The British taxed salt. Not as a revenue measure — the salt tax produced modest income — but as a demonstration of sovereignty. The message was: we own the sea, the shore, the earth beneath your feet, and even the mineral you need to survive. You may not harvest it. You may not sell it. You will buy it from us and pay what we demand. [1]
On March 12, 1930, Mohandas Gandhi and seventy-eight followers left Sabarmati Ashram on foot. They walked 240 miles to the coastal village of Dandi. The procession wore white khadi; the press called it the White Flowing River. By the time they reached the sea, 50,000 people had gathered. Three Bombay cinema companies shot newsreel footage that made Gandhi a household name across the world. [1][2]
On the morning of April 6, Gandhi walked to the shore, immersed himself in the Arabian Sea, and picked up a lump of salt-rich mud. He held it aloft. The British had reportedly ground the salt deposits into the sand to frustrate him. He picked it up anyway. [3]
A pinch of salt from Gandhi’s hand sold for 1,600 rupees — roughly $750 at the time. [4]
Over the next weeks, Indians across the subcontinent walked to the sea and harvested salt. Over sixty thousand were jailed. [1]
After Gandhi’s arrest on May 5, the planned march on the Dharasana Salt Works went ahead under the poet Sarojini Naidu. Webb Miller of United Press watched as column after column of marchers walked into steel-tipped clubs without raising a hand. He counted 320 injured, many with fractured skulls. His dispatch, censored and then released under threat, appeared in 1,350 newspapers worldwide and was read into the record of the United States Senate. [5][6]
By autumn, imports of British cotton piece goods had fallen to between a third and a fourth of the prior year. Sixteen British-owned mills in Bombay closed while Indian-owned mills worked double shifts. [2]
At the end of 1930, Time named Gandhi Man of the Year. [1]
He bent down and picked up a handful of salt.
Bibliography
[1] Wikipedia. “Salt March.” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salt_March [2] mkgandhi.org. “Salt Satya — Dandi March and Salt Satyagraha.” https://www.mkgandhi.org/articles/salt_satya.php [3] HISTORY. “When Gandhi’s Salt March Rattled British Colonial Rule.” https://www.history.com/articles/gandhi-salt-march-india-british-colonial-rule [4] Emory University. “Gandhi’s Salt March to Dandi.” https://scholarblogs.emory.edu/postcolonialstudies/2014/06/20/gandhis-salt-march-to-dandi/ [5] Yale University Press. “Gandhi’s Non-Violent ‘Raid’ During the Salt March.” March 2015. https://yalebooks.yale.edu/2015/03/30/gandhis-non-violent-raid-during-the-salt-march/ [6] Wikipedia. “Dharasana Satyagraha.” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dharasana_Satyagraha