Gandhian Era: Non-Cooperation to Quit India (1917-1942)

The correct answer is C, Yusuf Meher Ali. The socialist leader Yusuf Meherally, who had been Mayor of Bombay, coined the words Quit India, just as he had coined Simon Go Back in 1928, and the Congress adopted the phrase for its resolution of 8 August 1942. Option A is wrong although it is tempting, because Gandhi gave the movement its other and more famous call, Do or Die, in his speech at Gowalia Tank; the name of the movement itself was not his coinage. Option B is wrong because Jawaharlal Nehru moved and defended the resolution in the All India Congress Committee but did not invent the slogan. Option D is wrong because Aruna Asaf Ali is remembered for hoisting the national flag at Gowalia Tank on 9 August 1942 and for leading the underground movement, not for the slogan. Keep the two names apart: Meherally the slogan, Gandhi the call.

The correct answer is C, 8 August 1942. The All India Congress Committee, meeting at Gowalia Tank in Bombay, passed the Quit India resolution on 8 August 1942, and Gandhi gave his Do or Die speech the same evening. The government arrested the entire leadership in the early hours of 9 August, so the movement spread as a leaderless rising. Option A is wrong because the session opened on 7 August but the resolution was adopted on the following day. Option B is wrong because 15 August is remembered for independence in 1947 and has no connection with the start of the movement. Option D is wrong because by 11 August the movement was already at its height, with strikes, attacks on police stations and railway lines in the United Provinces, Bihar and Bombay. A useful memory hook is the name August Kranti given to the movement and to the maidan where it began.

The correct answer is D, the Quit India Movement. Aruna Asaf Ali hoisted the national flag at Gowalia Tank in Bombay on 9 August 1942, after the arrest of the senior leaders, and then went underground to direct the movement along with Jayaprakash Narayan and Ram Manohar Lohia, which earned her the name Heroine of the 1942 movement. Option A is wrong because the Non-Cooperation Movement of 1920 to 1922 was led by Gandhi with the Ali brothers and the Khilafat leaders, before she entered public life. Option B is wrong because the best remembered women of the Civil Disobedience Movement are Sarojini Naidu, who led the raid on the Dharasana salt works, and Kamaladevi Chattopadhyay. Option C is wrong because Individual Satyagraha of 1940 is remembered for Vinoba Bhave as the first satyagrahi and Jawaharlal Nehru as the second.

The correct answer is A, the Nagpur session of December 1920. The programme of non-cooperation was first approved at the special session held in Calcutta in September 1920 and was ratified at the regular annual session at Nagpur in December 1920, which also changed the Congress constitution and made provincial committees on a linguistic basis. Option B is wrong because the Lucknow session of 1916 is remembered for the reunion of the Moderates and the Extremists and for the Lucknow Pact with the Muslim League. Option C is wrong because the Lahore session of December 1929, presided over by Jawaharlal Nehru, adopted the goal of Purna Swaraj and called for the observance of Independence Day on 26 January 1930. Option D is wrong because the Karachi session of 1931, presided over by Vallabhbhai Patel, endorsed the Gandhi-Irwin Pact and passed the resolution on fundamental rights and the national economic programme.

The correct answer is B, the Chauri Chaura incident. On 5 February 1922 a crowd at Chauri Chaura in Gorakhpur district of the United Provinces set fire to a police station and twenty two policemen died. Gandhi concluded that the people were not yet trained in non-violence and had the Congress Working Committee withdraw the movement at Bardoli on 12 February 1922, a decision that angered many younger leaders. Option A is wrong because the Jallianwala Bagh massacre of 13 April 1919 was among the causes that led to the movement, not its ending. Option C is wrong because the Kakori conspiracy case of 1925 belongs to the revolutionary stream of the Hindustan Republican Association and came three years after the withdrawal. Option D is wrong because the protests against the Simon Commission took place in 1928 and 1929 and led towards the Civil Disobedience Movement.

