Civil Disobedience in Indian Tradition, with Some Early Nineteenth Century Documents c5.s2.18

c5.s2.18

If the dates, (1810-12) were just advanced by some 110 to 120 years, the name of the tax altered and a few other verbal changes made, this narrative could be taken as a fair recital of most events in the still remembered civil disobedience campaigns of the 1920s and 1930s. The way the people organised themselves, the measures they adopted, the steps they took to sustain their unity and the underlying logic in their minds from which all else flowed are essentially similar in the two periods. (It is by no means implied here that there are no differences at all between the non-cooperation and civil disobedience in 1810-11 and what is termed as “Satyagraha”. To an extent the concept of satyagraha, since this term was coined by Mahatma Gandhi has become more and more involved. For many, it cannot be resorted to be by any who have not been trained to an ashram life etc. But ordinarily satyagraha can only mean non-cooperation and civil disobedience of the type resorted to in Benares in 1810-11. And when Gandhiji recommended to the Czechs and the Poles to resort to satyagraha, it could only have been this Benares type of protest (suitably modified according to their talents) which he had in mind)