Indigo | CBSE Class 12 English Notes

This note covers Louis Fischer and Indigo, the Champaran peasants’ struggle, Gandhi’s investigations and court appearance, the refund settlement, village welfare, characters, themes, narrative methods, key quotations and vocabulary.

Who wrote Indigo, and what is the text about?

About the author and the text

Louis Fischer (1896 to 1970), born in Philadelphia, was a journalist and a member of the faculty at Princeton University. He wrote for The New York Times, The Saturday Review, and European and Asian publications.

Indigo is an excerpt from The Life of Mahatma Gandhi. It is biographical prose: factual writing about another person’s life. Fischer presents Gandhi’s leadership through the problems of the peasants of Champaran, a district in Bihar near Nepal.

The title names indigo, a plant grown for blue dye and the crop at the centre of the dispute. The peasants were sharecroppers, cultivators whose arrangement required them to give a share of their crop to landlords. Here, the requirement concerned indigo cultivation and the surrender of its harvest.

How does the opening frame the events?

Fischer begins with his visit to Gandhi at Sevagram in 1942. Gandhi looks back to 1917 when explaining his decision to urge the British to leave. This opening makes the local struggle relevant to the larger question of Indian freedom.

The account then returns to Gandhi’s meeting with Rajkumar Shukla in December 1916. Its central concern is how practical help for distressed cultivators became an assertion of courage, rights and independence. Gandhi’s public leadership remains connected to particular people and their everyday difficulties.

What happens in Indigo: a section-by-section summary?

How does Shukla bring Gandhi to Bihar?

At the December 1916 Congress convention in Lucknow, Rajkumar Shukla asks Gandhi to visit Champaran. Shukla is poor and unable to read or write, but determined. He wants help against the injustice of the landlord system.

Gandhi has other engagements, yet Shukla accompanies him and follows him to his ashram near Ahmedabad. An ashram is the residential community associated here with Gandhi and his followers. Shukla’s persistence eventually secures an arrangement to meet in Calcutta.

From Calcutta they travel to Patna and visit lawyer Rajendra Prasad’s house. Prasad is away. His servants mistake Gandhi for another peasant and refuse him access to the well because they do not know his caste.

What does Gandhi learn before entering Champaran?

Gandhi goes first to Muzzafarpur for fuller information. Professor J.B. Kripalani and students receive him at midnight on 15 April 1917. He stays for two days with Professor Malkani, a government schoolteacher.

Lawyers describe the peasants’ cases and their own fees. Gandhi criticises the large fees. He considers relief from fear more fundamental than repeated court proceedings for cultivators who are already crushed and frightened.

How does the indigo dispute lead to a trial?

Landlords require tenants, cultivators working land owned by others, to grow indigo on 15 per cent of their holdings and surrender the entire indigo harvest as rent. After Germany develops synthetic indigo, meaning artificially manufactured indigo, landlords obtain compensation for releasing peasants from this arrangement.

Many peasants sign willingly because the arrangement is troublesome. Those who resist engage lawyers; landlords hire thugs. When the signatories, those who signed the agreements, learn about synthetic indigo, they want their money returned. Gandhi arrives and begins investigating these grievances, or complaints of unfair treatment.

Officials obstruct him. At Motihari, he receives an order to leave Champaran and declares that he will disobey it. A summons, an official direction to appear in court, follows. Thousands of peasants gather around the courthouse in support.

How do resistance and investigation produce a settlement?

Gandhi admits disobeying the order and accepts responsibility. The case is later dropped. Local lawyers, initially ready to leave if Gandhi is imprisoned, agree to go to prison themselves. Their commitment helps ensure that the peasants’ cause will continue.

The investigation records evidence from about ten thousand peasants. An official commission of inquiry, a body appointed to investigate the dispute, includes Gandhi as the peasants’ sole representative. Landlords and government officials are also members.

Gandhi asks for a refund of 50 per cent. He accepts the planters’ offer of 25 per cent, ending the disagreement over the amount. The concession matters because it breaks the landlords’ appearance of being beyond challenge.

How does the account end?

Within a few years, British planters leave their estates, the peasants regain them, and indigo sharecropping disappears. Gandhi also promotes schooling, cleanliness and health care. The campaign addresses the conditions in which villagers actually live.

The closing episode concerns Charles Freer Andrews, an English follower of Gandhi. Gandhi rejects the lawyers’ wish to retain Andrews as support because he wants them to trust their own strength. The final emphasis is on self-reliance, the ability to depend on oneself.

