On March 2, a citizen in Ahmedabad wrote to the head of the Government of India. He described the administrative system as “demonstrably the most expensive in the world”, charged it with impoverishing the nation, and threatened to break the laws of the land if immediate steps were not taken to provide justice and good governance to the common people.Most would find that citizen’s charges depressingly familiar today. But the citizen was M.K. Gandhi; the year, 1930. Gandhi was looking for an issue around which he could unite the people of India against the colonial power. The British controlled production and sale of salt; they collected a tax on it. “I regard this tax to be the most iniquitous of all from the poor man’s standpoint,” Gandhi wrote in his letter to Lord Irwin (the then viceroy). “As the independence movement is essentially for the poorest in the land, the beginning will be made with this evil.”Ten days after he wrote that letter, Gandhi set out from Sabarmati Ashram with 78 of his followers. They marched for 23 days. All along the way, Gandhi addressed large crowds; with each passing day more and more people joined his march. Finally, on April 5 they reached the coastal village of Dandi, 385 km away. After a brief prayer Gandhi spoke to the assembled people, and then, at 8.30 a.m., he picked up a small lump of natural salt. By that act he broke the law! Everywhere, others followed his example. Within a week jails across India were full, and Gandhi himself was imprisoned. Yet he had achieved his goal: the Dandi March marked the dawn of “civil disobedience”, which inexorably led to India winning independence from British rule.On 12 March 2005, Congress President Sonia Gandhi led a re-enactment of the Mahatma’s Dandi March. After delivering a speech on development, education, empowerment, environment et al, she stepped forth briskly from Sabarmati Ashram, followed by a pack of panting Congressmen. They quit walking long before they reached the outskirts of the city, leaving it to others to continue from where they left off. Theirs was a “relay” Dandi March, as sincere and meaningful as a “relay hunger strike”.Why did the Congress undertake the farcical exercise? Did the party wish to establish its president even more firmly within the context of India’s freedom struggle? Sonia, Nehru’s grand-daughter-in-law, would now become Sonia, bearer of Mahatma Gandhi’s torch! A cynical and unfair charge? Perhaps. But it would be interesting to see the results of a nation-wide opinion poll that asked the following question: how is Sonia Gandhi related to Mahatma Gandhi? Answer: (a) daughter, (b) daughter-in-law, (c) grand-daughter; (d) none of the above. Maybe the Congress should have invited the Mahatma’s own grandchildren to lead Dandi March 2005. But then that would be “dynastic politics”, no?
