Leaving on foot from his ashram in Ahmedabad (Gujarat) on 12 March 1930, Mohandas Karamachand Gandhi, the “half-naked fakir” began his famous 384 kilometre Salt March at the age of 61. The march would take him to Dandi on 6 April 1930, a village that symbolised the unjust British salt tax that prohibited the poor from collecting their own salt. Brandishing a handful of sea salt before the thousands of followers who had joined him along the way, Gandhi braved the British government’s monopoly and paved the way for India’s independence.
On 11 March 2008, Fabrice Gaignault,  a journalist and a writer, and Michel Monteaux, a photographer, left the Ahmedabad ashram on foot to follow in Gandhi’s footsteps, leading them to the same beach in Dandi on 28 March 2008. Apart from 50 kilometres covered by car, they walked the entire Dandi Yatra, the Indian name of the salt road.

Combining a lively and generous text with magnificent photographs, our two travellers were looking for remnants from this page in India’s history in the hamlets, villages and cities of today’s India. Full of contrasts – both bucolic and polluted, over-populated and deserted, sublimely beautiful and tragically ugly, colourful and grey, noisy and silent, ancient and extremely-modern, hard-working and contemplative – that, at every turn, provide a dusty reminder of the past. An incessant question flows throughout this travel diary: what remains of Gandhism today and who are the new advocates of the non-violence that was so pervasive during the 20th century? Guided by the pen of an indefatigable walker and the beauty of remarkable photographs, the reader discovers the first seeds of a response to that question.

On the Ghandi trail almost 80 years later, Fabrice Gaignault, journalist and writer, and Michel Monteaux, photographer, once again follow the so-called Salt March from Ahmedabad to Dandi Beach, a distance of 384 km. In 1930, Gandhi brandished a handful of salt here, denouncing the unjust British salt tax and encouraging Indians to break the state’s monopoly. In 2008, our two travellers, both lovers of India, help us relive this historic moment in Gandhi’s long battle for India’s independence. Through their lively pen and exceptional photos, the reader can enjoy the beauty and contrasts of modern India .