# data[].attributes.headline
Indigo written by Louis Fischer describes Gandhiji's struggle for the poor peasants of Champaran. 

# data[].attributes.subject
Indigo written by Louis Fischer describes Gandhiji's struggle for the poor peasants of Champaran. 

# data[].attributes.body
Rajkumar Shukla was a poor sharecropper from Champaran who came to visit Gandhi.

# data[].attributes.body
He wanted to complain about the injustice of the landlord system in Bihar and request Gandhi to come there.

# data[].attributes.headline
He was illiterate but resolute and so he followed Gandhiji wherever he went to accept his request to come to Chamaparan. And finally Gandhiji agreed to come. 

# data[].attributes.subject
He was illiterate but resolute and so he followed Gandhiji wherever he went to accept his request to come to Chamaparan. And finally Gandhiji agreed to come. 

# data[].attributes.body
Shukla took him to the residence of Rajendra Prasad. The servants working there considered Gandhiji to be an untouchable because of his simple lifestyle.

# data[].attributes.body
Gandhiji went to Muzzafarpur to obtain more complete information about the conditions of Champaran sharecroppers.

# data[].attributes.body
And then he sent a telegram to professor J.B Kripalani and stayed at professor Malkani's house for two days.

# data[].attributes.body
In smaller localities the Indians were afraid to show sympathy for the advocates of home rule.

# data[].attributes.body
The news of Gandhiji's arrival and the nature of his mission spread quickly and the sharecroppers gathered in large numbers to see their champion.

# data[].attributes.body
Gandhiji chided the lawyers for collecting big fee from the sharecroppers.

# data[].attributes.body
Most of the arable land in Champaran district was divided into large estates owned by Englishmen and worked by Indian tenants.

# data[].attributes.body
The chief commercial crop was indigo.

# data[].attributes.body
The landlords compelled all tenants to plant fifteen percent of their holdings with indigo and surrender the entire indigo harvest as rent.

# data[].attributes.body
When the landlords learned that Germany had developed synthetic indigo, they freed the Indian farmers from the fifteen percent agreement but asked them to pay compensation.

# data[].attributes.body
Many signed the agreement willingly but some of the sharecroppers resisted and engaged lawyers. And so the landlords hired thugs.

# data[].attributes.body
When Gandhiji arrived in Champaran, he visited the secretary of the British landlord's association. But they did not give him any information saying that he was an outsider.

# data[].attributes.body
Then Gandhiji called on the British official commissioner of Tirhut.But the commissioner asked him to leave. But Gandhiji did not leave and instead went to Motihari and a vast multitude greeted him and he continued with his investigation.

# data[].attributes.body
A report came that a peasant had been maltreated in a nearby village. So he decided to go there but was stopped by a police superintendent. He got an official notice to quit Champaran immediately but he disobeyed the order.

# data[].attributes.body
In consequence, Gandhi received a summons to appear in court the next day. There was a spontaneous demonstration by the peasants and the officials felt powerless without Gandhi's cooperation. As a result the trial was postponed.

# data[].attributes.body
Rajendra Prasad, Kishor Babu, Maulana Mazharul Huq and several other prominent lawyers had arrived from Bihar to support Gandhi and decided to go to jail with Gandhi if he was sent to jail.

# data[].attributes.body
After several days Gandhi received a letter from the magistrate that the lieutenant Governor of the province had dropped the case.

# data[].attributes.body
Civil Disobedience had triumphed the first time in modern India.

# data[].attributes.body
Gandhi and the lawyers continued with their investigation.

# data[].attributes.body
In June, Gandhi was summoned to sir Edward Gait, the lieutenant Governor. He had four protracted interviews with the lieutenant Governor who as a result appointed an official commission of inquiry into the Indigo sharecroppers situation.

# data[].attributes.body
The official inquiry commission consisted of landlords, government officials and Gandhi as the sole representative of the peasants.

# data[].attributes.body
Finally Gandhiji accepted twenty five percent of money offered to the farmers as refund. Within a few years the British planters abandoned their estates, which reverted to the peasants. Indigo sharecropping disappeared.

# data[].attributes.body
After this Gandhiji worked for the economy and cultural development of the area.

# data[].attributes.body
With the help of Mahadev Desai, Narhari Parikh and their wives and Gandhi's wife Kasturbai and son Devadas and several others Gandhi opened schools and taught cleanliness and sanitation.

# data[].attributes.body
Early in the Champaran action, Charles Freer Andrews, the English pacifist who had become a devoted follower of Gandhiji asked  Gandhi if he could help him with the protest. But Gandhiji refused since he was an Englishman.

# data[].attributes.body
In this way Gandhiji taught a lesson of self-reliance to his followers.