Gandhian Era: Early satyagrahas to Non-Cooperation

On 10 April 1919 the Punjab government deported Dr Saifuddin Kitchlew and Dr Satyapal, who had led the Rowlatt protests in Amritsar. A crowd marching to demand their release was fired upon, and rioting followed. On 13 April 1919 (Baisakhi) a meeting at Jallianwala Bagh, held partly to protest against these arrests, was fired upon without warning on the orders of General Reginald Dyer.

13 April 1919 was Baisakhi, the harvest festival and Sikh new year. Many villagers who had come to Amritsar for the festival fair were in the Bagh, unaware of the ban on meetings, alongside people protesting against the Rowlatt Act and the arrests of Kitchlew and Satyapal. General Dyer blocked the narrow exit and fired without warning; the official figure was 379 dead, and Indian estimates were far higher. Rabindranath Tagore renounced his knighthood in protest.

Statements 1 and 3 are correct. The dispute arose when the mill-owners wanted to withdraw the 'plague bonus'. Anusuya Sarabhai backed the workers, while her brother Ambalal Sarabhai led the owners. When the workers began to waver, Gandhi went on a fast (his first hunger strike in India), and the owners agreed to arbitration. Statement 2 is wrong: the workers had asked for 50 per cent, but Gandhi advised them to demand a 35 per cent increase, which the tribunal finally awarded.

Statements 1, 2 and 4 are correct. The Hunter Committee (October 1919) had three Indian members: Chimanlal Setalvad, Jagat Narayan and Sultan Ahmad Khan. The Congress set up a non-official committee with Gandhi, Motilal Nehru, C. R. Das, Abbas Tyabji and M. R. Jayakar. Statement 3 is wrong: the Hunter Committee censured Dyer's action but recommended no penal action; he was only relieved of his command. In Britain the House of Lords voted in his favour in July 1920, and a newspaper fund was raised for him, which deepened Indian anger and pushed Gandhi towards non-cooperation.

Statements 1 and 2 are correct. In Kheda (Gujarat) the crops failed in 1917-18; under the revenue rules, a yield below one-fourth of the normal entitled the cultivator to full remission, but the government insisted on collection. Gandhi asked the peasants to take a pledge not to pay. Vallabhbhai Patel, then a young Ahmedabad lawyer, and Indulal Yagnik joined him, and the government later quietly ordered that revenue be recovered only from those who could afford it. Statement 3 is wrong: Gandhi's first satyagraha in India was Champaran (1917). Kheda is usually called his first non-cooperation.

Both statements are true, but II does not explain I. The Act empowered the government to detain suspects without trial for up to two years and to try political cases without juries. Yet, in the face of the nationwide protest and the storm after Jallianwala Bagh, the government never actually used it, and it was repealed in March 1922 along with other repressive laws, on the recommendation of the Repressive Laws Committee chaired by Tej Bahadur Sapru. Statement-II describes what the Act allowed; it does not explain why the Act went unused.

Champaran came first (1917). In Ahmedabad the mill dispute came to a head in February-March 1918, and Gandhi's fast of 15-18 March brought a settlement. The Kheda Satyagraha, with its pledge not to pay land revenue, was launched on 22 March 1918, days after the Ahmedabad settlement. The Rowlatt hartal followed in March-April 1919. The order is 2-1-4-3.

All four statements are correct. In February 1919 Gandhi founded the Satyagraha Sabha in Bombay, and its members pledged to disobey the law. The hartal, first fixed for 30 March, was moved to 6 April; Delhi, not told in time, struck on 30 March. Violence followed in Ahmedabad, Viramgam and Punjab, and on 18 April Gandhi suspended the movement, admitting that he had called on people to break laws before they were trained in non-violence, a 'Himalayan miscalculation'. Jinnah, with Madan Mohan Malaviya and Mazharul Haque, resigned from the council in protest.