[The historic Dandi March]

"..was decided to celebrate 26th January as the Independence day all over the country.."

Lahore Congress and the Civil Disobedience Movement

In December 1929, the Congress session held at Lahore declared the attainment of complete independence as its aim and decided to launch a Civil Disobedience movement under the leadership of Gandhiji. It was decided to celebrate 26th January as Independence day all over the country. On 26th January 1930 meetings were held all over the country and the Congress tricolour was hosted .

The people took the "Pledge of Independence" at these meetings. Because of its significance in the nationalist struggle, 26 January was chosen as the day to mark the birth of the Indian Republic in 1950. So Independence Day of the pre-independence days has become the Republic Day of Free India.

The Civil Disobedience movement began with the Dandi March. Gandhiji along with 78 of his followers started from his Ashram at Sabarmati on a march to Dandi on the sea coast on foot and broke the law by making salt. In April, he gave instructions to launch the movement. As soon as it was launched all important leaders including Gandhiji and Jawaharlal Nehru were arrested. By the beginning of 1931, 90,000 persons were in jail and 67 papers had been banned. In April and May 1930, three dramatic incidents had taken place. At Peshawar, Indian soldiers refused to open fire on the demonstrators when ordered to do so. In Sholapur, martial law had to be imposed to suppress the mass upsurge. In Chittagong, the revolutionaries captured the armoury and there was a pitched battle between the government troops and the revolutionaries.