The Civil Disobedience Movement

The Civil Disobedience Movement

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• The Civil Disobedience Movement, launched by Mahatma Gandhi in 1930, marked a decisive shift in the Indian national struggle — from demands for dominion status to an unambiguous call for Purna Swaraj, or complete independence.
• Centred initially on the symbolic Salt Satyagraha and the historic Dandi March, the movement spread rapidly across the country in diverse regional forms, drew in women, students, peasants, and traders on an unprecedented scale, and ultimately culminated in the Gandhi-Irwin Pact and the Karachi Congress Session of 1931.

Purna Swaraj: Background to the Movement

• Before 1930, few Indian political parties had openly embraced the goal of full political independence from Britain.
  • The All India Home Rule League advocated dominion status within the British Empire, similar to that granted to Australia, Canada, the Irish Free State, Newfoundland, New Zealand, and South Africa.
  • The All India Muslim League also favoured dominion status and opposed calls for outright independence.
  • The Indian Liberal Party, the most pro-British of the major parties, explicitly opposed both independence and any dominion status that would weaken India’s ties with the Empire.
• Hasrat Mohani, a Congress leader and noted poet, was the first activist to demand complete independence (Purna Swaraj) from an All-India Congress forum, in 1921.
  • Veteran leaders such as Bal Gangadhar Tilak, Aurobindo, and Bipin Chandra Pal had also advocated explicit independence from the Empire.
• Jawaharlal Nehru promoted the Hindustan Sewa Dal among the youth, and in December 1927, founded the Republican Party within Congress to represent radical Congressmen demanding independence.
• In August 1928, the Independence of India League was formed, with Jawaharlal Nehru and Subhas Chandra Bose as Secretaries and S. Srinivasa Iyengar as President.
• The Nehru Report (1928) had demanded self-government for India under dominion status within the Empire — a position younger nationalists such as Subhas Chandra Bose and Jawaharlal Nehru opposed, pressing instead for a complete and explicit break from British ties.
• The Calcutta Congress (December 1928):
  • Mohandas Gandhi proposed a resolution calling on the British to grant dominion status within two years, failing which the Congress would call upon Indians to fight for complete independence.
  • Bose and Nehru objected to the length of time given, pressing Gandhi for immediate action; Gandhi compromised by reducing the deadline from two years to one.
  • Jawaharlal Nehru voted for the revised resolution, while Subhas Bose told his supporters he would not oppose it, though he personally abstained from voting.
• On 31 October 1929, Viceroy Lord Irwin announced that the government would meet Indian representatives in London for a Round Table Conference.
  • To facilitate participation, Irwin met with Gandhi, Muhammad Ali Jinnah, and outgoing Congress President Motilal Nehru.
  • When Gandhi asked whether the conference would proceed on the basis of dominion status, Irwin could not offer that assurance — and the meeting ended without resolution.
• The Lahore Session of Congress (December 1929):
  • Presided over by Jawaharlal Nehru, with veteran leaders C. Rajagopalachari and Vallabhbhai Patel returning to the Congress Working Committee.
  • Its landmark resolution declared the Nehru Committee Report to have lapsed, ruling dominion status unacceptable.
  • A Purna Swaraj Resolution was passed, defining swaraj as complete independence.
  • In pursuance of this resolution, the Central and Provincial Legislatures were to be completely boycotted, along with all future elections, and a programme of Civil Disobedience was to be launched.
• At the midnight of 31 December 1929 / 1 January 1930, as the Nehru Committee Report’s deadline expired, Jawaharlal Nehru unfurled the tricolour flag of India’s independence on the banks of the River Ravi in Lahore.
• The Congress Working Committee, meeting on 2 January 1930, decided that 26 January 1930 would be observed as Purna Swaraj Day; the Indian National Congress publicly issued its Declaration of Independence on that date.
  • The Congress subsequently observed 26 January annually as India’s Independence Day, commemorating the freedom campaign.
  • When Britain agreed to transfer power in 1947, 15 August became India’s official Independence Day; the new Constitution of India was, however, deliberately brought into force on 26 January 1950, to commemorate the original 1930 declaration.

Why Salt?

