MAHATMA GANDHI AND THE NATIONAL MOVEMENT

Question 1

Where did Mahatama Gandhi forged the distinctive techniques of non violent protests known as satyagraha for the first time?

Answer 1

It was in South Africa that Mahatama Gandhi forged the distinctive techniques of non violent protests known as satyagraha, first promoted harmony between religions, and first alerted upper caste Indians to their discriminatory treatment of low castes and women.

Question 2

Political guru of Mahatama Gandhi?

Answer 2

Gopal Krishna Gokhale.
Gokhale was a mentor to both, Mahatama Gandhi and Mohammad Ali Jinnah.

Question 3

Mahatama Gandhi’s first major public appearance in India?

Answer 3

Banaras Hindu University (BHU) in February 1916.

Question 4

It was the ______ satyagraha that made Gandhiji a truly national leader.

Answer 4

Rowlatt Satyagraha.

Question 5

1. Emboldened by its success, Gandhiji called for a campaign of “non-cooperation” with British rule.
2. Indians who wished colonialism to end were asked to stop attending schools, colleges and law courts, and not pay taxes. In sum they were adhere to a “renunciation of (all) voluntary association with the British Government.
3. If non cooperation was effectively carried out, said Gandhiji, India would win swaraj within a year.
   True/false.

Answer 5

1. True
2. True
3. True

Question 6

Sedition charges on Mahatama Gandhi?

Answer 6

The Great Trial of 1922 took place in March 1922 following the arrest of Mohandas K. Gandhi for sedition. He appeared in the Ahmedabad court, charged under section 124A of the Indian Penal Code, without counsel. He pleaded guilty to all charges and requested that he be given the maximum penalty.

Question 7

Who was the judge who presided over the hearing of Mahatma Gandhi during the non-cooperation movement in the year 1922?

Answer 7

Justice C.N. Broomfield.

Question 8

What did Gandhiji promised in his speech at BHU in February 1916?

Answer 8

By 1922, Gandhiji had transformed Indian nationalism, thereby redeeming the promise he made in his BHU speech of February 1916.

Question 9

In which year did the simon commission arrived in india?

Answer 9

1928.

Question 10

Did Gandhiji participated in all India campaign in opposition to the all White Simon Commission?

Answer 10

Gandhiji did not himself participate in this movement, although he gave it his blessings, as he also did to a peasant satyagraha in Bardoli in the same year.

Question 11

Significance of the session of 1929 Congress?

Answer 11

• In the end of December 1929, the Congress held its annual session in the city of Lahore.
  The meeting was significant for two things.
  1. Jawaharlal Nehru as president- signifying the passing of the baton of leadership to the younger generation.
  2. Proclamation of commitment to “Purna Swaraj”.

Question 12

When was the Independence day observed for the first time?

Answer 12

On 26 January 1930, “Independence Day” was observed, with the national flag being hoisted in different venuses.

Question 13

Although Gandhiji had given advance notice of his “Salt March” to Viceroy _______, the Viceroy failed to grasp the significance of the action.

Answer 13

Lord Irwin.

Question 14

When did Salt March started?

Answer 14

12 March 1930, Gandhiji began walking from his ashram at Sabarmati towards the ocean.

Question 15

The collected works of Mahatama Gandhi is written by?

Answer 15

Mahatama Gandhi.

Question 16

According to Gandhiji what are the steps towards swaraj apart from getting the taxes repealed etc?

Answer 16

In one village, Wasna, Gandhiji told the upper castes that “if you are out for Swaraj you must serve untouchables. You won’t get Swaraj merely by the repeal of the salt taxes or other taxes. For Swaraj you must make amends for the wrongs which you did to the untouchables. For Swaraj Hindus, Muslims, Parsis and Sikhs will have to unite. These are the steps towards Swaraj.”

Question 17

American newsmagazine, “Time” about Salt March by Mahatama Gandhi?

Answer 17

The massive popular following that the march had gathered, wrote Time, had made the British rulers desperately anxious.
Gandhiji himself they now saluted as a “Saint” and “Statesman”, who was using “Christian acts as a weapon against men with Christian beliefs”.

Question 18

Salt March was notable for three reasons. What are those?

Answer 18

1. It was this event that the first brought Mahatama Gandhi to world attention. The march was widely covered by the European and American press.
2. It was the first nationalist activity in which women participated in large numbers. The socialist activist Kamaladevi Chattopadhyay had persuaded Gandhiji not to restrict the protests to men alone. Kamaladevi was herself one of numerous women who courted arrest by breaking the salt or liquor laws.
3. Third, and perhaps most significant, it was the Salt March which forced upon the British the realisation that their Raj would not last forever, and that they would have to devolve some power to the Indians.

