AI-generated practice question — model-generated for extra practice, not a previous-year CBSE board question.
Non-Cooperation Movement (1921): People were asked to withdraw from colonial institutions — surrender titles, boycott schools, courts, councils, and foreign goods. The focus was on refusing to participate in the existing system.
Civil Disobedience Movement (1930): People were asked to actively break colonial laws — Gandhi began by violating the Salt Law at Dandi. Citizens became law-breakers, not merely non-participants.
This made CDM more radical because passive withdrawal was replaced by direct, deliberate defiance of British authority. Non-cooperation aimed to make the colonial system unworkable; civil disobedience challenged its very legitimacy by openly violating it, inviting arrest and confronting the law head-on.
Source: Chapter 2 — Why Non-cooperation?, Towards Civil Disobedience
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Examiners want you to identify the core difference clearly: one = withdrawal/boycott; the other = active law-breaking. Then explain why that distinction makes CDM more radical — the shift from passive to active defiance is the key conceptual leap. Don't list events; focus on the nature of the action. A 3-mark answer needs a clear distinction + one well-explained reason.