Page 63 - GANDHI A Biography for Children and Beginners

GANDHI – A Biography for children and beginners

under the impact of one of the worst famines in memory. Crops had failed, but

the Government was insisting that land revenue should be paid in full. Gandhi

told the peasants that since their case was just and indisputable, they should
be prepared to fight non-violently. They should refuse to pay the land revenue,

unless it was reassessed in the light of the failure of crops. If the government

retaliated by confiscating their property, farms and bullocks they should not

surrender or take to violence. Peasants were ready, and Gandhi started
preparing them for the hard struggle that lay ahead.

It was then that Gandhi made the acquaintance of Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel, a
barrister who had returned from England and was practising in Ahmedabad.

Vallabhbhai became a lifelong colleague of Gandhi, attracted by his courage

and dynamic methods of struggle for justice. The Sardar himself was of peasant

origin. He was one of the ablest organisers the country had ever seen. People
stuck to their determination even at the cost of the forfeiture of their property

and the harassment and suffering that the Government inflicted. Finally, the

Government yielded in the face of the heroic, nonviolent and unflinching

struggle of the peasants. There was a compromise on the agreement that only
those who felt they could afford would pay the revenue imposts.

Gandhi had taken up the causes of peasants and workers in different parts of
India, and proved that Satyagraha was a practical and effective method, and

was in tune with the genius of the people of India.

Gandhi was invited by Pandit Madan Mohan Malaviya to attend the foundation
ceremony of the Benaras Hindu University at Benaras. The Viceroy delivered

the inaugural address. A galaxy of British officials, political leaders and the

princely Rulers had assembled. Dr. Annie Besant was in the Chair. When

Gandhi's turn to speak came, the great assemblage got a taste of the
revolutionary in Gandhi. He began by regretting that he had to speak in a

foreign language to his own people. He went on to talk of the poverty of the

starving millions and the glittering jewellery of the princes; how the poor farm
labourer toiled and sweated in the sun to produce two blades of paddy, where

there was only one, while the British and the princes lived in luxury and

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