Why were the Champaran peasants exploited?

What did the original arrangement require?

Most of Champaran’s arable land, meaning land suitable for cultivation, was divided into large English-owned estates. Indian tenants worked this land. Indigo was the chief commercial crop, grown as part of an arrangement controlled by the landlords.

The landlords compelled all tenants to devote three twentieths, or 15 per cent, of their holdings to indigo. They also required the entire indigo harvest as rent. A long-term contract, an agreement continuing over an extended period, enforced these obligations.

The two requirements must be distinguished. The fraction describes the land used for indigo. The surrender concerns all the indigo harvested from that land. It does not mean that tenants handed over just 15 per cent of the indigo crop.

Why did compensation become the immediate grievance?

After learning of Germany’s synthetic indigo, landlords secured agreements under which peasants paid compensation, money demanded in return for release from the cultivation obligation. Many peasants initially agreed because they disliked the existing arrangement.

Information was unequal. The landlords knew about the new development before the illiterate peasants who signed. Once those peasants learned of it, they wanted their payments back. The dispute therefore involved money obtained through an unfair use of the landlords’ stronger position.

How does Gandhi’s method turn fear into resistance?

Why does investigation come first?

Gandhi seeks facts before deciding how to act. He stops at Muzzafarpur because Shukla cannot supply all the information he needs. He hears the lawyers’ accounts, approaches the landlords’ association, and visits the British commissioner.

The association’s secretary refuses information to someone he calls an outsider. Gandhi rejects this description. The commissioner bullies him and tells him to leave Tirhut, the division containing Champaran. Gandhi continues to Motihari, accompanied by several lawyers.

His investigation brings him into direct contact with suffering. After hearing that a peasant has been maltreated, he sets out to visit the village. A police messenger interrupts the journey, brings him back, and serves the notice ordering his departure.

What does his conduct in court establish?

Civil disobedience here means openly refusing an official order on grounds of conscience while accepting the consequences. Gandhi signs for the notice and records his refusal to obey it. He does not conceal his action or deny it in court.

His conflict of duties is the tension between respect for lawful authority and the responsibility to serve distressed people. His conscience, his inner sense of right and wrong, tells him that leaving would prevent the service for which he has come.

He opposes postponement, pleads guilty and asks for the penalty. When asked to furnish bail, security for temporary release pending legal proceedings, he refuses. The judge releases him without bail and later postpones judgment for several days.

Why is the crowd important?

Thousands gather spontaneously because a man seeking to help them is in trouble. They do not know Gandhi’s record in South Africa. Their action begins their liberation from fear of British authority, giving the struggle a strength beyond legal argument.

Gandhi remains polite and helps officials control the crowd. His non-violence, resistance without physical violence, goes together with firmness. The officials need his cooperation even as he challenges their order, revealing a change in the balance of authority.

The prosecutor asks for a delay; apparently, the authorities wish to consult their superiors. The authorities appear uncertain about how to proceed. Gandhi’s own position, by contrast, is stated openly before the court.

Why did Gandhi accept a 25 per cent refund?

How was the settlement reached?

After the case is dropped, Gandhi and the lawyers collect depositions, formal recorded statements, from about ten thousand peasants. They also gather documents and other evidence. Their inquiry gives the farmers’ complaints a substantial factual basis.

In June, Gandhi has four extended interviews with Sir Edward Gait, the Lieutenant-Governor. Gait appoints the commission of inquiry. Its evidence is so strong that the planters agree in principle to refunds, although the amount remains unsettled.

They expect Gandhi to demand all the money. He asks for 50 per cent; their representative offers 25 per cent. Gandhi accepts immediately, breaking the deadlock, a disagreement preventing progress. The commission adopts the settlement unanimously, with every member agreeing.

What was more important than the amount?

The landlords surrender part of the money and part of their prestige, their standing and authority. To the peasants, the planters had behaved as if they were above the law. A compulsory concession challenges that impression.

The peasants learn that they have rights and defenders. Their new courage is therefore central to Gandhi’s explanation. The settlement is meaningful because it changes their understanding of what they can challenge, as well as returning some money.

Note: The 15 per cent cultivation requirement, 50 per cent refund demand and 25 per cent refund settlement refer to different things. The settlement percentage concerns money taken from peasants, not the area under indigo.

Within a few years, British planters abandon their estates, which revert to the peasants, and indigo sharecropping disappears. These later events support Gandhi’s judgement. They should not be compressed into an immediate transfer of all estates on the day of settlement.

