Satyagraha

American  

[suht-yuh-gruh-huh, suht-yah-gruh-] / ˈsʌt yəˌgrʌ hə, sətˈyɑ grə- /

noun

(sometimes lowercase)

1. (in India) the policy of passive resistance inaugurated by Mohandas Gandhi in 1919 as a method of gaining political and social reforms.

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satyagraha British  

/ ˈsɔːtjɑːɡrɔːhɑː /

noun

1. the policy of nonviolent resistance adopted by Mahatma Gandhi from about 1919 to oppose British rule in India

2. any movement of nonviolent resistance

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Etymology

Origin of Satyagraha

1915–20; < Hindi, equivalent to Sanskrit satya truth + āgraha strong attachment, persistence

Example Sentences

It was on a ministry mission to India in the ’50s that Lawson learned about Satyagraha, the method of resistance through nonviolence, developed by Mahatma Gandhi.

From Slate • Dec. 22, 2020

Satyagraha, literally translated as “holding fast to truth,” obliged protesters to “always keep an open mind and be ever ready to find that what we believed to be truth was, after all, untruth.”

From The New Yorker • Oct. 15, 2018

Satyagraha LA Opera mounts the Philip Glass opera about Indian activist Mahatma Gandhi’s years as a young attorney in turn-of-the-last-century South Africa; Grant Gershon conducts.

From Los Angeles Times • Oct. 12, 2018

When all the elements and the singers are balanced, like in the superb Carsen Onegin, or the recent Satyagraha, we are in for true magic.

From New York Times • Dec. 28, 2017

A fire was lit in a giant iron cauldron, and the certificates of 2,300 Indians were tossed into the flames—the first major act of Satyagraha.

From "Sugar Changed the World: A Story of Magic, Spice, Slavery, Freedom, and Science" by Marc Aronson