On The Mahatma's Trail

Gandhi had a unique relationship with Bihar. This Independence Day, I revisit history with Gandhian Razi Ahmed to explore why, among other places, Bihar is considered his ‘karmbhoomi'

All of us have heard of Anna Hazare's threat to resume his indefinite fast on August 16, and most of us have shown a clear appreciation for his conviction and commitment, as also awe for the Gandhian tool of Satyagraha used by him to rout corruption from India. But what many of us – or, at least, the newer generation – are unaware of is that Satyagraha as an effective tool of resistance was, for the first time, successfully tested at Champaran in Bihar, almost 94 years ago.
The Champaran Satyagraha in 1917 was the first experiment of mass struggle in India. Before that, Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi had adopted his still evolving methodology of Satyagraha or non-violent protest, for the first time, in South Africa, to protest against the discrimination directed at Indians. Says Razi Ahmed, secretary of Gandhi Sangrahalaya at Patna, "It was an unremarkable place like Champaran in Bihar that introduced a remarkable leader like Gandhi to India, as well as catapulted leaders like Dr Rajendra Prasad, Jivatram Bhagwandas Kripalani and Anugrah Narayan Sinha into national prominence."

Ahmed proceeds to share with TOI, the story of Gandhi's sojourn in Bihar. The annual session of Indian National Congress at Lucknow in 1916 saw participation of leaders of national stature like Lokmanya Tilak and Gopal Krishna Gokhale. Gandhi too, having recently returned from South Africa, attended as a delegate for the first time. It was at this Lucknow Congress that barrister Brajkishore Prasad along with 40 delegates from Bihar appealed to the leaders to take up the cause of the 'ryots' of Champaran – landless serfs, indentured labourers and poor farmers – who were forced to grow indigo and other cash crops instead of the food crops necessary for their survival.
Among the delegates from Bihar was a farmer called Raj Kumar Shukla. The session was extraordinary because for the first time a semi-illiterate, rustic man like Shukla was allowed to address the distinguished audience and share with them the plight of the indigo farmers of Champaran. In broken Hindi, Shukla gave an impassioned account of the tenants' misery. Gandhi gave a separate, patient hearing to him later, but did not commit to a visit to Champaran due to time constraints.
Gandhi then went on to Kanpur, where to his surprise he found Shukla already waiting for him. In fact, so committed was the farmer that he kept on pursuing Gandhi to visit Champaran and take stock of the situation first-hand. But it was in Kolkata – where Shukla had arrived before Gandhi to wait for him and beseech him to come along – that Gandhi realized the extent of the farmer's commitment.
Without further delay, Gandhi accompanied Shukla to Motihari, the district headquarters of Champaran, via Patna and Muzaffarpur.
"While in Patna, Gandhi came face-to-face with one of the social evils plaguing Bihar at the time – untouchability. Upon reaching Patna, the duo decided to pay a visit to Dr Rajendra Prasad. Dr Prasad was, unfortunately, away at the time and his servants, mistaking Gandhi to be a lower-class rustic because of his plain clothes and unremarkable demeanour, did not allow him inside the house nor offered him water," says Ahmed.
Gandhi then remembered that his London classmate, Mazharul Haque also lived in Patna. Upon getting Gandhi's message, Haque, a noted barrister at the time, came personally to fetch the duo to his Sikandar Manzil home on Fraser Road.
Gandhi and Shukla then moved onwards to Muzaffarpur where, having got a message to meet them at the station, Kripalani had come to receive Gandhi. Having never met Gandhi earlier and thinking Gandhi to be travelling in the first class of the train, Kripalani – a professor at GBB College (now, L S College) started searching the first class bogie with his supporters but without any success. Upon seeing the crowd assembled on the platform, Shukla knew it must be in Gandhi’s welcome, and so he took Kripalani and the others to the third class and presented them to Gandhi. If it was a jolt to see Gandhi travelling in the "poor man's" class, it was a bigger shock to realise that this frail, unassuming man dressed as a peasant was Gandhi, come to deliver the farmers from their plight!

The next day Gandhi and his supporters shifted to noted barrister Gorakh Prasad's house in Muzaffarpur. Once there, such a large number of people came to meet – and in many cases, catch a glimpse of – the leader, that Gandhi joked about Prasad's house having turned into a 'caravanserai'.
Finally, on April 15, 1917, the group reached Motihari in Champaran. An AICC report of 1917 states that "a large crowd of people of Champaran witnessed the greatest architect of Indian Freedom Struggle in Motihari". In fact, the huge response of the people to Gandhi irked the administration to no end.
On April 16, while Gandhi was talking to villagers at Chandrahia village, the administration served a notice to him to leave the district within 24 hours.
On April 18, Gandhi appeared for trial in the court of the magistrate, who ordered him released on condition of bail payment. Gandhi refused to pay the bail and instead, indicated his preference to remain in jail under arrest. Alarmed at the huge response Gandhi was eliciting from the people of Champaran, and intimidated by the knowledge that Gandhi had already managed to inform the Viceroy of India of the mistreatment meted out to the farmers by the British plantation owners, the magistrate set him free without payment of any bail.
The case against Gandhi was finally withdrawn on April 21. Also, the government yielded and a commission was appointed to look into the entire matter and suggest remedies. Gandhi, too, was invited to join the commission and he accepted. The commission recommended the acceptance of the peasants' demands and taking legal steps to implement them, and within a few months the Champaran Agrarian Bill was passed providing a marked respite to the farmers and land tenants.
Thereafter, Gandhi visited Bihar many a times, the visit to Patna on August 8, 1947, being his last one. Through these visits and by connecting and empathising with the masses here, he left an indelible mark on the evolution of Bihar as a state – a mark that we would do well to remember now that Bihar is in a resurgent phase and needs direction in its growth.

Admiration Guaranteed
Excerpts from the 'Proceedings of the Government of Bihar and Orissa, Political (Special) Department, 1917' show that even though the bureaucracy was openly hostile to Gandhi and friendly to the European planters, there was a fair amount of admiration too, for him, his associates and their cause:
* WH Lewis, the sub-divisional officer of Bettiah, wrote to the collector of Champaran: "Gandhi seems a curious mixture of the East and West. He owes a large part of his belief to Ruskin and Tolstoy, particularly the latter's, and couples these to the asceticism of a jogi. Were his ideas only those of the East, he would have been content to have applied them to his personal existence in a life of his meditative seclusion. It is only the teachings of the West that have made him an active social reformer."
* J T Whitty, manager, Bettiah Raj, wrote to the commissioner of Tirhut: "He is a man who is prepared to go to any length to carry through an idea. He can easily be made into a martyr and cannot be easily suppressed."
* A C Ammon, manager of Belwa factory, had consistently harassed and tortured Raj Kumar Shukla, but upon Shukla's death, he sent Rs 500 to his home for preparation of last rites. When people asked him the reason behind the change of heart, Ammon replied, "You won't understand. He was a great man."