The Shanti Sena or "Peace army" was made up of

Gandhi Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi (; ; 2 October 1869 – 30 January 1948), popularly known as Mahatma Gandhi, was an Indian lawyer, anti-colonial nationalist Quote: "... marks Gandhi as a hybrid cosmopolitan figure who transformed ... anti- ...

non-violent Nonviolence is the personal practice of not causing harm to others under any condition. It may come from the belief that hurting people, animals and/or the environment is unnecessary to achieve an outcome and it may refer to a general philosoph ...

followers in India.Thomas Weber: Gandhi's Peace Army: The Shanti Sena and Unarmed Peacekeeping, Syracuse Univ Pr.1996 Other movements have developed, inspired by this one, sometimes also using the name used by Gandhi's group. These may include World Peace Brigade,

Nonviolent Peaceforce Nonviolent Peaceforce (NP) is a nonpartisan unarmed peacekeeping organization with the goal of protecting civilians and reducing violence in areas affected by armed conflict. NP holds Special Consultative Status with the Economic and Social Cou ...

, Swaraj Peeth, the organisation

Peace Brigades International Peace Brigades International (PBI) is a non-governmental organization founded in 1981 which "protects human rights and promotes non-violent transformation of conflicts". It primarily does this by sending international volunteers to areas of confli ...

and participants in the Rainbow Gathering, and have served as a basis for the practice of

Third Party Non-violent Intervention Third Party Non-violent Intervention (sometimes called TPNI) refers to the practice of intervening from the outside in violent conflicts with the aim of reducing violence and allowing "space" for conflict resolution. Two common forms of interventio ...

. "Shanti Sena" is a term first coined by Gandhi when he conceptualized a nonviolent volunteer peacekeeping program dedicated to minimizing communal violence within the Indian populace. The words "Shanti" and "Sena" both come from

Sanskrit Sanskrit (; attributively , ; nominally , , ) is a classical language belonging to the Indo-Aryan branch of the Indo-European languages. It arose in South Asia after its predecessor languages had diffused there from the northwest in the late ...

. Shanti means peace and Sena means army, or a drilled band of men. The word "Sena" has been criticized for its connection to militarism, but for Gandhi, it had strong metaphorical and spiritual qualities connected to its use in the Hindu

vedas upright=1.2, The Vedas are ancient Sanskrit texts of Hinduism. Above: A page from the '' Atharvaveda''. The Vedas (, , ) are a large body of religious texts originating in ancient India. Composed in Vedic Sanskrit, the texts constitute th ...

. In the aftermath of the Gandhian era, Shanti Sena has appeared in various incarnations. Two Gandhian followers developed separate groups based on their interpretations of it:

Vinoba Bhave Vinayak Narahari, also known as Vinoba Bhave (; 11 September 1895 – 15 November 1982), was an Indian advocate of nonviolence and human rights. Often called ''Acharya'' (Sanskrit teacher), he is best known for the Bhoodan Movement. He is con ...

established a Shanti Sena that prioritized Gandhi's spiritual approach towards the program, while JP established a program that focused more on the political motivations of the program.Thomas Weber: The Shanti Sena: Philosophy, History and Action, Orient Blackswan, New Delhi 2009 The Shanti Sena program also became institutionalized into India's Gandhigram Rural University, where it was incorporated into the university's constitution. Currently Shanti Sena is also very active in Sri Lanka as a part of the organization

Sarvodaya Sarvōdaya ( hi, सर्वोदय '' sarv-'' "all", '' uday'' "rising") is a Sanskrit term which generally means "universal uplift" or "progress of all". The term was used by Mahatma Gandhi as the title of his 1908 translation of John Ruskin ...

References

External links

Article on Shanti Sena
Indian independence movement Peace movement in India Gandhians {{India-hist-stub