RAS question
The Kheda Satyagraha (1918) was primarily related to which issue?
Correct answer: (B) Revenue remission during crop failure.
The Kheda Satyagraha of 1918 was primarily a protest for revenue remission when crop failure made full land revenue unjustifiable.
Explanation
The issue at Kheda was land revenue, not a general social reform demand. The movement began because the government refused to remit land revenue despite severe crop failure in Gujarat's Kheda district. Encyclopaedia Britannica supports that framing: it describes Kheda as a farmer protest against colonial tax policies during crop failure and famine, when the administration still demanded full land tax. Farmers adopted nonviolent noncooperation by refusing to pay land tax until suspension was granted. The movement therefore centred on relief from revenue collection in a bad harvest year; its logic was that peasants should not be forced to pay full assessment when crops had failed.
Why the other options are wrong
- (A) Abolition of forced labour was not the main Kheda issue; Encyclopaedia Britannica frames Kheda around land tax demands during crop failure.
- (C) Minimum wages for workers points to an industrial labour dispute, whereas Kheda was a farmer protest over land revenue.
- (D) Land redistribution was not the demand; the protest sought suspension or remission of land revenue, not transfer of land ownership.
Concept
This tests Gandhian mass movements in early twentieth-century India, especially how each satyagraha arose from a specific local grievance. RAS repeats this area because Champaran, Ahmedabad and Kheda are often confused unless their core issues are kept distinct.