Class 12 English Flamingo Chapter 5 — Indigo (Louis Fischer)
Welcome to HSLC Guru‘s complete study guide for Class 12 English Flamingo Chapter 5 — “Indigo”, an extract from Louis Fischer’s celebrated biography The Life of Mahatma Gandhi. Prescribed by ASSEB (Assam State Board of Secondary Education) for Higher Secondary Second Year, this lesson recreates the Champaran Satyagraha of 1917 — Gandhi’s first major act of civil disobedience on Indian soil. Louis Fischer (1896–1970) was an American journalist and biographer who spent weeks living with Gandhi at Sevagram Ashram in 1942 and later produced one of the definitive Western accounts of his life. In this chapter, the persistent peasant Rajkumar Shukla draws Gandhi to the indigo districts of Bihar, where the exploitative tinkathia sharecropping system has crushed thousands of farmers under the British planters. Gandhi’s defiance of an expulsion order, the spontaneous uprising of the peasants at Motihari, the official commission of enquiry, and the historic 25 percent refund mark a turning point not only in Gandhi’s career but in the very direction of India’s freedom movement. This page provides the complete summary in English and Assamese (সাৰাংশ), all NCERT textbook questions with answers, additional short and long answer questions, MCQs, extract-based questions, character sketches, and theme analysis — every resource an ASSEB / HS Final candidate needs to master this chapter.
About the Author — Louis Fischer
Louis Fischer (1896–1970) was an American journalist, foreign correspondent, biographer, and author who reported from Europe, the Soviet Union, the Middle East, and India for several decades of the twentieth century. Born in Philadelphia, USA, he served briefly in the British Army during the First World War and later worked as a correspondent for The New York Times, The Nation, and the Saturday Review. Fischer travelled to India and met Mahatma Gandhi at Sevagram Ashram in June 1942, just weeks before the Quit India Movement was launched. Out of those long, intimate conversations grew his most famous work, The Life of Mahatma Gandhi (1950), regarded as one of the finest biographies of Gandhi ever written by a Westerner. The chapter “Indigo” is an extract from this biography. Fischer’s other notable works include The Soviets in World Affairs, Russia Revisited, The Story of Indonesia, and The Essential Gandhi. His journalistic style — fact-driven, vivid, and human — is what gives “Indigo” its remarkable immediacy.
Summary (English)
“Indigo” recounts how, in 1916–1917, Mahatma Gandhi was drawn into the long-running grievance of the indigo sharecroppers of Champaran in north Bihar and how that single episode transformed the very nature of India’s freedom struggle. The chapter opens at the December 1916 annual convention of the Indian National Congress in Lucknow. Among the thousands of delegates was a poor, dishevelled peasant from Champaran named Rajkumar Shukla. He had come to plead with Gandhi to visit his district and witness the injustice the British landlords were inflicting on the indigo farmers. Gandhi was busy and could not commit, but Shukla followed him from Lucknow to Cawnpore, then across India to the ashram near Ahmedabad, and finally to Calcutta, where he waited day after day until Gandhi finally agreed to travel to Champaran with him.
From Calcutta the two men proceeded by train to Patna, where Gandhi went to call on the lawyer Rajendra Prasad. Prasad was away. Because Shukla was a known peasant, the servants assumed Gandhi too was a peasant and would not allow him to draw water from the well lest his bucket pollute it. Gandhi later moved on to Muzaffarpur, where Professor J. B. Kripalani received him at midnight with a body of students. Gandhi stayed for two days at the home of Professor Malkani, a teacher in a government school — Fischer notes that for a government servant to shelter an advocate of home-rule in those days was an “extraordinary thing”.
At Muzaffarpur Gandhi began to study the situation. Under the long-standing arrangement known as the tinkathia system, the peasants of Champaran were obliged to plant indigo on three-twentieths (15 per cent) of their holdings and surrender the entire indigo harvest to the British landlords as rent. When Germany developed synthetic indigo, natural indigo lost its market value and the planters realised they would be ruined. They therefore released the peasants from the indigo obligation but in return demanded compensation in cash. Many illiterate peasants signed; some, hearing of the synthetic substitute, refused. Those who had signed now wanted their money back. The planters reacted with harassment and oppression, and a long-running legal dispute had begun.
Gandhi rebuked the local lawyers for charging the poor peasants heavy fees and taking their cases to court. He said that taking such cases was “useless” — what the peasants needed was to be freed from fear. He then proceeded to Champaran. He first called on the Secretary of the British Landlords’ Association, who refused to give any information to an “outsider”; next he called on the British official Commissioner of the Tirhut division, who bullied him and ordered him to leave at once. Gandhi did not leave. He went on to Motihari, the capital of Champaran, where a huge crowd of peasants gave him a hero’s welcome at the railway station.
The next day, on his way out to visit a maltreated peasant, Gandhi was stopped by a police messenger and served a written order to leave Champaran immediately. Gandhi signed the receipt and added that he would disobey the order. He was at once summoned to court. By the morning of the trial, thousands of peasants had assembled spontaneously around the courthouse — a demonstration so unexpected that the British officials themselves felt powerless. Inside the court Gandhi pleaded guilty, read out a written statement saying that as a law-abiding citizen he could not surrender to an order that violated “the higher law of our being — the voice of conscience”, and asked the magistrate to inflict the penalty. The judge, unable to handle the situation, postponed the verdict for several days and finally — on instructions from the Lieutenant-Governor of Bihar, Sir Edward Gait — the case against Gandhi was withdrawn. Civil disobedience had triumphed, for the first time, in modern India.
Gandhi now organised a great fact-finding inquiry. With the help of senior lawyers like Brij Kishore Babu, Rajendra Prasad, Maulana Mazharul Huq and others — many of whom had earlier said that they would not go to jail for the peasants but who, when challenged by Gandhi, agreed to follow him to prison — depositions were taken from nearly ten thousand peasants and supporting documents were collected. Sir Edward Gait summoned Gandhi for four interviews and finally appointed an official Commission of Enquiry consisting of landlords, government officials, and Gandhi as the sole representative of the peasants. Crushed by the weight of the evidence, the planters agreed in principle to refund money illegally extracted from the peasants. Gandhi asked for 50 per cent; the planters offered 25 per cent. Gandhi accepted 25 per cent — what mattered to him was not the amount but the moral surrender. The planters had been forced, for the first time, to part with their money and their prestige. Within a few years the British planters abandoned their estates altogether and the indigo sharecropping system disappeared.
Gandhi did not stop there. He launched programmes of rural reform — opening primary schools in six villages, where his disciples like Mahadev Desai, Narhari Parikh and their wives volunteered as teachers; Kasturba taught the women personal cleanliness and community sanitation; a doctor was brought in for six months to treat the appalling state of public health using only three medicines — castor oil, quinine and sulphur ointment. Gandhi insisted that the cause should never depend on outsiders: when his lawyer-friends suggested that the Englishman C. F. Andrews should stay on to help, Gandhi sharply objected, saying that to lean on an Englishman would betray weakness — the cause was just and they must rely on themselves. The Champaran episode, Fischer concludes, was a “turning-point in Gandhi’s life”: it was the first true exercise of satyagraha on Indian soil, and through it Gandhi taught the Indian peasant — and through the peasant the whole nation — the meaning of self-reliance and the power of fearlessness.
