Nauru

Nauru (/nɑːˈuːruː/ nah-OO-roo or /ˈnaʊruː/ NOW-roo; Nauruan: Naoero), officially the Republic of Nauru (Nauruan: Repubrikin Naoero) and formerly known as Pleasant Island, is an island country and microstate in Micronesia, part of Oceania in the Central Pacific. Its nearest neighbour is Banaba of Kiribati, about 300 km (190 mi) to the east. It lies northwest of Tuvalu, 1,300 km (810 mi) northeast of Solomon Islands, east-northeast of Papua New Guinea, southeast of the Federated States of Micronesia and south of the Marshall Islands. With an area of only 21 km2 (8.1 sq mi), Nauru is the third-smallest country in the world behind Vatican City and Monaco, making it the smallest republic and island nation. Its population of about 10,000 is the world's second-smallest (not including colonies or overseas territories) after Vatican City. Settled by people from Micronesia circa 1000 BCE, Nauru was annexed and claimed as a colony by the German Empire in the late 19th century. After World War I, Nauru became a League of Nations mandate administered by Australia, New Zealand, and the United Kingdom. During World War II, Nauru was occupied by Japanese troops, and was bypassed by the Allied advance across the Pacific. After the war ended, the country entered into United Nations trusteeship. Nauru gained its independence in 1968.

Nauru is a phosphate-rock island with rich deposits near the surface, which allowed easy strip mining operations for over a century. However, this has seriously harmed the country's environment, causing the island nation to suffer from what is often referred to as the "resource curse". The phosphate was exhausted in the 1990s, and the remaining reserves are not economically viable for extraction. A trust established to manage the island's accumulated mining wealth, set up for the day the reserves would be exhausted, has diminished in value. To earn income, Nauru briefly became a tax haven and illegal money laundering centre. At various points since 2001, it has accepted aid from the Australian Government in exchange for hosting the Nauru Regional Processing Centre, a controversial offshore Australian immigration detention facility. As a result of heavy dependence on Australia, some sources have identified Nauru as a client state of Australia. The sovereign state is a member of the United Nations, the Commonwealth of Nations, and the Organization of African, Caribbean, and Pacific States.

## History

Nauru was first settled by Micronesians at least 3,000 years ago, and there is evidence of possible Polynesian influence. Comparatively little is known of Nauruan prehistory, although the island is believed to have had a long period of isolation, which accounts for the distinct language that developed among the inhabitants. There were traditionally 12 clans or tribes on Nauru, which are represented in the twelve-pointed star on the country's flag. Traditionally, Nauruans traced their descent matrilineally. Inhabitants practised aquaculture: they caught juvenile milkfish (known as Ibija in Nauruan), acclimatised them to freshwater, and raised them in the Buada Lagoon, providing a reliable food source. The other locally grown components of their diet included coconuts and pandanus fruit. The name "Nauru" may derive from the Nauruan word Anáoero, which means 'I go to the beach.'

In 1798, the British sea captain John Fearn, on his trading ship Hunter (300 tons), became the first Westerner to report sighting Nauru, calling it "Pleasant Island", because of its attractive appearance. From at least 1826, Nauruans had regular contact with Europeans on whaling and trading ships who called for provisions and fresh drinking water. The last whaler to call during the age of sail visited in 1904.

Around this time, deserters from European ships began to live on the island. The islanders traded food for alcoholic palm wine and firearms. The firearms were used during the 10-year Nauruan Civil War that began in 1878.

After an agreement with Great Britain, Nauru was annexed by Germany in 1888 and incorporated into Germany's Marshall Islands Protectorate for administrative purposes. The arrival of the Germans ended the civil war, and kings were established as rulers of the island. The most widely known of these was King Auweyida. Christian missionaries from the Gilbert Islands arrived in 1888. The German settlers called the island "Nawodo" or "Onawero". The Germans ruled Nauru for almost three decades. Robert Rasch, a German trader who married a Nauruan woman, was the first administrator, appointed in 1890.

Phosphate was discovered on Nauru in 1900 by the prospector Albert Fuller Ellis. The Pacific Phosphate Company began to exploit the reserves in 1906 by agreement with Germany, exporting its first shipment in 1907. In 1914, following the outbreak of World War I, Nauru was captured by Australian troops. In 1919, it was agreed by the Allied and Associated Powers that His Britannic Majesty should be the administering authority under a League of Nations mandate. The Nauru Island Agreement forged in 1919 between the governments of the United Kingdom, Australia, and New Zealand provided for the administration of the island and extraction of the phosphate deposits by an intergovernmental British Phosphate Commission (BPC). The terms of the League of Nations mandate were drawn up in 1920.

The island experienced an influenza epidemic and ongoing colonial strife through the early 20th century, with a mortality rate of 18 per cent among native Nauruans. In 1923, the League of Nations gave Australia a trustee mandate over Nauru, with the United Kingdom and New Zealand as co-trustees. On 6 and 7 December 1940, the German auxiliary cruisers Komet and Orion sank five supply ships in the vicinity of Nauru. Komet then shelled Nauru's phosphate mining areas, oil storage depots, and the shiploading cantilever.

Japanese troops occupied Nauru on 25 August 1942. The Japanese built 2 airfields which were bombed for the first time on 25 March 1943, preventing food supplies from being flown to Nauru. The Japanese deported 1,200 Nauruans to work as labourers in the Chuuk Islands, which was also occupied by Japan. As part of the Allied strategy of island hopping from the Pacific islands towards the main islands of Japan, Nauru was bypassed and left to "wither on the vine". Nauru was finally liberated on 13 September 1945, when commander Hisayaki Soeda surrendered the island to the Australian Army and the Royal Australian Navy. The surrender was accepted by Brigadier J. R. Stevenson, who represented Lieutenant General Vernon Sturdee, the commander of the First Australian Army, aboard the warship HMAS Diamantina. Arrangements were made to repatriate from Chuuk the 745 Nauruans who survived Japanese captivity there. They were returned to Nauru by the BPC ship Trienza in January 1946.

In 1947, a trusteeship was established by the United Nations, with Australia, New Zealand, and the United Kingdom as trustees. Under those arrangements, the UK, Australia, and New Zealand were a joint administering authority. The Nauru Island Agreement provided for the first administrator to be appointed by Australia for five years, leaving subsequent appointments to be decided by the three governments. However, in practice, administrative power was exercised by Australia alone.

The 1948 Nauru riots occurred when Chinese guano mining workers went on strike over pay and conditions. The Australian administration imposed a state of emergency with Native Police and armed volunteers of locals and Australian officials being mobilised. This force, using sub-machine guns and other firearms, opened fire on the Chinese workers killing two and wounding sixteen. Around 50 of the workers were arrested and two of these were bayoneted to death while in custody. The trooper who bayoneted the prisoners was charged but later acquitted on grounds that the wounds were "accidentally received." The governments of the Soviet Union and China made official complaints against Australia at the United Nations over this incident.

In 1964, it was proposed to relocate the population of Nauru to Curtis Island off the coast of Queensland, Australia. By that time, Nauru had been extensively mined for phosphate by companies from Australia, Britain, and New Zealand, damaging the landscape so much that it was thought the island would be uninhabitable by the 1990s. Rehabilitating the island was seen as financially impossible. In 1962, Australian Prime Minister Robert Menzies said that the three countries involved in the mining had an obligation to provide a solution for the Nauruan people, and proposed finding a new island for them. In 1963, the Australian Government proposed to acquire all the land on Curtis Island (which was considerably larger than Nauru) and then offer the Nauruans freehold title over the island and that the Nauruans would become Australian citizens. The cost of resettling the Nauruans on Curtis Island was estimated to be (A\$Expression error: Missing operand for \*. in ), which included housing and infrastructure and the establishment of pastoral, agricultural, and fishing industries. However, the Nauruan people did not wish to become Australian citizens and wanted to be given sovereignty over Curtis Island to establish themselves as an independent nation, which Australia would not agree to. Nauru rejected the proposal to move to Curtis Island, instead choosing to become an independent nation operating their mines in Nauru.

Nauru became self-governing in January 1966, and following a two-year constitutional convention, it became independent on 31 January 1968 under founding president Hammer DeRoburt. In 1967, the people of Nauru purchased the assets of the British Phosphate Commissioners, and in June 1970, control passed to the locally-owned Nauru Phosphate Corporation (NPC). Income from the mines made Nauruans among the richest people in the world. In 1989, Nauru took legal action against Australia in the International Court of Justice over Australia's administration of the island, in particular, Australia's failure to remedy the environmental damage caused by phosphate mining. Certain Phosphate Lands: Nauru v. Australia led to an out-of-court settlement to rehabilitate the mined-out areas of Nauru.

In response to the COVID-19 pandemic, a state of emergency was declared in Nauru on 17 March 2020. The declaration to minimize the outbreak was signed by President Lionel Aingimea during a period of 30 days.

## Geography

Nauru is a 21 km2 (8.1 sq mi), oval-shaped island in the southwestern Pacific Ocean, 55.95 km (34.77 mi) south of the Equator. The island is surrounded by a coral reef, which is exposed at low tide and dotted with pinnacles. The presence of the reef has prevented the establishment of a seaport, although channels in the reef allow small boats access to the island. A fertile coastal strip 150 to 300 m (490 to 980 ft) wide lies inland from the beach.

