Salt satyagraha

Also called: Salt march, Dandi march · Topic: The National Movement: Gandhian Era · NCERT: Class 10, Ch 2 "Nationalism in India"; Class 12, Ch 3 "Mahatma Gandhi and the Nationalist Movement"

Meaning

The Salt Satyagraha (also called the Salt March or Dandi March) was Gandhi's protest against the salt tax. He walked with 78 volunteers from Sabarmati Ashram, starting on 12 March 1930, to the coastal village of Dandi in Gujarat. There, on 6 April 1930, he broke the salt law by making salt from boiled sea water. This act began the Civil Disobedience Movement.

It matters because it took a tax on the poorest person's food and made it a law that every Indian could break with their own hands. Newspapers around the world followed the march, and it brought women into the national movement in large numbers for the first time.

Explanation

Background: the eleven demands and why salt was chosen

• 31 January 1930: Gandhi wrote to Viceroy Lord Irwin and set out eleven demands.
• He chose demands that touched all classes, from rich industrialists to the poorest peasants.

• He gave a deadline. If the demands were not met by 11 March 1930, Congress would start civil disobedience (openly breaking unjust laws, peacefully).

• The most important demand was to abolish the salt tax.

• Why salt was the right target:
• Everyone eats salt, rich and poor, in every province.
• The colonial state had a monopoly over making and selling salt. Only the government could make or sell it, so an ordinary person who made salt was breaking the law.

• Gandhi called the salt tax a "fourfold curse". He said salt was taxed "more than 1,000 per cent" of its value.

• Result: salt was both a moral issue (a tax on the poor man's food) and a practical one (a law anyone could break, anywhere).

The Dandi March, step by step

• 12 March 1930: the march left Sabarmati Ashram with 78 trusted volunteers.
• The marchers walked about 240 miles (roughly 385 km) in around 24 days, which is about 10 miles a day. [2]
• The march was slow on purpose:
• Each day the group stopped in a different village.
• Crowds kept growing as Gandhi explained why the tax was unfair to the poor.

• Hundreds more people joined the core group along the way. [2]

• 6 April 1930: at Dandi, Gandhi broke the salt law by making salt from boiled sea water.

• His message: "when a whole nation is roused… no leader is necessary." Every village could now make its own salt without waiting for orders.

How it grew into Civil Disobedience

• After Dandi, people did not just refuse to cooperate. They broke colonial laws openly:
• Salt was made along the coast and inland.
• Foreign cloth was boycotted, and shops that sold it were picketed.
• Liquor shops were picketed (protesters stood outside to stop customers going in). This also cut the government's excise income.
• People refused to pay revenue and the chaukidari tax (a village tax that paid for the village watchman).
• Village officials resigned from their posts.

• Forest people broke forest laws by collecting wood and grazing cattle in areas the state had closed.

• Repression:

• April 1930: Khan Abdul Ghaffar Khan was arrested. Crowds in Peshawar faced armoured cars and police firing, and many were killed.
• About a month later (early May 1930): Gandhi himself was arrested. [2]
• Workers in Sholapur attacked symbols of British rule: police posts, municipal buildings, law courts and railway stations.
• 21 May 1930, Dharasana Salt Works: about 2,500 peaceful marchers, led by Sarojini Naidu, walked towards the salt works. Police beat them down row after row, and they did not hit back. [4]
• Arrests: about 60,000 in the months after the march (Class 12 figure) and about 100,000 across the whole movement (Class 10 figure). [2][4]

Results: the pact, the conferences and the end

• January 1931: Gandhi was released, and talks with Irwin followed. [2]
• Gandhi–Irwin Pact, 5 March 1931:
• Gandhi called off the Civil Disobedience Movement.
• The government released political prisoners.
• Indians were allowed to make salt along the coast for their own use. [2][3]

• There was no promise of independence or self-government.

• Second Round Table Conference (September–December 1931): Gandhi attended as the sole Congress representative. The conference failed over communal representation (which community gets reserved seats). [3]

• Lord Willingdon, the next Viceroy, then declared Congress illegal and jailed its leaders. Congress restarted civil disobedience, but it lost momentum by 1934 and was withdrawn.

Time, place and evidence

• Period: the Gandhian phase of the national movement. The march ran from 12 March to 6 April 1930, and the wider Civil Disobedience Movement from 1930 to 1934.
• Viceroys: Lord Irwin (the ultimatum and the pact) and Lord Willingdon (the crackdown after the Second RTC).
• Key places:
• Sabarmati Ashram, where the march started.
• Dandi, a coastal village in Gujarat, where the salt law was broken.
• Dharasana Salt Works, scene of the 21 May 1930 raid.

