A Miniature Sheet consisting of 4 nos of postage stamps on the 75^th Anniversary of the Salt Satyagraha (Dandi Yatra), an act of nonviolent civil disobedience in colonial India led by Mahatma Gandhi :

Issued by India

Issued on Apr 5, 2005

Issued for : The Department of Posts joins the nation in commemorating the 75^th anniversary of Dandi March and is privileged to issue this set of stamps on this occasion.

Design : This set of four stamps along with a miniature sheet tries to capture the historic moment and its varied facets. The first stamp (clockwise) catches a glimpse of the marchers, led by Mahatma Gandhi on the move. The second stamp shows Mahatma Gandhi while the headlines in “Bombay Chronicle” of March 13, 1930 announce the beginning of the “Great March for Liberty”. The third stamp shows lines written by Mahatma Gandhi on April 5^th, 1930, “I want world sympathy in this battle of Right against the might”.

And finally, the last stamp, while showing the course traversed during the march, has Gandhiji picking up a lump of salt, a simple act, which forever become the powerful symbol of the Salt Satyagrah.

The miniature sheet extends the idea encapsulated in the stamps with artistic depictions of the route taken during the commemoration of 75 years of Dandi March, while showing the historical footage of the followers of Mahatma Gandhi.

Credits :
Stamp & FDC : Sankha Samanta
Cancellation : Alka Sharma

Type : Miniature Sheet, Mint Condition

Colour : Multicolour

Denomination : 500 Paise each

Print Quantity : 0.8 Million each

Miniature Sheets : 0.1 Million

Printing Process : Photogravure

Printer : India Security Press, Nashik

About : 

• “As the march continued, as days broke into dawn and dawn ripened into dusk, we saw before our very eyes the history of the world changing. We saw the whole of India rising up with rekindled enthusiasm and faith.” – Sarojini Naidu
• Dandi March was one of the most inspiring chapters in the history of the Indian freedom struggle. Although every political act of Mahatma Gandhi was rich in symbolism, Dandi March was an outstanding example as it fired a people to believe collectively as a nation and to come together on a common platform.
• Mahatma Gandhi believed firmly in opposing all that was morally unjustifiable, and he would, in his own inimitable way, give expression to such a protest. His opposition to the Salt Tax imposed by the British, was thus elemental and yet effective in rousing the nation. Announcing the decision to launch the Salt Satyagraha, Gandhiji wrote to Lord Irwin, the Viceroy of India, “I regard this Tax (on salt) to be the most iniquitous of all from the poor man’s standpoint. As the independence movement is essentially for the poorest in the land, the beginning will be made with this evil.” The Salt Satyagraha was a masterstroke in political mobilization which also conclusively established that civil disobedience, as a means to achieve freedom was a viable political medium.
• On March 12, 1930, Gandhiji started the historic march from Sabarmati Ashram with 78 volunteers to Dandi on the Gujarat Coast. The 25-day long march through dusty and muddy tracks, sometimes through knee-deep waters, culminated on April 6, 1930. Gandhiji picked up a small lump of natural salt, thereby giving the signal to hundreds of thousands of people to similarly defy the law, since the British exercised a monopoly on the production and sale of salt. This was the beginning of the civil disobedience movement. Gandhiji had said in the Young India, “I know that the Salt Tax has to go and many other things with it.“
• Gandhiji’s politics was always dictated by a moral logic that went beyond the immediate political priority. To tax salt, a necessity of even the poorest of the poor, was to deprive the poor of his basic necessity.
• The symbolic struggle to control manufacture of salt soon become a larger statement on what freedom meant.
• The effects of the Salt Satyagraha were felt across the country. Thousands of followers were hauled into jail but it was only on May 4, 1930 that the Viceroy’s police arrested Gandhiji under a regulation of 1827.
• This period is to be considered the apex of Gandhiji’s political appeal, as the march mobilized many new followers from all sections of the Indian society and with this, the nation had unshackled itself and achieved a symbolic emancipation.
• Text : Based on material given by proponents.

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