by Robert Payne
The system, however, was not working well. It had in fact been working very badly for a long time, and as far back as the sixties of the last century there had been riots and disturbances because the cultivation of indigo was unprofitable to the peasants. Sir John Peter Grant, the Lieutenant Governor of Bengal, reported in 1860 that the indigo workers were protesting vigorously against the demands of the landowners. The protest took the form of a massive, non-violent and silent parade of force, which assumed nightmarish dimensions. The Lieutenant Governor undertook a long tour of inspection by riverboat and what he saw convinced him that there was urgent need for reform. For sixty or seventy miles, as his motorboat steamed along the Kumar and Kaliganga rivers, he found the villagers lining the banks in silent protest. Some of them had come from remote villages, bringing their wives and children. They were well-organized, behaved in a completely orderly fashion, and their very presence along the banks in such vast numbers showed that they were in earnest. The power of the awakened Indian peasants was being manifested in total silence. “It would be folly to suppose that such a display on the part of tens of thousands of people, men, women, and children, has no deep meaning,” the Lieutenant Governor wrote in his report. For the first time a British official in India was observing non-violent force in operation on a massive scale.
Sir John Peter Grant was an intelligent and sympathetic man, and he did whatever was in his power to right the wrongs suffered by the peasants. The factory owners were determined to get rid of him and two years later he was removed from office. He failed to change the system, and successive Lieutenant Governors were only too anxious to conform to the wishes of the factory owners, who continued to exact tribute in indigo from the peasants until shortly before World War I, when synthetic dyes began to drive indigo from the world market. The planters thereupon offered to relinquish their rights in return for an increase in rent. At first the peasants paid willingly, glad that they were no longer under the thrall of indigo. When they learned the real reason why they were being forced to pay more rent, they rebelled. Company agents put down the rebellion, imprisoned or killed the leading agitators, and saw to it that the peasants obeyed their masters. In addition to the high taxes on land the factory owners instituted taxes known as abwabs at their pleasure. An abwab would have to be paid whenever an Indian peasant attended a festival, bought a horse or a boat, or gave his son or daughter in marriage. If the factory owner or any high officer in the factory fell ill, there would be an abwab to pay for his medical expenses, and if he went hunting there would be another abwab to pay for the cost of his elephants. The wealth of the peasants was at the mercy of the feudal rulers.
During World War I the price of indigo soared and the factory owners who had only recently abandoned the cultivation of indigo now insisted that large areas of land should be planted. Supplies of synthetic dyes from Germany were in short supply; the value of the indigo exported from India soared, with no advantage accruing to the peasants. Indeed, under wartime conditions, the peasants were in worse shape than before. In December 1916 an obscure Bihari cultivator called Rajkumar Shukla decided to attend the Indian National Congress at Lucknow in the hope of acquainting his fellow countrymen with the plight of the indigo workers.
Rajkumar Shukla was a slight, friendly, earnest man without any gift for speechmaking, awed by the dignitaries he encountered at the Congress. He approached Tilak and Malaviya, but they replied that their main concern was for political freedom and they could not spare the time to examine the grievances of the indigo cultivators. Rajkumar Shukla went about looking for other important delegates, but even those from his own province showed him little sympathy. He was just one more of those ghostly peasants who wandered among the tents, looking for mischief or a willing ear. No one was paying any attention to him.
Nevertheless he was an important figure in his own right, for he represented the oppressed peasantry in a land largely consisting of oppressed peasants. Also, he was determined to be heard. If Tilak would not listen to him, he would find someone who would; and it was not long before he encountered Gandhi who by a lucky accident had pitched his tent close to the tents of the delegates from Bihar.
In those days Gandhi was far from being the familiar figure he became later. He was not an impressive or an imposing figure at the Congress, which was largely dominated by Tilak, Mrs. Besant and Jinnah. Wearing an enormous white Kathiawar turban, and with a long black mustache, he looked more like a successful merchant from Gujarat than a man who had led the Indians in South Africa against the entrenched power of the government. Rajkumar Shukla met Gandhi on the first day of the Congress and immediately launched into a long account of the grievances of the indigo workers, speaking in the rough Bihari dialect. Gandhi could make nothing of his speech, and it was some time later, after the peasant ran off to find Brajkishore Prasad, an official delegate from Bihar, bringing him into the tent, that Gandhi began to understand what it was all about. He was not overly impressed by Brajkishore Prasad, who wore a black alpaca coat and black trousers, and was a lawyer with a large practice. The man was curiously distant and haughty, and Gandhi concluded that he was probably one of those who exploited the poor peasants. Rajkumar Shukla kept talking about a place called Champaran, which Gandhi had never heard of, and about indigo plants, which he had never seen in his life. From time to time the lawyer would offer explanations. It was one of those indecisive conversations which lead nowhere, and Gandhi finally brought it to an end by suggesting that if they thought the matter important, they should bring it up before the Congress. “I cannot give you my opinion without seeing it with my own eyes,” he said firmly. He dismissed Champaran and the indigo workers from his mind, and did not expect that he would ever have to turn his attentions to the problems of indigo workers again.
