Operation Gandhi was a pacifist group in Britain that carried out the country’s first nonviolent direct action protests in 1952. In 1949 the pacifist

Peace Pledge Union The Peace Pledge Union (PPU) is a non-governmental organisation that promotes pacifism, based in the United Kingdom. Its members are signatories to the following pledge: "War is a crime against humanity. I renounce war, and am therefore determin ...

(PPU) responded to its relative inertia and to calls for more action by holding a conference on 5 November, which led to the establishment of seven “Commissions” to explore the best ways of moving forward. One of these was the Nonviolence Commission. Members of the commission took it upon themselves to explore the question of civil disobedience. Subsequently, at the beginning of 1952, many members of the commission dissatisfied with a lack of action formed a ginger group, not formally affiliated to the PPU, initially known as Operation Gandhi, and then as the Nonviolent Resistance Group. The PPU had been interested in the teachings of

Gandhi Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi (; ; 2 October 1869 – 30 January 1948), popularly known as Mahatma Gandhi, was an Indian lawyer, anti-colonial nationalist Quote: "... marks Gandhi as a hybrid cosmopolitan figure who transformed ... anti- ...

and the possibility of translating them into actions in the United Kingdom. Between 1936, when ''

Peace News ''Peace News'' (''PN'') is a pacifist magazine first published on 6 June 1936 to serve the peace movement in the United Kingdom. From later in 1936 to April 1961 it was the official paper of the Peace Pledge Union (PPU), and from 1990 to 2004 w ...

'' was founded, and 1957, it had almost 350 articles on related topics. However, within the PPU there was significant opposition to the concept of civil disobedience. At the end of 1951

Hugh Brock Hugh Brock (1914–1985) was a lifelong British pacifist, editor of '' Peace News'' between 1955 and 1964, a promoter of nonviolent direct action and a founder of the Direct Action Committee, a forerunner of the Committee of 100. ''Peace News'' H ...

, who subsequently became editor of ''Peace News'', proposed the formation of Operation Gandhi, for which he had already drawn up a plan of action. Its activities began with a sit-down outside the

War Office The War Office was a department of the British Government responsible for the administration of the British Army between 1857 and 1964, when its functions were transferred to the new Ministry of Defence (MoD). This article contains text from ...

on 11 January 1952. Eleven protesters squatted in front of the War Office, having first notified the police. Following principles of nonviolence, the protesters did not resist arrest, and in court pleaded guilty to charges of obstructing the police. There were other protests at Aldermaston, Mildenhall,

Porton Down Porton Down is a science park in Wiltshire, England, just northeast of the village of Porton, near Salisbury. It is home to two British government facilities: a site of the Ministry of Defence's Defence Science and Technology Laboratory (Dstl ...

and the Atomic Energy Research Establishment at Harwell. The protest march to Aldermaston in 1952 involved just 35 people and paved the way for the much larger

Aldermaston Marches The Aldermaston marches were anti-nuclear weapons demonstrations in the 1950s and 1960s, taking place on Easter weekend between the Atomic Weapons Research Establishment at Aldermaston in Berkshire, England, and London, over a distance of fifty ...

begun by the

Direct Action Committee The Direct Action Committee Against Nuclear War or the Direct Action Committee (DAC) was a pacifist organisation formed "to assist the conducting of non-violent direct action to obtain the total renunciation of nuclear war and its weapons by ...

against nuclear war in 1958 and continued by

CND The Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CND) is an organisation that advocates unilateral nuclear disarmament by the United Kingdom, international nuclear disarmament and tighter international arms regulation through agreements such as the Nucle ...

. Brock, Hugh, "Marching to Aldermaston - ten years ago!", Sanity, Good Friday, 1962 Indeed, Operation Gandhi can be said to have paved the way for all subsequent nonviolent direct action in the UK, including protests against nuclear weapons by the Direct Action Committee, by the Committee of 100 and by others. Operation Gandhi did not last long. It changed its name to the Nonviolent Resistance Group, and by 1954 had been re-absorbed into the PPU's Nonviolence Commission.

References

{{anti-war Peace organisations based in the United Kingdom