The Champaran Satyagraha: A Revolution in Resistance
Reactions
Gandhi’s refusal led to different reactions from excited farmers and angry officials who profited off the indigo cultivation.
Locals Show Support
("The Planting & Manufacture of Indigo in India by French Photographer Oscar Mallitte - Allahabad, 1877")
"The factory manager might behave rudely towards you; I was therefore over hearing the whole conversation from a concealed corner, ready to come to your assistance. Come what might to me, in case anything untoward happened to you" -A factory servant (Prasad 126)
Officials Demonstrate Distrust
Policemen followed Gandhi while he worked and took notes of what he said at meetings. Aggravated European planters spread an anti-European agitator rhetoric.
Bihar Planters' Association:
“My association wishes against (again) to impress on the Government that this is in no sense a genuine enquiry. It is being conducted by a frankly prejudiced person... It is a purely anti-European agitation, which is being carried on for political purposes under the cloak of an agrarian enquiry…It is obviously unnecessary to emphasise the danger of such ideas being allowed to spread amongst the more intellectual and influential members of the agricultural community” -Letter, dated Muzaffarpur, 1 June, 1917, from J. M. Wilson, General Secretary, Bihar Planters' Association Ltd., to H. McPherson, Chief Secretary to Government of Bihar and Orissa (Misra & Jha 178)
District Magistrate:
“I have supported Hitchcock’s application for armed police. If there is a disturbance and the attitude of passive opposition gives place to violence the trouble will be serious” -Letter, dated Motihari, 18 February 1916, from W. B. Heycock, District Magistrate, Champaran, to L. F. Morshead, Commissioner, Tirhut (Misra & Jha 49)
Factory Manager:
“Gandhi’s enquiry is really an organized effort by the anti-European element of this province to discredit Europeans” -Letter, dated Bettiah, 27 April, 1917, from J. T. Whitty, Manager, Bettiah Raj, to L. F. Morshead, Commissioner, Tirhut Division (Misra & Jha 87)