Gandhiji's Salt March to Dandi was started from which one of the following places ?
- (a)Kochrab Ashram
- (b)Sabarmati Ashram
- (c)Ahmedabad Textile Mill
- (d)Ahmedabad Jail
Answer
Why
Correct — B, (b) Sabarmati Ashram. Gandhi began the Salt March on 12 March 1930, walking out of the Satyagraha Ashram on the bank of the Sabarmati at Ahmedabad with a chosen band of ashram inmates, conventionally counted as seventy-eight. They walked roughly 385 kilometres in twenty-four days through the villages of Gujarat, holding meetings along the route, and reached the coastal village of Dandi in Navsari on 5 April. On the morning of 6 April Gandhi picked up a lump of natural salt from the shore and broke the salt law, and the Civil Disobedience Movement began. The choice of starting point was not incidental. The ashram was the movement's own institution — its inmates were trained in the discipline the march required, and the march was designed as a public, gradual, thoroughly reported walk from a place associated with constructive work to a place where an unjust law could be broken in the open. The salt tax was chosen for the same reason: salt is used by every household, rich and poor, and the government monopoly touched the poorest most sharply, which made it the one grievance that could be dramatised nationally without dividing the movement. The march followed the Lahore session of December 1929, at which the Congress adopted purna swaraj as its goal and authorised civil disobedience, the observance of independence day on 26 January 1930, and Gandhi's letter of 2 March 1930 to the Viceroy, Lord Irwin, setting out his demands and warning that he would break the salt law if they were refused. Gandhi left the ashram vowing not to return until swaraj had been won, and he never did return to live there.
Why the others are wrong
- (a)Kochrab Ashram — The right man and the right city, fifteen years early. Kochrab, near Ahmedabad, was where Gandhi established his first ashram in May 1915, shortly after returning from South Africa, in a bungalow lent by a friend. It was given up in 1917 — plague in the neighbourhood and the need for more land — and the community moved to the site on the Sabarmati that became the Satyagraha Ashram. Kochrab therefore belongs to the beginning of Gandhi's Indian career, not to the Civil Disobedience Movement, and the march of 1930 set out from the later ashram.
- (c)Ahmedabad Textile Mill — Another real episode from the same city, attached to a different campaign. The Ahmedabad mill workers' struggle of 1918 was one of Gandhi's earliest satyagrahas in India, fought over a wage dispute after the withdrawal of a plague bonus, and it was there that he undertook the first of his fasts in an Indian labour dispute, with Anasuya Sarabhai working alongside him among the workers. It is a landmark in the history of Gandhian methods and in Indian labour, but it is twelve years and one movement away from the Salt March.
- (d)Ahmedabad Jail — A prison is where the Civil Disobedience Movement sent its participants, not where it started. Gandhi was arrested during the movement in the early hours of 5 May 1930, after the salt law had already been broken and while he was preparing to lead a raid on the Dharasana salt works, and he was detained at Yerwada near Poona. The march itself began from the ashram, in public and by announcement, which was the whole point of its design.
Concept
The Salt Satyagraha is the hinge of the Civil Disobedience Movement, and it is best learnt as a sequence rather than as a single date. The Lahore session of December 1929, presided over by Jawaharlal Nehru, adopted complete independence as the Congress goal and authorised civil disobedience; 26 January 1930 was observed across the country as Independence Day; Gandhi put eleven demands to Lord Irwin and, when they were refused, announced that he would break the salt law. The march from the Sabarmati ashram to Dandi between 12 March and 6 April 1930 turned that announcement into a national event, and the breach of the salt law was immediately imitated all along the coast. The movement then broadened well beyond salt: boycott of foreign cloth and liquor, refusal to pay the chowkidari tax and, in Gujarat, land revenue, resignation by village officials, and the picketing of shops. Its regional forms are the part most often examined — C. Rajagopalachari's march to Vedaranyam in Tamil Nadu, K. Kelappan's in Malabar, the Dharasana raid at which Sarojini Naidu led volunteers into police lathis, the Khudai Khidmatgars of Khan Abdul Ghaffar Khan in the North-West Frontier Province and the refusal of Garhwali soldiers to fire at Peshawar, and the events at Sholapur. Repression followed on a large scale, with the Congress declared unlawful and tens of thousands imprisoned, and the phase closed with the Gandhi-Irwin Pact of March 1931, Gandhi's attendance at the second Round Table Conference and the resumption and eventual withdrawal of the movement by 1934.
The national movement is the largest single subject on this paper, and Gandhi's campaigns are its densest area. Questions are typically one-line recall of a place, a person, a year or a report, and the distractors are drawn from adjacent episodes rather than from thin air — here, three of the four options are genuine Ahmedabad landmarks in Gandhi's own life. The preparation that pays is to attach each campaign to its place, its year and its immediate cause: Champaran 1917 and indigo, Ahmedabad 1918 and the mill workers, Kheda 1918 and the revenue remission, Non-Cooperation from 1920, Salt Satyagraha 1930, Quit India 1942.
Key facts
- The Salt March began on 12 March 1930 from the Satyagraha Ashram at Sabarmati, Ahmedabad, with about seventy-eight chosen marchers.
- It covered roughly 385 kilometres in twenty-four days and reached Dandi, on the coast of Navsari, on 5 April 1930; Gandhi broke the salt law on the morning of 6 April.
- The Sabarmati ashram was established in 1917 after Gandhi's first Indian ashram at Kochrab, founded in 1915, was given up.
- Gandhi vowed on setting out that he would not return to the ashram until swaraj was won, and he never lived there again.
