Article Writing

Civil Disobedience Movement 1930

Introduction
One of the most landmark movement in the timeline of the Indian History. It was initiated
under the leadership of Mahatma Gandhi. The initial step in this historical movement
was the infamous Dandi March, in which, Mahatma Gandhi covered a distance of 388
km in 24 days along with 78 other members from Sabarmati Ashram to Ahmedabad on
foot on 12th March 1930. After reaching Ahmedabad he broke the salt law and this was
considered as the first initial successful step in the civil disobedience movement.
It is associated with “paving the trail for freedom” as this movement noticed the
participation from people of all classes irrespective of their gender and social
background. This movement witnessed a mass participation from women and even
childrens along with people of lower caste ,this made a huge impact and ultimately led
to being one of the main factors that led to Independence in India.

Background
There are many reasons that led to the formation of the civil disobedience movement.
The foremost of them being the following;-

1.) The formation of Simon commission

The simon commission was a statutory commission. The main aim of this
commission was to look into the constitutional body of the Indian Nation and
suggest changes. The commission did not have any Indian representative and
only constituted an all-white member committee leading to only biased decisions.
This commission was formed under the leadership of Sir John but was not
accepted by the political parties of India. Therefore to pacify the leaders, Lord
Viceroy gave a vague offer of dominion status to India, yet there were no
particular decisions made in favor of the Indians. As there was no unity among
the Indians, there were no fruitful results of all the protests and movements.
It was then that Mahatma Gandhi realized that the whole nation could be united
by salt as the commission had newly introduced the salt law that was a big
disadvantage for the Indians. This ultimately led to the satyagraha movement
that resulted in breaking the salt law , which in turn started the infamous civil
disobedience movement.
2.) The rejection of the demand for the dominion status
 The British Government lacked general interest in giving Dominion status to the
Indian Nationals. In the month of December, 1928 a session of Indian National
Congress was held in the city of Calcutta. In that session the leaders of Indian
National Congress demanded a dominion status ( swaraj) , the British Indian
Government was given a period of one year to accept the demand made by the
Political leaders of the Indian National Congress.However the British Indian
Government denied any such demands thus Independence from the foreign rule
became the primary goal of the congress., and a civil disobedience movement
was launched to achieve such goals. The civil disobedience movement was the
first movement to be conducted on a national level and thus was considered to
be heavily impactful on attaining independence.

3.) Demonstration against detention of social revolutionaries

Two members of the Hindustan Socialist Republican Army (HSRA) namely,
Bhagat Singh and Bhukteshwar Dutta were arrested on 8th April 1929, for
throwing harmless bombs at legislative Assemblies. They were treated unfairly in
the prison and were forced upon many unjust punishment. This led to the death
of one such Socialist, Jatin Das.
As it became clear that the British government was not going to meet any fair
demands made by the Indian nationals, therefore, it became the goal of Indian
Natonal congress to demand for complete independence or ‘Purna Swaraj’ as
the goal of the Indian National Congress. An emergency session was conducted
Lahore on December 1929 authorizing Mahatma Gandhi for launching the civil
disobedience movement.

4.) Salt Law

Of the 11 demands made by Mahatma Gandhi to viceroy Lord Irwin, one of them
was to abolish the salt laws. The salt law was again an unjust and unfavorable
law for the Indians made by the British Government. This law imposed a very
heavy tax on salt and disallowed the production or sale of salt by anyone else
other than the Britishers. Irwin refused to yield to such demands which led to the
civil disobedience movement.
Gandhi and his 78 followers walked 375 km from Sabarmati Ashram to Dandi
and upon his arrival Gandhi picked up a fistful of salt symbolizing breaking on
Salt law and India’s refusal to live under British rule.

Impact of Civil Disobedience movement

After Gandhi symbolically broke the Salt law a defiance from the regulations of
the British Government swept across the nation. People of all cast or gender
such as students, business personals, womens , peasants and people of labor
class all participated in the Civil Disobedience Movement. This led to number of
provincial salt laws to be disobeyed under the direction of different leaders.
The salt satyagraha was led by C Rajagopalchari in Tamil nadu. He too
organized a march from Tiruchirapalli to Vedaranniyam on the Tanjore coast.
In Malabar , K kelappan organized the salt marches.
District salt marches were organized in East and West Godavari, Krishna and
Guntur.
Foreign clothes were boycotted and the protest was made against liquor shops.
The peasants refused to pay revenue and chowkidari taxes.

Conclusion
The Civil disobedience movement has a significant place in the modern history of
India. Though there were some setbacks too, like there was a difference
between the demand of industrialists and the working class of people, it was
somehow a pleasant factor in achieving the Independence of India. It also
witnessed the united effort of all the people in the struggle for freedom