Question- What is the significance of the Skeffington Coffee Estate in the overall account of the village in Kanthapura?

Answer - 

As a counterpoise to the village in Kanthapura, Raja Rao presents the Skeffington Coffee Estate. The village stands for the Indian Values, traditions, myths, faith and influence of the teachings of Mahatma Gandhi. The Coffee estate, on the other hand, is a citadel of the British supremacy, colonialism and enslavement of the people of India. It is a vast estate spreed across the land from the Babbur Mound on one side, the Kenchamma Hill, on the other, right upto the jungles of the House-head Hill. It is believed to be 10,000 acres wide. Some people believed that some Hunter Sahib used his hunter and his hand to reap the first fruits of his plantation. Then it grew bigger and bigger till it touched all the hills around the village.

More and more coolies came from below the Ghats. They talked Tamil or Telugu and brought their families along. Half-naked, starving armies of coolies marched past the Kenchamma Temple and upto the Skeffington Estate. They carried bundles of belongings in their arms or over heads and shoulders. The Sahib's maistri went to far flung villages to spreed the news of availability of work in the Estate. The people were entered with the advance of a rupee to each and the promise of planty of food in the Estate. So, the coolies left their homes, travelled partly by train and partly on foot. When all of them passed through the entrance of the Estate, the maistri closed the gates behind them. He led them to the master, and told them that they would be treated well if they worked hard, but beaten up if they worked badly. In a way, they had become the virtual prisoners in the Estate, and slaves of the British Sahib.

Soon the coolies and the others who came there realized what they had entered into. The work was heavy and the wages inadequate, the Estate was crawling with snakes; the rainy season brought with it bouts of fever. The Sahib prescribed them pills as medicine but there was no respite from hard labour. Some of them perished but there was no escape from the Skeffington Coffee Estate. Years passed, the old Sahib died and his nephew was the new Sahib. He was not harsh or cruel but he wanted the young women of the coolies for his pleasure. There was no respite from his cruelty despite the resistance of the people.

Two Brahmin clerks from the city working at the estate took a few of the coolies to Moorthy at Kanthapura asking him to do something. Consequently, Moorthy came to the Estate but was prevented by Bade Khan, the policemen, from entering. There was a scuffle at the gates in which two coolies hit Bade Khan with his own lathi. The next day the family of one of them was expelled from the Estate but they were provided shelter by Moorthy. The villagers of Kanthapura went on a march towards the Estate to demonstrate their solidarity with the coolies. This is how the Gandhian movement reached even the Skeffington Coffee Estate and created a turmoil within its boundaries.

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