Salt Satyagraha
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The Salt Satyagraha, also known as the Salt March To Dandi, was an act of protest against the British salt tax in colonial India. Mahatma Gandhi led fellow Indians from Sabarmati Ashram to Dandi in Gujarat. The march lasted from March 12 to April 6, 1930.
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Background
At midnight on December 31, 1929, the Indian National Congress unfurled the flag of independence on the banks of Ravi at Lahore. The Indian National Congress, led by Gandhi and Jawaharlal Nehru, issued the Declaration of Independence on January 26. The Congress placed the responsibility of initiating civil disobedience on the All India Congress Committee. This campaign also had to achieve the secularization of India, uniting Hindus and Muslims. Mahatma Gandhi was convinced that non-violent civil disobedience would form the basis for any subsequent protest.
Beginning in February, Mahatma's thoughts swayed towards the British tax on salt, one of many economic means used to generate revenue that supported British colonial rule. Gandhi decided to make the salt tax the focal point of non-violent political protest. The British monopoly on the salt trade in India dictated that the sale or production of salt by anyone but the British government was a criminal offense punishable by law. Salt was readily accessible to laborers in the coastal area, but they were instead forced to pay money for a mineral which they could easily collect themselves for free. Gandhi's choice met the important criterion of appealing across regional, class, and ethnic boundaries. Everyone needed salt, and the British taxes on it had an impact on all of India.
On February 5, newspapers reported that Gandhi would begin civil disobedience by defying the salt laws.
Led by an inner voice during this period of strategic uncertainty, Gandhi used the British Government's salt tax as a catalyst for a major satyagraha campaign.
One of Gandhi's principal concepts, "satyagraha" goes beyond mere "passive resistance"; by adding the Indian word "Agraha" (persuasion) to "Satya" (Truth). For him, it was crucial that Satyagrahis found strength in their non-violent methods: "Truth (Satya) implies Love, and Firmness (Agraha) engenders and therefore serves as a synonym for force… that is to say, the Force which is born of Truth and Love or Non-violence… [If] we are Satyagrahis and offer Satyagraha, believing ourselves to be strong… we grow stronger and stronger everyday. With our increase in strength, our Satyagraha too becomes more effective, and we would never be casting about for an opportunity to give it up." --Gandhi
Protesting the salt tax as an injustice to the people of India was an ingenious choice because every peasant and every aristocrat understood the necessity of salt in everyday life. It was also a good choice because it did not alienate Congress moderates while simultaneously being an issue of enough importance to mobilize a mass following.
The March
In an effort to amend the salt tax without breaking the law, on March 2, 1930 Gandhi wrote to the Viceroy, Lord Irwin: "If my letter makes no appeal to your heart, on the eleventh day of this month I shall proceed with such co-workers of the Ashram as I can take, to disregard the provisions of the Salt Laws. I regard this tax to be the most iniquitous of all from the poor man's standpoint. As the Independence movement is essentially for the poorest in the land, the beginning will be made with this evil."
On March 12, 1930, Gandhi and approximately 78 male satyagrahis set out, on foot, for the coastal village of Dandi some 240 miles from their starting point in Sabarmati, a journey which was to last 23 days. Virtually every resident of each city along this journey watched the great procession, which was at least two miles in length. On April 6th, Gandhi raised a lump of mud and salt (some say just a pinch, some say just a grain) and declared, "With this, I am shaking the foundations of the British Empire." He then boiled it in seawater to make the commodity which no Indian could legally produce--salt.
Upon arriving at the seashore he spoke to a reporter: "God be thanked for what may be termed the happy ending of the first stage in this, for me at least, the final struggle of freedom. I cannot withhold my compliments from the government for the policy of complete non interference adopted by them throughout the march .... I wish I could believe this non-interference was due to any real change of heart or policy. The wanton disregard shown by them to popular feeling in the Legislative Assembly and their high-handed action leave no room for doubt that the policy of heartless exploitation of India is to be persisted in at any cost, and so the only interpretation I can put upon this non-interference is that the British Government, powerful though it is, is sensitive to world opinion which will not tolerate repression of extreme political agitation which civil disobedience undoubtedly is, so long as disobedience remains civil and therefore necessarily non-violent .... It remains to be seen whether the Government will tolerate as they have tolerated the march, the actual breach of the salt laws by countless people from tomorrow. I expect extensive popular response to the resolution of the Working Committee (of the Indian National Congress)."
He implored his thousands of followers to begin to make salt wherever, along the seashore, "was most convenient and comfortable" to them. A "war" on the salt tax was to be continued during the National Week, that is, up to the thirteenth of April. There was an also simultaneous boycott of British made cloth/goods. Salt was sold, "illegally", all over the seacoast of India. A pinch of salt from Gandhi himself sold for 1,600 rupees, perhaps $750 dollars at the time. In reaction to this, the British government had incarcerated over sixty thousand people at the end of the month.
On the night of May 4th, Gandhi was sleeping in a cot under a mango tree, at a village near Dandi. Several ashramites slept near him. Soon after midnight the District Magistrate of Surat drove up with two Indian officers and thirty heavily-armed constables. He woke Gandhi by shining a torch in his face, and arrested him under a regulation of 1827.
Aftermath
The effects of the salt march were felt across India. Thousands of people made salt, or bought illegal salt. As the march mobilized many new followers from all of Indian society, it came to the world's attention. Tens of thousands of Indians were arrested for buying and selling salt illegally, however the Viceroy ordered his troops to arrest Gandhi last. After Gandhi's released from prison he continued to work towards Indian independence, which was achieved in August, 1947, but Dandi was a key turning point in that struggle.
Re-enactment in 2005
To commemorate the Great Salt March, the Mahatma Gandhi Foundation proposed a re-enactment on the 75th anniversary. The event was known as the "International Walk for Peace, Justice and Freedom." Mahatma Gandhi's great-grandson Tushar Gandhi and several hundred fellow marchers followed the same route to Dandi and planned to take a similar amount of time to walk it. The start of the march on March 12, 2005 in Ahmedabad was attended by Sonia Gandhi (no familial relations), Chairperson of the National Advisory Council, as well as nearly half of the Indian cabinet, many of whom walked for the first few kilometres. The commemoration ended on April 7, with the participants finally halting at Dandi on the night of April 5.
Event Description from saltmarch.org.in:
- Dates: 12th March 2005 to 7th April 2005.
- Duration: 27 Days.
- Start and Finish: Sabarmati Ashram (Ahmedabad) to Mumbai.
- Walking Distance: 241 miles or 385.6 km in total. Participants will walk an average 9.64 miles per day for 25 days.
See also
External links
- How Not To Make A Mockery Of Dandi (http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/articleshow/msid-1052941,curpg-1.cms) (www.economictimes.com)
- Salt march slide pack (http://specials.rediff.com/news/2005/mar/15sld1.htm) (Rediff.com)
- The Salt March (http://www.saltmarch.org.in/home.html)
- Gandhi's 1930 march re-enacted (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/4342745.stm) (BBC News)
- Gandhi salt march re-enacted (http://www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems/200503/s1322143.htm) (Aust. BC)
- Now, Dandi looks westward for help (http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/articleshow/1051722.cms) (TOI)