On This Day: Gandhi completes 240-mile salt march to sea in defiance of British tax

APRIL 6, 1930: Indian independence leader Mahatma Gandhi completed a 240-mile 'Salt March' to the sea in defiance of British rule on this day in 1930.

In one of his most iconic acts of civil disobedience, 50,000 people then joined him in openly flouting a law that forbade making salt without paying tax.

As the former lawyer picked up a lump of brackish mud on the beach at Dandi, he declared: 'With this, I am shaking the foundations of the British Empire.'

Gandhi then boiled it in sea water and dried it out to make salt, inspiring millions of others to do likewise and leading to his arrest and 60,000 others within days.

He explained to following journalists that he hoped to gain 'world sympathy in this battle of right against might'.

Silent British Pathé footage shows the advocate of austerity speaking to a crowd afterwards wearing his trademark single-sheet khadi.

The Hindu stopped wearing Western-style and suits began donning the humble garment in 1921 after launching a boycott of British goods, including textiles.

Yet his political career had begun much earlier – and in a different country.

After training as a barrister in London, he travelled to the Colony of Natal in South Africa – then part of the British Empire - to work as a lawyer.

He found himself considered a second-class citizen – poignantly being thrown out of a first-class carriage on a train - and rallied to help fellow Indians.

He encouraged Indians, whose 'Indianess' he believed transcended religion and caste, to defy discriminatory laws and suffer punishments without responding violently.

The non-violence he used in protests in South Africa had not yet fully formed the cornerstone of his philosophy, though.

When he returned home in 1915, he actively recruited locals to fight in the First World War in the hope that it would inspire the British to give India autonomy.

It did not and from then on - even after British troops killed up to 1,000 Indians at the 1919 Amritsar Massacre – he advocated non-violent noncooperation.

He persuaded both Muslims and Hindus in the Indian National Congress to begin a boycott of British goods and campaign of civil disobedience.

It was highly successful, although fearing the protest was about to turn violent, he called it off in 1922 – shortly before he was arrested and jailed for two years.

Later, Gandhi, whose first name was actually Mohandas although he had long been known as Mahatma ('high souled'), led the Salt March.

He came to the fore again with his Quit India campaign during World War II when he was jailed for a third time for refusing to support Britain’s fight.

He was released in 1944 after 18 months in jail – during which time Kasturba, his wife of 62 years, died – after he went on hunger strike and then fell ill with malaria.

By this time, the political debate was now focused on partition and Muhammad Ali Jinnah, the Muslim League leader who supported the war, was a new big player.

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Gandhi, fearing bloodshed, was unable to persuade Jinnah to keep his community within an independent India even with the option of later plebiscites.

In the end, the subcontinent was divided with tragic effect after Pakistan and India became independent on the 14th and 15th August 1947 respectively.

Violence ensued as 7.2million Muslims went to Pakistan from India while another 7.2million Hindus and Sikhs moved to India from Pakistan in the aftermath.

Between 500,000 and a million people died in the chaos, which has caused strained relations and conflicts between India and Pakistan ever since.

Despite the animosity between the different religions, Gandhi would later be assassinated by a fellow Hindu only five months after independence.

Nathuram Godse, who shot the independence leader three times in the chest at close range as he attended prayers in New Delhi, believed he favoured Muslims.

Gandhi, who had a vision of a religious unity and opposed partition, later supported Pakistan's claim a share of cash deposits in the Indian reserve bank.

And, shortly before his death at age 78, he declared his resolve to live in Pakistan in order to forge good relations between the two countries.

Yet he had no shortage of Hindu devotees and supporters in India and his birthday – October 2 – is now a national holiday and his descendants still dominate its politics .

At his funeral, two million people joined the five-mile procession that took five hours to get from Birla House to Raj Ghat, the country’s most famous cremation spot.

Following his death, Gandhi’s philosophy of peaceful resistance inspired a host of other protest leaders, including Martin Luther’s King’s U.S. Civil Rights Movement.