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Satyagraha

Philosophy
Pronunciation

Understanding ARPABET Pronunciation

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The pronunciation guide uses the ARPABET phonetic system—the same system used in speech recognition and text-to-speech applications.

Vowel Examples:
AE1 = cat, bat
EH1 = bed, head
IY1 = see, me
OW1 = go, boat
UW1 = boot, do
Stress Numbers:
0 = no stress (unstressed)
1 = primary stress (loud)
2 = secondary stress (medium)
Example:
AH0 TH IY1 N AH0
= a-THEE-na (Athena)

The stressed syllable (marked with 1) is pronounced louder and clearer than others.

Quick Definition

Satyagraha, coined by Gandhi, means "truth-force" or nonviolent resistance rooted in moral conviction and love.

Detailed Definition
Poetry invokes Satyagraha through ethical witness, peaceful defiance, or lyrical solidarity. It appears in anti-colonial, civil rights, or ecological verse that merges spiritual discipline with political action, using language as a weapon of compassion.
Example
Example in poetry:
Mahatma Gandhi’s philosophy appears in Langston Hughes’s civil rights poems advocating nonviolent resistance; Countee Cullen’s "Incident" implies Satyagraha through dignified witness to racism; Satyagraha informs Martin Luther King Jr.’s poetic sermons on love and justice; modern poets like June Jordan use lyrical force to advocate peaceful change; Satyagraha appears in Arundhathi Subramaniam’s poems on ethical resistance rooted in truth.
Additional Notes
Satyagraha (Gandhi) merges truth (satya) and nonviolent force (agraha); poetic examples include Hughes’s dignified resistance, Lorde’s “poetry as action,” or Shire’s refugee testimonies; students should note how such poems use language not to attack but to awaken conscience—making ethical witness a form of transformative power.
Also Known As
Truth-Force Soul Force Nonviolent Resistance
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