Civil Disobedience

Dr Saheb Sahu

“Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and never will”.

Frederick Douglas (American anti-slavery leader)

Civil Disobedience- Nonviolent Resistance-Satyagraha

Civil disobedience refers to the active refusal to obey certain law, demands and commands of a government or an occupying power without resorting to violence. The expression was first coined by Henry David Thoreau in his essay “Civil Disobedience”, in 1849, although the concept has been practiced longer before.  In 1907, Gandhi read Civil Disobedience while in South African Jail for protesting for the repeal of the racist Asiatic Registration Laws.  Over the course of seven years, thousands of striking Indians were imprisoned, including Gandhi himself. The law was repealed in 1914, proving to Gandhi that nonviolent resistance could be effective method even for people living under colonial rule. In 1915 Gandhi returned to India and started numerous satyagrahas against the British, culminating in the famous 1930 Salt March, 240 miles from Ahmadabad to the Arabian Sea.

The concept of civil disobedience has inspired leaders as Susan B. Anthony of U.S. women’s suffrage (women rights) movement in the late 1800s, Saad Zaagdoul in the 1910s culminating in the Egyptian Revolution of 1919 against the British occupation and Mahatma Gandhi in 1920s against the British Raj in India, Martin Luther King Jr’s civil rights movement in the 1960s in the United States.

Besides Gandhi and Martin Luther King Jr, other notable advocates of nonviolent resistance are Leo Tolstoy (Gandhi also learned from him) , James Bevel, Vaclav Havel, Andrei Sakharov, Lech Walesa, Gene Sharp, Nelson Mandela, Jose Rizal, (of Philippines) and many others.

Some of the well-known nonviolent resistance movements in History

1. 1848-1920– Suffrage movement (for women’s rights) in USA led by Susan Anthony and others. Women got voting rights in USA in 1920.
2. 1917-1947-Indian independence movement against the British Raj, led by Gandhi and Indian National   Congress.  Gandhi had his first civil resistance victory in 1907 in South Africa. He returned to India in 1915 and in 1917 led the Champaran Satyagraha, followed by Kheda Satyagraha in 1918, Dandi Salt march in 1930, and Quit India movement 1942. Gandhi was imprisoned six times in South Africa (1908-1913), and seven times in India (1918-1942).
3. 1919-1922-Egptian Revolution of 1919. It is considered one of the earliest successful civil-disobedience movements world-wide. It led to the end of British occupation of Egypt in 1922.
4. American Civil Rights movement was a struggle for justice and equality for African Americans that took place mainly in 1950s and 1960s. It was mostly nonviolent struggle led by Martin Luther King Jr. and others civil rights leaders.
5. Protests against the Vietnam War took place in the 1960s and 1970s. The antiwar movement began mostly in US college campuses and spread to major cities around the world.
6. 1968– Prague Spring was a mass nonviolent protest in communist Czechoslovak Socialist Republic from 5Jan, 1968 -21 Aug, 1968. It was crushed by 600,000 Warsaw Pack troops.
7. The 1974 Bihar Movement was initiated by college students against misrule and corruption of the Congress Government in Bihar. Later on it became an all India movement led by Jayaprakash Narayan against the emergency rule imposed by P.M Indira Gandhi. Indira Gandhi was voted out in 1977 and emergency was over.
8. 1979 – Iranian Revolution, locally known as Islamic Revolution led to the overthrow of the Shah and brought Ayatollah Khomeini and his followers to power.
9. 1986 – People Power Movement in Philippines led to the end of Ferdinand Marco’s 20-year dictatorship and restoration of democracy in Philippines.
10. 1989– Tiananmen Square Protest, Beijing, China, led by students calling for democracy, free speech and free press. The protest was brutally crushed with 250,000 troops, who killed thousands of protestors and arrested more than 10,000 of them.
11. Rose Revolution, in Georgia from Nov, 3-23, 2003, toppled the duly elected but corrupt government of President Eduard Shevardnadze.
12. Tunisian Revolution, also called the Jasmine Revolution, was an intensive 28-day campaign of civil resistance, which led to the ousting of long time president/dictator Ben Ali in Jan, 2011.
13. Egyptian Revolution (Tahir Square) also known as Arab Spring (25^th Jan-11Feb 2011), consisted of demonstrations, marches, occupation of plazas and other nonviolent actions that ended the 30 –year Presidency/dictatorship of  Hosni Mubarak.
14. Umbrella Revolution in Hong Kong was a series of Sit-in Street protests from 26^th Sept to –Dec, 15, 2014 demanding “true universal suffrage’ and “semi autonomy” from mainland China. The struggle is ongoing.
15. 2020- 2021 – Indian farmers’  ongoing protest against three farm acts which were passed by the Parliament in Sept, 2020.The farmers fear that the bills would render the current Minimum Support Price(MSP) procurement system ineffective, leaving them at the mercy of “big farmers”.

