Vallabhbhai Happy over Preparedness of People of Bardoli Taluka for Civil Disobedience
Bombay Chronicle – 22nd November 1921
This inhabitants of the
Bardoli Taluka hold themselves in readiness for the forthcoming campaign of
civil disobedience, and as an earnest of their grim determination a procession
was organised at Khojpardi on November 11th when the depressed
classes mixed freely with other sections of inhabitants resolutely casting out
all antiquated notions about untouchability. At Poida, too, at a meeting held
two days previously, the inhabitants vowed to wear Khadi for all time and
signified their willingness to practise civil disobedience and to refuse to pay
taxes. The Leooa(Leva) Patidars of Badthal have adjured pugrees till the
attainment of Swaraj and decided to use Khadi in marriages and funerals. In
order to make assurance doubly sure, Mr. Vallabhbhai J. Patel,Barrister-at-Law,
accompanied by Principal Gidwani of the Gujarat National University, Dr. Kanuga
and Mr. Luxmidas Purshottam paid a visit to Bardoli on November 11th
and addressed at Surat an audience of six thousand men and women on their
return from the place with Mr. Syed Ahmed Edroos.
Mr. Vallabhbhai remarked on
the threefold object of convening the present meeting, namely, to deliberate
how to achieve Swaraj by the end of December in accordance with the Congress
resolution, to decide on their course of conduct in respect of the Prince’s
arrival on November 17th, and to devise means how best to help the
Surat Municipal Board in the new situation that has arisen as a result of the
Government Resolution inciting the rate-payers against the Municipality. They
have deliberately excluded big cities, for Swaraj for the obvious reason that
with their exquisitely laid out gardens, pestiferous gutters were inextricably
bound up, and it was a matter of deep regret that Surat had not yet altogether
emancipated itself from the seductive amenities of material civilisation.
Swadeshi was the soul of Swaraj, and they could hope to unfurl the Swaraj Flag
only if they made a clean sweep of the antediluvian concept of untouchability.
His visit to Bardoli convinced him of its “thorough-preparedness” although he
would defer his verdict about Surat till the decision of the ensuing meeting of
the Executive Council of the Congress to be held at Surat on November 22nd,
was known.
NO ILL-WILL TOWARDS THE PRINCE
Proceeding, Mr. Patel observed
that they bore no ill-will to the prince and if they resolved on observing a
complete “hartal” on the day of his arrival in India, it was mainly because
they protested against the way in which the visit was sought to be exploited.
They were not in any way affected by what the toadies and Rao Bahadurs said or
did. Regarding the step taken by the Government in respect of the
non-cooperating Municipalities of Nadiad, Ahmedabad and Surat, they might rest
assured of the dismal failure of it all provided their determination was
unshaken at all hazards, and they refused to be hoodwinked by the attempt made
to sow dissensions between the Municipalities and the rate-prayers. He was
quite at a loss to understand why the Government trembled to translate the
threat of suspending the Municipalities concerned into act.
Speech – 18th
November at Surat
