Spectrum Test: The Emergence of Gandhi - UPSC

• Champaran Satyagraha (1917)-First Civil Disobedience. So statement 3rd is incorrect. 

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  The European planters had forced peasants to grow indigo on 3/20 part of the total land (called tinkathia system). 

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  When the nineteenth-century German synthetic dyes replaced the European planters, they demanded high rents and illegal from the peasants to maximize their profits before the peasants could shift to other crops. 

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  Besides, the Peasants were forced to sell the produce at prices fixed by the Europeans. When Gandhi, joined now by Rajendra Prasad, Mazhar-Ul-Haq Mahadeo Desai, Narhari Parekh, and J.B. Kripalani reached Champaran to probe into the matter; the authorities ordered him to leave the area at once. Gandhi defied the order and preferred to face the punishment. 

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  This passive resistance or civil disobedience of an unjust order was a novel method at that time. Finally, the authorities retreated and permitted Gandhi to enquire. Now, the government appointed a committee to go into the matter and nominated Gandhi as a member.

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  Gandhi convinced the authorities that the tinkathia system should be abolished and that the peasants should be compensated for the illegal dues extracted from them. 

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  As a compromise with the planters, he agreed that only 25 per cent of the money taken should be compensated. Within a decade, the planters left the area. 

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  Gandhi had Won the first battle of civil disobedience in India. Other popular leaders associated with Champaran Satyagraha were rajkishore Prasad, Anugrah Narayan Sinha, Ram Navami Prasad and Shambhusharan Varma.

• It was the first Non-Cooperation movement. Gandhi, however, was mainly the spiritual head of the struggle. 

• Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel and a group of other devoted Gandhians, namely, Narahari Parikh, Mohanlal Pandya and Ravi Shankar Vyas, went around the villages, organized the villagers and told them what to do and gave the necessary political leadership. 

• Patel and his colleagues organized the tax revolt which the different ethnic and caste communities of Kheda supported.

• The Rowlatt Act: Just six months before the Montford Reforms were to be put into effect; two bills were introduced in the Imperial Legislative Council. 

• One of them was dropped, but the other-an extension to the Defence of India Regulations Act 1915—was passed in March 1919. 

• It was officially called the Anarchical and Revolutionary Crimes Act, but popularly known as the Rowlatt Act.

• There were three Indians among the members. The massacre at Jallianwalla Bagh shocked Indians and many British as well. 

• The Secretary of State for India, Edwin Montagu, ordered that a committee of inquiry be formed to investigate the matter. 

• So, on October 14, 1919, the Government of India announced the formation of the Disorders Inquiry Committee, which came to be more widely and variously known as the Hunter Committee Commission after the name of chairman, Lord William Hunter, former Solicitor-General for Scotland and Senator of the College of Justice in Scotland. 

• The commission's purpose was to "investigate the recent disturbances in Bombay, Delhi and Punjab, about their causes, and the measures taken to cope with them". 

• There were three Indians among the members, namely, Sir Chimanlal Harilal Setalvad, Vice-Chancellor of Bombay University and advocate of the Bombay High Court; Pandit Jagat Narayan, lawyer and Member of the Legislative Council of the United Provinces; and Sardar Sahibzada Sultan Ahmad Khan, a lawyer from Gwalior State.

All these statements are correct. Drawbacks The reforms had many drawbacks: 

(i) Franchise was very limited. The electorate was extended to someone and a half million for the central legislature, while India's population was around 20 million, as per one estimate. 

(ii) At the centre, the legislature had no control over the viceroy and executive council. 

(iii) Division of subjects was not satisfactory at the centre. 

(iv) Allocation of seats for the central legislature to the provinces was based on 'importance of provinces, for instance, Punjab's military importance and Bombay's commercial importance. 

(v) At the level of provinces, division of subjects and parallel administration of two parts was irrational and unworkable. Subjects like irrigation, finance, police, press, and justice were 'reserved'. 

(vi) The provincial ministers had no control over finances and the bureaucrats, leading to constant friction between the two. Ministers were often not consulted on important matters too; in fact, they could be overruled special by the governor on any matter that the latter considered special.

• Mahatma Gandhi started the paper of Indian Opinion. During this phase, Gandhi relied on sending petitions and memorials to the authorities in South Africa and Britain hoping that once the authorities were informed of the plight of Indians, they would take sincere steps to redress their grievances as the Indians were, after all, British subjects. 

• To unite different Indians, he set up the Natal Indian Congress and started a paper Indian Opinion.

• Gandhi convinced the authorities that the tinkathia system should be abolished and that the peasants should be compensated for the illegal dues extracted from them. 

• As a compromise with the planters, he agreed that only 25 per cent of the money taken should be compensated. Within a decade, the planters left the area. 

• Gandhi had won the first battle of civil disobedience in India. Other popular leaders associated with Champaran Satyagraha were Brajkishore Prasad, Anugrah Narayan Sinha, Ramnavmi Prasad and Shambhusharan Varma.

Statement 4th is incorrect: 

• Gandhi advised the workers to remain non-violent while on strike. When negotiations with mill owners did not progress, he himself undertook a fast unto death (his first) to strengthen the workers' resolve. 

• But the fast also had the effect of putting pressure on the mill owners who finally agreed to submit the issue to a Tribunal. The strike was withdrawn. In the end, the Tribunal awarded the workers a 35% wage hike.