Mahatma Gandhi and the Nationalist Movement: Civil Disobedience and Beyond, Class 12

What Mahatma Gandhi and the Nationalist Movement: Civil Disobedience and Beyond is about

Weightage: Themes in Indian History Part III carries 25 of the 80 theory marks; this chapter shares them with Colonialism and the Countryside: Exploring Official Archives, Rebels and the Raj: The Revolt of 1857 and Its Representations and Framing the Constitution: The Beginning of a New Era. A separate 5-mark map question covers the map items of all three books.Source: CBSE History (027) syllabus 2026-27, course structure

Key concepts

A leader announces himself: the BHU speech

NCERT section 1. A Leader Announces Himself

Return: in January 1915, Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi returned after about two decades abroad, mostly in South Africa, where he went as a lawyer and became a leader of the Indian community. The historian Chandran Devanesan called South Africa 'the making of the Mahatma': there he first forged satyagraha (non-violent protest), promoted harmony between religions and alerted upper-caste Indians to their treatment of low castes and women.

The India of 1915 was more politically active than the one he left in 1893: the Congress had branches in most cities; the Swadeshi movement of 1905-07 had broadened its appeal among the middle classes and produced militant leaders Bal Gangadhar Tilak (Maharashtra), Bipin Chandra Pal (Bengal) and Lala Lajpat Rai (Punjab), known as 'Lal, Bal and Pal', the alliteration showing the all-India character of their struggle. The Moderates preferred a gradual, persuasive approach; among them were Gandhiji's political mentor Gopal Krishna Gokhale and Mohammad Ali Jinnah.

On Gokhale's advice Gandhiji spent a year travelling around British India.

The BHU speech (February 1916): at the opening of the Banaras Hindu University, attended by princes, philanthropists and Congress leaders like Annie Besant, the relatively unknown Gandhiji charged the elite with neglecting the labouring poor. He called the ceremony 'a most gorgeous show' but contrasted 'richly bedecked noblemen' with the absent 'millions of the poor', and said India's salvation could only come through the farmer, not lawyers, doctors or rich landlords.

• At one level a statement of fact: Indian nationalism was an elite phenomenon.
• At another a statement of intent: his wish to make nationalism represent the Indian people as a whole.

In December 1916, at the Lucknow Congress, a peasant from Champaran (Bihar) told him about the harsh treatment of peasants by British indigo planters.

Worked example

Why is Gandhiji's BHU speech of February 1916 described as both a statement of fact and a statement of intent? (3 marks)

Try it first, then show the solutionSolution

1. Fact: he pointed out that Indian nationalism was an elite phenomenon, a creation of lawyers, doctors and landlords, while millions of poor Indians were absent from the gathering.
2. Intent: it was his first public announcement of his wish to make nationalism representative of the Indian people as a whole.
3. He stressed that India's salvation could only come through the farmer, foreshadowing mass movements of peasants and workers.

Answer: It described nationalism as elite (fact) and announced Gandhiji's aim to make it a movement of the whole people, especially peasants (intent).

Champaran, Ahmedabad, Kheda and the Rowlatt satyagraha

NCERT section 2. The Making and Unmaking of Non-cooperation

Local struggles:

• Champaran (1917): Gandhiji sought security of tenure for peasants and freedom to cultivate crops of their choice against indigo planters.
• Ahmedabad (1918): he intervened in a labour dispute, demanding better working conditions for textile mill workers.
• Kheda (1918): he joined peasants asking the state for remission of taxes after harvest failure.

These marked him out as a nationalist with deep sympathy for the poor, but they were localised struggles.

The Rowlatt Act (1919): during the Great War (1914-18) the British had imposed press censorship and detention without trial; on the recommendation of a committee chaired by Sir Sidney Rowlatt, these measures were continued. Gandhiji called a countrywide campaign: in towns of north and west India shops and schools closed in response to the bandh call. Protests were intense in Punjab, where many men had served in the war and expected reward but got the Rowlatt Act. Gandhiji was detained on his way to Punjab; local Congressmen were arrested.

Jallianwala Bagh (April 1919): in Amritsar, a British Brigadier ordered troops to fire on a nationalist meeting; more than four hundred people were killed.

It was the Rowlatt satyagraha that made Gandhiji a truly national leader.

Worked example

How did the Rowlatt satyagraha make Gandhiji a national leader? (3 marks)

Try it first, then show the solutionSolution

1. His earlier campaigns in Champaran, Ahmedabad and Kheda were localised, though they showed his sympathy for the poor.
2. The continuation of wartime censorship and detention without trial under the Rowlatt Act gave him an issue for a countrywide campaign; shops and schools shut across north and west India.
3. Protests were intense in Punjab, culminating in the Jallianwala Bagh massacre in April 1919; the satyagraha's nationwide reach made him a truly national leader.

Answer: It turned his local struggles into a countrywide campaign against repressive laws, making him a national leader.

