Mahatma Gandhi was a revolutionary thinker. Underneath the simple words and phrases that appear almost as platitudes, there is a meaning, a philosophy that challenges modern Western thought at its core. This book is written as an attempt to uncover the meanings hidden in those simple words and phrases.
Gandhi used the term satyagraha to name the strategy and philosophy he was using. The word satyagraha literally translated means ‘truth-force’. On September 11, 1906, in South Africa, Gandhi explained his use of the term. “None of us knew what name to give to our movement. I then used the term passive resistance in describing it. I did not quite understand the implications of passive resistance as I called it. I only knew that some new principle had come into being. As the struggle advanced, the phrase passive resistance gave rise to confusion and it appeared shameful to permit this great struggle to be known only by an English name. Again, that foreign phrase could hardly pass as current coin among the community. A small prize was therefore announced in Indian Opinion to be awarded to the reader who invented the best designation for our struggle. We thus received a number of suggestions. The meaning of the struggle had been then fully discussed in Indian Opinion and the competitors for the prize had fairly sufficient material to serve as a basis for their exploration. Shri Maganlal Gandhi was one of the competitors and he suggested the word Sadagraha, meaning firmness in a good cause. I liked the word, but it did not fully represent the whole idea I wished it to connote. I therefore corrected it to Satyagraha. Truth (Satya) implies love, and firmness (agraha) engenders and therefore serves as a synonym for force. I thus began to call the Indian movement Satyagraha, that is to say, the Force which is born of Truth.”