 Prof. Utsapatnaya, members and friends of the Samhata Organization, young ladies and gentlemen to send the two songs and all other things. I am very happy and feel privileged in fact that I should have been invited to speak on so important an event as the Champaren Satyagraha of 1970, whose centenary we are now celebrating hopefully not only in Bihar but in different parts of India. Before I speak more about Champaren, I should be able to speak about the Indian national movement because Champaren Satyagraha although on the face of it a present movement was of extreme importance for the national movement. I would further argue that understanding it is very important even today for us who have important causes that we pursue. It goes without saying that if you look at the entire history of India, the Indian national movement was perhaps probably certainly the greatest creation of the Indian people and therefore Champaren Satyagraha, the first act in which the stream of penance and rest joined the stream of the national movement is of extraordinary importance and for these reasons which I shall now try to go into some detail, celebrating Champaren is very important for us not only as a remembrance but also as a means of guidance for work in our own causes. As Prof. Pappan Chandra pointed out, the Indian national movement was indeed unique in that its ideology began not out of any religious sentiment, not out of any simple patriotic movement of native versus foreigner but it began with an understanding of how Britain was exploiting India in the rejection of British policies if not British rule in the beginning for that reason. Long before the Champaren Satyagraha, Tadabhai Naruji from around 1871 had been speaking of how Britain was exploiting India, the drain, the tributes, the burden of taxation, the impoverishment, all this was embodied in the collection of his articles which were published in 1901 but had been in circulation in India earlier, poverty and un-British rule in India. Almost simultaneously, Ramesh Chandra was writing the economic history of British India in which he showed how Britain step by step was exploiting the Indian people and impoverishing. Today we can sustain their arguments, reinforce their arguments, go into further detail by immense use of statistics in which Prof. Utsla Patanay has taken a leading role and therefore I would not speak much about that but my point is that Indian national movement arose out of agreements, not of middle classes but of the Indian poor, very little Tadabhai Naruji or R. Siddharth had to say about the Indian military class. They belonged to it, their readers belonged to the Indian military class but they spoke of the Indian poor and that's a remarkable feature of the early nationalist thought in India where you take Justice Ronald or J. B. Joshi or Dioskar and the other writers who spoke throughout the Indian economy from the nationalist point of view. That's how volumes were published in 1901 and 1903 through volumes. They still remain clasped, these views were translated into various languages for example, the whole presentation of the tribute and empowerment of India based on the rights of Dandada Bhai Nguji and Rameshwar. Ganbiji himself, in his Swaraj in 1909, in Gujarati summarized their conclusions. Although the Indian National Congress, the nationalist rose, the raised the question of empowerment and British tribute they had no links with the poor. Tadabhai Naruji and Rameshwar could not organize the poor. Indian nationalists who were middle class men could not organize the poor. They were not linked with the very masses whose cause they were representing. In other words, they were lawyers without any connection, living connection with their clients. For the first time, the poor had their detailed grievances cared for by the nationalist leadership and the man who did it of course was Mahatma Gandhi. Now when you come to Mahatma Gandhi, one should remember that from 1890s to 1914 except for some short period he was in South Africa working for the rights, fighting for the rights and working for the welfare of Indians in South Africa. I know it is now fashionable to run down Ganbiji's years in South Africa as young of our racialists who tried to build Indian communities position apart from that of the black activists. Those who criticize, those who take this position like Varungati, Roy and others are welcome to that position. The reality is our different. The reality is that in India itself that kind of agitation which Gandhi organized and led in South Africa had never taken place here. There had been no march of 2,000 miners with their families that has took place in Stonewall in 1913. No way in India. No way in India were identity cards burned. No way in India had the men gone to prison in such large numbers that much had to release them because there was no provision in his jail for so many years. These were things unheard of in India. Now clearly this is what should strike us today, not the limitedness of Ganbiji's causes but the actual struggle, the actual calm of struggle unheard of in India, unheard of in his own motherland and therefore when he came to India in 1915 he went from South Africa to England and then he came here. Ganbiji was already a mature man. He was already part of all and he spent the next three years as we all know in travelling around India, next two or three years. He attended the Indian National Congress sessions. He paid homage to the goal of the homeroom and Swaraj for Khudmukh Kauri but it was something else that he was interested in. Organizing for the first time the poor. It is here that Champaran becomes very important. It is his first step in the whole trio of struggles which was finally to