Under what circumstances the Civil Disobedience or the salt movement was launched explain

The Salt March, also known as the Salt Satyagraha, Dandi March and the Dandi Satyagraha, was an act of nonviolent civil disobedience in colonial India led by Mahatma Gandhi. The twenty four day march lasted from 12 March 1930 to 6 April 1930 as a direct action campaign of tax resistance and nonviolent protest against the British salt monopoly.

Inhaltsverzeichnis Show

Salt Satyagraha
Civil Disobedience Movement- How it Began
Civil Disobedience Movement- Effects of the movement
Reaction by the British government
The Karachi Session
Impact of Civil Disobedience Movement
Frequently Asked Questions

This article will update you on Salt Satyagraha also known as Salt March/Dandi March or Civil Disobedience Movement.

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Salt Satyagraha

The Salt Satyagraha was a mass civil disobedience movement initiated by Mahatma Gandhi against the salt tax imposed by the British government in India. He led a large group of people from Sabarmati Ashram on 12th March 1930 till Dandi, a coastal village in Gujarat, to break the salt law by producing salt from seawater.

Background to Salt Satyagraha

By 1930, the Congress Party had declared that Poorna Swarajya or complete independence was to be the sole aim of the freedom struggle.
It started observing 26 January as Poorna Swarajya Day, and it was decided that civil disobedience was to be the means employed to achieve it.
Mahatma Gandhi was asked to plan and organise the first such act. Gandhiji chose to break the salt tax in defiance of the government.
Some members of Congress were skeptical of the choice and other Indians and the British dismissed this choice of salt with disdain.
The then Viceroy, Lord Irwin was hardly perturbed by the threat of a salt protest and the government did nothing to prevent the salt march from taking place.
But Gandhiji’s choice of using salt was nothing short of brilliant because it touched a chord with every Indian.
It was a commodity required by all and the poor people were hurt because of the salt tax.
Indians had been making salt from seawater free of cost until the passing of the 1882 Salt Act that gave the British monopoly over the production of salt and authority to impose a salt tax. It was a criminal offence to violate the salt act.
Gandhiji also hoped to unite Hindus and Muslims as the cause was common to both groups.
The salt tax accounted for 8.2% of the British Raj revenue from tax and Gandhiji knew that the government could not ignore this.

The course of the Salt Satyagraha

Gandhiji informed Lord Irwin of his plan on 2nd March 1930.
He would lead a group of people from his Ashram at Sabarmati on 12th March 1930 and walk through the villages of Gujarat.
On reaching the coastal village of Dandi, he would make salt from seawater thereby breaking the salt act. Gandhiji started the march as planned with 80 of his followers. They were given strict instructions not to resort to any kind of violence.
Thousands of people thronged the path from Sabarmati Ashram to Ahmedabad to witness the historic event.
At the end of every day, Gandhiji would address thousands of people and attack the government in his speeches.
Gandhiji talked to foreign journalists and wrote articles for newspapers on the way. This pushed the Indian independence movement into the forefront of world media. Gandhiji became a household name in the West.
Sarojini Naidu joined him on the way. Every day more and more people joined him and on 5th April 1930, they reached Dandi.
At this time, there were about 50,000 people participating in the march.
On the morning of 6th April 1930, Gandhiji broke the salt law by making salt. Thousands of people followed suit.

Effects of Salt Sathyagraha

Around 60,000 people including Gandhiji himself were arrested by the government.
There was widespread civil disobedience carried on by the people. Apart from the salt tax, other unpopular tax laws were being defied like the forest laws, chowkidar tax, land tax, etc.
The government tried to suppress the movement with more laws and censorship.
The Congress Party was declared illegal. But this did not deter the satyagrahis who continued the movement.
There were some incidents of violence in Calcutta and Karachi but Gandhiji did not call off the movement, unlike the previous time with the non-cooperation movement.
C Rajagopalachari led a similar march on the southeast coast from Trichy to Vedaranyam in Tamil Nadu. He too was arrested for making salt.
K Kelappan led a march in the Malabar region from Calicut to Payyanur.
There were similar marches and salt was produced illegally in Assam and Andhra Pradesh.
In Peshawar, the Satyagraha was organised and led by Gandhiji’s disciple, Khan Abdul Ghaffar Khan. In April 1930 he was arrested. Khan’s followers (called Khudai Khidmatgars) whom he had trained in Satyagraha had gathered in a marketplace called the Qissa Khwani Bazaar. There they were fired at by the British Indian Army despite being unarmed.
Thousands of women also took part in the Satyagraha.
Foreign clothes were boycotted. Liqueur shops were picketed. There were strikes all over.
On May 21, 1930, there was a protest against the Dharasana Salt Works by peaceful non-violent protestors led by Sarojini Naidu. The police lathi-charged the protestors brutally and it resulted in the deaths of 2 people with several others being injured. This event was reported in the international media and there was a condemnation of British policies followed in India.
The British government was shaken by the movement. Also, its non-violent nature made it difficult for them to suppress it violently.
This movement had three main effects:
It pushed Indian freedom struggle into the limelight in western media.
It brought a lot of people including women and the depressed classes directly in touch with the freedom movement.
It showed the power of the non-violent Satyagraha as a tool in fighting imperialism.
Gandhiji was released from prison in 1931 and he met with Lord Irwin who was keen to put an end to the civil disobedience movement and the media attention it had caught.
As per the Gandhi-Irwin Pact, the civil disobedience movement would be ended and Indians, in return, would be allowed to make salt for domestic use. Lord Irwin also agreed to release the arrested Indians. Gandhiji attended the Second Round Table Conference in London as an ‘equal’.