Non-cooperation and Khilafat

NCERT section 2.1 Knitting a popular movement

The call: emboldened, Gandhiji called for non-cooperation: Indians were to stop attending schools, colleges and law courts and not pay taxes, a 'renunciation of (all) voluntary association with the (British) Government'. He said swaraj would come within a year if it was carried out effectively.

Khilafat: he joined hands with the Khilafat Movement (1919-1920) of Indian Muslims, led by Muhammad Ali and Shaukat Ali, which sought to restore the Caliphate (abolished by the Turkish ruler Kemal Ataturk). Its demands: the Khalifa should keep control of Muslim sacred places of the former Ottoman empire; the jazirat-ul-Arab (Arabia, Syria, Iraq, Palestine) should remain under Muslim sovereignty; and the Khalifa should keep enough territory to defend the faith. Gandhiji hoped Hindus and Muslims together could end colonial rule.

An unprecedented surge:

• Students left government schools and colleges; lawyers refused to attend court.
• Workers struck: official figures show 396 strikes in 1921, with 600,000 workers taking part and seven million workdays lost.
• In the countryside, hill tribes of northern Andhra broke forest laws, Awadh farmers withheld taxes, and Kumaun peasants would not carry officials' loads.
• These protests were sometimes in defiance of local nationalist leaders: people interpreted non-cooperation in ways that suited their interests.

Louis Fischer, Gandhiji's American biographer, wrote that non-cooperation became the name of an epoch: negative enough to be peaceful, positive enough to be effective; it entailed denial, renunciation and self-discipline, and was training for self-rule. The Raj was shaken to its foundations for the first time since 1857.

Chauri Chaura (February 1922): peasants torched a police station in this hamlet in the United Provinces; several constables died. Gandhiji called off the movement, insisting no provocation could justify the brutal murder of defenceless men.

Trial: arrested in March 1922 and charged with sedition, Gandhiji was sentenced to six years. Justice C.N. Broomfield said he was in a different category from anyone he had tried, a great patriot in the eyes of millions, and that he would be pleased if the government could release him earlier.

Worked example

How was non-cooperation a form of protest, and why did Gandhiji call it off? (3 marks)

Try it first, then show the solutionSolution

1. It asked Indians to renounce voluntary association with the government: boycott schools, colleges and courts and refuse taxes; workers struck (396 strikes in 1921) and peasants and tribals defied local laws.
2. Fischer called it negative enough to be peaceful but positive enough to be effective; it shook the Raj for the first time since 1857.
3. After peasants torched a police station at Chauri Chaura in February 1922, killing constables, Gandhiji called off the movement because no provocation justified such violence.

Answer: Non-violent withdrawal of cooperation from the colonial state; it was called off after the violence at Chauri Chaura.

A people's leader

NCERT section 2.2 A people's leader; Sources 1 and 2

By 1922 Gandhiji had transformed Indian nationalism: it was no longer a movement of professionals and intellectuals but of hundreds of thousands of peasants, workers and artisans.

Why people identified with him:

• He dressed, lived and spoke like them; while others wore Western suits or bandgalas, he wore a simple dhoti or loincloth. In 1921, on a tour of south India, he shaved his head and began wearing a loincloth to identify with the poor; it also symbolised asceticism against consumerist modern culture.
• He spun daily on the charkha and asked others to do so, breaking the caste-system boundary between mental and manual labour.
• The charkha symbolised a society that did not glorify machines; it could give the poor supplementary income and self-reliance. In Young India he objected to the 'craze' for labour-saving machinery that threw thousands out of work, wanting wealth concentrated 'in the hands of all'; khaddar would regulate, not destroy, machinery, and the wheel was itself 'an exquisite piece of machinery'.

Peasants' image of Gandhi: historian Shahid Amin traced this through local press reports and rumours in eastern UP during his tour of February 1921: huge crowds at stations (15,000-20,000 at several stations; currency rained on a sheet at Chauri Chaura); rumours that a karah of cane juice split and wheat turned to sesamum when people tested his power; that he was sent by the King, or was more powerful than the English monarch; and that those who opposed him met misfortune. Known as 'Gandhi baba', 'Gandhi Maharaj' or 'Mahatma', he seemed a saviour from high taxes and oppressive officials.

Organisation: his mass appeal rested on careful organisation: new Congress branches; Praja Mandals in princely states; the nationalist message in mother tongues, with Congress provincial committees based on linguistic regions.

Industrialists such as G.D. Birla supported the movement, expecting British competitors to lose favours in a free India; their reasons differed from, perhaps opposed, those of peasants.

Followers (1917-22): a talented group from many regions and religions joined him, among them Jawaharlal Nehru, Vallabh Bhai Patel, Subhas Chandra Bose, Abul Kalam Azad, Sarojini Naidu, C. Rajagopalachari, Mahadev Desai, J.B. Kripalani and Govind Ballabh Pant.

Social reform: released in February 1924, he promoted khadi and the abolition of untouchability, opposed child marriage, and stressed Hindu-Muslim harmony and economic self-reliance.

