Gandhi believed that he would be arrested once he broke the salt law and thus had nominated his close confidants, Sarojini Naidu and Abbas Tyabji, to succeed him as leaders of the Salt Satyagraha, which he correctly predicted would spread throughout India.

None of the seventy-nine volunteers who set out with Gandhiji on the Salt March were women. But during the Satyagraha that followed, unprecedented numbers of women throughout India including Kasturba joined the struggle upon Mahatma Gandhi's encouragement.