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Mahatma Gandhi And The Nationalist Movement
‘‘Memoirs and experiences shape the reality of an event.’’ Explain the strengths and weaknesses of the oral testimonies in writing history.
Strengths of the oral testimonies:
(i) Oral narratives, memoirs, diaries, family histories, first hand written accounts - all these help us to understand the trials and tribulations of ordinary people during the partition of the country.
(ii) It helps us to grasp experiences and memories in details.
(iii) It enables historians to write richly textured, vivid accounts of what happened to people during events such as partition.
(iv) Oral history also allows historians to broaden the boundaries of their discipline by rescuing from oblivion the lived experiences of the poor and the powerless.
Weaknesses:
(i) Oral data lacks concreteness and the chronology they yield may be imprecise.
(ii) The uniqueness of personal experience makes generalisation difficult
(iii) A large picture cannot be built from such micro-evidence as one witness is no witness.
(iv) Oral accounts are concerned with tangential issues and are irrelevant to the unfolding of larger processes of history.
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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..
What did Gandhiji seek to obtain for the security of the peasants of Champaran in 1917?
What did Gandhiji do after his release from prison in 1924?
What did Gandhiji tell the upper castes of a village to do, during his Salt March,if they wanted to get Swaraj?
Why was Salt March notable? Mention two reasons.
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