Describe the Gandhiji journey to Champaran district of Bihar ?
Answers
Champaran Satyagraha was the movement responsible for putting Gandhi on the front seat of Indian nationalist movement and making satyagraha a powerful tool of civilianOn the afternoon of April 15, 1917, thousands had gathered at Motihari railway station in Bihar’s East Champaran, waiting for a man who was destined to lift their lives out of misery. It was 3 pm when Gandhi alighted at the station from a train coming from Muzaffarpur. Little did the crowd welcoming him know that Gandhi’s visit would snowball into the first satyagraha (policy of passive political resistance) that he would lead in the country.
It was at Champaran that the transformation from Mohandas into the Mahatma began. This is the little known story of Gandhi’s first satyagraha, the movement that began a new chapter in India’s independence struggle.
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The original Motihari railway junction (where Gandhi embarked on his arrival in Champaran)
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After his return from South Africa in 1915, Gandhi established the Sabarmati Ashram in Gujarat. Then, on his mentor Gopal Krishna Gokhale’s advice, he embarked on a journey to discover India. He travelled all over the country, from Calcutta and Shantiniketan in Bengal to Cawnpore, Rangoon and Rishikesh.
During the 31st session of the Congress in Lucknow in 1916, Gandhi met Raj Kumar Shukla, a representative of farmers from Champaran, who requested him to go and see for himself the miseries of the indigo ryots (tenant farmers) there. Gandhi later wrote in his autobiography:
“I must confess that I did not then know even the name, much less the geographical position, of Champaran, and I had hardly any notion of indigo plantations.”
In the Champaran district of Bihar, the Britishers had imposed a system called tinkathia. Under this system, the tenant farmers were forced to grow indigo (a blue dye) in three kathas of every bigha (three out of twenty parts of their land).
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Farmers harvesting the indigo crop resistance.