Motilal Tejawat: The Eki Movement and the Pal-Dadhvav Massacre

British officials recorded 22 deaths at Pal-Dadhvav in 1922. The Bhils who survived it say the real number was closer to 1,500. Motilal Tejawat, shot twice that day, lived another 41 years.

Timeline

• 1885: Motilal Tejawat is born at Koliyari, Mewar State, now Udaipur district, Rajasthan.
• 1921: He launches a no-rent campaign among the Bhils, at Matrakundia, Chittorgarh. He presents the Maharana of Mewar with 21 demands, called the “Mewar ki Pukar.”
• 1922: He extends the Eki Movement into the Bhomat region. Bhils refuse to pay land revenue and cesses, and to perform forced labour, or “begar.”
• 7 March 1922: The Mewar Bhil Corps, a British-officered paramilitary force, opens fire on a large Bhil gathering he leads, at Pal-Dadhvav. He is shot twice but escapes.
• 4 June 1929: He is arrested at Khedbrahma. He is held without trial until 23 April 1939.
• 1963: He dies, aged about 78.

Must Know

• Motilal Tejawat was born in 1885, at Koliyari, Mewar State, now Udaipur district, Rajasthan. He died in 1963, aged about 78.
• He led the Eki Movement, a Bhil unity movement, across the Rajasthan-Gujarat border region in the 1920s.
• The movement opposed land revenue taxes, forced labour (“begar”), and exploitation by princely states and jagirdars.
• On 7 March 1922, the Mewar Bhil Corps opened fire on a large Bhil gathering he led, at Pal-Dadhvav. He was shot twice, but survived.
• British officials recorded 22 deaths at Pal-Dadhvav. Bhil accounts, and later estimates, put the real toll far higher, at 1,200 to 1,500.

Good to Know

• He drew direct inspiration from the Bijolia peasant movement, distributing its pamphlets through Bhil-majority villages.
• Mewar State outlawed him, and offered a ₹500 bounty for his capture.
• Gandhi publicly disavowed him, saying “I have no disciples,” and criticised the actions of his armed followers.
• He was arrested on 4 June 1929, at Khedbrahma. He was imprisoned without trial until 23 April 1939, nearly a decade.
• After his release, he resumed advocacy for Adivasi social reform. He was arrested again in January 1946, at Kotra.

Test Yourself

Please wait…

1. Motilal Tejawat led which 1920s Bhil unity movement across the Rajasthan-Gujarat border region?

The Eki Movement

The Bijolia Movement

The Bhagat Movement

The Tana Bhagat Movement

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Great to Know

• His movement built directly on the tribal-rights tradition established a decade earlier by Govind Guru’s Bhagat movement, in the same Rajasthan-Gujarat-Madhya Pradesh tribal belt.
• The gap between the British-recorded death toll and Bhil oral accounts at Pal-Dadhvav is striking. It mirrors a pattern of colonial undercounting also seen at Jallianwala Bagh, three years earlier.
• He told followers that under a future “Gandhi raj,” taxation would fall to just “one anna in the rupee,” about 6%. Gandhi himself never endorsed him.
• Despite Gandhi’s public disavowal, Tejawat’s movement is now recognised as a genuine part of India’s tribal freedom struggle, distinct from mainstream Congress politics.
• The Pal-Dadhvav massacre stayed little-known outside Rajasthan and Gujarat for decades. It only gained wider recognition through a Gujarat Republic Day tableau in recent years.