Chapter indigo: Indigo | Long Questions

During the intense Champaran struggle, Gandhi firmly and vehemently objected to the helpful presence of Charles Freer Andrews, a highly devoted English pacifist, precisely to teach his educated lawyer friends a profound lesson in true self-reliance. The worried Indian lawyers genuinely believed that having a supportive Englishman openly on their side would naturally provide a massive, strategic advantage in their deeply unequal fight against the powerful British landlords. However, Gandhi sharply criticized this flawed thinking, clearly explaining that actively seeking a supportive prop in an Englishman unfortunately revealed the hidden weakness of their own hearts. He passionately emphasized that their noble cause was completely just, and therefore, they absolutely needed to rely entirely upon their own inner strength to win the difficult battle. This powerful, eye-opening lesson brilliantly linked the concepts of complete self-reliance and eventual Indian independence.

Mahatma Gandhi firmly believed that achieving simple political or economic victories was never completely sufficient without genuinely addressing the massive cultural and social backwardness deeply rooted in the Champaran villages. To profoundly improve the miserable living conditions, he passionately appealed for dedicated volunteer teachers, prompting several enthusiastic disciples, including his own family members, to arrive and successfully open primary schools in six different villages. Furthermore, the overall health conditions were incredibly pathetic, so Gandhi actively arranged for a committed volunteer doctor to provide essential medical services using basic medicines like castor oil, quinine, and sulphur ointment. He also kindly instructed his wife, Kasturbai, to gently educate the impoverished village women about basic personal cleanliness and essential community sanitation. These highly practical, deeply compassionate efforts beautifully highlight Gandhi's holistic, transformative approach toward achieving true, comprehensive societal upliftment.

Under an ancient, deeply exploitative long-term contract, the vast majority of the fertile arable land in the Champaran district was completely owned by wealthy English landlords and continuously worked by poor Indian tenant farmers. The powerful British landlords forcibly compelled all the helpless tenants to plant commercial indigo on exactly fifteen per cent of their total land holdings and meticulously surrender the entire indigo harvest as rent. This rigid arrangement suddenly became highly irksome and deceitful when Germany successfully developed synthetic indigo, making natural indigo highly unprofitable. Instead of simply freeing the poor peasants, the greedy landlords cunningly concealed this crucial information and aggressively extorted heavy financial compensation from the illiterate sharecroppers to officially release them from the outdated fifteen per cent agreement. This massive injustice directly prompted the historic Champaran agrarian movement.