সাৰাংশ (Assamese)
“ইণ্ডিগো” (Indigo) আমেৰিকান সাংবাদিক লুই ফিছাৰৰ বিখ্যাত গ্ৰন্থ The Life of Mahatma Gandhiৰ পৰা লোৱা এক অংশ। ইয়াত ১৯১৭ চনৰ চম্পাৰণ সত্যাগ্ৰহৰ কাহিনী বৰ্ণনা কৰা হৈছে — মহাত্মা গান্ধীয়ে ভাৰতৰ মাটিত প্ৰথমবাৰৰ বাবে চলোৱা আইন অমান্য আন্দোলন।
১৯১৬ চনৰ ডিচেম্বৰ মাহত লক্ষ্ণৌত অনুষ্ঠিত ভাৰতীয় ৰাষ্ট্ৰীয় কংগ্ৰেছৰ অধিৱেশনত বিহাৰৰ চম্পাৰণৰ এজন দৰিদ্ৰ কৃষক ৰাজকুমাৰ শুক্লা উপস্থিত থাকে। তেওঁ গান্ধীক চম্পাৰণলৈ গৈ ইণ্ডিগো খেতিয়কসকলৰ ওপৰত হোৱা ব্ৰিটিছ ভূস্বামীসকলৰ অত্যাচাৰ চাবলৈ অনুৰোধ কৰে। গান্ধী ব্যস্ত আছিল, কিন্তু শুক্লাই তেওঁক লক্ষ্ণৌৰ পৰা কানপুৰ, আহমেদাবাদ আৰু কলকাতালৈকে অনুসৰণ কৰি যায়। শেষত গান্ধী চম্পাৰণলৈ যাবলৈ ৰাজী হয়।
চম্পাৰণৰ ভূস্বামীসকলে বহুদিনৰ পৰা তিনকাঠিয়া প্ৰথাৰ অধীনত কৃষকসকলক নিজৰ মাটিৰ ১৫ শতাংশ অংশত ইণ্ডিগো খেতি কৰি গোটেই ফলন ভূস্বামীক ভাড়াৰ ৰূপত দিবলৈ বাধ্য কৰিছিল। কিন্তু জাৰ্মানিয়ে কৃত্ৰিম ইণ্ডিগো আবিষ্কাৰ কৰাৰ পিছত প্ৰাকৃতিক ইণ্ডিগোৰ চাহিদা কমি যায়। ভূস্বামীসকলে কৃষকসকলক ইণ্ডিগো খেতিৰ বাধ্যবাধকতাৰ পৰা মুক্ত কৰি পেলায় কিন্তু পৰিৱৰ্তে নগদ ক্ষতিপূৰণ দাবী কৰে। যিসকলে চুক্তি স্বাক্ষৰ কৰিছিল, তেওঁলোকে কৃত্ৰিম ইণ্ডিগোৰ কথা গম পোৱাৰ পিছত নিজৰ ধন ঘূৰাই পাবলৈ দাবী কৰে।
গান্ধী মুজাফ্ফৰপুৰ আৰু চম্পাৰণৰ মুঠিহাৰীত গৈ পৰিস্থিতিৰ অধ্যয়ন কৰে। তেওঁক চম্পাৰণ এৰিবলৈ চৰকাৰে আদেশ দিয়ে কিন্তু গান্ধীয়ে সেই আদেশ অমান্য কৰে। আদালতত হাজাৰ হাজাৰ কৃষকে স্বতঃস্ফূৰ্তভাৱে সমৰ্থন জনায়। বিহাৰৰ লেফটেনেণ্ট গৱৰ্নৰ ছাৰ এডৱাৰ্ড গেটৰ আদেশত গান্ধীৰ বিৰুদ্ধে গোচৰ প্ৰত্যাহাৰ কৰা হয় — ভাৰতত সিৱিল ডিচ’বিডিয়েন্স প্ৰথমবাৰৰ বাবে জয়ী হয়।
গান্ধীয়ে প্ৰায় দহ হাজাৰ কৃষকৰ বিৱৰণ সংগ্ৰহ কৰে। এক চৰকাৰী তদন্ত কমিচন গঠন কৰা হয় য’ত গান্ধীয়ে কৃষকসকলৰ একমাত্ৰ প্ৰতিনিধি হৈ অংশগ্ৰহণ কৰে। প্ৰমাণৰ ভাৰৰ তলত পৰি ভূস্বামীসকলে অবৈধভাৱে আদায় কৰা ধনৰ এক অংশ ঘূৰাই দিবলৈ ৰাজী হয়। গান্ধীয়ে ৫০ শতাংশ বিচাৰিছিল, ভূস্বামীয়ে ২৫ শতাংশ আগবঢ়ালে — গান্ধীয়ে ২৫ শতাংশ গ্ৰহণ কৰে; কাৰণ পৰিমাণতকৈ ভূস্বামীৰ নৈতিক পৰাজয় বেছি গুৰুত্বপূৰ্ণ আছিল।
গান্ধীয়ে ছয়খন গাঁৱত প্ৰাথমিক বিদ্যালয় খুলি, কস্তুৰবা গান্ধীয়ে স্বাস্থ্যবিধিৰ শিক্ষা দি, এজন চিকিৎসকে বিনামূলীয়াকৈ চিকিৎসা প্ৰদান কৰি গ্ৰাম্য সংস্কাৰৰ কাম আৰম্ভ কৰে। এই পৰ্যায়ত ইংৰাজ বন্ধু চি. এফ. এণ্ড্ৰিউজৰ সহায় লোৱাৰ প্ৰস্তাৱ গান্ধীয়ে নাকচ কৰি কয় যে আত্মনিৰ্ভৰশীলতাই হৈছে স্বাধীনতাৰ ভিত্তি। চম্পাৰণ সত্যাগ্ৰহ গান্ধীৰ জীৱনৰ বাৰু ভাৰতৰ স্বাধীনতা সংগ্ৰামৰো এক ঐতিহাসিক মোৰ আছিল।
Understanding the Text
Q1. Strike out what is not true in the following.
(a) Rajkumar Shukla was: (i) a sharecropper. (ii) a politician. (iii) delegate to the Indian National Congress Convention. (iv) a landlord.
(b) Rajkumar Shukla was: (i) poor. (ii) physically strong. (iii) illiterate.
Answer: (a) The following are not true and should be struck out: (ii) a politician, and (iv) a landlord. (b) The following is not true and should be struck out: (ii) physically strong. Shukla was a poor, illiterate sharecropper from Champaran and a delegate to the 1916 Lucknow Convention.
Q2. Why is Rajkumar Shukla described as being ‘resolute’?
Answer: Rajkumar Shukla is described as resolute because of his unbending determination to bring Gandhi to Champaran. He travelled all the way from his village to Lucknow to meet Gandhi and, when Gandhi could not promise an immediate visit, Shukla followed him doggedly — to Cawnpore, then across India to the ashram near Ahmedabad, and finally to Calcutta, where he waited day after day until Gandhi finally agreed to come. His persistence in the cause of his fellow peasants, despite being a poor and illiterate man, makes him truly resolute.
Q3. Why do you think the servants thought Gandhi to be another peasant?
Answer: When Gandhi reached Patna with Rajkumar Shukla, the two men went to the house of the lawyer Rajendra Prasad, who was away. The servants knew Shukla as a poor peasant of Champaran. They saw Gandhi dressed in a simple dhoti, accompanied by Shukla, and concluded that he too must be a poor peasant. That is why they did not allow him to draw water from the well — they feared the bucket would be polluted if Gandhi happened to be an untouchable.
Q4. List the places that Gandhi visited between his first meeting with Shukla and his arrival at Champaran.
