1. Simple verbal persuation and related behaviour, such as conciliation;
2. peaceful institutional procedures backed bythreat or use of sanctions;
3. physical violence against persons;
4. physical violence against persons plus matrial destruction ;
5. material destruction only; and
6. the technique of nonviolent action.

It is also important to see why and how nonviolent action as a technique differs from milder peaceful responses to conflicts, such as conciliation, verbal appeals to the opponent, compromise and negotiation.
These responses may or may not be used with nonvilent action, but hey should not be identified with the nonviolent technique as such. Conciliation and appeals are likely to consist of rational or emotional verbal efforts to bring about an opponent’s agreement to something, while nonviolent action is not verbal--it consists of social, economic and political activity of special types. Nonviolent action is a means of combat, as is war. It involves the matching of forces and the waging of "battles" requires wise strategy and tactics, and demands of its "soldiers" courage, discipline and sacrifice. nonviolent action is overwhelmingly a group or mass action.
Nonviolent action is usually extraconstitutional : that is--it does not rely upon established institutional procedures of the State, whether parliamentary or nonparliamentary. Nonviolent action may involve:

1. acts of omission --people refusing to perform acts they usually perform.
2. acts of commission--people perform acts which they usually do not perform, may be forbidden by law or regulation to perform.
3. a combination of acts of omission and acts of commission.

In nonviolent action there are three broad classes of methods:

1. Use of mainly symbolic actions intended to persuade the opponent or to express the group’s disapproval and dissent, the behaviour may be called nonviolent protest and persuation,e.g. marches, parades and vigils.
2. Acts by withdrawal or withholdig of social, economic, or political cooperation--behaviour may be described as non-cooperation, e.g. boycotts and strikes.
3. Acts largely of direct intervention, e.g. sit-ins, nonviolent obstruction, nonviolent invasionand parallel government.

When successful nonviolent action produces change in one of three broad ways, which we call mechanisms of change :

• conversion : the opponent finallly come around to a new point of view in which he positively accepts their aims.
• accommodation : the opponent chooses to grant demands and to adjust to the new situation which has been produced without changing his viewpoint.
• coercion : change is achieved against the opponent’s will and without his agreement--he no longer has control.

As the example cited earlier in Jawhar, the aim of the nonviolent action is for conversion of heart, as it is the only long lasting solution to oppression women. Here as Gandhiji has so often said--spiritual power, soul forces is the only way this can be achieved--hating the sin but loving the sinner.
To a degree which has never been adequately appreciated, the nonviolent technique operates by producing power changes. Both the relative power and the absolute power of each of the contending groups aresubject to constant and rapid alteraions. (--See box below for some forms of Nonviolent action.) As seen in the box, the method of economic non-cooperation includes all types of boycotts, by consumers, workers and producers, middlemen, or by owners and management, by holders of financial resources, and action by governments.
See Appendix 2 for the method of nonviolent intervention vlassified into psychological, physical, social, economic and political intervention. Woven into all these methods is the spiritual force of suffering.

The Rationale of Self-suffering
All of Nonviolent Action requires sufering--to win and to conver the opponent to your views and aims. Gandhi said, "Reason has to be strengthened by suffering and suffering opens the eyes of understanding--if you want something really important to be done you must not merely satisfy reason, you must also move the heart. The appeal of reason is more to the head, but the penetratin of the heart comes from suffering. It opens up the inner understanding of man."
Suffering acts as shock treatment. For suffering to lead to conversion, the opponent must experience feelings of identification with the nonviolent group. This leads to a new perception of a common quality between the two groups. Suffering by people who have demonstrated their bravery, openness, honesty, goodwill and nonviolent determination is far more likely to produce a significant sympathetic response..
Suffering being positively desired by resisters becomes an armour against the tyrant rather than a weapon in his hands. Suffering in nonviolent action is not deliberately courted, but nether is itavoided. Suffering should not be sought for its own sake nor for masochistic purposes. This is not real affliction and suffering unless the event that has seized and uprooted a life attacks it, directly or indirectly, in all its parts, social psychological and physical. Suffering offers a prime opportunity for spiritual instrumentality. Suffering is an apprenticeship for our training and for our purification. A powerful example is the activist’s suffering in the Jawhar incident.

NONVIOLENCE IN HISTORY
Much of the long history of nonviolent action has been lost for lack of interest in recording and recounting these struggle. Even existing historical accounts and other surviving information have not been brought together. The result is that a comprehensive history of the practiceand development of the technique does not yet exist. So we will give a few especially interesting or significant cases.
Nonviolent actions clearly began early (see the box for forms of NVA): examples go back at least to ancient Rome. In 494 B.C. for example, the plebeians of Rome, rather than murder the consuls in an attempt to correctgrievances, withdrew from the city to a hill, later called "the Sacred Mount." There they remained for some days, refusingto make their usual contribution to the life of the city. An agreement was then reached pledging significant improvements in their life and status. A similar Roman action occurred in 258 B.C. The army had returned from battle to find proposals for reform blocked in the Senate. Instead of using military action, the army marched to the hertile district of Crustumeria, occupied "the Sacred Mount", and threatened to establish a new plebeian city. The senate gave way.

