Civil Disobedience Movement & Gandhi-Irwin Pact

• December 1928, Calcutta session of INC younger elements, dissatisfaction with dominion status as the goal of Congress instead of purna swaraj or complete independence.
• Congress decided that if the government did not accept a constitution based on dominion status by the end of the year, the Congress would not only demand complete independence but would also launch a civil disobedience movement to attain its goal.

Political Activity during 1929

• Gandhi, preparing people for direct political action.
• Congress Working Committee (CWC) organised a Foreign Cloth Boycott Committee to propagate an aggressive programme of boycotting foreign cloth and public burning of foreign cloth.
• Gandhi initiated the campaign in March 1929 in Calcutta and was arrested.
• Meerut Conspiracy Case, bomb explosion in Central Legislative Assembly by Bhagat Singh and B.K. Dutt (April), coming to power of the minority Labour government led by Ramsay MacDonald in England in May. Wedgewood Benn became the Secretary of State for India.

Irwin’s Declaration (October 31, 1929)

• Combined effort of the Labour government and a Conservative viceroy, to "restore faith in the ultimate purpose of British policy"
• Reality nothing new or revolutionary in the declaration.
• Round Table Conference after the Simon Commission submitted its report.

Delhi Manifesto

November 2, 1929, Certain conditions for attending the Round Table Conference

• should be not to determine whether or when dominion status was to be reached but to formulate a constitution for implementation of the dominion status, basic principle of dominion status should be immediately accepted.
• Congress should have majority representation.
• General amnesty for political risoners and a policy of conciliation.

Asked the viceroy for assurance that the purpose of the round table conference was to draft a constitutional scheme for dominion status, was not the purpose of the conference, said Irwin. he rejected the demands put forward in the Delhi Manifesto, confrontation begin.

Lahore Congress and Purna Swaraj

December 1929, Jawaharlal Nehru president for the Lahore session of the Congress, due to Gandhi’s backing.

• Appositeness of the occasion.
• Upsurge of youth made anti-Simon campaign a huge success

Spelling out the methods of struggle, he said, “Any great movement for liberation today must necessarily be a mass movement, and mass movements must essentially be peaceful, except in times of organised revolt...”

• Round Table Conference was to be boycotted.
• Complete independance, aim of the Congress
• Congress Working Committee, launch a programme of civil disobedience.
• January 26, 1930 was fixed as the first Independence (Swarajya) Day, to be celebrated everywhere.

December 31, 1929

• At midnight on the banks of River Ravi, the newly adopted tricolour flag of freedom was hoisted by Jawaharlal Nehru midst slogans of Inquilab Zindabad.

January 26, 1930: the Independence Pledge

• Inalienable right of Indians to have freedom
• British Government in India has not only deprived us of freedom and exploited us, but also ruined us economically, politically, culturally and spiritually.
• Economically ruined by high revenue, destruction of village industries with no substitutions made, currency and exchange rate are manipulated to our disadvantage.
• No real political powers are given.
• Culturally, system of education has torn us from our moorings
• Spiritually, compulsory disarmament has made us unmanly.
• Hold it a crime against man and God to submit any longer to British rule.
• Prepare for complete independence by withdrawing, as far as possible, all voluntary association from the British government and will prepare for civil disobedience, end of this inhuman rule is assured.
• carry out the Congress instructions for establish Purna Swaraj.

Civil Disobedience Movement - the Salt Satyagraha and Other Upsurges

• January 31, 1930, Gandhi’s Eleven Demands to government to accept or reject.
• No positive response forthcoming, Congress Working committee invested Gandhi with full powers to launch the Civil Disobedience Movement at a time and place of his choice
• February-end, Gandhi had decided to make salt the central formula for the movement

Dandi March (March 12-April 6, 1930)

• March 2, 1930, Gandhi informed the viceroy of his plan.
• Gandhi, along with a band of seventy-eight members of Sabarmati Ashram, was to march from his headquarters in Ahmedabad through the villages of Gujarat for 240 miles.
• On reaching the coast at Dandi, salt law was to be violated by collecting salt from the beach.

Gandhi gave the following directions for future action

• Wherever possible civil disobedience of the salt law should be started.
• Foreign liquor and cloth shops can be picketed.
• Refuse to pay taxes.
• Lawyers can give up practice.
• Public can boycott law courts by refraining from litigation.
• Government servants can resign, one condition - truth and non-violence.
• Local leaders should be obeyed after Gandhi’s arrest

Historic march, began on March 12 broke the salt law by picking up a lump of salt at Dandi on April 6.

