When Mahatma Gandhi was arrested who among the following took over the leadership of Salt Satyagraha?
(a) Vinoba Bhave
(b) Sardar Vallabh Bhai Patel
(c) Abbas Tyabji
(d) Maulana Abdul Kalam Azad
Solution: (c)
Abbas Tyabji was an Indian freedom fighter from Gujarat, who once served as the Chief Justice of the (Baroda) Gujarat High Court. Mahatma Gandhi appointed Tyabji, at age seventy-six, to replace him as leader of the Salt Satyagraha in May 1930 after Gandhi’s arrest. Tyabji was arrested soon afterward and imprisoned by the British Indian Government. Gandhi and others respectfully called Tyabji the “Grand Old Man of Gujarat”
Who was the leader of the Bardoli Satyagraha?
(a) Dr. Rajendra Prasad
(b) Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru
(c) Sardar Vallabh Bhai Patel
(d) Acharya J. B. Kripalani
Solution: (c)
The Bardoli Satyagraha of 1928, in the state of Gujarat, India during the period of the British Raj, was a major episode of civil disobedience and revolt in the Indian Independence Movement. Its success gave rise to Vallabhbhai Patel as one of the greatest leaders of the independence struggle. The background to this movement was provided in 1925 when the taluka of Bardoli in Gujarat suffered from floods and famine, causing crop production to suffer and leaving farmers facing great financial troubles. However, the Government of the Bombay Presidency had raised the tax rate by 30% that year, and despite petitions from civic groups, refused to cancel the rise in the face of the calamities.
Naokhali is situated in—
(a) West Bengal
(b) Bangladesh
(c) Tripura
(d) Bihar
Solution: (b)
Noakhali is a district in South-eastern Bangladesh. It is located in the Chittagong Division. This place is remembered for the genocide in form of a series of massacres, rapes, abductions and forced conversions of Hindus and looting and arson of Hindu properties, perpetrated by the Muslim community in the districts of Noakhali and Tipperah in the Chittagong Division of Bengal in October–November 1946, a year before India’s independence from British rule. Gandhi camped in Noakhali for four months and toured the district in a mission to restore peace and communal harmony.
Permanent Revenue settlement of Bengal was introduced by:
(a) Clive
(b) Hastings
(c) Wellesley
(d) Cornwallis
Solution: (d)
The Permanent Settlement — also known as the Permanent Settlement of Bengal— was an agreement between the East India Company and Bengali landlords to fix revenues to be raised from land, with far reaching consequences for both agricultural methods and productivity in the entire Empire and the political realities of the Indian countryside. It was concluded in 1793, by the Company administration headed by Charles, Earl Cornwallis. It formed one part of a larger body of legislation enacted known as the Cornwallis Code,
Mahatma Gandhi got his inspira[1]tion for Civil Disobedience from:
(a) Tuoreau
(b) Ruskin
(c) Confucius
(d) Tolstoy
Solution: (a)
Mahatma Gandhi got inspiration of Civil Disobedience by reading a book of David Thoreau who was an American author, poet, philosopher, abolitionist, naturalist, tax resister, development critic, surveyor, historian, and leading transcendentalist. He is best known for his book Walden, a reflection upon simple living in natural surroundings, and his essay Civil Disobedience, an argument for individual resistance to civil government in moral opposition to an unjust state. Tho reau’s philosophy of civil disobedience later influenced the political thoughts and actions of such notable figures as Leo Tolstoy, Mohandas Gandhi, and Martin Luther King, Jr.
Who represented India in the Second Round Table Conference?
(a) Aruna Asaf Ali
(b) Sucheta Kripalani
(c) Sarojini Naidu
(d) Kalpana Joshi
Solution: (c)
The Gandhi-Irwin Pact opened the way for Congress participation in this conference. Mahatma Gandhi was invited from India and attended as the sole official Congress representative accompanied by Sarojini Naidu and also Madan Mohan Malaviya, Ghanshyam Das Birla, Muhammad Iqbal, Sir Mirza Ismail Diwan of Mysore, S.K. Dutta and Sir Syed Ali Imam. Gandhi claimed that the Congress alone represented political India; that the Untouchables were Hindus and should not be treated as a “minority”; and that there should be no separate electorates or special safeguards for Muslims or other minorities. These claims were rejected by the other Indian participants.
Who persuaded the ratings of the RIN (Royal India Navy) to surrender on the 23rd February 1946?
(1) Mahatma Gandhi
(2) Jawaharlal Nehru and Maulana Abul Kalam Azad
(3) Vallabh Bhai Patel and M.A. Jinnah
(4) Morarji Desai and J.B. Kripalani
Solution: (c)
In February 1946, the Royal Indian Navy (RIN) experienced a major mutiny, on a magnitude rare among modern navies. The Second Battalion of the Black watch was called from their barracks in Karachi to deal with this mutiny on Manora Island. Both Muhammad Ali Jinnah and Sardar Patel successfully persuaded the ratings to surrender. Patel wrote, “Discipline in the army cannot be tampered with. We will want [the] army even in free India”.
One time associate of Mahatma Gandhi, broke off from him and launched a radical movement called ‘self-respect movement’. Who was he?
(a) P. Thyagaraja Shetti
(b) Chhatrapati Maharaj
(c) E.V. Ramaswamy Naicker
(d) Jyotirao Govindrao Phule
Solution: (c)
The Self-Respect Movement is a movement with the aim of achieving a society where backward castes have equal human rights, and encouraging backward castes to have self-respect in the context of a caste- based society that considered them to be a lower end of the hierarchy. It was founded in 1925 by Periyar E. V. Ramasamy (also known as Periyar) in Tamil Nadu, India. Periyar was convinced that if man developed self-respect, he would automatically develop individuality and would refuse to be led by the nose by schemers. One of his most known quotes on Self-Respect was, “we are fit to think of ‘self-respect’ only when the notion of ‘superior’ and ‘inferior’ caste is banished from our land”.
In which of the following movements did Mahatma Gandhi make the first use of Hunger Strike as a weapon?
(a) Non-Cooperation Movement, 1920-22
(b) Rowlatt Satyagraha, 1919
(c) Ahmedabad Strike, 1918
(d) Bardoli Satyagraha
Solution: (c)
In 1918, Mahatma Gandhi intervened in a dispute between the workers and mill-owners of Ahmedabad. He advised the workers to go on strike and to demand a 35 per cent increase in wages. But he insisted that the workers should not use violence against the employers during the strike. He undertook a fast unto death (first among the 17 such fasts) to strengthen the workers’ resolve to continue the strike. But his fast also put pressure on the mill-owners who relented on the fourth day and agreed to give the workers a 35 per cent increase in wages.
Sati was prohibited by
(a) Warren Hastings
(b) Lord Wellesley
(c) Lord William Bentinck
(d) Lord Dalhousie
Solution: (c)
Historically, efforts to prevent Sati by formal means were extent even before the Mughal rulers came to power. Under the Delhi Sultanates (circa 1325) permission had to be sought prior to any Sati. In their own sphere of influence the Portuguese, Dutch and French banned Sati but efforts to stamp out Sati were formalised only under Lord William Bentinck after 1829. William Cavendish Bentinck succeeded Lord Amherst as the Governor General of India. He took over the charge of Indian administration in the year 1828. Bentinck took effective steps to root out social evils like Sati and infanticide.
