Aakash Mittal (born 1985) is an American composer and saxophonist who has won wide acclaim for his work in both areas. He spent his formative years in school bands in Texas and Colorado, and attended the University of Colorado at Boulder before moving to New York City, where he began to establish what has become an innovative and active career. Mittal has performed as a saxophonist and bandleader with several groups, including his own quartet and quintet, around the USA and abroad, often infusing elements of Hindustani music into his playing. He retained this approach as he began composing for wind bands in 2017. Mittal is also an educator who retains a private studio and teaches at several institutions in Brooklyn, where he now lives with his wife and son. He has been widely discussed on the internet, including at his own website, the Kaufman Music Center, the Metropolis Ensemble, the Denver Post, CU Boulder, a great video interview series with the New York State Band Directors Association, Audeze, Fully Altered Media, BKReader, Bomb Magazine, and the Wind Repertory Project.

Mittal wrote Salt March in 2022 for a large consortium of bands led by Jennifer Bergeron and the Walsh Middle School Honor Band from Round Rock, Texas. It recounts the 1930 Salt March led by Mohandas Gandhi, a popular uprising against British rule of India. From Mittal’s score (links added by me):

About the making of Salt March for Wind Ensemble
While the heart and soul of Salt March For Wind Ensemble is a tribute to Mohandas K. Gandhi’s historical protest and the music of that moment, fragments of the marching music prevalent during my childhood are woven into this composition. When I was eleven years old and still living in Dallas, Texas, I joined a Civil War-era fife and drum band. Around the same time that I was playing the Battle Hymn of the Republic on fife, I also began playing clarinet in my school’s wind band. This marked the beginning of a decade-long experience playing marches by Sousa, Grainger, and Berlioz. Cemented by four years of competitive high school marching band, marching in local parades, and playing marches at the town’s veterans club, the march became ingrained in my musical DNA.

The march became part of my life again during the 2020 pandemic. Black Lives Matter and the Women’s March spotlit the power of the march as an effective type of non-violent protest that is still in use today. As the pandemic raged on, the idea of expressing our current climate of activism by writing a piece about Gandhi’s Salt March came to mind again and again. I wanted the piece to be an opportunity to study an important point in history and remind students that they already have the power to make positive change In the world. My intent for Salt March was to remind us of where we have been and relate that history to the activism taking place right now.

While Salt March For Wind Ensemble is a contemporary imagining of the 1930 protest rather than a historically accurate rendering, I wanted to arrange a song that was sung during the original march to nestle a seed of that history in this piece. Photographs taken of the event clearly included musicians holding instruments. However, I struggled to find written references to any of the songs or music of that moment. It was at this point in my research that my cousin Gourav Venkateswar pointed me toward the devotional song Ragupati Raghava Raja Ram. Now the floodgates had been opened! I found reference upon reference corroborating that, indeed, Gandhi and his collaborators sang this song during the Salt March.

As I read about Gandhi’s work, I discovered he was quite a proponent of music. Politically, he believed that “in true music there is no place for communal differences and hostility.” This was further highlighted in a letter Gandhi wrote to the music teacher in the Satyagraha Ashram, Sabarmati, stating that “I have gradually come to look upon music as a means of spiritual development … Music is a constructive activity, which uplifts the soul.” Gandhi’s regard for music as a vehicle for spiritual development and political activism resonates with me and informed the writing of Salt March. The piece is as much an expression of the inner journey one must undertake to transform oppressive systems as it is about the power of communal protest. It is also about the idea that joy, celebration, and healing are revolutionary forces in and of themselves. Therefore, this piece Is quite simply a catchy melody over some grooving drum beats. I hope you enjoy the music.

About the historical Salt March of 1930
In the spring of 1930 Mohandas K. Gandhi began a non-violent protest of British colonialism that would come to be known as the salt march. Starting from their ashram in Ahmedabad, India, Gandhi and his collaborators would walk 239 miles to the western coast. By making salt out of seawater, Gandhi challenged unjust laws that gave Britain a monopoly on salt production. This act of civil disobedience would, in Gandhi’s own words, “shake the foundation of the British empire” and lead toward Indian independence.

Initially, the Indian Independence Movement did not believe that making salt from sea water would be an effective political action. Similarly, when the British government learned of Gandhi’s plan to break the salt laws, they did not take him seriously. Despite resistance from the independence movement, Gandhi chose to protest the salt laws because it affected all Indians regardless of caste, religion, and class. History bears the record that his strategy worked. With Indians all over the land making salt out of sea water in blatant defiance of colonial policy, the British government imprisoned Gandhi and thousands of his followers. The global press trumpeted the injustice of British rule of India to the world. Eventually, as V. Geetha writes in Soul Force: Gandhi’s Writings on Peace, “[Gandhi] was called for talks by the Viceroy who had to concede that he had to parley with a peer, and not seek to dictate to a subject.” The Salt March had successfully garnered concessions from the British government and fueled the independence movement.

Mittal also includes in the score an extensive excerpt of a letter from Gandhi to the British Viceroy, titled “WHY I REGARD BRITISH RULE AS A CURSE!” It is essential reading for this piece.

The Lawrence University Symphonic Band gives one of the very first performances of Salt March:

As Mittal mentions in his program notes, the song “Raghupati Raghava Raja Ram” appears in the middle section of Salt March. It was sung by Gandhi and his supporters during the Salt March. Here is a contemporary rendering:

Elsewhere in the score front matter, Mittal notes that “most of the melodic material of Salt March is derived from the raga Alhaiya Bilawal.” He urges listening to recordings. Here is just one example:

Ragas or raags are difficult to define in Western musical terms: they are essentially scales that form a basis for long-form improvisation, most closely akin to Western modes, although there are rules about how the notes in the raga must be combined. Ragas also number in the hundreds, if not thousands. For a more nuanced discussion, give your attention to Anuja Kamat:

More on Salt March: the Wind Repertory Project, Mittal’s website, and Murphy Music Press.