INDIAN NATIONAL MOVEMENT

(ELECTIVE)

COURSE CODE : PAHISE102

NAME OF THE TOPIC :

GANDHIJI & HIS MOVEMENTS

NAME OF THE STUDENT:

SAMRUDDHI. P. PAWAR

ROLL NO. 44

TEACHER IN CHARGE :

DR. MANJIRI KAMAT

SEMESTER : 1 ST MA PART- I

DEPARTMENT OF HISTORY

UNIVERSITY OF MUMBAI

GANDHIJI’S EARLY CAREER

When Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi called for a nation-

wide Satyagraha against the Rowlatt Act in March 1919, his

first attempt at leading an all India struggle, he was already in

his fiftieth year. To understand the man who was about to take

over the reins of the Indian National Movement and guide

its

destinies through its most climactic years, it is necessary to

begin his story at least twenty five years earlier, in 1893, when

as a twenty-four old barrier, he began the struggle of Indians

against racial discrimination in South Africa.

The story of Gandhiji in South Africa is a long one and we

present it here in its briefest outline only to highlight the wide

experience that Gandhiji had undergone before he cameback

to India.

Gandhiji’s political activities from 1894 to 1906 may

be classified as the ‘Moderate’ phase of the struggleof the

South African Indians. During this phase, he concentrated on

petitioning and sending memorials to the South African

legislatures, the Colonial Secretary in London and the

presented to the Imperial Government, the British sense of

justice and fair play would be aroused and the Imperial

Government would intervene on behalf of Indians who were,

after all, British subjects. His attempt was to unitethe

different sections of Indians, and to give their demands wide

publicity. This he tried to do through the setting upof the

Natal Indian Congress and by starting a paper called

Indian Opinion. Gandhiji’s abilities as an organiser, asa fund

raiser, as a journalist and as a propagandist, all came to the

fore during this period. But, by 1906, Gandhiji, having fully

tried the ‘Moderate’ methods of struggle, was becoming

convinced that these would not lead anywhere.

The second phase of the struggle in South Africa,

which began in 1906, was characterized by the use of the

method of passive resistance or civil disobedience, which

Gandhiji named Satyagraha. It was first used Indians to

take out certificates of registration which held their finger

prints. It was essential to carry these on person atall times.

At a huge public meeting held on 11 September, 1906, in the

Empire Theatre in Johannesburg, Indians resolved thatthey

would refuse to submit to this law and would face the

consequences. The Government remained adamant, and sodid

the Indians. He formed the Passive Resistance Association

to conduct the campaign. The last date for registration being

over, the Government started proceedings against Gandhiji and

twenty-six others. The passive registers pleaded guilty, were

ordered to leave the country and, on refusing to do so, were

sent to jail. Others followed, and their numbers swelled to 155.

The fear of jail had disappeared, and it was popularly called

King Edward’s Hostel.

In other respects, too, the South African experiment prepared

Gamdhiji for leadership of the Indian National struggle. He

had the invaluable experience of leading poor Indian labourers

of seeing their capacity for sacrifice and for bearing hardship,

their morale in the face of repression. South Africa built up

his faith in the capacity of the Indian masses to participate in

and sacrifice for a cause that moved them.

Gandhiji also had the opportunity of leading Indians

belonging to different religions : Hindus, Muslims, Christians

and Parsis were all united under his leadership in

South Africa. They also came from different regions, being

mainly Gujratis and Tamils. They belonged to different social

classes ; rich merchants combined with poor indentured

labourers. Women came along with the men.

Another aspect of the South African experience also

stood Gandhiji in good stead. He learnt, the hardest way, the

leadership involves facing the ire not only of the enemy but

also of one’s followers. There were two occasions on which

Gandhiji was forced with a serious threat to his life.

Once, when a white mob chased him down a street in Durban

in 1896 and surrounded the house where he was staying,

asking for his blood ; he had to be whisked out in disguise.

The second, when an Indian, a Pathan, who was angry with

him because of an agreement he had reached with the

Government assaulted him on street. Gandhiji learnt that

Leaders often have to take hard decisions that are

unpopular with enthusiastic followers.

South Africa, then, provided Gandhiji with an

opportunity for evolving his own style of politics and

leadership, for trying out new techniques of struggle, on a

limited scale, untrammelled by the opposition of contending

political currents. In South Africa, he had already taken the

movement from its ‘Moderate’ phase into its ‘Gandhian’ phase.

