Where did Gandhiji put in his first major public appearance after returning from South Africa in 1915 ?
- (a)Bombay University
- (b)Kheda
- (c)Champaran
- (d)Banaras Hindu University
Answer
Why
Correct — D, (d) Banaras Hindu University.
Gandhi returned to India from South Africa in January 1915, after twenty years there. On the advice of Gopal Krishna Gokhale, whom he regarded as his political mentor, he spent his first year travelling across British India rather than speaking on public questions, so as to know the country and its people before pronouncing on them. The NCERT account of the period puts the sequel plainly: ‘His first major public appearance was at the opening of the Banaras Hindu University (BHU) in February 1916.’
The occasion was the university’s founding ceremony at Banaras. The Viceroy, Lord Hardinge, had laid the foundation stone on Vasant Panchami, 4 February 1916, and a series of opening lectures followed from 5 to 8 February, at which Gandhi spoke.
What he said is why the appearance is remembered rather than merely recorded. Before an audience of princes and notables in full ceremonial dress, he turned on the Indian elite for its indifference to the labouring poor. He called the gathering ‘certainly a most gorgeous show’ and told the richly bedecked noblemen that ‘there is no salvation for India unless you strip yourself of this jewellery’. It was the first statement in India of the theme that would define his politics — that the freedom of the country and the condition of its poorest people were one question and not two.
The date is what settles the option. February 1916 comes before every other episode named on this list, and the question asks for the FIRST major public appearance after the return.
Why the others are wrong
- (a)Bombay University — Bombay is a real part of the story and Bombay University is not. Gandhi’s ship from South Africa docked at Bombay in January 1915, and he was received there before beginning the year of travel Gokhale had advised. But an arrival and the receptions attending it are not what the question means by a major public appearance, and no landmark address of Gandhi’s belongs to Bombay University. The option works as a distractor precisely because the port of arrival is remembered: a candidate who recalls that he landed at Bombay may take the next step unprompted and assume the first speech was made there too. The standard account of the period, followed by the NCERT textbook, names the Banaras Hindu University ceremony.
- (b)Kheda — The Kheda satyagraha belongs to 1918, two years after the Banaras address, so it cannot be the first appearance after a return in 1915. It was also a different kind of event altogether — not a public speech but a campaign. The peasants of Kheda district in Gujarat had suffered a failure of crops and sought the remission of land revenue that the rules allowed in such a year; the administration refused, and Gandhi supported a no-revenue campaign, with Vallabhbhai Patel and Indulal Yagnik among the organisers. Kheda matters as one of the three early satyagrahas — Champaran, Ahmedabad and Kheda — through which Gandhi tested his method on Indian soil, but it comes later in the sequence.
- (c)Champaran — Champaran is the sharpest of the three wrong options, because it genuinely marks a first — it was Gandhi’s first satyagraha in India — and because it is the very next episode in the chronology. But it belongs to 1917, a year after the Banaras address. Gandhi went to Champaran in Bihar in April 1917 at the persistent urging of Raj Kumar Shukla, a local cultivator he had met at the Lucknow session of the Congress in December 1916, to investigate the condition of the indigo ryots under the tinkathia system. The question asks for the first major public APPEARANCE, and on that the sequence is settled: Banaras in February 1916, then Champaran in 1917, then Ahmedabad and Kheda in 1918.
Concept
The years between Gandhi’s return and his emergence as the leader of a countrywide movement have a chronology that examiners test repeatedly, and it is worth fixing in order.
January 1915 — Gandhi returns to India from South Africa after two decades there, having developed satyagraha in the campaigns against the registration certificates, the poll tax and the invalidation of Indian marriages. The date of his return is why 9 January is observed as Pravasi Bharatiya Divas.
1915 — On Gokhale’s advice he travels the country for a year rather than entering public controversy, and founds an ashram at Ahmedabad, later moved to the bank of the Sabarmati.
February 1916 — The Banaras Hindu University opening. His first major public appearance, and his first public attack on the indifference of the Indian elite to the poor.
December 1916 — The Lucknow session of the Congress, where Raj Kumar Shukla presses him to come to Champaran.
1917 — CHAMPARAN, Bihar. The indigo ryots and the tinkathia system. Gandhi defies an order under section 144 to leave the district, the case against him is withdrawn, and he is appointed to the official enquiry committee that recommends abolishing tinkathia by law.
1918 — AHMEDABAD, the mill-hands’ dispute, in which he used the fast for the first time in India, and KHEDA, the peasants’ campaign for revenue remission after a failure of crops.
1919 — The Rowlatt satyagraha, the first campaign of countrywide scope, and Jallianwala Bagh.
About the institution itself: the Banaras Hindu University was the work of Madan Mohan Malaviya, with Annie Besant, whose Central Hindu College of 1898 was brought into the new university, and with the support of the Maharaja of Darbhanga, the Maharaja of Benares and Sundar Lal. The enabling legislation was passed on 1 October 1915, and the foundation stone was laid by Lord Hardinge on 4 February 1916.
This is the opening item of the modern-history block of Part B, which is the largest single strand on this paper and the one that rewards precise dates. The strand runs through several blocks and concentrates on the national movement — leaders, sessions, reports, peasant movements and the writing about them.
The question is a chronology item dressed as a place item. It names a year in the stem, 1915, and asks for the FIRST major appearance after it, so the work is to sort four items by date rather than to know anything about any one of them in depth. Three of the four options can be dated at once — Champaran 1917, Kheda 1918, Banaras February 1916 — and the fourth, Bombay University, cannot be attached to a Gandhi milestone at all. That is the shape of a great many history items on these papers: the option that is hardest to date is usually the one that has no event behind it.
