Encountering Microaggression through Extralegal Advocacy

-- By YashShah - 03 May 2015

“Because I am American,” slurs the speaker to qualify a demand for respect. His branded fabrics reveal involuntary emanations, as sweat equity of others secures present bodies from this binge drinking perversion. The observer, namesake to an epic protagonist, considers his position. A grantee of native mythologies acquired during childhood, the hero’s tales compels witness’s inquiry, but one in particular embodies our spiritual heritage. I engage the narrative through an English translation of M.K. Gandhi’s account in Gujarati. The perspective of the Mahatma guides my analysis of the observer’s choice of response to an instance of microaggression, which induces experimentation in extralegal advocacy.

My intent is to infer solutions from sources I feel I can represent, so I will not discuss contemporary events that have taken Black and Muslim lives. However, I hope that any energy that this writing invokes is authentic to the die-ins, peaceful protests, and vigils that have been conducted across the country.

A Court of Ethics

South Asian history was predominated by dynastic royal states. Symbolic conflicts between princely figures anchor Sanskrit epic poems, analogous to a role of Greek champions in Classical antiquity. Accordingly, a young Gandhi also inherits a story of the protagonist’s dilemma. Introducing his account, he narrates that a legendary prince of an emerging state directs his chariot in between two great armies. The hero represents brothers, who were exiled, despite being the rightful heirs to the throne of the Indo-Aryan regime. They have rebuilt on the future capital of India and challenge their cousins, who originally displaced them.

Cast in the warrior class, the protagonist bears dharmic duty to conquer the incumbent, which consists of extended relatives, beloved friends, and childhood mentors. However, he is unable to reconcile the anticipated performance of this mandate with moksha, the spiritual pursuit of liberation. His charioteer is reincarnate of a titan in the polytheistic tradition of the subcontinent, who has chosen to remain neutral in combat, but serves as a counsel to righteousness. The dialogue between the warrior and his divine adviser frames the practice of a major modern religion.

In a method pervasive to legal education, which M.K. Gandhi rigorously subjected himself to as a candidate for barrister at law in England, counsel directs resolution of the protagonist’s dilemma through yogic action. The hero’s conflict is treated as dissonance between causation consciousness and the unfixed self. Instead of a purely rational construction, identity is proposed to be a memory from which individual choice is distinguishable. Hence, the lasting thesis of the epic conversation is the performance of duty, without attachment to the fruits of action. Seeking this ethical model, the independent barrister was disillusioned by hegemonic colonial power on his return to India. Subsequently, he engaged ventures of experimental advocacy in South Africa that grounded his legal practice with spiritual pursuit.

Gandhian Social Enterprise

Oliver Wendell Holmes suggests that a realist inquiry into the law is modeled by the bad man’s interest in predicting of the incidence of public force. The hypothesis assumes a subject’s perspective, which can be inverted when the bad man is the legislator, enforcer, and interpreter of law. Gandhi’s activism against discrimination of Indians in South Africa sought to provoke the incidence of public force. He coordinated an advocacy infrastructure, which practiced tactical microaggressions towards processes and systems of subordination.

Following his arrival in Durban, the barrister soon directed community organizing, forming the Natal Indian Congress. Reflecting the spiritual modality of his heritage, Gandhi mobilized efforts that transcended the group’s socio-political position. He initiated a self-sustainable ashram, a prototype for economic autonomy. These developments were leveraged through media, such as The Indian Opinion, produced and distributed from the ashram. Gandhi activated progressive energies towards protests and marches, accepting the role of political prisoner when cast upon him. At the same time, he maintained a reputation as a member of British civil society, refusing to bring charges against those who perpetrated violence on his body and even leading an ambulance corps during the Second Boer War. However, these choices and activities operated as a strategy of resistance.

Satyagraha, truth force, became the political realization of Gandhi’s spiritual impetus. His activism in South Africa contributed to legislation of the Indian Relief Act, formally reversing a narrative of discrimination against the group. The essence of the advocacy strategy was to enable participants to liberate from subordinated identities. Gandhi recognized that effective practice of freedom is secured in an extralegal space. In response to Felix Cohen’s premise that “a thing is what is does,” he would perhaps suggest that an unjust law is what disobedience can provoke its agents to do. Accordingly, counterparties in exchanges of power are compelled to forfeit superior positions or be left behind in a universal pursuit of moksha.

The Harvest of Fruitless Action

All, but a handful, are eradicated by the epic war. The military champion expands the victorious regime, eventually submitting to non-material exile in order to discover liberation. M.K. Gandhi applies the extralegal consciousness formed by his experiments in South Africa. He becomes a mahatma in the process of leading the future’s largest democracy to independence through nonviolent, civil disobedience. The observer concludes that a dilemma can still be resolved with authentic practice of his identity. Spiritual and historical influences are native to his social awareness. He offers respect in a currency demanded by the speaker, before proceeding to issue his own.