The non-violent technique of revolution has been given by Gandhi ji. Gandhi emphasized the value and importance of truth and nonviolence. That takes him to develop a technique of Ahimsa to which he gives the name 'Satyagraha'. It means holding fast to Truth which is existent. It is Translated in English as the truth-force or the soul-force or the spiritual-force, also love-force.
Truth according to Gandhiji is God, and Satyagraha is agraha of satya. Thus it means holding fast to truth. In this sense the doctrine of satyagraha is strictly rigoristic. Satyagraha is essentially based on a love. It rest on a religious believe that there is one God behind everything and being. The same God resides in everyone of us. If one has know the basic love for mankind he can't practice the technique of satyagraha. Gandhi also feels that a believe in rebirth is almost a pretty-condition of satyagraha. It demands selfless work and truth without having any consideration of any advantage or gain. If somehow he believes that he will get the fruits of his good work if not in this life then in its subsequent life.
Satyagraha has been described as a method of conversion rather than a method of violence. It is at least mental violence may not be physical. The aim of satyagraha is not to embrass the wrong dour. It doesn't appeal to fear. It appeals to the hearts and to the good sense of the wrong dour. It's intention is to bring about change of the heart.
The basic condition of satyagraha is nonviolence. Nonviolence in it's dynamic condition means conscious suffering. He himself says that satyagraha and its offshoots, noncooperation, and civil resistance are new names for the law of suffering. Satyagraha devoid of nonviolence is simply passive resistance.
Gandhi made a clear cut distinction between satyagraha and passive resistance. Satyagraha is a method which makes a man stronger and stronger. Passive resistance is based on the idea that it is a method of weak. Satyagraha being the method of soul-force or suppressed by any other method of power. Passive resistance will be discarded at the first available opportunity and it place authority to suppress of other.
Satyagraha is not a mere political policy but is a method of life as a whole, which can b used by individual. It is an active force to bring social, religious and political changes.
Another significant feature of satyagraha movement is non cooperation. Non cooperation mainly means the withdrawal of cooperation from the party. The very purpose behind noncooperation is not to extend cooperation to an unjust authority which is exploitative. The basic idea behind it is that all social relations, political or other wise, Gandhi in this context made a distinction civil-disobedience and non-cooperation. Civil disobedience is not wider in scope as it implies limited implication. On the other hand noncooperation presupposes the idea of duty of a social group to withdraw cooperation from unjust.
Thus noncooperation and civil disobedience used in the Gandhian scheme of thought, are the methods of resisting evil to become free. Usually noncooperation and civil disobedience are not always act of nonviolence.
Satyagraha as a understood by Gandhi is such a wider theory that can accommodate all these such nonviolence, noncooperation, fasting, economic boycott, other offshoots like negotiations, swadesha, arbitration, self-purification and so on. Satyagraha understood in the sense of a nonviolent mass action becomes a revolutionary doctrine.
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