this act of renunciation is no more than a sham, and cannot bring about any kind of change at all. Violence is always perceived as being a legitimate reprisal or even self-defence. So what must be given up is the right to reprisals and even the right to what passes, in a number of cases, for legitimate defence. Since the violence is mimetic, and no one ever feels responsible for triggering it initially, only by an unconditional renunciation can we arrive at the desired result. (Girard 1987, p. 198; cf. Butler 2020, pp. 51–55)

Girard justly highlights the renunciation of counterviolence in the Sermon on the Mount. A masochistic quietism is not recommended by Jesus, but rather a retreat from imitating violence: "When Christ says 'if someone strikes you on the right cheek, turn to him the other also' (Matt. 5:39) he is not advocating a form of masochistic quietism, but the danger of bad reciprocity, of any escalation of bad mimesis" (Girard 2008, pp. 252–53). By reading Mt 5:39 in connection with Ps 37:8, the Jewish theologian Pinchas Lapide translates this verse in a way that highlights its rejection of mimetic counterviolence: "Do not compete in doing injustice." (Lapide 1986, p. 134). Although Girard rejected criticisms of the Sermon on the Mount "as a utopian sort of pacifism, manifestly naïve and even blameworthy because servile, doloristic, perhaps even masochistic", he did not become a pacifist himself (Girard 2014b, p. 19): "I should make it clear that I myself am not an unconditional pacifist, since I do not consider all forms of defense against violence to be illegitimate." (Girard 2014b, p. 131). In *Battling to the End*, he even claims—along with Carl Schmitt—that "pacifism fans the fires of warmongering" (Girard 2010, p. 65). For a concrete example, he refers to the fact that France did not react against Hitler's re-arming of the Rhineland in 1936 when it could have stopped Hitler's career immediately, and most likely for ever (Girard 2010, pp. 182–88). Girard, however, did not develop a peace ethics or a political ethics. He remained quite vague in this regard, and often referred to the religious conclusions that he drew from his anthropological insights. When he was asked in 2005 what he would

propose to politicians following his understanding of Clausewitz, he evaded the question: "It's a complicated question because my vision fundamentally is religious. I believe in non-violence, and I believe that the knowledge of violence can teach you to reject violence." (Haven 2020, p. 107) Despite Girard's rejection of quietist readings of the Sermon on the Mount, he was not able to move beyond a rather passive renunciation of violence. This becomes most obvious in his last book *Battling to the End*, which recommends Hölderlin's "mystical quietism" (Girard 2010, p. 123). Several authors who are familiar with mimetic theory have criticized Girard for his quietist leanings (Reineke 2012; Colborne 2013; Avery 2013, pp. 244–50). Furthermore, his interpretation of Mt 5:39 also remains quite passive, as the following passage shows, where Girard explains the rules of the Kingdom of God as the request to end the mimetic rivalry by giving "way completely to your rival" (Girard 2014a, p. 47; Cayley and Girard 2019, pp. 48, 50): "If you've been hit on the left cheek, offer up the right." This rather passive interpretation does not really grasp the gist of the Sermon on the Mount, as we immediately can recognize in Girard's mixing up of the right cheek that is mentioned by Jesus (Mt 5:39: "if anyone strikes you on the right cheek, turn the other also") with the left one. At first sight, this does not seem to matter much, but we will soon see that it indicates his neglect of the active side of nonviolent resistance.

Girard's appreciation of the Sermon on the Mount brings him close to Gandhi, who he once remarked was influenced by Jainism and Christianity, and that "he opted for the kind of political action that is more compatible with the latter" (Girard 2008, p. 212). Gandhi, indeed, shares with Girard this focus on the New Testament, but goes further than the French American anthropologist in his ethical and political attempts to practice an active nonviolence. The Girardian psychologist Oughourlian rightly mentions Gandhi as a historical example of a politician who understood the mimetic dynamics and opted, for this reason, for nonviolent action close to the Sermon on the Mount (Oughourlian 2012, pp. 66–67).

Like Girard, Gandhi was a great admirer of the Sermon on the Mount. Christians in London introduced him to the New Testament, and to the work of Leo Tolstoy, which gave him "faith in non-violence" (Gandhi 1958–1994, p. 37:261–62). In his autobiography, he expresses his admiration of the Sermon on the Mount by underlining those verses that also caught Girard's attention, and by showing how it aligns with insights in other religious traditions:

The verses, 'But I say unto you, that ye resist not evil: but whosoever shall smite thee on thy right cheek, turn to him the other also. And if any man take away thy coat let him have thy cloak too', delighted me beyond measure and put me in mind of Shamal Bhatt's 'For a bowl of water, give a goodly meal', etc. My young mind tried to unify the teaching of the *Gita*, *The Light of Asia* and the Sermon on the Mount. (Gandhi 1958–1994, p. 39:61)<sup>5</sup>

