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Modern Indian History

Civil disobedience

Nonviolent disobedience of the law

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Overview

Civil disobedience is the active and professed refusal of a citizen to obey certain laws, demands, orders, or commands of a government. By some definitions, civil disobedience has to be nonviolent to be called "civil". Hence, civil disobedience is sometimes equated with nonviolent resistance. Henry David Thoreau's essay Resistance to Civil Government, first published in 1849 and then published posthumously in 1866 as Civil Disobedience, popularized the term in the US, although the concept itself was practiced long before this work.

Source: Wikipedia — Civil disobedience (CC BY-SA)

Key concepts

How Civil disobedience connects to the ideas, people and events around it.

  1. Citizenship is a membership in the political community of and allegiance to a sovereign state.

  2. Law is a set of rules that are created and enforced by governmental or societal institutions to regulate behavior, with its precise definition a matter of longstanding debate. It has been variously described as a science and as the art of justice.

  3. A government is the system or group of people which lead a state. As such, it is responsible for directing the only entity whose use of force is socially acceptable.

  4. Nonviolence is the practice of working for social change without causing harm to others, under any condition.

  5. Nonviolent resistance, or nonviolent action, sometimes called civil resistance, is the practice of achieving goals such as social change through symbolic protests, civil disobedience, economic or political noncooperation, satyagraha, constructive program, or other methods, while refraining from violence and the threat of violence.

  6. Henry David Thoreau was an American naturalist, essayist, poet, and philosopher.

  7. "Resistance to Civil Government", also called "On the Duty of Civil Disobedience" or "Civil Disobedience", is an essay by American transcendentalist Henry David Thoreau, first published in 1849.

  8. Women's suffrage, or the right of women to vote, was established in the United States over the course of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, first in various states and localities, then nationally in 1920 with the ratification of the 19th Amendment to the United States Constitution.

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Questions about Civil disobedience

What is Civil disobedience?

Civil disobedience is the active and professed refusal of a citizen to obey certain laws, demands, orders, or commands of a government. By some definitions, civil disobedience has to be nonviolent to be called "civil". Hence, civil disobedience is sometimes equated with nonviolent resistance.

What are the key concepts related to Civil disobedience?

The main concepts connected to Civil disobedience include Citizenship, Law, Government, Nonviolence, Nonviolent resistance, Henry David Thoreau, Civil Disobedience (essay), Women's suffrage in the United States. Each is linked on the map above with its own summary.

Which exams cover Civil disobedience?

Civil disobedience is part of Modern Indian History, which appears in the syllabus of UPSC CSE, UPSC CAPF, NDA, CDS, AFCAT, SSC CGL and 48 more exams.