Eternal India Encyclopedia

Eternal India encyclopedia

FREEDOM MOVEMENT

DANDI MARCH - 1930

MAHATMA BREAKS SALT LAW His Son and Lieutenants Arrested Maharashtra Volunteers Begin Campaign At Juhu

Gandhiji's Appeal for Nation-Wide Mass Civil Disobedience

The Bombay Chronicle, 7 April, 1930

“NAMAK KA KAYADA TOD DIYA”

Gandhji breaking the Salt law at Dandi

National consciousness was electrified when Gandhiji began his Dandi March. One important aspect here was the entry of women into the civil disobedience movement. In the Young India on 30th April, Gandhiji had appealed to Indian women to take up spinning yarn on the charka, and to come out of their household seclusion and picket shops selling foreign goods or liquor and Government insti- tutions. Gandhi's plan was a grand conception and it was superbly executed with a consum- mate skill. The slow march by itself from village to village, roused the entire country- side to a realistic sense of the coming struggle for swaraj contemplated by the Congress. As wide publicity was given in the press to every detail of the march and display of the unique devotion to Gandhi and enthusiasm for the cause he had espoused, among the masses, the story of the 'Pilgrims Journey to Dandi' worked up the feelings of the country as a whole, such as nothing else could. Meanwhile, through the summer heat of April and May 1930, the rank and file volun- teers defied the salt laws. This march aroused intense enthusiasm throughout its route and attracted a tremendous amount of publicity, both in India and abroad. The villagers flocked from all sides sprinkled the roads, strewed leaves on them, and as the marchers passed, sank on their knees. Over three hundred village headmen gave up their jobs. Early in the morning of the sixth of April, Gandhi and his party dipped

voluntary association from the British Government, and will prepare for civil disobedience.... We are convinced that they would ensure the end of inhuman rule. We, therefore, hereby solemnly resolve to carry out the Congress instructions issued from time to time for... establishing Puma Swaraj." On 2nd March 1930, Gandhiji sent a letter to the Viceroy listing out the wrongs done to India, holding the British rule to be a curse. He gave an ultimatum that in the ab- sence of a positive response from the Viceroy, he would proceed to violate the salt laws. The letter again went unheeded. The Viceroy's Pri- vate Secretary regretted that Gandhiji was contemplating a course of action clearly bound to involve violation of law and danger to the public peace. 'On bended knees I asked for bread and received a stone instead.... The only public peace the Nation knows is the peace of the prison-house. India is a vast prison-house. I repudiate this law and regard it as my sacred duty to break the mournful monotony of com- pulsory peace that is choking the heart of the Nation'. Gandhi started the civil disobedience by walking from Sabarmati Ashram to Dandi to make salt on the seashore in defiance of the salt-law regulations. He covered the distance- of 241 miles in 24 days from March 12 (1930) to April 6. Gandhi was accompanied by 78 followers through the Gujarat villages to Dandi on the sea coast. Gandhiji wrote,

The 1930s saw the freedom struggle take many steps ahead. The decade began with the second non-co-operation movement; it ended with the beginning of the Second World War and the Congress ministries in the provinces resigning as a protest against India being involved in the war without her consent. The labour movement also gained a foothold in the political thinking in the country. Kirti, Mazjdur, Kisan, Spark and Kranti spread in the towns. January 1930 was a month of high en- thusiasm in India. The session of the Congress ended on January 1. Jawaharlal Nehru, as president of the Congress, hoisted the tri-colour flag of Indian independence on the bank of the Ravi at Lahore. On January 26, the Independence Day was observed. On the same day the people all over India took the 'Pledge of Independence The pledge was, "We believe that it is the inalienable right of the Indian people...to have freedom and to enjoy the fruits of their toil...so that they may have full opportunities of growth.... if any government deprives a people of these..., the people have a further right to alter it or to abolish it. The British Govern- ment in India....deprived the Indian people of their freedom...exploited the masses and ru- ined India economically, politically, cultur- ally and spiritually. We believe, therefore, that India must sever the British connection and attain Purna Swaraj.... “We recognise that the most effective way of gaining our freedom is not through violence...We will, therefore... withdraw all Communist newspapers like