Example: The Bardoli Tax Strike
In this example, I will fill out the worksheets described in this chapter as though I were helping to refine tactics for the Bardoli tax strike of 1928.
About the Bardoli Tax Strike
Here is some background, from the perspective of the resisters:
Bardoli is a district of Gujarat, the westernmost state in modern India. In 1928 it was part of the British Raj, and was home to about 87,000 people of a variety of religions and ethnicities, who were largely employed in agriculture.
A nationalist movement led by the Indian National Congress had been using a variety of strategies to move towards independence from Britain. This campaign had been led since 1921 by Mohandas K. Gandhi, who had been achieving modest but encouraging successes, as well as expanding the influence of the Congress in Indian society, by leading a “noncooperation movement” which used his satyagraha variety of nonviolent resistance.
In 1918, Gandhi had authorized a tax resistance campaign in Kheda, another district in Gujarat. This campaign was led by Vallabhbhai Patel, and was eventually successful at forcing the government to rescind a tax increase, provide tax relief to impoverished farmers, and reverse the property seizures the government had imposed in its attempt to break the strike.
The land in Bardoli had long been particularly heavily-taxed, and taxes had been rising at a rate that far outstripped increases in agricultural production. Tax officials used arbitrary methods to increase rates—seemingly choosing at each reassessment whichever method would justify the largest increase. Peasants had no way to challenge these rates in court as the courts had no jurisdiction over tax matters, and the national government was dragging its heels on implementing a more rational, nationally-consistent program of land taxation.
Bardoli had adopted Gandhi’s nationalist resistance strategies with particular enthusiasm. Before Gandhi temporarily suspended the noncooperation movement in 1922 (after it was marred by an incident of violence), he had been planning to launch a mass civil disobedience campaign from Bardoli.
In 1925 the government began to enact another large tax increase in Bardolinominally a 22% increase, but since the new plan also moved some villages into a higher tax bracket, the increase was higher—as much as 50–60%—for many residents. The government brushed off a variety of petitions and methodical challenges to the typically thin reasoning with which it tried to justify the tax increase.
In late 1927, shortly before the new rates were to go into effect, thousands of Bardoli agriculturalists met to discuss how they would respond. They unanimously decided to refuse to pay the new assessments.
Let’s imagine that they then selected a subcommittee to meet and, using the workshopping structure I have suggested, to choose tactics to help their campaign succeed. The following pages show what such a subcommittee might have come up with.
1. The essentials
What are you hoping to accomplish with your tax resistance campaign? Describe what it will look like when you are victorious. What happens to your opponents? Are they vanquished, exiled, overthrown—or are they won over, convinced, turned into allies—or something else entirely? What has to happen after victory, to keep your triumph intact? Are there secondary goals that you also want to keep in mind? Is this campaign just one battle in a larger struggle, and if so what are the goals of that struggle? Avoid as much as possible mentioning specific tactics here—instead, concentrate on your goals. That said, some of your goals may include means as well as ends—for example, one of your goals may be to conduct your campaign nonviolently.
Also: are there any essential characteristics of your campaign that are possibly incidental to your goals but still important? For example, if your campaign is composed of people who belong to a particular religion, choosing tactics that comport with that religion’s teachings may be essential; or if this tax resistance campaign is one battle in a larger struggle, it may be important to respect the needs of that larger struggle even if this weakens your particular campaign. Is your campaign run by a legally-chartered corporation (in which case the organization may need to shield itself from involvement with actions that jeopardize its charter)? Are you exclusive or inclusive? democratic or hierarchical? self-sustaining or donor-dependent? Now is the time to make explicit anything about your campaign or organization that may restrict your choice of tactics.
Our campaign will have succeeded when the government has either rescinded the tax increase in Bardoli or it has temporarily suspended the increase while an independent tribunal thoroughly investigates the matter and rules on whether the increase is justifiable and legal.
At the conclusion of our tax resistance campaign, we will return to paying taxes at a justifiable rate—either the original rate, or a rate set by this independent tribunal—and we hope that the government will have learned that our position has been just all along.
We hope in addition to undertake this campaign in the spirit of the larger independence movement, in respect for its goals, and in conformity to satyagraha. If we can prove that ordinary Indians can win concessions from the government by uniting, maintaining discipline, and sustaining a long-term satyagraha battle, we will have been a valuable proving ground for the Indian independence movement.
