Salt Satyagraha

The Salt Satyagraha, also known as the Salt March to Dandi, was an act of protest against the British salt tax in Colonial India. Mahatma Gandhi walked from Sabarmati Ashram to Dandi, Gujarat to get himself some salt, and hordes of Indians followed him. The British could do nothing because Gandhi did not incite others to follow him in any way. The march lasted from March 12 to April 6, 1930.

Background

At midnight on December 31, 1929, the Indian National Congress unfurled the flag of independence on the banks of Ravi at Lahore. The Indian National Congress, led by Gandhi and Jawaharlal Nehru, issued the Declaration of Independence on January 26, 1930. The Congress placed the responsibility of initiating civil disobedience on the All India Congress Committee. This campaign also had to achieve the secularization of India, uniting Hindus and Muslims. Mahatma Gandhi was convinced that non-violent civil disobedience would form the basis for any subsequent protest.

Beginning in February, Mahatma's thoughts swayed towards the British tax on salt, one of many economic means used to generate revenue that supported British colonial rule. Gandhi decided to make the salt tax the focal point of non-violent political protest. The British monopoly on the salt trade in India dictated that the sale or production of salt by anyone but the British government was a criminal offense punishable by law. Salt was readily accessible to labourers in the coastal area, but they were instead forced to pay money for a mineral which they could easily collect themselves for free. Gandhi's choice met the important criterion of appealing across regional, class, religious, and ethnic boundaries. Everyone needed salt, and the British taxes on it had an impact on all of India.

On February 5, newspapers reported that Gandhi would begin civil disobedience by defying the salt laws.

Led by an inner voice during this period of strategic uncertainty, Gandhi used the British Government's salt tax as a catalyst for a major satyagraha campaign.

One of Gandhi's principal concepts, "satyagraha" goes beyond mere "passive resistance"; by adding the Sanskrit word "Agraha" (persuasion) to "Satya" (Truth). For him, it was crucial that Satyagrahis found strength in their non-violent methods:

"Truth (Satya) implies Love, and Firmness (Agraha) engenders and therefore serves as a synonym for force… that is to say, the Force which is born of Truth and Love or Non-violence… [If] we are Satyagrahis and offer Satyagraha, believing ourselves to be strong… we grow stronger and stronger everyday. With our increase in strength, our Satyagraha too becomes more effective, and we would never be casting about for an opportunity to give it up." -- Gandhi 

Protesting the salt tax as an injustice to the people of India was an ingenious choice because every peasant and every aristocrat understood the necessity of salt in everyday life. It was also a good choice because it did not alienate Congress moderates while simultaneously being an issue of enough importance to mobilize a mass following.


The March

In an effort to amend the salt tax without breaking the law, on March 2, 1930 Gandhi wrote to the Viceroy, Lord Irwin: "If my letter makes no appeal to your heart, on the eleventh day of this month I shall proceed with such co-workers of the Ashram as I can take, to disregard the provisions of the Salt Laws. I regard this tax to be the most iniquitous of all from the poor man's standpoint. As the Independence movement is essentially for the poorest in the land, the beginning will be made with this evil."

On March 12, 1930, Gandhi and approximately 78 male satyagrahis set out, on foot, for the coastal village of Dandi, Gujarat, some 240 miles from their starting point in Sabarmati, a journey which was to last 23 days. Virtually every resident of each city along this journey watched the great procession, which was at least two hundred miles in length. On April 6th, Gandhi raised a lump of mud and salt (some say just a pinch, some say just a grain) and declared, "With this, I am shaking the foundations of the British Empire." He then boiled it in seawater to make the commodity which no Indian could legally produce—salt.

Upon arriving at the seashore he spoke to a reporter: "God be thanked for what may be termed the happy ending of the first stage in this, for me at least, the final struggle of freedom. I cannot withhold my compliments from the government for the policy of complete non interference adopted by them throughout the march .... I wish I could believe this non-interference was due to any real change of heart or policy. The wanton disregard shown by them to popular feeling in the Legislative Assembly and their high-handed action leave no room for doubt that the policy of heartless exploitation of India is to be persisted in at any cost, and so the only interpretation I can put upon this non-interference is that the British Government, powerful though it is, is sensitive to world opinion which will not tolerate repression of extreme political agitation which civil disobedience undoubtedly is, so long as disobedience remains civil and therefore necessarily non-violent .... It remains to be seen whether the Government will tolerate as they have tolerated the march, the actual breach of the salt laws by countless people from tomorrow. I expect extensive popular response to the resolution of the Working Committee (of the Indian National Congress)."

