Question

Describe the role of Gandhiji as people’s leader from 1917-22?

Answer 1

The general problem raised here is peasant involvement in Afro‐Asian nationalist movements. As a case study the focus is M. K. Gandhi's attitude to and activities among Indian peasants from 1917 to 1922 and their response, firstly to his broad span of rural work for social reform and the rectification of particular peasant grievances, and then to his India‐wide passive resistance campaigns on continental issues which had no specifically rural appeal. This analysis underlines the fact that ‘India's peasants’ were no monolithic group. They differed from area to area in economic and social position and were further fragmented by the ties of religion, tribe and caste. Consequently the nature and range of their wider public awareness varied, and their relationships with Gandhi were diverse and complicated. In certain areas he attracted wide support, even adulation, particularly where he campaigned on local grievances. But peasant response to his all‐India calls for passive resistance was geographically restricted, and often dependent on a very garbled understanding of the issues at stake and the expected pay‐offs of the movement. Peasant activists were often outside Gandhi's control; and this threat to cohesion and discipline made him very ambivalent towards wide rural participation. His relationship with India's peasantry illustrated the problems any continental leader or organisation faced in trying to accommodate ‘national’ appeals and tactics to the diverse and often specifically local needs of rural groups — an accommodation which was difficult, dangerous yet essential in some degree if nationalist movements were to be broadly based.

Answer 2

The peasant involvement in Afro‐Asian nationalist movements created a great problem. From 1917 to 1922 M. K. Gandhi did a lot of work for the Indian peasants. He participated in rural work for social reform and the rectified particular peasant grievances, and then started passive resistance campaigns on continental issues for mother India which had no specifically rural appeal. ‘India's peasants’ were no monolithic group is the fact that is signified here. They differed from area to area in economic and social position and were further divided by the ties of religion, tribe and caste, sex, colour,etc. Consequently the nature and range of their wider public awareness varied, and their relationships with Gandhi were diverse and became more complicated. In certain areas he gathered wide support, even adulation, particularly in those places where he campaigned on local grievances. Peasant activists were sometimes out of Gandhi's control and this became a threat to cohesion and discipline which made him very uncertain towards wide rural participation.