Gandhi began the Salt March
On this day · 12 March 1930
With a few dozen followers and a 240-mile walk to the sea, Gandhi turned a pinch of salt into a challenge to an empire.
On 12 March 1930, Mohandas Gandhi set out on foot from the Sabarmati Ashram near Ahmedabad with 78 chosen followers, bound for the coastal village of Dandi some 240 miles (385 km) away. Their aim was deliberately small and pointed: to make salt from seawater in open defiance of Britain’s salt monopoly and the tax that fell hardest on the poor.
The walk took 24 days. Crowds swelled along the route, and on 6 April Gandhi reached the shore and broke the law by scooping up natural salt.
A handful of mud and salt became one of history’s most studied acts of nonviolent resistance.
The gesture triggered mass civil disobedience across India; tens of thousands, including Gandhi, were jailed. Though the British made no immediate concessions, the Salt Satyagraha drew global attention to the independence movement and showed how disciplined nonviolence could corner an empire.
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