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Speaker 1: Hey guys, Welcome to this day in History class, where

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Speaker 1: we bring you a new tidbit from history every day.

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Speaker 1: Today is March twelfth, nineteen. The day was March twelfth,

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Speaker 1: nineteen thirty. Mohandas Gandhi, an Indian activist who practiced non

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Speaker 1: violent civil disobedience, left his ashram at Sabermanty, near the

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Speaker 1: city of a Metabad, India. He was headed some two

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Speaker 1: hundred and forty miles or three hundred and eighty six

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Speaker 1: kilometers away to a town named Dandhi on the Arabian Sea.

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Speaker 1: The plan was to protest written Salt Act of eighteen

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Speaker 1: eighty two, which forced Indians to buy salt from Britain,

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Speaker 1: which charged a hefty salt tax. Gandhi, in the dozens

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Speaker 1: of followers that went on the Salt March with him,

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Speaker 1: would do so by making salt from seawater when they

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Speaker 1: got to Dandee and an act of civil disobedience. The

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Speaker 1: act spread across India, with millions of people joining, but

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Speaker 1: it was only the beginning of a larger campaign of

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Speaker 1: civil disobedience or satyagraha. In nineteen thirty, India was under

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Speaker 1: British rule. Salt production and distribution in India breaped in

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Speaker 1: a lot of cash for Britain, so Britain prohibited Indians

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Speaker 1: from producing or selling the mineral independently. Britain itself no

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Speaker 1: longer had a salt tax, as it had abolished it

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Speaker 1: when the Industrial Revolution made the mineral valuable, but Britain

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Speaker 1: still imposts assault tax on its colonies, and since salt

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Speaker 1: was an important staple of the Indian diet, Indians often

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Speaker 1: had to buy expensive, often imported salt. The tax affected

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Speaker 1: most Indians, particularly the poor, and as oppressive taxes are

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Speaker 1: wont to do. The salt tax inside it protests in

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Speaker 1: India during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. By nineteen thirty,

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Speaker 1: Gandhi had been leading campaigns of passive resistance for more

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Speaker 1: than two decades. Gandhi recognized how repressive the salt tax was,

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Speaker 1: so he believed that leading a demonstration in defiance of

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Speaker 1: the tax would be an effective act of civil disobedience.

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Speaker 1: He wrote an open letter to the Viceroy of India,

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Speaker 1: Lord Irwin, asking the Viceroy to strike down the salt tax.

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Speaker 1: In the letter, he also announced his plan to trek

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Speaker 1: to the seed to protest the tax. Irwin of course,

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Speaker 1: did not approve of Gandhi's demonstration and said it would

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Speaker 1: be against the law and disturb the peace. Nevertheless, Gandhi

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Speaker 1: and seventy eight followers started marching towards Dante on March twelve.

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Speaker 1: As they progressed, more people joined the group. Along the way,

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Speaker 1: Gandhi stopped in villages to exhort officials to resign and

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Speaker 1: to encourage people to practice non violence. The marchers covered

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Speaker 1: anywhere from ten to fifteen miles a day, and they

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Speaker 1: reached Dandhie in twenty four days on April five. By

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Speaker 1: this time, the crowd was tens of thousands of people deep.

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Speaker 1: On the morning of April six, Gandhi led prayers and

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Speaker 1: people began picking up salt along the shore of the sea,

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Speaker 1: breaking the law. Indian nationalists in the coastal cities of

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Speaker 1: Mumbai and Karachi joined the protest. No one was arrested

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Speaker 1: that day, but as the Satyagraha continued, more Indians proceeded

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Speaker 1: to break salt laws using civil disobedience. Freedom fighter Jawaharlal Nehru,

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Speaker 1: who would later become the first Prime Minister of India,

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Speaker 1: was arrested in April and Gandhi himself was arrested in

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Speaker 1: May after he told Lord Irwin that he planned a

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Speaker 1: non violent raid on the Dara Sana salt Works and Gudrot,

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Speaker 1: but his arrest on May five only inspired thousands more

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Speaker 1: people to join the protest. One abbess Taiabji let the

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Speaker 1: salt works march with his wife Kestorba, but when they

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Speaker 1: were arrested, poet and freedom fighter Sarah Jini Nadou and

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Speaker 1: scholar Malana Abu kalam Azad took charge. The march turned violent,

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Speaker 1: with hundreds of British lad Indian police beating the demonstrators.

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Speaker 1: By the end of the Satyagraha, around sixty thousand people

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Speaker 1: have been jailed. Gandhi was released from detention in January

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Speaker 1: nineteen thirty one, and soon a truth was declared. He

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Speaker 1: met with Lord Irwin and signed the Gandhi Irwin Pact

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Speaker 1: in March, agreeing to end the campaign, while Irwin agreed

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Speaker 1: to release people who had been imprisoned and to allow

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Speaker 1: Indians living on the coast to make salt from the

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Speaker 1: sea for domestic use. And in August, Gandhi represents the

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Speaker 1: nationalist Indian National Congress at the second session of the

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Speaker 1: Roundtable conference in London. The British raj still had a

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Speaker 1: monopoly over salt and India didn't gain its independence until

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Speaker 1: nineteen But even though the Statyagraha didn't immediately produce any

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Speaker 1: major political games, the Salt March affected Indian resistance to

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Speaker 1: British rule and had an impact on the civil rights

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Speaker 1: leadership of Dr Martin Luther King Jr. I'm Eves Jeffco

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Speaker 1: and hopefully you know a little more about history today

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Speaker 1: than you did yesterday. And here's an additional note. I

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Speaker 1: know I just mentioned the impact that Gandhi had on

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Speaker 1: the leadership of Dr Martin Luther King Jr. But there

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Speaker 1: is some controversy surrounding Gandhi's life and his philosophy. A

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Speaker 1: book called The South African Gandhi Stretcher Bearer of Empire

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Speaker 1: that was released in detailed Gandhi's writings on Black Africans,

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Speaker 1: whom he often described in a derogatory or inferior manner.

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Speaker 1: The Arthur's argued that our fond remembrance of Gandhi is

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Speaker 1: the result of a kind of rebranding that Gandhi went through.

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Speaker 1: So if you have any comments or thoughts or insight

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Speaker 1: on that, feel free to leave us a note on

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Speaker 1: social media. We're at T d i h C Podcast

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Speaker 1: on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter. Thanks again for listening, and

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Speaker 1: we'll see you here again tomorrow