“In 1975 the East India Company created manufacturing monopolies” which led the British to exert their power over the Indian market by applying devastating taxes on salt (Watkins 121). An advocate of non-violent disobedience, Mahatma Gandhi, relentlessly organized a strategy that refrained from the use of violence, to ensure that Indians received due justice for the use of salt without any limitations. This idea led to the Salt March, a mass protest from Ahmadabad to Dandi, which not only raised social awareness among the British but also highlighted a paradigm that changed the political power of Indians. Gandhi was moved by the arduous poor laborers who struggled to collect salt only to pay a huge sum to the British. This march would also boost confidence in Indians and arouse Indian pride in the nation. Furthermore, Gandhi predicted that this protest would unify the Untouchables, Hindus and Muslims, because they are fighting for the justice that they all want equally. Gandhi's strategy was influenced by Indian social issues, which led to the implementation of the Salt March. Gandhi's influence on such protest could be traced back to the British colonization of India, which made many demands for changes in social and political power from the government. Indians of the country. This colonization was the result of the East India Company's monopoly on trade with India, which required an army to conquer Bengal, Calcutta, Madras, and Bombay. Therefore, the British government officially established a colony in India. However, Gandhi states that “the British did not take India; we gave it to him. They are not in India because of their strength, but because we keep them'” (Watkins 121). The... center of the paper... socialist visions of the nation. By implementing this idea of peaceful disobedience, Gandhi sought to motivate individuals to express their actions to other protestors, establishing a civil belief of abhorrence of the British salt tax policies and progressively removing the British from the Indian nation. , Gerard. Gandhi a pictorial biography. 1st ed. New York: Newmarket, 1983. Print.Mehta, See Mahatma Gandhi and His Apostles. 1st ed. New York: The Viking, 1977. Print.Watkins, Philip. "The Salt March and political power". Society and cultural practice. 3.2 (2005):121-124. Network. October 31, 2011..Weber, Thomas. "Gandhian nonviolence and the salt march". Social Alternatives 21.2 (2002):46-51. Academic research completed. Network. October 31st. 2011.
tags