How did Gandhi use civil disobedience to promote change in India?
I think it was a mixture of shame and appeal to higher ideals that made Gandhi’s methods effective. He shamed the British and the Indian soldiers and administrators who worked for the Raj by practicing nonviolence in the face of violence. There was an early protest in which the Raj soldiers beat peaceful demonstrators, and that was the point, to show that the Raj lacked moral authority. He showed that his motives were to help the common people. His economic protests (march to the sea, aka salt march, and making and wearing homespun) showed Indian subjects that they had more power than they thought, and dared the Raj to crack down – again revealing the higher moral standing of the Congress side (pro-independence Indian National Congress, the party Gandhi helped lead). He preached nonviolent reaction to violence later – even after Independence – to show angry sectarians that there is a third way, beyond one side winning of the other side winning. And he succeeded in shaming his country i
