• Avinash Kakade

When in 1893, Mahatma Gandhi arrived in South Africa in relation to his work, he experienced first-hand the inhuman approach of the governance system there. Mainly at the Peter Meritzburg railway station, he had been pushed off the train simply for being a ‘BlackMan’. On that night, Gandhiji kept shivering with cold, thinking, what he also wrote in his autobiography thus, “Maine apne dharm ka vichar kiya. Ya to mujhe apne adhikaaron ke liye ladna chahiye ya laut jana chahiye. Nahi to jo apmaan ho usaysahkar Pretoria pahunchna chahiye or mukkadma khatm karke desh mein laut jana chahiye.” (“I thought of my religion. Either I should fight for my rights, or I should return. Or I should reach Pretoria, silently suffering the humiliation, finish the trial and return to the country.”) Gandhiji decided to follow the former voice of his conscience and chose the path of struggle. He awakened the retaliating part of his being. His public life began just then. The life of this struggling mortal came to an abrupt halt on January 30, 1948, when a wrongheaded fanatic shot Gandhiji mercilessly with three pistol bullets.

This continuous living movement, which lasted for about 55 years, attracted the country and the world towards itself and forced the world to change the methods of the traditional movements that had been prevalent till then. Gandhiji’s movements were made to get justice against the exploitation of different communities. The concept of ‘Thought and Ideology’ emerged in this struggle. Inexplicable tricks were also discovered to make the impossible ‘Possible’.

Gandhiji believed that upholding truth should be the aim of our work and the path of non-violence alone can be effective for this search. It takes patience to find the truth. We need to search and re-search for truth. If there is disturbance in our conscience, it will induce fear. It will spontaneously lead to violence and the movement for justice can never succeed in the presence of violence, history is witness to it.

Under any human systems, the nature of movements for the necessary change is bound to be non-violent. In order to protest the injustice being done under the government machinery on the group of society and to plead for justice, Gandhiji believed that we must:

1. Systematically explore the causes of injustice
2. Try to get to the bottom of the truth of those reasons
3. Increase regular interactions with relevant systems
4. To find a way to get justice with the people related to the system
5. Always keep in mind the work ethics of the government machinery
6. Use methods of increasing moral pressure repeatedly to convince the government system of truth
7. Not in any way give a chance to the government machinery to indulge in violence
8. Be fully prepared to take responsibility for the unfair consequences arising out of our agitations, programmes
9. Our patience should be intact till the last moment
10. The feeling of hatred and malice should not arise in our mind towards the people working in government systems.
11. Always be aware that the movement should not assume any unnecessary political form
12. It should always be kept in mind that there should be minimum expenditure working for the movement and change, so that, if need be, the movement can run for a long time. In India under the leadership of Gandhiji, from 1915 to 1942, there were many movements against the government machinery. These include Champaran Indigo Satyagraha 1917, Kheda Farmers Movement 1918, Ahmedabad Mill-Workers Movement 1918, Khilafat Movement 1920, Non-Cooperation Movement 1920, Bardoli Satyagraha 1928, Salt Satyagraha (Civil Disobedience Movement) 1930. Gandhiji is seen trying to influence the governance systemthrough dialogue between individual Satyagraha to achieve justice.

Gandhiji in Champaran The farmers of Champara were bound by law to cultivate indigo for its owners on 3/20 of their own land. It was called Teen Kathia there. Twenty katthas constituted one acre of land there and the practice of sowing indigo in three katthas of land was called Teen Kathia. In 1917, a farmer named Rajkumar Shukla told Gandhiji the plight of Champaran by meeting him at a National Convention of the Congress.Gandhiji, taking cognizance of the whole matter, accepted to pay a visit there. He investigated the socio-economic consequences of this law with the help of his colleagues. He reached the conclusion that there was no way but to repeal the Teen Kathia law. Working in detail on this, he interacted with the indigo planters (landowners), corresponded with the government machinery and documented the statements of the farmers.Seeing that Gandhiji got the support of the local people in the whole process, there was a panic in the administration and Gandhiji was given a notice to leave the area. Gandhiji wrote in response, “Jab takpoorakaam khatam nahihotahai main yahaan se nahijaunga. Chahein to aapmujhe jail bhejsaktehain. Main khud yahaan se hatunganahi.” (“I will not leave until the entire work is over. You can send me to jail if you want. I will myself not move out of here.”) As a result, the then Governor Sir Edward Gait called Gandhiji for a meeting, accepted his demand for a government enquiry and made Gandhi Ji a member of the enquiry committee. Sir Frank Sly was appointed Chairman of the enquiry committee. The enquiry committee found all the complaints of the farmers to be correct and recommended the government to repeal the Teen Kathia laws. By accepting the recommendations of the committee, the government repealed the Teen Kathia law which had been going on for a hundred years and thus the rule of the whitelandowners (Indigo planters) came to an end. This is how Champaran got rid of the problem of Indigo.

Gandhiji carried out this long-standing movement in Champaran along with the programmes of social health. He got extensive campaigns conducted for cleanliness, health and education in the villages of the area. He tried to adapt his daily life with the local conditions while staying there. He reached the issues of injustice to the root to understand them and created an environment of dialogue with the government machinery and the indigo planters. He even sacrificedhis personal self to remove the fear from the hearts and minds of the people. The farmers decided that they would not cultivate indigo, even if they were flogged. In fact, we should understand that the victory of a movement is the eradication of fear.

