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Gandhi's
Salt March as living sermon
By Tom
Weber
La Trobe University, Australia, TFF Associate
This article is forthcoming in the
Gandhi Marg
journal, New Delhi
Introduction
Gandhi's biographer, Louis Fischer, once said that
Gandhi's greatness "lay in doing what everyone could do
but doesn't." (1) Gandhi provided a signpost for moral
living, he left us with some valuable insights about the
way life should be oriented so as not to become
dysfunctional to the self, society or planet, and
provided valuable guidelines to help us with difficult
decisions.
For example, his seven social sins warn us
against politics without principle, wealth without work,
commerce without morality, education without character,
pleasure without conscience, science without humanity,
and worship without sacrifice. (2) In another place he
gives us a test to apply when we are in doubt. This
"talisman" asks us to consider the poorest and weakest
person we have seen and examine our proposed action in
light of the consequences for this person. (3)
And of course he is well known for claiming that his
life was his message.(4) His 1930 Salt March to Dandi can
be examined as a version of this message, not least about
simply doing what we know to be right.
The Salt March as
we know it
The Salt March to the remote sea-side village of Dandi
and the civil disobedience campaign it launched was the
greatest nonviolent battle by possibly history's greatest
nonviolent campaigner. And Mahatma Gandhi himself saw
this as the quintessence of his philosophy in action. The
Salt March, as we have come to know it, is about a battle
by a very astute political campaigner to free his country
from the yoke of British colonialism. And this was to be
done by breaking the iniquitous salt laws that meant that
even the poorest labourer could not gather natural salt
to supplement the most meagre of diets without paying
exorbitant taxes.
Here we have the skinny 45kg, scantily dressed 61 year
old Mahatma armed with nothing but a bamboo staff
marching to the sea with a handful of mostly youthful
followers in an attempt to liberate India. The Salt
March, at least as it has entered the history books, is
about Gandhi and his chosen 78 followers, leaving
Gandhi's ashram on the banks of the Sabarmati river on
the outskirts of Ahmedabad early on the morning of 12
March, 1930. The ever-swelling crowd covered the 241
miles to the sea in 25 days and, early on the morning of
April 6, Gandhi picked up a handful of salt crystals from
the beach at Dandi, captured in a dramatic photograph,
while India's poetess, Sarojini Naidu, cried "Hail
Deliverer!" launching the mass struggle against the salt
laws - a struggle that united the people, filled the
prisons and shook the foundations of the empire.
In fact there were eighty marchers with Gandhi, not
78. (5) And one of those generally neglected by the
historical record was a convicted murderer. (6) The march
was probably about 20 miles less than the accepted 241:
that being the distance of a proposed and now mostly
build commemorative Gandhi Road that approximates the
route. Government engineers are more concerned with
practicality than exact historical accuracy.
On the morning of April 6, Gandhi picked up a handful
of saline mud that had to be cleaned during the day to
extract the small quantity of salt that was auctioned for
the benefit of the national cause that evening. There is
little evidence of the stirring battle cry from Sarojini
Naidu, probably there was little more an exchange of
pleasantries between old friends. And there was no
photographer present to record the event for posterity.
The now famous photograph of the event was taken three
days later at the village of Bhimrad some 25 kms from
Dandi as the crow flies. All classes did not participate
equally in the struggle and the campaign did not manage
to heal the growing rift between Hindus and Muslims.
Although tens of thousands were imprisoned, this amounted
to only one fifth of 1% of the population. Following
inconclusive talks in Delhi and London, and with Gandhi
again languishing in jail, the movement eventually
petered out. The salt laws were not repealed and freedom
did not come to India for another 17 years. For some this
has meant that the Salt March, and the civil disobedience
campaign it initiated, were failures.
But there were also extremely large political pluses:
the world, and especially America, came to see the moral
legitimacy of India's cause (Gandhi became Time
magazine's man of the year for 1930). Under the tutelage
of Gandhi the proto-feminist, for the first time women
became significant players in the Indian political
system. And much to the disgust of Churchill, who was
appalled by the "nauseating and humiliating spectacle of
this one time Inner Temple lawyer, now seditious fakir,
striding half-naked up the steps of the Viceroy's palace
there to parley on equal terms with the representative of
the King-Emperor", (7) for the first time the British
were forced to talk eye-to-eye with the leader of subject
nation. The events set in place by the pilgrimage to
Dandi brought vast yet hard to quantify changes to India.
Many were never again to be the same afterwards, and the
country certainly was not. As Jawaharlal Nehru,
independent India's first prime minister, was to remark a
few years later, people of common clay felt the spark of
life. (8) And perhaps it is here, not in the limited
world of international power politics, that the greatest
gift of struggle from Gandhi can be found.
This deeper, and to us now, more important meaning of
Gandhi's Salt March can be teased out by tracing the
journey from Sabarmati to Dandi.
Background to the
March
Following a relatively quiet period on the political
front, after Gandhi had called off the Non-Cooperation
struggle of the early 1920s, in a large part because
violence had crept into the campaign, a new wave of
unrest was building up. Violent anti-British nationalism
was on the rise, and at the Lahore Congress in the dying
days of 1929 Indian nationalist leaders had resolved to
fight for complete independence from the imperial
overlords. Gandhi, recognised as leader by the Indian
nationalists, had long been preparing himself and his
closest followers for the coming battle. He was hoping
that he had prepared the country adequately.