Answer: Between his first meeting with Shukla at Lucknow and his arrival at Champaran, Gandhi visited the following places: Lucknow → Cawnpore → other parts of India → his ashram near Ahmedabad → Calcutta → Patna → Muzaffarpur → Motihari (Champaran).
Q5. What did the peasants pay the British landlords as rent? What did the British now want instead and why? What would be the impact of synthetic indigo on the prices of natural indigo?
Answer: Under the tinkathia system, the peasants of Champaran cultivated indigo on three-twentieths (15 per cent) of their land and surrendered the whole indigo harvest to the British landlords as rent. When Germany developed synthetic (artificial) indigo, the natural product became commercially worthless. The planters, fearing ruin, released the peasants from the indigo obligation but demanded compensation in cash. The arrival of synthetic indigo caused the price of natural indigo to fall steeply, which is why the planters tried to recover their losses by extorting money from the peasants.
Q6. The events in this part of the text illustrate Gandhi’s method of working. Can you identify some instances of this method and link them to his ideas of satyagraha and non-violence?
Answer: Several events illustrate Gandhi’s method of satyagraha and non-violence. (i) Gandhi did not rush into action; he first spent time gathering information at Muzaffarpur and from the lawyers. Truth, for him, must rest on facts. (ii) When ordered by the Commissioner to leave Tirhut, he did not leave; when served notice to quit Champaran, he wrote on the receipt that he would disobey — but he did not run away from arrest. (iii) In court he pleaded guilty and asked for the penalty, openly accepting the consequences of breaking an unjust law. This is the heart of satyagraha — peaceful, voluntary acceptance of suffering for a just cause. (iv) He never used or encouraged violence, even when thousands of peasants assembled spontaneously around the courthouse. (v) He insisted on self-reliance — refusing C. F. Andrews’s continued help — because the moral force of satyagraha demanded that the cause stand on its own.
Q7. Why did Gandhi agree to a settlement of 25 per cent refund to the farmers?
Answer: Gandhi agreed to the 25 per cent settlement because, for him, the dispute was not about how much money the planters would pay back. It was about the moral surrender of the planters. By agreeing to refund any sum at all, the British landlords had been forced, for the first time, to part with both their money and their prestige; the peasants had won not only money but the recognition that they had rights. The exact percentage, Gandhi felt, mattered less than the fact that the long-standing dominance of the planters had been broken.
Q8. How did the episode change the plight of the peasants?
Answer: The Champaran episode transformed the lives of the peasants in several ways. They learnt that they had rights and that they could defend those rights without fear. The cruel tinkathia system was abolished. Within a few years, the British planters left their estates altogether and the land returned to the peasants. Indigo sharecropping disappeared. Above all, the peasants gained the courage and self-confidence to stand up for themselves — what Gandhi called “freedom from fear” — which Fischer considers the truest form of freedom.
Q9. Why did Gandhi consider the Champaran episode to be a turning-point in his life?
Answer: Gandhi considered Champaran a turning-point because, for the first time on Indian soil, he had successfully launched the technique of satyagraha and made it work against the mightiest empire in the world. It was the first practical demonstration that ordinary, frightened Indian peasants could stand up to the British and win. It also taught Gandhi that the freedom of India would have to be built on the freedom of the common Indian — the peasant in the village — and that the way to win this freedom was through fearless, non-violent civil disobedience and constructive village work. From Champaran, Gandhi went on to become the leader of the entire freedom struggle.
Q10. How was Gandhi able to influence lawyers? Give instances.
Answer: Gandhi influenced the lawyers in two important ways. First, he criticised them sharply for charging the poor peasants high fees and for relying only on courts. He argued that taking such cases to court was useless because the real problem of the peasant was fear, not legal injustice. Second, when the lawyers told him that, if he were arrested, they would go home, Gandhi shamed them by asking what would happen to the peasants and to the protest. Faced with this question, the lawyers consulted among themselves and decided that it would be a betrayal of their own clients to desert Gandhi. They told him that they were ready to follow him into jail. Gandhi exclaimed, “The battle of Champaran is won.”
Q11. What was the attitude of the average Indian in smaller localities towards advocates of ‘home rule’?
Answer: The average Indian in smaller localities was afraid to show open sympathy for advocates of home rule. The British rule was so feared that ordinary people, especially government employees, would not dare to give shelter, support, or even a cup of tea to a known nationalist. Fischer points out that for a man like Professor Malkani, a teacher in a government school, to take Gandhi as his guest in Muzaffarpur was therefore “an extraordinary thing” — it could have cost him his job.
Q12. How do we know that ordinary people too contributed to the freedom movement?
Answer: Ordinary people contributed enormously to the freedom movement. When Gandhi reached Muzaffarpur railway station at midnight, Professor Kripalani came to receive him with a body of students. When he reached Motihari, a vast crowd of peasants greeted him. The next morning, when Gandhi was to be tried at the courthouse, thousands of peasants assembled spontaneously around the building — without any organised leadership — simply because they had heard that a Mahatma was being persecuted for their cause. Sharecroppers travelled long distances to meet Gandhi; peasants gave depositions; lawyers volunteered. All this shows that the freedom struggle drew its power from the participation of ordinary people.
Talking about the Text
Q1. “Freedom from fear is more important than legal justice for the poor.” Do you think that the poor of India are free from fear after Independence?
Answer: Gandhi’s insight that “freedom from fear is more important than legal justice for the poor” remains as relevant today as it was in 1917. After Independence, the foreign rulers may have left, but in many ways the poor of India are still not free from fear. Landless labourers fear powerful landlords; small farmers fear corrupt moneylenders; women in many parts of the country fear violence; tribal communities fear displacement; the poor fear corrupt officials, criminal mafias, and slow, expensive courts. Although the Constitution guarantees equality and justice, in practice the poor often lack the courage and the resources to claim their rights. Real freedom, as Gandhi taught, will come only when every Indian — even the poorest — can speak, work, and live without fear. Independence has given us political freedom; the work of building “freedom from fear” is still unfinished.
Q2. The qualities of a good leader.
Answer: A good leader is one who feels the pain of the people, lives among them, and shares their lot. Gandhi possessed these qualities. The qualities of a good leader, as exemplified by Gandhi in “Indigo”, are: (i) empathy and identification with the people — he travelled with peasants, lived simply, and listened patiently; (ii) courage and fearlessness — he defied the Commissioner’s order and the expulsion notice without flinching; (iii) truthfulness and moral clarity — he refused all hypocrisy and openly admitted his civil disobedience in court; (iv) practical intelligence — he gathered facts and depositions before acting; (v) self-reliance and self-respect — he refused to depend on outsiders, even Andrews; (vi) vision — he saw beyond a single 25 per cent refund to the long-term spiritual liberation of the peasant; (vii) constructive action — he opened schools, taught hygiene, and organised medical care along with political agitation. A good leader, in short, is not just a speech-maker but one who teaches the people to stand on their own feet.
Working with Words
Q1. List the words used in the text that are related to legal procedure. For example: deposition.
| From the Text | Other Common Legal Terms |
|---|---|
| notice, summons, prosecutor, trial, plead, guilty, order, penalty, sentence, bail, judgment, prison, case, inquiry, evidence, commission, deposition | complaint, complainant, decree, defendant, witness, prosecution, defence, sessions, jury, verdict, decision, hearing, magistrate, plaintiff, advocate, affidavit, petition, appeal, acquittal, conviction |
Q2. List other words that you know that fall into this category.
