Quotation
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“Passive resistance is a method of securing rights by personal suffering; it is the reverse of resistance by arms.”
Mohandas K. Gandhi · Moral and political thought · Modern · 1909
What does it mean?
The usual reading is a definition of his method: rights are secured by taking suffering on oneself, which is the reverse of securing them by weapons. He explains that if he disobeys a repugnant law and accepts the penalty, he uses soul-force, and if he uses violence to force repeal, he uses body-force. A competing reading hears passivity, a willingness to do nothing. The chapter calls it resistance, and it calls sacrifice of self superior to sacrifice of others, in part because if the cause is unjust only the user suffers. The sentence opens that explanation in chapter 17 of Hind Swaraj, a dialogue written in 1909. Personal suffering is the method, not a mood that follows defeat. He thinks the courage is in approaching the penalty, not in avoiding conflict.
Did Mohandas K. Gandhi really say this?
The library’s label is Well attested. Gandhi's own English version of Hind Swaraj, chapter 17, where the Editor answers the Reader. He glosses the method as soul-force: refusing a law and accepting the penalty, rather than forcing repeal by violence. It is not the later slogan 'be the change'.
Where it comes from
Hind Swaraj, chapter 17
Approximate date: 1909.
How to use it
A tenant group in London that refuses an illegal fee, pays the cost of the refusal, and will not smash the letting office, is close to the method as he defines it. A boycott that quietly threatens families is not, even if it quotes him. The sentence does not say every law should be broken. It says that when you resist, the suffering you accept is the point that distinguishes soul-force from force. People who want the result without the penalty have chosen the other method. He is explicit about the reverse.
A mindset reading
Do not use nonviolence as a costume for pressure you would rather not admit. The habit is to ask who suffers if the campaign is wrong. On his account, the answer should be the resister. That test is harder than a slogan about peace, and it is the reason he thinks the method is not for cowards. The fake Gandhi lines about being the change are a different and later rhetoric.
Understand the philosophy
Hind Swaraj is a dialogue between a Reader and an Editor, Gandhi's stand-in, written on the ship back from England in 1909. Chapter 17 defines passive resistance, his name there for what he would also call satyagraha. The key contrast is personal suffering and resistance by arms, soul-force and body-force. The means and the end, the seed and the tree, are chapter material already in this library. This sentence is the method those means require.
- justice
- power
- ethics
FAQ
What does it mean?
The usual reading is a definition of his method: rights are secured by taking suffering on oneself, which is the reverse of securing them by weapons. He explains that if he disobeys a repugnant law and accepts the penalty, he uses soul-force, and if he uses violence to force repeal, he uses body-force. A competing reading hears passivity, a willingness to do nothing. The chapter calls it resistance, and it calls sacrifice of self superior to sacrifice of others, in part because if the cause is unjust only the user suffers. The sentence opens that explanation in chapter 17 of Hind Swaraj, a dialogue written in 1909. Personal suffering is the method, not a mood that follows defeat. He thinks the courage is in approaching the penalty, not in avoiding conflict.
Did Mohandas K. Gandhi really say this?
Well attested. Gandhi's own English version of Hind Swaraj, chapter 17, where the Editor answers the Reader. He glosses the method as soul-force: refusing a law and accepting the penalty, rather than forcing repeal by violence. It is not the later slogan 'be the change'.
Which work is it in?
Hind Swaraj, chapter 17 Approximate date: 1909.