What is passive resistance?

Non violent or passive resistance has been used successfully by different groups of people as a means of protesting about events or situations they think are unfair.  The non violent approach is unsettling as the protesters are often calm, peaceful and organised. The group that they are protesting about finds this type of protest difficult to deal with as they would like to paint a picture of the opposition as being the 'baddies' as this justifies the approach (usually violent) that they take in response. It can be hard for them to justify using force (the military or police) if the other group isn't actually fighting them back.

Te Whiti o Rongomai used passive non violent resistance in his protests at Parihaka. Other forms of passive non violent resistance besides protest include civil disobedience, and economic and political non cooperation.

Below are the photos of two very famous people who used passive resistance and civil disobedience as a form of protest for their causes. One of the people is called Martin Luther King Jnr  (from the United States of America) and the other is Mahatma Gandhi (from India).

There is lots of information about each of these two people. Spend some time looking at what they did to resist the dominant group and bring about change in their countries through protest. Once you have read some information about each of them- think carefully about this question- what did each of these people (Martin Luther King Jnr and Mahatma Gandhi) want to achieve and how did they go about achieving their goals?