Indian Independence Movement.

Mohandas Gandhi's 1930-1931 disobedience movement - introduced by Salt March - is a serious case of understanding anti-socialism. Although it itself failed to bring about Indian independence, it severely undermined British authority and united the Indian people in the struggle for independence under the leadership of the Indian National Congress (INC). It also marked a new phase in the Indian swaraj (independence) struggle and helped to overthrow the British Empire in India. Gandhi's Salt Satyagraha (a name that Gandhi used to establish resistance to society, meaning "adherence to the truth") used the traditional South Asian custom - the "Padyatra" (long spiritual march) which became a model for many civil society organizations for decades to come.

In commemoration of the 1919 assassination of Jallianwala Bagh in Amritsar - where hundreds of unarmed Indians were killed and many others wounded by British troops - Gandhi reached out and collected a small amount of mud from the sea and threatened to overthrow the foundations of the British Empire. He then boiled mud in seawater to produce illegal salt, thousands of times the action that led to the arrest of an estimated 60,000-100,000 men and women who took part for the first time in a public protest. Widespread public disobedience was followed by nationwide acts that included not only illegal salt production but also fiery fires in British textiles, marketing in outdoor clothing stores, liquor stores, and seizures. Other issues came to the fore as well, such as Hindu-Muslim unity and sectarian strife and the abolition of the "non-aligned" —Gandhi encouraged members of the lower "non-aligned" (harijan or dalit) caste to participate, thus creating great controversy, especially in the village march they were happy to accept the famous Mahatma (a name given to Gandhi meaning “great soul”) but hated to associate with the lost. "Some criticized Gandhi for failing to focus on the issue of independence and propagating the struggle by including many other issues, but that was part of his approach.

Following Gandhi's arrest and imprisonment just after midnight on May 5, 1930, a well-known female poet, Sarojini Naidu, took the lead in a non-violent attack on Dharasana Salt Works in Gujarat. Naidu sent a series of satyagrahis waves near the plant, where they were met by lathis, an event recorded by journalists and which moved many around the world to sympathize with India's goals. Gandhi was finally released from prison and the Salt Satyagraha ended on March 4, 1931, with the signing of the Gandhi-Irwin agreement and an invitation for Gandhi to attend the Round Table negotiations in London to discuss the possibility of Indian independence.

Salt March was not only the most famous moment in Gandhi's career as a freedom fighter, but it is a complex way of doing this: it is the most remarkable and amazing test of social resistance, made into a variety of other non-violent acts (boycotts, public disobedience, kicks) to a lesser degree. It included mass participation, fostered widespread public disobedience, deepened cultural sensitivity, and attracted international attention from the media. The people were united, the British Empire was united, and the pillars of their great power were shaken.

Political History

The British control of the South Asia Subcontinent began as a trading business in the early seventeenth century with the English East India Company, which later became a general manager in the British government. After the revolt of 1857 (“Mutiny,” the British called it), India came under the direct control of the British Empire. The British colonial government relied on the cooperation of Indian elites and the military in the official administration of the state and the people.

Mohandas K. Gandhi introduced and directed three major campaigns in the Indian Independence Movement: the non-cooperation in 1919-1922, the civil disobedience movement and the Salt Satyagraha of 1930-1931, and the Quit India movement from about 1940-1942 . Prior to these campaigns, he had studied law in England, was admitted to a bar in the Chancery High Court, and spent 20 years studying in South Africa where he encountered extreme insults, strengthened Indians to fight for their human rights, and developed his old nonviolent protests. he called it, Satyagraha.

Gandhi spent almost two years in prison since 1922, was charged with publishing propaganda for Young People magazine, pleaded guilty, and used that time to study, pray, and spin. He also worked secretly in the Indian National Congress (INC) political party and focused his attention on what he called "constructive work" such as reducing tensions between Hindu and Muslim communities, opposing the practice of "impunity," and twisting fabric as part of his anti-British colonial rule. of textiles. Gandhi was outraged by the action and other members of the INC over the formation of a British non-Indian commission that would help plan the future course of India.

The INC appealed Gandhi's decision at its 1929 annual meeting in Lahore demanding complete freedom and promised public disobedience if it was not granted. On 26 January 1930, the INC celebrated “Independence Day” and Gandhi was busy devising an inevitable response to the call for legal liberation. He decided to start the campaign with an act of public disobedience involving the British salt tax. Salt taxation was a political problem that affected all Indians, especially the poor. Salt was a basic requirement for survival, and its taxes were viewed as an example of British arrogance. On March 2, 1930, Gandhi wrote a letter to Viceroy Lord Irwin informing him of his intention to commit public disobedience within ten days if the eleven previously demanded demands (related to salt tax, land surveys, military expenditure checks, exchange rates, and foreign textile tariffs) were not met . The letter, addressed to the chief as a “friend,” was sent to the British Quaker Reginald Reynolds, stating that it was not just a matter of Indians fighting the British. The public disobedience campaign is designed to attract a large audience including the wider Indian community (to draw them to the struggle), British officials, young intellectuals in the liberation movement seeking violent conflicts, and other prominent Indian economists who oppose total independence.

On March 12, Gandhi traveled with 78 members of his ashram on a 241 (390-kilometer) march from Sabarmati, Gujarat, to a village on the Dandi coast. Greeted by crowds of people along the way, some of whom joined the march, Gandhi conveyed his message of Indian liberation, salt tax injustices, and the need to rotate to promote the British cloth boycott and thus attack the root cause of British-India exploitation, which was the textile industry.

