Salt and the National Imaginary: The Photojournalism of the Dandi Satyagraha

Abstract

This article looks at how Gandhi used the Dandi Salt Satyagraha as a site for imagining anti-colonial nationalism. We focus on the visual dimensions of the Salt March and the divergent ways in which it was reported in the illustrated press in 1930. Developing Sumathi Ramaswamy's idea of the 'ambulatory aesthetic' (2020), we highlight how Gandhi created a personified protest. Moreover, he chose salt as a talismanic object, ubiquitous both temporally, back through India's colonial and pre-colonial past, and laterally, bridging religious identities but also illuminating class distinctions. We also describe how Gandhi's curated defiance was deliberately mutated and muted by the British, initially by way of censorship, but mostly through using biased visual newspaper and magazine reportage of their own in order to marginalise Gandhi and the salt marchers.