Mass Participation

The Ahmedabad mill workers’ struggle of 1918 concerned a dispute over wages and the withdrawal of a plague bonus. Gandhi supported the workers and encouraged them to remain united and use non-violent methods. Therefore, the wage dispute is the correct answer. Zamindari abolition, the salt tax, and forest laws belonged to different agrarian or anti-colonial issues.

The Rowlatt Act was passed by the Imperial Legislative Council in 1919. It extended wartime emergency powers, allowing detention without trial and restrictions on political activity. Indians widely opposed it because it curtailed civil liberties. The years 1905, 1930, and 1942 refer to other important events.

The Jallianwala Bagh massacre took place at a public garden in Amritsar, Punjab, on 13 April 1919. Brigadier-General Reginald Dyer ordered troops to fire on a large, largely unarmed gathering. Amritsar is therefore the correct city. Lahore, Delhi and Calcutta were important colonial-era centres, but the massacre did not occur in any of them.

The massacre is associated with Brigadier-General Reginald Edward Harry Dyer, who commanded the troops at Jallianwala Bagh on 13 April 1919 and ordered them to fire on the crowd. Hence General Dyer is correct. Warren Hastings, Wellesley and Mountbatten were prominent British figures, but they were not the officer who ordered the firing at this site.

A mass movement is one in which ordinary people participate on a broad scale rather than leaving politics to a small group of elites. During India's national movement, peasants, workers, students, women and many other social groups joined campaigns in different ways. A meeting of officials or a military drill cannot by itself be called a mass movement. Hence A is correct.