# Protest emigration

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{{Short description|Emigration as an activist tactic}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=January 2025}}
'''Protest emigration''' (also called ''hijrat'' or ''deshatyaga'' in South Asia) is the use of [emigration](/source/emigration) as an [activist](/source/activism) tactic when it is felt political change is not currently possible inside a jurisdiction. Gene Sharp in ''[The Politics of Nonviolent Action](/source/The_Politics_of_Nonviolent_Action)'' describes this as a form of social noncooperation.<ref name=":0">{{Cite book|last=Sharp|first=Gene|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=zZkUAQAAIAAJ&pg=PA211|title=The Politics of Nonviolent Action|date=1973|publisher=P. Sargent Publisher|isbn=978-0-87558-068-5|language=en}}</ref>

In some traditions, such emigrations have been symbolically analogized to the [Hijrah](/source/Hijrah) or to the [Exodus](/source/The_Exodus).

==Pre-modern class conflict==
This was a method used against local lords by peasants and lower classes in the [s''ecessio plebis''](/source/Secessio_plebis) of Ancient Rome and in Japan<ref>{{Cite book|last=Bowen|first=Roger W.|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=yLX8sDt2vsQC&pg=PA341|title=Rebellion and Democracy in Meiji Japan: A Study of Commoners in the Popular Rights Movement|date=1984|publisher=University of California Press|isbn=978-0-520-05230-7|language=en}}</ref><ref name=":0" /> as well as Southeast Asia.<ref>{{Cite book|last=Adas|first=Michael|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=AMV1DwAAQBAJ&pg=PT43|title=State, Market and Peasant in Colonial South and Southeast Asia|date=29 October 2018|publisher=Routledge|isbn=978-0-429-86630-2|language=en}}</ref> [Fugitive peasants](/source/Fugitive_peasants) were a recurring phenomenon under European serfdom. This tactic has also been noted as important to the formation of various [pre-colonial African states](/source/List_of_kingdoms_in_pre-colonial_Africa), as well as a template for later eras.<ref>{{Cite journal|last=Herbst|first=Jeffrey|date=1990|title=Migration, the Politics of Protest, and State Consolidation in Africa|url=http://www.jstor.org/stable/722241|journal=African Affairs|volume=89|issue=355|pages=183–203|doi=10.1093/oxfordjournals.afraf.a098284 |jstor=722241 |issn=0001-9909|url-access=subscription}}</ref>

==Anticolonial resistance==
This featured in several anticolonial and [decolonization](/source/decolonization) movements,<ref>{{Cite book|last1=Scott|first1=James C.|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=P_FkAgAAQBAJ&pg=PT82|title=Everyday Forms of Peasant Resistance in South-East Asia|last2=Kerkvliet|first2=Benedict J. Tria|date=19 December 2013|publisher=Routledge|isbn=978-1-317-84532-4|language=en}}</ref> including in British India, as in the [Hijrat of 1920](/source/Hijrat_of_1920) from [North-West Frontier Province](/source/North-West_Frontier_Province) to independent Afghanistan associated with [Abul Kalam Azad](/source/Abul_Kalam_Azad) of the [Khilafat Movement](/source/Khilafat_Movement),<ref>{{Cite book|last1=Clements|first1=Frank|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=bv4hzxpo424C&pg=PA109|title=Conflict in Afghanistan: A Historical Encyclopedia|last2=Adamec|first2=Ludwig W.|date=2003|publisher=ABC-CLIO|isbn=978-1-85109-402-8|language=en}}</ref> and in the 1928 [Bardoli Satyagraha](/source/Bardoli_Satyagraha) and 1930 [Salt March](/source/Salt_March) operations which included some migrations from Gujarat to the princely [Baroda State](/source/Baroda_State).<ref name=":0" /> Hijrat was a tactic commended several times by [Gandhi](/source/Mahatma_Gandhi) as appropriate to certain circumstances.<ref>{{Cite book|last=Jolly|first=Surjit Kaur|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=4aRJmXagK64C&pg=PA112|title=Reading Gandhi|date=2006|publisher=Concept Publishing Company|isbn=978-81-8069-356-4|language=en}}</ref> This tactic was also proposed but not pursued as a form of resistance to [concessions in China](/source/concessions_in_China).<ref name=":0" /> And it was also significant in emigration from [French West Africa](/source/French_West_Africa) to the [Gold Coast](/source/Gold_Coast_(British_colony)) and other colonies of British West Africa.<ref>{{Cite journal|last=Asiwaju|first=A. I.|date=1976|title=Migrations as Revolt: The Example of the Ivory Coast and the Upper Volta before 1945|url=http://www.jstor.org/stable/180740|journal=The Journal of African History|volume=17|issue=4|pages=577–594|doi=10.1017/S0021853700015073 |jstor=180740 |s2cid=161799322 |issn=0021-8537|url-access=subscription}}</ref>

==Radical federalism==
In a country under strong federalism such as the United States, protest can take the form of an internal migration through [foot voting](/source/foot_voting) to better individual lives, or in a more utopian mode, to alter the political character of a sub-national state through a directed [partisan sorting](/source/partisan_sorting).

== See also ==
* [Inner emigration](/source/Inner_emigration)

==References==
{{reflist}}

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Category:Activism by type
Category:Emigration
*
Category:Protest tactics

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Adapted from the Wikipedia article [Protest emigration](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Protest_emigration) by Wikipedia contributors ([contributor history](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Protest_emigration?action=history)). Available under [Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/). Changes may have been made.