What shape was the struggle to take? How could the
Mahatma ensure that there would be no repeated violence
that went against his creed? While grappling with these
questions he wrote a letter to the viceroy Lord Irwin. He
addressed Irwin as "Dear friend" - after all his
philosophy of nonviolence, while allowing for opponents,
never considers anyone an enemy. He explained to Irwin
that he intended no harm to any English person, it was
English rule that he considered a curse. He pointed out
that foreign rule had exploited the country, that while
the viceroy was a man he had the greatest respect for, he
asked Irwin to ponder the legitimacy of a system where
the viceroy's salary was 5,000 times that of the average
Indian's. Gandhi wanted to show that nonviolence was a
force that could check the organised violence of the
British Government. He claimed that his aim was to
convert the British people through nonviolent civil
disobedience and thus make them see the wrong they had
done to India. Gandhi announced that he would defy the
salt laws because he sought independence for the poor of
the land, not the elites, and the salt tax impacted most
heavily on the poorest in society. He signed the letter,
"I remain, Your sincere friend." (9)
A Walking Sermon
How did Gandhi come to pick salt as the focus of the
campaign? And why a pilgrimage with a handful of the
chosen to the backblocks, instead of taking mass
demonstrations to the centre of power?
Salt, the only mineral substance consumed by humans,
had been heavily taxed by the British for over 40 years
and for 40 years nationalist leaders including Gandhi had
been complaining about the tax which impacted
disproportionately on the poor. The poor in this hot
country do the hardest work yet they could least afford
salt. There was logic behind the choice, but was this the
stuff of which nationalist revolutions are made? Many did
not think so, wondering if Gandhi the food faddist who
has previously sworn off the eating of salt was on a new
version of one of his periodic culinary campaigns. They
suggested mass no-revenue campaigns, mass marches on the
capital or the viceroy's residence, a boycott of law
courts and foreign cloth - almost anything but this
seeming irrelevance. (10)
However, Gandhi new the mind of his people better, and
his own mind was made up. Focussing on the salt laws was
easy and simple to understand. This was to be a
non-elitist campaign: everyone from the humblest peasant
upwards could easily break the law by manufacturing salt,
or by selling it, or giving it away or even simply
suggesting that others make, sell or give salt away. It
was a form of action that did not alienated non-Congress
supporters or threaten local Indian interests. And,
further, the government could not easily prevent the
breaching of the salt law. The Americans press were
approving, noting the injustice of the taxing of a
necessary and otherwise freely available substance.
Later, as the march progressed, they drew the analogy
with their own Boston Tea Party, declaring that Britain
would lose India over salt the way she lost America over
tea. (11)
But how was the law to be breached? How would the
message get to the masses? Gandhi, the lover of walking,
had led a mass march in South Africa 17 years before to
great political effect. It had heralded mass nonviolent
action and confirmed him as an internationally recognised
nonviolent campaigner. This march was to cover areas
where Gandhi's political base was strongest, where there
was heightened political consciousness from past
campaigns. It was to take over three weeks - a risky but
potentially far more dramatically effective method than a
short march. If the British did not arrest the group when
they started, and at this stage they hoped that a
campaign based around salt would fizzle out in ridicule,
when would they do it? A lengthy Salt March, if it did
not become the object of derision, allowed tensions to
build; for the media, the general public and world
opinion to be caught up in the progress.
But the march was more than a mass political action.
Gandhi always saw the march as a pilgrimage, as a living
sermon. It was not merely about removing the British but
to demonstrate what an ideal society should look like,
how ideal lives should be lived. And it is this aspect of
the march that still talks to us today.
At the Sabarmati
Ashram
On the evening of the 11th of March, 1930, the day
before the march was to begin, 10,000 people gathered
here on the banks of the Sabarmati River just below the
ashram, to hear Gandhi speak, possibly for last time.
Rumours were rife that the Mahatma would be arrested
before he could set off.
He told the crowd: "I have faith in the righteousness
of our cause and the purity of our weapons. And where the
means are clean, there God is undoubtedly present with
His blessings. And where these three continue, there
defeat is an impossibility." (12) He told his hand-picked
followers that they would not return to the ashram, their
home of 13 years, until freedom had been gained for
India.
A sleepless crowd stayed at the ashram, lighting fires
for warmth in the chilly air. At his usual 4am morning
prayer meeting, Gandhi informed his audience that 6.30
would be the departure time and asked his marchers to be
assembled in formation by 6.20. Then Gandhi went back to
sleep - probably the only person with enough inner calm
to do so. At 6.10 he emerged from his room and joined the
designated marchers in a cleared area in front of the
ashram weaving factory. The crowd had swelled to 20,000
and the level of excitement was very high. Many of the
marchers believed that they would be dead within days.
Rumours spread that they would be bombed from the air and
that a machine gun post had been set up by the
authorities not far away. But they had their duty to do.
As they went out of the ashram gates, Gandhi announced
that "I would rather die a dog's death than return to the
ashram a broken man." (13)
On the Road
In the dawning light, through a crowd of 100,000, they
walked for 45 minutes to Ellis Bridge. It was thought
that Gandhi would cross the bridge and triumphantly enter
Ahmedabad proper and there salute the Congress flag. But
the bridge was far too crowded to cross, and besides this
one bridge across the Sabarmati was a British-built
bridge, and crossing it could have been seen as a
compliment to British ingenuity. Embarrassment and crowd
control problems were avoided by wading across the no
more than knee deep river. This route also avoided the
centre of the city. The way to Chandola lake, the first
resting spot, was through choking dust, made all the
worse by news journalists who roared past in motor
lorries, hoping to get a prize photograph or movie
footage of Gandhi. After a while the Mahatma became so
fed up with the pestering from movie-reporters that he
draped a towel over his head and told them to go away.
(14)
After 11kms of walking, during a five minute rest by
the lake, Gandhi addressed the crowd, asking them to
return home. Now for the first time Gandhi was at the
head of the procession of his marchers, and for the first
time there was open country, instead of a sea of
humanity, ahead of him.
As they neared Aslali, the stopping place for the
night, Gandhi saw his nephew, who had volunteered to
carry Gandhi's bags, hand them on to the village headman.