obtain freedom for India. A small beginning apparently but a crucial one. Ganbiji because of his struggles in South Africa was a well-known figure in India by 1970. At least among those who were educated in the middle class who read about his agitation, Satyagraha, bouts of passive resistance in South Africa. But he was unknown to the Indian poor. In fact the nationalists were unknown to the Indian poor. They couldn't tender anarchy that sent the very huts of the poor whose cause they represented on it. It was Gandhi who entered that huts. Professor Patnaik spoke of the Indigo planters, the European Indigo planters. Many of them did indeed come from West Indies. Many of them were but were then called on Eurasians, Europeans. A person of the European effect long settled in India. Now the importance of the grievances of the urban planters was that whereas the country was exploited by through taxation, through tribute, through free trade, through de-industrialization, these things did not fit English directly against the exploiters. The land tax was taken through his amigas, the natives. The indirect taxes were collected by Indian native tax collectors. The British cloth which drove Indian spinners and beavers out of employment were sold by local Indian shopkeepers. Where were the Englishmen in all this? It was only in the plantations. Whether they were tea plantations in Assam or Indigo plantations in Assam and Bengal and Bihar that individual Englishmen based the exploited Indians. And this is one important part in the Jamparan Satyagraha. The exploiters were not Samidars, Indian Samidars. The exploiters were British. To single them out was one important and brilliant act of coming. Begin your Satyagraha, begin your agitation from this particular point where the Indian parents faced the European oppression. Whether you spoke of home rule or not, whether you spoke of the national movement or not, it was bound to become a part of the national strategy. So let's come and see. I could not go so far. That was a separate market going on in the 18th century although that was very important. I could only tell that Indigo plantations were the earliest Yorkian plantations in India. They had the longest history. The boilers for processing Indigo had been, that method had been discovered in the West Indies and employed there as a slave labor. Now these boiling boilers factories were established in Bengal by Yorkian Indigo planters. What Samidaris? What long leases from Samidars? So that they got control over the presence of those Samidaris and then forced them to grow Indigo and sell that Indigo at the prices they fixed. So that from the very beginning the exploitation, the degree of exploitation was severe, much more severe than by the Samidars which is saying a lot. And so you have Vandu Mitra's famous Neel Garpan in 1816, the famous play in which the oppression of the plantars was portrayed and almost simultaneously the so-called Indigo disturbances in Engaup. But apart from those disturbances, the remarkable thing is the fire with which the peasants suffered that program. The Indigo plantars spread into Ihar, into areas where Indigo could be produced well. They purchased Samidaris or had in Champaran to play long leases, take us from the Betia Samidari and other Samidaris in the area and then imposed a large number of practices on the peasants. These were numerous forcing the peasants who became their tenants to grow Indigo on the best part of their lands and then buy that Indigo not by the actual weight of the crop but by the area with the crop occupied which always resulted in very low prices paid to the peasants. They also took beghar, they also imposed illegal sesses, they also claimed a large number of things like even claiming the bodies, boxes of animals, cattle and so on so that they could get the skins of the animals which had some prices so that all kinds of malpractices were imposed by the Amida, by the plantars. In the 1880s the synthetic dye was discovered in Germany and that as a result of it Indigo prices crashed. The Indigo plantars transferred the entire cost, the entire loss going to the Indigo new synthetic dye onto the shoulders of the peasants. If now Indigo became so cheap that it was not worth the peasants to grow it since the plantars and sacks were not purchasing it the plantars still took a large amount of money called Tama to for allowing the peasants to shift to other crops and they raised the rents on the agricultural lands. They made many other impositions where they were entitled to on paper to take a diary or to long list from the Amida by increasing and imposing other sesses and sacks. So the attempt was to throw the entire cost of the loss of Indigo plantars onto the shoulders of the peasants. Yet such was their influence, such was the oppression, such was the control they imposed on peasants through their agents and so on chapprasees and others that the peasants did not protest. They could complain but to whom? In 1914 when the World War, World War I broke out suddenly Indigo prices rose because the competition of the synthetic dye was no longer there but if the loss of the competition from the synthetic dye was put on the shoulders of the peasants now that Indigo became important the entire profits were sought to be monopolized by the plantars by increasing their oppressive practice by intensifying their oppressive practices against the peasants. The taada or compensation for choosing the crop that the peasants wanted to cultivate was increased. The up above for illegal sesses were increased. In the Tepe Dari villages, the Longleaf villages, the rents were increased. The prices paid for Indigo were made lower and lower because of counting on the basis not of the