These verses from the Sermon on the Mount were important for Gandhi because, very similarly to Girard, he knew about the mimetic dynamic of violence and its dangerous escalation. In 1924, he noted that traditional wisdom was aware that the mirroring of violence must be stopped in order to overcome it:

It has been my invariable experience that good evokes good, evil—evil; and that therefore, if the evil does not receive the corresponding response, it ceases to act, dies of want of nutrition. Evil can only live upon itself. Sages of old, knowing this law, instead of returning evil for evil, deliberately returned good for evil and killed it. Evil lives nevertheless, because many have not taken advantage of the discovery, though the law underlying it acts with scientific precision. (Gandhi 1958–1994, p. 24:55)

Like Girard, who claimed for his mimetic anthropology a scientific objectivity, Gandhi also talks about a natural law that must be understood in order to overcome violence. The most important ethical conclusion that Gandhi draws from his insight into mimetic dynamics was his insistence that the means to achieve peace must be nonviolent. Against

the wide-spread belief that ends justify means, Gandhi emphasizes that the means must correspond with the end. In *Hind Swaraj* he rejects "brute force" as the adequate means to end the British occupation of India, because one cannot achieve a lasting peace by sowing war: "The means may be likened to a seed, the end to a tree; and there is just the same inviolable connection between the means and the end as there is between the seed and the tree." (Gandhi 1958–1994, p. 10:43). He often repeated this insight in his writings. Another example can be found in 1924, when he rejected Bolshevism for its belief in "shortviolent-cuts to success" (Gandhi 1958–1994, p. 25:424): "Those Bolshevik friends who are bestowing their attention on me should realize that however much I may sympathize with and admire worthy motives, I am an uncompromising opponent of violent methods even to serve the noblest of causes."

Tolstoy's writings not only strengthened Gandhi's faith in nonviolence but also led him to an active interpretation of the Sermon on the Mount. Tolstoy's emphasis on nonresistance did not mean to remain indifferent about evil: "Non-resistance to evil has nothing to do with tacit acceptance of the phenomena of evil. Tolstoy was never averse to fighting evil by every moral instrument at his command, and hurling his massive protests into the world." (Nigg 1962, p. 391). John Howard Yoder rightly noticed that "nonretaliation" should be preferred to "nonresistance" to describe Tolstoy's attempt to break the chain of evil (Yoder 2009, p. 55). Tolstoy talked frequently about the "doctrine of non-resistance to evil by violence" in his book *The Kingdom of God is Within You*, enhancing the usual translations of Mt 5:39 by adding the term "violence" (Tolstoy 2010, p. 5). Gandhi followed Tolstoy when he criticized European Christians for identifying Jesus with "passive resistance" (Gandhi 1958–1994, p. 90:129): "As I read the New Testament for the first time I detected no passivity, no weakness about Jesus as depicted in the four gospels and the meaning became clearer to me when I read Tolstoy's *Harmony of the Gospels* and his other kindred writings." Gandhi's reading of the New Testament contributed to his concept of nonviolence, which was neither indifferent to evil nor avoided conflicts. In his book *Satyagraha in South Africa*, he underlines the active nonviolence that he recognized in Jesus Christ: "Jesus Christ indeed has been acclaimed as the prince of passive resisters but I submit in that case passive resistance must mean satyagraha and satyagraha alone." (Gandhi 1958–1994, p. 29:96). Gandhi's view of Jesus has become an inspiration for Christians to gain an active interpretation of the Sermon on the Mount.

A careful reading of the verse that recommends the turning of the other cheek will recognize that Jesus talks about being slapped on the right cheek. This, however, is only possible if the offender uses the back of his right hand. Influenced by Gandhi, the biblical scholar Walter Wink explains how a back-handed slap is a humiliating blow by which masters insulted slaves, men insulted women, and Romans insulted Jews (Wink 1999, pp. 101–3; cf. Lapide 1986, pp. 121–27). To turn the other cheek means to insist on being recognized as an equal in the confrontation. It refuses to be humiliated without, however, retaliating. Jesus himself questioned the police who struck him on the face during his interrogation by the high priest: "If I have spoken wrongly, testify to the wrong. But if I have spoken rightly, why do you strike me?" (Jn 18:23). Wink links Jesus' words about turning the other cheek with Gandhi's "first principle of nonviolent action" demanding "non-co-operation with everything humiliating" (Wink 1999, p. 102; Gandhi 1958–1994, p. 83:206). The Sermon on the Mount does not recommend a passive acquiescence but asks for an active engagement with evil without imitating it. In seminars in South Africa in 1986—during apartheid—Wink showed that Jesus offers a "third way" beyond "flight or fight" by opposing evil without mirroring it (Wink 1987, p. 23). Like Gandhi, Wink also claims that "Jesus abhors both passivity and violence as responses to evil" (Wink 1987, p. 14). Wink calls Jesus' third way "militant nonviolence", and distinguishes it from "passivity" as well as "violent opposition" (Wink 1987, p. 13; cf. Wink 1999, p. 143). He therefore translates Mt 5:39 like Tolstoy, by underlining the renunciation of violence: "Do not violently resist evil." (Wink 1987, p. 22; cf. Wink 1992, pp. 184–89; Wink 1999, pp. 101, 22; Wink 2003, pp. 11, 27).