He became angry, took back his bags and decided to carry
them himself from then on. It was acceptable for family
members to help each other out but not to have servants
doing unpalatable work for them.
There was much excitement in the village that night
and it meant that most of the villagers were still asleep
at 6am when the marchers left. British officials had
decided not to arrest Gandhi because they had hoped that
the crazy idea of marching through the countryside
preaching against a little cared about tax would prove an
embarrassing flop. Already it seemed that they may have
been right. The British papers gleefully reported that
enthusiasm was already evaporating as the march was
becoming less of a novelty. There were other problems
also. Gandhi's rheumatism had become acutely painful
during the night and much of the next morning's walking
had to be undertaken with the Mahatma leaning on the
shoulders of the two youngest marchers. Still, the next
evening he send the horse that a follower had provided as
a back-up in case Gandhi had difficulty walking, back to
it's owner. During the march, several of his followers
became ill and needed to stop for convalescence and to go
by train, car or bullock-cart to catch up. The 61 year
old Mahatma, walked the entire route, never complained,
and because of the demands on his time slept far less
than the younger marchers.
Walking was done in two stages. First in the cool of
the morning, followed by lunch and meetings in the host
village, and again in the evening to another host village
for dinner, further speeches, and sleep. On the way
prayers were held at 7pm, wherever the marchers happened
to be at the time. And of course morning prayers were
still held at 4am, no matter how late the marchers could
retire for the evening. The routine of the ashram was not
relaxed just because Gandhi and his followers were on the
road. The unfarewelled departure from Aslali
notwithstanding, fairly soon into the March a pattern
emerged. Villagers would accompany the departing
Gandhi-ites from their own village half way to the next,
where they were met by a welcoming party.
Following the morning's walk on the third day, the
marchers were escorted to a large mango tree about 150
metres from the village of Wasna. Here a cottage had been
erected for Gandhi and a canopy for the others. A
temporary kitchen had been set up nearby. Gandhi was
pleased with the care which had been taken over the
arrangements - but he was also a little suspicious about
the motive for all the trouble. After lunch, during his
speech, Gandhi asked whether the elaborate arrangements
made were in order to keep the marchers out of the
village proper because his group included both
"untouchables" and Muslims. Today Wasna has a statue of
the marching Mahatma in the village square to commemorate
the visit.
At the night halt, at Matar, the 80th and 81st
official marchers joined the ranks of their comrades. One
of these two was the Nepali Kharag Bahadur Singh - a
convicted murderer who had discovered nonviolence while
in prison. Some of the marchers objected to him being
included but Gandhi had explained that his nonviolent
family was to be a microcosm of an ideal nonviolent
society. And in such a society, where he expected
forgiveness, they had to forgive someone who had changed
their life and dedicated it to nonviolence. (15)
On the fourth day, at the lunch halt at the tobacco
growing village of Dabhan, Gandhi was received with great
enthusiasm. Perhaps the enthusiasm of the welcoming
committee ebbed a little as Gandhi walked straight
through the village, past the temple and the village
square, to the untouchable quarters where he drew water
from the well and bathed. The high-caste Hindus who
accompanied him were faced with a dilemma - mingle with
the casteless or be rude to their honoured guest. And for
someone like Gandhi to draw his own water, rather than
have a servant do it for him, was a small practical
sermon on the kind of free India he envisaged. The Salt
March was the means, all the small examples set by
himself and his marchers along the way were to be
glimpses of the end. During his speech Gandhi publically
mentioned Dandi as the final destination of the march for
the first time.
That evening, at the large Santaram temple complex in
the small city of Nadiad, 20,000 people turned up to hear
Gandhi talk. Gandhi's secretary, who was organising the
campaign elsewhere, came to visit Gandhi here. Mahadev
Desai noticed that even after a long day of walking his
master got little peace. During his evening meal, Gandhi
was surrounded by so many people that, in the secretary's
words, a few more people "and the room would have been
full to suffocation." There was no rest for the elderly
Mahatma. He had to do several things at once - he ate and
talked with those around him as he was being massaged.
The faithful secretary lamented that Gandhi "could not
have a private half-hour for a quiet meal" after having
just arrived from "a fatiguing journey through he heat
and dust of the Kheda villages." (16)
And Gandhi was up before his companions so that he
could take care of his correspondence. When his oil lamp
went out, rather than wake those sleeping next to him, he
continued to write by moonlight. Thus Desai found him at
4am. At morning prayers Gandhi noted that some of the
marchers were not handling the pace and pressure too well
and he informed them that henceforth Mondays would be
days of rest. He also told them that they should not be a
burden on those who hosted them and though they may be
showered with comforts and given delicacies to eat, they
should maintain ashram discipline in dietary matters. Of
course this was difficult, and by the fourth day the
marcher from America, Haridas Muzumdar, claimed that "it
is a (17) constant complaint of the village folk that our
Captain would permit them to treat us to nothing but
simple food."
The following evening they were in the town of Anand,
where they were to have a full day of rest. For Gandhi
that also meant a full day of silence. From Sunday
evening, after his speech at the nationalist Dada Naoroji
High School, until Monday evening Gandhi stopped talking.
This was a well deserved rest from the overwhelming
volume of verbal communication that was his lot during
the day. But he did continue to pass notes with written
messages when he thought it necessary.
Miracles
Gandhi had had a long association with Anand. During
his visit in 1920 he spoke to the assembled throng from
the open area that had been the village lake. The
following year the long dry lake was again full. Many
claimed that it was a miracle resalting from the
Mahatma's presence. Two years before the march, a blind
American had written to him asking for his divine
intervention. Gandhi replied, "I do not perform miracles
nor do I believe in miracles." (18) However, during the
course of the Salt Campaign another water producing
miracle was reported. Following the conclusion of the
march while Gandhi and his crew were camped at the
village of Karadi, near Dandi, a group of villagers, in
procession, singing and carrying gifts circled the camp
and approached the Mahatma's hut. It emerged that their
village well had been dry for several years and the women
had to go to nearby villages to fetch drinking water. The
day that the march had passed through the village the
well filled with water. Now the grateful villagers had
come to worship Gandhi as an incarnation of the god Ram.