We also hope that should we win this campaign, the government will apply the relevant conclusions of the independent tribunal to other districts that are also facing unjustified and/or illegal tax increases.
We plan to restrict this campaign to the Bardoli district, but we hope to get as close as possible to unanimous participation within the district, across religious, ethnic, professional, and class lines. We have thus far been meeting periodically in groups of representatives from the various villages in the district, but we are not wedded to that organizational structure.
2. Your demographics
What varieties of resisters currently make up your campaign? How many are conscientious objectors? protesters? people-power resisters? agitators for legalization of tax refusal? How many seem to have motives or goals that come from more than one of these categories (and in such cases, is one category more fundamental than the others)? Is there anything else that characterizes the resisters in your campaign—are resisters largely from a particular region, ethnicity, nationality, religion, age range, social or economic class, or in some other way are they demographically distinct from the population as a whole? Also: are there any demographically identifiable groups of people that you believe could or should join your campaign but who have not yet done so—if so, how would you identify them?
Our campaign is dominated by nonviolent resisters, hoping to use tax resistance to force concessions from the government. A minority (maybe 5%) seem more inclined to use tax resistance as a protest tactic. Some people believe that there are more than sufficient grounds to challenge the legality of the tax increase if only there were an adequate forum in which to do so, and indeed part of our goals are to implement such a forum.
There are a variety of ethnic & religious groups, economic classes, and professions represented in Bardoli. In some regions there is more enthusiasm for the campaign from some groups than from others. Landowners face the risk of confiscation and may for that reason require more courage or more support than non-landowners. The urban professional class feels the urgency of this campaign less personally than do agriculturalists, and so they are likely to join out of solidarity rather than acute need and may be more lukewarm in their resistance.
There has been talk of opening up this campaign also to people from the Chorasi district, who are in a similar predicament. Representatives from Chorasi asked us if they could join our campaign. We have decided, however, to limit the campaign to Bardoli for the time being.
3. Your tax resistance tactics
List any methods of tax resistance your campaign currently practices. Also list here any of the supplemental tactics listed in Tactics that Expand the Arsenal of Resistance Techniques.
☑ mass refusal to pay
☑ petition for redress of grievances
We have very carefully laid out our grievance and the justice of our cause in several petitions to the authorities, and we have also exhausted the few, quite limited avenues of legal redress available to us.
We have elected to engage in mass tax refusal as a way of winning through satyagraha what the authorities refuse to grant us from the justice of our cause. We will be refusing to pay the complete amount of the land tax until the authorities respond to our satisfaction.
A proposal that we instead only refuse the new increase, while continuing to pay our taxes at the old level, was rejected.
4. Your support tactics
List any methods of supporting tax resisters that your campaign currently practices or is already fully prepared to practice if necessary, such as those tactics listed in Tactics that Support Tax Resisters.
☑ form groups for mutual support and coordinated decision-making
☑ develop and use legal expertise
We have formed groups that were appropriate to debating and deciding on a course of action, and to representing Bardoli agriculturalists in our petitions. We can perhaps use these as the basis for the organization(s) we will need to have to engage in our tax resistance campaign.
Our legal expertise allowed us to identify errors in the process the authorities used to impose the tax increase, errors that prove it to be not merely unjust but also illegal, or at the least, legally slipshod and irregular. We have not, however, yet developed the legal expertise we will need to fight property seizures, arrests, or other such countermeasures we anticipate the government may use against us as we begin to refuse taxes, so perhaps we shouldn’t get credit for using legal expertise as a “support tactic” just yet.
5. Your growth tactics
List any methods of recruiting tax resisters or of combatting attrition that your campaign currently practices, such as those tactics listed in Tactics that Increase the Number of Resisters.
☑ recruit new resisters through letters or face-to-face outreach
We have representatives in every village, and by trying to get people to sign tax resistance pledges, we have done a good job of making face-to-face contact with people to explain our campaign, recruit them into the movement, listen to their concerns and objections, and learn which regions and subgroups are most and least enthusiastic about the campaign.
But while we have had an impressive response to our campaign so far, there is a big difference between vowing to resist (which people have done in large numbers) and maintaining resistance in the face of government threats, official sanctions, and economic sacrifice.
6. Your counter-enforcement tactics
List any methods of frustrating government countermeasures that your campaign currently practices, such as those tactics listed in Tactics that Frustrate Government Countermeasures.
