Overview
This chapter studies the Civil Disobedience Movement of 1930 to 1934, the second great mass struggle led by Gandhi, and the distinguished part that Odisha played in it. It opens with the years of preparation after 1922: the Swarajists in the councils, the Simon Commission and its boycott, the Nehru Report, the Lahore Congress of December 1929 that declared Purna Swaraj, and the first Independence Day of 26 January 1930. It then explains why Gandhi chose the salt tax as the issue, follows the Dandi March from Sabarmati to the sea, and describes the spread of civil disobedience across India, the government's repression, the Gandhi-Irwin Pact, the Second Round Table Conference, the renewal of the movement in 1932, the Communal Award, the Poona Pact and the final withdrawal in 1934. The second half turns to Odisha, where the long coastline made salt the natural weapon: the march from the Swaraj Ashram to Inchudi in Balasore, the salt camps at Kujanga, Huma and Srijang, the exceptional role of women such as Rama Devi, Sarala Devi and Malati Choudhury, the boycott of foreign cloth and liquor, the repression in the districts and the movement in Ganjam and Sambalpur. The chapter ends with an assessment of what the movement achieved for India and for Odisha.
Learning Objectives
- Trace the political developments from 1922 to 1929 that led the Congress to demand Purna Swaraj.
- Explain why the Simon Commission was boycotted and what the Nehru Report proposed.
- State why Gandhi chose the salt law as the issue for civil disobedience and describe the Dandi March.
- Describe the spread of the Civil Disobedience Movement across India and the forms it took.
- Explain the Gandhi-Irwin Pact, the Round Table Conferences, the Communal Award and the Poona Pact.
- Narrate the Salt Satyagraha in Odisha at Inchudi, Kujanga, Huma and other centres.
- Assess the role of women, students and peasants of Odisha in the movement.
- Compare the Civil Disobedience Movement with the Non-Cooperation Movement and evaluate its results.
Topics in this chapter
13 topics · tap a topic title to jump straight to it.
From Non-Cooperation to Civil Disobedience: the years 1922-1928
After the withdrawal of Non-Cooperation in 1922 and Gandhi's imprisonment, the Congress divided over what to do next. The Swarajists, led by C. R. Das and Motilal Nehru, argued that the councils created by the Act of 1919 should be entered and wrecked from within; the No-changers, led by Vallabhbhai Patel, Rajendra Prasad and C. Rajagopalachari, wanted to keep to the constructive programme and the boycott. The Swaraj Party was formed in January 1923 and did well in the elections of November 1923, winning the largest number of seats in the Central Legislative Assembly and a majority in Bengal and the Central Provinces. Gandhi, released in February 1924, allowed both wings to work in their own way. The death of C. R. Das in 1925 weakened the Swarajists.
The years 1922 to 1927 were also years of communal riots, of the growth of the Hindu Mahasabha and the Muslim League, and of the revival of revolutionary activity in the Hindustan Socialist Republican Association of Bhagat Singh, Chandrashekhar Azad and their comrades. Gandhi devoted himself to constructive work, khadi and the removal of untouchability, and the movement seemed to be in decline.
The British government revived it. In November 1927 it appointed the Simon Commission, a statutory commission under Sir John Simon, to review the working of the 1919 Act and recommend the next step. All seven members were British members of Parliament; not one Indian was included, though the future of India was the subject. Indians of every party, the Congress, the Liberals, the Hindu Mahasabha and the larger part of the Muslim League under Jinnah, decided to boycott the Commission. When it landed at Bombay on 3 February 1928 it was met with black flags and the cry Simon, go back, and the same greeting followed it everywhere. At Lahore on 30 October 1928 the police lathi-charged a procession led by Lala Lajpat Rai, who was struck and died of his injuries on 17 November; Bhagat Singh and his comrades avenged him by shooting the police officer Saunders in December 1928.
The Simon boycott united the country and revived mass politics. It also drew a challenge from the Secretary of State, Lord Birkenhead, who said that Indians could not agree among themselves on a constitution. The Congress answered with the Nehru Report of 1928, the subject of the next section.
- Swarajists in the Central Assembly, 1924: with about 42 seats and Independent allies they defeated the government several times and forced the appointment of the Muddiman Committee on the Reforms.
- Simon Commission composition: seven British MPs including Clement Attlee, later Prime Minister; no Indian member.
- Lahore, 30 October 1928: Lala Lajpat Rai, beaten in the lathi-charge, said that every blow aimed at him was a nail in the coffin of British rule; he died on 17 November.
- Simon Commission appointed November 1927; landed Bombay 3 February 1928; boycotted by all parties; reported 1930.
The Nehru Report and the demand for Purna Swaraj
In answer to Birkenhead's challenge, an All Parties Conference in 1928 appointed a committee under Motilal Nehru, with Tej Bahadur Sapru, Subhas Chandra Bose, Sir Ali Imam, Shuaib Qureshi, M. S. Aney, M. R. Jayakar, G. R. Pradhan and Sardar Mangal Singh, to draft a constitution for India. Its Nehru Report (August 1928) was the first constitution drafted by Indians. It proposed Dominion Status, self-government on the model of Canada and Australia, as the immediate goal; a federal parliamentary system with a bicameral legislature; responsible government at the centre and in the provinces; a list of fundamental rights, including equality and freedom of religion; joint electorates with reservation of seats for Muslims only where they were in a minority, in place of separate electorates; and linguistic provinces, a proposal of great interest to Odisha.
The report was rejected by the Muslim League. At the All Parties Convention at Calcutta in December 1928 Jinnah proposed amendments, one-third of the central seats for Muslims, residuary powers to the provinces and separate electorates until adult franchise; when they were refused he called it the parting of the ways and in March 1929 put forward his Fourteen Points. The Hindu Mahasabha and the Sikh League also objected on other grounds.
Within the Congress the young leaders, Jawaharlal Nehru and Subhas Chandra Bose, refused to accept Dominion Status and formed the Independence for India League to demand complete independence. Gandhi effected a compromise at the Calcutta Congress of December 1928: the Congress would accept the Nehru Report if the government granted Dominion Status within one year, failing which it would demand complete independence and launch civil disobedience.
The year passed. The Viceroy, Lord Irwin, announced on 31 October 1929 that the natural goal of British policy was Dominion Status and that a Round Table Conference would be held, but he gave no date, and the British Parliament repudiated even this. Gandhi, Motilal Nehru and Jinnah met Irwin on 23 December 1929 and could get no assurance.
The Congress met at Lahore in December 1929 under the presidency of Jawaharlal Nehru, then forty years old. On the midnight of 31 December 1929 the tricolour flag was unfurled on the bank of the Ravi and the Congress declared Purna Swaraj, complete independence, as its goal. It resolved to boycott the Round Table Conference, to withdraw from the legislatures and to launch civil disobedience. It fixed 26 January 1930 as Independence Day, when the pledge of independence was read in villages and towns throughout India. The same day was chosen in 1950 for the commencement of the Constitution of the Republic. The Bardoli Satyagraha of 1928, in which the peasants of Bardoli taluka under Vallabhbhai Patel had refused to pay an enhanced revenue and won, had already shown that the people were ready.
- Nehru Report electorates: joint electorates everywhere, with seats reserved for Muslims in provinces where they were a minority, but not in Punjab and Bengal where they were a majority.
- Jinnah's Fourteen Points (1929) demanded separate electorates, one-third Muslim seats at the centre, and a federal constitution with residuary powers in the provinces.
- The Independence Pledge of 26 January 1930 declared that British rule had ruined India economically, politically, culturally and spiritually and that it was a crime to submit to it any longer.
- Nehru Report August 1928 → Calcutta Congress December 1928 (one-year ultimatum) → Irwin declaration 31 October 1929 → Lahore Congress December 1929 (Purna Swaraj) → Independence Day 26 January 1930.
The salt law and the Dandi March
The Lahore Congress had authorised civil disobedience but left the manner to Gandhi. He first sent the Viceroy his Eleven Points on 31 January 1930, a set of demands ranging from total prohibition and a fifty per cent cut in land revenue and military expenditure to the abolition of the salt tax and the release of political prisoners; if they were granted, he said, there would be no need of civil disobedience. Irwin did not reply seriously.
Gandhi then chose salt. Under the Salt Act of 1882 the government held a monopoly of the manufacture and sale of salt and levied a tax on it; even to pick up natural salt from the sea-shore was an offence. The choice puzzled many, including Jawaharlal Nehru, but it was a stroke of genius. Salt was needed by every Indian, rich or poor, Hindu or Muslim; the tax fell hardest on the poorest; the law was so plainly unjust that no one could defend it; and it could be broken by anyone who lived within reach of the sea or a salt pan simply by boiling sea water. In the coastal provinces, Gujarat, Bengal, Madras, Bombay and Odisha, salt-making was an ancient village industry that the British monopoly had destroyed.