Answer: Other legal-procedure words: plaintiff, defendant, advocate, barrister, magistrate, jury, verdict, hearing, affidavit, petition, appeal, acquittal, conviction, sentence, remand, custody, bail, warrant, injunction, indictment, plea, witness, cross-examination, court-martial, jurisdiction, statute, ordinance, decree.
Thinking about Language (Grammar)
Q1. Notice these expressions in the text. Infer their meaning from the context.
| Expression | Meaning in Context |
|---|---|
| urge the departure | to request strongly that someone should leave |
| conflict of duties | a moral situation in which two duties oppose each other |
| seek a prop | look for support or assistance from someone else |
| Champaran did not begin as an act of defiance | it did not start as deliberate political rebellion; it began as plain humanitarian work |
| communion | close, sympathetic relationship |
| alleviate | to make a problem or suffering less severe |
| multitude of grievances | a very large number of complaints |
| harbour | to give shelter to (especially a person disliked by the authorities) |
Q2. Notice the use of direct speech in the lesson. Why has the author quoted Gandhi’s words?
Answer: The author Louis Fischer is a journalist-biographer; he wants the reader to feel the actual presence of Gandhi. By quoting Gandhi’s exact words (“What I did was a very ordinary thing. I declared that the British could not order me about in my own country.”), Fischer makes the narrative authentic, vivid and emotionally powerful. Direct speech allows readers to hear Gandhi himself rather than read a summary. It also marks key moral turning points — for example, Gandhi’s exclamation “The battle of Champaran is won” — with the force of a primary document.
Q3. Notice the rule of using a comma when the subordinate clause comes before the main clause.
Answer: When the subordinate clause comes before the main clause, a comma is used to separate the two. When the main clause comes first, the comma is usually not necessary. Examples from the chapter: “When Gandhi arrived at the Patna station, Shukla led him to the house of a lawyer.” (subordinate first → comma) versus “Gandhi reached Champaran when Shukla finally persuaded him.” (main first → no comma). This is one of the most useful punctuation rules for academic and answer-writing.
Things to Do
Q1. Find out the various Acts of Parliament passed by the British in India that imposed restrictions on Indians.
Answer: Some of the major restrictive Acts passed by the British in India were: the Vernacular Press Act, 1878 (curbed the Indian-language press); the Arms Act, 1878 (forbade Indians from possessing arms without licence); the Rowlatt Act, 1919 (allowed detention without trial); the Government of India Act, 1858 (transferred Indian rule to the Crown); the Indian Councils Act, 1892 and 1909; the Defence of India Act, 1915; the Bengal Regulation III of 1818 (preventive detention); and the Salt Act, against which Gandhi’s Dandi March was directed.
Q2. Find out about the system of Indigo cultivation in Bengal which led to the Indigo Revolt of 1859.
Answer: Indigo cultivation was forced upon Bengal peasants in the early 19th century by European planters. Under the nij and ryoti systems, planters either cultivated indigo on their own land using rented labour or compelled tenants to grow indigo on a portion of their best land at fixed low prices. Peasants could not refuse, were beaten if they did, and were trapped in cycles of debt. In 1859, peasants in Bengal — led by figures like Digambar Biswas and Bishnu Biswas of Nadia — refused en masse to grow indigo. The Indigo Revolt of 1859–60 was supported by the Bengali intelligentsia (Harish Chandra Mukherjee in The Hindoo Patriot, Dinabandhu Mitra in his play Nil Darpan) and forced the government to set up an Indigo Commission in 1860. The Champaran tinkathia system that Gandhi fought in 1917 was essentially the same exploitation, surviving in Bihar long after Bengal had ended it.
Additional Short Answer Questions
Q1. Where is Champaran located? Why is it associated with Gandhi?
Answer: Champaran is a district in north-western Bihar, lying in the foothills of the Himalayas near the kingdom of Nepal. It is associated with Gandhi because here, in 1917, Gandhi launched his first satyagraha on Indian soil — defying a British expulsion order to fight for the rights of indigo sharecroppers. The Champaran Satyagraha is regarded as the birthplace of India’s mass freedom struggle.
Q2. What was the “long-term contract” the planters made the peasants sign?
Answer: When synthetic indigo lowered the value of natural indigo, the planters realised they could no longer profit from the indigo crop. They therefore made the peasants sign a long-term agreement releasing them from the duty of growing indigo on 15 per cent of their land in return for a cash payment as compensation to the planter. Many illiterate peasants signed without understanding; later, when news of synthetic indigo spread, they realised they had been cheated and demanded their money back.
Q3. Who was Professor J. B. Kripalani? What role did he play?
Answer: Professor J. B. Kripalani (later Acharya Kripalani) was a teacher at the Government Training College in Muzaffarpur, who would later become a major Congress leader and Congress President in 1947. He received Gandhi at Muzaffarpur railway station at midnight along with a body of students and arranged his stay at Professor Malkani’s house. He represents the educated, progressive Indians who quietly supported Gandhi at great personal risk.
Q4. Why did Gandhi visit Muzaffarpur first instead of going straight to Champaran?
Answer: Gandhi went to Muzaffarpur first because he wished to obtain more complete information about the situation than Shukla alone could give. He wanted to consult the local lawyers who had been representing the peasants in court so that he could understand the legal background, the documents, and the actual extent of the injustice before making any move in Champaran itself. This shows Gandhi’s careful, fact-based method.
Q5. What did Gandhi say about the lawyers’ fees? Why?
Answer: Gandhi told the Muzaffarpur lawyers that the heavy fees they charged the poor sharecroppers were “totally unreasonable”. He said that taking such peasant cases to court did them little good because the peasants were so terror-stricken that no court was of much help to them. He insisted that the real need was to free the peasants from fear — and only then would real justice be possible. This rebuke shamed the lawyers and prepared them for the great surrender of fees and self that they would soon make.
Q6. Who was the Commissioner of the Tirhut Division? How did he treat Gandhi?
Answer: The Commissioner of the Tirhut Division was the senior British official in charge of the region in which Champaran lay. When Gandhi met him to seek information about the indigo situation, the Commissioner refused all cooperation, bullied Gandhi, and ordered him to leave Tirhut at once. Gandhi calmly declined and went on to Motihari instead — a quiet, dignified act of civil resistance.
Q7. Describe Gandhi’s arrival at Motihari.
Answer: When Gandhi arrived at Motihari, the capital of Champaran district, a huge crowd of peasants greeted him at the railway station. He stayed in a house, and the next morning he set out on the back of an elephant towards a village where a peasant had been ill-treated. On the way a police messenger overtook him and ordered him back to town. Gandhi obeyed but soon received an official notice ordering him to leave Champaran immediately. He signed the receipt, wrote that he would disobey the order, and went to court the next day.
Q8. What did Gandhi write on the receipt of the official notice?
Answer: When Gandhi was served the official notice ordering him to leave Champaran, he signed the receipt and wrote on it that he would disobey the order. This was a polite but firm act of civil disobedience: he was not running away, he was openly accepting the consequences of breaking an unjust law. It is a classic example of the principle of satyagraha.
Q9. Describe what happened at the Motihari court the next day.
Answer: On the morning of the trial, thousands of peasants assembled spontaneously round the courthouse — a huge demonstration entirely unplanned by Gandhi. The British officials felt powerless. The government prosecutor requested the magistrate to postpone the trial, hoping the crowds would disperse, but Gandhi protested. He pleaded guilty, read out a written statement saying he had been forced to choose between obeying the law and obeying his conscience, and asked the magistrate to inflict the penalty. The magistrate, confused, postponed his judgment for several days and finally — under instructions from the Lieutenant-Governor — withdrew the case altogether.
