The Salt Satyagraha

The Salt Satyagraha: A Case Study

After the Non-cooperation Movement ended, Mahatma Gandhi spent several years focused on social reform. By 1928, he began preparing to re-enter politics. That year, an all-India campaign opposed the all-White Simon Commission sent from England to inquire into conditions in the colony. Gandhiji did not participate directly but gave it his blessings, as he also did for a peasant satyagraha in Bardoli.

In December 1929, the Congress held its annual session in Lahore. This meeting was significant for two reasons: the election of Jawaharlal Nehru as President, which marked the passing of leadership to the younger generation, and the proclamation of commitment to "Purna Swaraj", or complete independence.

The pace of politics now quickened. On 26 January 1930, "Independence Day" was observed across the country. The national flag was hoisted at different venues, and patriotic songs were sung. Gandhiji issued precise instructions for how the day should be observed. He said it would be good if the declaration of independence was made by whole villages and whole cities, and suggested that all meetings be held at the identical minute in all places. The time of the meeting was to be advertised in the traditional way, by the beating of drums. The celebrations would begin with hoisting the national flag, and the rest of the day would be spent in constructive work — spinning, service of "untouchables", reunion of Hindus and Muslims, or prohibition work. Participants would take a pledge affirming that it was "the inalienable right of the Indian people, as of any other people, to have freedom and to enjoy the fruits of their toil", and that if any government deprives a people of these rights and oppresses them, the people have a further right to alter it or abolish it.

Dandi

Soon after Independence Day, Mahatma Gandhi announced that he would lead a march to break one of the most widely disliked laws in British India — the state monopoly on the manufacture and sale of salt. His choice of the salt monopoly was another illustration of his tactical wisdom. Salt was indispensable in every Indian household, yet people were forbidden from making salt even for domestic use, compelling them to buy it from shops at a high price. The state monopoly over salt was deeply unpopular; by making it his target, Gandhiji hoped to mobilise widespread discontent against British rule.

The British Raj apparently did not grasp the significance of the challenge. Although Gandhiji had given advance notice of his "Salt March" to the Viceroy, Lord Irwin, Irwin failed to understand its importance. On 12 March 1930, Gandhiji began walking from his ashram at Sabarmati towards the ocean. He reached his destination three weeks later, making a fistful of salt as he did so, thereby making himself a criminal in the eyes of the law. Meanwhile, parallel salt marches were being conducted in other parts of the country.

Why salt was chosen as the symbol of protest

Gandhiji wrote that the salt tax was a "fourfold curse":

• It deprived people of a valuable and easy village industry
• It involved wanton destruction of property that nature produces in abundance
• The destruction itself meant more national expenditure
• It exacted an unheard-of tax of more than 1,000 per cent from a starving people

The government destroyed salt it could not sell profitably, preventing the public from manufacturing it and destroying what nature produced without effort. Gandhiji described this as a "wicked dog-in-the-manger policy". He noted that tons of salt were destroyed on the Konkan coast and at Dandi. Wherever natural salt was available, salt officers were posted solely to carry out destruction. This tax had remained so long because of public apathy, but now that the public was sufficiently roused, the tax had to go.

As with Non-cooperation, there were numerous other streams of protest beyond the officially sanctioned nationalist campaign. Across large parts of India, peasants breached the hated colonial forest laws that kept them and their cattle out of the woods where they had once roamed freely. In some towns, factory workers went on strike, lawyers boycotted British courts, and students refused to attend government-run educational institutions. As in 1920-22, Gandhiji's call encouraged Indians of all classes to make manifest their own discontent with colonial rule.

The rulers responded by detaining dissenters. In the wake of the Salt March, nearly 60,000 Indians were arrested, including Gandhiji himself.

The progress of the march as seen through police reports

The progress of the march can be traced from secret reports filed by police officials deputed to monitor his movements. These reports reproduce the speeches he gave at villages along the route, in which he called upon local officials to renounce government employment and join the freedom struggle. In one village, Wasna, Gandhiji told the upper castes that if they wanted Swaraj, they must serve untouchables. He said they would not get Swaraj merely by the repeal of salt taxes or other taxes — for Swaraj, they had to make amends for the wrongs done to untouchables, and Hindus, Muslims, Parsis and Sikhs would have to unite.

