GE-POLITICAL SCIENCE

NATIONALISM IN INDIA
ASSIGNMENT-I
CIVIL DISOBEDIENCE MOVEMENT
Sevati Singh
2022/05/092
B.A. Hons(History)
3rd Sem, 2nd yr, SEC- B

SALT SATYAGRAH & THE CIVIL DISOBEDIENCE

MOVEMENT
The national movement made qualitative advance in 1930s. After the
declaration of Purna Swaraj, the country was far more imbibed with the
Congress ideology and with Gandhian techniques than it had been in 1920s. The
people were convinced that Gandhi meant what he said regarding violence
though he himself seemed to have modified his position slightly. He now
accepted the possibility that some violence might break out but so long as the
movement remained essentially non-violent on the whole, he would continue
the battle. Economic factors also favoured the mounting of a new campaign.
There was acute economic depression in the country which had a telling effect
on all classes, especially the poor. The slump in food prices had affected the
farmers and peasants while in the urban areas there was considerable working
class unrest. The Indian National Congress had given Gandhi and the Congress
Working Committee full power to start the campaign of civil disobedience
including non-payment of taxes. The Working Committee in turn gave full
power to Gandhi to start the campaign at a time and place of his choice.
Throughout January 1930, Gandhi continued to think and devise the strategy for
starting the civil disobedience movement. When Tagore met him at Sabarmati
Ashram on 18 January, Gandhi told him that he was furiously thinking and
could not see any light coming out of the surrounding darkness. The first result
of his furious thinking was to fix 26 January as the Independence Day when the
whole country would take a pledge announcing Indiay determination to attain
complete independence. The pledge was Tepeated in thousands of villages and
towns, denouncing British rule for thavyne nuined India economically,
politically, neu Britisy and spiritually’ and asserting that it was a crime against
man and God to submit any longer to such a rule. Simultaneously, Gandhi made
a very humble beginning. In an article written by him in his paper Young India
Gandhi instead of demanding dominion status, asked the Viceroy to concede 11
points of administrative reforms and declared that if Irwin accepted them, then
the civil disobedience movement could be withdrawn. The eleven points
included six demands of general interest such as 50% cut in army’s expenses
and civil services salaries, total prohibition, release of political prisoners,
reforms of CID, changes in the Arms Act allowing popular control over the
issue of firearms licences, three demands relating to Indian capitalist class such
as lowering of rupee-sterling exchange ratio to Is 4d, textile protection and
reservation of coastal shipping for Indians, and two relating to peasantry viz.
50% reduction in land revenue and abolition of salt tax and government salt
monopoly To a number of national leaders, the 11 points seemed to be a climb-
down from the Purna Swaraj resolution since no demand for any change in the
political structure was made, not even the Dominion Status. For example Nehru
wrote in his Autobiography that there was no point in making a list of political
and social reforms when we were talking in terms of independence.
However, the forthcoming events soon proved Gandhi atleast partly right. But
still he was not sure of his plan about the precise nature of the mass struggle.
Throughout February, he was in search of a solution. As late as 6 March, he was
asking Irwin to remove the evils listed in the 11 points and indicating that
otherwise he would start breaking the British law. Finally, he took the decision-
salt satyagrah. On 2 March, Gandhi addressed a letter to the Viceroy
announcing his decision to start the salt satyagrah and explaining the grounds on
which the decision was taken. The viceroy’s reply was short and curt. He
regretted that Gandhi was embarking on a course of action which was violation
of law and public peace.
Why did Gandhi Ji chose salt tax as an issue for civil disobedience
movement? The abolition of salitaar had been advocated in India generally and
by Gandhi in particular long back during his struggle in South Africa. In his
blanket indictment of the British rule in Hind Swaraj, Gandhi had stressed that
the salt tax is not a small injustice. In his 11 points sent to the viceroy, the salt
tax had been raised to the level of basic reform. However, it was not until 5
February that it was reported in the press that Gandhi would undertake civil
disobedience movement in connection with the salt issue. It was only on 27
February that Gandhi himself outlined the reason for selecting the issue of salt
tax. He wrote, next to air and water, salt is perhaps the greatest necessity of life.