How did Gandhi connect political freedom with village welfare?

Why did the work continue beyond the refund?

Gandhi sees cultural and social deprivation alongside economic exploitation. He appeals for teachers, and Mahadev Desai, Narhari Parikh and their wives volunteer. Others arrive from Bombay, Poona and more distant places.

Gandhi’s youngest son, Devadas, and Gandhi’s wife, Kasturbai, also come. Primary schools open in six villages. Kasturbai teaches personal cleanliness and community sanitation, meaning practices that keep shared surroundings clean.

A doctor volunteers for six months. The available medicines are castor oil, quinine and sulphur ointment. This detail shows the limited resources of the village health work while keeping attention on the practical help offered to people.

What does the woman with one sari reveal?

When Gandhi notices dirty clothing, he asks Kasturbai to speak to the women. One woman explains that the sari she is wearing is her only one. The incident reveals a material obstacle to cleanliness: she has no change of clothes.

The episode supports a reading of poverty as something that must be understood through people’s circumstances. Advice about cleanliness cannot be separated from the resources available to the person receiving it. The woman’s explanation makes deprivation concrete.

Gandhi also continues supervising his ashram by post, requesting accounts and giving instructions about sanitation. His concern for political questions does not displace attention to the ordinary organisation of collective life.

Practical service holds these activities together. Schools, sanitation and health care extend the campaign’s concern for dignity. Champaran begins with an attempt to relieve peasants’ distress; the wider political challenge grows from that commitment to living people.

What do the main characters contribute to Indigo?

Gandhi: firmness with practical judgement

Gandhi’s leadership combines investigation, personal courage and negotiation. He checks information, refuses to abandon the peasants when ordered away, and accepts responsibility for disobedience. He also recognises that a partial refund can achieve a larger change in confidence and authority.

He teaches through conduct. His willingness to face prison prompts the lawyers to reconsider their responsibilities. His refusal to use Andrews as an English supporter asks them to develop the same independence that he wants the peasants to acquire.

Rajkumar Shukla: persistence without social power

Shukla is described as poor, emaciated, meaning extremely thin, and illiterate. Yet he is resolute, firmly determined. He follows Gandhi, waits through his engagements and secures a definite meeting. His limitations do not prevent him from initiating an important encounter.

His role makes the contribution of an ordinary peasant visible. Gandhi’s journey begins because Shukla refuses to let the grievance disappear among other commitments. He is neither a powerful landlord nor the legal expert directing the later investigation.

The lawyers: from advisers to committed participants

Rajendra Prasad, Brij Kishor Babu, Maulana Mazharul Huq and other lawyers assist Gandhi. Initially, the senior lawyer says they would return home if Gandhi were imprisoned. Their first understanding of their role is to advise him.

They reconsider because Gandhi, a stranger, is prepared to suffer for peasants whom they claim to serve. They decide that leaving would be shameful desertion. Their readiness for prison marks a movement from professional assistance to personal responsibility.

Supporters and opponents

Malkani shelters Gandhi despite the prevailing fear of supporting home rule, meaning Indian self-government. Kripalani organises a reception with students. Kasturbai and the volunteers extend the work into village education and cleanliness.

Andrews is an English pacifist, a person opposed to violence, and a devoted follower willing to help. Gandhi’s objection concerns dependence on his nationality. The landlords, meanwhile, resist investigation and negotiate when confronted with strong evidence against them.

What are the central themes and message of Indigo?

Freedom from fear

Fear helps sustain the peasants’ subordination. Gandhi challenges the usefulness of litigation, the process of pursuing disputes in court, when those seeking justice remain crushed and frightened. Courage is necessary if people are to assert the rights that legal remedies recognise.

The gathering at Motihari makes this change visible. Ordinary peasants publicly support someone opposed by the authorities. The refund later reinforces the lesson that powerful landlords can be challenged. Freedom is therefore presented as a change in people’s confidence as well as their circumstances.

Truth, conscience and non-violence

Gandhi’s resistance rests on evidence and conscience. Investigation supplies facts; conscience explains why he will not leave. His respectful handling of officials and the crowd shows that opposition need not depend on hostility or physical violence.

His acceptance of punishment gives moral seriousness to his refusal. He asks others to risk imprisonment after showing his own willingness to do so. The relationship between belief and action makes his leadership persuasive to the lawyers.

Self-reliance and independence

The Andrews episode connects a local campaign with national freedom. Gandhi sees the desire for an English supporter as a sign that the lawyers doubt their own strength. He asks them to rely on the justice of their cause and themselves.

