On April 6, 1930, M.K. Gandhi formally launched the Civil Disobedience Movement by picking a handful of salt after completing the historic ‘Dandi March’ from Sabarmati Ashram to Dandi, thus violating the government’s salt law. He was a driving force behind the movement, inspiring grassroots participation in the liberation struggle. The Civil Disobedience Movement spread across the country as a result of the defiance of the salt law. Salt production spread across the country during the first phase of the civil disobedience movement, and it became a symbol of the people’s defiance of the government.

Background

• To carry out the mandate given by the Lahore Congress, Gandhi presented the government with 11 demands and gave a deadline of January 31, 1930 to accept or reject these demands.
• With no positive response from the government to these demands, Gandhi was given full authority to launch the Civil Disobedience Movement at a time and place of his choosing by the Congress Working Committee.
• By the end of February, Gandhi had decided to make salt the movement’s central formula.
• The celebration of Independence Day in 1930 was followed by the launch of the Civil Disobedience Movement, led by Gandhi.
• It all started with Gandhi’s famous Dandi March. On March 12, 1930, Gandhi set out on foot from the Sabarmati Ashram in Ahmedabad with 78 other Ashram members for Dandi, a village on India’s western seacoast about 385 kilometres from Ahmedabad.
• They arrived in Dandi on April 6, 1930. Gandhi broke the salt law there. 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.

Features

• This was the first nationwide movement, as all previous ones had been restricted to cities.
• People in rural areas could also register to participate.
• The event drew a large number of female participants.
• The satyagraha movement was led by well-known women such as Kasturba Gandhi, Kamaladevi Chattopadhyay, Avantikabai Gokhale, Lilavati Munshi, and Hansaben Mehta.
• Nonviolence was the movement’s motto.
• Despite constant British repression, this movement persisted.

Causes

The Civil Disobedience Movement was one of the most important movements launched by Mahatma Gandhi during India’s Independence Struggle. Civil Disobedience refers to a citizen’s active, professed refusal to obey certain laws, orders, or demands of a government. Establishment of Simon Commission, demand for dominion Status, protests against arrest of social revolutionaries etc were causes of Civil Disobedience Movement. M.K. Gandhi started this movement in India (Dandi) in 1930 by breaking the salt law

How it Began?

• Under Mahatma Gandhi’s leadership, civil disobedience was born. It was established following the celebration of Independence Day in 1930.
• The civil disobedience movement began with Gandhi’s infamous Dandi March on March 12, 1930, when he set out on foot from the Sabarmati Ashram in Ahmedabad with 78 other Ashram members for Dandi.
• Gandhi broke the salt law after arriving in Dandi. Making salt was considered illegal because it was a government monopoly.
• The Salt Satyagraha resulted in widespread support for the civil disobedience movement across the country.
• This event became emblematic of people’s opposition to government policies.

The civil disobedience movement was fueled by three major factors:

1. Establishment of Simon Commission:

• The British government in the United Kingdom established the Indian Statutory Commission, popularly known as the Simon Commission after its Chairman’s name, in November 1927 to recommend further constitutional reforms in India.
• However, no Indian was nominated as a member of the commission, which sparked outrage in India because the British government’s decision to exclude Indians from the Simon Commission implied that Indians were unfit to decide the next course of constitutional reforms.
• As a result, wherever the commission went in India, there were massive demonstrations and strikes.

2. Demand for Dominion Status:

• In the December 1928 Calcutta session of the Indian National Congress (INC), a demand for dominion status (Swaraj) was raised, and the British Indian government was given a year to accept the Congres’ demands.
• If it failed then nothing short of complete independence from foreign rule would become the primary goal of the Congress, and a civil disobedience movement led by Mahatma Gandhi would be launched to achieve this goal.

3. Protests Against the Arrest of Social Revolutionaries:

• Bhagat Singh and Batukeshwar Dutt of the Hindustan Socialist Republican Army (HSRA) were arrested on April 8, 1929, for throwing harmless bombs in the Central Legislative Assembly.
• Members of the HSRA went on a long hunger strike in jail, demanding better treatment for political prisoners, and the death of one of them, Jatin Das, on the 64th day of the strike sparked some of the country’s largest demonstrations.
• However, it soon became clear to nationalist leaders that the British government was not sincere in meeting the demand for Dominion Status.
• The INC convened an emergency session in Lahore in December 1929, presided over by Jawaharlal Nehru, and declared Complete Independence or ‘Purna Swaraj’ as the Congress goal.
• It also authorised Mahatma Gandhi to launch a comprehensive programme of civil disobedience at a time and place of his choosing.

Dandi March (Salt Satyagraha)

Dandi March (1930) – Modern India History Notes The Dandi March, also known as the Salt March and Dandi Satyagraha, was a nonviolent civil disobedience movement led by Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi. The march lasted from March 12th to April 6th, 1930, and was part of a direct action campaign of tax resistance and nonviolent protest against the British salt monopoly.

