Dharasana Satyagraha

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The Dharasana Satyagraha was a protest against the British salt tax in colonial India in May 1930. After the completion of the salt march to Dandi chose Mahatma Gandhi non-violent occupation of Saline Dharasana in Gujarat as the next protest against British rule. Hundreds of satyagrahis were beaten by soldiers under British command in Dharasana. The resulting publicity drew the world's attention to the Indian independence movement and challenged the legitimacy of British rule in India.

background

The Indian National Congress , led by Gandhi and Jawaharlal Nehru , publicly issued the Declaration of Independence, or Purna Swaraj , on January 26, 1930 . The salt march to Dandi, which ended with the illegal production of salt by Gandhi on April 6, 1930, started a nationwide protest against the British salt tax. On May 4, 1930, Gandhi wrote to Lord Irwin , Viceroy of India, declaring his intention to occupy the salt works of Dharasana. He was arrested immediately. The Indian National Congress decided to continue the proposed action plan. Many of the convention leaders were arrested before the scheduled day, including Nehru and Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel .

March to Dharasana

The march went as planned, with Abbas Tyabji , a 76-year-old retired judge, who led the march with Gandhi's wife Kasturbai by his side. Both were arrested before arriving in Dharasana and sentenced to three months in prison. After their arrest, the peaceful riot continued under the leadership of Sarojini Naidu and Maulana Abul Kalam Azad . Some congressional leaders disagreed with Gandhi helping a woman lead the march. Hundreds of volunteers from the Indian National Congress marched on the grounds of the Dharasana saltworks. Naidu and the Satyagrahis approached the saltworks several times before being pushed back by the police. At some point they sat down and waited twenty-eight hours. Hundreds more were arrested.

Blows

Naidu was aware that violence against the Satyagrahis was a threat and warned them, “You must not use force under any circumstances. You will be beaten, but you must not resist: you must not even raise a hand to ward off blows. ”On May 21, the Satyagrahis tried to pull away the barbed wire to protect the salt flats. The police attacked her and started beating her.

The American journalist Webb Miller was an eyewitness to the beating of Satyagrahis with steel-tipped Lathis . His report received international attention:

“Not a single one of the demonstrators raised an arm to repel the blows. They fell like cones. From where I stood I heard the disgusting sound of the beating on the unprotected skulls. The waiting crowd groaned and sucked in their breaths with compassionate pain with each stroke.

Those who were knocked down fell bruised, passed out or doubled over in pain with broken skulls or broken shoulders. In two to three minutes the floor was covered with bodies. Great stains of blood spread across their white clothes. Those hitherto spared marched on without breaking out of their ranks, quietly and persistently until they too were put down. When everyone in the front row was dejected, the stretcher carriers rushed in unmolested by the police and carried the injured to a thatched hut that had been set up as a temporary hospital.

There weren't enough stretchers to carry the wounded away; I saw eighteen injured people being carried away at the same time while forty-two lay bleeding on the floor, waiting for the stretcher. The blankets that were used as stretchers were soaked in blood.

At times the spectacle of systematically beating inconsistent men to a bloody pulp made me so disgusted that I had to turn away ... I felt an indefinable feeling of helpless anger and disgust, almost as much at the men who submitted to the beatings without protest as I did against the police who wielded the batons ...

The bodies overturned every three and four times and were bleeding from large wounds on their heads. Group by group walked forward, sat down, and submitted to the blows until they passed out without lifting an arm to ward off the blows. Eventually the police got angry about the lack of resistance ... They began to brutally kick the seated men in the stomach and testicles. The injured men writhed and screamed in agony, which seemed to spark the anger of the police even more ... The police then began to pull the seated men by the arms or feet, sometimes for a hundred meters, and throw them into trenches. "

Miller's first attempts to get the story across to his publisher in England were censored by the British telegraph operators in India. Only after he threatened to expose British censorship was his story allowed to continue. The story appeared in 1,350 newspapers around the world and was placed on the official record of the United States Senate by Senator John J. Blaine .

Reactions

Vithalbhai Patel, former spokesman for the congregation, observed the massacre and commented:

“All hope of reconciling India with the British Empire is forever lost. I can understand how any government would take people into custody and punish them for breaking the law, but I cannot understand how a government that calls itself civilized can be as barbaric and brutal with non-violent, inconsistent men as the British did this morning to have."

In response to the beating and press coverage, Lord Irwin wrote to King George :

“Your Majesty can hardly avoid reading the reports of the heavy fighting over the salt camp in Dharasana with pleasure. The police tried to hold back for a long time. After a while this became impossible and they had to resort to more stringent methods. Many people suffered minor injuries as a result. "

Miller later wrote that he was going to the hospital where the wounded were being treated and “counted 320 injured, many unconscious with broken skulls, others writhing in agony with kicks in their testicles and abdomen ... Many of the injured had not received treatment for hours and two had died. "

literature

  • Homer Alexander Jack: The Gandhi Reader: A Sourcebook of His Life and Writings . Grove Press, 1994, ISBN 0-8021-3161-1 .
  • Brian Martin: Justice Ignited . Rowman & Littlefield, 2006, ISBN 0-7425-4086-3 .

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Richard L. Johnson, Gandhi's Experiments With Truth: Essential Writings By And About Mahatma Gandhi . Lexington Books, 2005, ISBN 0-7391-1143-4 : "The legitimacy of the Raj was never reestablished for the majority of Indians and an ever increasing number of British subjects."
  2. ^ Stanley Wolpert: Gandhi's Passion: The Life and Legacy of Mahatma Gandhi . Oxford University Press, 2001, ISBN 0-19-515634-X : "The pledge was taken publicly on January 26, 1930, thereafter celebrated annually as Purna Swaraj Day."
  3. ^ A b c Peter Ackerman, Jack DuVall: A Force More Powerful: A Century of Nonviolent Conflict . Palgrave Macmillan, 2000, ISBN 0-312-24050-3 .
  4. ↑ Anup Tanejs: Gandhi, Women, and the National Movement, 1920–47 . Har-Ananda Publications, 2005, ISBN 81-241-1076-X .
  5. ^ Thomas Weber: On the Salt March: The Historiography of Gandhi's March to Dandi . HarperCollins, 1998, ISBN 81-7223-372-8 .
  6. ↑ a b c Webb Miller: I Found No Peace . Simon and Schuste, 1936.
  7. ^ A b William Roger Louis: Adventures with Britannia: Personalities, Politics, and Culture in Britain . IBTauris, 1997, ISBN 1-86064-115-6 .