Indigo Summary in English and Hindi Pdf. Indigo is written by Louis Fischer.
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Indigo Summary in English by Louis Fischer
Indigo by Louis Fischer About the Author
Louis Fischer (29 February 1896 – 15 January 1970) was an American journalist. He wrote the biography of Mahatma Gandhi entitled The Life of Mahatma Gandhi. ‘Indigo’ is an excerpt from this book widely acknowledged as one of the best books written on Gandhi.
Author Name | Louis Fischer |
Born | 29 February 1896, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States |
Died | 15 January 1970, Princeton, New Jersey, United States |
Education | Central High School, South Philadelphia High School |
Awards | National Book Award for History and Biography (Nonfiction) |
Nationality | American |
Indigo Theme
The chapter ‘Indigo’ emphasizes the fact that an effective leadership can solve any kind of problem without any harm to anybody. This chapter deals with the way Mahatma Gandhi solved the problem of poor sharecroppers of Champaran in a non-violent way.
Indigo Summary in English
‘Indigo’ details numerous events in the life of Gandhi which he witnessed in Champaran, Bihar. It was in 1916 that Gandhi was approached by a peasant, Rajkumar Shukla, from Champaran. He wanted Gandhi to visit Champaran and do something for the condition of peasants there. Due to his persistent efforts, he was successful in bringing Gandhi to Champaran after a few months. On the way to Champaran from Calcutta, Gandhi, in order to understand the problems of the sharecroppers, decided to meet a lawyer, Rajendra Prasad, in Patna and Professor J.B. Kriplani at Muzzafarpur.
By the time Gandhi reached Champaran, the news of his mission had spread like wildfire. After reaching Champaran, Gandhi learnt that arable areas were divided into large estates, owned by the Englishmen, and worked by the peasants. Indigo was the main commercial crop of the area as the landlords forced all the tenants to grow indigo on 15% of their land and surrender the entire crop as rent. When the landlords learnt that synthetic indigo had been developed by the Germans, they asked the tenants to pay them compensation for releasing them from 15% arrangement that they had signed. This brought misery to the peasants and they wanted Gandhi to help them.
Gandhiji, first of all, collected all the facts and information. He also dealt with the resistance of the British. While going to investigate the maltreatment of a peasant in a village near Motihari, Gandhi was ordered to return midway and was served a summons to report to the court the following morning. The peasants came in huge numbers outside the court to support Gandhi and the officials were unable to control the crowd. As a result, the trial was postponed and so allowed Gandhi to move around freely.
All the prominent lawyers, including Rajendra Prasad, Brij Kishor Babu, Maulana Mazharul Huq arrived in Champaran to support Gandhi and decided to go to jail with Gandhi if he was sent to jail. But Gandhi received a written communication that the Lieutenant Governor had dropped the case. This was the beginning of the triumph of civil disobedience in India.
Gandhi, along with his team of lawyers, continued his investigation and met the Lieutenant Governor four times. Finally, an official inquiry was ordered. Gandhi accepted 25% of the money offered to the farmers as refund. This instilled courage among the farmers and marked their victory over injustice and exploitation.
After this, Gandhi worked for the economic and cultural development of the area. With the help of Mahadev Desai and Narhari Parikh, their wives, his wife and son, Gandhi opened schools and taught cleanliness and sanitation. A volunteer doctor came to improve the appalling state of health services.
Gandhi taught a lesson of self-reliance to his followers by refusing the idea of keeping Charles Freer Andrews in India to help him. As per Gandhi, it was a sign of weakness to seek the help of an Englishman to bolster their efforts.
Thus, Champaran became a symbol of self-reliance and Indian Independence.
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