actual produce but by the area in which the crop was grown. At the ordinary produce rate, the average was from the produce rate taken in purchase was very low compared to the actual amount of the Indigo that was produced from that in this area. This was the common practice. So instead of the peasants benefitting from the world, from the clothing of the trade with Germany and the competition of the synthetic dyes in fact the peasants were put in a moral of an enviable position increased. It was in this situation where the planters had everything, where they had full sway, where they could destroy anyone's house, where they could do almost anything they wanted in the district of Champaran and other adjoining areas. It was in this situation that the famous session of the Indian National Congress was held at Lucknow in December 1916 where the Congress and the League entered into a pact whereby the Muslim League accepted the objective of home rule and the Congress accepted the principle of communal adapters. Gandhi ji was also there. We came from Champaran and told the delegates of the Congress whom they could meet including Gandhi ji of the grievances they suffered. Gandhi ji refused to move any resolution until he had seen the things for himself. And it was here that it was then that after he had gone to Kalkatams he was taken by one of the peasants who was oppressed and whose house in fact was being destroyed by planters of Gandhi ji for him later. That was Kumar Shukla. That Gandhi ji was brought to Patna. He agreed to visit Champaran and see for himself. What happened in Patna? How Raj Kumar Shukla suddenly disappeared for some reason. Our Gandhi ji had a hard time in the place he was set up. He was put up here. It was Dr. Rajendra Prasad's house who was very unfortunately at that time all of the parts of the traditional law. Gandhi ji himself mentions that but we are not concerned here with that. What is important is that Gandhi ji persevered and that's the important thing. Left alone he still persevered. He goes to Madhapakpur, meets people there and then proceeds to Champaran district. Motihari he is there ultimately. And what does he do? He says that I have come for an inquiry. There was Champaran Satyagraha as a Bishnoma. It was in fact much more than a Satyagraha. But what Gandhi ji described was an inquiry. He had just come to find out for himself. And he gathered a band of followers of whom Dr. Rajendra Prasad and Acharya Kripalani were well-known and some bakis and they began recording peasant's conflicts. When one peasant seems too ordinary, what is the use? But when one peasant had come to record complaints, ten followed. For the first time the planters saw defiance. That had never happened before. And therefore the British government also woke up. Of course they knew Gandhi's eminence for his work in South Africa. And what here happened, what then happened, certainly team a lesson for us. What a political leadership should do. On 16th April the district magistrate of Champaran issued an order under section 144 CRPC asking Mr. Gandhi to leave Champaran district immediately. Here what is important is what Gandhi did. He did not hide behind anyone else. He did not say, I am now leaving when the bail is lifted, I will come back. He did not push anyone else into prison. He simply appeared before the district magistrate, Moti Hari, to explain his position. A station had expected was that he would deny that he was defying. That he would say CRPC this section does not apply in his case. And there will be long proceedings taking many days pooling the agitation. I don't know whether Gandhi did it on the spur of the moment or otherwise. But as soon as he appeared before the district magistrate he seemed to have realized what the government was after. From his correspondence we can see early that he was expecting imprisonment. Another important fact, go ahead to prison himself, not leaving the court. He declared instead of saying not guilty and trying to argue the case he declared himself guilty. He said, I am guilty of breaking the law because there is a higher voice of conscience. The entire game of the British government administration of the local administration held. When the person concerned declares himself guilty then where is the sense in proceedings? What is the sense of giving arguments? What is the sense of prolonging the proceedings? The district magistrate had to decide then and there. He tried to release Gandhi on bail and Gandhi refused to offer any bail. He said, I don't have rupees 100. Then he released him on his own knowledge and oral acknowledgement that he would not go away from the court. Of course he intended to stay in Jamparan. And that intimately forced the lieutenant governor of Bihar and Urusa that was one province at that time to withdraw the proceedings. What could they do? If they arrested Gandhi they knew that the consequences would be felt all over India. The whole thing would become an old India point of views. And therefore they surrendered that was the first surrender. And Gandhi then went on with fresh and his team with fresh traditions particularly from the lawyers and teachers, of Murushpur and Jamparan to gather complaints from the peasants. Large numbers are given but Gandhi estimated that by the next month 4,000 had been gathered and intimately 8,000 complaints of the peasants had been gathered. I understand that larger estimates are there but I will go by Gandhi's own enumeration. But these 8,000 complaints were no simple matter. Actual terms, this was the entire point. I think that as such a recording complaint, pageant complaint and their agents were standing there with the planters numbered. After all much of the authority of the Meda and the