people to learn a lesson in courting fines or imprisonment, which was the necessary consequence of such disobedience. For Sjt. Mohanlal Pandya it was a thing after his heart. He did not like the campaign to end without someone undergoing suffering in the shape of imprisonment for something done consistently with the principles of satyagraha. So he volunteered to remove the onion crop from the field, and in this seven or eight friends joined him.
It was impossible for the Government to leave them free. The arrest of Sjt. Mohanlal and his companions added to the people’s enthusiasm. When the fear of jail disappears, repression puts heart into the people. Crowds of them besieged the courthouse on the day of the hearing. Pandya and his companions were convicted and sentenced to a brief term of imprisonment. I was of opinion that the conviction was wrong, because the act of removing the onion crop could not come under the definition of “theft” in the Penal Code. But no appeal was filed as the policy was to avoid the law courts.
A procession escorted the “convicts” to jail, and on that day Sjt. Mohanlal Pandya earned from the people the honoured title of “ dungli chor ” (onion thief) which he enjoys to this day.
The conclusion of the Kheda Satyagraha I will leave to the next chapter.