It is the only condiment of the poor....There is no article like salt outside water
by taxing which the State can reach even the starving millions and the sick, the
maimed and the utterly helpless. The tax constitutes the most inhuman poll tax
that ingenuinity of man can devise. The salt issue for Gandhi acquired two
essential components: the indispensable moral emphasis – particularly suffering
of the helpless population and the suggestion that resistance to the tax must
touch virtually everyone and certainly, the ‘starving millions. Through the issue
of salt, Gandhi gave the message of outrageous injustice in which already
destitute millions were made to carry an unjust burden: a tax not on an
unnecessary item (such as tea) but on a primary need, a commodity equivalent
to air and water which belongs to all and which everyone has a natural right to
consume. As Sarkar writes, salt was linked with Swaraj as the most concrete
and universal grievance of the rural poor. It afforded, like khadi, the chance of
paltry but psychologically important extra income for peasant through self help
and like khadi, once again, offered to urban adherents the possibility of a
symbolic identification with mass suffering. Even the viceroy admitted that
Gandhi planned a fine strategy round the issue of salt.
After deciding the issue of the civil disoboedience, the next step was to devise
the strategy for starting the movement. It was decided that Gandhi alongwith a
band of seventy-eight members of Sabarmati ashram- men belonging to almost
every region and religion of India – would march from Ahmedabad through the
villages of Gujarat to Dandi 240 miles away on the sea coast and
Break the law by manufacturing salt illegally and openly coast and has violated
the law, illegal manufacturing and sale of salt stor he begin. The march started
on 12 March 1930 a march which no parallel in history. It received enormous
publicity and attention not only from the entire country but also from the world
over. The 500 village officials in Gujarat region resigned their posts as an
answer to his appeal, men and women paid their homage by spinning yarn on
their charkhas as Gandhi passed through the villages. Ganing reached Dandi on
5 April 1930 Next morning, he walked into the waters of the sea, took his bath,
returned and picked up a lump of salt and violated the law This technical
violation of the Salt Law was a signal to the country to start the disobedience
movement a movement which surpassed all other movements in the country.
The rank and file volunteers began defying the salt law. Swift law breaking
movements spread all over the country. Salt making, salt peddling, courting
arrest, suffering brutal attacks, going to jails handcuffed or bound with ropes,
forcible breaking of meetings, shootings, confiscation of property became the
order of the day.
Other programmes of the civil disobedience included: i) absentation from
attending educational institutions by the students and offices by public
servants, ii) picketing of shops dealing in liquor, opium and foreign goods,
iii) bon-fire of foreign cloth, and iv) non-payment of taxes. In fact, everyone
was free to disobey any civil law so long as he remained non-violent On 9 April,
Gandhi formulated a programme for the movement,
While the movement spread around the country, Gandhi remained at Dandi
planning his next step. In the meantime he pursued his anti-liquor campaign and
advised the peasants of the to cut down their toddy trees from which alcohol
was made He also called upon women to picket liquor shops and boycos foreign
goods. Throughout the country he met with enthusiastic forpions. For the first
time, middle class women in India came o streets, broke the seculsion and
publicly participated in the polinet of the country.
At the start, the salt satyagrah and the Dandi march were not taken seriously by
the government) It considered the movement a mad adventure on the part of
some crazy visionaries. It was hoped that the movement would fall completely
flat and Gandhi would have to recall it or it would die its own death Moreover,
government was hopeful of suppressing it. But as the movement spread with the
speed of a bushfire, the government reaction was swift such as arrests on a large
scale, forcible confiscation of illegally collected salt, search of women in
purdah, banning of meetings and proceedings, lathi charge and firing. Patel was
arrested on 6 March and Nehru on 14 April. The arrests were answered with
huge demonstrations and clashes with the police in Madras, Calcutta and
Karachi, But things changed dramatically after some outbursts in Chittagong,
Peshawar and Sholapur. A group of revolutionaries led by Surya Sen raided the
police armoury in Chittagong on 12 April 1930 and fought a heroic barnle in
which 29 revolutionaries were killed. They issued an Independence
Proclamation and celebrated their victory with a cry ‘Gandhi Raj had come. A
more serious outbreak occurred in Peshawar where a mass demonstration under
the leadership of Khan Abdul Ghaffar Khan clashed with the police on 23 April
1930. An armoured car was burnt by the demonstrators and a large number of
people were killed in the police firing. A significant feature of this incident was
that the Indian soldiers of 18th Royal Garbus Rifles refused to fire on the
Muslim crowd. They were subsequent 5 Manarshalled and sentenced to long
terms of imprisonment On Semay when the news of Gandhi’s arrest spread,
there was am mill onstration in Sholapur and a clash rest wasting of mill
workers and the police. A number of buildings belonging government and liquor
shops were destroyed. The police firing to a large number of casualties, Martial
law was promulgated and troops were brought to suppress the outbreak
To galvanize the movement still further. Gandhi gave notice to the Viceroy that
he intends to take possession of the Darasana Salt Works But before he could
lead the volunteers to the Works, on the night of 4 May, 1930 he was arrested
and put in the Yeravda Central Jail. There were massive protests at his arrest. In
Bombay, the crowd on the streets was so large that the police had to withdraw.