Q10. What did Gandhi mean by “the conflict of duties” he faced?
Answer: By “conflict of duties” Gandhi meant the moral dilemma between his duty to obey lawful authority (the British administration) and his higher duty to serve the suffering peasants and obey his conscience. He told the court he could not obey the order to leave Champaran without being false to those who had sent for him; yet he wished to set no example of disrespect to constituted authority. He therefore submitted to whatever penalty the law would impose. This is one of the clearest statements of satyagraha in modern Indian history.
Q11. Who decided to follow Gandhi to jail and why?
Answer: The senior lawyers of Bihar — including Brij Kishore Babu, Rajendra Prasad, Maulana Mazharul Huq and others — had earlier told Gandhi that if he went to jail there would be nobody to look after the peasants and they would go home. Gandhi rebuked them: what would happen to the peasants? Ashamed, the lawyers consulted among themselves and concluded that desertion would be a betrayal of their own clients. They therefore returned and told Gandhi that they would follow him into jail. Gandhi exclaimed, “The battle of Champaran is won.”
Q12. How many depositions did Gandhi collect? What did this achieve?
Answer: Gandhi and his lawyer-volunteers collected nearly 10,000 depositions from peasants across Champaran, along with supporting documents. This vast body of evidence demolished the planters’ position. The Lieutenant-Governor of Bihar, Sir Edward Gait, summoned Gandhi for four interviews and finally appointed an official Commission of Enquiry consisting of landlords, government officials and Gandhi as the sole representative of the peasants. The weight of the evidence forced the planters to admit wrongdoing.
Q13. What was the role of the Commission of Enquiry?
Answer: The official Commission of Enquiry was set up by the Lieutenant-Governor Sir Edward Gait. It consisted of landlords, government officials and Gandhi as the sole peasants’ representative. Confronted with the depositions of nearly 10,000 sharecroppers, the Commission unanimously found in favour of the peasants. The planters agreed to refund part of the money they had illegally taken; the tinkathia system was eventually abolished. The Commission marks the formal legal victory of the Champaran movement.
Q14. Why did Gandhi ask for only 50 per cent and finally accept 25 per cent?
Answer: Gandhi originally asked for the planters to refund 50 per cent of the money they had illegally taken; the planters offered only 25 per cent. To everyone’s surprise Gandhi accepted 25 per cent. He explained that the percentage of the refund was less important than the fact that the planters had been forced, for the first time, to surrender money and prestige to the peasants. The moral victory was won — the rest, he believed, the peasants could now achieve by themselves.
Q15. What rural reforms did Gandhi launch in Champaran?
Answer: Gandhi did not stop with political success. He launched a programme of constructive village work: (i) primary schools were opened in six villages, taught voluntarily by his disciples Mahadev Desai, Narhari Parikh and their wives; (ii) Kasturba, his wife, taught the village women personal cleanliness and community sanitation; (iii) a doctor was brought in for six months to treat the sick — using just three medicines (castor oil, quinine and sulphur ointment). These reforms aimed at building self-reliant villages.
Q16. Why did Gandhi refuse the assistance of C. F. Andrews?
Answer: When the lawyers suggested that the English clergyman C. F. Andrews — Gandhi’s good friend — should remain in Champaran to help, Gandhi sharply refused. He said that the cause was just and they must rely on themselves; to lean on an Englishman would betray weakness and would imply that the peasants’ cause needed white support to succeed. Self-reliance was, for Gandhi, the very foundation of true freedom. This is one of the central lessons of the chapter.
Q17. What does Gandhi mean by “freedom from fear”?
Answer: By “freedom from fear” Gandhi meant the inner liberation of the human spirit — the day when the poor peasant no longer trembles before the planter, the policeman, the moneylender, or the government clerk. Legal justice can punish a wrongdoer; only fearlessness can give a person dignity. The Champaran peasants gained both legal justice and, more importantly, freedom from fear, which is the deepest meaning of independence.
Q18. Why was Champaran called a ‘turning-point’ in the freedom struggle?
Answer: Champaran was a turning-point because it was Gandhi’s first satyagraha on Indian soil and his first victory against the British. It proved that civil disobedience and non-violence could work; it brought ordinary peasants into the mainstream of the freedom movement; it created a new style of leadership grounded in fact-finding, fearlessness and constructive rural work. From Champaran Gandhi went on to lead Kheda (1918), Ahmedabad (1918), Non-Cooperation (1920), Salt Satyagraha (1930) and Quit India (1942). Without Champaran, the modern Indian national movement is hard to imagine.
Q19. What is the meaning of Satyagraha?
Answer: “Satyagraha” is a Sanskrit word coined by Gandhi from satya (truth) and agraha (firm holding); it literally means “holding firmly to truth” or “truth-force”. As a method of struggle it requires non-violence, voluntary suffering, refusal to obey unjust laws, and an attempt to convert the opponent through moral persuasion rather than defeat him through fear or force. Champaran was its first successful Indian application.
Q20. What was the Tinkathia system?
Answer: The Tinkathia system was the long-standing arrangement under which the peasants of Champaran had to plant indigo on three-twentieths (15 per cent) of their landholding and surrender the entire harvest to the British landlords as rent. The word comes from tin (three) and kathia (a measure of land — twenty kathas make a bigha, so three-twentieths). The system was finally abolished in 1918 as a direct result of the Champaran Satyagraha.
Long Answer Questions
Q1. Describe in detail the persistence of Rajkumar Shukla in bringing Gandhi to Champaran. What does his persistence reveal about the condition of the peasants?
Answer: Rajkumar Shukla was a poor, illiterate sharecropper from a village in Champaran district of Bihar. Like thousands of other peasants in his region, he was a victim of the cruel tinkathia system imposed by the British indigo planters. In December 1916 he travelled all the way to the Lucknow session of the Indian National Congress with a single purpose — to ask Gandhi to come to Champaran and look into the indigo grievances of his fellow peasants. Gandhi, occupied with the affairs of the Congress, replied that he had several appointments and could not commit. But Shukla refused to leave him. He followed Gandhi to Cawnpore and then across India to the ashram near Ahmedabad, accompanying the great leader everywhere, repeating his request day after day. When Gandhi went to Calcutta on Congress work, Shukla went too and sat there waiting. At last Gandhi was so impressed by the man’s “tenacity” that he agreed to come and named the date.
What does this persistence reveal? It reveals, first of all, that the suffering of the Champaran peasants was so deep and so prolonged that an unlettered sharecropper was willing to undertake long, costly journeys all over India simply to find someone who would listen. It shows that the peasants were not satisfied with mere petitions and lawyers’ suits — those had failed. It shows that there was, even in the heart of an oppressed peasant, a dim awareness that this man Gandhi was different from the others — that he might actually help. And finally, it shows the truth of Gandhi’s own conviction that the freedom of India would be built on the shoulders of such humble, “resolute” men. Without Rajkumar Shukla there would have been no Champaran Satyagraha, and without Champaran there might have been no Gandhian movement.
Q2. Describe how Gandhi practised the technique of Satyagraha at Champaran from his arrival to the withdrawal of the case.
Answer: Gandhi’s conduct at Champaran is the model of satyagraha in action. From the moment he reached Patna with Shukla, he refused to behave like a politician on a flying visit. He spent days at Muzaffarpur consulting lawyers and reading documents, because satyagraha must rest on truth, and truth must rest on facts. He met the Secretary of the British Landlords’ Association and the Commissioner of Tirhut, both of whom refused him cooperation; the Commissioner ordered him out. Gandhi did not protest violently, did not abuse, and did not run; he simply moved on to Motihari. There a written notice ordered him to leave Champaran. Gandhi signed the receipt and wrote on it that he would disobey the order — open, polite, voluntary disobedience.