On 2 March 1930 Gandhi wrote to Irwin, addressing him as Dear Friend, that he intended to break the salt law on the twelfth day, and on 12 March 1930 he set out from the Sabarmati Ashram with 78 chosen followers, walking about ten miles a day through the villages of Gujarat towards Dandi, a village on the coast of Surat district, 241 miles (about 385 km) away. The march took twenty-four days; at every village crowds gathered, village officials resigned, and the newspapers of the world followed the sixty-one-year-old man with his staff. On the morning of 6 April 1930 at Dandi he bathed in the sea, picked up a lump of natural salt and broke the law, declaring that he was shaking the foundations of the British Empire.
The signal was understood everywhere. Within days salt was being made illegally along the whole coast: by C. Rajagopalachari at Vedaranyam in Tamil Nadu after a march from Tiruchirappalli, by K. Kelappan at Payyanur in Malabar, by Sarojini Naidu and the volunteers who tried to raid the Dharasana salt works in Gujarat, by the volunteers of Bengal at Mahisbathan and Contai, and, as later sections show, by the Satyagrahis of Odisha at Inchudi and Kujanga. Gandhi was arrested on the night of 4-5 May 1930 at Karadi near Dandi, but the movement did not stop; at Dharasana on 21 May 1930 wave after wave of unarmed volunteers walked into the steel-tipped lathis of the police without raising a hand, and the American journalist Webb Miller's report of it shook opinion in the West.
- Arithmetic of the march: 241 miles in 24 days is about 10 miles (16 km) a day, on foot, at the age of 61.
- Vedaranyam, 30 April 1930: Rajagopalachari's marchers walked from Tiruchirappalli for over two weeks and made salt on the Tamil coast.
- Dharasana, 21 May 1930: about 2,500 volunteers led by Sarojini Naidu, Imam Sahib and Manilal Gandhi advanced on the salt depot; some 320 were injured and two died.
- Dandi March: 12 March to 6 April 1930, Sabarmati to Dandi, 241 miles, 78 marchers; salt law broken 6 April 1930.
The spread of Civil Disobedience across India, 1930
Unlike Non-Cooperation, which withdrew cooperation, Civil Disobedience broke the law directly, and it took many forms according to the region.
Salt. Along the coast, salt was manufactured, sold and carried in defiance of the law; in the interior, packets of contraband salt were auctioned at public meetings for large sums.
Boycott of foreign cloth and liquor. Volunteers picketed cloth shops and liquor shops in every town; women took the lead in picketing. Imports of British cloth fell by more than half between 1929 and 1931, and the Lancashire mills pressed the British government for a settlement.
No-tax and no-rent. In Gujarat, the peasants of Bardoli, Kheda and Surat refused to pay land revenue; in Uttar Pradesh, where the depression of 1930 had halved crop prices, the Congress sanctioned a no-rent campaign against landlords and government alike. In Bihar the peasants refused to pay the chowkidari tax. In the Central Provinces, Maharashtra and Karnataka the forest laws were broken by grazing cattle and cutting wood in reserved forests.
The North-West Frontier. The most remarkable response came from the Pathans of the Frontier Province under Khan Abdul Ghaffar Khan, the Frontier Gandhi, whose Khudai Khidmatgars (Servants of God, the Red Shirts) practised non-violence in a land famous for feuds. At Peshawar in April 1930 the soldiers of the Garhwal Rifles refused to fire on an unarmed crowd, an event that alarmed the government more than any other.
The North-East. In Manipur a young Naga woman, Rani Gaidinliu, only thirteen years old, led a rising against the British and was imprisoned for life; Jawaharlal Nehru gave her the title Rani.
Sholapur in Maharashtra, after Gandhi's arrest, saw textile workers take over the town for several days, and martial law was imposed. In Bombay and Calcutta huge processions faced lathi charges. In Bengal the Chittagong Armoury Raid of 18 April 1930 by Surya Sen's revolutionaries was a parallel violent movement.
Women. For the first time women took part in tens of thousands, manufacturing salt, picketing shops, marching in processions and going to jail; Sarojini Naidu, Kamaladevi Chattopadhyay, Rama Devi of Odisha and many others led them.
The government answered with ordinances, lathi charges, firing, seizure of property and mass arrests. About ninety thousand people were imprisoned in 1930, including Gandhi, both Nehrus, Patel, Rajagopalachari, Azad and Ghaffar Khan; the Congress and its committees were declared unlawful and its funds seized; the press was gagged. Yet the movement continued because it had no single head to cut off; Gandhi had instructed that each village and district should act on its own.
- Contraband salt auction: a packet of salt made by Gandhi at Dandi was sold at a Bombay meeting for Rs 1,600.
- Peshawar, 23 April 1930: two platoons of the Garhwal Rifles refused to fire on the Khudai Khidmatgars; the soldiers were court-martialled and imprisoned.
- Cloth imports from Britain: from 1,248 million yards in 1929-30 to 376 million yards in 1930-31.
The Round Table Conferences and the Gandhi-Irwin Pact
While India was in ferment the British government held the First Round Table Conference in London from November 1930 to January 1931 to discuss the recommendations of the Simon Commission. Princes, Liberals, Muslim League leaders, Hindu Mahasabha leaders and Dr B. R. Ambedkar attended, but the Congress, whose leaders were in jail, boycotted it, and without the Congress nothing could be decided. The British Prime Minister, Ramsay MacDonald, and the Viceroy, Lord Irwin, realised that a settlement with Gandhi was necessary.
Gandhi and the members of the Working Committee were released unconditionally on 26 January 1931. After fortnight-long talks in Delhi, Gandhi and Irwin signed the Gandhi-Irwin Pact (the Delhi Pact) on 5 March 1931. Under it the government agreed to withdraw the ordinances, release all political prisoners not convicted of violence, return confiscated property not yet sold, allow peaceful picketing, and permit the people living near the coast to make salt for their own use, though the tax was not abolished. The Congress agreed to suspend civil disobedience and to attend the Second Round Table Conference. The Pact was criticised by the young, especially because Gandhi could not obtain the commutation of the death sentence on Bhagat Singh, Rajguru and Sukhdev, who were hanged on 23 March 1931. The Karachi Congress of March 1931, under Vallabhbhai Patel, endorsed the Pact and also adopted the famous resolution on Fundamental Rights and the National Economic Programme.
Gandhi went to London as the sole representative of the Congress to the Second Round Table Conference (September to December 1931). He claimed that the Congress represented all India, but the British had filled the conference with representatives of communities and interests, Muslims, Sikhs, Christians, Anglo-Indians, Depressed Classes, landlords and princes, who could agree on nothing, and the discussion sank into the communal question. Gandhi returned empty-handed on 28 December 1931.
Irwin had meanwhile been replaced by Lord Willingdon, who had no intention of keeping the truce. Even before Gandhi landed, Ghaffar Khan and Jawaharlal Nehru had been arrested and the Frontier and the United Provinces put under ordinance rule. Gandhi's request for an interview was refused; on 4 January 1932 he was arrested, the Congress was outlawed and civil disobedience was resumed.
- Gandhi-Irwin Pact concessions: release of about 19,000 prisoners; right to make salt for domestic use on the coast; peaceful picketing allowed.
- Karachi resolution, 1931: fundamental rights, free primary education, living wages, protection of women and workers, nationalisation of key industries; the first outline of independent India's policy.
- At the Second Round Table Conference, Gandhi lived among the poor of the East End of London and visited the Lancashire mill workers whose jobs the boycott had hurt; they cheered him.
- First RTC November 1930 to January 1931 (Congress absent); Gandhi-Irwin Pact 5 March 1931; Second RTC September to December 1931 (Gandhi present); Third RTC November to December 1932 (Congress absent).
The second phase, the Communal Award and the Poona Pact, 1932-34
The second phase of Civil Disobedience, from January 1932, faced a government determined to crush it before it could gather strength. Willingdon armed himself with a series of ordinances giving officials power to arrest, seize property, ban meetings and control the press without trial. Within four months about eighty thousand people were in jail; the Congress organisation was smashed, its offices sealed, its funds confiscated and its leaders locked up. The people responded bravely, with salt-making, picketing and no-tax refusals in Gujarat, Karnataka, Bengal, Odisha and elsewhere, but without the momentum of 1930 and without the surprise. By the end of 1932 the movement was clearly weakening.
In the middle of this repression the British Prime Minister announced the Communal Award on 16 August 1932. It continued separate electorates for Muslims, Sikhs, Christians, Anglo-Indians and Europeans, and for the first time granted separate electorates to the Depressed Classes (the untouchables, whom Gandhi called Harijans), who would vote in their own constituencies for their own candidates in addition to the general electorate.
Gandhi, then in Yerwada jail at Poona, regarded this as a plan to split the Hindus permanently and to fix the untouchables as a separate community outside Hindu society. He announced a fast unto death against it, beginning on 20 September 1932. The country was shaken; temples opened their doors to untouchables, and leaders hurried to Poona. Dr B. R. Ambedkar, the leader of the Depressed Classes, who had won the separate electorates, was placed in a terrible position. After negotiations between Ambedkar, Madan Mohan Malaviya, Rajendra Prasad, C. Rajagopalachari, M. C. Rajah and others, the Poona Pact was signed on 24 September 1932. It gave up separate electorates for the Depressed Classes but reserved for them 148 seats in the provincial legislatures, nearly double the 71 offered by the Award, and 18 per cent of the central seats, to be filled by joint electorates with a primary election among the Depressed Classes. Gandhi broke his fast, and the government accepted the Pact.