Coral cliffs surround Nauru's central plateau. The highest point of the plateau, called the Command Ridge, is 71 m (233 ft) above sea level.

The only fertile areas on Nauru are on the narrow coastal belt, where coconut palms flourish. The land around Buada Lagoon supports bananas, pineapples, vegetables, pandanus trees, and indigenous hardwoods, such as the tamanu tree.

Nauru was one of three great phosphate rock islands in the Pacific Ocean, along with Banaba (Ocean Island), in Kiribati, and Makatea, in French Polynesia. The phosphate reserves on Nauru are now almost entirely depleted. Phosphate mining in the central plateau has left a barren terrain of jagged limestone pinnacles up to 15 m (49 ft) high. Mining has stripped and devastated about 80 per cent of Nauru's land area, leaving it uninhabitable and has also affected the surrounding exclusive economic zone; 40 per cent of marine life is estimated to have been killed by silt and phosphate runoff.

### Climate

Nauru's climate is hot and very humid year-round because of its proximity to the equator and the ocean. Nauru is hit by monsoon rains between November and February. Annual rainfall is highly variable and is influenced by the El Niño–Southern Oscillation, with several significant recorded droughts. The temperature on Nauru ranges between 30 and 35 °C (86 and 95 °F) during the day and is quite stable at around 25 °C (77 °F) at night.

Streams and rivers do not exist in Nauru. Water is gathered from roof catchment systems. Water is brought to Nauru as ballast on ships returning for loads of phosphate.

### Ecology

Fauna is sparse on the island because of a lack of vegetation and the consequences of phosphate mining. Many indigenous birds have disappeared or become rare owing to the destruction of their habitat. There are about 60 recorded vascular plant species native to the island, none of which are endemic. Coconut farming, mining, and introduced species have seriously disturbed the native vegetation.

There are no native land mammals, but there are native insects, land crabs, and birds, including the endemic Nauru reed warbler. The Polynesian rat, cats, dogs, pigs, and chickens have been introduced to Nauru from ships. The diversity of the reef marine life makes fishing a popular activity for tourists on the island; also popular are scuba diving and snorkelling.

## Politics

The president of Nauru is Russ Kun, who heads a 19-member unicameral parliament. The country is a member of the United Nations, the Commonwealth of Nations, and the Asian Development Bank. Nauru also participates in the Commonwealth and Olympic Games. Recently Nauru became a member country of the International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA). The Republic of Nauru became the 189th member of the International Monetary Fund in April 2016.

Nauru is a republic with a parliamentary system of government. The president is both head of state and head of government and is dependent on parliamentary confidence to remain president. All 19 parliament seats are elected every three years. The parliament elects the president from its members, and the president appoints a cabinet of five to six members. As a result of a referendum in 2021, naturalised citizens and their descendants are barred from becoming parliamentarians.

Nauru does not have any formal structure for political parties, and candidates typically stand for office as independents; fifteen of the 19 members of the current Parliament are independents. Four parties that have been active in Nauruan politics are the Nauru Party, the Democratic Party, Nauru First and the Centre Party. However, alliances within the government are often formed based on extended family ties rather than party affiliation.

From 1992 to 1999, Nauru had a local government system known as the Nauru Island Council (NIC). It was a successor to the Nauru Local Government Council, established in 1951. This nine-member council was designed to provide municipal services. The NIC was dissolved in 1999 and all assets and liabilities became vested in the national government. Land tenure on Nauru is unusual: all Nauruans have certain rights to all land on the island, which is owned by individuals and family groups. Government and corporate entities do not own any land, and they must enter into a lease arrangement with landowners to use land. Non-Nauruans cannot own land on the island.

Nauru's Supreme Court, headed by the Chief Justice, is paramount on constitutional issues. Other cases can be appealed to the two-judge Appellate Court. Parliament cannot overturn court decisions. Historically, Appellate Court rulings could be appealed to the High Court of Australia, though this happened only rarely and the Australian court's appellate jurisdiction ended entirely on 12 March 2018 after the Government of Nauru unilaterally ended the arrangement. Lower courts consist of the District Court and the Family Court, both of which are headed by a Resident Magistrate, who also is the Registrar of the Supreme Court. There are two other quasi-courts: the Public Service Appeal Board and the Police Appeal Board, both of which are presided over by the Chief Justice.

### Foreign relations

Following independence in 1968, Nauru joined the Commonwealth of Nations as a Special Member; it became a full member in 1999. The country was admitted to the Asian Development Bank in 1991 and the United Nations in 1999. Nauru is a member of the South Pacific Regional Environment Programme, the Pacific Community, and the South Pacific Applied Geoscience Commission. In February 2021, Nauru announced it would be formally withdrawing from the Pacific Islands Forum in a joint statement with Marshall Islands, Kiribati, and the Federated States of Micronesia after a dispute regarding Henry Puna's election as the Forum's secretary-general.

Nauru has no armed forces, though there is a small police force under civilian control. Australia is responsible for Nauru's defence under an informal agreement between the two countries. The September 2005 memorandum of understanding between Australia and Nauru provides the latter with financial aid and technical assistance, including a Secretary of Finance to prepare the budget, and advisers on health and education. This aid is in return for Nauru's housing of asylum seekers while their applications for entry into Australia are processed. Nauru uses the Australian dollar as its official currency.

Nauru has used its position as a member of the United Nations to gain financial support from both Taiwan (officially the Republic of China or ROC) and mainland China (officially the People's Republic of China or PRC) by changing its recognition from one to the other under the One-China policy. On 21 July 2002, Nauru signed an agreement to establish diplomatic relations with the PRC, accepting US\$130 million from the PRC for this action (US\$ in ). In response, the ROC severed diplomatic relations with Nauru two days later. Nauru later re-established links with the ROC on 14 May 2005, and diplomatic ties with the PRC were officially severed on 31 May 2005.

In 2008, Nauru recognised Kosovo as an independent country, and in 2009 Nauru became the fourth country, after Russia, Nicaragua, and Venezuela, to recognise Abkhazia, a breakaway region of Georgia. Russia was reported to be giving Nauru US\$50 million in humanitarian aid as a result of this recognition (\$ in ). On 15 July 2008, the Nauruan government announced a port refurbishment programme, financed with US\$9 million of development aid received from Russia (\$ in ). The Nauru government claimed this aid is not related to its recognition of Abkhazia and South Ossetia.

A significant portion of Nauru's income has been in the form of aid from Australia. In 2001, the MV Tampa, a Norwegian ship that had rescued 438 refugees from a stranded 20-metre-long boat, was seeking to dock in Australia. In what became known as the Tampa affair, the ship was refused entry and boarded by Australian troops. The refugees were eventually loaded onto Royal Australian Navy vessel HMAS Manoora and taken to Nauru to be held in detention facilities which later became part of the Howard government's Pacific Solution. Nauru operated two detention centres known as State House and Topside for these refugees in exchange for Australian aid. By November 2005, only two refugees, Mohammed Sagar and Muhammad Faisal remained on Nauru from those first sent there in 2001, with Sagar finally resettling in early 2007. The Australian government sent further groups of asylum-seekers to Nauru in late 2006 and early 2007. The refugee centre was closed in 2008, but, following the Australian government's re-adoption of the Pacific Solution in August 2012, it has re-opened it. The US Atmospheric Radiation Measurement program operates a climate-monitoring facility on the island.

In March 2017, at the 34th regular session of the UN Human Rights Council, Vanuatu made a joint statement on behalf of Nauru and some other Pacific nations raising human rights violations in Western New Guinea, which has been occupied by Indonesia since 1963, and requested that the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights produce a report. Indonesia rejected the allegations. More than 100,000 Papuans have died during a 50-year Papua conflict.

Amnesty International has since described the conditions of the refugees of war living in Nauru as a "horror", with reports of children as young as eight attempting suicide and engaging in acts of self-harm. In 2018, the situation gained attention as a "mental health crisis", with an estimated thirty children suffering from traumatic withdrawal syndrome, also known as resignation syndrome.

### Administrative divisions

Nauru is divided into fourteen administrative districts, which are grouped into eight electoral constituencies and are further divided into villages. The most populous district is Denigomodu, with 1,804 residents, of which 1,497 reside in an RONPhos settlement called "Location". The following table shows population by district according to the 2011 census.

## Economy

Before a resurgence in the 2010s, the Nauruan economy was strongest in the 1970s, with GDP peaking in 1981. This trend came from phosphate mining, which accounted for a majority of its economic output. Mining declined starting in the early 1980s. There are few other resources, and most necessities are imported. Small-scale mining is still conducted by RONPhos, formerly known as the Nauru Phosphate Corporation. The government places a percentage of RONPhos's earnings into the Nauru Phosphate Royalties Trust. The trust manages long-term investments, which were intended to support the citizens after the phosphate reserves were exhausted.

