MGPE 007 Solved Guess Paper 2026 for Non-Violent Movements after Gandhi (IGNOU MA Gandhi and Peace Studies)

Sample Question 1: Gandhian Agenda for Peace Movements

Question: Discuss the Gandhian agenda for peace movements.

Not to believe in the possibility of permanent peace amounts to disbelief in the Godliness of human nature.

Gandhi had full faith in truth and non-violence, so he supported peace everywhere. But this was a philosophic idea, not a political strategy.

Peace Movements in India

1. Still in their infancy: Peace movements in India are still very young. They must travel a long way before they become part of the political life of the country.
2. Weak organisation: They lack organisational structure because of intellectual fragmentation (division in ideas) and isolated working.
3. Different from the West: In the West, peace movements came from the fear of nuclear war. The problems of Indian people are very different.
4. Peace means more than no war: For common Indians, peace means a decent livelihood, freedom from oppression, access to resources for survival, cultural autonomy and freedom from violence by the State and the powerful.
5. People's security: For them, security means people's security, not national security.

Main Points of the Gandhian Agenda

1. Peace has many sides: Peace is at once a political, an ontological (about human existence) and an existentialist issue.
2. No faith in slogans: Gandhi was not taken in by slogans and a mere show of faith.
3. Real peace needs hard effort: Gandhi wrote that real peace needs greater scientific precision, greater travail of the soul, greater patience and greater resources than what is used for making means of slaughter.
4. Signatures are not enough: Peace cannot be attained by a mere muster roll signed by millions of mankind. A list of names alone will not bring peace.
5. Non-violent and non-cooperative action: The agenda needs non-violent and non-cooperative movements that are both spontaneous and institutionalised.
6. Wide participation: Everyone concerned with peace, poverty, ecology and human rights should take part.

Critical Appreciation

1. Not a big success yet: In the light of the Gandhian approach, existing peace movements cannot be called a very big success.
2. A new beginning: The Indian peace movement has moved away from a single anti-nuclear issue. It now links nuclear energy, environment, displacement and human rights.

Conclusion: The Gandhian agenda sees peace as a matter of livelihood, justice and people's security. It asks for non-violent, non-cooperative and well-organised mass action by all who care for peace, poverty, ecology and human rights.

Sample Question 2: Significance and Contemporary Relevance of the Bhoodan Movement

Question: Critically examine the contemporary relevance of Bhoodan Movement. (Also asked as: Discuss the significance of the Bhoodan Movement.)

Its main object is to widen man's loyalty to the entire society.

Significance

1. Major non-violent effort: Bhoodan-Gramdan is one of the most significant non-violent efforts for large-scale socio-economic change in India after independence.
2. Answer to violence: Communist violence over land in Telangana gave rise to this Sarvodaya approach of voluntary land sharing.
3. Gramdan: From 1952, whole villages were gifted. All village land was pooled in the community and the landless became equal members.
4. Wide spread: By 1969 the movement claimed 1,40,000 of India's 5,60,000 villages. Bihar was proclaimed the first Statedan.
5. New kinds of gifts: Shramdan (labour), Sampattidan (wealth), Buddhidan (intellect) and Jeevandan (life) brought urban people into the movement.
6. Support to land reform: Land redistribution was helped by land reform laws of the Central and state governments.

Misgivings (Criticism)

1. Target not achieved: The target was fifty million acres by the end of 1957. Only one-tenth was achieved.
2. Land unfit for cultivation: Mira Behn felt over 80 per cent of the land was inferior. The facts show about 35.8 per cent was unfit.
3. Slow distribution: Up to 31 March 1967, only 11,90,718 acres were distributed. The machinery was slow.
4. Fragmentation: Critics said it created small, uneconomic holdings. Vinoba replied that he worried more about the fragmentation of human hearts.
5. Too much faith in goodness: It relied heavily on the goodness of human nature and lost momentum due to poor follow-up.

Contemporary Relevance

1. Land problem still exists: India's agrarian structure remains unchanged. Without land reforms, marginal and landless people cannot improve their lot.
2. Poorest at the centre: Bhoodan reminds us to place the poorest of the poor at the centre of planning.
3. Change of values: Vinoba showed that rural problems need a change of human values, not just more production.
4. Decentralisation: Its idea of planning from below through the Gram Sabha is still useful.
5. Hope for non-violence: It gives hope that a true non-violent movement can work with determination and goodwill.

Conclusion: Bhoodan did not fully reach its targets. Still, it rekindled the spirit of non-violence after independence, and its message of sharing, decentralisation and justice for the landless remains relevant today.

Sample Question 3: Gandhi's Views on Protection of Nature and Environment

Question: Discuss Gandhi's views on protection of nature and environment.

Ever since Mahatma Gandhi has been the usually acknowledged and occasionally unacknowledged patron saint of the environmental movement. (Ramachandra Guha)

Gandhi is now seen as one of the earliest environmentalists. This view grew especially after the Chipko Movement in the Garhwal Himalayas.

Gandhi's Views

1. Against the Western model: Gandhi warned that making India like England and America would mean enormous exploitation.
2. Austere life: His simple living, high thinking and ashram rules show his belief in living with nature.
3. Ecological undertones: Guha says Gandhi's doubts about wholesale industrialisation were moral but also had clear ecological undertones.
4. Three uninterrupted movements: Pravin Sheth says Gandhi warned against uninterrupted industrialisation, urbanisation and the profit motive of capitalism.
5. Balanced approach: Gandhi wanted a balance between technology, economy and society that threatens neither man nor nature.
6. Respect for nature: In the Gandhian paradigm, respect for nature is as natural as respect for traditions, cultures and community living.
7. Reduction of wants: He spoke for voluntary reduction of wants and use of minimum resources.
8. Love for natural life: He preferred a traditional life with natural air, water and sunshine, and disliked urban life.
9. Practical utopia: He combined a utopian vision with shrewdly practical means.

