Gandhi And Jainism

Author(s): Shugan C Jain
Publisher: International School for Jain Studies

Page 80

against the evil and not against the evil person/authority as exemplified by his assistance to British during Boer War, the plague and Zulu's rebellion. Gandhi was frequently arrested and imprisoned.29 On the contrary, his faith grew stronger for his trials. His only reply to the violence meted out to him in South Africa was documented later in the famous little book, Hind Swaraj, written first in 1909 but first published in Indian Opinion 1910. Similarly he was loath to hide or connive at the weak points of the community or to the press for its rights without having purged of its blemishes like discrimination amongst themselves due to religion region or trade, their bad sanitation and hygiene practices. He did so even at home front where he generally suggested rather than impose his views on his wife and children.
He read and interacted wherever possible with reputed religious writers to develop a deeper understanding of each religion.30 Rajchandra was the one who impacted him most. Similarly he read and contacted famous social and political writers like Ruskin, Tolstoy, Thoreau and Gokhale for social uplift. He interacted and observed them closely whenever possible and experimented with their doctrine before deciding his own course of action. Stay in South Africa thus continued to transform Gandhi's legal interests beyond his pursuit of financial stability to the possibility of using law to address social injustices.
Satyagraha: Etymologically satya means truth and agraha means insistence i.e. insistence on Truth. The term Sadagraha was coined by Maganlal Gandhi after advertising in The Indian Opinion carrying a prize for the best suggestion for names for his movement to end the plight of Indians in South Arica that was earlier called passive resistance by others. Gandhi liked the suggestion but changed it to Satyagraha and explained it thus, 'Truth (satya) implies love, and firmness (agraha) engenders
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