Sociology 2111: Worksheet--"Gandhi"

1. What were the differences between Mohandas Gandhi and Mohammad Ali Jinnah as leaders of the movement for independence from the British?

2. How did the British respond to the massive civil disobedience campaigns orchestrated by Gandhi and the Congress Party?

3. How did the British respond to Gandhi's campaign against the British monopoly on salt?

4. . What do you think gave Gandhi's followers the strength to stand firm in the face of British violence?

5. What are some of the ways in which Gandhi tried to overcome the fears and hatreds that separate Moslem and Hindu in India? What was the eventual outcome?

Sociology 2111: Group Project--"Gandhi"

1. Gandhi's tactics are sometimes labeled passive resistance, but Gandhi himself would have argued that there was nothing passive about them. What was it that eventually made his tactics against the British so powerful?

2. In his autobiography, Jawaharlal Nehru talks about the prestige of the British among the Indian middle classes and the fact that an independence movement had to somehow shatter that prestige. How was this accomplished?

3. How does Gandhi manage, even while opposing the British system of colonial rule, to appeal to British colonial dministrators on a personal level? In other words, how does he manage to avoid the usual dynamic in which we demonize those who oppose us?

4. Why have so many of the nations that emerged from European colonialism (and more recently from the breakup of the Soviet Empire) experienced fierce religious and ethnic conflicts? What do you think it takes to create democracy in the face of such divisions?

5. In what ways does Gandhi fit Weber's ideal type of the charismatic leader?