Mahatma Gandhi Test - 2

The Correct Answer is 1931.

• The Gandhi-Irwin Pact, between Mohandas K. Gandhi, leader of the Indian nationalist movement, and Lord Irwin (later Lord Halifax), British viceroy (1926-31) of India, was signed on 5 March 1931.
• It marked the end of a time of civil disobedience (satyagraha) that Gandhi and his followers had started with the Salt March (March-April 1930) in India against British rule.

Important Points

• One of his more effective Civil disobedience movements was sparked by the arrest and imprisonment of Gandhi at the end of the march, for illegally making salt.
• Tens of thousands of Indians (including future Indian Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru) were in gaol by the end of 1930, the revolution had created worldwide ads, and Irwin was looking for a way to end it.
• Gandhi was released from prison in January 1931, and the two men began discussing the terms of the agreement.
• In the end, Gandhi vowed to abandon the campaign of satyagraha, and Irwin agreed to free those imprisoned during it and allow Indians to make salt for domestic use.
• The second session (September to December) of the Round Table Conference in London was attended by Gandhi later that year.

The correct answer is Jawaharlal Nehru.

Key Points

• Lahore session, 1929:
  • The Indian National Congress, on 19 December 1929, passed the historic 'Purna Swaraj' (total independence) resolution – at its Lahore session.
  • A public declaration was made on 26 January 1930 – a day which the Congress Party urged Indians to celebrate as 'Independence Day.
  • Jawaharlal Nehru was elected as President of the Indian National Congress in December 1929 at its annual session in the city of Lahore. Hence, Option 4 is correct.
  • In 1929, Lord Irwin, the then Viceroy of India, made a vaguely announced – referred to as the Irwin Declaration - that India would be granted dominion status in the future.

Additional Information

The correct answer is 1916.

Key Points

• Gandhi got an invitation to the opening ceremony of Banaras Hindu University(BHU) in 1916.
• Many eminent speakers were invited as guests and Gandhi was one of them. 
• He addressed the gathering where most of the audience were young people.
• This was the first public appearance of Mahatma Gandhi.
• Madan Mohan Malaviya was one of the founders of BHU. 

Additional Information

• 1915
  • Gandhi arrived in India on 9th January 1915.
  • This day is celebrated as Pravasi Bharatiya Divas.
  • He returned from South Africa after a long stay of 21 years where he experimented with non-violence techniques.
• 1917
  • The famous Champaran Satyagraha took place in 1917.
  • It is a nonviolent protest against the British orders to cultivate only Indigo.
  • Gandhi stood behind the farmers' cause and won concessions.
  • Champaran is a region in Bihar.
• 1918
  • Kheda Satyagraha took place in 1918.
  • It is a civil resistance movement to support the peasants who could not pay taxes because of famine and plague.
  • Kheda is a town in Gujarat, the birthplace of Sardar Vallabhai Patel.

The Correct Answer is Option 4 i.e All of the above.

Key Points

• Non-cooperation Movement:
  • The non-cooperation movement by Gandhiji was followed from September 1920 to February 1922. 
  • Jallianwala Bagh Massacre in Amritsar in 1919 was one of the major reasons for the start of the Non-cooperation movement.
  • The Chauri Chaura incident occurred at Chauri Chaura in the Gorakhpur district (Uttar Pradesh) on  4 February 1922, when a large group of protesters, participating in the Non-cooperation movement, clashed with police, who opened fire.
  • As the incident turned violent Mahatma Gandhi called off the ‘Non-cooperation Movement’ on 12 February 1922, as a direct result of this incident.
• Khilafat Movement:
  • The movement was started as an agitation by the Indian Muslims against the treatment accorded to the Ottoman Empire after World War I.
  • The Khilafat Movement begin in 1919 under the leadership of the Ali brothers; Maulana Muhammad Ali and Maulana Shaukat Ali. 
  • By the mid-1920s, the Khilafat leaders joined hands with Gandhi's Non-Cooperation Movement.

The correct answer is option 2.​

• The aims of launching individual satyagraha were -
  • to show that nationalist patience was not due to weakness. Hence Statement 1 is correct.
  • to express people’s feelings that they were not interested in the war and that they made no distinction between Nazism and the double autocracy that ruled India. Hence Statement 2 is incorrect and statement 3 is correct.
  • to give another opportunity to the government to accept Congress’ demands peacefully. Hence Statement 4 is correct.

Individual satyagraha

• The August Offer was rejected and also caused deadlock with the Muslim League. Congress gave the command to Gandhi to initiate a mass struggle. But Gandhi had new plans- limited satyagraha by individuals in every locality.
• The demand of the satyagrahi would be the freedom of speech against the war through an anti-war declaration. If the government did not arrest the satyagrahi, he or she would not only repeat it but move into villages and start a march towards Delhi, thus precipitating a movement that came to be known as the ‘Delhi Chalo Movement’.
• Vinoba Bhave was the first to offer the satyagraha and Nehru, the second. By May 1941, 25,000 people had been convicted for individual civil disobedience.

