CIVIL DISOBEDIENCE

MOVEMENT AND ITS IMPACT

ON INDIAN NATIONALIST
MOVEMENT

NAME: TANISHKA GARG

ROLL NO: 2021547

COURSE: BA (HONS) APPLIED PSYCHOLOGY

Civil Disobedience Movement in India was the 2nd mass movement that was
organized under the leadership of Mahatma Gandhi, after the Non-Cooperation
Movement of 1921-22. Gandhiji along with his 78 volunteers undertook the famous
Dandi March from Sabarmati Ashram to the coast of Dandi in March-April 1930 and
broke the salt law.

People were now asked not only to refuse cooperation with the British, as they had
done in 1921-22, but also to break colonial laws. Thousands in different parts of the
country broke the salt law, manufactured salt, and demonstrated in front of
government salt factories.

The movement spread and salt laws were challenged in other parts of the country. Salt
became the symbol of people’s defiance of the government. In Tamil Nadu, C
Rajagopalchari led a similar march from Trichinopoly to Vedaranyam. In Gujarat,
Sarojini Naidu pretested in front of the slat depots. Lakhs of people including a large
number of women participated actively in these protests.

The Civil Disobedience Movement carried forward the unfinished work of the Non-
Cooperation Movement. Practically the whole country became involved in it. Hartals
put life at a standstill. There were large-scale boycotts of schools, colleges and offices.
Foreign goods were burnt in bonfires. People stopped paying taxes. In the North-West
Frontier Province, the movement was led by Khan Abdul Ghaffar Khan, popularly
known as ‘Frontier Gandhi’. For a few days, British control over Peshawar and
Sholapur ended. People faced the batons and bullets of the police with supreme
courage. No one retaliated or said anything to the police. As reports and photographs
of this extraordinary protest began to appear in newspapers across the world, there
was a growing tide of support for India’s freedom struggle.

As the movement spread, the foreign cloth was boycotted, and liquor shops were
picketed. Peasants refused to pay revenue and chowkidar taxes, village officials
resigned, and in many places, forest people violated forest laws – going into Reserved
Forests to collect wood and graze cattle. The various sections who participated are as
follows:
Rich peasants: Like the Patidars of Gujarat and the Jats of Uttar Pradesh, were active
in the movement. Being producers of commercial crops, they were very hard hit by
the trade depression and falling prices. As their cash income disappeared, they found
it impossible to pay the government’s revenue demand. And the refusal of the
government to reduce the revenue demand led to widespread resentment. For them,
the fight for swaraj was a struggle against high revenues.

Poor peasantry: As the Depression continued and cash incomes dwindled, the small
tenants found it difficult to pay their rent. They wanted the unpaid rent to the landlord
to be remitted. Apprehensive of raising issues that might upset the rich peasants and
landlords, the Congress was unwilling to support ‘no rent’ campaigns in most places.

Business Class: Keen on expanding their business, the business class supported CDM
against colonial policies that restricted business activities. They wanted protection
against imports of foreign goods, and a rupee-sterling foreign exchange ratio that
would discourage imports. To organise business interests, they formed the Indian
Industrialand Commercial Congress in 1920 and the Federation of the Indian Chamber
of Commerce and Industries (FICCI) in 1927. They gave financial assistance and
refused to buy or sell imported goods.

But after the failure of the Round Table Conference, business groups were
apprehensive of the spread of militant activities, and worried about prolonged
disruption of business, they withdrew support to CDM.

Industrial workers: The industrial working classes did not participate in the Civil
Disobedience Movement in large numbers, except in the Nagpur region and the strikes
by railway workers in 1930 and dockworkers in 1932. As the industrialists came
closer to Congress, workers stayed aloof.

Women participation: An important feature of the Civil Disobedience Movement

was the large-scale participation of women both from urban & rural backgrounds.
They participated in protest marches, manufactured salt, and picketed foreign cloth
and liquor shops. Many went to jail.

The impact of the civil disobedience movement reverberated far and wide. It created
distrust towards the British government and laid the foundation for the freedom
struggle, and popularised the new method of propaganda like the Prabhat, pheris,
pamphlets, etc. Following the defiance of forest law in Maharashtra, Karnataka, and
Central province and the refusal to pay the rural ‘Chaukidari tax’ in Eastern India, the
government ended the oppressive salt tax.

its impact proved effective on the minds of the masses, which resented against salt tax.
Such a duty on an article of every-day use by the rich and poor was seriously taken up
by thousands of men and women in many towns and cities, and they successfully
broke the salt law by manufacturing salt on the sea-coast and the river-beds. Perhaps
the law-breakers who were present on the sea shore at Dandi that day (6th April 1930)
achieved much more than Indian independence. Many components of Satyagraha
were tried and tested successfully during Salt Satyagraha Movement. Beginning with
Ceremonial March the movement took grip over entire nation followed by celebrating
National 'Days’ and ‘Weeks’ using Pamphlets and Views-papers. Hartals (closing of
shops and 257 suspension of business), Strikes, and No-tax Campaign were common.
Courting Imprisonment, Boycott, Peaceful Picketing, Peaceful Raids, and Protest
Resignations constituted the order of the day. The movement was well composed and
directed under the able leadership of Gandhi. It was a test time for Gandhi’s all India
leadership as well, in which he emerged victorious. All sections of society including
women and students took active participation. The special feature of this movement
was the non-violent resistance of the Satyagraha volunteers and their innumerable
sufferings against the repression. Among all the Satyagraha movement so far
conducted and headed by Gandhi, this salt Satyagraha stands tall, as it constituted and
represented true spirit of Satyagraha concept. When Gandhi launched the salt
Satyagraha in the summer of 1930, the then Viceroy Lord Irwin mocked at his ‘Crazy
scheme of upsetting the government with a pinch of salt”. Yet this was what exactly
the Dandi march achieved. True to the character of Satyagraha, a pinch of salt quakes
an empire of might and prejudice.

The Civil Disobedience campaign, on the other hand, was far from a failure for
Congress. It had gathered a lot of political support and earned a lot of moral power at
this point, which resulted in a landslide electoral triumph in 1937. In the firs t election
held under the Government of India Act of 1935, Congress won absolute majority in
five of the eleven provinces, including Madras, Bihar, Orissa, C.P., and U.P., and a
near-majority in Bombay. It also became the single largest party in Bengal, which had
a Muslim majority. It was a "vote for Gandhi ji and the yellow box" for most Indians,
especially Hindus, and it signalled their desire for meaningful socio-economic change,
as promised recently by the Socialists and other left-wing Congress leaders.
Congress's initial association with the apparatus of power was the formation of
ministries in eight provinces (UP, Bihar, Orissa, C.P., Bombay, Madras, North-West
Frontier Province, and Assam). This acceptance of office, however, also signified the
right-wingers' ascendancy within the Congress command structures, who favoured
constitutional politics to Gandhi's agitational techniques.

REFERENCES

• A short note on Civil Disobedience Movement in India (preservearticles.com)

• Civil Disobedience Movement in India: Date, Impact, Etc - Leverage Edu
• Civil Disobedience Movement | Nationalism in India | Indian History (studynlearn.com)

• Bandyopadhyay’s (2004). From Plassey to Partition: A History of Modern India. New Delhi:
Orient Longman.

• Sarkar S. (1983). Modern India (1885-1947). New Delhi: Macmillan.