CHAPTER WISE SUMMARY

The Last Lesson

Franz started for school very late that morning. He was
afraid of being scolded because M. Hamel was to
question them on participles, and he did not know the
first word about them. He thought of running away and
spending the day out of doors. The warm bright day, the
chirping birds, and the Prussian soldiers drilling in the
open field back of the sawmill were tempting. But he
resisted the temptation and hurried off to school.
There was a crowd in front of the bulletin-board near the
town-hall. Wachter, the blacksmith asked Franz not to
go so fast. He assured the boy that he would get to his
school in plenty of time. Usually there was a great
bustle when the school began but that day everything
was as quiet as Sunday morning.
Through the window Franz saw his classmates, already
in their places and M. Hamel walking up and down with
his terrible iron ruler under his arm. Franz opened the
door and went in. He blushed and was frightened. M.
Hamel very kindly asked him to go to his place.
Franz noticed that their teacher had put on his beautiful
green coat, his frilled shirt, and the little black silk cap,
all embroidered. He wore these only on inspection and
prize days. The village people were sitting quietly on the
usually empty back benches. Everybody looked sad;
and Hauser had brought an old primer.
M. Hamel said that it was the last lesson he would give
them. Henceforth, only German was to be taught in the
schools of Alsace and Lorraine. The new master would
come the next day. This was their last lesson of French.
He wanted them to be very attentive.
Franz felt sorry that he had not learnt his lessons
properly. The idea that M. Hamel was going away made
the narrator forget all about his ruler and how cranky he
was. Now Franz understood why M. Hamel had put on
his fine Sunday clothes and why the old men of the
village were sitting there. They had come to thank the
master for his forty years’ faithful service and to show
their respect for the country that was theirs no more.
M. Hamel asked Franz to recite, but he stood there
silent. The teacher did not scold him. He confessed that
his parents and he (the teacher) were at fault. Then he
talked of the French language-the most beautiful
language in the world—the clearest, the most logical.
He asked them to guard it among them and never forget
it. Their language was the key to their prison.
Then they had lesson in grammar and writing. The
pigeons cooed very low on the roof. Franz thought if
they would make even the pigeons sing in German. All
the while M. Hamel was sitting motionless in his chair
and gazing at one thing or the other. His sister was
packing their trunks in the room above as they had to
leave the country next day.
After writing, they had a lesson in history, and then the
babies chanted their ba, be, bi, bo, bu. Even old Hauser
was crying. All at once the church-clock struck twelve
and then the midday prayers. At the same moment the
trumpets of the Prussians, returning from drill, sounded
under the windows. M. Hamel stood up. He wanted to
speak but something choked him.
Then he took a piece of chalk and wrote on the
blackboard as large as he could “Vive La France!” After
this he stopped and leaned his head against the wall.
Without a word, he made a gesture with his hand to
indicate that the school was dismissed and they might
go.
 The Lost Spring
I. “Sometimes I find a rupee in the garbage’ The author
comes across Saheb every morning. Saheb left his
home in Dhaka long time ago. He is trying to sponge
gold in the heaps of garbage in the neighbourhood. The
author asks Saheb why he does that. Saheb mutters
that he has nothing else to do. There is no school in his
neighbourhood. He is poor and works barefooted.
There are 10,000 other shoeless rag-pickers like Saheb.
They live in Seemapuri, on the outer edge of Delhi, in
structures of mud, with roofs of tin and tarpaulin but
devoid of sewage, drainage or running water. They are
squatters who came from Bangladesh back in 1971.
They have lived here for more than thirty years without
identity cards or permit. They have right to vote. With
ration cards they get grains. Food is more important for
survival than identity. Wherever they find food, they
pitch their tents that become transit homes. Children
grow up in them, and become partners in survival. In
Seemapuri survival means rag-picking. Through the
years rag-picking has acquired the proportions of a fine
art. Garbage to them is gold. It is their daily bread and a
roof over their heads.
