When Small is Great

When Small is Great

1990 1 January 17 When Small is Great (331) India’s freedom movement began in 1799 with the death of Sultan Tipu in the war with the English. For the next hundred odd years, fighting with the British, abusing them, inviting foreign governments to wage war against them and other such hostile actions became the order of the day.

These activities, attended as they were by a certain amount of clamour and agitation, would invariably bring themselves to the notice of the English, who would then proceed to crush them. However, with the appearance of Gandhiji on the political scene, the whole situation underwent a sudden and radical change. Where former leaders had demanded freedom through violence, Gandhiji followed the path of non-violence. In fact, he set himself to running the freedom movement along such lines as would appear of so little consequence to the English that they would pay no heed to it, until it was too late for counter-action.

A crucial piece of strategy devised by Gandhiji to this end was the Dandi March. This was a journey which he made on foot from his ashram at Sabarmati to Dandi, on the coast of Gujarat – traditionally a salt-producing region – in order to lodge a protest against the salt-making plants being transferred from private to state ownership, thus causing hardship to the entire nation. He walked 240 miles in 24 days to make salt on the seashore in defiance of the salt-law regulations. There, holding the salt in his hand, he broke this foreign-imposed law.

When Gandhiji announced his plan, the English officials held a meeting during which an English officer remarked: “Let him make his salt. Mr. Gandhi will have to find a great deal more than a pinch of salt to bring down the British Empire.”

But this pinch of salt – strange as it may seem – was exactly what brought the British Empire tumbling down. A thing so small and insignificant in itself, it had the most momentous consequences for the fate of India and its erstwhile rules.