Struggle for Swaraj Test - 4

The Civil Disobedience Movement was one of the most significant movements launched by Mahatma Gandhi in the course of India's freedom struggle. It started with Salt March from Dandi. Salt was also manufactured in Satyagraha centers at Hyderabad and Sukkur. K. Madhavan Nair, P. Krishnapillai and R.V. Sharma led the Satyagraha at Kozhikode. Ramadevi and her daughter Annapurna Maharana led the movement from Rampur.

The main features of Nehru Report were as follows:
(i) Responsible government at both centre and provinces
(ii) Advocated dominion status
(iii) Fundamental rights
(iv) Rejected separate communal electorates. (It proposed reservation for the Muslims at the centre and in the provinces in which they were in minority.)
(v) Equal rights for women and the demand for universal adult sufferage
(vi) Dissociation of the state from religion in any form
(vii) Freedom to form any trade union
Hence, only statement IV is incorrect.

The British action was seen as a violation of the principle of self-determination and a deliberate insult to the self-respect of the Indians. At its Madras session in 1927, presided over by Dr. M. A. Ansari, the National Congress decided to boycott the Commission at every stage and in every form.

There were 7 members in the Simon Commission, including its Chairman Sir John Simon.

Simon Commission was officially known as Indian Statutory Commission. It was a group of seven British Members of Parliament who were dispatched to India in 1928 to study the constitutional reform and recommend to the government.

The Swaraj Party was established as the Congress-Khilafat Swaraj Party. In December 1922, Chittaranjan Das, Narasimha Chintaman Kelkar and Motilal Nehru formed the Congress-Khilafat Swaraj Party with Das as the president and Nehru as one of the secretaries. It was formed after the Gaya annual conference in December 1922 of the National Congress, that sought greater self-government and political freedom for the Indian people from the British Raj.

The Communist Party of India has officially stated that it was formed on 25 December 1925 at the first Kanpur Party Conference.

After the publication of Gandhi Vs. Lenin, Dange and his friends engaged themselves in trade union activities and evolved into one of the earliest communist circles in India and began publishing the Socialist, the first communist journal in India, from August 1922.

The English officer who led the fatal lathi (baton) charge on Lala Lajpat Rai during the freedom struggle was James A. Scott.
In 1928, the British government set up the Commission, headed by Sir John Simon, to report on the political situation in India. The Indian political parties boycotted the Commission, because it did not include a single Indian in its membership, and it met with country-wide protests. When the Commission visited Lahore on 30 October 1928, Lajpat Rai led non-violent march in protest against it. The protest was with the words "Simon go back" and black flags. The superintendent of police, James A. Scott, ordered the police to lathi (baton) charge the protesters and personally assaulted Rai. Despite being extremely injured, Rai subsequently addressed the crowd and said, "I declare that the blows struck at me today will be the last nails in the coffin of British rule in India".

The first Civil Disobedience Movement was started by Gandhiji after the Rowlatt Act of 1919.
Rowlatt Act, (February 1919), allowed certain political cases to be tried without juries and permitted internment of suspects without trial. Later Mahatma Gandhi returned to India. He began to emerge as an increasingly charismatic leader under whose leadership first civil disobedience movement grew rapidly as an expression of political unrest.

The non-cooperation movement envisaged to be non-violent and to consist of Indians resigning their titles; boycotting government educational institutions, the courts, government service, foreign goods, and elections; and, eventually, refusing to pay taxes.
Gandhi, during Non-Co-Operation Movement, even before, and after the movement, laid central emphasis on using hand spun and hand woven cloth - khadi - made inside the country as a way to achieve swaraj. Promoting hand spun and woven khadi was the core of the Swadeshi programme, which meant first producing, and then using and distributing things in India.

The All India Trade Union Congress came into being in 1920 as the foremost representative of the labour movement in India. One of the founders of The All India Trade Union Congress was N. M. Joshi.

This was a tribute paid by Sir Valentine Chirol to the genius Swami Vivekananda.

Since the establishment of the Indian National Congress Party in 1885, 60 people have served as president. The first president, Womesh Chandra Banerjee, presided over the first session of the Indian National Congress, held at Bombay in 1885 from 28 December to 31 December. The most recent serving president is Rahul Gandhi. The president of INC at the time of India's independence was J. B. Kripalani. Annie Besant was the first woman president of INC, whereas Sarojini Naidu was the first Indian woman president of INC.

'Do or die' slogan was given by Gandhiji during the Quit India Movement. The slogan was officially launched by the Indian National Congress (INC) led by Mahatma Gandhi on August 9, 1942.