Sometimes Saheb finds a rupee or even a ten-rupee
note in the garbage-heap. Then there is hope of finding
more. Garbage has a meaning different from what it
means to their parents. For children it is wrapped in
wonder, for the elders it is a means of survival.
One winter morning the author finds Saheb standing by
the fenced gate of a neighbourhood club. He is
watching two youngmen playing tennis. They are
dressed in white. Saheb likes the game but he is
content to watch it standing behind the fence. Saheb is
wearing discarded tennis shoes that look strange over
his discoloured shirt and shorts. For one who has
walked barefoot, even shoes with a hole is a dream
come true. But tennis is out of his reach.
This morning Saheb is on his way to the milk booth. In
his hand is a steel canister. He works in a tea stall. He
is paid 800 rupees and all his meals. Saheb is no longer
his master. His face has lost the carefree look. He
doesn’t seem happy working at the tea-stall. II. I Want to
Drive a Car The author comes across Mukesh in
Firozabad. His family is engaged in bangle making, but
Mukesh insists on being his own master. “I will be a
motor mechanic,” he announces. “I will learn to drive a
car,” he says.
Firozabad is famous for its bangles. Every other family
in Firozabad is engaged in making bangles. Families
have spent generations working around furnaces,
welding glass, making bangles for women. None of
them know that it is illegal for children like Mukesh to
work in the glass furnaces with high temperatures, in
dingy cells without air and light. They slog their daylight
hours, often losing the brightness of their eyes. If the
law is enforced, it could get Mukesh and 20,000 children
out of the hot furnaces.
They walk down stinking lanes choked with garbage,
past homes that remain hovels with crumbling walls,
wobbly doors and no windows. Humans and animals,
co-exist there. They enter a half-built shack. One part of
it is thatched with dead grass. A frail young woman is
cooking evening meal over a firewood stove. She is the
wife of Mukesh’s elder brother and already in charge of
three men-her husband, Mukesh and their father. The
father is a poor bangle maker. Despite long years of
hard labour, first as a tailor and then as a bangle maker,
he has failed to renovate a house and send his two
sons to school. All he has managed to do is teach them
what he knows: the art of making bangles.
Mukesh’s grandmother has watched her own husband
go blind with the dust from polishing the glass of
bangles. She says that it is his destiny. She implies that
god-given lineage can never be broken. They have
been born in the caste of bangle makers and have seen
nothing but bangles of various colours. Boys and girls
sit with fathers and mothers welding pieces of coloured
glass into circles of bangles. They work in dark
hutments, next to lines of flames of flickering oil lamps.
Their eyes are more adjusted to the dark than to the
light outside. They often end up losing their eyesight
before they become adults.
Savita, a young girl in a drab pink dress, sits along side
an elderly woman. She is soldering pieces of glass. Her
hands move mechanically like the tongs of a machine.
Perhaps she does not know the sanctity of the bangles
she helps make. The old woman beside her has not
enjoyed even one full meal in her entire life time. Her
husband is an old man with flowing beard. He knows
nothing except bangles. He has made a house for the
family to live in. He has a roof over his head.
Little has moved with time in Firozabad. Families do not
have enough to eat. They do not have money to do
anything except carry on the business of making
bangles. The youngmen echo the lament of their elders.
They have fallen into the vicious circle of middlemen
who trapped their fathers and forefathers. Years of
mind-numbing toil have killed all initiative and the ability
to dream. They are unwilling to get organised into a
cooperative. They fear that they will be hauled up by the
police, beaten and dragged to jail for doing something
illegal. There is no leader among them. No one helps
them to see things differently. All of them appear tired.
They talk of poverty, apathy, greed and injustice.
Two distinct worlds are visibleone, families caught in
poverty and burdened with the stigma of caste in which
they are born; the other, a vicious circle of money-
lenders, the middlemen, the policemen, the keepers of
law and politicians. Together they have imposed the
baggage on the child that he cannot put it down. He
accepts it as naturally as his father. To do anything else
would mean to dare. And daring is not part of his
growing up. The author is cheered when she senses a
flash of it in Mukesh who wants to be a motor mechanic.

