civildisobediencemovementppt
- 2. Civil disobedience is the active, professed refusal to obey certain laws, demands, or commands of a government, or of an occupying international power. Civil disobedience is sometimes, though not always, defined as being nonviolent resistance.
- 3. On 31st January 1930, Mahatma Gandhi sent a letter to Viceroy Irwin stating 11 wide-ranging demands that involved all classes of the Indian society. The most stirring of all was the demand to abolish the Salt Tax. Salt was something consumed by rich and poor alike and the Salt Tax and the Government monopoly on salt production revealed the most oppressive face of British rule.
- 4. Gandhi said that if his demands were not fulfilled by 11th March, he would launch a Civil Disobedience Campaign. Irwin was unwilling to negotiate and so Gandhiji started his famous Dandi March with 78 volunteers and walked 240 miles from Sabarmati to Dandi in 24 days. On 6th April, he reached Dandi and ceremonially violated the law, manufacturing salt by boiling sea water. This marked the beginning of the Civil Disobedience Movement.
- 5. People were now asked not only to refuse cooperation, as they had done during the Non-Cooperation Movement in 1921-22, but also break colonial laws. Thousands of people in different parts of the country broke the Salt Law and demonstrated in front of government salt factories.
- 6. As the Movement spread, foreign cloth was boycotted, and liquor shops were picketed. Peasants refused to pay revenue and chaukidari taxes and village officials resigned. In many places, people violated forest laws by going into Reserved Forests to collect wood and graze cattle.
- 7. • Worried by the Movement, the colonial government began arresting Congress leaders one by one, leading to violent clashes at many places. • When Abdul Ghaffar Khan, a devout disciple of Mahatma Gandhi was arrested in April 1930, angry crowds demonstrated in the streets of Peshawar, facing armoured cars and police firing. Many were killed.
- 8. » When Mahatma Gandhi himself was arrested, industrial workers in Sholapur attacked police posts, municipal buildings, law courts and railway stations – all structures that symbolized the British rule. » A frightened government responded with brutal repression, Peaceful Satyagrahis were attacked, women and children were beaten up and about 1,00,000 people were arrested.
- 9. ø In such a situation, Gandhi ji decided to call off the Movement and entered into a pact with Irwin on 5th March 1931. ø He agreed to participate in the Second Round Table Conference in London and the Government agreed to release the political prisoners. ø Gandhi ji went to London for the Conference, but the negotiations broke down and he returned disappointed.
- 10. * When he came back to India, Gandhi ji discovered that Jawaharlal Nehru and Ghaffar Khan were both in jail. * The Congress had been declared illegal, and a series of measures had been imposed to prevent meetings, demonstrations and boycotts. * Gandhi ji relaunched the Civil Disobedience Movement. For over a year, the movement continued, but by 1934, it lost its momentum.