Gandhi thereafter devoted himself to the campaign against untouchability, founded the Harijan Sevak Sangh and the weekly Harijan, and in 1933-34 undertook a Harijan tour of the whole country, including Odisha. Civil disobedience was suspended for six weeks in May 1933, then reduced to individual civil disobedience, and finally withdrawn in April 1934 on Gandhi's advice. In October 1934 Gandhi resigned from the Congress to work on constructive programmes, though he remained its guide. The Third Round Table Conference of 1932, without the Congress, produced the White Paper that became the Government of India Act 1935, which set up provincial autonomy and, incidentally, the separate province of Orissa in 1936.
- Communal Award seats for the Depressed Classes: 71 by separate electorates; Poona Pact: 148 reserved seats by joint electorates.
- Yerwada fast: began 20 September 1932, ended 26 September 1932 after the Poona Pact was signed on 24 September and accepted by London.
- Harijan tour, 1933-34: Gandhi walked through Odisha in May 1934, from Puri towards Bhadrak, collecting funds for Harijan uplift.
- Communal Award 16 August 1932 → Gandhi's fast 20 September 1932 → Poona Pact 24 September 1932 → civil disobedience withdrawn April 1934 → Government of India Act 1935.
Assessment of the Civil Disobedience Movement
The Civil Disobedience Movement did not win Purna Swaraj, and it ended in 1934 with the Congress banned and its leaders in jail. But its results were deep, and the examiner often asks the student to compare it with Non-Cooperation.
Compared with Non-Cooperation. The goal was now complete independence, not the vague Swaraj of 1920. The method was direct breach of the law, not merely withdrawal of cooperation. The scale was larger: about ninety thousand went to jail in 1930 alone, against thirty thousand in 1921-22. Peasants took part far more, especially in Gujarat, Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Karnataka and Odisha, and women entered in great numbers for the first time. On the other hand Muslim participation, except on the Frontier, was much less than in 1921, since there was no Khilafat to bind the communities, and the merchants, who had joined in 1930, dropped away in 1932 under the pressure of the depression.
Achievements. First, it made the demand for independence a demand of the whole people, and forced Britain to negotiate with the Congress as an equal at the Gandhi-Irwin talks, the first time a Viceroy had treated an Indian leader in that way. Second, it broke the salt monopoly in practice, obtained the right of the coastal people to make salt, and cut foreign cloth imports by more than half. Third, it trained a new generation, especially of women and of peasants, in political action, and spread the Congress into new regions such as the Frontier, the tribal areas and Odisha's villages. Fourth, its pressure produced the Government of India Act 1935, whose provincial autonomy let the Congress form ministries in 1937 and gave Odisha its separate province. Fifth, the Poona Pact and the Harijan campaign made the removal of untouchability a national commitment.
Weaknesses. The movement could not sustain itself for four years under ordinance rule; it lacked the Hindu-Muslim unity of 1921; it did not reach the industrial working class much; and the truce of 1931 gave the government time to prepare its repression.
The world took note. The Dandi March and the scenes at Dharasana were reported across Europe and America, and for the first time the Indian question became a matter of world opinion. Gandhi was named Man of the Year by an American magazine for 1930. Above all, the movement showed that the British could rule India only by force, and that the consent on which the Raj had relied had gone.
- Scale: about 90,000 imprisoned in 1930 and 80,000 in the first months of 1932, against 30,000 in Non-Cooperation.
- Women in 1930: about 17,000 women were convicted; in Bombay alone women picketers were counted in thousands.
- Result in law: the Government of India Act 1935 gave provincial autonomy, elections in 1937 and, on 1 April 1936, the new province of Orissa.
Odisha prepares: the Congress in Odisha, 1922-1930
Between the two movements the Congress in Odisha kept its organisation alive through constructive work, relief and the demand for a separate province. The Swaraj Ashram at Cuttack and the Alakashram at Jagatsinghpur trained volunteers in spinning and village work; Gopabandhu Das, released from Hazaribagh jail in 1924, organised relief in the floods and famines of 1925-27 and continued to publish Samaj; Niranjan Patnaik built up the khadi movement in Ganjam; and Gopabandhu Choudhury, Harekrushna Mahtab, Nityananda Kanungo, Jadumani Mangaraj and others held the district committees together. Gandhi's second visit in 1925 and the Utkal Sammilani's continued agitation for union kept public interest alive. The death of Gopabandhu Das on 17 June 1928 was a great loss, but by then a younger leadership was ready.
Odisha shared in the national events of 1928-29. The Simon Commission was boycotted with hartals and black flags at Cuttack, Puri and Balasore; but the Utkal Sammilani, seeing a chance to press the case for a separate province, submitted a memorandum to the Commission, and the Commission's recommendation in favour of a separate Orissa was a gain from this. The Nehru Report's proposal of linguistic provinces was welcomed. The Lahore resolution of Purna Swaraj was received with enthusiasm, and on 26 January 1930 the Independence Pledge was read at meetings in Cuttack, Puri, Balasore, Berhampur and Sambalpur, and the national flag was hoisted.
Odisha had a special reason to answer the call for salt. Its coast runs for about 480 km from Balasore to Ganjam, and salt-making at the salt pans of Balasore, Cuttack (Kujanga), Puri and Ganjam (Huma) had been an ancient industry that the East India Company's monopoly of 1804 and the later salt laws had destroyed, throwing thousands of malangis (salt workers) out of work and forcing the province to buy Liverpool salt. The Paika Rebellion of 1817 had been partly about salt; the famine of 1866 had been aggravated by it. When Gandhi chose salt, therefore, he chose the one grievance that every Odia villager on the coast understood.
In March 1930 the Utkal Provincial Congress Committee met at Cuttack and resolved to launch the Salt Satyagraha under the leadership of Gopabandhu Choudhury as the 'dictator' (the term used for the leader who would be replaced by another when arrested). Volunteers were enrolled, camps were set up at the Swaraj Ashram and Alakashram, and Inchudi in Balasore district, on the sea coast near the mouth of the Budhabalanga, was chosen as the first centre, both because of the strength of the Balasore Congress under Harekrushna Mahtab and Surendranath Das and because its salt land was easily accessible.
- Salt in Odia history: the East India Company's salt monopoly of 1804 ruined the malangis of the coast, one of the grievances behind the Paika Rebellion of 1817.
- 26 January 1930 in Odisha: the Independence Pledge was read and the tricolour hoisted at Cuttack, Puri, Balasore, Berhampur and Sambalpur.
- The 'dictator' system: Gopabandhu Choudhury was the first; when he was arrested the leadership passed automatically to the next named leader, so that arrests could not stop the movement.
The Salt Satyagraha at Inchudi
On 6 April 1930, the day Gandhi broke the law at Dandi, a band of twenty-one Satyagrahis under Gopabandhu Choudhury set out from the Swaraj Ashram at Cuttack to march to Inchudi, a distance of about 100 miles (160 km). At every village on the way the marchers were welcomed with garlands and processions, and their numbers grew. The government did not wait for them to reach the sea. On 8 April, at Balasore, Gopabandhu Choudhury was arrested on his way, and the leadership passed, as planned, to Acharya Harihar Das, the teacher of Satyabadi, who continued the march. When Harihar Das too was arrested, Harekrushna Mahtab and then others took his place.
The Satyagrahis reached Inchudi and on 13 April 1930, the anniversary of Jallianwala Bagh, Acharya Harihar Das and his companions collected sea water, boiled it and made the first contraband salt in Odisha. The salt was carried to Balasore town and sold, and the people bought it at many times its price. The police lathi-charged the volunteers, seized the salt and the pans and arrested the leaders, but villagers from the surrounding area, the fishermen and the old malangi families, came forward in hundreds to make salt. Inchudi became one of the most famous salt centres of India, sometimes called the Dandi of Odisha; the numbers making salt there in April and May 1930 were exceeded only by a few centres in Gujarat.
What made Inchudi remarkable was the participation of village women. The women of Srijang and the neighbouring villages, led by Rama Devi, Malati Choudhury, Kiranbala Sen and Annapurna Devi, marched to the sea and made salt, defying both the police and the customs of purdah. The police were at a loss how to handle them. This was the first time in Odisha's history that ordinary peasant women, not only the wives of leaders, had joined a political struggle in a body.
The repression was severe. Volunteers were beaten, the salt pans destroyed, boats and cooking pots confiscated, and fines collected by seizing property. Hundreds were arrested and sent to the Balasore, Cuttack and Hazaribagh jails. Balasore district also saw a strong boycott of foreign cloth and liquor, and the no-chowkidari-tax movement of Bihar had echoes in its villages. Surendranath Das, Nilambar Das, Karunakar Panigrahi and other local leaders kept the movement alive through the summer of 1930, and when the Gandhi-Irwin Pact of March 1931 allowed the coastal people to make salt for their own use, Inchudi's villagers treated it as their victory.
- March from Cuttack to Inchudi: 21 volunteers left the Swaraj Ashram on 6 April 1930; the first salt was made at Inchudi on 13 April 1930 under Acharya Harihar Das.
