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Question

Who led the Champaran Satyagraha in 1917 ?

This question was previously asked in
BPSC 70th 2024 Prelims General Studies Re-Exam Question Paper (04-Jan-2025)
The correct answer is

Mahatma Gandhi

 Mahatma Gandhi led the Champaran Satyagraha — option 4. It was his first satyagraha in India.

How it began. A cultivator of Champaran named Raj Kumar Shukla followed Gandhi from the Lucknow session of the Congress in 1916, pressing him to come and see the condition of the indigo peasants of north Bihar. Gandhi reached Champaran in April 1917.

The grievance. Under the tinkathia system, tenants were obliged to plant indigo on three kathas out of every twenty of their holding — that is, on three-twentieths of the land — and to sell it to the European planters at a price the planters fixed. When synthetic dye developed in Germany destroyed the market for natural indigo, the planters released the tenants from the obligation but only in exchange for heavy compensation payments, called sharahbeshi and tawan. The peasants were thus made to pay for the collapse of a crop they had never wanted to grow.

StageEvent
April 1917Gandhi arrives; is ordered to leave the district and refuses, offering to accept the penalty
ResponseThe case is withdrawn — the first success of civil disobedience in India
MethodSystematic recording of some 8,000 peasant statements, turning grievance into evidence
June 1917Government appoints an enquiry committee with Gandhi as a member
1918Champaran Agrarian Act abolishes the tinkathia system and orders partial refunds

Who was with him. The campaign drew in Rajendra Prasad, Brajkishore Prasad, Anugrah Narayan Sinha, J. B. Kripalani and Mahadev Desai — several of whom became the leadership of the national movement in Bihar. Gandhi also opened schools and worked on sanitation in the villages, setting the pattern of “constructive work” alongside agitation.

The other names, correctly placed : Sardar Patel led the Kheda (1918) and Bardoli (1928) satyagrahas in Gujarat; Nehru was a young participant at Champaran but not its leader; Bose entered politics later, returning from England in 1921.

Hence, the answer is Mahatma Gandhi.

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