Champaran Foundation on Clubhouse

Description

Champaran is a historic region, known for the Champaran Movement. The place is famous for its mithila culture, and house of many important historical sites. The name Champaran derives from Champa-aranya or Champkatanys. Champa or champaka means magnolia and aranya means forest. Hence, Champaranya means forest of magnolia trees. It is believed that the forest was named while its western portion was inhabited by solitary ascetics.

However, the story of Champaran begins, when on the request of Raj Kumar Shukla, Gandhiji reached the champaran to stand in protest with the indigo farmers against the imposition of infamous tinkathia system by British administration. On reaching Champaran, the English Government ordered Gandhiji to leave but he refused and instead toured the area long with Dr Rajendra Prasad, J B Kriplani and other members and collected the testimonies of more than 8000 farmers affected from the tinkathia system. The British Government did not want to make issue for whole incidence and therefore, constituted a commission, in which Gandhiji was on the member. Before the commission, Gandhi Ji successfully advocated for the rights of the farmers and also managed to refund the twenty five percent of the money collected by the British illegally from the farmer. This whole incident set up the new form of protest and paved the way to fight with British Government in passive yet effective manner called the Satyagraha.

Hence, Champaran foundation draws its inspiration from the Mahatma who helped us to realize that Satyagraha was the only road to true freedom. Satyagraha or relentless pursuit of the truth indeed paved the path to our freedom. And Champaran, in 1917 was the place where we discovered it's true power and might. Our aim is to carry forward the legacy of the Mahatma, “the light of knowledge” that would guide us on our walk towards education for all.

The Champaran Foundation focuses on contemporary issues and begins it work from the very grassroot and continues to supplement in the overall development of the nation. Through focused work in the areas not limited to Education, Healthcare, Social Justice, Environment, Promotion of Digital Literacy we trying to create a model for the sustainable growth and to strengthen the peace and communal harmony among all.