During which 1918 labor dispute did Mahatma Gandhi undertake his first hunger strike in India?

Mahatma Gandhi undertook his first hunger strike in India during the 1918 Ahmedabad mill strike.

The dispute involved textile workers in Ahmedabad, Gujarat, who sought a wage increase after wartime economic pressures and a plague bonus arrangement changed. Gandhi supported the workers and urged them to remain nonviolent and committed to their demand. When negotiations stalled, he began a fast in March 1918.

Gandhi’s fast was intended as moral pressure within the dispute, rather than as a general protest against British rule. The employers eventually agreed to arbitration, and the workers received a settlement. The episode helped establish Gandhi’s method of combining negotiation, discipline, and personal sacrifice.

The Ahmedabad action is often mixed up with Gandhi’s other early Indian campaigns. Champaran in 1917 concerned indigo cultivators, while Kheda in 1918 concerned land revenue relief for peasants. Ahmedabad was specifically an industrial labor conflict involving textile mills.