"Dear Friend, Before embarking on Civil Disobedience and taking the risk I have dreaded to take all these years, I would fain approach you and find a way out. My personal faith is absolutely clear. I cannot intentionally hurt anything that lives, much less fellow human beings, even though they may do the greatest wrong to me and mine... If India is to attain Swaraj through non-violent means, the boycott of foreign cloth and the non-payment of salt tax are the two most powerful means."

Mohandas Gandhi, letter to Lord Irwin, Viceroy of India, 2 March 1930. Written eleven days before Gandhi began the Salt March to Dandi.