The Romance of Salt
By Anil Dharker,
Roli, Rs 395

What is common to freezing ice-cream, removing rust, treating sore throats, softening water, dyeing textiles and mummifying pharaohs? Salt. A substance that, if the International Salt Commission?s claims are taken without a pinch of salt, has 14,000 different uses.

Anil Dharker?s book traces the transformation of salt from a rare, much fought-over commodity to an article of everyday use. The book is in two parts: part one focusses on the 1930 Dandi March, while part two looks at the role of salt in history.

Mahatma Gandhi chose to conduct his satyagraha over salt because he wanted a universal symbol that would find resonance with the poorest of the poor, writes Dharker. In Gandhi?s words, ?There is no article like salt outside water by taxing which the State can reach even the starving millions ?and the utterly helpless.? India had never had to import salt before, but the British government dumped Liverpool salt in India, monopolized salt manufacture and stifled local industry through heavy taxation. As a result, the making of salt lent itself readily to the nationalist agenda.

The Romance of Salt traces the genesis of the Dandi March to the appointment of the Simon Commission, takes readers through the events preceding the march, and gives an account of the march, the breaking of the salt laws and the raids on the government salt works at Dharasana and Wadala. The volume also reproduces several photographs of the march, including one of Gandhi bending down to pick up the first fistful of salt at Dandi.

Salt taxes have played an important role not just in India but in conflicts around the world. Salt was probably the first commodity ever to be taxed, writes Dharker, referring to the Chinese emperor Hsia Yu?s salt tax in 2200 BC. Salt tax played an important part in triggering off the French Revolution. Several wars have also been fought over salt. The Seven Years? War, for example, had to do partly with Britain?s need to do away with its dependence on French salt supplies. The Vene-tian-Genoese wars of the 14th century were an outcome of the competition over the salt trade. Again, the British tried to punish the revolutionaries in the American War of Independence by cutting off their supplies of salt.

The second section of this volume is somewhat disappointing. The section on salt supers-titions could have been insight-ful and analytical. Unfortunately, it ends up being a summary of superstitions about salt in various cultures. If you are looking for nuggets like ?In Italy, you don?t offer salt to the wife of a friend ? it?s akin to making a pass at her?, this book will do well enough; if you are looking for anything beyond, these chapters will probably disappoint. Also irritating is the writer?s occasional lapse into generalizations: ?The importance of an object is directly proportional to the myths and superstitions that grow around it.?

The last three chapters ? dealing with the development of the Indian salt industry, and Tata Chemicals in particular ? strike a more immediate note. Sadly, they begin to sound too much like an advertisement after a point. The chapter, ?Ladies of Salt?, touches upon an important and relatively unexplored issue ? the social and developmental results of industrialization. It incorporates several testimonies that could have been of importance, but the absence of a proper note on methodology renders their value suspect.

Sayantan Dasgupta