Because of mismanagement, the trust's fixed and current assets were reduced considerably and may never fully recover. The failed investments included financing Leonardo the Musical in 1993. The Mercure Hotel in Sydney and Nauru House in Melbourne were sold in 2004 to finance debts and Air Nauru's only Boeing 737 was repossessed in December 2005. Normal air service resumed after the aircraft was replaced with a Boeing 737-300 airliner in June 2006. In 2005, the corporation sold its remaining real estate in Melbourne, the vacant Savoy Tavern site, for \$7.5 million (US\$ in ).

The value of the trust is estimated to have shrunk from A\$1.3 billion in 1991 to A\$138 million in 2002 (A\$ to A\$ in dollars). Nauru currently lacks money to perform many of the basic functions of government; for example, the National Bank of Nauru is insolvent. The CIA World Factbook estimated a GDP per capita of US\$5,000 in 2005. The Asian Development Bank 2007 economic report on Nauru estimated GDP per capita at US\$2,400 to US\$2,715.

There are no personal taxes in Nauru. The unemployment rate is estimated to be 23 per cent and the government employs 95 per cent of those who have jobs. The Asian Development Bank notes that, although the administration has a strong public mandate to implement economic reforms, in the absence of an alternative to phosphate mining, the medium-term outlook is for continued dependence on external assistance. Tourism is not a major contributor to the economy.

In the 1990s, Nauru became a tax haven and offered passports to foreign nationals for a fee. The inter-governmental Financial Action Task Force on Money Laundering (FATF) identified Nauru as one of 15 "non-cooperative" countries in its fight against money laundering. During the 1990s, it was possible to establish a licensed bank in Nauru for only US\$25,000 (US\$ in ) with no other requirements. Under pressure from FATF, Nauru introduced anti-avoidance legislation in 2003, after which foreign hot money left the country. In October 2005, after satisfactory results from the legislation and its enforcement, FATF lifted the non-cooperative designation.

From 2001 to 2007, the Nauru detention centre provided a significant source of income for the country. The Nauruan authorities reacted with concern to its closure by Australia. In February 2008, the Foreign Affairs minister, Kieren Keke, stated that the closure would result in 100 Nauruans losing their jobs, and would affect 10 per cent of the island's population directly or indirectly: "We have got a huge number of families that are suddenly going to be without any income. We are looking at ways we can try and provide some welfare assistance but our capacity to do that is very limited. Literally we have got a major unemployment crisis in front of us." The detention centre was re-opened in August 2012.

In July 2017 the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) upgraded its rating of Nauru's standards of tax transparency. Previously Nauru had been listed alongside fourteen other countries that had failed to show that they could comply with international tax transparency standards and regulations. The OECD subsequently put Nauru through a fast-tracked compliance process and the country was given a "largely compliant" rating.

The Nauru 2017–2018 budget, delivered by Minister of Finance David Adeang, forecast A\$128.7 million in revenues and A\$128.6 million in expenditures and projected modest economic growth for the nation over the next two years. In 2018 the Nauru government partnered with the deep sea mining company DeepGreen, now Nauru Ocean Resources Inc (NORI), a wholly-owned subsidiary of Canadian The Metals Company. They planned to harvest manganese nodules whose minerals and metals can be used in the development of sustainable energy technology.

## Population

### Demographics

Nauru had  residents as of July . The population was previously larger, but in 2006 the island saw 1,500 people leave during a repatriation of immigrant workers from Kiribati and Tuvalu. The repatriation was motivated by significant layoffs in phosphate mining.

Nauru is one of the most densely populated Westernized countries in the South Pacific.

### Ethnic groups

Fifty-eight per cent of people in Nauru are ethnically Nauruan, 26 per cent are other Pacific Islander, 8 per cent are European, and 8 per cent are Han Chinese.

### Languages

The official languages of Nauru are Nauruan and English. Nauruan is a distinct Micronesian language, which is spoken by 96 per cent of ethnic Nauruans at home. English is widely spoken and is the language of government and commerce.

### Religion

The main religion practised on the island is Christianity (the main denominations are Nauru Congregational Church 35.71%, Roman Catholic 32.96%, Assemblies of God 12.98%, and Baptist 1.48%). The Constitution provides for freedom of religion. The government has restricted the religious practices of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and the Jehovah's Witnesses, most of whom are foreign workers employed by the government-owned Nauru Phosphate Corporation. The Catholics are pastorally served by the Roman Catholic Diocese of Tarawa and Nauru, with see at Tarawa in Kiribati.

## Culture

Angam Day, held on 26 October, celebrates the recovery of the Nauruan population after the two World Wars and the 1920 influenza epidemic. Colonial and contemporary Western influence has largely displaced the indigenous culture. Few older customs have been preserved, but some forms of traditional music, arts and crafts, and fishing are still practised.

### Media

There are no daily news publications on Nauru, although there is one fortnightly publication, Mwinen Ko. There is a state-owned television station, Nauru Television (NTV), which broadcasts programs from New Zealand and Australia, and a state-owned non-commercial radio station, Radio Nauru, which carries programs from Radio Australia and the BBC.

### Sport

Australian rules football is the most popular sport in Nauru—it and weightlifting are considered the country's national sports. There is an Australian rules football league with eight teams. Other sports popular in Nauru include volleyball, netball, fishing, weightlifting and tennis. Nauru participates in the Commonwealth Games and has participated in the Summer Olympic Games in weightlifting and judo.

Nauru's national basketball team competed at the 1969 Pacific Games, where it defeated Solomon Islands and Fiji.

The Nauru national rugby sevens team made its international debut at the 2015 Pacific Games.

Nauru competed in the 2015 Oceania Sevens Championship in New Zealand.

### Holidays

Independence Day is celebrated on 31 January.

## Public services

### Education

Literacy on Nauru is 96 per cent. Education is compulsory for children from six to sixteen years old, and two more non-compulsory years are offered (years 11 and 12). The island has three primary schools and two secondary schools. The secondary schools are Nauru Secondary School and Nauru College. There is a campus of the University of the South Pacific on Nauru. Before this campus was built in 1987, students would study either by distance or abroad. Since 2011, the University of New England, Australia has established a presence on the island with around 30 Nauruan teachers studying for an associate degree in education. These students will continue on to the degree to complete their studies. This project is led by Associate Professor Pep Serow and funded by the Australian Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade.

The previous community public library was destroyed in a fire. As of 1999 a new one had not yet been built, and no bookmobile services were available as of that year. Sites with libraries include the University of the South Pacific campus, Nauru Secondary, Kayser College, and Aiwo Primary. The Nauru Community Library is in the new University of the South Pacific Nauru Campus building, which was officially opened in May 2018.

### Health

Nauru has one of the highest child mortality rates in the Pacific Island Countries and Territories (PICTs) region at 2.9% in 2020, according to a UNICEF study. Life expectancy in Nauru in 2009 was 60.6 years for males and 68.0 years for females.

By measure of mean body mass index (BMI), Nauruans are the most overweight people in the world; 97 per cent of men and 93 per cent of women are overweight or obese. In 2012, the obesity rate was 71.7 per cent. Obesity on the Pacific islands is common.

Nauru has the world's highest level of type 2 diabetes, with more than 40 per cent of the population affected. Other significant dietary-related problems on Nauru include kidney disease and heart disease.

## Transport

The island is solely served by Nauru International Airport. Passenger service is provided by Nauru Airlines. Flights operate four days a week to Brisbane, with limited service to other destinations including Nadi and Bonriki.

Nauru is accessible by sea via the Nauru International Port. The modernization and expansion project of the former Aiwo Boat Harbor was expected to be completed in 2021 but has been delayed due to technical and logistics issues caused by the COVID-19 pandemic.

## Resources

### Plants and Farming

Historically, Indigenous Nauruans kept household gardens that provided much of the food that they needed through subsistence farming, with the most common food plants including coconuts, breadfruit, bananas, pandanus, papaya, and guavas. Because of the large immigrant population that would work in the phosphate mines, there were many types of fruits and vegetables grown that were staples in those countries as well. The soil in Nauru was very rich on what citizens call the "Topside," which is the raised phosphate plateau where the phosphate is mined from, and it was extremely fertile and great for growing crops. However, the area where most Nauruans live now, on the coastal ring on the island that hasn't been mined, the soil quality is among the poorest in the world, as it is shallow, alkaline, and has the coarse texture of the coral that surrounds it. In 2011, just 13% of households maintained a garden or were involved in growing crops. Most of the soil that was on Nauru is now gone because of phosphate-mining activities, leaving people to import the soil that they need. Ethnobotanical studies have indicated that the reduction in the types of plants that can be grown due to phosphate mining has significantly impacted the connection that Indigenous Nauruans feel to the land, as plants are a large part of their cultural identity and have many uses in their lives, with each plant having an average of 7 uses within Pacific Island cultures.

### Food

For Nauru residents today, all food must also be imported because of the loss of 90% of tenable land due to phosphate mining, leaving people with a diet of mainly processed foods, such as rice and sugar. Though residents are trying to salvage the soil that they can, some researchers speculate that there will be no regeneration of soils even after the mining ceases. The country's dependence on processed and imported foods along with "cultural, historical and social factors" have greatly affected the health of its citizens. Despite having all food imported, the Household and Income Expenditure Survey (HIES) conducted for the year of 2012–2013 found that Nauruans have a food poverty incidence rate of 0, based on the Food Poverty Line (FPL) which "includes a daily intake of 2,100 calories per adult per day."