Gandhi was not amused. He chided the villagers for their
"foolish and unbecoming" idea, and added that, "I have no
more influence with God than you have." He sent them
home, telling them that rather than wasting their time
speculating about his divinity they should put their
energy into the fight for freedom.
Back on the Road
On the evening of the eighth day of the march,
Gandhi's band had arrived at the poor village of
Kankapura on the banks of the impressive Mahi river. But
there was to be no rest for the night just yet. The tidal
Mahi had to be crossed at high tide so that the maximum
distance could be covered by boat before the tiring work
of wading through mud began. The local fishermen were
reluctant to risk the confiscation of their means of
livelihood by ferrying Gandhi. However, a brave young
local had purchased a boat so that the task could be
undertaken. Gandhi waded through knee deep water to the
boat, but so did hundreds of other excited well-wishers.
There was danger that the boat would be swamped and by
the time order had been restored, much precious time had
been lost. This meant that Gandhi had to wade for a
kilometer in thick mud when the boat beached on the other
side. These were the most difficult hours of the entire
trip and Gandhi had to be assisted by some of his
companions. Dry land was not reached until 1am, and at 4
Gandhi roused his tired troops for morning prayers.
The following day, at the village of Gajera, Gandhi
continued his living sermon. A dias had been erected
under a large banyan tree for Gandhi's afternoon speech.
Four to five thousand people sat patiently waiting for
the Mahatma to tell them about the iniquities of the salt
tax and the evils of British rule, but the ever punctual
Gandhi just sat on the platform and waited. And waited.
Tension increased. For the first time during the march,
untouchables had been prohibited from sitting with the
rest of the audience. Gandhi instructed his followers to
sit among the excluded and finally announced: "This
meeting has not yet started.... Either you invite the
untouchables and my volunteers to sit freely among you or
I'll have to address you from the hill where they are
sitting." He waited for an answer. Eventually the
untouchables were invited into the main audience and
Gandhi pointed out the irony that the caste villagers
were treating those literally outcasted the same way that
they themselves were being treated by the British. By
welcoming the untouchables into their midst, Gandhi told
the listeners that they had taken the first step towards
true freedom. (19)
This was rural India with its time-honoured ways.
Strangers often meant trouble, even if they were
Mahatmas. When the small advance party, which preceded
the main march and made sure that dining, washing,
sleeping and toilet facilities would be available for the
marchers, arrived in the village of Buva, they were
politely asked if the marchers wouldn't mind going
somewhere else. Not only were they afraid of the
government, but a wedding procession was to arrive at
about the same time as Gandhi was anticipated. The
wedding party was to stay in the dharamsala, the pilgrim
rest house, the only available place for accommodating
larger groups. There was disagreement in the village
because the youth insisted that Gandhi's marchers stop
there regardless of the cost or inconvenience.
Eventually a compromise was reached and timetables
were adjusted to avoid a clash. But Gandhi was not
invited to the wedding and the elders did not participate
in the welcome for him. The turnout at his speech was
disappointingly low, and those involved in the wedding
boycotted it. Gandhi told those who did attend that he
was concerned about the lack of consciousness of the
important issues of the day and about the tensions
between the old and the young. He told the young that
they should have respected their elders and tried to
convince them but if this was not possible they should
have obeyed them. If the elders were not convinced, he
should not have stayed in the village "because he was
under the impression that in every village he halted it
was with the implied consent of the people." He then
rebuked the elders for not giving a proper lead to the
youngsters by joining the movement - after all if they
came in the way of the youth, to whom the future
belonged, they would be disregarded. (20)
At Tralsa, outside the room of the village dharamsala
where Gandhi had rested, a small temple to the Mahatma
has now been erected. But here also there are clues to
the working of Gandhi's mind. Anand Hingorani, one of the
marchers, became so grief-stricken when his wife died in
1943, that he had difficulty functioning. Gandhi came to
the rescue of his loyal follower by writing him a small
"thought for the day" to meditate on. Hingorani received
these messages from the Mahatma daily, regardless of how
busy Gandhi was, for two years. They gave him strength to
carry on through difficult times. Hingorani eventually
published these snippets of Gandhian thinking in a
beautiful book. (21) He remarked that in it there was
perhaps a fruitful field of research for a scholar with a
pedantic bent. He believed that the messages Gandhi wrote
for him directly reflected what had happened to Gandhi
immediately before he penned the aphorism. If Gandhi
wrote about the beauty of silence you could take it that
too many people had talked to him that day, and so on.
(22)
When Gandhi set out from the ashram on the march, he
did not have a sheath of speeches tucked away in one of
his two small bags. He knew what the message that he
wanted to get across was. But often the speeches that he
delivered along the way were not about salt, the British
or independence, but about social matters. It appears
that what happened to him in a particular village during
the day often prompted the subject matter that he would
speak on. A subject more important than some distant
political independence.
At Tralsa, about 50 meters from the dharamsala, there
is a large tree facing the village lake. Here Gandhi
delivered his afternoon speech on the 25th of March. The
speech was about why he tended not to go through Muslim
villages and about the evils of the dowry system. But why
here? Although Tralsa is a Hindu village, nearby, from
where much of the audience came is a Muslim village. And
next to this tree is the tomb of a Muslim saint. Gandhi
explained that he only went to villages where he was
explicitly invited, and this campaign, unlike the one of
a decade before, had largely left the Muslims unenthused.
