Gandhi's Salt March

Gandhi had lived at the Sabarmati Ashram since 1917. On the morning of 12 March 1930 he set out from it on foot with 78 chosen volunteers, from almost every region and religion of India, vowing not to return until India was free. He never did live here again. Even the government's own newspaper reported 100,000 people lining the road between the ashram and Ahmedabad. Reporters from dozens of Indian, European and American papers, and three newsreel companies, would follow the march all the way.

Visitor guidance: The ashram is open daily; see Gandhi's house, Hriday Kunj, and the museum designed by Charles Correa in 1963.

The first day's walk, about 21 kilometres, ended at the village of Aslali, where Gandhi spoke to a crowd of some 4,000. The pattern of the next three weeks was set here: a day's walk, then a village halt with prayers and a speech. Volunteers collected donations and signed up new satyagrahis, and village officials came forward to resign their posts rather than keep serving British rule. Aslali today is swallowed by the southern edge of Ahmedabad.

Location precision: The halt's exact site isn't recorded; the pin marks Aslali village.

On 15 March the march reached Nadiad, after nights at Navagam and Matar. This was familiar ground: in 1918, during famine and plague, Gandhi and a young lawyer named Vallabhbhai Patel had organised the farmers of Kheda district to refuse a tax increase, and won. Now the town turned out again for large public meetings, and merchants, farmers and students joined the call to boycott British goods. The next day the column walked on to Anand and took its first rest day.

Location precision: The meeting ground isn't recorded; the pin marks central Nadiad.

The marchers reached Borsad on 18 March without one of Gandhi's closest lieutenants, the hero of the 1918 Kheda campaign. Just as the march set out, Vallabhbhai Patel was arrested at Ras, a village near Borsad, and tried with no lawyer or journalists present. His arrest only stiffened support in Gujarat. From Borsad the column went on to the Mahi River, crossing it on 19 March, and then south through the villages towards the Narmada.

Location precision: The march's camp isn't recorded; the pin marks Borsad town.

After crossing the Narmada at Ankleshwar on 26 March, the marchers reached the Tapi River and on 1 April entered Surat, the old port city, where 30,000 people greeted them. The column had grown far beyond the original 78, joined by leaders such as the poet Sarojini Naidu. In his speeches Gandhi kept the demand simple and universal: salt, "next to air and water... perhaps the greatest necessity of life," should not be taxed. Two more days brought them through Vanz to Navsari, the district town for Dandi.

Location precision: The march's route through the city isn't recorded; the pin marks central Surat.

On 5 April the march reached Dandi, then a poor fishing village, where more than 50,000 people had gathered; Gandhi spent the night at Saifee Villa. At 8:30 the next morning, after prayers, he walked to the shore, picked up a lump of salty mud and said: "With this, I am shaking the foundations of the British Empire." Boiled in seawater, it made illegal salt. Sarojini Naidu hailed him as a "law breaker". Across India people began making salt, and more than 60,000 were arrested in the weeks that followed.

Visitor guidance: The National Salt Satyagraha Memorial (2019) has statues of Gandhi and the 78 marchers and solar salt pans; Saifee Villa, restored in 2016, is next to it.

Gandhi stayed on at a camp at Karadi, a few kilometres from Dandi, and announced a peaceful raid on the Dharasana salt works further south. Shortly after midnight on 4–5 May the district magistrate and some thirty armed police arrested him in his sleep. The raid went ahead under Sarojini Naidu. On 21 May, as columns of volunteers walked up to the salt pans, police beat them down with lathis; none raised a hand. The American reporter Webb Miller counted 320 injured, and his dispatches went round the world.

Location precision: Neither Gandhi's camp at Karadi nor the old salt works could be pinned reliably, so this stop has no pin.