### Non-food Basic Needs

While the HIES found that Nauru is doing well in terms of food poverty, 24% of the population and 16.8% of households are below the basic needs (clothing, shelter, education, transport, communication, water, sanitation and health services) poverty line. This is the worst poverty index of all Pacific nations. In 2017, half of Nauruans were living on \$9,000 a year. Water resources are extremely limited, with the island supplying enough for 32 liters of freshwater per person per day despite the WHO's recommendation of 50 liters per person per day. Much of the groundwater has been contaminated by mining runoff, toilets, and dumping of other commercial and household wastes, causing Nauruans to rely on imported water, the price of which can vary as it is closely tied to fuel prices for its delivery, and rainfall storage. Access to sanitation facilities is restricted with just 66% of residents having access to reliable toilets, and open defecation is still practiced by 3% of the population. Schools are frequently forced to close because they do not have reliable toilets or drinking water for students to use. There is a long-standing truancy problem and accessibility of education for refugee and asylum-seeking children, as well as for disabled children remain areas of concern for Nauru’s education sector.

## Effects of mining on Nauruans and their land

### Land and people

Since the early 1900s, Nauru has been mined for phosphorus by many countries, resulting in devastating destruction of the land. As noted earlier, 80% of the island is unusable due to phosphorus mining, which has left exposed coral pinnacles that leave the land useless and uninhabitable. The degradation of the land has resulted in a "lower resilience of the natural environment," causing many negative health and environmental effects, like poor water quality, greater erosion rates, poor precipitation, higher droughts, and greater CO2 emissions. The damage done through mining extends further by ocean acidification and coastal erosion and has threatened terrestrial and marine biodiversity. The people of Nauru also face continued negative health effects from the mining in the form of phosphate dust pollution and cadmium pollution, tainting the water and air quality. As a result, the rate of care-seeking for children under 5 years of age with ARI is 69% according to UNICEF data. Due to the extent of the mining, there is not much that can be done now to alleviate the agricultural problems that Nauruans face besides monetary reparations, which Nauru pursued from the Australian Government in 1989 through the International Court of Justice in the Hague. The lawsuit was settled in 1993 in an out-of-court payout of \$120 million AUD over 20 years.

Phosphate mining has removed most of the vegetation and tree coverage that Nauru had, leaving the land and the people vulnerable to intense heat on an island so close to the Equator. The effects of the vegetation removal has been most felt by refugees in the Nauru detention center, which is in the very center of the island where the majority of the mining is done. Along the coast, where most Nauruans are forced to live now due to the land reduction caused by mining, the coastal plants that remain are vital for the "provision of shade and animal and plant habitats; protection from wind, erosion, flood, and salt water incursion; land stabilization; protection from the desiccating effects of salt spray; and soil improvement and mulching," especially as the coast is expected to continue eroding with the increasing effects of climate change.

### Social effects

Because phosphate mining, and now deep-sea mining, has been going on for so long, it is hard to parse out exactly how it has affected the Nauruan people. Researchers have offered that the Nauruan people likely have a loss of their sense of place and culture, as they did not have full control of their land until 1968. There has also been a documented loss of Nauruan traditions like subsistence farming as well as the violations of their rights to their own land and the continued human rights violations that continue at the Nauru detention center. The Nauruan people face extremely high rates of obesity, alcoholism, prostitution, poorer mental health rates, and myriad other health issues that stem from these problems. A study done in 2014 by The Nauru Family Health and Support Study implemented by Nauru Department of Home Affairs and DFAT and United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) have shown the alarming prevalence of violence in romantic relationships on the island, with 48.1% of ever-partnered women who participated saying that have experienced physical or sexual violence at least once. A quarter of women in the same study have experienced violence in at least one pregnancy, and 9.9% of women had experienced some form of violence in the past 12 months. In another study surveying sexual health, 21% of a portion of the population tested positive for chlamydia. In the same survey, 30% of school children aged 13–15 reported having attempted suicide, and 24% of children under the age of five are stunted. Though Nauruans are currently still searching for a way to stay on the island and live viable lives, some speculate that the only way for them to do so is to continue mining the phosphorus that is left (30 years or so).

## See also

- Index of Nauru-related articles
- Outline of Nauru
- ISO 3166-2:NR
- Island country

Island country in Oceania

Countries and territories where English is an official language

Former British colonies and protectorates in Oceania

Member states of the Commonwealth of Nations

Republics in the Commonwealth of Nations

States and territories established in 1968


Salt March

The Salt March, also known as the Salt Satyagraha, Dandi March and the Dandi Satyagraha, was an act of nonviolent civil disobedience in colonial India, led by Mahatma Gandhi. The twenty-four day march lasted from 12 March to 5 April 1930 as a direct action campaign of tax resistance and nonviolent protest against the British salt monopoly. Another reason for this march was that the Civil Disobedience Movement needed a strong inauguration that would inspire more people to follow Gandhi's example. Gandhi started this march with 78 of his trusted volunteers. The march spanned 387 kilometres (240 mi), from Sabarmati Ashram to Dandi, which was called Navsari at that time (now in the state of Gujarat). Growing numbers of Indians joined them along the way. When Gandhi broke the British Raj salt laws at 8:30 am on 6 April 1930, it sparked large-scale acts of civil disobedience against the salt laws by millions of Indians.

After making the salt by evaporation at Dandi, Gandhi continued southward along the coast, making salt and addressing meetings on the way. The Congress Party planned to stage a satyagraha at the Dharasana Salt Works, 40 km (25 mi) south of Dandi. However, Gandhi was arrested on the midnight of 4–5 May 1930, just days before the planned action at Dharasana. The Dandi March and the ensuing Dharasana Satyagraha drew worldwide attention to the Indian independence movement through extensive newspaper and newsreel coverage. The satyagraha against the salt tax continued for almost an year, ending with Gandhi's release from jail and negotiations with Viceroy Lord Irwin at the Second Round Table Conference. Although over 60,000 Indians were jailed as a result of the Salt Satyagraha, the British did not make immediate major concessions.

The Salt Satyagraha campaign was based upon Gandhi's principles of non-violent protest called satyagraha, which he loosely translated as "truth-force". Literally, it is formed from the Sanskrit words satya, "truth", and agraha, "insistence". In early 1920 the Indian National Congress chose satyagraha as their main tactic for winning Indian sovereignty and self-rule from British rule and appointed Gandhi to organise the campaign. Gandhi chose the 1882 British Salt Act as the first target of satyagraha. The Salt March to Dandi, and the beating by the colonial police of hundreds of nonviolent protesters in Dharasana, which received worldwide news coverage, demonstrated the effective use of civil disobedience as a technique for fighting against social and political injustice. The satyagraha teachings of Gandhi and the March to Dandi had a significant influence on American activists Martin Luther King Jr., James Bevel, and others during the Civil Rights Movement for civil rights for African Americans and other minority groups in the 1960s. The march was the most significant organised challenge to British authority since the Non-cooperation movement of 1920–22, and directly followed the Purna Swaraj declaration of sovereignty and self-rule by the Indian National Congress on 26 January 1930 by celebrating Independence Day. It gained worldwide attention which gave impetus to the Indian independence movement and started the nationwide Civil Disobedience Movement which continued until 1934 in Gujarat.

## Civil disobedience movement

At midnight on 31 December 1929, the INC (Indian National Congress) raised the tricolour flag of India on the banks and the Ravi at Lahore. The Indian National Congress, led by Gandhi and Jawaharlal Nehru, publicly issued the Declaration of sovereignty and self-rule, or Purna Swaraj, on 26 January 1930. (Literally in Sanskrit, purna, "complete," swa, "self," raj, "rule," so therefore "complete self-rule") The declaration included the readiness to withhold taxes, and the statement:

> We believe that it is the inalienable right of the Indian people, as of any other people, to have freedom and to enjoy the fruits of their toil and have the necessities of life, so that they may have full opportunities for growth. We believe also that if any government deprives a people of these rights and oppresses them the people have a further right to alter it or abolish it. The British government in India has not only deprived the Indian people of their freedom but has based itself on the exploitation of the masses, and has ruined India economically, politically, culturally, and spiritually. We believe, therefore, that India must sever the British connection and attain Purna Swaraji or complete sovereignty and self-rule.

The Congress Working Committee gave Gandhi the responsibility for organising the first act of civil disobedience, with Congress itself ready to take charge after Gandhi's expected arrest. Gandhi's plan was to begin civil disobedience with a satyagraha aimed at the British salt tax. The 1882 Salt Act gave the British a monopoly on the collection and manufacture of salt, limiting its handling to government salt depots and levying a salt tax. Violation of the Salt Act was a criminal offence. Even though salt was freely available to those living on the coast (by evaporation of sea water), Indians were forced to buy it from the colonial government.

## Choice of salt as protest focus

Initially, Gandhi's choice of the salt tax was met with incredulity by the Working Committee of the Congress, Jawaharlal Nehru and Divyalochan Sahu were ambivalent; Sardar Patel suggested a land revenue boycott instead. The Statesman, a prominent newspaper, wrote about the choice: "It is difficult not to laugh, and we imagine that will be the mood of most thinking Indians."