We have seen in history the account of the battles of truth and lies. We see that at times the justice and at other times the injustice have won these battles. The side of injustice always fights unitedly because of fear. We have also seen that if the side of Justice (truth) fights with right understanding, strong organization and mutual trust, then the chances of victory increase to a great extent. Gandhiji always insisted upon the use of pure means in his movements. He had a firm belief that it was not possible to meet pure ends with impure means. Therefore, violence was completely prohibited in all his movements. Slogans like - No Violence - Never - Nowhere and Be Fearless - became part of his movements. Violent means of course have the potential to attract the societyonly for a short period of time.The end result of violent acts is to strengthen the tendency of perpetrating violence in society. When the thought of justice, the thought of change takes a back seat, the feeling of revenge or the feeling of punishment gains strength. Due to this, the future generations are affected by violence. Today, we are seeing its strange form in the Indian society. Creating a movement for justice in such an environment is nothing short of an impossible challenge.

The movements that were taking place in the Indian sub-division before Gandhiji, did not show so much clarity of thought. For example, Bal Gangadhar Tilak, who was in the lead role of the Indian independence movements from 1890 to 1916, was tried for sedition three times in 1898, 1908 and 1916 due to wrong rhetoric and inflammatory speeches against the institutions of governance. In 1908, he was sentenced to 6 years of imprisonment. He was successfully defended by Barrister Jinnah in 1916.Tilak Maharaj denied the allegations levelled against him all the time. But in 1922, Gandhiji, who was leading the non-cooperation movement, took complete responsibility for the violent behaviour of some agitators in Chauri Chaura village in Gorakhpur area of Uttar Pradesh, fasted for 5 days and withdrew the entire movement. Even after this, Gandhiji, who was leading the movement, was tried for sedition. Gandhiji showed readiness to face the punishment by accepting the charges of sedition. That is, non-violence does not only mean not to back down from fear, but to even accept the mistake made inadvertently. The complete readiness to understand and absorb the truth is inherent in Gandhiji’s conduct.

John Ruskin’s ‘Unto This Last’had a profound impact on Gandhiji. This led to an understanding of the purpose of his fight and the correctness of the means. Its impact is also visible in the roles of their movements. One of Gandhiji’s motto was - Before doing any action, think about itsimpact on the poorest, the weakest man in the world. Therefore, no violent acts of any kind were acceptable in Gandhi’s movements. It was the responsibility of a Satyagrahi to be always aware that one’s egoshould not supersede truth in his movements.

The movement of the disarmed is not always non-violent. Because the people being unarmed does not guarantee non-violence. Non-violence is the innate culture of a person. The expression of violence is also manifested through oral and written means even though the physical means of violence be absent. Such violence is demonstrated many times in mass movements. It is generally considered non-violent. Such demonstrations rarely affect the government system, we all see this. Due to this, the feeling of hatred, malice and opposition towards the system and rulers in us is manifested in more violent ways, in words. Ultimately, this only erodes our own power.

Presently, the ongoing farmers’ movement at the Delhi border has attracted the attention of the country and the world. The nature of this movement has been non-violentso far. The peasant leaders leading the movement have tried their best to maintain its position.

The government is engaged in all kinds of negative and violent efforts to end this movement, instead of indulging in systematic discussion on the issues of their legitimate demand through the farmers’ movement. Although, thirteen-fourteen farcical meetings have already been held with the Central Government. But instead of taking interest in talking to the leaders of the movement, the government is more interested in misleading the public by using the gimmicks of its own special campaigners of TV news channels and IT cell, it is clearly visible.

The government is not at all concerned about the welfare of the people. It is now being understood by all the common people.

The demand of this movement is clear that the Agriculture Bills which were implemented by the Government of India in the name of reforming the then laws in 2020, without any discussion with the farming community are:

1. Bypassing the Agricultural Product Market, the big traders were allowed to purchase the product without a license.
2. By reforming the Essential Services Goods Act, all limits on purchase and hoarding of agricultural produce were removed.
3. In the Contract Agriculture Law, there is a plan to oust small and medium farmers from farming, through corporates.

It is the demand of the agitating farmer leaders that these three laws should be withdrawn immediately, and the Minimum Agricultural Produce Price should be converted into law.

They are not at all interested in solving the judicial issues of the majority of the people of the country. They have only one objective - by keeping the masses engaged in mostly emotional and communal issues, by weakening the main institutions of democracy (nearly enslaving them), by handing over the entire economy of the country to a few corporates, so that the government can do this for a long period of time. So that it can rule in the country, take advantage of it.

In such a situation, there can be no other way than to keep the issues of justice of the majority firmly among all, through organized and non-violent means. Therefore, it is necessary to unfollow the path of adopting external symbolic and formal forces from our mind. There is a need to run the movement for creating a just society and under it, there is a need to make a definite plan of awakening and construction programme in the country.

The aim of the movements should be to inculcate the culture of truth, cooperation, faith, fearlessness and ‘talk less, work more’ in the democratic society. So, it is the duty of the leaders leading the way. If we try to understand Gandhiji’s motto - ‘Before doing any action, think about itsimpact on the poorest, the weakest man in the world,’theworldwould change for better. We have inherited Gandhiji’s heritage. Just try it once.

The author belongs to Sevagram, Wardha (Maharashtra)