Gandhi's Arrival & Early Satyagrahas — Champaran to Jallianwala Bagh

Why This Chapter Matters

This chapter covers 1915 to 1920, the years when Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi entered Indian politics and tested his method of satyagraha at Champaran, Ahmedabad and Kheda, before the Rowlatt Act and Jallianwala Bagh pushed him into all-India leadership. In SSC CGL, CHSL, MTS and RRB NTPC papers, expect 2 to 3 questions from this zone in the GA section whenever Modern History appears. It is one of the most reliable scoring areas in the whole book because the facts are few, fixed and asked again and again.

The sub-topics that repeat most: the year Gandhi returned to India (9 January 1915), which satyagraha came first (Champaran 1917), which was his first hunger strike (Ahmedabad 1918), which was his first non-cooperation (Kheda 1918), who invited him to Champaran (Rajkumar Shukla), the date of Jallianwala Bagh (13 April 1919), the officer who fired (General Dyer), and the committee that inquired into it (Hunter Commission). Match-the-pair questions linking place, year and "first" are the standard pattern. Learn the three early satyagrahas as a set; exams love mixing them up.

1. Gandhi in South Africa (1893–1914), in Brief

Gandhi was born on 2 October 1869 at Porbandar, Gujarat. He studied law in London and in 1893 went to South Africa as a lawyer for the Gujarati firm of Dada Abdulla in Natal. Within days he was thrown out of a first-class train compartment at Pietermaritzburg station despite holding a valid ticket. That night on the platform is treated as the starting point of his public life.

He stayed in South Africa for about 21 years (1893–1914) and built his entire political toolkit there. Learn these items with years; SSC frames direct one-liners on them.

Year	Work in South Africa
1894	Founded the Natal Indian Congress
1903	Started the weekly Indian Opinion
1904	Set up Phoenix Settlement near Durban
1906	First satyagraha, against the Asiatic Registration Act ("Black Act") in Transvaal
1908	Public burning of registration certificates; jail terms begin
1909	Wrote Hind Swaraj on board a ship, in Gujarati
1910	Set up Tolstoy Farm near Johannesburg, with Hermann Kallenbach
1913	Satyagraha against the poll tax and invalidation of Indian marriages; the great miners' march
1914	Gandhi–Smuts agreement; Indian Relief Act passed; Gandhi leaves South Africa

Two points examiners like. First, the word "satyagraha" was coined in South Africa, not India; Gandhi found "passive resistance" too weak and ran a small prize contest in Indian Opinion, from which "sadagraha" came, which he changed to "satyagraha". Second, Hind Swaraj (1909) contains his core ideas: criticism of modern industrial civilisation, faith in village India, and the claim that means matter as much as ends.

2. Return to India and the Quiet Year (1915–1916)

Gandhi landed at Bombay on 9 January 1915. This date is now observed as Pravasi Bharatiya Divas (from 2003), a favourite static-GK link. The same year the British government gave him the Kaiser-i-Hind medal for his ambulance and public work; remember that he returned this medal in 1920 during Non-Cooperation.

His political mentor was Gopal Krishna Gokhale, whom Gandhi called his political guru. Gokhale gave him clear advice: keep your "ears open and mouth shut" for one year and travel across India before taking any political position. Gandhi followed it. Through 1915–16 he toured the country by train, mostly third class, and stayed out of controversies. He attended the Lucknow session of the Congress in December 1916, and it was there that a Champaran peasant first cornered him.

In May 1915 he founded an ashram at Kochrab near Ahmedabad; in 1917 it shifted to the bank of the Sabarmati and became the Sabarmati Ashram. He chose Ahmedabad deliberately: Gujarati was his language, and the city's mill owners could fund constructive work.

One more 1916 fact that exams pick up: at the opening of the Banaras Hindu University in February 1916, Gandhi gave a blunt speech criticising the bejewelled princes on stage and the use of English, causing a stir. It signalled that the new arrival would not talk like the Moderates.

3. What Exactly Is Satyagraha?

Exams ask conceptual one-liners here, so fix the definitions.

Satyagraha literally means "holding firmly to truth" (satya + agraha). It is not passive resistance. Gandhi insisted on the difference: passive resistance is a weapon of the weak and can coexist with hatred; satyagraha is a weapon of the strong and excludes violence completely.

