Satyagraha

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For an account of the opera of that title by Philip Glass, see Satyagraha (opera).

For a detailed account of Mohandas Gandhi's philosophy, see Gandhism.

Image:Gandhi studio 1931.jpg

Satyagraha (Sanskrit: सत्याग्रह satyāgraha) is the philosophy of nonviolent resistance most famously employed by Mohandas Gandhi in forcing an end to the British Raj in India and also during his struggles in South Africa. The concept of Satyagraha was also adopted by Martin Luther King Jr. during the Civil Rights Movement in the United States.

1 Meaning of the Term
2 Definition and Conduct of Satyagraha
3 Origins of Satyagraha
4 See Also

[edit] Meaning of the Term

Satya is Sanskrit for "truth", and agraha can be rendered as "effort/endeavor". Satyagraha, as defined by Gandhi, can mean "an effort to discover, discern, obtain or apply the Truth". The term was popularized during the Indian Independence Movement, and is used in many Indian languages including Hindi.

[edit] Definition and Conduct of Satyagraha

Gandhi's definition of Satyagraha relied on three basic tenets: satya or truth, implying openness, honesty, and fairness; ahimsa, meaning physical and mental non-violence; and tapasya, literally penance, in this context self-sacrifice.

In Gandhi's words:

In the application of Satyagraha, I discovered, in the earliest stages, that pursuit of Truth did not admit of violence being inflicted on one's opponent, but that he must be weaned from error by patience and sympathy. For, what appears to be truth to the one may appear to be error to the other. And patience means self-suffering. So the doctrine came to mean vindication of Truth, not by infliction of suffering on the opponent but one's own self.

Satyagraha and its offshoots, non-cooperation and civil disobedience, are based on the law of suffering, a doctrine that the endurance of suffering is a means to an end. This end usually implies a moral upliftment or progress of an individual or society. Therefore, non-cooperation in Satyagraha is in fact a means to secure the cooperation of the opponent consistently with truth and justice. The essence of non-violent resistance is that it seeks to eliminate antagonisms without harming the antagonists themselves, as opposed to violent resistance, which is meant to cause harm to the antagonist. A Satyagrahi therefore does not seek to end or destroy the relationship with the antagonist, but instead seeks to transform or "purify" it to a higher level. A euphemism sometimes used for Satyagraha is that it is a "silent force" or a "soul force" (a term also used by Martin Luther King Jr. during his famous "I Have a Dream" speech). It arms the individual with moral power rather than physical power. Satyagraha is also termed a "universal force", as it essentially "makes no distinction between kinsmen and strangers, young and old, man and woman, friend and foe".

Civil disobedience is also seen as a social right in the concept of Satyagraha, however, civil disobedience cannot stem from irresponsibility. Therefore, a Satyagrahi obeys the laws of society intelligently and of his own free will, because he considers it his sacred duty to do so. According to Gandhi, only when a person has thus obeyed the laws of society scrupulously, does he have the right to make a judgment as to which laws are just, and must be respected, and which laws are unjust and must be disobeyed.

The Satyagrahi (meaning the individual performing Satyagraha) is meant to practice self-effacement, humility, patience and faith. Fasting is seen as powerful tool to achieve personal self-restraint that can be projected outwards to show determination and courage.

Gandhi is quoted to have said:

Love does not burn others, it burns itself. Therefore, a satyagrahi, i.e., a civil resister, will joyfully suffer even unto death.It follows, therefore, that a civil resister, whilst he will strain every nerve to compass the end of the existing rule, will do no intentional injury in thought, word or deed to the person of a single Englishman.

He also repeatedly pointed out the differences between his ideas and the Western ideas of passive resistance:

I have drawn the distinction between passive resistance as understood and practised in the West and satyagraha before I had evolved the doctrine of the latter to its full logical and spiritual extent. I often used 'passive resistance' and 'satyagraha' as synonymous terms: but as the doctrine of satyagraha developed, the expression 'passive resistance' ceases even to be synonymous, as passive resistance has admitted of violence as in the case of suffragettes and has been universally acknowledged to be a weapon of the weak. Moreover passive resistance does not necessarily involve complete adherence to truth under every circumstance. Therefore it is different from satyagraha in three essentials: Satyagraha is a weapon of the strong; it admits of no violence under any circumstance whatever; and it ever insists upon truth. I think I have now made the distinction perfectly clear.

[edit] Origins of Satyagraha

Mahatma Gandhi coined the term Satyagraha to describe his philosophy of nonviolent resistance. In his words,

None of us knew what name to give to our movement. I then used the term passive resistance in describing it. I did not quite understand the implications of passive resistance as I called it. I only knew that some new principle had come into being. As the struggle advanced, the phrase passive resistance gave rise to confusion and it appeared shameful to permit this great struggle to be known only by an English name. Again, that foreign phrase could hardly pass as current coin among the community. A small prize was therefore announced in Indian Opinion to be awarded to the reader who invented the best designation for our struggle. We thus received a number of suggestions. The meaning of the struggle had been then fully discussed in Indian Opinion and the competitors for the prize had fairly sufficient material to serve as a basis for their exploration. Shri Maganlal Gandhi was one of the competitors and he suggested the word Sadagraha, meaning firmness in a good cause. I liked the word, but it did not fully represent the whole idea I wished it to connote. I therefore corrected it to Satyagraha. Truth (Satya) implies love, and firmness (agraha) engenders and therefore serves as a synonym for force. I thus began to call the Indian movement Satyagraha, that is to say, the Force which is born of Truth and Love or non-violence, and gave up the use of the phrase passive resistance, in connection with it, so much so that even in English writing we often avoided it and used instead the word Satyagraha itself or some other equivalent English phrase. This then was the genesis of the movement which came to be known as Satyagraha, and of the word used as a designation for it.

[edit] See Also

Important figures and authors
Hindu reform movements v • d • e</div>
Brahmo Samaj · Arya Samaj · Ramakrishna Mission · Gandhism · Hindutva
Sri Aurobindo ·Ananda Coomaraswamy · Alain Daniélou ·Koenraad Elst ·David Frawley ·Sita Ram Goel ·M. S. Golwalkar · Mahatma Gandhi · The Mother ·Harsh Narain ·Swami Prabhupada · V. D. Savarkar · Swami Sivananda · Arun Shourie · Ram Swarup · Rabindranath Tagore · B. G. Tilak ·Yogananda · Raja Ram Mohun Roy · Debendranath Tagore ·Keshub Chandra Sen ·Dayananda Saraswati · Ramakrishna · Vivekananda ·