In the given question, a statement of Assertion is followed by a statement of Reason. Mark the correct answer.

Assertion: The salt monopoly was a fourfold curse.

Reason: In every Indian household, salt was indispensable; yet people were forbidden from making salt even for domestic use, compelling them to buy it from shops at a high price.

Both the Assertion and the Reason are correct but the Reason is not the correct explanation of the Assertion.

The correct answer is Option 2 - Both the Assertion and the Reason are correct but the Reason is not the correct explanation of the Assertion.

Assertion: The salt monopoly was a fourfold curse.

Reason: In every Indian household, salt was indispensable; yet people were forbidden from making salt even for domestic use, compelling them to buy it from shops at a high price.

Reason: It deprives the people of a valuable easy village industry, involves wanton destruction of property that nature produces in abundance, the destruction itself means more national expenditure, and fourthly, to crown this folly, an unheard-of tax of more than 1000 percent is exacted from a starving people.