Eighty-five years ago, on March 12, Mohandas Gandhi set out with 80 followers from Sabarmati Ashram near Ahmedabad to Dandi village in coastal Gujarat to produce salt as a show of protest against a British tax on the product. The 240-km march that triggered India’s Civil Disobedience Movement in 1930 inspired hundreds of similar marches across the country.
Both the British and the Indian National Congress were initially sceptical of the move. That doubt eventually dissipated. Though the march began with only 80 people, thousands gathered along the way as the procession passed through four districts and almost 50 villages. Over its journey of 23 days, the procession swelled by great numbers.
This set of newsreels recounts the events as they occurred.