Q7) What was Gandhi's idea of Satyagraha?

A7) Satyagraha was Gandhi's novel method of mass agitation.

 The idea emphasized the power of truth and the need to search for truth.
 Without seeking vengeance or being aggressive, a satyagrahi could win the
battle through nonviolence.
 This could be done by appealing to the conscience of the oppressor.

Q8) Discuss the Satyagraha movements launched by Gandhi after arriving in

India.

A8)

 ln 1916, he travelled to Champaran in Bihar to inspire the peasants to

struggle against the oppressive plantation system.
 ln 1917, he organized a satyagraha to support the peasants of the Kheda
district of Gujarat. Affected by crop failure and a plague epidemic, the
peasants of Kheda could not pay the revenue and were demanding that the
revenue collection be relaxed.
 In 1918, Gandhi went to Ahmedabad to organize a satyagraha movement
amongst cotton mill workers.

Q9) What was the Rowlett Act? How did the Indians show their disapproval
towards the Act?

A9) This Act had been passed through the Imperial Legislative Council. It gave the
government powers to repress political activities and allowed the detention of
political prisoners without trial for two years.

 Rallies were organized in various cities. Workers went on strike in

railway workshops, and shops closed.
 The British took action by picking up local leaders from Amritsar and
Mahatma Gandhi was barred from entering Delhi.
 On 10th April the police fired upon the peaceful protesters provoking
widespread attacks on banks post, offices, and railway stations.
 Martial law was imposed and General Dyer took command.
Q10) How did Gandhi merge the Khilafat issue with the Non-
cooperation movement?

A10)

 The First World War had ended the defeat of Ottoman Turkey and
there were rumours that the harsh peace treaty was going to be
imposed on the Ottoman Emperor.
 To defend the Khalifa's in temporal powers a Khilafat committee
was formed in Bombay in March 1919.
 A young generation of Muslim leaders like Muhammed Ali and
Shaukat Ali began discussing with Mahatma Gandhi the possibility
of united mass action on the issue.
 At the Calcutta session of congress in September 1920, he
convinced the other leaders of the need to start a non-cooperation
movement in support of Khilafat as well as Swaraj.

Q11) How did Gandhi conceive of the idea of a non-cooperation

movement? 

A11) Gandhi proposed that the movement should unfold in stages. 

 It should begin with the surrender of titles that the government

Awarded, and a boycott of civil services, the army, police courts,
legislative councils, and foreign goods
 Then, in case the government. used repression, a full civil
disobedience campaign would be launched. 
 However, many within the congress were reluctant to boycott
the council elections scheduled for November 1920, and they
feared that the movement might lead to popular violence. 
 Finally, at the Congress session at Nagpur in December 1920, the
Non-cooperation movement program was adopted.
 
Q12) Discuss the growth and progress of the Non-cooperation movement ln the towns.

A12) The movement started with middle-class participation in cities. 

 Thousands of students left government-controlled schools and colleges,

headmasters and teachers resigned and their lawyers gave up their legal practices. 
 The council elections were boycotted in most provinces except Madras. 
 Foreign goods were boycotted, liquor shops picketed, and foreign cloth burnt in
huge bonfires. The import of foreign cloth halved between 1921 and 1922. 
 In many places merchants and traders refused to trade in foreign goods or finance
foreign trade. As the boycott movement spread, and people began discarding
imported clothes and wearing only Indian ones, the production of Indian textile mills
and handlooms went up. 
 But this movement in the cities gradually slowed down for a variety of reasons. Khadi
cloth was often more expensive than mass-produced mill cloth and poor people
could not afford to buy it. 
 For the movement to be successful alternative Indian institutions had to be set up so
that they could be used in place of the British ones. These were slow to come up. So
students and teachers began trickling back to government schools and lawyers
joined back work in government courts. 

Q13) Discuss the non-cooperation movement led by Baba Ramchandra in Awadh.

A13) In Awadh, presents related by baba Ramchandra- a sanyasi who had been to Fiji as an
indentured labourer.

