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Mahatma Gandhi And The Nationalist Movement
How did Mahatma Gandhi seek to identify with the common people?
Mahatma Gandhi believed in simple living and high thinking. He did the following to identify himself with the common people of India:
(i) He did not behave like a professional or an intellectual. Rather he mixed with thousands of peasants, workers and artisans.
(ii) He dressed himself like the common men. He also lived like them and spoke their language. He wore simple dhoti or loin-cloth. He did not like to stand apart from the common people. He liked to mix with them, sit and talk with them.
(iii) He worked on the Charkha (spinning wheel) everyday. He also encouraged other nationalists to do the same. In fact he favoured synthesis between mental and manual labour.
(iv) He did not believe in the traditional caste system.
(v) He often spoke in the mother-tongue.
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How was Mahatma Gandhi perceived by the peasants?
Why did the salt laws become an important issue of struggle?
Why are newspapers an important source for the study of the national movement?
Why was the charkha chosen as a symbol of nationalism?
How was non-cooperation a form of protest?
Why were the dialogues at the Round Table Conference inconclusive?
In what way did Mahatma Gandhi transform the nature of the national movement?
What do private letters and autobiographies tell us about an individual? How are these sources different from official accounts?
Find out about the route of the Dandi March. On a map of Gujarat plot the line of the march and mark the major towns and villages that it passed along the route.
Choose any event that took place during the national movement. Try and read the letters and speeches of the leaders of the time. Some of these are now published. He could be a local leader from the region where you live. Try and see how the local leaders viewed the activities of the national leadership at the top. Write about the movement based on your reading..
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