In court the next day, while thousands of peasants gathered spontaneously outside, Gandhi pleaded guilty. He told the magistrate that he was caught in a “conflict of duties” — between obedience to lawful authority and obedience to the higher law of conscience — and asked the court to inflict the penalty. The magistrate postponed the case; on instructions from Sir Edward Gait, Lieutenant-Governor of Bihar, the case was eventually withdrawn. This is satyagraha: refusal of unjust law, willingness to suffer punishment, no hatred for the opponent, and steady reliance on truth. The result was the first major moral defeat of British authority in India, and it was achieved without raising a single weapon.
Q3. “Champaran did not begin as an act of defiance. It grew out of an attempt to alleviate the distress of large numbers of poor peasants.” Discuss with reference to the chapter.
Answer: Fischer’s striking sentence captures the essence of Gandhian politics. Champaran was not started by Gandhi as a campaign against the British, nor as a step in some larger national strategy. It was started because one poor peasant came to him with a complaint and Gandhi could not turn him away. Gandhi went to Champaran to study facts, not to lead a revolt; he met landlords’ associations and government officials peacefully; he asked questions, took depositions, listened to grievances. Defiance entered the picture only when the British themselves placed an unjust order in his hand. Even then, Gandhi did not call for a mass uprising; he simply said he could not obey, accepted arrest, and continued his work. The mass demonstration outside the Motihari court was entirely spontaneous — the peasants came on their own.
The deeper meaning is that Gandhian politics began with concrete human suffering, not with abstract ideology. Gandhi believed that political freedom without social work was empty. So while he fought the legal case, he simultaneously opened schools, organised sanitation drives and brought in a doctor. The political campaign and the constructive programme were one. Champaran is therefore a perfect example of how a humanitarian errand can, by sheer integrity, become a national event — a quiet drop that swelled into a flood that carried India to independence.
Q4. “Self-reliance, Indian independence, and help to sharecroppers were all bound together.” Justify Gandhi’s refusal of C. F. Andrews’s help.
Answer: When the senior Bihar lawyers suggested that the Englishman C. F. Andrews — a sincere friend of India — should stay on in Champaran to help with the cause, Gandhi sharply objected. He said that to lean on an Englishman, however good, would be to admit that an Indian cause needed Western support to win — and that admission would betray the very weakness that British rule had nursed in the Indian mind. The cause of the peasants, the cause of Indian independence, and the cause of self-respect were all the same cause. If the peasants depended on Andrews, they would feel that they could not win on their own. If Indians depended on white sympathisers in their political struggle, they would never grow into a free people.
Gandhi saw with rare clarity that “freedom” was not just a political document but a state of mind. A people who lean on others cannot be free even if every law in the country is changed. By refusing Andrews’s help, Gandhi was teaching the peasants — and the lawyers, and indirectly the whole Congress — that the first lesson of independence is to stand on one’s own feet. This is why Fischer says that, at Champaran, Gandhi gave the peasants “a lesson in self-reliance” that became, in time, a lesson for the entire nation.
Q5. Describe the role of ordinary people — peasants, students, lawyers — in the Champaran Satyagraha.
Answer: The Champaran Satyagraha was not won by Gandhi alone. It was won by countless ordinary people, each playing a small but vital part. The story begins with one such ordinary man — Rajkumar Shukla, the resolute peasant who would not let Gandhi rest. At Muzaffarpur, students under Professor Kripalani came to the railway station at midnight to receive Gandhi. Professor Malkani, a government school teacher, gave him shelter — at the risk of losing his job. Senior Bihar lawyers — Brij Kishore Babu, Rajendra Prasad, Maulana Mazharul Huq and others — first came as professionals charging fees, then as colleagues, and finally as volunteers ready to follow Gandhi into prison. Mahadev Desai, Narhari Parikh and their wives became village schoolteachers. Kasturba taught the village women hygiene. A doctor came for six months. And on the morning of the trial, thousands of peasants surrounded the courthouse, simply because they had heard that “a Mahatma” was being persecuted on their behalf.
This wide circle of voluntary helpers — peasants, students, teachers, lawyers, doctors, women — is what made Champaran a true mass movement. Gandhi himself said that the British administration was startled less by his own defiance than by the spontaneous solidarity of the people. The lesson of Champaran for India was clear: a national movement must rest on ordinary people, not on a few elite leaders. This insight shaped every Gandhian struggle thereafter.
Q6. Why is the 25 per cent refund considered a moral victory rather than a financial one?
Answer: When the Commission of Enquiry produced its report, the planters realised that the evidence was crushing and they would have to refund money. They expected Gandhi to demand the full amount; instead he asked for 50 per cent. They offered 25 per cent — and to everyone’s astonishment Gandhi accepted. Many in his own camp protested. But Gandhi explained that the figure was less important than the principle. For more than a century the British indigo planters had behaved as if they were absolute rulers, untouchable, beyond questioning. Now, for the first time, they had been forced to admit wrong, to part with money, and to lose face before their own peasants.
The amount that changed hands was small; the loss of prestige was enormous. The peasants now knew they had rights; the planters now knew they could be challenged. Within a few years the planters quietly abandoned their estates, the tinkathia system was abolished, and indigo sharecropping disappeared. The 25 per cent figure had achieved what 100 per cent never could — it had broken the moral monopoly of the British landlord. That is why Fischer rightly calls it a moral victory.
Q7. Discuss Gandhi’s vision of rural development as seen in Champaran.
Answer: For Gandhi, political freedom and rural reconstruction were two sides of the same coin. He understood that a peasant freed from the indigo planter would still remain enslaved by ignorance, disease and dirty surroundings. So even while the legal battle raged, he opened primary schools in six villages of Champaran. His own disciples — Mahadev Desai, Narhari Parikh and their wives — went out to teach. His wife Kasturba went into the women’s quarters and taught personal cleanliness, the right way to look after children, and the importance of a clean village pond. A doctor was brought in for six months to treat the sick using only the simplest of medicines: castor oil, quinine and sulphur ointment for skin diseases. These were not separate “social work” projects; they were part of the freedom struggle. Gandhi’s vision of free India was a country of self-reliant villages, where literacy, hygiene and basic medicine reached every household. Champaran was the laboratory in which this vision was first tested — and it would later become the basis of the Sarvodaya and Gram Swaraj movements.
Q8. Compare the Bengal Indigo Revolt of 1859 with the Champaran Satyagraha of 1917. What similarities and differences do you see?
Answer: Both the Bengal Indigo Revolt of 1859 and the Champaran Satyagraha of 1917 were peasant struggles against forced indigo cultivation by European planters; both targeted the same exploitative system; both succeeded in shaking that system. The similarities, however, end there. The Bengal Revolt was a popular but largely spontaneous mass uprising, marked by collective refusal, occasional violence, and dependence on intellectual support from Calcutta journalists like Harish Chandra Mukherjee and dramatists like Dinabandhu Mitra. It was leaderless in the modern political sense, and it ended with the Indigo Commission of 1860, which softened but did not abolish the system everywhere.
Champaran, by contrast, was a disciplined movement led by a single moral leader — Gandhi — using a fully articulated philosophy of satyagraha. It rested on careful fact-finding, depositions, lawful disobedience and complete non-violence. It produced not a hostile Commission, but an official Commission of Enquiry on which Gandhi himself sat. It did not stop at indigo; it became the seed of a national movement and was accompanied by constructive rural reform. The Bengal Revolt, in short, was the cry of a people; Champaran was the moral act of a people who had found a leader. Together they show how Indian peasant resistance evolved over fifty years from spontaneous revolt to organised non-violent struggle.
