Champaran satyagraha did not reduce the rural oligarchy’s grip on peasants.

Evidence

Gandhi travelled to Champaran and set up an ashram from where he backed their struggle. The people were not sure exactly who he was. Jacques Pouchepadass, who studied the Champaran Satyagraha, writes: “Rumours … reported that Gandhi had been sent into Champaran by the Viceroy, or even the King, to redress all the grievances of the raiyats [farmers] and that his mandate overruled all the local officials and the courts.” Gandhi stayed in Champaran for a year and then left. Says Pouchepadass, “It is a fact that from 1918 onwards, after Gandhi had left and the planters’ influence had begun to fade away, the hold of the rural oligarchy grew stronger than ever.” — Ambedkar, B R, Annihilation of Caste_ The Annotated…, 272

Categorization

• QUESTION: Does the pattern of Gandhi’s intervention leaving local power structures intact recur across his other satyagrahas?