Core elements:

• Truth (satya) as the goal; the satyagrahi fights a wrong, not a person.
• Non-violence (ahimsa) as the only permitted means. For Gandhi, means and ends could not be separated.
• Self-suffering: the satyagrahi accepts punishment willingly, jail included, and never retaliates. The opponent's heart is to be changed, not his body broken.
• Fearlessness: a coward, Gandhi said, cannot practise satyagraha. He even preferred violence to cowardice.
• Openness: no secrecy, no conspiracies; the opponent is informed of every step.

The techniques flowing from this were non-cooperation, civil disobedience (deliberate, peaceful breach of an unjust law), hartal, fasting and boycott. Champaran tested civil disobedience, Ahmedabad tested fasting, Kheda tested non-cooperation. That is why these three local struggles matter far beyond their size.

4. Champaran Satyagraha, 1917 — First Civil Disobedience in India

Place: Champaran district, north Bihar. Issue: indigo. European planters forced tenants to grow indigo on 3/20th of their holding under the tinkathia system and sell it at prices the planter fixed. When German synthetic dye made indigo unprofitable, planters began freeing tenants from the obligation but only after extracting heavy rent hikes and illegal dues (abwabs).

A local cultivator, Rajkumar Shukla, chased Gandhi from the Lucknow Congress (1916) across several cities until Gandhi agreed to come. Gandhi reached Champaran in April 1917. The district authorities ordered him to leave; he refused, stating in court that he would accept the penalty but not obey an unjust order. The government backed down and allowed his inquiry. This open, disciplined refusal to obey an official order was the first civil disobedience in India.

Gandhi conducted a detailed survey of peasant grievances, recording thousands of statements. The young men who assisted him became a who's who of later politics: Dr Rajendra Prasad, J.B. Kripalani, Brajkishore Prasad, Anugrah Narayan Sinha, Mazharul Haque, Mahadev Desai and Narhari Parikh. Remember Rajendra Prasad especially; SSC links "first President of India" with "Champaran volunteer".

The government appointed an inquiry committee with Gandhi himself as a member. Its recommendations became the Champaran Agrarian Act, 1918, which abolished the tinkathia system and refunded a part (about one-fourth) of the illegal exactions. Champaran gave Gandhi his first India-wide fame, and it was during this struggle that Rabindranath Tagore's title for him, "Mahatma", gained currency (the title is popularly credited to Tagore).

5. Ahmedabad Mill Strike, 1918 — First Hunger Strike

Place: Ahmedabad, Gujarat. Issue: wages of cotton mill workers. During the 1917 plague, mill owners had paid a special "plague bonus" (up to 75% of wage) to stop workers from fleeing the city. When the epidemic passed, the owners withdrew it, though wartime prices had roughly doubled the cost of living. Workers demanded a 50% wage rise; owners offered 20%.

Gandhi studied the case and fixed 35% as the just demand, asking workers to strike but stay strictly non-violent. Note the unusual personal equations: the workers' cause was championed by Anasuya Sarabhai, while the mill owners were led by her own brother, Ambalal Sarabhai, who was also Gandhi's friend and a donor to his ashram. This brother-versus-sister detail is a ready-made exam question.

When the strike began to sag and workers wavered, Gandhi undertook a fast unto death in March 1918, his first hunger strike in India, to hold the workers to their pledge, not to pressure the owners directly, though pressure was the effect. The dispute went to a tribunal, which awarded the workers the 35% increase Gandhi had named. The strike lasted about three weeks. Out of this movement grew the Textile Labour Association (Majoor Mahajan Sangh), founded in 1920, an Ahmedabad union with Gandhian methods.

6. Kheda Satyagraha, 1918 — First Non-Cooperation

Place: Kheda (Kaira) district, Gujarat. Issue: land revenue in a famine year. Crops had failed due to drought, and under the revenue code, if the yield fell below a set level (roughly one-fourth of normal), cultivators were entitled to full remission of revenue. The government refused remission and pressed collection with attachment of property.

Gandhi advised the peasants to withhold payment of revenue, a direct non-cooperation with the state, and to stand firm through confiscations. This was his first real non-cooperation campaign in India. The satyagraha ran through the first half of 1918.

