Author:

Dr.Dipannita Dutta
Independent Researcher
Visva-Bharati University
Santiniketan, West Bengal

Email: duttadipannita12@gmail.com

Abstract::Abstract:The autobiographical sketch, Sadhanara Pathe (1987), by Harekrushna Mahtab (1899-
1987) indicates that although he was three decades junior to Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi (1869-
1948), it was a relationship between him and Gandhi which was dotted with exchange of ideas, where
mutual reverence reigned supreme. The study reveals that after he returned from South Africa, M.K.
Gandhi was on the mission of Bharat Darshan on the advice of his political guru, Gopalkrishna
Gokhale. Harekrushna Mahtab was merely a school-boy, aspiring for higher education from
Ravenshaw College, Cuttack. But Gandhi’s visit to Orissa in April 1921 changed the outlook of many;
college-going Mahtab was one among them. He found Gandhi’s speeches like ‘electric shocks’, which
eventually changed the course of his entire life. However, Mahtab, ‘Utkal Kesari’ of later years,
heavily influenced by Gandhian political philosophy, repaid his moral and intellectual debt with a
brilliant suggestion to his political guru, i.e. M.K. Gandhi. During Gandhi’s visit to Bhadrak in
Orissa in 1927, Mahtab informed him about the poor economic condition of the peasants of Orissa
and the basic need for salt, which was taxed by the British Government, in their lives. Although M.K.
Gandhi is generally credited with the novel idea of Salt Satyagraha to abolish the salt tax, it seems
from the claim of Harekrushna Mahtab that Gandhi took the idea from Mahtab. It may thus be
claimed that, along with Gandhi, Mahtab’s role should also be acknowledged for the Salt Satyagraha,
followed by the Civil Disobedience movement, an important crossroads in the nationalist movement of
India
Key Words::Civil Disobedience Movement, Nationalist Movement of India, Salt Satyagraha etc.