Literate India
Read the following passages and answer the questions given at the end of each:
Gandhi is known for his successful efforts to liberate India. Actually, for him, the development of the Indian into a free man was more important than the freeing of India. Most of Gandhi’s followers in India were not Gandhians and did not share his ideas. They merely arrested his leadership because it smoothed the way to their objective which was an Indian nation without the British but with all the usual attributes of nationhood. For them national independence was an end, good in itself, for him it was meant to a better man and better life, and because his heart was heavy with doubts whether these purposes would be furthered by the manner in which independence was achieved – two bleeding children torn violently from the body of Mother India. I did not celebrate on August 15, 1947, the day the Indian nation came into its own world. He was sad and refused congratulations.
Questions :
(a) What is Gandhi known for?
(b) What was more important for Gandhi than the freeing of India?
(c) Why did his followers accept Gandhi’s leadership?
(d) Why was Gandhi sad when India became free on August 15, 1947?
(e) Use in your own sentences: attribute; come into one’s own.
(f) What was the meaning of national independence for most of Gandhi’s followers?
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