He did however announce that he would be breaking the
salt law at Dandi from the home of a Muslim friend, and
it had long been settled that in the case of his arrest,
the march would be led by his Muslim friend Abbas
Tyabji.
On the day of the speech there were also two weddings
taking place in Tralsa, what could be more appropriate
than talk about the dowry system?
Problems
Generally the march attracted large and enthusiastic
crowds and generally the focus was the issue of
independence. But it was also a campaign of individuals,
the soldiers of Gandhi's ashram family, with all their
human frailties. And it was these minor lapses amongst
his followers that allowed Gandhi to provide the
practical sermons to the widest audience, including
those, such as us, looking back many years later.
Gandhi's normal equilibrium was strongly upset only
once during the march. After Nadiad and Anand, Broach was
the third town visited along the route. The marchers
rested at the hospital dental clinic ashram of the great
nationalist worker and friend of the poor, Dr. Chandulal
Desai. While visiting Dr. Chandulal's city clinic,
marcher Muzumdar was offered some ice-cream. The good
doctor thought that someone from America would enjoy a
treat that he would have been used to in his adopted
home. Although Gandhi allowed Dr. Chandulal to serve
sweets to his marchers, the Mahatma ate only some fruit
and nuts, and when Muzumdar's indulgence was brought to
Gandhi's attention some days later, he severely chastised
his young follower, telling him that all the marchers had
to be models for others to copy. (23)
On the 29th of March, at the evening stop in Bhatgam,
things finally came to a head. (24) That morning, before
the marchers left their night halt of Umrachi, a proposed
breakfast treat for Gandhi heralded the worst day of the
pilgrimage. Milk had been scarce in the district the
marchers were passing through but Gandhi had been assured
that in this district milk was plentiful and could easily
be obtained everywhere. Fresh vegetables had also been
promised by supporters, but at the time the area was in
the grip of a drought and local supplies were limited.
The district organisers sent a car to bring supplies from
the outside. The vehicle had a puncture and was unable to
make it back to the village by breakfast time. When
Gandhi learned that supplies were being brought from the
outside he became angry. He had awoken at 3am on this
morning and as he wandered around the village he had seen
poor tribal women making bread from juwar flour, a last
ditch attempt at bread making when flour of more favoured
grains was unavailable. The contrast between the lot of
the poor and the treatment that was being afforded his
group, who professed to be servants of the people, was
not lost on him. He talked more in disappointment than
anger during his early morning prayers with his
followers, but as the group left Umrachi for Ertham, the
anger and sadness in Gandhi were strongly felt by those
around him. The morning's walk was done in an atmosphere
of deep gloom.
During the lunch halt, a bullock-cart carrying
spinning wheels rumbled into their camp to aid the
marchers in their daily task of ritual spinning. There
was a shortage of spinning wheels in the immediate
district and these wheels were brought from a Gandhi
supporting ashram in the town of Bardoli, some 40
kilometres away. Gandhi considered this a costly and
time-consuming extravagance. When the wheels finally
arrived they had to be cleaned, assembled and oiled. The
spinning this morning was the last done on wheels -
Gandhi ordered that from hence onwards all spinning was
to be done on hand spindles and the wheels were sent
back.
All day small things happened which annoyed Gandhi
further. At lunch he noticed that he had received his
drink from a new cup. He discovered that his old one had
been accidentally broken and when Pyarelal, his personal
secretary on the march, had asked a local organiser to
purchase another, the eager assistant bought two to cover
the possibility of a further breakage. Another
extravagance to displease the already less than happy
Mahatma.
Things did not end there. The misdirected desire to
please saw the importation of fresh vegetables and luxury
fruits from the nearby city of Surat. Gandhi's anger
grew, but he kept it under control. He decided to
undertake personal penance for these lapses of his
followers. From now until the end of the march he was to
take no fresh fruit apart from lime juice and restricted
his diet to dates, currants, lime and goat's milk.
During the evening prayer meeting, Gandhi learned of
Muzumdar's ice-cream eating. This was almost the last
straw. And on the walk to the night halt in Bhatgam the
camel's back was finally broken for the irritated
Mahatma.
It was becoming dark on the last part of the journey
so a pressurised petromax lantern was lit. The servant
carrying the lantern was prodded to walk faster to keep
up with the Mahatma. Gandhi saw what was happening - a
lowly local being mistreated by a prominent nationalist.
By the time he reached Bhatgam, Gandhi had trouble
repressing his anger. When Gandhi's speech of that
evening was published in his paper, he called it "Turning
the Searchlight Inward" and noted that it was an
important and introspective speech "which moved both the
audience and me deeply."
He told his audience that night that in light of the
discovery of these many lapses he had no right to write
to the Viceroy complaining about his salary in a poor
country. After all it seemed that they were now, in his
words, costing the country fifty times the average daily
income of its people. He detailed the luxuries they were
given in the previous days and added that "to live above
the means befitting a poor country is to live on stolen
food."
He also alluded to the walk into the village:
We may not consider anybody low. I observed
that you had provided for the night journey a heavy
kerosene burner mounted on a stool which a poor
labourer carried on his head. This was a humiliating
sight. This man was being goaded to walk fast. I could
not bear the sight. I therefore put on speed and
outraced the whole company. But it was no use. The man
was made to run after me. The humiliation was
complete. If the weight had to be carried, I should
have loved to see someone among ourselves carrying it.
We would then soon dispense both with the stool and
the burner. (25)
Everyone was quite shaken by the speech.
The following night at the evening speech at Delad,
there was no longer any petromax light. His way to the
field where the meeting was held was lit by a hurricane
lantern. He told the audience that:
Although I was agitated yesterday and still
am, I have not lost my peace; the fiery words of love
which I had directed towards my friends, companions
and assembly were not regarded as such. Instead of the
dazzling lights of yesterday I see small dim lights of
hurricane lanterns. Yesterday I did not find the outer
and inner peace which I find in today's assembly.