Worked example

How did Mahatma Gandhi seek to identify with the common people? (3 marks)

Try it first, then show the solutionSolution

1. He dressed like them in a simple dhoti or loincloth (from 1921 he shaved his head and wore a loincloth), lived simply and spoke their language.
2. He spun on the charkha daily, breaking the barrier between mental and manual labour, and promoted khadi for self-reliance.
3. He took the nationalist message to people in their mother tongues and built Congress committees on linguistic lines, so people saw him as one of them, calling him Gandhi baba or Mahatma.

Answer: Through simple dress and lifestyle, the charkha and khadi, and communicating in people's own languages.

Purna Swaraj and the Salt Satyagraha

NCERT section 3. The Salt Satyagraha; 3.1 Dandi; Sources 3 and 4

Re-entry into politics: in 1928 there was an all-India campaign against the all-White Simon Commission; Gandhiji blessed it and a peasant satyagraha at Bardoli the same year.

Lahore Congress (December 1929): Jawaharlal Nehru elected President (passing the baton to the younger generation) and the commitment to 'Purna Swaraj' (complete independence).

Independence Day, 26 January 1930: the flag was hoisted and patriotic songs sung. Gandhiji asked that meetings be held at the same minute everywhere, announced by drums, and that the day be spent in constructive work (spinning, service of 'untouchables', Hindu-Muslim reunion, prohibition). Participants pledged that Indians had an inalienable right to freedom and the fruits of their toil, and a right to alter or abolish an oppressive government.

Why salt? The British state had a monopoly on making and selling salt. Salt was indispensable in every household, yet people could not make it even for domestic use and had to buy it at a high price. Targeting this hated law could mobilise wider discontent. In his writings (Source 3) Gandhiji called the salt monopoly a 'fourfold curse': it deprived people of a village industry; destroyed salt that nature produced in abundance (salt officers destroyed salt on the Konkan coast and at Dandi); that destruction cost the nation money; and it exacted 'an unheard-of tax of more than 1,000 per cent' from a starving people.

The march: Gandhiji gave advance notice to the Viceroy Lord Irwin, who failed to grasp its significance. On 12 March 1930 he walked from Sabarmati ashram towards the sea, reaching Dandi three weeks later and making a fistful of salt (6 April 1930), making himself a criminal in the eyes of the law. Parallel salt marches took place elsewhere. At Dandi on 5 April he said reaching there was due to the power of peace and non-violence, that the government might congratulate itself on not arresting them, perhaps from fear of world opinion, and that a roused nation needs no leader.

Other streams of protest: peasants breached forest laws; workers struck; lawyers boycotted courts; students left government institutions. Nearly 60,000 Indians were arrested, including Gandhiji.

Police reports traced his speeches: at Wasna he told upper castes that for swaraj they must serve 'untouchables' and that Hindus, Muslims, Parsis and Sikhs must unite. Meetings drew villagers of all castes and women; officials resigned to join; a District Superintendent of Police wrote that Gandhi was 'gathering more strength as he proceeds'. Time magazine first mocked his 'spindly frame' and doubted he would reach the sea, but within a week called him a 'Saint' and 'Statesman'.

Worked example

Why did the salt laws become an important issue of struggle? (3 marks)

Try it first, then show the solutionSolution

1. Salt was indispensable in every household, yet the state monopoly forbade people from making it even for domestic use and forced them to buy it at a high price.
2. Gandhiji called the monopoly a fourfold curse: it destroyed a village industry, destroyed natural salt, wasted national money on that destruction and imposed a tax of over 1,000 per cent on a starving people.
3. Because the law was so widely hated, breaking it could mobilise wider discontent against British rule across classes and regions.

Answer: A universally needed commodity under an oppressive monopoly made salt a symbol that could unite all Indians against British rule.

Significance of the Salt March, dialogues and separate electorates

NCERT section 3.2 Dialogues; Sources 5 and 6

Three reasons the Salt March was notable:
1. It first brought Gandhiji to world attention; the European and American press covered it widely.
2. For the first time in a nationalist campaign, large numbers of women took part; the socialist Kamaladevi Chattopadhyay persuaded Gandhiji not to limit protests to men and herself courted arrest.
3. It made the British realise their Raj would not last forever and that they must devolve some power to Indians.

Round Table Conferences (London):

• First (November 1930): held without Gandhiji, so futile.
• Gandhi-Irwin Pact: after his release in January 1931 and long talks with the Viceroy, it was agreed that civil disobedience would end, prisoners would be freed and people could make salt along the coast. Radical nationalists criticised it because it gave no commitment to independence, only an assurance of talks.
• Second (late 1931): Gandhiji represented the Congress, but his claim that it represented all India was challenged by the Muslim League (for the Muslim minority), the Princes (no Congress stake in their territories) and B.R. Ambedkar (the Congress did not represent the lowest castes). It was inconclusive; Gandhiji resumed civil disobedience. The new Viceroy Lord Willingdon was deeply unsympathetic (in a private letter he called it 'a beautiful world if it wasn't for Gandhi').

