Gandhian Philosophy - Satyagraha and Non-violence

Starting with the non-violence , it is tough to understand for a normal person that how come freedom can be achieved through non-violence . Let me be clear Freedom could be achieved through other means as well like a complete violent revolution , but had we achieved it through other means it would not have been sustainable. Freedom through non-violence is sustainable and prolonged .

Satyagraha , Non-cooperation and civil disobedience was major movements which held non-violence as the main weapon. 

First , non-cooperation , let's understand it through a thought example , imagine you are in you classroom you have many friends who interact with you daily . Everything is going fine and one day they all start to ignore you , no one is ready to sit with you and teacher leaves the classroom when you enters , imagine the whole school is behaving like this . Add this , you go home and your parents behave the same . No one wants to interact with you . How would you feel ? Yes , you will feel non-existing , depressed because human is a social being .

In then same way , when all Indian resigned and decided not to co-operate with British government. Their existence would not matter. They made the supreme courts but we Indians will not go their to settle a case , we will make our panchayats. Here the government exists but not for us . It governs nobody and makes no sense at all . It's like you make your own government at home with your homies as ministers and what it does ? Literally nothing, it takes decisions no one follows . That's how effective is non-cooperation.

Now , civil disobedience, it is the next step of non - cooperation . In this we not only don't co-operate but we willfully disobey the oppressive laws imposed on us , for instance , the salt duty . Catch here is we don't disobey all laws , we just disobey unnecessary oppressive laws. In the return of disobey what we are to recieve? Of course the coercion and force but we had to be ready for this , here the Satyagraha philosophy comes into play.

Satyagraha means firmly holding the truth . Gandhi said truth has immense power . Remember , when you have not done something bad and a lie is imposed on you , you tend to even go any far to adhere with it . When your mom scolds you or beats you for something you have not done , you welcome it and say hit me mom but I have done no wrong i.e you adhere to it no matter the situation becomes . Why this? Because you know you hold the truth , you are right , and truth gives you this power to bear things.

This is what Satyagraha does , it makes people believe that you are right , we have done no wrong , it is the British government which is evil and bad . And you are filled with strength of truth to resist again evil doers. That's how Satyagrahis are made . Hence , a Satyagrahis is one who fights non-violently against oppressors . A Satyagraha is brave , he holds his anger within unlike a weak person who let's his anger outside within minutes . A strong person is one who holds his ego , anger and hates no one . Weak person can never do this .

Additionally , the benefits of resisting without violent is that you can be arrested but their are no strong charges against you of crimes , you are just a political prisoners who did nothing but was just lying on the road protesting . The government will leave you after some trials as no serious crime was done by you . This is how you influence masses with leaders presence there . Contrary to this when someone did violence like killed someone , he is arrested and movement go leaderless and no further progresses are made.

Lastly why non-violence becomes important to have a sustainable freedom. Imagine you took freedom by using guns . Next time when the government will do something awful you will tend to sort it by killing leaders? Certainly , as it has become your nature now to take justice this way. For example, see Pakistan they chose the violence to take freedom later on everyone uses force against government and justifies itself that we did this in time of freedom as well , frequent military coups are there while in India you see people protesting for their rights and demand and a successful democracy was established.

"It is tough to hold arms but it is more tough to hold anger" - A Satyagrahi