This lesson is distinct from hostility towards Andrews personally. Andrews is willing to help and is already a follower. The issue is the imagined protection supplied by an Englishman’s presence in an unequal contest.

Service and the participation of ordinary people

Human welfare gives the struggle its starting point and direction. The peasants’ suffering brings Gandhi to Champaran, while schooling and health work continue his service beyond the immediate dispute. Political freedom is tied to the improvement of everyday life.

Shukla’s persistence, the villagers’ gathering and volunteers’ work show how people without public fame contribute. The message is not confined to admiration for one leader: his work succeeds through the courage and participation he encourages in others.

How do language and style shape the narrative?

How are events and recollections arranged?

The narrative frame, the opening situation through which a story is introduced, is Fischer’s 1942 meeting with Gandhi. The account then looks back to 1916 and 1917. This retrospective structure allows Gandhi’s later understanding to accompany the earlier events.

Much of the central action follows the developing campaign: Shukla’s appeal, Gandhi’s journey, inquiry, prosecution, collective resistance and settlement. Near the end, the account returns to Andrews’s visit early in the action. That return places the lesson of self-reliance last.

What does direct speech achieve?

Direct speech reports a speaker’s words rather than merely describing their meaning. Gandhi’s exchanges with officials and lawyers reveal his reasoning. Shukla’s appeal makes his determination immediate, while the woman’s explanation about her sari gives poverty an individual voice.

The narrative also includes recollections from Rajendra Prasad and Reverend J.Z. Hodge. Hodge is identified as a British missionary who observed the episode closely. These voices help present both the lawyers’ change of mind and the surprise caused by Gandhi’s acceptance of the refund.

How do contrasts and concrete details help?

A contrast places different responses beside one another. Gandhi’s calmness contrasts with official uncertainty; Shukla’s poverty contrasts with his determination; a modest refund contrasts with its larger effect on the peasants’ courage. These contrasts highlight the importance of courage when confronting powerful authorities.

Specific details keep the narrative grounded: the well at Prasad’s house, the crowd at court, written evidence and the woman’s sari. The tone, or attitude conveyed by the writing, combines factual narration with admiration for leadership rooted in service.

Which key quotations help answer questions about Indigo?

What signals a victory before the financial settlement?

“The battle of Champaran is won”

Speaker and context: Gandhi responds when the lawyers agree to follow him into prison. He recognises their new commitment before the refund is negotiated. The remark directs attention to the human strength on which the campaign depends.

What is the peasants’ central gain?

“He learned courage.”

Speaker and context: Fischer, the narrator, describes the peasant after explaining the refund’s significance. The singular peasant represents those discovering that they have rights and defenders. The short sentence places confidence beside the financial result.

What supports Gandhi’s insistence on independence?

“The cause is just”

Speaker and context: Gandhi addresses the lawyers who want Andrews to stay. Their confidence should rest on the rightness of their cause and their own ability to pursue it. Andrews’s English identity must not become their source of reassurance.

How does Prasad describe the lesson?

“a lesson in self-reliance”

Speaker and context: Rajendra Prasad reflects on Gandhi’s refusal to retain Andrews as support. The phrase identifies what the lawyers learn about themselves. Their change complements the peasants’ growing courage and connects individual independence with the larger struggle.

Glossary

• Sharecropper — A cultivator who gives an agreed share of the crop to the landlord under a farming arrangement.
• Resolute — Firmly determined to continue towards an aim despite obstacles or repeated delays.
• Emaciated — Extremely thin in appearance; the word helps convey Shukla’s physical condition and poverty.
• Arable — Suitable for growing crops; used to describe cultivated or cultivable land in Champaran.
• Synthetic indigo — Artificially manufactured indigo, whose development in Germany precedes the landlords’ demands for compensation.
• Compensation — Money demanded here by landlords in exchange for releasing tenants from the indigo cultivation arrangement.
• Summons — An official direction requiring a person to appear before a court.
• Bail — Security required for temporary release while a person’s legal proceedings remain pending.
• Deposition — A formal recorded statement used as evidence during an investigation or legal proceeding.
• Conscience — A person’s inner sense of right and wrong, guiding moral choices and responsibilities.
• Civil disobedience — Open refusal to obey an official order on grounds of conscience, with acceptance of the consequences.
• Deadlock — A disagreement in which opposing parties cannot make progress towards a settlement.
• Prestige — The standing or authority associated with a person or group in others’ eyes.
• Self-reliance — Confidence in one’s own strength and judgement instead of dependence on an outside supporter.

