How Gandhi’s Dandi March Shook the British Empire!
The march on foot undertaken by Gandhi and seventy-eight freedom fighters was the most significant event in the history of the breach of salt law in our country. It was commenced in accordance with a fixed schedule to be carried on by them during the long journey ending at Dandi. Undoubtedly, it was a disciplined band of nonviolent satyagrahis who were to present a new model of satyagraha which later on converted into a bigger movement at all-India level.
On 12 March 1930 at 6-10 A.M. Gandhi came out of his room, calm and composed, accompanied by Prabhashankar Patani, Mahadev Desai and Pyarelal, his secretary. He offered prayers, looked at his watch and exactly at 6.30 A.M. commenced his march with seventy-eight volunteers With his usual gentle smile, betokening his unifying faith in the justice of the cause he was pursuing and in the success of the great campaign he had embarked upon, he headed the procession with quick and unfaltering steps.
‘Like the historic march of Ram Chandra to Lanka, the march of Dandi would be memorable’ exclaimed Motilal Nehru in a message. P.C. Ray called it the ‘exodus of Israelites under Moses.’ Jawaharlal Nehru called Gandhi, ‘…. the pilgrim on his quest of truth, quiet, peaceful, determined and fearless who would continue that quiet pilgrimage regardless of consequences.’ The satyagrahis were to face a fatiguing journey through heat and dust of the Kheda villages. Thousands of men, women and children accompanied the marching column for a few miles and thousands lined the route and showered flowers, coins, currency notes and kum kum at the satyagrahis
Following the commencement of his epic Dandi March, a tremendous wave of enthusiasm swept over the entire country. The historic day was celebrated all over India. Calcutta woke that morning amidst sounds of conch shells and shouts of ‘Gandhiji ki Jai’. At a conference of the Congress leaders of Bengal a decision was taken to appoint immediately an ad hoc council to be called the Bengal Civil Disobedience Council, with the object of carrying out the programme outlined by Gandhiji. J.M. Sen Gupta appealed to all men and women of the province to enroll themselves as volunteers for the Civil Disobedience Movement. He said, ‘Bengal is on trial. She had always been in the vanguard of the country’s battle for freedom and cannot lag behind. Let us plunge head-long in the fight and regain the rights which are ours.’
In Bombay, a public meeting was held under the presidentship of K.F. Nariman. He exhorted the audience to get ready for the fight. The ‘War Council’ of the Bombay Provincial Congress Committee announced a list of ‘iron-sides’ to join the first detachment of volunteers from the town
In Madras, at a public meeting at Tilak Ghat, prayers were offered for the success of the Civil Disobedience campaign by the Madras District Congress Committee, Andhra Congress Committee, the Triplicate Congress Sabha and the political section of the Youth League. The meeting reiterated India’s resolve to achieve Swaraj by nonviolent means under Gandhi’s leadership by following his path.’
In Lahore, a band of Congress volunteers paraded the streets and raised shouts of ‘Mahatma Gandhi Ki Jai’. In a mammoth meeting of the citizens of the town, held under the auspices of the City Congress Committee, Maulana Abdul Qadir, in opening the proceedings, said, ‘The 12th of March would be a red letter day and it would figure in letters of gold in the future history of India’ He hoped that the people of India, from that day onward would give practical demonstration of their determination to win freedom. He believed that as soon as the people of the Punjab would receive the news of Gandhi’s arrest, they would suspend their business and work out the plan of the movement
In Peshawar, the ‘Satyagraha Day’ was observed by taking out a procession and holding a public meeting. Resolutions reiterating the pledge of independence and wishing Godspeed to the soldiers of freedom and congratulating Vallabhbhai Patel on his imprisonment were unanimously passed. Besides, a large number of volunteers were enlisted for the satyagraha
Civil Disobedience Day was celebrated in Delhi in a meeting attended by about 10,000 persons, including a large number of ladies. Devdas Gandhi gave the detailed history of the salt tax and called it the most ‘barbarous’ tax which affected the poor classes, and pleaded for its abolition immediately. He also exhorted the people to observe complete but peaceful hartals if Mahatma Gandhi was arrested.
