Which one of the following statements about the Eka Movement and Bardoli Satyagraha is correct?
Answer & explanation
Answer: (c) The Bardoli Satyagraha was a campaign against the enhancement of land revenue, while the Eka Movement was a protest against excessive extraction of rents.
Bardoli (1928, Surat district, Gujarat) was a no-revenue campaign led by Vallabhbhai Patel against a steep increase in land revenue. The Eka ('unity') Movement of 1921-22 in northern Awadh was a tenants' protest over rents, with demands for cash rents and for resisting any demand above the recorded rent.
- ✓ (c) Bardoli peasants refused to pay the enhanced land revenue; the Eka associations of northern Awadh demanded commutation to cash rents and resisted any demand beyond the recorded rent.
- ✗ (a) It is the other way round: the Eka associations were aided at first by some Congressmen and Khilafatists but soon outgrew those beginnings, while Bardoli was led by Vallabhbhai Patel from the start.
- ✗ (b) The taluqdars were the landlords the Eka tenants were resisting, and Bardoli was a movement of land-owning peasants who paid revenue, not of landless labourers.
- ✗ (d) Eka was centred in northern Awadh, and Bardoli is a taluka of Surat district in mainland Gujarat, not Saurashtra.
Remember · Bardoli 1928: Surat, land revenue, Vallabhbhai Patel ('Sardar'). Eka 1921-22: northern Awadh, rents.
📘 Read it in NCERT: Class 10 India and the Contemporary World – II, Ch 2 (practise this chapter) · Class 12 Social Change and Development in India, Ch 8 (practise this chapter) · Class 10 India and the Contemporary World – II, Ch 2 (practise this chapter)
Sources
- NCERT Class 10 · India and the Contemporary World – II, Chapter 2 “In 1928, Vallabhbhai Patel led the peasant movement in Bardoli, a taluka in Gujarat, against enhancement of land revenue.”
- NCERT Class 12 · Social Change and Development in India, Chapter 8 “the Bardoli Satyagraha (1928, Surat District) a 'non-tax' campaign as part of the nationwide non-cooperation movement, a campaign of refusal to pay land revenue”
- NCERT Class 10 · India and the Contemporary World – II, Chapter 2 “The movement here was against talukdars and landlords who demanded from peasants exorbitantly high rents and a variety of other cesses.”
- Gyanendra Pandey, 'Peasant Revolt and Indian Nationalism: The Peasant Movement in Awadh, 1919-22', Subaltern Studies I (Oxford University Press, 1982) ↗ · reference work “a few months later it arose again in northern Awadh in the modified form of an Eka (unity) movement. … The movement was strongest in certain districts of northern Awadh where the evils of grain rents and disguised rents abounded.”
Question and answer: UPSC's provisional GS Paper I (2026, Series A) — paper ↗ · answer key ↗. Explanation: Minimalist IAS, checked 1 Oct 2026 (how we verify). Permalink ·