nonviolence

Principle or practice of abstaining from the use of violence. The Indian nationalist leader Mahatma Gandhi adopted a campaign of passive resistance 1907-14 in response to the attempts by the Transvaal government to discriminate against Indians in South Africa. Later, in India, Gandhi again employed nonviolent methods, including the boycotting of British goods and hunger strikes (see noncooperation movement). More recently, non-violent pro-democracy movement was led in the Philippines in 1986 by Corazon Aquino, in Myanmar by Aung San Suu Kyi, and in Indonesia in 1998 by Amien Rais.

Martin Luther King led a nonviolent civil-rights movement in the USA. He organized a boycott in December 1955 against segregated seating on the buses in Montgomery, Alabama. In June 1963 he led a peaceful demonstration in Washington DC and in March 1965 led a civil-rights march from Selma to Montgomery.