by M K Gandhi
An officer from the C.I.D. would always be present when these statements were recorded.239 We might have prevented him but we had decided from the very beginning not only not to mind the presence of C.I.D. officers, but to treat them with courtesy and to give them all the information that it was possible to give them.240 This was far from doing us any harm. On the contrary the very fact that the statements were taken down in the presence of the C.I.D. officers made the peasants more fearless.M6 Whilst on the one hand excessive fear of the C.I.D. was driven out of the peasants’ minds, on the other, their presence exercised a natural restraint on exaggeration. It was the business of C.I.D. friends to entrap people and so the peasants had necessarily to be cautious.M7
As I did not want to irritate the planters, but to win them over by gentleness, I made a point of writing to and meeting such of them against whom allegations of a serious nature were made. I met the Planters’ Association241 as well, placed the ryots’ grievances before them and acquainted myself with their point of view. Some of the planters hated me. Some were indifferent and242 a few treated me with courtesy.
XVII
COMPANIONS
Brajkishorebabu and Rajendrababu were a matchless pair. Their devotion made243 it impossible for me to take a single step without their help. Their disciples, or their companions—Shambhubabu,244 Anugrahababu,245 Dharanibabu, Ramnavmibabu and other vakils—were always with us. Vindhyababu and Janakdharibabu246 also came and helped us now and then. All these were Biharis.M1 Their principal work was to take down the ryots’ statements.
Professor Kripalani could not but cast in his lot with us. Though a Sindhi he was more Bihari than a born Bihari. I have seen only a few workers capable of merging themselves in the province of their adoption. Kripalani is one of those few. He made it impossible for anyone to feel that he belonged to a different province. He was my gatekeeper in chief. For the time being he made it the end and aim of his life to save me from darshan-seekers. He warded off people, calling to his aid now his unfailing humour, now his non-violent threats. At nightfall he would take up his occupation of a teacher and regale his companions with his historical studies and observations,247 and quicken any timid visitor into bravery.
Maulana Mazharul Haq had registered his name on the standing list of helpers whom I might count upon whenever necessary,248 and he made a point of looking in once or twice a month. The pomp and splendour in which he then lived was in sharp contrast to his simple life of today.M2 The way in which he associated with us made us feel that he was one of us, though his fashionable habit gave a stranger a different impression.
As I gained more experience of Bihar, I became convinced that work of a permanent nature was impossible without proper249 village education. The ryots’ ignorance was pathetic. They either allowed their children to roam about, or made them toil on indigo plantations from morning to night for a couple of coppers a day. In those days a male labourer’s wage did not exceed ten pice, a female’s did not exceed six, and a child’s three. He who succeeded in earning four annas a day was considered most fortunate.
In consultation with my companions I decided to open primary schools in six villages.250 One of our conditions with the villagers was that they should provide the teachers with board and lodging while we would see to the other expenses. The village folk had hardly any cash in their hands, but they could well afford to provide foodstuffs. Indeed they had already expressed their readiness to contribute grain and other raw materials.
From where to get the teachers was a great problem. It was difficult to find local teachers who would work for a bare allowance or without remuneration. My idea was never to entrust children to commonplace teachers. Their literary qualification was not so essential as their moral fibre.M3
So I issued a public appeal for voluntary teachers. It received ready response. Sjt. Gangadharrao Deshpande251 sent Babasaheb Soman252 and Pundalik,253 Shrimati Avantikabai Gokhale254 came from Bombay and Mrs. Anandibai Vaishampayan255 from Poona.256 I sent to the Ashram for Chhotalal,257 Surendranath258 and my son Devdas. About this time Mahadev Desai259 and Narahari Parikh260 with their wives cast in their lot with me. Kasturbai was also summoned for the work. This was a fairly strong contingent.261 Shrimati Avantikabai and Shrimati Anandibai were educated enough, but Shrimati Durga Desai and Shrimati Manibehn Parikh had nothing more than a bare knowledge of Gujarati, and Kasturbai not even that. How were these ladies to instruct the children in Hindi?
