Page 79 - GANDHI A Biography for Children and Beginners

GANDHI – A Biography for children and beginners

people turned out with folded hands and knelt before the Mahatma. There

were arches and flowers and shouts of victory to Mahatma Gandhi all the way.

The British Government did not know what to do. They had started by ridiculing
Gandhi. But the response that he was receiving rattled them. Could they allow

this to go on? Was it not putting the Viceroy and the King Emperor's

Government in ridicule? The District Collectors wrote to the Governor of the
State that the writ of the Government had ceased to run in their Districts.

Village officials were resigning from the service of the Government. It seemed

as though the King Emperor's Government had ceased to exist. Will they let
Gandhi go on? Will they not arrest him? The Governor wrote to the Viceroy. The

Viceroy consulted His Majesty's Government in London. Governors were

summoned. They could not make up their minds. If Gandhi was arrested, he

would become a hero, and there would be outbursts all over the country.

If he were left free, it would be the British Government that would come into

ridicule. Meanwhile Gandhi began to taunt the Government in his own gentle

way. The Government should not think of merely arresting him. His guilt was
far greater. The punishment that he deserved was hanging.

Gandhi reached Dandi on the shores of the sea. On the 6th of April, as the sun
rose after the morning prayer, Gandhi stooped down and picked up salt from

the sea, and said that he was shaking the foundations of the mighty British

Empire with a pinch of salt.

This was the signal the country was waiting for. All over India, thousands of

leaders and 'volunteers' marched to the sea front and broke the law by

manufacturing salt. Where there was no sea or lake, as at Allahabad, the

people boiled salt water in public and made "illegal" salt. On that day,
according to the British Government, 5 million people in over 5000 meetings in

towns or villages all over India broke the salt law by making, selling,

transporting illegal salt. The writ of the Government had truly ceased to run.
The Government itself was surprised by the massive participation of women in

the struggle. The secret reports of the Government said "Gandhi's appeal to

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