Repression Of Civil Disobedience Movement 1930-31

The Government's gamble — that non-interference with the movement would result in it spending itself out, that Gandhiji's salt strategy would fail — had not paid off. In fact, the government had never been sure which path to take and was, as Gandhiji predicted, "puzzled and perplexed." The dilemma it found it in was one that Gandhi's nonviolent civil disobedience strategy was designed to create. 

 

•    A Madras civilian expressed the dilemma in early 1930 by saying, "Congress will cry victory." In any case, it resulted in the British government's hegemony being eroded. Because of the movement's rapid spread, the government had no choice but to show the force that lurked beneath its benevolent veneer.

 

•    Officials, governors, and the military establishment began to exert pressure on Gandhiji, and on 4 May, the Viceroy finally ordered his arrest. 

 

•    The Government's hand was forced by Gandhiji's announcement that he would continue his defiance of the salt laws by leading a raid on the Dharasana Salt Works, but the timing of Gandhiji's arrest was ill-advised. 

 

•    It had neither the benefit of an early strike, which would have prevented Gandhiji from carefully building up the momentum of the movement, nor did it allow the government to benefit from their policy of sitting it out. Coming at such a critical juncture in the movement, it only served to ratchet up activity and create endless headaches for the government.

 

•    The arrest of Gandhiji sparked a massive wave of protests. The crowds that spilled out into the streets in Bombay were so large that the police simply withdrew. 

 

•    Thousands of textile and railway workers joined its ranks. Cloth merchants staged a six-day strike. 

 

•    In Calcutta and Delhi, there were clashes and gunfire. But it was in Sholapur, Maharashtra, where the retaliation was the most ferocious. 

 

•    The town's textile workers went on strike on May 7th and along with other residents, set fire to liquor stores and attacked all symbols of government authority, including the railway station, law courts, police stations, and municipal buildings. They seized control of the city and established a virtual parallel government, which could only be overthrown if martial law was imposed after May 16th.

 

•    Nonviolent heroism that took centre stage as the salt Satyagraha took on a new, more powerful form. A band of 2000 marched towards the police cordon that had sealed off the Dharasana salt works on May 21, led by Sarojini Naidu, the first Indian woman to become President of the Congress, and Imam Saheb, Gandhiji's comrade in the South African struggle, at the helm, and Gandhiji's son, Manual, in front ranks.

 

•    The police rushed forward with their steel-tipped lathis and attacked the non-resisting Satyagrahis until they collapsed. The wounded would be carried away on makeshift stretchers by their comrades, and another column would take their place, be beaten to pulp, and carried away. 

 

•    In this manner, column after column advanced; eventually, instead of walking up to the cordon, the men would sit down and wait for the police blows. At 11 a.m., when the temperature in the shade was 116 Fahrenheit, no one raised an arm in defence, and the toll had already risen to 320 injured and two dead.

 

•    Webb Miller, the American journalist whose account of the Dharasana Satyagraha was to carry the flavour of Indian nationalism to many distant lands, and whose description of the Satyagrahis' resolute heroism effectively demonstrated that nonviolent resistance was no meek affair, summed up his impressions in these words: ‘In eighteen years of my reporting in twenty countries, during which I have witnessed innumerable civil disturbances, riots, street fights and rebellions, I have never witnessed such harrowing scenes as at Dharasana.’ 

 

•    People quickly embraced this new form of salt Satyagraha, and it became a mass movement. The raids on the salt works in Wadala, a suburb of Bombay, culminated on 1 June in a mass action by a crowd of 15,000 people who repeatedly broke the police cordon and triumphantly carried away salt in the face of mounted police charges. 

 

•    10,000 people invaded the Sanikatta salt works in Karnataka, where they were met with lathis and bullets.

 

•    The defiance of salt laws in Madras resulted in numerous clashes with the police, as well as a protest meeting on the beach on April 23, which was dispersed by lathi charges and firing, leaving three people dead. This incident shattered the city's racial divide, with even the most moderate Indians condemning the attack and rallying behind the nationalists. 

 

•    In Andhra Pradesh, groups of village women walked for miles to transport a handful of salt, while in Bengal, the old Gandhian ashrams, regenerated by a flood of volunteers from the cities, continued to sustain a powerful salt Satyagraha in Midnapore and other coastal pockets. 

 

•    In Orissa, the districts of Balasore, Pun, and Cuttack remained active centres of illegal salt production.

 

•    The Civil Disobedience Movement of 1930-31, on the other hand, marked a critical turning point in the anti-imperialist struggle. Over 90,000 people were imprisoned, more than three times the number who was imprisoned during the Non-Cooperation Movement of 1920-22. 

 

•    Cloth imports from the United Kingdom had dropped by half; other imports, such as cigarettes, had suffered a similar fate. 

 

•    The government's liquor excise and land revenue have been impacted. 

 

•    The Legislative Assembly elections had been effectively boycotted. 

 

•    If urban elements like merchants and shopkeepers, as well as students, were more active in Tamil Nadu and Punjab, and in cities in general, peasants, tribals, and peasants in Gujarat, U.P., Bengal, Andhra Pradesh, and Bihar, and tribal in the Central Provinces, Maharashtra, Karnataka, and Bengal, peasants, peasants, and tribals in the Central Provinces, Maharashtra, Karnataka Workers were also not absent from the battle; they took part in numerous mass demonstrations in Bombay, Calcutta, and Madras, as well as leading the charge in Sholapur.

 

•    The movement had a remarkable amount of support from the poor and illiterate, both in the city and out in the country. Even the government's statistics on jail inmates reflected their participation — and jailing was only one of many forms of participation. 

 

Muslim participation: Muslims did not participate in the Civil Disobedience Movement in the same numbers as they did in 1920-22. The communal leaders' appeals to stay away, combined with the government's active encouragement of communal dissension to counter nationalist forces, had an effect. 

 

•    Despite this, Muslim participation was not insignificant. As is well known, their participation in the North-West Frontier Province was massive. 

 

•    In Senhatta, Tripura, Gaibandha, Bagura, and Noakhali, Muslim middle-class participation was significant, and in Dacca, Muslim students and shopkeepers, as well as people from the lower classes, lent their support to the movement. 

 

•    Muslim women from the middle and upper classes were also active. ’ The Muslim weaving community in Bihar, as well as the lower classes of Muslims in Delhi and Lucknow, were effectively mobilised, as were many others across the country. 

 

E.J. Lowman, the Bengal Inspector-General of Police, summed up the official confusion when he said: ‘I had no idea that the Congress organization could enlist the sympathy and support of such ignorant and uncultivated people. . . For Indian women, the movement was the most liberating experience to date and can truly be said to have marked their entry into the public space.’