Satyagraha 100 Years Later: Gandhi Launches Modern Non-Violent Resistance Movement

September 11th 2006 has a special significance. It not only marks the fifth anniversary of the attacks on New York and Washington, it also marks 100 years to the day that Mahatma Gandhi launched the modern nonviolent resistance movement. Gandhi called it "Satyagraha."

The date was September 11th, 1906. Speaking before 3,000 Indians gathered at a theater in Johannesburg, Gandhi organized a strategy of nonviolent resistance to oppose racist policies in South Africa. Satyagraha was born and since then, it has been adopted by many around the world to resist social injustice and oppression.

Gandhi used it in India to win independence from the British. The Reverend Martin Luther King used it in the United States to oppose segregation and Nelson Mandela used it in South Africa to end apartheid.

Today, we mark 9/11 by looking at Satyagraha. We speak with Arun Gandhi, the grandson of Mahatma Gandhi and co-founder of the MK Gandhi Institute for Nonviolence in Memphis Tennessee, which promotes nonviolence in conflict zones around the world.

* Arun Gandhi, the grandson of Mahatma Gandhi. Born in South Africa under apartheid, Arun moved to India in 1946 to live with his grandfather. He remained in India until the assassination of Mahatma Gandhi in 1948. Arun Gandhi spent the next thirty years as a journalist in India. In 1991 he co-founded the MK Gandhi Institute for Nonviolence in Memphis Tennessee, which promotes nonviolence in conflict zones around the world.

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