Civil disobedience continues

April 21, 2024

Two weeks after Gandhi illegally made salt, India was in an uproar, taking pride and pleasure in violating the British monopoly on salt. The civil disobedience campaign was generally, but not always, nonviolent. In Chittagong, in the far east, revolutionaries tried to seize local armories and disrupt communications. In an interview he gave to the Associated Press of India on April 21, 1930, Gandhi expressed his disappointment. He acknowledged that not everyone believed in the superiority of nonviolence, but he “had hoped they would give nonviolence a chance.”

Photo by brotiN biswaS via Pexels

He also gave notice that “however serious the situation becomes, there can be no suspension of the fight.” Eight years earlier, Gandhi had made a controversial decision to suspend civil disobedience after a mob had hacked 22 policemen to death in Chauri Chaura. This time, violence was not a deal breaker; he was committed to a reevaluation of India’s relationship with the British.

Gandhi had also made good on his promise to women that they would have a special role in the movement. They had been barred from joining the weeks-long Salt March because Gandhi feared the British would see them as human shields. Now that civil disobedience was underway, he asked them to picket liquor stores, which he considered “of the highest importance.” I’m reminded of how Cesar Chavez and the United Farm Workers used a national grape boycott, supported by pickets in major cities, to force growers to the negotiating table.

The idea was to get two dozen women to gather outside liquor stores and “come in personal contact with every visitor.” This was part of his larger effort of empowering women and cultivating self-confidence; picketing was “easy.” Taking positive action would help them find “the fear they entertain has no basis.” While there, they could appeal to the owners and shopkeepers to “give up the immoral traffic” and practice right livelihood.

By April 21, tens of thousands had been arrested for violating the salt laws, but Gandhi was not yet among them. He continued to look for ways to make good trouble, pressing onward toward his stated goal of “world sympathy in this battle of Right against Might.”

How would you respond to a picketer who tried to engage you outside a business you shopped at?