Satyagraha: The Means

It is now that Gandhi’s idea of satyagraha is transformed into a method. This method is a rejuvenating prospect for the Hindu people, as well as the British, as they come to the realization that they cannot hold these people against their will under the government that they have imposed. It is this potential to change an opponents position that makes satyagraha a method more than a mere concept for transformation from false to truth.

This is also why Gandhi, while undeniably an advocate for nonviolence, used satyagraha as a weapon. Gandhi strategically planned every movement, every plan laid in order to outmaneuver and outsmart his oppressors. However, the method of satyagraha was more than simple tactics; there was a feeling intrinsic in it that bespoke of patience and sympathy that was unnerving in itself. The British could not handle having the tables turned on them, to where, suddenly, they were the ones being patiently handled and pitied.

Gandhi was masterful in his ability to use the system against his enemy, and that is part of what satyagraha was. “A Satyagrahi obeys the laws of society intelligently and of his own free will, because he considers it to be his sacred duty to do so. It is only when a person has thus obeyed the laws of society scrupulously that he is in a position to judge as to which particular laws are good and just and which unjust and iniquitous. Only then does the right accrue to him of civil disobedience of certain laws in well-defined circumstances.” The followers of satyagraha were to obey the laws as far as it went, because when they disobeyed the laws then they fought the entire system, not the oppression alone.

In the end, Mahatma Gandhi’s usage of satyagraha was supreme in its effectiveness and implementation. Gandhi knew how to move people, but it was not necessarily his intent as a malefactor’s intent was, but for what he considered the betterment of not only his own people, but also his people’s oppressors. He found a method that brought satisfaction, and with that satisfaction came peace. Through no other way, by any means that we now possess, or have ever possessed, is it possible to quietly and peacefully end the oppression of one people by another, or any other category or oppression, without the application of violent means. Satyagraha is that means.