Bengalorians use the historic Civil Obedience Movement to conduct a peaceful protest against CAA

• A peaceful protest against CAA breaks out in Karnataka.
  
  
• The organizers call it the Civil Disobedience Movement asking the government to withdraw the CAA.
  
  
• Reflecting back on history, we see if the protests at Karnataka are trying to mimic the historic Civil Disobedience Movement in India.

Protests against CAA in Bengaluru is seen taking a curious turn as some prominent heads calling for the movement are giving it a name ‘Civil Disobedience Movement’. For Indians, this kind of protest is nothing new. We have all read enough about it in history covering the epoch of freedom struggle.

What is happening in Bengaluru right now?

In the capital of Karnataka, a handful of leading protesters calling for mass upheaval against the CAA are asking them at the Quddus Saheb Eidgah grounds not to furnish any citizenship papers while being asked by the government. They too urged them to fill up the detention centers till all of them went housefull.

One of the masterminds behind the historic kind of protest, Harsh Mander, a leading social activist charged BJP and its inspirer RSS saying they are trying to divide the country in religious lines. He said, “When Mahatma Gandhi called for civil disobedience, over 70,000 people were jailed for going against British. I am taking a pledge that I will not submit any papers to the government. Let them put me in a detention center”.

The history of Civil Disobedience Movement in India

The first of its kind in India during those times, Mahatma Gandhi launched the civil disobedience movement against the British Government on March 12, 1930. Britain’s Salt Act had banned Indians from making or selling salt, which was a staple food in the Indian diet. Gandhiji’s Civil Disobedience Movement was to attack the monopoly of the British Government over the manufacturing and selling of salt in the country.

How did it happen?

Gandhiji urged the Indians to break the law in a non-violent manner as a way of conveying the Indian’s opposition to the said law. For Gandhiji, Defying the Salt Act meant a creative and simple way of breaking the British law in line with the principles of Ahimsa. On March 12, 1930, he organized the most famous Dandi March. It was a 241 mile long disobedience march from his Ashram at Sabarmati to the coastal town of Dandi on the Arabian Sea. Started just with 78 followers, the crowds swelled with every day passing by. The protesters reached Dandi on April 5 and attempted to make salt at the sea.

The shape that the protest took

When Gandhi bent down to pick up a handful of salt, he symbolically defied the British Salt Law. The police forestalled the crowds before they acted on their plans. However, Gandhiji’s lead inspired thousands and similar marches to make salt were organized across India with the participation of lakhs of people. About 60,000 people were arrested. The historic Civil Disobedience Movement proved the British government that it was a force that they would not be able to ignore or suppress.

What to expect?

Defying the government’s law, peaceful and nonviolent protest, and non-cooperation are the characteristics of the Civil Disobedience Movement. What we see at Bengaluru right now are mimicking the essence of Gandhi's Satyagraha. We need to wait and see the shape the Civil Disobedience Protest at Karnataka might take.