Commemorating the centenary of Champaran Satyagraha the Department of History of Vinoba Bhave University (VBU) Hazaribag is all set to hold a seminar on 7 July at its Vivekanand Auditorium.
Focusing on the Champaran Satyagraha a seminar is scheduled to be organised at the University campus, informed Dr Hitendra Anupam Organizing Secretary and Associate Professor Department of History VBU.
Dr. DM Diwakar from A N Sinha Institute Patna, Dr Raja Ahemad from Gandhi Sangharalaya Patna, Dr Bharav Lal from including others would be the prominent speaker in the seminar, he informed. “Students, Research Scholars and teachers are invited to participate in the seminar”, added Hitendra.
The purpose of this seminar titled— ‘The Centenary of Champaran Satyagraha’ is to honour the first civil disobedience agitation of India. “At a moment when the ideas and events of our national movement seem to be fading from public memory, it is gratifying indeed that there should be a celebration of the centenary”, he added.
The Champaran Satyagraha of 1917 that opened a new phase in the national movement by joining it to the great struggle of the Indian peasantry for bread and land, he said. “The Champaran movement is significant because it was the first political action that Gandhi led in India for a deeply oppressed peasantry in a remote part of the country”, he said. Gandhi’s subsequent localised movements in Ahmedabad (for mill workers) and Kheda (where he supported distressed peasants) were, in a sense, the learning and training grounds for the massive nation-wide protests that he launched from 1919 onwards.
The oppression of Champaran’s indigo farmers by white planters dated back to the 19th century. By the time Gandhi arrived, the indigo farmers were in the grip of the pernicious ‘tinkathia’ system whereby they were forced to dedicate three out of 20 parts of their land to the cultivation of indigo.
