Civil Disobedience in Indian Tradition, with Some Early Nineteenth Century Documents c5.s3.11

c5.s3.11

But as time passed and Mahatma Gandhi became the sole symbol of Indian nationalism, such opposition became less vocal. While individuals still disagreed with particular expressions of it, by the mid-1930s non-cooperation and civil disobedience emerged as the accepted Indian method of dealing with injustice. With the removal of British power from India, however, the views of Sastri, Tagore, Paranjpye, etc., once again came to the forefront. As perhaps should have been expected, the opposition or dissent has mostly been expressed by those associated with the ruling apparatus. The only curious part of it is that many of the dissenters, in the earlier period, had themselves been participants in the Gandhian non-cooperation and civil disobedience movements. But, at the same time, there was no lack of other public men who challenged this new attitude towards non-cooperation and civil disobedience. The following by J.B. Kripalani, perhaps sums up this challenge. In December 1953, Kripalani said: