Gandhi's Champaran Mission : Its Context and Implications |
- By Ranjit Chaudhuri* When GANDHI WAS in Santiniketan after returning from South Africa in 1915, at the enquiry of C.F. Andrews about whether there was any possibility for him to start satyagraha in India, Gandhi replied that such a possibility would not arise for another five years. Little did he think at that time that his first encounter with the British authorities in India would come within two years in Champaran in Bihar. The situation in Champaran was not a creation of Gandhi but his mission there initiated a process that shaped the destiny of the nation and the destiny of his own. The encounter came in the form of passive resistance. Passive resistance of Gandhi came out of his concept of authority. To him, force was the basis of the state authority. The authority based on force could not have moral sanction. In this matter the positions of Thoreau and Gandhi were identical. Thoreau said: "The authority of Government... is still an impure one: to be strictly just, it must have the sanction and consent of the governed."1 Both Thoreau and Gandhi believed in the moral authority which stood above the legal authority. The man-made laws were not necessarily binding on the people. Gandhi said: "So long as the superstition that man should obey unjust laws exists, so long will their slavery exist."2 Thoreau wrote: "Unjust laws exist: shall we be content to obey them, or shall we endeavour to amend them, and obey them until we have succeeded, or shall we transgress them at once?"3 As a philosophical anarchist, Gandhi thought that moral authority came from the people because it was the people who resisted the immoral authority. But the people were inordinate force. So, finally, he wanted to be much more definite and felt the need of building the Congress as an active moral body which will act as an effective Countervailing force on the British government. That was why Gandhi from the beginning did not want to separate morality from politics. He attempted to build the Congress on the basis of truth and morality. He laid stress on spiritualisation of politics. Tilak, the most powerful leader at that time, was sceptic about any relevance of truth and morality in politics. His position was somewhat Machiavellian. According to Tilak, "Truth has no place in politics, politics is a game of worldly people and not of sadhus."4 Gandhi, on the other hand, said: Tilak represents a definite school of thought of which he makes no secret. He considers that everything is fair in politics. We have joined issues with him in that conception of political life. We considered that political life of the country will become thoroughly corrupt if we import Western tactics and methods. We believe that nothing but strictest adherence to honesty, fairplay and charity can advance the true interest of the country.5 Tilak's approach was quite well-known. It was the usual path of politics. Gandhi's position was not known in India. The path of truth and nonviolence appeared strange. It was not a tried path, though Gandhi claimed that it was an Indian path in origin. But his ideas were more influenced by Tolstoy, Thoreau, Ruskin, Emerson, and then by the traditional Hindu or Buddhist ideas. To Gandhi, truth and morality were an article of faith. He knew that nation-building and nation's survival depended on its moral foundations. He never subscribed to the view that good society could be made out of immoral acts. So also people's struggle could not be sustained if it was not based on morality and truth. Since truth was indivisible, there was no difference between the private truth and the public truth. To Gandhi, the dichotomy between the esoteric truth and the public truth was redundant because the complex relations between the two were demystified by him and thus made simple. His concept of moral authority has no mystique in it. Moral authority remained dormant in the people and Gandhi's contri-bution was to bring it out to surface by making the people active. Then the moral authority became a reality. The people came to realise that they possessed a powerful force which Gandhi called soul force. The people became conscious of it as their fight brought dignity to them. Legitimacy of the moral authority of the people was established by restoring self-respect to the people. THIS PROCESS WAS started in Champaran. The Champaran mission was historic in more than one sense. For the first time, the people saw that there was nothing secretive in politics. Politics was based on utmost probity and openness. A new political culture was created which had no parallel in history. This was the greatest significance of the Champaran mission. Gradually that culture pervaded the entire life of the society. The nonviolent culture gradually eroded the culture of extremism and terrorism. Political rhetoric also began to change. Champaran was a people-oriented struggle which stood as a distinct alternative to the earlier elite-dominated movements. Champaran also became a spring-board which