There was an artificiality in yesterday's lights. I
found no affinity between those lights and our rural
life. (26)
However, a few nights later, at the picturesque
village of Vanz with it's Jain temple, Gandhi again had
to start his speech on a critical note: "How can I see
the Kitson light burning when there are several hundreds
of thousands of villagers starving?" (27) The lights were
quickly replaced by torches of oil soaked rags on
poles.
At Navsari, the final town passed through on the
march, and the rail-head for Dandi, Gandhi made a speech
before tens of thousands. He was seated high so that all
could see him and a wealthy gentleman, who obviously had
not heard about Gandhi's anger in the villages at the use
of petromax lanterns, at his own expense had organised
for the whole area to be wired and illuminated by
electric lights. But this was no rural village and the
crowd was huge, Gandhi let it go.
The End of the Road
The final evening of the walk, before Dandi was
reached, was spent at the Matwad side of the twin
villages of Matwad/Karadi. Gandhi now had to think of the
realities of what was to come. At his evening speech he
addressed the locals, telling them that he knew that they
were already picking up salt secretly, but that now they
should do it openly and face the consequences.
They were only five kilometres from their destination
and by 7.30 on the following morning had reached Dandi.
Marcher Hingorani recalled the growing delight as they
neared the coast after over three weeks of trudging the
dusty roads of Gujarat; "The murmur of the sea was loud
and musical and could be heard from a distance. On the
way we came across some salt deposits in the dried up
hollows. With almost childish glee, we picked up the salt
from them and gazed at it in a manner as though we had
found a treasure." (28)
At Dandi, Gandhi took up residence in the spacious
bungalow of his Muslim friend Seth Sirajuddin Vasi, known
locally as Shiraz Abdulla. Gandhi had previously
discussed the possible repercussions of staying in the
Seth's house, but Vasi was ready to face the possibility
of losing his home. Gandhi also wondered about his and
his marchers' own fates. The government had tolerated the
march, but would it tolerate the actual breach of the
salt laws that would be initiated by the Mahatma the
following morning? Although the area around Vasi's
bungalow had been converted into a sizeable police camp,
the government had a different plan.
Following prayers, early on the morning of the 6th of
April, Gandhi and his followers, including Sarojini
Naidu, made their way to the ocean. Gandhi waded out into
the sea for a ritual bath, and then in his wet loin
cloth, with a shawl draped across his shoulders, he
walked back over the fine, dark sand towards the
bungalow. The police had been busy destroying salt
deposits, but as the sun was rising, thirty meters from
the bungalow, the barefooted Gandhi entered a hollow
filled with salt and mud. To the enthusiastic shouts of
his followers he bent down and picked up a handful of
this mixture. There was little ritual or ceremony - but
now the battle had begun in earnest.
The Battle
Gandhi was not arrested at Dandi, he was allowed to
make salt for now, but the inevitable outcome was clear.
Gandhi formalised the chain of command to succeed him in
the event of his arrest - Gandhi's close friend, the
venerable retired judge Abbas Tyabji, and then Sarojini
Naidu.
Mass salt gathering and making by boiling sea water
had commenced, and soon had spread to much of the
country. At the village of Aat, just seven kilometres
away, the strategy of the government was becoming clear.
Gandhi and his immediate followers were left to make and
gather all the salt they wanted but others, like the Aat
villagers, had their salt confiscated and on the second
day of the salt campaign one of them had his hand injured
by police when he refused to let go of his treasonable
treasure. His was the first injury of the campaign, one
of countless more to follow. It only encouraged others to
also commence gathering salt.
The government had decided on its tactics to frustrate
Gandhi's scheme of filling the jails and thus
overwhelming the administration and gaining world
sympathy. They arrested only national leaders, hoping to
isolate Gandhi, who they left alone, and confiscated
illegal salt from others, with force, and often brutal
force, where they thought it necessary - without making
arrests.
During the days that followed, Gandhi spoke at many
close-by villages, often after publically breaking the
salt laws (and being photographed doing it), gave press
interviews, penned dozens of letters of advice and
instruction and began preparing to bring women into the
battle. But, following the heady days of the march, his
troops were getting bored boiling water with impunity,
and the repression of others, while they, the supposed
front line soldiers of the campaign were living in
relative comfort, upset Gandhi. He toured more and more
villages, made more and more radical speeches, and
sometimes even made fun of the situation he found himself
in. On the 11th of April, near Navsari the police were
stopping cars and searching for illegal salt when
Gandhi's vehicle pulled up. Gandhi called out to the
deputy superintendent of police who had led the raids at
Aat, "I have some contraband salt, do you want to stop
me?" His car was neither detained nor searched.
The uncertainty, responsibility and sheer work load
were starting to take their toll. Newspapers had long
reported that Gandhi was beginning to wilt under the
strain and government sources claimed that the Mahatma
seemed restless and doubtful and somewhat depressed. One
report claimed "that Mr. Gandhi has not bargained for a
policy of non-interference on the part of the government
and that it has upset his plans. It is certain that he is
now hard put to it in devising some change of front to
save Dandi from ridicule." Something more was needed.
In the meantime, Dandi had proved to be an unsuitable
base for operation. At high tide it was cut off from the
main roads, hampering Gandhi's program of seditious
touring, now undertaken by car, so a change in location
was decided upon. Ten days after arriving at Dandi,
Gandhi moved the camp back to Karadi. While some of the
original marchers returned to their home districts to
organise the breaking of the salt laws, most stayed with
the Mahatma and were with him when he was arrested.
Gandhi started conceiving a plan that would compel
decisive action on the part of the government. On the
25th of April, Gandhi wrote to his secretary that the
salt works at Dharasana were not far away and that he
intended to continue the march to the salt works and
seize them after giving due warning to the authorities.