He already knew the strengths and the weaknesses of the

Gandhian method and he was convinced that it was the best

Method around. It now remained for him to introduce it into

India.

Gandhiji returned to India, in January 1915, and

was warmly welcomed. His work in South Africa was well-

known, not only to educated Indians, but, as he discovered on

his visit to the Kumbh Mela at Hardwar, even hailed him as

being ‘ without doubt made of the stuff of which heroes and

martyrs are made.’ The veteran Indian leader Gandhijian even

more important quality : ‘ He has in him the marvellous

spiritual power to turn ordinary men around him into heroes

and martyrs.’

Further, he was deeply convinced that none ofthese

methods of political struggle were really viable ; the only

answer lay in Satyagraha. His reasons for not joining the

existing political organisations are best explained in his own

words :

‘ At my time of life and with views firmly formed on several

Matters, I could only join an organisation to affect its

Policy and not be affected by it. This does not mean that I

would not now have an open mind to receive new light. I

simply wish to emphasize the fact that the new light will

have to be specially dazzling in order to entrance me.’

In other words, he could only join an organisation ora

movement that adopted non-violent Satyagraha as its method

of struggle.

That did not, however mean that Gandhiji was going

to remain politically idle. During the course of 1917and early

1918, he was involved in three significant struggles–

In Champaran in Bihar, in Ahmedabad and in Kheda in

Gujarat. The common feature of these struggles was that they

Related to specific local issues and that they were fought for

the economic demands of the masses. Two of these struggles,

Champaran and Kheda, involved the peasants and the one in

Ahmedabad involved industrial workers.

CHAMPARAN MOVEMENT :

In the Champaran district of Bihar, the cultivatorswere forced by Europeans to grow indigo, a blue dye, andthis imposed on them untold sufferings. They could not grow the food they needed, nor did they receive adequate payment for the indigo.Gandhi was unaware of this until an agriculturist from Bihar, Rajkumar Shukla, met him and told him of thewoes of the people of Champaran. He requested Gandhi to go to the place and see for himself the state of affairs there.

Gandhi was them attending the Congress meeting at Lucknow and he did not have time to go there. Rajkumar Shukla followed him about, begging him to come and help the suffering villagers in Champaran. Gandhi at lastpromised to visit the place after he had visited Calcutta. When Gandhi was in Calcutta, Rajkumar was there too, to take him to Bihar.Gandhi went to Champaran with Rajkumar early in 1917. On his arrival the District Magistrate served him with a notice saying g that he was not to remain in the district of Champaran but must leave the place by the first available train.Gandhi disobeyed this order. He was summoned to appear before the court.The magistrate said, ‘If you leave the district nowand promise not to return, the case against you will bewithdrawn.’‘This cannot be.’ replied Gandhi. ‘I came here to render humanitation and national service. I shall make Champaran m y home and work for the suffering people.’

A large crowd of peasants was outside the court shouting slogans. The magistrate and the police looked nervous. Then Gandhi said, ‘I shall help you to calm these peopleif I can speak to them.’Gandhi appeared before the crowd and said, ‘You must show your faith in me and in my work by remaining quiet.The magistrate had the right to arrest me, because I disobeyed his order. If I am sent to jail, you must accept that as just. We must work peacefully. And violent act will harm out cause.’The crowd dispersed peacefully. The police stared at Gandhi in admiration as he went inside the court.The Government withdrew the case against Gandhi andallowed him to remain in the district. Gandhi stayed there tostudy the grievances of the peasants.He visited many villages. He cross-examined about 8,000 cultivators and recorded their statements. In this way he arrived at an exact understanding of their grievance and the causes underlying them.

He came to the conclusion that the ignorance of thecultivators was one of the main reasons why it was possible for the European planters to repress them. Gandhi therefore set up voluntary organizations to improve the economic and educational conditions of the people. They opened schools and also taught the people how to improve sanitation.The government realized Gandhi’s strength and his devotion to causes. They themselves then set upon a committee to enquire into the grievances of the cultivators. They invited Gandhi to serve on that committee, and he agreed. The result was that within a few months the Champaran AgrarianBill was passed. It gave great relief to the cultivatorsand land tenants.Gandhi could not stay longer in Bihar. There were calls from other places. Labour unrest was brewing in Ahmedabad and Gandhi was requested to help settle the dispute.

