Question -
Answer -
Most of the cultivable land in the Champaran district was divided into large estates owned by Englishmen where Indian tenants worked. The chief commercial crop was indigo. The landlords forced the tenants to plant fifteen per cent of their land with indigo and give up the whole indigo harvest as rent. The landlords had learned how Germany had developed synthetic indigo. Thus, they forced the sharecroppers to sign agreements to pay them compensation to be released from the fifteen per cent arrangement.
The sharecroppers, who refused this arrangement, engaged lawyers, and to counter them, the landlords hired thugs. But, when the information about synthetic indigo reached the peasants who had signed the agreement, they wanted their money back.