The role Prof. Neelakantha Radhakrishnan, the recipient of Gandhi-King-Ikeda Community Builders Award 2002 has been playing in the global spread of nonviolence by interpreting Gandhian nonviolence creatively and adapting it to the emerging global scenario has been widely acknowledged. He has deviated significantly from the traditional or dogmatic interpretation of nonviolence. To him, nonviolence is a creative force of empowerment and enlightenment and not any dogmatic bind. The manner in which the Shanti Sena ideal of Gandhi is being interpreted by him to create a nonviolent army of young people in the universities and schools in different parts of India and abroad attracted Prof. Glenn D. Paige in the eighties. The adoption of Gandhian nonviolence by Soka Gakkai International under its visionary President Dr. Daisaku Ikeda to promote world peace began with Radhakrishnan’s association with the Soka Gakkai in the 1980s and Dr. Ikeda’s historic Gandhi Memorial Lecture in New Delhi in 1994 and since then the Soka Gakkai and Dr. Ikeda emerged as among the most authentic and committed promoters of Gandhian philosophy globally. Another stream of practitioners of nonviolence with whom effective links were established by Radhakrishnan is the Kingian Trainers in USA. Dr. Laffayette, Captain Alphin and Dr. Radhakrishnan, in their efforts to develop a Gandhi-King training module for peace activists all over the world have been working together from the nineties under the general guidance of Prof. Paige. The Gandhi Canadian Foundation, the First Nations Assembly (Canada), Dr. Aryaratne (Sri Lanka), Vance Engleman (USA), Dr. Chaiwat Anand (Thailand), Dr. Gaviria (Columbia), Dr. Lou Ann Guanson (Hawaii), Dr. Gene Sharp, Prof. Howard Hunter and Dr. Richard Deats (USA) and Krishan Joshee of Edmonton (Canada) are only a few of the most powerful and ardent votaries of nonviolence who are part of Prof. Radhakrishnan’s quest for nonviolent alternatives and strivings for nonviolent value creation. In this well-documented study, Asha Sabharwal inquires into some of the strategies employed by Prof. Radhakrishnan in his work.
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