Page 356 - Encyclopedia Of World History Vol IV

salt 1657

The Salt Tax

The British salt tax spurred Mahatma Gandhi’s “Call with singular callousness, doubled India’s salt tax.
to Action” in India in 1930.The rebellion against colo- Many British parliamentarians protested, with no
nial taxation was reminiscent of the well-known North result.
American protests over taxes on tea. There were When Mahatma Gandhi was asked by the All
strikes and pickets, and foreign salt was even dumped India Congress Committee to initiate a ‘call to action,’
into the sea. he made a theatrically brilliant decision. He began a
three-week pilgrimage to the sea, gathering followers
Home salt-making— even looking for salt— now
as he went. On April 6, 1930, Gandhi reached Dandi
became a crime in India; the malangis or salt evapo-
Beach in Gujarat. After a ceremonial sea bath (salt
rators became almost extinct as a class. For many
water, like salt itself, means purity), Gandhi began to
years unrest and real suffering grew in intensity. Poor
pick up salt incrustations which lay free for the taking
Indian peasants, with their vegetarian and frequently
on the beach. India’s fight for independence had
monotonous diet, had a great hunger for salt. In
begun.
1923, almost a century after Britain had abolished
Source: Visser, M. (1989). Salt: The Edible Rock. Much Depends on Dinner (p. 74). Lon-
the tax in her own country, the British government, don: Penguin.

tain the necessary saltiness of their bodily fluids.The salt tal with food and other resources from the south in far
they consumed came from multiple, sometimes local, greater quantity than before.
sometimes distant sources, and left next to no trace in Increasingly efficient and productive underground min-
archaeological or written records. Distributing the small ing of salt in the inland province of Szechwan was what
quantities of salt everyone needed required no special made it possible to tax salt so heavily as to make it a
effort or organization; and large-scale transport of salt by major source of imperial finance. Techniques were com-
ship or caravan remained exceptional. plex and expensive to install. Consequently producing
This began to change in China under the Han dynasty salt from underground became easy to monopolize.
when Emperor Wu-ti, in 119 CE, sought to repair his What happened was this: Chinese engineers learnt how
imperial finances by monopolizing salt and iron, in order to exploit underground salt beds in Szechwan by drilling
to sell these essential commodities to his subjects at arti- wells, pouring water into them to dissolve the salt and
ficially high prices.This appears to be the first time a pow- then pumping saturated brine back to the surface. They
erful government embraced the idea of taxing salt; and it then passed the brine through a succession of evapora-
was not in fact very successful, since the Chinese bureau- tion vats, precipitating mineral salt of varying qualities
cracy was not actually able to control salt distribution quicker and in larger quantities than sea water (with only
from the multiple sources along the coast and inlands about 3 percent of its weight consisting of salt) could pos-
well.Yet the idea of taxing salt was too enticing to give up sibly supply.The salt administration under the T’ang and
since it was something everyone needed and, if govern- later dynasties became extraordinarily sophisticated, con-
ment officials could successfully monopolize supplies, trolling the manufacture, distribution, and sale of salt
both rich and poor were ready to pay a lot for it. throughout China, and lowering prices in regions close
When the technology of salt production in China to the coast so as to compete with illegally manufactured
shifted toward underground mining, effectual monopo- sea salt, which the government was never able to elimi-
lization became more nearly practicable.A critical break- nate completely.
through occurred under the T’ang dynasty when, about Salt manufacture and distribution thus became a major
780 CE, new taxes on salt were dedicated to maintaining source of tax income for the Chinese government and
the canal and transport system that linked the Yangtse helped to sustain China’s political cohesion across sub-
with the Yellow River, thus supplying the imperial capi- sequent centuries. The scale and technical efficiency of