INDIGO

About the story: The story is an excerpt from his book ‘ The Life of. Mahatma Gandhi” the book has been
reviewed as one of the best books written by times Educational Supplement.

About the Author: John he was born in Philadelphia and served as a volunteer in the British army between
1918 and 1920 . He was a journalist too and wrote for The New York Times, the Saturday review, and for
European and asian publications as well.

T H E M E O F T H E S T O R Y:
The story throws light upon the leadership shown by Mahatma Gandhi to get justice for the
oppressed people through assertion and dialogue. It also lays emphasis on the contributions
made by many unacknowledged Indians to the freedom movements

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 PLOT OVERVIEW

The story highlights Gandhi’s efforts to help the poor peasants of Champaran. The most
suitable land for growing crops in the Champaran district was owned by the Englishmen,
where the Indian Tenants worked. Indigo was the major commercial crop and all the
tenants were forced to plant 15% indigo and were supposed surrender the entire indigo
harvest as a rent to the landlords. Meanwhile when Britishers did not need Indigo crop
anymore because Germany had already developed synthetic indigo in order to release the
peasants from the 15 %agreement they demanded compensation. Some agreed while others
didn’t agree to this. Rajkumar Shukla was one of the sharecroppers and he went to
Gandhiji to seek some help and convince him to go to champaran and help them against
this long term injustice by the landlords. He followed Gandhi everywhere and strongly
wanted Gandhi to fix a date out of his busy schedule to visit Champaran . Gandhiji was
impressed by his determination and he finally decided to go along with him. They further
went to Patna and Rajkumar took him to a lawyer named Rajendra Prasad.

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