I explained to them that they were expected to teach the children not grammar and the three R’s so much asM4 cleanliness and good manners. I further explained that even as regards letters262 there was not so great a difference between Gujarati, Hindi and Marathi as they imagined, and in the primary classes, at any rate, the teaching of the rudiments of the alphabet and numerals was not a difficult matter. The result was that the classes taken by these ladies were found to be most successful. The experience inspired them with confidence and interest in their work. Avantikabai’s became a model school. She threw herself heart and soul into her work. She brought her exceptional gifts to bear on it. Through these ladies we could, to some extent,263 reach the village women.
But I did not want to stop at providing for primary education. The villages were insanitary, the lanes full of filth, the well surrounded by mud and stink and the courtyards unbearably untidy. The elder people badly needed education in cleanliness. They were all suffering from various skin diseases. So it was decided to do as much sanitary work as possible and to penetrate every department of their lives.
Doctors were needed for this work. I requested the Servants of India SocietyM5 to lend us the services of the late Dr. Dev.264 We had been great friends, and he readily offered his services for six months. The teachers—men and women—had all to work under him.
All of them had express instructions not to concern themselves with grievances against planters or with politics. People who had any complaints to make were to be referred to me. No one was to venture out of his beat. The friendsM6 carried out these instructions with wonderful fidelity. I do not remember a single occasion of indiscipline.
XVIII
PENETRATING THE VILLAGES
As far as was possible we placed each school in charge of one man and one woman. These volunteers had to look after medical relief and sanitation. The womenfolk had to be approached through women.
Medical relief was a very simple affair. Castor oil, quinine and sulphur ointment were the only drugs provided to the volunteers.265 If the patient showed a furred tongue or complained of constipation, castor oil was administered, in case of fever quinine was given after an opening dose of castor oil, and the sulphur ointment was applied in case of boils and itch after thoroughly washing the affected parts. No patient was permitted to take home any medicine. Wherever there was some complication266 Dr. Dev was consulted.M1 Dr. Dev used to visit each centre on certain fixed days in the week.
Quite a number of people availed themselves of this simple relief. This plan of work will not seem strangeM2 when it is remembered that the prevailing ailments were few and amenable to simple treatment, by no means requiring expert help. As for the people the arrangement answered excellently.
Sanitation was a difficult affair. The people were not prepared to do anything themselves. Even the field labourers were not ready to do their own scavenging. But Dr. Dev was not a man easily to lose heart. He and the volunteers concentrated their energies on making a village ideally clean. They267 swept the roads and the courtyards, cleaned out the wells, filled up the pools nearby, and lovingly persuaded the villagers to raise volunteers from amongst themselves. In some villages they shamed people into taking up the work, and in others the people were so enthusiastic that they268 even prepared roads to enable my car to go from place to place. These sweet experiences were not unmixed with bitter ones of people’s apathy. I remember some villagers frankly expressing269 their dislike for this work.M3
It may not be out of place here to narrate an exp
erience that I have described before now at many meetings.270 Bhitiharva was a small village in which was one of our schools.271 I happened to visit a smaller village in its vicinity and found some of the women dressed very dirtily. So I told my wife to ask them why they did not wash their clothes.M4 She spoke to them. One of the women took her into her hut and said: ‘Look now, there is no box or cupboard here containing other clothes. The sari I am wearing is the only one I have. How am I to wash it? Tell Mahatmaji to get me another sari, and I shall then promise to bathe and put on clean clothes every day.’
