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Gandhi and the 1930 Salt March
The Salt March
In 1930, Gandhi led the Salt March – a transformative event in the history of Indian independence.
A British monopoly on salt made it illegal for Indian people to collect this basic necessity.
In a letter to the British Viceroy of India, Gandhi declared his intention to break the salt laws:
the conviction is growing deeper and deeper in me that nothing but… non-violence can check the organized violence of the British Government. Many think that non-violence is not an active force. My experience… shows that non-violence can be an intensely active force. It is my purpose to set in motion that force as well against the organized violent force of the British rule as [against] the unorganized violent force of the growing party of violence… This non-violence will be expressed through civil disobedience, for the moment confined to the inmates of the Satyagraha Ashram, but ultimately designed to cover all those who choose to join the movement… I know that in embarking on non-violence I shall be running what might fairly be termed a mad risk. But the victories of truth have never been won without risks, often of the gravest character.
Gandhi left his ashram with seventy eight volunteers on a march to Dandi, a village on the sea coast, over 400 kilometres away. Thousands looked on as they departed, and thousands more gathered as they walked from village to village along the route.
With people across the country and across the world looking on, Gandhi publicly broke British laws by collecting salt by the sea. His action took place as Indians marked an important anniversary – it the first day of the week that the independence movement commemorated the 1919 Jallianwala Bagh massacre in Amritsar.
The Guardian newspaper reported
The great test has come for “Mahatma” Gandhi, the Indian Nationalist leader, in his efforts to obtain the complete independence of India from British rule. Wading into the sea this morning… Gandhi and his followers broke the salt monopoly laws and so inaugurated the campaign of mass civil disobedience.
Gandhi’s actions electrified the nation.
Video:
Gandhi’s influence on the 1960s US Civil Rights Movement
Video excerpt from PBS series “Freedom Riders” on how Gandhian nonviolence inspired civil rights activism in the US in the 1960s.
Influence of Gandhi on Martin Luther King: Dr. King describes the difference Gandhi made to his thinking and work (see also this interview).
‘Gandhi’s Journey and the Power of Nonviolence’
Video presentation by Gandhi scholar Dennis Dalton.
‘A Force More Powerful’
The documentary A Force More Powerful tells the story of the Salt March.
The film highlights:
- Gandhi’s instinct for political theatre
- his effort to withdraw Indian consent to foreign rule
- the dilemma created for the British: if they arrest him, India will rise up in protest. If he is allowed to break the law, British control will be lost
- how the march was used as a platform to mobilise the whole country
- how Gandhi escalated from collecting salt by the sea to raiding the Dharasana Salt Works, leading to a national uprising.
The difference it made
In Gandhi Wields the Weapon of Moral Power, Gene Sharp notes that in choosing salt, Gandhi could hardly have chosen ‘an issue that touched directly the lives of more people’ (p.73). Gandhi wrote that the Government ‘steals the people’s salt and makes them pay heavily for the stolen article’ (Young India, 27 February, 1930).
Indian independence leader – and India’s first Prime Minister – Jawaharlal Nehru, recalls the impact of Gandhi’s work:
And then Gandhi came. He was like a powerful current of fresh air that made us stretch ourselves and take deep breaths; like a beam of light that pierced the darkness and removed the scales from our eyes; like a whirlwind that upset many things, but most of all the working of people’s minds.
See Nehru on Gandhi and the Salt March.
Thomas Weber writes about the impact of the march:
Talking with those old enough to remember the heady days… the consistent response is that the event transformed the feeling in the country from one of pessimism to revolution, that nothing that could now be said about that time could possibly capture the intense sense of drama and wonder that surrounded that event that the movement changed forever the processes of political activism and hence the face of India’s history (p 479).
Sharp highlights how there was pressure within the independence movement at the time for a declaration of independence followed by a war of independence (p.56). Some resorted to political terrorism. Negotiations with the government had failed (p.65). Gandhi wanted the independence movement to generate ‘power within to enforce our will’.
Strategies and assessments
As the march went from village to village, bonfires were made of foreign cloth, protesting British control of the clothing industry. Villagers were mobilised to wear home-spun khadi cloth and to defy the salt laws. Following the march, ‘illegal’ salt was gathered and auctioned to the public. Sharp records the ‘non-violent insurrection [that proceeded] throughout the country’ (p. 152), including, protests, arrests, imprisonments, boycotts, resignations from government positions, fasts, mass parades and refusals to pay land revenue. The impact was international, with responses from Indonesia to Germany to Kenya and the USA.
Kurtz (2009) summarises how the Salt March featured an array of strategic actions including nonviolent protest and persuasion, social noncooperation, and economic noncooperation.
Beautiful Trouble attributes the success of the Salt March to factors including:
• the ‘profound cultural resonance’ of the march for Indians across lines of caste and class
• the need for a tangible expression or manifestation of demands for the abstract goals of independence
• the opportunities is created for expanding the independence movement
• the way that salt made demands for ‘the esoteric, long-term goal of independence’ concrete and immediate.
• providing movement supporters with a channel to participate and take action (which replicated Gandhi’s own action: ‘It also provided a way for anyone with access to seawater — upper class or untouchable, Hindu or Muslim — to participate’).
• linking an improvement in quality of life to political aspirations for independence
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