Champaran and the Gandhian Era in Bihar

Champaran, 1917

The problem

In Champaran (north-west Bihar), European indigo planters controlled huge areas of land. Under the tinkathia system, tenants were forced to grow indigo on 3 kathas of every bigha (a bigha has 20 kathas), that is ³⁄₂₀ of their land, and sell it at low fixed prices. When cheap German synthetic dye made indigo less profitable, planters demanded extra payments (sharahbeshi, tawan) to release tenants from the contract.

Gandhi arrives

• Raj Kumar Shukla, a Champaran farmer, met Gandhi at the Lucknow Congress (December 1916) and kept following him until he agreed to come.
• Gandhi reached Motihari in April 1917. The district magistrate ordered him to leave. Gandhi refused, said he would accept the punishment, and the government withdrew the case. This was civil disobedience in its first Indian form.
• With Rajendra Prasad, Brajkishore Prasad, Anugrah Narayan Sinha, Mazharul Haque, J. B. Kripalani, Ramnavami Prasad and Dharnidhar Prasad, he recorded the statements of thousands of peasants.
• The government set up the Champaran Agrarian Committee, with Gandhi as a member. The Champaran Agrarian Act, 1918, abolished tinkathia.
• Gandhi also started schools, for example at Bhitiharwa, and worked on health and sanitation.

Champaran made Gandhi a national leader and brought Rajendra Prasad into full-time public life.

Non-Cooperation (1920–22)

• Bihar Vidyapith was inaugurated by Gandhi on 6 February 1921 at Sadaqat Ashram, Patna, on land given by Mazharul Haque. Sadaqat Ashram became the Congress headquarters in Bihar.
• Students left government schools and colleges, lawyers gave up practice, foreign cloth was burnt and liquor shops were picketed.
• After the movement, the Swarajists were strong in the Bihar Legislative Council, and the Simon Commission was boycotted at Patna in 1928.

Civil Disobedience (1930–34)

• Salt was made at Nakhas Pond (Patna), at Bihpur (Bhagalpur) and in Champaran.
• Villagers ran a no-chaukidari-tax campaign.
• The Bihpur satyagraha was led by Rajendra Prasad, who was beaten by the police there.

The 1934 earthquake

On 15 January 1934 a massive earthquake struck north Bihar and Nepal. Rajendra Prasad led the relief committee. Gandhi called it a punishment for the sin of untouchability; Rabindranath Tagore publicly disagreed with him.

Provincial autonomy (1937)

• Under the Government of India Act 1935, elections were held in 1937.
• Mohammad Yunus was briefly Bihar's first Premier (April–July 1937) while the Congress hesitated.
• The Congress ministry under Shri Krishna Sinha ("Bihar Kesari"), with Anugrah Narayan Sinha ("Bihar Vibhuti") as deputy, took office in July 1937 and resigned in 1939 over the war.
• The Ramgarh Congress (1940), now in Jharkhand, was presided over by Maulana Abul Kalam Azad.

Exam tip: For Mains, Champaran is a ready-made 300-word answer: problem (tinkathia) → method (defiance + evidence) → result (1918 Act) → significance (first satyagraha in India; new leaders like Rajendra Prasad).