A key text for Gandhi's active understanding of nonviolence is Tolstoy's *Letter to a Hindoo*. In the introduction to his Gujarati translation of it, he shows that Tolstoy's rejection of retaliation "does not mean [ ... ] that those who suffer must seek no redress" (Gandhi 1958–1994, p. 10:1). According to Tolstoy, it is also essential not to submit to injustice. This becomes even more explicit in Gandhi's English introduction to this letter, in which he quotes the following sentence from it: "Do not resist evil, but also yourselves participate not in evil, in the violent deeds of the administration of the law courts, the collection of taxes and, what is more important, of the soldiers, and no one in the world will enslave you" (Gandhi 1958–1994, p. 10:4; cf. Bartolf 1997, p. 26). Tolstoy's warning against taking part in evil influenced Gandhi's nonviolent struggle against the colonial rule of the British Empire, as his non-cooperation movement showed, which he launched in 1920 (Guha 2018, pp. 133–60). When Christians challenged him on the supposition that his non-cooperation campaign goes against Christ's saying that one has to "render unto Caesar, the things which are Caesar's" (Mt 22:21), Gandhi responded that Christ expressed with these words the "great law [ ... ] of refusing to co-operate with evil" (Gandhi 1958–1994, p. 23:105; cf. 107, 43:31).

Vanessa Avery criticized Girard for overlooking the fact that the Sermon on the Mount demands an active nonviolence, and not primarily a self-sacrificial attitude. Following Wink, she refers to Rosa Parks, the black seamstress whose refusal to give up her seat in the bus led to the Montgomery bus boycott, the foundational event in the civil rights movement in the United States (Avery 2013, p. 249; King 2010, pp. 30–34). This movement was inspired by Gandhi and his understanding of Jesus, as Martin Luther King Jr. observed: "Gandhi was probably the first person in history to lift the love ethic of Jesus above mere interaction between individuals to a powerful and effective social force on a large scale" (King 2010, p. 84). King coined the term "militant nonviolence", which matches—as Erik Erikson very well understood—with Gandhi's understanding of *satyagraha* (King 1991, pp. 348, 483–84; Erikson 1993, p. 197; Colaiaco 1988). Judith Butler follows this militant understanding of nonviolence that "must be aggressively pursued", and which Albert Einstein called "militant pacifism" (Butler 2020, pp. 20, 27). Gandhi's active view also explains why he endorsed not only the negative withholding of violence but also the active pursuit of social justice: "No man could be actively non-violent and not rise against social injustice no matter where it occurred." (Gandhi 1958–1994, p. 71:424; cf. Rambachan 2015, p. 105).

Gandhi did not advocate an absolute pacifism (Chandhoke 2014, pp. 92–94; Parel 2016, pp. 106–11; Jahanbegloo 2021, pp. 65–80). Closer to Girard than to Tolstoy, he was aware that the fetishization of nonviolence could result in counterproductive consequences (Steffen 2007, pp. 134–80). He remarked already in *Hind Swaraj* that preventing a child "forcibly [ ... ] from rushing towards the fire" cannot be understood as an act of violence (Gandhi 1958–1994, p. 10:46). Some years later, he discussed the example of a man running amok, and said that he might be killed to protect the community. According to Gandhi, it is the intention that decides if such an act is violent or nonviolent: "The fact is that ahimsa does not simply mean non-killing. *Himsa* means causing pain to or killing any life out of anger or from a selfish purpose, or with the intention of injuring it. Refraining from so doing is ahimsa." (Gandhi 1958–1994, p. 31:544; cf. 24:379–80; 37:298, 310–13). In 1918, he defended in a letter to his friend C.F. Andrews his recruiting of Indian soldiers for the British Empire:

Under exceptional circumstances, war may have to be resorted to as a necessary evil [ ... ]. If the motive is right, it may be turned to the profit of mankind and that an ahimsaist may not stand aside and look on with indifference but must make his choice and actively co-operate or actively resist. (Gandhi 1958–1994, p. 14:477; cf. 37:269–71)6

