Gandhian Era: Khilafat, NCM, CDM: previous-year questions

Answer: (B) Sarojini Naidu

Sarojini Naidu described Gandhi and Viceroy Lord Irwin as 'the Two Mahatmas' during the talks that produced the Gandhi-Irwin (Delhi) Pact of 5 March 1931, a comment on the deeply religious, conscience-driven character of both men. Under the Pact the Congress suspended Civil Disobedience and agreed to attend the Second Round Table Conference, while the Government released non-violent political prisoners and allowed salt-making for personal use in coastal villages. Naidu, the 'Nightingale of India', was the first Indian woman President of the Congress (Kanpur, 1925). Among the other options, Nehru was unhappy with the Pact, Mirabehn (Madeleine Slade) was Gandhi's English disciple, and Tagore is credited with popularising the title 'Mahatma' for Gandhi.

Answer: (D) Vinoba Bhave

After the Congress rejected the August Offer (1940), Gandhi launched the limited Individual Satyagraha to assert the right to speak against India being dragged into the Second World War. Acharya Vinoba Bhave was the first satyagrahi (17 October 1940, at Paunar near Wardha), Jawaharlal Nehru the second and Brahma Datt the third; its slogan was 'Delhi Chalo'. Achyut Patwardhan and Aruna Asaf Ali belong to a later phase, as underground leaders of the Quit India Movement of 1942 (Aruna Asaf Ali hoisted the flag at Gowalia Tank, Bombay). Vinoba later began the Bhoodan movement at Pochampally in 1951.

Answer: (B) Muhammad Iqbal

Muhammad Iqbal, the Urdu and Persian poet-philosopher, attended the Second (1931) and Third (1932) Round Table Conferences in London as a Muslim delegate. He is remembered for 'Saare Jahan Se Achchha' (Tarana-e-Hind, 1904), the collection Bang-e-Dara, and his Allahabad address to the Muslim League in 1930 proposing a consolidated Muslim state in north-west India. The three conferences: First (1930-31, Congress absent), Second (1931, Gandhi the sole Congress representative) and Third (1932, Congress absent); B.R. Ambedkar and Tej Bahadur Sapru attended all three. Firaq Gorakhpuri (Jnanpith winner), Josh Malihabadi ('Shayar-e-Inquilab') and Faiz Ahmad Faiz were major Urdu poets but were not delegates.

Answer: (B) Rabindranath Tagore

Rabindranath Tagore criticised the bonfires of foreign cloth during the Non-Cooperation Movement as a wasteful and negative act when the poor lacked clothing, and questioned the cult of the charkha, in his essay 'The Call of Truth' (1921); Gandhi answered him in 'The Great Sentinel' in Young India. The disagreement was about method, not about freedom: Tagore had himself renounced his knighthood after Jallianwala Bagh in 1919. The other three do not fit: C.R. Das gave up his legal practice and led the movement in Bengal, Subhas Chandra Bose resigned from the ICS in 1921 to join it, and Tilak died on 1 August 1920, the very day the movement was launched.

Answer: (C) Mahatma Gandhi

The Congress boycotted the official Hunter Committee and appointed its own Punjab Inquiry Committee in November 1919. Its commissioners were M.K. Gandhi, C.R. Das, Abbas Tyabji and M.R. Jayakar (Motilal Nehru stepped aside on being elected President of the Amritsar Congress), with K. Santhanam as secretary, and the report, published in 1920, was drafted by Gandhi. It put the death toll far above the official figure of 379 and condemned General Dyer and Lieutenant-Governor Michael O'Dwyer. Das and Motilal Nehru (A, B) were associated with the committee but did not write the report, and Dr Saifuddin Kitchlew (D), with Dr Satyapal, was the Amritsar leader whose arrest led to the protest meeting of 13 April 1919.

Answer: (C) Tej Bahadur Sapru

The Liberal leaders Tej Bahadur Sapru and M.R. Jayakar (with V.S. Srinivasa Sastri) acted as go-betweens for Gandhi and Viceroy Lord Irwin. After Gandhi's release in January 1931 the talks led to the Gandhi-Irwin (Delhi) Pact of 5 March 1931, under which Civil Disobedience was suspended and the Congress agreed to attend the Second Round Table Conference. The Pact was ratified at the Karachi Congress (March 1931, President Vallabhbhai Patel), which also passed the resolutions on Fundamental Rights and the National Economic Programme. Motilal Nehru (A) died on 6 February 1931 before the Pact, Annie Besant (B) played no part in it, and Chintamani Panigrahi (D) was an Odisha politician of a later generation.

Answer: (B) Louis Fischer

The American journalist Louis Fischer wrote 'The Life of Mahatma Gandhi' (1950), the biography on which Richard Attenborough's film 'Gandhi' (1982) was largely based; he also wrote 'A Week with Gandhi'. The other Americans knew Gandhi but were not his biographers: Richard Gregg wrote 'The Power of Nonviolence', and Webb Miller was the United Press correspondent whose report of the Dharasana salt raid (1930) shocked the world. Other biographies: Joseph Doke (the first, 1909), Romain Rolland ('Mahatma Gandhi', 1924), D.G. Tendulkar ('Mahatma', eight volumes), Pyarelal ('The Last Phase') and B.R. Nanda. Gandhi's own autobiography is 'The Story of My Experiments with Truth', written in Gujarati and translated by Mahadev Desai.