- The march followed the Lahore Congress of December 1929, which adopted purna swaraj, and Gandhi's letter of 2 March 1930 to Lord Irwin setting out his demands.
- Salt was chosen because the government monopoly and tax touched every household and bore hardest on the poor.
- Parallel salt satyagrahas were led by C. Rajagopalachari at Vedaranyam in Tamil Nadu and K. Kelappan in Malabar; Sarojini Naidu led the raid on the Dharasana salt works.
- Gandhi was arrested on 5 May 1930 and held at Yerwada; the phase closed with the Gandhi-Irwin Pact of March 1931.
- December 1929, LAHORE — the Congress session presided over by Jawaharlal Nehru adopts purna swaraj as the goal and authorises civil disobedience.
- 26 January 1930 — Independence Day is observed across the country.
- 2 March 1930 — Gandhi writes to the Viceroy, Lord Irwin, setting out his demands and warning that he will break the salt law if they are refused. Salt was chosen because the government monopoly and tax touched every household and bore hardest on the poor — the one grievance that could be dramatised nationally without dividing the movement.
- 12 March 1930 — the march begins from the SATYAGRAHA ASHRAM on the bank of the Sabarmati at Ahmedabad, with a chosen band of ashram inmates conventionally counted as seventy-eight. The starting point was not incidental: the ashram was the movement’s own institution and its inmates were trained in the discipline the march required. Gandhi vowed on setting out that he would not return until swaraj was won, and he never lived there again.
- 5 and 6 April 1930 — roughly 385 kilometres in twenty-four days through the villages of Gujarat, with meetings along the route, bring the marchers to the coastal village of Dandi in Navsari on 5 April. On the morning of 6 April Gandhi picks up a lump of natural salt from the shore and breaks the salt law.
- After Dandi the movement broadened well beyond salt: boycott of foreign cloth and liquor, refusal of the chowkidari tax and, in Gujarat, of land revenue, resignations by village officials, picketing of shops. C. Rajagopalachari marched to Vedaranyam and K. Kelappan in Malabar; Sarojini Naidu led volunteers into police lathis at Dharasana; Garhwali soldiers refused to fire at Peshawar. Gandhi was arrested on 5 May 1930, and the phase closed with the Gandhi–Irwin Pact of March 1931.
- The three wrong options are real places, from other chapters — KOCHRAB, near Ahmedabad, was Gandhi’s first Indian ashram, founded in May 1915 in a bungalow lent by a friend and given up in 1917 when the community moved to the Sabarmati site. The AHMEDABAD MILL workers’ struggle of 1918 was a separate satyagraha over a wage dispute after the withdrawal of a plague bonus, in which he undertook his first fast in an Indian labour dispute, with Anasuya Sarabhai working alongside him. And a JAIL is where the movement sent its participants, not where it began.
Study next
Common traps
- Confusing Kochrab with Sabarmati. Kochrab was the 1915 ashram; the march of 1930 began from the Sabarmati ashram founded in 1917.
- Mixing the Ahmedabad mill workers' satyagraha of 1918 with the Salt March, because both are Ahmedabad events in Gandhi's life.
- Giving the date of the march's start when a question asks when the salt law was broken, or the reverse. The march began on 12 March and the law was broken on 6 April.
- Placing Dandi in the wrong state. It is on the Gujarat coast, in Navsari.
- Assuming civil disobedience was only about salt; the movement quickly took in cloth and liquor boycott, tax refusal and the resignation of village officials.
Gandhi and the national movement return several times on every EO/AO paper, usually as short recall items about a place, a person, a report or a body, with terse options. The Commission draws its distractors from the same neighbourhood as the answer, so a candidate who knows only that the Salt March is connected with Ahmedabad will still have four plausible options in front of them. Learning each episode as a small cluster — place, year, cause, leader, outcome — is what separates the two.
Related PYQs
EPFO_EOAO_2020_Q31Open & attempt →Where did Gandhiji put in his first major public appearance after returning from South Africa in 1915 ?
- (a) Bombay University
- (b) Kheda
- (c) Champaran
- (d) Banaras Hindu University
Answer(d) Banaras Hindu University
The start of the same career, asking where Gandhi made his first major public appearance after returning from South Africa in 1915.
EPFO_EOAO_2020_Q94Open & attempt →Who among the following was not part of the group of ‘no-changers’ in the Congress Party ?
- (a) Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel
- (b) Dr. Ansari
- (c) Babu Rajendra Prasad
- (d) Motilal Nehru
Answer(d) Motilal Nehru
The internal politics of the Congress in the same years, on who was not part of the group of 'no-changers'.
EPFO_EOAO_2020_Q34Open & attempt →During 1931, under whose leadership, did a strong Kisan Sabha Movement develop in the Gaya District of Bihar ?
- (a) Yadunandan Sharma
- (b) Sahajanand
- (c) Sheetla Sahai
- (d) Tilka Manjhi
Answer(a) Yadunandan Sharma
The peasant mobilisation running alongside civil disobedience, on the leadership of the Kisan Sabha movement in Gaya district in 1931.
Practice
- practice — not a real PYQ
Gandhiji broke the salt law at Dandi on which one of the following dates ?
- (a)12 March 1930
- (b)26 January 1930
- (c)6 April 1930
- (d)5 May 1930
Answer(c) 6 April 1930
- practice — not a real PYQ
The salt satyagraha at Vedaranyam in Tamil Nadu was led by which one of the following ?
- (a)K. Kelappan
- (b)C. Rajagopalachari
- (c)Sarojini Naidu
- (d)Khan Abdul Ghaffar Khan
Answer(b) C. Rajagopalachari