planters and all those people had a moral basis. That's the number. The British government in Gandhi's operation was that he never refused negotiations. He would make planters, be very polite with them. He would make government officials. But what he did was he never left the side of the peasants. He was with them all along. And that's again a lesson for British government officers including the president and governor of India to meet him and to speak with him. He remained continuously not only the peasants' spokesman but completely with the peasants all the time. There were negotiations with, actually whose position is not mentioned in the collected works of Mahatma Gandhi, with William Maud at Ranchi on 10th May. Gandhi, he went and met him at Ranchi was quite a distance from Champaran but he went there. But when Maud asked him to suspend the collection of complaints, Gandhi, he said that no, my inquiry is not yet over. But I will send you a report, preliminary report. So the implantations of the British administration were unsuccessful, returning to Champaran, Gandhi, he sent a preliminary report about whether he complains about their grievances or not. But he continued with the signatures. The British government said, it looks awkward, I mean surprising, that by mere recording of complaints the British government should suddenly surrender. The thing was, it had never happened before. Who had taken peasants' complaints? Who had gone to the villages? Who had announced by the mayor taking off complaints who had destroyed the traditional authority of the exploitors? It had never happened before. So the whole Champaran's et cetera was to look at it so minor operation, record complaints, but so effective. In the overflow of the moral authority of the plantains, and there is another thing you remember before we'll come to that point, Gandhi had his targets precisely fixed. The target of attacks were plantars, they were... He never spoke against the Namida, not even against the Batia Namida. When later in the committee, mentioning that the British officials made an attempt to transfer some of the burden that the presence would be free from onto the shoulders of the Hamidars, the Batia Namidari, Gandhi, he did not agree. He did not want to make opponents of the Hamidars. All this opens Gandhi's criticisms from our subordinates and others that he did not, at that time, lead us to the Namida's interests. But the fact was that Gandhi wanted to isolate the plantains, the orderly and plantains. And for that it was important that the Indian Namidars should remain neutral. They should not be thrown onto the side of the plantains. But I particularly think that there's a lesson for us. Don't increase the number of your enemies at a particular point in a struggle. Try to isolate your opponent. And from that point of view, Gandhi was immensely successful. When the plantas wanted the landowners association of Bihar to support their case, the landowners refused. They didn't want to enter into this because they never knew that up till now Gandhi ji had also remained neutral yet there's nothing to annoy the Bihar Namidars. And this was one particular reason why the plantas were isolated and the British government had to surrender on the entire issue. Subsequent developments can be briefly told but I still remember the meaning that they were important. I still feel that they were as important as Gandhi ji's very love of the so-called inquiry, the collection of villagers of the peasants grievances. Ultimately, on 5th of June, nearly two months, more than two months after the agitation had begun or the inquiry had begun, the recollection of complaints had begun, he engaged the Lieutenant Governor of Bihar and Odisha in the Chief Secretary had a long meeting with Gandhi ji at night. The British government abandoned the cause of the plantas. Whatever the plantas had tried, their racial affinities with British officials and so on and so forth, the British government knew that a continuous agitation, merely recorded with the grievances, could create a totally new situation for them in Bihar. It had never happened before. It had never happened that peasants in thousands should go and record their grievances and therefore they decided to abandon the plantas. They agreed that a committee would be formed, three British officials including the chairman, Gandhi ji, one representative of the Amidas and one representative of the plantas, that what this committee would decide would recommend would be carried out by the government. What is often forgotten is that these two were very important. Gandhi ji attended every meeting of the committee. He was ready to respond to any proposal and here it was that he responded to the proposal which would have annoyed the Amidas and did not agree to that, although peasants would have gained but the Amidas would have been among them and that was very important to save the entire, the remainder of the reforms. When the committee's report came out in October, that committee's report is worth reading and I hope that it, one day will come when it becomes compulsory reading for every official of this blessed government. How you could write it apart? How you could condemn the plantas? How you could go into each grievance and say the peasants are right? How you could say that the entire fabric of the oppressive structure of the plantas should be saved up? This is an astonishing test. Almost everything is conceived. Almost everything. It's considered in immensely precise language. Gandhi's presence in it. Gandhi's serious participation in it. Whenever, when it showed that whenever a new proposal was came, he was ready with his response. He was ready to give consultation, ultimately found that as