As we have not yet embarked on our tax refusal campaign, we have also not yet developed any counter-enforcement tactics. Right now, before the campaign has really begun, people are putting up a brave face and declaring that they will stand firm and accept whatever sacrifices are necessary for victory, but we will need more than bravado if we want to succeed.
7. Your public relations tactics
List any public relations methods that your campaign currently practices, such as those tactics listed in Tactics of Education and Public Relations.
☑ avoid falsehood, engage in radical honesty
☑ conduct surveys to gauge support
☑ get a good spin out in the media
☑ take public oaths or pass resolutions of tax resistance
The petitions and other statements from our campaign have been straightforward, honest, credible, devoid of bluster, and unobsequious. The government’s replies, on the other hand, have been arrogant and dishonest, and they avoid addressing the points at issue. This contrast is working in our favor.
By surveying villages in Bardoli by means of the tax resistance oath, we have spread the news of the impending tax strike and have gathered intelligence about where we need to strengthen resolve or to reach out to less-enthusiastic participants.
The nationalist-sympathetic media have covered the preliminaries to our campaign, and printed the exchange of letters between Vallabhbhai Patel and J. W. Smyth (the government’s Revenue Secretary) that demonstrates the justice of our cause and the radical honesty with which we are pursuing it. The establishment media is dismissive of our campaign, calling it “lawless” and unwise, but even they sometimes nod at the justice of our cause.
The tax resistance vows that participants have taken are helping to popularize the resistance. Once a critical mass of people sign, it’s difficult for others to justify their reticence. In some villages, the only hold-outs are a handful of government employees. The sense that “we’re in this together” is strong.
8. Refine your lists
Your tax resistance tactics
(Our petitioning has not been useful, except from a P.R. point of view.)
We are just launching our tax refusal campaign, and so it is too early to determine how effective or vulnerable it will be.
Your support tactics
The legal expertise has been helpful in documenting the illegality of the tax increase, but with no court willing to hear us, this has had little practical effect. (We need legal support for resisters who may suffer reprisals.)
The groups in which we have met to discuss how we plan to respond have been successful, but now that we have decided to launch a satyagraha campaign we will probably need a new, more formal, and more permanent organizational structure.
Your growth tactics
We have done well at getting representatives from all villages to participate, and in getting people to sign vows of resistance. We need to do more outreach to the less-represented groups, particularly Muslims and non-agriculturalists, if we expect them to come on-board.
(We need some strategies for preventing attrition.)
Your counter-enforcement tactics
(We’ve got nothing here yet.)
Your public relations tactics
We’ve done a good job at stating our case in the national media, particularly Young India and Navajivan. We have a reputation for honesty and forthrightness, and our commitment to satyagraha and our allegiance to the Indian independence campaign gives us a good reputation.
(Our surveys, in the form of vows we have collected from the various villagers, have helped us gauge support and identify weak areas, but these are of diminishing value. It’s time to move from vows to action.)
9. Shore up your weak fronts
Based on the lists you made in the previous step, identify one or more fronts on which you are weakest or most vulnerable. Make note also of any current government countermeasures for which your campaign does not yet have an adequate defense or a way to successfully exploit. In the space below, list some promising new tactics your campaign could develop in each of these fronts:
Tax Resistance: We are just beginning to refuse all land tax payment, which we hope will be a sufficient tax resistance tactic. Tax payments are due on February 15th.
Growth: Our campaign is very vulnerable to attrition. Right now we have very good solidarity, but it’s hard to tell at this stage how firm people are prepared to be. If some people start to give in, the campaign could unravel in a hurry. We might try to engage in a social boycott of non-resisters and to wear badges, emblems, or uniforms to keep people aware that their neighbors continue to resist.
Counter-enforcement: We have not yet come up with strategies to combat government countermeasures. The government is likely to seize property from resisters, targeting those who are most vulnerable or least committed, in the hopes that if they give in, this will encourage others to capitulate. We need to have a plan to assist resisters whose property is seized. We may want to expand our list of demands to include the return of land or property to resisters it has been seized from.
We might also hide taxable or seizable assets, warn people when tax collectors are on the way, block tax collectors and enforcers with barricades or blockades, engage in social boycott of tax collectors and collaborators, or encourage defection in the tax bureaucracy.
The government is also likely to attempt divide-and-conquer tactics—perhaps offering minor concessions to particular villages to try to split them off from the campaign. We need to be able to maintain solidarity in the face of divisive pressure. In particular we need to insure that village patels do not cooperate with tax enforcement and property seizure.
