Mahatma gandhi biography salt march dandi

Salt Tax

Britain’s Salt Act of 1882 prohibited Indians from collecting or selling salt, a staple in their diet.

Indian citizens were forced to buy the vital mineral from their British rulers, who, in addition to exercising a monopoly over the manufacture and sale of salt, also charged a heavy salt tax.

Although India’s poor suffered most under the tax, all Indians required salt.

Satyagraha

After living for two decades in South Africa, where Mohandas Gandhi fought for the civil rights of Indians residing there, Gandhi returned to his native country in 1915 and soon began working for India’s independence from Great Britain.

Defying the Salt Act, Gandhi reasoned, would be an ingeniously simple way for many Indians to break a British law nonviolently.

Gandhi declared resistance to British salt policies to be the unifying theme for his new campaign of “satyagraha,” or mass civil disobedience.

WATCH: Yohuru Williams on Mohandas Gandhi 

Gandhi Begins Salt March

First, G