The Champaran movement of 1917 in Bihar’s Champaran district was fuelled by the exploitation of farmers, who were forced to grow indigo under an oppressive system of sharecropping. Spearheaded by Gandhi, the movement was a response to the oppressive rule of the British Raj. In the course of the movement, Gandhi urged the farmers to stop cultivating the crops and withhold the payment of the illegal taxes, and it eventually compelled the abolition of the Indigo system and illegal taxes in 1918.
A similar movement started growing in Gujarat’s Kheda district against the oppressive regime of the British Raj on imposing taxes on farmers, who were back then, already suffering from poor. As a response, the British retaliated which led to the arrest of the farmers and Gandhi. However, the movement eventually forced the British to roll back the illegal tax system and spearheaded by Gandhi, the movement became an important component of India’s independence movement.
Sparked by the Jallianwallah Bagh massacre, the Non-cooperation movement began through the 1920s, where under Gandhi’s ideology. Through the movement, Gandhi preached the idea of swaraj and urged people to boycott British goods. However, following the Chauri Chaura event, in which 23 police officers died, Mahatma Gandhi put a halt to the campaign.
The Salt March, also known as the Salt Satyagraha, Dandi March and the Dandi Satyagraha, was an act of nonviolent civil disobedience in colonial India, led by Mahatma Gandhi. The 24-day march lasted from 12 March to 5 April 1930 as a direct action campaign of tax resistance and nonviolent protest against the British salt monopoly.
During World War II, Gandhi started the Quit India Movement, Bharat Chodo Andolan, in 1942 in Bombay. The movement was announced in Bombay’s Gowalia Tank Maida on August 8 that year and followed the policy of Do or Die after the British failed to win Indian support for the British war effort with the Cripps Mission.