Gandhi would concur with Girard's criticism of France's pacifistic reluctance to stop Hitler in 1936 because it was not nonviolence out of strength, as he understood his concept of *satyagraha*, but a cowardly attitude that is worse than violence (Gandhi 1958–1994, p. 18:132). Similarly, he criticized the Munich agreement with Hitler as a "peace without honour" (Gandhi 1958–1994, p. 67:404). Gandhi completely rejected the persecution of the Jews by the Nazis, and claimed that "if there ever could be a justifiable war in the name of and for humanity, a war against Germany, to prevent the wanton persecution of a whole race, would be completely justified" (Gandhi 1958–1994, p. 68:138). He himself, however, did not believe in war, and recommended in 1938 that the Czechs and the Jews should fight non-violently against Hitler (Gandhi 1958–1994, p. 67:404–6; 68:137–39; cf. Guha 2018, pp. 54–60, 550–52).<sup>7</sup> This recommendation has been discussed since, and is indeed questionable (Meir 2021), especially with hindsight. After Hitler unleashed the war, Gandhi moved towards a more qualified understanding of nonviolence that also allowed violent resistance in specific circumstances to count as a form of resistance that is close to the ideal of nonviolence. After Hitler's troops invaded Poland in 1939, Gandhi recognized that, in this situation, only a violent self-defence was available for this country: "If Poland has that measure of uttermost bravery and an equal measure of selflessness, history will forget that she defended herself with violence. Her violence will be counted almost as nonviolence." (Gandhi 1958–1994, p. 70:181). He defended his position regarding an "almost non-violence" in later discussions. In August 1940, he summarized his revised view in the following way:

If a man fights with his sword single-handed against a horde of dacoits armed to the teeth, I should say he is fighting almost non-violently. Haven't I said to our women that, if in defence of their honour they used their nails and teeth and even a dagger, I should regard their conduct non-violent? She does know the distinction between *himsa* and ahimsa. She acts spontaneously. Supposing a mouse in fighting a cat tried to resist the cat with his sharp teeth, would you call that mouse violent? In the same way, for the Poles to stand valiantly against the German hordes vastly superior in numbers, military equipment and strength, was almost non-violence. (Gandhi 1958–1994, p. 72:387–88; cf. 433–34, 74:368, 75:38, 77:146)

This more balanced view of nonviolence allows Adam Roberts to associate Gandhi—like Martin Luther King—with a concept that he calls "progressive substitution". Force has, according to this concept, an important function in policing and defence as long as it cannot be substituted by nonviolent means: "In this view, civil resistance needs to be developed skilfully and strategically if it is to serve the functions previously served by armed force. The hope is that it will replace reliance on force progressively in a succession of issue-areas. The central idea is that only if there is a viable substitute can force be effectively renounced." (Roberts and Ash 2009, p. 8).

To provide evidence for Roberts' thesis we can refer, for instance, to Gandhi's support of the Khilafat movement in 1920, when he joined Indian Muslims in their political campaign to restore the Ottoman Caliphate. When he was asked if this alliance contradicted his commitment to nonviolence, he admitted that this movement would indeed defend Islam "by the sword" (Gandhi 1958–1994, p. 20:165). This, however, did not foreclose his support:

A believer in non-violence is pledged not to resort to violence or physical force either directly or indirectly in defence of anything, but he is not precluded from helping men or institutions that are themselves not based on non-violence. If the reverse were the case, I would, for instance, be precluded from helping India to attain swaraj because the future Parliament of India under swaraj [ ... ] will be having some military and police forces.

He was aware that an independent India would rely on nonviolence only to a certain degree. Gandhi's reflections on how a state should be organized prove Roberts' thesis, too. Contrary to Tolstoy's anarchism, Gandhi did not reject the state completely, but saw a certain need of it. In December 1921, he responded to the question of whether imprisoned *satyagrahis* should refuse to do any work in the prisons. He rejected that position because

he did not foresee a society without prisons and warned of "chaos and anarchy", claiming that a "civil resister is [ ... ] a friend of the State" (Gandhi 1958–1994, p. 22:19). This positive view of the state, however, should not overlook the fact that Gandhi was, in general, closer to anarchism than to a full endorsement of the modern concept of the state with its coercive means (Gandhi 1958–1994, p. 13:214). According to Gandhi, a "non-violent State will be an ordered anarchy", asking—like Henry David Thoreau—for a state "which is governed the least" (Gandhi 1958–1994, p. 72:388–89; cf. 47:91; Marin and Blume 2019; Thoreau 2013, p. 145). This minimalist view of the state results in Gandhi's idea about the type of police force which is appropriate for a state that is committed to nonviolence. In a discussion with pacifists in February 1940, he remarked that a government "cannot succeed in becoming entirely non-violent, because it represents all the people. I do not today conceive of such a golden age". For this reason, he maintained that "even under a Government based primarily on non-violence a small police force will be necessary" (Gandhi 1958–1994, p. 71:226; cf. 72:388–89; Parel 2016, p. 110). A couple of months later he published his "idea of a police force" that is highly relevant for our world of today if we think of all the cases of police violence:

