Editing Satyagraha (section)

== Origin and meaning of name ==
The terms originated in a competition in the news-sheet ''[[Indian Opinion]]'' in [[South Africa]] in 1906.<ref name="Majmudar p38" /> Mr. [[Maganlal Gandhi]],  grandson of an uncle of Mahatma Gandhi, came up with the word "Sadagraha" and won the prize. Subsequently, to make it clearer, Gandhi changed it to ''Satyagraha''. "Satyagraha" is a ''[[tatpuruṣa]]'' [[compound (linguistics)|compound]] of the Sanskrit words ''[[satya]]'' (meaning "truth") and ''āgraha'' ("polite insistence", or "holding firmly to"). Satya is derived from the word "sat", which means "being". Nothing is or exists in reality except Truth. In the context of satyagraha, Truth, therefore, includes a) Truth in speech, as opposed to falsehood, b) knowledge of what is real, as opposed to nonexistent (asat), and c) good as opposed to evil or bad. This was critical to Gandhi's understanding of and faith in nonviolence: "The world rests upon the bedrock of ''satya'' or truth. ''Asatya'', meaning untruth, also means nonexistent, and ''satya'' or truth, also means that which is. If untruth does not so much as exist, its victory is out of the question. And truth being that which is, can never be destroyed. This is the doctrine of satyagraha in a nutshell."<ref>Nagler, Michael N. The Nonviolence Handbook: A Guide for Practical Action. Print.</ref>
For Gandhi, satyagraha went far beyond mere "passive resistance" and became strength in practising non-violent methods.<ref>{{cite book |last=Gross|first=David M.|year=2014|title=99 Tactics of Successful Tax Resistance Campaigns|publisher=Picket Line Press|isbn=978-1490572741|pages=15–17}}</ref> In his words:
{{quote|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 and Love or non-violence, and gave up the use of the phrase "passive resistance", in connection with it, so much so that even in English writing we often avoided it and used instead the word "''satyagraha''" itself or some other equivalent English phrase.<ref>M.K. Gandhi, ''Satyagraha in South Africa'', Navajivan, Ahmedabad, 1111, pp. 109–10.</ref>}}

In September 1935, in a letter to [[P. Kodanda Rao]], Servants of India Society, Gandhi disputed the proposition that his idea of [[civil disobedience]] was adapted from the writings of [[Henry David Thoreau]], especially the essay ''[[Civil Disobedience (Thoreau)|Civil Disobedience]]'' published in 1849.
{{quote|The statement that I had derived my idea of civil disobedience from the writings of Thoreau is wrong. The resistance to authority in South Africa was well advanced before I got the essay of Thoreau on civil disobedience. But the movement was then known as passive resistance. As it was incomplete, I had coined the word satyagraha for the Gujarati readers. When I saw the title of Thoreau’s great essay, I began the use of his phrase to explain our struggle to the English readers. But I found that even civil disobedience failed to convey the full meaning of the struggle. I therefore adopted the phrase civil resistance. Non-violence was always an integral part of our struggle."<ref>Mohandas K. Gandhi, letter to [[P. Kodanda Rao]], 10 September 1935; in ''Collected Works of Mahatma Gandhi'', electronic edition, vol. 67, p. 400.[http://www.gandhiserve.org/cwmg/VOL067.PDF]</ref>}}

Gandhi described it as follows:

{{quote|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 discovered 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 compassion. For what appears to be truth to the one may appear to be error to the other. And patience means self-suffering. So the doctrine came to mean vindication of truth, not by infliction of suffering on the opponent, but on oneself.<ref>Gandhi, M.K. ''Statement to Disorders Inquiry Committee'' January 5, 1920 (''The Collected Works of Mahatma Gandhi'' vol. 19, p. 206)</ref>}}