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Mahatma Gandhi, often considered a founder of the modern nonviolence movement, spread the concept of ahimsa through his movements and writings, which then inspired other nonviolent activists.
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Nonviolence is the practice of working for social change without causing harm to others, under any condition. It may come from the belief that hurting people, animals and/or the environment is unnecessary to achieve an outcome, and it may refer to a general philosophy of abstention from violence. It may be based on moral, religious or spiritual principles. The reasons for it may be strategic or pragmatic;[1] failure to distinguish between the two can lead to distortion in the concept's meaning and effectiveness, which can subsequently result in confusion.[2] Although both principled and pragmatic nonviolent approaches preach for nonviolence, they may have distinct motives, goals, philosophies, and techniques.[3] However, rather than debating the best practice between the two approaches, both can indicate alternative paths for those who do not want to use violence.[2]

Nonviolence has "active" or "activist" elements, in that believers generally accept the need for nonviolence as a means to achieve political and social change. Thus, for example, Tolstoyan and Gandhian philosophies on nonviolence seek social change while rejecting the use of violence, seeing nonviolent action (also called civil resistance) as an alternative to either passive acceptance of oppression or armed struggle against it. In general, advocates of an activist philosophy of nonviolence use diverse methods in their campaigns for social change, including critical forms of education and persuasion, mass noncooperation, civil disobedience, nonviolent direct action, constructive program, and social, political, cultural and economic forms of intervention.[4][5]

Petra Kelly founded the German Green Party on nonviolence

In modern times, nonviolent methods have been a powerful tool for social protest and revolutionary social and political change.[6][7] There are many examples of their use. Fuller surveys may be found in the entries on civil resistance, nonviolent resistance and nonviolent revolution. Certain movements which were particularly influenced by a philosophy of nonviolence have included Mahatma Gandhi's leadership of a successful decades-long nonviolent struggle for Indian independence, Martin Luther King Jr.'s and James Bevel's adoption of Gandhi's nonviolent methods in their Civil rights movement campaigns to remove legalized segregation in America,[8][9] and César Chávez's campaigns of nonviolence in the 1960s to protest the treatment of Mexican farm workers in California.[10] The 1989 "Velvet Revolution" in Czechoslovakia that saw the overthrow of the Communist government[11] is considered one of the most important of the largely nonviolent Revolutions of 1989.[12] Most recently the nonviolent campaigns of Leymah Gbowee and the women of Liberia were able to achieve peace after a 14-year civil war.[13] This story is captured in a 2008 documentary film Pray the Devil Back to Hell.

The term "nonviolence" is often linked with peace or used as a synonym for it. Despite the fact that it is frequently equated with pacifism, this equation is at times rejected by nonviolent advocates and activists.[14][page needed] Nonviolence specifically refers to the absence of violence and the choice to do no harm in deed, speech, or intent. For example, if a house is burning down with mice or insects in it, the nonviolent action is to put the fire out, not to sit by and passively and let the fire burn.[15]

Origins

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Nonviolence or ahimsa is one of the cardinal virtues[16] and an important tenet of Jainism, Buddhism, and Hinduism. Jain and Buddhist thoughts have explored nonviolence very deeply, not limiting it to humans but extending it to the animal world as well as nature, in a very explicit fashion. In Jainism, it is the very core idea of very 'way of life' practicing it in mun (thoughts), vachan (spoken word) and karm (action). It is a multidimensional concept,[17] inspired by the premise that all living beings have the spark of the divine spiritual energy; therefore, to hurt another being is to hurt oneself. It has also been related to the notion that any violence has karmic consequences. While ancient scholars of Hinduism pioneered and over time perfected the principles of ahimsa, the concept reached an extraordinary status in the ethical philosophy of Jainism.[16][18]

Forms of nonviolence

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In the political realm, advocates of nonviolent action believe cooperation and consent are the roots of civil or political power: all regimes, including bureaucratic institutions, financial institutions, and the armed segments of society (such as the military and police); depend on compliance from citizens.[19] On a national level, the strategy of nonviolent action seeks to challenge the power misuse of rulers by organising and encouraging (oppressed) people to withdraw their consent and cooperation. The forms of nonviolence draw inspiration from both religious or ethical beliefs and political analysis. Religious or ethically based nonviolence is sometimes referred to as principled, philosophical, or ethical nonviolence, while nonviolence based on political analysis is often referred to as tactical, strategic, or pragmatic nonviolent action. Commonly, both of these dimensions may be present within the thinking of particular movements or individuals.[20]

Pragmatic

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The fundamental concept of pragmatic (tactical or strategic) nonviolent action is to create a social dynamic or political movement that can project a national and global dialogue that affects social change without necessarily winning over those who wish to maintain the status quo.[21] Gene Sharp promoted the pragmatic nonviolence approach. Sharp was an American political scientist known for his nonviolent struggle work. Those who follow Sharp's pragmatic nonviolence approach believe in practicality rather than the moral aspect of the struggle. They believe that violence is too costly to engage in. The goals are to change their oppressor's behavior; end a specific injustice or violent situation; and seek a win for themselves, while opponents they perceive as enemies with conflicting interests should lose.[3] Conflict is seen as inevitable, and the rejection of violence is an effective way to challenge power.[2] Those who follow pragmatic nonviolence ideology are willing to engage in nonviolent coercion, and try to avoid suffering.[3]

Nicolas Walter noted the idea that nonviolence might work "runs under the surface of Western political thought without ever quite disappearing".[22] Walter noted Étienne de La Boétie's Discourse on Voluntary Servitude (sixteenth century) and P.B. Shelley's The Masque of Anarchy (1819) contain arguments for resisting tyranny without using violence.[22] In 1838, William Lloyd Garrison helped found the New England Non-Resistance Society, a society devoted to achieving racial and gender equality through the rejection of all violent actions.[22]

In modern industrial democracies, nonviolent action has been used extensively by political sectors without mainstream political power such as labor, peace, environment and women's movements. Lesser known is the role that nonviolent action has played and continues to play in undermining the power of repressive political regimes in the developing world and the former eastern bloc. Susan Ives emphasizes this point by quoting Walter Wink:

"In 1989, thirteen nations comprising 1,695,000,000 people experienced nonviolent revolutions that succeeded beyond anyone's wildest expectations ... If we add all the countries touched by major nonviolent actions in our century (the Philippines, South Africa ... the independence movement in India ...), the figure reaches 3,337,400,000, a staggering 65% of humanity! All this in the teeth of the assertion, endlessly repeated, that nonviolence doesn't work in the 'real' world."

— Walter Wink, Christian theologian[12]

As a technique for social struggle, nonviolent action has been described as "the politics of ordinary people", reflecting its historically mass-based use by populations throughout the world and history.

Movements most often associated with nonviolence are the non-cooperation campaign for Indian independence led by Mahatma Gandhi, the Civil Rights Movement in the United States, and the People Power Revolution in the Philippines.

Also of primary significance is the notion that just means are the most likely to lead to just ends. When Gandhi said that "the means may be likened to the seed, the end to a tree," he expressed the philosophical kernel of what some refer to as prefigurative politics. Martin Luther King Jr., a student of Gandhian nonviolent resistance, concurred with this tenet, concluding that "nonviolence demands that the means we use must be as pure as the ends we seek." Proponents of nonviolence reason that the actions taken in the present inevitably re-shape the social order in like form. They would argue, for instance, that it is fundamentally irrational to use violence to achieve a peaceful society.

Gandhi famously advocated for the Indian independence movement to strictly adhere to the principles of nonviolence.

Respect or love for opponents also has a pragmatic justification, in that the technique of separating the deeds from the doers allows for the possibility of the doers changing their behaviour, and perhaps their beliefs. Martin Luther King Jr. wrote, "Nonviolent resistance... avoids not only external physical violence but also internal violence of spirit. The nonviolent resister not only refuses to shoot his opponent, but he also refuses to hate him."[23]

Nonviolence has obtained a level of institutional recognition and endorsement at the global level. On November 10, 1998, the United Nations General Assembly proclaimed the first decade of the 21st century and the third millennium, the years 2001 to 2010, as the International Decade for the Promotion of a Culture of Peace and Non-Violence for the Children of the World.

Principled

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The Semai have principle called punan, which includes nonviolence

The nonviolence approach involves accepting that violence is wrong and nonviolence is the best ethical response to any conflict.[3] The followers of this approach believe in human harmony and a moral rejection of violence and coercion.[2] They accept the total commitment to nonviolence and encourage those who want to use nonviolent actions to reject all forms of violence and coercion. Principled nonviolence has a religious or ideological basis. This type of nonviolence aims to change the opponent's heart and mind by showing love to them rather than hatred, partnering with the opponents to bring about social change by ending all violence and social injustices, and seeking a solution whereby all parties win.[3] The techniques they use include persuasion while trying to avoid coercion, and they accept that suffering is part of the means to transform themselves and others.[3]

For many, practicing nonviolence goes deeper than abstaining from violent behavior or words. It means overriding the impulse to be hateful and holding love for everyone, even those with whom one strongly disagrees. In this view, because violence is learned, it is necessary to unlearn violence by practicing love and compassion at every possible opportunity. For some, the commitment to non-violence entails a belief in restorative or transformative justice, an abolition of the death penalty and other harsh punishments. This may involve the necessity of caring for those who are violent.

Nonviolence, for many, involves a respect and reverence for all sentient, and perhaps even non-sentient, beings. This might include abolitionism against animals as property, the practice of not eating animal products or by-products (vegetarianism or veganism), spiritual practices of non-harm to all beings, and caring for the rights of all beings. Mahatma Gandhi, James Bevel, and other nonviolent proponents advocated vegetarianism as part of their nonviolent philosophy. Buddhists extend this respect for life to animals and plants, while Jainism extend this respect for life to animals, plants and even small organisms such as insects.[24][25] The classical Indian text of the Tirukkuṛaḷ, which is believed to be of Hindu or Jain origin, decrees ahimsa and moral vegetarianism as the most fundamental of all personal virtues.[26] These ideas can also be found in Western mystical and Neoplatonic traditions.[27]

In modern times, several scholars have endeavored to clarify the theoretical intellectual foundations for principled nonviolence and the manner in which such principles might be implemented in practical terms. Included among them are Kevin P. Clements[28][29][30][31] and Robert L. Holmes.[32][33][34]

Mahatma Gandhi was one of the most well-known advocates for and practitioners of principled nonviolence.