Kheda's biggest gift to the national movement was a man: Vallabhbhai Patel gave up his flourishing legal practice to organise the villages, beginning the path that made him "Sardar" (a title earned later, at Bardoli, 1928, which belongs to Chapter 17). Indulal Yagnik was the other key organiser. The struggle ended in mid-1918 with a quiet compromise: the government directed that revenue be collected only from those peasants who could afford to pay, and the poorer cultivators' dues were in effect suspended. Not a thundering victory, but the peasants learned organised resistance, and Gujarat became a Gandhian base.

Keep the three "firsts" straight; this is the single most repeated question set from this chapter:

Satyagraha	Year	First of what	Key names
Champaran	1917	First civil disobedience in India	Rajkumar Shukla, Rajendra Prasad
Ahmedabad	1918	First hunger strike	Anasuya & Ambalal Sarabhai
Kheda	1918	First non-cooperation	Vallabhbhai Patel, Indulal Yagnik

Also note the constituency pattern: Champaran mobilised peasants, Ahmedabad industrial workers, Kheda peasants again. By 1918 Gandhi had touched every major social base, something no earlier Congress leader had done.

7. The Rowlatt Act, 1919 — "Black Act"

During World War I the government had ruled through the harsh Defence of India Act, 1915. As the war ended, instead of relaxation, repression was made permanent. A Sedition Committee headed by Justice Sidney Rowlatt (appointed 1918) recommended continuing wartime powers. On its report, the Imperial Legislative Council passed the Anarchical and Revolutionary Crimes Act in March 1919, universally called the Rowlatt Act.

Its provisions: detention without trial for up to two years, trial of political cases by special courts of three High Court judges without jury and without appeal, and curbs on the press. The popular description stuck: "na dalil, na vakil, na appeal" (no argument, no lawyer, no appeal). Every single Indian member of the Council opposed the bill; it was passed by the official majority anyway. Mohammad Ali Jinnah, Madan Mohan Malaviya and Mazharul Haque resigned from the Council in protest. Jinnah's resignation is the most-asked of the three.

Gandhi called the Act a symptom of a "diseased" government and decided on a national response. In February 1919 he formed the Satyagraha Sabha in Bombay, whose members pledged to disobey the Act. He then called for a countrywide hartal, a suspension of business with fasting and prayer. The Rowlatt Satyagraha was Gandhi's first all-India mass action. The hartal date, first set for 30 March, was shifted to 6 April 1919; Delhi observed it on 30 March itself and saw police firing (Swami Shraddhanand led the Delhi protests).

The response was massive but slipped into violence in Bombay, Ahmedabad, Calcutta and above all Punjab. Gandhi, stopped from entering Punjab and detained near Delhi, saw the violence and later called the launch a "Himalayan miscalculation", meaning he had asked masses to practise civil disobedience before training them in satyagraha discipline. He suspended the movement on 18 April 1919.

8. Punjab 1919 and the Jallianwala Bagh Massacre

Punjab was the most combustible province: heavy wartime recruitment, forced contributions, high prices and influenza deaths had built deep anger. On 9 April 1919 the government deported two popular Amritsar leaders, Dr Saifuddin Kitchlew and Dr Satyapal. On 10 April protesting crowds in Amritsar clashed with troops; firing killed protesters, and in retaliation mobs burnt banks and killed some Europeans. The city was handed over to the army under Brigadier-General Reginald Dyer, who banned all public meetings.

On 13 April 1919, Baisakhi day, a crowd of villagers and townspeople, many unaware of the ban, gathered in Jallianwala Bagh, a walled ground near the Golden Temple with only one usable narrow exit. Dyer arrived with troops, blocked the exit, and without any warning ordered firing on the unarmed crowd. Firing continued for about ten minutes, roughly 1,650 rounds, stopping only when ammunition ran low. The official figure was 379 dead and over 1,100 wounded; the Congress inquiry put the dead at about 1,000. The Lieutenant-Governor of Punjab, Michael O'Dwyer, approved Dyer's action, and martial law was imposed over much of Punjab, bringing public floggings and the infamous "crawling order" on the Amritsar lane where a missionary woman had been assaulted.

