Civil Disobedience in Indian Tradition, with Some Early Nineteenth Century Documents c6.s3.7

c6.s3.7

42. The first communication from the Acting Magistrate on this subject is dated the 25th December last, in which he observes as follows: ‘The people are extremely clamorous, they have shut up their shops, abandoned their usual occupations, and assembled in multitudes with a view to extort from me an immediate compliance with their demands, and to prevail with me to direct the Collector to withdraw the assessors until I receive the orders of Government.’ The subsequent communications from the Acting Magistrate are of the same tenor. It is not however to be inferred, that the people proceeded to any acts of open violence. Their design appears to have been to oblige the local officers in the first instance and ultimately the Government to abandon the tax, by a pertinacious adherence to the resolution they had formed of abstaining from labour and by the embarrassments which would naturally arise among a very large population from such conduct. It was evident however that while the people continued collected together in multitudes, with minds bent on effecting the object for which they had assembled, little security existed for the tranquility of the city. It was consequently indispensably necessary to adopt the earliest measures practicable for dispersing the mob, if possible by gentle and conciliatory means, but if not by the employment of the military force of the country.