Shadowing Practice: Indigo Class 12 animation in English - Learn English Speaking with Video
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205 sentences
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When I first visited Gandhi in 1942 at his ashram in Sevigaram,
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he said, I will tell you how it happened that I decided to urge the departure of the British.
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It was in 1917.
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He had gone to the December 1916 annual meeting of the Indian National Congress in Lucknow.
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There were 2,301 representatives and many visitors.
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A peasant came up to me.
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He said, I am Rajkumar Shukra.
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I am from Champaran, and I want you to come to my district.
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Gandhi had never heard of that place.
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It was in the foothills of the Himalayas.
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At that time, the Champaran peasants were sharecroppers.
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Means, they got only a share of the crops.
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Rajkumar was one of them.
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He was illiterate, but determined.
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He had come to the Congress session to complain about the injustice of the landlord system in Bihar,
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and somebody probably had suggested him to go to Gandhi.
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Rajkumar, I have an appointment in Karnapur, and I also have to go to other parts of India.
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I'll accompany you.
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The peasant accompanied him everywhere.
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At last, Gandhi returned to the ashram near Ahmedabad.
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Rajkumar followed him to his ashram.
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For weeks, he stayed there.
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Fix a date.
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Gandhi was impressed by his determination.
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I have to be in Calcutta on such and such a date.
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Come and meet me and take me from there.
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Months passed.
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When Gandhi arrived at the appointment in Calcutta, he waited till Gandhi was free.
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Then, they both boarded a train for the city of Patna in Bihar.
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There, Rajkumar led him to the house of a lawyer named Rajendra Prasad.
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Yes, the one who later became the first president of India.
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He was out of the town.
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But the servants knew Rajkumar as a poor landlord, who disturbed Rajendra Prasad to help the indigo sharecroppers.
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So they let him and his companion Gandhi to stay there.
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But they thought of Gandhi to be another peasant.
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Gandhi was not permitted to draw water from the well.
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They didn't know if he was untouchable or not.
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If he were, some drops from his bucket could pollute the entire source.
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Gandhi decided to go to Musafarpur, which was on the way to Chaparren,
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to obtain more complete information about the conditions.
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He sent a telegram to Professor J.
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B. Kripalaini of the Arts College in Musafarpur.
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The train reached at midnight on the 15th of April, 1917.
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At the station, Kripalani was standing with a large group of boys.
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Gandhi stayed there for two days. Where?
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In the home of Professor Malkani, a teacher in a government school.
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It was an extraordinary thing in those days for a government professor to give shelter to a man like me.
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But Professor Morghany let me stay.
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The news of Gandhi's arrival spread quickly through Musa Farper, and also to Chaparren.
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Sharecroppers from Chaparren and lawyers of Musa Farper met him.
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The lawyers frequently fought cases in the court for the peasants.
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They told him about their cases, and reported the size of their fee.
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You shouldn't collect such big fee from the sharecroppers.
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I have come to the conclusion that we should stop going law courts.
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Taking such cases to the law courts does no good.
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Where the peasants are so crushed and fear-stricken, law courts are useless.
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The real relief for them is to be free from fear.
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The cropland in Chaparren was divided into large estates owned by Englishmen and worked by Indian peasants.
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The chief commercial crop was indigo.
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The landlords forced them to plant three-twentieths of their land, that is, 15% of their land with indigo,
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and give all the indigo harvest as rent.
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Then, the landlords came to know that Germany had developed synthetic indigo.
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Indigo plantation was not profitable anymore.
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Now, the peasants had to pay them compensation for being released from the 15% system.
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The sherry-cropping arrangement was troublesome to the peasants, still, many agreed.
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Those who opposed, were tortured by thugs, hired by the landlords.
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Meanwhile, the information about synthetic indigo reached illiterate peasants.
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Now they wanted their money back.
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At this point, Gandhi arrived in Chaparren.
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He began by trying to get the facts.
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First, he visited the secretary of the British Landlords Association.
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We can't give information to an outsider.
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I am not an outsider.
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Next, he went to the British official commissioner of the Tearhut Division.
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Chaparim District laid in the Tearhut Division.
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The commissioner began to frighten me and advised me to leave Tearhut.
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He didn't leave.