The government may also decide to arrest the campaign leadership in the hopes that we will succumb to disarray. We may want to consider some strategy for keeping our command structure intact if it is disrupted in this way, or to defend our leadership against arrest somehow.
Public Relations: It is crucial that we have good lines of communication between the campaign leadership and the many villages in Bardoli. We need to keep everyone aware of how the campaign is progressing and how the government is reacting, and we need to know quickly if something comes up that we need to respond to.
It might be beneficial to our public relations if we were to put our taxes in an escrow account in lieu of payment. Our dedication to satyagraha also allows us to contrast our campaign with more objectionable opposition movements.
10. Refine your list of new tactics
Identify a small number of tactics (no more than two or three) that seem most promising and that will strengthen your campaign where it is weakest. Spend some time brainstorming what it would take to implement them and what consequences you anticipate. Answer questions like these:
- In a nutshell, how does this tactic help our campaign succeed?
- How will we measure the success of this tactic?
- When is our deadline for deploying this tactic, and how much time would it take us to deploy this tactic effectively?
- Who is the project lead, and what resources can be made available to that person?
- How many people from our campaign would need to devote how many hours to make this tactic work?
- Do we have the necessary expertise in-house to deploy this tactic, or would we need to develop it, recruit it, or hire it? How will we acquire the necessary expertise?
- Are there any possible side-effects from this tactic (such as negative public relations)? How can we anticipate and head these off?
- In what ways might this tactic alter the demographic composition of our campaign? How can we best use this to our advantage, or head off any possible downsides?
- How are the opponents of our campaign likely to respond to our use of this tactic? What strategies can we put in place to blunt the effects of any counter-measures?
For the purposes of this exercise, I’ll include our tax refusal as a “new” tactic, since we’re just starting to roll it out and may need to refine how we go about it.
I’ll also try to flesh out the promising-sounding wear badges, emblems, or uniforms and engage in a social boycott of non-resisters tactics.
Tax Refusal
In a nutshell, how does this tactic help our campaign succeed?
We hope to cut off the Bardoli government’s revenue as a way of forcing it to the bargaining table. We also hope to demonstrate that the tax system the government has pushed through is unworkable and does not have anything resembling the consent of the governed. This tactic also helps our secondary goal of demonstrating that Indians can maintain a long-term, disciplined satyagraha campaign that challenges the government.
How will we measure the success of this tactic?
This tactic succeeds when the government meets our demands. But until that time, we can measure how well we are doing by keeping tabs on how many of us are refusing to pay and how successfully we are frustrating the government’s attempts to seize the tax money. They will help us with the recordkeeping by publishing notices of tax deficiencies.
When is our deadline for deploying this tactic, and how much time would it take us to deploy this tactic effectively?
The deadline is February 15, when tax payments are due. We just need enough time to get the word out to all of the villages in Bardoli that the anticipated tax strike is on. We must be able to maintain this campaign in the long term. It is hard to tell how long the government can hold out against us.
Who is the project lead, and what resources can be made available to that person?
We are hoping to recruit Vallabhbhai Patel to lead the campaign. If so, he will act as commander and will select and appoint officers from the existing local volunteers and from volunteers coming from the INC. We have four offices currently open, and many people have volunteered what resources they have at their disposal.
How many people from our campaign would need to devote how many hours to make this tactic work?
We are going to try to consider everybody who enlists as a member of the campaign to be under orders and able to be deployed as needed. This naturally will end up being more modestly the case in practice.
We will need volunteers to staff centers in a variety of locations throughout the district. We’re currently working on ones in Bardoli, Sarbhon, Madhi, and Vedchhi, but we may need 5–10 more. So far we haven’t had trouble recruiting staff, and we may be best off letting them come to us rather than us searching for them, as we’ll get the most enthusiastic recruits that way.
Do we have the necessary expertise in-house to deploy this tactic, or would we need to develop it, recruit it, or hire it? How will we acquire the necessary expertise?
We will need help from people with experience leading a coordinated mass campaign of this sort, which we will probably need to recruit from outside of Bardoli.
Although representatives from all the villages have stood up and pledged that they’re in this to win and are willing to sacrifice all to the cause, there are also signs that people do not realize the extent of the struggle they’re embarking on—villagers are still planning wedding parties and things of that sort as though there were not a war on. We may need to impress on people the seriousness of this undertaking.
We may also need to do more training on satyagraha, to make sure people do not deploy incompatible tactics on their own initiative.