On the following day Brajkishore Prasad offered a resolution to the Congress, demanding that measures be taken to safeguard the rights of the Bihari peasants and urging that the government should appoint a mixed commission of officials and non-officials to inquire into the causes of the agrarian troubles. Rajkumar Shukla was allowed to address the Congress briefly, and the Congress went on to discuss more important affairs, leaving to the government the task of inquiring into the suffering of the peasants of Bihar. By calling upon the government to appoint a mixed commission of officials and non-officials, the Congress could be reasonably certain that nothing would be done.
But Rajkumar Shukla was determined that something should be done, and since Congress refused to help him, he decided that Gandhi must visit Champaran and work on behalf of the indigo workers. He was so persistent that Gandhi agreed to visit Bihar sometime in the future, perhaps in March or April. Rajkumar Shukla wanted a more definite commitment, but none was forthcoming, and when Gandhi went off to Cawnpore, Rajkumar Shukla followed him there. “Champaran is very close,” he said. “Please spend a day there.” Gandhi went off to his ashram, and once more Rajkumar followed him, begging him to fix a day, any day, just one day, until at last, worn down by the man’s persistence, Gandhi said he thought he would be able to manage a day in March after his projected visit to Calcutta. He invited Rajkumar Shukla to meet him there, and they would go off together to see Champaran.
In March, when Gandhi arrived in Calcutta, there was no sign of Rajkumar Shukla. Their letters had crossed; there had been delays and hesitations; they had arranged no meeting place; and Rajkumar Shukla, baffled and defeated, returned to his small village in Champaran. He had not given up hope. Once more he wrote a pleading letter to Gandhi, urging him to remember his promise, and Gandhi telegraphed, saying that he would be attending a conference in Calcutta in April and would then take the train to Bihar. When Gandhi reached Calcutta, he found Rajkumar Shukla waiting for him. On April 7, looking like two poverty-stricken peasants, they took the train for Patna, the capital of Bihar, where Gandhi expected to meet representatives of the indigo workers. It was to be a very brief visit and he expected to return to his ashram in a few days.
In the sprawling city of Patna, once the capital of Ashoka’s empire, Gandhi half expected to find a group of men busily dealing with the grievances of the peasants. Instead, he found that the capital was indifferent to their fate. A few lawyers grew rich on the fees paid by the peasants who went to court on behalf of their claims against the factory owners. Rajkumar Shukla had hinted that an organized movement of protest existed in Patna, but there was none. It transpired that the peasant knew scarcely anyone in the city and had not the faintest idea how to go about attending to the peasants’ grievances. Gandhi was annoyed and resentful; for some reason he had expected much more from the uncultivated peasant who had been pestering him for many months. He was still annoyed when Rajkumar Shukla took Gandhi to the house of one of the few lawyers he knew, a man called Rajendra Prasad, round-faced and solemn, well-known in Patna for his hardheaded efficiency and profound knowledge of the law. Rajkumar Shukla had had some dealings with him, knew the house well, and convinced the servants that Gandhi should be permitted to stay there, although the owner was away on a visit to a neighboring town. It was not a satisfactory arrangement. Gandhi was permitted to stay on sufferance, with the servants refusing to allow him to use the latrine inside the house or to draw water from the well while they were themselves drawing water. They did not know what caste he belonged to, and they were afraid of being polluted by drops of water from his bucket.
In this unhappy situation, worn out by the long journey, annoyed by the ignorance and persistence of Rajkumar Shukla, with no clear idea what was expected of him and unable to speak the language spoken by the Biharis, Gandhi wrote an angry letter to one of his relatives, explaining that he had come on a fool’s errand at the prompting of an ignorant peasant, had suffered too many insults, and was seriously thinking of abandoning the project. He wrote contemptuously about Rajkumar Shukla:
The man who brought me here doesn’t know anything. He has dumped me in some obscure place. The master of the house is away and the servants take us both to be beggars. They don’t even permit us the use of their latrine, not to speak of inviting us to meals. I take care to provide myself with a stock of things I need and so I have been able to maintain complete indifference. I have swallowed a good many insults and the queer situation here does not trouble me. If things go on this way I am not likely to see Champaran. So far as I can see, my guide can give me no help and I am in no position to find my own way.
In fact Rajkumar Shukla was doing his intelligent best to help Gandhi, and there were to be momentous consequences to this visit to a strange house, for in due course Rajendra Prasad was to become the first President of India. Meanwhile the young peasant ministered to Gandhi’s needs, comforting him as best he could, running down to the bazaar to buy dates for him, and doing other errands. It was all in vain, for Gandhi had come to the firm conclusion that he was quite useless and untrustworthy.
At this juncture, after a miserable day spent in Rajendra Prasad’s house, Gandhi suddenly remembered that Maulana Mazharul Haq, the Muslim leader, was also living in Patna. They had been friends in London, and there had been a standing invitation to Gandhi to say in his house if he ever came to Patna. Gandhi decided to take advantage of the invitation, sent a message to the former president of the Muslim League, and was soon explaining the purpose of his visit to a man who knew the district well and knew exactly what should be done. Mazharul Haq suggested that the most important thing was to go at once to the areas where the peasants were in revolt against the factory owners. A train was leaving that evening for Muzaffarpur, and it was there rather than in Patna that he would find leaders who were aware of the problem and capable of offering assistance. Nothing could be expected from Patna. The sooner he left for Muzaffarpur the better. Mazharul Haq telegraphed to his friend J. B. Kripalani to be at the station when Gandhi arrived at midnight.
