Civil Disobedience Movement | ICSE Class 10 History & Civics Notes

This note covers the Civil Disobedience Movement: its background in the Simon Commission agitation, its causes, the declaration of Purna Swaraj at the Lahore session of 1929, the Dandi March and the programme of the movement, how different social groups took part in it, the Gandhi-Irwin Pact and the Second Round Table Conference, why the movement was renewed, how it differed from the Non-Cooperation Movement, and its overall impact and significance.

What was the background to the Civil Disobedience Movement?

By the time the Civil Disobedience Movement began, the national movement in India had already passed through several phases, and each phase shaped the method, the leadership and the language of the struggle that followed.

The Indian National Congress had been working since 1885, and Mahatma Gandhi, who had used satyagraha against racist laws in South Africa (a march of Indian workers was broken up by the police there in November 1913), had returned to India in January 1915. In his book Hind Swaraj (1909) he had already argued that British rule survived in India only because Indians cooperated with it, and that withdrawing this cooperation could make the empire collapse.

After returning to India, Gandhi organised his first satyagrahas on Indian soil: in 1917 among the indigo peasants of Champaran in Bihar against an oppressive plantation system, in 1918 among cotton mill workers in Ahmedabad, and later in 1918 among the peasants of Kheda in Gujarat, who were demanding relief from revenue after crop failure and a plague epidemic. These campaigns taught Gandhi how to organise a mass movement before the far larger struggles that followed.

Gandhi went on to lead a nationwide satyagraha against the Rowlatt Act in 1919, which gave the government sweeping powers of detention without trial; the protests culminated in the Jallianwala Bagh massacre at Amritsar in April 1919, when troops fired on an unarmed crowd. Gandhi then led the Non-Cooperation and Khilafat Movement of 1921-22.

That movement had been withdrawn in February 1922 after violence at Chauri Chaura. In 1923, C. R. Das and Motilal Nehru formed the Swaraj Party within the Congress to argue for a return to council politics, while younger leaders such as Jawaharlal Nehru and Subhas Chandra Bose pressed instead for more radical mass agitation and full independence.

Two developments pushed Indian politics towards a new mass struggle by the late 1920s. The worldwide economic depression made agricultural prices begin to fall from 1926 and collapse after 1930, so peasants found it hard to sell their harvests and pay revenue; by 1930 the countryside was in turmoil.

At the same time, the new Tory government in Britain set up a Statutory Commission under Sir John Simon to look into constitutional reforms, but it had no Indian member at all. This was the Simon Commission, whose arrival in India triggered the agitation that led directly to civil disobedience.

What were the causes of the Civil Disobedience Movement?

The Simon Commission reached India in 1928 and was greeted everywhere with the slogan "Go back Simon". All parties, including the Congress and the Muslim League, joined the demonstrations against a commission that was entirely British in composition.

Trying to win nationalist opinion over, Viceroy Lord Irwin announced in October 1929 a vague offer of "dominion status" for India at some unspecified future date, together with a Round Table Conference to discuss a future constitution. This offer did not satisfy Congress leaders.

The radicals within the Congress, led by Jawaharlal Nehru and Subhas Chandra Bose, became more assertive, and the moderates who had wanted a constitutional settlement within the British empire lost influence.

In December 1929, under the presidency of Jawaharlal Nehru, the Lahore Congress formalised the demand for "Purna Swaraj" or complete independence for India.

It declared that 26 January 1930 would be celebrated as Independence Day, when people would pledge themselves to struggle for complete independence; the pledge spoke of the "inalienable right" of Indians "to have freedom and to enjoy the fruits of their toil".

The celebrations of 26 January 1930, however, attracted very little attention, so Mahatma Gandhi had to find a way to connect this abstract idea of swaraj to a concrete, everyday issue that could unite the whole country.

Why was the Dandi March and the programme of civil disobedience launched?

Mahatma Gandhi found that issue in salt. On 31 January 1930 he sent a letter to Viceroy Irwin setting out eleven demands, some of general interest and some specific to particular classes, so that people from many sections of society could identify with the campaign.

The most stirring demand was the abolition of the salt tax, since salt was consumed by rich and poor alike and was one of the most essential items of food; the tax and the government's monopoly over its production, Gandhi said, revealed the most oppressive face of British rule.

The letter was, in effect, an ultimatum: if the demands were not met by 11 March 1930, the Congress would launch a civil disobedience campaign.