AHMEDABAD WORKERS STRIKE :

Before taking up the Labourdispute Gandhi wanted to movehis ashrama. The SatyagrahaAshrama was in a village nearAhmedabad, but thesurroundings were not cleanand plague had broken out. It had spreadthere from Ahmedabad.

A rich merchant of Ahmedabad, who was closely associated with the ashrama, volunteered to procure a suitablepiece of land. Gandhi went about with him looking for land and at last they chose a place on the bank of the Sabarmati Ashrama was started.In Ahmedabad there were many textile mills. Prices had gone up and the mill workers were demanding higher wages. The mill owners would not agree. Gandhi sympathizedwith the workers and took up their cause. He launched a struggle and resorted to peaceful resistance. The workers proudly followed Gandhi and pledged their full support to him. They paraded the streets with large banners, and said they would not go back to work until a settlement had been reached.Days passed. The mill owners were adamant. The strikers were getting impatient for they were faced with starvation. Their discipline became weak. Gandhi feared that some workers would break their pledge and go back to work. That

would be a great moral defeat.One morning he called the workers and said, ‘Unlessthe strikers rally and continue the strike till a settlement isreached. I will not touch any food.’The workers were shocked.‘Not you, but we shall fast,’ they said. ‘Please forgive us for our lapse; we shall remain faithful to our pledge.’Gandhi did not want anybody else to fast. His fast was not against the mill owners, but against the lack of co-ordination and unity among the workers. The fast lasted only for three days. It influenced the mill owners so much that they came to an agreement with the workers.Hardly was the mill workers’ strike over, when Gandhi had to plunge into the Kheda Satyagraha struggle.The Kheda district of Gujarat was on the verge of famine owing to failure of the crops. The yield had been so low that the cultivators, especially the poorer section, were unable to pay the revenue. But the government insisted that the yield had not been so bad and that the cultivators shouldpay the

tax. Gandhi saw the justice of the cause of the cultivators and advised them to offer Satyagraha by not paying their taxes.Many leaders, like Vallabhbhai Patel, Shankarlal Banker, Mahadev Desai and others, took an active part in this struggle. The campaign came to an unexpected end. There had been signs that it might fizzle out, but after four months’ struggle there came an honourable settlement. The Government said that if well-to-do cultivators paidup the poorer section would be granted suspension. This was agreed to and the campaign ended.The Kheda Satyagraha marked the beginning of an awakening among the peasants of Gujarat, the beginning of their true political education. In addition it gaveto the educated public workers the chance to establish contact with the actual life of the peasants.

KHEDA SATYAGRAHA :

The dispute in Ahmedabad had not yet ended whenGandhiji

learnt that the peasants of Kheda district were inextreme

distress due to the failure of crops, and that theirappeals for

the remission of land revenue were being ignored bythe

Government. Enquiries by members of the Servants ofIndia

Society, Vithalbhai Patel and Gandhiji confirmed thevalidity

of the peasants case. This was that as the crops wereless than

one-fourth of the normal yield, they were entitledunder the

revenue code to a total remission of the landrevenue.

The Gujarat Sabha, of which Gandhiji was the

President, played a leading role in the agitation.Appeals and

petitions having failed, Gandhiji advised thewithholding of

revenue, and asked the peasants to ‘fight unto deathagainst

such a spirit of vindictiveness and tyranny,’ andshow that

‘it is impossible to govern men without theirconsent.’

Vallabhbhai Patel, a young lawyer and a native ofKheda

district, and other young men, including IndulalYagnik,

joined Gandhiji in touring the villages and urgingthe peasants

to stand firm in the face of increasing Governmentrepression

which included the seizing of cattle and householdgoods and

the attachment of standing crops. The cultivatorswere asked

to take a solemn pledge that they would not pay inthe

interests of the poorer ryots who would otherwise panicand

sell off their belongings or incur debts in order topay the

revenue. However, if the Government agreed to suspend

collection of land revenue, the ones who could affordto do so

could pay the whole amount.

The peasants of Kheda, already hard pressed

because of plague, high prices and drought, werebeginning

to show signs of weakness when Gandhiji came to knowthat

the Government had issued secret instructionsdirecting that

revenue should be recovered only from those peasantswho

could pay. A public declaration of this decisionwould have

meant a blow by Government prestige, since this wasexactly

what Gandhiji had been demanding. In thesecircumstances,

the movement was withdrawn.

