A research student in Pune is studying how support for the Congress widened in the early 1920s. In old files she finds that new Congress branches opened in many districts and that some wealthy mill-owners of Bombay and Ahmedabad gave money to the national cause, a few openly and others quietly. She also notes that the leaders who gathered around Gandhiji in these years came from different regions and from more than one religious tradition. She now wants to explain why such different groups joined the same movement.
Why did Indian businessmen such as the mill-owners in her files support the national movement?
Answer & explanation
Correct answer: option 1
The correct answer is Option (1) → They saw that in a free India the favours enjoyed by their British competitors would end.
Option (1) They saw that in a free India the favours enjoyed by their British competitors would end. — Correct. Indian industrialists saw that British firms enjoyed favours under colonial rule. In a free India these favours would end, so they backed the Congress, some openly like G.D. Birla and others quietly.
Option (2) They had been promised seats in the provincial councils by the Congress leaders. — Incorrect. The Congress gave businessmen no such promise. Its provincial committees were built on linguistic regions so that the nationalist message reached people in their mother tongue.
Option (3) They expected the new Praja Mandals to open the markets of the princely states to them. — Incorrect. The Praja Mandals were set up to promote the nationalist creed in the princely states. They carried the political message of the Congress to the people of those states.
Option (4) They were drawn mainly by Gandhiji's call for the abolition of untouchability. — Incorrect. Gandhiji took up the abolition of untouchability as a social reformer, mostly after his release in 1924. The support of industrialists came from their own business interests.
NCERT (2026-27): “2.2 A people’s leader … |