Nationalism in India Test - 2

Mahatma Gandhi returned to India in January 1915. He had come from South Africa where he had successfully fought the racist regime with a novel method of mass agitation, which he called satyagraha.

The Rowlatt Act had been hurriedly passed through the Imperial Legislative Council despite the united opposition of the Indian members.
It gave the government enormous powers to repress political activities, and allowed detention of political prisoners without trial for two years.

In his famous book Hind Swaraj (1909) Mahatma Gandhi declared that British rule was established in India with the cooperation of Indians and had survived only because of this cooperation.
If Indians refused to cooperate, British rule in India would collapse within a year, and swaraj would come.

Picket refers to a form of demonstration or protest by which people block the entrance to a shop, factory or office.

In Awadh, peasants were led by Baba Ramchandra.
Baba Ramchandra was a  sanyasi who had earlier been to Fiji as an indentured labourer.

The term 'Begar' refers to labour that villagers were forced to contribute without any payment.

When they heard of the Non-Cooperation Movement, thousands of workers defied the authorities, left the plantations and headed home. They believed that Gandhi Raj was coming and everyone would be given land in their own villages. They, however, never reached their destination. Stranded on the way by a railway and steamer strike, they were caught by the police and brutally beaten up.

The Simon Commission was set up in response to the nationalist movement, the commission was to look into the functioning of the constitutional system in India and suggest changes.
The problem with was that the commission did not have a single Indian member. They were all British.

Gandhiji's ashram was located at Sabarmati.
The Salt march which was over 240 miles away from Gandhiji’s ashram in Sabarmati to the Gujarati coastal town of Dandi.

On 6 April Gandhiji reached Dandi, and ceremonially violated the law, manufacturing salt by boiling sea water.
People were now asked not only to refuse cooperation with the British, but also to break colonial laws.
This marked the beginning of the Civil Disobedience Movement.