Resistance Movement in South Africa, replied in a way that did not surprise those who had known him:—
Out of a sense of public responsibility, I feel it to be my duty to say that I am unable to leave this district, but if it so pleases the authorities, I shall submit to the order by suffering the penalty of disobedience.
I most emphatically repudiate the Commissioner’s suggestion that "my object is likely to be agitation." My desire is purely and simply for "a genuine search for knowledge" and this I shall continue to satisfy so long as I am left free.
Mr. Gandhi appeared before the District Magistrate on the 18th, when he presented a statement. Finding that the case was likely to be unnecessarily prolonged he pleaded guilty and the judgment was deferred pending instructions from higher authorities. The rest of the story is pretty familiar. The higher authorities subsequently issued instructions not to proceed with the prosecution, while a commission of enquiry was at once instituted to enquire into the conditions of the Behar labourers with Mr. Gandhi as a member of that body. As usual, Mr. Gandhi worked in perfect harmony with the other members and though with the findings of his own private enquiry he could have raised a. storm of indignant agitation against the scandals of the plantations, he refrained from using his influence and knowledge for a merely vindictive and vainglorious cry. He worked quietly, with no thought of himself, but absorbed in the need for remedial measures; and when in December 1917 the Champaran Agrarian Bill was moved in the Behar Legislative Council, the Hon. Mr. Maude made a frank statement of the scandals which necessitated an enquiry by a Commission and acknowledged Mr. Gandhi’s services in these handsome terms:—
It is constantly asserted, and I have myself often heard it said, that there is in reality nothing wrong or rotten in the state of affairs; that all concerned are perfectly happy so long as they are left alone, and that it is only when outside influences and agitators come in that any trouble is experienced. I submit that this contention is altogether untenable in the light of the history of the last fifty years. What is it we find on each individual occasion when fresh attention has been, at remarkably short intervals, drawn once more to the conditions
