The March Towards Solidarity | A Short Story For Children |

The film on Mahatma Gandhi was being screened at Sabarmati Ashram as part of the award ceremony planned in honour of five children. They were from the eastern, western, northern, southern and central zones of India. These children were the winners of the National Quiz Contest conducted by the Centre for Gandhian Studies, Ahmedabad.

For the children, who came from the schools in rural India, it was a first time visit to the Ashram. It was also a first time screening of the film on Gandhiji.

The children watched the Salt March to Dandi, a remote seaside village 320 km from Ahmedabad, where Mahatma Gandhi launched the greatest non-violent battle. The film showed Gandhiji and his followers leaving the ashram on the banks of the Sabarmati river on the outskirts of Ahmedabad on March 12, 1930. It also showed them breaking British salt laws about three weeks later at the seaside hamlet of Dandi.

"This was a historic launch," announced the convenor of the award ceremony. "It was the beginning of a mass struggle that filled the prisons and shook the foundation of the British empire. It was a struggle for freedom from the times of the foreign rule. It was a pilgrimage and a sermon for all times."

"Children," he addressed, "salt, so freely available in nature, a gift for human survival, was being taxed by the British authorities for over forty years. Anger had been simmering in the heart of every Indian against this sinful act. But the rulers had turned deaf ears to their appeals."

That evening, the Salt Satyagraha had given a new message to the audience. The children, stunned and silent, watched how on that historic day, Gandhiji waded into the sea for a ritual bath, picked up a handful of saline mud, and walked back over the fine dark sand towards his camp. He prepared for the mud to be cleaned, extracted a small quantity of salt and auctioned it for the benefit of the national cause.

The children understood that the mass salt gathering and its production by boiling sea water was indeed a simple act. But it was this simple act that soon became a national movement. The film showed how that act got caught by both the peasants and the rich alike. They realized that anyone could make clean salt, sell it, or give it away. This was the mission behind the movement. Bringing about solidarity amongst the people across the length and breadth of "Did the British government wake up to this movement?" wondered the children. They soon came to know that it took another seventeen years for that to happen.

The convenor came up on the stage again. "It was not important even then whether the march won the cause or not, but that Mahatma Gandhi had demonstrated what an ideal non-violent society would look and how simple a life every human being led in such a society."

He concluded by saying that the nations all over, particularly the USA, had got the message clear. There was a moral legitimacy in the Indians demanding freedom for their country. Some magazines had Gandhiji on the cover page as the Man of the Year (1930). The convenor also stressed that the independence Gandhiji had fought for, was not only national but also personal. The Salt March was primarily about strengthening the people to make them feel that they were stronger than they had thought of themselves and that their oppressors were weaker than they had imagined them to be.

Handouts containing illustrated messages on the Salt Satyagraha were distributed to everyone present. The main illustration showed Mahatma Gandhi picking up a handful of the saline mud from the sea.

On the flip side was a picture showing yet another crowd of people on the sea shore with the explanation: On April 30, 1930 hundreds of Gandhian followers, freedom fighters and prominent personalities, led by Rajaji whom Gandhiji called his "conscience keeper", started the Salt March to break the law at Vedaranyam in coastal Tamil Nadu.

"That means, in those days, even when there were no internet or mobile phone facilities, news of national happenings did indeed spread fast!" came the response from Arup Ranjan.

"Everyone in those times had but one thought, freedom for the country. I wish I had been born then. I would have been with Gandhij," said Amarender Singh, his voice ringing of self- confidence.

Ashutosh addressed his friends, "Aren't we all lucky we are here, right in the place where decisions of national importance had taken place, where our revered leaders had met Gandhiji time and again planning the movement? To all of us from different parts of the country, this evening showed that through the length and breadth of India we are one. Let's keep up the spirit of solidarity."

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Story credits :- Viva Value Education