The British colonial administration too was not disturbed by these plans of resistance against the salt tax. The Viceroy himself, Lord Irwin, did not take the threat of a salt protest seriously, writing to London, "At present, the prospect of a salt campaign does not keep me awake at night."

However, Gandhi had sound reasons for his decision. An item of daily use could resonate more with all classes of citizens than an abstract demand for greater political rights. The salt tax represented 8.2% of the British Raj tax revenue, and hurt the poorest Indians the most significantly. Explaining his choice, Gandhi said, "Next to air and water, salt is perhaps the greatest necessity of life." In contrast to the other leaders, the prominent Congress statesman and future Governor-General of India, C. Rajagopalachari, understood Gandhi's viewpoint. In a public meeting at Tuticorin, he said:

> Suppose, a people rise in revolt. They cannot attack the abstract constitution or lead an army against proclamations and statutes ... Civil disobedience has to be directed against the salt tax or the land tax or some other particular point – not that; that is our final end, but for the time being it is our aim, and we must shoot straight.

Gandhi felt that this protest would dramatise Purna Swaraj in a way that was meaningful to every Indian. He also reasoned that it would build unity between Hindus and Muslims by fighting a wrong that touched them equally.

After the protest gathered steam, the leaders realised the power of salt as a symbol. Nehru remarked about the unprecedented popular response, "it seemed as though a spring had been suddenly released."

## Satyagraha

Gandhi had a long-standing commitment to nonviolent civil disobedience, which he termed satyagraha, as the basis for achieving Indian sovereignty and self-rule. Referring to the relationship between satyagraha and Purna Swaraj, Gandhi saw "an inviolable connection between the means and the end as there is between the seed and the tree". He wrote, "If the means employed are impure, the change will not be in the direction of progress but very likely in the opposite. Only a change brought about in our political condition by pure means can lead to real progress."

Satyagraha is a synthesis of the Sanskrit words Satya (truth) and Agraha (insistence on). For Gandhi, satyagraha went far beyond mere "passive resistance" and became strength in practicing nonviolent methods. In his words:

> Truth (satya) implies love, and firmness (agraha) engenders and therefore serves as a synonym for force. I thus began to call the Indian movement Satyagraha, that is to say, the Force which is born of Truth and Love or nonviolence, and gave up the use of the phrase "passive resistance", in connection with it, so much so that even in English writing we often avoided it and used instead the word "satyagraha" ...

His first significant attempt in India at leading mass satyagraha was the non-cooperation movement from 1920 to 1922. Even though it succeeded in raising millions of Indians in protest against the British-created Rowlatt Act, violence broke out at Chauri Chaura, where a mob killed 22 unarmed policemen. Gandhi suspended the protest, against the opposition of other Congress members. He decided that Indians were not yet ready for successful nonviolent resistance. The Bardoli Satyagraha in 1928 was much more successful. It succeeded in paralysing the British government and winning significant concessions. More importantly, due to extensive press coverage, it scored a propaganda victory out of all proportion to its size. Gandhi later claimed that success at Bardoli confirmed his belief in satyagraha and Swaraj: "It is only gradually that we shall come to know the importance of the victory gained at Bardoli ... Bardoli has shown the way and cleared it. Swaraj lies on that route, and that alone is the cure ..." Gandhi recruited heavily from the Bardoli Satyagraha participants for the Dandi march, which passed through many of the same villages that took part in the Bardoli protests. This revolt gained momentum and had support from all parts of India.

## Preparing to march

On 5 February, newspapers reported that Gandhi would begin civil disobedience by defying the salt laws. The salt satyagraha would begin on 12 March and end in Dandi with Gandhi breaking the Salt Act on 6 April. Gandhi chose 6 April to launch the mass breaking of the salt laws for a symbolic reason—it was the first day of "National Week", begun in 1919 when Gandhi conceived of the national hartal (strike) against the Rowlatt Act.

Gandhi prepared the worldwide media for the march by issuing regular statements from the Ashram, at his regular prayer meetings, and through direct contact with the press. Expectations were heightened by his repeated statements anticipating arrest, and his increasingly dramatic language as the hour approached: "We are entering upon a life and death struggle, a holy war; we are performing an all-embracing sacrifice in which we wish to offer ourselves as an oblation." Correspondents from dozens of Indian, European, and American newspapers, along with film companies, responded to the drama and began covering the event.

For the march itself, Gandhi wanted the strictest discipline and adherence to satyagraha and ahimsa. For that reason, he recruited the marchers not from Congress Party members, but from the residents of his own ashram, who were trained in Gandhi's strict standards of discipline. The 24-day march would pass through 4 districts and 48 villages. The route of the march, along with each evening's stopping place, was planned based on recruitment potential, past contacts, and timing. Gandhi sent scouts to each village ahead of the march so he could plan his talks at each resting place, based on the needs of the local residents. Events at each village were scheduled and publicised in Indian and foreign press.

On 2 March 1930 Gandhi wrote to the Viceroy, Lord Irwin, offering to stop the march if Irwin met eleven demands, including reduction of land revenue assessments, cutting military spending, imposing a tariff on foreign cloth, and abolishing the salt tax. His strongest appeal to Irwin regarded the salt tax:

> If my letter makes no appeal to your heart, on the eleventh day of this month I shall proceed with such co-workers of the Ashram as I can take, to disregard the provisions of the Salt Laws. I regard this tax to be the most iniquitous of all from the poor man's standpoint. As the sovereignty and self-rule movement is essentially for the poorest in the land, the beginning will be made with this evil.

As mentioned earlier, the Viceroy held any prospect of a "salt protest" in disdain. After he ignored the letter and refused to meet with Gandhi, the march was set in motion. Gandhi remarked, "On bended knees, I asked for bread and I have received stone instead." The eve of the march brought thousands of Indians to Sabarmati to hear Gandhi speak at the regular evening prayer. American academic writing for The Nation reported that "60,000 persons gathered on the bank of the river to hear Gandhi's call to arms. This call to arms was perhaps the most remarkable call to war that has ever been made."

## March to Dandi

On 12 March 1930, Gandhi and 78 satyagrahis, among whom were men belonging to almost every region, caste, creed, and religion of India, set out on foot for the coastal village of Dandi in Navsari district of Gujarat, 385 km from their starting point at Sabarmati Ashram. The Salt March was also called the White Flowing River because all the people were joining the procession wearing white Khadi.

According to The Statesman, the official government newspaper which usually played down the size of crowds at Gandhi's functions, 100,000 people crowded the road that separated Sabarmati from Ahmedabad. The first day's march of 21 km ended in the village of Aslali, where Gandhi spoke to a crowd of about 4,000. At Aslali, and the other villages that the march passed through, volunteers collected donations, registered new satyagrahis, and received resignations from village officials who chose to end co-operation with British rule.

As they entered each village, crowds greeted the marchers, beating drums and cymbals. Gandhi gave speeches attacking the salt tax as inhuman, and the salt satyagraha as a "poor man's struggle". Each night they slept in the open. The only thing that was asked of the villagers was food and water to wash with. Gandhi felt that this would bring the poor into the struggle for sovereignty and self-rule, necessary for eventual victory.

Thousands of satyagrahis and leaders like Sarojini Naidu joined him. Every day, more and more people joined the march, until the procession of marchers became at least 3 km long. To keep up their spirits, the marchers used to sing the Hindu Bhajan Raghupati Raghava Raja Ram while walking. At Surat, they were greeted by 30,000 people. When they reached the railhead at Dandi, more than 50,000 were gathered. Gandhi gave interviews and wrote articles along the way. Foreign journalists and three Bombay cinema companies shooting newsreel footage turned Gandhi into a household name in Europe and America (at the end of 1930, Time magazine made him "Man of the Year"). The New York Times wrote almost daily about the Salt March, including two front-page articles on 6 and 7 April. Near the end of the march, Gandhi declared, "I want world sympathy in this battle of right against might."

Upon arriving at the seashore on 5 April, Gandhi was interviewed by an Associated Press reporter. He stated:

> I cannot withhold my compliments from the government for the policy of complete non interference adopted by them throughout the march .... I wish I could believe this non-interference was due to any real change of heart or policy. The wanton disregard shown by them to popular feeling in the Legislative Assembly and their high-handed action leave no room for doubt that the policy of heartless exploitation of India is to be persisted in at any cost, and so the only interpretation I can put upon this non-interference is that the British Government, powerful though it is, is sensitive to world opinion which will not tolerate repression of extreme political agitation which civil disobedience undoubtedly is, so long as disobedience remains civil and therefore necessarily non-violent .... It remains to be seen whether the Government will tolerate as they have tolerated the march, the actual breach of the salt laws by countless people from tomorrow.

