Gandhi's civil disobedience: truth, ahimsa and satyagraha, Thoreau's influence, and the Neo-Gandhian movements of King and Mandela
Political Science - State and Political Obligations · Unit V · Topic 16 of 16 · 6 min read
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1. Satya (truth)
Truth is the foundation of Gandhi’s thought. He first said “God is Truth” and later reversed it to “Truth is God”, so that even an atheist could share the aim. Truth means honesty in thought, speech and action, and the pursuit of what is right. Since no one possesses the whole truth, a person must hold his view firmly but never impose it by force: hence non-violence. His autobiography is titled The Story of My Experiments with Truth (1927–29).
2. Ahimsa (non-violence)
- Ahimsa is more than not killing. It means not harming any living being in thought, word or deed, and in its positive form it means love, even of the opponent.
- It is the means to truth: “Ahimsa is the means; Truth is the end.” Means and ends are inseparable; good ends cannot be reached by bad means.
- It is the weapon of the strong, not the weak. Gandhi said that where the only choice is between cowardice and violence, he would advise violence; but non-violence is infinitely superior to both.
- Its roots lie in Jainism, Buddhism, the Bhagavad Gita (as Gandhi read it) and the Sermon on the Mount.
3. Satyagraha (truth-force)
Gandhi coined the word in South Africa around 1906–08 (satya truth + agraha firmness) for the movement against the Transvaal law requiring Indians to register and carry passes. He rejected the English phrase “passive resistance” because satyagraha is active, and because passive resistance permits hatred and does not exclude violence.
Principles:
- Adherence to truth and non-violence at all times.
- Self-suffering: the satyagrahi accepts suffering to convert, not coerce, the opponent.
- No hatred of the opponent; the aim is to change his heart.
- Openness: no secrecy, prior notice to authorities.
- Acceptance of punishment.
- Discipline, self-control and fearlessness.
- Readiness to negotiate and compromise on non-essentials.
Techniques: non-cooperation, civil disobedience (breach of specific unjust laws), hartal (strike), fasting, picketing, boycott (of foreign cloth, courts, schools), hijrat (voluntary migration), and constructive work (khadi, removal of untouchability, Hindu-Muslim unity, village industries).
4. Influence of Thoreau and others
- Thoreau. Gandhi read Civil Disobedience in South Africa, around 1907, and printed extracts in his paper Indian Opinion. He took from it the idea that a just person must refuse to cooperate with an unjust government and accept prison. He acknowledged the debt but said that satyagraha had already begun before he read Thoreau.
- Tolstoy. The Kingdom of God Is Within You (1894) on non-resistance to evil by force; Gandhi corresponded with Tolstoy and named Tolstoy Farm (1910) after him.
- Ruskin. Unto This Last (1860), which Gandhi paraphrased as Sarvodaya (the welfare of all): dignity of labour and the good of the individual in the good of all.
5. Gandhi’s campaigns in India
| Year | Campaign |
|---|---|
| 1917 | Champaran: indigo cultivators in Bihar |
| 1918 | Kheda (peasants, revenue) and Ahmedabad (mill workers) |
| 1920–22 | Non-Cooperation Movement; withdrawn after Chauri Chaura (February 1922) |
| 1930–34 | Civil Disobedience Movement: Dandi March, 12 March to 6 April 1930, breaking the salt law |
| 1940–41 | Individual Satyagraha (Vinoba Bhave the first satyagrahi) |
| 1942 | Quit India Movement: “Do or Die” |
The Civil Disobedience Movement of 1930 is the standard example. Gandhi marched about 240 miles from Sabarmati Ashram to Dandi and made salt from seawater, breaking the salt law. The movement spread to boycott of foreign cloth, non-payment of taxes and forest-law breaches; tens of thousands were arrested. It was suspended under the Gandhi–Irwin Pact (March 1931), Gandhi attended the Second Round Table Conference, and the movement resumed in 1932 before being withdrawn in 1934.
6. The Neo-Gandhian movement
Neo-Gandhism is the application of Gandhian methods (non-violence, satyagraha, mass non-cooperation) after Gandhi, in India and abroad, to new problems: racial discrimination, land, corruption, environment.
(a) Martin Luther King Jr. (USA)
- Led the Montgomery bus boycott (1955–56) after Rosa Parks’s arrest for refusing to give up her seat; it ended with the Supreme Court ruling bus segregation unconstitutional.
- Visited India in 1959 and called Gandhi’s method the guiding light of the movement.
- Letter from Birmingham Jail (1963): “one has a moral responsibility to disobey unjust laws”; an unjust law is one out of harmony with the moral law; the protester must break it “openly, lovingly, and with a willingness to accept the penalty”.
- March on Washington, August 1963 (“I Have a Dream”); Nobel Peace Prize 1964.
- Results: Civil Rights Act, 1964 and Voting Rights Act, 1965. He was assassinated in 1968.
(b) Nelson Mandela (South Africa)
- Led the African National Congress’s Defiance Campaign (1952) against apartheid laws, a Gandhian mass breach of pass and segregation laws. Gandhi’s own satyagraha had begun in South Africa, so the link is direct.
- After the Sharpeville massacre (1960) and the banning of the ANC, Mandela concluded that non-violence alone could not succeed and co-founded the armed wing Umkhonto we Sizwe (1961), targeting installations rather than people.
- Sentenced to life imprisonment at the Rivonia Trial (1964); released in 1990 after 27 years; negotiated the end of apartheid; Nobel Peace Prize 1993 with F. W. de Klerk; elected President in 1994.
- His Gandhian side shows in his refusal of revenge after release, the policy of reconciliation and the Truth and Reconciliation Commission.
(c) Neo-Gandhian movements in India
- Bhoodan (land-gift) movement of Vinoba Bhave, from 1951, persuading landowners to give land to the landless.
- Jayaprakash Narayan’s Total Revolution (1974–75) against corruption, leading up to the Emergency.
- Chipko movement (1973 onwards) in the Himalayas, villagers hugging trees to stop felling (Sunderlal Bahuguna, Chandi Prasad Bhatt).
- Narmada Bachao Andolan (Medha Patkar) on dam displacement.
- Anna Hazare’s fast (2011) for a Lokpal, followed by the Lokpal and Lokayuktas Act, 2013.
How this is examined
January 2026 (80 marks) Q.5(a): “Write about ‘Non-violence and Sathyagraha’ of Gandhism” and Q.5(b): “Gandhism”; January 2026 (100 marks) Q.9(b): “Views of Neo-Gandhian Movement”; February 2025 Q.5(b): “Gandhiji’s Civil Disobedience Movement”; October 2023: “What is Neo-Gandhian political thought?”; August 2024: note on Nelson Mandela. For Neo-Gandhism, give the meaning, then King, Mandela and two Indian movements.
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