Separate electorates debate:

• Gandhiji (Source 5): separate electorates for 'Untouchables' would ensure them 'bondage in perpetuity' and perpetuate the stigma; what was needed was the destruction of untouchability. He believed they would prevent integration and permanently segregate them.
• Ambedkar (Source 6): the Depressed Classes could not sustain themselves; religion branded them, they were economically dependent on high-caste Hindus, and society tried to bolt every door against them; so some share of political power to protect themselves was a 'paramount necessity'.

1935-1942: the Government of India Act (1935) promised some representative government; in the 1937 elections on a restricted franchise the Congress won a comprehensive victory and had 'Prime Ministers' in eight of 11 provinces under British Governors. When the Second World War began (September 1939), Gandhiji and Nehru, critical of Hitler, offered support if India was promised independence after the war; refused, the Congress ministries resigned (October 1939); individual satyagrahas followed in 1940-41. In March 1940 the Muslim League passed a resolution seeking autonomy for Muslim-majority areas, making it a three-way struggle. Churchill (Conservative PM) was a diehard imperialist; the Cripps Mission (1942) failed when the Congress insisted that an Indian be appointed Defence Member of the Viceroy's Executive Council.

Worked example

Why were the dialogues at the Round Table Conferences inconclusive? (3 marks)

Try it first, then show the solutionSolution

1. The first conference (November 1930) was held without Gandhiji, the pre-eminent leader, so it was futile.
2. At the second (1931), Gandhiji's claim that the Congress represented all India was challenged by the Muslim League, the Princes and B.R. Ambedkar on behalf of the lowest castes.
3. With no agreement, especially on issues like separate electorates, the conference ended inconclusively and Gandhiji resumed civil disobedience.

Answer: Gandhiji's absence at the first, and conflicting claims by the League, Princes and Ambedkar at the second, prevented agreement.

Quit India, Independence and Partition

NCERT section 4. Quit India

Quit India (August 1942): after the Cripps Mission failed, Gandhiji launched his third major movement. He was jailed at once, but younger activists organised strikes and sabotage across the country; socialists such as Jayaprakash Narayan were active in the underground. 'Independent' governments were proclaimed in districts such as Satara (west) and Medinipur (east). The British took more than a year to suppress it.

• It was a genuine mass movement, energising the young, who left colleges in large numbers to go to jail.
• Satara prati sarkar (1943): younger leaders set up a parallel government with volunteer corps (seba dals) and village units (tufan dals), people's courts and constructive work, dominated by kunbi peasants and supported by dalits, lasting till the 1946 elections. (A non-Brahman movement opposing caste and landlordism had linked with the national movement by the 1930s.)
• Meanwhile Jinnah and the Muslim League expanded their influence, making a mark in Punjab and Sind for the first time.

Towards independence:

• June 1944: Gandhiji released; meetings with Jinnah to bridge the gap.
• 1945: a Labour government in Britain committed to independence; Viceroy Lord Wavell held talks with the Congress and League.
• Early 1946 elections: the Congress swept the 'General' seats; the League won an overwhelming majority of seats reserved for Muslims; polarisation was complete.
• The Cabinet Mission (1946) failed to get agreement on a federal system.
• Direct Action Day, 16 August 1946, called by Jinnah for Pakistan: bloody riots in Calcutta, spreading to rural Bengal, Bihar, the United Provinces and Punjab; in some places Muslims, in others Hindus, were the main sufferers.
• February 1947: Lord Mountbatten replaced Wavell; after inconclusive talks he announced British India would be freed but divided; the transfer of power was fixed for 15 August. In the Constituent Assembly there was prolonged applause when its President invoked the Father of the Nation.

Worked example

Why is Quit India described as a genuine mass movement? (3 marks)

Try it first, then show the solutionSolution

1. Although Gandhiji was jailed at once in August 1942, younger activists organised strikes and sabotage all over the country, with socialists like Jayaprakash Narayan in the underground.
2. 'Independent' governments were proclaimed in districts such as Satara and Medinipur; the Satara prati sarkar ran people's courts and constructive work.
3. Hundreds of thousands of ordinary Indians took part, especially the young who left colleges to go to jail; the British took more than a year to suppress it.

Answer: It drew in hundreds of thousands of ordinary people, especially the young, with parallel governments and sustained resistance even after leaders were jailed.

The last heroic days

NCERT section 5. The Last Heroic Days

15 August 1947: Gandhiji was not at the capital's festivities; he was in Calcutta and marked the day with a 24-hour fast, since freedom had come at an unacceptable price: a divided nation with Hindus and Muslims at each other's throats.

Healing work: in September and October, writes his biographer D.G. Tendulkar, he went round hospitals and refugee camps consoling people and appealing to Sikhs, Hindus and Muslims to forget the past and extend fellowship to each other. (The timeline notes that in 1946 he visited Noakhali and other riot-torn areas.)