Reactions to memorise:

• Rabindranath Tagore renounced his knighthood in protest, through a letter to Viceroy Chelmsford dated 30 May 1919.
• Gandhi returned the Kaiser-i-Hind medal (1920) and lost all faith in the government's "good intentions"; Jallianwala Bagh and the Punjab wrongs pushed him toward Non-Cooperation (Chapter 16).
• Sankaran Nair resigned from the Viceroy's Executive Council, the lone Indian member to do so over Punjab.
• Twenty-one years later, on 13 March 1940, Udham Singh shot dead Michael O'Dwyer at Caxton Hall, London. He was hanged on 31 July 1940. Exams often trap students here: Udham Singh killed O'Dwyer (the Lt-Governor), not Dyer (the general), who had already died in 1927.

The Viceroy through this whole period was Lord Chelmsford (1916–1921). A common one-liner: Jallianwala Bagh took place during Chelmsford's viceroyalty.

9. The Hunter Commission and the Congress Inquiry

Under pressure, the Government of India appointed the Disorders Inquiry Committee on 14 October 1919, chaired by Lord William Hunter, hence the Hunter Commission. It had eight members, including three Indians: Sir Chimanlal Setalvad, Pandit Jagat Narayan and Sardar Sultan Ahmed Khan. Dyer appeared before it and stated coolly that he had made up his mind to fire before reaching the spot and would have used machine guns had the armoured cars fitted through the entrance, and that his aim was to produce a "moral effect" across Punjab.

The Commission's report came in March 1920. The majority censured Dyer: the firing without warning and its continuation were condemned as a grave error, though the report accepted that he had acted honestly. The Indian members wrote a sharper minute of dissent. The outcome disgusted Indians: Dyer faced no trial and no penalty. He was merely relieved of his command and sent back to England. Worse, the House of Lords passed a motion appreciating him, sections of the British press hailed him as the "Saviour of the Punjab", and the Morning Post raised a public fund of over £26,000 for him, presented with a sword of honour. The contrast between the Commons (which condemned Dyer) and the Lords (which praised him) is a subtle point papers have used.

The Congress boycotted the official inquiry's terms and ran its own inquiry committee (1919–20), with Motilal Nehru, C.R. Das, Abbas Tyabji, M.R. Jayakar and Gandhi among the members. It called the firing an inhuman act with no justification. In protest against the Punjab atrocities the Congress held its annual session of December 1919 at Amritsar itself (president: Motilal Nehru).

The net political result of 1919: the Rowlatt Act showed that constitutional protest changed nothing, Jallianwala Bagh showed the real face of martial rule, and the Hunter whitewash killed remaining faith in British justice. Add the Khilafat grievance (next chapter), and the stage for Non-Cooperation (1920) was fully set.

Quick Revision — One-Line Facts

• Gandhi born 2 October 1869, Porbandar, Gujarat.
• Went to South Africa in 1893 for the case of the firm of Dada Abdulla.
• Thrown off a train at Pietermaritzburg station, 1893.
• Founded Natal Indian Congress, 1894; weekly Indian Opinion, 1903.
• Phoenix Settlement 1904; Tolstoy Farm 1910 (with Hermann Kallenbach).
• First satyagraha ever: 1906, Transvaal, against the Asiatic Registration ("Black") Act.
• Wrote Hind Swaraj in 1909, originally in Gujarati.
• Returned to India 9 January 1915 (now Pravasi Bharatiya Divas).
• Political guru: Gopal Krishna Gokhale; advised one year of silent touring.
• Sabarmati Ashram: started at Kochrab 1915, shifted to Sabarmati 1917.
• Champaran 1917: first civil disobedience; against tinkathia (indigo on 3/20th of land).
• Gandhi invited to Champaran by Rajkumar Shukla.
• Champaran volunteers: Rajendra Prasad, J.B. Kripalani, Mahadev Desai, Mazharul Haque.
• Champaran Agrarian Act 1918 abolished tinkathia.
• Ahmedabad Mill Strike 1918: first hunger strike; tribunal awarded 35% wage rise.
• Anasuya Sarabhai backed the workers; her brother Ambalal Sarabhai led the owners.
• Kheda 1918: first non-cooperation; revenue refusal in a famine year.
• Kheda organisers: Vallabhbhai Patel and Indulal Yagnik.
• Rowlatt Act, March 1919 = Anarchical and Revolutionary Crimes Act; detention without trial.
• Based on the Sedition (Rowlatt) Committee, 1918, under Justice Sidney Rowlatt.
• Jinnah, Malaviya and Mazharul Haque resigned from the Council over the Rowlatt Act.
• Rowlatt Satyagraha: Gandhi's first all-India movement; hartal on 6 April 1919.
• Gandhi called its violence his "Himalayan miscalculation".
• Jallianwala Bagh: 13 April 1919 (Baisakhi), Amritsar; firing by Gen. Reginald Dyer.
• Official toll 379 dead; Congress estimate about 1,000.
• Tagore renounced knighthood (letter dated 30 May 1919); Sankaran Nair quit the Executive Council.
• Hunter Commission (Disorders Inquiry Committee) appointed October 1919; report March 1920.
• Udham Singh shot Michael O'Dwyer on 13 March 1940 at Caxton Hall, London.
• Viceroy for the whole chapter: Lord Chelmsford (1916–21).
• Congress session of December 1919 held at Amritsar, president Motilal Nehru.