Q9. Bring out the qualities of Mahatma Gandhi as revealed in the chapter “Indigo”.
Answer: “Indigo” is, above all, a portrait of Gandhi. The chapter reveals him as a man of compassion, who could not turn away even an unlettered peasant; of practical wisdom, who studied facts before he acted; of fearless courage, who defied the Commissioner of Tirhut and the expulsion order without raising his voice; of moral clarity, who in court declared his “conflict of duties” and asked for the maximum penalty; of strategic generosity, who accepted 25 per cent because he knew the symbolic victory was already won; of self-reliance, who refused C. F. Andrews’s help to teach Indians to stand on their own feet; of constructive vision, who opened schools, taught hygiene and brought a doctor while still fighting his legal battle; and finally of humility, who said of his own act, “What I did was a very ordinary thing.” It is the combination of all these qualities — and not any one of them — that made Gandhi the Mahatma.
Q10. How does the chapter “Indigo” show that political freedom is incomplete without social reform?
Answer: The chapter “Indigo” demonstrates with great clarity that political freedom — winning a court case, getting a refund, abolishing a law — is only the first step. Gandhi understood that even after the planters left, the peasants of Champaran would still be poor, illiterate, dirty, and disease-ridden, and would therefore remain unfree in the deeper sense. He therefore accompanied his political victory with a programme of social reform — schools for children, hygiene classes for women, medical care, and the cultivation of self-respect. This double approach — political action plus constructive social work — became the hallmark of every Gandhian movement that followed. It also became the basis of his vision of Gram Swaraj (village self-rule). The lesson of “Indigo” — that real independence means freedom from fear, from ignorance, from poverty, and from disease, as much as from foreign rule — is one of the most enduring legacies Gandhi left to the Indian nation.
Multiple Choice Questions (MCQs)
1. Who is the author of “Indigo”?
(a) Mahatma Gandhi (b) Rabindranath Tagore (c) Louis Fischer (d) William Saroyan
Answer: (c) Louis Fischer
2. “Indigo” is an extract from which book?
(a) Discovery of India (b) The Life of Mahatma Gandhi (c) My Experiments with Truth (d) The Story of My Life
Answer: (b) The Life of Mahatma Gandhi
3. Where did Gandhi first meet Rajkumar Shukla?
(a) Patna (b) Calcutta (c) Lucknow (d) Champaran
Answer: (c) Lucknow (at the 1916 Congress session)
4. Champaran is located in which Indian state?
(a) Uttar Pradesh (b) Bihar (c) West Bengal (d) Jharkhand
Answer: (b) Bihar
5. Who was Rajkumar Shukla?
(a) A landlord (b) A politician (c) A poor sharecropper (d) A lawyer
Answer: (c) A poor sharecropper
6. Under the tinkathia system, peasants had to plant indigo on what fraction of their holding?
(a) 5 per cent (b) 10 per cent (c) 15 per cent (3/20) (d) 25 per cent
Answer: (c) 15 per cent
7. Why did the planters release the peasants from the indigo obligation?
(a) Because of Gandhi’s protest (b) Because Germany developed synthetic indigo (c) Because of British government order (d) Because indigo was banned
Answer: (b) Synthetic indigo
8. Why did the servants of Rajendra Prasad refuse Gandhi water from the well?
(a) The well was empty (b) They thought he was a low-caste peasant (c) Gandhi did not ask politely (d) The well was reserved for Brahmins
Answer: (b) They thought he was a low-caste peasant
9. Who received Gandhi at Muzaffarpur railway station at midnight?
(a) Rajendra Prasad (b) Professor J. B. Kripalani and his students (c) Brij Kishore Babu (d) Mahadev Desai
Answer: (b) Professor Kripalani
10. Where did Gandhi stay in Muzaffarpur?
(a) At a hotel (b) At Rajendra Prasad’s house (c) At Professor Malkani’s house (d) At Kripalani’s house
Answer: (c) Professor Malkani’s house
11. Where is Champaran situated?
(a) Near the Bay of Bengal (b) Near the kingdom of Nepal in the Himalayan foothills (c) Near the Arabian Sea (d) Near Sri Lanka
Answer: (b) Near Nepal
12. Who was the Lieutenant-Governor of Bihar at the time of Champaran Satyagraha?
(a) Lord Irwin (b) Sir Edward Gait (c) Lord Curzon (d) Lord Hardinge
Answer: (b) Sir Edward Gait
13. How many depositions of peasants did Gandhi collect?
(a) 5,000 (b) 8,000 (c) About 10,000 (d) 15,000
Answer: (c) About 10,000
14. What percentage of refund did the planters finally agree to pay?
(a) 50 per cent (b) 40 per cent (c) 25 per cent (d) 100 per cent
Answer: (c) 25 per cent
15. What did Gandhi originally demand from the planters?
(a) 25 per cent refund (b) 50 per cent refund (c) 75 per cent refund (d) Full refund
Answer: (b) 50 per cent refund
16. Why did Gandhi accept only 25 per cent?
(a) He was tired (b) The moral surrender of the planters mattered more than the amount (c) The peasants forced him (d) The British forced him
Answer: (b) Moral surrender mattered more
17. Who taught the village women hygiene at Champaran?
(a) Mahadev Desai (b) Kasturba Gandhi (c) Sarojini Naidu (d) Annie Besant
Answer: (b) Kasturba Gandhi
18. How many primary schools did Gandhi open in Champaran villages?
(a) Three (b) Four (c) Six (d) Ten
Answer: (c) Six
19. Which three medicines did the doctor at Champaran use?
(a) Aspirin, paracetamol, ointment (b) Castor oil, quinine, sulphur ointment (c) Quinine, vitamins, oil (d) Penicillin, quinine, ointment
Answer: (b) Castor oil, quinine, sulphur ointment
20. Why did Gandhi refuse C. F. Andrews’s continued help in Champaran?
(a) Andrews was unwell (b) To preserve self-reliance and avoid leaning on an Englishman (c) Andrews was a planter (d) The Congress disapproved
Answer: (b) To preserve self-reliance
21. What did Gandhi exclaim when the lawyers agreed to follow him to jail?
(a) “Long live India!” (b) “The battle of Champaran is won.” (c) “Truth has triumphed.” (d) “Satyagraha has won.”
Answer: (b) “The battle of Champaran is won.”
22. The Champaran Satyagraha took place in which year?
(a) 1915 (b) 1916 (c) 1917 (d) 1919
Answer: (c) 1917
23. Why is the Champaran episode called a ‘turning-point’?
(a) It made Gandhi famous (b) It was the first successful satyagraha on Indian soil (c) It abolished caste (d) It brought Independence
Answer: (b) First satyagraha on Indian soil
24. Who, according to Fischer, said “What I did was a very ordinary thing”?
(a) Rajkumar Shukla (b) Rajendra Prasad (c) Mahatma Gandhi (d) Sir Edward Gait
Answer: (c) Gandhi
25. Louis Fischer was a:
(a) British journalist (b) American journalist and biographer (c) Indian historian (d) French novelist
Answer: (b) American journalist and biographer
Extract-Based Questions
Extract 1
“When I first visited Gandhi in 1942 at his ashram in Sevagram, he told me what happened in Champaran. He said, ‘I have come to the conclusion that in all my dealings with the Britishers, I have never asked for any favours. I have never wanted their patronage…'”
(i) Who is the speaker?
