Salt March and the Civil Disobedience Movement
- Date
- 12 March – 6 April 1930
- Category
- Politics & governance
- Region
- South Asia (British India)
- Era
- Modern
- Significance
Between 12 March and 6 April 1930, Mohandas K. Gandhi led a 24-day, roughly 385-kilometre march from his Sabarmati Ashram to the coastal village of Dandi in Gujarat to defy the British salt monopoly and tax.
Setting out with 78 followers and gathering crowds along the way, Gandhi reached the sea on 6 April and made salt from evaporated seawater, an act of symbolic lawbreaking. The Salt Satyagraha triggered a nationwide Civil Disobedience Movement in which millions made or sold illegal salt and refused taxes; British authorities arrested tens of thousands, including Gandhi. The campaign drew unprecedented international attention to the Indian cause, demonstrated the mobilising power of nonviolent mass action, and brought significant participation by women. It helped force the British to negotiate, leading to the Gandhi-Irwin Pact of 1931 and Gandhi's attendance at the Second Round Table Conference in London.
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Empires active in 12 March – 6 April 1930
- Empire of Japan1868 CE – 1947 CE
- Soviet Union1922 CE – 1991 CE
- French Colonial Empire (Second)1830 CE – 1962 CE
- British Empire1583 CE – 1997 CE
- Spanish Empire1492 CE – 1976 CE
- Portuguese Empire1415 CE – 1999 CE
Related politics & governance events
- Non-Cooperation Movement in India1920–1922
- Hitler's appointment and Nazi consolidation of power30 January 1933 – August 1934
- Stalin's Great Purge (Great Terror)1936–1938
- The Munich Agreement Cedes the Sudetenland1938
- Treaty of Versailles and the founding of the League of Nations28 June 1919 (in force 10 January 1920)
- Russian Revolutions of 1917March & November 1917 (February & October Revolutions, O.S.)
Further reading
The wider story
India: A History
The classic accessible narrative of the subcontinent across five millennia.
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