To Gandhi’s astonishment he was welcomed at the station like a king. He walked off the train barefoot, wearing a coarse dhoti and carrying a tiffin-box under his arm, imagining that he would slip quietly into the crowd on the platform only to realize a few moments later that the crowd was welcoming him, shouting his name, and insisting on dragging his carriage through the darkened town. Rajkumar Shukla proudly accompanied Gandhi, feeling that at last he had been vindicated. J. B. Kripalani, who had been a teacher at the Government College in Patna until his recent dismissal, had brought all his students to the station. He was a tall, elegant, somewhat saturnine man with a gift for sharp humor and a passionate concern for the peasants of his adopted province—he came originally from Sind, and he had the somewhat reckless character of the Sindis—and that evening, as they talked late in the house of a certain Professor Malkani, Gandhi became aware that he had found a new and powerful disciple. J. B. Kripalani never became a devotee of Gandhi’s religious beliefs and he could say sharp and bitter things about Gandhi’s fads and eccentricities, but he never doubted that Gandhi was the greatest figure to emerge in modem India.
The next morning the main outlines of Gandhi’s strategy were worked out with the aid of a hastily convened committee of lawyers and teachers. Gandhi’s presence had electrified the town, and it was felt that at long last something would be done for the peasants, not through court action, which was so costly and sometimes ruinous to the peasants, or through appeals to the government, which were rarely effective, but in some new and totally unexpected way.
To the lawyers Gandhi explained that the time for legal action had passed. They had grown fat on their fees, demanding as much as 10,000 rupees for their opinions and thus reducing the peasants to even greater poverty. What was needed was a patient examination of the facts through interviews with the peasants and careful reports. Remembering his experiences in South Africa, he demanded that everyone who took part in the inquiry should court imprisonment, for only in this way could they prove their dedication to the cause. The lawyers and teachers were to become clerks, nothing more. There would be no agitation: simply the quiet, relentless accumulation of thousands of reports on the grievances of the peasants, and these reports were to be compiled openly in full view of the police and government officers. Above all there must be no violence.
At first Gandhi’s strategy surprised his listeners. As Rajendra Prasad, who soon joined the revolutionary committee, often complained, the Bihari middle classes were not notable for performing acts of public service. Rich lawyers were being asked to go to prison and to take part in a new kind of silent agitation which would inevitably bring them in defiance of the law. Asked how long it would take to complete the inquiry, Gandhi answered that it would probably take two years.
Gandhi was feeling his way. Except for Rajkumar Shukla he had not yet met a single indigo worker, knew nothing about their lives and had only a vague idea about the complicated problems of land tenure. But what he heard from the lawyers and teachers convinced him that Rajkumar Shukla had told the truth, and accordingly the young peasant returned to his good graces.
Quite suddenly everyone in Bihar seemed to know that Gandhi had taken charge of a fact-finding commission designed for the express purpose of liberating the peasants. Crowds began to follow him wherever he went. He visited the British officials in Muzaffarpur only to learn that he was regarded as a dangerous agitator whose presence in the district could no longer be tolerated. He replied that he had come as an official delegate of the Congress, that he had been receiving a large number of letters from the oppressed peasants for a long time and that he had entered the district at their invitation. These statements were untrue, and he soon learned to regret them. The British authorities regarded the Congress as a hotbed of seditious revolutionaries and agitators, and nothing was to be gained by appealing to the authority of the Congress. He could produce no letters received from the peasants inviting him to examine their problems. Within forty-eight hours of his arrival in Muzaffarpur he realized that he might be arrested before he had had time to visit Champaran or interview a single peasant.
On Sunda
y, April 15, 1917, he set out for Motihari by the midday train with two lawyers acting as his interpreters. He was at last coming to the indigo fields. A ride on the back of an elephant brought him to a village called Chandrahia, and there on a hot, dusty street, the village empty because everyone was working in the nearby factory, the police caught up with him. A police sub-inspector riding a bicycle ordered him to return to Motihari, where a letter signed by Mr. W. B. Heycock, the district magistrate, was waiting for him. The letter was an order of expulsion on the grounds that his continued presence in the district endangered the public peace. Accompanying the letter was a statement from the local commissioner, the representative of British power in the district which included Champaran, saying that since Gandhi’s object was “likely to be agitation rather than a genuine search for knowledge,” he could be expelled under Section 144 of the Criminal Procedure Code. Gandhi immediately wrote a letter to Mr. Heycock objecting to the communication, and especially to the statement that his object was “likely to be agitation.” On the contrary, he desired only to conduct a genuine search for knowledge. As for the order of expulsion, he rejected it outright. “Out of a sense of public responsibility,” he wrote, “I feel it to be my duty to say that I am unable to leave this District but if it so pleases the authorities, I shall submit to the order by suffering the penalty of disobedience.”