Allahabad, the nerve centre of U. P. politics, witnessed scenes of enthusiasm in connection with the celebration of the commencement of the satyagraha campaign. Jawaharlal Nehru hoisted the national flag over the building occupied by the offices of the A.I.C.C., the City Congress Committee and the All-India Spinners’ Association, U.P. branch. A large gathering participated in the ceremony. While addressing the audience, Nehru said that the pledge of satyagraha laid stress on nonviolence which was the very basis of the Civil Disobedience campaign. He warned that only those who were convinced of the efficacy of that method either as a creed or as a policy in the present circumstances of the country, should take the pledge. He opined that nonviolence was not a convenient shelter either for cowards or for those who wanted to prepare for violence. He asked the non-believers in nonviolence to withdraw from the movement to give others a chance
In Ahmedabad, a meeting of the Youth League was held in which a resolution was passed empowering the secretaries to enlist volunteers for the Civil Disobedience Movement. About twenty-five names were enlisted on the spot including two secretaries and Miss Mridula Ambalal, daughter of a local mill-magnate
The ‘Dandi March Day’ was observed in Nagpur by hoisting the national flag. A procession passed through the main bazaars of the town, and, thereafter, a public meeting was also held. Gandhi’s letter to the Viceroy was read out and explained to the audience. An appeal for the enlistment of volunteers was also made. While exhorting the people to give the moment their whole-hearted support M.V. Abhyankar said, ‘I shall perish in the struggle for Independence or live to enjoy freedom after its achievement.’
Similar celebrations were held all over the country and considerable enthusiasm was aroused with people for participating in the Civil Disobedience Movement. For the first time, a new spirit for the attainment of Swaraj-full and complete-was found bubbling everywhere. The Viceroy informed the Secretary of State on 13 March 1930, ‘Most of my thoughts at the moment are concentrated upon Gandhi. I wish I felt sure what the right way to deal with him is.’
The same day Gandhi and his satyagrahis reached a small village, Aslali, where they were received well by the villagers. Gandhi emphasised the importance of salt and criticised the salt tax levied by the government. He stated, ‘The poor destitute villagers do not have the strength to get this tax repealed. We want to develop this strength… We should make a resolution that we shall prepare salt, eat it, sell it to the people and, while doing so, court imprisonment, if necessary. If, out of Gujarat’s Population of 90 lakhs, we leave out women and children, and the remaining 30 lakhs get ready to violate the salt tax, the Government does not have enough accommodation in jails to house so many people.’
Next day, Gandhi, who was apprehensive of his arrest, informed Jawaharlal Nehru, ‘The news given to me of my impending arrest was said to be absolutely authentic. But we have reached the second stage. We take the third tonight’
The second halt of the Dandi marchers was at Bareja, a village with a Population of 2,500. He emphasised the importance of khadi, its production and use by the villagers. ‘Khadi is the foundation of our freedom struggle…. I request you to renounce luxuries and buy khadi from this heap before you’.
‘We have come forward to win our freedom from this tyrannical and oppressive Government. If we cannot put our own house in order in an organized manner, how shall we run the country’s Government? I ask you, therefore, to learn order and organization…. This struggle against the Government on which we have embarked is not going to reach its conclusion with five, or twenty-five, or even millions of men getting killed. We have to look after other things also simultaneously.’
As Gandhi entered the Kheda district, memories-some sweet, some bitter-filled his mind. It was while working in this district that he became one with the lives of people. He had seen nearly all the villages of the district and had covered many of them on foot. He stated, ‘I have come to Navagam in the middle of a battle… The Government found some pretext or other to arrest Vallabhbhai… Pressure was brought to the Magistrate somehow to serve a notice on Sardar and he was arrested. What could a poor Magistrate do where the entire atmosphere is vitiated?
When some headmen and matadars of Kheda district submitted their resignations as a protest against the oppressive policy of the government, Gandhi advised them, ‘Remember that in the resignations you have handed in, I see God’s hand. The Kheda District has made an auspicious beginning.’
At Vasana, where the villagers had gathered to accord reception to the marchers and listen to their leader, Gandhi explained that abolition of the salt-tax or remission of some taxes would not mean swaraj for them. Winning of swaraj was not going to be so easy as they might think. It was only a way to do it and by following it they would reach the goal of freedom. He had a word of praise for the headmen of Navagam, Vavdi, Agam, Mahelaj and other villages who had tendered their resignations. ‘Why should they stick to Headmanship for the mere five rupees a month that the government pays them? If the Collector summons a Headman, let him say, ‘Give us back our Sardar. Grant us a remission in land revenue.’