• The Congress Working Committee entrusted Gandhi with organizing the first act of civil disobedience; he chose a satyagraha directed at the British salt tax.
  • The Salt Act of 1882 gave the British a monopoly over the collection and manufacture of salt, confining its handling to government salt depots and levying a tax on it; violating the Act was a criminal offence.
  • Even though salt could be freely obtained along the coast through evaporation of seawater, Indians were forced to purchase it from the colonial government.
• Gandhi’s choice initially met with incredulity within the Congress Working Committee — Jawaharlal Nehru and Dibyalochan Sahoo were ambivalent, while Sardar Patel suggested a land revenue boycott instead.
• The British establishment, too, was unconcerned: Viceroy Lord Irwin did not take the threat seriously, writing to London, “At present the prospect of a salt campaign does not keep me awake at night.”
• Gandhi’s reasoning for the choice was deliberate:
  • Salt was used by nearly every Indian, making it a deeply symbolic and universally resonant choice — an item of daily necessity could connect with all classes far more than an abstract demand for political rights.
  • The salt tax represented 8.2% of British Raj tax revenue and hurt the poorest Indians most severely.
  • As Gandhi explained: “Next to air and water, salt is perhaps the greatest necessity of life.”
  • He believed the protest would dramatise Purna Swaraj in terms meaningful to the lowliest Indians, and would build Hindu-Muslim unity by opposing a wrong that touched both communities equally.

Dandi March (Salt Satyagraha): 12 March – 6 April 1930

• On 2 March 1930, Gandhi informed the Viceroy of his plan of action — though few grasped its significance at the time.
  • Gandhi, accompanied by seventy-eight members of the Sabarmati Ashram, was to march 240 miles from Ahmedabad through the villages of Gujarat to the coastal village of Dandi, where the salt law would be violated by collecting salt directly from the beach.
• Even before the march began, thousands thronged to the ashram. Gandhi issued the following directions for future action:
  1. Wherever possible, civil disobedience of the salt law should be started.
  2. Foreign liquor and cloth shops could be picketed.
  3. Taxes could be refused, wherever there was sufficient strength to do so.
  4. Lawyers could give up practice.
  5. The public could boycott law courts by refraining from litigation.
  6. Government servants could resign from their posts.
  7. All of this was subject to one condition: strict adherence to truth and non-violence as the means to attain swaraj.
  8. Local leaders were to be obeyed after Gandhi’s eventual arrest.
• The historic march began on 12 March, and Gandhi broke the salt law by picking up a handful of salt at Dandi on 6 April 1930.
  • This act of violation was seen as a symbol of Indian resolve not to live under British-made laws — and, by extension, under British rule.
  • The march was closely covered by the press; in Gujarat, 300 village officials resigned in response to Gandhi’s appeal.
  • Gandhi established a temporary ashram near Dandi, from where he urged women followers in Bombay to picket liquor shops and foreign cloth outlets, declaring: “A bonfire should be made of foreign cloth. Schools and colleges should become empty.”

Spread of Salt Disobedience

• Once Gandhi’s ritual at Dandi had cleared the way, defiance of the salt laws spread rapidly across the country:
  • In Tamil Nadu, C. Rajagopalachari led a march from Tiruchirapalli to Vedaranniyam.
  • In Malabar, K. Kelappan led a march from Calicut to Payyanur.
  • In Assam, satyagrahis walked from Sylhet to Noakhali (Bengal) to make salt.
  • In Andhra, numerous sibirams (camps) were established across districts as headquarters of the salt satyagraha.
• Nehru’s arrest in April 1930 for defying the salt law triggered huge demonstrations in Madras, Calcutta, and Karachi.
• Gandhi’s arrest came on 4 May 1930, following his announcement that he would lead a raid on the Dharsana Salt Works on the west coast — sparking massive protests in Bombay, Delhi, Calcutta, and especially Sholapur, where the response was fiercest.
• After Gandhi’s arrest, the Congress Working Committee (CWC) sanctioned:
  • Non-payment of revenue in Ryotwari areas;
  • A no-chowkidara-tax campaign in zamindari areas; and
  • Violation of forest laws in the Central Provinces.

