2. How does Gandhi answer the argument that his method is the recourse of the weak? Do you agree o. disagree? Type here bns ano
2. How does Gandhi answer the argument that his method is the recourse of the weak? Do you agree o. disagree? Type here bns ano
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Transcribed Image Text:2. How does Gandhi answer the argument that his method is the recourse of the weak? Do you agree o.
Type here
disagree?
Transcribed Image Text:Mohandas K. Gandhi assumed leadership of the Indian independence móvement in the
years following World War I. His doctrine of nonviolent resistance became an ideal of the
independence movement. The selection below consists of quotations from Gandhi compiled
by a friend. Read it and answer the questions that follow.
For me the law of Satyagraha, the law of love, is
an eternal principle. For the past thirty years I
have been preaching and practicing Satyagraha.
The principles of Satyagraha, as I know it today,
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. . . .
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 dis-
covered 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... . And patience
means self-suffering. So the doctrine came to
mean vindication of truth not by infliction of suf-
fering on the opponent, but on one's self.
Carried out to its utmost limit, this force is
independent... of physical force or violence.
Indeed, violence is the negation of this great spiri-
tual force, which can only be cultivated or wield-
ed by those who will entirely eschew violence. It
is a force that may be used by individuals as well
as by communities. It may be used as well in
political as in domestic affairs. Its universal appli-
cability is a demonstration of its permanence and
invincibility. It can be used alike by men, women,
and children. It is totally untrue to say that it is a
force to be used only by the weak so long as they
are not capable of meeting violence by violence. It
is impossible for those who consider themselves
to be weak to apply this force. Only those who
realize that there is something in man which is
superior to the brute nature in him, and that the
latter always yields to it, can effectively be
Satyagrahis. This force is to violence, and there-
fore to all tyranny, all injustice, what light is to
darkness. In politics, its use is based upon the
immutable maxim that government of the people
is possible only so long as they consent either
consciously or unconsciously to be governed.
And therefore the struggle on behalf of the peo-
ple mostly consists in opposing error in the
shape of unjust laws. When you have failed to
bring the error home to the law-giver by way of
petitions and the like, the only remedies open to
you, if you do not wish to submit to error, are to
compel him to yield to you either by physical
force or by suffering in your own person, by invit
ing the penalty for the breach of his laws. Hence
Satyagraha largely appears to the public as Civil
Disobedience or Civil Resistance.
Adapted from Satyagraha in Gandhiji's Own Words by M. K.
Gandhi.
Expert Solution
Step 1 Introduction
Mahatma Gandhi was a lawyer from India who gave the message of using non-violence by every individual for attaining freedom. He had successfully used this method to fight against Britain and also led India to gain freedom.
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