18. INDIVIDUAL SATYAGRAHA (1940–41)

18. INDIVIDUAL SATYAGRAHA (1940–41)

• Launched by Gandhi as a limited, symbolic movement (not mass civil disobedience) after Britain refused to promise post-war self-government/dominion status in return for India's WWII support (the "August Offer, 1940" by Viceroy Linlithgow was rejected by Congress as inadequate).
• Acharya Vinoba Bhave was chosen as the first individual satyagrahi (October 1940); Jawaharlal Nehru was the second.
• Satyagrahis gave anti-war speeches/raised the slogan "It is wrong to help the British war effort with men or money; no country can be dragged into a war without the consent of its people" and courted arrest individually, in a disciplined, non-mass manner.
• By its limited/controlled nature, it kept the movement alive during the war without provoking a full confrontation while Britain was engaged in WWII; thousands were eventually arrested.
• Movement wound down by December 1941; most satyagrahis released.

Key Facts / Quick Revision Points — Individual Satyagraha

• 1940-41; first satyagrahi: Vinoba Bhave; second: Jawaharlal Nehru.
• Response to rejection of August Offer, 1940.
• Limited, individual, disciplined civil disobedience — not a mass movement.