The police of my conception will [ ... ] be of a wholly different pattern from the present-day force. Its ranks will be composed of believers in non-violence. They will be servants, not masters, of the people. The people will instinctively render them every help, and through mutual co-operation they will easily deal with the ever-decreasing disturbances. The police force will have some kind of arms, but they will be rarely used, if at all. In fact the policemen will be reformers. (Gandhi 1958–1994, p. 72:403)

On the international level, Gandhi hoped to substitute armies with an "international police force", as he recommended it in a statement on the occasion of the San Francisco Conference preparing the Charta of the United Nations in 1945 (Gandhi 1958–1994, p. 79:389–91).

#### **5. Overcoming Mimetic Rivalry by Opening Up to God and Losing the Fear of Death**

Judith Butler asks in her book on nonviolence for "an egalitarian imaginary that apprehends the interdependency of lives" (Butler 2020, p. 184; cf. Du Toit and Vosloo 2021). Gandhi represents such an alternative imaginary with his call for a universal fraternity that includes all living creatures. A religiously motivated "embrace all life" is at the centre of this universalism: "I want to realize brotherhood or identity not merely with the beings called human, but I want to realize identity with all life" (Gandhi 1958–1994, p. 40:109). Tolstoy influenced Gandhi's understanding of universal fraternity by recognizing as the first principle of the "Gospel teaching [ ... ] that all alike are sons of God and therefore brothers and equals" (Tolstoy 2010, p. 129). From Tolstoy's view of fraternity follows his rejection of violence (Conrad 1999, pp. 398–99). Even more important was Gandhi's belief in the Hindu doctrine of *advaita*, non-dualism, that "teaches that the human self [ ... ] is not different from the limitless *brahman* and is present identically in every being" (Rambachan 2015, p. 10; Chandhoke 2014, pp. 90–91). Gandhi expressed his belief in *advaita* in the following way: "I believe in the essential unity of man and for that matter of all that lives. Therefore I believe that if one man gains spiritually, the whole world gains with him and, if one man falls, the whole world falls to that extent." (Gandhi 1958–1994, p. 25:390). The ethical principle of nonviolence (*ahimsa*) follows from the *advaita* teaching about the identity and unity of existence (Rambachan 2015, p. 104). A good example of Gandhi's ontological foundation of nonviolence can be found in the poem 'Blow for a Blow', the first lines of which were discussed above. The lines that follow express its *advaita* view:

The union of soul and body, The same in you as in me; Unless you wound yourself, Us you cannot hurt. So soon as I owned myself your lover, You stood declared my beloved;

A name I've bestowed on you, And will cease only when I perish. Such airs you give yourself today, Your eyes stern and proud; These your arrows Will turn back upon you, myself unharmed. You live, if I live; if I die, Tell yourself you die too; [... ] Your being is wrapped up in mine Aiming a blow at me, You shall only hurt yourself." (Gandhi 1958–1994, p. 9:489–90)

This poem expresses the fundamental unity and identity of all beings, which turns all insults against someone else into self-harm.

Gandhi shared with Tolstoy and Martin Luther King a "cosmically based" rejection of violence, and was deeply convinced that the whole universe is governed by love (Yoder 2009, p. 62). He, however, did not underestimate how often violence occurs in our world. As we saw above, he was aware of how easily brothers can turn into hostile rivals, and he did not overlook that even "cannibalism" occurred among humans (Gandhi 1958–1994, p. 63:321). Despite these harsh realities, he was nevertheless convinced that "love [ ... ] is the law of life" (Gandhi 1958–1994, p. 63:321). In *Hind Swaraj*, he remarks that history tends to focus on conflicts, and often overlooks reconciliation and peace. Examples of fratricide are well known, and find their way into the news and into history books. However, what about brothers who have overcome their rivalries? "Two brothers quarrel; one of them repents and re-awakens the love that was lying dormant in him; the two again begin to live in peace; nobody takes note of this." (Gandhi 1958–1994, p. 10:48). This trust in the God-given law of love is also the basis for Gandhi's conviction that we must choose nonviolent means: "We are merely the instruments of the Almighty Will, and are therefore often ignorant of what helps us forward and what acts as an impediment. We must thus rest satisfied with a knowledge only of the means and, if these are pure, we can fearlessly leave the end to take care of itself." (Gandhi 1958–1994, p. 29:253).