Civil Resistance Works

Harvard professor Erica Chenoweth and Maria Stephan, through their extensive research have concluded that civil resistance works. They analyzed success rate of 627 violent and non-violent revolutionary campaigns from around the world between 1900 and 2019. Examining the data set of 627campaigns, they found that non-violent movements worldwide were twice likely to succeed as violent ones (50%vs 26%). They also found that over the previous fifty years, non-violent campaign have grown both more numerous and more successful.

The 3.5% Rule

 Chenoweth and Stephan found a direct correlation between the success of a campaign and the popular involvement it managed to invite. No campaign failed once they achieved the active and sustained participation of just 3.5 percent of the population and lots of them succeeded with less than that. For example, in a country of 100 million people, it will take active involvement of around 3 million people for a movement to succeed. Sometimes it took even less. Active public support consists of at least 3 components: to show up for marches and other events, if there is an election, vote with the movement, and persuade others ( social media etc.) to join.

Methods of Non-Violent Actions

 There are three general classes of non-violent action:

A- Protest and Persuasion

 These methods include vigils, petitions, walkout and picketing. These are largely symbolic in their effect and produce an awareness of existence of dissent.

B- Noncooperation

 These methods include social boycott, labor strike and many forms of political noncooperation.

C- Intervention

 These methods include hunger strikes, sittings nonviolent obstructions, creation of alternative institutions and parallel government. They possess some of the qualities of both previous groups.

 Gene Sharp in his book “The Politics of Nonviolent Action” has described 198 methods of nonviolent action. He stresses that to sustain a long struggle, activists cannot display just one tactic; rather, they need to create a sequence of actions that builds over time. The goal is “escalation of disorder without violence”.

The Discipline

Nonviolent campaign’s discipline consist of two components: (1) adhering to the broader strategic plans for the struggle and (2) refraining from violence. Maintaining the persistent nonviolent discipline is critical to the long term success of the movement. Even limited violence by resistors or their supporters, gives an excuse to the authorities to use brutal methods to suppress the movement. Many times the authorities infiltrate the movement and knowingly provoke violence. Maintaining discipline within the movement is a difficult task but an essential one.

Is there a formula for effective civil disobedience campaigns?

 No universal formula is likely to exist. Every country, every citizenry, every outrage is unique. But there are some striking patterns that seem consistent across successful campaigns. Historically, movements with massive and diverse participation (students, women, farmers, laborers, politicians and others), nonviolent discipline and the ability to withstand repression have been able to force those in power to change. No movements have failed after getting 10% of the nation’s population to be actively involved in their peak event. Most succeed after mobilizing 3.5% of the population. On average, scholars agree that fringe violence does not help civil resistance campaigns succeed in the long term. Most onlookers especially women favor non-violent movements over violent ones. Nonviolent action is also more likely to gain support from across the social, economic, and political spectrum. Violence tends to repel potential allies and hurts a movement’s chance of success.

Conclusion

Social change does not happen without a struggle. Nobody gives up power voluntarily.  According to Saul Alinsky, mankind has been and is divided into three groups. The Haves, the Have-Nots and the Have-a-Little. On top are the Have, with power and wealth, security forces, courts and the bureaucracy with them. They want to keep things as they are and opposed any change. On the bottom are the world’s Have-Nots. They are powerless and poor. In a truly democratic country only power they have is the power to vote. In the middle are the Have-a-little. They want little more. The main reason to fight for social change is to benefit the Have-Not and the Have-a-little.

 What can be done to change the situation? The answer is nonviolent struggle. Professor Chenoweth has shown that nonviolent struggles are twice as likely to succeed as the violent one. To succeed it takes active participation of about three percent of the population. Violent struggle costs lives, properties, and misery and ultimately is likely to fail. It gives an excuse to the authorities to crush the movement using violent means. Bottom lines, if you want any kind of social change, organize and use nonviolent means. It is likely to work. But it will likely to take time.

Now, go and organize and protest in a nonviolent way for change you want!

Sources:

1- Henry D. Thoreau, Walden and Civil Disobedience. New York: Barnes and Noble, 2003

2-Erica Chenoweth and Maria Stephan, Why Civil Resistance Works. New York: Columbia University Press, 2011

3- Erica Chenoweth, Civil Resistance, What Everyone Needs To Know. New York: Oxford University Press, 2021

4-Gene Sharp, Waging Nonviolent Struggle, 20th century practice and 21^st century potential. Boston: Porter Sargent Publishers, 2005

5- Wikipedia.Org/ civil disobedience, Nov, 12, 2021