• List the words used in the text that are related to legal procedures.

For example: deposition

• List other words that you know that fall into this category.

Notice the use or non-use of the comma in the following sentences.

(a) When I first visited Gandhi in 1942 at his ashram in Sevagram, he told me what happened in Champaran.

(b) He had not proceeded far when the police superintendent’s messenger overtook him.

(c) When the court reconvened, the judge said he would not deliver the judgment for several days.

Notice the sentences in the text which are in ‘direct speech’.

Why does the author use quotations in his narration?

(i) Choose an issue that has provoked a controversy like the Bhopal Gas Tragedy or the Narmada Dam Project in which the lives of the poor have been affected.

(ii) Find out the facts of the case.

(iii) Present your arguments.

(iv) Suggest a possible settlement.

Strike out what is not true in the following.

Rajkumar Shukla was

(i) poor.

(ii) physically strong.

(iii) illiterate.

• List the words used in the text that are related to legal procedures.

For example: deposition

• List other words that you know that fall into this category.

What did the peasants pay the British landlords as rent? What did the British now want instead and why? What would be the impact of synthetic indigo on the prices of natural indigo?

How did the episode change the plight of the peasants?

The events in this part of the text illustrate Gandhi’s method of working. Can you identify some instances of this method and link them to his ideas of satyagraha and non-violence?

Strike out what is not true in the following.

Rajkumar Shukla was

(i) a sharecropper.

(ii) a politician.

(iii) delegate.

(iv) a landlord

Why is Rajkumar Shukla described as being ‘resolute’?