What makes a social movement

Many rights we take for granted, the weekend, the eight-hour working day, equal pay for women, and the right to vote, were not gifts. They were won by social movements. In Britain, the Chartist movement (1839–42) campaigned for the vote for working men.

A social movement needs:

• sustained collective action over a long time, not a one-day outburst;
• some organisation and leadership;
• shared objectives and an ideology: a common view of what is wrong and what should change.

So a spontaneous, disorganised protest is not a social movement, though it may grow into one.

Movements often face counter movements that defend the status quo (the way things are). When Rammohun Roy campaigned against sati, orthodox Hindus who defended it formed the Dharma Sabha and petitioned the British.

Modes of protest: meetings, lobbying, petitions, processions, street theatre, songs and posters.

Gandhi was a master of creative protest. Satyagraha (holding firmly to truth, through non-violent resistance) was his method. He turned everyday goods into symbols of resistance: khadi (home-spun cloth, against British mill cloth) and salt, with the Dandi March of 1930 against the salt tax.

Social change and social movements differ:

• Social change is continuous: society is always changing, slowly, through countless small actions.
• A social movement works deliberately towards specific goals over a long time.

Movements change society, and successful movements inspire more movements.