Ashoka 273-232 BC
An outstanding example of nonviolent action in ancient timesis King Ashoka. The keynote of his reform was humanity in internal administration and abandonment of aggressive war. On the death of Bindusara in 273B.C. we come to the reign of Ashoka, the first Indian ruler whose personality throws an immense shadow against the backcloth of Indian history. In the place of the traditional policy of territorial expansion, he substituted conquest by righteousness (dharma). He won many victories in this method. Ashoka believed that by setting an example, others would follows.
Shortly after the war adding Kalinga (Orissa) to his kingdom, Ashoka was converted to Buddhism. During the war 100,000 were killed, even Brahmins and ascetics were murdered, and 125,000 were taken captive. Shaken by the suffering and misery of the war he turned to philanthropic administration, moral reform and preaching Buddhism. He caused edicts to be cut into pillars and rocks to demonstrate compassion. He built hospitals, and put into practice the Buddha’s law of ahimsa, of charity and tenderness to all living things. He sent Buddhist missioneries to other countries. His foreign policy was based on coexistence rather than expansion. He used herbs to treat mentand animals. He promoted peace necessary for ordered economic expansion and an assurance of the justice and morality of the central authority. Ashioka was a Hindu who followed a particular sect. Buddhism was not separate from the mainstream of Hindu thought.
A study of nonviolent action through out history would be a great contribution to peace in the world. We can t race each nonviolent movement and learn important lessons. Let us look at Buddhism. In 606-647 A.D.,Buddhism under Harsha displayed great wealth, but it had ceased to have moral influence on people or rulers. It represented a vested interest of certain elements among the upper classes. The collapse of Buddhism was due to its irrelevance to the emerging economic order of the self supporting village, for the monasteries were too expensive for the small village unit, and with the decline of a strong central power there was no longer support from powerful kings. Buddhism, concentrated into the luxury of its monasteries, was too degenerate anf flabby for the new world of the village. Reading histor like this can be powerful theologizing.
The pre-Gandhian expansion of nonviolent struggle can be grouped into four sources :

1. Nationalists who found nonviolent action useful in resisting foreign enemy or alien laws. The struggles of the american colonists before 1775 furnish important cases of nonviolent resistance. They refused to pay taxes and debts to British--refused to import, or obey unjust laws by using independent political institutions, and serving social and economic contact with the British and pro-British colonists. In 1776 they repealed the Stamp Act.
   Nationalists examples include the Hungarian resistance against Austria between 1850 and 1867 and the Chinese boycotts of Japanese goods in the early twentieth century.
2. Trade Unionists and other social radicals used strikes and boycotts against what they regarded as an unjust social system, and for the improvement of the condition of working men.
3. Individuls gave impetus on the level of ideas and personal examples --e.g.Leo Tolstoy in Russia and Henry David Thoreau in the United States, both of whom wanted to show how a better society might be peacefully created.
4. Oppenents of depotism -- e.g. Russian Revolution of 1905. Thousands joined a peaceful march to the Winter Palace in St. Petersburg to present a mild petition to the Tsar. The guards fired into the crowd; over a hundred persons were killed and over three hundred wounded. A predominantly nonviolent revolution followed spontaneously it lasted about 1 year-- mainly strikes which paralysed St.Petersburg and Moscow and the railway and communications systems. Whole provinces and nationalities broke away from tsarist control and set up independent governments. The Tsar finally had to grant an elected legislature--something he had vowed never to do. Trade unions made rapid growth. The loyalty of troops wavered. The downfall of the tsarist autocracy was, however, postponed until February 1917.

Gandhi and Satyagraha
Gandhi carried the concept of the powerful committed minority into the twentieth century, first gaining recognition of the rights of Indians living in South Africa and then achieving India’s independence from British domination. The revolutionary principle introduced byGandhi resolves the paradox of freedom. He called satyagraha, "soul foce" or "truth force". Satyagraha derives its power from two apparently opposite attributes; fierce autonomy and total compassion. It says, in effect, " I will not coerce you. Neither will I be coerced by you. If you behave unjustly, I will not oppose you by violence(body-force) but by the force of truth--the integrity of my beliefs. My integrity is evidence in my willingness to suffer, to endanger myself, to go to prison, even to die if newcessary. But I will not cooperate with injustice.
The true Satyagrahi is a man of God--the way of life is that of one who holds steadfastly to God, and dedicates his life to Him. Truth can only be attained by loving service of all by nonviolence, I returns good for evil. Gandhi lived this philosophy and required those who joined him at Sabarmati Ashram to take the 11 vows of the Satyagraha Ashram : see Appendix 3 for details of the eleven vows.
Gandhi derived his doctorine of Satyagraha from the Gita ideal of the karma-yogi, Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount, Henry David Thoreau’s writings, and ideas of Ruskin and Leo Tolstoy. Satyagraha appeals to reason conscience of the opponent by inviting suffering on onself. The motive is to convert the opponent and make him one’s willing ally and friend. The moral appeal to heart and conscience is more effective than an appeal based on threat of bodily painor ciolence. Violence does not ever overcome evil; it suppresses it for the time being to rise later with redoubled vigor. Nonviolence puts an end to evil for it converts the evil doer. Nonviolence is unflinching, of the brave, he’ll die with a smile on his face and with no trace of hatredin his heart. It requires a disciplined charter, selflessness, and unswerving devotion to duty.

Gandhi used the fast as one of the strongest methods of civil disobedience. He said fasting should be prompted by the highest devotion to duty and love for the opponent :

• it should aim at purifying oneself ;
• it should seek to convert the oppnent;
• you should be thoroughly convinced that your stand is right;
• it should be used only when all other methods fail, as a last resort, and never for personal gain ;
• it should be in the nature of prayer--for purity and strength, and power from God.

Ahimsa or Satyagraha was a practicethat Gandhiji developed gradually. The above box shows an effective use of Satyagraha today, against limestone quarrying in Nahi-Kala, an area of the Doon Valley.
See Appendix 4 for profiles of some contemporary Gandhians.

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