question_answer

'In the history of nationalism Gandhiji is often identified with the making of a nation.' Describe his role in the freedom struggle of India.

Or

Describe the harrowing experiences of ordinary people during the period of partition of India.

 

Answer:

The period 1915-48 saw the emergence of Gandhi and his activities as a nationalist leader. Gandhi transformed the national movement by making it into a mass struggle. Under his leadership the freedom struggle acquired a multi- class umbrella character.

By taking up the cause of peasants at Champaran and Kheda, textile workers at Ahmedabad, and later launching of the Khilafat Non-cooperation Movement (1920), Civil Disobedience Movement (1930) and Quit India Movement (1942) Gandhi transformed the national movement. The national movement was no longer a movement limited to professionals and intellectuals but a movement representative of Indian people as a whole. Peasants, workers, artisans, tribals, women and students played an active role. The Non-cooperation Movement was the hallmark of Hindu-Muslim unity.

Gandhian ideology played a key role in transformation. Satyagraha based on the concepts of truth, non-violence and passive resistance formed the basis of mass mobilization and mass participation. The non-violent national struggle was based on the courage, strength self-confidence and self - sacrificing spirit of the masses. It enabled participation of mass people who could not have participated in a violent struggle example women. It was based on moral force and posed the best challenge to the mighty British rule, while defining Gandhian principle of means and ends.

The national struggle had a clear pragmatic dimension. It involved politics of press and compromise based on the strategy of struggle, truce, struggle. It had two facets. The-was based on the strength of the masses. The 2nd facet was withdrawal marked by extensive constructive work at the grass-root level.

Examples: Non-cooperation Movement and Civil Disobedience Movement. Satyagraha involved peaceful violation of laws, courting arrest, marches, combined with readiness for negotiation and compromise. It represented a breakthrough for a freedom struggle which had previously oscillated between moderate techniques of prayer and petition and individual terrorism of the revolutionary terrorists. The national movement under Gandhi not only drew masses but also kept masses under strict control.

A significant parallel development of the national movement under Gandhi was Gandhian constructive programme which focused on community unity, removal of untouchability, peasant uplift, economic and social uplift, promotion of self-reliance through use of charkha to spin khadi and village industries.

Moreover, the personal charisma and peasant appeal of Gandhi, played a significant role in transforming the national movement into a mass movement. The simple attire, (dhoti, speaking Hindustani, spinning charkha, all ensured Gandhi did not stand apart from ordinary folk. For the poor Gandhi was Mahatma, a saviour who would restore dignity, honour autonomy to their lives.

Thus Gandhi?s coming transformed the national movement into a non-violent struggle. However, it is important to understand that India?s freedom movement was historical process not an event led by a single individual.

Or

Buried under the debris of the violence and pain of partition is the harrowing experience for ordinary people. Scholars have written about the experience of ordinary people mainly women in those violent times as follows:

(i) Resulted in forced transfer of an estimated 18 to 19 million people between the two countries. Thus people of both sides displaced from their ancestral homes.

(ii) The ensuring religious animosity and communal strife resulted in the deaths of some two million Hindus, Muslims and Sikhs of both countries.

(iii) Many Muslim families of Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Madhya Pradesh and Andhra Pradesh forced to migrate to Pakistan.

(iv) At the time of partition mainly women suffered worse than death.

(v) Women were raped, abducted, sold often many times over.

(vi) They were forced to settle down to a new life with strangers in unknown circumstances.

(vii) Traumatised when some began to develop new family bonds in their changed circumstances they were torn away from their new bonding.

(viii) Governments both Indian and Pakistani were insensitive to the feelings of women and complexities of human relationships. Believing them to be on die wrong side of the border, ?women were torn away from their new relatives. According to one estimate 30,000 women were recovered overall, 22,000 Muslim women in India and 8000, Hindu and Sikh women in Pakistan in an operation that ended as late as 1954.

(ix) Dishonouring women of a community was seen as dishonouring the community itself and as a mode of revenge. For virility- it was believed lay in the ability to protect your possession - zan (women) and zamin (land).

(x) Many women were killed under the notion of saving honour of women.

(xi) Women were not allowed to voice their opinion.

(xii) Fear that their women would be violated, drove many to force their women to commit suicide.