Thick brick walls with plaster peeling off at the edges, massive round pillars that support a beam and a half crumbled tiled-roof, and broken glass panes attached to weather-beaten wooden doors are all that are left of an edifice that used to be the symbol of the all-powerful British at the turn of the nineteenth century in the Champaran region of Bihar bordering Nepal.
This is Neel (Nilaha in the local dialect) Kothi, or mansion that used to the home of British officials. Nestled under a grey monsoon sky, expansive wheat fields and mud-baked village homes, the kothi stands out from a distance for its size and neglect.
Inside the kothi, through the breaches in the walls and the high roof, the suns attempts to peek in, only to be lost in the cobwebs and twisted ceiling fans.
Of the 90-odd Neel Kothis in Champaran, the one in Barhharwa-Lakhansen village is the only that is still standing. To its left is an erstwhile red-bricked factory, now crumbling with grass and wild plants creeping up on its boundary wall.
The word Neel comes from indigo. It came to be commercially grown in Champaran after the British heard of the high quality of indigo grown here.
As the West discovered the dye and indigo turned out to be an excellent medium, they saw a huge potential for profit by feeding the mammoth cloth industry in England, particularly Manchester. The British used the indigo to export to China, the United Kingdom and Europe.
But being a cash crop that needed high amount of water, local farmers opposed the cultivation of indigo as it left their fields infertile for long periods. The farmers instead favoured growing crops such as rice and pulses.
But the British colonialists would have none of it and forced the farmers to grow indigo. Word of this exploitation reached Gandhi, who made Champaran his home for nearly a year and became the site of his first satyagraha movement.
Even 102 years after Gandhi launched the first civil disobedience movement, the scars of the exploitation are such that the Neel Kothi is objects of deep hate.
“No one goes there,” said an elderly man pointing to the biggest one in Belha village. “The whole village believes it to be the abode of ghosts where our ancestors were traumatised by the British.”
“They are objects of spite,” said Mukesh Kumar, 55, a labourer. He recalled his grandfather and father telling him about how labourers and farmers unwilling to cultivate indigo were stripped, beaten and hung by the British.
“They committed such atrocities, which are unspeakable. That’s what my forefathers said. In fact, villagers abhor the place. Even today, people passing by spit towards the building. They even urinate, defecate and throw in carcasses of animals deliberately. That’s because of the persisting hate,” Mukesh said.
Munna Ram, 45, a vendor said, “We have taught our children to keep away from the vestiges of the British raj. There are evil spirits in there.”
“Manhoos hai woh zameen. Purwajon ka shrap hai (It’s the land of ill omen and cursed by our ancestors),” said Mohammad Darul Haq and Ramanand Sahni, both farmers.CB Pandey, the founding secretary of the Gandhi Sangrahalaya Samiti, said the farmers who refused to fall in line were humiliated by planters in various ways. “They abducted newly-married women. Brides were whisked away from palanquins and villagers forced to enter bonded slavery for their release. Champaran’s indigo found buyers in many countries, from China to Germany and England,” he said.
“The stories that we hear make us feel terrible. For some strange reason, even stray dogs do not venture into the kothi compounds,” said Suresh Kumar, a teacher at the Belha High School. “We shun this place. It’s called ‘soshan ka pokhar’ (waters of exploitation),” said Daroga Manjhi, the husband of the woman mukhiya of the panchayat.
For the young generation here, Gandhi is a legend whom they “hear of once a while.” But to the older generation such as Surendra Kumar Singh, 80, and Ayodhya Raut, 78, of Noorpur village, “he was God incarnate and liberator of our ancestors.”
Yet, the region’s Gandhi connect has not helped it prosper. Reaching Barhharwa-Lakhansen village is in itself an adventure of sorts. Some 35 km as the crow flies north of Motihari is the nondescript hamlet. Roads are few and far between, Maoists regularly make cross-border incursions, and law and order is almost non-existent.
The hamlet of some 200 houses, mostly kutchha, is home to labourers and marginal farmers. No one wants to visit it, least of all district officials, who avoid coming here. There is no electricity and the lone source of water, a slushy pond, is used by cattle and humans alike.
