Modern Era · South Asia · Politics

1931

India's salt tax civil disobedience

1931

Following Gandhi's Salt March, hundreds of thousands of Indians participated in civil disobedience across the subcontinent: boycotting British goods, refusing taxes, making their own salt by the sea. The British jailed sixty thousand protesters in a few months. Viceroy Irwin finally met Gandhi for talks, an unprecedented recognition of the movement's moral authority. The psychological balance in India had shifted.