far as the particular extra charge that the plantas had made on the peasants, that could not be reduced by 42% as he had said, but only by 26%. He considered that. He considered that. But you could say that he had tried hard and hard. The plantas had nothing more than 25%, but he still gained a moral point by putting at 26%. But that was all. But otherwise, for everything else, he got whatever the peasants wanted to the last detail. But that work was not ended because some of the recommendations of the committee required legal students. Others, the British government announced by proclamation that there can't be any offence, there cannot be any legal accesses and so forth and so on. So, an agrarian bill was framed. And here also, Gandhi took care to see how the bill was worded. And you can see in his collected works how he tried to get the word in change that you usually succeeded. It is seen as leadership. Go to the end of this talk. Try to see where did he celebrate. There is no reference to celebration of his victory in Jambal. He suddenly turns after that success to other men. An immense modesty when he, in fact, forced the British government to abandon the plantas in the interest of the U.S. violence. An immense success never attained before, perhaps in the history of parody as you live in India. Throughout the Jamparan Satya Graha and subsequently, Gandhi never forgot the larger concerns of India. Two are very relevant. I was looking for the collected works volume. There are two volumes in the Jamparan, one main volume and then the next. And I suddenly found the statement of Gandhi that there is not worth any injury to a human being. A human being is far more precious than a cow. That statement. Although there are letters about settling the cow, but this is the statement there. Soon after the Jamparan Satya Graha riots broke out in Iraq. And what does Gandhi say? He says the Hindus in Iraq should compensate their Muslim brethren. That of India should compensate their Muslim brothers. This is the kind of leadership. So when we see today the Jamparan Satya Graha in the context of the Indian national movement, it is of course easy to pick out particular grievances, objections, predispositions of the Indian national movement and Gandhi's particular grievances. One reason usually which are some supporting friends like these Guha and others have particularly emphasized this that after all in Gandhi's agrarian movements it is the upper presence who are involved and not the limiters who have labor. May be true. It is very difficult as far as the case of Jamparan presence is concerned to find out whether the white benefitted only the larger presence and not the others from all embedded presence. I see no reason for that. All sections of presence benefitted. It is true that landless laborers did not benefit except perhaps through the prohibition of beggar and the control over the skinning of animals being raised to the local community. But even if it is right that who benefitted from these worthy larger presence even that was unique in India it had never happened before that presence of any kind upper, middle or lower it had never happened and to forget it and to say that such a sensitivity excluded because there are no direct differences against the partners is to calculate petty points and forget the major. You see that in further struggle for instance in the next year the Kerala struggle and the industrial strike the industrial agitation in which Gandhi was opposed to his own major financial factors the saints of Ahmadabad he said that the Kerala Satyagra how only benefited the upper elements the patidars and others it has been said by subordinates the Ahmadabad strike but one must remember that every trade union strike had in social been working in or actually wanted to work in the trade union that was of the same use implied on association by party leaders who had been in the an associate of Bharat Singh said that if you don't compromise your union will end soon the trade union movement develops only through struggle and compromises and that would also be applied to the national movement national movement is think everything one month struggle would have a short life and therefore when Gandhi in the Champaran struggle concentrated only on planters and only on grievances against the planters there cannot be any I hope I think myself I may be mistaken there cannot be any particular complaint against what is important there is because that Gandhi in that struggle tried to protect to whatever extent he could the presence whom he was related he never put them at risk and then he risked points because they are himself and that too he doesn't pass let us not use people who believe to agitation as general father they are very precious not in useless struggles but keep and always be in from day to day struggle always have to displace the compromise that's only how people's movement trade unions whether the organizations can be built up today all these things are important because in our country unfortunately organizations of the working class and peasants are in obvious decline and therefore it is time that we learn from the experience earlier in the Gandhi's own organization Gandhi in all struggles also have a place friends I think I said enough I will only end by saying that the Champaran Satyagraha opened an entire series began an entire series of struggles which were after every struggle on a higher plane Champaran Satyagraha industrial strife in Ahmadabad Kerala Satyagraha both in 1918 the April Satyagraha leading to Jagyarnalata in 1919 the non-cooperation and calafat movement of 1920 and 22 sweeping throughout India Champaran opened the gates and that is why it should be celebrated thank you