Sabarmati Ashram Redevelopment Plan

Subject: History

Section: Modern India

Context:

The redeveloped ‘Kochrab Ashram’ inaugurated by Prime Minister Narendra Modi in Ahmedabad.

More on news:

On March 12, marking the 94th anniversary of the Dandi March that began from the Sabarmati Ashram, Prime Minister Narendra Modi performed the ‘Ashram Bhoomi Vandana’, a symbolic laying of the foundation stone, and unveiled the masterplan of the Rs 1,200 crore Gandhi Ashram Memorial and Precinct Development Project.

About Various Settlements:

Gandhi set up five settlements during his lifetime — two in South Africa (Phoenix Settlement in Natal, and Tolstoy Farm outside Johannesburg), where he lived from 1893 to 1914, and three in India, where he arrived in January 1915.

Kocharab:

Gandhiji set up the first ashram in Ahmedabad in Kocharab in 1915.
Gandhi’s India ashram was originally established at the Kochrab Bungalow of Jivanlal Desai, a barrister, and friend of Gandhi, on 25 May 1915. At that time the ashram was called the Satyagraha Ashram.

Sabarmati:

In 1917, Gandhi founded the ashram at Sabarmati — his fourth ashram — on the western bank of the Sabarmati River.
The location was to the north of the village of Juna Vadaj, beyond the Chandrabhaga rivulet, a tributary of the Sabarmati.
He spent the most time here, and it was the cradle of eight major movements related to India’s struggle for independence.
Apart from the Dandi March that Gandhi began from here on March 12, 1930, he also launched the Champaran Satyagraha (1917), the Ahmedabad mills strike and Kheda Satyagraha (1918), the Khadi movement (1918), the Rowlatt Act and Khilafat Movements (1919), and the Non-Cooperation movement (1920) while living in Sabarmati.

Sewagram:

Sevagram (meaning “A town for/of service”) is a town in the state of Maharashtra, India.
It was the place of Mahatma Gandhi’s ashram and his residence from 1936 to his death in 1948.
After Sabarmati, Sevagram Ashram holds immense importance due to the residence of Mahatma Gandhi.

History of Sabarmati:

The Sabarmati ashram is sited between a prison and a crematorium, and Gandhi believed that a satyagrahi has invariably to go to either place.
At the ashram, Gandhi formed a tertiary school that focused on manual labor, agriculture, and literacy, in order to advance his efforts for the nation’s self-sufficiency.
It was also from here that on 12 March 1930, Gandhi marched to Dandi, 241 miles from the ashram, with 78 companions in protest at the British Salt Law, which increased the taxes on Indian salt in an effort to promote sales of British salt in India.
This mass act of civil disobedience in turn led to the imprisoning of some 60,000 by the British Raj over the following three weeks.
Subsequently, the government seized the ashram.
On 12 March 1930, Gandhi vowed that he would not return to the ashram until India had gained independence and Gandhi did not come back to Sabarmati ashram.
Gandhi was assassinated on 30 January 1948.