Gandhiji’s Return To India In 1915

In January 1915, Gandhiji returned to India and was greeted warmly. His work in South Africa was well-known, not only among educated Indians, but also among the masses who flocked to him for his ‘darshan,' as he discovered during his visit to the Kumbh Mela at Hardwar. Gokhale had already praised him, saying that he was "without a doubt made of the stuff that heroes and martyrs are made of." 

 

•    Gandhiji decided, on Gokhale's advice, that he would not take a public stand on any political issue for the first year, in keeping with his own style of never intervening in a situation without first carefully studying it. 

 

•    He spent the year travelling around the country, seeing things for himself, and putting together his ashram in Ahmedabad, where he and his devoted band of followers from South Africa would live in community.

 

•    He kept his distance from politics the following year as well, including the Home Rule Movement, which was gaining traction at the time. His political views did not align with any of the political currents that existed in India at the time. 

 

•    His faith in ‘Moderate' methods had eroded for a long time, and he did not agree with the Home Rulers that the best time to campaign for Home Rule was when the British were in trouble due to the First World War.

 

•    Furthermore, he was convinced that none of these methods of political struggle were truly viable; Satyagraha was the only solution. 

 

•    His reasons for not joining existing political organisations are best expressed in his own words: 'At my age and with firmly formed views on several issues, I could only join an organisation to affect its policy rather than be affected by it.' This does not preclude me from having an open mind to new information. I just want to emphasise that the new light will have to be particularly dazzling to captivate me.” 

 

•    During 1917 and early 1918, he was involved in three major battles: 

 

 

The fact that these battles were fought over specific local issues and for the masses' economic demands was a common feature of them. Peasants were involved in two of these struggles, Champaran and Kheda, and industrial workers were involved in the one in Ahmedabad.

 

•    Champaran's storey begins in the early nineteenth century, when European planters forced cultivators to cultivate indigo on 3/20th of their land (tinkathia system). 

 

•    German synthetic dyes forced indigo out of the market at the end of the nineteenth century, and European planters in Champaran, eager to relieve cultivators of their obligation to cultivate indigo, tried to exploit the situation by securing increases in rent and other illegal dues as a price for the release. 

 

•    The planters' demands continued until Raj Kumar Shukla, a local man, decided to follow Gandhiji around the country to persuade him to come to Champaran to investigate the problem. Raj Kumar Shukla's decision to bring Gandhiji to Champaran reflects his growing reputation as a fighter for the rights of the exploited and poor.

 

•    When Gandhiji arrived in Champaran, the Commissioner ordered him to leave the district immediately. Gandhiji, however, surprised everyone by refusing and preferring to accept the consequences of his defiance of the law. 

 

•    This was unusual, because even when Tilak and Annie Besant were expelled from a province, they obeyed the orders despite organising public protests against them. It was novel to offer passive resistance or civil disobedience to an unjust order. 

 

•    The Indian government, not wanting to make a fuss and not used to treating Gandhiji as a rebel, ordered the local government to withdraw and allow Gandhiji to continue his investigation.

 

•    Following his victory, Gandhiji began his investigation into the peasants' grievances. His approach was also eye-catching in this case. He and his colleagues, who included Brij Kishore, Rajendra Prasad, and other members of the Bihar intelligentsia, Mahadev Desai and Narhari Parikh, two young Gujaratis who had joined Gandhiji's cause, and J.B. Kripalani, toured the villages and recorded peasant statements from dawn to dusk, interrogating them to ensure that they were giving accurate information.

 

•    Meanwhile, the government established a Commission of Inquiry to investigate the entire matter, and Gandhiji was named as one of its members. 

 

•    He had little trouble persuading the Commission that the tinkathia system needed to be abolished and that the peasants should be compensated for the illegal increase in their dues, thanks to evidence gathered from 8,000 peasants. 

 

•    He agreed to refund only 25% of the money the planters had illegally taken from the peasants as a compromise with the planters. 