Champaran, Ahmedabad and Kheda served asdemonstrations

of Gandhiji’s style and method of politics to thecountry at

large. They also helped him find his feet among thepeople of

India and study their problems at close quarters. Hecame to

possess, as a result of these struggles, a surerunderstanding of

the strengths and weaknesses of the masses, as wellas of the

viability of his own political style. He also earnedthe respect

and commitment of many political workers, especiallythe

younger ones, who were impressed by hisidentification with

the problems of ordinary Indians, and his willingnessto take

up their cause.

CRITICAL UNDERSTANDING OFGANDHI’S LEADERSHIP :

Indian nationalism achieved its highest peak under

Gandhi’s leadership. No doubt it was he, who

organized the movement on mass basis. “The texture of

Gandhi’s consciousness was essentially bourgeois and,

therefore, his nationalism was governed by a

bourgeois class outlook. What does this signify? It

means that his conceptions of Imperialism, of

struggle against Imperialism, of the methods of that

struggle of national independence, were determined by

that class outlook.”

Gandhi felt convinced that a happy prosperous

national existence could be built up on the basis of

a capitalist social system. This was due to the class

limitation of his world outlook. Indian capitalism

was not a young capitalism with a prosperous future

in front of it. It was a feeble part

of the declining world capitalism. Gandhi, however,

due to class inhibition, was unable to transcend the

bourgeois outlook and therefore was unable to see the

social roots of wars,

exploitation and oppression and attributed them to

man’s weak ethnical nature.

Though Gandhi was an anti-communalist par excellence and

the struggled for achieving Hindu-Muslim unity, but

in tragic reality, the Hindu-Muslim antagonism,

instead of decreasing, became accentuated from stage

to stage. This was his inability to trace the socio-

historical genesis of that

antagonism.

The nationalist movement led by Gandhi and governed

by Gandhian ideologies thus became a peculiar blend

of bold advances followed by sudden and capricious

halts, challenges succeeded by unwarranted

compromises, resulting in uncertainties, confusion

and befogging of perspective of the masses. This,

paradoxically, strengthened the very reactionary

tendencies which Gandhi wanted to eliminate.

CONCLUSION :Gandhi was having an unflinching and unshakable faith

in the theory of nonviolence. For his whole life,

both in South-Africa as well as in India, he preached

and practiced the theory of non-violence, not as a

policy but as a principle, as a conviction and creed.

Nonviolence was the first article of his faith and it

was also the last article of his creed. Though he was

not the pioneer of the doctrine of non –violence, but

he is credited with redefining the

philosophy of non-violence. Gandhi evolved and

developed a powerful non-violent method, giving it

the name Satyagraha. Gandhi defined Satyagraha as a

Non-violent force or Truth-force or Love-force or

Moral-force or Spiritual-force and strength to adopt

and apply it in every field of life. Champaran

Satyagraha laid the foundation stone of Gandhi’s

future leadership at all-India level

which waged a consistent and long moral and non-

violent warfare to make India free from the British

imperialism and colonialism. Like Champaran

Satyagraha, the successes of Ahmedabad Satyagraha and

Kheda Satyagraha further strengthened the people’s

confidence in Gandhi’s theory of non-violence and his

non-violent method of Satyagraha. Through the

successful application of these three Satyagraha,

Gandhi succeeded in awakening the people to unite

against the injustices, evils and exploitations

committed either by the Indian people or the

Britishers. Gandhi entered the Congress and assumed

the national leadership enjoying the support and

fulfilling the aspirations of both the Muslims and

Hindus and thereby, building up a strong moral

pressure on the British Government to pay to the

demands of the Indian people.

The partition of India and the attention Hindu-Muslim

communal riots, both before and after the division of

the Country provided a heavy blow to the non-violent

efforts of Gandhi to keep India and the Hindus and

Muslims united. But even in the darkest period of

communal frenzy, Gandhi did not lose his faith and

confidence in his theory and practice of non-

violence. He fought non-violently and succeeded in

uniting the Hindus and Muslims and thereby

establishing communal harmony and peace in achieving

Indian independence.

NOTES & REFERENCES : Bipan Chandra and Others, India’s struggle for

independence pg-170

Global Research Methodology Journal, V0l-II, 7th

issue, Nov-Dec-Jan, 2012-13

http://www.mkgandhi.org/storyofg/chap16.htm