Deep Water
William 0. Douglas recalls a misadventure of childhood.
It had happened when he was ten or eleven years old.
He had decided to learn to swim. There was a pool at
the Y.M.C.A. in Yakima, which was safe. It was only two
or three feet deep at the shallow end and nine feet deep
at the other. The drop was gradual. He got a pair of
water wings and went to the pool. He hated to walk
naked into water and show his very thin legs.
The author had developed an aversion to the water
when he was three or four. His father had taken him to
the beach in California. They stood together on the surf.
The waves knocked him down and swept over him. He
was buried under water. His breath was gone. He was
frightened. His father laughed, but the overpowering
force of the waves filled terror in the young author’s
heart.
Unpleasant memories were revived when he went to the
Y.M.C.A. pool for the first time. Childish fears were
stirred. But soon he gathered confidence. He watched
other boys paddling on water with their water wings. He
tried to learn by imitating them. He did this two or three
times on different days. He was just beginning to feel
comfortable in the water when the misadventure
happened.
When he went to the pool, there was no one else. So he
sat on the side of the pool to wait for others. Shortly
afterwards a big boy, a boxer, came. He was probably
eighteen years old and had beautiful muscles on his
legs and arms. He called the author ‘Skinny and asked
how he would like to be plunged in water.
The boxer boy picked Douglas and threw him into the
deep end. He struck water in a sitting position. He
swallowed water and at once went to the bottom. He
was frightened, but did not lose his wits. He made a
plan. He would make a big jump when his feet hit the
bottom. He would come to the surface like a cork, lie flat
on it and then paddle to the edge of the pool.
Those nine feet appeared more than ninety. Before he
touched bottom his lungs were ready to burst. When his
feet hit the bottom, he made a great jump upwards, but
he failed to reach the surface at once. He came up
slowly. His eyes and nose came out of water, but not his
mouth. He moved around his legs on the surface of
water. He swallowed water and choked. He tried to
bring his legs up, but they hung as dead weights. He
again went down to the bottom of the pool.
He was shrieking under water because terror had
seized him. He was paralysed under water, but his heart
and the pounding in head told him that he was still alive.
When he hit the bottom, he jumped with his full might.
The jump made no difference. The water was still
around him. His arms and legs wouldn’t move. He
trembled with fear. He tried to call for help, to call
mother, but nothing happened. Then he rose up. His
eyes and nose were almost out of water. He sucked for
air and got water. He started going down a third time.
Then all efforts ended and he relaxed. A blackness
swept over his brain and wiped out terror. There was no
more panic. He felt drowsy and wanted to sleep. He
gave up all attempts. He forgot everything. When he
came to his senses, he found himself lying on his
stomach beside the pool vomiting. The boy who had
thrown him in said, “I was only fooling.” Someone said
that the kid had nearly died. Then they took him to the
locker room.
He walked home after several hours. He was weak and
trembling. He shook and cried when he lay on his bed.
He couldn’t eat that night. For days a haunting fear was
in his heart. He never went back to the pool. He feared
water and avoided it whenever he could.
A few years later, he came to know the waters of the
Cascades. He wanted to get into them. Whenever he
did so, the terror that had seized him in the pool,
returned. His legs would become paralysed. An icy
horror would grab his heart. This handicap remained
with him even as time passed. Wherever he went, the
haunting fear of water followed him. It ruined his fishing
trips. It deprived him of the joy of canoeing, boating, and
swimming.
He used every method he knew to overcome his fear.
Finally, he decided to get an instructor and learn to
swim. He went to a pool and practised five days a week,
an hour each day. The instructor put a belt around him.
A rope attached to the belt went through a pulley on an
overhead cable. He held on to the end of the rope. They
went on this way for many weeks. On each trip across
the pool a bit of panic seized him. Each time the
instructor relaxed his hold on the rope and the author
went under water, some of the old terror returned and
his legs froze.
It was three months before the tension began to slack.
