table salt gets a bad whang these days . dietitian are perpetually reminding us to hide our salt shakers and eat low - atomic number 11 rendering of our favoritefoods . table salt is more than a spice ; technically speaking , it ’s really a mineral . Although too much table salt is spoilt for us , the mineral itself is essential to a decent work body – it helps us transmit electrical face impulses . Knowing how necessary common salt is for the human body , it may not surprise you to learn that the mineral sparked one of the most meaning internal protests in modern chronicle .
Long ago , citizenry got their salt from the animal they hunted and devour ( rude meatis a good source of salt ) . But after they desert their hunter - gathering modus vivendi and became farmers , people replaced much of the nitty-gritty in their dieting with vegetables and grains ; as a resultant role , they needed subsidiary source of common salt [ rootage : Le Couteur ] . Since ancient times , political science have recognise the benefit of tax salt . Because everyone needs it , taxing salinity ensure firm revenue . And because common salt was also used to preserve solid food before the dawn of infrigidation , it was a popular trade good .
However , gamy salt revenue enhancement have often spurred controversy throughout history . The French tax on salt , cognise as the gabelle , even help incite theFrench Revolution . In the 20th hundred , another Strategic Arms Limitation Talks taxation inspired revolutionary action at law . This time it was in India , which was suppress under British colonial linguistic rule . Similar to the way American settler organise the Boston Tea Party 150 years earlier to protest British law , Indians engaged in a peaceful and theatrical fashion to make their point .
One prominent leader of the Amerindic independency motility , Mohandas ( also known as Mahatma or " great - souled " ) Gandhi is noted for promoting a philosophical system of civil noncompliance . He trust that India could gain its independence from Britain through unbloody safari . Salt came to the head of that campaign as an important government issue and symbol of British oppressiveness .
The Raj: British Colonial Rule of India
In the 17th century , Queen Elizabeth issued a majestic charter establishing the BritishEast India Company(EIC ) to sell in the East Indies . Because the Dutch already had a stronghold on the Spice Islands ( consisting of the Moluccas and Bandas ) , the EIC turn its attention toward India ’s textiles , spicesand opium . However , India was far from unified at this time : It was comprise of individual soil controlled by different rulers . The EIC brokered contract with these rulers and step by step attain influence over the subcontinent .
As the EIC increased its administrative and political power in India , conditions between the Indians and their European coloniser became more hostile . The company was able to squelch Native American rebellion in the 18th century , but in 1857 , Indian members of the EIC militia nauseate , mark the beginning of theSepoy Rebellion , or Indian War of Independence .
After two year , the British ultimately succeeded in put down this bloody rebellion . But as a termination , the British government activity dissolved the EIC and choose for direct rule of India . lineal British rule became known as theRaj . Needless to say , this development did n’t squeeze the desire for ego - administration . In 1885 , the Indian National Congress ( INC ) form to elevate Amerindic involvement in the government .
By 1919 , after Indians helped the British in World War I , the INC focused on achieve complete independency . It was then that Gandhi emerged . The philosophy he developed that encourage fighting evil with peace is get it on assatyagraha . Under this ethos , one achieves profound penetration into absolute true statement by sweep up passive resistance and ego - scrutiny .
Those who practice satyagraha must never act in privacy – they must make their plans and intentions be intimate . This explains why Gandhi wrote an open varsity letter to Lord Irwin , the viceroy of India , requesting an end to the salt taxation and explaining his purpose before set out on a 240 - mile ( 386.2 - kilometer ) trek toprotestthe tax . Irwin could ’ve well contain Gandhi . But Gandhi was an significant public flesh , and Irwin acknowledge that arresting him would spark acute recoil [ source : Martin ] . alternatively , Irwin simply replied that he repent Gandhi would be break off the law and peril public peace [ source : Moraes ] .
With that , the saltiness march was set in motion .
The Salt March
Britain abolished its ownsalttax in 1825 , when the mineral became of import to the manufacture processes emerge in the Industrial Revolution [ source : Le Couteur ] . Nevertheless , the tax persisted in British colonies like India , where it was illegal to collect even instinctive deposit of table salt .
To read why the British salt revenue enhancement was so oppressive to the Indian hoi polloi , it help to make love a spot about the subcontinent ’s climate and cultivation . India ’s hot weather promotes sweating , which drain the human eubstance of its salt supply . And because Indians do n’t eat up much meat – a natural source of saltiness – they rely on supplementary salinity to preserve a healthy amount in the body . Taxing the mineral that Indian masses relied on for natural selection was just one way that the British government activity keep Indians under its thumb .
But on the morning of March 12 , 1930 , Gandhi set out to change that . He and 78 follower started butt against from the Sabarmati Ashram toward Dandi on the Arabian Sea . More people joined the band of protesters along the journey of 240 miles ( 386.2 kilometers ) . Covering between 10 to 15 miles ( 16 to 24 kilometers ) a daytime , Gandhi attain his destination in 24 day [ reference : Nojeim ] . During the march , he stopped in villages to convert government official to reconcile in protest and to encourage hoi polloi to salute nonviolence . When he got to the sea , Gandhi collected a chunk of salt , which was against the law . The act inspired a offense wafture of illegal salt collection and yard of arrests .
The frail , 61 - year - old Gandhi did n’t have to take the air – he could have exact a car or train to gather salinity from the ocean . But he knew what he was doing . His march was a emblematical protest design to attract metier attention and breathe in activeness more than anything else . Many historians now consider it his most muscular crusade . It soon head to the Gandhi - Irwin Pact , an agreement that made it legal for people to meet and manufacture common salt . What ’s more , the governance rear the tax a yr afterwards .
In big part due to Gandhi ’s campaigns of nonviolence , Britain finally awarded India independence afterWorld War II . Gandhi ’s philosophy and writings have carry on to revolutionise others , including Martin Luther King Jr. , to seek change through nonviolentcivil noncompliance .