lifted Gandhi to national heights. In his Autobiography, he observed: "That day in Champaran was an unforgettable event in my life and a red-letter day for the peasants and for me." He further observed: "In this meeting with the peasants I was face to face with God, Ahimsa, and Truth."6 Later on in 1939, speaking in a public meeting at Benaras, Gandhi introspectively observed: "Just a few decades ago, I never knew what Hindustan was nor did Hindustan know what I was. I came to Champaran in 1917 with a view to redressing the grievances of the peasantry who were mere toys in the hands of the planters. I came here with my heart open and had no other instrument for the fight except the armament of truth and nonviolence."7 This statement of Gandhi needs to be deciphered. Gandhi left India when he was in his teens and when he returned, he was in his mid-forties. In the meantime, he of course came to India on several occasions for short durations. He did not grow in Indian soil. He received his important political tools, namely nonviolence and passive resistance, from Western social and political activists. Eventually he gave them an Indian colour. These tools were applied first in South Africa against the White rulers. Gandhi was trying to educate the White rulers by repeatedly quoting Tolstoy, Thoreau, and Emerson. For intellectual support, he depended more on Western talents. His "armament of truth and nonviolence" was not familiar to contemporary Indian political ethos. His struggle in South Africa was knowp only to a small circle. Hugh Tinker made a valuable observation when he wrote: "Gandhi discovered his philosophy and his technique of political action partly following British and American models. His essentially Hindu mind was indelibly influenced by Christian beliefs. Yet the end-result was uniquely his own. Gandhi was ultimately Gandhian."8 The significance of this observation was that Gandhi was more Gandhian than anything else. Nonviolence and satyagraha were employed by him as political tools and he made them effective by his own talent. Champaran gave legitimacy to them as methods of political struggle. Before that, he did not know India and India did not know him. Coming back to India, he was eager to get a political berth in the Congress. At that time the Congress was not in a good shape. Since the split between'the moderates and the extremists at the-Surat session in 1907, the political unity was still not restored. The Congress lost its vitality. Sri Aurobindo had retired from politics. Lala Lajapt Rai went to the United States. Bipin Chandra Pal and Surendra Nath Banerjea became old and did not remain active in politics as before. Gokhale and Pherozeshah Mehta died shortly after Gandhi's arrival in India. Tilak had been brought back from Mandalay a few months earlier. Tilak was the most commanding and vital force at that time. Mrs Annie Besant, who entered politics in 1913, was representing a new force. Gradually signs were there which showed that the Congress would be united again. In the Bombay Congress of 1915, the road was cleared for the unity of the Congress by opening the door for Tilak's party to enter the Congress. The Constitution of the Congress was altered to facilitate their entry. Gandhi attended the Bombay Congress. This Congress signified the end of the moderates' dominance of the Congress. Tilak was waiting for the change of Constitution. He knew that by his popularity and the strength of following, he would eventually capture the Congress. Gandhi saw the rapid rise of the extremists and the decline of the moderates. In April 1916 the Home Rule League was founded by Tilak. Later on, Annie Besant formed the second Home Rule League. In May 1916, the Bombay Provincial Conference was held at Belgaun. This was really a show of the extremists. Some members expressed their reservations regarding extending an invitation to Gandhi. Finally, Gandhi was invited. He accepted the invitation with considerable hesitation. Tilak moved a compromise resolution between the extremists and the moderates. Gandhi saw an unholy intention in it. He said: "If they passed the resolution in the idea that after joining they would drive the opponents in it, neither the Congress nor the extremists would gain anything, nor the country."9 In this Conference Gandhi announced that he was neither a moderate nor an extremist. The declaration was not without meaning. It did not signify that he wanted to represent a third party. Even before he came to India, he made it clear in Hind Swaraj. In the concluding chapter Gandhi wrote: "I do not think of a third party at all."10 He wanted to convince everybody that the path of nonviolence and satyagraha only was the correct path. But he did not know how to begin. He was groping in the dark. In the Lucknow Congress which was held in December 1916, the extremists came-to control the Congress. Gandhi was not prominent then. He did not play any significant role. The most important outcome of the Conference was the Congress-Muslim League unity and the Congress