Gandhi's Arguments Against The Salt Tax

Revenue realised from the Salt Tax amounted at this time to £25,000,000 out of total revenue of about £800,000,000. These laws were held to work a hardship on the people, especially the poor and to constitute the taxation of a necessity.

Gandhi wrote his first article on Salt as early as 14 February 1891, when he was a young man of twenty-two years of age, in The Vegetarian. He described the utter poverty of his fellow country-men who lived on bread and salt, a 'heavily taxed article'. While he was in South Africa, he paid a tribute in the Indian Opinion to Walter Francis Hely-Hutchinson, Governor of the colony of Natal who had expressed his views against the salt tax and regarded its continuance as a 'great shame' for the British government. Hutchinson considered the salt tax a 'barbarous practice' which 'ill-becomes the British Government' and pleaded for its abolition.

The tax levied on salt in India has always been a subject of criticism. This time it has been criticized by the well-known Dr. Hutchinson who says that 'it is a great shame for the British Government in India to continue it, while a similar tax previously in force in Japan has been abolished. Salt is an essential article in our dietary. It could be said that to a

With the establishment of the rule of the East India Company in India, it was considered to be a good source of income. At first, this tax was imposed in the form of 'land rent' and 'transit charges', and in 1762, this was consolidated into duty. Thus India, in particular Bengal and the surrounding provinces were in turn, rendered dependent upon imported salt from Liverpool, Spain, Romania, Aden and Mussawah. Oppressed with the burden of extravagant charges, the indigenous industry soon found itself unable to compete with its English rival which was making determined efforts to capture the market. The figures given below the imports of British salt into Calcutta, reveal the inevitable