For the past thirty years I have been preaching and practising Satyagraha. The principles of "Satyagraha," as I know it to-day, constitute a gradual evolution.
The term 'Satyagraha' was coined by me in South Africa to express the force that the Indians there used for full eight years, and it was coined in order to distinguish it from the movement, then going on in the United Kingdom and South Africa under the name of Passive Resistance.
Its root meaning is 'holding on to truth'; hence, Truth-force. I have also called it Love-force or Soul-force. 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" differs from Passive Resistance as the North Pole from the South. The latter has been conceived as a weapon of the weak and does not exclude the use of physical force or violence for the purpose of gaining one's end; whereas the former has been conceived as a weapon of the strongest and excludes the use of violence in any shape or form.
When Daniel disregarded the laws of the Medes and Persians which offended his conscience and meekly suffered the punishment for his disobedience, he offered 'Satyagraha' in its purest form. Socrates would not refrain from preaching what he knew to be the truth to the Athenian youth, and bravely suffered the punishment of death. He
