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Gandhi visited the secretary of the British landlordsтАЩ association to collect information about his cause of assisting the indigo sharecroppers. They refused to give information to an outsider but Gandhi stated emphatically that he was no outsider.
When the British official commissioner of the Tirhut division asked Gandhi to leave Tirhut, he refused. Even when the messenger served him with an official notice to quit Champaran, Gandhi signed a receipt for the notice and wrote on it that he would disobey the order. He disregarded the order to leave, тАЬnot for want of respect for lawful authority, but in obedience to the higher law of our being, the voice of conscienceтАЭ.
He organised a gathering of peasants at Motihari, around the courthouse, which was the beginning of their liberation from fear of the British. Nevertheless, Gandhi cooperated with the officials to regulate the crowd. He was polite and friendly. He gave them concrete proof that their might could be challenged by Indians.
He inspired the lawyers to fight the injustice meted out to the sharecroppers. He organised them in pairs and formulated the order in which each pair was to court arrest. He demonstrated by his own example how peaceful protest and non-violence could be useful tools to achieve results. He used similar philosophy when he carried out satyagraha later in his political career.