National Week

Last week observers noted the following steps in Mahatma Gandhi's campaign of open violation of the British salt monopoly in India, his policy of passive resistance to the British Raj:

P: On the 11th anniversary of the Amritsar Massacre (when over 300 Indian men and women were shot down by British troops) half a million natives gathered on the beach near Bombay to scoop up water, extract forbidden salt by evaporation. Towards evening a huge, blood-red papier-mache monster, symbolizing the salt tax, was dumped into the ocean.

P: Saint Gandhi grew wroth at British authorities who have been methodically seizing salt evaporated by his followers. Said he: "It is sheer vulgarity to snatch salt from our Satyagrahis [Nationalist volunteers]. It is my earnest desire that the Satyagrahis should not part with their salt in spite of the most severe injury to their hands." His chief worry was that he had not been arrested, though his second son was jailed last week as his first was fortnight ago for violating the salt laws, making "seditious utterances."

P: Later Saint Gandhi sat in a dry creek bed while a chorus of sari-clad Indian women sang a hymn, translated as follows by Indian correspondents:

"We will not strike a blow; we will die, for it is God's law. ... The police have been given the power of magistrates. They wrest the salt from our hands by breaking our fingers, but we should not give up our salt. Even if our hands are bleeding ... we should not retaliate. God is our protector."

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