As a behavioral ethic, it is founded on a profound and reciprocal respect for the human person, his or her dignity and physique, and beyond that, for all living things.
As a doctrine of action, it also proposes methods of active non-violence which replace tactics of extreme violence and achieve more lasting and appreciated results worldwide.
These two fundamental concepts were developed and applied by Mohandas Gandhithroughout his adult life, and then put into practice by Martin Luther King, Lanza del Vasto, Nelson Mandela, Lech Walesa, Ibrahim Rugova, Cory Aquino, Desmond Tutu and many others with resounding success.
Gandhi himself had been inspired by Leon Tolstoy, with whom he corresponded at length, and by Jainism, the religion taught by his mother.
Authors such as George Didier, Jacques Semelin, Jean-Marie Muller, Marshall Rosenberg and many others continue to teach and show how this ethic applies to everyone’s life, and how this doctrine of action applies to social, trade union, religious and political commitments.