Then the instructor taught him to put his face under
water and exhale, and to raise his nose and inhale. He
repeated the exercise hundreds of time. Very slowly, he
shed some of the old panic as his head went under
water.
Then the instructor held him at the side of the pool and
had him kick with his legs. He did so for weeks.
Gradually his legs relaxed. Thus, piece by piece, he
built a swimmer. When he had perfected each piece, he
put them together into an integrated whole. He had
started practising in October and in April the trainer told
him that he could swim. He asked the author to dive off
and swim the length of the pool. He began with crawl
stroke.
When he swam alone in the pool tiny remnants of the
old terror would return. But now he could rebuke his
terror. This went on till July. He was still not satisfied. So
he went to Lake Wentworth in New Hampshire. There
he dived off a dock at Triggs Island. He swam two miles
across the lake to Stamp Act Island. He swam the
crawl, breast stroke, side stroke and back stroke. The
terror returned only once. When he was in the middle of
the lake, he put his face under and saw nothing but
bottomless water. He asked terror what it could do to
him and it fled away.
Some doubts still remained. So he went up the Tieton to
Conrad Meadows, up the Conrad Trail to Meade
Glacier. He camped in the high meadow by the side of
Warm Lake. Next morning, he dived into the lake and
swam across to the other shore and back. He shouted
with joy, and Gilbert Peak returned the echo. He had
conquered his fear of water.
The experience had a deeper meaning for him. Only
those who have known stark terror and conquered it can
appreciate it. In death there is peace. There is terror
only in the fear of death. Roosevelt knew it. He said, “All
we have to fear is fear itself.” Douglas had experienced
both the sensation of dying and the terror that fear of it
can produce. The will to live somehow grew in intensity.
At last Douglas felt liberated. He was free to walk the
trails and climb the peaks and to ignore (dismiss) fear.

THE RATTRAP
Once there was a man who went around selling small
rattraps of wire. He made them himself but his business
was not profitable. So, he had to beg and steal a bit to
keep himself alive. His clothes were in rags, his cheeks
were sunken and hunger could be noticed in his eyes.
His life was sad and monotonous. He had no company.
One day, he was struck by an idea that the whole world
was nothing but a big rattrap. It set baits for people by
offering riches and joys, shelter and food, heat and
clothing exactly as the rattrap offered cheese and pork.
As soon as anyone let himself be tempted to touch the
bait, the rattrap closed in on him, and then everything
came to an end.
One dark evening he was walking slowly with heavy
steps when he saw a little gray cottage by the roadside.
He knocked at the door to ask shelter for the night. The
owner was an old man. He had no wife or child. He was
happy to get someone to talk to in his loneliness. He
served him porridge for supper and gave him tobacco
for his pipe. Then he got out an old pack of cards and
played “mjölis” with his guest till bed time.
The host had been a crofter at Ramsjö Ironworks in his
days of prosperity. He had worked on the land. Now he
was unable to do day labour. It was his cow that
supported him. This extraordinary cow could give milk
for the creamery everyday. He informed the stranger
that last month he had received all of thirty kronor in
payment. The crofter showed his guest three wrinkled
tenkronor bills, which he had taken out of a leather
pouch hanging on a nail in the window frame.
The next day both men got up early. The crofter was in
a hurry to milk his cow. The other man did not want to
stay in bed when his host had got up. They left the
cottage at the same time. The crofter locked the door
and put the key in his pocket. The man with the rattraps
said goodbye and thanked his host and went away. Half
an hour later the rattrap peddler returned. He broke a
window pane, stuck in his hand, and got hold of the
pouch with the thirty kronor. He took out the money and
thrust it into his pocket. Then he hung the leather pouch
very carefully back in its place and went away.
He felt pleased with his smartness. Then he realised
that he dared not continue on the public highway. So,
he took to the woods. He got into a big and confusing
forest. He kept on walking without coming to the end of
the forest. He realised that he had only been walking
around in the same part of the forest. He thought that he
had let himself be fooled by a bait and had been caught.
The whole forest seemed to him like an impenetrable
prison from which he could never escape.