- The succession of leaders: Gopabandhu Choudhury (arrested 8 April at Balasore) → Acharya Harihar Das → Harekrushna Mahtab and others, so that arrests never left the marchers leaderless.
- Contraband salt from Inchudi was sold in Balasore at prices many times the market rate, and the money went to the Congress fund.
- Inchudi Salt Satyagraha: march began 6 April 1930; salt made 13 April 1930; leaders Gopabandhu Choudhury and Acharya Harihar Das; women of Srijang under Rama Devi and Malati Choudhury.
Kujanga, Huma and the other salt centres of Odisha
Inchudi was the first centre, but salt was soon being made along the whole coast.
Kujanga (Cuttack district, near Paradip). The second great centre was the Kujanga estate on the coast of Cuttack district, where the Alakashram volunteers of Jagatsinghpur, trained by Gopabandhu Choudhury and Rama Devi, led the villagers to the salt lands. Here too women were prominent: Rama Devi, Sarala Devi, Malati Choudhury, Kokila Devi and Kiranbala Sen marched with the volunteers, and the Ranee of Kujanga is remembered for her sympathy. The police lathi-charged the crowds repeatedly; on one occasion at Kujanga volunteers were beaten so severely that several were carried away unconscious, but the salt-making went on. Kujanga was also a centre of the no-tax movement against the zamindari cesses, continuing the tradition of Kanika.
Puri district. Salt was made at Kuhudi and Latra near the Chilika lake and along the coast near Astaranga, under the leadership of the Satyabadi group, Nilakantha Das, Godavarish Mishra and their pupils; Puri town saw a strong picketing campaign at the foreign-cloth shops of the Bada Danda.
Ganjam (Madras Presidency). At Huma near the Chilika coast, and along the shore near Gopalpur and Chhatrapur, the Ganjam Congress under Niranjan Patnaik, Biswanath Das, Dibakar Patnaik and Sarala Devi made salt in defiance of the Madras government. Berhampur was the centre of the boycott of foreign cloth and liquor in south Odisha, and hundreds of Ganjam Satyagrahis were sent to the Rajahmundry and Vellore jails.
Balasore. Besides Inchudi and Srijang, salt was made at several points along the Balasore coast and in the villages near Basudevpur and Chandbali in Bhadrak.
Beyond the coast the movement took the forms available inland. In Sambalpur, Bargarh and the western districts, under Laxminarayan Mishra, Bhagirathi Patnaik and Nrusingha Guru, the foreign-cloth and liquor shops were picketed, forest laws were defied in places and meetings defied the bans. In the feudatory states the rajas suppressed every sign of Congress activity, but students and traders returning from the coast carried the news, and the Prajamandal movements of the late 1930s were the delayed result.
The Congress in Odisha was declared unlawful in 1930 and again in 1932. About a thousand Odia Satyagrahis were imprisoned in the first phase, many for terms of six months to two years, and the second phase of 1932-34 added several hundred more. For a province with barely a dozen years of Congress organisation behind it, this was a remarkable response, and it was noted at the all-India level.
- Kujanga: volunteers from the Alakashram at Jagatsinghpur led the salt-making; women leaders including Rama Devi and Sarala Devi were in the front ranks under lathi charges.
- Huma in Ganjam: the Madras government's salt law was broken by the Ganjam Congress under Niranjan Patnaik and Biswanath Das, and prisoners were sent as far as Vellore.
- Inland: in Sambalpur and Bargarh the movement took the form of picketing cloth and liquor shops and defying meeting bans, since there was no salt to make.
Women of Odisha in the Civil Disobedience Movement
If one feature of the Civil Disobedience Movement in Odisha is remembered above all others, it is the part played by women. In 1921 a handful of leaders' wives had come out of purdah; in 1930 women of all classes marched, made salt, picketed, faced lathis and went to jail.
Rama Devi (1899-1985), wife of Gopabandhu Choudhury, was the acknowledged leader. After her husband's arrest on the road to Inchudi she took his place, marched with the women of Srijang and Kujanga to the sea, made salt, and toured the districts organising women's picketing. She was arrested and imprisoned, and her example broke the last resistance of conservative families. Later generations called her Maa (mother) of Odisha.
Sarala Devi (1904-1986), wife of Bhagirathi Mahapatra, had been the first Odia woman to join the Non-Cooperation Movement; in 1930 she led the picketing at Cuttack and the salt-making at Kujanga and Huma, was jailed, and later became the first woman member of the Odisha Legislative Assembly in 1937.
Malati Choudhury (1904-1998), wife of Nabakrushna Choudhury, a Bengali by birth who made Odisha her home, was a fiery organiser of women at Inchudi and Kujanga; she was imprisoned and afterwards founded the Utkal Navajeevan Mandal for the uplift of tribals and Harijans.
Kiranbala Sen, Kokila Devi, Annapurna Devi, Hiramani Devi, Jambubati Devi and Kuntala Kumari Sabat, the poetess whose songs the volunteers sang, are among those the textbooks name. In Ganjam, women picketed in Berhampur; in Puri, the women of Sakhigopal and Puri town picketed the cloth shops.
Why did women come forward in such numbers in 1930? Gandhi had deliberately appealed to them, saying that picketing and salt-making were tasks for which women's patience and courage suited them better than men. The salt tax was a kitchen tax that every housewife understood. The earlier work of Rama Devi and Sarala Devi in 1921-22 had made the sight of a woman in public less shocking. The Alakashram had trained women volunteers. And the arrest of husbands and brothers left women to carry on the work.
The results went beyond politics. The women who made salt in 1930 later led the anti-purdah and women's education movements, took part in the Quit India Movement of 1942, entered the legislature and the Constituent Assembly, and after independence led social service in the tribal areas. The Civil Disobedience Movement thus marks the entry of Odia women into the public life of the province.
- Rama Devi at Inchudi, April 1930: after Gopabandhu Choudhury's arrest she led the women of Srijang to the sea; the police, unprepared for women Satyagrahis, let them make salt on the first day.
- Sarala Devi: first Odia woman in the Non-Cooperation Movement (1921), jailed in 1930, first woman MLA of Odisha (1937), later a member of the Constituent Assembly.
- Malati Choudhury: imprisoned in 1930 and 1942; founder of the Utkal Navajeevan Mandal (1948) for tribal and Harijan welfare.
Boycott, repression and the second phase in Odisha, 1930-34
Salt was the spearhead, but the movement in Odisha had several other fronts.
Boycott of foreign cloth. Picketing of cloth shops was organised in every town, Cuttack, Puri, Balasore, Bhadrak, Berhampur, Sambalpur and Bargarh. Merchants took pledges not to sell foreign cloth; bonfires were held; khadi sales rose sharply. The Marwari and Odia cloth merchants of Cuttack largely honoured the boycott in 1930, though many drifted back in 1932.
Boycott of liquor. Picketing of liquor and toddy shops, often by women, reduced excise revenue in the coastal districts; the auction of liquor shops in some places found no bidders.
No-tax movements. In the Kujanga, Kanika and other estates the tenants refused to pay illegal cesses; in parts of Balasore and Cuttack the chowkidari tax was refused; and in the tribal tracts of Ganjam and Koraput, then under Madras, forest laws were defied by grazing and wood-cutting.
Students. Students of Ravenshaw College and the district schools struck work, joined the picketing and formed volunteer corps; several were expelled.
Press. Samaj, Asha and Utkal Dipika reported the movement despite the press ordinances; Samaj was made to furnish security and its editors were prosecuted.
The government's repression in Odisha followed the all-India pattern. The Utkal Provincial Congress Committee and its district committees were declared unlawful; the Swaraj Ashram and Alakashram were raided and their property seized; leaders such as Gopabandhu Choudhury, Harekrushna Mahtab, Nityananda Kanungo, Niranjan Patnaik, Biswanath Das, Nilakantha Das, Godavarish Mishra, Surendranath Das, Jadumani Mangaraj, Rama Devi, Sarala Devi and Malati Choudhury were imprisoned; lathi charges at Inchudi, Kujanga, Cuttack and Berhampur injured hundreds; and fines were realised by seizing cattle, utensils and land.
The Gandhi-Irwin Pact of March 1931 brought a pause. Prisoners were released, salt-making for domestic use was permitted and the Congress reorganised. The truce was used for constructive work and for the demand for a separate province, which the Odia delegation pressed at the Round Table Conference through Maharaja Krushna Chandra Gajapati of Paralakhemundi.
The second phase from January 1932 was fought under the ordinances. Salt was again made at Inchudi and Kujanga, picketing resumed, and meetings were held in defiance of bans, but the arrests came faster and the leaders were jailed within weeks; Harekrushna Mahtab, Nabakrushna Choudhury and others spent long terms in Hazaribagh and Cuttack jails. The Communal Award and Gandhi's fast of September 1932 turned attention to untouchability; temples in Odisha, though not the Jagannath temple, were opened to Harijans, and Gandhi's Harijan tour of Odisha on foot in May 1934, from Puri through Cuttack district to Bhadrak, was a remarkable event, drawing crowds at every village. By the time the movement was formally withdrawn in April 1934, the Congress in Odisha had been tested by four years of struggle and was ready for the elections under the new Act.