Memory Tables

Table 1: Year → Event (1915–1920)

Year	Event
1915 (9 Jan)	Gandhi lands in Bombay; Kaiser-i-Hind medal; Kochrab ashram
1916	BHU speech (Feb); Lucknow Congress; Rajkumar Shukla meets Gandhi
1917	Champaran Satyagraha (first civil disobedience); ashram shifts to Sabarmati
1918	Ahmedabad Mill Strike (first fast); Kheda Satyagraha (first non-cooperation); Champaran Agrarian Act
1919 (Mar)	Rowlatt Act passed
1919 (6 Apr)	All-India hartal against Rowlatt Act
1919 (13 Apr)	Jallianwala Bagh massacre, Amritsar
1919 (30 May)	Tagore renounces knighthood
1919 (Oct)	Hunter Commission appointed
1919 (Dec)	Congress session at Amritsar (Motilal Nehru)
1920 (Mar)	Hunter Commission report; Dyer relieved, not punished

Table 2: Person → Association

Person	Remember for
Rajkumar Shukla	Peasant who brought Gandhi to Champaran
Rajendra Prasad	Champaran volunteer; later first President of India
Anasuya Sarabhai	Led Ahmedabad mill workers
Ambalal Sarabhai	Mill owners' leader; Anasuya's brother
Vallabhbhai Patel	Left legal practice for Kheda Satyagraha
Indulal Yagnik	Co-organiser, Kheda
Sidney Rowlatt	Chaired Sedition Committee, 1918
M.A. Jinnah	Resigned from Council against Rowlatt Act
Saifuddin Kitchlew & Satyapal	Amritsar leaders deported 9 April 1919
Reginald Dyer	Ordered Jallianwala Bagh firing
Michael O'Dwyer	Lt-Governor of Punjab, backed Dyer; shot by Udham Singh, 1940
Lord Hunter	Chaired Disorders Inquiry Committee
Udham Singh	Assassinated O'Dwyer, Caxton Hall, London, 1940
Lord Chelmsford	Viceroy 1916–21; Tagore's letter addressed to him

Table 3: The Three Early Satyagrahas at a Glance

Feature	Champaran	Ahmedabad	Kheda
Year	1917	1918	1918
Place	Bihar	Gujarat (city)	Gujarat (rural)
Issue	Tinkathia / indigo	Plague bonus & wages	Revenue remission
Method tested	Civil disobedience	Hunger strike	Non-cooperation
Result	Champaran Agrarian Act 1918	35% wage award	Revenue eased for poor peasants
Social base	Peasants	Mill workers	Peasants

Practice MCQs

Q1. Gandhi returned to India from South Africa on 9 January of which year? (a) 1914 (b) 1915 (c) 1916 (d) 1917

Q2. Who persuaded Gandhi to visit Champaran to see the condition of indigo cultivators? (a) Rajendra Prasad (b) Brajkishore Prasad (c) Rajkumar Shukla (d) Mazharul Haque

Q3. Under the tinkathia system, tenants of Champaran had to grow indigo on what portion of their land? (a) 1/10th (b) 3/20th (c) 1/4th (d) 1/3rd

Q4. Gandhi undertook his first hunger strike in India in connection with which struggle? (a) Kheda Satyagraha (b) Champaran Satyagraha (c) Rowlatt Satyagraha (d) Ahmedabad mill strike