Rights of minorities: at the initiative of Gandhiji and Nehru, the Congress passed a resolution on the rights of minorities. It had never accepted the 'two-nation theory'; forced to accept Partition, it still held that India was a land of 'many religions and many races' and should stay so, and would be a democratic secular State where all citizens enjoy full rights and equal protection irrespective of religion.

'Finest hour': many scholars call the months after Independence his finest hour. He moved to Delhi, hoping to go on to Punjab. His meetings were disrupted by refugees objecting to readings from the Koran or asking why he did not speak of Hindus and Sikhs in Pakistan; Tendulkar notes he was equally concerned with the minority community in Pakistan but felt he could not go there while unable to guarantee redress to Muslims in Delhi.

Assassination: after an attempt on 20 January 1948, he carried on. On 26 January he hoped Indians would work for the equality of all classes and creeds, never the domination of a major community over a minor one, and that the two divided countries would be friends at heart. On 30 January 1948, at his evening prayer meeting, he was shot dead by Nathuram Godse, who surrendered afterwards.

Tributes: grief across the political spectrum; appreciations from George Orwell and Albert Einstein; Time magazine, which had once mocked him, compared his martyrdom to Abraham Lincoln's: each was killed by a bigot for believing in human equality or friendship across faiths.

Worked example

Why are the months after Independence described as Gandhiji's 'finest hour'? (3 marks)

Try it first, then show the solutionSolution

1. Instead of celebrating on 15 August 1947 he fasted for 24 hours in Calcutta, grieving for a divided nation.
2. He worked to restore peace, visiting hospitals and refugee camps and urging Hindus, Muslims and Sikhs to forget the past and extend fellowship.
3. With Nehru, he led the Congress resolution on the rights of minorities, affirming a democratic secular state; he continued despite hostility and an attempt on his life, until his assassination on 30 January 1948.

Answer: Because he devoted himself to communal peace and minority rights amid Partition violence, at great personal risk.

Knowing Gandhi: sources

NCERT section 6. Knowing Gandhi; Sources 7 and 8

1. Public voice and private scripts: speeches show a person's public voice; private letters show private thoughts: anger, pain, hopes and frustrations. But the distinction often breaks down: letters may be written with publication in mind, and fear of print may make people guarded. Gandhiji published letters others wrote to him in his journal Harijan; Nehru published A Bunch of Old Letters (1958).

• One event through letters (1936): Nehru, influenced by socialism and back from Europe in 1928, upheld workers' and peasants' demands as Congress President in 1936. Conservatives, led by Rajendra Prasad and Sardar Patel, threatened to quit the Congress Working Committee; Bombay industrialists attacked Nehru. Both sides turned to Gandhiji at Wardha, who mediated, restraining Nehru's radicalism and persuading Prasad and others of Nehru's importance. Nehru wrote that he felt treated as 'an intolerable nuisance'; Prasad withdrew the resignations but complained Nehru spoke for a minority; Gandhiji told Nehru his colleagues dreaded his irritability and 'magisterial manner', called the affair a 'tragi-comedy' and urged him to keep the 'crown of thorns'.

2. Autobiographies: rich in human detail but retrospective, written from memory; they show what the author recalled or wished to present; writing one is framing a picture of yourself, so historians look for silences and acts of forgetting.

3. Government records (police eyes): secret letters and reports, now in archives, such as the Fortnightly Reports of the Home Department, based on police information but often expressing what higher officials saw or wanted to believe. For the Salt March period they were unwilling to admit mass enthusiasm, calling the march a drama or antic (for example, reporting that meetings excited little interest in Bengal, though noting more women attending), yet they also recorded the Salt Act defied in many UP towns and Nehru's arrest on 14 April 1930.

4. Newspapers: in English and Indian languages, tracking Gandhiji and representing popular opinion, but not unprejudiced: a London paper's report would differ from an Indian nationalist paper's. Official reports often reflect officials' fears and anxieties about a movement they could not control; they did not know whether to arrest Gandhiji or what an arrest would mean.

Worked example

What do private letters and autobiographies tell us about an individual, and how are they different from official accounts? (3 marks)

Try it first, then show the solutionSolution

1. Private letters reveal private thoughts, emotions and disagreements (as in the 1936 Nehru-Prasad-Gandhi letters), though some letters are written with publication in mind.
2. Autobiographies give rich human detail but are retrospective and frame a picture of the self, so historians must look for silences.
3. Official accounts such as the Fortnightly Reports were secret records shaped by officials' wish to believe the Raj was secure, reflecting the state's fears rather than individuals' inner thoughts.

Answer: Letters and autobiographies show personal thoughts and self-image, with their own biases; official accounts show the state's view and anxieties.

Mahatma Gandhi and the Nationalist Movement: Civil Disobedience and Beyond in real life

Each concept, met in an everyday situation. Read the situation, answer the question in your own words, then compare with the model answer. The one-line hook is what to remember.

