8. Gandhi’s Salt March
Given the previous problems that imposing restrictive taxes on their colonies had caused for the British Empire, one would have expected them to learn something, but if the protests that occurred in India in 1930 are anything to go by, they learned nothing at all.
Britain had been in control of India since 1858 – though their influence dates back far further than that – and over the 80 or so years of the Raj, it had become their most valuable colony. It encompassed the modern-day states of India, Pakistan, Bangladesh and Myanmar, with a population that ran into the hundreds of millions.
The movement for independence in India had been rumbling along, but it would be changed – as would the nature of protest worldwide – by the actions of Mahatma Gandhi. Gandhi had been born in India, qualified as a lawyer in England and worked in South Africa. While in South Africa, he had been exposed to the inequalities in that country – he was continually discriminated against because of his skin color – and began to build movements against racism.
When he moved back to India in 1915, he brought some of the non-violence tactics that he had used in South Africa to build a peaceful movement against British colonial occupation. One of the key moments in the drive for independence would be the 1930 Salt March. Britain had imposed a tax on salt production. This greatly affected Indians of all classes and particularly the poorest: Gandhi said that, after air and water, salt was the most important greatest necessity in life.
To protest this tax, Gandhi lead a march to the sea at the village of Dandi, and symbolically picked up a handful of salt from the shore. With the media on hand to witness the moment and 100,000 people at his back, he said “With this, I am shaking the foundations of the British Empire.”
Across India, thousands followed suit, creating illegal salt in defiance of the British. The response was swift, with 60,000 arrested and a march in Peshawar, modern-day Pakistan, attacked by the British with an estimated 250 deaths. Still, the principles of non-violence were adhered to and Indians stayed calm.
The resonance of the protest showed not only the power of non-violence but also the power of the media. Newsreel footage beamed Gandhi’s image around the world and created a PR disaster for the British. When independence was attained 18 years later, many would date the success of the movement back to Gandhi, Dandi and a few grains of salt.