It was late in December. Darkness increased the danger
as also his gloom and despair. He sank down on the
ground as he was quite tired. He heard the sound of
hammer strokes. He summoned all his strength, got up
and staggered in the direction of the sound. He reached
a forge where the master smith and his helper sat near
the furnace waiting for the pig iron to be ready to put on
the anvil. There were many sounds—big bellows
groaned, burning coal cracked, the fire boy shovelled
charcoal with a great deal of clatter, the waterfall roared,
a sharp north wind whipped the rain against the brick-
tiled roof. On account of all these noises the blacksmith
did not notice that a man had opened the gate and
entered the forge until the stranger stood close up to the
furnace.
The blacksmiths glanced only casually and indifferently
at the intruder with a long beard, dirty, ragged and with
a bunch of rattraps dangling on his chest. The peddler
asked for permission to stay. The master blacksmith
nodded a haughty consent without saying a word. Just
then the ironmaster who owned the Ramsjo iron mill
came into the forge on one of his nightly rounds of
inspection.
The ironmaster saw that a person in dirty torn clothes
had moved so close to the furnace that steam was
rising from his wet rags. He walked close up to him,
looked him over very carefully. Then he tore off his hat,
which had a wide flexible brim, to get a better view of
his face. He called him ‘Nils Olof and wondered how he
looked.
The man with the rattraps had never before seen the
ironmaster at Ramsjo and did not even know what his
name was. He thought that the ironmaster might
perhaps throw his old acquaintance a couple to kronor.
So, he did not tell him that he was mistaken. The
ironmaster observed that he should not have resigned
from the regiment. Then he asked the stranger to come
home with him. The tramp did not agree. He thought of
the thirty kronor. Going up to the manor house would be
like throwing himself into the lion’s den.
The ironmaster assumed that he felt embarrassed
because of his miserable clothing. He said that his wife,
Elizabeth was dead, his boys were abroad and only his
oldest daughter was with him. He invited the stranger to
spend Christmas with them. The stranger said “no”
thrice. The ironmaster told Stjernstrom, the blacksmith
that Captain von Stahle preferred to stay with him that
night. He laughed to himself and went away.
Half an hour later, the sound of carriage wheels was
heard outside the forge. The ironmaster’s daughter
came there, followed by a valet, carrying a big fur coat.
She introduced herself as Edla Willmansson. She
noticed that the man was afraid. She thought that either
he had stolen something or else he had escaped from
jail. She, however assured him that he would be allowed
to leave them just as freely as he had come. She
addressed him as captain and requested him to stay
with them over Christmas Eve. She said this in such a
friendly manner that the rattrap peddler agreed to go
with her. The fur coat was thrown over his rags and he
followed the young lady to the carriage. On the way the
peddler thought why he had taken that fellow’s money.
He was sitting in the trap and would never get out of it.
The next day was Christmas Eve. The ironmaster came
into the dining room for breakfast. He thought of his old
regimental comrade whom he had met so unexpectedly.
He felt satisfied and talked of feeding him well and
giving him some honourable job. His daughter remarked
that last night she did not notice anything about him to
show that he had once been an educated man. The
ironmaster asked her to have patience and let him get
clean and dressed up. Then she would see something
different. The tramp manners would fall away from him
with the tramp clothes.
Just then the stranger entered in a good-looking suit of
clothes, a white shirt with a starched collar and whole
shoes. Although he was well groomed, the ironmaster
did not seem pleased. He realised that he had made a
mistake last night. Now in broad daylight, it was
impossible to mistake him for an old acquaintance. The
stranger made no attempt to dissemble. He explained
that it was not his fault. He had never pretended to be
anything but a poor trader. He had requested the
Ironmaster to let him stay in the forge. He was ready to
put on his rags and go away.
The ironmaster thought that it was not honest on the
part of the man and wanted to call the sheriff. The tramp
then told the ironmaster that the whole world was
nothing but a big rattrap. All the good things that were
offered to him were nothing but cheese rinds and bits of
pork, set out to drag a poor fellow into trouble. The
sheriff may lock him up for this. He warned the
Ironmaster that a day might come when he might want
to get a big piece of pork, and then he would get caught
in the trap.