Topics in this chapter

• Non-Cooperation and Khilafat Movement
• The Salt Satyagraha and Civil Disobedience
• Knowing Gandhi: Sources

Mahatma Gandhi and the Nationalist Movement: Civil Disobedience and Beyond: key facts

Timeline

1915	return
1917	Champaran
1918	Kheda and Ahmedabad
1919	Rowlatt satyagraha and Jallianwala Bagh
1921	Non-cooperation and Khilafat
1928	Bardoli
1929	Purna Swaraj (Lahore)
1930	Dandi March
1931	Gandhi-Irwin Pact, second RTC
1935	GoI Act
1939	ministries resign
1942	Quit India
1946	Noakhali

Chapter timeline.

Lal, Bal, Pal

Lala Lajpat Rai (Punjab), Bal Gangadhar Tilak (Maharashtra), Bipin Chandra Pal (Bengal)

Moderates: Gokhale (Gandhiji's mentor), Jinnah.

Non-cooperation in numbers

396 strikes in 1921; 600,000 workers; 7 million workdays lost

Northern Andhra tribes, Awadh farmers, Kumaun peasants.

Chauri Chaura and trial

February 1922 police station burnt; March 1922 arrest; sedition; six years (Justice C.N. Broomfield)

Released February 1924.

Khilafat demands

Khalifa controls Muslim sacred places; jazirat-ul-Arab under Muslim sovereignty; enough territory to defend the faith

Led by Muhammad Ali and Shaukat Ali.

Salt March

12 March 1930	march from Sabarmati to Dandi (about three weeks)
5 April	speech
6 April 1930	salt made
Arrests	nearly 60,000

Salt tax 'more than 1,000 per cent'; 'fourfold curse'.

Why the Salt March mattered

World attention + women in large numbers (Kamaladevi Chattopadhyay) + British realised Raj would not last

Time magazine changed its view within a week.

Gandhi-Irwin Pact (1931)

Civil disobedience called off; prisoners released; coastal salt manufacture allowed

Criticised: no commitment to independence.

Second RTC challengers

Muslim League; Princes; B.R. Ambedkar

Separate electorates debate: Gandhi against, Ambedkar for.

1937-1942

1937	Congress wins 8 of 11 provinces
Oct 1939	ministries resign
March 1940	League resolution
1942	Cripps Mission fails (Defence Member)

Churchill: diehard imperialist.

Road to 1947

June 1944	Gandhiji released
1945	Labour govt
1946	elections, Cabinet Mission
16 Aug 1946	Direct Action Day
Feb 1947	Mountbatten
15 Aug 1947	independence and partition

Gandhiji fasted 24 hours in Calcutta on 15 Aug 1947.

Last days

20 Jan 1948 attempt on life; 26 Jan speech; 30 Jan 1948 shot dead by Nathuram Godse at prayer meeting

Time compared him to Lincoln.

Sources for Gandhi

Speeches and letters (Harijan; A Bunch of Old Letters); autobiographies; Fortnightly Reports (Home Department); newspapers

Each has its own bias.

Mahatma Gandhi and the Nationalist Movement: Civil Disobedience and Beyond: map work

The places on the official CBSE map list for this chapter. Find each one on an outline map of India and practise marking it.

How the board asks Mahatma Gandhi and the Nationalist Movement: Civil Disobedience and Beyond

The question patterns to expect, and the method that works for each.

Tricks to remember Mahatma Gandhi and the Nationalist Movement: Civil Disobedience and Beyond

Short memory aids. Say each one aloud once, then use it on a question the same day.

• Early three

  "CAK": Champaran (indigo, 1917), Ahmedabad (mills, 1918), Kheda (tax, 1918).

  Use it when: MCQs and map items.

• Three mass movements

  "N-C-Q" every decade or so: Non-cooperation 1920-22, Civil Disobedience 1930, Quit India 1942.

  Use it when: Chronology.

• Salt March dates

  12 March start, 5 April speech, 6 April salt: 'Twelve to Six'.

  Use it when: Date MCQs.

• Why the Salt March mattered

  "WWW": World attention, Women, Waning Raj.

  Use it when: 3-mark answers.

• RTC challengers

  "LPA": League, Princes, Ambedkar.

  Use it when: Second Round Table Conference.

• Four sources

  "SLAP-N": Speeches and Letters, Autobiographies, Police reports, Newspapers.

  Use it when: Knowing Gandhi questions.

Mahatma Gandhi and the Nationalist Movement: Civil Disobedience and Beyond: board-level solved questions

Ordered from board level to HOTS. Cover the solution, write your own, then compare step by step.

Case-study practice (Section E style)

Read the situation, then answer every part. In the board paper this is a 4-mark question split into 1 + 1 + 2 marks.

Where the marks are

How a typical answer is split into step marks. Show every step: a right final answer alone rarely earns full marks.

Where students lose marks in Mahatma Gandhi and the Nationalist Movement: Civil Disobedience and Beyond

The slips examiners see most often, and what to write instead.

• ✗Mistake: Mixing up Champaran, Kheda and Ahmedabad

  All three were early satyagrahas.

