Jawaharlal Nehru and Mahatma Gandhi met for the first time at Charbagh Railway Station in Lucknow on 26 December, 1916. Nehru was 27 years old and Gandhiji was 47 years old at the time. Both of them had come to attend the annual meeting of the Indian National Congress in Lucknow. The meeting lasted about 20 minutes and left a lasting impression on Nehru.
Nehru had more opportunities to observe Gandhi during the Congress and noted that he seemed to be “very distant and… unpolitical”. By then Gandhi was already a legend. His heroic fight for Indian workers in South Africa was known. Gandhiji used the same methods of nonviolent resistance or ‘satyagraha’ when he returned to India to organize the farmers of Champaran, Bihar to oppose growing indigo for the British.
The Champaran Satyagraha was the beginning of the satyagraha movement in India. For the first time young party workers, including Nehru began to see how India’s freedom movement could be mobilized along these lines. Till then the Congress had consisted of moderate and extremist factions and there existed no clear direction as to how to resist the British. Gandhiji’s success electrified the freedom activists who for the first time saw clearly the way forward. Nehru recognized Gandhiji as someone with the moral strength to stand up to the British, and back up political demands with action.
Picture Credit : Google