V. Patel has experience with campaigns of this sort, and is a trusted lieutenant of Gandhiji. We have to demonstrate to him that we have a just cause and that we are committed for the long haul. He would expect to have a hierarchical organization, organized along quasi-military lines, and would also expect military-like discipline in carrying out orders.
If he signs on to our campaign, he will also probably bring in a lot of experienced leadership talent from the INC.
Are there any possible side-effects from this tactic (such as negative public relations)? How can we anticipate and head these off?
The government will of course try to paint us as unscrupulous tax evaders who want to keep all our money for ourselves and who do not appreciate with appropriate gratitude and ungrudging payment the bounties of civilization the government provides (roads and the like), but we don’t anticipate that this will make much of an impression except on those who are already prejudiced against our cause.
We have made it clear that we are willing to pay our old tax rates, without the new increase, if the government is willing either to rescind the increase or to appoint an impartial tribunal to judge its validity—and if that tribunal finds the increase to be valid, we have pledged to pay it without complaint. This should dampen some anticipated criticism.
The fact that we are bringing in leadership from outside of Bardoli leaves us open to the charge that Bardoli is buckling under to “outside agitators” who are exploiting the people of Bardoli for their own concerns (e.g. the greater goals of the nationalist movement), so we should be prepared to answer this decisively (but we subjects of the British Raj know who the real outside agitators in India are).
In what ways might this tactic alter the demographic composition of our campaign? How can we best use this to our advantage, or head off any possible downsides?
Right now, our campaign is dominated by the agriculturalists who are most hurt by the tax increase. We hope to recruit people from other groups as well, and they may have their own concerns or focuses. As our campaign builds, we may also attract more attention from outside of the region, and may need to integrate outside assistance and communication into our plans.
Vallabhbhai Patel has told us that he would want to enlist women in equal numbers to men in future meetings, especially as they will be bearing the brunt of some of the government countermeasures.
The new groups that we hope to draw into the campaign in greater numbers and in a more participatory way—such as Muslims, women, and shopkeepers—will have their own concerns and focuses and the campaign may need to adjust to make sure these are respected. If we can do this gracefully and attentively, we can strengthen the campaign, but this is also a source of potential conflict.
We may be able to provoke some friendly competition between the various classes, inspiring each to prove themselves as courageous and as worthy as the others. For example, if even the poor vethias refuse to help with property seizures, which prosperous patel would be willing to be seen betraying his neighbors in such a way?
How are the opponents of our campaign likely to respond to our use of this tactic? What strategies can we put in place to blunt the effects of such counter-measures?
The government will likely add a 25% fine to late tax payments. It also threatens to seize and sell the property of tax resisters, using the ordinary course of law for tax delinquents. It may also respond to the size and strength of the campaign (or to some of our tactics) by declaring martial law, by declaring our organization to be illegal, or by arresting its leaders.
The government will probably try to recruit local patels and menial workers to assist it in property seizures.
We should of course refuse to pay or acknowledge the justice of any fines or penalties for nonpayment, and our demands must include that these fines or penalties be removed.
The government is full of bluster about how it will seize property and how there are many ready buyers. We need to make it clear and convincing that the people of Bardoli will never acknowledge buyers of such seized property to be the legitimate owners; if we can successfully discourage seizure and/or sale we can puncture one of the government’s propaganda points and further reduce its credibility.
If the government declares martial law, possibly as an attempt to goad us into violence, we will need to redouble our commitment to nonviolence and at the same time be prepared to convincingly place the blame for any violent outbreaks on the government.
We should work quickly to discourage patels and local workers from assisting the government in property seizures.
Badges/Emblems/Uniforms
In a nutshell, how does this tactic help our campaign succeed?
We’re going to encourage people to join the khādī movement—giving up on imported fabric and flashy accessories & jewelry, and instead wearing exclusively modest homespun clothing. We hope this will:
- demonstrate our support for the larger nationalist project, and that our campaign is part of that project
- break down the class and cultural differences that divide us by making us at least visually similar and unostentatious
- reduce conspicuous consumption in the name of fashion and thereby conserve resources and make people less financially vulnerable
- serve as a uniform that helps fellow-resisters identify each other
- be a constant visual reminder of the transformation taking place in Bardoli and the determination of its people
How will we measure the success of this tactic?