Irwin would not negotiate, so Gandhi began his famous Salt March, accompanied by 78 trusted volunteers, from his ashram at Sabarmati to the Gujarati coastal town of Dandi.

The march covered over 240 miles, and the volunteers walked for 24 days, covering about 10 miles a day, with thousands gathering wherever Gandhi stopped to explain what he meant by swaraj and urge peaceful defiance of British rule.

On 6 April 1930 he reached Dandi and ceremonially broke the law by manufacturing salt from sea water. This act marked the beginning of the Civil Disobedience Movement.

1. Thousands in different parts of the country broke the salt law and manufactured salt, demonstrating in front of government salt factories.
2. Foreign cloth was boycotted and liquor shops were picketed.
3. Peasants refused to pay revenue and chaukidari taxes, and village officials resigned.
4. In many places forest people deliberately violated forest laws, entering Reserved Forests to collect wood and graze their cattle.

A simple map line from Sabarmati Ashram near Ahmedabad to the coastal town of Dandi in Gujarat, labelled with the distance of over 240 miles, the 24 days taken, and the date 6 April 1930 when Gandhi broke the salt law.

How did the government respond, and what was the impact of the movement as it spread?

Worried by the spread of the movement, the colonial government began arresting Congress leaders one by one, which led to violent clashes in many places.

When Abdul Ghaffar Khan, a devout disciple of Gandhi, was arrested in April 1930, angry crowds demonstrated in Peshawar, facing armoured cars and police firing, and many were killed.

A month later, when Gandhi himself was arrested in May 1930, industrial workers in Sholapur attacked police posts, municipal buildings, law courts and railway stations, the structures that symbolised British rule.

A frightened government responded with brutal repression: peaceful satyagrahis were attacked, women and children were beaten, and about 100,000 people were arrested.

This repression, far from ending the agitation, showed how deeply the demand for civil disobedience had spread beyond the cities into the villages, the forests and the industrial towns, making it a genuinely nationwide confrontation with colonial authority.

What were the Gandhi-Irwin Pact and the Second Round Table Conference?

Faced with this cycle of repression and arrest, Mahatma Gandhi once again decided to call off the movement and entered into a pact with Lord Irwin on 5 March 1931.

By this Gandhi-Irwin Pact, Gandhi agreed to participate in a Round Table Conference in London, even though the Congress had boycotted the First Round Table Conference, and the government agreed in return to release the political prisoners who had been arrested during the movement.

In December 1931, Gandhi travelled to London for the Second Round Table Conference, the only one of the three conferences that the Congress formally attended. At this conference, Dr B. R. Ambedkar, who had organised the dalits into the Depressed Classes Association in 1930, clashed with Gandhi by demanding separate electorates for the depressed classes.

The negotiations broke down over such questions of representation, and Gandhi returned to India disappointed, without any firm constitutional gains to show for the suspension of the movement.

This failure mattered because it removed the main reason the movement had been suspended in the first place: nothing had actually been settled about India's constitutional future, so the pause could not be made permanent.

What were the reasons for the renewal of the Civil Disobedience Movement?

The reasons for the renewal can be stated in three points. The Second Round Table Conference of 1931 ended without any agreement on the Congress demands. The new Viceroy, Lord Willingdon, turned to repression instead of carrying forward the Gandhi-Irwin Pact. And when Gandhi returned in December 1931 and asked to meet him, the Viceroy refused, and Gandhi was arrested in January 1932.

Back in India after the failed Second Round Table Conference, Gandhi discovered that the government had begun a fresh cycle of repression rather than honouring the spirit of the suspended movement.

Abdul Ghaffar Khan and Jawaharlal Nehru were both in jail, the Congress had been declared illegal, and a series of measures had been imposed to prevent meetings, demonstrations and boycotts.

Faced with this renewed crackdown rather than any concession, Gandhi relaunched the Civil Disobedience Movement "with great apprehension" in 1932.

The movement continued for over a year after its relaunch in 1932, but it gradually lost momentum and was effectively over by 1934.

One important episode of this period was the Poona Pact of September 1932: after Ambedkar's demand for separate electorates for dalits was conceded by the British government, Gandhi began a fast unto death against it, believing that separate electorates would slow the integration of dalits into wider society.

Ambedkar ultimately accepted Gandhi's position, and the Poona Pact instead gave the Depressed Classes reserved seats in provincial and central legislative councils, to be filled by the general electorate rather than by a separate roll of dalit voters.

How did different groups and participants experience the Civil Disobedience Movement?