ratification of separate electorates for the Muslims. The irony was that the Congress did it under the leadership of Tilak. Surprisingly Jinnah and Madan Mohan Malaviya were among those who voted against the resolution. By the ratification of separate electorates for the Muslims, division of India on the basis of the two-nation theory was recognised in principle. Later, Gandhi commented that had he been in the leadership of the Congress, he would have never agreed to any ratification of separate electorates for the Muslims. Gandhi not being important at that time was not feeling confident about how he could become effective. In the meantime, he had scored two successes-one, indenture labour was abolished and, two, the customs cordon between Bombay Presidency "and Kathiawad was lifted. These acts, however, failed to draw national attention. Just at that time, the Champaran problem was brought to him as a gift by an unknown peasant of Champaran, Rajkumar Shukla, at the Lucknow Congress. Rajkumar Shukla pleaded with Gandhi to visit Champaran to witness the tyranny and atrocities of the White indigo planters over the peasants. He was sincere and persistent in his request. Gandhi at last agreed to go to Champaran. He did not calculate the risk. With an open heart he arrived there. Champaran was a backward district and it primarily depended on indigo cultivation, that too, not by the choice of the people. Indigo used to be an ancient product of India. In trans-Himalayan trade indigo used to go to Tibet from India. During the British rule it was re-introduced in Bengal and Bihar. The European textile industry was importing it as a dye. In Bihar, indigo planters were brought by the collector of Tirhut. Between 1782 and 1785 three factories were erected. In 1810 the number of factories rose to twenty-five. Planters were mainly British, though some of them came from Portugal, Ireland, Germany, and some other countries. According to the collector of Tirhut in 1810, some thirty to forty thousand people received their chief support from the factories of this district.11 For over a century, it remained a prosperous industry. Indigo production was started almost simultaneously in Bengal and Bihar. The notable fact was that the indigo cultivators were never happy. History has recorded three major indigo revolts-in Bengal during 1855- 60, in Darbhanga and Champaran during 1866-68, and in the Jessore district of Bengal in 1883 and again in 1889-90. Before 1833 the European planters had no right to buy and own land in India. Rammohun Roy and Dwaraka Nath Tagore pleaded in a meeting at the town hall of Calcutta in December 1829 that the Europeans should get the right to purchase land in India and establish factories to produce indigo.12 The Act of 1833 made the planters' position legal and valid. After this Act, some planters also became zamindars by purchasing a large quantity of land and some of them took land on lease from the zamindars who, in turn, started leasing lands to the peasants. When Gandhi arrived there in 1917, there were twenty-four concerns in Champaran. At that time Bihar and Orissa were taken out of Bengal and made into a separate province. Champaran had two towns-Motihari and Bettiah-and 2,845 villages. The indigo industry was in a state of decay mainly because Germany found out a synthetic dye which was less costly. Secondly, due to war, European trade had declined. Thirdly, as the industry was in a state of crisis, it could not pay the same price to the cultivators for the indigo crop. The exploitation of cultivators thus increased. The planters were exacting money from them in various ways like taxes, fines, and enhancement of rent. The planters let out the land on a fixed rental with the provision that each of them would cultivate indigo on 3/20th of the land let out to them. This was known as the tinkathia system. That was the most prevalent land tenure system. Initially Gandhi's objective was just to make a survey of the prevailing condition of the peasants and understand their grievances against the indigo planters. He wanted to record the statement of the peasants. Since he did not know the local dialect, he called some local lawyers and asked for their services. They replied that they would willingly offer their services if they were not required to go to jail. Gandhi replied: "I do not expect there will be any occasion for offering satyagraha. In any event, if an occasion arose, I will not call upon you to break the law."13 Gandhi's statement showed that he did not go there to challenge the planters or the local authority. He did not fully visualise the nature of conflict that was simmering with the local authority. In Muzaffarpur, Gandhi started widening his public contacts. He gathered a group of people who lent valuable support to him. Prominent among them were J.B. Kripalani, Brij Kishore Prasad, Rajendra Prasad, Ramnavami Prasad, Gaya Prasad, Mazharul Haque, Krishna Sahay, and a group of students of GBB college. Gandhi was an enigma to the British government. The government