Semai people

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The Semai ethnic group living in the center of the Malay Peninsula in Southeast Asia are known for their nonviolence.[35] The Semai punan ethical or religious principle[36] strongly pressures members of the culture towards nonviolent, non-coercive, and non-competitive behaviour. It has been suggested that the Semai's non-violence is a response to historic threats from slaving states; as the Semai were constantly defeated by slavers and Malaysian immigrants, they preferred to flee rather than fight and thus evolved into a general norm of non-violence.[37] This does not mean the Semai are incapable of violence however; during the Malayan Emergency, the British enlisted some Semai to fight against MNLA insurgents and according to Robert Knox Dentan the Semai believe that as Malaysia industrialises, it will be harder for the Semai to use their strategy of fleeing and they will have to fight instead.[38][39]

Religious

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Hinduism

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Ancient Vedic texts
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Ahimsa as an ethical concept evolved in Vedic texts.[18][40] The oldest scripts, along with discussing ritual animal sacrifices, indirectly mention Ahimsa, but do not emphasise it. Over time, the Hindu scripts revise ritual practices and the concept of Ahimsa is increasingly refined and emphasised, ultimately Ahimsa becomes the highest virtue by the late Vedic era (about 500 BCE). For example, hymn 10.22.25 in the Rig Veda uses the words Satya (truthfulness) and Ahimsa in a prayer to deity Indra;[41] later, the Yajur Veda dated to be between 1000 BCE and 600 BCE, states, "may all beings look at me with a friendly eye, may I do likewise, and may we look at each other with the eyes of a friend".[18][42]

The term Ahimsa appears in the text Taittiriya Shakha of the Yajurveda (TS 5.2.8.7), where it refers to non-injury to the sacrificer himself.[43] It occurs several times in the Shatapatha Brahmana in the sense of "non-injury".[44] The Ahimsa doctrine is a late Vedic era development in Brahmanical culture.[45] The earliest reference to the idea of non-violence to animals ("pashu-Ahimsa"), apparently in a moral sense, is in the Kapisthala Katha Samhita of the Yajurveda (KapS 31.11), which may have been written in about the 8th century BCE.[46]

Bowker states the word appears but is uncommon in the principal Upanishads.[47] Kaneda gives examples of the word Ahimsa in these Upanishads.[48] Other scholars[17][49] suggest Ahimsa as an ethical concept that started evolving in the Vedas, becoming an increasingly central concept in Upanishads.

The Chāndogya Upaniṣad, dated to the 8th or 7th century BCE, one of the oldest Upanishads, has the earliest evidence for the Vedic era use of the word Ahimsa in the sense familiar in Hinduism (a code of conduct). It bars violence against "all creatures" (sarvabhuta) and the practitioner of Ahimsa is said to escape from the cycle of rebirths (CU 8.15.1).[50] Some scholars state that this 8th or 7th-century BCE mention may have been an influence of Jainism on Vedic Hinduism.[51] Others scholar state that this relationship is speculative, and though Jainism is an ancient tradition the oldest traceable texts of Jainism tradition are from many centuries after the Vedic era ended.[52][53]

Chāndogya Upaniṣad also names Ahimsa, along with Satyavacanam (truthfulness), Arjavam (sincerity), Danam (charity), Tapo (penance/meditation), as one of five essential virtues (CU 3.17.4).[17][54]

The Sandilya Upanishad lists ten forbearances: Ahimsa, Satya, Asteya, Brahmacharya, Daya, Arjava, Kshama, Dhriti, Mitahara and Saucha.[55][56] According to Kaneda,[48] the term Ahimsa is an important spiritual doctrine shared by Hinduism, Buddhism and Jainism. It literally means 'non-injury' and 'non-killing'. It implies the total avoidance of harming of any kind of living creatures not only by deeds, but also by words and in thoughts.

The Epics
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The Mahabharata, one of the epics of Hinduism, has multiple mentions of the phrase Ahimsa Paramo Dharma (अहिंसा परमॊ धर्मः), which literally means: non-violence is the highest moral virtue. For example, Mahaprasthanika Parva has the verse:[57]

अहिंसा परमो धर्मस् तथाहिंसा परो दमः।
अहिंसा परमं दानम् अहिंसा परमस् तपः।
अहिंसा परमो यज्ञस् तथाहिंसा परं बलम्।
अहिंसा परमं मित्रम् अहिंसा परमं सुखम्।
अहिंसा परमं सत्यम् अहिंसा परमं श्रुतम्॥

The above passage from Mahabharata emphasises the cardinal importance of Ahimsa in Hinduism, and literally means: Ahimsa is the highest virtue, Ahimsa is the highest self-control, Ahimsa is the greatest gift, Ahimsa is the best suffering, Ahimsa is the highest sacrifice, Ahimsa is the finest strength, Ahimsa is the greatest friend, Ahimsa is the greatest happiness, Ahimsa is the highest truth, and Ahimsa is the greatest teaching.[58][59] Some other examples where the phrase Ahimsa Paramo Dharma are discussed include Adi Parva, Vana Parva and Anushasana Parva. The Bhagavad Gita, among other things, discusses the doubts and questions about appropriate response when one faces systematic violence or war. These verses develop the concepts of lawful violence in self-defence and the theories of just war. However, there is no consensus on this interpretation. Gandhi, for example, considers this debate about nonviolence and lawful violence as a mere metaphor for the internal war within each human being, when he or she faces moral questions.[60]

Self-defence, criminal law, and war
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The classical texts of Hinduism devote numerous chapters discussing what people who practice the virtue of Ahimsa, can and must do when they are faced with war, violent threat or need to sentence someone convicted of a crime. These discussions have led to theories of just war, theories of reasonable self-defence and theories of proportionate punishment.[61][62] Arthashastra discusses, among other things, why and what constitutes proportionate response and punishment.[63][64]

War

The precepts of Ahimsa under Hinduism require that war must be avoided, with sincere and truthful dialogue. Force must be the last resort. If war becomes necessary, its cause must be just, its purpose virtuous, its objective to restrain the wicked, its aim peace, its method lawful.[61][63] War can only be started and stopped by a legitimate authority. Weapons used must be proportionate to the opponent and the aim of war, not indiscriminate tools of destruction.[65] All strategies and weapons used in the war must be to defeat the opponent, not designed to cause misery to the opponent; for example, use of arrows is allowed, but use of arrows smeared with painful poison is not allowed. Warriors must use judgment in the battlefield. Cruelty to the opponent during war is forbidden. Wounded, unarmed opponent warriors must not be attacked or killed, they must be brought to your realm and given medical treatment.[63] Children, women and civilians must not be injured. While the war is in progress, sincere dialogue for peace must continue.[61][62]

Self-defence

In matters of self-defence, different interpretations of ancient Hindu texts have been offered. For example, Tähtinen suggests self-defence is appropriate, criminals are not protected by the rule of Ahimsa, and Hindu scriptures support the use of violence against an armed attacker.[66][67] Ahimsa is not meant to imply pacifism.[68]

Alternate theories of self-defence, inspired by Ahimsa, build principles similar to theories of just war. Aikido, pioneered in Japan, illustrates one such principles of self-defence. Morihei Ueshiba, the founder of Aikido, described his inspiration as Ahimsa.[69] According to this interpretation of Ahimsa in self-defence, one must not assume that the world is free of aggression. One must presume that some people will, out of ignorance, error or fear, attack other persons or intrude into their space, physically or verbally. The aim of self-defence, suggested Ueshiba, must be to neutralise the aggression of the attacker, and avoid the conflict. The best defence is one where the victim is protected, as well as the attacker is respected and not injured if possible. Under Ahimsa and Aikido, there are no enemies, and appropriate self-defence focuses on neutralising the immaturity, assumptions and aggressive strivings of the attacker.[70][71]

Criminal law

Tähtinen concludes that Hindus have no misgivings about death penalty; their position is that evil-doers who deserve death should be killed, and that a king in particular is obliged to punish criminals and should not hesitate to kill them, even if they happen to be his own brothers and sons.[72]

Other scholars[62][63] conclude that the scriptures of Hinduism suggest sentences for any crime must be fair, proportional and not cruel.

Non-human life
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The Hindu precept of 'cause no injury' applies to animals and all life forms. This precept isn't found in the oldest verses of Vedas, but increasingly becomes one of the central ideas between 500 BC and 400 AD.[73][74] In the oldest texts, numerous ritual sacrifices of animals, including cows and horses, are highlighted and hardly any mention is made of Ahimsa to non-human life.[75][76]

Hindu scriptures, dated to between 5th century and 1st century BC, while discussing human diet, initially suggest kosher meat may be eaten, evolving it with the suggestion that only meat obtained through ritual sacrifice can be eaten, then that one should eat no meat because it hurts animals, with verses describing the noble life as one that lives on flowers, roots and fruits alone.[73][77]

Later texts of Hinduism declare Ahimsa one of the primary virtues, declare any killing or harming any life as against dharma (moral life). Finally, the discussion in Upanishads and Hindu Epics[78] shifts to whether a human being can ever live his or her life without harming animal and plant life in some way; which and when plants or animal meat may be eaten, whether violence against animals causes human beings to become less compassionate, and if and how one may exert least harm to non-human life consistent with ahimsa precept, given the constraints of life and human needs.[79][80] The Mahabharata permits hunting by warriors, but opposes it in the case of hermits who must be strictly nonviolent. Sushruta Samhita, a Hindu text written in the 3rd or 4th century, in Chapter XLVI suggests proper diet as a means of treating certain illnesses, and recommends various fishes and meats for different ailments and for pregnant women,[81][82] and the Charaka Samhita describes meat as superior to all other kinds of food for convalescents.[83]

Across the texts of Hinduism, there is a profusion of ideas about the virtue of Ahimsa when applied to non-human life, but without a universal consensus.[84] Alsdorf claims the debate and disagreements between supporters of vegetarian lifestyle and meat eaters was significant. Even suggested exceptions – ritual slaughter and hunting – were challenged by advocates of Ahimsa.[85][86][87] In the Mahabharata both sides present various arguments to substantiate their viewpoints. Moreover, a hunter defends his profession in a long discourse.[88]

Many of the arguments proposed in favor of non-violence to animals refer to the bliss one feels, the rewards it entails before or after death, the danger and harm it prevents, as well as to the karmic consequences of violence.[89][90]

The ancient Hindu texts discuss Ahimsa and non-animal life. They discourage wanton destruction of nature including of wild and cultivated plants. Hermits (sannyasins) were urged to live on a fruitarian diet so as to avoid the destruction of plants.[91][92] Scholars[93][94] claim the principles of ecological non-violence is innate in the Hindu tradition, and its conceptual fountain has been Ahimsa as their cardinal virtue.

