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The Principles of Equity and the Sermon on the Mount as Influence in Gandhi's Truth Force

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 April 2015

Sharon Kay Dobbins
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Extract

Gandhi's Truth Force (satyagraha) was a unique synergism that included foremost ethical principles found in British law and religion and Hindu tradition and culture. This truth force was rooted in Gandhi's childhood experiences as an Indian Hindu and was cultivated in his formal legal training in London. It culminated in the mass application of nonviolent noncooperation which eventually led to the liberation of the untouchable class in India and forced the British to give India her independence.

The focus of this essay is directed toward two specific influences on Gandhi's Truth Force, namely, the Sermon on the Mount and the Principles of Equity—influences acknowledged by Gandhi as formative in his philosophy. These two formative perspectives were two major sources providing for Gandhi the just means and legitimate ends of social and racial equality. In them he discovered a common ethical language, which would become a part of the language he used to synchronize the actions of millions of Indians in concerted non-cooperation and, at the same time, successfully capture the British conscience for his cause of a free India.

Type
Research Article
Information
Journal of Law and Religion , Volume 6 , Issue 1 , 1988 , pp. 131 - 144
Copyright
Copyright © Center for the Study of Law and Religion at Emory University 1988

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References

1. Truth Force is the literal translation of satyagraha. The term satyagraha was coined by Gandhi early in his South African campaign. He offered a nominal prize through the Indian Opinion for the best suggestion of a name for the Indian struggle for equality. Shri Maganlal Gandhi won the prize with his ‘sadagraha’ (sat[tr]uth, agraha-firmness). M.K. Gandhi made the slight alteration to satyagraha since “Truth (satya) implies Love, and Firmness (agraha) engenders and therefore serves as a synonym for force … that is to say, the Force which is born of Truth and Love or Nonviolence …” Gandhi, M.K., The Essential Gandhi, An Anthology of His Writings 86–87 (1962)Google Scholar.

2. Gandhi distinguishes nonviolent noncooperation from passive resistance. Passive resistance, he maintains, implies weakness; whereas nonviolent noncooperation (satyagraha) implies strength. “Real suffering bravely born melts even a heart of stone. Such is the potency of suffering … there lies the key to satyagraha. Id. at 87-88.

3. Although a good deal of scholarly attention has been devoted to the influence of the Sermon on the Mount in Gandhi's Truth Force, very little attention has been given to the principles of Equity. Surprisingly, even Upadhyaya's, R.B.Social Responsibility of Business and the Trusteeship Theory of Mahatma Gandhi (1976)Google Scholar, though discussing thoroughly the equitable notion of trusteeship, makes no mention of Snell's Principles of Equity. Nor does V.S. Hegde in his volume Gandhi's Philosophy of Law even so much as cite Snell's treatise.

4. Gandhi, M.K., Gandhi, An Autobiography 35 (1957)Google Scholar.

5. Id. at 21.

6. Id. at 67.

7. Id. at 69.

8. Hunt, J.D., Gandhi in London 19 (1978)Google Scholar.

9. India's Nobel Prize-winning poet, Rabindranath Tagore, was the first to recognize Gandhi as the “Mahatma“—the great soul. Torgersen, D., People of Destiny-Gandhi 50 (1968)Google Scholar.

10. Gandhi, M.K., Nonviolent Resistance 375 (1951)Google Scholar.

11. Gandhi, M.K., All Men are Brothers 82 (1982)Google Scholar.

12. Watson, , Satyagraha: The Gandhian Synthesis, 55 Journal of Indian History 328 (1977)Google Scholar.

13. Snell, E.H.T., Snell's Principles of Equity 6 (1982)Google Scholar.

14. Id. at 5-22.

15. M.K. Gandhi, supra note 4, at 80, 83.

16. Id. at 265.

17. E.H.T. Snell, supra note 13, at 28-45.

18. M.K. Gandhi, supra note 1, at 85.

19. Id. at 87.

20. Id. at 88-89.

21. Gandhi, M.K., Selected Writings of Mahatma Gandhi 73–74 (1952)Google Scholar.

22. Id. at 145.

23. M.K. Gandhi, supra note 11, at 28.

24. Nelson, , Satyagraha: Gandhian Principles of Nonviolent Noncooperation, 15 Journal of Religious Thought 20 (1958)Google Scholar.

25. Id. at 2.

26. Easwaran, E., Gandhi the Man 53 (1978)Google Scholar.

27. M.K. Gandhi, supra note 21, at 77.