Common errors and misconceptions

• Misconception: Indigo is an autobiography written by Gandhi. Correct: Louis Fischer wrote this biographical account, which includes Gandhi’s recollections and statements by other participants and observers.
• Misconception: Shukla brings Gandhi as an influential landlord. Correct: Shukla is a poor, illiterate sharecropper whose persistence persuades Gandhi to investigate the injustice affecting peasants.
• Misconception: Peasants surrender 15 per cent of their indigo harvest. Correct: They must grow indigo on 15 per cent of their holdings and surrender the entire indigo harvest as rent.
• Misconception: Landlords offer compensation to release peasants from the contract. Correct: Landlords obtain agreements requiring the peasants to pay compensation to them after learning about synthetic indigo.
• Misconception: Gandhi denies breaking the order to leave. Correct: He openly admits disobedience, explains his conflict of duties and asks the court to impose the appropriate penalty.
• Misconception: Gandhi demands and receives a 50 per cent refund. Correct: He demands 50 per cent but accepts 25 per cent because the concession also weakens the landlords’ prestige.
• Misconception: Gandhi rejects Andrews because Andrews supports the landlords. Correct: Andrews is Gandhi’s devoted follower; Gandhi rejects reliance on an English supporter so that the lawyers learn self-reliance.

Exam-style questions with model answers

Q1. Seeking help for the Champaran peasants, Shukla is poor and illiterate, yet follows Gandhi through his engagements, waits at the ashram and meets him in Calcutta as arranged. What two qualities do these actions reveal? [2 marks]

1. Determination: Shukla persists despite his limited resources and education, keeping the peasants’ grievance before Gandhi.
2. Patience: He waits through Gandhi’s engagements and honours the Calcutta arrangement instead of abandoning his request.

Q2. Tenants must grow indigo on three twentieths, or 15 per cent, of their holdings and surrender the entire indigo harvest as rent. After learning about German synthetic indigo, landlords obtain compensation from tenants for release. Many sign, then learn about synthetic indigo and demand their money back. Explain the dispute in three points. [3 marks]

1. The original obligation combines compulsory cultivation on a specified part of the land with surrender of all the indigo harvested there.
2. The landlords then replace this obligation with payments from tenants, securing compensation for releasing them after learning about synthetic indigo.
3. The later-informed signatories demand refunds. Their changed response shows why the release agreements, initially accepted by many, become the focus of a dispute.

Q3. Ordered to leave Champaran, Gandhi openly refuses, admits disobedience in court, explains his duty to serve distressed peasants, asks for punishment and politely helps officials regulate the supporting crowd. Explain four features of his resistance. [4 marks]

1. Openness: Gandhi acknowledges his refusal and admits it in court, making his action a public challenge rather than concealed evasion.
2. Conscience: He places his responsibility to help distressed peasants at the centre of his explanation for remaining in Champaran.
3. Personal responsibility: By asking for punishment, he shows willingness to bear the consequences of the decision he has made.
4. Non-violence: His polite cooperation in regulating the crowd combines resistance to an order with respectful, peaceful conduct towards officials.

Q4. Gandhi asks for a 50 per cent refund but accepts the planters’ offer of 25 per cent. He explains that surrendering money also costs landlords prestige; peasants discover rights and defenders and gain courage. Within a few years, planters abandon their estates and indigo sharecropping disappears. Evaluate the settlement in five points. [5 marks]

1. Gandhi accepts a smaller refund than he initially requests, showing flexibility over the amount while obtaining a concession from the planters.
2. The return of money matters because landlords must yield something they had taken, rather than maintain their position without any concession.
3. The loss of prestige changes how their authority is understood: their power no longer appears beyond challenge to the peasants.
4. Peasants gain confidence from recognising their rights and the presence of defenders, so the outcome extends beyond the immediate financial return.
5. The later abandonment of estates and disappearance of indigo sharecropping support Gandhi’s judgement, although these developments occur within a few years rather than immediately.

Q5. The lawyers initially say they would go home if Gandhi went to prison. He asks about the sharecroppers’ injustice. They then reflect that Gandhi is a stranger willing to suffer for peasants whom they claim to serve, and agree to follow him into jail. Analyse their change in three points. [3 marks]

1. Initially, the lawyers define their responsibility as advising Gandhi, so they imagine that his imprisonment would end their usefulness.
2. His question directs their attention back to the peasants. Comparing his commitment with their proposed departure makes leaving seem shameful.
3. Their readiness to face prison shows deeper responsibility for the cause. They move from offering advice to accepting personal risk.