The dharmic philosophy of ancient India exists in all Indian languages and culture. For example, the Tirukkuṛaḷ, written between 200 BCE and 500 CE, and sometimes called the Tamil Veda, is one of the most cherished classics written in a South Indian language. The Tirukkuṛaḷ dedicates Chapters 26, 32 and 33 of Book 1 to the virtue of ahimsa, namely, moral vegetarianism, non-harming, and non-killing, respectively. The Tirukkuṛaḷ says that ahimsa applies to all life forms.[26][95][96]

Jainism

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Main article: Ahimsa in Jainism
See also: Jain vegetarianism
The hand with a wheel on the palm symbolizes the Jain Vow of Ahimsa. The word in the middle is "Ahimsa". The wheel represents the dharmacakra which stands for the resolve to halt the cycle of reincarnation through relentless pursuit of truth and non-violence.

In Jainism, the understanding and implementation of Ahimsā is more radical, scrupulous, and comprehensive than in any other religion.[97] Killing any living being out of passions is considered hiṃsā (to injure) and abstaining from such an act is ahimsā (noninjury).[98] The vow of ahimsā is considered the foremost among the 'five vows of Jainism'. Other vows like truth (Satya) are meant for safeguarding the vow of ahimsā.[99] In the practice of Ahimsa, the requirements are less strict for the lay persons (sravakas) who have undertaken anuvrata (Smaller Vows) than for the Jain monastics who are bound by the Mahavrata "Great Vows".[100] The statement ahimsā paramo dharmaḥ is often found inscribed on the walls of the Jain temples.[101] Like in Hinduism, the aim is to prevent the accumulation of harmful karma.[102] When lord Mahaviraswami revived and reorganized the Jain faith in the 6th or 5th century BCE,[103] Rishabhanatha (Ādinātha), the first Jain Tirthankara, whom modern Western historians consider to be a historical figure, followed by Parshvanatha (Pārśvanātha)[104] the twenty-third Tirthankara lived in about the 8th century BCE.[105] He founded the community to which Mahavira's parents belonged.[106] Ahimsa was already part of the "Fourfold Restraint" (Caujjama), the vows taken by Parshva's followers.[107] In the times of Mahavira and in the following centuries, Jains were at odds with both Buddhists and followers of the Vedic religion or Hindus, whom they accused of negligence and inconsistency in the implementation of Ahimsa.[108] According to the Jain tradition either lacto vegetarianism or veganism is mandatory.[109]

The Jain concept of Ahimsa is characterised by several aspects. It does not make any exception for ritual sacrificers and professional warrior-hunters. Killing of animals for food is absolutely ruled out.[110] Jains also make considerable efforts not to injure plants in everyday life as far as possible. Though they admit that plants must be destroyed for the sake of food, they accept such violence only inasmuch as it is indispensable for human survival, and there are special instructions for preventing unnecessary violence against plants.[111] Jains go out of their way so as not to hurt even small insects and other minuscule animals.[112] For example, Jains often do not go out at night, when they are more likely to step upon an insect. In their view, injury caused by carelessness is like injury caused by deliberate action.[113] Eating honey is strictly outlawed, as it would amount to violence against the bees.[114] Some Jains abstain from farming because it inevitably entails unintentional killing or injuring of many small animals, such as worms and insects,[115] but agriculture is not forbidden in general and there are Jain farmers.[116]

Theoretically, all life forms are said to deserve full protection from all kinds of injury, but Jains recognise a hierarchy of life. Mobile beings are given higher protection than immobile ones. For the mobile beings, they distinguish between one-sensed, two-sensed, three-sensed, four-sensed and five-sensed ones; a one-sensed animal has touch as its only sensory modality. The more senses a being has, the more they care about non-injuring it. Among the five-sensed beings, the precept of non-injury and non-violence to the rational ones (humans) is strongest in Jain Ahimsa.[117]

Jains agree with Hindus that violence in self-defence can be justified,[118] and they agree that a soldier who kills enemies in combat is performing a legitimate duty.[119] Jain communities accepted the use of military power for their defence, there were Jain monarchs, military commanders, and soldiers.[120]

Buddhism

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Further information: Noble Eightfold Path; Buddhist ethics § Killing, causing others to kill; Buddhism and violence; and Engaged Buddhism

In Buddhist texts Ahimsa (or its Pāli cognate avihiṃsā) is part of the Five Precepts (Pañcasīla), the first of which has been to abstain from killing. This precept of Ahimsa is applicable to both the Buddhist layperson and the monk community.[121][122][123]

The Ahimsa precept is not a commandment and transgressions did not invite religious sanctions for layperson, but their power has been in the Buddhist belief in karmic consequences and their impact in afterlife during rebirth.[124] Killing, in Buddhist belief, could lead to rebirth in the hellish realm, and for a longer time in more severe conditions if the murder victim was a monk.[124] Saving animals from slaughter for meat, is believed to be a way to acquire merit for better rebirth. These moral precepts have been voluntarily self-enforced in lay Buddhist culture through the associated belief in karma and rebirth.[125] The Buddhist texts not only recommended Ahimsa, but suggest avoiding trading goods that contribute to or are a result of violence:

These five trades, O monks, should not be taken up by a lay follower: trading with weapons, trading in living beings, trading in meat, trading in intoxicants, trading in poison.

— Anguttara Nikaya V.177, Translated by Martine Batchelor[126]

Unlike lay Buddhists, transgressions by monks do invite sanctions.[127] Full expulsion of a monk from sangha follows instances of killing, just like any other serious offense against the monastic nikaya code of conduct.[127]

War
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Violent ways of punishing criminals and prisoners of war was not explicitly condemned in Buddhism,[128] but peaceful ways of conflict resolution and punishment with the least amount of injury were encouraged.[129][130] The early texts condemn the mental states that lead to violent behavior.[131]

Nonviolence is an overriding theme within the Pali Canon.[132] While the early texts condemn killing in the strongest terms, and portray the ideal king as a pacifist, such a king is nonetheless flanked by an army.[133] It seems that the Buddha's teaching on nonviolence was not interpreted or put into practice in an uncompromisingly pacifist or anti-military-service way by early Buddhists.[133] The early texts assume war to be a fact of life, and well-skilled warriors are viewed as necessary for defensive warfare.[134] In Pali texts, injunctions to abstain from violence and involvement with military affairs are directed at members of the sangha; later Mahayana texts, which often generalise monastic norms to laity, require this of lay people as well.[135]

The early texts do not contain just-war ideology as such.[136] Some argue that a sutta in the Gamani Samyuttam rules out all military service. In this passage, a soldier asks the Buddha if it is true that, as he has been told, soldiers slain in battle are reborn in a heavenly realm. The Buddha reluctantly replies that if he is killed in battle while his mind is seized with the intention to kill, he will undergo an unpleasant rebirth.[137] In the early texts, a person's mental state at the time of death is generally viewed as having a great impact on the next birth.[138]

Some Buddhists point to other early texts as justifying defensive war.[139] One example is the Kosala Samyutta, in which King Pasenadi of Kosala, a righteous king favored by the Buddha, learns of an impending attack on his kingdom. He arms himself in defence, and leads his army into battle to protect his kingdom from attack. He lost this battle but won the war. King Pasenadi eventually defeated Emperor Ajatashatru of Magadha and captured him alive. He thought that, although this Emperor of Magadha has transgressed against his kingdom, he had not transgressed against him personally, and Ajatashatru was still his nephew. He released Ajatashatru and did not harm him.[140] Upon his return, the Buddha said (among other things) that Pasenadi "is a friend of virtue, acquainted with virtue, intimate with virtue", while the opposite is said of the aggressor, Emperor Ajatashatru.[141]

According to Theravada commentaries, there are five requisite factors that must all be fulfilled for an act to be both an act of killing and to be karmically negative. These are: (1) the presence of a living being, human or animal; (2) the knowledge that the being is a living being; (3) the intent to kill; (4) the act of killing by some means; and (5) the resulting death.[142] Some Buddhists have argued on this basis that the act of killing is complicated, and its ethicization is predicated upon intent.[143] Some have argued that in defensive postures, for example, the primary intention of a soldier is not to kill, but to defend against aggression, and the act of killing in that situation would have minimal negative karmic repercussions.[144]

According to Dr. Babasaheb Ambedkar, there is circumstantial evidence encouraging Ahimsa, from the Buddha's doctrine, "Love all, so that you may not wish to kill any." Gautama Buddha distinguished between a principle and a rule. He did not make Ahimsa a matter of rule, but suggested it as a matter of principle. This gives Buddhists freedom to act.[145]

Laws
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The emperors of Sui dynasty, Tang dynasty and early Song dynasty banned killing in Lunar calendar 1st, 5th, and 9th month.[146][147] Empress Wu Tse-Tien banned killing for more than half a year in 692.[148] Some also banned fishing for some time each year.[149]

There were bans after death of emperors,[150] Buddhist and Taoist prayers,[151] and natural disasters such as after a drought in 1926 summer Shanghai and an 8 days ban from August 12, 1959, after the August 7 flood (八七水災), the last big flood before the 88 Taiwan Flood.[152]

People avoid killing during some festivals, like the Taoist Ghost Festival,[153] the Nine Emperor Gods Festival, the Vegetarian Festival and many others.[154][155]

Methods

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Martin Luther King Jr. speaking at the 1963 March on Washington.
Even when the bridge was closed the demonstrators on the initial 1965 Selma to Montgomery march stayed on the sidewalk in compliance with nonviolent tactics and strategies.

Nonviolent action generally comprises three categories: Acts of Protest and Persuasion, Noncooperation, and Nonviolent Intervention.[156]

Acts of protest

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Nonviolent acts of protest and persuasion are symbolic actions performed by a group of people to show their support or disapproval of something. The goal of this kind of action is to bring public awareness to an issue, persuade or influence a particular group of people, or to facilitate future nonviolent action. The message can be directed toward the public, opponents, or people affected by the issue. Methods of protest and persuasion include speeches, public communications, petitions, symbolic acts, art, processions (marches), and other public assemblies.[157]

Noncooperation

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Noncooperation involves the purposeful withholding of cooperation or the unwillingness to initiate in cooperation with an opponent. The goal of noncooperation is to halt or hinder an industry, political system, or economic process. Methods of noncooperation include labour strikes, economic boycotts, civil disobedience, sex strike, tax refusal, and general disobedience.[157]

Nonviolent intervention

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Compared with protest and noncooperation, nonviolent intervention is a more direct method of nonviolent action. Nonviolent intervention can be used defensively—for example to maintain an institution or independent initiative—or offensively- for example, to drastically forward a nonviolent cause into the "territory" of those who oppose it. Intervention is often more immediate and initially effective than the other two methods, but is also harder to maintain and more taxing to the participants involved.

