An Archival Journey

More recently, the young biographer Patrick French has recounted his firsthand impression of Dandi. He walked part of the way following the Gandhi trail (the full route was all of 241 miles) and, like any other Angrez, arrived hot and irritable after an arduous trek on an empty beach front marvelling at Gandhi's indefatigable energy to attempt such an enterprise when he was well over 60. French then proceeded to vent his ire on the state of the loos in Sabarmati Ashram with a virulence which would have done Katherine Mayo proud. Thomas Weber too attempts such a journey, though not quite in the same spirit. He is suitably worshipful, scrupulously fair and hugely empathetic. His enthusiasm for the Dandi march should in fact make most nationalist Indians ashamed of themselves. But whereas French is contentious and spiky, Weber alas for all the worthiness of his subject comes across as rather dull.

The problem first of all seems to be that, at 594 pages, the book is far too long and is not justified by the material that Weber presents. The sources he uses are the usual published reports from those times, supplemented by oral interviews and conversations with volunteers who are still alive.

Disappointingly, the interpretation is rather conventional and, as the chapter headings show, the archival material is merely grouped around functional headings—"The Battle in the Press", "Women Join the Struggle", etc. Weber, it seems, cannot make his material 'speak' in ways that will make it interesting to readers more than 60 years after the event. The historian Sumit Sarkar has pointed out, for instance, that Gandhi's genius lay in concertising Civil Disobedience around seemingly innocuous but speci-fic issues, and pitching the agitation around salt linked in a flash universal peasant grievances with the goal of Swaraj. Similarly Bis-wamoy Pati's study of nationalism in Orissa has suggested that it was in fact Hare-krushna Mahtab, who keeping in mind Orissa's long coastline had first argued about building the agitation around salt to Gandhi. But in Weber's book, which claims to be a historiography, neither is there a full-fledged discussion of available secondary material nor any new suggestions.

The bulk of the book is a needless day-by-day account of Weber's own journey to Dandi along the same route as Gandhi. Why should anybody be interested in such a detailed account? Weber's good faith is never in doubt, but at his best he comes across only as a conscientious chronicler of events. All the same, his painstaking archaeology does throw up some interesting nuggets. Sceptics will be pleased to learn that Gandhi carefully avoided Muslim-dominated villages during his march, that most of his support along the route was provided by rich and middle peasants, that while a strict dietary regimen was imposed on the volunteers, Gandhi did not forgo his dates and lemons, and an advance team marched ahead to see that a goat was ready to supply the Mahatma's daily quota of milk.