CDS (I) 2020 General Knowledge · Question 20 of 120

Correct — B, sodium chloride. The Dandi March was a protest against the British salt monopoly and the tax it carried, and common salt is sodium chloride. Gandhi left Sabarmati Ashram on 12 March 1930 with 78 volunteers and walked about 385 kilometres to the coastal village of Dandi in Gujarat, reaching it on 5 April. At half past eight on the morning of 6 April he picked up natural salt from the shore and broke the Salt Act of 1882. The choice of salt was deliberate: it was a necessity every household bought, rich and poor alike, so a tax on it touched everyone and the law could be broken by anyone who walked to the sea.

• (a)iron — No colonial monopoly on iron was at issue in 1930, and iron was never the object of the march. The word associated with Dandi is salt.
• (c)sulphur — Sulphur has no place in the salt satyagraha. The option is there to catch a candidate matching 'chemical name' to 'freedom movement' at random.
• (d)aluminium — Aluminium production in India barely existed in 1930 and had nothing to do with the campaign against the salt laws.

The salt satyagraha opened the Civil Disobedience Movement. British law reserved the manufacture and sale of salt to the state and taxed it, so making salt from seawater was a criminal act. Gandhi picked that law precisely because it was universal and petty at once — obeying it cost every Indian household money, and breaking it required nothing but a walk to the shore. Over 60,000 Indians were jailed in the year of satyagraha that followed.

The item is a chemistry question wearing a history costume, or the reverse, and it is answered by translating 'salt' into its chemical name. The march ran from 12 March to 6 April 1930 and covered about 385 kilometres, with 78 marchers at the start and crowds joining along the road. Two details often asked alongside it: Lord Irwin was Viceroy at the time, and it was Kamaladevi Chattopadhyay who persuaded Gandhi not to restrict the protest to men, so this was the first nationalist campaign in which women took part in large numbers. As a present-day marker, the National Salt Satyagraha Memorial at Dandi opened on 30 January 2019, and the Sabarmati-to-Dandi route has been declared a heritage path.

• The march ran from 12 March to 6 April 1930, about 385 km from Sabarmati Ashram to Dandi in Gujarat.
• Gandhi set out with 78 volunteers and broke the Salt Act at 8:30 am on 6 April 1930.
• The target was the British salt monopoly under the Salt Act of 1882; common salt is sodium chloride.
• Over 60,000 Indians were jailed during the salt satyagraha that followed.
• The National Salt Satyagraha Memorial at Dandi was opened on 30 January 2019.

• Attaching Dandi to the Non-Cooperation or Quit India movement; it opened Civil Disobedience.
• Misdating the march — it belongs to 1930, not to 1929 or 1931.
• Naming the wrong Viceroy; Lord Irwin held the office, and Willingdon succeeded him in 1931.

As which movement began with the Dandi March, as the substance or law it targeted, or as a chronology item placing it among Gandhi-Irwin, the Round Table Conferences and Quit India.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  The Salt Act that Gandhi set out to break through the Dandi March was enacted in

  • (a)1858
  • (b)1882
  • (c)1909
  • (d)1919

  Answer(b) 1882 — Gandhi chose the British Salt Act of 1882 as the first target of the satyagraha.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  Gandhi began the Dandi March from which one of the following places?

  • (a)Sevagram Ashram
  • (b)Sabarmati Ashram
  • (c)Champaran
  • (d)Bardoli

  Answer(b) Sabarmati Ashram — the march covered about 385 km from there to Dandi on the Gujarat coast.