At 6 o'clock in the morning, Gandhi and his band of marchers left Umrachhi and marched towards Aerthan. Villagers had lined the entire route between the 2 villages. Bapu’s camp was under the Jamboo, a densely leafed Blueberry tree which cast a comforting cool shadow. The whole day people came to seek guidance from Bapu and to see their beloved leader from close quarter. There was a public meeting in the afternoon, Bapu gave the message of breaking the salt law, adopting Khadi and giving up alcohol.
At 6 pm, Bapu left Aerthan for Bhatgam and reached Bhatgam at 9 o'clock. Welcoming Bapu to Bhatgam, the villagers chanted, - “Swaraj is our Birthright and we will not let it go for anything and we will give whatever sacrifice needed because without sacrifice, there's no success”. At 9.30 Bapu addressed the villagers of Bhatgam. The village leader had told Bapu that the residents of the village were mainly from the fisherman community, who were habituated to liquor, but on his call many had given up liquor altogether.
An incident had occurred, before Olpad, where Bapu had noticed there were people carrying, big lights on their heads, to illuminate their path. Bapu had also noticed his people had ordered fruits and milk and things from nearby towns and he castigated all of them and said ’the searchlight needs to be turned inwards. We must not be spending so much money for our own selfish purposes. Unless we are pure in our day to day life we wouldn't ever be able to get freedom honestly. we are voluntarily poor people serving poor people and we must be like them’ it was a mercilessly critical lecture he delivered, not to the villagers but to his own people who were walking with him, he said, ‘if you exploit the poor then what difference is there between the colonial government and us? How do we then claim we are working for the welfare of the villagers?’ His lecture had a great impact on his followers and there was significant introspection among them and regret for their laps too. He warned his volunteers that he had only pointed out to a few discrepancies that he had noticed he said, ‘I am insistent on my volunteers that they must keep account of every penny and justify use of every penny’ he warned and ‘don't think that satyagraha is only against the government, if I am not satisfied with your behavior you will have to face my satyagraha too. If you can't provide me with goat’s milk I will not die. but if you go and spend money to provide me milk, it will be like giving me poison. I have noticed you ordered vegetables and fruits from Surat and you also sent a car to pick it up, where does the money come from? How can we who are so poor afford to spent so much money? Yesterday just because the cup in which I drink milk broke you bought two new ones so that if one more broke you still have a spare. This too is wasteful expenditure and I will not tolerate such waste. So be careful not to break what we have, we don't have plenty, we must be prudent in their use’. Bapu was in critical mood and his words were like a flame cutting into the souls of the volunteers. In conclusion he said, ‘we can starve and still fight but we cannot give up on our principles, because once we give up on our principles then we don't have moral authority to fight against anyone else’.