The following morning, after a prayer, Gandhi raised a lump of salty mud and declared, "With this, I am shaking the foundations of the British Empire." He then boiled it in seawater, producing illegal salt. He implored his thousands of followers to likewise begin making salt along the seashore, "wherever it is convenient" and to instruct villagers in making illegal, but necessary, salt. The others followed him and Sarojini Naidu addressing Gandhi, shouted 'Hail, law breaker'. In a letter to her daughter, Naidu remarked:

> The little law breaker is sitting in a state of ‘Maun’ [silence] writing his article of triumph for Young India and I am stretched on a hard bench at the open window of a huge room that has 6 windows open to the sea breeze. As far as the eye can see there is a little Army—thousands of pilgrims who have been pouring in since yesterday to this otherwise deserted and exceedingly primitive village of fishermen.

After the Gandhi broke the salt laws, about 700 telegrams were sent out from the post office nearest to Dandi, at Jalalpur. Most of them were by the journalists, who were there to break this news.

## First 78 Marchers

78 marchers accompanied Gandhi on his march. Most of them were between the ages of 20 and 30. These men hailed from almost all parts of the country. The march gathered more people as it gained momentum, but the following list of names consists of Gandhi himself and the first 78 marchers who were with Gandhi from the beginning of the Dandi March until the end. Most of them simply dispersed after the march was over.

A memorial has been created inside the campus of IIT Bombay honouring these Satyagrahis who participated in the famous Dandi March.

## Mass civil disobedience

Mass civil disobedience spread throughout India as millions broke the salt laws by making salt or buying illegal salt. Salt was sold illegally all over the coast of India. A pinch of salt made by Gandhi himself sold for 1,600 rupees (equivalent to \$750 at the time). In reaction, the British government arrested over sixty thousand people by the end of the month.

What had begun as a Salt Satyagraha quickly grew into a mass Satyagraha. British cloth and goods were boycotted. Unpopular forest laws were defied in the Bombay, Mysore and Central Provinces. Gujarati peasants refused to pay tax, under threat of losing their crops and land. In Midnapore, Bengalis took part by refusing to pay the chowkidar tax. The British responded with more laws, including censorship of correspondence and declaring the Congress and its associate organisations illegal. None of those measures slowed the civil disobedience movement.

There were outbreaks of violence in Calcutta (now spelled Kolkata), Karachi, and Gujarat. Unlike his suspension of satyagraha after violence broke out during the Non-co-operation movement, this time Gandhi was "unmoved". Appealing for violence to end, at the same time Gandhi honoured those killed in Chittagong and congratulated their parents "for the finished sacrifices of their sons ... A warrior's death is never a matter for sorrow."

During the first phase of the Indian civil disobedience movement from 1929 to 1931, the second MacDonald ministry headed by Ramsay MacDonald was in power in Britain. The attempted suppression of the movement was presided over by MacDonald and his cabinet (including the Secretary of State for India, William Wedgwood Benn). During this period, the MacDonald ministry also oversaw the suppression of the nascent trade unionist movement in India, which was described by historian Sumit Sarkar as "a massive capitalist and government counter-offensive" against workers' rights.

### Qissa Khwani Bazaar massacre

In Peshawar, satyagraha was led by a Muslim Pashtun disciple of Gandhi, Ghaffar Khan, who had trained 50,000 nonviolent activists called Khudai Khidmatgar. On 23 April 1930, Ghaffar Khan was arrested. A crowd of Khudai Khidmatgar gathered in Peshawar's Qissa Kahani (Storytellers) Bazaar. The 2/18 battalion of the Royal Garhwal Rifles were ordered to open fire with machine guns on the unarmed crowd, killing an estimated 200–250 people. The Pashtun satyagrahis acted in accord with their training in nonviolence, willingly facing bullets as the troops fired on them. One British Indian Army soldier, Chandra Singh Garhwali and some other troops from the renowned Royal Garhwal Rifles regiment refused to fire at the crowds. The entire platoon was arrested and many received heavy sentences, including life imprisonment.

### Vedaranyam salt march

While Gandhi marched along India's west coast, his close associate C. Rajagopalachari, who would later become India's first Indian Governor-General, organized the Vedaranyam salt march in parallel on the east coast. His group started from Tiruchirappalli, in Madras Presidency (now part of Tamil Nadu), to the coastal village of Vedaranyam. After making illegal salt there, he too was arrested by the British.

### Women in civil disobedience

The civil disobedience in 1930 marked the first time women became mass participants in the struggle for freedom. Thousands of women, from large cities to small villages, became active participants in satyagraha. Gandhi had asked that only men take part in the salt march, but eventually women began manufacturing and selling salt throughout India. It was clear that though only men were allowed within the march, that both men and women were expected to forward work that would help dissolve the salt laws. Usha Mehta, an early Gandhian activist, remarked that "Even our old aunts and great-aunts and grandmothers used to bring pitchers of salt water to their houses and manufacture illegal salt. And then they would shout at the top of their voices: 'We have broken the salt law!'" The growing number of women in the fight for sovereignty and self-rule was a "new and serious feature" according to Lord Irwin. A government report on the involvement of women stated "thousands of them emerged ... from the seclusion of their homes ... in order to join Congress demonstrations and assist in picketing: and their presence on these occasions made the work the police was required to perform particularly unpleasant." Though women did become involved in the march, it was clear that Gandhi saw women as still playing a secondary role within the movement, but created the beginning of a push for women to be more involved in the future.

"Sarojini Naidu was among the most visible leaders (male or female) of pre-independent India. As president of the Indian National Congress and the first woman governor of free India, she was a fervent advocate for India, avidly mobilizing support for the Indian independence movement. She was also the first woman to be arrested in the salt march."

### Impact

British documents show that the British government was shaken by Satyagraha. Nonviolent protest left the British confused about whether or not to jail Gandhi. John Court Curry, an Indian Imperial Police officer from England, wrote in his memoirs that he felt nausea every time he dealt with Congress demonstrations in 1930. Curry and others in British government, including Wedgwood Benn, Secretary of State for India, preferred fighting violent rather than nonviolent opponents.

## Dharasana Satyagraha and aftermath

Gandhi himself avoided further active involvement after the march, though he stayed in close contact with the developments throughout India. He created a temporary ashram near Dandi. From there, he urged women followers in Bombay (now Mumbai) to picket liquor shops and foreign cloth. He said that "a bonfire should be made of foreign cloth. Schools and colleges should become empty."

For his next major action, Gandhi decided on a raid of the Dharasana Salt Works in Gujarat, 40 km south of Dandi. He wrote to Lord Irwin, again telling him of his plans. Around midnight of 4 May, as Gandhi was sleeping on a cot in a mango grove, the District magistrate of Surat drove up with two Indian officers and thirty heavily armed constables. He was arrested under an 1827 regulation calling for the jailing of people engaged in unlawful activities, and held without trial near Poona (now Pune).

The Dharasana Satyagraha went ahead as planned, with Abbas Tyabji, a seventy-six-year-old retired judge, leading the march with Gandhi's wife Kasturba at his side. Both were arrested before reaching Dharasana and sentenced to three months in prison. After their arrests, the march continued under the leadership of Sarojini Naidu, a woman poet and freedom fighter, who warned the satyagrahis, "You must not use any violence under any circumstances. You will be beaten, but you must not resist: you must not even raise a hand to ward off blows." Soldiers began clubbing the satyagrahis with steel tipped lathis in an incident that attracted international attention. United Press correspondent Webb Miller reported that:

> Not one of the marchers even raised an arm to fend off the blows. They went down like ten-pins. From where I stood I heard the sickening whacks of the clubs on unprotected skulls. The waiting crowd of watchers groaned and sucked in their breaths in sympathetic pain at every blow. Those struck down fell sprawling, unconscious or writhing in pain with fractured skulls or broken shoulders. In two or three minutes the ground was quilted with bodies. Great patches of blood widened on their white clothes. The survivors without breaking ranks silently and doggedly marched on until struck down ... Finally the police became enraged by the non-resistance ... They commenced savagely kicking the seated men in the abdomen and testicles. The injured men writhed and squealed in agony, which seemed to inflame the fury of the police ... The police then began dragging the sitting men by the arms or feet, sometimes for a hundred yards, and throwing them into ditches.

Vithalbhai Patel, former Speaker of the Assembly, watched the beatings and remarked, "All hope of reconciling India with the British Empire is lost forever." Miller's first attempts at telegraphing the story to his publisher in England were censored by the British telegraph operators in India. Only after threatening to expose British censorship was his story allowed to pass. The story appeared in 1,350 newspapers throughout the world and was read into the official record of the United States Senate by Senator John J. Blaine.

Salt Satyagraha succeeded in drawing the attention of the world. Millions saw the newsreels showing the march. Time declared Gandhi its 1930 Man of the Year, comparing Gandhi's march to the sea "to defy Britain's salt tax as some New Englanders once defied a British tea tax". Civil disobedience continued until early 1931, when Gandhi was finally released from prison to hold talks with Irwin. It was the first time the two held talks on equal terms, and resulted in the Gandhi–Irwin Pact. The talks would lead to the Second Round Table Conference at the end of 1931.