Gandhi comes very close to Girard's religious reflections on ways out of violence. Both understand that human desire is at the root of violence, and is in need of our careful attention. Girard recognizes in Jesus a model for positive mimesis who does not lead his followers in mimetic rivalries because, like his heavenly father, he does not desire "greedily, egotistically" (Girard 2001, p. 14). Gandhi also refers to examples of positive mimesis that do not end up in deadly confrontations. His spiritual mentor Raychandbhai, who overcame all possessiveness and greed, and whom Gandhi tried to imitate in this respect, is one example. Besides the destructive mirroring of others, Gandhi also knew how positive attitudes can spread mimetically: "If I pull one way, my Moslem brother will pull another. If I put on a superior air, he will return the compliment." (Gandhi 1958–1994, p. 10:30).

In order to understand positive mimesis more deeply, we must explain its religious precondition. We can start with Girard's reading of the tenth commandment in the Hebrew Bible as outlawing mimetic rivalry (Girard 2001, pp. 7–9): "You shall not covet your neighbor's house; you shall not covet your neighbor's wife, or male or female slave, or ox, or donkey, or anything that belongs to your neighbor" (Ex 20:17). In order to resist this acquisitive type of desire, the prohibition to covet the objects of those we imitate is, however, not enough. We need to orient our desire toward objects that do not immediately cause divisions among us and should therefore follow the first three commandments of the Decalogue in the Bible. This means to orient us as much as possible toward God without replacing God idolatrously with temporal goods. We can find this insight in the Hebrew Bible as well as in the New Testament (Deut 6:4–9; Mt 22:37–39). The Christian tradition therefore referred to God as the highest good for our deeper longings. If God is our *summum bonum*, we can imitate each other without automatically becoming enemies, because God

is not a good that is lessened if more people reach out for it. The longing for God can be shared and imitated without being driven into violent relationships. The Christian tradition was fully aware of this important path to overcome violence, as demonstrated if we investigate the writings of Augustine, Thomas Aquinas or Dante and their distinction between temporal and eternal goods. Influenced by Girard, Charles Taylor follows this tradition: "The only way fully to escape the draw towards violence lies somewhere in the turn to transcendence, that is, through the full-hearted love of some good beyond life." (Taylor 2007, p. 639).

Gandhi is an important example to prove that this insight is not only part of the Western or Christian tradition, but forms the core of all world religions. His love of religion was not so much focused on specific religions in their concrete institutional settings, but on the "religion which underlies all religions" (Gandhi 1958–1994, p. 10:24). Where he describes the main teaching of this religion underlying all religions, he comes very close to the Christian teachings about the *summum bonum*:

Hinduism, Islamism, Zoroastrianism, Christianity and all other religions teach that we should remain passive about worldly pursuits and active about godly pursuits, that we should set a limit to our worldly ambition, and that our religious ambition should be illimitable. Our activity should be directed into the latter channel. (Gandhi 1958–1994, p. 10:24)

Gandhi is aware that nonviolence requires "a living faith in God", and mentions it on top of the qualifications that he recommended that members of the Peace Brigade will need to deal with communal riots (Gandhi 1958–1994, p. 67:126; cf. 66:405–7; Häring 1986, p. 127): "A non-violent man can do nothing save by the power and grace of God."

We can deepen this insight into the relationship between human desire and religious longing by focusing on Gandhi's understanding of his Hindu tradition. Among his most important readings was the *Bhagavadg¯ıta¯*, of which he used the last verses of the second chapter (*Bhagavadg¯ıta¯* 2:55–72) for his daily meditations and as key for the whole text (Gandhi 1958–1994, p. 49:485; cf. Chatterjee 1983, p. 113). These verses describe a man of steadfast wisdom (*sthitaprajna*) who is beyond all cravings and liberated from passion, fear, and anger (*Bhagavadg¯ıta¯* 2:54–55). For Gandhi, his friend and mentor Raychandbhai, a Jain and a trader of pearls and diamonds, was a perfect model in this sense because his life did not revolve around these worldly goods, but he rather longed passionately "to see God face to face" (Gandhi 1958–1994, p. 39:75). The following verses underline Gandhi's understanding of the *Bhagavadg¯ıta¯*8: "In a man brooding on objects of the senses, attachment to them springs up; attachment begets craving and craving begets wrath." (2:62); "The man who sheds all longing and moves without concern, free from the sense of 'I' and 'mine'—he attains peace." (2:71).

Fasting is one of the traditional means to curb desire. The following verses in the *Bhagavadg¯ıta¯*, however, explain that renunciation as such is not able to curb our cravings. Only our opening up toward the highest good can provide real and lasting peace: "And when, like the tortoise drawing in its limbs from every side, this man draws in his senses from their objects, his understanding is secure." (2:58); "When a man starves his senses, the objects of those senses disappear from him, but not the yearning for them; the yearning too departs when he beholds the Supreme." (2:59: cf. 3:27–28).

