documentary on independence incident
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This conflict summary was commissioned by the International Center on Nonviolent Conflict (ICNC). We are an educational organization dedicated to developing and sharing knowledge related to nonviolent civil resistance movements for human rights, freedom, and justice around the world. Click here to access ICNC’s homepage.
The Indian Independence Struggle (1930-1931)
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By: Lester Kurtz
June 2009
Mohandas Gandhi’s civil disobedience movement of 1930-1931—launched by the Salt March—is a critical case for understanding civil resistance. Although by itself it failed to bring Indian independence, it seriously undermined British authority and united India’s population in a movement for independence under the leadership of the Indian National Congress (INC). It further signaled a new stage in the struggle for Indian swaraj (self-rule) and facilitated the downfall of the British Empire in India. Gandhi’s Salt Satyagraha (a word Gandhi used to connote civil resistance, meaning “holding fast to the truth”) drew upon a traditional South Asian cultural practice – the “Padyatra” (a long spiritual march) that became a model of strategic action for many social movements in the decades to come.
On the anniversary of the 1919 Jallianwala Bagh massacre in Amritsar—in which hundreds of unarmed Indians were killed and many more wounded by British soldiers—Gandhi reached down and scooped up a handful of mud at a beach and declared that he was shaking the foundations of the British Empire. He then boiled the mud in seawater to produce illegal salt, an act repeated by thousands which led to the arrest of an estimated 60,000-100,000 men and women who participated for the first time in mass public demonstrations. Widespread civil disobedience followed with grassroots actions across the nation including not only illegal salt making, but also bonfires burning British cloth, picketing of shops selling foreign cloth, picketing of liquor shops, and rent withholding. Other issues came to the fore in the campaign as well, such as Hindu-Muslim unity and an attack on the caste system and the elimination of “untouchability”—Gandhi encouraged members of the lowest “untouchable” (harijan or dalit) caste to participate, thereby creating considerable controversy, especially in villages along the route of the march where the local hosts were delighted to welcome the famous Mahatma (which was a name people gave to Gandhi meaning “great soul”) but were loath to associate with “outcasts.” Some criticize Gandhi for losing focus on the issue of independence and diffusing the struggle by including so many other issues, but that was characteristic of his approach.
Following Gandhi’s arrest and imprisonment just after midnight on 5 May 1930, the famous woman poet Sarojini Naidu took over leadership of the nonviolent invasion of the Dharasana Salt Works in Gujarat. Naidu sent wave after wave of satyagrahis toward the plant, where they were met by soldiers who clubbed them with steel-tipped poles (lathis), an event that was recorded by journalists and that moved many around the world to sympathize with the Indian cause. Gandhi was finally released from prison and the Salt Satyagraha ended on March 4, 1931, with the signing of the Gandhi-Irwin pact and the invitation for Gandhi to attend Round Table talks in London to discuss the possibility of Indian independence.
The Salt March was not only the most widely-celebrated moment in Gandhi’s career as a freedom fighter, but it is paradigmatic of his approach: it is a highly-symbolic and dramatic exercise in civil resistance, contextualized among a variety of other nonviolent actions (boycotts, civil disobedience, picketing) strategically focused on a relatively narrow goal. It mobilized mass participation, included widespread civil disobedience, had a profound cultural resonance, and attracted worldwide attention through the media. The people were united, the British Empire’s façade of civility exposed, and pillars of its vast power shaken.