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Instead, he proceeded to Motohari, the capital of Champurin.
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At the station, a huge crowd greeted him.
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He went to a house, and using it as headquarters, continued his investigations.
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A report came in that a peasant had been maltreated in a village nearby.
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Gandhi decided to go and see.
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The next morning, he started out on the back of an elephant.
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On the way, a messenger of the police superintendent ordered him to return to his town.
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Gandhi obeyed.
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He was served a notice to leave Jamparin immediately.
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Gandhi signed a receipt for the notice and wrote on it that he would disobey the order.
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Because of this, Gandhi received a court's order to appear in the court next day.
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All night, he remained awake.
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He telegraphed Rajendra to come with his influential friends.
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He sent instructions to the ashram.
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He wired a full report to the viceroy.
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The next morning, thousands of peasants demonstrated to support Gandhi.
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Their demonstration around the courthouse was the beginning of their liberation from fear of the British.
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The officials felt helpless.
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Gandhi helped to control the crowd.
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He was polite and friendly.
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The government was baffled.
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The government's advocate requested the judge to postpone the trial.
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Gandhi protested against the delay.
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He made the statement.
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obey the higher law of our being, the voice of inner being.
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I accept my fault.
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I will pronounce the sentence after a two-hour recess.
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You have to present your bail for those two hours.
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Bail means security for release.
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I can't give any bail.
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The judge released him without a bail.
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When the court was reconvened after two hours, he said, I will not deliver any judgment for some days.
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For that period, Gandhi will remain in liberty.
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Rajendra, Bri Kisarabu, Maulana Mazurul, and several other lawyers had arrived.
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They discussed with Gandhi.
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What would you do if I were sentenced to prison?
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The senior lawyer said.
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We had come to advise and help you.
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If you went to jail, there would be nobody to advise, and we would go home.
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What about the injustice to the sharecroppers?
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After the consultations, Rajendra concluded.
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They thought, amongst themselves, that Gandhi was totally a stranger.
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He was prepared to go to prison for the sake of peasants.
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They are being not only residents of the nearby districts, but also those who have claimed to help the peasants.
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If they should go home, it would be a shameful leaving.
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They all went back to Gandhi and told him that if he would be sentenced to prison in the next trial, they were ready to follow him into jail.
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Seeing their cooperation, he exclaimed, The Battle of Champaran is won.
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He took a piece of paper and divided the group into pairs
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and put down the arrangement in which each pair would surrender in the court.
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Several days later, Gandhi received a letter from the magistrate informing him
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that the lieutenant governor had ordered the case to be dropped.
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Civil disobedience had triumphed, first time in modern India.
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Now, Gandhi and the lawyers began to conduct investigation into the complaints of the peasants.
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Evidences by about 10,000 peasants were written down.
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Documents were collected.
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The whole area trembled by the activity of investigators and violent protests of the landlords.
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In June, Gandhi was summoned to Sir Edward Gate, the lieutenant governor.
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Summon means to order to be present.
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Before going to him, Gandhi met the leading companions, and again detailed plans for civil disobedience.
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If he shouldn't return, there, he had four interviews with the lieutenant governor.
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As a result, the lieutenant governor appointed an official commission of inquiry into the Indigo sharecropper's situation.
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The commission consisted of landlords, government officials,
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and Gandhi as the only representative of the peasants he remained in chaperon for straight seven months
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and then again for some shorter visits the visit undertaken casually
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because of the request of a peasant in the expectation
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that it would last a few days occupied almost a year
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of gandhi's life the official inquiry collected a mountain of evidence against the big landlords when they saw this,
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they agreed to make refunds to the peasants.
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But how much must we pay?
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They thought he would demand repayment in full of the money which they had illegally and forcefully taken from the sharecroppers.
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50%!
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Jay Z.
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Hodge, a British missionary, wrote on this event.
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There, Gandhi seemed fixed.
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Thinking that he would not surrender, the representative of the landlords offered to return to extent of 25%.
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And to his amazement, Mr. Gandhi agreed, thus breaking the confusion.
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The amount of refund is less important than the fact that the landlords were forced to surrender part of their money, and with it, part of their honor.
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Therefore, as far as the peasants are concerned, the landlords have behaved as lords above law.