Drawbacks of Salt Sathyagraha

The movement did not procure any major concessions from the government.
Muslim support was limited.

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Civil disobedience movement was a landmark event in the Indian Natiomalist movement. In many ways, the civil disobedience movement is credited for paving the way for freedom in India. It was significant in many ways as it was a movement spread to the urban areas and witnessed the participation of women and people belonging to the lower castes. In this blog we bring to you the revision notes of the civil disobedience movement.

Also Read: Non-Cooperation Movement: Features, Causes and Results

Civil Disobedience Movement- How it Began

Civil disobedience was initiated under the stewardship of Mahatma Gandhi. It was launched after the observance of Independence Day in 1930. The civil disobedience movement commenced with the infamous dandi march when Gandhi left the Sabarmati Ashram at Ahmedabad on foot with 78 other members of the Ashram for Dandi on 12 March 1930. After reaching Dandi, Gandhi broke the salt law. It was considered illegal to make salt as it was solely a government monopoly. The salt satyagraha led to a widespread acceptance of the civil Disobedience movement across the country. This event became symbolic of people’s defiance of the government policies.

Civil Disobedience Movement- Effects of the movement

Following Gandhi’s footsteps, C. Rajgopalchari in Tamil Nadu led a similar march from Trichinopoly to Vedaranyam. At the same time Sarojini Naidu, a prominent leader in the congress led the movement in Darasana in Gujarat. The police opened a lathi charge which led to over 300 satyagrahis being severely injured. Consequently, there were demonstrations, hartals, a boycott of foreign goods, and later refusal to pay taxes. A lakh of participants including women participated in this movement.

Reaction by the British government

In order to consider the reforms by the Simon Commission, the British government convened the first round table conference in November 1930. It was however boycotted by the Indian National Congress. The conference was attended by Indian princes, the Muslim League, Hindu Mahasabha, and some others. However, nothing came of it. The British realized that without the participation of congress no real constitutional changes would come about.

The viceroy, Lord Irwin made efforts to persuade Congress to join the second round table congress. Gandhi and Irwin reached an agreement wherein the government agreed to release all political prisoners against whom there were no charges of violence and in turn congress would suspend the civil disobedience movement. In the Karachi session in 1931, presided over by Vallabhbhai Patel, it was decided that the congress would participate in the 2nd round table congress. Gandhi represented the session which met in September 1931.

The Karachi Session

At the Karachi session, an important resolution of fundamental rights and economic policy was passed. Besides laying down the policy of the nationalist movement on social and economic problems facing the country, it guaranteed fundamental rights to the people irrespective of caste and religion and favoured the nationalisation of industries. The session met with the participation of Indian princes, Hindu, Muslim and Sikh communal leaders. However, the sole reason for their participation was to promote their vested interests. None of them were interested in the independence of India. Due to this, the second round table conference was met with a failure and no agreement could be reached. The government repression intensified and Gandhi and many other leaders were arrested. In all about 12,000 people were arrested. After the withdrawal of the movement in 1939, Congress passed a resolution that demanded that a constituent assembly, elected by the people on the basis of adult franchise, be convened. And that only such an assembly could frame the constitution for India. Even though Congress did not succeed, this garnered vast sections of the people to participate in the mass struggle. Radical objectives for the transformation of Indian society were also adopted.

Impact of Civil Disobedience Movement

The impact of the civil disobedience movement reverberated far and wide. It created distrust towards the British government and laid the foundation for the freedom struggle, and popularised the new method of propaganda like the Prabhat, pheris, pamphlets, etc. Following the defiance of forest law in Maharashtra, Karnataka, and Central province and the refusal to pay the rural ‘Chaukidari tax’ in Eastern India, the government ended the oppressive salt tax.

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Frequently Asked Questions

How did the civil disobedience movement begin?

The Salt Satyagraha was a massive civil disobedience movement pioneered by Mahatma Gandhi against the salt tax imposed by the British government in India. Gandhi was followed by a large group of people from Sabarmati Ashram on 12th March 1930 till Dandi, a coastal village in Gujarat. On reaching Dandi, they broke the salt law by extracting salt from salt water.

What are the features of the civil disobedience movement?

Civil disobedience movement was the first nationwide movement while all others were restricted to urban areas. This movement gave chance to the people in rural areas the opportunity to participate.This movement witnessed the participation of women was in large numbersKasturba Gandhi, Kamladevi Chattopadhyay, Avantikabai Gokhale, Lilavati Munshi, Hansaben Mehta were some of the prominent female leaders who led the satyagraha movementThe motto of this movement was Non-violence.

Despite continuous suppression by the British government, this movement did not turn back