The Civil Disobedience Movement drew in many sections of Indian society, but each group understood "swaraj" in its own way and joined the movement for its own reasons, with varying degrees of commitment.

Rich peasants

Rich peasant communities such as the Patidars of Gujarat and the Jats of Uttar Pradesh, who grew commercial crops, were badly hit by the trade depression and falling prices.

As their cash income disappeared, paying the government's revenue demand became impossible, and the government's refusal to reduce this demand caused widespread resentment.

They became enthusiastic supporters of the movement, organising their communities and at times forcing reluctant members to join the boycott.

But they were deeply disappointed when the movement was called off in 1931 without revenue rates being revised, and many of them refused to participate when it was restarted in 1932.

Business classes

Indian merchants and industrialists, organised through bodies such as the Indian Industrial and Commercial Congress (formed in 1920) and the Federation of the Indian Chamber of Commerce and Industries (FICCI, formed in 1927), wanted protection against foreign imports and supported the Civil Disobedience Movement when it was first launched, giving financial assistance and refusing to deal in imported goods.

After the failure of the Round Table Conference, however, business groups were no longer uniformly enthusiastic; they grew apprehensive of militant activity, of prolonged disruption to business, and of the growing influence of socialism among younger Congress members.

Industrial workers

Industrial workers did not join the Civil Disobedience Movement in large numbers, except in the Nagpur region, partly because the industrialists' closeness to the Congress kept workers aloof.

Even so, some workers selectively adopted Gandhian ideas such as the boycott of foreign goods as part of their own struggles over wages and conditions: there were strikes by railway workers in 1930 and by dockworkers in 1932, and thousands of workers in the Chotanagpur tin mines wore Gandhi caps and joined protest rallies and boycotts in 1930.

Women

The large-scale participation of women was a notable feature of the movement. Thousands came out of their homes to listen to Gandhi during the Salt March, took part in protest marches, manufactured salt, and picketed foreign cloth and liquor shops, with many going to jail.

In towns these women mostly came from high-caste families, and in villages from rich peasant households, and they came to see service to the nation as a sacred duty.

This greater public role did not, however, change Gandhi's own view that it was the duty of women to look after home and hearth, and the Congress remained reluctant to give women positions of real authority within the organisation.

Dalits and Muslim political organisations

Dalit participation in the movement was limited, particularly in Maharashtra and the Nagpur region, where dalits, through leaders such as Ambedkar, were organising for reserved seats and separate electorates rather than for the abstract idea of swaraj.

Many Muslim political organisations were similarly lukewarm towards the Civil Disobedience Movement. After earlier communal tensions, Sir Muhammad Iqbal, as president of the Muslim League in 1930, reiterated the importance of separate electorates as a safeguard for Muslim political interests, reflecting a widespread sense among Muslims that their culture and identity might be submerged under a Hindu majority within a united Congress-led movement.

How did the Civil Disobedience Movement differ from the Non-Cooperation Movement?

The Civil Disobedience Movement asked more of ordinary people than the Non-Cooperation Movement had. In 1921-22, people had been asked only to refuse cooperation with the British, by boycotting titles, councils, schools, courts and foreign goods.

With the Civil Disobedience Movement that began at Dandi in 1930, people were now asked not merely to refuse cooperation, but to actively break colonial laws, such as the salt law, the forest laws and the requirement to pay revenue and chaukidari taxes.

The two movements also differed in shape: Non-Cooperation was withdrawn once, after the violence at Chauri Chaura in 1922, and never restarted; Civil Disobedience was suspended by the Gandhi-Irwin Pact of 1931 and then deliberately relaunched in 1932 before finally losing momentum by 1934.

Note: a common confusion. Students sometimes treat "Non-Cooperation" and "Civil Disobedience" as the same movement. They were two separate campaigns, nearly a decade apart (1921-22 and 1930-34), and the key difference is that civil disobedience involved the deliberate breaking of specific laws, not only withdrawal of cooperation from British institutions.

What was the impact and significance of the Civil Disobedience Movement?

The movement turned the demand for swaraj from an abstract slogan into a concrete, everyday issue through the symbol of salt, and it spread the national struggle far beyond the cities into villages, forests and plantations in a way the earlier movement had not fully achieved.

It forced the government into negotiation, leading to the Gandhi-Irwin Pact of 1931 and Congress participation in the Second Round Table Conference of 1931, even though that conference ended without agreement.

