Civil disobedience becomes a sacred duty when the State becomes lawless or corrupt.

The circulating sentence compresses the actual sentence by dropping therefore and replacing has become lawless, or which is the same thing, corrupt with becomes lawless or corrupt. Wikiquote pairs that condensed wording with a 5 March 1931 reference. Directly checked OCR and the published transcription in The Voice of Truth instead locate this passage in The Immediate Issue, Young India, 5 January 1922, reproduced in Collected Works, vol. XXII, p. 143. This run has not established who first condensed it or whether Gandhi repeated it in 1931.

Gandhi puts freedom of speech and association ahead of further negotiations over self-rule. He distinguishes unarmed civil resistance from criminal disobedience, arguing that suppressing the former is an attempt to imprison conscience. He immediately adds that its use must be restricted to avoid violence and general lawlessness.

When a state acts unlawfully, principled and nonviolent refusal to cooperate can become a citizen’s duty, rather than merely a right.

The short form can sound like permission for any kind of rebellion. Gandhi specifically insists on unarmed resistance, restraint, and preventing violence; he also allows debate about the timing and wisdom of particular acts.

• ShortenedCivil disobedience becomes a sacred duty when the State becomes lawless or corrupt. Drops therefore and condenses Gandhi’s equivalence of lawlessness and corruption into a short alternative. The 1931 citation supplied on Wikiquote is not the date of the directly checked 1922 passage. Where it was seen

Power, Society, Politics, Morality, Wisdom

• Freedom is not worth having if it does not connote freedom to err and even to sin.
• My nationalism, fierce though it is, is not exclusive, is not devised to harm any nation or individual.
• Natural justice is a symbol or expression of expediency, to prevent one man from harming or being harmed by another. Epicurus
• Nevertheless, it is necessary to remember that a planned economy is not yet socialism. Albert Einstein
• Whoso would be a man, must be a nonconformist. Ralph Waldo Emerson

• mkgandhi.org/voiceoftruth/civildisobedience.php
• en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Mahatma_Gandhi

“Civil disobedience becomes a sacred duty when the State becomes lawless or corrupt.” Attributed to Mahatma Gandhi. Not in these words. The idea is in Articles in Indian Opinion, Young India and Harijan (1922), The Immediate Issue, Young India, 5 January 1922, p. 5; Collected Works, vol. XXII, item 65, p. 143. Quotogeny, https://quotogeny.com/q/civil-disobedience-becomes-a-sacred-duty/ (checked 30 October 2026).

Have a different wording, or a source we missed? Check it or submit it.

Do you hold the rights to anything on this page? Tell us.