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FOR India celebrated Gandhi's Salt March

On March 12, 1930, Mahatma Gandhi with 78 others began his march to Dandi from Sabarmati Ashram. This March was 385 kilometers long through 40 towns and villages and it took 25 days to cover the distance. On the 26th day Gandhiji defied the prohibitory order of the British Raj against the producing of salt without payment of tax by picking a handful from the Dandi shore. Gandhiji was arrested along with several other marchers. The media recorded photographs of group after group of marchers being beaten brutally with batons by policemen of the British Raj before being dragged away and arrested.

March 12, 2005, the 75th anniversary of the Dandi March began with hundreds of men and women, old and young walking enthusiastically down the road which Mahatma Gandhi took in 1930 to oppose the British Government's salt laws.

Sonia Gandhi, Tushar Gandhi, and several other public figures were amongst the marchers. Hundreds of children lined the roads waving flags and shouting Vande Mataram. There was a generous sprinkling of foreigners, including the followers of the Frontier Gandhi, Khan Abdul Ghaffar Khan from Pakistan. The favourite Bhajans of the Mahatma like Raghupathi Raghava Raja Ram rent the air. Several who had assembled took the pledge to carry forward the Mahatma's message of peace and nonviolence and Vasudev Kutumbakam (the universe is one). The path which Gandhiji trod resisting might with right showed, that Gandhism and nonviolence is not just for the past but for the future too.

FOR India email: georgemathew@vsnl.net