The campaign failed to bring about freedom or even greater harmony, but it encouraged the people of India and, as Jawaharlal Nehru put it, developed the idea of ​​“many villagers,” for the first time “beginning to think a little about India as a whole. ”

The pressure satyagrahis experienced at the hands of the state - beatings, imprisonment, and even torture - was relegated, creating a major challenge to the State's loyalty at home and abroad. When India finally gained independence on August 15, 1947, many intellectuals and most Indians look back on Salt Satyagraha as a change in the Indian liberation struggle.

Strategic Actions

Salt Satyagraha has been a multi-faceted campaign of public disobedience involving a number of tactics to march through the act of illegal salt. It was part of a series of tactics to allow political rebels to take action from Britain and flee the Early Disobedience Campaign of 1919-1922 which focused on British exile, the quest for complete and immediate liberation, the establishment of the 1940-1941 Quit India Movement and the eventual acquisition of independence in 1947. Salt March was in response to Britain's refusal to accept the INC declaration of independence in December 1929 and was designed to mimic the injustices of colonial rule by challenging the salt tax, but also by commemorating the British massacre of non-violent protesters in Amritsar in 1919.

A well-documented march from village to district provides opportunities for public statements by protesting and recruiting people for the army. The salinity of the Indian Ocean in violation of British law led to the arrest and general beating of British troops. Puzzled by the failure of mass arrests to delay the movement, British officials eventually arrested Gandhi himself, thinking that it would dampen their spirits. On the contrary, many participants were mobilized and the movement expanded its tactics as planned by Gandhi before his arrest, with the non-violent attack of Dharasana Salt Works. The waves behind public resisters were severely beaten and replaced by a show that drew the attention of the international media. Nude violence against unarmed protesters undermined the State even among its devoted supporters in England. To save his name, Viceroy was forced to negotiate for the first time with Gandhi as an INC representative. Gandhi was invited to London for Roundtable talks with government officials on the possibility of India's independence. While Gandhi was negotiating, a crackdown on British anti-British reconciliation policies erupted among British officials in India and a wave of pressure pushed Congress officials back to India, including the arrest of Jawaharlal Nehru and Abdul Gaffar Khan while on his way home. Instead of oppressing the organization, repression also strengthened it - more than 60,000 people were imprisoned for public disobedience during the first nine months of 1932. Although official Independence did not arrive for another sixteen years, it was partially delayed by World War II, the organization had taken this step.

The Salt March social movement was not only designed to withstand public opposition to the British colonial system, but also to mimic the new social order that freedom fighters wished to put in its place. Prior to the campaign, the INC set up a succession of leadership lines, so that with each arrest, new leaders were ready to replace the incumbents and the participation of women and "untouchables" in March and similar organizations laid the foundation for some form of independent Indian society.

In summary, some of the action strategies during the Salt Satyagraha period include:

Non-violent Protest and Influence

• Formal statements: Gandhi's public talks with other INC leaders, letters of protest (including Gandhi's contact with the viceroy), public complaints.

• Communicating with a wider audience: Slogans and symbols, newspaper and magazine articles from Gandhi's own newspapers, artistic use of international media, tracts and pamphlets, INC activist speeches on trains to "captive spectators."

• Group representation: pleading agents, marketing in liquor stores.

• Symbolic community activities: flag-waving (independent India), prayer and worship (Gandhi daily prayer meetings).

• Drama and Music: singing, dancing, and drumming at community gatherings and among the crowds greeting marching artists

• Procedures: Salt March itself, which belonged to Gandhi and was a religious and political protest.

• Respect for the Dead: The political mourning of the thousands of unarmed protesters killed or wounded by British soldiers in Amritsar in 1919 - Gandhi deliberately arranged for a march to reach the coast on the day of their death.

• Social Cohesion

• Exploitation of the people: a social upheaval of non-partisans in non-cooperation with the British government.

• Economic Inaction

• Consumer action: national boycott of British textile and retail outlets, and liquor outlets; to save money

• Limited strikes, hartals, and economic closures

• Political disunity

• Rejection of authority: to withhold trust and to deny public office by the Indians.

• Non-cooperation with government: resignations of government and positions, withdrawal from public educational institutions

Other ways to listen: popular disobedience, dissent, disregard for British law, especially salt tax.

• School boycott

• Non-Violent Intervention

• Physical intervention: a non-violent attack, especially of the Dharasana Salt Works, a non-maritime operation to create salt.

• Social interventions: new social norms, overloading of resources (especially prisons), other markets (salt, textiles) and institutions, such as ashrams and communities across racial, class, and religious lines.

• Economic interventions: other economic institutions such as salt production and the home textile industry (homepun).

• Political intervention: public disobedience to “neutral” laws, dual sovereignty, making the Indian National Congress a dominant force in an attempt to set aside colonial government.

Ensuing Events

Although not without its corruption, injustice, and temporary outbreak of civil strife, India is the world's largest democracy with greater civil liberties and independent justice as well as free media.

Aside from significant cultural, religious and linguistic differences, extreme poverty, and many other social problems, the country has a stable democratic government. The spirit of non-violent conflict from Salt Satyagraha continues. Across the country, non-violent civil society organizations are constantly promoting social and political change and participating in public protests to voice their grievances to the government. Free speech is protected - a member of the government commission itself who has strongly criticized the country's constitution in public speaking in Delhi - and movements within a strong civil society movement often oppose the state to address grievances, sometimes using the old "padyatra".