  Wrong working

  At Kheda Gandhiji fought for indigo peasants.

  Right working

  Champaran (1917): indigo peasants; Ahmedabad (1918): mill workers; Kheda (1918): tax remission after crop failure.

  ✓Do this: Learn: Champaran-indigo, Ahmedabad-mill, Kheda-tax.

  Usually costs: 1 mark per MCQ or map item.

• ✗Mistake: Treating all non-cooperation activity as directed by Gandhiji

  Students assume a top-down movement.

  ✓Do this: Note that peasants, workers and tribals interpreted non-cooperation in their own ways, sometimes defying local leaders.

  Usually costs: 1-2 marks in analysis.

• ✗Mistake: Giving wrong Salt March dates

  Several dates close together.

  ✓Do this: Left Sabarmati 12 March 1930; speech at Dandi 5 April; salt made 6 April.

  Usually costs: 1 mark.

• ✗Mistake: Presenting only one side of the separate electorates debate

  Students quote one source.

  ✓Do this: Give Gandhiji's reasoning (perpetuating stigma, integration) and Ambedkar's (need for political power to protect an oppressed class) neutrally.

  Usually costs: 1-2 marks in source questions.

• ✗Mistake: Accepting the Fortnightly Reports at face value

  Official reports seem authoritative.

  ✓Do this: Explain they expressed what officials wanted to believe and played down mass enthusiasm.

  Usually costs: 1-2 marks.

NCERT exercise guide: Mahatma Gandhi and the Nationalist Movement: Civil Disobedience and Beyond

What each exercise in the NCERT chapter tests, how to approach it, and a question of the same kind solved step by step. Questions here are written in our own words.

Practice questions on Mahatma Gandhi and the Nationalist Movement: Civil Disobedience and Beyond

Write each answer on paper first. Open the hint only if you are stuck, and the answer only when you have finished.

1. Q1 · 1 mark · MCQBoard level

   Who was Gandhiji's acknowledged political mentor?
   (a) Bal Gangadhar Tilak
   (b) Gopal Krishna Gokhale
   (c) Annie Besant
   (d) Lala Lajpat Rai

   Hint

   A Moderate who advised him to travel around India.

   Answer

   (b) Gopal Krishna Gokhale.

2. Q2 · 1 mark · MCQHarder board level

   Arrange chronologically: (i) Lahore Congress adopts Purna Swaraj; (ii) Chauri Chaura incident; (iii) Gandhi-Irwin Pact; (iv) Jallianwala Bagh massacre.
   (a) iv, ii, i, iii
   (b) ii, iv, i, iii
   (c) iv, i, ii, iii
   (d) iv, ii, iii, i

   Hint

   1919, 1922, 1929, 1931.

   Answer

   (a) iv, ii, i, iii.

3. Q3 · 1 mark · MCQHarder board level

   Which of the following was NOT a reason the Salt March was notable, according to the chapter?
   (a) It first brought Gandhiji to world attention.
   (b) Women participated in large numbers for the first time.
   (c) It immediately won complete independence.
   (d) It made the British realise their Raj would not last forever.

   Hint

   Independence came in 1947.

   Answer

   (c).

4. Q4 · 1 mark · Assertion-reasonBoard level

   Assertion (A): The Cripps Mission of 1942 failed.
   Reason (R): The Congress insisted that an Indian be appointed Defence Member of the Viceroy's Executive Council before it helped defend India.
   Choose (a)-(d).

   Hint

   Why did talks break down?

   Answer

   (a) Both are true and R explains A.

5. Q5 · 2 marks · Very short answerHarder board level

   What was the Satara prati sarkar? (2 marks)

   Hint

   Quit India, 1943.

   Answer

   A parallel government set up in 1943 by younger leaders in Satara district of Maharashtra during Quit India, with volunteer corps (seba dals) and village units (tufan dals), people's courts and constructive work; dominated by kunbi peasants and supported by dalits, it lasted till the 1946 elections.

6. Q6 · 3 marks · Short answerHarder board level

   How was Mahatma Gandhi perceived by the peasants? (3 marks)

   Hint

   Shahid Amin's study.

   Answer

   Peasants called him Gandhi baba, Gandhi Maharaj or Mahatma and saw him as a saviour from high taxes and oppressive officials. Rumours spread of miraculous powers (a karah splitting, wheat turning into sesamum), that he was sent by the King or was more powerful than the English monarch, and that his opponents suffered misfortune. Huge crowds gathered at stations in eastern UP in February 1921. His ascetic life, dhoti and charkha made him seem one of them.

7. Q7 · 3 marks · Short answerHarder board level

   Why are newspapers an important source for studying the national movement, and what care is needed in using them? (3 marks)

   Hint

   Tracking and bias.

   Answer

   Contemporary newspapers in English and Indian languages tracked Gandhiji's movements, reported his activities and represented what ordinary Indians thought of him. But they were not unprejudiced: publishers had their own political views, so a London paper reported differently from an Indian nationalist paper, as Time magazine's changing view of the Salt March shows. Reports must be compared and read critically.