The method that works is to convert every option into a year before choosing. A candidate who reads ‘Champaran’ and thinks ‘first satyagraha’ will answer the wrong question, because ‘first satyagraha’ and ‘first major public appearance’ are two different firsts a year apart.
Key facts
- Gandhi returned to India from South Africa in January 1915; 9 January is observed as Pravasi Bharatiya Divas to mark the return.
- Gopal Krishna Gokhale advised him to spend a year travelling the country before taking up public questions.
- His first major public appearance was at the opening of the Banaras Hindu University in February 1916.
- At Banaras he called the ceremony ‘certainly a most gorgeous show’ and told the assembled noblemen that ‘there is no salvation for India unless you strip yourself of this jewellery’.
- The BHU foundation stone was laid by the Viceroy, Lord Hardinge, on Vasant Panchami, 4 February 1916, and the opening lectures ran from 5 to 8 February 1916.
- The Banaras Hindu University was founded by Madan Mohan Malaviya, with Annie Besant, the Maharaja of Darbhanga, the Maharaja of Benares and Sundar Lal; the enabling Act was passed on 1 October 1915.
- Annie Besant’s Central Hindu College, founded in 1898, was brought into the new university.
- The order of the early Indian campaigns: Champaran 1917, Ahmedabad 1918, Kheda 1918, Rowlatt satyagraha 1919.
- January 1915 — Gandhi returns to India from South Africa after twenty years there. His ship docks at Bombay, and 9 January is observed as Pravasi Bharatiya Divas to mark the return.
- 1915 — On Gokhale’s advice he spends the year travelling British India rather than speaking on public questions, so as to know the country before pronouncing on it. He founds an ashram at Ahmedabad, later moved to the bank of the Sabarmati.
- February 1916 — BANARAS HINDU UNIVERSITY, at the opening ceremony. Before an audience of princes and notables in full ceremonial dress he called the gathering ‘certainly a most gorgeous show’ and told them ‘there is no salvation for India unless you strip yourself of this jewellery’ — the first statement in India of the theme that would define his politics.
- December 1916 — The Lucknow session of the Congress, where Raj Kumar Shukla presses him to come to Champaran.
- 1917 — CHAMPARAN, Bihar: the indigo ryots and the tinkathia system, and his first satyagraha in India. The sharpest wrong option, because it genuinely marks a first — but a year after Banaras.
- 1918 — AHMEDABAD, the mill-hands’ dispute, in which he used the fast for the first time in India; and KHEDA, the peasants’ campaign for revenue remission after a failure of crops.
- 1919 — The Rowlatt satyagraha, his first campaign of countrywide scope, and Jallianwala Bagh.
Study next
Common traps
- Confusing ‘first major public appearance’ with ‘first satyagraha in India’. The first is Banaras in 1916, the second Champaran in 1917.
- Assuming the first speech was made where the ship docked. Gandhi landed at Bombay, but the landmark address was at Banaras.
- Placing Kheda before Champaran. Champaran is 1917 and Kheda 1918, and Ahmedabad falls between them in the same year as Kheda.
- Mixing up the year of return, 1915, with the year of the Banaras speech, 1916.
- Attributing the founding of the Banaras Hindu University to Annie Besant alone. It was Malaviya’s project, with Besant’s Central Hindu College merged into it.
Modern history on EPFO EO/AO papers is asked as single-fact recall with a strong preference for firsts, dates and named authorship: the first satyagraha, the first fast, the first public appearance, the president of a particular session, the author of a particular report. The option sets are short, often a bare place name or personal name, so the whole answer turns on whether the candidate can date the item. The efficient preparation is a written timeline of the national movement from 1915 to 1947 with one line per event, revised until each name in it carries a year automatically.
Related PYQs
EPFO_EOAO_2020_Q32Open & attempt →Who among the following is the author of ‘Gandhi as Mahatma’ ?
- (a) Mahadev Desai
- (b) Shahid Amin
- (c) Louis Fischer
- (d) David Arnold
Answer(b) Shahid Amin
The next item of the same block, on the historian who studied how the image of Gandhi as Mahatma travelled among the peasants of eastern Uttar Pradesh — the reception of the figure whose Indian public career begins here.
EPFO_EOAO_2020_Q34Open & attempt →During 1931, under whose leadership, did a strong Kisan Sabha Movement develop in the Gaya District of Bihar ?
- (a) Yadunandan Sharma
- (b) Sahajanand
- (c) Sheetla Sahai
- (d) Tilka Manjhi
Answer(a) Yadunandan Sharma
A peasant-movement item from the same block, on the Kisan Sabha in Gaya district, which shows the agrarian strand of the national movement that Champaran and Kheda opened.
Practice
- practice — not a real PYQ
On whose advice did Gandhiji travel across British India for a year before entering public life on his return from South Africa ?
- (a)Bal Gangadhar Tilak
- (b)Gopal Krishna Gokhale
- (c)Madan Mohan Malaviya
- (d)Motilal Nehru
Answer(b) Gopal Krishna Gokhale — Gandhi regarded him as his political mentor, and it was on his advice that the year of travel preceded any public pronouncement.
- practice — not a real PYQ
Who among the following was the principal founder of the Banaras Hindu University ?
- (a)Annie Besant
- (b)Madan Mohan Malaviya
- (c)Sundar Lal
- (d)Lord Hardinge
Answer(b) Madan Mohan Malaviya — the university was his project, carried through with the support of Annie Besant, whose Central Hindu College was merged into it, and of the Maharajas of Darbhanga and Benares. Lord Hardinge, as Viceroy, laid the foundation stone but did not found the institution.