Gene Sharp, a political scientist who sought to advance the worldwide study and use of strategic nonviolent action in conflict, wrote extensively about the methods of nonviolent action. In his 1973 book Waging Nonviolent Struggle he described 198 methods of nonviolent action, and in it places several examples of constructive program in this category.[158] In early Greece, Aristophanes' Lysistrata gives the fictional example of women withholding sexual favors from their husbands until war was abandoned (a sex strike). A modern work of fiction inspired by Gene Sharp and by Aristophanes is the 1986 novel A Door into Ocean by Joan Slonczewski, depicting an ocean world inhabited by women who use nonviolent means to repel armed space invaders. Other methods of nonviolent intervention include occupations (sit-ins), fasting (hunger strikes), truck cavalcades, and dual sovereignty/parallel government.[157]

Tactics must be carefully chosen, taking into account political and cultural circumstances, and form part of a larger plan or strategy.

Successful nonviolent cross-border intervention projects include the Guatemala Accompaniment Project,[159] Peace Brigades International and Christian Peacemaker Teams. Developed in the early 1980s, and originally inspired by the Gandhian Shanti Sena, the primary tools of these organisations have been nonviolent protective accompaniment, backed up by a global support network which can respond to threats, local and regional grassroots diplomatic and peacebuilding efforts, human rights observation and witnessing, and reporting.[160][161] In extreme cases, most of these groups are also prepared to do interpositioning: placing themselves between parties who are engaged or threatening to engage in outright attacks in one or both directions. Individual and large group cases of interpositioning, when called for, have been remarkably effective in dampening conflict and saving lives.

Another powerful tactic of nonviolent intervention invokes public scrutiny of the perceived oppressors as a result of the resisters remaining nonviolent in the face of violent repression. If the military or police attempt to repress nonviolent resisters violently, the power to act shifts from the hands of the oppressors to those of the resisters. If the resisters are persistent, the military or police will be forced to accept the fact that they no longer have any power over the resisters. Often, the willingness of the resisters to suffer has a profound effect on the mind and emotions of the oppressor, leaving them unable to commit such a violent act again.[162][163]

Revolution

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Some have argued that a relatively nonviolent revolution would require fraternisation with military forces.[164]

Criticism

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Ernesto Che Guevara, Leon Trotsky, Frantz Fanon and others have argued that violence is a necessary accompaniment to revolutionary change or that the right to self-defense is fundamental. Subhas Chandra Bose supported Gandhi and nonviolence early in his career but became disillusioned with it and became an effective advocate of violence.[165]

In the 1949 essay "Reflections on Gandhi", George Orwell argued that the nonviolent resistance strategy of Gandhi could be effective in countries with "a free press and the right of assembly", which could make it possible "not merely to appeal to outside opinion, but to bring a mass movement into being, or even to make your intentions known to your adversary"; but he was skeptical of Gandhi's approach being effective in the opposite sort of circumstances.[166]

Reinhold Niebuhr similarly affirmed Gandhi's approach while criticising aspects of it. He argued, "The advantage of non-violence as a method of expressing moral goodwill lies in the fact that it protects the agent against the resentments which violent conflict always creates in both parties to a conflict, and it proves this freedom of resentment and ill-will to the contending party in the dispute by enduring more suffering than it causes." However, Niebuhr also held, "The differences between violent and nonviolent methods of coercion and resistance are not so absolute that it would be possible to regard violence as a morally impossible instrument of social change."[167]

In the midst of repression of radical African American groups in the United States during the 1960s, Black Panther member George Jackson said of the nonviolent tactics of Martin Luther King Jr.:

The concept of nonviolence is a false ideal. It presupposes the existence of compassion and a sense of justice on the part of one's adversary. When this adversary has everything to lose and nothing to gain by exercising justice and compassion, his reaction can only be negative.[168][169]

Malcolm X also clashed with civil rights leaders over the issue of nonviolence, arguing that violence should not be ruled out if no option remained. He noted that: "I believe it's a crime for anyone being brutalized to continue to accept that brutality without doing something to defend himself."[170]

In his book How Nonviolence Protects the State, anarchist Peter Gelderloos criticises nonviolence as being ineffective, racist, statist, patriarchal, tactically and strategically inferior to militant activism, and deluded.[171] Gelderloos claims that traditional histories whitewash the impact of nonviolence, ignoring the involvement of militants in such movements as the Indian independence movement and the Civil Rights Movement and falsely showing Gandhi and King as being their respective movement's most successful activists.[171]: 7–12  He further argues that nonviolence is generally advocated by privileged white people who expect "oppressed people, many of whom are people of color, to suffer patiently under an inconceivably greater violence, until such time as the Great White Father is swayed by the movement's demands or the pacifists achieve that legendary 'critical mass.'"[171]: 23  On the other hand, anarchism also includes a section committed to nonviolence called anarcho-pacifism.[172][173] The main early influences were the thought of Henry David Thoreau[173] and Leo Tolstoy while later the ideas of Mahatma Gandhi gained importance.[172][173] It developed "mostly in Holland, Britain, and the United States, before and during the Second World War".[174]

The efficacy of nonviolence was also challenged by some anti-capitalist protesters advocating a "diversity of tactics" during street demonstrations across Europe and the US following the anti-World Trade Organization protests in Seattle, Washington in 1999.

Nonviolence advocates see some truth in this argument: Gandhi himself said often that he could teach nonviolence to a violent person but not to a coward and that true nonviolence came from renouncing violence, not by not having any to renounce. This is the meaning of his quote "It is better to be violent, if there is violence in our hearts, than to put on the cloak of nonviolence to cover impotence."[175]

Advocates responding to criticisms of the efficacy of nonviolence point to the limited success of nonviolent struggles even against the Nazi regimes in Denmark and even in Berlin.[176] A study by Erica Chenoweth and Maria Stephan found that nonviolent revolutions are twice as effective as violent ones and lead to much greater degrees of democratic freedom.[177]

Research

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A 2016 study finds that "increasing levels of globalization are positively associated with the emergence of nonviolent campaigns, while negatively influencing the probability of violent campaigns. Integration into the world increases the popularity of peaceful alternatives to achieve political goals."[178] A 2020 study found that nonviolent campaigns were more likely to succeed when there was not an ethnic division between actors in the campaign and in the government.[179] According to a 2020 study in the American Political Science Review, nonviolent civil rights protests boosted vote shares for the Democratic party in presidential elections in nearby counties, but violent protests substantially boosted white support for Republicans in counties near to the violent protests.[180]

Notable nonviolence theorists and practitioners

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See also: List of peace activists

See also

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References

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Further reading

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Revisions and contributorsEdit on WikipediaRead on Wikipedia

Nonviolence

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Nonviolence is the ethical commitment and strategic method of pursuing justice and social change through active resistance that avoids inflicting physical harm, emphasizing moral persuasion, civil disobedience, and non-cooperation to expose injustice and appeal to opponents' conscience. Originating from the ancient Indian concept of ahimsa—meaning non-injury or absence of harm—this principle forms a foundational virtue in religions such as Jainism, Hinduism, and Buddhism, extending beyond physical acts to encompass thoughts, words, and intentions toward all living beings. In the 20th century, Mohandas Gandhi adapted ahimsa into satyagraha (truth-force), deploying it in mass campaigns like the 1930 Salt March to challenge British colonial authority in India without armed conflict, achieving partial concessions and inspiring global emulation. Empirical analyses of over 300 resistance campaigns from 1900 to 2006 reveal nonviolent efforts succeeded at roughly twice the rate of violent ones (53% versus 26%), attributed to their capacity to mobilize broader participation, foster defections among regime supporters, and sustain long-term pressure through diverse tactics. Notable successes include the U.S. civil rights movement under Martin Luther King Jr., where boycotts, marches, and sit-ins dismantled legal segregation, and the Philippine People Power Revolution of 1986, which ousted a dictator via mass demonstrations. Critics, however, contend nonviolence presumes adversaries amenable to reason or shame, faltering against totalitarian systems that respond only to force, and recent data indicate declining efficacy since 2010 amid advanced repression tactics, with success rates dropping below 34%.

Definition and Principles

Core Concepts of Nonviolence

Nonviolence constitutes a deliberate strategy and ethical stance against employing physical force or harm to achieve objectives, particularly in conflicts involving injustice or oppression, emphasizing instead methods that rely on moral persuasion, self-sacrifice, and disruption of cooperation. At its foundation lies ahimsa, derived from Sanskrit meaning "non-injury," which mandates abstention from harm in action, speech, and thought, originating in ancient Indian traditions such as Jainism—where it requires extreme vigilance against injuring any sentient being—Hinduism, and Buddhism, predating recorded history in texts like the Upanishads around 800 BCE. This principle posits that all life possesses inherent value, rendering violence counterproductive as it perpetuates cycles of retaliation and moral degradation. Mahatma Gandhi operationalized ahimsa through satyagraha, termed "truth-force" or "soul-force," introduced during his South African campaigns in 1906 against discriminatory laws, involving active resistance via civil disobedience, fasting, and marches while accepting suffering to awaken the opponent's conscience without retaliation. Gandhi insisted nonviolence demands rigorous self-purification and courage, viewing it as superior to violence because it aligns with universal truth and avoids the ethical corruption inherent in coercive means; he applied it systematically in India's independence movement, such as the 1930 Salt March, where participants courted arrest to expose British injustice. Unlike passive endurance, satyagraha actively confronts evil by refusing complicity, aiming to convert adversaries through demonstrated moral integrity rather than defeat them physically. Martin Luther King Jr., influenced by Gandhi, outlined six interconnected principles in his 1950s-1960s civil rights advocacy: nonviolence as courageous resistance to evil without violence; pursuit of friendship and mutual understanding; targeting injustice over persons, recognizing evildoers as redeemable; selection of love over hate; acceptance of suffering as educative and transformative; and faith in justice's ultimate triumph. These emphasize nonviolence's dual role as moral imperative and practical tool, where voluntary suffering—evident in events like the 1963 Birmingham campaign, involving over 2,000 arrests—generates empathy and exposes systemic cruelty, thereby eroding support for oppressive structures. Gene Sharp's pragmatic framework, detailed in his 1973 work The Politics of Nonviolent Action, conceptualizes nonviolence as a technique exploiting the sources of political power, which stem from obedience and cooperation rather than inherent ruler authority, enabling resisters to withdraw consent through 198 methods like protests, boycotts, and strikes. Sharp's analysis, grounded in historical cases such as the 1905 Russian strikes involving 800,000 workers, highlights nonviolence's efficacy when opponents rely on popular pillars of support, as defiance fractures these, leading to regime paralysis without bloodshed; however, it underscores limitations against fully isolated tyrannies lacking moral scruples or external dependencies. Across these formulations, core concepts converge on nonviolence's causal logic: by forgoing harm, practitioners preserve ethical high ground, amplify injustice's visibility, and leverage societal interdependence to realign power toward reform.

