The Civil Disobedience Movement was one of the most significant movements launched by Mahatma Gandhi in the course of India’s freedom struggle. In this post, we shall read about the various aspects of the Civil Disobedience Movement in India including its causes, the Dandi March, the methods of civil disobedience, its end and impact of the civil disobedience movement.
There were three main causes of the civil disobedience movement:
- Formation of the Simon Commision
- Demand for Dominion Status
- Protests against the arrest of social revolutionaries
Formation of the Simon Commision
In November 1927 the British government in the UK constituted the Indian Statutory Commission, popularly known as the Simon Commission after the name of its Chairman to recommend further Constitutional reforms in India. However, no Indian was nominated as a member of the commission that resulted in outrage against the All-White commission in India since this action of the British government, which excluded Indians from the Simon Commission, implied that Indians were not fit to decide the next course of constitutional reforms. Consequently, there were huge demonstrations and strikes in different cities of India wherever the commission visited.
Demand for Dominion Status
In the Calcutta session of Indian National Congress (INC) of December 1928, a demand for dominion status (Swaraj) was raised and a period of one year was given to the British Indian government to accept the Congress demands failing which nothing short of complete Independence from foreign rule would become the primary objective of the Congress and a Civil Disobedience movement under the leadership of Mahatma Gandhi would be launched to realise this objective.
Protests against the arrest of social revolutionaries
On 8th April 1929, Bhagat Singh and Batukeshwar Dutt of Hindustan Socialist Republican Army (HSRA) threw harmless bombs in the Central Legislative Assembly and were arrested. In jail, the members of the HSRA went on a prolonged hunger strike demanding better treatment for political prisoners, and the death of one of them, Jatin Das, on the 64th day of the hunger strike led to some of the biggest demonstrations the country had ever witnessed.
However, very soon it became clear to the nationalist leaders that the British government was not sincere in meeting the demand for Dominion Status and therefore the INC met at an emergency session at Lahore in December 1929 under the Presidentship of Jawaharlal Nehru and declared Complete Independence or ‘Purna Swaraj’ as the Congress goal and also authorized Mahatma Gandhi to launch a comprehensive programme of civil disobedience at a time and place of his choosing.
