Explain the ideology of Satyagraha, as said by Mahatma Gandhi. (Class 10 CBSE NCERT History Nationalism in India)
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Answer:
★sᴀᴛʏᴀɢʀᴀʜᴀ ᴡᴀs ᴀ ɴᴏᴠᴇʟ ᴍᴇᴛʜᴏᴅ ᴏғ ᴍᴀss ᴀɢɪᴛᴀᴛɪᴏɴ. ᴛʜᴇ ɪᴅᴇᴀ ᴏғ sᴀᴛʏᴀɢʀᴀʜᴀ ᴇᴍᴘʜᴀsɪᴢᴇᴅ ᴜᴘᴏɴ ᴛʜᴇ ᴘᴏᴡᴇʀ ᴏғ ᴛʀᴜᴛʜ ᴀɴᴅ ᴛʜᴇ ɴᴇᴇᴅ ᴛᴏ sᴇᴀʀᴄʜ ғᴏʀ ᴛʀᴜᴛʜ. ɪᴛ sᴜɢɢᴇsᴛᴇᴅ ᴛʜᴀᴛ ɪғ ᴛʜᴇ ᴄᴀᴜsᴇ ᴡᴀs ᴛʀᴜᴇ ᴀɴᴅ ɪғ ᴛʜᴇ sᴛʀᴜɢɢʟᴇ ᴡᴀs ᴀɢᴀɪɴsᴛ ɪɴᴊᴜsᴛɪᴄᴇ, ᴛʜᴇɴ ᴘʜʏsɪᴄᴀʟ ғᴏʀᴄᴇ ᴡᴀs ɴᴏᴛ ɴᴇᴄᴇssᴀʀʏ ᴛᴏ ғɪɢʜᴛ ᴛʜᴇ ᴏᴘᴘʀᴇssᴏʀ.
Answer:
Satyagraha (Sanskrit: सत्याग्रह; satya: "truth", āgraha: "insistence" or "holding firmly to"), or holding onto truth,[1] or truth force, is a particular form of nonviolent resistance or civil resistance. Someone who practices satyagraha is a satyagrahi.
The term satyagraha was coined and developed by Mahatma Gandhi (1869–1948).[2] He deployed satyagraha in the Indian independence movement and also during his earlier struggles in South Africa for Indian rights. Satyagraha theory influenced Martin Luther King Jr.'s and James Bevel's campaigns during the Civil Rights Movement in the United States, and many other social justice and similar movements.
The term originated in a competition in the news-sheet Indian Opinion in South Africa in 1906.[2] Mr. Maganlal Gandhi, grandson of an uncle of Mahatma Gandhi, came up with the word "Sadagraha" and won the prize. Subsequently, to make it clearer, Gandhi ji changed it to Satyagraha. "Satyagraha" is a tatpuruṣa compound of the Sanskrit words satya (meaning "truth") and āgraha ("polite insistence", or "holding firmly to"). Satya is derived from the word "sat", which means "being". Nothing is or exists in reality except Truth. In the context of satyagraha, Truth therefore includes a) Truth in speech, as opposed to falsehood, b) what is real, as opposed to nonexistent (asat) and c) good as opposed to evil, or bad. This was critical to Gandhi's understanding of and faith in nonviolence: "The world rests upon the bedrock of satya or truth. Asatya, meaning untruth, also means nonexistent, and satya or truth also means that which is. If untruth does not so much as exist, its victory is out of the question. And truth being that which is, can never be destroyed. This is the doctrine of satyagraha in a nutshell."[5] For Gandhi, satyagraha went far beyond mere "passive resistance" and became strength in practising non-violent methods.[6] In his words:
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.[7]
In September 1935, a letter to P. K. Naidoo, Servants of India Society, Gandhi disputed the proposition that his idea of Civil Disobedience was adapted from the writings of Henry David Thoreau especially Civil Disobedience of 1849.
The statement that I had derived my idea of civil disobedience from the writings of Thoreau is wrong. The resistance to authority in South Africa was well advanced before I got the essay of Thoreau on civil disobedience. But the movement was then known as passive resistance. As it was incomplete, I had coined the word satyagraha for the Gujarati readers. When I saw the title of Thoreau’s great essay, I began the use of his phrase to explain our struggle to the English readers. But I found that even civil disobedience failed to convey the full meaning of the struggle. I therefore adopted the phrase civil resistance. Non-violence was always an integral part of our struggle