The correct answer is A, the Sabarmati Ashram at Ahmedabad. Gandhi set out from the Sabarmati Ashram on 12 March 1930 with 78 chosen volunteers and walked about 385 kilometres in twenty four days to the coastal village of Dandi, where he picked up a lump of natural salt on 6 April 1930 and broke the salt law, opening the Civil Disobedience Movement. Option B is wrong because the Sevagram Ashram near Wardha became Gandhi's base only after 1936 and was the centre of his constructive programme, not the starting point of the march. Option C is wrong because Porbandar is Gandhi's birthplace and has no part in the march. Option D is wrong because Surat lay on the route to Dandi but was not the starting point; the march passed through villages of Kheda and Surat districts on its way to the sea.

The correct answer is C, 1931. The Gandhi-Irwin Pact, also called the Delhi Pact, was signed on 5 March 1931 between Gandhi and the Viceroy Lord Irwin. By it the government agreed to release political prisoners not convicted of violence and to permit the making of salt for domestic use in coastal areas, and the Congress agreed to suspend civil disobedience and to attend the Second Round Table Conference. Option A is wrong because 1929 is the year of the Lahore session and the Purna Swaraj resolution. Option B is wrong because 1930 is the year the movement began with the Dandi March and of the First Round Table Conference, which the Congress boycotted. Option D is wrong because 1932 is the year of the Communal Award and of the Poona Pact with Dr Ambedkar, by which time civil disobedience had already been resumed and Gandhi was again in prison.

The correct answer is B, Dr B. R. Ambedkar. The Poona Pact was signed on 24 September 1932 while Gandhi was on a fast unto death in Yerwada jail against the separate electorates granted to the depressed classes by the Communal Award. Under the pact the separate electorates were given up and a larger number of seats was reserved for the depressed classes within a joint electorate. Option A is wrong because Lord Willingdon was the Viceroy at the time but was not a party to the agreement, which was between Indian leaders. Option C is wrong because Jinnah signed the Lucknow Pact of 1916 with the Congress and had no part in the Poona Pact. Option D is wrong because Ramsay MacDonald, the British Prime Minister, announced the Communal Award in August 1932, and the pact was the Indian answer to that award, not an agreement with him.

The correct answer is B, Lahore in 1929. The Lahore session of December 1929, presided over by Jawaharlal Nehru, declared Purna Swaraj to be the goal of the Congress, authorised the launch of civil disobedience and called upon the people to observe 26 January 1930 as Independence Day, which is why that date was later chosen for the commencement of the Constitution. Option A is wrong because the Calcutta session of 1928 adopted the Nehru Report and gave the government one year to grant dominion status. Option C is wrong because the Karachi session of 1931 endorsed the Gandhi-Irwin Pact and passed the resolutions on fundamental rights and the national economic programme. Option D is wrong because the Faizpur session of 1936 is remembered as the first Congress session held in a village, with Jawaharlal Nehru again in the chair.

The correct answer is A, indigo cultivators. At Champaran in Bihar the peasants were compelled under the tinkathia system to grow indigo on a part of their holding for the European planters. Gandhi, invited by Rajkumar Shukla, went there in 1917, defied the order to leave the district and secured a government committee of inquiry on which he served, after which the system was abolished. Option B is wrong because the mill workers were the subject of the Ahmedabad struggle of 1918, in which Gandhi used his first hunger strike to win a wage rise. Option C is wrong because the plantation workers of Assam were not the subject of a Gandhian satyagraha of this kind. Option D is wrong because the salt law was the target of the Dandi March of 1930, thirteen years later, and not of the Champaran struggle.

The correct answer is C, Lord Linlithgow. Linlithgow was Viceroy from 1936 to 1944, so the Second World War, the resignation of the Congress ministries, the August Offer of 1940, the Cripps Mission of 1942 and the suppression of the Quit India Movement all fall in his tenure. Option A is wrong because Lord Irwin, Viceroy from 1926 to 1931, is remembered for the Dandi March, the First Round Table Conference and the Gandhi-Irwin Pact of 1931. Option B is wrong because Lord Willingdon, Viceroy from 1931 to 1936, is remembered for the Communal Award, the Poona Pact and the Government of India Act of 1935. Option D is wrong because Lord Wavell became Viceroy in 1944 and is remembered for the Wavell Plan and the Simla Conference of 1945 and for the Cabinet Mission of 1946.