8. Q8 · 3 marks · Short answerHOTS / competency

   What does the 1936 exchange of letters between Nehru, Prasad and Gandhiji reveal about the Congress and Gandhiji's role? (3 marks)

   Hint

   Socialists versus conservatives.

   Answer

   It reveals tensions within the Congress between Nehru's socialist ideas and conservatives led by Rajendra Prasad and Sardar Patel, who threatened to resign. It shows Gandhiji as mediator, restraining Nehru's radicalism, persuading Prasad of Nehru's value, and gently criticising Nehru's 'magisterial manner'. It also shows how letters give insight into personal feelings and the internal working of the movement.

9. Q9 · 8 marks · Long answerHOTS / competency

   "Individuals, even great ones, are made by history even as they make history." Discuss with reference to Gandhiji's career from 1915 to 1948. (8 marks)

   Hint

   What shaped him, and what he shaped.

   Answer

   Made by history: South Africa forged his satyagraha ('the making of the Mahatma'); he returned to an India already politicised by the Congress, the Swadeshi movement and leaders like Lal, Bal, Pal and Gokhale; British measures (Rowlatt Act) gave him issues; people interpreted non-cooperation in their own ways; violence at Chauri Chaura forced him to stop; the Muslim League, Princes and Ambedkar challenged his claims; the war, Churchill, the League's rise, and Partition shaped outcomes he could not control. Making history: the BHU speech and his campaigns turned nationalism into a mass movement; Non-cooperation shook the Raj; symbols like the charkha and salt united people; the Salt March drew women and world attention; Quit India energised the young; after 1947 he worked for communal peace and minority rights. Conclusion: his leadership was decisive but worked within, and was limited by, social and political forces.

10. Q10 · 3 marks · Short answerHOTS / competency

    Suppose a leader today chose a single everyday item that everyone uses and is unfairly taxed as the focus of a peaceful protest. Using the Salt March, explain why such a choice can be effective. (3 marks)

    Hint

    Gandhiji's tactical wisdom.

    Answer

    Gandhiji chose salt because every household needed it, yet the monopoly forbade making it and taxed it heavily, so everyone felt the injustice. A simple, symbolic act (making a pinch of salt) could be repeated by anyone anywhere, drawing in all classes, women and regions, and gaining wide press attention, while putting the government in a dilemma over arrests.

11. Q11 · 3 marks · Map workHarder board level

    On an outline map, mark: (a) Bardoli; (b) Chauri Chaura; (c) Lahore. (3 marks)

    Hint

    Gujarat; eastern UP; Punjab (Pakistan).

    Answer

    (a) Bardoli, in south Gujarat near Surat (peasant satyagraha, 1928). (b) Chauri Chaura, in Gorakhpur district of eastern Uttar Pradesh (incident of February 1922). (c) Lahore, in Punjab, present-day Pakistan (Congress session of December 1929, Purna Swaraj).

Test your recall

Answer in your head or on paper first, then open the card. Pulling an answer out of memory makes it stick far better than re-reading.

1. 1.When did Gandhiji return to India from South Africa?Show answer

   January 1915.

2. 2.Who called South Africa 'the making of the Mahatma'?Show answer

   The historian Chandran Devanesan.

3. 3.Who chaired the committee whose recommendations led to the Rowlatt Act?Show answer

   Sir Sidney Rowlatt.

4. 4.How many people were killed at Jallianwala Bagh, according to the chapter?Show answer

   More than four hundred.

5. 5.Who led the Khilafat Movement?Show answer

   Muhammad Ali and Shaukat Ali.

6. 6.What were Praja Mandals?Show answer

   Bodies established to promote the nationalist creed in the princely states.

7. 7.Who was elected Congress President at Lahore in 1929?Show answer

   Jawaharlal Nehru.

8. 8.What did the Muslim League's March 1940 resolution demand?Show answer

   A measure of autonomy for the Muslim-majority areas of the subcontinent.

9. 9.When was Direct Action Day?Show answer

   16 August 1946.

Quick revision checklist

The night before the exam: can you do each of these without looking?

• ☐Can you explain the BHU speech as fact and intent?
• ☐Can you match Champaran, Ahmedabad and Kheda with their issues and years?
• ☐Can you explain the Rowlatt Act and Jallianwala Bagh?
• ☐Can you list the Non-cooperation programme and its popular responses with figures?
• ☐Can you explain how Gandhiji identified with ordinary people?
• ☐Can you explain why salt was chosen and the fourfold curse?
• ☐Can you state three reasons the Salt March was notable?
• ☐Can you give the terms of the Gandhi-Irwin Pact and the challengers at the second RTC?
• ☐Can you outline Quit India and the events of 1944-47?
• ☐Can you compare four kinds of sources for studying Gandhiji?

Mahatma Gandhi and the Nationalist Movement: Civil Disobedience and Beyond: frequently asked questions