Mahatma Gandhi and the Indian National Movement (1919–1947) — Part 4: 4. The Civil Disobedience Movement (1930-1934)

4. The Civil Disobedience Movement (1930-1934)

4.1 The Salt March (Dandi March, 12 March 1930)

After the Non-Cooperation Movement, Gandhi devoted several years to social reform — promoting khadi, campaigning against untouchability, and fostering Hindu-Muslim harmony. He re-entered active political campaigning in 1928. The December 1929 Congress session in Lahore, with Jawaharlal Nehru as president, declared commitment to "Purna Swaraj" — complete independence. On 26 January 1930, "Independence Day" was observed across the country, with the national flag hoisted at public meetings and patriotic pledges taken.

Before launching the movement, Gandhi placed eleven demands before the Viceroy, Lord Irwin. These included abolition of the salt tax, reduction of land revenue by 50%, reduction of military expenditure by 50%, protection for Indian textile industry, release of all political prisoners, and reduction of the rupee-sterling exchange ratio. Irwin rejected the demands.

Gandhi's announcement that he would march to the sea to break the salt law seemed puzzling to many observers. But salt was a masterstroke of political symbolism. Every Indian household used salt daily, making the salt tax a universal grievance cutting across class, caste, and religion. The colonial government not only taxed salt at more than 1,000% above its value but also destroyed naturally occurring salt deposits to enforce the monopoly — which Gandhi described as "a fourfold curse" depriving people of a village industry, destroying national property, incurring government expenditure on destruction, and imposing a confiscatory tax on a starving people. Breaking the salt law was a concrete, visible act of defiance accessible to every Indian.

On 12 March 1930, Gandhi set out from his Sabarmati Ashram near Ahmedabad with 78 chosen companions, walking 385 km to the coastal village of Dandi in Gujarat. He covered the distance in 24 days, addressing meetings in every village along the route, urging local officials to resign from colonial service and join the freedom struggle. On 5 April he addressed a meeting at Dandi and on 6 April 1930 made salt from the seawater, breaking the law and making himself a criminal in the eyes of the British. Viceroy Irwin later admitted to Gandhi: "You planned a fine strategy round the issue of salt."

The march attracted enormous international attention. The American magazine Time, initially sceptical, eventually saluted Gandhi as a "Saint" and "Statesman" who was using "Christian acts as a weapon against men with Christian beliefs."

4.2 Spread of the Movement

The Salt March unleashed the Civil Disobedience Movement across India. In the immediate wake, approximately 60,000 Indians were arrested; across the full duration of the movement, the number of jail-goers reached 92,214 — more than three times the 1921-22 figure. Peasants breached colonial forest laws. Factory workers struck. Lawyers boycotted courts. Students refused to attend government institutions.

A remarkable and novel feature of the CDM was the widespread participation of women. Women from professional, business, and peasant families picketed foreign cloth and liquor shops, faced police lathis, and courted arrest. The socialist activist Kamaladevi Chattopadhyay persuaded Gandhi not to restrict the protests to men; she was herself one of many women who courted arrest by breaking salt and liquor laws. The CDM was, in this respect, a turning point in the political mobilisation of Indian women.

The economic impact was tangible: British cloth imports collapsed from 1,248 million yards in 1929-30 to only 523 million yards in 1930-31. Merchants in many towns took collective pledges to boycott foreign goods. The spectacle of unarmed, non-resisting satyagrahis standing firm against police brutality — widely reported in the international press — undermined the moral authority of the British Empire.

4.3 Gandhi-Irwin Pact (1931)

Gandhi was released from jail in January 1931. After several long meetings with Viceroy Irwin, they reached the Gandhi-Irwin Pact (also called the Delhi Pact) in March 1931. Under its terms, the Congress agreed to call off the Civil Disobedience Movement; the government agreed to release all political prisoners not convicted of violence; and salt manufacture was to be permitted along the coast for personal and local use.

Radical nationalists criticised the pact because Gandhi had not extracted from Irwin any commitment to political independence, only a promise of further talks. When Gandhi arrived at Karachi for the Congress session, there was a black flag demonstration by those angered by the recent execution of Bhagat Singh, Rajguru, and Sukhdev on 23 March 1931. Nonetheless, the Karachi Congress ratified the pact and adopted a landmark resolution on Fundamental Rights and Economic Policy.