Cloth merchants went on hartal for six days: there were clashes in Calcutta and
Delhi. In Sholapur as already mentioned, the striking, the textile workers burnt
liquor shops and proceeded to attack all symbols of government authority
whether it was railway station, law courts, police station or municipal buildings.
They virtually took over the city and established a parallel government which
was dislodged by imposing martial law.
After the arrest of Gandhi, his place was taken over by Abbas Tayabji who was
also arrested. The next leader was Sarojini Naidu who, alongwith Imam Saheb
and Manilal and a band of 2000 Satyagrahis, marched towards Dharasana Salt
Works on 21 May 1930. They were beaten with lathis and injured but still not an
arm was raised Column after column advanced towards the Works and by 11
a.m. when the temperature in the shade was 116° F, the total tally was already
320 injured and two dead. The account of Darasana satyagrah was vividly
described by the American journalist Webb Miller, ‘In eighteen years of my
reporting in twenty countries during which I have witnessed innumerable civil
disturbances, riots, street fights and rebellions, I have never witnessed such
harrowing scenes as at Dharasana’.”
The salt satyagrah started by Gandhi was only the beginning of a multi-
dimensional disobedience movement. After the arrest of Gandhi, the Congress
Working Committee accelerated the boycott activities such as boygott of foreign
cloth, British banking, British insurance and shipping. In some places, no tax
campaigns were started. Liquor shops were picketed and appeals were made to
the Indian army and police to treat the non-cooperators as their brethems Before
his arrest, Gandhi had already called for boycott of foreign cloth and liquor
shops and specially asked women to actively participate in the movement.
Traders’ associations and commercial bodies were themselves quite active in
implementing the boycott. Consequently, there was a remarkable fall in British
cloth imports (from 26 million yards in 1929 to 13.7 million yards in 1930).
Other British imports also suffered from May to August 1930 and the British
Trade Commissioner’s office was flooded with panic reports and complaints
from Imperial Tobacco, Dunlop and other white firms. Similarly, liquor boycott
also brought the government’s revenue from excise duties crashing down. 12
REGIONAL VARIATIONS
Regionwise, the classical land of civil disobedience movement was, like in
1921, Gujarat – Kheda, Broach and Bardoli, where there was a significant fall in
the revenue collection in 1930. Similarly, Bombay remained throughout 1930
the principal citadel of the movement where support of the large Gujarati
population was forthcoming, great majority of whom were engaged in business,
trade or employed in bureaucracy. The movement was weak in Sindh largely
because the Muslims kept aloof. In Maharashtra, the Congress failed to win
over the emerging political movement of the untouchable Mahars and their
leader B.R. Ambedkar. In Maharashtra, Central Province and Karnataka, forest
satyagrah speedily became more widespread and militant. The forest movement
everywhere tended to get out of hand because the emerging leaders were from
the tribals themselves who had been adversely affected by government’s
restrictions on the use of forests. In Tamilnadu the civil disobedience was
spearheaded by the Gandhian follower C. Rajagopalachari who organized a salt
march from Trichinopoly to Vedaranniyam on the Tanjore coast. This was
followed by widespread picketing of foreign cloth shops and anti-liquor
campaign in towns like Coimbatore, Madura and Virudhanagar. In Andhra
although salt marches were organized in East and West Godavari, Krishna and
Guntur, and merchants also contributed readily to the Congress funds and the
dominant castes cultivators defied repressive measures, yet the elemental
fervour of 1921-22 was missing. In Orissa, salt satyagrah proved very effective
in coastal areas of Balasore, Cuttack and Puri. In Assam, the movement could
not gain momentum due to a series of divisive issues such as growing conflict
between Assameses and Bengalies, Hindus and Muslims. Here, a powerful
agitation was launched by students against the infamous ‘Cunningham circular’
which forced students and their guardians to furnish assurance of good
behaviour. In Bengal also, the Congress was faction-ridden, though Bengal
provided largest number of arrests. Eastern India became the scene of a new
kind of no tax campaign refusal to pay the chowkidari tax in Monghyr, Saran
and Bhagalpur districts. In Bengal also, when the onset of monsoon made it
difficult to make salt, a shift to anti-chowkidari and anti-Union Board agitation
was resorted to. Boycott of foreign cloth was also highest in Bengal, Bihar and
Orissa. In UP, the peasants and zamindars were called upon to withhold all
payment of revenues and after October peasants were asked to withhold rent to
zamindars.
