Read the following source carefully and answer the questions that follow:
Why the Salt Satyagraha?
Why was salt the symbol of protest? This is what Mahatma Gandhi wrote:
The volume of information being gained daily shows how wickedly the salttax has been designed. In order to prevent the use of salt that has not paid thetax which is at times even fourteen times its value, the Government destroys
the salt it cannot sell profitably. Thus it taxes the nation’s vital necessity; itprevents the public from manufacturing it and destroys what nature manu-
factures without effort. No adjective is strong enough for characterizing this wicked dog-in-the-manger policy. From various sources, I hear tales of such wanton destruction of the nation’s property in all parts of India. Maunds if not tons of salt are said to be destroyed on the Konkan coast. The same tale comes from Dandi. Wherever there is likelihood of natural salt being taken away by
the people living in the neighbourhood of such areas for their personal use,
salt officers are posted for the sole purpose of carrying on destruction. Thus valuable national property is destroyed at national expense and salt taken out of the mouths of the people. The salt monopoly is thus a fourfold curse. It deprives the people of a valuable easy village industry, involves wanton destruction of property that nature produces in abundance, the destruction itself means more national expenditure and fourthly, to crown this folly, an unheard of tax of more than 1,000 per cent is exacted from a starving people. This tax
has remained so long because of the apathy of the general public. Now that it
is sufficiently roused, the tax has to go. How soon it will be abolished depends upon the strength the people. The Collected Works of Mahatma Gandhi (CWMG), Vol. 49