At Nadiad, a town with a population of thirty-one thousand, Gandhi reminded the people, ‘Bound by the chains of slavery, we are being crushed at present and we want to shake them off.’ He wished all government servants to give up their jobs. A government job gave them the power to tyrannize over others. Finally, be asked to enlist themselves as volunteers. And as soon as he got behind the bars or as soon as the All-India Congress Committee gave a call, they should come forward to offer themselves for being jailed. ‘Then alone shall I believe that Nadiad has made its contribution to our struggle’
In a letter to Jayaprakash Narayan which Gandhi wrote from Anand on 17 March, he explained, ‘No where else have I observed such zeal for sacrifice as has been displayed by the Ashram women. At present the women are to a great extent managing the internal affairs of the Ashram. The chance of acquiring such experience will never be repeated. I would therefore advise you to send Prabhavati there. After my arrest the Ashram women too will face court imprisonment. I think Prabhavati should join them. She is worthy in every respect.’
At Anand, an educational centre of Patidars, Gandhi demanded, ‘In your hands lies the honour of the Patidars of Charotar. You are like salt in the sea of Patidars. If the salt loses its savour, wherewith shall it be salted? Salt is more sapid than either sugar or jaggery. The latter may even cause jaundice, whereas a pinch of salt adds flavour to the meal. If Anand gives up its savour of courage and such other virtues which have been attributed to the Patidars are not displayed in Anand at this juncture, where else can one see them?.’
The students’ services to the national cause were also applauded. They were advised to suspend their studies for as long as this struggle continued. Formerly, Gandhi had asked his students to leave schools and to set up national schools. But this time he asked them to leave schools and come out on the ‘battle-field’ and become ‘mendicants’ for the sake of the country. But he did not ask them to give up their studies for good, but only to give up book-learning so long as the struggle lasted.
At Borsad, the reception of Gandhi and his satyagrahis was celebrated with the immediate announcement of the resignations of headmen, matadars and ravanias of twenty villages of the taluka. Over one hundred village officers of twenty-five villages submitted their resignations. The government sources commented, ‘Gandhi’s attention is directed on two points i.e. resignations of patels and enrolling volunteers. Under his instructions local workers are trying to get more resignations under the threat of social boycott.’.
They were warmly received by the village folk. They were keen to listen to Gandhi’s discourse. He explained to them, ‘Our patience has been severely tried. We must free ourselves from the yoke of this Government and we are prepared to undergo any hardships that we may have to suffer in order to secure swaraj. It is our duty as well as our right to secure swaraj.’
‘Today we are defying the salt law. Tomorrow we shall have to consign other laws to the waste-paper basket. Doing so we shall practise such severe non-cooperation that finally it will not be possible for the administration to be carried on at all. Let the Government then, to carry on its rule, use guns against us, send us to prison, hang us. But how many can be given such punishment? Try and calculate how much time it will take a lakh of Britishers to hang thirty crores of persons.’
Gandhi once again exhorted the students to leave their institutions and join the struggle for independence. He desired that all students studying in the local high school and who were above the age of fifteen, and all teachers too, should enroll themselves. He pleaded that wherever revolutions had taken place, that is, in Japan, China, Egypt, Ireland and in England, students and teachers had played a prominent role. In Europe, war broke out on 4 August 1914, and when Gandhi reached England on the 6th of the same month, he found that students had left colleges and marched out with arms
Gandhi further explained that his prostrating himself on the ground for the sake of removing the hardships of crores of people was of no avail. He had spared no efforts in drafting appeals.
He became a revolutionary when politeness and persuasion proved infructuous. He indeed found peace in describing himself as a revolutionary and appealed that in a revolution of that nature which was calm, peaceful and truthful, people should get themselves enrolled regardless of the religious faith to which they belonged. He was confident that if they enlisted themselves with sincerity and if they could keep up their courage, the salt tax would have been abolished, this administration would have come to an end and all the hardships enumerated in the letter to the Viceroy as well as those which had not been enumerated would have to cease.
