The call for 'renunciation of (all) voluntary associations with the (British) Government' was given during
- (a)Non-Cooperation Movement.
- (b)Civil Disobedience Movement.
- (c)Quit India Movement.
- (d)Protest against partition of Bengal.
Correct — A, Non-Cooperation Movement. The quoted phrase is lifted almost word for word from the NCERT account of 1920-22, which describes what Gandhi asked of Indians who wanted colonial rule to end: stop attending schools, colleges and law courts, stop paying taxes, and 'in sum ... adhere to a renunciation of (all) voluntary association with the (British) Government'. That word renunciation is the giveaway. Non-cooperation was defined negatively — the withdrawal of the cooperation that made British administration possible: titles handed back, government schools emptied, courts boycotted by lawyers, foreign cloth burnt, the 1919 legislature elections boycotted. It was adopted at the Calcutta special session in September 1920 and confirmed at Nagpur in December 1920, and Gandhi promised swaraj within a year if it were carried out fully.
- (b)Civil Disobedience Movement. — Civil disobedience, launched with the Dandi march in March 1930, is the opposite move — the active breaking of a specific law, in that case the salt law, rather than the withdrawal of voluntary cooperation.
- (c)Quit India Movement. — Quit India, from August 1942, was a demand addressed to the British to leave, backed by 'Do or Die'; its leadership was arrested within hours and it became a largely spontaneous mass revolt, not a programme of graded renunciation.
- (d)Protest against partition of Bengal. — The anti-partition agitation in Bengal from 1905 worked through swadeshi and boycott of British goods, and predates Gandhi's arrival in Indian politics; its vocabulary is boycott, not renunciation of voluntary association.
Non-cooperation was Gandhi's first all-India mass campaign, and its logic is that colonial rule depends on Indian cooperation — Indian clerks, Indian lawyers, Indian students, Indian taxpayers, Indian title-holders — so that withdrawing that cooperation, non-violently and in stages, would make the administration unworkable. It was coupled with the Khilafat agitation so that Hindus and Muslims would act together, and it was called off in February 1922 after the killing of policemen at Chauri Chaura.
Every one of the four options is a genuine mass movement, so the question is decided by matching a phrase to a programme rather than by dates. Fix the vocabulary of each: renunciation and boycott belong to non-cooperation, deliberate law-breaking to civil disobedience, an ultimatum to Quit India, and swadeshi and boycott of foreign goods to the anti-partition agitation of 1905. The paper prints 'renunciation of (all) voluntary associations' with a plural noun where the source phrase is singular — an incidental slip that does not touch the point being tested.
- Non-cooperation was adopted at the Congress special session at Calcutta in September 1920 and confirmed at the Nagpur session in December 1920.
- The programme included surrender of government titles and honours, boycott of government schools, courts and the legislative councils, and boycott of foreign cloth.
- It was run jointly with the Khilafat agitation, which sought to protect the Caliphate.
- Gandhi suspended it in February 1922 after the violence at Chauri Chaura in Gorakhpur district.
- Its immediate predecessor was the Rowlatt satyagraha of 1919, whose success gave Gandhi the confidence to call for non-cooperation.
- Confusing renunciation of cooperation with the deliberate breaking of a law, which is civil disobedience.
- Assuming non-cooperation began at Nagpur in December 1920 — the special Calcutta session of September 1920 adopted it first.
- Treating the retention of titles without public use as part of the programme; the call was to surrender them.
Either as a quoted phrase to be matched to a movement, or as a list of programme items with one deliberately altered item planted among them.
Consider the following subjects with regard to Non-Cooperation Programme: I. Boycott of law-courts and foreign cloth II. Observance of strict non-violence III. Retention of titles and honours without using them in public IV. Establishment of Panchayats for settling disputes How many of the above were parts of Non-Cooperation Programme?
- (a) Only one
- (b) Only two
- (c) Only three
- (d) All the four
Answer(c) Only three
The same programme, itemised. That UPSC question plants one false item — keeping titles while not using them — among genuine parts of the programme, and the item is false for exactly the reason this CDS stem gives: the call was to renounce, not to retain quietly.
Assertion (A): Gandhi stopped the Non-cooperation Movement in 1922. Reason (R): Violence at Chauri-Chaura led him to stop the movement.
- (a) Both A and R are true, and R is the correct explanation of A
- (b) Both A and R are true, but R is NOT a correct explanation of A
- (c) A is true, but R is false
- (d) A is false, but R is true
Answer(a) Both A and R are true, and R is the correct explanation of A
The other end of the same movement. Non-violence was not decoration on the programme but its condition, which is why a single outbreak at Chauri Chaura was enough for Gandhi to call the whole thing off.
- practice — not a real PYQ
The Congress session that first adopted the non-cooperation programme in September 1920 was held at which one of the following places?
- (a)Nagpur
- (b)Calcutta
- (c)Lahore
- (d)Surat
Answer(b) Calcutta — the special session of September 1920 adopted non-cooperation; the regular Nagpur session in December 1920 confirmed it.
- practice — not a real PYQ
Mahatma Gandhi suspended the Non-Cooperation Movement in February 1922 following an incident of violence at which one of the following places?
- (a)Chauri Chaura
- (b)Champaran
- (c)Kheda
- (d)Bardoli
Answer(a) Chauri Chaura — a crowd set fire to a police station in Gorakhpur district, and Gandhi called the movement off.