Mahatma Gandhi and Bihar

Mahatma Gandhi’s visit to Champaran synchronized with the great push given to the Home Rule Movement by that great and indefatigable worker in the cause of Indian uplift. Throughout the country, a large number of workers were going about delivering lectures and rousing and organizing the people. Bihar too had its share of political agitation. We used to read reports in the papers how many of our friends and coworkers in other districts were busy going about holding meetings and delivering lectures, and sometimes felt tempted to follow the same course in Champaran also. But Mahatmaji had sealed his own as well as our lips and we were not permitted to deliver public speeches either on the Champaran situation or in connection with the Home Rule Movement. He used to tell us that by our very silence we were doing the highest kind of Home Rule work.Mahatma Gandhi has often said that the people of Bihar are simple and instantaneously expressed their faith in him and in his method by their action on the very first contact they had with him. He transformed the Province by his short stay of a few months in 191718 and the occasional tours which he undertook in later years.—From this bookAn account of Mahatma Gandhi stay in Bihar by former President Dr. Rajendra Prasad which would infuse enthusiasm in the readers.