The Great Salt March: Photo Story

Travelling through Vedaranyam, Nagapattinam, at the eastern cost of Tamil Nadu, I was suddenly taken aback by the sight of the vast ex- panses of salt evaporation ponds. A salt evaporation pond is a shallow artificial saltpan designed to extract salts from sea water.

I could not drive on. Seeking permission from my co-traveller, I took a walk through the salt fields. I met Bala, a worker at the salt fields. He spoke to me about the salt fields, owned by large companies; though working for them for years, and for meager wages; he had no much idea about the company that gets the benefit of his hard toil. Bala was very articulative about the tough nature of their work. The hardest is the heat. Scorching sun is beating on them directly; adding to it the white salt fields reflect light and heat back to them: like getting cooked in a slow fire.

Salt fields: Photo Story

It is the year of Azadi ka Amrit Mahotsav. My thoughts went back to Gandhiji, his companions, and the great Salt March to Dandi, also known as the Salt Satyagraha, which was an act of nonviolent civil disobedience in colonial India. The twenty-four day march lasted from 12 March to 6 April 1930 as a direct action campaign of tax resistance and nonviolent protest against the British salt monopoly.

In 2022, in the independent India, would Bala or others be able to take a march of dissent to uphold their rights and dignity?

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