विभूतिमूर्ति

The Indigo Story
Gandhi believed in instant and concerted action in the resolution of conflicts. He had an astonishing clarity of vision and firmness of resolve when he came to grips with a real issue. Raj Kumar Shukla appeared to him to symbolize the long standing oppression of a people in one part of his own country. Indeed, through Shukla’s persistence and doggedness, Champaran seemed to be making a clarion call to Gandhi. He could not but promise to come.

I must confess that I did not then know even the name, much less the geographical position, of Champaran, and I had hardly any notion of indigo plantations. I had seen packets of indigo, but little dreamed that it was grown and manufactured in Champaran at great hardship to thousands of agriculturists.
Rajkumar Shukla was one of the agriculturists who had been under this harrow, and he was filled with a passion to wash away the stain of indigo for the thousands who were suffering as he had suffered. 7 GA/365-6
Gandhi’s first impression about Shukla was of an ‘ignorant, unsophisticated but resolute agriculturist’. In that first meeting ‘Brajkishore Babu [also] failed then to make an impression on me’, although soon after the campaign started, he found the former ‘my esteemed co-worker in Champaran’ and ‘the soul of public work in Bihar’. But the smouldering fire in Shukla’s agonized soul against the ruthless foreign exploitation of the poor peasantry in Champaran, and the exemplary commitment and pertinacity in his character were not fully realized by his mentors in the beginning. And there were others like the dedicated social worker, Pir Muhammad Moonis, also of Champaran, who had long been carrying on the beacon of revolt against the savage exploitation of the peasantry in Champaran.
After their return from Lucknow, it was Shukla, aided by Moonis, who wrote a letter to Gandhi imploring him to visit Champaran sooner than later, and the letter began with an Urdu couplet:

‘Kissa sunte ho roz auron ke,
Aj meri bhi dastan suno.’

[Others’ tales you hear every day, but listen to our woes today.]
Some of the lines in that letter were soaked in emotion.

Our woeful tale is far more agonizing than your South Africa story of terrible persecution perpetrated on you and your satyagrahi brothers and sisters….We do not want to grieve your tender soul with the torment borne by the hearts of our 19 lakh suffering peasants. We only beseech you to come and see things with your own eyes…how in this corner of our land, we, the British subjects - who ought to pride themselves of living under the cool shade of their rulers – are living worse than animals.8 RP/ CMG/80

There is abundant literature available on the Champaran indigo movement and Gandhi’s role in it. Gandhi himself has devoted about 20 pages in his Autobiography on this seminal episode in the history of the Indian freedom struggle. And Rajendra Prasad also has devoted an equal no of pages to the movement in his own Autobiography, besides writing three other books dealing with the subject, one of which, Champaran me Mahatma Gandhi, being a fully documented historical account of the great movement. What has not been easily available in the public domain is the diary of Rajkumar Shukla which is a meticulously maintained day-by day journal of events of the activities taking place in and around Motihari and Bettiah, with Gandhi, Rajendra Prasad, Brajkishore Prasad and their lawyer co-workers for full one year, from day one till December 31, 1917.

Rajkumar Shukla was a farmer of modest means himself. He belonged to Satwaria village (near Chanpatia) in the Bettiah sub-division. He had a house at Bettiah, too; and, perhaps, also at Motihari, as his diary entries attest. He had long been involved in the revolt against the tyrranous indigo planters and had also suffered a three-week imprisonment on that account. Even during 1914-15, he had tried to draw attention to this burning issue at the Bihar Provincial Conferences at Patna and Chhapra. Unfazed by failure at these forums, he made Moonis write a dispatch ‘Tyrrany in Champaran’ which was published (January 4, 1915) in the famous political weekly ‘Pratap’ edited by Ganesh Shankar Vidyarthi.

After a flurry of letters, journeys and telegrams, Rajkumar was finally able to ‘capture’ Gandhi at the Calcutta meeting of AICC in early April, 1917. Rajendra Prasad was also present in the AICC meeting but was not aware of the recent meetings or correspondence between Gandhi and Shukla.

I was unaware of all this when I attended the AICC meeting at Calcutta. In fact, I was sitting next to Gandhiji, but never made any effort to speak to him. I am by nature shy and bashful….When the session concluded, Gandhiji met Raj Kumar Shukla who waited outside and both of them left for Patna the same night. I was delayed at the meeting and so could not meet Raj Kumar. I was therefore in complete ignorance of his plans and knew nothing of Gandhiji’s tour of Bihar until much later. Gandhiji also did not know then that I belonged to Bihar and that Raj Kumar Shukla was taking him to my house in Patna.The session had met during the Easter holidays and the vacation not being over, I went to Jagannath Puri.7 A/79-80

A section from Part 2, Chap.1 of my illustrated biography in English of Dr Rajendra Prasad which is likely to be published by the year end. The photo at top is of the house in which Mr Amon, Manager of an absentee indigo planter, and among the most notorious tyrants lived. It is known as Belwa Kothi, about 60 kms north of Bettiah.

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