- Samaj under the press ordinance: the paper was required to deposit security and its editor was prosecuted, but it continued to report the movement.
- Harijan tour, May 1934: Gandhi walked from Puri through the villages of Cuttack district to Bhadrak, addressing meetings and collecting for the Harijan fund; the padayatra is remembered in village songs.
- Reorganisation during the truce of 1931: Congress committees were rebuilt and the demand for a separate Orissa province was pressed at the Round Table Conference.
Significance of the Civil Disobedience Movement for Odisha
The Civil Disobedience Movement was the moment when Odisha, a late-comer to the national struggle in 1921, took its place in the front rank. Several results can be listed.
National recognition. Inchudi and Kujanga were reported across India as among the most successful salt centres outside Gujarat, and the participation of Odia peasant women drew national attention. Gandhi himself praised Odisha's response, and the province's standing in the Congress rose.
Mass participation. Where Non-Cooperation had reached the towns and a few estates, Civil Disobedience reached the fishing villages, the salt lands and the tenants of the coastal estates. About a thousand people went to jail in 1930 and several hundred more in 1932-34, and thousands more made salt, picketed and paid fines. The peasant of the coast now identified the Congress with his oldest grievance, the salt monopoly.
Women. The entry of women in large numbers, described above, was the most lasting social change of the movement.
A tested leadership. Gopabandhu Choudhury, Harekrushna Mahtab, Nabakrushna Choudhury, Nityananda Kanungo, Niranjan Patnaik, Biswanath Das, Rama Devi, Sarala Devi and Malati Choudhury emerged from jail as leaders known to the whole province. They led the Congress into the elections of 1937, when Biswanath Das became Prime Minister of the new province, and into the Quit India Movement of 1942.
The separate province. The movement and the truce ran side by side with the campaign for a united Odisha. The Congress's demand for linguistic provinces, the Simon Commission's recommendation, the evidence of the Odia delegation at the Round Table Conference and the pressure of the movement itself all contributed to the decision embodied in the Government of India Act 1935, and the province of Orissa came into existence on 1 April 1936. The national struggle and the Odia movement, which had begun to flow together in 1921, reached their first common goal.
Untouchability and social reform. The Poona Pact and the Harijan tour gave a new push to temple entry and Harijan welfare in Odisha, though the opening of the Jagannath temple to all Hindus came only in 1948.
Limitations. The movement was still weakest in the feudatory states and the tribal interior, and Muslim participation in Odisha, though friendly, was small. Yet by 1934 the Congress was, beyond question, the political organisation of the Odia people, and that was the achievement of the Salt Satyagraha.
- Inchudi is called the Dandi of Odisha; Gandhi's Harijan tour of 1934 passed through Balasore district partly in recognition of its role.
- From jail to office: Biswanath Das, imprisoned in 1930, became Prime Minister of Orissa in July 1937; Harekrushna Mahtab became Chief Minister in 1946.
- The province of Orissa was inaugurated on 1 April 1936 under the Government of India Act 1935, with Sir John Hubback as Governor.
Key Concepts
- Swaraj Party
- The group formed in 1923 by C. R. Das and Motilal Nehru to enter the legislative councils and obstruct the government from within.
- Simon Commission
- The all-British statutory commission of 1927 appointed to review the 1919 reforms, boycotted by Indians because it had no Indian member.
- Nehru Report
- The constitution drafted in 1928 by a committee under Motilal Nehru proposing Dominion Status, fundamental rights, joint electorates and linguistic provinces.
- Fourteen Points
- Jinnah's demands of March 1929, including separate electorates and one-third Muslim seats at the centre, made after the rejection of his amendments to the Nehru Report.
- Purna Swaraj
- Complete independence, declared the goal of the Congress at the Lahore session of December 1929 under Jawaharlal Nehru.
- Independence Day 1930
- 26 January 1930, the day fixed by the Lahore Congress for the reading of the independence pledge throughout India, later chosen as Republic Day.
- Eleven Points
- Gandhi's demands to Lord Irwin in January 1930, including abolition of the salt tax, whose acceptance would have averted civil disobedience.
- Dandi March
- Gandhi's 241-mile walk with 78 followers from Sabarmati to Dandi between 12 March and 6 April 1930 to break the salt law.
- Salt law
- The government monopoly over the manufacture and sale of salt with a tax on it, under which even collecting natural salt was an offence.
- Khudai Khidmatgars
- The non-violent Red Shirt volunteers of the North-West Frontier led by Khan Abdul Ghaffar Khan during the Civil Disobedience Movement.
- Gandhi-Irwin Pact
- The agreement of 5 March 1931 by which the government released prisoners and allowed salt-making on the coast while the Congress suspended civil disobedience and joined the Round Table Conference.
- Round Table Conferences
- The three conferences held in London in 1930-32 to discuss a new constitution for India, the second of which Gandhi attended as the sole Congress representative.
- Communal Award
- The British decision of August 1932 continuing separate electorates and extending them to the Depressed Classes.
- Poona Pact
- The agreement of 24 September 1932 between Gandhi and Ambedkar that replaced separate electorates for the Depressed Classes with 148 reserved seats under joint electorates.
- Inchudi
- The village on the Balasore coast where Odisha's Satyagrahis under Acharya Harihar Das first made contraband salt on 13 April 1930, called the Dandi of Odisha.
- Kujanga
- The coastal estate in Cuttack district that became the second great salt centre of Odisha, led by the Alakashram volunteers and women leaders.
- Dictator
- The term used in 1930 for the designated leader of a Satyagraha who was replaced by the next named person when arrested, so that arrests could not stop the movement.
- Malangi
- The traditional salt workers of the Odisha coast ruined by the British salt monopoly.
- Harijan tour
- Gandhi's country-wide tour of 1933-34 for the removal of untouchability, which passed on foot through Odisha in May 1934.
- Province of Orissa
- The separate province of the Odia-speaking people created on 1 April 1936 under the Government of India Act 1935.
End-of-Chapter Trial Paper & Test Questions
Topic-wise questions to test your understanding of every concept in this chapter.
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Why was the Simon Commission boycotted by Indians? / भारतीयों ने साइमन कमीशन का बहिष्कार क्यों किया?
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The Simon Commission was appointed in November 1927 under Sir John Simon to review the working of the Government of India Act 1919 and recommend further reforms. All its seven members were British members of Parliament; not a single Indian was included, although the future constitution of India was the subject. Indians of every party, the Congress, the Liberals, the Hindu Mahasabha and the section of the Muslim League led by Jinnah, saw this as an insult to the self-respect of the nation and a denial of the principle that Indians should decide their own future. They therefore decided to boycott the Commission. When it landed at Bombay on 3 February 1928 it was greeted with hartals, black flags and the slogan 'Simon, go back', and the same reception followed it in every city. At Lahore the police lathi-charged a procession led by Lala Lajpat Rai, who died of his injuries. The boycott united the country, revived mass politics after the lull since 1922 and led directly to the Nehru Report and the demand for Purna Swaraj. / साइमन कमीशन नवंबर 1927 में सर जॉन साइमन की अध्यक्षता में भारत सरकार अधिनियम 1919 के कार्यान्वयन की समीक्षा और आगे के सुधारों की सिफ़ारिश के लिए नियुक्त हुआ। इसके सातों सदस्य ब्रिटिश संसद-सदस्य थे; एक भी भारतीय नहीं था, यद्यपि विषय भारत का भावी संविधान था। कांग्रेस, लिबरल, हिंदू महासभा और जिन्ना के नेतृत्व वाले मुस्लिम लीग के वर्ग सहित हर दल के भारतीयों ने इसे राष्ट्र के आत्मसम्मान का अपमान और इस सिद्धांत का निषेध माना कि भारतीय अपना भविष्य स्वयं तय करें। इसलिए उन्होंने कमीशन के बहिष्कार का निर्णय लिया। जब यह 3 फ़रवरी 1928 को बंबई पहुँचा तो इसका स्वागत हड़ताल, काले झंडों और 'साइमन वापस जाओ' के नारे से हुआ, और हर शहर में यही स्वागत मिला। लाहौर में पुलिस ने लाला लाजपत राय के नेतृत्व वाले जुलूस पर लाठीचार्ज किया, जिनकी चोटों से मृत्यु हो गई। बहिष्कार ने देश को एकजुट किया, 1922 के बाद की शिथिलता के पश्चात जन-राजनीति को पुनर्जीवित किया और सीधे नेहरू रिपोर्ट तथा पूर्ण स्वराज की माँग तक ले गया।
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What was decided at the Lahore session of the Congress in 1929? / 1929 के कांग्रेस के लाहौर अधिवेशन में क्या निर्णय लिए गए?
