Examine the different kinds of sources from which the political career of Gandhiji and the history of the National movement could be reconstructed.
Answers
There are many different kinds of sources from which we can reconstruct the political career of Gandhiji and the history of the nationalist movement.
(a) Public voice and private scripts : One important source is the writings and speeches of Mahatma Gandhi and his contemporaries, including both his associates and his political adversaries.
(b) Framing a picture : Autobiographies similarly give us an account of the past that is often rich in human detail. But here again we have to be careful of the way we read and interpret autobiographies. We need to remember that they are retrospective accounts written very often from memory. They tell us what the author could recollect.
(c) Through police eyes : Another vital source is government records, for the colonial rulers kept close tabs on those they regarded as critical of the government. The letters and reports written by policemen and other officials were secret at the time but now can be accessed in archives.
(d) From newspapers : One more important source is contemporary newspapers, published in English as well as in the different Indian languages, which tracked Mahatma Gandhi’s movements and reported on his activities, and also represented what ordinary Indians thought of him.