UPPSC 2021 Prelims GS Paper-I · Question 42 of 150

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.

• (a)Francis Louis — 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)Mark Tully — 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)Philip Sprat — 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.

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.

The question tests one specific name attached to a famous event. Distinguish the players: Gandhi and Sarojini Naidu were the leaders; Webb Miller was the foreign journalist who publicised it. The other names are period distractors — a later BBC reporter (Tully) and a communist activist (Spratt) — so the reasoning is to match the one person actually known for reporting Dharasana.

• Dharasana Satyagraha — 21 May 1930, raid on the Dharasana Salt Works, Gujarat.
• Led by Sarojini Naidu and Manilal Gandhi after M.K. Gandhi's arrest.
• Webb Miller — United Press (American) correspondent and eyewitness.
• His report reached ~1,350 newspapers worldwide, exposing British brutality and drawing global sympathy for the Salt Satyagraha.

• Confusing the leaders (Gandhi, Sarojini Naidu) with the reporter (Webb Miller)
• Picking Mark Tully because he is a well-known foreign journalist in India — but of a much later era

History here is factual recall — link a specific person to a specific event; UPPSC especially likes the 'who reported / who led' one-name question.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  The Dharasana Satyagraha of May 1930 was led by which of the following after Mahatma Gandhi's arrest?

  • (a)Sarojini Naidu
  • (b)Kasturba Gandhi
  • (c)Vijaya Lakshmi Pandit
  • (d)Kamala Nehru

  Answer(a) Sarojini Naidu — she (with Manilal Gandhi) led the non-violent raid on the Dharasana Salt Works.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  The Salt (Dandi) March that launched the Civil Disobedience Movement began from which place in 1930?

  • (a)Dandi
  • (b)Sabarmati Ashram
  • (c)Ahmedabad city
  • (d)Surat

  Answer(b) Sabarmati Ashram — Gandhi and his followers marched from Sabarmati to the coast at Dandi.