Nonreligious bases for nonviolences - Research Paper Example

n in use for a long time, mainly by pacifists and non-pacifists, as a means of acquiring a social change and expression of resistance to any kind of oppression. In the past, the thought of non violence had made large numbers of people think and had attracted many followers. However, most non violent forms or cases have been in response to events of violence (PPU, n.d.). Non violence has usually been dived into two distinct parts or methods. The first one is the abstention from violence on religious grounds, while the second is the actions of people who neither start nor respond to any type of violence.

Such kind of behavior has usually been linked to pacifism and abstinence of violence on grounds of principle (Riff, 1990, p. 166). Historically, western belief had an idea that non violence is something which can only be practiced by the educated masses, but this had been proved wrong in India, where the followers of Mahatma Gandhi were largely the poor farmers and uneducated masses (Gregg, 1959, p. 184). In the following pages the various forms of non violence, apart from religious grounds, have been discussed.

Also discussed are the contributions of some of the greatest preachers of non violence in the history of mankind. In this paper, the discussion has aimed to show how historically non violence had persistently fought the various types of violence on grounds which were not related to religion and the various forms of non violence prevalent in the world. The discussion also shoes how great leaders like Mahatma Gandhi and Martin Luther King had contributed to world peace through their non violent methods.

Various cases of non violent action have been found in many countries over time, but it was only in the 19th century that non-violent action started to take different names and forms. The term ‘strike’ as devised at he beginning of the nineteenth century in the United States of America and it meant an organized form of stoppage of work or withdrawal of