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The Old Man and The Salt

Lao Tzu famously said that,

This is a story of an old man, salt, tyranny, and the single step that sparked his journey of becoming a leader that changed the world.

And now, the story…

The wind blew and kicked up dust in the old man’s eyes.

Tears formed as he tried to blink out the dirt. His glasses had blocked most of it. He took them off and carefully wiped them. At sixty-one years old, his vision wasn’t what it used to be.

The young boy by his side was impatient.

“Sir… is this it?”

The old man nodded. “Yes. These are all the people that have joined us.”

The young boy rolled his eyes.

“But sir, there are only sixty, maybe seventy people here?”

“Yes! Isn’t it amazing?” Asked the old man. His growing smile revealed a toothless mouth.

The young boy couldn’t understand how the old man was always optimistic. The ragtag crowd in front of them were not an intimidating bunch, and neither was their old leader.

It was early morning, but it was already a sweltering ninety degrees. The young boy wiped the sweat from his brow and surveyed the situation. His eyes turned back to the old man.

They hadn’t even begun their journey yet, and the old man was already leaning on his walking stick. He was five foot five inches tall, and tipped the scales at hundred and nine pounds. He wasn’t intimidating, but he did always show up. And people listened when he spoke.

The old man bowed to the small crowd who had assembled to travel with him. He smiled, and said, “Now we walk!” He turned and began walking down the dusty road.

The journey in front of them was staggering. Walking slowly behind the old man, the boy couldn’t believe he was actually following him. He had never traveled to where they were going, and there would be serious consequences if he was caught.

One step turned to two, and then three. By the end of the day they had walked twelve miles. The small group bedded down on mats on the ground for the night. The old man talked in front of the cooking fire for a bit. The boy thought the old man might be trying to sell the group on why they were walking… But all he could hear him talk about was salt. Soon, people from the nearby town drifted around the fire. Suddenly, his simple style of conversation turned complex. The boy grew tired listening. He was exhausted, it was hot, dry, and the last thing he wanted to hear about was salt. He fell asleep.

In the morning he woke up and rejoined the front of the march near the old man. As their group left the town they’d been sleeping near, dozens of people poured out and joined them. The day was hot, and again they walked twelve miles before bedding down for the night. Again, the old man talked to everyone, and more people from a local town had come out to listen. Again, the old man was talking about salt. This time the boy listened, and he began to understand. Chills ran up his spine. Producing your own salt was illegal. Everyone knew that. He could be thrown in jail if he was wrapped up in something like this. Now he sat up more intently as the old man spoke to the crowd. They were on a mission to the sea, and they were gathering protesters to join their march. When the talking died down, the young boy fell asleep.

That same pattern of marching twelve miles during the day, and then speaking at a town in the evenings continued for twenty three more days. The final morning, the boy noticed that the smell of salt was now in the air. It was absurd that the law said they were not free to produce or collect something that was a part of nature! The crowd of protesters with them was now in the thousands. As they walked, the old man was well aware of how many people had joined them. His conversations shifted from storytelling and salt to one thing:

“Satyagraha”

The old man was committed to that word and the approach. In English, Satyagraha means to reveal truth and confront injustice through non violence. The old man would ensure that everyone in the crowd knew the word, and what it meant.

Fears of being imprisoned raced through the boy’s mind, but so did the idea of freedom. As long as they were nonviolent, the old man told them they had nothing to fear.

Besides, the logic of the old man was sound.

He had carefully assessed the situation and saw that all of the oppression rested on a single substance: salt. In those days in India, it was illegal for Indians to produce or consume salt that didn’t come through the British empire or through a heavy tax. That monopoly over the salt production was the single thing the old man wanted everyone to care about. He said that was the first place where Satyagraha would work.

The huge group of people crested a hill, and the boy could hear the crashing waves of the ocean.

As the crowd approached the sparkling Arabian Sea, the old man stooped down and picked up a lump of salt. This act was illegal, and he could be imprisoned for it.

After 24 days and 241 miles, the crowd stood ready to see the coming act of defiance. The old man moved with the clump of salt to the front of the crowd. There he stood with nothing but his glasses, walking stick, and his dentures which he always kept concealed in his loin cloth.

He cleared his throat and then spoke.

“With this…” he said, gesturing to the lump of salt in his hand. “I am shaking the foundations of the British Empire.”

The crowd erupted into cheers.

Soon after, they began to call the old man, ‘Mahatma’ which means ‘great soul’. But you might know the old man by his last name, Gandhi.

When you aren’t worried about appearances, it becomes easier for truth to emerge and be recognized by others. Gandhi was so unencumbered by things, comforts, and anger, that he could articulate truth through his language, presence, and actions. When he spoke or acted, people listened and mimicked him.

Gandhi protested the British Empire’s rule, faced imprisonment, and carefully studied everything that was going on in India.

He boiled down all of the problems into a single thing issue, the British monopoly, and tax on salt.

He’d watched how most protests failed, turned violent, or where led by cowards who covered their faces. He’d seen what happened to movements when anger guided them. Rather than complain, or encourage his followers to take the cowardly path of vandalism and violence, he did something far more radical.

He had launched a Satyagraha — a protest about using truth and nonviolence to expose injustice.

Gandhi knew the grip of the empire they were under was about economics. And until his people stood up and showed that they knew where the source of the empire’s wealth was, and that they could create it too, they would always be treated as inferior. He wouldn’t allow his people to be controlled by those who underestimated them.

Gandhi’s first act of civil disobedience, was illegally harvesting salt. Soon, it was imitated all around the nation. Indians marched to the seashores and harvested salt. It became known as the “Salt Satyagraha,” and throughout the next several months, over 80,000 people would be arrested for illegally harvesting salt and protesting.

Gandhi put himself at the front of the movement, with his own skin in the game. He didn’t waste his time whining, arguing, or plotting violence. Gandhi didn’t lead people to protest through yelling, vandalism, or anonymous attacks. He did the thing that was far, far harder, which is to lead people in collaboration and creation. He set the example, and over the next few months, his “Salt Satyagraha” produced results. The British Viceroy in charge of India began negotiations with him, which led to the “Gandhi-Irwin Pact”. This was the starting point of Indian freedom and the British exit from India.

With everything going on in the world, it’s easy to think that we can’t make a difference. But if we choose non-violence, carefully reasoned strategies, and focus on using truth, science, and empiricism to expose injustice… we can’t lose. If Gandhi could make a difference when he was toothless, diminutive, and poor … what can you do?

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