Unravelling the Myth of Gandhian Non-violence: Why Did Gandhi Connect His Principle of Satyāgraha with the “Hindu” Notion of Ahiṃsā?

Abstract

Abstract The purpose of this article is to unearth the genealogy of M. K. Gandhi's “non-violence,” the cardinal principle of satyāgraha. Previous works considered that Gandhi's concept of non-violence was essentially derived from the “ancient” Hindu–Jain precept of ahiṃsā (non-killing) common in the subcontinent. On the contrary, I will, by examining Gandhi's primary texts in Gujarati, Hindi, and English, demonstrate the following: (1) during Gandhi's sojourn in South Africa (1893–1914) where he led his first satyāgraha campaign, he never associated the term ahiṃsā with satyāgraha; (2) his satyāgraha campaign was initially explained with the trans-religious and cosmopolitan concepts of Tolstoy and the nirguṇ bhaktas; (3) Gandhi first began to use the term ahiṃsā as a nationalist slogan linked with satyāgraha immediately after his return to India in 1915; (4) the English translation of ahiṃsā as “non-violence” was eventually coined by Gandhi after 1919 during his all-India satyāgraha campaign.