The East India Company compelled Indian farmers to grow cash crops like Indigo which severely affected their livelihoods.
[1] The term Tinkathia literally means three Katha, which is a unit of measurement for land used in India, Nepal and Bangladesh.
The Tinkathia System forced Indian peasants to grow only Indigo on three out of every twenty Katha.
[1] In his autobiography, Mohandas Gandhi described his visit to Patna and other areas of Bihar where the Tinkathia system and forced cultivation of Indigo was practiced:[2] The Champaran tenant was bound by law to plant three out of every twenty parts of his land with indigo for his landlord.
The riots, who had all along remained crushed, now somewhat came to their own, and the superstition that the stain of indigo could never be washed out was exploded.The Tinkathia System was finally abolished after the Champaran Satyagraha led by Mahatma Gandhi.