essay on civil disobedience

7/30/2019 Essay on Civil Disobedience

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Essay on Civil Disobedience

The term civil disobediencemeans refusal to obey civil laws in an effort to

induce change in governmental policy or legislation, characterized by nonviolent

means, theories on this term have been around for a long time. (AmericanHeritage Dictionary 3rd Edition pg161) People like Mahatma Gandhi and Martin

Luther King Jr. have took up and preached their own theories on civil disobedience.

The two have there own reasons why to practice civil disobedience but there view

on it is in similar manner. Mahatma Gandhi wanted to stop South African

government from making all Indians register with Registrar of Asiatics. Martin

Luther King Jr. wanted to stop the segregation of the colored people in southern

parts of America.

While both men fought for different causes they had a similar theme they both saw

their people been treated unjustly. Martin Luther King Jr. saw colored people insouthern parts of America been prosecuted on bass of there color. Mahatma Gandhi

saw Indians been prosecuted on bass of there race. Both men knew that the only

way to stop their prosecutors is by standing up to them. Mahatma Gandhi unlike

most of Indian community wanted to stand up to Great Britain in passive resistance

he called it a weapon of weak men. Gandhi believes that the way to stop the

prosecution of his people is by civil disobedience.

Mahatma Gandhi used civil disobedience because he knew that it was the only way

that the Indian people could fight the Great Britain laws. Gandhis called his form of

civil disobedience Satyagrahis and, one of the believe that Satyagrahis gave was

that Indian people where strong and with that believe it made the Indian people

believe they will have the power to over rule the laws that Great Britain passed.

Gandhi also said that Satyagrahis was a peaceful form of civil disobedience and

violence is prohibited even when it would be in their favor. Gandhi said that

Satyagraha and brute force, being each a negation of the other. Another thing

that Gandhi view on civil disobedience held was that when a person decide to be a

part of the movement that he knows the consequences and is willing to pay the

penalties for his actions. Satyagrahis used news journals and books to inform the

people about what was happening, which was a good way to keep all the member

informed. When all the does steps went into action Gandhi and a lot of Satyagrahis

followers where send to jail. Gandhi told his followers that under Satyagrahis

believes all of them should obey the rules that where set by the jail as long as they

not inconsistent with [there] self-respect or with [there] religious convictions.

After the Gandhi pull all of the his civil disobedience in action it didnt take long for

the Great Britain to try to come to some kind of a compromise with the Indian

community about the registration laws. Gandhi strong believe in hi Satyagrahis was

what helped him and the rest of the Indian community stop their prosecutors and
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gain some freedom for his people. Gandhi believed that his use for civil

disobedience was justified because Great Britain and their government was treating

the Indian unfair and would keep doing that until the Indian would stand up to

them. In same way as Gandhi used civil disobedience to protect his people from

racial prosecution Martin Luther King Jr. used tactics of civil disobedience to protect

the colored people from prosecution based on their color.

Martin Luther King Jr. just like Gandhi was a leader in his community and believed

that civil disobedience was the way to change the laws and feeling that where set

against the colored people in southern states of America. King believed that only

way to get his point across is by taking action but he just like Gandhi believed that

the action that has to be taking should be in form of non-violent protest and with

out use of any physical force. King also says that to justify acts of civil disobedience

you must have prove that wrong is been done to you and have fact to prove why

you are opposing something or someone. King justified his act of civil disobedience

by show that there was a lot of hatred towards the Negroes by the country policeand court systems.

He then say that after you have prove of that wrong is been done upon you try to

show your fact to the opposite side and try to negotiate and come up with a

solution that favors both sides. King tried to negotiate with the political government

but they refused to talk to him. Then he tried to take his negotiations to the

economic community where he tried to come to some kind of compromise. But

when that didnt work out either he didnt see anything that he or his people could

do beside take direct action against the government.

Just as Gandhi said to his people King also told his people that the direct action

they take would have to be done in a non-violent matter with never using any

physical force against the opposition. He also told his followers as Gandhi told his

that you would have to know the consequences and would be able to pay the

penalties without and striking back with physical. When all of his followers

understood what they where getting them self in to King used his final step in his

civil disobedience tactics.

He took up direct action as the final step when nothing else worked. He start to

have sit-ins and marches he used does tactics because he believed that only in that

matter will the government be force to give in and try to negotiate and give thecolored people some respect and power. Just like Gandhi forced the Great Britain

government to negotiated some type of compromise by not giving in and lets all of

the Satyagrahis be send to jail with out fighting back. So did King with his followed

with the marches and the sit-ins. King just as Gandhi believed that only way to get

any change is if you do protest out in the open where everyone can see you and

that you are willing to accept the penalty by been send to jail. Just as Great Britain


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government saw that they been unfair to the Indian people make the America

government see the injustice they are showing towards colored people and make

them negotiate with you to come to some kind of a compromise. King believe that

only way to have justice is by having tension and the best way he saw to make

justified tension is by civil disobedience.

Both King and Gandhi saw civil disobedience had been just because they felt that

segregation and prosecution was unjust. They saw civil disobedience as making the

opposition see that they are wrong and what they doing is morally wrong. King and

Gandhi saw the laws that where passed against their people as unjust laws because

they only affected small part of people and not affect the people who pass the laws.

King showed an example how laws are not always just by saying that everything

that Hitler did in Germany was legal and everything that Hungarian freedom

fighters did in Hungary was illegal. He was trying to show how even the

government made the law legal it was still unjust as a moral law and civil

disobedience would have been justified as the right thing to do. Gandhi just likeKing felt that not everything that was legal was just and that why as King he

believed that civil disobedience is the way to make just with a unjust legal law.

