Nonviolence
[1] Failure to distinguish between the two types of nonviolent approaches can lead to distortion in the concept's meaning and effectiveness, which can subsequently result in confusion among the audience.
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.
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.
Before the Gandhian era, there was only one recorded instance, almost coincidental, of the term "nonviolence" being used as a political concept, which appeared in a Wisconsin newspaper published in 1914.
[24] 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 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.
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!
"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.
[29][30] 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.
[50] 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.
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).
[57][58] 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][59] The Sandilya Upanishad lists ten forbearances: Ahimsa, Satya, Asteya, Brahmacharya, Daya, Arjava, Kshama, Dhriti, Mitahara and Saucha.
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.
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.
[65] 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.
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.
[78][79] 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.
[93] 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.
[126][127][128] 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.
[129] 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.
[163] In early Greece, Aristophanes' Lysistrata gives the fictional example of women withholding sexual favors from their husbands until war was abandoned (a sex strike).
[162] Tactics must be carefully chosen, taking into account political and cultural circumstances, and form part of a larger plan or strategy.
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.
[169] 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.
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.
"[172] 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.:
[177][178] The main early influences were the thought of Henry David Thoreau[178] and Leo Tolstoy while later the ideas of Mahatma Gandhi gained importance.
[181] 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.
