Gandhi’s Salt March: Paradoxes and Tensions in the Memory of Nonviolent Struggle in India

Abstract

On 12 March 1930, Mahatma Gandhi, accompanied by 78 followers embarked on a march of more than 200 miles from his Sabarmati Ashram near Ahmedabad to the seaside village of Dandi to commence a nonviolent campaign whose goal was to defy the salt tax and the British Government’s monopoly over salt collection and manufacturing. ‘Next to air and water’, Gandhi explained,

salt is perhaps the greatest necessity of life. It is the only condiment of the poor. … There is no article like salt outside water by taxing which the State can reach even the starving millions, the sick, the maimed and the utterly helpless. The tax constitutes therefore the most inhuman poll tax that ingenuity of man can devise. (Gandhi, 1999b, p. 349)

Some people are thinking of raising memorials to Bapu [Gandhi] in their respective places … But this will lead to a scattering of our energy. We have to conserve not scatter our energy. Gandhiji was the greatest edifice in himself of his values. This country is not going to forget him. He was a symbol of our nation’s strength. … Any tiny dumplings of Gandhi images will serve no purpose. … Let us set up some means for a new life-giving programme, rather than cold memorials (Rajendra Prasad, 15 March 1948).¹

The Story of the MAN we have forgotten and the cause we have betrayed (The Current, 5 September 1950).²

Though we may drift away somewhat from our old mooring, something of that gracious memory lingers, something of that inspiration endures, and a sentinel voice sounds in our ears (Jawaharlal Nehru, 2 October 1952).³