what is the importance of salt satyagraha
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Answer:
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 Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi. The 24-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. Mahatma Gandhi started this march with 80 of his trusted volunteers.[1] Walking ten miles a day for 24 days, the march spanned over 240 miles, from Sabarmati Ashram, 240 miles (384 km) to Dandi, which was called Navsari at the time (now in the state of Gujarat). Growing numbers of Indians joined them along the way. When Gandhi broke the salt laws at 6:30 am on 6 April 1930, it sparked large scale acts of civil disobedience against the British Raj salt laws by millions of Indians.[2]
After making the salt by evaporation at Dandi, Gandhiji continued southward along the coast, making salt and addressing meetings on the way. The Congress Party planned to stage a satyagraha at the Dharasana Salt Works, 25 miles south of Dandi. However, Gandhiji was arrested on the midnight of 4–5 May 1930, just days before the planned action at Dharasana. The Dandi March and the ensuing Dharasana Satyagraha drew worldwide attention to the Indian independence movement through extensive newspaper and newsreel coverage. The satyagraha against the salt tax continued for almost a year, ending with Gandhi's release from jail and negotiations with Viceroy Lord Irwin at the Second Round Table Conference.[3] Over 60,000 Indians were jailed as a result of the Salt Satyagraha.[4] However, it failed to result in major concessions from the British.[5]
The Salt Satyagraha campaign was based upon Gandhi's principles of non-violent protest called satyagraha, which he loosely translated as "truth-force".[6] Literally, it is formed from the Sanskrit words satya, "truth", and agraha, "insistence". In early 1930 the Indian National Congress chose satyagraha as their main tactic for winning Indian sovereignty and self-rule from British rule and appointed Gandhi to organise the campaign. Gandhi chose the 1882 British Salt Act as the first target of satyagraha. The Salt March to Dandi, and the beating by British police of hundreds of nonviolent protesters in Dharasana, which received worldwide news coverage, demonstrated the effective use of civil disobedience as a technique for fighting social and political injustice.[7] The satyagraha teachings of Gandhi and the March to Dandi had a significant influence on American activists Martin Luther King Jr., James Bevel, and others during the Civil Rights Movement for civil rights for African Americans and other minority groups in the 1960s.[8] The march was the most significant organised challenge to British authority since the Non-cooperation movement of 1920–22, and directly followed the Purna Swaraj declaration of sovereignty and self-rule by the Indian National Congress on 26 January 1930.[9] It gained worldwide attention which gave impetus to the Indian independence movement and started the nationwide Civil Disobedience Movement..
Explanation:
British had the monopoly over salt manufacturing and selling. The Namak Satyagrah was in protest against the steep tax the British levied on salt. It was an act of nonviolent civil disobedience in colonial India to produce salt from seawater, as it had been practised by the Indian people. The British officials deemed such production illegal and forced the people to buy it at expensive rates.
Although salt was not the main problem Indians were facing under British rule, it was chosen to symbolize the start of civil disobedience movement because salt was deemed as something on which each Indian had the basic right. Also, salt could be made free of cost from the ocean instead of paying hefty taxes on its purchase from the British.
And so, Mahatma Gandhi declared resistance to British salt policies to be the unifying theme for the civil disobedience movement and thus started Dandi March.