Question 19

First Round Table Conference?

Answer 19

The first meeting was held in November 1930, but without the pre-eminent political leader in India, thus rendering it an exercise in futility. Gandhiji was released from jail in January 1931 and the following month had several long meetings with the Viceroy. These culminated in what was called the “Gandhi-Irwin Pact’, by the terms of which civil disobedience would be called off, all prisoners released and salt manufacture allowed along the coast. The pact was criticized by radical nationalists, for Gandhiji was unable to obtain from the Viceroy a commitment to political independence for Indians; he could obtain merely an assurance of talks towards that possible end.

Question 20

Second Round Table Conference?

Answer 20

A second Round Table Conference was held in London in the latter part of 1931. Here, Gandhiji represented the Congress. However, his claims that his party represented all of India came under challenge from three parties: from the Muslim League, which claimed to stand for the interests of the Muslim minority; from the Princes, who claimed that the Congress had no stake in their territories and from the brilliant lawyer and thinker B.R. Ambedkar who argued that Gandhiji and the Congress did not really represent the lowest castes.
The Conference in London was inconclusive, so Gandhiji returned to India and resumed civil disobedience. The new Viceroy, Lord Willingdon deeply unsympathetic to the Indian leader.

Question 21

Provincial Elections of 1937 were held with universal adult franchise.
True/false?

Answer 21

False, restricted franchise.
Only about 10 to 12 % of the population enjoyed the right to vote.

Question 22

What Congress and Gandhi had done to the untouchables is written by?

Answer 22

Dr BR Ambedkar.

Question 23

In September 1939, two years after the Congress ministries assumed office, the Second World War broke out. Mahatma Gandhi and Jawaharlal Nehru had both been strongly critical of Hitler and the Nazis. Accordingly, they promised Congress support to the war effort if the British, in return, promised to grant India independence once hostilities ended.
The offer was refused.
Then what did Congress and Muslim League did?

Answer 23

The Congress ministries resigned in October 1939. Through 1940 and 1941, the Congress organised a series of individual satyagrahas to pressure the rulers to promise freedom once the war had ended.
Meanwhile, in March 1940 Muslim League passed a resolution demanding a measure of autonomy for the Muslim-majority areas of subcontinent.

Question 24

Satara government of 1943?

Answer 24

1. From the late nineteenth century, a non-Brahman movement, which opposed the caste system and landlordism had developed in Maharashtra. This movement established links with the national movement by the 1930s.
2. In 1943, some of the younger leaders in the Satara district of Maharashtra set up a parallel government (prati sarkar), with volunteer corps (seba dals) and village units (tufan dals).
3. They ran people’s courts and organised constructive work. Dominated by kunbi peasants and supported by dalits, the Satara prati sarkar functioned till the elections of 1946, despite government repression and, in the later stages, Congress disapproval.

Question 25

What led to the call of “Direct Action Day”?

Answer 25

• A Cabinet Mission sent in the summer of 1946 failed to get the Congress and the League to agree on a federal system that would keep India together while allowing the provinces a degree of autonomy. After the talks broke down, Jinnah called for a “Direct Action Day” to press the League’s demand for Pakistan. On the designated day,
• 16 August 1946, bloody riots broke out in Calcutta.

Question 26

A bunch of old letters is written and published by?

Answer 26

Jawaharlal Nehru, the first Prime Minister of India, wrote and published a book called “A Bunch of Old Letters” in 1958.

Question 27

An ‘All-Bengal Civil Disobedience Council’ was formed in Bengal by?

Answer 27

J.M. Sengupta (Jatindra Mohan).

Question 28

All Bengal Council of Disobedience was formed by?

Answer 28

Bengal Provincial Congress Committee.

Question 29

Newspapers/Magazines that Criticized the Civil Disobedience Movement?

Answer 29

Vividh Vritt.
Sudharak.

Question 30

Newspaper Vividh Vritt was owned by?

Answer 30

Bal Gangadhar Tilak.

Question 31

Who is the author of ‘Gandhi as Mahatma’?

Answer 31

Shahid Amin.

Question 32

Only _____and_____continued to firmly oppose partition.

Answer 32

Mahatama Gandhi and Khan Abdul Ghaffar Khan of the NWFP.