Kheda

• 1. Introduction

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  Kheda sits on the banks of two rivers, the Vatrak and the Shedhi, in the Indian state of Gujarat. It is a city whose name reaches back to a Sanskrit word, Kshetra, meaning field or region. For centuries it appeared in copper-plates, religious texts, and dynastic records under names that changed with each new ruler. Yet by the time Mahatma Gandhi arrived on the 22nd of March 1918, the city was still known to the British as Kaira, and it was about to become the site of one of the most significant Satyagraha campaigns in the independence movement. What forces shaped this place over more than two thousand years? How did a modest city in Gujarat become a flashpoint for resistance, first against the East India Company and then against the British Raj itself? And what does the city look like today, with its tobacco fields, its rivers, and the hundred thousand people who converge on it every February?

• 2. Two Thousand Years of Names

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  Ganapatha, one of the five volumes of the grammarian Panini's work and dated to the 2nd century BCE, names the region Khetaka. That single reference anchors Kheda in the literary record earlier than almost any other source can reach. Ancient texts do not use a single name consistently; the city also appears as Divyanagar in the 133rd chapter of the Padmapurana, and as Khetaka again in the Nimbavati story of the Dashakumaracharita.

  The 7th and 8th century copper-plates of the Maitraka dynasty describe Khetaka as an administrative division, noting that roughly 750 villages fell under its governance. Other copper-plates from the same era mark it as a place of Brahmin residence and a town under Rashtrakuta control. Merutunga's Prabandhachintamani, written in 1305 CE, and Jinaprabha's Vividh-tirtha-kalpa, composed around 1332 CE, both add Kheda to their accounts.

  Between the 10th and the start of the 14th century the Chaulukya and Vaghela dynasties governed the area. The Gujarat Sultanate followed. Then, early in the 18th century, the Babi Dynasty of Pashtun descent took control, and it was under their rule that a fort was built by Mahmad Khan Babi. The city would remain in Babi hands until 1763, when Damajirao Gaekwad led the Marathas to take it.

• 3. Company Rule and Koli Resistance

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  In 1803 the Marathas under Anandrao Gaekwad ceded the district to the British, folding it into the Bombay Presidency. The East India Company's arrival was not accepted quietly by everyone. That same year, Koli Patels and Koli Thakors declared that Company government had no authority over them. They filed petitions in Kheda's Court of Law stating their case; the petitions were ignored.

  By 1808 Koli chiefs had shifted from legal challenge to direct action. They began raiding cities and villages, taking crops, animals, and other possessions. Dholka Taluka became the main target. A force of around 150 armed Koli fighters attacked Dholka and then returned to their villages. The East India Company found itself unable to stop the raids.

  Kheda also served a strategic military purpose during those early decades under British rule. It functioned as a large military station until 1830, when the cantonment was relocated to Deesa. After 1830 the city's military significance faded, but its administrative identity persisted. As late as 1901, Kaira was still entitled to a tribute of 488 rupees from the Koli petty princely state of Ghorasar.

• 4. Gandhi and the 1918 Satyagraha

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  On the 22nd of March 1918, Mahatma Gandhi launched a Satyagraha campaign in Kheda directed against taxation the British continued to levy during a period of famine. The choice of Kheda was deliberate. The city and its surrounding district had a history of both resistance and organised civic life stretching back centuries.

  The 1918 campaign would become one of the defining early tests of Satyagraha as a method. Farmers in the district were being asked to pay land revenue even as crops had failed and conditions were dire. Gandhi's intervention placed Kheda alongside Champaran in Bihar as an early proving ground for nonviolent resistance in the years before the larger national movement gathered force.

• 5. The City Today

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  Tobacco farming is the economic activity Kheda is most associated with today. The city lies 35 kilometres from Ahmedabad, and National Highway No. 48, which connects Ahmedabad and Mumbai, passes directly through it. The nearest major airport is Ahmedabad Airport.

  Kheda sits at an average elevation of 21 metres (68 feet). Its population, recorded in an India census, stands at around 27,000. Males make up 52 percent of that figure and females 48 percent. The city's literacy rate of 70 percent sits above the national average of 59.5 percent; male literacy reaches 77 percent, while female literacy stands at 63 percent. Children under six years of age account for 13 percent of the population.

  Clan and community identity remain visible in the city's social fabric. Rajputs in the district are largely of the Chauhan clan. Jain religion has a particularly strong presence. Jat clans found in Kheda District include the Chauhan, Gaur, Godara, Gulia, and Maan groups, whose names echo across village names throughout the district. The temple of Meldi Mata draws around 100,000 visitors to Kheda for its annual fair each February, making it the city's single largest public gathering of the year.