The police spies reported that Gandhiji's meetings were very well attended by villagers of all castes, and by women as well as men. They observed that thousands of volunteers were flocking to the nationalist cause, including many officials who had resigned from their posts with the colonial government. The District Superintendent of Police remarked that Gandhiji appeared calm and collected, and was gathering more strength as he proceeded.

The march as seen through the American press

The American newsmagazine Time initially scorned Gandhiji's looks, writing with disdain of his "spindly frame" and "spidery loins". It was deeply sceptical of the Salt March reaching its destination, claiming that Gandhiji "sank to the ground" at the end of the second day's walking, and did not believe the "emaciated saint" would be physically able to go much further. But within a week, Time had changed its mind. The massive popular following that the march had garnered, it wrote, had made the British rulers "desperately anxious". Gandhiji himself they now saluted as a "Saint" and "Statesman", who was using "Christian acts as a weapon against men with Christian beliefs".

Dialogues

The Salt March was notable for at least three reasons.

First, it was this event that first brought Mahatma Gandhi to world attention. The march was widely covered by the European and American press.

Second, it was the first nationalist activity in which women participated in large numbers. The socialist activist Kamaladevi Chattopadhyay had persuaded Gandhiji not to restrict the protests to men alone. Kamaladevi was herself one of numerous women who courted arrest by breaking the salt or liquor laws.

Third, and perhaps most significant, it was the Salt March that forced upon the British the realisation that their Raj would not last forever, and that they would have to devolve some power to the Indians. To that end, the British government convened a series of "Round Table Conferences" in London. The first meeting was held in November 1930, but without the pre-eminent political leader in India, rendering it an exercise in futility.

Gandhiji was released from jail in January 1931 and the following month had several long meetings with the Viceroy. These culminated in what was called the "Gandhi-Irwin Pact", by the terms of which civil disobedience would be called off, all prisoners released, and salt manufacture allowed along the coast. The pact was criticised by radical nationalists, for Gandhiji was unable to obtain from the Viceroy a commitment to political independence for Indians; he could obtain merely an assurance of talks towards that possible end.

A second Round Table Conference was held in London in the latter part of 1931. Here, Gandhiji represented the Congress. However, his claims that his party represented all of India came under challenge from three parties:

• The Muslim League, which claimed to stand for the interests of the Muslim minority
• The Princes, who claimed that the Congress had no stake in their territories
• B.R. Ambedkar, who argued that Gandhiji and the Congress did not really represent the lowest castes

The debate over separate electorates

At the Round Table Conference, Mahatma Gandhi stated his arguments against separate electorates for the Depressed Classes. He believed that separate electorates would ensure them "bondage in perpetuity" and perpetuate the stigma of untouchability. What was needed, he said, was destruction of untouchability itself.

Ambedkar responded by arguing that the Depressed Classes were a class not in a position to sustain itself in the struggle for existence. The religion to which they were tied branded them as lepers, not fit for ordinary intercourse. Economically, they were entirely dependent upon high-caste Hindus for earning their daily bread, with no independent way of living open to them. All ways were closed by reason of social prejudices, and there was a definite attempt throughout Hindu society to bolt every possible door so as not to allow the Depressed Classes any opportunity to rise. In these circumstances, Ambedkar argued, some share of political power was a paramount necessity for a community so handicapped to succeed in the struggle for life against organised tyranny.

The Conference in London was inconclusive, so Gandhiji returned to India and resumed civil disobedience. The new Viceroy, Lord Willingdon, was deeply unsympathetic to the Indian leader. In a private letter to his sister, Willingdon wrote that at the bottom of every move Gandhiji made, which he always said was inspired by God, one discovered political manoeuvre. He noted that the American press was calling Gandhiji a wonderful man, but that the British lived in the midst of very unpractical, mystical, and superstitious folk who looked upon Gandhi as something holy. …