From the 18th century, India was under British rule. This was to change in the mid-20th century under the guidance of one man; Mohandas K. Gandhi. Gandhi's driving philosophy in changing India was called Satyagraha. Gandhi defined Satyagraha as follows: "Its root meaning is holding on to truth, hence truth-force. I have also called it Love-force or Soul-force." Gandhi advocated "self-suffering" as a means of protest against wrong. If your opponents'actions were wrong, Gandhi felt that they could be made to amend their wrong practices through acts of love and non-violence. Gandhi talked of a Satyagraha tree, a branch of which was Civil Disobedience or Civil Resistance. The Satyagrahi generally obeyed laws of the alien, British government. If laws are unfair, he writes, the Satyagrahi "breaks them and quietly suffers the penalty for their breach." Gandhi was careful to distinguish non-violence, an active form of protest, from passive resistance. Gandhi's concept of Satyagraha can be traced back to the Jain teaching of Ahimsa (never to inflict harm upon living beings), which Gandhi had observed in practice as a child in India. For Gandhi, the way of Satyagraha was an end in itself. In India he also preached Satyagraha as a morally correct means to the end of political as well as spiritual independence, Swaraj. India achieved its independence in 1947 C.E., although it was not the unified, peaceful India that Gandhi had worked so hard for.