Religion Practice and Science of Non Violence

Author(s): O P Jaggi
Publisher: Munshiram Manoharlal Publishers Pvt Ltd

Page 84

Religion, Practice and Science of Non-Violence
repeal of the Salt Acts from the Viceroy, Gandhi and his cosatyagrahis left Ahmedabad for Dandi on the sea coast. The march attracted the attention of the whole world.
The satyagrahis reached Dandi on 5th April. The following morning, after prayers, they proceeded to the beach where they prepared salt from sea water, thus technically breaking the Salt Laws. Initially, the Government did not arrest Gandhi but arrested the other leaders instead.
Gandhi now proposed to occupy salt works at Dharsana, if the Government did not remove the salt tax, and to this effect he wrote a letter to the Viceroy informing him of his plan. On 5th May, Gandhi was arrested. Afterwards when the other satyagrahis under the new leadership marched forward to occupy the salt depots, they were mercilessly beaten by the police. But none of the satyagrahis wavered, flinched or offered any violence whatsoever. It was an exemplary scene of satyagraha whose news spread all over the world. A detailed account of this heroic satyagraha was written by Webb Miller, Foreign Correspondent of the United Press, U.S.A. who was an eye witness to the grim tragedy. He wrote: “Slowly and in silence the throng commenced the half-mile march to saltdeposits. A few carried ropes for lassoing the barbed wire stockade around the salt pans. About a score who were assigned to act as stretcher-bearers wore crude, hand-painted red crosses pinned to their breasts, their stretchers consisting of blankets. Manilal Gandhi, second son of Gandhi, walked among the foremost of the marchers. As the throng drew near the salt pans, they commenced chanting the revolutionary slogans, Inquilab Zindabad, intoning the two words over and over.
“The salt-deposits were surrounded by ditches filled with water and guarded by four hundred native Surat Police in Khake shorts and brown turbans. Half a dozen British officials commanded them. The police carried lathis, five foot clubs tipped with steel. Inside the stockade, twenty-five native riflemen were drawn up.
"In complete silence, the Gandhi men drew up and halted a hundred yards from the stockade. A picked column advanced from the crowd, waded the ditches, and approached the barbed wire stockade, which the Surat Police surrounded, holding