Taxation in Pre-Independence Period: The Salt Tax

This chapter addresses the inter-twining of tax resistance with India’s independence movement. In December 1916, Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi courted arrest reflecting extractions by British landlords in Champaran village from ‘every home and every marriage, even levying special taxes to pay for their own hunting or holidays’. Conditions of Indians deteriorated. Independence became the objective of India’s Congress party. Gandhi planned mass refusal to pay taxes in Bardoli in February 1922, then reinvented it in 1927. Eighty-four thousand peasants refused to pay taxes for six months. Government reduced taxes, compensating losses from seizure of goods. On 26 January 1930, Gandhi published a declaration of complete independence, picking salt tax as his instrument. On 6 April, he picked up salt in Dandi, Gujarat, without paying tax. Sushil Dhara did likewise in Tamluk, Bengal. Electrified, officials resigned; villagers made salt at home; soldiers refused to fire on demonstrators. Retaliating, Brigadier General Michael O’Dwyer ordered the shooting of peaceful demonstrators in Jalianwallah Bagh, Punjab, on April 13, killing 379 people and wounding 1100. Tax-free salt manufacture was allowed for personal use. English analysts commented the salt tax march was among the last nails on the British colonial coffin. India gained independence on 15 August 1947.