## Long-term effect

The Salt Satyagraha did not produce immediate progress toward dominion status or self-rule for India, did not elicit major policy concessions from the British, or attract much Muslim support. Congress leaders decided to end satyagraha as official policy in 1934, and Nehru and other Congress members drifted further apart from Gandhi, who withdrew from Congress to concentrate on his Constructive Programme, which included his efforts to end untouchability in the Harijan movement. However, even though British authorities were again in control by the mid-1930s, Indian, British, and world opinion increasingly began to recognise the legitimacy of claims by Gandhi and the Congress Party for sovereignty and self-rule. The Satyagraha campaign of the 1930s also forced the British to recognise that their control of India depended entirely on the consent of the Indians – Salt Satyagraha was a significant step in the British losing that consent.

Nehru considered the Salt Satyagraha the high-water mark of his association with Gandhi, and felt that its lasting importance was in changing the attitudes of Indians:

> Of course these movements exercised tremendous pressure on the British Government and shook the government machinery. But the real importance, to my mind, lay in the effect they had on our own people, and especially the village masses ... Non-cooperation dragged them out of the mire and gave them self-respect and self-reliance ... They acted courageously and did not submit so easily to unjust oppression; their outlook widened and they began to think a little in terms of India as a whole ... It was a remarkable transformation and the Congress, under Gandhi's leadership, must have the credit for it.

More than thirty years later, Satyagraha and the March to Dandi exercised a strong influence on American civil rights activist Martin Luther King Jr., and his fight for civil rights for blacks in the 1960s:

> Like most people, I had heard of Gandhi, but I had never studied him seriously. As I read I became deeply fascinated by his campaigns of nonviolent resistance. I was particularly moved by his Salt March to the Sea and his numerous fasts. The whole concept of Satyagraha (Satya is truth which equals love, and agraha is force; Satyagraha, therefore, means truth force or love force) was profoundly significant to me. As I delved deeper into the philosophy of Gandhi, my skepticism concerning the power of love gradually diminished, and I came to see for the first time its potency in the area of social reform.

## Re-enactment in 2005

To commemorate the Great Salt March, the Mahatma Gandhi Foundation re-enacted the Salt March on its 75th anniversary, in its exact historical schedule and route followed by the Mahatma and his band of 78 marchers. The event was known as the "International Walk for Justice and Freedom". What started as a personal pilgrimage for Mahatma Gandhi's great-grandson Tushar Gandhi turned into an international event with 900 registered participants from nine nations and on a daily basis the numbers swelled to a couple of thousands. There was extensive reportage in the international media.

The participants halted at Dandi on the night of 5 April, with the commemoration ending on 7 April. At the finale in Dandi, the prime minister of India, Dr Manmohan Singh, greeted the marchers and promised to build an appropriate monument at Dandi to commemorate the marchers and the historical event. The route from Sabarmati Ashram to Dandi has now been christened as the Dandi Path and has been declared a historical heritage route.

India issued a series of commemorative stamps in 1980 and 2005, on the 50th and 75th anniversaries of the Dandi March.

## Memorial

The National Salt Satyagraha Memorial, a memorial museum, dedicated to the event was opened in Dandi on 30 January 2019.

## See also

- Boston Tea Party
- Selma to Montgomery marches
- Suffrage Hikes
- Gandhi Heritage Portal
- National Salt Satyagraha Memorial

1930 Indian protest led by Mahatma Gandhi


Corona Australis

Corona Australis is a constellation in the Southern Celestial Hemisphere. Its Latin name means "southern crown", and it is the southern counterpart of Corona Borealis, the northern crown. It is one of the 48 constellations listed by the 2nd-century astronomer Ptolemy, and it remains one of the 88 modern constellations. The Ancient Greeks saw Corona Australis as a wreath rather than a crown and associated it with Sagittarius or Centaurus. Other cultures have likened the pattern to a turtle, ostrich nest, a tent, or even a hut belonging to a rock hyrax.

Although fainter than its northern counterpart, the oval- or horseshoe-shaped pattern of its brighter stars renders it distinctive. Alpha and Beta Coronae Australis are the two brightest stars with an apparent magnitude of around 4.1. Epsilon Coronae Australis is the brightest example of a W Ursae Majoris variable in the southern sky. Lying alongside the Milky Way, Corona Australis contains one of the closest star-forming regions to the Solar System—a dusty dark nebula known as the Corona Australis Molecular Cloud, lying about 430 light years away. Within it are stars at the earliest stages of their lifespan. The variable stars R and TY Coronae Australis light up parts of the nebula, which varies in brightness accordingly.

## Name

The name of the constellation was entered as "Corona Australis" when the International Astronomical Union (IAU) established the 88 modern constellations in 1922. In 1932, the name was instead recorded as "Corona Austrina" when the IAU's commission on notation approved a list of four-letter abbreviations for the constellations. The four-letter abbreviations were repealed in 1955. The IAU presently uses "Corona Australis" exclusively.

## Characteristics

Corona Australis is a small constellation bordered by Sagittarius to the north, Scorpius to the west, Telescopium to the south, and Ara to the southwest. The three-letter abbreviation for the constellation, as adopted by the International Astronomical Union in 1922, is "CrA". The official constellation boundaries, as set by Belgian astronomer Eugène Delporte in 1930, are defined by a polygon of four segments (illustrated in infobox). In the equatorial coordinate system, the right ascension coordinates of these borders lie between and , while the declination coordinates are between −36.77° and −45.52°. Covering 128 square degrees, Corona Australis culminates at midnight around the 30th of June and ranks 80th in area. Only visible at latitudes south of 53° north, Corona Australis cannot be seen from the British Isles as it lies too far south, but it can be seen from southern Europe and readily from the southern United States.

## Features

While not a bright constellation, Corona Australis is nonetheless distinctive due to its easily identifiable pattern of stars, which has been described as horseshoe- or oval-shaped. Though it has no stars brighter than 4th magnitude, it still has 21 stars visible to the unaided eye (brighter than magnitude 5.5). Nicolas Louis de Lacaille used the Greek letters Alpha through to Lambda to label the most prominent eleven stars in the constellation, designating two stars as Eta and omitting Iota altogether. Mu Coronae Australis, a yellow star of spectral type G5.5III and apparent magnitude 5.21, was labelled by Johann Elert Bode and retained by Benjamin Gould, who deemed it bright enough to warrant naming.

### Stars

The only star in the constellation to have received a name is Alfecca Meridiana or Alpha CrA. The name combines the Arabic name of the constellation with the Latin for "southern". In Arabic, Alfecca means "break", and refers to the shape of both Corona Australis and Corona Borealis. Also called simply "Meridiana", it is a white main sequence star located 125 light years away from Earth, with an apparent magnitude of 4.10 and spectral type A2Va. A rapidly rotating star, it spins at almost 200 km per second at its equator, making a complete revolution in around 14 hours. Like the star Vega, it has excess infrared radiation, which indicates it may be ringed by a disk of dust. It is currently a main-sequence star, but will eventually evolve into a white dwarf; currently, it has a luminosity 31 times greater, and a radius and mass of 2.3 times that of the Sun. Beta Coronae Australis is an orange giant 474 light years from Earth. Its spectral type is K0II, and it is of apparent magnitude 4.11. Since its formation, it has evolved from a B-type star to a K-type star. Its luminosity class places it as a bright giant; its luminosity is 730 times that of the Sun, designating it one of the highest-luminosity K0-type stars visible to the naked eye. 100 million years old, it has a radius of 43 solar radii () and a mass of between 4.5 and 5 solar masses (). Alpha and Beta are so similar as to be indistinguishable in brightness to the naked eye.

Some of the more prominent double stars include Gamma Coronae Australis—a pair of yellowish white stars 58 light years away from Earth, which orbit each other every 122 years. Widening since 1990, the two stars can be seen as separate with a 100 mm aperture telescope; they are separated by 1.3 arcseconds at an angle of 61 degrees. They have a combined visual magnitude of 4.2; each component is an F8V dwarf star with a magnitude of 5.01. Epsilon Coronae Australis is an eclipsing binary belonging to a class of stars known as W Ursae Majoris variables. These star systems are known as contact binaries as the component stars are so close together they touch. Varying by a quarter of a magnitude around an average apparent magnitude of 4.83 every seven hours, the star system lies 98 light years away. Its spectral type is F4VFe-0.8+. At the southern end of the crown asterism are the stars Eta1 and Eta2 Coronae Australis, which form an optical double. Of magnitude 5.1 and 5.5, they are separable with the naked eye and are both white. Kappa Coronae Australis is an easily resolved optical double—the components are of apparent magnitudes 6.3 and 5.6 and are about 1000 and 150 light years away respectively. They appear at an angle of 359 degrees, separated by 21.6 arcseconds. Kappa2 is actually the brighter of the pair and is more bluish white, with a spectral type of B9V, while Kappa1 is of spectral type A0III. Lying 202 light years away, Lambda Coronae Australis is a double splittable in small telescopes. The primary is a white star of spectral type A2Vn and magnitude of 5.1, while the companion star has a magnitude of 9.7. The two components are separated by 29.2 arcseconds at an angle of 214 degrees.

Zeta Coronae Australis is a rapidly rotating main sequence star with an apparent magnitude of 4.8, 221.7 light years from Earth. The star has blurred lines in its hydrogen spectrum due to its rotation. Its spectral type is B9V. Theta Coronae Australis lies further to the west, a yellow giant of spectral type G8III and apparent magnitude 4.62. Corona Australis harbours RX J1856.5-3754, an isolated neutron star that is thought to lie 140 (±40) parsecs, or 460 (±130) light years, away, with a diameter of 14 km. It was once suspected to be a strange star, but this has been discounted.

