Arrange the following events chronologically starting from the earliest: 1. Ahmedabad Mill Strike 2. Champaran Satyagraha 3. Foundation of the Satyagraha Sabha 4. Jallianwala Bagh Massacre Select the correct answer using the code given below:
- (a)1, 2, 3, 4
- (b)2, 1, 3, 4
- (c)2, 4, 1, 3
- (d)4, 2, 1, 3
Correct — B, 2, 1, 3, 4. Champaran is first. Gandhi went to north Bihar in April 1917 at the persistence of Rajkumar Shukla, to inquire into the tinkathia obligation that tied indigo ryots to planting a fixed share of their holding with indigo for the European planters. The Ahmedabad mill dispute comes next, in February and March 1918, over the withdrawal of the plague bonus paid to the textile workers; it was settled by arbitration after Gandhi undertook the first of his fasts in an Indian labour dispute. Third is the Satyagraha Sabha, formed at Bombay in February 1919 to organise resistance to the Rowlatt Bills — its Satyagraha Pledge carries the date 24 February 1919, and the Rowlatt Act was passed on 18 March. Last is Jallianwala Bagh, 13 April 1919, less than a month after the Act and in the middle of the agitation the Sabha had set going. So the order is Champaran, Ahmedabad, the Satyagraha Sabha, Jallianwala Bagh.
- (a)1, 2, 3, 4 — Puts the Ahmedabad mill strike before Champaran. The order of the two is fixed by a year — Champaran in 1917, Ahmedabad in the first months of 1918 — and Champaran is the earlier of Gandhi's Indian satyagrahas by any account.
- (c)2, 4, 1, 3 — Places Jallianwala Bagh second, ahead of both the mill strike and the Satyagraha Sabha. The massacre of 13 April 1919 is the last of the four, and it happens because of the third, not before it.
- (d)4, 2, 1, 3 — Opens with Jallianwala Bagh, which is the latest of the four events by nearly two years. Everything else in the option is in order; the head of the sequence is what makes it wrong.
The three years from 1917 to 1919 are where Gandhi moved from a returned expatriate lawyer to the organiser of an all-India agitation. Champaran, Ahmedabad and Kheda were local and specific — an indigo obligation, a wage dispute, a demand for revenue remission in a failed harvest — and each was fought with a method built for that grievance. The Rowlatt agitation was different in kind: a nationwide campaign against a law, run through a body created for it, and it ended in the killing at Jallianwala Bagh and the withdrawal of Indian cooperation that followed.
Chronology items are won by anchoring on years first and only then ordering within a year. Here the years do most of the work: 1917 for Champaran, 1918 for Ahmedabad and Kheda, 1919 for everything to do with the Rowlatt Bills. That alone fixes item 2 first and item 1 second, which eliminates every option except (b) and (c); and since the Satyagraha Sabha was formed to fight a Bill that was still being debated in February, while Jallianwala Bagh happened in April after the Act was passed, item 3 must precede item 4. Causation is the safest tiebreaker inside a single year — an organisation formed to resist a law cannot come after the massacre that its own agitation provoked.
- Gandhi reached Champaran in April 1917, at Rajkumar Shukla's urging, to inquire into the tinkathia system binding indigo cultivators.
- The Ahmedabad mill workers' dispute ran through February and March 1918 and was settled by arbitration after Gandhi's fast.
- The Satyagraha Sabha was formed at Bombay in February 1919 against the Rowlatt Bills; the Satyagraha Pledge is dated 24 February 1919.
- The Rowlatt Act was passed on 18 March 1919.
- The Jallianwala Bagh massacre took place at Amritsar on 13 April 1919, on Baisakhi day.
- Putting Ahmedabad before Champaran because the mill strike is the more famous fast.
- Dating the Satyagraha Sabha after Jallianwala Bagh; it was formed to oppose the Bills, months earlier.
- Confusing the passing of the Rowlatt Act on 18 March 1919 with the massacre on 13 April 1919.
As a chronology of Gandhi's early Indian campaigns, as a match between a satyagraha and the colleague associated with it, or as a single question on which of them came first.
Which one of the following pairs are correctly matched? Movement / Satyagraha — Person Actively Associated With: 1. Champaran — Rajendra Prasad; 2. Ahmedabad Mill Workers — Morarji Desai; 3. Kheda — Vallabhbhai Patel
- (a) 1 and 2
- (b) 2 and 3
- (c) 1 and 3
- (d) 1, 2 and 3
Answer(c) 1 and 3
The same three campaigns, tested by the colleagues instead of by the calendar. Rajendra Prasad was with Gandhi in Champaran and Vallabhbhai Patel in Kheda; the Ahmedabad mill dispute was worked with Anasuya Sarabhai, which is the pair that item gets wrong.
Consider the following movements : 1. Moplah Rebellion 2. Bardoli Satyagraha 3. Champaran Satyagraha 4. Salt Satyagraha Which one of the following is the correct chronological order of the above in ascending order ?
- (a) 1-3-4-2
- (b) 3-1-2-4
- (c) 2-3-1-4
- (d) 4-2-1-3
Answer(b) 3-1-2-4
A longer chronology across the same period, and it also opens with Champaran. Fixing 1917 as the start of Gandhi's Indian campaigns settles the head of both sequences.
- practice — not a real PYQ
Which one of the following was the first satyagraha led by Mahatma Gandhi after his return to India?
- (a)Kheda
- (b)Champaran
- (c)Ahmedabad mill workers
- (d)Bardoli
Answer(b) Champaran — Gandhi went to north Bihar in April 1917 to inquire into the tinkathia obligation on indigo cultivators.
- practice — not a real PYQ
The Satyagraha Sabha was formed by Mahatma Gandhi in 1919 to oppose
- (a)the partition of Bengal
- (b)the Rowlatt Bills
- (c)the Simon Commission
- (d)the Government of India Act, 1919
Answer(b) the Rowlatt Bills — the Sabha organised the pledge and the agitation against the proposed law.