Answer: Mahatma Gandhi, in conversation with Louis Fischer at Sevagram in 1942.
(ii) What attitude towards the British does Gandhi reveal?
Answer: A spirit of self-respect and self-reliance — he never sought favours or patronage from the British.
(iii) How does this attitude shape his behaviour at Champaran?
Answer: It explains why he defied the Commissioner, refused C. F. Andrews’s help, and built the movement on the strength of the Indian peasants themselves.
Extract 2
“The peasants were frightened. Gandhi said the real relief for them was freedom from fear.”
(i) Why were the peasants frightened?
Answer: Because of generations of exploitation by British planters, the police, and the courts.
(ii) What did Gandhi mean by “freedom from fear”?
Answer: Inner liberation — the courage to stand up for one’s rights without trembling before authority.
(iii) Why is freedom from fear more important than legal justice?
Answer: Because legal justice can be obtained only by people who are not afraid; without courage, even fair laws cannot help the poor.
Extract 3
“Civil disobedience had triumphed, the first time in modern India.”
(i) When and where did this triumph take place?
Answer: At Motihari, Champaran, in April 1917, when the case against Gandhi was withdrawn.
(ii) What is meant by ‘civil disobedience’?
Answer: The peaceful, voluntary refusal to obey an unjust law, accompanied by readiness to accept the legal punishment.
(iii) Why is this triumph significant?
Answer: Because it showed for the first time that the British Raj could be challenged and defeated by non-violent means on Indian soil.
Extract 4
“Gandhi declared that he would not leave Champaran. The British could not order him about in his own country.”
(i) Whose order had Gandhi been served with?
Answer: The order of the British district authorities of Champaran asking him to leave the district.
(ii) What does this declaration reveal about Gandhi?
Answer: His firm conviction that India belonged to Indians, and his readiness to accept punishment rather than yield to an unjust order.
(iii) What was the wider implication of this declaration?
Answer: It became the moral foundation of the entire Indian freedom movement.
Character Sketches
Mahatma Gandhi
Mahatma Gandhi, as portrayed by Louis Fischer in “Indigo”, is a man of rare moral stature. He combines compassion with practical intelligence, courage with humility, political skill with spiritual depth. He listens patiently to a poor peasant, travels with him, lives like him, and treats his cause as his own. He prepares for action by gathering facts; he confronts British officials with respect but without fear; he openly disobeys an unjust order and freely accepts the legal consequences. In court he confesses his guilt and asks for the maximum penalty — an act so dignified that it disarms his judges. Yet he is no mere agitator. While the legal battle rages, he is opening schools, supervising sanitation drives, and bringing in a doctor to treat the sick. He insists on self-reliance — refusing English help — because he wants the peasants to discover their own strength. He accepts a lower refund than he had demanded, because he understands that the moral surrender of the opponent is more valuable than money. His simplicity is perhaps his greatest weapon: he wears the dhoti of the peasant, walks in the dust of the village, and even after the great victory only says, “What I did was a very ordinary thing.” It is this rare blend of ordinariness and greatness that made Gandhi the conscience of modern India.
Rajkumar Shukla
Rajkumar Shukla is a minor character with a major role. He is described as “poor”, “emaciated”, “physically unimpressive” and “illiterate”, yet Fischer dignifies him with the single most important adjective in the chapter — “resolute”. Shukla is the embodiment of the Indian peasant: long-suffering but not broken, ignorant of English but clear-sighted about justice, weak in body but strong in will. His pursuit of Gandhi from Lucknow to Cawnpore, then across India to the ashram at Ahmedabad, and finally to Calcutta, is one of the most moving acts of perseverance in the freedom movement. Without Rajkumar Shukla, Gandhi would not have gone to Champaran; without Champaran, the modern Indian national movement is hard to imagine. Shukla therefore reminds us that history is not made only by great men — sometimes a single, stubborn peasant can alter its course. He is a perfect example of the kind of “ordinary Indian” on whose shoulders, Gandhi believed, the freedom of India would have to be built.
The Lawyers (Brij Kishore Babu, Rajendra Prasad and Others)
The Bihar lawyers are a group character, important for what they represent. Initially they take peasant cases on heavy fees and rely entirely on the courts; Gandhi rebukes them for both. Initially they tell Gandhi that, if he is jailed, they will go home; Gandhi shames them into reconsidering. Yet to their credit, when their consciences are stirred they respond. They consult among themselves, agree that desertion would be a betrayal, and tell Gandhi they will follow him into prison. From that moment they become Gandhi’s loyal lieutenants — collecting depositions, sitting with him through the four interviews with Sir Edward Gait, and serving on the Commission of Enquiry. Rajendra Prasad in particular would go on to become the first President of independent India. The lawyers’ transformation — from professionals to volunteers — illustrates a key Gandhian truth: ordinary educated Indians could be raised, by example, to extraordinary heights of moral courage.
Themes
1. Self-Reliance
Self-reliance is the central message of “Indigo”. Gandhi insists that the cause of the peasants is just and they must rely on themselves; he refuses C. F. Andrews’s continued help, saying that to lean on an Englishman would betray weakness. He encourages the lawyers to follow him to jail rather than abandon their clients; he opens schools that would teach village children to stand on their own feet. For Gandhi, freedom is not something handed down by foreigners, even friendly ones; it is something earned by a people who have learnt to stand alone.
2. Leadership
The chapter is a study in genuine leadership. Gandhi leads not by issuing commands but by setting personal example. He travels with peasants, dresses like them, listens to them, and risks arrest with them. He shames the lawyers not by scolding but by quietly asking what will happen to the peasants if all of them go home. He never claims credit; he calls Champaran “a very ordinary thing”. This is leadership by moral force — the kind of leadership that creates more leaders rather than dependent followers.
3. Civil Disobedience and Non-Violence
“Indigo” is the textbook example of satyagraha — non-violent civil disobedience. Gandhi disobeys an unjust order but accepts arrest; he gathers facts before he acts; he never uses harsh words; he rejects violence even when thousands of peasants are at his disposal. The crowning proof of the method’s power is the sudden withdrawal of the case against him — the British were unable to deal with peaceful, lawful disobedience. From Champaran the technique would spread across India and eventually change the course of world history.
4. Rural Development and Constructive Programme
For Gandhi, political freedom alone is incomplete. So even at Champaran he runs a constructive programme — primary schools in six villages, sanitation drives led by Kasturba, and free medical care for the sick. This is the model of “Gram Swaraj” (village self-rule) that he would later develop fully. The chapter shows that real freedom means not only freedom from foreign rule but also freedom from ignorance, dirt, and disease.
5. Freedom from Fear
Perhaps the deepest theme of the chapter is freedom from fear. Gandhi tells the lawyers that the real need of the peasant is not legal justice but liberation from fear. The spontaneous gathering of thousands of peasants outside the Motihari court is the first sign of that liberation. By the end of Champaran, the peasants have not only got back 25 per cent of their money — they have learnt that they are no longer afraid. Fischer rightly suggests that this inner victory was the truest gain of Champaran, and the truest meaning of the freedom that India would later achieve.
This complete study material on Class 12 English Flamingo Chapter 5 — “Indigo” by Louis Fischer covers every angle the ASSEB Higher Secondary Second Year examiners can ask about — summary, NCERT questions, additional short and long answer questions, MCQs, extract-based questions, character sketches, and themes. Bookmark this page on HSLC Guru and revisit it before your HS Final examination.