Nonviolent Resistance
Explore nonviolent resistance — the strategy of peaceful protest and civil disobedience perfected by Gandhi and adopted by movements worldwide.
Nonviolent resistance (satyagraha, meaning 'truth-force') was the strategy of political change through peaceful means — civil disobedience, mass protest, boycotts, strikes, and non-cooperation — developed most systematically by Mahatma Gandhi in South Africa and India, and subsequently adopted by movements worldwide.
Gandhi's philosophy drew on multiple traditions: Hindu concepts of ahimsa (non-harm), Christian ethics of turning the other cheek, Thoreau's civil disobedience, and Tolstoy's pacifism. He argued that moral courage — willingness to suffer for justice without inflicting suffering on others — was more powerful than physical force. By accepting punishment while refusing to comply with unjust laws, nonviolent resisters exposed the moral bankruptcy of their oppressors and won public sympathy.
Gandhi's methods proved devastatingly effective against the British Raj. The Salt March (1930), in which Gandhi walked 240 miles to the sea to make salt in defiance of the British salt tax, galvanized the independence movement. His techniques were adopted by Martin Luther King Jr. in the American civil rights movement, by anti-apartheid activists in South Africa, by Solidarity in Poland, and by pro-democracy movements from the Philippines to Eastern Europe. Nonviolent resistance became the most successful strategy for political change in the 20th century.