On the next day, he made his plans public. Gandhi's
arrest now became as inevitable as the intended raid
itself. The ex-marchers at Karadi now had something to
look forward to. The days of spinning khadi, and
preaching against the evils of alcohol in the villages
were coming to an end. The ball was back in the
government's court.
The Arrest of
Gandhi
When Gandhi declared that he intended to raid the
Dharasana salt works, leaving him alone, hoping for
ridicule was no longer an option. Gandhi knew his arrest
was finally immanent. A series of sentries had been
organised at Karadi to keep watch throughout the night
and bang on pans if the police came. However, soon after
midnight between the 4th and the 5th of May, the police
swooped with such precision and efficiency that they were
inside Gandhi's hut, shining flashlights in his face,
before the alarm was sounded. Gandhi smiled at the police
as they read out the charges amidst a growing crowd. They
allowed Gandhi to wash and pray and then loaded him onto
one of the waiting police lorries and drove him away,
leaving his disconsolate followers behind. The Frontier
Mail, en route from Ahmedabad to Bombay, was briefly
halted at a level crossing about 10 kilometres away, and,
under the cover of darkness, Gandhi was whisked aboard an
empty restaurant car which had been attached to the train
at Navsari.
At a level crossing outside of Bombay, the train
screeched to a halt and Gandhi was escorted from the
train into a waiting car by the police. By mid morning
Gandhi was safely ensconced in Yeravda Central Jail in
Poona. Gandhi appeared pleased to have finally been
arrested and claimed to have been grateful for the good
treatment afforded him. A medical examination showed that
he was a relatively healthy man for is age, with a blood
pressure of 140 over 104. His height was recorded as
being 165 centimetres, and his weight 45 kilograms.
The End of the
Campaign
The Salt March was over. Following the raids on the
Dharasana salt works (29) almost all of the marchers had
joined Gandhi behind bars but unrest still swept the
Indian subcontinent. However, Gandhi's arrest and the
cessation of the raids at Dharasana did not herald the
end of the campaign - that was still some months off, and
the end of round two, some years off.
Gandhi was released from prison in January and in
February commenced negotiations with the Viceroy. In
early March 1931 he reported to the nationalist
leadership that an agreement had been reached. Although
there was general rejoicing over the settlement, the
negotiations seemed to yield no tangible gains to the
nationalist cause. The avowed objectives of the struggle
- independence, or even an abrogation of all of the salt
laws - had not been achieved. Many felt that the Viceroy
had secured all the immediate advantages in the agreement
and the radical nationalists criticised Gandhi bitterly.
(30) Jawaharlal Nehru was so upset by the agreement that
tears came to his eyes. The Mahatma had to make personal
efforts to reconcile him to the truce. For others the
Gandhi-Irwin Pact was the greatest anti-climax in a long
history of anti-climaxes that arose when Gandhi appeared
to call off seemingly "successful" campaigns on the
strength of what they saw as little more than his
whims.
But the Pact used wording never before heard in the
British Empire. Phrases such as "it is agreed" were not
the words of dictation from a ruler. The Empire had
started to crumble and while all the nationalist
leadership may not have seen it, the masses and the rest
of the world did. An astute observer pointed out that "In
the people's eyes, the plain fact that the Englishman had
been brought to negotiate instead of giving orders
outweighed any number of details." (31) By showing its
brutality to the world at Dharasana, the Raj lost the
moral high ground. It could no longer claim to be
bringing civilisation to backward colonies. The Raj was
doomed. And when the British did finally leave India,
they did so as friends.
However, whatever the views of critics or supporters,
the movement that began early on the morning of the 12th
of March, 1930, when Gandhi, followed by 78 disciples and
countless others, left the ashram at Sabarmati for the
long trek to Dandi, was about far more than political
independence and in its wider messages the evaluation in
terms of success or failure is irrelevant.
The Messages of the
Salt March for the 21st Century
The Salt March gave the world the idea of the use of
mass nonviolence in politics. To Indians, it helped
produce a "Father of the Nation." Gandhi was instrumental
in freeing India from the yoke of British imperialism and
consequently started the unravelling of global
colonialism. This alone is enough to count him a towering
figure of his time. But his life continues to inspire.
Peace workers, civil rights campaigners and environmental
activists the world over acknowledge their debt to the
Mahatma. His life addressed the perennial questions: How
do we fight for justice in a way that does not result in
further injustice? How can we fight for peace without
violence? How do we deal with our opponents so they don't
become our enemies? How can we be the change that we are
trying to bring about?
The Salt March was a living sermon to the country and
it was heard by many and it changed many. That sermon
speaks to us just as loudly in the new millennium. The
revolution that Gandhi sought to achieve was not merely a
political one, it was also social. The independence he
fought for was not only national but also personal. The
Salt March was primarily about empowerment; it told
people that they were stronger than they thought and that
their oppressors were weaker than they imagined. Gandhi
went as far as to remark that the salt campaign was "not
designed to establish independence but to arm the people
with the power to do so", (32) and for Gandhi the latter
was far more important. The Salt March was a lesson in
nonviolence, and gave clues to the type of life that is
worth living, the type of life that makes one free.
The Salt March was both about reforming society and
about the self-reformation of the individual. For Gandhi
the two were inextricably linked - reform yourself and
you have started to reform the world, reform the world
nonviolently and you will have reformed the self.
The Gandhi of the Dandi March was not merely a mover
of historical and political events, or even social ones,
he was also a man working out his own existence - doing
what he had to do because his inner beliefs told him that
it was right. The march was more than the propaganda
exercise of the very clever and astute politician that
Gandhi undoubtedly was. It was also a living sermon on
how battles should be fought, on the appearance of the
ideal free India where none was considered high and none
low, on how villages should be organised in a sanitary
and cooperative way, on how principles should be adhered
to in the face of adversity, on the meaning of openness
and truth, on how we should relate to others. In short,
how lives should be lived.
