Non-Violent Resistance

This volume, compiled by editor Bharatan Kumarappa, gathers Mohandas K. Gandhi's writings on Satyagraha, his philosophy of non-violent resistance, drawn from articles, speeches, letters, and testimony. Organized thematically across eleven sections, the book traces Gandhi's formulation, application, and ongoing reassessment of Satyagraha as both a personal discipline and a political weapon.

Kumarappa's editorial introduction establishes that Satyagraha translates literally as "clinging to truth." Because Truth for Gandhi is God, the practice amounts to resisting evil through soul-force rather than physical force. Kumarappa identifies Gandhi's intellectual sources in the Bhagavad Gita (a Hindu scripture on duty and righteousness), Jesus's Sermon on the Mount, and the writings of Henry David Thoreau, John Ruskin, and Leo Tolstoy, while crediting Gandhi alone with applying these ideas systematically in social and political life.

The opening section defines Satyagraha and distinguishes it from related concepts. Gandhi explains that he coined the term in South Africa to separate the Indians' resistance from the British suffragettes' passive resistance, which he considered a weapon of the weak that did not exclude violence. Satyagraha, by contrast, is conceived as a weapon of the strongest: It excludes violence entirely because no human being possesses absolute truth and therefore none is competent to punish another. Civil disobedience, a term Gandhi attributes to Thoreau, denotes the open breach of unjust laws with willing acceptance of punishment and constitutes one branch of Satyagraha. Non-co-operation, the withdrawal of support from a corrupt State, constitutes another. In a dialogue between a "Reader" and an "Editor," Gandhi argues that means and ends are inseparable: Fair means alone produce fair results.

The second section lays out the personal discipline a Satyagrahi, or practitioner of Satyagraha, must cultivate. Gandhi presents the vows observed at his Satyagraha Ashram, a spiritual community at Sabarmati: Truth, ahimsa (non-violence or love), brahmacharya (chastity understood as control of all the senses), and non-possession. The moral requirements for Satyagraha also include poverty and fearlessness; Gandhi insists that a coward can never practice Satyagraha and that non-retaliation demands greater courage than armed resistance. He provides instructions for conduct in jail, arguing that exemplary behavior behind bars can soften jailers and reform fellow prisoners. Gandhi also acknowledges what he calls his "Himalayan miscalculation": In 1919, he called upon people in the Kheda district of Gujarat to launch civil disobedience before they had been adequately trained, an error that taught him the necessity of forming a corps of trained volunteers.

The third section applies these principles to the Indian political struggles of 1919 to 1924. Gandhi recounts the opposition to the Rowlatt Act (emergency legislation granting British authorities sweeping powers of arrest and detention), the nationwide hartal (cessation of work) of April 6, 1919, his arrest, and the subsequent mob violence in Ahmedabad and Gujarat, which he judged more unpardonable than the government's repression. He instituted a National Week of fasting and prayer to commemorate these events and the Jalianwala Bagh massacre in Amritsar, where British troops fired on an unarmed crowd. He outlines progressive stages of non-co-operation: renouncing titles, boycotting courts and schools, withdrawing police cooperation, and finally suspending tax payments, each stage contingent on demonstrated discipline. In "The Doctrine of the Sword," Gandhi states that where the only choice lies between cowardice and violence, he would advise violence, but that non-violence is infinitely superior and India should practice it from a consciousness of strength.

The fourth section examines the Vykom Satyagraha of 1924 to 1925, a campaign in the princely state of Travancore in South India to win the right for people classified as "untouchable" to use roads surrounding a Hindu temple. Gandhi opposes non-Hindu leadership and outside financial aid, arguing that untouchability is a Hindu sin requiring Hindu penance. He forbids fasting against the orthodox opponents, explaining that a Satyagrahi's fast can only be directed against someone in sympathetic relationship, not against a perceived tyrant. The campaign succeeded in opening the roads, and Gandhi calls for follow-up constructive work among the most suppressed communities.

The fifth section presents the Kheda Satyagraha of 1918 and the Bardoli Satyagraha of 1928 as models of peasant resistance. In Kheda, Gandhi organized cultivators to refuse payment of land revenue during famine conditions after petitions failed. In Bardoli, Gandhi's close colleague Vallabhbhai Patel led a no-tax campaign against an unjust 25 percent enhancement of revenue. Gandhi kept the struggle confined to a local economic issue and insisted the people prove their mettle before any sympathetic Satyagraha, or supporting resistance from outside communities, could be considered. The settlement achieved virtually everything the Satyagrahis had demanded.

The sixth section documents the Salt Satyagraha of 1930. Gandhi selected the Salt tax for violation because it burdened the poorest Indians. His letter to the Viceroy, British India's highest colonial administrator, catalogs the evils of British rule and announces his intention to march from the Sabarmati Ashram to the coastal village of Dandi to manufacture salt illegally. During the march, Gandhi insisted on strict discipline: daily prayer, spinning, and diary-keeping. After reaching Dandi, mass civil disobedience spread across India. Gandhi was arrested on May 12, 1930, and imprisoned under a colonial-era regulation. The movement continued without him until the Gandhi-Irwin settlement of 1931, an agreement between Gandhi and the colonial government. Gandhi tells a Bombay audience that a Satyagrahi must be as eager for peace as for battle, but warns against the hatred and intimidation that accompanied some picketing during the campaign.

The seventh section addresses Satyagraha in Indian princely states, territories ruled by local monarchs rather than directly administered by the British. Gandhi critiques the Rajkot Satyagraha for relying on large numbers rather than a few genuine Satyagrahis and renounces a favorable award obtained through the Viceroy's arbitration, judging the move unworthy of a true practitioner of non-violence. He draws a broader lesson: The non-violence claimed for the movement since 1920 had not been pure, and its impurities had produced violent reactions. He identifies obstacles to any new campaign, including corruption within the Indian National Congress, communal tension, and inadequate constructive work.

The eighth section covers World War II, during which Gandhi permitted only limited individual Satyagraha to assert freedom of speech, with participants chosen for their character, public service, and belief in non-violence. When a government ordinance suppressed his Harijan weeklies, he framed the suspension itself as protest, explaining that surrendering non-essentials generates inner strength to defend the essential.

The ninth section addresses fasting, women's role in picketing, and social reform. Gandhi defines strict conditions for a Satyagrahi's fast: It must spring from the soul, be directed only at someone in sympathetic relationship, aim at reform rather than extortion, and serve as a last resort. He assigns women an exclusive role in picketing liquor and foreign cloth shops, arguing that their moral appeal is more effective than men's. He also suggests that if the Jewish people of Germany accepted Satyagraha, their voluntarily undertaken suffering would bring inner strength that no external support could provide.

The tenth section compiles Gandhi's responses to practical and theoretical questions, covering the risk of violence, Hindu-Muslim unity, the indispensability of belief in God for a Satyagrahi, the condemnation of sabotage and secrecy, and non-violent remedies for economic exploitation. He describes what a solitary Satyagrahi in a village can accomplish through service, restraint, and example.

The concluding section states Gandhi's faith that a higher law than destruction governs life. He speculates that a non-violent India could defend itself by presenting unarmed citizens willing to die rather than submit to an aggressor. He concedes that the chances of non-violence being adopted as State policy are slim but maintains that the survival of the human species itself proves love, not hate, is the law of life.