Other Forms of Regional Upsurge

• Chittagong: Surya Sen’s Chittagong Revolt Group carried out a raid on two armouries and declared the establishment of a provisional government.
• Peshawar:
  • Khan Abdul Ghaffar Khan’s educational and social reform work among the Pathans had already politicised the region. Known also as Badshah Khan and the “Frontier Gandhi,” he had launched the first Pashto political monthly, Pukhtoon, and organized a volunteer brigade — the Khudai Khidmatgars, popularly called the “Red Shirts” — pledged to non-violence and the freedom struggle.
  • The arrest of Congress leaders in the NWFP on 23 April 1930 led to mass demonstrations, with Peshawar virtually in the hands of crowds for over a week until order was restored on 4 May.
  • This was followed by a reign of terror and martial law; notably, a section of Garhwal Rifles soldiers refused to fire on an unarmed crowd. This upsurge, in a province with a 92% Muslim population, left the British government visibly nervous.
• Sholapur: This industrial town in southern Maharashtra saw the fiercest response to Gandhi’s arrest.
  • Textile workers struck from 7 May, and residents burned liquor shops and symbols of government authority, including railway stations, police stations, municipal buildings, and law courts.
  • Activists established a virtual parallel government, dislodged only through martial law after 16 May.
• Dharsana:
  • On 21 May 1930, Sarojini Naidu, Imam Sahib, and Manilal (Gandhi’s son) took up the unfinished raid on the Dharsana Salt Works. The unarmed, peaceful crowd was met with a brutal lathi charge, leaving 2 dead and 320 injured.
  • This new form of salt satyagraha was quickly adopted elsewhere — in Wadala (Bombay), Karnataka (Sanikatta Salt Works), Andhra, Midnapore, Balasore, Puri, and Cuttack.
• Bihar: A campaign for refusal to pay chowkidara tax called for the resignation of chowkidars and members of the chowkidari panchayats who appointed them.
  • This was particularly successful in Monghyr, Saran, and Bhagalpur; the government retaliated with beatings, torture, and confiscation of property.
• Bengal: An anti-chowkidara-tax and anti-union-board-tax campaign was similarly met with repression and confiscation of property.
• Gujarat: Impact was felt in Anand, Borsad, and Nadiad (Kheda district), Bardoli (Surat district), and Jambusar (Bharuch district), where a determined no-tax movement included refusal to pay land revenue.
  • Villagers crossed into neighbouring princely states such as Baroda with their families and belongings, camping in the open for months to evade police repression; the police retaliated by destroying property and confiscating land.
• Maharashtra, Karnataka, and the Central Provinces: These regions saw defiance of forest laws — including grazing and timber restrictions — and the public sale of illegally acquired forest produce.
• Assam: A powerful agitation arose against the notorious “Cunningham Circular,” which forced parents, guardians, and students to furnish assurances of good behaviour.
• United Provinces:
  • A no-revenue campaign called on zamindars to refuse payment to the government, while a no-rent campaign called on tenants to refuse payment to zamindars.
  • Since most zamindars were loyalists, the movement effectively became a no-rent campaign, gaining momentum from October 1930, particularly in Agra and Rai Bareilly.
• Manipur and Nagaland: These regions took a brave part in the movement.
  • Rani Gaidinliu of Nagaland, at the age of just thirteen, raised the banner of revolt against foreign rule.
    • Born in 1915, she joined the Heraka religious movement led by her cousin Haipou Jadonang, which later evolved into a political movement seeking to drive the British out of Manipur and the surrounding Naga areas; within the Heraka faith, she came to be regarded as an incarnation of the goddess Cherachamdinliu.
    • She was arrested in 1932 at the age of sixteen and sentenced to life imprisonment.
    • Jawaharlal Nehru met her at Shillong Jail in 1937, promising to pursue her release, and conferred on her the title “Rani.”
    • She was released in 1947 after independence, continued working for her people’s upliftment, staunchly resisted the conversion of Nagas to Christianity, and was later honoured as a freedom fighter with the Padma Bhushan. She died in 1993.
• Mass mobilisation was also carried out through prabhat pheries (dawn processions), vanar senas and manjari senas (youth brigades), secret patrikas (bulletins), and magic lantern shows.