At the same time, the movement exposed how differently various groups understood swaraj: rich peasants wanted lower revenue, poorer tenants wanted rent relief that the Congress was reluctant to promise, business groups wanted freedom from colonial economic restrictions, women found a new public role without a change in their social position, and dalits and many Muslim organisations remained apprehensive of a Congress-led struggle that did not fully address their separate concerns.

The Poona Pact of September 1932 showed how these internal differences had to be negotiated even as the movement was still under way.

By 1934 the Civil Disobedience Movement had lost its momentum, but it had firmly established mass civil resistance, rather than petition or council politics, as the chief method of the Indian national struggle, a legacy that shaped every later campaign up to independence.

What do sources tell us about the Civil Disobedience Movement?

Several kinds of printed sources let us reconstruct the Civil Disobedience Movement. The Independence Day pledge adopted after the Lahore Congress of December 1929 is a formal political text that declares India's "inalienable right" to freedom and announces the Congress's intention "to alter or abolish" an oppressive government, revealing how leaders wanted to frame the coming struggle in the language of rights.

Gandhi's letter to Viceroy Irwin of 31 January 1930, with its eleven demands and its ultimatum of 11 March 1930, is a private but widely circulated document that shows how deliberately the salt issue was chosen to unite different classes.

A very different kind of source is Sir Muhammad Iqbal's 1930 presidential address to the Muslim League, which argued for separate electorates as a safeguard for Muslim political and cultural identity; read against the Congress's own pledges of the same period, it shows how the same movement looked quite different to different communities.

Photographs of the period, such as those of the Dandi marchers of 1930 and of the police crackdown on satyagrahis in the same year, are visual sources that capture both the scale of popular participation and the severity of government repression. Later records of the negotiations at the Second Round Table Conference of December 1931, and of the Poona Pact signed in September 1932, are a third kind of source, showing how the movement's internal disputes over representation had to be settled even as the wider campaign was being suspended and renewed.

Together, political pledges, private correspondence, political speeches, photographs and negotiated pacts from 1929, 1930, 1931 and 1932 let historians piece together not just what happened during the Civil Disobedience Movement but how its meaning was contested even among those who took part in it.

Timeline of the Civil Disobedience Movement

Going beyond the syllabus

The Civil Disobedience Movement did not emerge in a vacuum: it followed directly from the Non-Cooperation-Khilafat Movement of 1921-22, which had itself been built on the satyagraha method Gandhi had tested in South Africa and then in Champaran (1917) and Kheda (1918) in India.

Understanding this earlier phase helps explain why Gandhi, by 1930, already had a trusted method, a national organisation and a clear sense that any new movement had to be built around an issue, like salt, that touched the daily life of ordinary people rather than remaining an abstract constitutional demand.

Not everyone, even among admirers of Gandhi, accepted non-violence as the only path: in the Gudem Hills of Andhra Pradesh, for example, a tribal leader named Alluri Sitarama Raju drew on the language of swaraj while leading an armed guerrilla struggle against forest laws, until he was captured and executed in 1924, showing how the same national call could be heard in very different ways in different regions.

Glossary

• Satyagraha: a method of non-violent mass resistance based on truth-force, in which a satyagrahi appeals to the conscience of the oppressor rather than using physical force.
• Simon Commission: a statutory commission under Sir John Simon, set up to review constitutional reforms in India, which had no Indian member.
• Purna Swaraj: "complete independence", the demand formally adopted by the Congress at its Lahore session in December 1929.
• Dandi March (Salt March): the 240-mile, 24-day march led by Gandhi from Sabarmati to Dandi, ending with the breaking of the salt law on 6 April 1930.
• Civil Disobedience Movement: the nationwide campaign begun in 1930 in which people deliberately broke specific colonial laws, such as the salt law, forest laws and revenue demands.
• Chaukidari tax: a local tax paid by villagers towards the cost of village watchmen, which peasants refused to pay during the movement.
• Gandhi-Irwin Pact: the agreement of 5 March 1931 by which Gandhi agreed to attend the Round Table Conference and the government agreed to release political prisoners.
• Round Table Conference: a series of conferences in London to discuss constitutional reform for India; the Congress boycotted the first and attended the second in December 1931.
• Poona Pact: the September 1932 agreement between Gandhi and Ambedkar giving the Depressed Classes reserved, rather than separately elected, seats in legislative councils.
• Depressed Classes Association: the organisation of dalits founded by Dr B. R. Ambedkar in 1930 to campaign for political safeguards.
• Picket: a form of protest in which people block the entrance to a shop, factory or office, used against liquor shops and foreign-cloth stores.
• FICCI: the Federation of the Indian Chamber of Commerce and Industries, formed in 1927 to organise Indian business interests.
• Mahatma Gandhi (1869-1948): the Congress leader who led both the Non-Cooperation and the Civil Disobedience Movements and devised the method of satyagraha.

