Gandhi called a meeting of Indians in Johannesburg to protest against the South African government's registration law. Even if all others go back on the pledge and I am left alone, I will die, but never submit to the law. The isolated life I had to lead in South Africa whether as a householder, legal practitioner, social reformer or politician, required, for the due fulfillment of these duties, the strictest regulation of sexual life and a rigid practice of non-violence and truth in human relations, whether with my own countrymen or with Europeans. Nor can I claim any special merit for such non-violence or continence as I have been able to reach with laborious research. I have not the shadow of a doubt that any man or woman can achieve what I have, if he or she would make the same effort and cultivate the same hope and faith.
Woman is the incarnation of ahimsa.
Ahimsa means infinite love, which again means infinite capacity for suffering. No violence requires a double faith. Faith in God and also faith in man. The British system seems to be designed to crush the very life out of the peasant. Even the salt he must use to live, is so taxed as to make the burden fall heaviest on him.