• Peshawar and Sholapur, scenes of unrest and repression.

• Key people: Gandhi; Lord Irwin; Khan Abdul Ghaffar Khan; Sarojini Naidu; Kamaladevi Chattopadhyay, who persuaded Gandhi not to keep the protest to men only; Lord Willingdon.

• How we know about it:
• Gandhi's letter to Irwin (31 January 1930), which listed the eleven demands.
• Daily foreign press reports. The American magazine Time first mocked Gandhi's "spindly legs" but later called him a "Saint and Statesman".

• NCERT accounts (Class 10 and Class 12) and Britannica.

• Sources differ on the details: Britannica says the marchers reached Dandi on 5 April and that on the morning of 6 April Gandhi "picked up handfuls of salt" from the shore. NCERT says he made salt by boiling sea water on 6 April. Use the NCERT version in the exam. [2]

Don't confuse with

• Non-Cooperation Movement (1920–22): in NCM, Indians refused to cooperate by giving up titles, schools, courts and foreign cloth. In CDM (1930), they went further and openly broke laws, such as the salt law.
• Dharasana Salt Satyagraha (21 May 1930): this was a separate raid on a salt works, led by Sarojini Naidu after Gandhi's arrest. It was not the Dandi March, which Gandhi led himself.
• Gandhi–Irwin Pact (5 March 1931) vs Poona Pact (1932): the Gandhi–Irwin Pact ended CDM and allowed coastal salt-making. The Poona Pact settled the Depressed Classes question with Ambedkar, which grew out of the failure of the Second RTC.
• First RTC (November 1930) vs Second RTC (September–December 1931): the first was held without Congress because its leaders were in jail. Gandhi attended only the second.

Prelims Hooks

• Gandhi's letter to Lord Irwin with eleven demands was written on 31 January 1930. The ultimatum ran out on 11 March 1930.
• The Dandi March began on 12 March 1930 from Sabarmati Ashram with 78 volunteers. It covered about 240 miles (385 km) in about 24 days. [2]
• Gandhi broke the salt law at Dandi on 6 April 1930 by making salt from boiled sea water. He called the salt tax a "fourfold curse".
• Order of events: Dandi (April 1930) → Ghaffar Khan's arrest and the Peshawar firing (April 1930) → Gandhi's arrest (May 1930) → Dharasana raid (21 May 1930) → First RTC (November 1930) → Gandhi–Irwin Pact (5 March 1931) → Second RTC (September–December 1931).
• Trap: the Gandhi–Irwin Pact allowed coastal salt-making for personal use and the release of prisoners, but made no commitment to independence. [2][3]
• At the Second RTC, Gandhi's claim to speak for all India was challenged by the Muslim League, the Princes and Dr B.R. Ambedkar. [3]

Mains Points

• Why salt was a clever political choice:
• The richest merchant and the poorest labourer could break the salt law in the same way, on the same day.
• Unlike NCM's boycotts, which cost students their degrees and lawyers their practice, making salt cost nothing and could be done in any coastal village.

• It turned a political demand into a mass act that spread by itself, which is what Gandhi meant by "no leader is necessary".

• Gandhi–Irwin Pact: victory or retreat?

• Gains: prisoners were released, coastal salt-making was allowed, and Congress was accepted as a party to negotiations, which is why it was at the Second RTC. [3]

• Losses: there was no promise of independence, the movement lost momentum, and the Second RTC showed that Congress did not speak for everyone. The challenges from Ambedkar and the League lead directly to the Poona Pact (1932) and later the Pakistan demand.

• Lasting significance:

• The world was watching. Foreign newspapers covered the march, so the Raj could no longer act unseen.
• Women came in large numbers. Thousands joined, and Kamaladevi Chattopadhyay won their place by argument. For balance, note the limits: leadership stayed mostly male, and Gandhi spoke of women's role as sacrifice rather than equal political rights.
• The British changed their view. They realised they could not rule by force alone and would have to devolve power (hand some power to Indians). The question became how much and when, not whether.

Related concepts

• Eleven demands of Gandhi 1930
• Salt monopoly
• Sabarmati Ashram
• Civil disobedience movement
• Vedaranyam salt march
• Dharasana satyagraha 1930
• Sarojini Naidu
• Abdul Ghaffar Khan
• Khudai Khidmatgar
• Garhwali soldiers at Peshawar 1930

Read more

• Civil Disobedience and the Salt Satyagraha, 1930–34