Project management at Champaran: Revisiting Gandhi’s Satyagraha
- Vikalpa: The Journal for Decision Makers
- 45(3), Jul-Sep, 2020: p.139-146
When Gandhi returned to India from South Africa in 1915, he first undertook a year’s wandering to get acquainted with the country on the advice of his mentor Gopal Krishna Gokhale. Towards the end of that period, he was drawn into the problems faced by the peasants at Champaran with the English planters for whom they cultivated the indigo plant. Historiography has firmly established his efforts at Champaran as his first demonstration of the efficacy of satyagraha launching him into national prominence. Thus, the Champaran struggle has become part of the larger Gandhian literature in analyzing his role as a political strategist, freedom fighter and social reformer. – Reproduced