Civil Disobedience - Gandhi Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

Civil Disobedience - Gandhi - Essay Example e to easily suppress the incidences of violent uprising, but the civil disobedience movement was launched on a widespread scale and proved to be a tactic that the British were simply unable to defeat through military means. Gandhi has played an unforgettable role in the history of India and is referred to as Bapu, or the Father of the nation, due to his valuable contribution in bringing about a retreat of British forces from India. Gandhi first commenced the civil disobedience in South Africa, when he was practicing as a lawyer. Angered by the discrimination that was heaped upon black South African majority and his Indian brothers by the white minority, Gandhi encouraged these people to refuse to cooperate with practices they were expected to follow that only denigrated them more. He gave up his lucrative legal practice in order to become the leader of the Indian community that was comprised of despised traders and laborers. (www.india-today.com) and devised his policy of civil disobedience or a quiet non violent refusal to comply with unjust practices that were an attack on human dignity. Gandhi later utilized the civil disobedience movement very successfully in his home country of India, in resisting British rule and demanding that they leave India. He initiated the Non cooperation movement in 1921-22. Indians boycotted British goods and chose to use only Indian products. The crowd and masses quite simply refused to obey orders and the British found themselves helpless in dealing with people who openly disobeyed rules but did not resist arrest and did not retort with violence to any draconian British measures to maintain law and order. There was however, a constant demand from the asses for the British to quit India. Two decades after the movement was first commenced, Gandhi was successful in achieving the goal of Swaraj, or complete independence.(www.india-today.com). Falk (2003) has argued that the potential of the civil disobedience movement in bringing