 The movement there was against talukdars and landlords who demanded from
peasants exorbitantly high rents and a variety of other cesses. Peasants had to do
begar and work at landlords' farms without payment.
 The peasant movement demanded a reduction of revenue, abolition of begar,
and social boycott of oppressive landlords. In many places, nai-dhobi bandhs
were organised by panchayats to deprive landlords of the services of even
barbers and washermen.
 Many branches of the Oudh Kisan Sabha we're set up in the villages near Awadh.
 As the movement spread in 1921, the House of talukadars and merchants were
attacked, bazaars were looted, and grain hoards were taken over. In many
places, local leaders told peasants that Gandhiji had declared that no taxes were
to be paid and the land was to be redistributed among the poor.
Q14) Discuss the movement that spread in the Gudem hills of Andhra.

A14) In the Gudem hills of Andhra Pradesh, for instance, a militant guerrilla
movement spread in the early 1920s.

 The colonial government had closed large forest areas, preventing people
from entering the forest to graze their cattle, or to collect fuel wood, and
fruits.
 Not only were their livelihoods affected but they felt that their traditional
rights were being denied. When the government began forcing them to
contribute beggar for Road building, the hill people revolted.
 Alluri Sitaram Raju led the people. He claimed that he had a variety of
special powers: claiming he could make correct astrological predictions
and heal people, and he could survive even bullet shots.
 He persuaded people to wear khadi and gave up drinking. But at the same
time, he asserted that India could be liberated only by the use of force, not
non-violence. The Gudem rebels attacked police stations, attempted to kill
British officials, and carried on guerrilla warfare for achieving swaraj.

Q15) How did the plantation workers associate themselves with the idea of
Swaraj?

A15) Under the Inland Immigration Act of 1859, the plantation workers were not
permitted to leave the tea gardens without permission, and in fact, they were very
rarely given such permission.

 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.
 Day, however, never reached their destination. Stranded on the way by a
railway and streamer strike, they were caught by the police and brutally
beaten up.
 They interpreted the term swaraj in their ways, imagining it to be a time
when all suffering and all troubles would be over.
 When they acted in the name of Mahatma Gandhi or linked their
movements to that of the Congress, they were identifying with the
movement which went beyond the limits of their immediate locality.
Q16) Why did Mahatma Gandhi decide to launch the salt march?

A16) Mahatma Gandhi found in salt a powerful symbol that could unite the
nation. On 31st January 1930, he sent a letter to viceroy Irvin stating 11
demands.

 The most stirring of all was the demand to abolish the salt tax. Salt
was something consumed by the rich and the poor alike, and it was
one of the most essential items of food. The tax on salt and the
government monopoly over its production, Mahatma Gandhi
declared, revealed the most oppressive phase of British rule.
 Mahatma Gandhi started his famous salt March accompanied by
78 of his trusted volunteers. The March was over 240 miles, from
Gandhi's ashram in Sabarmati to the Gujarati coastal town of
Dandi.
 On 6th April he reached Dandi and ceremonially violated the law
by manufacturing salt by boiling seawater. This marked the
beginning of the civil disobedience movement.

Q17) How did the British government react to the civil disobedience
movement?

A17) Worried by the development, the colonial government began arresting

the Congress leaders one by one. This led to violent clashes in many places.

 When Abdul Ghaffar Khan, a devote disciple of Mahatma Gandhi,

was arrested in April 1930, angry crowds demonstrated in the
streets of Peshawar, facing armored cars and public firing. Many
were killed.
 A month later, when Mahatma Gandhi himself was arrested,
industrial workers in Sholapur attacked police posts, municipal
buildings, law courts, and railway stations- all structures that
symbolized British rule.
Q18) Discuss the growth and progress of the Civil Disobedience Movement in
the countryside.

A18) In the countryside, rich peasant communities like the Patidar of Gujarat
and the Jats of Uttar Pradesh were active in the movement.

 Being producers of commercial crops, they were very hard hit by the
trade depression and falling prices. As their cash income disappeared,
they found it impossible to pay the government's revenue demand.
 And the refusal of the government to reduce the revenue demand
led to widespread resentment.
 These reach peasants became enthusiastic supporters of the civil
disobedience movement, organizing their communities, and at times
forcing reluctant members, to participate in the boycott programs.
 For them the fight for swaraj was a struggle against high revenues.
But they were deeply disappointed when the movement was called
off in 1931 without the revenue rates being revised.

Q19) What was the role of the poor peasantry in the Civil Disobedience
Movement?

A19) The poor peasantry were not just interested in lowering the revenue
demanded. Many of them were small tenants cultivating land they hand-
rented from the landlords.

