As soon as the venue was finalised, Rajaji made further preparations for the march. A Government record pointed out that he was very much concerned about modeling the march on the lines of Gandhi's Dandi March. He estimated that a minimum sum of was needed to organise the rally. He successfully managed to collect the funds with the help of
Saurashtrians of Madurai and South Indians in Bombay and Ahmedabad. Rajaji had formulated an advance guard that consisted of T. S. S. Rajan, G. Ramachandran and Thiruvannamalai N. Annamalai Pillai. Even before the march took off, the guard traveled along the proposed route and met the villagers to ensure support from them. Rajan was in charge of fixing the halt points for the march and took care of food and accommodation at each stage. The promulgation of section 157 of the
Indian Penal Code made it a difficult task for Rajan. J. A. Thorne, the district collector of Tanjore, issued a warning that those who provide food and accommodation to the marchers shall be punished. He tried his best by widely publicising his order throughout his jurisdiction. The committee had received nearly 1000 applications for participating in the march. After scrutinising the applications, Rajaji selected a team of ninety-eight volunteers, most of them being young clerks, students and graduates. Out of the first batch, twenty-four were from
Madurai, fifteen from Tirunelveli, twelve from
Ramanathapuram, eleven from Madras, nine from
Tiruchengodu, nine from Bombay, seven from
Tanjore, five from Trichinopoly, four from
Coimbatore and one each from
North Arcot and
Srirangam. Other prominent members included,
Rukmini Lakshmipathi,
K. Kamaraj, Aranthangi C. Krishnaswamy,
M. Bhaktavatsalam and Rajaji's son,
C. R. Narasimhan. In addition, social activists like Vaidyanatha Iyer and
G. Ramachandran joined the rally. The march commenced on 13 April 1930, coinciding with the
Puthandu (Tamil New Year), from Rajan's house in
Trichinopoly Cantonment. As soon as the marchers reached Tanjore, Rajaji avoided the usual route to Vedaranyam, and instead chose a "circuitous" route via
Kumbakonam,
Valangaiman, Semmangudi,
Needamangalam and
Thiruthuraipoondi as he hoped that the marchers would receive hospitality in these places. He had organised fifteen sub committees to ensure a smooth functioning of the march. The idea was to gather enough support among the people by drawing their attention. They planned to cover a stretch of 10 miles each day for a period of about 15 days, thus reaching the destination before the stipulated time. The Madras Government took a series of measures to bring an end to the march. It ordered the district officers to organize public meetings to persuade people upon the "impracticability" of the march and issued orders to arrest the participants of the march. Other preventive measures included, censoring news items related to the march and taking actions against the editors of the nationalist newspapers. Parents were warned not to send their children to participate in the satyagraha. The telegrams of the volunteers were confiscated, and the Government servants were cautioned about the consequences of participating in the march.
Commencement of the march , from where the march had begun. The 98 volunteers assembled at Rajan's house in Trichinopoly on 12 April 1930, while Rajaji reached the venue on the previous day from
Tuticorin. All of them stayed at Rajan's Bungalow in Tiruchirappalli Cantonment. At about 5 a.m. on the next day morning, Rajaji, who was 51 at the time, began the march along with the volunteers and headed for Vedaranyam. The marchers sang the hymn "
Ragupathi Raagava Rajaram" and a Tamil song which was composed by
Namakkal Ramalingam Pillai for the march. Right from the beginning of the march, the volunteers faced many disruptions. When they reached Koviladi, a small village on the banks of
Kaveri, they were denied accommodation at a famous inn. However, they found alternative accommodation on the banks of the river, while Rajaji stayed at a private house. Rajaji also had a code of conduct for the volunteers under which consumption of coffee and tobacco products, and smoking were prohibited. As the marchers proceeded towards Tanjore District, its "astute and energetic"
Collector J. A. Thorne (
ICS) found ways to prevent them from proceeding further. Using newspapers, leaflets (printed in
Tamil), town-criers and press, Thorne informed the would-be hosts that anyone offering food or shelter to the marchers was liable to six-months of imprisonment and fine. When Rajagopalachari learned of the collector's order, he said that he could understand the mindset of his own people better than a British ICS officer could and remarked, "Thorne and thistles cannot stem this tide of freedom." ==Aftermath==