The people's Mahatma: differing strands of swaraj

Detail

From leader to symbol: dress, charkha, the body as message

• By 1922 the movement was no longer a lawyers' movement. Hundreds of thousands of peasants, workers and artisans had joined.
• Gandhi made himself look like the poor. In 1921 he began wearing only a dhoti and kept his head shaved.
• The change was made at Madurai on 22 September 1921 — he dropped his older Gujarati dress for a loincloth and shawl [3].

• Reason he gave: people said they were too poor to buy khadi, so he cut his own clothing down to the least he decently could [3].

• He spun on the charkha every day.

• This broke the old caste line between mental work and manual work — a leader doing labour with his hands.
• It was also a criticism of machine civilisation (his word for a society built on big factories and endless goods).

• The charkha stood for swaraj itself, not just for cloth [3].

• Background: the Non-Cooperation Movement was approved by Congress at Calcutta in September 1920 and launched that December — give up titles, boycott government schools, courts, services, foreign goods and elections, and finally refuse to pay taxes [3].

"Gandhi as Mahatma": what villagers believed

• Historian Shahid Amin studied eastern UP in 1921 and asked how ordinary people understood Gandhi.
• Crowds came for darshan (a glimpse of a holy person) at railway stations, sometimes through the night.
• Rumours of miracles spread:
• a karah (big boiling pan) that split by itself,
• wheat that turned into sesamum,

• the houses of people who abused Gandhi catching fire.

• Villagers called him "Gandhi baba", "Gandhi Maharaj" — a saviour who would free them from high taxes and harsh officials.

• Point for the exam: the rumours are not evidence about Gandhi. They are evidence about popular belief — what poor people hoped a Mahatma would do for them.

Beneath the charisma: hard organisation

• Charisma alone did not build a mass party. Structure did.
• Praja Mandals — people's associations set up in the princely states, where Congress could not work openly.
• The message was carried in mother tongues, not only English.
• PCCs (Provincial Congress Committees) were redrawn on linguistic lines so each region worked in its own language.
• Money came from business — G.D. Birla among the main backers.
• The 1917–22 cohort of leaders who joined Gandhi: Mahadev Desai, Vallabhbhai Patel, J.B. Kripalani, Subhas Chandra Bose, Abul Kalam Azad, Jawaharlal Nehru, Sarojini Naidu, Govind Ballabh Pant, C. Rajagopalachari.

Swaraj from below — 1: Awadh peasants

• Leader: Baba Ramchandra, a sanyasi who had earlier been an indentured labourer in Fiji.
• Enemy: the taluqdars (big landlords of Awadh). Peasant grievances:
• rents far above what land could pay,
• extra cesses (small forced payments),
• begar — forced unpaid labour,

• no security of tenure — eviction at will, so no peasant could stay on the same land.

• Peasant weapons: nai–dhobi bandhs — the barber and washerman refused service to a landlord, socially cutting him off.

• Oudh Kisan Sabha, October 1920 — set up by Jawaharlal Nehru and Baba Ramchandra. It grew to over 300 branches in a single month.
• 1921: taluqdars' houses were attacked, bazaars looted, grain seized — all done in Gandhi's name, with slogans of "no taxes" and "land to the poor".
• This outran the Congress programme. Congress had not asked for rent strikes or attacks on property.

Swaraj from below — 2: Gudem Hills, Andhra

• Guerrilla war (small hit-and-run bands, no open battle) in the hills of Andhra.
• Cause: the government closed the forests.
• Hill people could no longer graze cattle, collect fuelwood or fruit.
• Their podu (shifting cultivation) livelihood was destroyed.

• They were forced into begar for road building.

• Leader: Alluri Sitaram Raju, born 4 July 1897 [2].

• People believed he had special powers — could read stars, heal, survive bullets.

• He praised Gandhi, told people to wear khadi and give up drink — but insisted swaraj would come by force, not non-violence.

• Attack dates: between 22 and 24 August 1922 rebels raided the police stations at Chintapalli, Krishnadevipeta and Rajavommangi, took weapons, and Raju signed a note in the station diary listing what he had taken [2].

• The guerrilla war ran August 1922 to May 1924 [2].
• British reply: hundreds of troops of the Malabar Special Police and the Assam Rifles; the campaign cost the government over Rs 40 lakh of that time [2].
• Raju was captured and killed on 7 May 1924 — executed 1924 in NCERT terms. He became a folk hero, sung about in the hills.
• Also called the Manyam Rebellion / Rampa Rebellion of 1922 [2].

Swaraj from below — 3: Assam plantation workers

• For tea garden labourers, swaraj meant one thing: the right to leave the garden and go home.
• They were locked in by the Inland Emigration Act of 1859 — a worker could not leave the plantation without permission, which was almost never given.
• Hearing of Non-Cooperation, thousands walked out, believing "Gandhi Raj" was coming and everyone would get land in their own village.
• They never reached home. They were stranded on the railways and steamers, caught by police and beaten.

Why this matters: one name, many meanings

• None of these three struggles was the official Congress programme. Congress never called for rent strikes, forest raids or mass desertion from plantations.
• Yet each group used Gandhi's name. That name tied a local fight — against a taluqdar, a forest officer, a planter — to an all-India movement.
• So "swaraj" had many meanings at once: for Congress, self-rule and dominion status; for the Awadh peasant, no rent and no begar; for the Gudem hillman, the forest back; for the Assam worker, going home.
• The bond was emotional, not organisational — which is why the movement grew so fast, and why Gandhi could not always control it.

Prelims Hooks

• Gandhi adopted the loincloth/dhoti at Madurai on 22 September 1921 [3].
• Shahid Amin wrote on "Gandhi as Mahatma", based on eastern UP, 1921.
• Oudh Kisan Sabha founded October 1920 by Jawaharlal Nehru and Baba Ramchandra; 300+ branches in one month.
• Baba Ramchandra was earlier an indentured labourer in Fiji.
• Nai–dhobi bandh = barber and washerman boycott of landlords in Awadh.
• Alluri Sitaram Raju born 4 July 1897; Rampa/Manyam guerrilla war ran August 1922 – May 1924; he was killed on 7 May 1924 [2].
• Rebel raids on Chintapalli, Krishnadevipeta, Rajavommangi police stations, 22–24 August 1922 [2].
• Suppression used Malabar Special Police and Assam Rifles, costing over Rs 40 lakh [2].
• Inland Emigration Act, 1859 barred Assam plantation workers from leaving the gardens.
• Praja Mandals were Congress-linked bodies in the princely states; PCCs were reorganised on linguistic lines; G.D. Birla funded the movement.

Mains Points

• One symbol, many swarajs. Gandhi's name worked as a common umbrella over very different local grievances — rent and begar in Awadh, forest closure in Gudem, indenture-like control in Assam. This explains both the speed of mass mobilisation and the recurring loss of Congress control (Chauri Chaura, Awadh looting).
• Rumour as historical evidence. Following Shahid Amin, the miracle stories are used not to test Gandhi's powers but to read peasant consciousness — what the poor expected from authority. Useful for GS-I questions on "history from below" and on sources for social history.
• Symbol and structure together. The Mahatma image was matched by real institution-building: Praja Mandals, linguistic PCCs, vernacular propaganda, business funding, and a trained leadership cohort recruited 1917–22. Charisma without this machinery would not have produced an all-India party.
• Non-violence was negotiated, not accepted everywhere. Raju wore khadi and praised Gandhi but chose armed guerrilla struggle — proof that Gandhian methods were adopted selectively at the periphery, and that the tribal/forest question was a distinct axis of the national movement.