Gandhi openly asked the people to make salt from sea water in their homes and violate the salt law

Spread of Salt Law Disobedience

• Salt laws started all over the country.
• April 1930, Nehru’s arrest for defiance of the salt law evoked huge demonstrations in Madras, Calcutta and Karachi.
• May 4, 1930, Gandhi’s arrest, when he had announced that he would lead a raid on Dharasana Salt Works on the west coast.
• Gandhi’s arrest was followed by massive protests in Bombay, Delhi, Calcutta and in Sholapur.
• Non-payment of revenue in ryotwari areas.
• No-chowkidara-tax campaign in zamindari areas.
• Violation of forest laws in the Central Provinces.

Satyagraha at Different Places

Tamil Nadu

• April 1930, C. Rajagopalachari, From Thiruchirapalli to Vedaranniyam on the Tanjore break the salt law. Picketing of foreign cloth shops & Anti-liquor campaign.
• keep the movement non-violent, violent eruptions of masses, break the Choolai mills strike, Unemployed weavers attacked liquor shops and police pickets at Gudiyattam.
• peasants, suffering from falling prices, rioted at Bodinayakanur in Madura.

Malabar

• K. Kelappan - Vaikom Satyagraha.
• P. Krishna Pillai - Kerala Communist movement.

Andhra Region

• East and west Godavari, Krishna and Guntur.
• Number of sibirams (military style camps) were set up to serve as the headquarters of the Salt Satyagraha.
• Non-cooperation movement (1921-22) was missing in the region.

Orissa

• Gopalbandhu Chaudhuri, Salt Satyagraha in coastal regions of Balasore, Cuttack and Puri districts.

Assam

• Civil disobedience failed to regain.
• Growing conflicts between Assamese and Bengalis, Hindus and Muslims.
• successful student strike against the Cunningham Circular,
• Chandraprabha Saikiani, in December 1930, incited the aboriginal Kachari villages to break forest laws denied by the Assam Congress leadership.

Bengal

• Subhas Bose and J.M. Sengupta,
• communal riots & little participation of Muslims.
• Largest number of arrests as well as the highest amount of violence.
• same period, Surya Sen’s Chittagong revolt group.

Bihar

• Landlocked Bihar.
• Patna, Nakhas Pond was chosen as a site to make salt and break the salt law under Ambika Kant Sinha.
• Very powerful no-chaukidari tax agitation.
• November 1930,sale of foreign cloth and liquor dramatically declined & administration collapsed in several parts.
• Tribal belt of Chhotanagpur, lower-class militancy & combined socio-religious reform along ‘sanskritising’ line - give up meat and liquor, and use khadi.
• Big zamindars remained loyal to the government, small landlords and better-off tenants participated in the movement.

Peshawar

• Badshah Khan and Frontier Gandhi, started the first Pushto political monthly Pukhtoon
• organised a volunteer brigade ‘Khudai Khidmatgars’, popularly known as the ‘Red-Shirts’.
• Pledged to the freedom struggle and non-violence.
• April 23, 1930, arrest of Congress leaders in the NWFP led to mass demonstrations in Peshawa, followed by a reign of terror and martial law.
• Garhwal Rifles soldiers refused to fire on an unarmed crowd.

Sholapur

• Fiercest response to Gandhi’s arrest, Textile workers strike & burnt liquor shops and other symbols of government authority.

Dharasana

• On May 21, 1930, Sarojini Naidu, Imam Sahib and Manilal (Gandhi’s son) took up the unfinished task of leading a raid on the Dharasana Salt Works.

Gujarat

• No-tax movement, Villagers crossed the border into neighbouring Princely states (such as Baroda).
• Police retaliated by destroying their property and confiscating their land.

Maharashtra, Karnataka, Central Provinces

• Defiance of forest laws such as grazing and timber restrictions and public sale of illegally acquired forest produce.

United Provinces

• No-revenue campaign, no-rent campaign.
• Activity picked up speed in October 1930, especially in Agra and Rai Bareilly.

Manipur and Nagaland

• Brave part in the movement
• Rani Gaidinliu, a Naga spiritual leader follow her cousin Haipou Jadonang raised a banner against foreign rule, "We are free people, the white men should not rule over us"
• She urged the people not to pay taxes or work for the British & reformist religious movement steadily turned political.
• Manhunt was launched for Rani Gaidinliu.
• Finally captured & life imprisonment

Forms of Mobilisation

• Mobilisation of masses was also carried out through prabhat pheries, vanar senas, manjari senas, secret patrikas and magic lantern shows.

Impact of Agitation

1. Imports of foreign cloth and other items fell.
2. Government suffered a loss of income from liquor, excise and land revenue.
3. Elections to Legislative Assembly were largely boycotted.