 

•    In response to critics who questioned why Gandhiji did not demand a full refund, Gandhiji explained that even a partial refund would have been enough to damage the planters' prestige and position. As was often the case, Gandhiji was correct, and the planters left the district entirely within a decade.

 

•    Gandhiji then turned his attention to Ahmedabad's workers. A dispute arose between them and the mill owners over the issue of a "plague bonus," which the mill owners wanted to eliminate once the epidemic had passed, but the workers insisted on keeping it because the increase barely compensated for the rise in the cost of living during the war. 

 

•    Fearing a confrontation, the British Collector asked Gandhiji to put pressure on the mill owners and reach an agreement. Ambalal Sarabhai, a prominent mill owner in town and a close friend of Gandhiji, had just saved the Sabarmati Ashram from extinction through a generous donation.

 

•    Gandhiji persuaded the mill owners and workers to agree to arbitration by a tribunal, but the mill owners withdrew from the agreement after taking advantage of a stray strike. 

 

•    They offered a 20% bonus and threatened those who did not accept it with dismissal. Gandhiji viewed the breach of contract as a serious matter, and he advised the workers to go on strike. He also suggested that, based on a thorough examination of the industry's production costs and profits, as well as the cost of living, they would be justified in demanding a 35% wage increase.

 

•    On the first day of the strike, Gandhiji addressed the workers on the banks of the Sabarmati River. He published a daily news bulletin and demanded that no violence be used against blacklegs or employers. 

 

•    Anasuya Behn, Ambalal Sarabhai's sister, was one of Gandhiji's main lieutenants in this struggle, in which her brother, Gandhiji's friend, was one of the main adversaries.

 

•    After a few days, the workers started to show signs of exhaustion. Attendance at daily meetings began to dwindle, and attitudes toward blacklegs became more abrasive. 

 

•    In this situation, Gandhiji decided to fast in order to rally the workers and strengthen their determination to continue. He had also promised that if the strike resulted in starvation, he would be the first to die, and the fast fulfilled that promise. 

 

•    The fast, on the other hand, had the effect of putting pressure on the mill owners, who eventually agreed to take the matter to a tribunal. The strike was called off, and the workers were given the 35% raise they had requested by the tribunal.

 

•    When Gandhiji learned that the peasants of Kheda district were in dire straits due to crop failure and that their appeals for remission of land revenue were being ignored by the government, the conflict in Ahmedabad was far from over. 

 

•    The validity of the peasants' case was confirmed by inquiries by members of the Servants of India Society, Vithalbhai Patel, and Gandhiji. The reason for this was that because the crops produced less than one-fourth of the normal yield, they were entitled to a total remission of the land revenue under the revenue code. 

 

•    The Gujarat Sabha, who’s President was Gandhiji, played a key role in the agitation. 

 

•    After unsuccessful appeals and petitions, Gandhiji advised the peasants to withhold revenue and to ‘fight unto death against such a spirit of vindictiveness and tyranny,' demonstrating that ‘it is impossible to govern men without their consent.' 

 

•    Vallabhbhai Patel, a young lawyer from the Kheda district, and other young men, including Indulal Yagnik, accompanied Gandhiji on a tour of the villages, urging the peasants to remain strong in the face of increasing government repression, which included the seizure of cattle and household goods, as well as the attachment of standing crops. 

 

•    The cultivators were asked to make a solemn vow not to pay; those who could afford to pay were asked to make a vow not to pay in the interests of the poorer ryots, who would otherwise panic and sell their belongings or take on debts to pay the revenue.

 

•    However, if the government agreed to suspend land revenue collection, those who could afford to pay the full amount could do so. When Gandhiji learned that the Government had issued secret instructions directing that revenue be recovered only from those peasants who could pay, the peasants of Kheda, already hard pressed by plague, high prices, and drought, were beginning to show signs of weakness. 

 

•    A public announcement of this decision would have harmed the government's image, as it was exactly what Gandhiji had demanded. The movement was halted in these circumstances. 

 

•    By this time, Gandhiji recalled, "the people were exhausted," and he was "casting about for some graceful way of ending the struggle."