Common errors and misconceptions

• Misconception: The Civil Disobedience Movement and the Non-Cooperation Movement are the same thing. Correct: They were separate campaigns, roughly a decade apart; civil disobedience added the deliberate breaking of specific laws to the earlier policy of simply withdrawing cooperation.
• Misconception: The Salt March ended the Civil Disobedience Movement. Correct: The Salt March, ending at Dandi on 6 April 1930, began the movement; it was called off later, by the Gandhi-Irwin Pact of March 1931.
• Misconception: The Gandhi-Irwin Pact and the Poona Pact are the same agreement. Correct: The Gandhi-Irwin Pact (1931) was between Gandhi and the Viceroy on resuming talks; the Poona Pact (1932) was between Gandhi and Ambedkar on seats for the Depressed Classes.
• Misconception: The Simon Commission included Indian members. Correct: It was entirely British in composition, which is why it was met with the slogan "Go back Simon".
• Misconception: Gandhi attended the First Round Table Conference. Correct: The Congress boycotted the first conference; Gandhi attended only the Second Round Table Conference, in December 1931.
• Misconception: All social groups supported the Civil Disobedience Movement equally and continuously. Correct: Support varied greatly, and groups such as rich peasants, dalits and some Muslim organisations grew distant from the movement at different points, such as after the 1932 relaunch.
• Misconception: The Civil Disobedience Movement was launched only once. Correct: It was suspended in March 1931 and relaunched in 1932 before losing momentum by 1934.

Exam-style questions with model answers

Q1. State two causes of the Civil Disobedience Movement. [2 marks]

1. Anger over the all-British Simon Commission and Lord Irwin's vague offer of dominion status, which failed to satisfy nationalist demands.
2. The Lahore Congress's declaration of Purna Swaraj in December 1929, which committed the Congress to complete independence and a new mass struggle.

Q2. Mention any two demands in Gandhi's letter to Lord Irwin. [2 marks]

1. The abolition of the salt tax, which fell on rich and poor alike.
2. The ending of the government's monopoly over the production of salt.

Q3. State three points of the Gandhi-Irwin Pact of March 1931. [3 marks]

1. Gandhi agreed to call off the Civil Disobedience Movement.
2. Gandhi agreed, on behalf of the Congress, to participate in the Round Table Conference in London, which the Congress had earlier boycotted.
3. The government agreed in return to release the political prisoners who had been arrested during the movement.

Q4. Give three reasons why dalits and Muslim political organisations remained apprehensive about the Civil Disobedience Movement. [3 marks]

1. Dalit leaders, through Ambedkar's Depressed Classes Association, were more interested in reserved seats and separate electorates than in the abstract idea of swaraj.
2. After the decline of the Non-Cooperation-Khilafat Movement, many Muslims felt alienated from a Congress increasingly associated with openly Hindu organisations.
3. Leaders such as Iqbal argued in 1930 that only separate electorates could safeguard Muslim political and cultural identity within a united movement.

Q5. Explain any four ways in which the Civil Disobedience Movement differed from the Non-Cooperation Movement. [4 marks]

1. Non-Cooperation asked people only to withdraw cooperation, such as surrendering titles and boycotting councils, schools and courts; Civil Disobedience asked people to break specific laws.
2. Civil Disobedience was built around one unifying symbol, salt, whereas Non-Cooperation had several separate programmes.
3. Civil Disobedience directly involved breaking the salt law, forest laws and revenue and chaukidari tax demands, actions not part of the earlier movement.
4. The Civil Disobedience Movement was suspended and then deliberately relaunched in 1932, a pattern of pause and renewal that the Non-Cooperation Movement, withdrawn once after Chauri Chaura in 1922, did not show.

Q6. Analyse any four changes that led the government to provoke the renewal of the Civil Disobedience Movement in 1932. [4 marks]

1. The Second Round Table Conference of December 1931 ended without any agreement on representation, disappointing Gandhi.
2. On returning to India, Gandhi found that the government had begun a fresh cycle of repression rather than honouring the spirit of the pact.
3. Leaders including Abdul Ghaffar Khan and Jawaharlal Nehru had been jailed.
4. The Congress itself had been declared illegal, and meetings, demonstrations and boycotts had been banned, leaving Gandhi little choice but to relaunch the movement.

