Which one of the following is a very significant aspect of the Champaran Satyagraha?

The correct answer is C. Champaran (1917) was the point where peasant grievance was pulled into the national movement. Indigo ryots in Champaran were bound by the tinkathia system, which forced them to grow indigo on a fixed share of their land, and the planters' exactions had built up real anger. Gandhi took up their cause, and his inquiry and the Champaran Agrarian Act of 1918 gave relief. It was Gandhi's first major Satyagraha in India and it showed that agrarian issues could be fought through non-violent mass action.

• A is wrong because lawyers and students did join, but the defining feature was the peasant base, not the all-India participation of these groups. Women's mass involvement was not a feature of Champaran.
• B is wrong because Dalit and tribal mobilisation is not a recorded feature of Champaran. The movement was of cultivators, mainly tenant ryots.
• D is wrong. Indigo cultivation declined, but this was largely due to synthetic dyes from Germany, not a drastic fall brought about by the Satyagraha. Champaran's significance lies in politics, not in a change in cropping patterns.

Core concept: the link between agrarian distress and mass politics, and the rise of Gandhian method. For Mains (GS-I, Modern India), it is a good case for discussing how peasant movements shaped the national movement.

Trap: choosing A because of the lure of 'all-India, broad participation'. Champaran was a localised, peasant-centred agitation that had national consequences.