Extent of Mass Participation

• Women - Gandhi specially asked women to play a leading part in the movement. Sight, picketing outside liquor shops, opium dens and shops selling foreign cloth.
• Student - boycott of foreign cloth and liquor.
• Muslims
• Stay away from the movement and because of active government encouragement to communal dissension.
• NWFP saw an overwhelming participation.
• Middle class Muslim participation was quite, lower class people and upper class women were active.
• Merchants and Petty Traders - Active in implementing the boycott, especially in Tamil Nadu and Punjab.
• Tribals - active participants in Central Provinces, Maharashtra and Karnataka.
• Workers - participated in Bombay, Calcutta, Madras, Sholapur, etc.
• Peasants - active in the United Provinces, Bihar and Gujarat.

Government Response—Efforts for Truce

• Government suffered an erosion of power.
• Gandhi’s arrest came after much vacillation.
• Once the repression began, the ordinances banning civil liberties were freely used, including the press being gagged.
• Provincial governments were given freedom to ban civil disobedience organisations.
• Lathi charges and firing on unarmed crowds.
• Government repression and publication of the Simon Commission Report, no mention of dominion status, upset even moderate political opinion.
• July 1930, Lord Irwin, suggested a round table conference, the possibility of peace between the Congress and the government.
• August 1930, Motilal and Jawaharlal Nehru were taken to Yeravada Jail to meet Gandhi and discuss possibility of a settlement, Nehrus and Gandhi unequivocally reiterated the demands of
1. Right of secession from Britain;
2. Complete national government with control over defence and finance; and
3. An independent tribunal to settle Britain’s financial claims.

Gandhi-Irwin Pact

• January 25, 1931, Gandhi and all other members of the Congress Working Committee (CWC) were released unconditionally.
• Viceroy, representing the British Indian Government, and Gandhi, representing the Indian people, in Delhi on February 14, 1931.
• Delhi Pact, also known as the Gandhi-Irwin Pact.

Irwin on behalf of the government agreed on—

1. Immediate release of all political prisoners not convicted of violence;
2. remission of all fines not yet collected;
3. return of all lands not yet sold to third parties;
4. lenient treatment to those government servants who had resigned;
5. right to make salt in coastal villages for personal consumption (not for sale);
6. right to peaceful and non-aggressive picketing; and
7. withdrawal of emergency ordinances.

Viceroy, however, turned down two of Gandhi’s demands

1. Public inquiry into police excesses.
2. Commutation of Bhagat Singh and his comrades’ death sentence to life sentence

Gandhi behalf of congress agree

1. Suspend the civil disobedience movement
2. Participate in the next Round Table Conference.

Evaluation of Civil Disobedience Movement

• Mass movements are necessarily short-lived
• Capacity of the masses to make sacrifices, unlike that of the activists, is limited
• Signs of exhaustion after September 1930, shopkeepers and merchants,

youth were disappointed, Peasants of Gujarat were disappointed because their lands were not restored immediately.

But many people were jubilant that the government had been made to regard their movement as significant and treat their leader as an equal, and sign a pact with him.

Comparison to Non-Cooperation Movement

Civil Disobedience Movement differed from the Non-Cooperation Movement.

1. Objective complete independence not just remedying.
2. Violation of law, not just non-cooperation.
3. Decline in forms of protests involving the intelligentsia.
4. Muslim participation was nowhere near that in the Non-Cooperation Movement level.
5. No major labour upsurge.
6. Massive participation of peasants and business groups.
7. Imprisoned was about three times more this time.
8. Congress was organisationally stronger.

Karachi Congress Session - 1931

• March 1931, a special session Karachi to endorse the Gandhi-Irwin Pact.
• Six days before Bhagat Singh, Sukhdev and Rajguru were executed.
• Black flag demonstrations by the Punjab Naujawan Bharat Sabha, in protest against his failure to secure Bhagat and his comrades.

Congress Resolutions at Karachi

• Delhi Pact or Gandhi-Irwin Pact was endorsed.
• purna swaraj was reiterated.
• Fundamental Rights and the other on National Economic Programme

Resolution on Fundamental Rights

• Free speech and free press.
• Right to form associations.
• Right to assemble
• Universal adult franchise
• Equal legal rights irrespective of caste, creed and sex
• Neutrality of state in religious matters
• Free and compulsory primary education
• Protection to culture, language, script of minorities and linguistic groups

Resolution on National Economic Programme

• Substantial reduction in rent and revenue in the case of landholders and peasants
• Exemption from rent for uneconomic holdings
• Relief from agricultural indebtedness
• Control of usury
• Better conditions of work including a living wage, limited hours of work and protection of women workers in the industrial sector
• Right to workers and peasants to form unions
• State ownership and control of key industries, mines and means of transport.

Congress spelt swaraj would mean for "”in order to end exploitation of masses, political freedom must include economic freedom of starving million".