The correct answer is option 1.

Key Points

Second Round Table Conference 

• The second Round Table Conference was held in London from September 7, 1931 to December 1, 1931. By this time, Lord Irwin had been replaced by Lord Willingdon as viceroy in India. Hence statement 1 is not correct. 
• The Indian National Congress nominated Gandhi as its sole representative.
• There were a large number of Indian participants, besides the Congress. The Princely States, Muslim League, Justice Party, Hindu Mahasabha etc. attended it.
• The session got deadlocked on the question of the minorities. Separate electorates were being demanded by the Muslims, depressed classes, Christians and Anglo-Indians.
• All these came together in a ‘Minorities’ Pact’. Gandhi fought desperately against this concerted move to make all constitutional progress conditional on the solving of this issue.
• The lack of agreement among the many delegate groups meant that no substantial results regarding India’s constitutional future would come out of the conference.
• The government refused to concede the basic Indian demand of freedom. Gandhi returned to India and gave a call to resume the Civil Disobedience Movement.

Kheda Satyagraha

• In the middle of the Kheda Satyagraha (1918), Gandhi also got involved in the Ahmedabad textile mill strike.
• Here his adversaries were the Gujarati millowners.
• The immediate reason for the industrial conflict was the withdrawal of plague-bonus, which was being given to dissuade workers from leaving the city in the face of mounting plague-related deaths.
• Also, it was during Ahmedabad textile mill strike that Gandhiji for the first time during the Indian National Movement took fast unto death( to strengthen the workers‘ resolve).
• Hence his first hunger strike was during Ahmedabad Strike and not at Kheda.
• The cause for Kheda Satyagraha was that the peasants of Kheda district were in extreme distress due to a failure of crops and that their appeals for the remission of land revenue were being ignored by the Government.
• Discontinuation of the Plague bonus was the immediate cause for Ahmedabad textile mill strike. 

The correct answer is Muslim League; 16th August, 1946.

Key Points

• In 1946, Muhammad Ali Jinnah declared 16 August as ‘Direct Action Day’ and called for Muslims all over the country to ‘suspend all business’.
• This was to put pressure on the British government to relent to the Muslim League’s (headed by Jinnah) demand of dividing the country based on religion, thereby allowing the creation of a Muslim-dominated Pakistan.
• After withdrawing its support to the Cabinet Mission Plan, the Muslim League decided on “Direct Action” for winning its Pakistan demand.
• Thus riots broke out in Calcutta, lasting several days and leaving several thousand people dead.

Additional Information

Option 4 is correct, i.e. 1942.

• The Cripps mission was headed by Sir Stafford Cripps and was sent to India in March 1942 to secure full cooperation from Indians in World War 2.
• However, after a lot of negotiations, the mission proved to be a failure as the offers proposed by it were rejected by Congress as well as Muslim leaders, and that led to the launch of the Quit India Movement.
• As part of this mission, Cripps proposed devolution and distribution of power from the British to an elected Indian legislature in return for full cooperation from India during the war.
• The mission failed as the proposal was rejected by the two major parties.
• As a result, on 8th August 1942, the All India Congress Committee headed by Mahatma Gandhi launched the Quit India Movement, demanding the end of the British rule in India.

The correct answer is Civil Disobedience Movement.

Key Points

• Gandhiji's famous Dandi March in March 1930 heralded the start of the Civil Disobedience Movement movement.
  • On March 12, 1930, Gandhiji set out from Sabarmati with 78 followers on a 241-mile march to the coastal town of Dandi on the Arabian Sea.
  • There, Gandhi and his supporters were to defy British policy by making salt from seawater.
  • At Dandi, thousands more followed his lead, and in the coastal cities of Bombay and Karachi, Indian nationalists led crowds of citizens in making salt.
  • Civil disobedience broke out all across India, soon involving millions of Indians, and British authorities arrested more than 60,000 people.
  • Gandhiji himself was arrested on May 5, but the satyagraha continued without him.
  • It was the start of the civil disobedience movement which commenced as Mahatma Gandhi broke the salt law on the coastal town of Dandi on the Arabian Sea 
    • Dandi March is also known as Namak Satyagrah or Salt Satyagrah.
  • The Salt March was a 24-day Salt March, which was non-violent in nature, is historically significant as it led to the mass Civil Disobedience Movement.
• Hence, option 4 is correct. 

Additional Information

• On 23 April, the arrest of Congress leaders in the North-West Frontier Province led to a mass demonstration of unprecedented magnitude in Peshawar.
  • Khan Abdul Gaffar Khan had been active for several years in the area, and it was his mass work that lay behind the formation of the band of non-violent revolutionaries, the Khudai Khidmatgars, popularly known as the Red Shirts who were to play an extremely active role in the Civil Disobedience Movement.
  • The atmosphere created by their political work contributed to the mass upsurge in Peshawar during which the city was virtually in the hands of the crowd for more than a week.
  • The Peshawar demonstrations are significant because it was here that the soldiers of the Garhwali regiments refused to fire on the unarmed crowd.