What do you think is the most important ingredient in one’s food? How many of you thought of salt? Would you be able to eat your dal, sambhar, or curry without salt? Many of us probably wouldn’t even touch our food then.
That apart, salt also has an important place in the history of India’s freedom struggle. It was the salt tax law that Gandhiji targeted, when he launched the Civil Disobedience Movement. Let’s take a look at what this was all about.
What was the salt tax? Well, according to the Salt Act of 1882, only the British government in India could manufacture and sell salt. This is called a monopoly. Actually, salt can be manufactured by evaporating sea water, and many Indians living along the coast had been doing so for ages. The British, however, made this a criminal offence and forced people to buy it at high prices.
Reason for breaking the salt law
With the declaration of Purna Swaraj, on January 26, 1930, the Congress Working Committee left it to Gandhiji to decide how to launch the Civil Disobedience Movement. Most members of the Committee did not agree with his choice of breaking the salt tax law. But Gandhiji felt this law affected everybody, irrespective of their social or economic status. “Next to air and water, salt is perhaps the greatest necessity of life. It is the only condiment of the poor,” was Gandhiji’s explanation for his choice.
So, on March 12, 1930, along with 78 trusted followers from the Sabarmati Ashram, Gandhiji set out for Dandi, a small coastal village in Gujarat. As they walked the entire distance of 384km, he addressed people in the villages in their path and many joined them. All the marchers were dressed in white khadi and so the procession was known as the White Flowing River. On April 6, 1930, Gandhiji broke the salt law by picking up a handful of salt-laden mud and said, “With this, I am shaking the foundations of the British empire”.
Reactions
In India, Gandhiji’s action was repeated across the country and, by the end of April, the government had arrested 60,000 people. Indians began breaking not just the salt law, but other unfair laws as well. For the first time, women came out in large numbers to join the movement. Gandhiji had planned a raid on the Dharasana Salt Works, which was 40km south of Dandi, but was arrested before he could put that into action. However, other leaders like Abbas Tyabji and Sarojini Naidu led the Dharasana Satyagraha. The protesters met with a violent response. In the words of Webb Miller, a reporter for United Press: “Not one of the marchers even raised an arm to fend off the blows. They went down like ten-pins. From where I stood, I heard the sickening whacks of the clubs on unprotected skulls. Those struck down fell sprawling, unconscious or writhing in pain with fractured skulls or broken shoulders. In two or three minutes the ground was quilted with bodies. Great patches of blood widened on their white clothes. The survivors without breaking ranks silently and doggedly marched on until struck down...”
Importance of Salt Satyagraha
While the actual Act did not get India any concessions, the worldwide attention it received began to help the Indian cause. Other countries began to look on India’s demand for self-rule and sovereignty with sympathy. The newsreel showing the march was viewed by millions across the world and Time Magazine declared Gandhiji as the Man of the Year for 1930. It also compared the Salt Satyagraha to the American defiance of the British tax on tea.
Within India, the violence with which the British met the protests meant that the government lost all support. As Vithalbhai Patel, former Speaker of the Assembly, said, “All hope of reconciling India with the British Empire is lost forever.”
March to the museum
Dandi Kutir is a museum in Gandhinagar, Gujarat, that celebrates the life of Gandhiji. Shaped like a salt mound, in memory of the Dandi March, the structure is spread over 60,000 sq m and uses exhibits, audio-guides, sound and light shows and more to show how Gandhiji evolved from being a lawyer to the Father of the Nation. The Dandi March is represented as a wall sculpture.
For more details, visit dandi-kutir.com