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The Lahore session of December 1929, presided over by Jawaharlal Nehru, was held after the government had failed to grant Dominion Status within the one-year period fixed by the Calcutta Congress of 1928 and after Lord Irwin's vague declaration of October 1929 had been repudiated in Britain. At midnight on 31 December 1929 the tricolour was unfurled on the bank of the Ravi and the Congress declared Purna Swaraj, complete independence, to be its goal, replacing Dominion Status. It resolved to boycott the Round Table Conference, to withdraw Congress members from the legislatures, and to launch a programme of civil disobedience, including non-payment of taxes, whose timing and manner were left to Gandhi and the Working Committee. It fixed 26 January 1930 as Independence Day, on which the pledge of independence was to be read in every village and town, a date later chosen for the commencement of the Constitution in 1950. The session marked the passing of leadership to the younger generation and set the stage for the Salt Satyagraha. / दिसंबर 1929 का लाहौर अधिवेशन, जिसकी अध्यक्षता जवाहरलाल नेहरू ने की, तब हुआ जब सरकार 1928 की कलकत्ता कांग्रेस द्वारा तय एक वर्ष की अवधि में डोमिनियन स्टेटस देने में विफल रही और अक्टूबर 1929 की लॉर्ड इरविन की अस्पष्ट घोषणा को ब्रिटेन में नकार दिया गया। 31 दिसंबर 1929 की मध्यरात्रि को रावी के तट पर तिरंगा फहराया गया और कांग्रेस ने डोमिनियन स्टेटस के स्थान पर पूर्ण स्वराज, पूर्ण स्वतंत्रता, को अपना लक्ष्य घोषित किया। इसने गोलमेज़ सम्मेलन के बहिष्कार, विधानमंडलों से कांग्रेस सदस्यों की वापसी, और करों के भुगतान से इनकार सहित सविनय अवज्ञा का कार्यक्रम आरम्भ करने का संकल्प लिया, जिसका समय और ढंग गांधीजी और कार्यसमिति पर छोड़ा गया। इसने 26 जनवरी 1930 को स्वतंत्रता दिवस निश्चित किया, जिस दिन हर गाँव और नगर में स्वतंत्रता की प्रतिज्ञा पढ़ी जानी थी, और यही तिथि बाद में 1950 में संविधान लागू होने के लिए चुनी गई। इस अधिवेशन ने नेतृत्व का युवा पीढ़ी को हस्तांतरण दर्शाया और नमक सत्याग्रह की भूमिका तैयार की।
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Why did Gandhi choose the salt tax as the issue for civil disobedience? / गांधीजी ने सविनय अवज्ञा के लिए नमक कर को मुद्दा क्यों चुना?
Show answer
Gandhi chose salt after Lord Irwin ignored his Eleven Points of January 1930, and the choice, though it puzzled many leaders, proved a stroke of genius for several reasons. Salt is needed by every human being, so the tax touched every Indian, rich and poor, Hindu and Muslim, and fell hardest on the poorest who spent the largest share of their income on it. The government monopoly made even the collection of natural salt from the sea-shore a crime, an injustice so plain that no one could defend it, which put the government morally in the wrong. The law could be broken by anyone living near the sea or a salt pan simply by boiling sea water, so it allowed mass participation without arms, money or education, and women and children could join. In the coastal provinces, including Odisha, salt-making had been an ancient village industry destroyed by the British monopoly, so the issue carried old grievances. Finally, salt was a symbol: to break the salt law was to deny the right of the foreign government to tax the very food of the people. / जनवरी 1930 के अपने ग्यारह सूत्रों की लॉर्ड इरविन द्वारा उपेक्षा के बाद गांधीजी ने नमक चुना, और यह चुनाव, यद्यपि अनेक नेताओं को हैरान कर गया, कई कारणों से प्रतिभा का प्रमाण सिद्ध हुआ। नमक हर मनुष्य की आवश्यकता है, इसलिए कर हर भारतीय को, अमीर और गरीब, हिंदू और मुसलमान, छूता था और सबसे गरीबों पर सबसे भारी पड़ता था जो अपनी आय का सबसे बड़ा भाग इस पर खर्च करते थे। सरकारी एकाधिकार ने समुद्र तट से प्राकृतिक नमक उठाना भी अपराध बना दिया था, इतना स्पष्ट अन्याय कि कोई इसका बचाव नहीं कर सकता था, जिससे सरकार नैतिक रूप से गलत ठहरी। यह कानून समुद्र या नमक-क्यारियों के पास रहने वाला कोई भी व्यक्ति केवल समुद्री जल उबालकर तोड़ सकता था, इसलिए इसने बिना शस्त्र, धन या शिक्षा के जन-भागीदारी संभव की, और महिलाएँ तथा बच्चे भी जुड़ सकते थे। ओडिशा सहित तटीय प्रांतों में नमक बनाना एक प्राचीन ग्रामीण उद्योग था जिसे ब्रिटिश एकाधिकार ने नष्ट किया था, इसलिए इस मुद्दे में पुरानी शिकायतें जुड़ी थीं। अंततः नमक एक प्रतीक था: नमक कानून तोड़ना विदेशी सरकार के जनता के भोजन पर ही कर लगाने के अधिकार को नकारना था।
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Describe the Dandi March. / दांडी यात्रा का वर्णन कीजिए।
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On 2 March 1930 Gandhi informed the Viceroy that he would break the salt law, and on 12 March 1930 he left the Sabarmati Ashram at Ahmedabad with 78 chosen followers to walk to Dandi, a village on the coast of Surat district about 241 miles away. The marchers covered about ten miles a day through the villages of Gujarat; at every halt Gandhi addressed the people on the salt tax, khadi, untouchability and Swaraj, village headmen resigned their posts, and volunteers joined until the column was several thousand strong. Newspapers in India and abroad reported each stage, and the sight of a sixty-one-year-old man with a staff walking to defy an empire captured the imagination of the world. The march reached Dandi on 5 April, and on the morning of 6 April 1930 Gandhi bathed in the sea, picked up a handful of natural salt from the shore and thus broke the law, saying that he was shaking the foundations of the British Empire. The signal was followed along the whole Indian coast, at Vedaranyam, Payyanur, Contai, Inchudi and Kujanga, and the Civil Disobedience Movement began. Gandhi was arrested on 5 May 1930, after which the raid on the Dharasana salt works showed the world the discipline of non-violence. / 2 मार्च 1930 को गांधीजी ने वायसराय को सूचित किया कि वे नमक कानून तोड़ेंगे, और 12 मार्च 1930 को वे अहमदाबाद के साबरमती आश्रम से 78 चुने हुए अनुयायियों के साथ सूरत जिले के तट पर लगभग 241 मील दूर दांडी गाँव तक पैदल चलने निकले। यात्री गुजरात के गाँवों से होकर प्रतिदिन लगभग दस मील चलते थे; हर पड़ाव पर गांधीजी नमक कर, खादी, अस्पृश्यता और स्वराज पर जनता को संबोधित करते, गाँवों के मुखिया अपने पद त्यागते, और स्वयंसेवक जुड़ते गए जब तक कि टोली कई हज़ार की न हो गई। भारत और विदेश के समाचारपत्रों ने हर चरण की रिपोर्ट दी, और लाठी लिए एक इकसठ वर्षीय व्यक्ति के एक साम्राज्य को चुनौती देने के लिए पैदल चलने के दृश्य ने विश्व की कल्पना को मोह लिया। यात्रा 5 अप्रैल को दांडी पहुँची, और 6 अप्रैल 1930 की सुबह गांधीजी ने समुद्र में स्नान किया, तट से मुट्ठी भर प्राकृतिक नमक उठाया और इस प्रकार कानून तोड़ा, यह कहते हुए कि वे ब्रिटिश साम्राज्य की नींव हिला रहे हैं। इस संकेत का अनुसरण पूरे भारतीय तट पर हुआ, वेदारण्यम, पय्यनूर, कोंटाई, इंचुड़ी और कुजंग में, और सविनय अवज्ञा आंदोलन आरम्भ हुआ। गांधीजी 5 मई 1930 को गिरफ्तार हुए, जिसके बाद धरासणा नमक कारखाने पर धावे ने विश्व को अहिंसा का अनुशासन दिखाया।
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What were the terms of the Gandhi-Irwin Pact? Why was it criticised? / गांधी-इरविन समझौते की शर्तें क्या थीं? इसकी आलोचना क्यों हुई?
