Powerpoint presentation on The Civil Disobedience Movement in India led by the Father of the nation, Mahatma Gandhi from 1930-1934.

2.  Civil disobedience is the active, professed
refusal to obey certain laws, demands, or
commands of a government, or of an
occupying international power.
 Civil disobedience is sometimes, though
not always, defined as being nonviolent
resistance.

3.  On 31st January 1930, Mahatma Gandhi sent a
letter to Viceroy Irwin stating 11 wide-ranging
demands that involved all classes of the Indian
society. The most stirring of all was the demand
to abolish the Salt Tax.
 Salt was something consumed by rich and poor
alike and the Salt Tax and the Government
monopoly on salt production revealed the most
oppressive face of British rule.

4.  Gandhi said that if his demands were not fulfilled
by 11th March, he would launch a Civil
Disobedience Campaign.
 Irwin was unwilling to negotiate and so Gandhiji
started his famous Dandi March with 78
volunteers and walked 240 miles from Sabarmati
to Dandi in 24 days.
 On 6th April, he reached Dandi and ceremonially
violated the law, manufacturing salt by boiling
sea water. This marked the beginning of the Civil
Disobedience Movement.

5.  People were now asked not only to refuse
cooperation, as they had done during the
Non-Cooperation Movement in 1921-22,
but also break colonial laws.
 Thousands of people in different parts of
the country broke the Salt Law and
demonstrated in front of government salt
factories.

6. As the Movement spread, foreign cloth
was boycotted, and liquor shops were
picketed.
Peasants refused to pay revenue and
chaukidari taxes and village officials
resigned.
In many places, people violated forest laws
by going into Reserved Forests to collect
wood and graze cattle.

7. • Worried by the Movement, the colonial
government began arresting Congress leaders
one by one, leading to violent clashes at
many places.
• When Abdul Ghaffar Khan, a devout disciple
of Mahatma Gandhi was arrested in April
1930, angry crowds demonstrated in the
streets of Peshawar, facing armoured cars
and police firing. Many were killed.

8. » When Mahatma Gandhi himself was
arrested, industrial workers in Sholapur
attacked police posts, municipal buildings,
law courts and railway stations – all
structures that symbolized the British rule.
» A frightened government responded with
brutal repression, Peaceful Satyagrahis were
attacked, women and children were beaten
up and about 1,00,000 people were arrested.

9. ø In such a situation, Gandhiji decided to call
off the Movement and entered into a pact
with Irwin on 5th March 1931.
ø He agreed to participate in the Second Round
Table Conference in London and the
Government agreed to release the political
prisoners.
ø Gandhiji went to London for the Conference,
but the negotiations broke down and he
returned disappointed.

10. * When he came back to India, Gandhiji
discovered that Jawaharlal Nehru and Ghaffar
Khan were both in jail.
* The Congress had been declared illegal, and a
series of measures had been imposed to
prevent meetings, demonstrations and
boycotts.
* Gandhiji relaunched the Civil Disobedience
Movement. For over a year, the movement
continued, but by 1934, it lost its momentum.