The Traits / Sentiments: Defiance

SALT SATYAGRAHA – DANDI MARCH

• The Lahore Session (Dec 1929) of the Indian National Congress declared total independence or Purna Swaraj as its objective and in February 1930 Gandhi was given full powers to launch a Civil Disobedience Movement at a time and place of his choice.
• When Gandhi’s 11 demands made to the Viceroy Lord Irwin were completely ignored, it was then that Gandhi decided to launch a Civil Disobedience Movement by breaking the Salt Law, which he called the ‘most inhuman poll tax that the ingenuity of man can devise’.
• Gandhiji decided to march 240 miles from Sabarmati Ashram to Dandi, a seaside village in Gujarat, to break the salt tax by gathering salt from the beach.
• He made extensive preparations by explaining his programme, answering questions, and giving interviews to the press, and nominating leaders in case he was arrested.
• On the eve of the Salt March, the crowd at Sabarmati swelled to 10,000, and after the evening prayers, Gandhi delivered a memorable speech, in which he said that the movement has to be strictly non-violent.
• He explained that Salt Law can be defied in three ways – either by manufacturing salt wherever there are facilities for doing so, by selling contraband salt or by carrying away and hawking the natural salt deposits on the seashore.
• The march started from Sabarmati at 6.30 a.m. on 12 March 1930, which saw Gandhi, a frail man of 61, with a staff in hand, energetically leading a band of 78 satyagrahis.
• The roads through which he passed were watered, decorated with arches, flags and torans, and women sat spinning the charkha in villages on the way.
• Throughout his march Gandhi gave speeches on the way and many people joined him.
• On April 6, after prayers and a bath in the sea, at 8.30 a.m. he defied the Salt Law by picking up a lump of salt.
• After this, the Salt Law was broken all over the country.
• The story of the brutal police attack on a peaceful and unarmed band of volunteers who were picketing at a salt factory in Dharasana, was telegraphed to England by an American reporter Webb Miller. The story appeared in 1,350 newspapers throughout the world and was read into the official record of the United States Senate by Senator John J. Blaine.
• The movement saw a large-scale participation of women, students and the youth in activities such as boycott of foreign cloth and liquor, spinning of Khadi, carrying out Prabhat Pheris in which groups of people went around at dawn singing patriotic songs in villages and towns, circulation of Patrikas or illegal news sheets, and magic lanterns being used to popularise the movement in the villages.