HPAS/Allied Mains 2022 Answer Writing Challenge Day 85 : Model Answer

Question: What do you means by Satyagraha? (4)

 Answer:

Satyagraha is a compound of two Sanskrit nouns Satya, meaning truth and Agraha, meaning, “firm grasping”. Thus Satyagraha literally means devotion to truth, remaining firm on the truth and resisting untruth actively but nonviolently. Since the only way for Gandhi getting to the truth is by nonviolence, it follows that Satyagraha implies an unwavering search for the truth using nonviolence.

Satyagraha according to Michael Nagler literally means ‘clinging to truth,’ and that was exactly how Gandhi understood it: “clinging to the truth that we are all one under the skin, that there is no such thing as a ‘win/lose’ confrontation because all our important interests are really the same, that consciously or not every single person wants unity and peace with every other”. Satyagraha means ‘truth force’ , ‘soul force’ or as Martin Luther Jr would call it ‘love in action.’ Satyagraha has often been defined as the philosophy of nonviolent resistance most famously employed by Mahatma Gandhi, in forcing an end to the British domination.

Nonviolence was not Gandhi’s invention. He is however called the father of nonviolence. He raised nonviolent action to a level never before achieved. Gandhi is the person who came up with the name and brought together different related ideas under one concept: Satyagraha.