Principled Versus Pragmatic Approaches

Principled nonviolence derives from ethical or religious convictions that violence is inherently immoral, emphasizing personal moral integrity, self-suffering, and transformation of both oppressor and oppressed through adherence to truth and non-harm. This approach, rooted in traditions like Jain ahimsa or Gandhian satyagraha, views nonviolence not merely as a tactic but as an absolute commitment shaping one's character and worldview, often requiring readiness for imprisonment or death without retaliation. Mahatma Gandhi exemplified this in his 1930 Salt March, where participants accepted British arrests and beatings as acts of moral witness, aiming to awaken conscience rather than solely coerce political change. In contrast, pragmatic nonviolence treats nonviolent methods as strategic tools for undermining an opponent's power sources, focusing on political efficacy without presupposing a moral ban on violence. Gene Sharp, in works like From Dictatorship to Democracy (1993), outlined 198 methods of nonviolent action—such as strikes, boycotts, and parallel institutions—to disrupt regimes by withdrawing consent and loyalty, drawing on historical cases like the 1986 Philippines People Power Revolution, which ousted Ferdinand Marcos through mass defections of military and elites. This consequentialist framework prioritizes measurable outcomes, such as regime collapse, over ethical purity, allowing flexibility if violence proves more expedient in analysis, though Sharp advocated nonviolence for its superior success rates empirically. The distinction highlights tensions: principled advocates, like those in Clements' analysis, argue strategic approaches risk moral erosion by treating nonviolence as disposable, potentially reverting to violence post-victory without inner change, as seen in some post-colonial states where initial nonviolent gains yielded authoritarianism. Pragmatists counter that moral absolutism can hinder adaptation to ruthless foes, citing data from Erica Chenoweth's 2011 study showing nonviolent campaigns succeed 53% of the time versus 26% for violent ones between 1900-2006, attributing this to broader participation and elite defections rather than ethical appeal alone. Hybrid cases, such as Martin Luther King Jr.'s civil rights actions, blend both—drawing on Gandhian ethics while targeting U.S. public opinion strategically—yet underscore that pure pragmatism may overlook long-term societal healing.
AspectPrincipled NonviolencePragmatic Nonviolence
FoundationMoral/ethical imperative (e.g., satyagraha)Strategic utility for power dynamics
GoalPersonal and societal transformationPolitical objectives like regime change
Key ProponentGandhi (e.g., 1919-1947 Indian independence)Sharp (e.g., 198 methods applied in 1989 Velvet Revolution)
RisksPerceived ineffectiveness against totalitariansPotential ethical compromise or backlash
Empirical EmphasisSpiritual witness over metricsSuccess rates via consent withdrawal
This table summarizes core differences, informed by comparative scholarship, though outcomes vary by context, with principled methods fostering resilience in prolonged struggles like Tibet's ongoing resistance.

Historical Development

Ancient and Religious Foundations

The principle of ahimsa, meaning non-harm or nonviolence toward all living beings, originated in ancient Indian religious traditions, forming the ethical bedrock for later developments in nonviolence. In Vedic literature, early references to avoiding injury appear in texts like the Rigveda (composed circa 1500–1200 BCE), where hymns invoke protection from harm, though systematic ethical formulation emerged later in the Brahmanas and Upanishads. The Chandogya Upanishad (circa 800–600 BCE) explicitly lists ahimsa alongside truthfulness and austerity as virtues for spiritual aspirants, emphasizing restraint from causing physical or mental injury. In Jainism, ahimsa became the supreme vow, predating its codification by the 24th Tirthankara Mahavira (circa 599–527 BCE), who built on the teachings of his predecessor Parshvanatha (circa 877–777 BCE). Jains interpret ahimsa as absolute, extending to micro-organisms, with monks sweeping paths and wearing mouth cloths to prevent inadvertent killing; this rigor stems from the belief in jiva (soul) inhabiting all matter, where violence perpetuates karmic bondage. Lay Jains apply moderated forms, but the principle underscores causal realism: harm generates reciprocal suffering across cycles of rebirth. Buddhism, founded by Siddhartha Gautama (the Buddha, circa 563–483 BCE), incorporated ahimsa as the first of the Five Precepts, prohibiting the taking of life in any form to cultivate compassion (karuna) and wisdom. The Buddha's teachings in the Dhammapada (compiled circa 3rd century BCE) equate abstaining from harm with moral purity, though some Theravada texts permit defensive killing under strict conditions, prioritizing intent over absolute prohibition. In Hinduism, ahimsa integrates into dharma (cosmic order), as articulated in the Mahabharata (circa 400 BCE–400 CE), where it ranks highest among yamas in yogic texts like the Yoga Sutras of Patanjali (circa 400 CE), yet coexists with sanctioned violence in righteous war (dharma yuddha), reflecting pragmatic ethical hierarchies rather than unqualified pacifism. Beyond India, Taoist philosophy in ancient China, as in the Tao Te Ching attributed to Laozi (circa 6th–5th century BCE), promotes wu wei (non-action or effortless action), advocating harmony with the Tao (way) to avoid coercive violence, though this emphasizes natural flow over explicit ethical non-harm. Early Christian teachings provide another foundation, particularly Jesus' Sermon on the Mount (circa 30 CE, recorded in Matthew 5–7), which instructs "do not resist an evil person" and "love your enemies," interpreted by early church fathers like Tertullian (circa 160–220 CE) as prohibiting military service. This pacifism prevailed in the pre-Constantinian church (before 312 CE), rooted in eschatological expectation and imitation of Christ's non-retaliation, though later doctrines like just war theory tempered it.

Modern Philosophical and Political Evolution

The modern philosophical foundations of nonviolence emerged in the 19th century through the works of Henry David Thoreau and Leo Tolstoy, who emphasized individual moral resistance against unjust authority. Thoreau's essay "Civil Disobedience," published in 1849, advocated refusing to cooperate with immoral laws, influencing later thinkers by framing nonviolent refusal as a duty to conscience rather than mere pragmatism. Tolstoy extended this in "The Kingdom of God Is Within You" (1894), interpreting Christian teachings as a call to absolute nonresistance to evil, rejecting state violence and promoting voluntary simplicity and mutual aid as alternatives to coercive power structures. His ideas critiqued institutional religion and government as hypocritical, positing that true power derives from personal ethical commitment rather than force. Mahatma Gandhi synthesized these influences with Hindu and Jain principles of ahimsa into satyagraha, a philosophy of active nonviolent resistance aimed at transforming opponents through suffering and truth. Developed during his campaigns in South Africa from 1906 to 1914 against pass laws and discrimination, satyagraha rejected passive submission while prohibiting harm, viewing moral suasion as more potent than physical confrontation for achieving justice. Gandhi's correspondence with Tolstoy, spanning 1910, reinforced this framework, with Gandhi later describing Tolstoy as "the greatest apostle of non-violence that the present age has produced." Applied in India's independence movement, including the 1930 Salt March, satyagraha evolved nonviolence from personal ethics to a scalable political strategy, emphasizing self-discipline and public witness to expose systemic injustice. In the mid-20th century, Martin Luther King Jr. adapted Gandhi's principles to the U.S. civil rights struggle, integrating them with Christian theology to form a philosophy of nonviolent direct action. Outlined in his 1958 book "Stride Toward Freedom," King's six tenets included nonviolence as courageous resistance to evil without retaliation, acceptance of suffering to awaken consciences, and belief in the potential for redemptive love to convert adversaries. Drawing explicitly from Gandhi—whom he studied during a 1959 visit to India—King applied these in events like the 1955 Montgomery Bus Boycott and 1963 Birmingham Campaign, arguing that nonviolence avoided the cycle of hatred inherent in violent retaliation while building moral authority. This evolution shifted nonviolence toward pragmatic political efficacy, prioritizing measurable goals like desegregation over absolute pacifism. Post-World War II developments secularized nonviolence into a strategic political theory, exemplified by Gene Sharp's "The Politics of Nonviolent Action" (1973), which dissected power as obedience-dependent rather than inherent to rulers. Sharp identified 198 methods of nonviolent action—spanning protest, noncooperation, and intervention—positing that withdrawing consent erodes dictatorships more sustainably than armed revolt, as it minimizes backlash and fosters broad participation. Influencing movements like the 1989 Velvet Revolution and later color revolutions, Sharp's framework treated nonviolence as a technique of applied political science, emphasizing preparation, unity, and nonviolent discipline over moral purity. This marked a departure from religiously grounded absolutism, prioritizing empirical analysis of power dynamics and causal mechanisms of change, though critics note it underemphasizes risks of co-optation or escalation by opponents. By the late 20th century, nonviolence had evolved into a hybrid of philosophical conviction and tactical realism, informing global advocacy against authoritarianism while sparking debates on its compatibility with defensive force in existential threats.

Methods and Strategies

Acts of Protest and Symbolism

Acts of protest in nonviolent campaigns encompass public demonstrations such as marches, vigils, and symbolic gestures designed to highlight grievances and appeal to public conscience without employing physical force. These methods leverage visibility and moral contrast to expose injustice, often incorporating symbolic elements to amplify their message and foster solidarity among participants and observers. A prominent example is the Salt March led by Mahatma Gandhi from March 12 to April 6, 1930, where approximately 78 followers traversed 240 miles from Sabarmati Ashram to Dandi to evaporate seawater and produce salt, defying the British colonial monopoly on salt production. This act symbolized self-reliance and rejection of imperial economic control, igniting mass civil disobedience that resulted in over 60,000 arrests and increased international scrutiny of British rule in India. In the U.S. civil rights movement, marches served as symbolic protests against segregation, such as the Selma to Montgomery marches in March 1965, organized by Martin Luther King Jr. to demand voting rights for African Americans. The initial attempt on March 7, known as Bloody Sunday, involved about 600 nonviolent marchers crossing the Edmund Pettus Bridge, where state troopers' violent response was broadcast nationwide, galvanizing public support and contributing to the passage of the Voting Rights Act later that year. Hunger strikes represent another symbolic form of nonviolent protest, involving voluntary fasting to underscore demands and demonstrate personal commitment, as practiced by Gandhi in multiple instances, including his 21-day fast in 1943 against British internment. Such actions draw attention through self-inflicted suffering, pressuring authorities by risking the protester's life while maintaining nonaggression toward others, though their success often depends on media coverage and public sympathy. Symbolic accessories in protests, like the peace symbol originating from the 1958 British Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament, have been worn or displayed to signify opposition to violence and commitment to nonviolent resolution, appearing in anti-war demonstrations to visually reinforce the movement's ethos. These elements, including badges or emblems, facilitate collective identity and non-confrontational messaging during assemblies.

