About This Section

This section collects previous-year Board examination questions (CBSE and State Boards) from Chapter 2, with model answers, to show the pattern and depth expected in the exam.

Board PYQ — Very Short Answer (1 mark)

Q1. Who set up the Oudh Kisan Sabha with Baba Ramchandra? Ans. Jawaharlal Nehru (with others).

Q2. What did Gandhiji call the 'untouchables'? Ans. Harijan (children of God).

Q3. Which body did the business classes form in 1927? Ans. The Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industries (FICCI).

Board PYQ — Short Answer (3 marks)

Q4. Why did Indians oppose the Simon Commission? Ans. The Simon Commission was set up to review the constitutional system but had no Indian member — all were British. Indians were insulted at being excluded from deciding their own future, so all parties greeted it with the slogan 'Go back Simon'.

Q5. How did the First World War create economic hardship in India? Ans. The war raised defence expenditure, financed by war loans and higher taxes; prices doubled between 1913 and 1918; villages faced forced recruitment; and crop failures and an influenza epidemic (1918–21) caused acute food shortages, killing 12–13 million people.

Board PYQ — Short Answer (3 marks)

Q6. Why did the Non-Cooperation Movement gradually slow down in the cities? Ans. Khadi cloth was costlier than mill cloth, so poor people could not boycott mill cloth for long; and the boycott of British schools and courts required alternative Indian institutions, which were slow to come up. So students, teachers and lawyers gradually returned to government institutions.

Q7. Explain how the salt march became an effective symbol of resistance. Ans. Salt was used by rich and poor alike and was an essential food item; the tax and government monopoly on it symbolised the oppression of British rule. By walking 240 miles to Dandi and breaking the salt law, Gandhi turned a simple everyday item into a powerful, unifying symbol that all classes could relate to.

Board PYQ — Long Answer (5 marks)

Q8. How did different social groups participate in the Civil Disobedience Movement? Ans. Rich peasants (Patidars, Jats) joined against high revenue, but withdrew when rates were not reduced. Poor peasants wanted rent remission and joined radical movements. The business classes (FICCI, Birla, Thakurdas) wanted protection against imports and gave funds, but later grew apprehensive. Industrial workers mostly stayed away, and women participated on a large scale by marching, making salt and picketing, though the Congress valued mainly their symbolic presence.

Q9. Explain the differing notions of swaraj held by various groups during the Non-Cooperation Movement. Ans. Townspeople (students, lawyers) saw swaraj as boycotting British institutions; Awadh peasants as freedom from talukdars, high rents and begar; Gudem tribals as the right to use forests, pursued through force; and Assam plantation workers as the right to move freely and return to their villages. Thus 'swaraj' meant different things to different people.