The name of the foreign journalist who reported about Satyagraha at Dharsana salt works was

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Correct — C, Web Miller (Webb Miller). Webb Miller was an American correspondent of the United Press agency who was an eyewitness to the Dharasana Satyagraha on 21 May 1930, when volunteers led by Sarojini Naidu and Manilal Gandhi marched on the Dharasana Salt Works in Gujarat and were beaten down by police without offering resistance. Miller's graphic despatch describing the unresisting satyagrahis being clubbed was carried by around 1,350 newspapers across the world and exposed the brutality of British rule during the Salt Satyagraha.

Why the other options are wrong — (a) Wrong — there is no foreign correspondent of this name associated with the Dharasana Satyagraha; it is a decoy. The eyewitness report came from Webb Miller of the United Press.  (b) Wrong — Mark Tully is a British (BBC) journalist famous for reporting from India, but from the 1960s onwards; he was not even born early enough to have covered a 1930 event.  (d) Wrong — Philip Spratt was a British communist sent to India in 1926 and tried in the Meerut Conspiracy Case; he was a political activist, not the journalist who reported the Dharasana raid.

Concept: The Dharasana Satyagraha (May 1930) was a key episode of the Civil Disobedience Movement that had begun with Gandhi's Dandi (Salt) March in March 1930. After Gandhi's arrest, Sarojini Naidu and others led a non-violent raid on the government Dharasana Salt Works; the satyagrahis walked into police lathis in wave after wave without raising a hand in defence. Webb Miller's international despatch turned this act of disciplined non-violence into a global indictment of colonial repression.

State PCS 2021 Q42 — History PYQ with Answer

State PCS 2021 Q42 — History PYQ with Answer