English (Core) · Ch 5 — Indigo
Summary of the Lesson
Summary of the Lesson
Shukla brings Gandhi to Champaran
The chapter begins with a poor, illiterate peasant named Rajkumar Shukla, who comes from the Champaran district of Bihar and is determined to bring the injustice suffered by the indigo sharecroppers to Gandhi's notice. Shukla approaches Gandhi at the December 1916 Lucknow session of the Congress and begs him to come and see the peasants' plight for himself. Though Gandhi is busy and has commitments elsewhere, Shukla is astonishingly persistent, following him from place to place and refusing to give up. Impressed by this dogged resolve, Gandhi finally agrees; the two travel together to Patna and on to Muzzafarpur, where Gandhi meets lawyers and supporters who will help him.
The unjust indigo system
Fischer then explains the arrangement that lay behind the peasants' misery. Under this long-standing system, the tenant farmers held their land from British landlords on the condition that they plant indigo on a fixed fraction of their holdings — three-twentieths, or fifteen per cent — and surrender the whole indigo crop to the landlord as rent. The trouble deepened when Germany developed a cheap synthetic dye, which destroyed the value of natural indigo. The landlords, no longer able to profit from the crop, decided to release the peasants from the obligation to grow it, but only if the peasants paid them compensation for the release. Many ignorant tenants signed away money for this; those who later learned the truth and refused, or who wanted their money back, faced the landlords' pressure, and the peasants generally lived in fear of them.
Gandhi's defiance and inquiry
When Gandhi arrives and begins to look into the matter, the authorities try to get rid of him, serving him an official order to leave Champaran at once. Gandhi refuses to obey and is summoned to court. Meanwhile the news spreads, and thousands of peasants gather spontaneously at Motihari to support him, a show of solidarity that alarms the officials and reveals the strength of feeling against the planters. Faced with this, the authorities back down and the case against Gandhi is dropped. Gandhi then conducts a thorough, patient investigation, collecting statements from about ten thousand peasants and building an overwhelming body of evidence against the landlords.
The settlement and its meaning
An official commission of inquiry is eventually set up to look into the sharecroppers' grievances, and Gandhi is made the sole representative of the peasants on it. The evidence against the planters is so strong that they agree in principle to make refunds of the money they had wrongfully taken. Gandhi first demands a fifty per cent repayment; when the landlords offer only a quarter of the sum, he surprises everyone by accepting the twenty-five per cent settlement. His point is not the exact amount of money but the principle: for the first time the landlords have been forced to give back part of what they extorted and, more importantly, have lost their prestige and their air of untouchable authority. In the years that follow, the oppressive indigo arrangement disappears altogether and the planters abandon their estates.