WORLD HISTORY

Detailed explanation-1: -Henry David Thoreau was an American naturalist, writer, poet, and philosopher. He was a prominent transcendentalist best known for his book “Walden” and his essay “Civil Disobedience, ‘’ which was written in 1849 at the age of 32. Gandhi was already engaged in civil disobedience in South Africa when he read Thoreau.

Detailed explanation-2: -A major influence on Gandhi’s thinking came from the American author Henry David Thoreau. Thoreau’s 1849 essay, Civil Disobedience, explains that his refusal to pay a state poll tax was morally justified though technically illegal.

Detailed explanation-3: -When Mahatma Gandhi was working out his concept of non-violent resistance, he was impressed by Henry David Thoreau’s advice to resist things that were wrong. Thoreau suggested that individuals could resist immoral government action by simply refusing to cooperate.

Detailed explanation-4: -This incident prompted Thoreau to write his famous essay, “Civil Disobedience” (originally published in 1849 as “Resistance to Civil Government”). Thoreau’s minor act of defiance caused him to conclude that it was not enough to be simply against slavery and the war. A person of conscience had to act.

Detailed explanation-5: -Thoreau’s ideas about civil disobedience were first spread in the late 1900s by Henry Salt, an English social reformer who introduced them to Gandhi.

Detailed explanation-6: -According to Gandhi, Tolstoy’s The Kingdom of God is Within You (1893) “left an abiding impression” on him and the Russian’s idea of “love as law of life” and care for entire mankind greatly moved him. Gandhi named his second ashram in South Africa after Tolstoy where he experimented with methods of Satyagraha.