Civil Disobedience in Indian Tradition, with Some Early Nineteenth Century Documents c5.s3.4

c5.s3.4

As the documents show there is frequent expression by the governmental authorities in 1810-11 of the sentiments that the people must give ‘unconditional submission to public authority’; that the Government must not seem ‘to yield to the influence of popular clamour’; that if Government had to yield, it must be ‘without compromising in too conspicuous a manner the authority of Government.’ To the Bhagalpur collector, even the postponing of the collection of the tax ‘because a lawless rabble assembles, is striking at the root of that power, which the Government ought to possess over the subject.’ The magistrate of Benares expressed a similar sentiment with even more anguish when reporting the situation on January 20, 1811. He wrote: ‘I cannot but feel very forcibly, that such a state of things being permitted to continue in defiance of public authority, has already weakened, and weakens daily still more and more, those sentiments of respect, which it is so essential that the community should entertain for the government of the country.’ Such notions and sentiments are still enshrined in the rules, codes and laws of Indian Governments.