Nationalism in India
Towards Civil Disobedience
Trace how Civil Disobedience began and unfolded.
Non-Cooperation called off. In February 1922, after a peaceful demonstration at Chauri Chaura (Gorakhpur) turned into a violent clash with police, Gandhiji withdrew the movement. He felt it was turning violent and satyagrahis needed training first.
A divided Congress. Some leaders were tired of mass struggle and wanted to fight elections to the councils created under the Government of India Act, 1919, to oppose British policies from inside and prove those councils were not really democratic. For this, C.R. Das and Motilal Nehru started the Swaraj Party, which stayed inside the Congress. Younger leaders, Jawaharlal Nehru and Subhas Chandra Bose, wanted more radical mass action and full independence.
Depression and the Simon Commission. Two things shaped the late 1920s:
- the world economic depression: farm prices fell from 1926 and collapsed after 1930. Peasants could not sell crops or pay revenue, and by 1930 villages were in turmoil;
- the Simon Commission, sent by Britain's new Tory government to review India's constitution. It had not a single Indian member. When it arrived in 1928, it met the slogan 'Go back Simon', from every party, the Muslim League and the Congress included. Lala Lajpat Rai died of injuries from a police assault during these protests.
Purna Swaraj. To win Indians over, Viceroy Irwin offered, in October 1929, a vague promise of 'dominion status' at some unnamed future date, and a Round Table Conference. It satisfied nobody. In December 1929, the Lahore Congress, under Jawaharlal Nehru, demanded Purna Swaraj (complete independence). 26 January 1930 was to be celebrated as Independence Day (which is why India's Republic Day later fell on 26 January). But the celebrations drew little attention. Gandhiji needed to link this abstract idea of freedom to everyday life.
Why salt? On 31 January 1930, Gandhiji sent Irwin eleven demands, wide enough for every class to see itself in them. The most stirring: abolish the salt tax. Rich and poor alike eat salt; it is essential food. Taxing salt, and letting only the government make it (a monopoly), showed British rule at its most oppressive. If the demands were not met by 11 March, he warned, civil disobedience would begin.
The Salt March. Irwin would not negotiate. So Gandhiji set out from Sabarmati with 78 volunteers, walking over 240 miles to Dandi on the Gujarat coast. It took 24 days, at about 10 miles a day, and crowds gathered wherever he stopped. On 6 April 1930 he made salt from sea water, breaking the law. This began the Civil Disobedience Movement. The difference from 1921: people were now asked not just to refuse cooperation but to break colonial laws.
- Thousands made salt and protested at government salt factories.
- Foreign cloth was boycotted, liquor shops picketed.
- Peasants refused revenue and chaukidari taxes; village officials resigned; forest people broke forest laws.
Repression and a pause. The government began arresting leaders. When Abdul Ghaffar Khan was arrested (April 1930), crowds in Peshawar faced armoured cars and police firing. When Gandhiji was arrested a month later, workers in Sholapur attacked police posts, courts and railway stations. Peaceful satyagrahis, women and children were beaten; about 100,000 people were arrested. On 5 March 1931, Gandhiji signed the Gandhi-Irwin Pact: he would attend the Round Table Conference in London, and prisoners would be freed. In December 1931 he went to London, but the talks broke down. Back home, he found Nehru and Ghaffar Khan in jail and the Congress banned. He relaunched the movement; it went on for over a year, but by 1934 it lost its momentum.
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