Context: the salt law breaks
When Gandhi ended the Dandi March by breaking the salt law at Dandi on 6 April 1930, salt satyagrahas spread along India's coastline in the weeks that followed. The Gulf of Khambhat's ports were natural sites for them - and Dholera had a port.
The Dholera action
Per Gujarati Vishwakosh, the standard Gujarati encyclopedia: Amritlal Seth led about 21 satyagrahis in a salt-law action at Dholera port on 6 April 1930, and Balwantrai Mehta - later Gujarat's second Chief Minister - led a larger contingent around 13 April. The poet Jhaverchand Meghani was among those who recruited volunteers.
A layered past
That is the remarkable thing about this coast: a Harappan trading port in 2400 BCE, a medieval and colonial-era port town, a 1930 civil-disobedience site, and now a special investment region. The land's story did not start in 2009 - Chapter 1 and the Lothal pillar carry the earlier layers.
Heritage alongside industry
A Swaminarayan temple at Dholera is also documented, and the National Maritime Heritage Complex is rising at nearby Lothal. As the industrial city builds, the region's freedom-movement chapter deserves the same evidence-led care this site gives everything else.