treated him very kindly when he freshly arrived in India, perhaps, for his unconditional support to its war effort. At the desire of the governor of Bombay, Gandhi went to visit him. At that meeting Gandhi assured him that as a satyagrahi he would not do anything unless he understood the government's viewpoint. As a gesture of goodwill, the government withdrew shadowing him by intelligence people.14 He was awarded a Kaisar-i-Hind medal. But his speech at the Benaras Hindu University was censored and he was asked to leave Benaras. This was followed by re- introduction of surveillance on him. In his address at the Benaras Hindu University, he declared: "Our salvation can only come through the farmers. Neither the lawyers, nor the doctors, nor the rich landlords are going to secure it."15 He had great faith in the peasants. In his Hind Swaraj, he wrote: "Peasants have never been subdued by the sword, and never will be. They do not know the use of the sword, and they are not frightened by the use of it by others."16 With that faith in peasants he arrived in Champaran. He engaged himself in building some logistics to face any eventuality. His logistic was to widen his public relations. Gandhi, having already acquired rich experience in South Africa, knew how to negotiate in a difficult situation. The inexperienced local authorities behaved in a tactless and egoistic manner. They had little knowledge of the power of Gandhi. They served a notice on him to quit the district by the next train. The encounter now started. Gandhi was a master propagandist and publicity man. The problem, which was essentially a local one, at once became a national issue by his genius. He also added to it humanistic and universal dimensions. Gandhi refused to leave the district. Summons were served on him for appearing at the court of sub-divisional officer of Motihari. In the meantime, streams of people started coming to Gandhi. He judiciously took the decision to send a telegram to the Viceroy. He also sent a telegram to H.S.L. Polak, his trusted friend in South Africa, who was in India at that time. A telegram was also sent to C.F. Andrews and Madan Mohan Malaviya. He was careful not to involve the Congress in the affair. In fact, he did not want to give it a political colour. But he certainly wanted to draw national attention. He was successful in doing so and many national papers started publishing reports on Champaran and on the heroic struggle of Gandhi. Moreover, in the trial Gandhi added one more dimension to its content. The local authority was not intellectually competent and administratively equipped to deal with it. Gandhi in his statement in the court said: "I have disregarded the order served upon me, not for want of respect for lawful authority, but in obedience to the higher law of our being, the voice of conscience."17 The authority was feeling shaken, as Gandhi mentioned later in his Autobiography. They were afraid that any decision to punish Gandhi would produce invidious reaction among the people. Finally, by the intervention of the superior authority of Lieutenant-Governor, the case was withdrawn. The Lieutenant-Governor also promised all kinds of cooperation for his work. The decision to withdraw the case meant loss of face of the authority and a defeat. It boosted Gandhi's prestige sky-high which had a far-reaching effect. Kripalani wrote: "With Gandhi's defiance of the law, the people of Champaran felt as if their age-long chains had been broken and they were free men."18 In his Autobiography Gandhi wrote: "The country thus had its first direct object lesson in civil disobedience."19 He needed to apply civil disobedience in India in order to prove its efficacy. Champaran was the testing ground. People were not afraid of authority. Psychologically they were prepared to resist. This was the most significant transformation, the transformation in the image of authority. Self-confidence began to grow in the minds of the people. Champaran supplied the necessary psychological support which led to collective self-assertion. Gandhi successfully demonstrated the importance of civil disobedience. At the same time, personal charisma of Gandhi began to soar high. In his report, Commissioner of Tirhut mentioned: "More than one tenant told me Gandhi is the second God for Champaran. Another compared him with Ramchandra who had come to rescue them from the planter Rakshas."20 Throughout his campaign he maintained this charisma. His rejection of ostentatious living in favour of austerity and his frankness and openness added to his charisma. He completely identified himself with the people even in food and dress. The distance between the leader and the people was removed. The elitist perception about the leader was completely changed. Stories about Gandhi's strict honesty and high probity became the topic of inspired conversation among the people. Certain examples were recorded. A government servant secretly provided a copy of the official report to Gandhi's people. They took it to Gandhi who refused to read it as