Lessons from Mahatma Gandhi’s Salt March
Published on: 16 March 2021, 09:00 am
As we celebrate the 91st anniversary of Mahatma Gandhi's Salt March, we need to remember his methodological genius. Every day of the 24-day stretch from March 12 through April 6 is a day to reflect and act. Very much like the administration of 1930, today's administration views civil disobedience as a nuisance. Justice and progress are sacrificed at the altar of the "rule of law". It is only when negotiations fail that non-violent action comes to the fore. A non-violent movement is similar to farming in that way – it requires great patience, hard work and discipline. Hence, it is fitting that on this 91st anniversary, when the Republic is in duress, its farmers have taken up the mantle, writes ROHIT TRIPATHI.
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THE irony of writing about the greatest civil disobedience movement in human history for a publication led by legal luminaries is not lost on me. The Mahatma was himself a lawyer, but his morality could not bear the burden of unjust laws. Inspired by Henry David Thoreau's essays on civil disobedience and putting the ideas therein into action in South Africa, he was ready for this epochal moment on the morning of March 12, 1930. With a million emotions and an unshakeable resolve, he left his home at Sabarmati Ashram with the vow of returning only after winning Swaraj, or independence, for India. He never returned.
The 241 miles that the 81 walkers ultimately covered changed not just the course of India's history, but gave the world a master class in civil disobedience on an unprecedented scale. The American Civil Rights movement, a few decades later, made it into a science.
RULE OF LAW
Every day of this 24-day stretch from March 12 through April 6 is a day to reflect and act. As a maturing, yet challenged democracy, India today need not look far to get its democracy back on track towards that ideal of Purna Swaraj. Very much like the administration of 1930, today's administration views civil disobedience as a nuisance in the best cases and sedition in the worst.
Hiding behind electoral victories, the demands for justice and progress are sacrificed at the altar of the "rule of law" by exercising outdated sedition laws and other equally broad legal mechanisms that offer no due process. I need not give a clarion call to the lawyers of India to defend the rule of law that is fundamentally committed to the freedom and dignity of every single Indian.
“The 241 miles that the 81 walkers ultimately covered in the Salt March changed not just the course of India's history but gave the world a master class in civil disobedience on an unprecedented scale. The American Civil Rights movement, a few decades later, made it into a science.