Satyagraha is a term at the centre of Gandhi's philosophy of non-violence.

Gandhi himself explained the term as follows: I coined the word Satyagraha in South Africa in order to give a name to the power with which the Indians there fought for a full 8 years (1906 - 1914). I spoke of Satyagraha in order to force a wedge between this power and the movement which was referred to in Great Britain and South Africa as passive resistance. Satyagraha is as far away from passive resistance as the North Pole is from the South Pole. Passive resistance is the weapon of the weak and, therefore, the application of physical pressure or violence are not ruled out in the efforts to reach its aims. In contrast, Satyagraha is the weapon of the strongest. The use of force of any kind is ruled out. (...) This law of love is nothing other than the love of truth. Without truth there is no love. (...)

Satyagraha is also referred to as the power of the soul, because the certainty of an inherent soul is necessary, if the Satyagraha is to believe that death does not mean the end but the summit of the fight. (...) And in the knowledge that the soul outlives the body, does he not wait impatiently to experience the victory of truth within his present body. (...) And despite this, it has been said that the Satyagraha - as we understand it - could only be practiced by a chosen minority. In my experience, the opposite is true. When its basic principles are understood - hold on to the truth and stand up for it through one's own suffering - then everyone can practice Satyagraha. (...) At a political level, however, battle in the name of the people is primarily aimed at taking action against unjust laws. When petitions and all other attempts at persuading a legislator to recognize the injustice of a law have failed, then the only means left open to those protesters, not prepared to obey the law, is to force the legislator to abolish the law. This is done by breaking the law and bringing punishment and suffering upon oneself. Therefore, Satyagraha still appears to the public as civil disobedience or civil resistance. "Civil" should be taken as non-criminal action.

THE 6 PRINCIPLES OF NON- VIOLENCE AND SATYAGRAHA

Nonviolence is a way of life for courageous people.

Nonviolence means seeking friendship and understanding among those who are different from you. Nonviolence defeats injustice, not people. Nonviolence holds that suffering can educate and transform people and societies. Nonviolence chooses loving solutions, not hateful ones. Nonviolence means the entire universe embraces justice.

THE 6 STEPS TO NONVIOLENCE AND SATYAGRAHA

Gather Information Learn all you can about the problems you see in your community through the media, social and civic organizations, and by talking to the people involved.
Educate Others Armed with your new knowledge, it is your duty to help those around you, such as your neighbors, relatives, friends and co-workers, better understand the problems facing society. Build a team of people devoted to finding solutions. Be sure to include those who will be directly affected by your work.

THE 6 STEPS TO NONVIOLENCE AND SATYAGRAHA

Remain Committed Accept that you will face many obstacles and challenges as you and your team try to change society. Agree to encourage and inspire one another along the journey.
Peacefully Negotiate Talk with both sides. go to the people in your community who are in trouble and who are deeply hurt by society's ills. Also go to those people who are contributing to the breakdown of a peaceful society. Use humor, intelligence and grace to lead to solutions that benefit the greater good.

THE 6 STEPS TO NONVIOLENCE AND SATYAGRAHA

Take Action Peacefully This step is often used when negotiation fails to produce results, or when people need to draw broader attention to a problem. it can include tactics such as peaceful demonstrations, letterwriting and petition campaign.
Reconcile Keep all actions and negotiations peaceful and constructive. Agree to disagree with some people and with some groups as you work to improve society. Show all involved the benefits of changing, not what they will give up by changing.

The essence of Satyagraha 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. .

Gandhi contrasted satyagraha (holding on to truth) with duragraha (holding on by force), as in protest meant more to harass than enlighten opponents. He wrote: There must be no impatience, no barbarity, no insolence, no undue pressure. If we want to cultivate a true spirit of democracy, we cannot afford to be intolerant. Intolerance betrays want of faith in one's cause.[16] Civil disobedience and non-cooperation as practised under Satyagraha are based on the law of suffering,[17] 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

26th April, 1928

Shri Valji Desais translation has been revised by me, and I can assure the reader that the spirit of the original in Gujarati has been very faithfully kept by the translator. The original chapters were all written by me from memory. They were written partly in the Yeravda jail and partly outside after my premature release. As the translator knew of this fact, he made a diligent study of the file of Indian

Opinion and wherever he discovered slips of memory, he has not

hesitated to make the necessary corrections. The reader will share my pleasure that in no relevant or material in particular has there been any slip. I need hardly mention that those who are following the weekly chapters of My Experiments with Truth cannot afford to miss these chapters on satyagraha, if they would follow in all its detail the working out of the search after Truth. M. K. GANDHI SABARMATI