On 19 March, the party of satyagrahis reached Ras Taluka where Sardar Patel was arrested and sentenced to prison and in which he had carried on such a vigorous struggle in 1924 that the Government had finally to admit its error and mete out justice that should not have required a struggle. It is as if Sardar was sentenced to prison as a reward for having served you’
During the short stay of Gandhi, some of the headmen and matadars had handed in their resignations. But Gandhi expressed unhappiness at the small number of resignations at Ras. In fact, the headman, talati and revania were the representatives of the government in the villages and it was through these persons that the latter carried on its administration. A village which was afraid of a handful of men and continued to act in a manner contrary to its own wishes, neither enhanced the prestige of the headman, the talati or the revania nor that of the villagers themselves. Sardar Patel had been making great effort to end this indignity
Gandhi praised the services rendered by Sardar Patel. He also apprised the villagers of his mission. He explained ‘Sardar neither made speeches nor came here to foment trouble. Neither the Magistrate nor you had acted in any sort of trouble. The task for which Sardar had approached you was not a secret to anyone. A satyagrahi has no secrets….. What secret can a satyagrahi like Sardar have?’ He had come there to clear the way for Gandhi and he had not come there to convey the message regarding salt. Gandhi was at a loss to know about the offence committed by Sardar Patel and wondered that a man of his stature should have been awarded a sentence of three months’ jail and labeled it a matter of shame to the Sardar and to the government. Gandhi wished that a person like Sardar Patel should be sentenced to a term of seven years’ imprisonment or be exiled. ‘It would not befit the Government to sentence me to three months’ imprisonment. Exile for life or hanging would be a punishment fit for a person like me.
I am guilty of sedition. It is my dharma to commit sedition against the Government. I am teaching this dharma to the people. A regime under which tyranny is being perpetrated, under which the rich and the poor are made to pay the same amount of tax on an item like salt, under which exorbitant sums are being spent on watchmen, the police and the army, under which the highest executive receives a salary which is five thousand times the income of the cultivator, under which an annual revenue of 25 crores of rupees is derived from narcotics and liquor, under which foreign cloth of the value of Rs. 60 cores is imported every year, and under which crores of persons continue to remain unemployed, it is one’s dharma to rise against and destroy such a regime, to pray that fire may consume its policies
Meanwhile, the A.I.C.C. held a meeting on the banks of the Sabarmati on 20 March. Besides the president Jawaharlal Nehru, it was attended by other prominent leaders like Maulana Azad, Sarojini Naidu, P.D. Tandon, Abbas Tyabji, Darbar Gopaldas, J.B. Kripalani, N.C. Kalelkar, Kasturba Gandhi, Ansuyabehn and Mrs. Ambalal. Many members excused themselves from attendance on the plea that they were busy with preparations for the Civil Disobedience Movement, in their own areas. The leaders met under a sense of ‘heavy’ responsibility and the result was a foregone conclusion.
By its principal resolution, the A.I.C.C. confirmed the Working Committee’s resolution authorising Gandhi to launch the Civil Disobedience Movement. It laid down the conditions under which the various provinces should start satyagraha on a mass scale. The Provincial Congress Committees were given wide discretion about the manner, the form and the place of Civil Disobedience. It was open to them, to prepare their provinces for any form of satyagraha, best suited to them. But it was clearly laid down that the salt satyagraha should be undertaken in every province when it was possible. Other forms of satyagraha might be prepared for, but should be reserved for the second stage of the campaign. In case Gandhi was arrested, the Provincial Congress Committees should immediately determine to start Civil Disobedience, and if he was not arrested, they should await instructions which he might issue on reaching his destination. He would give the necessary signal and the Provincial Congress Committees would be informed immediately through the A.I.C.C. Office.
The Government of India felt much concern over the resolution of Congress. The Home Member suggested, ‘it is essential that we should be able to give timely warning owing to local Governments. He also suggested that the correspondence of the members of the Working Committee; the correspondence of the head office of the Congress and of all provincial Congress offices and provincial Congress Presidents and of any particular individual whose correspondence in local government concerned might regard as likely to yield ‘especially important’ information, should be censured.
It was barely ten days ago that Gandhi had begun his historic march and the actual campaign was yet to be started. The whole country was already in a state of fervour for a parallel to which one might recollect the ‘hottest days’ of the Non-Cooperation Movement of 1920-22. People in the provinces were planning to start the movement, and in some cases preliminary steps had already been initiated. In Bengal, for instance, which had for the moment, lost both its outstanding leaders, a ‘War Council’ had been formed. In the United Provinces, the Provincial Congress Committee had started a satyagraha committee consisting of prominent leaders, including the President of the Congress himself. Judging from the signs, the whole country appeared to be in the throes of an agitation of unprecedented magnitude.
