Class XII :- English , Chapter -5 Indigo , Summary & questions-answers , CBSE

       Grade XII :- English 

       Chapter Indigo 

       Summary &

 Questions / Answers 

Summary:-

In December 1916 ,Gandhi went to Lucknow to attend the annual convention of the Indian National Congress. There were 2,301 delegates and many visitors. A peasant from Champaran, Rajkumar Shukla, asked Gandhi to visit his district. Shukla followed Gandhi, wherever he went. In 1917, Gandhi and Shukla boarded a train for Patna. Shukla led Gandhi to the house of a lawyer named Rajendra Prasad. They could not see him as he was out of town.

Gandhi decided to go first to Muzaffarpur to obtain complete information about the conditions in Champaran. He reached Muzaffarpur by train at midnight on 15 April 1917. Professor J.B. Kriplani, received him at the station. Gandhi stayed there for two days. The news of Gandhi’s arrival and the nature of his mission spread quickly through Muzaffarpur and to Champaran. Sharecroppers from Champaran began arriving there. Muzaffarpur lawyers briefed Gandhi about the court cases. He chided the lawyers for collecting big fees from the sharecroppers. He thought that lawcourts were useless for the crushed and fear-stricken peasants. The real relief for them was to be free from fear.

Then Gandhi arrived in Champaran. He began by trying to get the facts from the secretary of the British landlords’ association. He refused to give information to an outsider. Gandhi said that he was not an outsider. Next, Gandhi called on the British official commissioner of the Tirhut division. The commissioner started bullying Gandhi and advised him to leave Tirhut. Instead of leaving the area, Gandhi went to Motihari, the Capital of Champaran. Several lawyers accompanied him. A large crowd of people greeted Gandhi at the railway station. It was the beginning of their liberation from fear of the British.

A peasant had been maltreated in a nearby village. The next morning Gandhi started out on the back of an elephant. Soon he was stopped by the police superintendent’s messenger and ordered to return to town in his carriage. Gandhi complied. The messenger drove Gandhi home. Then he served him with an official notice to quit Champaran at once. Gandhi signed the receipt for the notice and wrote on it that he would disobey the order. Gandhi received a summons to appear in court the next day. At night Gandhi telegraphed Rajendra Prasad, sent instructions to the ashram and wired a full report to the Viceroy.

Thousands of peasants gathered around the court house. The officials felt powerless. The authorities wished to consult their superiors. Gandhi protested against the delay. The magistrate announced that he would pronounce sentence after a two-hour recess. He asked Gandhi to furnish bail for those 120 minutes. Gandhi refused. The judge released him without bail. The court started again after a break. The judge said he would not deliver the judgement for several days. He allowed Gandhi to remain at liberty.

Gandhi asked the prominent lawyers about the injustice to the sharecroppers. They consulted among themselves. Then they told Gandhi that they were ready to follow him into jail. Gandhi then divided the group into pairs and fixed the order in which each pair was to court arrest. After several days, Gandhi was informed by the magistrate that the case had been dropped. For the first time in modern India, civil disobedience had triumphed.

Gandhi and lawyers conducted an inquiry into the complaints of the peasants. About ten thousand peasants deposed. Documents were collected. Gandhi was summoned by Sir Edward Gait, the Lieutenant-Governor. He met the Lieutenant Governor four times. An official commission of inquiry was appointed.

Gandhi remained in Champaran initially for seven months and then came for several shorter visits. The official inquiry assembled evidence against the big planters. They agreed in principle to make refunds to the peasants. Gandhi asked only 50 per cent. The representative of the planters offered to refund up to 25 per cent. Gandhi agreed. The deadlock was broken.

Gandhi explained that the amount of the refund was less important than the fact that the landlords had been forced to give some money and their prestige. The peasant now saw that he had rights and defenders. He learned courage. Events justified Gandhi’s position. Within a few years the British planters abandoned their estates. These now went back to the peasants. Indigo sharecropping disappeared.

Gandhi wanted to do something to remove the cultural and social backwardness in Champaran villages. He appealed for teachers. Two young disciples of Gandhi, Mahadev Desai and Narhari Parikh, and their wives volunteered for work. Several more came from Bombay, Poona and other distant parts of the land. Devdas, Gandhi’s youngest son, arrived from the ashram and so did Mrs. Gandhi. Primary schools were opened in six villages. Kasturba taught the ashram rules on personal cleanliness and community sanitation.

Health conditions were miserable. Gandhi got a doctor to volunteer his services for six months. Three medicines were available : castor oil, quinine and sulphur ointment. Gandhi noticed the filthy state of women’s clothes. One woman told Kasturba that she had only one sari. During his long stay in Champaran, Gandhi kept a long distance watch on the ashram and sent regular instructions by mail.

The Champaran episode was a turning point in Gandhi’s life. It did not begin as an act of defiance. It grew out of an attempt to lessen the sufferings of the poor peasants. Gandhi’s politics was closely connected with the practical day to day problems of the millions. He tried to mould a new free Indian who could stand on his own feet and thus make India free.

Gandhi also taught his followers a lesson in self-reliance. Gandhi’s lawyer friends thought that it would be a good idea for Charles Freer Andrews, the English pacifist, to stay in Champaran and help them. Andrews was willing if Gandhi agreed. But Gandhi opposed it forcefully. He said, “The cause is just and you must rely upon yourselves to win the battle.”

Thus, self-reliance, Indian independence and help to sharecroppers were all bound together.

