Civil Disobedience Movement

The observance of the Independence Day in 1930 was followed by the launching of the Civil Disobedience Movement under the leadership of Gandhi. It began with the famous Dandi March of Gandhi.

What is Civil Disobedience Movement? How it Began?

Civil Disobedience Movement: A pivotal moment in the Indian Nationalist movement was the civil disobedience movement. The civil disobedience movement is credited with helping India achieve freedom in numerous ways. It was noteworthy in many respects because it was a movement that reached the cities and saw the involvement of women and people from lower castes. The Civil Disobedience Movement began with Gandhi’s well-known Dandi March. Gandhi set out on foot from the Sabarmati Ashram in Ahmedabad on March 12, 1930, with 78 other Ashram members for Dandi, a village on India’s western seacoast about 385 kilometres from Ahmedabad. On April 6, 1930, they arrived in Dandi. On April 6, 1930, they arrived in Dandi, where Gandhi violated and broke the Salt Law. Since salt production in India was a monopoly of the British Government, it was regarded as illegal. The Civil Disobedience Movement gained significant support thanks to the Salt Satyagraha, and the Salt March represented citizens’ opposition to British government policy.

Effects of the movement:

Following Gandhi’s footsteps, C. Rajgopalchari in Tamil Nadu led a similar march from Trichinopoly to Vedaranyam. At the same time Sarojini Naidu, a prominent leader in the congress led the movement in Darasana in Gujarat. The police opened a lathi charge which led to over 300 satyagrahis being severely injured. Consequently, there were demonstrations, hartals, a boycott of foreign goods, and later refusal to pay taxes. A lakh of participants including women participated in this movement.

Why was salt chosen by Gandhiji as a weapon?

Because salt was considered to be a basic right of every Indian, it was chosen to represent the beginning of the civil disobedience movement. Gandhi once famously said, “There is no other product besides water that the government can tax in order to feed the millions of people who are starving, as well as the sick, the injured, and the totally defenceless. It is the cruellest poll tax that man has ever devised.”

Salt made a quick connection between the swaraj ideal and a very genuine and common complaint of the rural poor (and with no socially divisive implications like a no-rent campaign). Similar to khadi, salt gave the poor a small but psychologically significant source of income through self-help and gave urban believers a chance to symbolically relate to widespread misery.

Civil Disobedience Movement:-

Background:

Features:

The Civil Disobedience Movement(CDM) began with Gandhi’s well-known Dandi March.
On March 12, 1930, Gandhi set out on foot from Ahmedabad’s Sabarmati Ashram with 78 other Ashram members for Dandi, a village on India’s western seacoast about 385 kilometres from Ahmadabad.
On April 6, 1930, they arrived in Dandi. Gandhi violated the salt law there. Following the defiance of the salt law, the Civil Disobedience Movement spread across the country.
Because salt was a government monopoly, it was illegal for anyone to produce it.
Gandhi defied the government by picking up a handful of salt that had formed as a result of sea evaporation.
During the first phase of the CDM, salt production spread across the country and became a symbol of the people’s defiance of the government.

Causes:

The unrest in social and political situations aided in the formation of the civil disobedience movement.
Simon commission, which was formed by the British government in 1927 to formalise India’s constitution and was entirely composed of British members, was rejected by the Indian National Congress and other political and social organisations and was dubbed the all white commission.
In 1928, a new constitution was drafted in Calcutta by a committee led by Motilal Nehru. The INC demanded that the British government accept Nehru’s Report in 1928.
The main theme of the report was to give India Dominion Status. It warned and blackmailed the British government that if they did not accept the report, they would be threatened and a CDM would be launched.
The main goal of the constitutional reform, according to the Governor General of India, Lord Irwin, was to Grant India dominion status.
Following the declaration, Gandhi and other leaders proposed a round table conference to resolve the constitutional crisis, and when the British government did not respond positively to any of their demands, the civil disobedience movement was launched.