Salt monopoly
Also called: Salt tax · Topic: The National Movement: Gandhian Era · NCERT: Class 12, Ch 3 "Mahatma Gandhi and the Nationalist Movement"
Meaning
Under British rule, only the government was allowed to make and sell salt. This is called a monopoly. The government also taxed salt heavily. Everyone needs salt, rich or poor, so the tax hurt every Indian, and the poorest most of all. Gandhi called it a "fourfold curse":
- it took away a village industry;
- it destroyed salt that nature made freely;
- destroying that salt cost public money;
- it was taxed at "more than 1,000 per cent".
This made salt the perfect symbol for the 1930 Civil Disobedience Movement.
Example
On 6 April 1930, at Dandi in Gujarat, Gandhi made salt from boiled sea water and broke the salt law. Soon people across India were making salt in defiance of the law.
Don't confuse with
- Eleven demands (31 January 1930): the full list of demands Gandhi sent to Viceroy Irwin. Ending the salt tax was only one of the eleven, though it was the most important.
Related concepts
- Eleven demands of Gandhi 1930
- Salt satyagraha
- Sabarmati Ashram
- Civil disobedience movement
- Vedaranyam salt march
- Dharasana satyagraha 1930
- Sarojini Naidu
- Abdul Ghaffar Khan
- Khudai Khidmatgar
- Garhwali soldiers at Peshawar 1930