Bardoli Satyagraha 1928: The No-Tax Campaign Led by Vallabhbhai Patel

Bardoli Satyagraha 1928 at a Glance

Bardoli Satyagraha Key Facts: Date, Place, Leader and Outcome

The main facts of the Bardoli Satyagraha, from its dates to its legacy, are these:

Where Is Bardoli: Surat District in South Gujarat

Bardoli is a town in southern Gujarat on the banks of the Mindhola river, about 35 km east of Surat. In 1928 the taluka lay in Surat district of the Bombay Presidency, whose government in Bombay fixed its land revenue. Its cultivators were mostly Kunbi-Patidar landowning peasants, with lower-caste labourers working their fields.

Bardoli belongs to a larger story of Gujarat campaigns. Kheda (1918) and Borsad (1923) in central Gujarat had seen earlier peasant campaigns with Patel, Ahmedabad was his base, and two years after Bardoli the Salt March ended at Dandi, on the coast south of Surat.

Causes of the Bardoli Satyagraha: Patel and the Revenue Hike

Patel Before Bardoli: Kheda, Nagpur, Borsad and the 1927 Floods

Vallabhbhai Patel came to Bardoli with ten years of work among Gujarat's peasants behind him. He was a successful lawyer when he joined Gandhi, and each campaign that followed taught him how to organise villages and hold them together under pressure:

• Kheda, 1918: When Gandhi asked for a Gujarati worker to lead the revenue campaign in the villages, Patel volunteered; it was his first campaign with Gandhi.
• Nagpur, 1923: With Gandhi in prison, he led the flag satyagraha against a ban on carrying the national flag and won the release of the prisoners.
• Borsad, 1923: The government levied a tax to fight dacoits, though the police were found to be in league with a dacoit gang. More than 6,000 villagers assembled to hear Patel, every village refused the tax, and it was withdrawn.
• Floods, 1927: After the torrential rains of July 1927 he led relief across Gujarat, setting up refugee centres and organising volunteers, food and medicines.

He was also president of the Ahmedabad municipality. By 1928 the villages of Gujarat trusted his judgement, and that trust is why Bardoli's peasants turned to him.

The 1926 Revenue Revision and Why Patel Agreed to Lead

The trouble began with a revision of the land revenue in 1926, when the government decided to raise the taluka's revenue by 30 per cent; the increase finally levied was about 22 per cent, and Bardoli's peasants said even that was more than their land could bear:

• Hard seasons: Floods ravaged Gujarat after the torrential rains of 23 July 1927, and many cultivators barely had enough to pay the old rate and feed themselves.
• An unjust assessment: A Bardoli Inquiry Committee set up by Congress leaders found the hike unjustified.
• No hearing: Petitions from local groups were ignored, and the government refused to cancel or reduce the increase.

Local workers of the taluka, among them Narhari Parikh, Ravi Shankar Vyas, Mohanlal Pandya and the two Mehta brothers, turned to the most respected leader in Gujarat, Vallabhbhai Patel.

Patel did not accept at once. He warned the peasants' delegation plainly that a revenue strike could mean seized property and land, prison, perhaps ruin. He would lead them only if every village agreed. The villagers replied that they were ready for the worst.

Patel then consulted Gandhi, who asked what Patel himself thought and, when Patel spoke confidently of the prospects, gave his blessing. They agreed that neither the Congress nor Gandhi would take part directly, and the struggle would belong to the people of Bardoli.

How Patel Organised the Bardoli Satyagraha

The Pledge, the Camps and the Chain of Command

On 6 February 1928 Patel wrote to the Governor of Bombay asking for the revenue to be reduced; the Governor ignored him and announced the date of collection. The refusal began on 12 February 1928, when the peasants resolved to refuse payment of the revised assessment until the government appointed an independent tribunal or accepted the old amount as full payment. Patel organised the campaign like an army that never used force:

• Command: Patel was the Senapati; under him were sector commanders, the Vibhag Patis, and under them volunteers, the sainiks.
• Camps: Thirteen chhavanis, workers' camps, covered the taluka.
• Reach: The campaign covered 92 villages and 87,000 peasants.
• Information: Mounted messengers, bhajan singers and printers kept the villages informed, and the Bardoli Satyagraha Patrika carried news to the wider public.
• Watch: Volunteers in each village sounded a bugle when officials approached, and informers near the government reported its movements.

Non-Violence, Social Boycott and the Government's Repression

Patel's first instruction was complete non-violence, and no one was to answer any provocation. The peasants kept their cattle locked indoors so that collectors could not seize them, hid their valuables with relatives outside the taluka, and received money and supplies from sympathisers across Gujarat. Patel refused to let supporters elsewhere start sympathetic protests, because Bardoli was to fight alone. Speaking to the villagers on 14 May 1928, he compared them to the crew of a ship: The negligence of a few could send it to the bottom, but the whole-hearted co-operation of all on board would bring it safely to port.