Answer: (C) Jallianwala Bagh Massacre

The Disorders Inquiry Committee, known as the Hunter Committee after its chairman Lord William Hunter, was appointed in October 1919 to inquire into the Punjab disturbances and the Jallianwala Bagh massacre of 13 April 1919. It had three Indian members, Chimanlal Setalvad, Jagat Narayan and Sultan Ahmed Khan, who wrote a separate minority report. The report (1920) censured General Dyer, who was relieved of his command, though he was not punished further. The Congress boycotted it and set up its own inquiry, whose report was drafted by Gandhi. Do not confuse it with the Hunter Education Commission of 1882 under Sir W.W. Hunter. In protest against the massacre Tagore gave up his knighthood, and Michael O'Dwyer was shot by Udham Singh in London in 1940.

Answer: (A) Jawaharlal Nehru

Jawaharlal Nehru presided over the Lahore session of December 1929, which adopted Purna Swaraj as the goal and hoisted the tricolour on the Ravi. Ananda Mohan Bose and R. C. Dutt presided over sessions in the 1890s, and Subhas Bose presided at Haripura (1938) and Tripuri (1939).

Answer: (A) 1931

The Gandhi–Irwin Pact was signed on 5 March 1931, suspending the Civil Disobedience Movement so that Gandhi could attend the Second Round Table Conference. 1930 is when the Dandi March began, 1915 is Gandhi's return from South Africa and 1919 the Rowlatt Satyagraha.

Answer: (B) C. R. Das and Motilal Nehru.

C. R. Das and Motilal Nehru founded the Swaraj Party on 1 January 1923 to contest council elections after the Non-Cooperation Movement ended. Tilak had died in 1920, and Patel was among the ‘no-changers’ who opposed council entry.

Answer: (D) By this agreement the point of separate electorate for the Hindus and the Muslims was accepted.

The Poona Pact of September 1932 between Gandhi and Ambedkar, signed at Poona during Gandhi's fast in Yerawada jail, gave up separate electorates for the Depressed Classes in favour of reserved seats in a joint electorate. It said nothing about accepting separate electorates for Hindus and Muslims, so statement (D) is the untrue one; (A), (B) and (C) are correct.

Answer: (D) Khan Abdul Gaffar Khan

Khan Abdul Ghaffar Khan founded the Khudai Khidmatgar (‘Servants of God’) in 1929 in the North-West Frontier Province as a non-violent volunteer movement. Jinnah led the Muslim League, Nawab Salimullah helped found it, and the Sayyid Brothers were 18th-century Mughal kingmakers.

Answer: (C) Dr. Rajendra Prasad

PSC's official key (provisional and final) marks Dr. Rajendra Prasad, and that is recorded here as the answer. Standard history texts, however, say that Gandhi chose Acharya Vinoba Bhave as the first Individual Satyagrahi (he offered satyagraha at Paunar on 17 October 1940), Jawaharlal Nehru as the second and Brahma Datt as the third; Vinoba's name is not among the options. The Individual Satyagraha was launched after the Congress rejected the August Offer (1940) and aimed to assert the right of free speech against India's forced participation in the War, with the "Delhi Chalo" call. For any other exam, remember: first Vinoba Bhave, second Nehru.

Answer: (B) 1919

The Jallianwala Bagh massacre took place at Amritsar on 13 April 1919, when General Dyer's troops fired on a crowd protesting against the Rowlatt Act and the arrest of Saifuddin Kitchlew and Satyapal. 1920 was the year the Non-Cooperation Movement was launched, partly in response to this massacre. 1921 saw the Moplah rebellion in Malabar. 1922 is remembered for the Chauri Chaura incident (5 February), after which Gandhi withdrew the Non-Cooperation Movement.

Answer: (B) 1931

The Gandhi-Irwin Pact (Delhi Pact) was signed on 5 March 1931; Gandhi suspended Civil Disobedience and agreed to attend the Second Round Table Conference. 1930 saw the Dandi March and the First Round Table Conference. In 1932 came Ramsay MacDonald's Communal Award and the Poona Pact. In 1933 Choudhry Rahmat Ali coined the name 'Pakistan' in his pamphlet 'Now or Never'.

Answer: (A) 1922

On 5 February 1922 a crowd at Chauri Chaura in Gorakhpur district set fire to a police station, killing 22 policemen, and Gandhi withdrew the Non-Cooperation Movement. In 1923 C. R. Das and Motilal Nehru formed the Swaraj Party. In 1924 Gandhi presided over the Belgaum session of the Congress. 1925 is the year of the Kakori train action by the Hindustan Republican Association.

Answer: (C) 1920

The Non-Cooperation Movement was launched on 1 August 1920, approved at the special Calcutta session in September 1920 and confirmed at the Nagpur session in December 1920. 1930 is the year the Civil Disobedience Movement began with the Dandi March. 1931 is the year of the Gandhi-Irwin Pact and the Karachi session. In 1923 the Swaraj Party was formed after the movement had been withdrawn.

Answer: (A) 1931

The Gandhi-Irwin Pact (Delhi Pact) was signed on 5 March 1931. Gandhiji agreed to suspend the Civil Disobedience Movement and attend the Second Round Table Conference; the Government agreed to release non-violent political prisoners and allow salt-making for personal use in coastal villages. The Karachi Congress (March 1931, President Vallabhbhai Patel) endorsed it. Other years: 1929 Lahore Congress and Purna Swaraj, 1930 Dandi March and First Round Table Conference, 1932 Communal Award and Poona Pact.

Answer: (B) Vallabhbhai Patel

Vallabhbhai Patel led the peasants of Bardoli taluka (Surat district, Gujarat) in a no-tax campaign in 1928 against an increase of land revenue by about 22 per cent; the Maxwell-Broomfield enquiry later reduced the increase. The women of Bardoli gave him the title 'Sardar'. In the same year Motilal Nehru prepared the Nehru Report; Rajendra Prasad is linked with the Champaran Satyagraha (1917); Jawaharlal Nehru presided over the Lahore Congress (1929).