Abstract
Mohandas Gandhi, Indian political and spiritual leader and major actor of the Indian independence movement against British occupation, was the first to theorize nonviolence in the 1920's. His pioneering and successful use of Satyagraha, promoting resistance to despotism through civil disobedience, found an echo in many civil rights and social reform movements that were to develop throughout the world from then on. Basically, their common initial observation is that society is flawed by injustice and unfairness, and while almost everyone agrees on the need for ending social violence (such as colonization, segregation, war, etc.) in order to establish a just and peaceful society, only nonviolent promoters also ban violence as a means. Despite their different priorities, partly due to their different social origins, Carroll, King and Owen have in common their strong commitment to nonviolence. Their respective conceptions of nonviolence were deeply related to their religious beliefs and faith: the Civil Rights movement, for example, was a "social, political, but also religious movement" (Lambert, p.161).
