Road To Freedom

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• For God and Country
• The Empire Builders
• Tribal Uprisings
• Sepoys on the Move
• British Authority Collapses
• The Empire Strikes Back
• Roll of Honour
• The Trial of the Last Emperor
• English Education
• The Blue Mutiny
• Perishing in Peace
• ‘Rani Ka Hookum’
• Barbarous Britannia
• Return to Swadeshi
• The Delhi Durbar
• Hunger Deaths
• The One-Man Army
• Mamool Raj
• The British Raj in Black and White
• Europeans Take To The Street!
• Pressing On !
• The Battle For A Free Press
• The Battle Lines are Drawn
• Women : Crossing the Threshold
• An Old Man's Dream
• Father of Indian Unrest
• The Monk Who Shook The Nation
• The Battle is Taken to the Legislature!
• Partition of Bengal
• The Great Divide
• The New Spirit of India
• Swadeshi Enterprise
• From Swadeshi to Swaraj
• Gandhi in South Africa
• Heroes and Martyrs
• Revolutionaries Outside India
• Carrot and Stick
• Gandhi in Champaran
• The Gentle Satyagrahi
• Massacre at Jallianwala Bagh
• Jallianwala — The Aftermath
• A People Reject Their Rulers
• The Himalayan Blunder
• Gandhiji Withdraws from Political Activities
• Bardoli
• Saga of Indian Revolutionaries
• A Pinch of Salt!
• Gandhi and Ambedkar
• Leave India to God… or to Anarchy
• Quit India
• The Last War of Independence
• Apostle of Peace
• India Wins Freedom
• The Light Has Gone Out
• Under One Flag

Bardoli

Bardoli

In 1928 the government raised the taxes payable by landowners of Bardoli in Gujarat by a whopping 22 per cent. It was an ill-considered move that unwittingly helped to establish the civil disobedience movement there. On Gandhiji's advice, Vallabhbhai Patel who was then the mayor of Ahmedabad resigned from his post and went to Bardoli to lead a no-tax campaign. Addressing a meeting of farmers, Patel said: "The Government's stand is unjust and it is therefore your duty to oppose it. If that is fixed in your minds then no amount of the Government's brute strength is going to have the slightest effect. They wish to collect money but it is for you to give. It is for you to decide whether you will pay the revised land revenue or not. If you make up your minds that you will not give even one pie, whatever the government may do, however many confiscations it carries out, however many fields it takes away, the Government will not be able to collect the revised land revenue which you are unwilling to accept... This is a fight against the government's practice of not giving any hearing to the agriculturists." The people of Bardoli however showed a tendency to give in when pressured by the authorities. Seeing this, Patel urged the farmers to stand up and fight for their rights. In a hard-hitting speech he said to them: "In this taluka even dogs don't bark at strangers. It is this excessive gentleness of yours that is now your biggest difficulty. Therefore, let some pride show itself in your eyes and your expression and learn to fight for justice and against injustice." The farmers responded enthusiastically. "Even if we are cut to pieces," said one villager, "we shall keep our pledge not to co-operate with the government!" When the government decided to take action against some of the farmers and issued notices to seven landholders warning them that their lands would be attached if they failed to pay the land revenue, one of the villagers replied thus to the revenue official who had issued the notice: "You must regard me as the weakest landholder in the whole mahal (small revenue unit) and therefore, have selected me for serving this first notice. But now, like all others, I, too am determined not to pay land revenue until justice is done. You and I have been on friendly terms and have enjoyed good social relations. For that reason and as a well-wisher of yours I would like to advise you that it would be more honourable for you to resign from your service rather than carry out the work of attaching land belonging to peasants."

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Escalating the war against the farmers, the collector of Bardoli ordered that all the moveable property of those who had refused to pay tax should be attached. As moveable property included buffaloes some of these animals were dragged away to the police station. Buffalo owners quickly dragged their buffaloes into their homes and shut the doors. The animals were kept locked in for weeks together. Minor government officials, eager to please their superiors searched desperately for animals to take away. One official was so unrelenting in his quest to seek out and confiscate buffaloes that Patel named him "Buffalo Tiger".
The officials then started attaching other property like pots and pans and other cooking vessels. Patel told the people that they should neither cooperate nor obstruct these officials. He asked people to show total disinterestedness — not even to gather to watch while a house was being raided by the officials.
Months passed. Lands were attached. People were arrested. But there was not a single act of violence in Bardoli.
When the government started auctioning the lands it had confiscated, several voices were raised in protest. Vithalbhai Patel, president of the Imperial Legislative Assembly and K.M. Munshi, an eminent lawyer and member of the legislative council of Bombay, expressed sympathy with the Bardoli satyagrahis and urged the government to act honourably towards them.
The government finally backed down. On 6 August 1928, it agreed to release all prisoners, return the confiscated property and cancel the hike in taxes. The farmers agreed to pay taxes at the old rate.
When property was being confiscated in Bardoli, Gandhiji had observed: "The people of Bardoli, if they are brave will be none the worse for dispossession. They will have lost their possessions but kept what must be the dearest of all to good men and women -- their honour. Those who have stout hearts and hands need never fear loss of belongings."
Apparently as Louis Fischer noted, "the Mahatma thought every peasant was a Gandhi."
Fischer also noted that "strangely enough, the judgement (of Gandhi) did not err. A spark of Gandhism lifted the peasantry into a mood of sacrifice."
Bardoli reinforced Gandhiji's faith in the peasantry. Now he was ready to emerge from his self-imposed isolation from political activities and take on the British again.