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The Gandhi-Irwin Pact, or Delhi Pact, was signed on 5 March 1931 after a fortnight of talks between Gandhi and the Viceroy. The government agreed to withdraw the repressive ordinances, release all political prisoners not convicted of violence, return confiscated property that had not yet been sold, permit peaceful picketing of cloth and liquor shops, and allow people living near the coast to collect and make salt for their own use, though the salt tax itself was not abolished. The Congress agreed to suspend the Civil Disobedience Movement and to take part in the Second Round Table Conference in London. The Pact was criticised on several grounds. Gandhi failed to secure the commutation of the death sentences of Bhagat Singh, Rajguru and Sukhdev, who were hanged on 23 March 1931, and young India was bitter. The salt tax remained, the demand for Purna Swaraj was not conceded, an inquiry into police excesses was refused, and the truce gave the government time to prepare the repression of 1932. Its defenders point out that it forced Britain to treat the Congress as an equal party and allowed the movement to withdraw with honour. / गांधी-इरविन समझौता, या दिल्ली समझौता, गांधीजी और वायसराय के बीच पखवाड़े भर की वार्ता के बाद 5 मार्च 1931 को हस्ताक्षरित हुआ। सरकार दमनकारी अध्यादेश वापस लेने, हिंसा के लिए दोषी न ठहराए गए सभी राजनीतिक बंदियों को छोड़ने, अभी न बिकी ज़ब्त संपत्ति लौटाने, कपड़े और शराब की दुकानों पर शांतिपूर्ण धरने की अनुमति देने, और तट के निकट रहने वालों को अपने उपयोग के लिए नमक बनाने देने पर सहमत हुई, यद्यपि नमक कर स्वयं समाप्त नहीं हुआ। कांग्रेस सविनय अवज्ञा आंदोलन स्थगित करने और लंदन के द्वितीय गोलमेज़ सम्मेलन में भाग लेने पर सहमत हुई। समझौते की कई आधारों पर आलोचना हुई। गांधीजी भगत सिंह, राजगुरु और सुखदेव की मृत्युदंड की सज़ा कम कराने में विफल रहे, जिन्हें 23 मार्च 1931 को फाँसी दी गई, और युवा भारत क्षुब्ध था। नमक कर बना रहा, पूर्ण स्वराज की माँग स्वीकार नहीं हुई, पुलिस ज़्यादतियों की जाँच से इनकार किया गया, और विराम ने सरकार को 1932 के दमन की तैयारी का समय दिया। इसके समर्थक बताते हैं कि इसने ब्रिटेन को कांग्रेस को समान पक्ष मानने को बाध्य किया और आंदोलन को सम्मान के साथ पीछे हटने दिया।
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What was the Poona Pact and why was it signed? / पूना समझौता क्या था और यह क्यों किया गया?
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The Communal Award announced by the British Prime Minister on 16 August 1932 continued separate electorates for Muslims, Sikhs and other minorities and, for the first time, gave separate electorates to the Depressed Classes, so that untouchables would elect their own representatives in their own constituencies. Gandhi, then in Yerwada jail, believed that this would divide the Hindu community permanently and fix the untouchables as a separate people outside Hindu society, and he began a fast unto death on 20 September 1932. The country was shaken; temples opened to untouchables and leaders rushed to Poona. Dr B. R. Ambedkar, who had won the separate electorates for the Depressed Classes, negotiated with Madan Mohan Malaviya, Rajendra Prasad, C. Rajagopalachari and others, and the Poona Pact was signed on 24 September 1932. It gave up separate electorates for the Depressed Classes but reserved 148 seats for them in the provincial legislatures, about double the 71 offered by the Award, and 18 per cent of the central seats, to be filled by joint electorates after a primary election among the Depressed Classes; it also promised money for their education. The British government accepted the Pact and Gandhi broke his fast, after which he devoted himself to the Harijan campaign. / ब्रिटिश प्रधानमंत्री द्वारा 16 अगस्त 1932 को घोषित सांप्रदायिक निर्णय ने मुसलमानों, सिखों और अन्य अल्पसंख्यकों के लिए पृथक निर्वाचन जारी रखे और पहली बार दलित वर्गों को पृथक निर्वाचन दिए, ताकि अस्पृश्य अपने निर्वाचन क्षेत्रों में अपने प्रतिनिधि चुनें। तब यरवदा जेल में बंद गांधीजी का विश्वास था कि इससे हिंदू समाज स्थायी रूप से विभाजित होगा और अस्पृश्य हिंदू समाज से बाहर एक अलग जाति के रूप में स्थिर हो जाएँगे, और उन्होंने 20 सितंबर 1932 को आमरण अनशन आरम्भ किया। देश हिल गया; मंदिर अस्पृश्यों के लिए खुले और नेता पूना की ओर दौड़े। डॉ. बी. आर. आंबेडकर, जिन्होंने दलित वर्गों के लिए पृथक निर्वाचन जीता था, ने मदन मोहन मालवीय, राजेन्द्र प्रसाद, सी. राजगोपालाचारी आदि से वार्ता की, और 24 सितंबर 1932 को पूना समझौता हुआ। इसने दलित वर्गों के लिए पृथक निर्वाचन छोड़ दिए परन्तु प्रांतीय विधानमंडलों में उनके लिए 148 सीटें आरक्षित कीं, जो निर्णय की 71 सीटों की लगभग दोगुनी थीं, और केंद्रीय सीटों का 18 प्रतिशत, जो दलित वर्गों के बीच प्राथमिक चुनाव के बाद संयुक्त निर्वाचन से भरी जानी थीं; इसने उनकी शिक्षा के लिए धन का भी वादा किया। ब्रिटिश सरकार ने समझौता स्वीकार किया और गांधीजी ने अनशन तोड़ा, जिसके बाद उन्होंने स्वयं को हरिजन अभियान में लगाया।
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Give an account of the Salt Satyagraha at Inchudi. / इंचुड़ी के नमक सत्याग्रह का विवरण दीजिए।
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Inchudi, a village on the Balasore coast near the mouth of the Budhabalanga, was chosen by the Utkal Provincial Congress Committee as the first salt centre of Odisha because of the strength of the Balasore Congress and the accessibility of its salt lands. On 6 April 1930, the day Gandhi broke the law at Dandi, twenty-one Satyagrahis under Gopabandhu Choudhury set out from the Swaraj Ashram at Cuttack to march about 160 km to Inchudi, gathering crowds at every village. Gopabandhu Choudhury was arrested at Balasore on 8 April and, by the system of successive dictators, Acharya Harihar Das of Satyabadi took over. On 13 April 1930, the Jallianwala Bagh anniversary, he and his companions boiled sea water at Inchudi and made the first contraband salt in Odisha, which was sold in Balasore at many times its price. Police lathi charges, seizure of pans and arrests followed, but fishermen and old malangi families came in hundreds to make salt, and the women of Srijang and nearby villages under Rama Devi, Malati Choudhury, Kiranbala Sen and Annapurna Devi marched to the sea and made salt, an unprecedented sight in Odisha. Hundreds were jailed, but Inchudi became one of the most famous salt centres in India and is called the Dandi of Odisha. / बालासोर तट पर बुढ़ाबलंग के मुहाने के निकट इंचुड़ी गाँव को उत्कल प्रांतीय कांग्रेस समिति ने बालासोर कांग्रेस की शक्ति और उसकी नमक-भूमि की सुगमता के कारण ओडिशा का पहला नमक केंद्र चुना। 6 अप्रैल 1930 को, जिस दिन गांधीजी ने दांडी में कानून तोड़ा, गोपबंधु चौधरी के नेतृत्व में इक्कीस सत्याग्रही कटक के स्वराज आश्रम से लगभग 160 किमी दूर इंचुड़ी की ओर पैदल निकले, और हर गाँव में भीड़ जुटी। गोपबंधु चौधरी 8 अप्रैल को बालासोर में गिरफ्तार हुए और क्रमिक 'डिक्टेटर' प्रणाली के अनुसार सत्यवादी के आचार्य हरिहर दास ने नेतृत्व सँभाला। 13 अप्रैल 1930 को, जलियाँवाला बाग की वर्षगाँठ पर, उन्होंने और उनके साथियों ने इंचुड़ी में समुद्री जल उबालकर ओडिशा का पहला निषिद्ध नमक बनाया, जो बालासोर में अपने मूल्य से कई गुना पर बिका। पुलिस लाठीचार्ज, क्यारियों की ज़ब्ती और गिरफ्तारियाँ हुईं, परन्तु मछुआरे और पुराने मलंगी परिवार सैकड़ों की संख्या में नमक बनाने आए, और रमा देवी, मालती चौधरी, किरणबाला सेन और अन्नपूर्णा देवी के नेतृत्व में श्रीजंग और आसपास के गाँवों की महिलाएँ समुद्र तक गईं और नमक बनाया, जो ओडिशा में अभूतपूर्व दृश्य था। सैकड़ों जेल गए, परन्तु इंचुड़ी भारत के सबसे प्रसिद्ध नमक केंद्रों में से एक बना और इसे ओडिशा का दांडी कहा जाता है।
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Discuss the role of women of Odisha in the Civil Disobedience Movement. / सविनय अवज्ञा आंदोलन में ओडिशा की महिलाओं की भूमिका की चर्चा कीजिए।