Impact of the Agitation

• Imports of foreign cloth and other goods fell sharply.
• Government income from liquor, excise, and land revenue declined.
• Elections to the Legislative Assembly were largely boycotted.

Extent of Mass Participation

• Women: Gandhi specifically asked women to take a leading role; they became a familiar sight picketing outside liquor shops, opium dens, and shops selling foreign cloth. For Indian women, the movement was a profoundly liberating experience, marking their entry into the public sphere.
• Students: Alongside women, students and youth played the most prominent role in the boycott of foreign cloth and liquor.
• Muslims: Participation was nowhere near the level of 1920–22, owing to appeals from Muslim leaders urging the masses to stay away, and active government encouragement of communal division. Still, some areas — notably the NWFP — saw overwhelming participation.
  • Middle-class Muslim participation was significant in Senhatta, Tripura, Gaibandha, Bogra, and Noakhali. In Dacca, Muslim leaders, shopkeepers, working-class people, and upper-class women were all active, and the Muslim weaving communities of Bihar, Delhi, and Lucknow were effectively mobilised.
• Merchants and Petty Traders: Highly enthusiastic; traders’ associations and commercial bodies were particularly active in implementing the boycott in Tamil Nadu and Punjab.
• Tribals: Active participants in the Central Provinces, Maharashtra, and Karnataka.
• Workers: Participated in Bombay, Calcutta, Madras, and Sholapur.
• Peasants: Active in UP, Bihar, and Gujarat.

Government Response: Efforts for Truce

• The government’s attitude through 1930 remained ambivalent, caught in the dilemma of being “damned if you do, damned if you don’t” — repression drew cries of injustice, while restraint was read as Congress victory; either way, government authority was eroded. Even Gandhi’s arrest came only after considerable vacillation.
• Once repression began, however, it was applied freely — ordinances banning civil liberties (including press censorship) came into force, and provincial governments were empowered to ban civil disobedience organizations. The CWC itself was not declared illegal until June.
  • Lathi charges and firing on unarmed crowds left several dead and wounded, while some 90,000 satyagrahis, including Gandhi and other Congress leaders, were imprisoned.
• Government repression, combined with the publication of the Simon Commission Report — which made no mention of dominion status and was regressive in other respects — further alienated even moderate political opinion.
• In July 1930, the Viceroy suggested a Round Table Conference (RTC) and reiterated the goal of dominion status, also accepting a proposal for Tej Bahadur Sapru and M.R. Jayakar to explore the possibility of peace between the Congress and the government.
• In August 1930, Motilal and Jawaharlal Nehru were taken to Yeravada Jail to meet Gandhi and discuss a possible settlement.
  • The Nehrus and Gandhi jointly reiterated three key demands: the right of secession from Britain, a complete national government with control over defence and finance, and an independent tribunal to settle Britain’s financial claims.
  • Talks broke down at this point.

Evaluation of the Civil Disobedience Movement

Was the Gandhi-Irwin Pact a Retreat?

• Gandhi’s decision to suspend the movement under the Gandhi-Irwin Pact is generally not considered a retreat, for several reasons:
  • Mass movements are necessarily short-lived.
  • The capacity of the masses for sustained sacrifice, unlike that of dedicated activists, is inherently limited.
  • Signs of exhaustion had appeared after September 1930, especially among the shopkeepers and merchants who had participated so enthusiastically.
• Gandhi’s motives for concluding a pact are best understood through his own conception of satyagraha: though often described as a “struggle,” “rebellion,” or “war without violence,” its true object was not the physical elimination or moral breakdown of an adversary, but rather — through self-suffering — the initiation of a psychological process that could bring hearts and minds together. Within this framework, compromise with an opponent was neither heresy nor treason, but a natural and necessary step; should the compromise later prove premature, nothing prevented a return to non-violent struggle.
• Youth were undoubtedly disappointed — having hoped, in Nehru’s words, that the struggle would “end with a bang and not with a whimper.”
• Peasants of Gujarat were disappointed that their confiscated lands were not restored immediately (they were, in fact, restored only later, under Congress ministry rule in the province).
• Nonetheless, the vast masses were jubilant that the government had been compelled to treat their movement as significant and their leader as an equal, going so far as to sign a pact with him; released political prisoners received a hero’s welcome.