Followers who Carried his Views

1. J. C. Kumarappa: His work Economy of Permanence shows a sustainable society.
2. Mira Behn: Living in the Himalayas, she warned in 1950 that something was wrong in the Himalayas, pointing to deforestation and soil erosion.
3. Sarala Behn: She created the Uttarakhand Sarvodaya Mandal in 1961 to protect the hill environment.

Neglect and Revival

The harmony of man and nature was neglected after independence. Gandhi was once called utopian; now Western and Indian environmentalists gather around his ideas.

Conclusion: Gandhi's ideas shaped later environmental thinking and practice, and they created the momentum for non-violent environmental movements like Chipko.

Sample Question 4: Tehri Bachao Andolan and its Struggle to Save the Himalayan Region

Question: Examine the Tehri Bachao Andolan and its non-violent struggle to save the Himalayan region.

When clearance to such projects is given without taking into consideration the human and social aspects, such decisions become cruel, inhuman and detrimental to the national interest in the long run.

Tehri Dam Project

1. Planning: The project was conceived in 1949 as one of the highest dams in the world.
2. Risky site: It is on the Bhagirathi near Tehri town, in an area of high seismicity with earthquakes up to 7 on the Richter Scale. In 1969 the Geological Survey of India found a fault about 20 metres wide at the dam site.
3. Size: Vijay Paranjpye said the dam would be 260.5 m high, the fifth highest in the world, irrigating 2,70,000 hectares and supplying 500 cusecs of drinking water to Delhi.
4. Loss: It would submerge Tehri town and 23 villages fully and 72 villages partly, displacing about 85,600 persons.

Opposing the Dam Construction

1. Sacred land: Local people consider the river and its areas sacred and know the region is fragile.
2. TBVSS formed: People from around 35 gram sabhas formed the Tehri Bandh Virodhi Sangharsh Samiti (Anti Tehri Dam Committee).
3. Satyagraha: The TBVSS held mass protests and Satyagraha with people of all groups, ages and communities.
4. Legal fight: In 1985 it filed a writ petition in the Supreme Court, arguing that dam failure would endanger Rishikesh and Haridwar and threaten people's right to life.
5. Petition dismissed: The Supreme Court dismissed it in 1990, although the Environmental Appraisal Committee had rejected the project.
6. 1991 earthquake: In October 1991 an earthquake of 6.1 killed around 2000 people and opened a debate on dam safety.
7. Work halted: On 14 December 1991, 5000 people led by Sunderlal Bahuguna brought the work to a complete halt.

Rehabilitation of the Displaced

Compensation was inadequate and land was undervalued. The TBVSS pointed to eroded land given as compensation, a wrong definition of family, individual instead of whole-village rehabilitation, neglect of land-for-landless policy and tardy implementation.

Conclusion: The Tehri struggle could not legally stop the dam. But its relentless non-violent effort brought large dam safety and rehabilitation into national and international debate.

Sample Question 5: Gandhi's Contribution to the Anti-Apartheid Movement in South Africa

Question: Describe Gandhi's contribution in laying the foundation of the Anti-Apartheid Movement (AAM) in South Africa.

Apartheid is an Afrikaans word (literally apart-hood) meaning racial segregation as practised by the National Party which came to power in South Africa in 1948.

South Africa was the only country that officially discriminated against its citizens on the basis of race. The seeds of the Anti-Apartheid Movement were sown by Gandhi.

Gandhi's Contribution

1. First movement: Gandhi set up the first anti-colonial and anti-racial discrimination movement there, founding the Natal Indian Congress on 22 August 1894.
2. Petitions: A petition went to the legislature on 28 June 1894 against a Bill to disfranchise Indians. Another, signed by ten thousand Indians, went to Lord Ripon, who disallowed the Bill.
3. Satyagraha of 1906: Gandhi opposed the law requiring registration of Asians. Thousands boycotted registration and jails were full.
4. Burning of passes: When General Smuts went back on his word, Gandhi asked Indians to burn their passes and thousands were arrested.
5. Climax in 1913: The epic march of 5000 indentured coal mine workers of Natal took place, with Indian women encouraging workers to strike.
6. New methods: Marches to freedom and mass stay-away from work began here and later became a feature of AAM.
7. Legacy: When Gandhi left in 1915, he left the Phoenix Settlement, the Natal and Transvaal Indian Congresses and the weapon of Satyagraha.
8. Manilal's campaign, 1946: Gandhi's son Manilal led a two-year Satyagraha against new anti-Indian laws. Around 2000 people were jailed and many black South Africans were deeply impressed.

Gandhian Methods in Later AAM

1. ANC: For years the ANC resisted apartheid through Gandhian tactics of non-violence and constitutional protest.
2. Defiance Campaign: In 1952-53, thousands defied whites-only laws, with Nelson Mandela as volunteer-in-chief.
3. End of apartheid: Internal struggle and international sanctions ended apartheid, and Mandela became President on 10 May 1994.

Nelson Mandela's View

Mandela wrote that this campaign broke the fear of prison and showed that freedom needs careful organisation, militant mass action and, above all, a willingness to suffer and sacrifice.

Conclusion: Gandhi laid the foundation of AAM through petitions, Satyagraha and mass marches, and the AAM became the first successful transnational social movement of the twentieth century.