In Gandhi's comment on these verses, he claims that self-mortification and fasting are of limited use. True liberation relies on God's grace. We must discover God in our own hearts in order to submit to him faithfully: "One who thus looks upon Me as His goal and surrenders his all to Me, keeping his senses in control, is a yogi stable in spirit." (Gandhi 1958–1994, p. 49:114). It is the task of human beings to become a vessel for God's grace: "And once the grace of God has descended upon him, all his sorrows are at an end. As snow melts in the sunshine, all pain vanishes when the grace of God shines upon him and he is said to be stable in spirit." (Gandhi 1958–1994, p. 49:116).

Close to his interpretation of the *Bhagavadg¯ıta¯*, and pointing in the same direction, is Gandhi's most important mantra, which he took from the first verse of the *Isha Upanishad*, and in which he recognized the core of Hinduism: "All this that we see in this great Universe is pervaded by God. Renounce it and enjoy it. Do not covet anybody's wealth or possession." (Gandhi 1958–1994, p. 64:259; cf. 58–60, 89–90).

Gandhi meditated frequently on this mantra. In it, he discovered the religious basis for a "peace with all that lives" and a "universal brotherhood—not only brotherhood of all human beings, but of all living beings" (Gandhi 1958–1994, p. 64:260, 90). From a biblical perspective, this mantra is somewhat analogous to the Decalogue. Its last part parallels the tenth commandment, and its beginning summarizes to some degree the first table of the Decalogue. The full surrender to God liberates us from being pushed to covet mimetically our neighbour's belongings.

Gandhi's emphasis on renunciation does not mean to abstain from active engagement in the world, but to act in a spirit that is free from worldly attachments. He does not withdraw like a "cave-dweller", but toils instead in the "service of my country and therethrough of humanity" (Gandhi 1958–1994, p. 23:349). Acting in the world, however, presupposes detachment: "A follower of the path of renunciation seeks to attain it not by refraining from all activity but by carrying it on in a perfect spirit of detachment and altruism as a pure trust." (Gandhi 1958–1994, p. 37:385–86). Detachment is especially important regarding possessions, but must guide all acting in the world. This attitude has a parallel in Saint Paul's first letter to the Corinthians, in which he calls Christians to relate to property in a spirit of "having as if we have not", and to deal with the world as if one has no dealings with it (1 Cor 7:30–31; Conrad 2006, p. 216).

Gandhi describes his detached acting in the world as "striving for the Kingdom of Heaven which is *moksha*" (Gandhi 1958–1994, p. 23:349). Catholic social teaching describes a quite-similar attitude in its frequent calls to orient oneself toward God as the highest good—the *summum bonum*—and by repeatedly quoting a relevant verse from the Sermon on the Mount: "But strive first for the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well." (Mt 6:33). Gandhi, too, loved this verse, which he discovered in Tolstoy's *The Kingdom is Within You*, and he referred to it frequently (Gandhi 1958–1994, p. 64:119; Tolstoy 2010, pp. 103, 407; Emilsen 2001, pp. 56–62):

I tell you that if you will understand, appreciate and act up to the spirit of this passage, you won't even need to know what place Jesus or any other teacher occupies in your heart. If you will do the proper scavenger's work, clean and purify your hearts and get them ready, you will find that all these mighty teachers will take their places without invitation from us. (Gandhi 1958–1994, p. 35:343)

In a letter to Mirabehn, Gandhi shows how both verse 2:59 from the *Bhagavadg¯ıta¯* and Mt 6:33 direct us toward God as our highest good, who will deliver us from the fears which come along with mortality:

Objects of senses are eradicated only by seeing God face to face, in other words by faith in God. To have complete faith in God is to see Him. [ ... ] When we meet Him, we will dance in the joy of His Presence and there will be neither fear of snakes nor of the death of dear ones. For there is no death and no snake-bites in His Presence. (Gandhi 1958–1994, p. 52:257–58)

Gandhi's emphasis on overcoming the fear of death leads us to investigate the deepest roots of mimetically incited violence. According to Girard, it is a fundamental "lack of being" that pushes human beings to imitate the desire of others, and often leads to rivalries (Girard 1977, p. 146). With the help of the cultural anthropologist Ernest Becker, we can complement Girard's mimetic theory by emphasizing death anxiety as the cause of this lack of being. According to Becker, human mortality causes an existential longing for self-esteem of cosmic significance, which people can only obtain from others. This human inadequacy easily ends up in competitive struggles for recognition and other types of mimetic rivalries. Becker explains with it the "ubiquitousness of envy", and mentions "sibling rivalry" to demonstrate this human predicament (Becker 1975, p. 12; Becker 1997, p. 4):

Sibling rivalry is a critical problem that reflects the basic human condition: it is not that children are vicious, selfish, or domineering. It is that they so openly express man's tragic destiny: he must desperately justify himself as an object of primary value in the universe; he must stand out, be a hero, make the biggest possible contribution to world life, show that he *counts* more than anything or anyone else.

