MAHATMA GANDHI AND THE
Chapter 3
ANSWER IN 100-150 WORDS
1. How did Mahatma Gandhi seek to identify with the common people?
Answer:-
Mahatma Gandhi wanted to identify himself with the common people of India. For this action plan
(a) He began to live a very simple life. He wore plain clothes that a poor Indian would wear.
(b) He spoke the language of the local people.
(c) Mahatma Gandhi opposed the caste system and personally attacked untouchability living with Harijans.
(d) Mahatma Gandhi attached dignity to labor and physical work. He worked in a charkha and cleaned toilets.
(e) He attacked the feeling of classifying people into lower and higher.
2. How was Mahatma Gandhi perceived by the peasants?
Answer:-
3. Why did the salt laws become an important issue of struggle?
Answer:-
Poorest of poor Indian consume food that has salt as one of its prime ingredient. British government brought tax on salt and making salt indigenously was forbidden. It was to become a big burden on the poor people of India. Some important points regarding salt law are as follows.
1. Salt law was to lead to monopoly of salt production and distribution. It was to fuel prices, and added to this was the tax levied by the government.
2. People were denied access to natural salt and tons of the same were destroyed.
3. Salt law was an attack on the local industry in the villages too. Hence salt law was extremely unpopular and it became an important issue of the struggle.
4. Why are newspapers an important source for the study of the national movement?
Answer:-
(c) Many newspapers were in vernacular Indian languages, i.e. in local languages and they had limited circulation. therefore, they published newspapers from local perspectives that may not exist in other sources of history.
(d) They also reflect human attitudes. These newspapers shaped what was published and the way events were reported. Accounts published in a London newspaper would differ from reports in Indian nationalist newspapers.
5. Why was the charkha chosen as a symbol of nationalism?
Answer:
The charkha was chosen as a symbol of nationalism for the following reasons:
• Gandhiji regarded the charkha as a symbol of a human society that does not glorify machines and technology.
• Spinning wheels or charkhas provided supplementary income to the poor and It will make them self-reliant.
• This leads to a concentration of wealth, not in the hands of a few, but in the hands of all.
• Charkhas were regarded as a machinery and used to serve the poorest in their own cottages.
Under the above circumstances, Gandhiji spent a part of each day working on charkha and encouraged other nationalists to do likewise. In this way, he broke the boundaries that prevailed within the traditional caste system, between mental labour and manual labour.
Write a short essay (250-300 words) on the following:
6. How was non-cooperation a form of protest?
Answer:-
3. People boycotted tax collection also and they refused to pay taxes. Thus, non-cooperation was a kind of protest too.
7. Why were the dialogues at the Round Table Conference inconclusive?
Answer:-
The British Government has a policy of reviewing the progress of self-government in India and of bringing about reforms after a gap of ten years. This began with the Morley Minto Reform in the 1910s and was followed up in the 1920s with the Montagu Samsford Report. Ten years later, the British government convened a Round Table Conference in London for a way forward. The first Round Table Conference was held in November The conference failed as the most important stakeholder in the Indian independence movement, the Indian National Congress was absent from the conference. Congress leaders were behind bars for their lawless movements.
In February 1931, the Second List Conference gained momentum. Mahatma Gandhi was released from prison a month ago. So, he attended the conference. The Gandhi Irwin Agreement was signed and the British government partially agreed to withdraw the Salt Act. However, the treaty was criticized for not providing for India's full independence.
The third and most important Round Table Conference was held in the latter part of New constitutional developments were not agreed upon. The main reason was that other participants in the conference described the Congress as representative of a small group of Indians, not the entire population. The major voices of dissent were, the Muslim League who claimed to be the sole representative of the Muslims of India, Dr. B. R. Ambedkar who claimed to be the sole representative of the lower castes of India and the local rulers can't.
To end the divisive politics of the Muslim League, the attitude of Dr. Ambedkar and the princely states was the main reason for the failure of the Round Table Conference.
8. In what way did Mahatma Gandhi transform the nature of the national movement?
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3. For Mahatma Gandhi, the freedom movement was also a platform for social reform. He spoke in favor of a place of dignity and respect for the depressed classes. He ended untouchability a fundamental objective of his political philosophy.
Thus, Mahatma Gandhi made the freedom movement a mass movement and a movement outside politics.
9. What do private letters and autobiographies tell us about an individual? How are these sources different from official accounts
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Map work
10. Find out about the route of the Dandi March. On a map of Gujarat plot the line of the march and mark the major towns and villages that it passed along the route.
Answer:-
Dandi March was started from Sabarmati Ashram. This Ashram is in Ahmedabad (Gujarat). The route followed from Ahmedabad to Vadodara and from there to Surat. We have used triangle A, B, and C to mark the Dandi expedition route.
Project (choose one)
11. Read any two autobiographies of nationalist leaders. Look at the different ways in which the authors represent their own life and times, and interpret the national movement. See how their views differ. Write an account based on your studies.
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12. Choose any event that took place during the national movement. Try and read the letters and speeches of the leaders of the time. Some of these are now published. He could be a local leader from the region where you live. Try and see how the local leaders viewed the activities of the national leadership at the top. Write about the movement based on your reading.
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