I don't know about the most successful, but Gandhi succeeded where more "traditional" guerrila campaigns didn't.
I'm running out the door, so I'll quote:
Quote:
In the late 19th and early 20th centuries a terrorist movement developed among Indian nationalists (especially in Maharashtra, Bengal and the Punjab) which was responsible for a number of assassinations by bombings and shootings. Even after Gandhi was as actively on the scene, the terrorists continued their actions. For example, as late as 1929 bombs were thrown. and shots were fired in the Legislative Assembly in New Delhi. At the end of that year a bomb exploded under the train carrying the Viceroy, Lord Irwin (later known as Lord Halifax when he was British Foreign Secretary and Ambassador to the United States). And that was not the end of the terrorist movement.
Subhash Chandra Bose by 1928 had achieved an impressive following with his cry of “Give me blood and I promise you freedom”. That year both he and Jawaharlal Nehru (later a supporter of Gandhi’s methods) favoured an immediate declaration of independence to be followed by a war of independence.
. . . .
Thus, rather than Indian non-violence being entirely natural and inevitable, it is clear that Gandhi deserves considerable credit in getting non-violent action accepted as the technique of struggle in the grand strategy for the liberation movement. It is clear that this acceptance by the Indian National Congress was not a moral or religious act. It was a political act which was possible because Gandhi offered a course of action which was non-violent but which above all was seen to be practical and effective.
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