Gandhi’s Early Satyagrahas in India

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It is Gandhi’s first Civil Disobedience Movement in India.
The first attempt at mobilizing the Indian masses was made by Gandhi on an invitation by peasants of Champaran.
In Champaran in Bihar the tinkathia system was practised in which the peasants to compulsorily grow indigo on lease on 3/20th of their fields.
Indigo cultivators of the district Champaran in Bihar were severely exploited by the European planters.
Accompanied by local leaders such as Rajendra Prasad, Mazharul Huq, Acharya Kripalani and Mahadeva Desai, Gandhi conducted a detailed enquiry.
Rajkumar Shukla, an agriculturist from Champaran who suffered hardships of the system, prevailed on Gandhi to visit Champaran.
The Lieutenant Governor eventually formed a committee with Gandhi as a member which recommended the abolition of the Tinkathia System, thereby ending the oppression of the peasants by the Indigo Planters.
The report was accepted and implemented resulting in the release of the indigo cultivators of the bondage of European planters.

In Ahmedabad there was a dispute between the textile workers and the mill owners.
When the owners refused to accept the demands of the low paid workers, Gandhi advised them to go on strike demanding a 35 percent increase in their wages.
The worker’s strike and Gandhi’s fast ultimately forced the mill owners’ to concede the demand.

The peasants of Kheda district, due to the failure of monsoon, were in distress.
As per government’s famine code, in the event of crop yield being under 25 percent of the average the cultivators were entitled for total remission but the authorities refused and harassed them demanding full payment.
The Kheda peasants who were also battling the plague epidemic, high prices and famine approached the Servants of India Society, of which Gandhi was a member, for help.
Gandhi, along with Vithalbhai Patel, intervened on behalf of the poor peasants.
Vallabhbhai Patel, a young lawyer and Indulal Yagnik joined Gandhi in the movement and urged the ryots to be firm.
As a result Government ordered to collect revenue only those who could afford to pay.

Gandhi Awards

Kaisari-Hind gold medal for his humanitarian work in South Africa.
Zulu War silver medal for his services as an officer of the Indian volunteer ambulance corps in 1906
Boer War silver medal for his services as assistant superintendent of the Indian volunteer stretcher-bearer corps during Boer War of 1899-1900.

When Gandhi launched the scheme of Non-Cooperation in connection with Khilafat Movement, he returned all the medals saying, ‘…events that have happened during the past one month have confirmed in me the opinion that the Imperial Government have acted in the Khilafat matter in an unscrupulous, criminal and unjust manner and have been moving from wrong to wrong in order to defend their immorality. I can retain neither respect nor affection for such a government.

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