It was a letter written to Gandhi in 1916, two years after he arrived in India from South Africa, that led him to Champaran. Raj Kumar Shukla, a farmer pauperized by the forced indigo farming, wrote: “Bapu, we the people of Champaran are subjected to extreme levels of atrocities.
Our ‘ghar ki izzat’ (women) and newly-married women (bahu-beti) are exploited. We are coerced and beaten up and forced to cultivate blue dye on our own land at our own cost under the teen-kathiya system. Please come and see for yourself the hell that has been unleashed upon us.”
Gandhi, then attending the 31st session of the Congress between December 26 and 30 in 1916, was moved to answer the call, arriving in Motihari on April 15, 1917 by train to a historic and tumultuous welcome.
He was later to mention Champaran in a letter in 1921 to Miraben, saying: “It was Champaran that introduced me to India.”
“Gandhi stayed in Champaran for over nine months of which six-and-a half were spent in Barharwa-Lakhansen and Belha villages. He visited 18 villages in the area on foot, hearing out some 8,000 farmer and complainants. Their stories moved him to tears and he decided on satyagraha as the tool of total resistance,” said Mohammad Kamal Hussein, secretary of the Mahatma Gandhi Memorial-cum village development committee at Barharwa-Lakhansen.
The older generation recalled the notice from the then Champaran District Magistrate W.B. Haycock, asking him to leave the area at once. “Gandhi was directed on April 16, 1917, to leave the district by the first available train as it was felt that his presence would create a law and order problem. The answer was a firm no from Gandhi,” said Dr R.K. Verma, a satyagraha researcher.
Verma said Gandhi was summoned to court on April 18, 1917. The magistrate told Gandhi that if he were to leave, no charges would be pressed. But Gandhi refused saying, “I have come to render humanitarian and national service. I shall make Champaran my home for the suffering people,” Verma said. “The rest is history.”
Gandhi opened the first basic school some three hours drive away, which was modeled on the Tolstoy Farm in South Africa, to impart make the students self-sufficient by way of learning a trade. But, the Barhharwa-Lakhansen and Belha villages have no schools. A car arriving in the village is an object of much curiosity and its occupants instantly became the centre of suspicion.
The Bihar government had proposed an ITI and a stadium at Belha Kothi on the 52 acres that belonged to the indigo planters some time back. Nothing has been done since. A basic hospital is in the initial stages of construction and just about 100-metre of road is metalled.
As if to add insult to his memory, a bust of Gandhi put up by villagers through donation was ‘beheaded’ by anti-socials a couple of days after Rural Development Minister Sharvan Kumar inaugurated the site. An FIR was lodged but the culprits are still at large.“That was atrocious. We suspect some people. But in the land of Gandhi, villagers still would like to practice ahimsa,” said Mukesh Das, a youth.
Messiah
Champaran in Bihar gave shape to Mahatma Gandhi’s political philosophy of Satyagraha, which he used to start a movement against Indigo Planters here in 1917
The Indigo Planters had unleashed atrocities on farmers in their bid to force them to cultivate Indigo on their land at their own cost to feed the cloth industry in England
History records that Planters even abducted wives of farmers in order to force them to the Tin-Kathiya system. Those who refused were beaten up, even hung.
Tinkathia was the system under which the farmers were forced to cultivate Indigo on three katha land out of every 20 katha (Bigha) of land. A Bigha is a landholding measure which is little less than an acre
It was a letter from a farmer, Raj Kumar Shukla, which forced Gandhi, who returned from South Africa, to make his way to Champaran.
Gandhi met over 8,000 farmer complainants who were forced to work for some 70 Indigo planters, traversing his way from village to village in present-day East and West Champaran districts of Bihar villages of Bhelwa, Barharwa-Lakhansen where he spent over six of the nine months during Champaran movement today lie forsaken, with no roads or basic facilities.
It was here that the movement was joined by the likes of Dr Rajendra Prasad and Sacchidanand Sinha, then budding lawyers, who later came to play a big hand in the national movement