After travelling for twenty-five days and covering a distance of three hundred and eighty-five kms, the group reached Dandi on 6 April 1930. On 12 March 1930, Gandiji with some of his followers left the Sabarmati Ashram at Ahmedabad and made their way towards Dandi, a village on the west coast of India. Under the leadership of Gandhiji, the Civil Disobedience Movement was launched in AD 1930.

Returning to India to gather support against English rule and the caste system, he brought Thoreau’s civil disobedience a step forward. The person who brought civil disobedience to its complete realization was Mahatma Gandhi, a lawyer who worked in South Africa, where he met discrimination against Indians. GANDHI and INDIA’s CIVIL DISOBEDIENCE MOVEMENT Thoreau further argues that the United States fits his criteria for an unjust government, given its support of slavery and its practice of aggressive war. This includes not being a member of an unjust institution (like the government). A person is not obligated to devote his life to eliminating evils from the world, but he is obligated not to participate in such evils. When a government is unjust, people should refuse to follow the law and distance themselves from the government in general.

He contends that people’s first obligation is to do what they believe is right and not to follow the law dictated by the majority.

Thoreau begins his essay by arguing that government rarely proves itself useful and that it derives its power from the majority because they are the strongest group, not because they hold the most legitimate viewpoint. It criticizes American social institutions and policies, most prominently slavery and the Mexican-American War. Thoreau’s Civil Disobedience espouses the need to prioritize one’s conscience over the dictates of laws.

Thoreau gandhi