Mahatma Gandhi and the National Movement Test - 3

Where these leaders advocated militant opposition to colonial rule, there was a group of  “Moderates” who preferred a more gradual and persuasive approach. Among these Moderates was Gandhiji’s acknowledged political mentor, Gopal Krishna Gokhale, as well as Mohammad Ali Jinnah, who, like Gandhiji, was a lawyer of Gujarati extraction trained in London.

At the Second Round Table Conference, London, November 1931 Mahatma Gandhi opposed the demand for separate electorates for “lower castes”. He believed that this would prevent their integration into mainstream society and permanently segregate them from other caste Hindus.

1905 - Swadeshi Movement 

1920 - Khilafat And Non-Cooperation Movement

1930 - Civil Disobedience Movement

1942 - Quit India Movement 

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.

After the talks broke down, Jinnah called for a “Direct Action Day” to press the League’s demand for Pakistan.

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

The Conference in London was inconclusive, so Gandhiji returned to India and resumed civil disobedience. The new Viceroy, Lord Willingdon, was deeply unsympathetic to the Indian leader. 

In 1942 Mahatma Gandhi gave a call for the Quit India movement.

The Salt Satyagraha, also known as the Salt March, was a significant part of the Civil Disobedience Movement. The salt laws imposed by the British had made it illegal for Indians to produce, possess or trade salt without paying taxes.

Time magazine, which had once mocked Gandhiji’s physical size and seemingly non-rational ideas, now compared his martyrdom to that of Abraham Lincoln: it was a bigoted American who had killed Lincoln for believing that human beings were equal regardless of their race or skin colour; and it was a bigoted Hindu who had killed Gandhiji for believing that friendship was possible, indeed necessary, between Indians of different faiths.