Non-violent resistance doesn't always mean simply protesting occupations. If a population is motivated enough, a non-violent resistance movement could look very much like a country which anybody could invade, but nobody could control.
To apply an example: If this resistance was trained into the British public, and the Germans marched into London and declared themselves conquerers, the population would ignore them. When they are ordered to build factories here, to report to detention centres there, they would simply refuse to. Threats and demonstrations of force aimed at extracting compliance by brutalising certain segments of the population would be disregarded by the rest of the population[1].
Supplies for the conquerors would go missing or never be produced. They would have to rely on their own manpower to oversee all operations at gunpoint. As soon as the men with guns are called away somewhere else, work stops, workers disappear.
Any population which could respond in this manner would be unconquerable not in terms of territory, but in terms of spirit, which I believe is the sort of thing Ghandi was after.
The degree to which you could ever implement this system is dubious. I'm not sure you could get large groups of people to act that way. But if you could, it would be very effective.
[1] This is the bit I find hardest to see in practise.
To apply an example: If this resistance was trained into the British public, and the Germans marched into London and declared themselves conquerers, the population would ignore them. When they are ordered to build factories here, to report to detention centres there, they would simply refuse to. Threats and demonstrations of force aimed at extracting compliance by brutalising certain segments of the population would be disregarded by the rest of the population[1].
Supplies for the conquerors would go missing or never be produced. They would have to rely on their own manpower to oversee all operations at gunpoint. As soon as the men with guns are called away somewhere else, work stops, workers disappear.
Any population which could respond in this manner would be unconquerable not in terms of territory, but in terms of spirit, which I believe is the sort of thing Ghandi was after.
The degree to which you could ever implement this system is dubious. I'm not sure you could get large groups of people to act that way. But if you could, it would be very effective.
[1] This is the bit I find hardest to see in practise.