How and what did people come to know about the progress of the Dandi March of Gandhiji?

(i) The state monopoly over salt was deeply unpopular, by making it his target, Gandhiji hoped to mobilise a wider discontent against British rule. On 12 March 1930, Gandhiji began walking from his ashram at Sabarmati towards the ocean. He reached his destination three weeks later, making a fistful of salt he did and thereby making himself a criminal in the eyes of the law. Meanwhile parallel salt marches were being conducted in other parts of the country.These participants were reported by news papers, marches were organised, slogans were shouted and meetings were organised at different places at different times.

(ii) As with non-cooperation, apart from the officially sanctioned nationalist campaign, there were numerous other streams of protest. Across large parts of India, peasants breached the hated colonial forest laws that kept them and their cattle out of the woods in which they had once roamed freely. In some towns, factory worker went on strike while lawyers boycotted British courts and students refused to attend government-run educational institutions. These places were used as platform of protest.

(iii) The progress of Gandhiji’s march to the seashore can be traced from the secret reports filed by the police officials deputed to monitor his movements. These reproduce the speeches he gave at the villages on route, in which he called upon local officials to renounce government employment and join the freedom struggle. For Swaraj, Hindus, Muslims, Parsis and Sikhs will have to unite. These are steps towards Swaraj. The police spies reported that Gandhiji’s meetings were very well attended by villagers of all castes, and by women as well as men.