Beyond Borders Scotland and Dove Tales, the Association of Scottish Writers for Peace, collaborated on the Beyond Writing Competition, aiming to facilitating dialogue and cultural exchange through the creative writing and storytelling.

The competition consisted of three rounds; Inspirational Women, Creative Peace and Beyond Borders.

This piece by Nimisha Menonwas shortlisted for Round II: Creative Peace.The competition’s judge, Jean Rafferty of Dove Tales, described it as a heartfelt tribute to Mahatma Gandhi,which in limpid prose uses his Salt March of 1930 to illustrate the potency of non-violent protest and the difference one inspirational person can make.

—

PRICE OF SALT

Empty cartridges lay strewn across the bloodied garden. 1650 bulletswerespent on1516unarmedcivilians.It didn’t take long for thewailingto bereplaced with cold rage.You see, the spring of 1919 didn’t bloom flowersinJallianwalaBaug(agarden in Amritsar, Punjab), but spawned corpses instead.The massacre by General Dyer stirred the soul of even the cold–hearted.After nearlyacenturyof colonial rule, Britain’s famed jewel had begun to loseherlustre, after all.The oncecelebratedglorywasnow quiveringclose to tyranny.Marred with civil unrest, poverty and growing bouts of violence, the atlas of the Indian empire lay inked in sanguine. How could peace possiblyreturn to thislandravaged bycommunal riots?How could the transition from a former colony to an independent country ever be without a bloodbath?

Peace, like everything else in life,cameunannouncedto the Indian shores.Like a salve to her gaping wounds,India found her respite ina little,bespectacledmanthe world had come to know as Gandhi.With a bamboo staff andanever wielding toothless grin, Gandhi became the eponymousBapu(meaning father) for a countryembroiled in a bittercustodybattle.For the thousands willing to lay down their lives for the ongoing freedom strugglein India, there was an equal fold willing to take up arms. A middle ground was out of the question,or so it seemed.Until, astrongpacifistshowed the worldthata new facefortherevoltwas possible.The British monopoly on salt production and distribution rendered Indiansnot onlytastelessbutalsostifled in their own country. Gandhi with his acute advocacy of non-violence and fasting took up the challenge to contest the British rule imposed. How could the price of salt be a tipping point ofconcern forthe largest enterprise of the 20thcentury, spat one British officer, dismissing the movement as one that wouldn’tamount to anything?He proved to be a poor prophet.

Gandhi, along with his 78 trusted disciples, clad in a simple loincloth began his march toDandi, ahamlet in the west coast of India. What started as a small gathering of staunch supportersquickly gained momentum and as Gandhi made his walk across the inlets of Indian villages, the numbers swelled crossing tens of thousands in a matter of justafew days. The little man with nothing but a smile as his weapon had struck the British Empire at its heart. And, the world noticed. Soon the press coveragefollowed andthe news reached England. What perplexed many was that despite the numbers, the sheer scale of the task and the nature of the revolt, its impact was astounding. Whoever knew that nonviolence could beaweapon too; that civil resistance can have its foundations in silencestoo?

With just devotional folklore for background chorus, Gandhi and his followers completed 240 miles of walk,in just 24 days. With zero casualties, Gandhi had managed tostrikethe British with a very heavy blow. The purpose of civil resistance is to provoke a response and not incite violence he said as journalists swamped him. Unbeknownst to many,Gandhihadset precedence with what became known as theDandimarch.And,all he did was pick a handful of salt that the waves left at his feetand declare it free for use by all. But, to the world,the price of salt changed forever. It became the signpost for many minorities across the world to follow the setGandhianprinciples, that of non-violence to raise their voice against injustice.Gandhi became the characteristic advocate of ideologies that defined the fin de siècle.

That the Indo-British association has not been without its share of violence would be an understatement, but perhaps few of the greatest moments in their shared history comesin thefolded pages of peace. This is one such story, of a movement that led to a revolution.Gandhiwasn’t a philosopher, and yet philosophieswerenamed after him. He wasn’t a commander of the armies and yet an entirenationmarched to his command. He had no possessions to his name, but a prefix that came to be synonymous to his name: Mahatma, literally meaning a great soul. What made this man revered throughouttimewasn’t his lineage or education, but principles modelled on non-violence and peace; principles that need a desperate revival, more so now, than ever before.

The smiling image of Gandhi isstill prevalenttoday, from government offices to school textbooks, museums to historic monuments, but the legacy he left behind needs to be saved from obfuscation. Imagine if a simple, nonviolent resistance, a walk across the poverty-stricken states of a country could give birth to revolution, what collective embracing of nonviolence could doforthe world?After all, the price of salt has fluctuated in time, but Gandhi made it the costliest commodity of his time. The price of salt was equivalent to a country earning her freedom and an empire her redemption. Through his philosophies and principles,Gandhi gave the world its greatest weapon and vision – that a war can be won without fighting, that a saint can be a politician and a simple man in his loincloth can become animageof grandeur for generations to come.

*Creative license has been exercised, but most of the facts hold true.