ABSTRACT
Satyagraha, or ‘soul-force’, is probably one of the most iconic concepts that is associated with Mohandas Gandhi and his commitment to ahimsa or a non-violent method of political resistance. In one of Gandhi’s most well-read publications, Hind Swaraj, he characterizes soul-force as a ubiquitous mode, however unrecognized in recorded history, by which humans not only acknowledged the reciprocity that undergirds their mutual survival but also mediated conflict.1 Soul-force was central to political resistance in the Gandhian idiom because it was arrived at when individuals secured justice through suffering. Gandhi distinguished resistance that was animated by the use of nonviolent soul-force rather than by the use of arms, and this distinction has been seminal to interpretations of Gandhi’s writing on satyagraha as a method of political resistance as well as it being a metaphysical project.2