The Civil Disobedience plans of Gandhi and the Congress leaders
As the march proceeded, so the pressure of publicity and social boycott was built up and resignations began to occur in large numbers. By 22 March, approximate number of resignations were four from Ahmedabad district: twenty-seven from Kaira (of whom sixteen were from Borsad taluka) seventeen from Broach, and two from Surat. But Surat soon became the most affected district by 5 April. One hundred and forty headmen had resigned and ten clays later, the figure had risen to two hundred and twenty seven. Gandhi warned them, ‘It will be regarded as cowardice to hand in one’s resignation and then to withdraw it. There is no compulsion to resign. It is advisable to give up the post of Headman, looking upon it as something base, dirty and filthy.’
The speech delivered by Gandhi at Broach on 26 March dealt with the communal question43 He explained that he had never dreamt that he could win swaraj merely through his effort or assisted only by the Hindus. He sought the assistance of Muslims, Parsis, Christians, Sikhs, Jews and all other Indians. He needed the assistance of even Englishmen. ‘But I know too that all this combined assistance is worthless if I have not one other assistance, that is, from God. All is vain without His help. And if He is with this struggle, no other help is necessary.’
In a letter to Jawaharlal Nehru on 31 March Gandhi expressed his optimism about the forthcoming movement. ‘Things seem to be shaping very well indeed in Gujarat… I feel you are right in confining your attention to the salt tax for the time being. What more we can or should do. Unless you hear from me to the contrary, please take 6th April as the date for simultaneous beginning.’
At Jambusar, Kamaladevi Chattopadhyaya arrived to see Gandhi to remove the general impression that had gone abroad that, as he had not included women in his first batch of volunteers, they might not be taken up at all. Gandhiji told her, ‘If impatient mothers will be a little patient they will find ample scope for their zeal and sacrifice in this national struggle for freedom’46 She asked Gandhi what women with children should do. He said that he neither desired nor expected women to neglect their children. They might have to wait and bide their time, and thus be of use in some ways. Those women, however, who could make some satisfactory arrangements to have the children well looked after, should join the struggle.
At Surat where Gandhi and the satyagrahis reached on 1 April, they received a big welcome. He called the salt tax beastly, inhuman and a Satanic Law. ‘I have not heard of such justice anywhere in the world where it prevails … To bow to an empire which dispenses such justice is not dharma but adharma. A man who prays to God every morning at dawn cannot, must not, pray for the good of such an empire. On the contrary while praying or saying the namaaz he should ask God to encompass the destruction of such a Satanic empire, such an inhuman government. To do so is dharma.’
In a message to the nation in the issue of Young India dated 3 April 1930, Gandhi exhorted the people to ‘Remember 5th April’, and start mass Civil Disobedience regarding the salt laws. He advised them to observe nonviolence in the fullest sense of the term. This was to be a spontaneous action. The workers were required to merely guide the masses in the initial stages. Later, the masses would regulate the movement themselves48 The congress volunteers would render aid wherever needed. They, however, would be expected to be in the forefront. They were advised not to take sides in any communal quarrels. Wherever, there was a violent eruption, volunteers were expected to die in the attempt to quell violence. Those who were to be engaged in Civil Disobedience were to occupy themselves and induce others to be engaged in some national service, such as khadi work, liquor and opium picketing, foreign-cloth shops, village sanitation, assisting the families of civil resistance prisoners in a variety of ways.
Gandhi also expected that if there was a real response about civil resistance regarding the salt tax, people should by proper organisation secure boycott of foreign cloth through khadi and secure total prohibition. This would mean a saving of 91 crores per year, and supplementary work for the millions of unemployed. ‘If we secure these things, we cannot be far from independence. And not one of these things is beyond our capacity.
Thus at each village, where the party stopped, Gandhi spoke briefly, telling the villagers that a great ordeal was at hand. He filled his political appeal with exhortations relevant to village life, such as khadi, cow-protection, cleanliness and untouchability. His appeal was not for money but for change of attitudes: he called on village officials to resign their posts which buttressed the exploitative regime. As he journeyed, he continued to give press interviews and to write to Navajivan and Young India, spreading his message of swaraj and giving instructions for the conduct of the campaign during the days ahead.
Out of twenty-five days, which the journey took, the party of satyagrahis had walked for twenty-two days, excluding three days of Gandhi’s silence. On his way, Gandhi passed by forty villages and towns and everywhere he addressed the audience. The whole country-side was awake to the call of the Mahatma.
