Character Sketch of Rajkumar Shukla ('Indigo' by Louis Fischer))


Rajkumar shukla was an illiterate poor sharecropper of Champaran, Bihar. He was born on 23 August 1875 at a village Satwaria of Champaran Bihar. During the thirty first session of the Congress in Lucknow in 1916 Shukla met Mahatma Gandhiji as a representative of farmers from Champaran who requested Gandhiji to visit his district to see himself miseries of Indigo sharecroppers there. Because most of the arable lands of Champaran was divided into large estates owned by Englishmen.
They forced the Indian tenants to plant 15% of their holdings with Indigo and surrender the entire Indigo harvest as rent. After the landlords learned that Germany had developed synthetic Indigo, they asked for compensation from the sharecroppers for being released from the 15% arrangement. The sharecropping arrangement was irksome and so many peasants signed willingly. However, some of them engaged lawyers. Meanwhile, the news of synthetic Indigo reached the sharecroppers and they felt cheated, unhappy and then became resentful. They wanted their money back and one of them was Rakumar Shukla. He wanted justice on behalf of Indian poor sharecroppers. He wanted to show the entire episode to Mahatma Gandhi, so that Gandhiji could help them. Though, it took a long time for Shukla to take Gandhiji to his district Champaran but he didn't aback without taking Gandhiji to his district. He visited with Gandhiji every village to village in his Indigo movement and made it successful. Rajkumar Shukla was loyal with heartily honest man who raised his voice against the landlord system. He wanted let Indigo sharecropping should get end forever and farmers could cultivate their crops by their choice.

   

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Character sketch of Saheb-e-Alam ('Lost Spring' by Anees Jung))

Character Sketch of Mukesh ('Lost Spring' by Anees Jung)

Character sketch of M. Hamel ('The Last Lesson' by Alphonse Daudet))