He implored his thousands of followers to begin to make salt wherever, along the seashore, "was most convenient and comfortable" to them. A "war" on the salt tax was to be continued during the National Week, that is, up to the thirteenth of April. There was also a simultaneous boycott of British made cloth/goods. Salt was sold, "illegally", all over the seacoast of India. A pinch of salt from Gandhi himself sold for 1,600 rupees, perhaps $750 dollars at the time. In reaction to this, the British government had incarcerated over sixty thousand people at the end of the month.

In Peshawar the satyagraha was led by a Muslim Pashto disciple of Gandhi's, Ghaffar Khan. Ghaffar Khan had trained an army of non-violent activists, called Khudai Khitmatgar. On April 23, 1930, Ghaffar Khan was arrested. A crowd of Khudai Khitmatgar gathered in Peshawar's Kissa Khani [Storytellers] Bazaar. The British opened fire on the unarmed crowd and shot hundreds of Khudai Khitmatgar and other demonstrators. One British Indian Army regiment refused to fire at the crowds. According to some accounts, the crowd acted in accord with their training in non-violence. As people in the front fell, those behind came forward to expose themselves to the firing. The shooting continued from 11 AM until 5 PM.

On the night of May 4th, Gandhi was sleeping in a cot under a mango tree, at a village near Dandi. Several ashramites slept near him. Soon after midnight the District Magistrate of Surat drove up with two Indian officers and thirty heavily-armed constables. He woke Gandhi by shining a torch in his face, and arrested him under a regulation of 1827.


Aftermath

The effects of the salt march were felt across India. Thousands of people made salt, or bought illegal salt. As the march mobilized many new followers from all of Indian society, it came to the world's attention. Thus, tens of thousands of Indians were arrested for buying and selling salt illegally; however, the Viceroy ordered his troops to arrest Gandhi last. After Gandhi's release from prison, he continued to work towards Indian independence, which was achieved in August, 1947. Dandi was a key turning point in that struggle.

This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article "Salt Satyagraha".

Purna Swaraj

The Declaration of the Independence of India was promulgated by the Indian National Congress on January 26, 1930 - resolving the Congress and Indian nationalists to fight for Purna Swaraj, or complete independence from the British Empire.

The flag of India had been officially hoisted by Congress President Jawaharlal Nehru on December 31, 1929 in Lahore. The Congress asked the people of India to observe January 26th as Independence Day. The flag of India was hoisted publicly across India by Congress volunteers, nationalists and the public.

                       

Background

Before 1930, few Indian political parties had openly embraced the goal of political independence from the United Kingdom. The All India Home Rule League had been advocating Home Rule for India: dominion status within the British Empire, as granted to Australia, Canada, the Irish Free State, Newfoundland, New Zealand, and South Africa. The All India Muslim League favored dominion status as well, and opposed calls for outright Indian independence. The Indian Liberal Party, by far the most pro-British, explicitly opposed India's independence, and even dominion status if it weakened India's links with the British Empire. The Indian National Congress, the largest Indian political party of the time, was at the head of the national debate. Veteran Congress leaders such as Bal Gangadhar Tilak, Gopal Krishna Gokhale, Motilal Nehru and Bipin Chandra Pal had opposed explicit Indian independence from the Empire.

Following the 1919 Amritsar Massacre, there was considerable public outrage against British rule. Europeans, civilians and officials, were targets and victims of violence across India. In 1920, Gandhi and the Congress committed themselves to Swaraj, described as political and spiritual independence. At the time, Gandhi described this as the basic demand of all Indians; he specifically said that the question of whether India would remain within the Empire or leave it completely, would be answered by the behavior and response of the British. Between 1920 and 1922, Mohandas Gandhi led the Non-Cooperation movement: nationwide civil disobedience to oppose the Rowlatt Acts and the exclusion of Indians from the government of their own country and affairs, and the denial of political and civil freedoms.


Simon commission, and the Nehru report

In 1928, the British government further outraged people across India by appointing an all-European Simon Commission to deliberate on constitutional and political reforms for India. No Indians were included in the commission, nor were any Indian political parties consulted or asked to involve themselves in the process. Upon arrival in India, Chairman Sir John Simon and other commission members were met with angry public demonstrations, which followed them everywhere. The death of a prominent Indian leader, Lala Lajpat Rai, from severe beatings by British police officials further outraged the Indian public.