This cottage was not an exception, but a type to be found in many Indian villages. In countless cottages in India people live without any furniture, and without a change of clothes, merely with a rag to cover their shame.M5
One more experience I will note. In Champaran there is no lack of bamboo and grass. The school hut they had put up at Bhitiharva was made of these materials. Someone—possibly some of the neighbouring planters’ men—set fire to it one night. It was not thought advisable to build another hut of bamboo and grass. The school was in charge of Sjt. Soman and Kasturbai. Sjt. Soman decided to build a pukka house, and thanks to his infectious labour, many co-operated with him, and a brick-house was soon made ready. There was no fear now of this building being burnt down.
Thus the volunteers with their schools, sanitation work and medical relief gained the confidence and respect of the village folk, and were able to bring good influence to bear upon them.
But I must confess with regret that my hope of putting this constructive work on a permanent footing was not fulfilled. The volunteers had come for temporary periods, I could not secure any more from outside, and permanent honoraryM6 workers from Bihar were not available. As soon as my work in Champaran was finished, work outside, which had been preparing in the meantime, drew me away. The fewM7 months’ work in Champaran, however, took such deep root that its influence in one form or another is to be observed there even today.
XIX
WHEN A GOVERNOR IS GOODM1
Whilst on the one hand social service work of the kind I have described in the foregoing chapters was being carried out, on the other the work of recording statements of the ryots’ grievances was progressing apace. Thousands of such statements were taken,272 and they could not but have their effect. The ever-growing number of ryots coming to make their statements increased the planters’ wrath, and they moved heaven and earthM2 to counteract my inquiry.
One day I received a letter from the Bihar Government to the following effect: ‘Your inquiry has been sufficiently prolonged; should you not now bring it to an end and leave Bihar?’ The letter was couched in polite language, but its meaning was obvious.273
I wrote in reply that the inquiry was bound to be prolonged, and unless and until it resulted in bringing relief to the people, I had no intention of leaving Bihar. I pointed out that it was open to Government to terminate my inquiry by accepting the ryots’ grievances as genuine and redressing them, or by recognizing that the ryots had made out a prima facie case for an official inquiry which should be immediately instituted. M3
Sir Edward Gait,274 the Lieutenant Governor, asked me to see him, expressed his willingness to appoint an inquiry and invited me to be a member of the Committee.275 I ascertained the names of the other members, and after consultation with my co-workers agreed to serve on the Committee, on condition that I should be free to confer with my co-workers during the progress of the inquiry, that Government should recognize that, by being a member of the Committee, I did not cease to be the ryots’ advocate, and that in case the result of the inquiry failed to give me satisfaction, I should be free to guide and advise the ryots as to what line of action they should take.
Sir Edward Gait accepted the condition as just and proper and announced the inquiry. The late Sir Frank Sly276 was appointed Chairman of the Committee. The Committee found in favour of the ryots, and recommended that the planters should refund a portion of the exactions made by them which the Committee had found to be unlawful, and that the tinkathia system should be abolished by law.277
Sir Edward Gait had a large share in getting the Committee to make a unanimous report and in getting the Agrarian Bill passed in accordance with the Committee’s recommendations. Had he not adopted a firm attitude, and had he not brought all his tact to bear on the subject, the report would not have been unanimous, and the Agrarian Act would not have been passed. The planters wielded extraordinary power. TheyM4 offered strenuous opposition to the Bill in spite of the report, but Sir Edward Gait remained firm up to the last and fully carried out the recommendations of the Committee.
The tinkathia system, which had been in existence for about a century, was thus abolished, and with it the planters’ raj came to an end. The ryots, who had all along remained crushed, now somewhat came to their own,M5 and the superstition that the stain of indigo could never be washed out was exploded.
It was my desire to continue the constructive work278 for some years, to establish more schools and to penetrate the villages more effectively. The ground had been prepared, but it did not please God, as often before, to allow my plans to be fulfilled. Fate decided otherwise and drove me to take up work elsewhere.