The satyagraha struggle of the Indians in South Africa lasted eight years. The term satyagraha was invented and

employed in

connection therewith. I had long entertained a desire to write a history of that struggle myself. Some things only I could write. Only the general who conducts a campaign can know the objective of each particular move. And as this was the first attempt to apply the principle of satyagraha to politics on a large scale, it is necessary any day that the public should have an idea of its development.
THE COLLECTED WORKS OF MAHATMA GANDHI

At Wadhvan station Motilal came up to me with a small party. He gave me some account of the hardships inflicted on the people at Viramgam, and said: Please do something to end this trouble. It will be doing an immense service to Saurashtra, the land of your birth. There was an expression of both compassion and firmness in his eyes. Are you ready to go to jail? I asked. We are ready to march to the gallows, was the quick reply. Jail will do for me, I said. But see that you do not leave me in the lurch. That only time can show, said Motilal.
THE COLLECTED WORKS OF MAHATMA GANDHI

ohandas Karamchand Gandhi was 24

when he arrived in South Africa in 1893. Gandhi arrived in South Africa in 1893 to work as a legal representative for the Muslim Indian Traders based in the city of Pretoria. Gandhi's work in South Africa dramatically changed him, as he faced the discrimination commonly directed at black South Africans and Indians. One day in court at Durban, the magistrate asked him to remove his turban. In late May or early June 1893, he was thrown off a train atPietermaritzburg, in-Annchrisb123 (talk) 08:26, 2 May 2012 (UTC) [Natal], after refusing to move from the first class to a third class coach while holding a valid first class ticket. Traveling further on by stagecoach, he suffered other indignities on the journey as well. These incidents have been acknowledged by several biographers as a turning point in his life, his later social activism.

It was while witnessing firsthand this racism, that he

heard of a bill in the Natal Legislative Assembly curtailing the voting rights of local Indians. When he brought this up with his hosts, they lamented that they did not have the expertise necessary to oppose the bill, and implored Gandhi to stay and help them.In regards to this bill Gandhi sent out a memorial to Joseph Chamberlin, British Colonial Secretary, asking him to reconsider his position on this bill. He circulated several petitions to both the Natal Legislature and the British Government in opposition to the bill. Though unable to halt the bill's passage, his campaign was successful in drawing attention to the grievances of Indians in South Africa. Supporters convinced him to remain in Durban to continue fighting against the injustices levied against Indians in South Africa. He founded the Natal Indian Congress in 1894, with himself as the Secretary. Through this organization, he molded the Indian community of South Africa into a homogeneous political force, publishing documents detailing Indian grievances and evidence of British discrimination in South Africa.

Gandhi returned briefly to India

in 1896 to bring his wife and children to live with him in South Africa. When he returned in January 1897, a white mob attacked and tried to lynch him. In an early indication of the personal values that would shape his later campaigns, he refused to press charges against any member of the mob, stating it was one of his principles not to seek redress for a personal wrong in a court of law.

At the onset of the South African War, Gandhi argued that Indians must support the war effort in order to legitimize their claims to full citizenship, organizing a volunteer ambulance corps of 300 free Indians and 800 indentured labourers called the Indian Ambulance Corps, one of the few medical units to serve wounded black South Africans. He himself was a stretcher-bearer at the Battle of Spion Kop, and was decorated. At the conclusion of the war, however, the situation for the Indians did not improve, but continued to deteriorate.

In 1908, the Transvaal government promulgated the Asiatic Registration Act, compelling registration of the colony's Indian population. At a mass protest meeting held in Johannesburg on September 11 that year, Gandhi adopted his methodology of satyagraha (devotion to the truth), or non-violent protest, for the first time, calling on his fellow Indians to defy the new law and suffer the punishments for doing so, rather than resist through violent means. This plan was adopted, leading to a seven-year struggle in which thousands of Indians were jailed (including Gandhi himself on many occasions), flogged, or even shot, for striking, refusing to register, burning their registration cards, or engaging in other forms of non-violent resistance.

While the government was

successful in repressing the Indian protesters, the public outcry stemming from the harsh methods employed by the South African government in the face of peaceful Indian protesters finally forced South African General Jan Christiaan Smuts to negotiate a compromise with Gandhi.

They did eventually release him!!!

SALT SATYAGRAHA

GANDHIJI WITH BADSAH KHAN