Read the passage and answer the questions that follow. When Gandhi first visited Champaran in 1917, the peasants there were SHARECROPPERS under an ancient arrangement. Rajkumar Shukla, an illiterate but resolute sharecropper from Champaran, had attended the December 1916 Lucknow Congress to complain about the injustice of the landlord system in Bihar. When somebody told him 'Speak to Gandhi', he came to the Congress session and pressed his case. Gandhi at first told Shukla he had appointments elsewhere; but Shukla never left his side. Impressed by the sharecropper's tenacity, Gandhi agreed to fix a date. Shukla led Gandhi to the house of a Patna lawyer named Rajendra Prasad — who later became President of the Indian National Congress and of India. The servants, taking Gandhi for another peasant companion of Shukla, refused him water from the well lest his bucket pollute it — for they did not know whether he was an untouchable. Adapted from Louis Fischer, 'The Life of Mahatma Gandhi'. Q3. Why did the servants at Rajendra Prasad's house refuse Gandhi water from the well?
AThey mistook Gandhi for a fellow peasant of Shukla's and could not tell whether he was an untouchable; they feared his bucket would pollute the source
BGandhi was a foreigner
CShukla had quarrelled with the servants
DThe well was empty
Answer & Solution
Correct answer: A. They mistook Gandhi for a fellow peasant of Shukla's and could not tell whether he was an untouchable; they feared his bucket would pollute the source
The passage explicitly states: 'Gandhi was not permitted to draw water from the well lest some drops from his bucket pollute the entire source; how did they know that he was not an untouchable?' The episode illustrates the caste prejudice of the time.
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