Mahatma and his Mock Assassins Visual Text Analysis
Acharya told Gandhiji that social equations in Champarn did
not allow any outsider that too a male to talk to female and that being the
reasons of non-inclusion of any information about the women there. He suggested
to Gandhiji to send a women team to assess the condition of women in
Champaran.
When Ksasturba submitted the report, Gandhiji was deeply
moved by the condition of the people living in Champaran. The sufferings of the
people there compelled him to change the strategy of freedom struggle in India.
Thus Satyagrah became the main weapon of Gandhiji to protest the presence of
British rule in the country. The Champaran Satyagrah was the first mass
movement that has a seminal place in the
Syed Ali Mujtaba
A Professor from Madras University was describing the
background of Champaran Satyagrah of 1917, at an International Conference on
India Vietnam Relations through the Prism of Gandhian and Ho Chi Minh
Philosophies at Centre of Southeast Asia and Pacific Studies Sri Venkateshwara
University Tirupati, Andhra Pradesh on March 18, 2019.
Professor was saying that a Gandhiji’s disciple, Raj Kumar
Shukla, goaded Gandhiji to visit Champaran and do something about the plight of
the indigo farmers and their families who are reeling in penury and living in
inhuman conditions.
Gandhiji asked Acharya J.B Kirpalani, Dr. Rajendra Prasad and
others to go to Champaran and prepare a report on people’s sufferings there. The
Congress workers came up with a detailed survey of the villages, accounting the
atrocities and terrible episodes of suffering, including the general state of
degenerate living.
Gandhiji after going through the report pulled up Acharya
Kirpalani saying; you have written so many things in this, but they all are
about men, you have not all mentioned anything about the condition of women in
Chaparan, why?
Acharya told Gandhiji that social equations in Champarn did
not allow any outsider that too a male to talk to female and that being the
reasons of non-inclusion of any information about the women there. He suggested
to Gandhiji to send a women team to assess the condition of women in
Champaran.
Gandhiji immediately asked his wife Kasturba to immediately go
to Champaran and meet women there and prepare a report on their condition. Kasturba and a few associates traveled to
Champaran for this purpose.
As they roamed in the streets they found only men folk and
children on the streets and to their utmost surprise no woman were there in
public view. They realized that most of them were living inside the closed
houses.
Kasturba haggard and tired knocked the door of one of the
houses in the strret of Champaran. A very feeble female voice emerged from
inside asking their whereabouts. Kasturba told them they are woman travelers
and like to have a glass of water to quench their thrust.
And after a while the door was opened ajar and a female hand
with a glass of water emerged from the door. Kasturba drank the water and asked
for more for her colleague and then asked for permission to be let inside the
house.
After getting inside the house, Kasturba told the women that
they have come to assess the conditions of the women in Champaran and ask them
the reason why most of them remain indoors.
The woman gave a chilling account of the plight of woman in
Champaran. She said there are three women in the house and between them there
is only one SAREE, to wrap their bodies. So they take turns in the morning to
fetch water from the well and go to attend the nature’s call after the sunset in
the fields.
When Ksasturba submitted the report, Gandhiji was deeply
moved by the condition of the people living in Champaran. The sufferings of the
people there compelled him to change the strategy of freedom struggle in India.
Thus Satyagrah became the main weapon of Gandhiji to protest the presence of
British rule in the country. The Champaran Satyagrah was the first mass
movement that has a seminal place in the
struggle for freedom in India.
Now coming to the Visual Text Analysis of well clad Pooja
Shakun, leader of the Akhil Bharat Hindu Mahasabha, the only words that come to
my mind is ‘arrogant’, ‘ignorant’ and ‘pitiable.’
Pooja Shakun, well fed and well clad lady who had enacted the
assassination of Mahatma Gandhi hailing his murder Nathuram Godse as her hero
if had undergone even a little of pain and suffering of the women in Champran, she
should have shuddered to train her guns at the father of the nation even though
symbolically.
The Champaran Satyagraha was the first Satyagraha movement
launched by Mahatma Gandhi in 1917. It
was a farmer's uprising against Indo cultivation that forced them to live in
live in abject penury.
As Indigo was used to make dye the British forced the North
Indian farmers to grow indigo for its exports value. Under Colonial laws, many
tenant farmers were forced to grow some indigo on a portion of their land as a
condition of their tenancy. Since this cash crop barely gave any returns to the
farmers there was much resentment and anger among the farmers for growing this
crop.
When Gandhiji returned to India from South Africa in 1915, he
saw peasants in Northern India oppressed due to indigo plantation. He was moved
by their conditions and used the methods to Satyagrah as a mass protest movement
against injustices going on in the country.
The Champaran Satyagrah is a major landmark in the Indian
Independence Movement. The mock assassination by Pooja Shakun, on October 2,
2018 is another landmark in the history of the country. Well these are some of
the inchoate images of changing
India.
--
Syed Ali Mujtaba is a journalist based in Chennai. He can be
contacted at syedalimujtaba2007@gmail.com
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