Noncooperation and Boycotts

Noncooperation constitutes a core method of nonviolent resistance, involving the systematic refusal to obey laws, participate in institutions, or engage with the structures of an oppressive regime, thereby eroding its legitimacy and operational capacity through withdrawal of consent rather than confrontation. Boycotts form a subset of economic noncooperation, targeting the financial underpinnings of the opponent by abstaining from consumption of goods, services, or labor, which exerts pressure via demonstrated economic interdependence. Political theorist Gene Sharp cataloged over 50 methods of noncooperation in his framework of 198 nonviolent actions, dividing them into social (e.g., social boycotts and ostracism), economic (e.g., consumer boycotts, labor strikes, and rent withholding), and political categories (e.g., refusal to pay taxes or fines, and nonparticipation in elections or government functions). In British India, Mahatma Gandhi initiated the Non-Cooperation Movement on September 4, 1920, calling for the boycott of British courts, schools, legislative councils, and imported goods, alongside the resignation of government titles, in protest against the Rowlatt Acts of 1919 and the Jallianwala Bagh massacre on April 13, 1919, which killed at least 379 civilians. The campaign mobilized millions, including students, lawyers, and merchants who returned titles and burned foreign cloth, significantly reducing British revenue from customs duties and fostering self-reliance through indigenous industries like khadi cloth production. Although suspended by Gandhi on February 12, 1922, after violence at Chauri Chaura killed 22 policemen, the movement expanded the Indian National Congress membership from 50,000 to 5 million and laid groundwork for future satyagraha campaigns by illustrating how mass noncooperation could paralyze colonial administration without arms. The 1930 Salt Satyagraha exemplified boycott tactics, as Gandhi's 240-mile Dandi March from March 12 to April 6 led to the illegal production and sale of salt by over 60,000 Indians, resulting in the arrest of 80,000 participants and a nationwide evasion of the British salt tax, which generated £25 million annually. This economic disruption, combined with international scrutiny, prompted partial concessions like the Gandhi-Irwin Pact on March 5, 1931, releasing prisoners and allowing salt production. In the United States, the Montgomery Bus Boycott from December 5, 1955, to December 20, 1956—lasting 381 days—united 40,000 African American residents in refusing segregated city buses after Rosa Parks's arrest on December 1, 1955, for not yielding her seat. Organized by the Montgomery Improvement Association under Martin Luther King Jr., the action caused daily losses of $3,000–$9,000 in fares for Montgomery City Lines, equivalent to 30,000–40,000 rides, forcing reliance on carpools, black taxis, and walking despite bombings of leaders' homes. The U.S. Supreme Court's November 13, 1956, ruling in Browder v. Gayle declared bus segregation unconstitutional, integrating the system and catalyzing the broader civil rights movement, though enforcement faced resistance including arrests of over 100 boycotters. Empirical analyses of nonviolent campaigns, including those reliant on boycotts and noncooperation, reveal success rates of approximately 53% from 1900 to 2006, doubling the 26% for violent insurgencies, with effectiveness linked to participation levels exceeding 3.5% of the population and inducing defections among regime supporters through demonstrated resolve and economic strain rather than destruction. Boycotts succeed when boycotters represent a critical market share, as in Montgomery where African Americans comprised 75% of riders, but falter against diversified economies or without unified enforcement, underscoring the causal role of leverage over moral suasion alone.

Direct Intervention and Civil Disobedience

Direct intervention in nonviolent movements involves physical actions that disrupt ongoing unjust practices without employing violence, such as sit-ins, occupations, or blockades, aimed at highlighting and challenging systemic wrongs through personal risk and moral witness. Civil disobedience complements this by entailing the deliberate, public violation of specific laws considered unjust, performed openly and nonviolently, with participants accepting legal penalties to underscore the moral illegitimacy of those laws. These methods derive from the principle that voluntary suffering exposes the coerciveness of oppressive systems, appealing to public conscience and pressuring authorities without resorting to force. In practice, direct intervention often manifests as noncooperative presence in forbidden spaces, forcing authorities to either negotiate or reveal their own ethical inconsistencies through arrests or force against peaceful actors. For instance, during the 1960 Greensboro sit-ins, four Black college students sat at a segregated Woolworth's lunch counter in North Carolina, sparking a wave of similar actions across the U.S. South that involved over 70,000 participants by summer's end and led to the desegregation of public facilities in that city by July 1960. Civil disobedience escalates this by targeting laws directly, as in Mohandas Gandhi's 1930 Salt March, where he and 78 followers walked 240 miles to the Arabian Sea to defy the British salt monopoly, producing salt in violation of the Salt Act; this act catalyzed mass defiance, resulting in over 60,000 arrests and amplifying Indian independence demands globally. Martin Luther King Jr. adapted these tactics in the U.S. civil rights movement, integrating Gandhian satyagraha with Christian ethics to frame civil disobedience as a constructive confrontation of evil. In the 1955-1956 Montgomery Bus Boycott, Black residents refused to use segregated buses for 381 days following Rosa Parks' arrest, walking or carpooling instead, which economically pressured the system and culminated in a Supreme Court ruling on December 20, 1956, declaring bus segregation unconstitutional. King's 1963 Birmingham campaign employed children's marches and sit-ins against segregation ordinances, drawing violent police responses televised nationwide, which shifted public opinion and prompted federal intervention, leading to desegregated public spaces by May 1963. These strategies emphasize preparation, including training in non-retaliation and willingness to endure hardship, to maintain moral authority; Gene Sharp cataloged over 198 methods of nonviolent action, including many direct interventions like mill-ins and nonviolent invasion, underscoring their tactical diversity for withdrawing cooperation from illegitimate authority. While effective in exposing hypocrisy and mobilizing support in democratic contexts with free media, such actions risk escalation if met with extreme repression, as seen in some colonial settings where British forces responded to Gandhi's campaigns with beatings but ultimately conceded due to international scrutiny and domestic strain. Empirical accounts indicate that success hinges on broad participation and sustained pressure, rather than isolated acts, to alter power dynamics without violence.

Applications in Conflicts and Revolutions

Documented Successes

Empirical analyses of historical campaigns demonstrate that nonviolent resistance has achieved regime change or significant concessions more frequently than violent methods. Political scientists Erica Chenoweth and Maria J. Stephan examined 323 maximalist campaigns from 1900 to 2006, finding nonviolent efforts succeeded in 53 percent of cases, compared to 26 percent for violent ones; successes were attributed to higher participation rates, which undermined regime pillars like security forces and economic control. Nonviolent campaigns also proved ten times more likely to yield democratic transitions post-conflict. The Indian independence movement exemplifies nonviolent success through sustained civil disobedience. Mohandas Gandhi's Salt March, commencing March 12, 1930, involved 78 followers walking 240 miles to Dandi to defy the British salt monopoly, sparking nationwide protests that arrested over 60,000 participants and pressured concessions like the Gandhi-Irwin Pact in March 1931; these actions eroded British legitimacy, contributing to independence on August 15, 1947. In the United States, the Civil Rights Movement secured legal reforms via nonviolent tactics. The Montgomery Bus Boycott, from December 5, 1955, to December 20, 1956, coordinated by Martin Luther King Jr. and involving 40,000 African Americans, led to a Supreme Court ruling on November 13, 1956, declaring bus segregation unconstitutional; subsequent campaigns, including the 1963 Birmingham protests with over 3,000 arrests, accelerated the Civil Rights Act of 1964, prohibiting discrimination. The Velvet Revolution in Czechoslovakia transitioned from communism through mass nonviolent mobilization. Beginning November 17, 1989, with student demonstrations in Prague met by police but escalating to strikes involving one million participants by November 27, the campaign forced the communist government's resignation on November 24, 1989, and free elections in June 1990, with minimal violence. The People Power Revolution in the Philippines ousted Ferdinand Marcos via nonviolent uprising. From February 22 to 25, 1986, millions protested election fraud, with crowds blocking military advances using human chains and rosaries, leading to Marcos's flight on February 25 and Corazon Aquino's inauguration, restoring democratic processes.

Notable Failures and Partial Outcomes

Nonviolent campaigns have faltered in contexts of extreme state repression, where regimes maintain internal loyalty, deploy lethal force without restraint, and lack external pressures to concede, often resulting in participant deaths and entrenched authoritarianism rather than reform. Empirical analyses of over 300 resistance campaigns from 1900 to 2006 indicate that nonviolent efforts fail approximately 47% of the time, particularly when participation remains below critical thresholds like 3.5% of the population or when security forces do not defect. Such failures underscore causal factors including insufficient strategic planning, fragmented unity, and the absence of economic or military leverage to compel elite fissures. The 1989 Tiananmen Square protests in Beijing exemplified a stark failure, as student-initiated nonviolent demonstrations for political liberalization, involving up to one million participants from April to June, faced unyielding military suppression. On June 3-4, 1989, the People's Liberation Army cleared the square using tanks and live ammunition, with death toll estimates ranging from 241 (official Chinese figures) to 2,600 (per declassified U.S. cables and eyewitness accounts), alongside thousands injured or arrested. The campaign achieved no democratic concessions, instead prompting intensified censorship and Party consolidation under Deng Xiaoping, demonstrating how centralized control and willingness to massacre can neutralize mass mobilization without triggering defections. Nonviolent resistance against Nazi Germany and its occupied territories from 1933 to 1945 largely collapsed under totalitarian coercion, failing to dismantle the regime or avert the Holocaust's systematic genocide of six million Jews and millions of others. Isolated actions, such as the 1942 Norwegian teachers' strike against Nazification of education—which saw 1,000 of 14,000 teachers fired or interned—yielded partial concessions like policy reversals but did not erode overall occupation control. Broader appeals to nonviolence, including petitions and symbolic protests, were ineffective against the SS and Gestapo's preemptive arrests, as the regime's ideological unity and propaganda portrayed resisters as traitors, necessitating eventual Allied armed liberation rather than internal collapse. The 1988 "8888 Uprising" in Burma (Myanmar) represented another collapse, with nationwide nonviolent strikes and marches by students, monks, and civilians demanding multiparty democracy drawing millions into the streets starting August 8. Military forces under General Ne Win responded with gunfire and curfews, killing an estimated 3,000-10,000 over weeks, installing a junta that ruled until partial transitions decades later. This outcome highlighted repression's efficacy when opposition lacks sustained rural-urban coordination or international isolation of the regime. Partial successes emerged in cases like the 2009 Iranian Green Movement, where nonviolent street protests and boycotts against Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's disputed reelection mobilized up to three million in Tehran alone from June onward, exposing electoral fraud via citizen footage. Yet suppression via basij militias and arrests of over 4,000 yielded no power transfer, only reinforcing the Islamic Republic's guardianship system while galvanizing diaspora opposition and minor electoral tweaks in 2013. Similarly, Bahrain's 2011 Pearl Roundabout occupation, echoing Arab Spring tactics with sit-ins for constitutional monarchy, forced temporary concessions like dialogue promises but was crushed by Saudi-led intervention and demolitions, preserving the Al Khalifa monarchy amid 90 deaths and ongoing sectarian crackdowns. These instances illustrate how nonviolence can erode legitimacy and extract tactical gains but falter against hybrid regimes blending repression with co-optation, often prolonging instability without structural victory.

