Mahatma Gandhi led a significant nonviolent protest movement in India in March–April 1930 known as the Salt March, also known as the Dandi March or Salt Satyagraha. The march was the beginning of Gandhi's bigger conflict of civil disobedience (satyagraha) against British rule in India, which lasted through the beginning of 1931 and won him wide public support in India as well as massive global attention.
Early in 1930, Gandhi made the decision to stage a very visible protest against the salt tax by marching from his ashram at Sabarmati (near Ahmadabad) to the town of Dandi (near Surat) on the Arabian Sea coast via what is now the state of Gujarat. On March 12, he headed out on foot with a large group of supporters. Each day's march ended with a stop in a different village along the route, where Gandhi addressed masses of people who had gathered to protest the unfairness of the salt tax imposed on the poor. Indian salt manufacture and distribution has long been a successful British monopoly. The Indian population was forbidden by a number of regulations from making or selling salt on their own, thus they were forced to purchase costly, highly taxed salt that was frequently imported. The vast majority of Indians were impacted since they were poor and could not afford to purchase it.
The movement grew stronger day by day and caught attention of massive crowd which started the unfair arrest of thousands of people.
Gandhi told Lord Irwin, the viceroy of India, of his intention to march on the adjacent Dharasana saltworks in early May after Gandhi informed Jawaharlal Nehru and others of his plans in April, as well as Gandhi himself. Tens of thousands more people joined the satyagraha after hearing about Gandhi's arrest. The poet Sarojini Naidu led the planned march against the saltworks, and roughly 2,500 nonviolent protesters were attacked and physically assaulted by police. At the conclusion of the year, there were about 60,000 inmates including Mahatma Gandhi and Jawaharlal Nehru himself.
After being released from imprisonment in January 1931, Gandhi started talks with Lord Irwin to put an end to the satyagraha movement. The Gandhi-Irwin Pact, which was signed on March 5, cemented the later declaration of a truce. The reduction of hostilities made it possible for Gandhi to attend the Round Table Conference's second session in London, speaking on behalf of the Indian National Congress.
