In Touch with Labour
Whilst I was yet winding up my work on the Committee, I received a letter from Sjts. Mohanlal Pandya and Shankarlal Parikh telling me of the failure of crops in the Kheda district, and asking me to guide the peasants, who were unable to pay the assessment. I had not the inclination, the ability or the courage to advise without an inquiry on the spot.
At the same time there came a letter from Shrimati Anasuyabai about the condition of labour in Ahmedabad. Wages were low, the labourers had long been agitating for an increment, and I had a desire to guide them if I could. But I had not the confidence to direct even this comparatively small affair from that long distance. So I seized the first opportunity to go to Ahmedabad. I had hoped that I should be able to finish both these matters quickly and get back to Champaran to supervise the constructive work that had been inaugurated there.
But things did not move as swiftly as I had wished, and I was unable to return to Champaran, with the result that the schools closed down one by one. My coworkers and I had built many castles in the air, but they all vanished for the time being.
One of these was cow-protection work in Champaran, besides rural sanitation and education. I had seen, in the course of my travels, that cow-protection and Hindi propaganda had become the exclusive concern of the Marwadis. A Marwadi friend had sheltered me in his dharmsala whilst at Bettiah. Other Marwadis of the place had interested me in their gaushala (dairy). My ideas about cow-protection had been definitely formed then, and my conception of the work was the same as it