Empirical Research on Effectiveness

Major Studies and Quantitative Findings

A landmark quantitative study by political scientists Erica Chenoweth and Maria J. Stephan analyzed 323 campaigns worldwide from 1900 to 2006 seeking major political objectives such as regime change, territorial independence, or secession. Nonviolent campaigns succeeded in 53 percent of cases, defined as achieving primary goals or forcing significant concessions within a year of peak activity, compared to 26 percent for violent insurgencies. The dataset, Nonviolent and Violent Campaigns and Outcomes (NAVCO) 1.0, controlled for factors like campaign size and regime type, attributing nonviolence's edge to mechanisms like broader participation, elite defections, and security force non-cooperation rather than inherent moral superiority.
Campaign TypeSuccess RateFatalities Ratio (to Success)Period AnalyzedSource
Nonviolent53%1:11900–2006Chenoweth & Stephan (2011)
Violent26%1:10 (approx.)1900–2006Chenoweth & Stephan (2011)
Subsequent updates to the NAVCO dataset, including version 2.1 covering 389 campaigns from 1945 to 2013, reaffirmed nonviolent campaigns' higher success rates, with post-2000 efforts showing increased reliance on digital coordination but similar overall efficacy when participation thresholds are met. Chenoweth's further analysis derived the "3.5 percent rule," observing that no nonviolent campaign in the dataset failed once it mobilized at least 3.5 percent of the population in sustained action, as seen in cases like the Philippines' People Power Revolution (1986), where participation exceeded this threshold and led to regime ouster. Empirical outcomes extend beyond success rates: victorious nonviolent campaigns generated 22 times fewer fatalities per capita than violent ones and transitioned to democracies 10 times more often within five years, with lower relapse into civil war. A 2024 meta-analysis of 65 quantitative studies on revolutions corroborated that nonviolent uprisings produce superior institutional reforms, such as improved governance and reduced corruption, relative to violent counterparts, though effects vary by context like regime repression levels. Critiques highlight methodological sensitivities; replications indicate the 2:1 can diminish with alternative codings of "maximalist" campaigns or inclusion of smaller-scale efforts, potentially inflating nonviolence's apparent advantages to undercoverage of failed in repressive autocracies. also suggests that interspersed organized within ostensibly nonviolent movements correlates with reduced probabilities, underscoring the causal importance of consistent non-coercive .

Causal Factors and Comparative Analysis

Empirical analyses identify several causal factors contributing to the relative effectiveness of nonviolent campaigns. High levels of mass participation, typically reaching at least 3.5% of a population, correlate strongly with success by overwhelming regime pillars of support, such as security forces and economic structures, through sustained pressure without armed confrontation. Maintaining strict nonviolent discipline minimizes justifications for regime repression, often triggering "backfire" where excessive force alienates elites and bystanders, leading to loyalty shifts among military and bureaucratic personnel. Strategic planning, including diversified tactics like boycotts and parallel institutions, enhances resilience by reducing dependency on single methods and exploiting opponent vulnerabilities. External factors, such as international sanctions or media amplification, amplify these dynamics but are secondary to domestic mobilization. Comparatively, nonviolent campaigns from 1900 to 2006 achieved full or partial success in 53% of cases, versus 26% for violent ones, with nonviolent efforts averaging shorter durations—around 3 years versus 8 for violent campaigns—due to broader participant recruitment from diverse demographics unwilling to engage in violence. Post-success, nonviolent transitions yield more stable democracies and positive institutional changes, such as reduced corruption and improved economic growth, compared to violent revolutions, which often entrench authoritarianism or civil war. However, success rates for nonviolent campaigns declined after 2010 to around 30-40%, attributed to regime adaptations like surveillance, co-optation, and hybrid warfare, narrowing the gap with violent methods in contexts of ethnic polarization or resource scarcity. Methodological critiques highlight limitations in these findings, including potential coding biases where campaigns with sporadic violence are classified as nonviolent, inflating success attributions, and underrepresentation of failed small-scale efforts. In genocidal or total war scenarios, nonviolence shows diminished efficacy, as seen in cases like the Holocaust resistance, where violence provided limited defensive utility absent mass participation. Overall, while nonviolence leverages causal mechanisms like diffuse power erosion over violence's coercive focus, its advantages hinge on contextual enablers like societal cohesion, absent which violent escalation may occur.

Criticisms and Counterarguments

Moral and Ethical Objections

Critics of nonviolence contend that its absolutist interpretations, often equating to pacifism, impose an unethical restraint on the use of force, thereby abdicating the moral responsibility to safeguard the vulnerable from aggression and tyranny. This view holds that nonresistance in the face of deliberate harm equates to permitting greater injustice, as ethical frameworks like natural rights theory affirm an inherent duty to defend life and liberty, which may require proportionate violence when nonviolent means prove futile. Reinhold Niebuhr, a prominent 20th-century theologian, argued in his 1939 essay "Why the Christian Church Is Not Pacifist" that pacifism distorts Christian ethics by applying personal ideals of love to collective politics without reckoning with human sinfulness and power dynamics, resulting in moral irresponsibility toward the oppressed. Niebuhr maintained that while perfect love is an individual aspiration, political life demands coercive restraints on evil to secure relative justice, as unchecked aggression by the strong would otherwise overwhelm the weak without countervailing force. This critique posits that nonviolence's refusal to engage in such coercion prioritizes abstract purity over the concrete protection of innocents, fostering complicity in systemic evil. Just war theory further substantiates ethical objections by permitting defensive violence under strict criteria—such as legitimate authority, just cause, proportionality, and last resort—when nonviolence cannot avert atrocities, contrasting with nonviolence's blanket prohibition that risks enabling genocidal regimes. Proponents argue this framework morally justifies intervention to halt ongoing harms, as seen in historical necessities like resisting totalitarian expansion, where passivity would amplify victim suffering beyond what targeted force might entail. Historical applications underscore these concerns; Mahatma Gandhi's 1938 advice to European Jews urged nonviolent submission to Nazi persecution, suggesting they "offer themselves to the butcher's knife" to shame oppressors morally, a stance ethicists have lambasted as naive and immoral for disregarding the causal inefficacy of such resistance against ideologically driven extermination. Critics, including contemporaries, viewed this as ethically deficient, arguing it conflated spiritual witness with practical defense, thereby endorsing avoidable deaths over the virtuous imperative to resist annihilation actively. Gandhi's parallel counsel to Britons in 1940 to nonviolently accept invasion similarly drew rebukes for underestimating aggression's logic, prioritizing personal non-harm over communal survival ethics. From a virtue ethics perspective, nonviolence is faulted for potentially eroding virtues like courage and justice, which demand confronting threats head-on rather than unilateral restraint that invites exploitation by amoral actors. Ethicists assert that self-defense, both individual and collective, embodies moral agency against predation, rendering absolute nonviolence a form of ethical abdication that privileges the aggressor's impunity. This objection holds particularly in scenarios of imminent violence, where inaction violates deontological duties to preserve human dignity through resistance, not resignation.

Strategic and Realpolitik Limitations

Nonviolent strategies hinge on imposing political, economic, and moral costs that erode an opponent's pillars of support, such as security forces, bureaucrats, and economic actors, prompting defections or concessions. In realpolitik environments, however, regimes insulated by total control over coercive instruments, information, and loyalty mechanisms—often through ethnic favoritism, ideological indoctrination, or resource distribution—can neutralize these pressures by absorbing or deflecting costs without systemic collapse. Such dynamics limit nonviolence's efficacy against highly centralized autocracies willing to deploy indiscriminate violence, as defections remain improbable when elites perceive greater risks in disloyalty than in repression. The 1989 Tiananmen Square protests in China illustrate this constraint: beginning as student-led nonviolent demonstrations for political reform and against corruption, involving up to one million participants in Beijing, the movement was quashed on June 3–4 when the People's Liberation Army deployed tanks and troops, killing an estimated several hundred to over 10,000 civilians according to varying accounts, with no defections from the military or party elite and the Chinese Communist Party emerging more entrenched. Similarly, the 1988 "8888 Uprising" in Burma (Myanmar) saw nationwide nonviolent strikes, marches, and boycotts by monks, students, and workers against Ne Win's socialist military regime, peaking with millions participating, yet the junta's ruthless counteroffensive—killing over 3,000 and arresting tens of thousands—restored control without significant internal fracturing, delaying democratization for decades. Against fascist or totalitarian systems like Nazi Germany, nonviolence encountered even starker barriers, as the regime's fusion of propaganda, terror, and militarized loyalty precluded the mass noncooperation needed for paralysis. Efforts such as the White Rose group's distribution of anti-Nazi leaflets from 1942–1943, a nonviolent intellectual resistance by students and a professor, resulted in their execution but failed to spark broader dissent amid pervasive surveillance and the Gestapo's efficiency in suppressing opposition. The Holocaust's progression despite Jewish communities' initial nonresistance underscored nonviolence's inadequacy for halting genocidal violence, where physical defense was absent and international inaction prevailed until military conquest in 1945. These cases highlight a core realpolitik limitation: nonviolence presumes an opponent's stake in legitimacy or restraint, but amoral power-maximizers unbound by domestic opinion or global norms can opt for annihilation over accommodation, especially absent external intervention.

Key Figures and Intellectual Contributions

Early Theorists and Religious Exemplars

The principle of ahimsa, or non-harm, emerged in ancient Indian traditions as a foundational ethical doctrine, predating formalized philosophies of nonviolence in the West. In Jainism, Mahavira (c. 599–527 BCE), the 24th Tirthankara, elevated ahimsa to the foremost vow among the five great vows (mahavratas) for ascetics, encompassing abstinence from violence in thought, speech, and action toward all living beings, including microorganisms. This rigorous application extended to practices like extreme vegetarianism and sweeping paths to avoid injuring insects, reflecting a metaphysical view of interconnected souls (jivas) bound by karma. Buddhism, founded by Siddhartha Gautama (the Buddha, c. 563–483 BCE), incorporated nonviolence as the first of the Five Precepts for lay followers: abstaining from taking life, rooted in compassion (karuna) and the recognition of suffering (dukkha) in all sentient beings. The Buddha's teachings in texts like the Dhammapada emphasize overcoming hatred with non-hatred, prohibiting even defensive killing by monks, though lay rulers were permitted limited military roles under ethical constraints. In Hinduism, ahimsa appears in Vedic texts (c. 1500–500 BCE) and Upanishads (c. 800–200 BCE), advocating non-injury as a virtue for spiritual purity, later synthesized in epics like the Mahabharata where it tempers warrior duties (dharma). In the Abrahamic tradition, Jesus of Nazareth (c. 4 BCE–30 CE) articulated non-retaliatory principles in the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5:38–48), instructing followers to "turn the other cheek" rather than resist evil with evil and to love enemies while praying for persecutors, contrasting Mosaic "eye for an eye" lex talionis. This ethic prioritized personal forbearance and moral witness over violent defense, though interpretations vary on whether it mandates absolute pacifism or contextual non-escalation. Early Christian writers elaborated these teachings amid Roman persecution. Tertullian (c. 155–240 CE), in De Corona (c. 211 CE), argued Christians must refuse military service due to oaths pledging loyalty to the emperor over God and the inherent bloodshed incompatible with Christ's disarming of Peter (Matthew 26:52). Origen (c. 185–253 CE), in Contra Celsum (c. 248 CE), contended believers combat evil through prayer and virtue, not swords, viewing enlistment as antithetical to spiritual warfare against demons and rejecting state coercion for service. These positions reflected a minority pacifist strain in the pre-Constantinian church (before 313 CE), prioritizing allegiance to divine kingdom over imperial violence, though not uniformly held as some converts retained prior soldier roles without explicit renunciation.

