Satyagraha is the philosophy of non-violent resistance and a critical constructivist approach—building on life experience and experimentation—to social action. It was delineated by M. K. Gandhi in the first half of the 20th century and characterized the anti-colonial struggle in India. It was also mobilized to overcome polarization between religious, social, and cultural groups in search of dialogue. Finally, Satyagraha included postcolonial provisions for a democratic system based on duty, empathy, and social love. Gandhi’s theory and social work combined a critique of individualism, state centralism, and representation in liberal democracy and the construction of a political culture based on social love from the community level. Gandhi projected a socio-political theory of democratization through cognitive-emotional liberation from heteronomous processes of subjectivation in favor of the self-construction of subjectivity. Satyagraha elaborates autonomy as individual and collective self-rule or swaraj . On the basis of critical autonomy, Satyagraha constructs interpersonal and intercultural dialogue and social governance outlined by “welfare for all” or sarvodaya , a duty-based approach to democratization. This article analyzes the love-centered philosophy of Satyagraha , exploring the relevance of its key conceptual constructs in relation to the mobilization of social and political emotions and investigating the way in which it produced a comprehensive political culture of social love. Non-violence ( ahimsa ) is the method based on the duty to achieve truth ( satya ), which prioritizes love and relational emotions over force and one-sided or principled reason. Satyagraha generates social dialogue, promotes liberation from the domination of possession and passion, as well as the achievement of (individual, social, and political) swaraj . Ahimsa was both the key to mobilizing the entire population from the bottom up, ensuring socio-political harmony in a prospective independence, and to building a political culture in which means and ends were prefiguratively aligned. Gandhi formulated an original, utopian, and thought-provoking political philosophy, which is subject to ambiguities and limitations, stimulating provocative reflections on empathy and social love.
Cristiano Gianolla (Tue,) studied this question.