Gandhi’s SALT MARCH – India 2005 Mini Sheet – 75 Anniversary of Dandi March (Salt March)
The Salt March, which took place from March to April 1930 in India, was an act of civil disobedience led by Mohandas Gandhi (1869-1948) to protest British rule in India. During the march, thousands of Indians followed Gandhi from his religious retreat near Ahmedabad to the Arabian Sea coast, a distance of some 240 miles. The march resulted in the arrest of nearly 60,000 people, including Gandhi himself. India finally was granted its independence in 1947.
SALT MARCH: BACKGROUND
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, Mohandas Gandhi reasoned, would be an ingeniously simple way for many Indians to break a British law nonviolently. (British rule of India began in 1858. After living for two decades in South Africa, where he fought for the civil rights of Indians residing there, Gandhi returned to his native country in 1915 and soon began working for India’s independence.) Gandhi declared resistance to British salt policies to be the unifying theme for his new campaign of “satyagraha,” or mass civil disobedience. – The History Channel [www.history.com/topics/salt-march]
The Salt March Monument, New Delhi, India – CLICK FOR LARGER IMAGE
The Congress Seva Dal will celebrate the 85th anniversary of Dandi Yatra on March 12 by organising a yatra in Baroda. The Congress Seva Dal today said the yatra will start from Sardar Vallabhai Patel’s statue in the city and culminate at Mahatma Gandhi’s statue at Gandhinagar Guru hall. All India Congress Seva Dal secretary Pratap Narayan Mishra and Gujarat Congress Seva Dal chief Mangal Singh Solanki and a large number of activists will take part in the event. Father of the Nation Mahatama Gandhi in 1930 had led the Dandi March or Salt March from Sabarmati Ashram to the coastal village of Dandi. [news.webindia123.com/news/articles/India/20140310/2354790.html] – WEDNESDAY, MARCH 11, 2015 – Web India 123
