Women and Salt Satyagraha: Recalling their impactful entry in India’s public space

While the Salt Satyagraha inspired women’s participation like never before, Gandhi was initially reluctant to involve women directly. (Source: Wikimedia Commons)

The Salt Satyagraha of 1930 stands as a pivotal moment in India’s struggle for independence. Characterised by mass, nonviolent resistance and defiance of British rule, this movement for Civil Disobedience under Mahatma Gandhi’s leadership also played a critical role in women’s empowerment. In one giant stride, it enabled women to assert their agency, don leading roles in the national struggle and push the cause of gender equality in Indian society.

Gandhi’s choice of salt as a symbol of protest was particularly pertinent for women, being a commodity every woman used as a matter of routine. It was a visionary idea since the British had introduced a salt tax which doubled the price of salt and made it illegal for Indians to make their own salt. By encouraging the manufacture of salt in defiance of this unjust tax, Gandhi was virtually revolutionising people’s perception of the kitchen as being linked to the national cause – the personal as linked to the political. Naturally, the issue of salt deeply stirred women as Gandhi imbued this mundane sphere of women’s life with a new political and moral significance.

Gandhi’s – And A Nation’s – Transformation

Ironically, while the Salt Satyagraha inspired women’s participation like never before, Gandhi was initially reluctant to involve women directly and the 78 Padacharis who accompanied him on the Dandi March were an all-male contingent. Gandhi’s hesitation stemmed from his innate morality as he felt the British would refrain from attacking women and hence keeping women in the forefront might be construed as cowardice. The Mahatma explained, “Just as Hindus do not harm a cow, the British do not attack women…For Hindus it would be cowardice to take a cow to the battlefield. In the same way, it would be cowardice for us to have women accompany us.”

Women were understandably upset with Gandhi’s ambivalence and their exclusion from the historic march. But they remained undeterred and many soon started urging Gandhi to permit their active association with the mainstream of political activity. From Sarojini Naidu and Mithuben Petit to Kamladevi Chattopadhyay, Margaret Cousins and Durgabai Deshmukh several prominent women wrote strong letters exhorting Gandhi to involve women with the civil disobedience campaign.

Ultimately, on reaching Dandi in early April, 1930, Gandhi convened a Women’s Conference and unveiled a specific programme for women. Emphasising their special concern was to be the picketing of shops selling foreign cloth and liquor, Gandhi asserted: “Let the women of India take up these two activities…; they would contribute more than men to national freedom.” In effect, women had demanded and obtained a specific program of action – and women’s response from across the country was immediate and intense.

The Women Uprising

Lifting a fistful of clay and salt crystals from the sea at Dandi on April 6, 1930, Gandhi galvanised the entire nation. Years later, Kamaladevi Chattopadhyay recalled that women’s participation began from day one of the Salt Satyagraha which saw “multitudinous women with water pots filled with salt water from the sea wending their way home to make salt and defy the law…Women like men were getting the first taste of liberation.”

After Gandhi’s arrest on May 5, Sarojini Naidu took over and led the raid on the salt works at Dharasana on May 15. The British police unleashed appalling atrocities on peaceful satyagrahis on May 21 and many were brutally beaten to death. The tragedy received worldwide publicity through American journalist, Webb Miller, who stated in his book I Found No Peace that “I have never seen such harrowing scenes as at Dharasana.” After her arrest, Sarojini bravely declared: “In making the most of this heaven-sent opportunity, I find something to bless, not to fear and regret.”

Dharasana set the tone for women’s activism and the response from women was spontaneous and strong all over the country. So strikingly intense that when Kamaladevi was arrested at Wadala in Bombay, her seven-year-old son held the banner. When taken to court for trial, Kamaladevi even asked the Magistrate to buy the salt, resign his job and join the Satyagraha Army.

Women’s response was  intense not just in cities like Ahmedabad, Surat and Rajkot but also in countless villages. Borsad in Kaira district (Gujarat) saw one of the worst outrages when a women’s procession was brutally lathi-charged, symbolising British brutality and the quiet courage of Indian women. Gandhi claimed: “Women’s heroism had converted the little town of Borsad into a Thermopylae.”

Thereafter, women across the country marched to nearest sea coasts or rivers and defied the Salt Laws. From Karnataka and Madras in the south to Orissa, Assam and Bengal in the east as well as Punjab, NWFP, and United Provinces, women participated vigorously in the civil disobedience campaign. If women from the Nehru family played a lead role in Allahabad, thousands of others in Delhi under the leadership of Satyavati and Aruna Asaf Ali organised processions and picketing. They even formed a ‘Choorie League’ that taunted reluctant men to join the nationalist struggle or else, wear bangles – while women would advance the cause of civil disobedience.

No Going Back

In sum, the Salt Satyagraha witnessed the emergence of Indian women as marchers, picketers, civil resisters and many even became Congress ‘dictators’ in various districts and provinces of the subcontinent. Throughout this tumultuous era, countless womеn displayеd unwavеring dеtеrmination, rеsiliеncе, and patriotism. In mobilising massеs to picketing shops and lеading protеsts and procеssions, women flooded the public space in India for the first time and that too in thousands.

Significantly, the Salt Satyagraha galvanised Indian women as a powerful force of political action. As women’s response assumed epic proportions, it strengthened the freedom struggle and furthered the cause of women’s empowerment. Their epic response and remarkable contribution impelled the Congress to accept principles of gender equality, universal female suffrage and a guarantee against discrimination in employment – promises that were fulfilled through constitutional enactments in independent India.

Finally, participation in the public arena to strengthen the Swaraj endeavour, transformed the self-perception of many women who were politicised during this era. It gave them a new sense of purpose, a new self-view. From this point on, there was to be no going back.

Rajan Mahan is a senior journalist who headed NDTV and Star News in Rajasthan. He was also a Professor of Journalism at the University of Rajasthan in Jaipur. Views are personal, and do not represent the stance of this publication.