Q1. Strike out what is not true in the following:

(a)Rajkumar Shukla was:

(i)a sharecropper (ii)a politician

(iii)delegate (iv)a landlord.

(b) Rajkumar Shukla was:

(i) poor (ii)physically strong

(iii) illiterate.

Ans: (a) (ii) a politician

(b) (ii) physically strong

Q2. Why is Rajkumar Shukla described as being ‘resolute’?

Ans: He had come all the way from Champaran district in the foothills of Himalayas to Lucknow to speak to Gandhi. Shukla accompanied Gandhi everywhere. Shukla followed him to the ashram near Ahmedabad. For weeks he never left Gandhi’s side till Gandhi asked him to meet at Calcutta.

Q3. Why do you think the servants thought Gandhi to be another peasant?

Ans: Shukla led Gandhi to Rajendra Prasad’s house. The servants knew Shukla as a poor yeoman. Gandhi was also clad in a simple dhoti. He was the companion of a peasant. Hence, the servants thought Gandhi to be another peasant.

THINK AS YOU READ

Q1. List the places that Gandhi visited between his first meeting with Shukla and his arrival at Champaran.

Ans: Gandhi’s first meeting with Shukla was at Lucknow. Then he went to Cawnpore and other parts of India. He returned to his ashram near Ahmedabad. Later he went to Calcutta, Patna and Muzaffarpur before arriving at Champaran.

Q2. 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?

Ans: The peasants paid the British landlords indigo as rent. Now Germany had developed synthetic indigo. So, the British landlords wanted money as compensation for being released from the 15 percent arrangement. The prices of natural indigo would go down due to the synthetic Indigo.

THINK AS YOU READ

Q1. 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?

Ans: Gandhi’s politics was intermingled with the day-to-day problems of millions of Indians. He opposed unjust laws. He was ready to court arrest for breaking such laws and going to jail. The famous Dandi March to break the ‘salt law’ is another instance. The resistance and disobedience was peaceful and a fight for truth and justice…This was linked directly to his ideas of Satyagraha and non-violence.

THINK AS YOU READ

Q1. Why did Gandhi agree to a settlement of 25 per cent refund to the farmers?

Ans: For Gandhi the amount of the refund was less important than the fact that the landlords had been forced to return part of the money, and with it, part of their prestige too. So, he agreed to settlement of 25 per cent refund to the farmers.

Q2. How did the episode change the plight of the peasants?

Ans: The peasants were saved from spending time and money on court cases. After some years the British planters gave up control of their estates. These now reverted to the peasants. Indigo sharecropping disappeared.

Thinking about the text

Q1.Why do you think Gandhi considered the Champaran episode to be a turning- point in his life?

Ans: The Champaran episode began as an attempt to ease the sufferings of a large number of poor peasants. He got the spontaneous support of thousands of people. Gandhi admits that what he had done was a very ordinary thing. He declared that the British could not order him about in his own country. Hence, he considered the Champaran episode as a turning- point in his life.

 

Q2. How was Gandhi able to influence lawyers? Give instances.

Ans: Gandhi asked the lawyers what they would do if he was sentenced to prison. They said that they had come to advise him. If he went to jail, they would go home. Then Gandhi asked them about the injustice to the sharecroppers. The lawyers held consultations. They came to the conclusion that it would be shameful desertion if they went home. So, they told Gandhi that they were ready to follow him into jail.

Q3. “What was the attitude of the average Indian in smaller localities towards advocates of ‘home rule’?

Ans: The average Indians in smaller localities were afraid to show sympathy for the advocates of home-rule. Gandhi stayed at Muzaffarpur for two days at the home of Professor Malkani, a teacher in a government school. It was an extraordinary thing in those days for a government professor to give shelter to one who opposed the government.

Q4. How do we know that ordinary people too contributed to the freedom movement?

Ans: Professor J.B. Kriplani received Gandhi at Muzaffarpur railway station at midnight. He had a large body of students with him. Sharecroppers from Champaran came on foot and by conveyance to see Gandhi. Muzaffarpur lawyers too called on him. A vast multitude greeted Gandhi when he reached Motihari railway station. Thousands of people demonstrated around the court room. This shows that ordinary people too contributed to the freedom movement in India.

Discuss the following:

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?

Ans: For the poor of India means of survival are far more important than freedom or legal justice. I don’t think the poor of India are free from fear after Independence.The foreign rulers have been replaced by corrupt politicians and self-serving bureaucracy. Power- brokers and moneylenders have a field day. The situation has improved in cities and towns for the poor but the poor in the remote villages still fear the big farmers and moneylenders. The police and revenue officials are still objects of terror for them.

The poor, landless workers have to still work hard to make both ends meet. Peasants and tenant-farmers have to borrow money from rich moneylenders at exorbitant rates of interest, which usually they fail to repay due to failure of monsoon or bad crops. Cases of small farmers committing suicide are quite common. If this is not due to fear, what is the reason behind it?

Q2. The qualities of a good leader.

Ans: A good leader has a mass appeal. He rises from the masses, thinks for them and works for them. He is sincere in his approach. He is a man of principles. Truth, honesty, patriotism, morality, spirit of service and sacrifice are the hallmarks of a good leader. He never mixes politics with religion or sect. He believes in working for the welfare of the nation and does not think in the narrow terms of class, caste or region. Corruption and nepotism are two evils that surround a leader in power. The life of a good leader is an open book. There is no difference between his words and actions. Such good leaders are very rare. What we find today are practical politicians, who think of achieving their end without bothering about . the purity of means. The law of expediency gets the better of morality.