At least fifty thousand persons heard his stirring message to the nation: his speeches were generally impassioned and always brave and there was a tone of pathos which had gone home to the hearts of the listeners. Despite all the fatigue and other hardships of the journey, he never allowed himself any comfort that was denied to the last man of his ‘army’.
The satyagrahis reached Dandi on 5 April. Sarojini Naidu had already arrived there to welcome them. When interviewed by a special correspondent of The Bombay Chronicle, Gandhi said, ‘Government, perhaps, deserves congratulations for their policy of non-interference which is not exactly in keeping with their proven capacity for provoking popular sentiment.’
Next day he was to break the salt tax law. If the Civil Disobedience Movement became widespread in the country and the government tolerated it, the salt law, Gandhi declared, might be taken as abolished. He indeed had no doubt in his mind that the salt tax was abolished the very moment that the decision to break that salt law was reached.
‘If they arrest me or my companions tomorrow, I shall not be surprised. I shall certainly not be pained. It would be absurd to be pained if we get something that we have invited on ourselves.’
Gandhi advised the people to make salt freely in every home, as our ancestors used to, and sell it from place to place, and they should continue doing so wherever possible till the government yielded, so much so that the salt in government stocks would become superfluous. ‘If the awakening of the people in the country is true and real, the salt law is as good as abolished’.
Gandhi highlighted the importance of Dandi and praised the efforts of the people of the taluka. He explained, ‘Dandi was chosen not by a man but by God. How otherwise could we have chosen for the battle-field of satyagraha such an out-of-the-way place-a place where no food grains are to be had, where there is scarcity of water, where thousands can assemble only with difficulty, walking ten miles from the railway station, and where if you are travelling on foot, you have to negotiate creeks full of slush and mud? The truth is that in this struggle we have to put up with suffering. You have made the road from Navsari to Dandi famous throughout the world by arranging for free drinking water at frequent intervals all along it… Dandi should be a sacred ground for us, where we should utter no untruth, commit no sin. Everyone coming here should come with this devout feeling in his heart.’
‘If you have not yet gone out to remove salt, let the whole village get together and go. Hold the salt in your fist and think that you are carrying in your hand salt worth Rs 6 Crores. Every year the Government has been taking away from us Rs 6 Crores through its monopoly of salt.’
Gandhi and his volunteers broke the salt laws at 8-30 A.M. on 6 April 1930 by taking a lump of natural salt which was deposited in a small pit. Hundreds of people witnessed this scene. Sarojini Naidu stood by Gandhiji’s side, and, as the symbolic gesture was made, she cried, ‘Hail Deliverer’ Gandhi, while picking up a lump of salt in his hand, said, ‘With this, I am shaking the foundations of the British Empire.’ Not a single policeman or excise officer was present there. While talking to the representative of the Free Press, Gandhi said, ‘Now that the technical or ceremonial breach of the Salt Law has been committed it is open to any one who would take the risk of prosecution under the Salt Law to manufacture salt wherever he wishes and wherever it is convenient. My advice is that the workers should manufacture salt everywhere to make use of it and to instruct the villagers to do so.’
‘Thus the war against the salt tax should be continued during the national week. Those who are not engaged in this sacred work should devote themselves to vigorous propaganda for the boycott of foreign cloth and the use of Khadar. They should also endeavour to manufacture as much Khadar as possible.’
After Gandhi had addressed the meeting on 6 April about 25 grams of salt which was taken by him in the morning and also cleaned by him, was auctioned for about $7.50 to Seth Ranchhod Shodhan, a mill-owner of Ahmedabad.
Gandhi’s march on foot, from village lo village through Gujarat which was his home and where his influence was greatest, aroused considerable interest and excitement. It has in fact appealed to the imagination of multitudes of people who were emotionally swayed by the dramatic turn of events. Throughout the march, Gandhiji went on preaching his cult of truth and nonviolence to the multitudes that gathered from far and near and he did not hesitate to impose the strictest discipline on the satyagrahis that flocked to his banner. The salt became the symbol of India’s will to freedom. The same day the salt laws were broken throughout India at least by five million people at over 5,000 meetings. The entire country-side became acutely conscious of the struggle for Swaraj which was intensifying. The Dandi march received world-wide publicity. Soon the Civil Disobedience Movement spread simultaneously in western, northern, central, eastern and southern regions of India.
