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Taxation of salt has occurred in India since the earliest times. However, this tax was greatly increased when the British East India Company began to establish its rule over provinces in India. In 1835, special taxes were imposed on Indian salt to facilitate its import. This paid huge dividends for the traders of the British East India Company. When the Crown took over the administration of India from the Company in 1858, the taxes were not replaced. The stringent salt taxes imposed by the British were vehemently condemned by the Indian public. In 1885, at the first session of the Indian National Congress in Bombay, a prominent Congress Leader S.A.Swaminatha Iyer raised the issue of the salt tax.〔 There were further protests throughout the late 19th and early 20th centuries culminating in Mahatma Gandhi's Salt Satyagraha in 1930. This sathyagraha was followed by other sathyagrahas in other parts of the country. After the arrest of Gandhi, Sarojini Naidu lead the sathyagrahis to Dharasana Salt works in Gujarat and was arrested by the police. C. Rajagopalachari broke the Salt Laws at Vedaranyam, in Madras Province in the same year. Thousands courted arrest and were imprisoned in large numbers. The administration eventually relented and invited Mahatma Gandhi to England to attend the Second Round Table Conference. Gandhi's Dandi March got wide news coverage and proved to be a turning point in the history of India's independence movement. The salt tax, however, continued to remain in effect and was repealed only when Jawaharlal Nehru became the Prime Minister of the Interim Government in 1946. ==Taxation of salt== Salt taxation originated in ancient China. ''Guanzi'', a book written in around 300 BC recommends taxation of salt and propounds different methods for this purpose. The recommendations of ''Guanzi'' became the official salt policy of early Chinese Emperors. At one point of time, salt taxes constituted over one half of China's revenues and contributed to the construction of the Great Wall of China. Salt was also important in the ancient Roman Empire. The first of the great Roman roads, the ''Via Salaria'', or Salt Road, was built for transporting salt.〔 However, unlike the Chinese, Romans did not monopolize salt.〔 In Britain, there are references to salt taxes in the Domesday Book but they had died out before patents were given in Tudor times. Reintroduced in 1641 in the Commonwealth period there was such outcry that were withdrawn on the restoration of the monarchy in 1660 and not reinstated till 1693 under William III, with duty set at two shillings a bushel on foreign salt, one shilling on native salt with exemption for fishery salt. In 1696 the tax was doubled and remained in force till abolished in 1825. There were probably 600 full-time officials employed in the collection of the taxes.〔 〕 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「History of the British salt tax in India」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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