it had come to him in a secret manner. There was another incident. The collector of Champaran had written him a stiff letter, but, on second thoughts, withdrew it. Gandhi's followers wanted to make a copy of it, but he did not allow them to do so, saying that in that case the letter could not be said to have been withdrawn.21 These and several other stories transformed Gandhi into a mystic personality in popular imagi-nation. There was thus a paradox. Gandhi wanted to demystify politics but iii the process he himself acquired a mystic quality. This was a mystique rendered by charisma based not on tradition but on acquired quality. If Gandhi's charisma was based on tradition, Gandhi would remain confined to his country. The universal appeal of Gandhi proved that his charisma cut across the boundary of tradition. Gandhi was clear about the role of his mission and its social respon-sibility. He believed that his role in Champaran was irreplaceable. This he pointed out in one of his letters to the district magistrate. The implication of this letter to social activists and social scientists was deep. Gandhi raised the question why, in a case like Champaran, the government could not obtain freedom for the peasants, whereas he could. Gandhi wrote: "My answer is that they (government) cannot [obtain this freedom], in cases like this, without assistance as is afforded to them by my mission. The government machinery is designedly slow. It moves, must move along the line of least resistance. Reformers like myself, who have no other axe to grind but that of reform they are handling for the time being, specialise and create a force which government must reckon with."22 In the case of indigo cultivators, the freedom was to be obtained from the government that had given indulgence to planters by making unjust laws. Administrators could not go against the law they were supposed to protect. Being in the Establishment, they could not initiate the change. Reformers' role was to generate a force outside the Establishment. Administration could identify and strengthen it if they wanted to. The force thus generated tended to produce social dynamics which made change easy. The administrators could not be the agents of social change. The agents were to be from outside the Establishment. Administrators could play only catalytic role. Gandhi presented a preliminary report to the governments of Bihar and Orissa. The report revealed the exploitation of cultivators and various atrocities committed by the planters. Finally, the government constituted a committee to go into the matter and Gandhi was made a member of it. The committee, in course of time, submitted its report with its recommendations. The government accepted those recommendations and on that basis was passed the Champaran Agrarian Act. The Act abolished the tinkathia system and the peasants got the liberty to grow indigo on optional basis. Kripalani observed: "The Kisans of Champaran did not get any radical concessions but there was some improvement. . . what he [Gandhi] achieved by his satyagraha appeared at the time to be small but the rest was subsequently accomplished through the combination of various circumstances."23 In fact, the process, started in Champaran, continued to subsequent struggles and very soon Gandhi emerged as a towering national leader. THE CONFLICT IN Champaran had some important implications. The conflict, which remained dormant so long, was activated by the people. People were up to that time passive spectators and almost by a magic touch they were now changed into active actors. They now realised that they had an important role to play. Champaran was an applied field where two asymmetrical interests confronted each other in a conflict situation. They were interests of the planters supported by the bureaucracy and the inte-rests of the peasants. Entering into the scene Gandhi quite meaningfully articulated the problems of the peasants and exposed the tyrannical behaviour of the planters and brought it out before the nation. But he was very careful not to give it a political colour either by involving the Congress or by any other means. The interaction started with the bureaucracy on the one side and Gandhi as an individual on the other. Gradually Gandhi was totally identified with the peasants and the peasants were organised into a courageous force. At this level, the conflict took a structured form. Gandhi established the legitimacy and efficacy of satyagraha as an alternative tool and this he did without involving the Congress in its operative process. This was a unique feature both in terms of the character of the conflict as well as in terms of the method adopted. Satyagraha on its own merit established its historic role. Champaran gave it full opportunity. Satyagraha as a method of intentional conflict made the people morally sensitised. Before Champaran, the moral aspect of the conflict did not get so much importance. Here the people realised that they had no scope to act irresponsibly. Conflict was now treated as a rational