The Subversion of the Colonial System of Humiliation: A case study of the Gandhian Strategy © Rina Kashyap Chairperson, Department of Journalism, LSR, Delhi University/ Fulbright Scholar, Center for Justice and Peacebuilding, EMU, Virginia The premise of this paper is that the colonizer institutionalizes humiliation as a strategy to control the colonized. It is also an inevitable consequence of the power dynamic of the relationship between the colonial master and the colonial subject. This culture and system of humiliation lends support to colonialism. Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi’s philosophy of non violence to free India from British colonialism witnessed a conscious incorporation of a strategy to subvert this system of shame and humiliation. His ingenuity lay in transforming into objects of pride the very features and characteristics of Indian society that were referred and used by the colonizer as sources of humiliation. Most importantly he saw humiliation as a systemic creation and not a whim or character aberration of individual Englishmen. Gandhi’s untypical strategy had a moral high ground, even as it sought to end the dehumanization of the Indians, particularly, the poor, it claimed to rehumanize the British by liberating them from the psychosocial decay of colonialism. Academic and popular discourse view shame and humiliation as leading to violent responses from their victims, creating an endless cycle of violence in which the victim- offender circle is constantly enlarged as the hitherto unconnected individuals are ensnared into a situation not of their own making. At a certain point of this process there are no neutral bystanders, the entire society is involved. In the era of Mcluhan’s village the scale of society is global. This possibly explains why even as the defeated and the vanquished are clearly visible today, the victors are not. Gandhi had foreseen these (and other) flaws as inherent in a violent response. The enduring relevance of Gandhi’s experiment continues into the twenty first century, irrespective of whether his ideas are practiced or not. The act of revisiting Gandhi is not simply a nostalgic walk down memory lane; especially so when it is compelled by the need of the hour.