On a village-by-village basis we will make an ongoing assessment of how many people in the village are wearing khādī day-to-day, with the help of our intelligence personnel and the people who are distributing our bulletins. This will tell us to what extent we are successfully deploying the tactic, but won’t tell us whether the tactic is really an effective one. That seems harder to measure. Perhaps we can look for correlations between the adoption of khādī in particular villages with greater participation in the rest of the campaign, but this too may not tell us much about the effectiveness of the tactic.
When is our deadline for deploying this tactic, and how much time would it take us to deploy this tactic effectively?
We anticipate that we will begin deploying this tactic immediately, and will continue rolling it out as long as is necessary and as long as our return on investment seems to be worthwhile relative to other priorities.
It will take some time to make all the cloth, clothing, and other supplies available. It will also take time to overcome people’s habitual clothing choices and convince them that it’s time to don their battle fatigues.
Who is the project lead, and what resources can be made available to that person?
Among the colleagues V. Patel is bringing in to help in our campaign are several who are active in the khādī movement and who will be bringing cloth and supplies with them. There is also a preexisting khādī movement in Bardoli and neighboring regions that can step up production to meet increased demand.
How many people from our campaign would need to devote how many hours to make this tactic work?
Unknown
Do we have the necessary expertise in-house to deploy this tactic, or would we need to develop it, recruit it, or hire it? How will we acquire the necessary expertise?
Some of both. We will have to revisit this question in the coming weeks to see if the resources that we have devoted to this tactic at that time are enough to meet its goals.
Are there any possible side-effects from this tactic (such as negative public relations)? How can we anticipate and head these off?
We may get push-back from some groups who for reasons of vanity or tradition are especially wedded to their current clothing choices.
Shrimati Mithuhehn belongs to a prominent Parsi family in Bombay and she has taken the lead in proselytizing about khādī in Bardoli, which may help give it some prestige among those who see it as spartan or lower-class. She is willing to travel from village to village throughout the campaign selling khādī cloth and teaching spinning.
In what ways might this tactic alter the demographic composition of our campaign? How can we best use this to our advantage, or head off any possible downsides?
This tactic embeds us more firmly in the nationwide independence movement, which might conceivably cause divided loyalties should our goals ever diverge, but which will also gain us sympathy throughout the country.
Among the Raniparaj there is some preexisting division between those who have already adopted khādī and the alcohol boycott and those who haven’t, and people may have hardened in their positions somewhat. If we handle this sensitively, we will both increase the effectiveness of our campaign and increase the penetration of these nationalist tactics among the Raniparaj, while helping to heal this division.
How are the opponents of our campaign likely to respond to our use of this tactic? What strategies can we put in place to blunt the effects of such counter-measures?
The government has few options of effective response to this tactic. We don’t anticipate any strong government countermeasures. Perhaps if fault lines develop between khādī-wearers and those people in the campaign who continue to hold out against wearing khādī, the government may try to turn this into a wedge, and we should perhaps be on the lookout for this and prepare to counteract it, but this strikes us as a desperate tactic on the government’s part that would be unlikely to bear much fruit.
Social Boycott of Non-Resisters
In a nutshell, how does this tactic help our campaign succeed?
Some people in Kadod and elsewhere have already paid their taxes. Others are not going along with the campaign’s declared strategy and are paying part of their taxes (everything but the recent increase) as a protest. Still others are playing wait-and-see before they decide whether or not to resist. Some people have signed the resistance vow, but already have plans to surrender by leaving cash in plain view for the authorities to seize in lieu of payment.
A social boycott of non-resisters will help put pressure on people like these to get with the program, and will discourage those resisters who are wavering from discontinuing their resistance.
Many members of the merchant class, who are already sort of lukewarm about the campaign and who are particularly vulnerable to property seizure, are also social peers with people in government, and may be subject to some pressure or ostracism from them if they resist; we need to provide counterbalancing pressure of our own.
How will we measure the success of this tactic?
We will measure the success of this tactic by seeing how many people in Bardoli pay the tax. We can use the government’s own figures for this, but must also be aware that they may publish or pre-announce deceptive figures, so we should be prepared to verify on-the-ground what we read or hear from them.
We can also collect individual cases in which waverers or taxpayers rejoin the resistance campaign after being targeted by social boycott methods, or perhaps measure what percentage of our targets rejoin the campaign.
When is our deadline for deploying this tactic, and how much time would it take us to deploy this tactic effectively?
We should start as soon as we carefully codify which are the appropriate targets for social boycott and which techniques are appropriate.