manifestation of moral force. They also came to know that they could not submit to collective emotive impulse. So they could not follow the path of adventurism. They also were given to feel that since they were fighting immoral force, they could never lose morality. Gandhi's presence provided them with a cons-tant living example. This awareness brought a qualitative difference in their action. The process of introspection started working in the minds of the planters also. Some of them rectified their conduct. As a result, the interactive relations between the planters and the cultivators did not become violent. Both the groups became aware of their respective strengths and weaknesses. Satyagraha produced tremendous convulsions among both the groups. Their relations got a new colour since the socio-economic scenarios also began to change. The convulsions they had experienced brought elements of change in their praxis. This was possible only because the intensity of conflict syndrome remained within legitimate limits. Gandhi showed the skill to keep the conflict under controllable limits. It was his first satyagraha in India. He proved that he could precipitate conflict but at the same time he also proved that he could keep it under his control. His power of conflict management was amazing as long as conflict remained confined to limited dimensions. When the scale reached the national level, he tended to show his weakness. In the Rowlatt Satyagraha, for example, he admitted his "Himalayan miscalculations." On that occasion, the conflict took the form of group adventurism. Gandhi saw that there was a deep cleavage in the society of Champaran. The cleavage divided the society into two contesting groups. And the conflict was the result of incompatibility between the two groups. It was also an expression of structural failure. As far as possible, Gandhi maintained the mainstream norms. Where the mainstream norms failed, he took resort to social deviance. But he kept the door of negotiation always open. He controlled his combatant policy by following normative behaviour. He was very clear about his role in that situation. Champaran was a specific case of a specific group. This group used to live almost in isolation and Gandhi linked it to the national stream. Politicisation of the people increased rapidly and local politics became a part of national politics. The Congress, which was unknown in that area, at once got a solid base. His satyagraha was a social defiance. Conflict was inherent in the given social structure. Gandhi's presence intensified the conflict and converted it into a structured struggle. His sincere adherence to normative innovation demoralised the opponent. The success of nonviolence was, to a great extent, made possible because he could ritualise it in daily life. Nonviolence gave it an effective form of a rebellion. Collective rebellion of the peasants was symbolised in one person, namely Gandhi. He derived his strength from the collective response of the peasants. He was fighting the local authority through his nonviolent rebellion. He knew the people were behind him. He could win over the oppressive system by his sustained determination. Gandhi knew that the authority, which was equipped with the most ruthless power, could not be challenged unless the people realised that they also possessed equally effective power. The perception of power was more important than the reality of power relations. The powerless suddenly realised that they were no more powerless. The powerful now felt that they could not apply their power. The conflict took a new turn. Collective response to resist, courage, and self-confidence demoralised the opponent. Moral power of the people almost outpaced the oppressive power. The decadence of indigo industry and the war situation went against the planters. The failing economy of indigo industry also acted as a compul-sion on the planters to stop their egoistic behaviour. The course of conflict being peaceful rebellion, they could do it without suffering much psychological strain. Nonetheless psychologically the planters suffered the defeat. Bhikhu Parekh observes: "Gandhi's satyagraha then was an ingenious combination of reason, morality and politics; it relied on the powers of argument, suffering, love, and organised pressure, and appealed to the opponents' head, heart, and interests."24 Gandhi's Champaran mission was an important event in the history of freedom struggle and also in Gandhi's own life. Here a new process in politics was started which became the dominant course in the next eventful decade. The process brought legitimacy to nonviolence and civil disobe-dience. It also helped Gandhi to become a national leader in his own right. His nonviolence, love, and readiness to act and suffer won over the Machiavellian politics. Champaran was the testing ground of nonviolence in politics. India came to know him and he could know the popular pulse of India through Champaran. Notes and References
Courtesy: Gandhi Marg, Volume 18, Number 1, April-June 1996. |