Dandi March

Why in news?

• PM Modi flagged off a symbolic 386-kilometre-long Dandi March from the precincts of the Sabarmati Ashram on the 91st anniversary of the historic protest, and launched the celebration of 75 years of independence “Azadi ka Amrit Mahotsav”, which will go on for 75 weeks until August 15, 2022, India’s 75th Independence Day.

About the march

• The Dandi or Salt March, also known as the Salt Satyagraha was a twenty four day march that lasted from 12 March 1930 to 5 April 1930.
• It was a direct action campaign of tax resistance and nonviolent protest against the British salt monopoly.
• Gandhi started this march with 78 of his trusted volunteers and the march spanned 390 km, from Sabarmati Ashram to Dandi, which was called Navsari at that time.
• Growing numbers of Indians joined them along the way.
• Gandhi broke the British Raj salt laws at 6:30 am on 6 April 1930, after making the salt by evaporation at Dandi.
• The march was followed by similar marches in Vedaranyam in Tamil Nadu and Payyannur in Kerala.
• Another agitation immediately after the march, a raid of the Dharasana Salt Works in Gujarat, was led by Sarojini Naidu was brutally supressed by British Police and this lead to worldwide attention on British brutalities and attracted wide spread condemnation.
• The march was the most significant organised challenge to British authority since the Non-cooperation movement of 1920–22, and directly followed the Purna Swaraj declaration of sovereignty and self-rule by the Indian National Congress on 26 January 1930.
• It gained worldwide attention which gave impetus to the Indian independence movement and started the nationwide Civil Disobedience movement which continued till 1934.

Prelims Question

Dharasana agitation in 1930 occurred in the state of:
(a)Gujarat
(b)Karnataka 
(c)Tamil Nadu
(d)Uttar Pradesh 

Answer to the Prelims Question