Comments on "Satyagraha"

I find Gandhi’s differentiation between Passive Resistance and Satyagraha to be intriguing. He states that Passive Resistance is “a weapon of the weak and does not exclude the use of physical force” while Satyagraha is “a weapon of the strongest and excludes the use of violence.” I had always assumed that a movement of passive resistance rejected any use of violence, even in regards to self-defense. After reading Gandhi’s view, I then assumed he was basically contrasting passive resistance with nonviolent resistance, since the latter term seemed to satisfy his description of Satyagraha. However, this idea also proved faulty, as one of the basic synonyms of nonviolent resistance is passive resistance, according to a Word Net Search on Princeton.edu. Therefore, Gandhi was attempting to describe something more when defining his actions, something even stronger than nonviolent resistance. It’s ironic to note that the figure of Gandhi is basically synonymous with those terms and he strongly desired to distance himself from those expressions.