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them, dressed like them, spoke their language, stand with them, empathise with
them, and identified with them.
• Gandhiji went among the people in simple dhoti or loincloth. He spent some part
of each day working on Charkha and encouraged other nationalist to do likewise.
The act of spinning helped in breaking traditional caste system and distinction
between mental labour and manual labour.
• Gandhiji appealed to peasants as saviour who can save them from oppressive
taxes, officials and restore dignity and autonomy to their lives. Gandhiji ascetic
lifestyle and love of working with hand, a deep empathy for poor and peasant won
him followers irrespective of caste, creed and religion.
• A series of Praja mandal were established to promote the nationalist creed in the
princely states. Gandhiji stressed the use of mother tongue in communication, as
the provincial Congress Committees were based on linguistic region. Many
industrialists, entrepreneurs, businessmen started supporting Congress and
Gandhiji.
• Mahatma Gandhi was released from prison in 1924 and now choose to devote his
attention to the promotion of home spun khadi and the abolition of untouchability.
He believed that India need to be free from evils of untouchability, child marriage,
to cultivate a genuine tolerance for one another and religious harmony.
• He stressed the Indian’s need to be self-reliant on the economic front, so he
promoted Khadi and was against mill-made clothes.

Background of National Movements in India:

• In 1917, Gandhiji successfully led Champaran Movement. Through this movement
he wanted to seek security of the peasants and their freedom to cultivate crop of
their choice. In 1918, he led a strike demanding for better working conditions for
the textile mill workers in Ahmedabad and other peasant movement asking the
state for the remission of taxes in Kheda. During the First World War (1914-18),
the British government instituted censorship of the
• press and permitted detention without trial. At the recommendation of Rowlatt
Committee, these policies were continued. So in response to it Gandhiji called for
nationwide campaign against Rowlatt Act and Bandh were observed.
• In Punjab opposition was quite intense, Gandhiji was detained while going to
Punjab and many other local Congress leaders were also arrested. In April 1919,
repressive policy took very ugly and tremendous turn when British Brigadier Dyer
ordered his troops to fire on peaceful assembly at Jallianwalah Bagh in Amritsar.
In this incident more than 400 people died. This shocked the nation and very deep
resentment and anger was brewing inside Indians.
• It was the Rowlatt Satyagraha that made Gandhiji a true national leader.
Emboldened by its success, Gandhji called for campaign of non-cooperation with
British rule. Indians were asked to renunciate all voluntary associations with British
government. Gandhiji believed if non-cooperation was carried effectively, British
would leave the country within a year.

Khilafat and Non-Cooperation Movement: