What Champaran Meant To Gandhi, The Telegraph

A hundred years ago this week, Mohandas K. Gandhi arrived in the district of Champaran in north Bihar. He spent several months in the district, studying the problems of the peasantry, who had been forced by European planters to cultivate indigo against their will. Farmers who refused to meet this obligation had their land confiscated.

Through his interventions with the colonial state, Gandhi was able to get substantial concessions for the peasantry. Rents were radically reduced, and the compu...