Gandhi and Mass Movements — Prelims Strategy

Prelims Strategy

Prepare a comparison table beginning with dates and defining actions: Non-Cooperation in 1920, Civil Disobedience in 1930 and Quit India in 1942. Add a column for political context so that a wartime event is not transferred to the setting of the salt campaign. Chronological recognition should support distinctions in programme.

Separate withdrawal of cooperation from deliberate law-breaking. The concepts overlap in a broad struggle, but a question may depend on their specific meanings. The salt march belongs to Civil Disobedience, while Chauri Chaura in 1922 is connected with the suspension of Non-Cooperation.

Read statements about participants and leadership carefully. Large-scale mobilisation does not mean that every participant shared one immediate demand or that central instructions determined every local action. Likewise, a movement's commitment to nonviolence does not prove that no violent incident occurred. Test whether the statement describes an official programme, a leader's decision or observed action; those categories require different evidence and should not be substituted for one another.