The ironmaster began to laugh. He dropped the idea of
informing the sheriff. However, he asked the tramp to
leave and opened the door. Just then his daughter
entered and asked her. father what he was doing. That
morning she was quite happy. She wanted to make
things for the wretch quite homelike. So, she spoke in
favour of the vagabond. She wanted him to enjoy a day
of peace with them—just one in the whole year. She
knew that there was a mistake but they should not
chase away a human being whom they had asked to
come there and promised Christmas cheer. The
ironmaster hoped that she wouldn’t have to regret that.
The young girl led the stranger upto table and asked
him to sit and eat. The man did not say a word but
helped himself to the food. He looked at the girl and
wondered why she had intervened for him. Christmas
Eve passed at Ramsjo just as it always had. The
stranger did not cause any trouble because he did
nothing but sleep. They woke him up that he could have
his meals. In the evening, the Christmas tree was
lighted. Two hours later he was around once again to
eat the Christmas fish and porridge. After getting up
from the table he went around and said thank you’ and
good night’ to everyone present. The girl told him that
the suit he wore was to be a Christmas present and he
did not have to return it. If he wanted to spend the next
Christmas Eve in peace, he would be welcomed back
again. The man with the rattraps did not answer. He
only stared at the young girl in limitless amazement.
The next morning the ironmaster and his daughter got
up early and went to Christmas service. They drove
back at about ten o’clock. The young girl sat, and hung
her head even more dejectedly than usual. At church
she had learnt that an old crofter of the iron works had
been robbed by a man who went around selling
rattraps. The ironmaster feared that the man might have
stolen many silver spoons from the cupboard. As the
wagon stopped at the front steps, the ironmaster asked
the valet about the stranger. The valet told him that the
stranger had left. He had not taken anything with him at
all, but he had left a package for Miss Willmansson as a
Christmas present.
On opening the package, she gave a little cry of joy.
She found a small rattrap, and in it lay three wrinkled
ten kronor notes. There was also a letter addressed to
her. He did not want her to be embarrassed by a thief
but act as a captain. He requested her to return the
money to the old man on the roadside, who had money
pouch hanging on the window frame as a bait for the
poor wanderers. The rattrap was a Christmas present
from a rat who would have been caught in this world’s
rattrap if he had not been raised to captain, because in
that way he got power to clear himself

The Indigo
In December 1916 Gandhi went to Lucknow to attend
the annual convention of the Indian National Congress.
There were 2,301 delegates and many visitors. A
peasant from Champaran, Rajkumar Shukla, asked
Gandhi to visit his district. Shukla followed Gandhi,
wherever he went. In 1917, Gandhi and Shukla boarded
a train for Patna. Shukla led Gandhi to the house of a
lawyer named Rajendra Prasad. They could not see him
as he was out of town.
Gandhi decided to go first to Muzaffarpur to obtain
complete information about the conditions in
Champaran. He reached Muzaffarpur by train at
midnight on 15 April 1917. Professor J.B. Kriplani,
received him at the station. Gandhi stayed there for two
days. The news of Gandhi’s arrival and the nature of his
mission spread quickly through Muzaffarpur and to
Champaran. Sharecroppers from Champaran began
arriving there. Muzaffarpur lawyers briefed Gandhi
about the court cases. He chided the lawyers for
collecting big fees from the sharecroppers. He thought
that lawcourts were useless for the crushed and fear-
stricken peasants. The real relief for them was to be
free from fear.
Then Gandhi arrived in Champaran. He began by trying
to get the facts from the secretary of the British
landlords’ association. He refused to give information to
an outsider. Gandhi said that he was not an outsider.
Next, Gandhi called on the British official commissioner
of the Tirhut division. The commissioner started bullying
Gandhi and advised him to leave Tirhut. Instead of
leaving the area, Gandhi went to Motihari, the Capital of
Champaran. Several lawyers accompanied him. A large
crowd of people greeted Gandhi at the railway station. It
was the beginning of their liberation from fear of the
British.
