Indigo by Louis Fischer
Quick answer: Indigo by Louis Fischer, CBSE Class 12 Flamingo chapter 5: Rajkumar Shukla, Gandhi in Champaran 1917, the trial at Motihari, the 25 percent refund, themes and exam answers.
An illiterate sharecropper follows Gandhi from the Lucknow Congress to Cawnpore, Ahmedabad and Calcutta, refusing to leave until the leader agrees to come and see the misery of Champaran.
Louis Fischer drew this from his 1950 biography The Life of Mahatma Gandhi; Class 12 Flamingo prints it as chapter 5.
The chapter in brief
Rajkumar Shukla brings Gandhi to Bihar in 1917. In Muzaffarpur, staying with Professor J. B. Kripalani, he learns the system: peasants must plant 15 percent of their land with indigo for English landlords. When synthetic indigo from Germany makes the crop worthless, the landlords extract compensation to release peasants from the arrangement, and those who refuse are harassed in court.
Ordered to leave Tirhut, Gandhi refuses and is tried at Motihari. Thousands of peasants gather; the case is dropped, the first triumph of civil disobedience in modern India. An official inquiry follows with Gandhi as a member. The landlords offer a refund; Gandhi accepts 25 percent, saying the amount matters less than the surrender of prestige. Within years the planters abandon the estates. He also organises schools and sanitation, and declines Charles Freer Andrews's help so that Indians rely on themselves.
The people in it
A leader, a peasant, a system.
- Gandhi: patient, factual, insistent on self-reliance over charity.
- Rajkumar Shukla: the stubborn sharecropper whose persistence starts the campaign.
- Kripalani and Rajendra Prasad: educated allies.
- The landlords: bullies whose retreat over a quarter refund breaks their hold.
Themes and meaning
Exam readings include civil disobedience, self-reliance, freedom from fear, and leadership rooted in facts. The sharper point is the arithmetic: Gandhi accepts 25 percent, not 50, because the point was never money. He understood that the landlords' loss of face would finish the system, and it did.
The craft: a biography that moves like a case
Fischer arranges the chapter as an investigation: a complaint, a visit, evidence, a trial, a settlement. Each stage is dated and located, and the drama comes from Gandhi's quiet refusals. The turn is the dropped case at Motihari, where a crowd of peasants makes the state blink. Writers can steal the case structure and the trick of making the hero's power a matter of stillness rather than speeches.
For the exam
Quick material for the Class 12 exam.
- Word meanings: sharecropper, tenant paying rent in crop; emaciated, thin from hunger; deposition, sworn statement; conflict of duties, clash between obligations; pestered, nagged; deadlock, standstill.
- Character sketch of Rajkumar Shukla in 60 words: A poor, illiterate sharecropper from Champaran, Shukla travels to the Lucknow Congress in 1916 to seek Gandhi's help and then follows him across northern India for months, waiting outside offices and ashrams until Gandhi fixes a date. Fischer presents him as resolute rather than eloquent: a man whose stubbornness, not his arguments, brings the leader to Bihar.
- Q: Why did the landlords demand compensation from the peasants? A: Synthetic indigo had made the crop worthless, so they charged peasants to be released from the 15 percent arrangement.
- Q: Why did Gandhi accept only 25 percent? A: The money mattered less than forcing the landlords to surrender part of their money and prestige, which broke their power.
- Q: What made the Motihari trial a triumph? A: Thousands of peasants gathered peacefully, the government dropped the case, and civil disobedience won its first Indian victory.
- Summary in 100 words: Rajkumar Shukla, a sharecropper, persuades Gandhi to visit Champaran in 1917. Gandhi learns that peasants must grow indigo on 15 percent of their land and that landlords, after synthetic indigo ruined the crop, are extorting compensation. Ordered to leave, Gandhi refuses and is tried at Motihari, where thousands of peasants gather; the case is dropped, the first success of civil disobedience in India. An inquiry follows and the landlords agree to refund 25 percent, which Gandhi accepts because their prestige, not the money, is the point. Within years the planters leave. Gandhi also organises schools and health work, insisting on Indian self-reliance.
What writers can take from this
- Give the dates and places in order: Lucknow 1916, Patna, Muzaffarpur, Motihari, the inquiry.
- Explain the 15 percent arrangement before the compensation racket; the exploitation makes no sense otherwise.
- Quote the 25 percent decision and Gandhi's reasoning in every answer on the settlement.
- Writers, build a story as a case file, with each stage dated and located.
- Give your protagonist power through refusal rather than rhetoric.
Try it yourself
Write a story structured as an investigation: a stubborn petitioner, a reluctant expert, a system that looks legal, a hearing, a settlement. The protagonist must win by refusing something, and the victory must be smaller in money than everyone expected and larger in effect.
Questions
What is the theme of Indigo by Louis Fischer?
Civil disobedience, self-reliance and freedom from fear. Gandhi's Champaran campaign of 1917 shows how facts, patience and a refusal to obey an unjust order can break an exploitative system, and how ordinary peasants discovered they had rights.
Why did Gandhi agree to a 25 percent refund in Champaran?
He said the amount mattered less than the landlords being forced to give up part of their money and prestige. The surrender broke their authority, and within a few years the planters abandoned their estates.
Who was Rajkumar Shukla?
A poor sharecropper from Champaran who met Gandhi at the 1916 Lucknow Congress and followed him for months until Gandhi agreed to visit Bihar. His persistence began the Champaran movement.
By the Writory editorial team, reviewed by working writers. Updated September 2026.
Enter a Writory story contest
Enter the Writory Short Story Contest and have your own story read and scored out of 100. Entries close 30 November. That first entry makes you a Writorian.