How did gandhi's salt march illustrate his philosophy of civil disobedience?
Answers
Britain’s Salt Acts prohibited Indians from collecting or selling salt, a staple in the Indian diet. Citizens were forced to buy the vital mineral from the British, who, in addition to exercising a monopoly over the manufacture and sale of salt, also exerted a heavy salt tax. Although India’s poor suffered most under the tax, Indians required salt. Defying the Salt Acts, Gandhi reasoned, would be an ingeniously simple way for many Indians to break a British law nonviolently. He declared resistance to British salt policies to be the unifying theme for his new campaign of satyagraha, or mass civil disobedience.
On March 12, Gandhi set out from Sabarmati with 78 followers on a 241-mile march to the coastal town of Dandi on the Arabian Sea. There, Gandhi and his supporters were to defy British policy by making salt from seawater. All along the way, Gandhi addressed large crowds, and with each passing day an increasing number of people joined the salt satyagraha. By the time they reached Dandi on April 5, Gandhi was at the head of a crowd of tens of thousands. Gandhi spoke and led prayers and early the next morning walked down to the sea to make salt.
He had planned to work the salt flats on the beach, encrusted with crystallized sea salt at every high tide, but the police had forestalled him by crushing the salt deposits into the mud. Nevertheless, Gandhi reached down and picked up a small lump of natural salt out of the mud–and British law had been defied. At Dandi, thousands more followed his lead, and in the coastal cities of Bombay and Karachi, Indian nationalists led crowds of citizens in making salt. Civil disobedience broke out all across India, soon involving millions of Indians, and British authorities arrested more than 60,000 people. Gandhi himself was arrested on May 5, but the but the satyagraha continued without him.
On May 21, the poet Sarojini Naidu led 2,500 marchers on the Dharasana Salt Works, some 150 miles north of Bombay. Several hundred British-led Indian policemen met them and viciously beat the peaceful demonstrators. The incident, recorded by American journalist Webb Miller, prompted an international outcry against British policy in India.
From his childhood Mahatma Gandhi treated truth and love as supreme values. Later in his life, he along with the other freedom fighters accomplished the enormous task of compelling the British rulers to leave our country without war or violence but through peaceful ways called satyagraha. Satyagraha is a Sanskrit word which when literally translated means obstinate truth'. As an eminent and much respected political leader in India, he had many loyal followers whom he taught to resort not to war and violence, but peaceful protests. The Quit India Movement and the Salt March against the rule of the British Empire are examples of such protests.
From his childhood Mahatma Gandhi treated truth and love as supreme values. Later in his life, he along with the other freedom fighters accomplished the enormous task of compelling the British rulers to leave our country without war or violence but through peaceful ways called satyagraha. Satyagraha is a Sanskrit word which when literally translated means obstinate truth'. As an eminent and much respected political leader in India, he had many loyal followers whom he taught to resort not to war and violence, but peaceful protests. The Quit India Movement and the Salt March against the rule of the British Empire are examples of such protests.Gandhi had a positive attitude and was always on the lookout for peaceful means to resolve conflicts. To achieve resolution and establish peace simultaneously, Gandhi propounded his philosophy of peace. The most fundamental principle of his philosophy was 'ahimsa' or non-violence which is the law of love, life and creation as opposed to violence or 'himsa the cause of hatred, death and destruction According to Gandhi, the universal human value of non-violence ought to be cultivated not merely at the personal level, but at the social, national and international levels, too, if we wish to avoid personal. social, national and international conflicts. It is a very powerful means to avoid conflict, since it springs from the realisation of the equality of all human beings. It is an ideology of good will towards all human beings.