The Congress appointed an all-Indian commission to propose constitutional reforms for India. Members of other Indian political parties joined the commission led by Congress President Motilal Nehru. The Nehru Report demanded that India be granted self-government under the dominion status within the Empire. While most other Indian political parties supported the Nehru commission's work, it was opposed by the Indian Liberal Party and the All India Muslim League. The British ignored the commission, its report and refused to introduce political reforms.


Dominion or independence?

But the Nehru Report was also controversial within the Congress. Younger nationalist leaders like Subhash Chandra Bose and Jawaharlal Nehru (Motilal Nehru's son) demanded that the Congress resolve to make a complete and explicit break from all ties with the British Empire. Jawaharlal Nehru had introduced a resolution demanding "complete national independence" in 1927, which was rejected owing to Gandhi's view that the Congress had to re-learn how to fight, not re-phrase its goal. Now Bose and Nehru opposed dominion status, which would retain the Monarch of the United Kingdom as the constitutional head of state of India (although in the separate capacity as King of India), and preserve political powers for the British Parliament in Indian constitutional affairs. They were supported in their stand by a large number of rank-and-file Congressmen.

In the December of 1928, Congress held in Calcutta, Mohandas Gandhi proposed a resolution that called for the British to grant dominion status to India within two years. If the British failed to meet the deadline, the Congress would call upon all Indians to fight for complete independence. Bose and Nehru objected to the time given to the British - they pressed Gandhi to demand immediate action from the British. Gandhi brokered a further compromise by reducing the time given from two years to one. Jawaharlal Nehru voted for the new resolution, while Subhash Bose told his supporters that he would not oppose the resolution, and abstained from voting himself. The All India Congress Committee voted 118 to 45 in its favor (the 45 votes came from supporters of a complete break from the British). However, when Bose introduced an amendment during the open session of Congress that sought a complete break with the British, Gandhi admonished the move:

"You may take the name of independence on your lips but all your muttering will be an empty formula if there is no honour behind it. If you are not prepared to stand by your words, where will independence be?"

The amendment was rejected, by 1350 to 973, and the resolution was fully adopted.

On October 31, 1929, the Viceroy of India, Lord Irwin announced that the government would meet with Indian representatives in London for a Round Table Conference. To facilitate Indian participation, Irwin met with Mohandas Gandhi, Muhammad Ali Jinnah and out-going Congress President Motilal Nehru to discuss the meeting. Gandhi asked Irwin if the conference would proceed on the basis of dominion status, and Irwin said he could not assure that, resulting in the end of the meeting.


The declaration

As a result of the denial of reforms and political rights, and the persistent ignorance of Indian political parties, the Indian National Congress grew increasingly cohesive - unified in the desire to oust the British from India completely. A very large number of Congress volunteers and delegates, members of other political parties and an especially large public gathering attended the session convened in Lahore. Despite the bitterly cold weather, Pattabhi Sitaramayya records that:

"The heat of passion and excitement, the resentment at the failure of negotiation, the flushing of faces on hearing the war drums - oh, it was all in marked contrast to the weather."

Jawaharlal Nehru was elected President, and veteran leaders like Chakravarthi Rajagopalachari and Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel returned to the Congress Working Committee. Gandhi drafted the Indian declaration of independence, which stated:

"The British government in India has not only deprived the Indian people of their freedom but has based itself on the exploitation of the masses, and has ruined India economically, politically, culturally and spiritually....Therefore...India must sever the British connection and attain Purna Swaraj or complete independence."

At midnight on New Year's Eve, President Jawaharlal Nehru hoisted the tricolour flag of India upon the banks of the Ravi in Lahore. A pledge of independence was read out, which included a readiness to withhold taxes. The massive gathering of public attending the ceremony were asked if they agreed with it, and the vast majority of people were witnessed to raise their hands in approval. 172 Indian members of central and provincial legislatures resigned in support of the resolution and in accordance with Indian public sentiment.

The Declaration of Independence was officially promulgated on January 26, 1930. Gandhi and other Indian leaders would immediately begin the planning of a massive national revolt that would encourage the common people to participate and also help involve revolutionaries into a struggle committed to non-violence. The Dandi March and the Salt Satyagraha were iniatied by Mohandas Gandhi and the Congress as the first struggle for complete independence.


Legacy

The Congress regularly observed January 26th as the Independence day of India - commemorating the sacrifices of Indians during the struggle. In 1947, the British agreed to transfer power and political independence to India, and August 15 became the official independence day. However, the new Constitution of India, as drafted and approved by the Constituent Assembly of India, was mandated to take effect on January 26, 1950, to commemorate the 1930 declaration. On that day in 1950, India became a republic. 

This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article "Purna Swaraj".