# Gandhi vs salt tax - what was the SD? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [March 23, 2010, 7:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gandhi-vs-salt-tax-what-was-the-sd/533516 "2010-03-23T19:12:11Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 8\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![code\_grey](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/f4b2a3/32.png) [@code\_grey](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/code_grey)\ **Post date:** [March 23, 2010, 7:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gandhi-vs-salt-tax-what-was-the-sd/533516/1 "2010-03-23T19:12:11Z")
so Gandhi led lots of people to the sea and showed that, lo and behold, you can make salt from the water. Who knew… Now, what was happening there in economic terms? If that was such a great idea, why didn’t the poor, enterprising people in India to set up small businesses doing just that in response to the market distortion from the tax, without Gandhi’s advice? Was the big idea that the “businessmen” would be subject to tax whereas “consumers” could do it for their own use without tax? Or was it all just a publicity stunt because let’s say getting salt from sea water for cheaper than the taxed product was economically infeasible under the level of technology available to the poor Indian people, sort of like solemnly generating power by running a hamster in a flywheel to protest high electricity rates? ---
**Author:** ![Giles](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/giles/32/60_2.png) [@Giles](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Giles)\ **Post date:** [March 23, 2010, 7:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gandhi-vs-salt-tax-what-was-the-sd/533516/2 "2010-03-23T19:18:10Z")
My understanding is that people already knew how to get salt from seawater. The problem was that the British were taxing the salt that they made by traditional methods. Gandhi led the protest against the tax. It was a bit like the Boston Tea Party: the American colonists didn’t discover how to make tea, but were protesting against what they saw as a unfair tax. ---
**Author:** ![Simplicio](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/c37758/32.png) [@Simplicio](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Simplicio)\ **Post date:** [March 23, 2010, 7:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gandhi-vs-salt-tax-what-was-the-sd/533516/3 "2010-03-23T19:28:54Z")
> [@Giles](#): > > My understanding is that people already knew how to get salt from seawater. The problem was that the British were taxing the salt that they made by traditional methods. Gandhi led the protest against the tax. It was a bit like the Boston Tea Party: the American colonists didn’t discover how to make tea, but were protesting against what they saw as a unfair tax. IIRC, the British weren’t only taxing salt, they were forbidding anyone else to make it. So rather then make it themselves from the ocean, the Indians had to buy taxed salt from the British. ---
**Author:** ![sweeteviljesus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/898d66/32.png) [@sweeteviljesus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sweeteviljesus)\ **Post date:** [March 23, 2010, 9:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gandhi-vs-salt-tax-what-was-the-sd/533516/4 "2010-03-23T21:17:58Z")
Read _Salt: A World History_ for everything you ever wanted to know about eating rocks. Rob ---
**Author:** ![Anne\_Neville](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/b9e5f3/32.png) [@Anne\_Neville](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Anne_Neville)\ **Post date:** [March 23, 2010, 9:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gandhi-vs-salt-tax-what-was-the-sd/533516/5 "2010-03-23T21:21:52Z")
> [@code\_grey](#): > > If that was such a great idea, why didn’t the poor, enterprising people in India to set up small businesses doing just that in response to the market distortion from the tax, without Gandhi’s advice? It was illegal, under the laws of the British Raj, to make salt from seawater. ---
**Author:** ![Kimstu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ecd19e/32.png) [@Kimstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimstu)\ **Post date:** [March 23, 2010, 11:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gandhi-vs-salt-tax-what-was-the-sd/533516/6 "2010-03-23T23:42:43Z")
> [@code\_grey](#): > > If that was such a great idea, why didn’t the poor, enterprising people in India to set up small businesses doing just that in response to the market distortion from the tax, without Gandhi’s advice? […] > Or was it all just a publicity stunt because let’s say getting salt from sea water for cheaper than the taxed product was economically infeasible under the level of technology available to the poor Indian people, sort of like solemnly generating power by running a hamster in a flywheel to protest high electricity rates? No. The reason that the East India Company and then the British government put a tax on Indian salt in the first place was in order to make their imported product economically competitive. If buying imported English salt had really been cheaper for Indians than buying locally produced salt, nobody would have bothered to tax the local product. As [Wiki explains](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_British_salt_tax_in_India#Taxation_of_salt_by_the_British_Raj), > [@](#): > > The first laws to regulate the salt tax were made by the British East India Company. > > In 1835, the Government appointed a salt commission to review the existing salt tax. It recommended that Indian salt should be taxed to enable the sale of imported English Salt. Consequently, salt was imported from Liverpool resulting in the increase of salt rates. Subsequently, the Government set up a monopoly on the manufacture of salt by the Salt Act. Production of salt was made an offense punishable with six-months imprisonment. The committee also recommended that Indian salt be sold in maunds of 100. However, they were sold in much lesser quantities. In 1888, the salt tax was enhanced by Lord Dufferin as a temporary measure. Cheshire salt imported from the United Kingdom was available at a much cheaper rate. However, Cheshire salt was of highly inferior quality than those made in India. India’s salt imports reached 25,82,050 metric tons by 1851. > > In 1878, a uniform salt tax policy was adopted for the whole of India, both British India as well as the princely states. Both production as well as possession of salt was made illegal by this policy. The salt tax which was one rupee and thirteen annas per maund in Bombay, Madras, Central Provinces and the princely states of South India was increased to two rupees and eight annas and decreased from three rupees and four annas in Bengal and Assam to two rupees and fourteen annas and from three rupees to two rupees and eight annas in North India. > > Section 39 of the Bombay Salt Act which was the same as Section 16-17 of the Indian Salt Act empowered a salt-revenue official to break-into places where salt was being illegally manufactured and seize the illegal salt being manufactured. Section 50 of the Bombay Salt Act prohibited the shipping of salt overseas. > > The India Salt Act of 1882 included regulations enforcing a government monopoly on the collection and manufacture of salt. Salt could be manufactured and handled only at official government salt depots, with a tax of Rs1-4-0 on each maund (82 pounds). Colonial powers frequently used the strategy of taxing or punishing local production of a particular commodity in order to sell their own imported version of the commodity more favorably. The 1733 Molasses Act, in which Britain raised the tax on the importation of molasses from non-British sources into its North American colonies, and the 1764 Sugar Act which cracked down on unauthorized importing of molasses, were the same sort of thing, similarly intended to improve the colonial market for the version of the product that the colonial power wanted to sell. ---
**Author:** ![Uncertain](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/6a8cbe/32.png) [@Uncertain](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Uncertain)\ **Post date:** [March 24, 2010, 2:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gandhi-vs-salt-tax-what-was-the-sd/533516/7 "2010-03-24T02:31:37Z")
> [@Giles](#): > > It was a bit like the Boston Tea Party: the American colonists didn’t discover how to make tea, but were protesting against what they saw as a unfair tax. The story behind the Boston Tea Party is more complicated than that, but I’ve never read a coherent description of it. ---
**Author:** ![crowmanyclouds](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/crowmanyclouds/32/19884_2.png) [@crowmanyclouds](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/crowmanyclouds)\ **Post date:** [March 24, 2010, 2:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gandhi-vs-salt-tax-what-was-the-sd/533516/8 "2010-03-24T02:49:48Z")
> [@Uncertain](#): > > The story behind the Boston Tea Party is more complicated than that, but I’ve never read a coherent description of it. Recent, very good, thread: [Is this assessment of the Boston Tea Party more or less correct?](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=552867) CMC fnord!