Q5. In the Ahmedabad mill dispute of 1918, the tribunal finally awarded a wage increase of: (a) 20% (b) 25% (c) 35% (d) 50%

Q6. Which pair of leaders organised the peasants during the Kheda Satyagraha? (a) Vallabhbhai Patel and Indulal Yagnik (b) Rajendra Prasad and J.B. Kripalani (c) Mahadev Desai and Narhari Parikh (d) Vithalbhai Patel and Mahadev Desai

Q7. The Rowlatt Act of 1919 was officially titled: (a) Defence of India Act (b) Anarchical and Revolutionary Crimes Act (c) Seditious Meetings Act (d) Government of India Act

Q8. Who among the following resigned from the Imperial Legislative Council in protest against the Rowlatt Act? (a) Motilal Nehru (b) Mohammad Ali Jinnah (c) Surendranath Banerjee (d) C.R. Das

Q9. The Jallianwala Bagh massacre took place on which festival day? (a) Holi (b) Diwali (c) Baisakhi (d) Guru Purab

Q10. Which two Amritsar leaders' arrest on 9 April 1919 triggered the disturbances that preceded the Jallianwala Bagh firing? (a) Kitchlew and Satyapal (b) Lajpat Rai and Ajit Singh (c) Kitchlew and Lajpat Rai (d) Satyapal and Udham Singh

Q11. Who was the Viceroy of India at the time of the Jallianwala Bagh massacre? (a) Lord Hardinge (b) Lord Chelmsford (c) Lord Reading (d) Lord Irwin

Q12. Rabindranath Tagore reacted to the Jallianwala Bagh massacre by: (a) resigning from the Viceroy's Executive Council (b) returning the Kaiser-i-Hind medal (c) renouncing his knighthood (d) boycotting the Amritsar Congress session

Q13. Consider the pairs: 1. Champaran — first non-cooperation; 2. Ahmedabad — first hunger strike; 3. Kheda — first civil disobedience. Which of the pairs is/are correctly matched? (a) 1 and 3 only (b) 2 only (c) 1 and 2 only (d) 1, 2 and 3

Q14. Arrange chronologically: 1. Kheda Satyagraha begins; 2. Champaran Satyagraha; 3. Hunter Commission report; 4. Rowlatt Act passed. (a) 2, 1, 4, 3 (b) 1, 2, 4, 3 (c) 2, 4, 1, 3 (d) 2, 1, 3, 4

Q15. In 1940 Udham Singh assassinated which official connected with the Punjab atrocities of 1919? (a) General Reginald Dyer (b) Lord Chelmsford (c) Michael O'Dwyer (d) Lord Hunter

Answer Key

Q	Answer	One-line reason
1	(b)	Gandhi landed at Bombay on 9 January 1915, now Pravasi Bharatiya Divas
2	(c)	Rajkumar Shukla, a Champaran cultivator, pursued Gandhi from the 1916 Lucknow session
3	(b)	Tinkathia bound tenants to grow indigo on 3/20th (3 kathas per bigha) of their holding
4	(d)	Gandhi fasted in March 1918 to keep the Ahmedabad mill workers firm on their pledge
5	(c)	The tribunal granted the 35% rise Gandhi had fixed as the just demand
6	(a)	Vallabhbhai Patel and Indulal Yagnik were the main Kheda organisers
7	(b)	Its formal name was the Anarchical and Revolutionary Crimes Act, 1919
8	(b)	Jinnah resigned, along with Madan Mohan Malaviya and Mazharul Haque
9	(c)	The crowd had gathered on Baisakhi day, 13 April 1919
10	(a)	Dr Saifuddin Kitchlew and Dr Satyapal were deported on 9 April 1919
11	(b)	Lord Chelmsford was Viceroy from 1916 to 1921
12	(c)	Tagore gave up his knighthood by a letter to Chelmsford dated 30 May 1919
13	(b)	Champaran was the first civil disobedience and Kheda the first non-cooperation, so only pair 2 is correct
14	(a)	Champaran 1917 → Kheda early 1918 → Rowlatt Act March 1919 → Hunter report March 1920
15	(c)	Udham Singh shot Michael O'Dwyer, the former Lt-Governor, at Caxton Hall, London; Dyer had died in 1927