Civil Disobedience – The Concept and History

Civil disobedience is an important part of modern political theory as it is regarded as a vital element of the power structure prevalent in modern times. This theory was mainly propounded by Martin Luther King, Tolstoy, and Mahatma Gandhi. On highlighting the significance of Gandhism in civil disobedience, Dr. Daisaku Ikeda said, “As we approach the end of the century of unprecedented wars and violence, we seek as our common goal of creation of a world without wars. At this critical juncture what we can, we must, we learn from this great philosopher – a man whose spiritual legacy could rightly be termed as one of humanity’s priceless treasures, a miracle of the 20^th century”.

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Concept of Civil Disobedience

The first mention of civil disobedience was found in the essay of Henry David Thoreau. Although it has some or other manifestation in the thoughts and theories of all dominant streams of political thinking, ranging from Aristotle to the present day, it was elaborated by Gandhi and Martin Luther King Jr. These two are the ones who translated the ideas and principle of civil disobedience into reality.

The concept of civil disobedience is based on the justice and common good. The basic premise of the civil disobedience movement is to revoke the consciousness of the adversaries and make an appeal to their conscience. It is based on passive resistance and non-violent means. However, in modern times, civil disobedience has come to mean that the political strategy resorted to Gandhi to make India free from foreign colonial rule, and Martin Luther King to Usher in successfully the Civil Rights Movement in the USA.

History of Civil Disobedience

The history of the concept of civil disobedience is traceable to the ancient Greek thinker, Socrates, early Christian thinking, and other ancient stream of thinking. However, the concept of civil disobedience found its manifestation in the writings of empiricists like Thomas Hobbes and John Locke. They both, Hobbes in his specific conditionally and Locke’s ‘right to resume their original liberty and to establish a new Government’ contributed to the growth of civil disobedience.

Later, it was elaborated by Thoreau, who provided the libertarian concept of civil disobedience, Jeremy Bentham who maintained that citizens have rights ‘to enter into measures of resistance as a matter of duty as well as interest’ and Thomas Aquinas who considered unjust laws as ‘acts of violence rather than laws’. However, it was the anarchist who maintained that man’s social self could be realized through civil disobedience. 

The theory of civil disobedience found another votary in the modern existential philosophy. Existentialism and its theme of alienation as enunciated by Sartre and Albert Camus has contributed to civil disobedience by believing that there is no valid basis for any moral or political authority’s claim of authority and legitimacy.

Thus, the concept of civil disobedience is very popular in modern political theory, and in the past, this concept was practically implemented by Gandhi in India during India’s Freedom Struggle movement.