Study Guide · Chapter 5
The Gandhian Phase — Early Movements (1915–1922)
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- Gandhi returned to India from South Africa in January 1915, having developed his philosophy of Satyagraha (truth-force/non-violent resistance) during the struggle against discriminatory legislation targeting Indians in South Africa (notably opposing the "Black Act" in Transvaal).
- Champaran Satyagraha (1917, Bihar): Gandhi's first major Satyagraha in India; supported indigo cultivators against the exploitative Tinkathia system (forcing them to grow indigo on a fixed portion of land for European planters); resulted in the Champaran Agrarian Act (1917) providing relief.
- Kheda Satyagraha (1918, Gujarat): Supported peasants seeking tax relief after crop failure; Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel emerged as a key organiser here, cementing his close association with Gandhi.
- Ahmedabad Mill Strike (1918): Gandhi mediated a labour dispute between mill workers and owners over wages, undertaking a fast to press for a fair settlement — an early demonstration of the fast as a tool of moral pressure.
- Rowlatt Satyagraha (1919): Nationwide protest against the Rowlatt Act; culminated tragically in the Jallianwala Bagh Massacre (13 April 1919, Amritsar), where troops under General Reginald Dyer fired on an unarmed crowd, killing hundreds — a defining atrocity that transformed the scale and tenor of the independence movement. Udham Singh later assassinated Michael O'Dwyer (the Punjab Lieutenant-Governor who had endorsed Dyer's action) in London in 1940, in delayed retribution.
- Khilafat Movement (1919–1924): Led by the Ali Brothers (Muhammad Ali and Shaukat Ali) in protest against the post-WWI treatment of the Ottoman Caliph; Gandhi supported this cause to forge Hindu-Muslim political unity, merging it with the wider Non-Cooperation campaign.
- Non-Cooperation Movement (1920–1922): Officially launched at the Nagpur Session of Congress (December 1920); involved boycott of government schools, colleges, courts, legislative councils, foreign cloth, and British titles/honours (Tagore renounced his knighthood; Gandhi returned his Kaiser-i-Hind medal). The movement saw genuinely mass, pan-India participation for the first time. It was abruptly called off after the Chauri Chaura incident (4 February 1922, UP), where an angry mob set fire to a police station, killing 22 policemen — Gandhi withdrew the movement, citing the need for strict non-violence as a precondition, a decision that disappointed and divided many within the movement (including younger, more militant figures) at the time.
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