During this day I believe that I would take up Martin Luther Kings view on civil

disobedience as my own because I see just how he said that not all laws that are

legal are just. I believe that not all that is made law is just for all people but only

make it just for the majority. King view on civil disobedience is more suitable for

this day and age that why people would try to fallow his example if they would have

to take up civil disobedience.

Gandhi leads civil disobedience

On March 12, 1930, Indian independence leaderMohandas Gandhibegins a defiant

march to the sea in protest of the British monopoly on salt, his boldest act of civil

disobedience yet against British rule in India.

Britain's Salt Acts prohibited Indians from collecting or selling salt, a staple in the

Indian diet. Citizens were forced to buy the vital mineral from the British, who, in

addition to exercising a monopoly over the manufacture and sale of salt, also

exerted a heavy salt tax. Although India's poor suffered most under the tax,

Indians required salt. Defying the Salt Acts,Gandhireasoned, would be aningeniously simple way for many Indians to break a British law nonviolently. He

declared resistance to British salt policies to be the unifying theme for his new

campaign ofsatyagraha, or mass civil disobedience.

On March 12, Gandhi set out from Sabarmati with 78 followers on a 241-mile

march to the coastal town of Dandi on the Arabian Sea. There, Gandhi and his

supporters were to defy British policy by making salt from seawater. All along the
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way, Gandhi addressed large crowds, and with each passing day an increasing

number of people joined the salt satyagraha. By the time they reached Dandi on

April 5, Gandhi was at the head of a crowd of tens of thousands. Gandhi spoke and

led prayers and early the next morning walked down to the sea to make salt.

He had planned to work the salt flats on the beach, encrusted with crystallized seasalt at every high tide, but the police had forestalled him by crushing the salt

deposits into the mud. Nevertheless, Gandhi reached down and picked up a small

lump of natural salt out of the mud--and British law had been defied. At Dandi,

thousands more followed his lead, and in the coastal cities of Bombay and Karachi,

Indian nationalists led crowds of citizens in making salt. Civil disobedience broke

out all across India, soon involving millions of Indians, and British authorities

arrested more than 60,000 people. Gandhi himself was arrested on May 5, but the

satyagraha continued without him.

On May 21, the poet Sarojini Naidu led 2,500 marchers on the Dharasana Salt

Works, some 150 miles north of Bombay. Several hundred British-led Indian

policemen met them and viciously beat the peaceful demonstrators. The incident,

recorded by American journalist Webb Miller, prompted an international outcry

against British policy in India.

In January 1931, Gandhi was released from prison. He later met with Lord Irwin,

the viceroy of India, and agreed to call off the satyagraha in exchange for an equal

negotiating role at a London conference on India's future. In August, Gandhi

traveled to the conference as the sole representative of the nationalist Indian

National Congress. The meeting was a disappointment, but British leaders had

acknowledged him as a force they could not suppress or ignore.

India's independence was finally granted in August 1947. Gandhi was assassinated

by a Hindu extremist less than six months later.

The Civil Disobedience Movement led by M K Gandhi, in the year 1930 was an

important milestone in the history of Indian Nationalism. There are three distinct

phases that mark the development of Indian Nationalism. In the first phase, the

ideology of the moderates dominated the political scenario. This was followed by

the prominence of the extremist ideologies. In the third phase of Indian Nationalism

the most significant incident was the rise of MK Gandhi, popularly known asMahatma Gandhi, to power as the leader of Indian National Movements. Under his

spirited guidance, the National Movements of the country took shape.

The Indians learnt how apparently philosophical tenets like non violence and

passive resistance, could be used to wage political battles. The programs and

policies adopted in the movements spearheaded by Gandhi reflected his political

ideologies of ahimsa and satyagraha. While the Non-Co-Operation Movement was


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built on the lines of non violent non co operation, the essence of The Civil

Disobedience Movement was defying of the British laws. Through his leadership to

the National Movements, he not only buttressed his political stance but also played

a crucial role in unification of the country, awakening of the masses, and bringing

politics within the arena of the common man.

Factors Leading to the Civil Disobedience Movement

The prevalent political and social circumstances played a vital role in the launching

of the Civil Disobedience Movement. The Simon Commission was formed by the

British Government that included solely the members of the British Parliament, in

November 1927, to draft and formalize a constitution for India. The chairmanship of

the commission rested with Sir John Simon, who was a well known lawyer and an

English statesman. Accused of being an 'All-White Commission', the Simon

Commission was rejected by all political and social segments of the country. In

Bengal, the opposition to the Simon Commission assumed a massive scale, with a

hartal being observed in all corners of the province on February 3rd, 1928. On the

occasion of Simon's arrival in the city, demonstrations were conducted in Calcutta.

In the wake of the boycott of the recommendations proposed by Simon

Commission, an All-Party Conference was organized in Bombay in May of 1928. Dr

MA Ansari was the president of the conference. Motilal Nehru was given the

responsibility to preside over the drafting committee, appointed at the conference

to prepare a constitution for India.

Barring the Indian Muslims, The Nehru Report was endorsed by all segments of the

Indian society. The Indian National Congress pressurized the British government to

accept all the parts the Nehru Report, in December 1928. At the Calcutta Session of

the Indian National Congress held in December, 1928, the British government was

warned that if India was not granted the status of a dominion, a Civil Disobedience

Movement would be initiated in the entire country. Lord Irwin, the Governor

General, after a few months, declared that the final objective of the constitutional

reforms was to grant the status of a dominion to India. Following this declaration,

Gandhi along with other national leaders requested the Governor General to adopt

a more liberal attitude in solving the constitutional crisis. A demand was made forthe release of the political prisoners and for holding the suggested Round Table

Conference for reflecting on the problems regarding the constitution of the country.

essay on civil disobedience

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