All calls for particular social boycotts should be approved by campaign officers, so they need to be made aware of any deserters or traitors by means of our intelligence network, and they need to analyze the situation carefully and give clear and precise orders about how to proceed. The turn-around time in any particular case will depend on the situation, the workload of the people involved, and the adequacy of the lines of communication, but we don’t anticipate delays that would prevent social boycott from being a credible deterrent.
Who is the project lead, and what resources can be made available to that person?
Vallabhbhai Patel, or whoever is the campaign commander, will establish the policy and process or will appoint someone to do so.
How many people from our campaign would need to devote how many hours to make this tactic work?
Everybody involved in the campaign is responsible for reporting deserters and for following social boycott directives to the letter. This will also require a well-functioning communication network throughout Bardoli. It is too early still to quantify the person-hour needs here.
This tactic will require officers to make informed decisions in line with campaign policy, so they will need to be trained on how to make these decisions wisely.
Do we have the necessary expertise in-house to deploy this tactic, or would we need to develop it, recruit it, or hire it? How will we acquire the necessary expertise?
Because social boycott can be practiced in a bullying, strongly coercive, harmful fashion that would violate satyagraha and be harmful to our goals, we need to have clear communication and to maintain strict discipline about the way it is practiced. People need training in what constitutes appropriate social boycotting techniques, and which targets are valid ones.
Are there any possible side-effects from this tactic (such as negative public relations)? How can we anticipate and head these off?
If we do this right, we demonstrate that people who don’t join the resistance are seen as loathsome pariahs by their neighbors. If we overdo this, however, we might be seen as bullying and it might appear that our campaign is held together only by coercion and not by voluntary solidarity.
We might be better off letting the lukewarm waverers go without much fuss. It is possible we would be a more effective campaign without them than we would by dragging them reluctantly along behind us.
It is important that our social boycott tactics do not appear to be cruel or overly coercive. We will not withhold the necessities of life in the course of our boycott (for instance, taxpayers will still be able to buy food from resisting shopkeepers; resisting doctors will not refuse to treat taxpaying patients).
Because the government may falsely claim that certain people have paid their taxes, as a way of trying to induce others to follow suit, we should ensure that we have independent evidence of taxpaying before we launch any social boycott.
In what ways might this tactic alter the demographic composition of our campaign? How can we best use this to our advantage, or head off any possible downsides?
If we succeed in this tactic, we will bring into the campaign those classes of people who have been sitting on the sidelines or who have been skeptical—and people who by and large are less enthusiastic about the campaign than its current set of volunteers.
The fact that some people will start resisting reluctantly, as the result of social boycott pressure, means that we will have some weak links in our movement and probably more grumbling complaints at our meetings.
How are the opponents of our campaign likely to respond to our use of this tactic? What strategies can we put in place to blunt the effects of such counter-measures?
The government may redouble its efforts to divide us, and may capitalize on any resentment this tactic causes in those it is targeted against.
The government may declare this tactic to be illegal and may try to interfere with it by force.
The government may try to exploit this for propaganda purposes, saying that it proves that we don’t have the support of the people.
The targets of social boycott may circle the wagons and take collective action to circumvent the effects of the boycott or to retaliate against its practitioners.
The government will certainly try to split off these least-enthusiastic resisters, perhaps by trying to make them a better offer. We may not be able to prevent this, but by making our social boycott maximally effective, we can at least make any such offer maximally expensive.
If the government declares this tactic to be illegal, we anticipate that it will have difficulty enforcing such a law against the boycott itself, but will probably pursue conspiracy charges against those who promote it. In such a case, we will need to decide whether to be more subtle in maintaining the boycott or whether to flout the law and court arrest. We will also need to respond to the government’s messaging with our own message about how social boycott is the right of the people, and laws against it are tyrannical.
If opponents of our campaign claim that we are only held together by terror and coercive pressure, we may need to convincingly demonstrate otherwise, and to have credible examples available that show that our campaign is sustained by the enthusiasm of its volunteers. We might point out also that it would be hypocritical for the British Raj to accuse us of using coercive tactics to hold our organization together.
If the targets of our social boycott were to turn the tables on us, organizing for mutual support and practicing satyagraha tactics against us, that could put us in a fix, both from a propaganda and a practical perspective. How we would respond, however, is very dependent on the details of how such a counter-campaign would take place. Given its unlikelihood, we can probably afford to cross that bridge should we come to it.