The Two Dates on the Salt March Ledger
At a government school in Bundi district, a student is preparing a project on the 1930 Salt Satyagraha. Her family owns a cloth-bound bahi (ledger) that records a party of volunteers passing through their village on 12 March 1930 and 40 villagers making salt on 6 April. The district gazetteer, however, marks the route through Tonk and Ajmer, not Bundi. A 92-year-old resident recalls, 'We walked to Ajmer, not to the sea,' but cannot give a year. The student's teacher says oral memory is unreliable; her grandfather says the bahi is proof. The student has one week and may use the school library, the gazetteer, and two interviews. She must decide what to write in the project and how to label her evidence.
1. How should the student weigh the bahi, the gazetteer and the oral testimony? Recommend a source-criticism method.
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Use external criticism (provenance, date, purpose) and internal criticism (consistency). The bahi is a contemporary local record, so it is a primary source for the village's memory, but it may record a local volunteer group, not Gandhi's main route; 12 March 1930 is also the start date of the Dandi March, so the entry may conflate a local march with the national event. The gazetteer is a later official secondary source; it is useful for the broad route but may omit small villages. The oral testimony is a primary oral source, valuable for lived experience but fallible on dates. Corroborate with a second bahi, a contemporary newspaper, police reports or a memorial plaque. In the project, present the bahi as evidence of local participation, not as proof that the main route passed through Bundi, and label the oral testimony as 'local memory, date uncertain'.
2. What two additional sources would most improve the project, and why?
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Two useful sources are: (i) contemporary newspapers or police intelligence reports for March–April 1930, which may list arrests, meetings or route details; and (ii) other village records or family papers from neighbouring villages, to see whether the route is corroborated. A third option is a revenue or census record to establish the village name and population. These sources are independent of both the family and the gazetteer, so they can test the claim without relying on memory or local pride. The student should prefer a source created close to the event by someone with no reason to exaggerate the village's role.
3. Why should the student not simply choose the version that supports her family?
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Because historical method requires testing a claim against independent evidence, not selecting the version that supports family pride. Choosing the family version would be confirmation bias and would make the project unreliable. The student can honour her family's memory while writing a qualified claim: 'Local tradition holds that volunteers passed through the village; the gazetteer does not record it; further evidence is needed.' This is honest, shows local agency, and still respects the difference between a primary source and proof. A good project states its uncertainty rather than hiding it.