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THE MESSAGE OF GANDHI
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not now be in doubt. For it has been used successfully by Gandhi in India, by Negroes in the United States under Martin Luther King's guidance, and elsewhere. Gandhi's principles and the technique of Satyāgraha are highly effective instruments of peaceful, economic, social and political change, whenever and wherever it is required. Satyāgraha is based on love not hate, on loving one's opponent and suffering to convert them. Satyāgraha demands self-discipline and may entail self-sacrifice, fasting, imprisonment and death ; yet it has the supreme virtue of providing means consonant with the highest ends. The cross indicates that the love which suffers is more powerful than the force which inflicts suffering.
Civil disobedience to unjust and discriminating laws and regulations and resistance to evil and injustice, when carried out in the best spirit of non-violence, is also a kind of Satyāgraha. Civil disobedience has four important characteristics. Participants oppose tyranny, aggression or an evil system with all the vigour at their command ; but they believe in the worth and dignity of their opponent and insist upon loving him, even when he showers abuse or inflicts physical punishment upon them, or even when he kills them. Participants try to bring about a change of attitude within their enemy. They strive to raise his sights, not to subdue, cripple or kill him. Participants take loss and suffering upon themselves. They do not inflict pain upon another, nor threaten him with pain. There is no threat of retaliation, massive or otherwise. It is important to bear in mind that
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