Q6. Beyond the indigo dispute, volunteers open primary schools in six villages; Kasturbai teaches cleanliness and sanitation; a doctor volunteers for six months; a woman explains that her dirty sari is the only one she owns. What four aspects of practical service emerge? [4 marks]

1. The schools address education as part of village improvement, extending assistance beyond a single economic dispute affecting the peasants.
2. Kasturbai’s work connects personal habits with the cleanliness of shared surroundings, giving attention to both individual and community life.
3. The doctor’s six-month service shows a practical response to villagers’ health needs through the contribution of a volunteer.
4. The woman’s lack of another sari reveals how poverty limits the ability to act on cleanliness advice, requiring attention to material circumstances.

Q7. Andrews is an English pacifist and devoted follower of Gandhi, willing to stay and help. The lawyers want his support in the peasants’ unequal struggle, but Gandhi asks them to trust the justice of their cause and rely on themselves. Prasad recognises the lesson in self-reliance. Explain this episode in five points. [5 marks]

1. Andrews’s willingness to help and devotion to Gandhi show that the disagreement does not arise from his opposition to the peasants’ cause.
2. The lawyers see his English identity as useful in an unequal struggle, revealing their desire for reassurance from an outside supporter.
3. Gandhi redirects their confidence towards the justice of their cause, asking them to recognise its strength without depending on Andrews’s nationality.
4. His demand that they rely on themselves makes the episode a lesson in developing independent courage and responsibility for their own struggle.
5. Prasad’s recognition of self-reliance shows the effect of Gandhi’s teaching: the lawyers understand that their dependence exposes a weakness they must overcome.

Q8. Fischer opens with his 1942 meeting with Gandhi, then recounts the Champaran campaign, beginning with Shukla’s December 1916 appeal. Gandhi, Shukla and other participants speak directly within the account. Identify two narrative methods and explain their effects. [2 marks]

1. Looking back: The later meeting frames earlier events, connecting recollection with the account of the campaign.
2. Direct speech: Participants’ own words make their attitudes and reasoning more immediate to the reader.

Key takeaways

• Louis Fischer’s biographical account connects the Champaran peasants’ problems with Gandhi’s development of leadership and the larger struggle for freedom.
• Rajkumar Shukla’s determined pursuit of Gandhi shows how an ordinary sharecropper could help initiate an important campaign for justice.
• The indigo arrangement required cultivation on 15 per cent of holdings and surrender of the entire indigo harvest as rent.
• Gandhi combined factual investigation, open disobedience, acceptance of consequences and respectful conduct when confronting official attempts to remove him.
• The 25 per cent refund mattered because the landlords conceded money and prestige while the peasants discovered rights, defenders and courage.
• Village schools, sanitation teaching and health work connected the struggle with the practical needs of people living in poverty.
• The lawyers’ willingness to face imprisonment showed how Gandhi’s example changed their understanding of responsibility towards the peasants.
• Gandhi’s refusal to depend on Andrews joined self-reliance with the campaign’s wider concern for Indian independence.

Test yourself

Why does Gandhi stop at Muzzafarpur before proceeding to Champaran?

He wants fuller information about local conditions than Shukla can provide, and consults people familiar with the peasants’ problems.

Why is Professor Malkani’s hospitality significant?

He is a government schoolteacher sheltering Gandhi when people in smaller localities are afraid to support advocates of home rule.

What does the treatment of Gandhi at Prasad’s well reveal?

The servants fear caste pollution because they do not know Gandhi’s caste, showing the prejudice governing their response to him.

What is Gandhi’s conflict of duties before the court?

He must choose between obeying lawful authority and remaining to serve distressed peasants; conscience leads him to continue that service.

Who represents the peasants on the official commission?

Gandhi is their sole representative on a commission that also includes landlords and government officials.

How long does the Champaran work occupy Gandhi?

It occupies almost a year, including an initial uninterrupted stay of seven months and several shorter visits afterwards.

Why must the refund percentages and land percentage be kept separate?

The 15 per cent figure concerns cultivation area; 50 per cent is Gandhi’s refund demand, while 25 per cent is the agreed refund.

How does the woman’s single sari deepen the account of poverty?

Her lack of replacement clothing explains a practical barrier to cleanliness and gives material detail to the villagers’ deprivation.