RESEARCH PROPOSAL
2
framework of the issue, the proposal will first provide a brief historical background of nonviolent
movements. Further, in an attempt to compare and contrast the cases, the research will
investigate the logic of similarity and the logic of difference between the two case studies.
Thereafter, the research proposal conduct an in depth literature survey to identify the
historiographical contexts of the two backdrops and finally coming up with relevant secondary
research questions that would further the research.
Background
Historically, the political and sociological efficacy of nonviolence as a tool of resistance
was made popular by Gandhi. In the context of the freedom movement of India, Gandhian
nonviolence, or ahimsa, took a central role in organizing mass resistance and oppose the colonial
rulers in their course of incessant oppression, deprivation and forced subjugation of the native
Indians. Gandhi, in his philosophical and socio-political understanding of resistance and
nonviolence, was immensely influenced by Tolstoy and the philosophical teachings of Buddhism
and Jainism (Campbell, 2019).. For both Gandhi and Tolstoy, nonviolence was a philosophy as
well as a strategy to attain social change, but at the same time it was used as an alternative to
passive acceptance of coercion or oppression (Guseynov, 2019).
Apart from the Gandhian model of ahimsa and satyagraha, there have been many
evidences of nonviolent resistance in the form of civil disobedience, non-cooperation, unarmed
direct action, and various social, political, economic and cultural reforms over the course of
world history. Martin Luther King Jr. and James Bevel adopted the nonviolent model in their
campaigns for the African Americans’ civil rights movement. The Velvet Revolution of
Czechoslovakia was one of the most notable forms of nonviolent resistance that overthrew the

Efficacy of Nonviolence

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