Read the passage and answer the questions:
Why was salt the symbol of protest? This is what Mahatma Gandhi wrote:
The volume of information being gained daily shows how wickedly the salt tax has been designed. In order to prevent the use of salt that has not paid the tax which is at times even fourteen times its value, the Government destroys the salt it cannot sell profitably. Thus it taxes the nation's vital necessity; it prevents the public from manufacturing it and destroys what nature manufactures without effort. No adjective is strong enough for characterising this wicked dog-in-the-manger policy. From various sources I hear tales of such wanton destruction of the nation's property in all parts of India. Maunds if not tons of salt are said to be destroyed on the Konkan coast. The same tale comes from Dandi. Wherever there is likelihood of natural salt being taken away by the people living in the neighborhood of such areas for their personal use, salt officers are posted for the sole purpose of carrying on destruction. Thus valuable national property is destroyed at national expense and salt taken out of the mouths of the people. The salt monopoly is thus a fourfold curse. 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 1,000 percent is exacted from a starving people.
This tax has remained so long because of the apathy of the general public. Now that it is sufficiently roused, the tax has to go. How soon it will be abolished depends upon the strength of the people.
The Salt Satyagraha is also known as:
Answer & explanation
Correct answer: option 2
The correct answer is Option (2) → Civil Disobedience Movement
The Salt Satyagraha of 1930, Gandhi’s Dandi March to break the salt law, began the Civil Disobedience Movement: the chapter’s timeline gives “Civil Disobedience Movement begins; Dandi March (March-April)” for 1930.
NCERT (2026-27): “3.2 Dialogues … To that end, the British government convened a series of ‘Round Table Conferences’ in London. The first meeting was held in November 1930, but without the pre-eminent political leader in India, thus rendering it an exercise in futility. Gandhiji was released from jail in January 1931 and the following month had several long meetings with the Viceroy. These culminated in what was called the ‘Gandhi-Irwin Pact’, by the terms of which civil disobedience would be called off, all prisoners released, and salt manufacture allowed along the coast.…”
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