Question

Describe the role of Gandhiji in the Indian freedom struggle from 1922 till 1931.

Answer 1

1. Gandhiji oversaw and led three significant campaigns during the Indian Independence War: the Quit India Movement in 1942, the Civil Disobedience Movement and the Salt Satyagraha in 1930, and the Non-Cooperation Movement from 1919 to 1922.
2. By 1922, Gandhiji had transformed Indian nationalism, redeeming his promise in his BHU speech of February 1916. It was no longer a movement of professionals and intellectuals; now, hundreds of thousands of peasants, workers and artisans also participated.
3. It must also be stressed that his success in broadening the basis of nationalism was based on careful organisation. New branches of the Congress were set up in various parts of India. A series of “Praja Mandals” were established to promote the nationalist creed in the princely states. Gandhiji encouraged the communication of the nationalist message in the mother tongue, rather than in the language of the rulers, English. Thus the provincial committees of the Congress were based on linguistic regions, rather than on the artificial boundaries of British India. In these different ways nationalism was taken to the farthest corners of the country and embraced by social groups previously untouched by it.
4. Civil-Disobedience Movement (1930): In a speech published in the Young India newspaper in March 1930, Mahatma Gandhi stated that if the government met his eleven demands, he would be willing to end the Civil Disobedience Movement. But the administration's head at the time, Lord Irwin, made no response to him. Mahatma Gandhi subsequently launched the movement with all of his fervour.