Becker's anthropological insight not only complements Girard's mimetic theory but addresses existential problems with which all world religions must deal.

For a better understanding of Gandhi's focus on overcoming the fear of death, we can turn to Anantanand Rambachan, a professor of religion, who discovered a fascinating "coincidence of terminology between Becker and the Upanis.ads" (Rambachan 2015, p. 30). *Advaita* understands that the usual worldly means to overcome death anxiety are futile:

The fundamental human predicament, as understood in Advaita, is that of a selfconscious being experiencing a profound sense of inner lack and insignificance and discovering that culturally approved gains such as pleasure, wealth, fame, and power do not resolve this emptiness. (Rambachan 2015, p. 26)

According to *advaita*, what Becker called a longing for "cosmic significance" is "the intrinsic desire for *brahman* (the infinite), where alone there is freedom from suffering [ ... ]. The infinite is, according to the Advaita tradition, what human beings really want, as opposed to the unending finite ends that we pursue." (Rambachan 2015, p. 30).

With the help of Rambachan's Hindu theology of liberation we can understand the religious background of Gandhi's emphasis on overcoming the fear of death by opening up to God. We can again recognize an analogy to the Christian distinction between temporal and eternal goods. Furthermore, it is not by chance that the song of Zechariah at the beginning of the Gospel of Luke states that humans who live in the "shadow of death" need the light of God's "tender mercy" to "guide our feet into the way of peace" (Lk 1:78–79). Gandhi, too, saw the overcoming of the fear of death as a prerequisite for the satyagrahis, the nonviolent soldiers. They have to be "free from fear, whether as to their possessions, false honour, their relatives, the government, bodily injuries or death" (Gandhi 1958–1994, p. 10:53). All nonviolent action depends on detachment that ultimately only God's grace can give.

#### **6. Conclusions**

Studying the life and work of Gandhi with the help of Girard's mimetic anthropology shows first that the Indian satyagrahi, too, recognized many instances of mimetic rivalries causing violence. Like Girard, he was also able to deconstruct racist claims of cultural incompatibilities by referring to jealousy and envy as the real causes of conflicts. Girard and Gandhi also share an insight into the contagious nature of violence. Violence tends to escalate, and has led in our modern world to nuclear rivalries threatening the survival of humanity. Recognizing the dangers of violence, both Girard and Gandhi understand the importance of nonviolence for the avoidance of humanity's self-destruction. They share an appreciation of the nonretaliation that is expressed in the Sermon on the Mount. They differ, however, in their interpretation of this seminal text in the New Testament. Girard stands for a more passive renunciation of violence, as his mixing up of the cheek that Jesus mentions illustrates. Gandhi recognized in Jesus an active satyagrahi in close affinity to his militant understanding of nonviolence as a third way between indifferent complacence and the retaliatory mirroring of violence. A final step shows similarities between Girard and Gandhi in their religious understandings of the ways in which to overcome destructive desires. Both recognize the dangers that follow the desire for indivisible goods. Girard's anthropology has a close affinity with the Christian teaching of God as the highest good, and the distinction between temporal and eternal goods. Gandhi's Hindu background shows analogous insights in his readings of the *Bhagavadg¯ıta¯* and the Upanishads. The deepest roots for mimetic desire can be found in humanity's mortality, which leads human beings to seek their significance competitively. By opening up to God, humans can overcome their fear of death and create peace by breaking out of mimetic entanglements. Studying Gandhi in the light of Girard's anthropology increases the plausibility of his understanding of nonviolent action. At the same time, mimetic theory is improved by a model of nonviolent practice. The discovery of many parallels in Gandhi's Hindu tradition also broadens the religious scope of Girard's approach.

**Funding:** This research received no external funding.

**Institutional Review Board Statement:** Not applicable.

**Informed Consent Statement:** Not applicable.

**Data Availability Statement:** Not applicable.

**Acknowledgments:** I would like to thank my colleagues Louise du Toit, Ephraim Meir, and Ed Noort who discussed earlier versions of this article during our common research on Gandhi at STIAS in 2021. I am also grateful to the anonymous reviewers for their helpful suggestions and to the doctoral students at the Catholic-Theological Faculty of the University of Innsbruck who read and discussed with me Gandhi's autobiography during winter semester 2019/20. Annette Edenhofer helped me to find passages showing Gandhi's awareness of violent escalation, and Tony Bharath Kenneth Mathew referred me to the *advaita* tradition in India.

**Conflicts of Interest:** The authors declare no conflict of interest.

#### **Notes**


<sup>8</sup> I follow Gandhi's translation in his "Discourses on the 'Gita'" (Gandhi 1958–1994, p. 32:94–376).