In his interpretation of the Salt March, marcher
Muzumdar warns us against painting Gandhi in our own
image. He protests against those who call Gandhi a
dramatiser, explaining that:
The term dramatiser is merely a refined
appellation for a "stunt performer".... Neither the
adoption of the loincloth nor the March to the Sea was
a dramatic gesture. The historic Salt March to the Sea
was "an act of dedication to God", as the Mahatma put
it to me. "This pilgrimage to Dandi is undertaken",
added Gandhi, "in order to receive the blessing of God
and the blessing of man so that I may return to the
Ashram with Swaraj in the palm of my hand." That the
march did present itself as a drama, that it did serve
as an excellent means for enlisting popular resentment
against the British Salt Laws, that it did prove to be
the finest stroke of political leadership in
organizing the country for Civil Disobedience, that it
did attract the attention of the world - these
by-products of his acts of dedication to God had
nothing to do immediately with the Mahatma's decision.
The course of action was adopted, as it is always
adopted, by the Mahatma in obedience to the voice of
the inner self. (33)
Mazumdar reminds us to realise that the statesmanship
of the spirit is infinitely superior to the statesmanship
of politics.
Those who have some scepticism about the Mahatma as
being anything more than an extremely shrewd politician
with his finger on the pulse of the masses, one who had
great organisational and manipulative abilities, would
not place much value on Muzumdar's interpretation. To a
large degree, however, they would be wrong. The freedom
Gandhi sought, and largely achieved for himself, the
freedom he tried to steer the masses towards in his
political campaign of freeing India, and perhaps
especially during the Salt March, was freedom in the
existential sense, "statesmanship of the spirit."
Viewed in this light, no matter how one interprets the
political successes or otherwise of this key campaign in
modern Indian political history, whatever one thinks of
the amazing event that was the Dandi March, there can be
no failure for someone who was doing what he had to do
and reminding people that they too should be doing what
they have to do - in order to do the right thing, in
order to be true to themselves, in order to be free.
NOTES
1.
Louis Fischer, "Miscellaneous Notes from a House Guest",
in Norman Cousins (ed.) Profiles of Gandhi: America
Remembers a World Leader (Indian Book Co.: New Delhi,
1969), pp.54-64, at p.61.
2.
Displayed prominently on a sign outside Gandhi's hut at
his Sevagram ashram.
3.
Reproduced in G. D. Tendulkar, Mahatma: Life of Mohandas
Karamchand Gandhi, revised edition (Publications
Division, Ministry of Information and Broadcasting,
Government of India: New Delhi, 1961), vol.8, facing
p.89.
4.
Quoted in Tendulkar, Mahatma, vol.8, p.111.
5.
On these myths of the March, see Thomas Weber,
"Historiography and the Dandi March: The Other Myths of
Gandhi's Salt March", Gandhi Marg (1986), vol.8, no.8,
pp.457-476.
6.
See Thomas Weber, "Kharag Bahadur Singh: The Eighth
[Eightieth] Marcher", Gandhi Marg (1984), vol.6,
no.9, pp.661-673.
7.
Quoted in Thomas Weber, On the Salt March: The
Historiography of Gandhi's March to Dandi (HarperCollins:
New Delhi, 1997), p.458.
8.
Jawaharlal Nehru, An Autobiography, (Bodley Head: London,
1936), p.213.
9.
Collected Works of Mahatma Gandhi (CWMG), (Publications
Division, Government of India: New Delhi, 1958-1991),
XLIII: 2-8.
10.
Weber, On the Salt March, p.85.
11.
L. F. Rushbrook Williams "Indian Unrest and American
Opinion", Asiatic Review, July 1930, pp.479-496 at
p.491.
12.
CWMG, XLIII, p.48
13.
Weber, On the Salt March, pp. 136-137.
14.
Weber, On the Salt March, pp. 140-141. Much of the rest
of the account of the march that is presented here is
based on the narrative in the book.
15.
See Weber, "Kharag Bahadur Singh".
16.
Young India, 20 March 1930.
17.
Bombay Chronicle, 8 April 1930.
18.
Gandhi to Morselow ,16 April 1928, CWMG XXXVI, p.199.
19.
Weber, On the Salt March, pp.206-207.
20.
CWMG, XLIII, pp.221-223.
21.
M. K. Gandhi, A Thought For the Day (trans. and ed. by
Anand T. Hingorani), (Publications Division, Ministry of
Information and Broadcasting, Government of India: New
Delhi, 1968).
22.
Interview with Anand T. Hingorani, New Delhi, November
1982.
23.
Weber, On the Salt March, p.245.
24.
See Weber, On the Salt March, pp.268-275.
25.
CWMG, XLIII, pp.146-149.
26.
CWMG, XLIII, pp.157-159.
27.
Source Material for a History of the Freedom Movement in
India, vol.3, "Mahatma Gandhi", Part III 1929-1931
(Directory of Printing and Stationary, Maharashtra State:
Bombay, 1969), p.26.
28.
Anand T. Hingorani, "My Reminiscences of Dandhi March,
Northern India Patrika, 13 March 1973.
29.
For a graphic account of the first mass raid, see Web
Miller's famous description in his book I Found No Peace:
The Journal of a Foreign Correspondent, (Penguin:
Harmondsworth, 1940), pp.134-137.
30.
Weber, On the Salt March, pp.461-462.
31.
Geoffrey Ashe, Gandhi: A Study in Revolution, (Heinemann:
London, 1968), p.298.
32.
CWMG, XLIII, p.306.
33.
Haridas T. Muzumdar, Gandhi Versus the Empire (Universal:
New York, 1932), p.150
Copyright © 2001 By the
author
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