Background

• The 1882 Salt Act gave the British a monopoly on salt manufacturing and distribution.
• Despite the fact that salt was abundant along India’s coasts, Indians were forced to buy it from colonizers.
• In addition to having a monopoly on the manufacture and sale of salt, the British imposed a hefty salt tax. Despite the fact that India’s poor bore the brunt of the tariff, all Indians desired salt.
• Gandhi came to the conclusion that if there was one product that could be used to start civil disobedience, it would be salt.
• Salt, along with air and water, is possibly the most important component of life.
• The British government, particularly Viceroy Lord Irwin, did not take the anti-salt-tax campaign seriously.
• Gandhi announced his decision to defy the salt rules in front of a large crowd in Ahmedabad on March 8.

Spread of Salt Disobedience

• Gandhiji’s arrest and imprisonment sparked nationwide protests and strikes. 50,000 textile workers in Bombay had gone on strike.
• Railway workers joined the demonstrators. At Poona, where Gandhi was imprisoned, resignations from honorary offices and services were announced on a regular basis.
• Calcutta police opened fire and arrested a large number of people. In Delhi, there was also gunfire.
• On the day Gandhi was arrested, troops besieged Peshawar. India arose as if it were a single individual.
• Solapur residents took control of the city for a week before martial law was declared. Mymensingh, Calcutta, Karachi, Lucknow, Multan, Delhi, Rawalpindi, Mardan, and Peshawar were also affected.
• In the North-West Frontier Province, troops, planes, tanks, artillery, and ammunition were all freely used. The Ahrar Party was founded as a result of Punjabi repression.
• The Indian situation piqued the West’s interest, which Romain Rolland had reawakened.
• Dr. Holmes led a group of 100 clergymen who petitioned British Prime Minister Ramsay MacDonald to reach an amicable agreement with Gandhi.

Significance

• Gandhi went to Dharasana salt works the following month, where he was arrested and taken to the Yerawada Central Jail.
• Similar acts of civil disobedience occurred in other parts of India as Gandhi broke the salt laws in Dandi.
• In Bengal, for example, volunteers led by Satish Chandra Dasgupta walked from Sodepur Ashram to Mahisbathan village to make salt.
• K.F Nariman led another group of marchers from Bombay to Haji Ali Point, where they prepared salt in a nearby park.
• The illegal production and sale of salt was accompanied by a boycott of foreign textiles and liquor. What began as a salt satyagraha quickly evolved into a mass satyagraha.
• In Maharashtra, Karnataka, and the Central Provinces, forest laws were broken. Peasants in Gujarat and Bengal refused to pay chowkidari and land taxes.
• Acts of violence erupted in Calcutta, Karachi, and Gujarat, but, unlike during the non-cooperation movement, Gandhi refused to call a halt to the civil disobedience movement this time.

Impact

• The Dandi March, also known as the Salt March or the Salt Satyagraha, was completed in 24 days by Mahatma Gandhi and his companions. They walked 395 kilometres to Dandi.
• The choice of salt as the protest’s focal point was criticized by his own Congress advisers, particularly Pandit Nehru and Sardar Patel.
• Even the Viceroy at the time, Lord Irwin, thought Gandhi’s protest posed no threat.
• Millions across undivided India would be interested in salt, that essential simple component in every meal eaten by every common man for which he was forced to pay an exorbitant tax to the British government.

British Reaction

• In retaliation, the government launched a terror campaign. By March 31, more than 95,000 people had been imprisoned.
• Shri Jawaharlal Nehru was arrested on April 14 and sentenced to six months in prison. On a sporadic basis, violence erupted in Karachi, Calcutta, Peshawar, and Chittagong.
• Police opened fire in Calcutta, Madras, and Karachi, and cruelty was inflicted across the country. Gandhi urged people to “respond with enormous anguish to organised hooliganism.”
• Gandhi was apprehended and imprisoned. The war against the “Black Regime” was at its peak when Gandhiji prepared to begin his march to Dharasana.
• The government detained acting President Pandit Motilal Nehru on June 30 and declared the Congress Working Committee an illegal organisation.
• By July, the Press Ordinance had closed 67 nationalist newspapers and approximately 55 printing factories.
• When the Navjivan Press was seized, Young India and Navajivan began to appear in cyclostyle.
• The long-awaited report of the statutory commission was released in June. Its recommendations did not even go as far as to reaffirm the Viceroy’s ambiguous guarantee of dominion status.
• They aimed to strengthen the central government while making a few concessions to the provinces.
• The concept of communal electorates was expanded, pushing the “divide and rule” approach even further.
• These recommendations were deeply unsatisfactory to all stakeholders. Men like Malaviya and Aney joined the Congress, risking incarceration.