XX
IN TOUCH WITH LABOUR
Whilst I was yet winding up my work on the Committee, I received a letter from Sjts. Mohanlal Pandya279 and Shankarlal Parikh280 telling me of the failure of crops in the Kheda district, and asking me to guide the peasants, who were unable to pay the assessment. I had not the inclination, the ability or the courage to advise without an inquiry on the spot.
At the same time there came a letter from Shrimati Anasuyabai281 about the condition of labour in Ahmedabad. Wages were low, the labourers had long been agitating for an increment, and I had a desire to guide them if I could. But I had not the confidenceM1 to direct even this comparatively small affair from that long distance. So I seized the first opportunity to go to Ahmedabad.282 I had hoped that I should be able to finish both these matters quickly and get back to Champaran to supervise the constructive work that had been inaugurated there.283
But things did not move as swiftly as I had wished, and I was unable to return to Champaran,284 with the result that the schools closed down one by one. My co-workers and I had built many castles in the air, but they all vanished for the time being.
One of these was cow-protection work in Champaran, besides rural sanitation and education. I had seen, in the course of my travels, that cow-protection and Hindi propaganda had become the exclusive concern of the Marwadis. A Marwadi friend had sheltered me in his dharmsala whilst at Bettiah. Other Marwadis of the place had interested me in their goshala (dairy).285 My ideas about cow-protection had been definitely formed then, and my conception of the work was the same as it is today. Cow-protection, in my opinion, included cattle-breeding, improvement of the stock, humane treatment of bullocks,M2 formation of model dairies, etc. The Marwadi friends had promised full co-operation in this work, but as I could not fix myself up in Champaran, the scheme could not be carried out.
The goshala in Bettiah is still there,286 but it has not become a model dairy, the Champaran bullock is still made to work beyond his capacity, and the so-called Hindu still cruelly belabours the poor animal and disgraces his religion.
That this work should have remained unrealized has been, to me, a continual regret, and whenever I go to Champaran and hear the gentle reproaches of the Marwadi and Bihari friends, I recall with a heavy sigh all those plans which I had to drop so abruptly.
The educational work in one way or another is going on in many places. But the cow-protection work had not taken firm root, and has not, therefore, progressed in the direction intended.
Whilst the Kheda peasants’ question was still being discussed, I had already taken up the question of the mill-hands in Ahmedabad.287
I was in a most delicate situation. The mill-hands’ case was strong.M3 Shrimati Anasuyabai had to battle against her own brother,
Sjt. Ambalal Sarabhai, who led the fray on behalf of the mill-owners.M4 My relations with them were friendly, and that made fighting with them the more difficult. I held consultations with them, and requested them to refer the dispute to arbitration, but they refused to recognize the principle of arbitration.M5
I had therefore to advise the labourers to go on strike. Before I did so, I came in very close contact with them and their leaders, and explained to them the conditions of a successful strike:
never to resort to violence,
never to molest blacklegs,M6
never to depend upon alms, and
to remain firm, no matter how long the strike continued, and to earn bread, during the strike,M7 by any other honest labour.
The leaders of the strike understood and accepted the conditions, and the labourers pledged themselves at a general meeting not to resume work until either their terms were accepted or the mill-owners agreed to refer the dispute to arbitration.
It was during this strike that I came to know intimately Sjt. Vallabhbhai Patel288 and Shankarlal Banker. Shrimati Anasuyabai I knew well before this.
We had daily meetings of the strikers under the shade of a tree on the bank of the Sabarmati. They attended the meeting in their thousandsM8 and I reminded them in my speeches of their pledge and of the duty to maintain peace and self-respect. They daily paraded the streets of the city in peaceful289 procession,290 carrying their banner bearing the inscription ‘Ek Tek’ (keep the pledge).
The strike went on for twenty-one days. During the continuance of the strike I consulted the mill-owners from time to time and entreated them to do justice to the labourers. ‘We have our pledge too,’ they used to say. ‘Our relations with the labourers are those of parents and children . . . How can we brook the interference of a third party? Where is the room for arbitration?’