The meeting ended with a solemn oath by “all present standing with raised hands, with God as witness not to submit to the (Asiatic Registration) Ordinance if it became law”. Gandhi did not explain the mode of resistance; perhaps he was himself not clear about it. Of one thing, however, there was no doubt; it was to be free from violence. He was vaguely aware that a new principle of fighting political and social evils had come into being. Indian Opinion, the voice of Gandhi’s movement in South Africa, invited suggestions for an appropriate name for this principle. The word ‘sadagraha’ (which means firmness in good conduct) appealed to Gandhi; he amended it to ‘satyagraha’ (firmness in truth). The methodology of the new movement, however, was to evolve gradually in the ensuing months and years; its author was a man for whom theory was the handmaid of action.

How significant September 11 was for humankind comes through in a conversation between Albert Einstein and Jawaharlal Nehru in the United States in 1949. Soon after the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombing in 1945, the Mahatma had questioned Nehru on the atom bomb. In Nehru’s words, “with deep human compassion loading his gentle eyes,” he remarked that this wanton destruction had confirmed his faith in God and non-violence, and that “now he realised the full significance of the holy mission for which God had created him and armed him with the mantra of non-violence”. Nehru recalled later that, as Gandhi uttered these words, he had resolved then and there to make it his mission to fight and outlaw the bomb.

... contd.