How different would have been the achievement of Indian Independence without Mahatma Gandhi? Discuss. (200 words, 12 1/2 M)
Prior to Mahatma Gandhi the freedom struggle was restricted to a few Congress delegates assembling and urging British government of their demands through constitutional means. However, they were not the true representative of the masses, as they were derived from the elite sections of the society, and hardly had any connections with poor masses at the ground level.
The entry of Gandhiji and his subsequent infusion of new ideas and principles gave a new direction to the freedom movement.
His emphasis on truth and violence, and the realisation that freedom can not be achieved without the participation of the people of all sections of the society, made him a true champion of the masses. This politicisation of the masses is one of the major reasons Indian democracy has been stable and functioning despite all the challenges.
Gandhiji began his movement fighting for the interest of the peasants, emancipation of women, and the overall upliftment of the downtrodden sections of the Indian society. He struck a chord with the people at the grass-root level, Some political scientists have called Gandhiji as a mass psychologist. Gandhiji brought the freedom struggle from the cities to the villages.
Massive participation of the all the classes; teachers, lawyers, doctors, businessmen, labourers and the peasants, in the Civil disobedience and the Quit India movement manifested his hold over the minds of the people, and the trust the latter had on him.
The Gandhian struggle was in-fact a process of nation building, where he successfully achieved massive inclusion of the Indian masses, and established that tolerance, non-violence, amelioration of women, protection of the minorities, self-reliance, unity, rational and scientific temper would be the true ideals of the forthcoming state.
Without Gandhiji, certainly the ideologies of those who believed in violent and aggressive methods, and spoke on the communal lines, could have superseded others.
The Indian freedom struggle had a high communal tone, and had it not been the effort of Gandhiji, the Independence of India could not have led to an establishment of a liberal democratic state, which protected the rights of all.