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Doug Leonhardt, S.J.
Associate Executive Director
University Mission and Identity
Web Posted: April 4, 2005
During Mission Week, the grandson of Mahatma Gandhi, Arun Gandhi, spoke to the Marquette community on the topic: “Lessons my Grandfather Taught Me.” He spoke of nonviolence as a way to enhance interpersonal relationships and promote world peace. He recalled that India gained its independence from Britain principally through the nonviolent efforts of his grandfather. Toward the end of his talk, Arun Gandhi mentioned that his own son was leading a commemorative march in India this spring on the seventy-fifth anniversary of his great-grandfather’s leading the Salt March. As a follow up to the talk, this reflection describes the march and its significance for the poor in India.
When India was a British colony, the Viceroy allowed British businessmen to exercise a monopoly on the production and sale of salt in India. They instituted a salt tax. For the rich the tax was insignificant, but for the poor this needed commodity for health and cooking was out of reach. Gandhi wrote to the Viceroy: “I regard this tax on salt to be the most iniquitous of all from the poor man’s standpoint. As the independence movement is essentially for the poorest in the land, the beginning will be made with this evil.”
On March 12, 1930 Gandhi set out with seventy-eight of his followers on a 241 mile march to Dandi on the sea. Along the way he addressed large crowds and each day an increasing number joined the pilgrimage. When they reached Dandi on April 6, Gandhi picked up a lump of mud and salt and boiled it in seawater to make a seasoning which no Indian could legally produce.
He exhorted his followers to begin to make salt along the seashore. They followed suit. In reaction the British government incarcerated over sixty thousand people. On May 4 Gandhi himself was awakened at midnight and arrested.
The effects of the Salt March were felt all around India and the event came to world attention. The Dandi March is considered the turning point in the struggle for India’s independence which was achieved in 1947.
The poor of India came to believe that they had the same human dignity as their British counterparts.
Consider taking a brief walk this week to remember the participants in the Salt March and consider the dignity inherent in every person your pass.
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