GOVERNMENT RESPONSE AGAINST THE MOVEMENT
The government’s response to the civil disobedience movement was a
combination of repression and conciliation. It started with repressive measures
but as the movement gained momentum, it adopted a conciliatory attitude. In
the process, it made full use of its policy of divide and rule. As expected, the
initial policy of the colonial government to deal with the civil disobedience
movement was through repressive methods. In late April, ordinances were
passed demanding securities from the press and outlawing the Congress
organization. The government was authorized to confiscate the property of the
Congress Party. Ordinances curbing the civil liberties of the people were feely
issued and provincial governments were given the freedom to ban civil
disobedience organizations. Those who broke the laws were arrested en masse.
A large number of Congress leaders were put in jail by May 1930. After the
arrest of Gandhi, a reign of terror was let loose on the rank and file of the
Congress party and their sympathizers. The main objective of the repressive
measures was to prohibit the functioning of the Congress organization by
banning all its committees, arresting the leaders wholesale and outlawing every
form of political activity such as meetings, processions, picketing, propaganda
etc.
Simultaneously, Special attention was paid to prevent the Muslim community
from joining the movement. On 13 May, Irwin gave an assurance to the
Muslims that no solution of the political problem would be regarded as
satisfactory which did not command the assent of the important minorities and
gave them a sense of security This assurance was fully exploited by the
Muslims as well as other sections as the later events showed. However, even
this gesture on the part of the government could not check the hostile and
disruptive activities nor could it remove the basic cause of unrest and danger of
large scale outbreak which might subvert the law and order.
The report of the Simon Commission came on 13 June. It did not make any
mention of the Dominion Status. There was no talk about the transfer of power
to the peoples’ representatives. Nor did it reject the vicious principle of separate
electorates. The proposals of the Commission were rejected both by the
Congress and the Muslim League. Even the Viceroy felt outraged. In the British
government circles, it was increasingly being realized that the national feeling
in India had grown tremendously and if she is to remain a part of the British
empire, it would only do so at the equal status of a Dominion as a conciliatory
gesture and to sidetrack the Simon Commission Report, the Viceroy suggested
holding of a round table conference and also accepted the suggestion of
exploring the possibility of a compromise between Congress and the
government Sapru and Jayakar tried to bring a compromise between the
government and the Congress. However, Gandhi told them that the Congress
was not prepared to go to London without an assurance that the discussions
would proceed on the basis of full responsible government i.e. Purna Swaraj. As
the government was not prepared to concede the demand, the efforts failed.
CONCLUSION
The civil disobedience movement, a cornerstone of nonviolent resistance, has
left an indelible mark on history. Its culmination reflects the enduring power of
peaceful protest in challenging oppressive systems. As seen in pivotal moments
led by figures like Mahatma Gandhi, Martin Luther King Jr., and others, the
movement aimed not only to defy unjust laws but to stimulate broader societal
reflection.
One key aspect of its conclusion lies in the negotiation processes that often
followed sustained civil disobedience. Governments and authorities, faced with
the persistent resolve of the protesters, found themselves compelled to engage in
dialogue. This engagement frequently led to policy changes, constitutional
amendments, or the repeal of unjust laws. The Salt March in India, the
Montgomery Bus Boycott in the United States, and other instances worldwide
stand testament to the transformative potential of nonviolent resistance.
Moreover, the movement’s conclusion extends beyond formal negotiations. It
sparks shifts in public consciousness, challenging ingrained prejudices and
prompting collective introspection. The act of peacefully breaking unjust laws
serves as a symbolic gesture that resonates with broader society, fostering
empathy and understanding. While the immediate goals of civil disobedience
movements may vary, the enduring legacy lies in the inspiration they provide
for subsequent generations of activists. The lessons learned from these
movements underscore the effectiveness of principled resistance, emphasizing
the moral high ground and the power of unity in the face of adversity.
In conclusion, the civil disobedience movement’s impact is multifaceted—
marked by tangible policy changes, societal shifts, and an enduring legacy that
continues to shape movements for justice and equality. It stands as a testament
to the idea that peaceful resistance, driven by unwavering conviction, has the
potential to not only confront oppressive systems but to fundamentally
transform societies.

BIBLIOGRAPHY
BOOKS:
 1. Sekhar Bandyopadhyay, From Plassy To Partition
2. R.C. Vermani, Colonialism and Nationalism in India
WEBSITES:
https://byjus.com/free-ias-prep/difference-between-non-cooperation-movement-
and-civil-disobedience-movement/
https://testbook.com/ias-preparation/civil-disobedience-movement
https://www.britannica.com/topic/civil-disobedience
https://www.studyiq.com/articles/civil-disobedience-movement/