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Now, the The pesant can see that he have rights.
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He has learned courage.
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Events proved Gandhi's position.
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Within a few years, the British landlords abandoned their estates, which were given back to the peasants.
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Indigo sherry cropping disappeared.
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Gandhi never satisfied himself with large political or economic solutions.
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He saw the cultural and social backwardness in the Champurin villages, and wanted to do something immediately.
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Mahadev Desai, and Nairhari Parikh, two young men who had just joined Gandhi as disciples, with their wives, offered for the work.
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Several more came from Bombay, Pune and other parts.
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Gandhi's wife Kastrabi, with her son, Devadas, also arrived from the Ashram.
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Primary schools were opened in six villages.
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Castor Bai taught the ashram rules on personal cleanliness and community sanitation.
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Health conditions were miserable.
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Gandhi got a doctor to provide services for six months.
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Three medicines were available castor oil, quinine, and sulfur ointment.
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Anybody who showed a coated tongue was given castor oil.
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Anybody with malaria fever was given quinine plus castor oil.
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Anybody with skin rashes was given sulfur ointment plus castor oil.
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Gandhi noticed the dirty state of women's clothes.
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He asked castor by to talk to them about it.
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One woman took her into her hut and said, Look, there is no box or cover here for clothes.
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The sari I'm wearing is the only one I have.
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During his long stay in Chaparren, Gandhi kept a remote watch on his ashram.
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He sent regular instructions and asked for financial accounts.
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Once he wrote to the residents that it was time to fill in the old latrine gutters and dig new ones.
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Otherwise, the old ones would begin to smell bad.
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The Chaparren episode was a turning point in Gandhi's life.
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What I did was a very ordinary thing.
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I declared that the British could not order me about in my own country.
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Chaparren did not begin as an act of disobedience.
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Rather, it grew out of an effort to remove the trouble of large numbers of poor peasants.
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This was the typical Gandhi method.
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His politics were mixed up with the practical, day-to-day problems of the millions.
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He was not a loyalty to imaginary things.
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He was loyal to living, human beings.
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In everything he did, he tried to make a new free Indian, who could stand on his own feet, and thus, make India free.
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Early in Chaperin Action, C.F.
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Andrews, the English pacifist, Pacifist means, one who is against wars.
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who had become his follower, came to meet Gandhi before going to the Fiji Islands.
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Gandhi's lawyer friends thought it would be a good idea for Andrews to stay in Chaparron and help them.
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Andrews was willing if Gandhi agreed, but Gandhi opposed.
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He said to the lawyers, You think, in this unequal fight, it will be helpful if we have an Englishman on our side?
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This shows the weakness of your heart.
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The cause is fair, and you must rely on yourself to win the battle.
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You must not see a support in Mr. Andrews, because he is an Englishman.
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Rajendra Prasad comments.
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He had read our minds correctly, and we had no reply.
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Gandhi, in this way, taught us a lesson in self-reliance.
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Self-reliance, Indian independence, and help to sharecroppers, were all bound together.
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Vocabulary and speaking notes for this lesson
This B2 speaking lesson is built on the video “Indigo Class 12 animation in English”. The speaker keeps coming back to these words: Gandhi, peasant, landlord, indigo, Chaparren. This video has 204 sentences and 2118 words to shadow. The speech runs for 16:15. The speaker talks at a steady 130 words per minute, a comfortable pace for shadowing. Only 77% of the words are among the 3,000 most common in English, so the vocabulary is demanding.
