Is Gandhian Mode of Protest (Satyagraha) Still Relevant?
Is Gandhian Mode of Protest (Satyagraha) still relevant?
Satyagraha is the method of resistance and mass movement developed by Gandhi during his days in South Africa and later epitomised in India during its freedom struggle against British Empire. Satyagraha was developed as a broad term for techniques of civil disobedience, non cooperation, hunger strike and protest. Satyagraha is a portmanteau of the Sanskrit words Satya (meaning "truth") and Agraha ("insistence", or "holding firmly to"). For Gandhi, Satyagraha went far beyond mere "passive resistance" and became strength in practising non-violent methods. Later on Satyagraha went to become the most successful resistance technique and inspired many other great leaders like Martin Luther King Junior, Nelson Mandela and others. Not only it led to freedom of our country but also created a cadre of thousands of activists for whom it became a mode of life and they were there to shape India's future in right form to ensure not just independence but also to the face challenges that a newly developed nation face.
However it was felt that today's youth is detached from those Gandhian methods and satyagraha is losing its appeal as the last successful mass movement after Gandhi is itself more than 30 years old when JP movement gave tremors to the government during 70's which later on resulted in internal emergency and since then we haven't experienced any mass movement on satyagraha lines, which probably led people and political scientists to believe that satyagraha and Gandhian methods are obsolete.
A century is enough time to deface and corrupt any concept. And this is what happened with 'satyagraha', conceptualised and experimented by Mahatma Gandhi in Johannesberg, Champaran, Dandi and other places as in a survey on Gandhi done by BBC in 2007 on Indian youth shockingly revealed that -
Quite a number of students shockingly pointed out that Mahatma Gandhi would have been entirely forgotten today but for the
Satyagraha is the method of resistance and mass movement developed by Gandhi during his days in South Africa and later epitomised in India during its freedom struggle against British Empire. Satyagraha was developed as a broad term for techniques of civil disobedience, non cooperation, hunger strike and protest. Satyagraha is a portmanteau of the Sanskrit words Satya (meaning "truth") and Agraha ("insistence", or "holding firmly to"). For Gandhi, Satyagraha went far beyond mere "passive resistance" and became strength in practising non-violent methods. Later on Satyagraha went to become the most successful resistance technique and inspired many other great leaders like Martin Luther King Junior, Nelson Mandela and others. Not only it led to freedom of our country but also created a cadre of thousands of activists for whom it became a mode of life and they were there to shape India's future in right form to ensure not just independence but also to the face challenges that a newly developed nation face.
However it was felt that today's youth is detached from those Gandhian methods and satyagraha is losing its appeal as the last successful mass movement after Gandhi is itself more than 30 years old when JP movement gave tremors to the government during 70's which later on resulted in internal emergency and since then we haven't experienced any mass movement on satyagraha lines, which probably led people and political scientists to believe that satyagraha and Gandhian methods are obsolete.
A century is enough time to deface and corrupt any concept. And this is what happened with 'satyagraha', conceptualised and experimented by Mahatma Gandhi in Johannesberg, Champaran, Dandi and other places as in a survey on Gandhi done by BBC in 2007 on Indian youth shockingly revealed that -
Quite a number of students shockingly pointed out that Mahatma Gandhi would have been entirely forgotten today but for the