HISTORY
Retold, in a hurry
S. SIVADAS
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Dharker was given three months to write the book, the deadline for the re-enactment of the Dandi march. That shows...
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The Romance of Salt, Anil Dharker, Roli Books, Rs 395.
ON seeing the picture of a dhoti-clad Gandhi leading a goat in a newspaper, the children of Mussolini, the story goes, could not help smiling at the anachronism. The Generalissimo is reported to have commented that this was no laughing matter and that the frail man had been giving the shivers to one of the most powerful empires.
When Gandhi stooped to collect a handful of salt at Dandi on the Gujarat coast, there must have been similar smirks and banter about his eccentric behaviour. What was he trying to convey and what was the idea behind this symbolism?
Symbol of inequity
Much thought must have gone into the planning of Gandhi's second civil disobedience movement in 1930, a year after the great depression. The announcement of the Simon Commission's visit and the (Motilal) Nehru Report had queered the pitch and the country was in ferment. Gandhi had certainly chosen his metaphor carefully. With a coastline of 7000 km, salt was the most visible symbol; one which everyone could relate to. And when on such a commodity is slapped a levy and the public forbidden from collecting salt, what greater inequity could one imagine?
Now about the choice of venue. Dandi was not the nearest coast to Sabarmati Ashram, Gandhi's headquarters in Ahmedabad. By selecting this South Gujarat spot he had ensured that the marchers would pass through some of the thickly populated areas and the time taken to reach there would give them the necessary build-up. It actually took the marchers 25 days to trek the 385 km, passing through 40 villages and towns, to establish the beachhead. At Dandi the approach to the sea was wide enough for crowds to collect — and disperse in case there was excessive repression. In the era of the print media, to have done such meticulous planning shows Gandhi's tactical acumen.
Months later when Gandhi met Lord Irwin for negotiations he casually took out a small pouch from the folds of his dhoti and sprinkled the contents into his cup, commenting that "it was a little salt for my tea, to remind us of the Boston tea party." Lord Irwin smiled.
The history of salt itself is as fascinating and had somehow got obfuscated in the colonial powers' scramble for a slice of the spice and textile trades. At the end of the 17th Century, India was one of the biggest exporters of salt and had 20 per cent of the world share. But with the British taking gradual control and imposing the salt laws, within a century it was reduced to importing salt processed in Britain. Liverpool and Cheshire, England's main production centres, were looking for new markets and Bengal was the obvious target. Stringent measures were adopted against natives extracting salt and vast areas were cordoned off. To prevent salt from Orissa from being smuggled across to Bengal, it imposed a customs duty and drew a "customs line". Over the years, the line grew and expanded till it became a vast 4000-km long one, needing "hedges" and 1720 guards. The line that started from Torbewla, beyond Rawalpindi, passed Delhi and Jhansi, Hoshangabad and Burhanpur and Chandrapur to culminate at Sonapur on the banks of the Mahanadi. The hedge was reportedly longer than the Great Wall of China!
History of salt
Anil Dharker's book, The Romance of Salt, which recounts all these, is more history than romance of the epic march by Gandhi and his shifting the focus of the agitation for independence, from out of the drawing rooms of barristers and constitutional niceties. This not only perplexed the British, it also intrigued his own countrymen. The struggles he had fashioned out of his experiences in South Africa and the readings of recluses like Thoreau and authors like Tolstoy and Ruskin were tested out on the dusty plains of India.
Seasoned journalist Dharker has, in fact, written a history of salt in ten-and-a-half chapters and the narrative is tongue-in-cheek at times. He mentions that he was given three months to write it, the deadline for the re-enactment of the Dandi march. That shows and it is at times as slapdash as the march that was organised by the Congress Party to commemorate the 75th anniversary of the event and one is reminded of Karl Kraus's quip: "A journalist is stimulated by a deadline, he writes worse when he has time."
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