 As the depression continued and cash incomes dwindled, the small

tenants found it difficult to pay their rent.
 They wanted the unpaid rent to the landlord to be remitted.
 They joined a variety of radical movements, often led by socialists
and communists.
 Apprehensive of raising issues that might upset the rich peasants and
landlords, Congress was unwilling to support the 'no rent' campaigns
in most places. So the relationship between the poor peasants and
the Congress remained uncertain.
Q20) How did the business class relate itself to the Civil Disobedience Movement?

A20) During the First World War, Indian merchants and industrialists made huge profits
and became powerful. Keen on expanding their business, they now reacted against
colonial police that restricted business activities.

 They wanted protection against imports of foreign goods, and the rupee-
sterling foreign exchange ratio that would discourage imports.
 To organize business interests, they formed the Indian industrial and
commercial Congress in 1920 and the Federation of the Indian Chamber of
Commerce and Industries (FICCI) in 1927.
 Led by prominent industrialists like Purushottam Das and G.D.Birla, the
industrialists attacked colonial control over the Indian economy and
supported the civil disobedience movement when it was first launched.
 They gave financial assistance and refused to buy or sell imported goods.
 Most businessmen came to see swaraj as a time when colonial restrictions on
businesses would no longer exist and date an industry would flourish without
constraints.
 But after the failure of the Round Table Conference, business groups were no
longer uniformly enthusiastic. They were apprehensive of the spread of
militant activities and worried about prolonged disruption of businesses.

Q21) Discuss the participation of the industrial working class in the Civil Disobedience
movement.

A21) The industrial working class did not participate in the civil disobedience movement
in large numbers except in the Nagpur region.

 Some workers did participate in the civil disobedience movement, selectively

adopting some of the ideas of the Gandhian programs, like the boycott of
foreign goods, as part of their movement against low wages and poor working
conditions.
 There were strikes by railway workers in 1930 and dock workers in 1932.
 In 1930 thousands of workers in Chota Nagpur tin mines wore Gandhi caps
and participated in protest rallies and boycott campaigns.
 But Congress was reluctant to include the workers' demand as part of its
program of struggle. It felt that this would alienate industrialists and divide
the anti-imperial forces.
Q24) Discuss the limits of the Civil Disobedience Movement.

A23) Not all social groups were moved by the abstract concept of swaraj.
One such group was the nation's 'untouchables', who from around the
1930s had begun to call themselves the Dalits or oppressed.

 Many Dalit leaders began organizing themselves, demanding

reserved seats in educational institutions, and a separate electorate
that would choose Dalit members for legislative councils.
 Political empowerment, they believed, would resolve the problems
of their social disabilities.
 Dalit participation in the civil disobedience movement was
therefore limited. Particularly in the Maharashtra and Nagpur
region where their organization was quite strong.
 Doctor B.R.Ambedkar demanded separate electorates for Dalits.
The Poona Act of 1932 give the depressed classes (later to be
known as scheduled casts) reserved seats in provincial and central
legislative councils, but they were to be voted in by the general
electorate.
 The Dalit movement, however, continues to be apprehensive of the
Congress-led national movement.
 Some of the Muslim political organizations in India were also
lukewarm in their response to the civil disobedience movement.
 After the decline of the non-corporation Khilafat movement, a large
section of Muslims felt alienated from Congress.
 When the civil disobedience movement started, large sections of
Muslims could not respond to the call for a united struggle.
 Many Muslim leaders and intellectuals expressed their concern
about the status of Muslims as a minority within India.
 They feared that the culture and identity of minorities would be
submerged under the domination of the Hindu majority.

Q24) Discuss the participation of women in the Civil Disobedience Movement.

A22) Women participated in large numbers in this movement.

 During Gandhiji's salt March, thousands of women came out of their homes to
listen to him.
 They participated in protest marches, manufactured salt, antiquated foreign
cloth, and liquor shops.
 Many went to jail. In urban areas these women were from high-class families; in
rural areas, they came from rich peasant households.
 Moved by Gandhiji's call they began to see service to the nation as a sacred duty
of women. Yet, this increased public role did not necessarily mean any radical
change in the way the position of women was specialized.
 Nandi deep was convinced that it was the duty of women to look after the home
and hearth, and be good mothers and good wives.
 And for a long time, Congress was reluctant to allow women to hold any position
of authority within the organization.