• Social boycott: Those who paid the revenue or bought seized land faced a complete boycott; relatives cut ties, and no one would rent their fields or work as their labourers.
• Women: Special attention was given to mobilising women. Mithuben Petit moved from village to village to rouse them.
• Breaking ranks: One village is recorded as having paid the tax, and the boycott was turned on it.

The government declared it would crush the movement. Revenue officials, helped by bands of Pathans brought from the north-west, entered houses and seized property and cattle. Houses and land were put up for auction, but when officials arrived the villages were empty, and almost no one in Gujarat would buy. The few buyers were some rich men from Bombay.

The repression turned opinion against the government. K. M. Munshi and Lalji Naranji resigned from the Bombay Legislative Council in support, and other Indian members resigned their offices too. By August 1928 tension was high, with the prospect of a railway strike in Bombay, and Gandhi came to Bardoli to stand by in case of an emergency. The government began to look for a way out.

Outcome of the Bardoli Satyagraha: The Maxwell-Broomfield Commission

The August 1928 Settlement and the 6.03 Per Cent Award

In August 1928 an agreement was brokered through a Parsi member of the Bombay government. Its terms met the peasants' main demands:

1. Confiscated lands and property were to be restored.
2. The revenue for 1928 was cancelled.
3. The increase was set aside pending an inquiry, and the Maxwell-Broomfield Commission, after a detailed survey, found that the increase should be only 6.03 per cent.

Patel kept working until every peasant got back what had been taken. Where buyers refused to return seized land, wealthy sympathisers from Bombay bought it back and handed it to the original owners. The victory had limits. The deeper problems of the peasants were left untouched, and bonded labour continued in the area.

Significance of the Bardoli Satyagraha

How Patel Became Sardar and What the Bardoli Movement Meant

Bardoli made Vallabhbhai Patel a national leader, and it gave him the name by which he is still known, Sardar, meaning chief or leader. NCERT's current Class 8 book says Gandhi bestowed the title on him after Bardoli; other accounts credit the women of Bardoli, or a farmer of Nanifalod, Kuverji Durlabh Patel, who told an open meeting, "Patel, you are our Sardar."

He wore the title with humility. At the Calcutta Congress in December 1928 he was reluctant even to stand up among the Gujarat delegates and had to be pressed to come to the dais. Three years later, in 1931, he presided over the Karachi session of the Congress.

Bardoli came in 1928, the year of the protests against the Simon Commission. Its success helped revive the national struggle. The Congress declared Purna Swaraj as its goal at Lahore in 1929, and in 1930 Gandhi began the Civil Disobedience Movement with the Salt March.

Bardoli Satyagraha and the Eka Movement Compared

Bardoli is often set beside the Eka, or Unity, Movement of Awadh, because both were peasant movements of the Gandhian years with very different aims and leaders. The Eka Movement surfaced at the end of 1921 in the northern districts of the United Provinces, Hardoi, Bahraich and Sitapur, against rents that ran 50 per cent above the recorded rates, the oppression of the thikadars who collected them, and share-rents. Bardoli was a campaign of landowning peasants against an increase in land revenue.

At Eka meetings peasants vowed to pay only the recorded rent and pay it on time, not to leave when evicted, to refuse forced labour and to abide by panchayat decisions. When leadership passed to Madari Pasi, a low-caste leader who did not accept non-violence, the Congress drew away and the movement was crushed by March 1922. Bardoli held together through a discipline that Eka lacked.

Sources

• NCERT: Themes in Indian History Part III (Class XII), Mahatma Gandhi and the Nationalist Movement
• NCERT: Exploring Society: India and Beyond, Class 8 Part II, India's Long Road to Independence
• NCERT: India and the Contemporary World II (Class X), Nationalism in India
• Press Information Bureau: Sardar Patel, Organiser par Excellence
• Press Information Bureau: Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel, The Man Who United the Nation (e-book)
• Press Information Bureau: Quotations of Sardar Patel (Rashtriya Ekta Diwas)
• Wikipedia: Bardoli Satyagraha
• Wikipedia: Vallabhbhai Patel
• Wikipedia: Bardoli
• Wikipedia: Kheda Satyagraha
• Wikipedia: Mithuben Petit
• Wikipedia: K. M. Munshi
• Wikipedia: Eka Movement
• Wikipedia: Madari Pasi
• Wikipedia: Chauri Chaura incident
• UPSC: Civil Services (Preliminary) and (Main) Examination previous question papers