20th-Century Practitioners and Innovators


Mahatma Gandhi pioneered the systematic application of satyagraha, a form of nonviolent resistance rooted in truth and self-suffering, as a tool for political change against British rule in India. His first significant campaign unfolded in Champaran in 1917, where he mobilized indigo farmers against exploitative contracts imposed by European planters, prompting a government commission that led to the abolition of the tinting system and partial relief for tenants. In 1918, Gandhi extended similar tactics to the Kheda district, organizing tax withholding amid famine and crop failure, which forced British concessions on revenue collection. These early efforts established nonviolence as a scalable method for mass mobilization, emphasizing voluntary suffering over retaliation to expose injustice. Gandhi escalated his approach with the Non-Cooperation Movement from 1920 to 1922, calling for boycotts of British goods, schools, courts, and titles, which drew millions of participants and eroded colonial legitimacy until suspended following the Chauri Chaura violence that killed 22 policemen. The pinnacle came with the Salt March in March-April 1930, a 240-mile protest against the salt tax monopoly that ignited nationwide civil disobedience, resulting in approximately 60,000 arrests and garnering global sympathy, culminating in the Gandhi-Irwin Pact of 1931 that released prisoners and allowed salt production. Gandhi's innovations integrated fasting, economic boycotts, and constructive programs like village self-reliance, framing nonviolence not merely as passive restraint but as active moral confrontation capable of transforming oppressors.
Martin Luther King Jr. imported and adapted Gandhi's satyagraha to combat racial segregation in the United States, emphasizing nonviolent direct action to dismantle Jim Crow laws during the mid-20th century. Emerging as a leader in the Montgomery Bus Boycott of December 1955 to December 1956, King coordinated 382 days of carpooling and walking in response to Rosa Parks' arrest, sustaining participation through church networks and culminating in a Supreme Court decision affirming bus desegregation on November 13, 1956. He formalized this strategy via the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, founded in 1957, which trained activists in disciplined nonviolence amid threats of violence. King's 1963 Birmingham Campaign targeted segregated public facilities through sit-ins, marches, and boycotts, notably involving over 1,000 children on May 2-3, whose arrests and use of fire hoses and dogs by authorities provoked national revulsion and negotiations yielding desegregation agreements by May 10. The subsequent March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom on August 28, 1963, assembled 250,000 participants, where King's "I Have a Dream" address amplified demands for federal legislation, influencing the Civil Rights Act of 1964 banning discrimination and the Voting Rights Act of 1965 eliminating poll barriers. King's innovations included fusing Christian ethics with Gandhian tactics, prioritizing media exposure of injustice to sway public opinion and policy, earning him the Nobel Peace Prize in 1964 for advancing racial equality without arms. Other innovators included Abdul Ghaffar Khan, who in the 1920s-1940s led the Khudai Khidmatgar movement among Pashtuns, training 100,000 followers in nonviolent discipline against British forces, achieving localized successes like reduced tribal feuds through oath-bound pacifism. Labor organizer Cesar Chavez applied nonviolence in the 1960s United Farm Workers campaigns, employing grape boycotts from 1965-1970 that secured union contracts for 50,000 workers by highlighting migrant hardships via hunger strikes and marches. These figures extended nonviolence beyond anticolonial and civil rights contexts, demonstrating its adaptability to ethnic and economic struggles while underscoring the necessity of rigorous training to maintain commitment under provocation.

Contemporary Applications and Debates

Recent Movements Since 2000

The early 2000s saw a wave of "color revolutions" in post-Soviet states, where nonviolent protests challenged electoral irregularities and entrenched regimes. In Georgia's Rose Revolution of November 2003, widespread demonstrations followed disputed parliamentary elections, culminating in President Eduard Shevardnadze's resignation on November 23 and the subsequent election of opposition leader Mikheil Saakashvili after protesters symbolically entered parliament carrying roses. Similarly, Ukraine's Orange Revolution began on November 22, 2004, in response to alleged fraud in the presidential runoff favoring Viktor Yanukovych, with mass occupations of Kyiv's Independence Square forcing a Supreme Court-ordered revote on December 26, in which opposition candidate Viktor Yushchenko prevailed. These campaigns emphasized disciplined nonviolence, drawing on training in civil resistance tactics, though long-term democratic gains proved uneven, with Ukraine experiencing authoritarian backsliding by 2010. The Arab Spring uprisings from 2010 onward highlighted nonviolence's potential and pitfalls in the Middle East and North Africa. Tunisia's Jasmine Revolution ignited on December 17, 2010, after street vendor Mohamed Bouazizi's self-immolation protested corruption and economic hardship, escalating into nationwide strikes and protests that forced President Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali to flee on January 14, 2011, paving the way for a new constitution and multiparty elections later that year. In Egypt, the January 25, 2011, protests centered on Cairo's Tahrir Square, where up to two million demonstrators demanded President Hosni Mubarak's ouster through sit-ins, marches, and boycotts, achieving his resignation on February 11 after 18 days amid military non-intervention. However, Egypt's transition faltered with the 2013 military coup against elected President Mohamed Morsi, illustrating nonviolence's vulnerability to elite defection or counter-mobilization. Later campaigns demonstrated nonviolence's adaptability amid economic crises and digital coordination. Armenia's Velvet Revolution unfolded from April 16 to May 8, 2018, as opposition leader Nikol Pashinyan led marches against Prime Minister Serzh Sargsyan's power grab, with over 200,000 participants in Yerevan prompting Sargsyan's resignation and Pashinyan's parliamentary election as prime minister on May 8. Sudan's December Revolution, starting with protests on December 19, 2018, against fuel price hikes, evolved into sustained sit-ins at Khartoum's military headquarters, employing the slogan "Silmiya" (peaceful) to maintain discipline and culminating in President Omar al-Bashir's ouster by the military on April 11, 2019, after four months of mobilization. India's farmers' protests from November 2020 to December 2021 involved over 250,000 participants blockading Delhi's borders against three agricultural reform laws perceived as corporate-favoring, with nonviolent tactics like tractor parades and hunger strikes securing the laws' repeal by Prime Minister Narendra Modi on November 19, 2021. Sri Lanka's Aragalaya movement, amid a 2022 economic collapse, featured occupations of Colombo's Galle Face Green from March to July, pressuring President Gotabaya Rajapaksa to resign on July 13 after widespread nonviolent demonstrations demanding systemic anti-corruption reforms. Quantitative analyses indicate a post-2010 decline in nonviolent campaign success rates to under 34 percent globally, attributed to regimes' adoption of surveillance, rapid-response forces, and co-optation strategies that erode participant loyalty and unity. Despite this, these movements often extract concessions or weaken incumbents, fostering incremental shifts through broad participation exceeding 3.5 percent of populations in successful cases, though causal factors like security force defections remain pivotal over moral suasion alone. Failures, such as in Belarus (2020) or Myanmar (2021), underscore repression's role when nonviolence lacks institutional allies or escalates to armed conflict.

Current Challenges and Adaptations

Nonviolent resistance campaigns have encountered declining success rates since approximately 2010, with maximalist campaigns—those seeking regime change—achieving victories in under 30 percent of cases compared to over 40 percent from the 1960s onward and peaks of 65 percent in the 1990s. This downturn stems partly from enhanced state countermeasures, including rapid deployment of security forces, targeted arrests of leaders, and co-optation of moderate elements through concessions or infiltration. Authoritarian regimes have adapted by leveraging advanced surveillance technologies, such as facial recognition and internet shutdowns, to preempt mobilization, as observed in the suppression of the 2020 Belarus protests and Myanmar's 2021 military crackdown following nonviolent uprisings. Additionally, many contemporary movements suffer from insufficient preparation, lacking the structured training in discipline and tactics that characterized earlier successes like the U.S. civil rights campaigns, leading to fragmentation when repression intensifies. Spontaneous mobilizations facilitated by social media, while enabling rapid scaling, often bypass the organizational depth needed for sustained pressure, resulting in shorter campaigns vulnerable to elite defections or public fatigue. In the 2010s, mass protests in contexts like the Arab Spring and Hong Kong's 2019 demonstrations initially drew millions but faltered due to regime resilience, internal divisions, and escalation to sporadic violence that eroded nonviolent discipline and international support. Empirical analyses indicate that nonviolent efforts remain twice as likely to succeed as violent ones overall, yet against entrenched autocracies, they face heightened risks of backlash without broad elite or security force defections. These challenges underscore causal limitations: nonviolence relies on eroding regime loyalty through mass participation and moral suasion, but modern states mitigate this via propaganda framing protesters as threats and economic controls that isolate dissent. In response, practitioners have innovated tactics to counter digital-era repression, expanding the repertoire beyond traditional marches to include decentralized networks, encrypted communications, and "swarm" actions that disperse before crackdowns, as documented in databases tracking over 200 new methods since 2016. Movements like India's 2020-2021 farmers' protests adapted by combining sustained blockades with legal challenges and international advocacy, securing repeal of contentious laws after 11 months through persistent economic disruption without violence. Emphasis on preemptive training in unity, planning, and nonviolent discipline has gained traction, with organizations promoting simulations to build resilience, drawing from quantitative findings that campaigns maintaining 3.5 percent population participation succeed even against repression. Hybrid adaptations integrate nonviolence with parallel institution-building, such as community mutual aid during protests, to sustain momentum and demonstrate governance alternatives, though empirical evidence stresses that deviations into violence halve success odds. Recent studies affirm nonviolence's edge in accelerating transitions—averaging shorter durations than violent paths—provided movements prioritize backfire dynamics, where regime overreach alienates allies.

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