Gandhi’s Salt March of Dandi in Gujarat, was the beginning of the struggle for India’s independence.
Today his great-grandson on the Old Bombay FB group, tells of some family memories of events that followed. Tushar Gandhi writes: “These two incidents don’t have a direct connection to my ancestors except for the fact that they happened due to the call given by my great grandfather, Bapu and my grand uncle Devadas who were imprisoned in Gujarat and in the Punjab during the Salt Satyagraha. Both the incidents I am going to narrate are from the Salt Satyagraha. The first one happened in Bombay. There was a government Salt Depot at Wadala. The Bombay Congress served notice to the Colonial Government that on a certain date at a mentioned time they would raid the depot and liberate salt. The Government had decided to crush the uprising. And so they prepared well a huge posse of armed police were stationed at Wadala to protect the Depot. At the given time the Congress workers assembled outside the Salt Depot. It was a very disciplined group of Satyagrahis. This incident is recorded in the history of the Congress which assembled a nation wide report of statements of witnesses reporting the brutality of the colonial government. This incident was recorded from a statement given by an eye witness, a youth who observed the Satyagraha. ‘At the appointed time the Satyagrahis formed ranks and marched towards the gate of the Salt Depot. They were confronted by ranks of heavily armed police lead by senior officers mounted on horse back. The police officers warned the Satyagrahis to stop and disperse. No one paid any heed to the warning. In the first rank of Satyagrahis was a middle aged Sikh man. He was of medium height and slight of build. As he marched towards the gate he was confronted by a young British policeman who shouted at the man to stop, the Sikh man ignored the warning and walked on. The officer showed hard and pushed the Sikh man who stumbled but regained his balance and took two more steps towards the gate. This time the officer hit him with his baton, a hard blow that glanced off his head and struck him on his shoulder. The Sikh Satyagrahi staggered and fell to his knees. After a few attempts he staggered to his feet and stumbled back on to his feet and took a couple of more steps. This time the officer hit him brutally on top his head from behind. The man’s turban came off and there was a thud as the Baton crashed on to the man’s head. It sounded as if the bone had cracked. The Sikh man collapsed and lay motionless on the ground. It felt as if he had succumbed, he lay motionless. After five minutes he twitched. It was the first sign he had survived then he made attempts to stand up but three or four times he tried and collapsed. Finally after several attempts he managed to stand on his feet. Without bothering about the police or about his injuries he staggered on towards the gate. The young British policeman stood shocked with surprise watching the man stagger on. His officer shouted at the policeman “Stop him!” The policeman turned to his superior and said, “I have beaten this man with all my strength, yet he ignores me and his injuries. I don’t know what I can do more to him.” The report ends here. No one knows the identity of the heroic Sikh Satyagrahi or of the eye witness who reported the incident. The raid on the Wadala Salt Depot did happen. A plaque commemorating the Satyagraha was installed on the wall of the Depot. But then Bombay turned into Mumbai and forgot it’s history. The depot disappeared and then the plaque disappeared too. Now not many Mumbaikars remember Bombays heroic participation in the Salt Satyagraha. The Sikh Satyagrahi also vanished into oblivion. In a non violent battle too the foot soldiers make sacrifices and the generals get the credit. The second incident happened in Quetta, now in Pakistan. The Pakhtuns, most of them Khudai Khidmatgars, followers of Khan Abdul Gaffar Khan decided to perform a satyagraha in the Town Centre. A day before the Satyagraha, police arrested Khan Saheb. On the appointed afternoon Pakhtun followers of Khanbaba began congregating in the town centre opposite the police headquarters. The District police Chief had ordered that the Satyagrahis were to be dispersed using any and all means. So the station commandant got a machine gun mounted on the roof of the headquarters. Hundreds of Pakhtun Khodai Khidmatgar followers of Khan Baba gathered in the square opposite the police headquarters. It is reported that a platoon of police men out on a patrol were returning to the head quarters when their jeep stalled in the midst of the Satyagrahis. The policemen panicked and started firing to disperse the Satyagrahis. This spooked the commandant and he ordered the the Machine Gunner to strafe the mob. By the time better sense prevailed and the machine gun fell silent the square was littered with the dead. A hundred plus people were killed that afternoon in the town square. This was one of the biggest massacres during the Salt Satyagraha. A fact finding mission of the Congress conducted an inquiry and filed its report. One sentence of that report is chilling. It describes the condition of the dead. All those who died were inspected and their injuries noted. The report states that all the bullet wounds were in the chests of the dead. None on their backs. It means as the bullets started flying the Pakhtuns stood their ground. None turned around and fled. This requires unparalleled courage and determination. After I read these two reports many a times I have questioned myself whether I would have been able to behave as courageously and as fearlessly as the men in these reports. They were heroes and martyrs an ungrateful nation forgot. Next time someone tells you the British gave us our independence easily, tell them we got it due to the sacrifices of so many forgotten heroes and martyrs who paid for it with their blood.” Roland. Toronto.