### Corona Australis Molecular Cloud

The Corona Australis Molecular Cloud is a dark molecular cloud just north of Beta Coronae Australis. Illuminated by a number of embedded reflection nebulae the cloud fans out from Epsilon Coronae Australis eastward along the constellation border with Sagittarius. It contains , Herbig–Haro objects (protostars) and some very young stars, being one of the closest star-forming regions, 430 light years (130 parsecs) to the Solar System, at the surface of the Local Bubble. The first nebulae of the cloud were recorded in 1865 by Johann Friedrich Julius Schmidt.

Between Epsilon and Gamma Coronae Australis the cloud consists of the particular dark nebula and star forming region Bernes 157. It is 55 by 18 arcminutes wide and possesses several stars around magnitude 13. These stars are dimmed by up to 8 magnitudes because of the obscuring dust clouds. At the center of the active star-forming region lies the Coronet cluster (also called R CrA Cluster), which is used in studying star and protoplanetary disk formation. R Coronae Australis (R CrA) is an irregular variable star ranging from magnitudes 9.7 to 13.9. Blue-white, it is of spectral type B5IIIpe. A very young star, it is still accumulating interstellar material. It is obscured by, and illuminates, the surrounding nebula, NGC 6729, which brightens and darkens with it. The nebula is often compared to a comet for its appearance in a telescope, as its length is five times its width. Other stars of the cluster include S Coronae Australis, a G-class dwarf and T Tauri star.

Nearby north, another young variable star, TY Coronae Australis, illuminates another nebula: reflection nebula NGC 6726/NGC 6727. TY Coronae Australis ranges irregularly between magnitudes 8.7 and 12.4, and the brightness of the nebula varies with it. Blue-white, it is of spectral type B8e. The largest young stars in the region, R, S, T, TY and VV Coronae Australis, are all ejecting jets of material which cause surrounding dust and gas to coalesce and form Herbig–Haro objects, many of which have been identified nearby.

Not part of it is the globular cluster known as NGC 6723, which can be seen adjacent to the nebulosity in the neighbouring constellation of Sagittarius, but is much much further away.

### Deep sky objects

IC 1297 is a planetary nebula of apparent magnitude 10.7, which appears as a green-hued roundish object in higher-powered amateur instruments. The nebula surrounds the variable star RU Coronae Australis, which has an average apparent magnitude of 12.9 and is a WC class Wolf–Rayet star. IC 1297 is small, at only 7 arcseconds in diameter; it has been described as "a square with rounded edges" in the eyepiece, elongated in the north–south direction. Descriptions of its color encompass blue, blue-tinged green, and green-tinged blue.

Corona Australis' location near the Milky Way means that galaxies are uncommonly seen. NGC 6768 is a magnitude 11.2 object 35′ south of IC 1297. It is made up of two galaxies merging, one of which is an elongated elliptical galaxy of classification E4 and the other a lenticular galaxy of classification S0. IC 4808 is a galaxy of apparent magnitude 12.9 located on the border of Corona Australis with the neighbouring constellation of Telescopium and 3.9 degrees west-southwest of Beta Sagittarii. However, amateur telescopes will only show a suggestion of its spiral structure. It is 1.9 arcminutes by 0.8 arcminutes. The central area of the galaxy does appear brighter in an amateur instrument, which shows it to be tilted northeast–southwest.

Southeast of Theta and southwest of Eta lies the open cluster ESO 281-SC24, which is composed of the yellow 9th magnitude star GSC 7914 178 1 and five 10th to 11th magnitude stars. Halfway between Theta Coronae Australis and Theta Scorpii is the dense globular cluster NGC 6541. Described as between magnitude 6.3 and magnitude 6.6, it is visible in binoculars and small telescopes. Around 22000 light years away, it is around 100 light years in diameter. It is estimated to be around 14 billion years old. NGC 6541 appears 13.1 arcminutes in diameter and is somewhat resolvable in large amateur instruments; a 12-inch telescope reveals approximately 100 stars but the core remains unresolved.

### Meteor showers

The Corona Australids are a meteor shower that takes place between 14 and 18 March each year, peaking around 16 March. This meteor shower does not have a high peak hourly rate. In 1953 and 1956, observers noted a maximum of 6 meteors per hour and 4 meteors per hour respectively; in 1955 the shower was "barely resolved". However, in 1992, astronomers detected a peak rate of 45 meteors per hour. The Corona Australids' rate varies from year to year. At only six days, the shower's duration is particularly short, and its meteoroids are small; the stream is devoid of large meteoroids. The Corona Australids were first seen with the unaided eye in 1935 and first observed with radar in 1955. Corona Australid meteors have an entry velocity of 45 kilometers per second. In 2006, a shower originating near Beta Coronae Australis was designated as the Beta Coronae Australids. They appear in May, the same month as a nearby shower known as the May Microscopids, but the two showers have different trajectories and are unlikely to be related.

## History

Corona Australis may have been recorded by ancient Mesopotamians in the MUL.APIN, as a constellation called MA.GUR ("The Bark"). However, this constellation, adjacent to SUHUR.MASH ("The Goat-Fish", modern Capricornus), may instead have been modern Epsilon Sagittarii. As a part of the southern sky, MA.GUR was one of the fifteen "stars of Ea".

In the 3rd century BC, the Greek didactic poet Aratus wrote of, but did not name the constellation, instead calling the two crowns Στεφάνοι (Stephanoi). The Greek astronomer Ptolemy described the constellation in the 2nd century AD, though with the inclusion of Alpha Telescopii, since transferred to Telescopium. Ascribing 13 stars to the constellation, he named it Στεφάνος νοτιος (Stephanos notios), "Southern Wreath", while other authors associated it with either Sagittarius (having fallen off his head) or Centaurus; with the former, it was called Corona Sagittarii. Similarly, the Romans called Corona Australis the "Golden Crown of Sagittarius". It was known as Parvum Coelum ("Canopy", "Little Sky") in the 5th century. The 18th-century French astronomer Jérôme Lalande gave it the names Sertum Australe ("Southern Garland") and Orbiculus Capitis, while German poet and author Philippus Caesius called it Corolla ("Little Crown") or Spira Australis ("Southern Coil"), and linked it with the Crown of Eternal Life from the New Testament. Seventeenth-century celestial cartographer Julius Schiller linked it to the Diadem of Solomon. Sometimes, Corona Australis was not the wreath of Sagittarius but arrows held in his hand.

Corona Australis has been associated with the myth of Bacchus and Stimula. Jupiter had impregnated Stimula, causing Juno to become jealous. Juno convinced Stimula to ask Jupiter to appear in his full splendor, which the mortal woman could not handle, causing her to burn. After Bacchus, Stimula's unborn child, became an adult and the god of wine, he honored his deceased mother by placing a wreath in the sky.

In Chinese astronomy, the stars of Corona Australis are located within the Black Tortoise of the North (北方玄武, Běi Fāng Xuán Wǔ). The constellation itself was known as ti'en pieh ("Heavenly Turtle") and during the Western Zhou period, marked the beginning of winter. However, precession over time has meant that the "Heavenly River" (Milky Way) became the more accurate marker to the ancient Chinese and hence supplanted the turtle in this role. Arabic names for Corona Australis include Al Ķubbah "the Tortoise", Al Ĥibā "the Tent" or Al Udḥā al Na'ām "the Ostrich Nest". It was later given the name Al Iklīl al Janūbiyyah, which the European authors Chilmead, Riccioli and Caesius transliterated as Alachil Elgenubi, Elkleil Elgenubi and Aladil Algenubi respectively.

The ǀXam speaking San people of South Africa knew the constellation as ≠nabbe ta !nu "house of branches"—owned originally by the Dassie (rock hyrax), and the star pattern depicting people sitting in a semicircle around a fire.

The indigenous Boorong people of northwestern Victoria saw it as Won, a boomerang thrown by Totyarguil (Altair). The Aranda people of Central Australia saw Corona Australis as a coolamon carrying a baby, which was accidentally dropped to earth by a group of sky-women dancing in the Milky Way. The impact of the coolamon created Gosses Bluff crater, 175 km west of Alice Springs. The Torres Strait Islanders saw Corona Australis as part of a larger constellation encompassing part of Sagittarius and the tip of Scorpius's tail; the Pleiades and Orion were also associated. This constellation was Tagai's canoe, crewed by the Pleiades, called the Usiam, and Orion, called the Seg. The myth of Tagai says that he was in charge of this canoe, but his crewmen consumed all of the supplies onboard without asking permission. Enraged, Tagai bound the Usiam with a rope and tied them to the side of the boat, then threw them overboard. Scorpius's tail represents a suckerfish, while Eta Sagittarii and Theta Coronae Australis mark the bottom of the canoe. On the island of Futuna, the figure of Corona Australis was called Tanuma and in the Tuamotus, it was called Na Kaua-ki-Tonga.

## See also

- Corona Australis (Chinese astronomy)
- Chamaeleon complex

Constellation in the southern celestial hemisphere