Salt March in Gujarat, India (1930)

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The Salt March, also known as the Dandi March and the Salt Satyagraha, was a march initiated by Mohandas Gandhi to illegally produce salt from seawater. It began on 12 March 1930, and was a direct action campaign of tax resistance and nonviolent protest against the British salt monopoly in colonial India. The march became an important part of the Indian independence movement and started the nationwide Civil Disobedience Movement. The march was the most significant organised challenge to British authority since the Non-cooperation movement of 1920–22, and directly followed the Purna Swaraj declaration of independence by the Indian National Congress on 26 January 1930.[1] Gandhi (commonly known as Mahatma Gandhi) led the Dandi March from his base, Sabarmati Ashram, near the city of Ahmedabad. 78 people began the march with Gandhi, who intended to walk 240 miles (390 km) to the coastal village of Dandi, which was located at a small town called Navsari in the state of Gujarat. As Gandhi and the others continued on what would become a 24-day march to Dandi to produce salt without paying the tax, growing numbers of Indians joined them along the way. When Gandhi broke the salt laws at 6:30 am on 6 April 1930, it sparked large scale acts of civil disobedience against the British Raj salt laws by millions of Indians.[2] The campaign had a significant effect on changing world and British attitudes towards Indian independence[3][4] and caused large numbers of Indians to join the fight for the first time. After making salt at Dandi, Gandhi continued southward along the coast, producing salt and addressing meetings on the way. The Congress Party planned to stage a satyagraha at the Dharasana Salt Works, 25 miles south of Dandi. However, Gandhi was arrested on the midnight of 4–5 May 1930, just days before the planned action at Dharasana. The Dandi March and the ensuing Dharasana Satyagraha drew worldwide attention to the Indian independence movement through extensive newspaper and newsreel coverage. The satyagraha against the salt tax continued for almost a year, ending with Gandhi's release from jail and negotiations with Viceroy Lord Irwin at the Second Round Table Conference.[5] Over 80,000 Indians were jailed as a result of the Salt Satyagraha.[6] However, it failed to result in major concessions from the British.[7] The Salt Satyagraha campaign was based upon Gandhi's principles of nonviolent protest called satyagraha, which he loosely translated as "truth-force" or "truthful demand"."[8] Literally, it is formed from the Sanskrit words satya, "truth", and agraha, "demand". In early 1930 the Indian National Congress chose satyagraha as their main tactic for winning Indian independence from British rule and appointed Gandhi to organise the campaign. Gandhi chose the 1882 British Salt Act as the first target of satyagraha. The Salt March to Dandi, and the beating by British police of hundreds of nonviolent protesters in Dharasana, which received worldwide news coverage, demonstrated the effective use of civil disobedience as a technique for fighting social and political injustice.[9] The satyagraha teachings of Gandhi and the March to Dandi had a significant influence on American activists Martin Luther King, Jr., James Bevel, and others during the movement for civil rights for blacks and other minority groups in the 1960s. Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salt_March ________________________________________________________________ Attribution / Credits: Author is unknown [Public domain or Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons. Source: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Salt_March.ogg Source: http://streams.gandhiserve.org/see_the_mahatma.html This work is in the public domain in India because its term of copyright has expired.