Q7. Describe the Dandi March and explain why it made an effective symbol of resistance. [5 marks]

1. Gandhi set out from his ashram at Sabarmati accompanied by 78 trusted volunteers.
2. The march covered over 240 miles to the coastal town of Dandi in Gujarat, with thousands joining along the route.
3. The volunteers walked for 24 days, covering about 10 miles a day, and thousands gathered to hear Gandhi explain swaraj whenever he stopped.
4. On 6 April 1930 Gandhi reached Dandi and manufactured salt from sea water, ceremonially breaking the salt law and launching the Civil Disobedience Movement.
5. Salt was consumed by rich and poor alike, and it was one of the most essential items of food, so the tax on it and the government monopoly over its production could unite people across every class behind a single, easily understood grievance, which is what made the march such a powerful and widely imitated symbol of defiance against colonial rule.

Q8. Analyse how different social groups, rich peasants, business classes, women and dalits, responded to the Civil Disobedience Movement. [6 marks]

1. Rich peasants such as the Patidars of Gujarat and the Jats of Uttar Pradesh, hit hard by falling prices, supported the movement enthusiastically in the hope of lower revenue demands, but grew disillusioned and withdrew support after 1931 when revenue rates were not revised.
2. Business classes, organised through bodies such as FICCI, initially gave financial support and boycotted imported goods, wanting freedom from colonial restrictions on trade, but became less enthusiastic after the failed Round Table Conference, fearing prolonged disruption and growing socialist influence among younger Congress members.
3. Women took part on a large scale for the first time, joining the Salt March, manufacturing salt and picketing shops, gaining a new public role, though the Congress remained reluctant to give them real positions of authority within the organisation.
4. Dalits, organising through Ambedkar's Depressed Classes Association, participated only in limited numbers, seeking political safeguards such as reserved seats rather than the broader idea of swaraj, a tension that was eventually addressed through the Poona Pact of September 1932.

Key takeaways

• The Civil Disobedience Movement grew out of anger over the all-British Simon Commission and the Lahore Congress's 1929 demand for Purna Swaraj.
• Gandhi chose the salt tax as a unifying symbol because it touched rich and poor alike.
• The Dandi March of March-April 1930 covered over 240 miles in 24 days and ended with the breaking of the salt law on 6 April 1930.
• Unlike Non-Cooperation, Civil Disobedience asked people to actively break specific colonial laws, not merely withdraw cooperation.
• Harsh government repression, including about 100,000 arrests, provoked violence in places such as Peshawar and Sholapur.
• The Gandhi-Irwin Pact of March 1931 suspended the movement in exchange for the release of prisoners and Congress attendance at the Second Round Table Conference.
• The conference's failure and renewed government repression led Gandhi to relaunch the movement in 1932, though it lost momentum by 1934.
• Different groups, rich peasants, business classes, workers, women, dalits and Muslim organisations, experienced and supported the movement in very different ways and degrees.
• The Poona Pact of September 1932 settled the dispute between Gandhi and Ambedkar over separate electorates for the Depressed Classes.

Test yourself

What event in October 1929 failed to satisfy Congress leaders?

Lord Irwin's vague offer of dominion status for India at an unspecified future date, along with a promised Round Table Conference.

Why did Gandhi choose salt as the focus of the movement?

Salt was consumed by both rich and poor and was essential to food, so the salt tax and government monopoly could unite people across all classes against colonial rule.

How long did the Dandi March take, and over what distance?

It took 24 days, covering over 240 miles from Sabarmati to Dandi at about 10 miles a day.

What two things did the Gandhi-Irwin Pact achieve?

Gandhi agreed to attend the Round Table Conference and suspend the movement, while the government agreed to release political prisoners.

Why did rich peasants withdraw support after 1931?

Because the movement was suspended without the government revising the revenue rates they had hoped would be reduced.

What was the Poona Pact of September 1932?

An agreement between Gandhi and Ambedkar giving the Depressed Classes reserved seats in legislative councils, filled by general rather than separate electorates.

Name one main difference between Civil Disobedience and Non-Cooperation.

Civil Disobedience asked people to actively break specific laws, such as the salt law, while Non-Cooperation asked only for withdrawal of cooperation.