Mohandas Gandhi
Gini Holtkamp Laffin English III-H-1st 9 December 2015
Event Information
Gandhi's Salt March
Join me and my 78 followers on my march to the sea. This is a BYOW (Bring Your Own Water) and BYOC (Bring Your Own Container) event as we travel our 241 miles to the Arabian Sea to collect the salt (which is rightfully ours) for FREE! No British Allowed!
When?
Wednesday, Mar 12, 1930, 12:00 PM
Where?
Dandi, Gujarat, India: Near the Arabian
Mohandas Gaandhi's March to the Arabian
On March 12, 1930, Indian independence leader Mohandas Gandhi begins a defiant march to the sea in protest of the British monopoly on salt. Britain’s Salt Acts prohibited Indians from collecting or selling salt, a very important ingredient in the Indian diet. Citizens were forced to buy from the British, who in addition to exercising a monopoly over the manufacture and sale of salt, also exerted a heavy salt tax. Gandhi set out from Sabarmati with 78 followers on a 241-mile march to the coastal town of Dandi on the Arabian Sea, where he and his supporters defied the British by making salt from seawater.
Map of Journey
This is a map of the 241 mile march to the Arabian Sea in which Gandhi and his 78 followers traveled.
Mohandas Gandhi
Sea Salt Making
Gandhi's Salt March
Learn More From The History Channel
Gandhi's “Satyagraha" in "Civil Disobediance"
Building off the basic ideas expressed in Henry David Thoreau's "Civil Disobedience," Mohandas Gandhi coined the term "Satyagraha." Satyagraha, according to Webster Dictionary, is defined as "pressure for social and political reform through friendly passive resistance." Thoreau firmly believes in "the only obligation which [he has] a right to assume is to do at any time what I think right." Thoreau consistently pushed for change in government, just as Gandhi did versus the British in through their Salt Taxes. Gandhi used a friendly passive form of resistance when he led his followers on The Salt March to the Arabian Sea to collect their own sea salt. Thoreau exemplifies his friendly passive resistance through his "hav[ing] paid no poll-tax for six years. [He] I was put into a jail once on this account." This resistance does no physical, emotional, or developmental harm to others, but proves Thoreau's point and pushes for change. Mohandas Gandhi and Henry David Thoreau both deomonstrate perfect examples "Satyagraha" through each their civil disobediences toward their governing bodies.