Satyagraha and Thaipusam penance

Thich Quang Duc publicly set himself on fire in Vietnam in 1963

Reading through the excellent parallel biographies of Winston Churchill and Mahatma Gandhi, one can imagine  what went through his mind when Gandhi proposed 'passive resistance' as a mean for Swaraj (self rule). Devoid of artillery superiority, reliance to economic and financial and skewing of Indian thinking from society to own self (individual rights), leaders of that era could only manipulate their subjects' mind through past glory of ancient civilization and nature!
They said that Indian civilization had a much longer past than their invaders. So, the event of the intrusion of foreigners like the Mughals and the British were just but a drop in the ocean of India's very long civilization.
Having able to boost their own self image, the next step was not go on head long collision with the invaders but to win psychologically - by gaining sympathy through pity through self torture or passive resistance. You can hit a person once or twice. How do you keep on slapping the person who turns the other cheek repeatedly. When the aggressor stops, you win.
This type of soul force has penetrated deep into the Indian psyche. I think it had been there even before Gandhi proposed his satyagraha. From time immemorial, Hindus have been doing penance either through self imposed starvation, self flagellation, self piercing during temple ceremonies, fire walking and many other extra human feats to garner sympathy from the powers that be for private intents. At a society level, suicide and self immolation had been and is fairly rampant amongst the society to proves one's innocence and clarify the truth. Even a great Hindu sage once said, "To bear injury and bear insult is the highest sadhana (achievement)".