Key vocabulary in this video
The 15 most advanced words in the video, with pronunciation and meaning:
| Word | Pronunciation | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| landlord noun | /ˈlæn(d).lɔɹd/ | A person that leases real property; a lessor. |
| indigo noun | /ˈɪndɪˌɡoʊ/ | A purplish-blue color. |
| ashram noun | A secluded religious hermitage inhabited by gurus, or the population of such a hermitage. | |
| sharecropper noun | A person who enters a sharecropping agreement with a land owner; one who sharecrops. | |
| castor noun | /ˈkæs.tɚ/ | A hat made from the fur of the beaver. |
| bail noun | /beɪl/ | Security, usually a sum of money, exchanged for the release of an arrested person as a guarantee of that person's appearance for trial. |
| crop noun | /kɹɑp/ | A plant, grown for it, or its fruits or seeds, to be harvested as food, livestock fodder, or fuel or for any other economic purpose. |
| disobedience noun | /dɪs.əˈbiː.dɪəns/ | Refusal to obey. |
| surrender verb | /səˈɹɛndə(ɹ)/ | To give up into the power, control, or possession of another. |
| illiterate adjective | /ɪˈlɪtəɹət/ | Unable to read and write. |
| ointment noun | /ˈɔɪn(t)m(ə)nt/ | A viscous preparation of oils and/or fats, usually containing medication, used as a treatment or as an emollient. |
| pacifist noun | /ˈpæsɪfɪst/ | One who loves, supports, or favours peace. |
| quinine noun | /ˈkwaɪ.naɪn/ | An alkaloid with the chemical formula C₂₀H₂₄N₂O₂, originally derived from cinchona bark (from plants of the genus Cinchona), used to treat malaria and as an… |
| sherry noun | /ˈʃɛɹi/ | A fortified wine produced in Jerez de la Frontera in Spain, or a similar wine produced elsewhere. |
| sulfur noun | /ˈsʌl.fə/ | A chemical element with atomic number 16, having a bright yellow color and characteristic smell, used commercially in a variety of products such as… |
Phrasal verbs you will hear
| Word | Meaning |
|---|---|
| come up to verb | To approach. |
| go back to verb | To stem from; to originate in. |
| grow out of verb | To emerge from (something); to take a particular shape as a result of (something); to come to exist from (an origin). |
| put down verb | To insult, belittle, or demean. |
| write down verb | To produce or set (something) down in writing; to record something. |
Sentences worth repeating
Short, complete lines from the video that you can reuse in everyday conversation:
- You shouldn't collect such big fee from the sharecroppers.
- We can't give information to an outsider.
- I can't give any bail.
- What would you do if I were sentenced to prison?
Grammar in this video
The structures the speaker uses most, with the exact words from the video:
| Structure | In the video |
|---|---|
| Conditional sentences if + clause, will/would + verb — a condition and its result | If you went to jail, there would be · If they should go home, it would be |
| Passive voice be + past participle — the focus is on what happens, not who does it | was impressed · was not permitted · was divided |
| Relative clauses who / which + clause — extra information about a person or thing | one who later · Musafarpur, which was · Those who opposed |
| Present perfect have/has + past participle — a past action that still matters now | have come · have claimed · have behaved |
Pronunciation to watch
The speaker uses 8 contractions and reduced forms, such as can't, didn't, shouldn't. Say them the short way, as you hear them.
- The “th” sounds: synthetic /sɪnˈθɛtɪk/, twentieth /ˈtwɛn.ti.əθ/
- The “sh” and “zh” sounds: sherry /ˈʃɛɹi/, instruction /ɪnˈstɹʌkʃən/, chaperon /ˈʃæ.pəˌɹoʊn/, shameful /ˈʃeɪmfəl/, sanitation /ˌsænɪˈteɪʃən/
- Long words — get the stress right: disobedience /dɪs.əˈbiː.dɪəns/, illiterate /ɪˈlɪtəɹət/, accompany /əˈkʌm.pə.ni/, untouchable /ʌnˈtʌtʃəbəl/, sanitation /ˌsænɪˈteɪʃən/
How to practise with this video
- Listen to the whole video once without speaking and note the words you do not know.
- Shadow it sentence by sentence at normal speed, repeating each one until your rhythm matches the speaker.
- Record yourself and compare with the original, paying attention to words like landlord, indigo, ashram.
What is the Shadowing Technique?
Shadowing is a science-backed language learning technique originally developed for professional interpreter training and popularized by polyglot Dr. Alexander Arguelles. The method is simple but powerful: you listen to native English audio and immediately repeat it out loud — like a shadow following the speaker with just a 1–2 second delay. Unlike passive listening or grammar drills, shadowing forces your brain and mouth muscles to simultaneously process and reproduce real speech patterns. Research shows it significantly improves pronunciation accuracy, intonation, rhythm, connected speech, listening comprehension, and speaking fluency — making it one of the most effective methods for IELTS Speaking preparation and real-world English communication.