Gandhi remained in South Africa for 20 years,
suffering imprisonment many times. In 1896, after being attacked and beaten by
white South Africans, Gandhi began to teach a policy of passive resistance to,
and noncooperation with, the South African authorities. Part of the inspiration
for this policy came from the Russian writer Leo Tolstoy, whose influence on
Gandhi was profound. Gandhi also acknowledged his debt to the teachings of
Christ and to the 19th-century American writer Henry David Thoreau, especially
to Thoreau's famous essay “Civil Disobedience.” Gandhi considered the terms passive
resistance and civil disobedience inadequate for his purposes,
however, and coined another term, satyagraha (Sanskrit for “truth and
firmness”). During the Boer War, Gandhi organized an ambulance corps for the
British army and commanded a Red Cross unit. After the war he returned to his
campaign for Indian rights. In 1910, he founded Tolstoy Farm, near
Johannesburg, a cooperative colony for Indians. In 1914 the government of the
Union of South Africa made important concessions to Gandhi's demands, including
recognition of Indian marriages and abolition of the poll tax for them. His
work in South Africa complete, he returned to India.
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