There is a distinction between those who employ non-violent methods of
opposition on the basis of expediency and those who refuse to use
violence on the basis of principle. In the minds of many pacifists the
movement for Indian independence under the leadership of Mohandas K.
Gandhi stands out as the supreme example of a political revolt which has
insisted on this principle, and hence as a model to be followed in any
pacifist movement of social, economic, or political reform. Gandhi's
Satyagraha, therefore, deserves careful analysis in the light of
pacifist principles.
Western critics of Gandhi's methods are prone to insist that they may be
applicable in the Orient, but that they can never be applied in the same
way within our western culture. We have already seen that there have
been many non-violent movements of reform within our western society,
but those that we have examined have been based on expediency.
Undoubtedly the widespread Hindu acceptance of the principle of
_ahimsa_, or non-killing, even in the case of animals, prepared the way
for Gandhi more completely than would have been the case in western
society.