A peasant had been maltreated in a nearby village. The
next morning Gandhi started out on the back of an
elephant. Soon he was stopped by the police
superintendent’s messenger and ordered to return to
town in his carriage. Gandhi complied. The messenger
drove Gandhi home. Then he served him with an official
notice to quit Champaran at once. Gandhi signed the
receipt for the notice and wrote on it that he would
disobey the order. Gandhi received a summons to
appear in court the next day. At night Gandhi
telegraphed Rajendra Prasad, sent instructions to the
ashram and wired a full report to the Viceroy.
Thousands of peasants gathered around the court
house. The officials felt powerless. The authorities
wished to consult their superiors. Gandhi protested
against the delay. The magistrate announced that he
would pronounce sentence after a two-hour recess. He
asked Gandhi to furnish bail for those 120 minutes.
Gandhi refused. The judge released him without bail.
The court started again after a break. The judge said he
would not deliver the judgement for several days. He
allowed Gandhi to remain at liberty.
Gandhi asked the prominent lawyers about the injustice
to the sharecroppers. They consulted among
themselves. Then they told Gandhi that they were ready
to follow him into jail. Gandhi then divided the group into
pairs and fixed the order in which each pair was to court
arrest. After several days, Gandhi was informed by the
magistrate that the case had been dropped. For the first
time in modern India, civil disobedience had triumphed.
Gandhi and lawyers conducted an inquiry into the
complaints of the peasants. About ten thousand
peasants deposed. Documents were collected. Gandhi
was summoned by Sir Edward Gait, the Lieutenant-
Governor. He met the Lieutenant Governor four times.
An official commission of inquiry was appointed.
Gandhi remained in Champaran initially for seven
months and then came for several shorter visits. The
official inquiry assembled evidence against the big
planters. They agreed in principle to make refunds to
the peasants. Gandhi asked only 50 per cent. The
representative of the planters offered to refund up to 25
per cent. Gandhi agreed. The deadlock was broken.
Gandhi explained that the amount of the refund was
less important than the fact that the landlords had been
forced to give some money and their prestige. The
peasant now saw that he had rights and defenders. He
learned courage. Events justified Gandhi’s position.
Within a few years the British planters abandoned their
estates. These now went back to the peasants. Indigo
sharecropping disappeared.
Gandhi wanted to do something to remove the cultural
and social backwardness in Champaran villages. He
appealed for teachers. Two young disciples of Gandhi,
Mahadev Desai and Narhari Parikh, and their wives
volunteered for work. Several more came from Bombay,
Poona and other distant parts of the land. Devdas,
Gandhi’s youngest son, arrived from the ashram and so
did Mrs. Gandhi. Primary schools were opened in six
villages. Kasturba taught the ashram rules on personal
cleanliness and community sanitation.
Health conditions were miserable. Gandhi got a doctor
to volunteer his services for six months. Three
medicines were available : castor oil, quinine and
sulphur ointment. Gandhi noticed the filthy state of
women’s clothes. One woman told Kasturba that she
had only one sari. During his long stay in Champaran,
Gandhi kept a long distance watch on the ashram and
sent regular instructions by mail.
The Champaran episode was a turning point in
Gandhi’s life. It did not begin as an act of defiance. It
grew out of an attempt to lessen the sufferings of the
poor peasants. Gandhi’s politics was closely connected
with the practical day to day problems of the millions.
He tried to mould a new free Indian who could stand on
his own feet and thus make India free.
Gandhi also taught his followers a lesson in self-
reliance. Gandhi’s lawyer friends thought that it would
be a good idea for Charles Freer Andrews, the English
pacifist, to stay in Champaran and help them. Andrews
was willing if Gandhi agreed. But Gandhi opposed it
forcefully. He said, “The cause is just and you must rely
upon yourselves to win the battle.”
Thus, self-reliance, Indian independence and help to
sharecroppers were all bound together.