Comparison with the Non-Cooperation Movement

• The stated objective this time was complete independence, rather than the remedying of specific wrongs or a vaguely worded notion of swaraj.
• The methods involved violation of law from the outset, rather than mere non-cooperation with foreign rule.
• There was a decline in forms of protest associated with the intelligentsia — such as lawyers giving up practice, or students leaving government schools for national institutions.
• Muslim participation was nowhere near the level seen during the Non-Cooperation Movement.
• There was no major labour upsurge coinciding with the movement.
• However, the massive participation of peasants and business groups compensated for these declines.
• The number of those imprisoned was roughly three times higher than during the Non-Cooperation Movement.
• The Congress itself was organizationally far stronger this time.

Karachi Congress Session, 1931

• In March 1931, a special session of the Congress was held at Karachi to endorse the Gandhi-Irwin Pact (also called the Delhi Pact).
  • Six days before the session (held on 29 March), Bhagat Singh, Sukhdev, and Rajguru had been executed.
  • Throughout Gandhi’s journey to Karachi, he was greeted with black flag demonstrations by the Punjab Naujawan Bharat Sabha, protesting his failure to secure commutation of the death sentences.
• Congress resolutions at Karachi:
  • While disapproving of and dissociating itself from political violence, the Congress admired the “bravery” and “sacrifice” of the three executed revolutionaries.
  • The Delhi Pact was formally endorsed.
  • The goal of Purna Swaraj was reiterated.
  • Two resolutions — one on Fundamental Rights, the other on the National Economic Programme — made the session particularly memorable.
• The Fundamental Rights resolution guaranteed:
  • Free speech and free press
  • Right to form associations
  • Right to assemble
  • Universal adult franchise
  • Equal legal rights irrespective of caste, creed, and sex
  • Neutrality of the state in religious matters
  • Free and compulsory primary education
  • Protection of the culture, language, and script of minorities and linguistic groups
• The National Economic Programme resolution included:
  • Substantial reduction in rent and revenue
  • Exemption from rent for uneconomic holdings
  • Relief from agricultural indebtedness
  • Control of usury
  • Better working conditions, including a living wage, limited working hours, and protection for women workers
  • The right of workers and peasants to form unions
  • State ownership and control of key industries, mines, and means of transport
• This marked the first occasion on which the Congress spelt out what swaraj would mean for the masses: “in order to end exploitation of masses, political freedom must include economic freedom of starving millions.”
• The Karachi Resolution would remain, in essence, the basic political and economic programme of the Congress in subsequent years.

Assessment of the Civil Disobedience Movement

• The Salt Satyagraha succeeded in drawing worldwide attention — millions saw newsreels of the march, and Time magazine declared Gandhi its 1930 Man of the Year, comparing his march to the sea to defy Britain’s salt tax to how “some New Englanders once defied a British tea tax.”
• Civil disobedience continued into early 1931, when Gandhi was released from prison to hold talks with Irwin — the first time the two met on equal terms — resulting in the Gandhi-Irwin Pact. These talks paved the way for the Second Round Table Conference at the end of 1931.
• In concrete terms, the Salt Satyagraha produced scant progress toward dominion status or independence, and won no major concessions from the British; it also failed to attract significant Muslim support.
  • Congress leaders formally ended satyagraha as official policy in 1934. Nehru and other Congress members drifted further from Gandhi, who withdrew from active Congress politics to focus on his Constructive Programme, including efforts to end untouchability through the Harijan movement.
• Even though the British had reasserted control by the mid-1930s, Indian, British, and world opinion increasingly recognised the legitimacy of Gandhi’s and the Congress’s claims for independence.
  • The satyagraha campaigns of the 1930s forced the British to acknowledge that their control of India depended entirely on Indian consent — and the Salt Satyagraha marked a significant step toward the erosion of that consent.
• More than thirty years later, the philosophy of satyagraha and the March to Dandi would strongly influence American civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. in his fight for civil rights in the 1960s.