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The Civil Disobedience Movement brought the women of Odisha into public life on a scale never seen before. Rama Devi, wife of Gopabandhu Choudhury, took over after her husband's arrest, led the women of Srijang and Kujanga to the sea to make salt, organised women's picketing across the districts and went to jail; she came to be called the mother of Odisha. Sarala Devi led the picketing at Cuttack and the salt-making at Kujanga and Huma, was imprisoned, and in 1937 became the first woman member of the Odisha Legislative Assembly. Malati Choudhury organised women at Inchudi and Kujanga and was jailed. Kiranbala Sen, Kokila Devi, Annapurna Devi, Hiramani Devi, Jambubati Devi and the poetess Kuntala Kumari Sabat, whose songs the volunteers sang, are also remembered, and in Ganjam and Puri women picketed cloth and liquor shops. Most remarkable was the participation of ordinary peasant and fishing women of the coastal villages, who marched to the salt lands in a body and puzzled the police. They came forward because Gandhi had appealed directly to women, because the salt tax was a kitchen tax every housewife understood, because the pioneers of 1921 had made public work respectable, and because the arrest of men left women to carry on. The result was the permanent entry of Odia women into politics, the legislature and social service. / सविनय अवज्ञा आंदोलन ने ओडिशा की महिलाओं को ऐसे पैमाने पर सार्वजनिक जीवन में लाया जैसा पहले कभी नहीं देखा गया। गोपबंधु चौधरी की पत्नी रमा देवी ने अपने पति की गिरफ्तारी के बाद नेतृत्व सँभाला, श्रीजंग और कुजंग की महिलाओं को नमक बनाने के लिए समुद्र तक ले गईं, जिलों में महिलाओं के धरने संगठित किए और जेल गईं; उन्हें ओडिशा की माँ कहा जाने लगा। सरला देवी ने कटक में धरने और कुजंग तथा हुमा में नमक बनाने का नेतृत्व किया, कारावास भोगा, और 1937 में ओडिशा विधानसभा की पहली महिला सदस्य बनीं। मालती चौधरी ने इंचुड़ी और कुजंग में महिलाओं को संगठित किया और जेल गईं। किरणबाला सेन, कोकिला देवी, अन्नपूर्णा देवी, हीरामणि देवी, जम्बुबती देवी और कवयित्री कुंतला कुमारी साबत, जिनके गीत स्वयंसेवक गाते थे, भी स्मरणीय हैं, और गंजाम तथा पुरी में महिलाओं ने कपड़े और शराब की दुकानों पर धरना दिया। सबसे उल्लेखनीय तटीय गाँवों की साधारण किसान और मछुआरा महिलाओं की भागीदारी थी, जो समूह में नमक-भूमि तक गईं और पुलिस को चकित कर दिया। वे इसलिए आगे आईं क्योंकि गांधीजी ने महिलाओं से सीधे अपील की थी, क्योंकि नमक कर रसोई का कर था जिसे हर गृहिणी समझती थी, क्योंकि 1921 की अग्रणी महिलाओं ने सार्वजनिक कार्य को सम्मानजनक बनाया था, और क्योंकि पुरुषों की गिरफ्तारी ने काम महिलाओं पर छोड़ दिया। परिणाम राजनीति, विधानमंडल और समाज सेवा में ओड़िया महिलाओं का स्थायी प्रवेश था।
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Compare the Non-Cooperation Movement and the Civil Disobedience Movement. / असहयोग आंदोलन और सविनय अवज्ञा आंदोलन की तुलना कीजिए।
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Both movements were led by Gandhi, were non-violent, were mass struggles combining boycott with constructive work, and ended without winning their immediate goal. They differed in important ways. The goal of Non-Cooperation in 1920 was the vaguely defined Swaraj and the redress of the Punjab and Khilafat wrongs, whereas Civil Disobedience in 1930 aimed at Purna Swaraj, complete independence. Non-Cooperation withdrew cooperation from British institutions by boycotting schools, courts, councils and foreign cloth, while Civil Disobedience broke the law directly by making salt, refusing taxes and defying forest laws and ordinances. The scale was larger in 1930, with about ninety thousand jailed against thirty thousand in 1921-22. Muslim participation was greater in 1921 because of the Khilafat alliance, but far smaller in 1930 except on the Frontier. Women and peasants took part in much greater numbers in 1930, and in Odisha the second movement reached the coastal villages that the first had barely touched. Non-Cooperation was withdrawn abruptly after Chauri Chaura, while Civil Disobedience was suspended by a negotiated pact in 1931, renewed in 1932 and wound up gradually in 1934. Finally, the first produced the Swarajist entry into councils, the second produced the Government of India Act 1935, provincial autonomy and the separate province of Orissa. / दोनों आंदोलन गांधीजी के नेतृत्व में हुए, अहिंसक थे, बहिष्कार और रचनात्मक कार्य को जोड़ने वाले जन-संघर्ष थे, और अपना तात्कालिक लक्ष्य जीते बिना समाप्त हुए। वे महत्वपूर्ण रूप से भिन्न भी थे। 1920 में असहयोग का लक्ष्य अस्पष्ट रूप से परिभाषित स्वराज और पंजाब तथा खिलाफत के अन्यायों का निवारण था, जबकि 1930 में सविनय अवज्ञा का लक्ष्य पूर्ण स्वराज, पूर्ण स्वतंत्रता था। असहयोग ने विद्यालयों, अदालतों, परिषदों और विदेशी कपड़े के बहिष्कार से ब्रिटिश संस्थाओं से सहयोग वापस लिया, जबकि सविनय अवज्ञा ने नमक बनाकर, कर न देकर और वन कानूनों तथा अध्यादेशों की अवहेलना कर सीधे कानून तोड़ा। 1930 में पैमाना बड़ा था, 1921-22 के तीस हज़ार के मुकाबले लगभग नब्बे हज़ार जेल गए। खिलाफत गठबंधन के कारण 1921 में मुस्लिम भागीदारी अधिक थी, परन्तु सीमांत प्रांत को छोड़कर 1930 में बहुत कम। 1930 में महिलाओं और किसानों ने कहीं अधिक संख्या में भाग लिया, और ओडिशा में दूसरा आंदोलन उन तटीय गाँवों तक पहुँचा जिन्हें पहले ने शायद ही छुआ था। असहयोग चौरी चौरा के बाद अचानक वापस लिया गया, जबकि सविनय अवज्ञा 1931 में समझौते से स्थगित हुई, 1932 में पुनः आरम्भ हुई और 1934 में धीरे-धीरे समाप्त हुई। अंततः पहले ने स्वराजवादियों का परिषद-प्रवेश दिया, दूसरे ने भारत सरकार अधिनियम 1935, प्रांतीय स्वायत्तता और अलग उड़ीसा प्रांत दिया।
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What was the significance of the Civil Disobedience Movement for Odisha? / ओडिशा के लिए सविनय अवज्ञा आंदोलन का क्या महत्व था?
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The Civil Disobedience Movement lifted Odisha from a late-comer of 1921 into the front rank of the national struggle. Inchudi and Kujanga were recognised across India as among the most successful salt centres outside Gujarat, and Gandhi praised the province's response. The movement reached the fishing villages, salt lands and coastal estates that Non-Cooperation had barely touched; about a thousand Odias were jailed in 1930 and hundreds more in 1932-34, and the peasant of the coast came to identify the Congress with his oldest grievance, the salt monopoly. Women entered public life in numbers, which was the most lasting social change. A tested leadership emerged from jail, Gopabandhu Choudhury, Harekrushna Mahtab, Nabakrushna Choudhury, Nityananda Kanungo, Niranjan Patnaik, Biswanath Das, Rama Devi, Sarala Devi and Malati Choudhury, who led the Congress into the 1937 elections and the Quit India Movement. The movement ran alongside the campaign for a united Odisha, and its pressure, together with the Simon Commission's recommendation and the Round Table evidence, contributed to the creation of the separate province on 1 April 1936. The Poona Pact and Gandhi's Harijan tour of 1934 advanced the fight against untouchability. Its limitations were its weakness in the feudatory states and tribal interior and the small Muslim participation. / सविनय अवज्ञा आंदोलन ने ओडिशा को 1921 के देर से आए प्रांत से राष्ट्रीय संघर्ष की अग्रिम पंक्ति में पहुँचा दिया। इंचुड़ी और कुजंग को पूरे भारत में गुजरात के बाहर सबसे सफल नमक केंद्रों में माना गया, और गांधीजी ने प्रांत की प्रतिक्रिया की प्रशंसा की। आंदोलन उन मछुआरा गाँवों, नमक-भूमियों और तटीय ज़मींदारियों तक पहुँचा जिन्हें असहयोग ने शायद ही छुआ था; 1930 में लगभग एक हज़ार और 1932-34 में सैकड़ों और ओड़िया जेल गए, और तट का किसान कांग्रेस को अपनी सबसे पुरानी शिकायत, नमक एकाधिकार, से जोड़कर देखने लगा। महिलाएँ बड़ी संख्या में सार्वजनिक जीवन में आईं, जो सबसे स्थायी सामाजिक परिवर्तन था। जेल से एक परखा हुआ नेतृत्व उभरा, गोपबंधु चौधरी, हरेकृष्ण महताब, नबकृष्ण चौधरी, नित्यानंद कानूनगो, निरंजन पटनायक, विश्वनाथ दास, रमा देवी, सरला देवी और मालती चौधरी, जिन्होंने कांग्रेस को 1937 के चुनावों और भारत छोड़ो आंदोलन में नेतृत्व दिया। आंदोलन एकीकृत ओडिशा के अभियान के साथ-साथ चला, और इसके दबाव ने साइमन कमीशन की सिफ़ारिश और गोलमेज़ साक्ष्य के साथ 1 अप्रैल 1936 को अलग प्रांत के निर्माण में योगदान दिया। पूना समझौते और 1934 की गांधीजी की हरिजन यात्रा ने अस्पृश्यता के विरुद्ध संघर्ष को आगे बढ़ाया। इसकी सीमाएँ रियासतों और आदिवासी भीतरी क्षेत्रों में इसकी कमज़ोरी और कम मुस्लिम भागीदारी थीं।
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