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M. K. Gandhi, Ashram Observance in Action (Ahmedabad: Navajivan Publication House, in soft copy), pp.5-8 Hand-weaving was the principal industry with some carpentry as accessory to it. No servants were engaged; therefore cooking, sanitation, fetching water, - everything was attended to by the Ashramites. Truth and other observances were obligatory on them all. Distinctions of caste were not observed. Untouchability had not only no place in the Ashram, but its eradication from Hindu society was one of our principal objectives. Emancipation of women from some customary bonds was insisted upon from the first. Therefore women in the Ashram enjoy full freedom. Then again it was an Ashram rule that persons following a particular faith should have the same feeling for followers of other faiths as for their coreligionists........... In the Champaran district of Bihar, the cultivators were forced by Europeans to grow indigo, a blue dye, and this imposed on them untold sufferings. They could not grow the food they needed, nor did they receive adequate payment for the indigo. Gandhi was unaware of this until an agriculturist from Bihar, Rajkumar Shukla, met him and told him of the woes of the people of Champaran. He requested Gandhi to go to the place and see for himself the state of affairs there. Gandhi was them attending the Congress meeting at Lucknow and he did not have time to go there. Rajkumar Shukla followed him about, begging him to come and help the suffering villagers in Champaran. Gandhi at last promised to visit the place after he had visited Calcutta. When Gandhi was in Calcutta, Rajkumar was there too, to take him to Bihar. My.Ex.1, op.cit., pp.377-84 My.Ex. 1 p371 My.Ex.1, p370 Indian peasants in Champaran campaign for rights, 1917, http://nvdatabase.swarthmore.edu/content/indian-peasantschamparan-campaign-rights-1917, accessed on 11 February 2014 M. K. Gandhi, Auet, op.cit, p.393 Ahmedabad Satyagraha, http://www.wowessays.com/dbase/adi/bsw271.shtml, accessed on 17 January 2014
Gandhi & Jainism Pg. 109
