Factual Passage Worksheet: Gandhi’s Views | Class 11 English Grammar PDF Download

Read the following passage carefully:

1. Gandhi never urged anyone to renounce wealth or power. He taught a set of values that might make happiness less dependant on material possessions. “As long as you desire inner help and comfort from anything, you should keep it,” he suggested tolerantly. Otherwise, he said, you might renounce a worldly asset ‘in a mood of self-sacrifice or out of a stern sense of duty’ but want it back and suffer.
2. “I wholeheartedly detest,” Gandhi declared, “this mad desire to destroy distance and time, to increase animal appetites, and to go to the ends of the earth in search of their satisfaction. None of this is taking the world a step nearer its goal.”
3. Gandhi is known for his successful efforts to liberate India. Actually, for him the development of the Indian into a free man was more important than the freeing of India. Most of Gandhi’s followers in India were not Gandhians and did not share his ideals; they mere accepted his leadership because it smoothed the way to their objective which was an Indian nation without the British but with all the usual attributes of nationhood. For them, national independence was an end, a goal in itself: for him it was a means to a better man and better life, and because his heart was heavy with doubts whether these purposes would be furthered by the manner in which independence was achieved—two bleeding children torn violently from the body of mother India—he did not celebrate on August 15, 1947, the day the Indian nation came into his own world—he was sad and refused congratulations.
4. Gandhi was a nationalist, he loved India, but he was no Indo-maniac. He said he would not hurt England to help India. All the years he fought British-Boer racial discrimination in South Africa and British imperialism in India he never despised or revised ‘the enemy’. He wanted to understand them. The British in India were victims of their past. In liberating India Gandhi thought he was also freeing England for a new future.
5. For mental health, Gandhi prescribed truth. He brought for himself a unity of what he believed, what he did and what he said. Creed, deed and word for one. This is the integration which is integrity or truth. When utterances conflict with actions and actions with beliefs the individual is split, and sick. Gandhi preached what he practised and practised what he believed. I found him healthy, happy, and light-hearted despite his many sorrows and burdens. He enjoyed inner harmony.
6. ‘Perhaps’, the Indian poet Rabindranath Tagore wrote of Gandhi, ‘he will not succeed. Perhaps he will fail as the Buddha failed and as Christ failed to wean men from their iniquities, but he will always be remembered as one who made his life a lesson for all ages to come.’

A. Answer the following questions by choosing the most appropriate option:

Q.1. The set of values that Gandhiji taught people _____
(a) made them renounce wealth or power
(b) to give up the mad desire to destroy distance and time
(c) made happiness less dependant on material assets
(d) to have a spirit of self-sacrifice

Q.2. For Gandhiji, the most valuable object was _____
(a) political freedom of India
(b) material development of India
(c) renouncing worldly assets
(d) development of Indians into free people

Q.3. Most of Gandhiji’s followers accepted his leadership because _____
(a) they were his dedicated disciples
(b) it smoothed the way to their objective
(c) they did not share his ideals
(d) they had a common objective

Q.4. Gandhiji fought for national independence because _____
(a) it was a means to a better man and better life
(b) it was an end in itself
(c) he thought it worth achieving
(d) it was to take the world a step forward

Q.5. The author found Gandhiji healthy, happy and light-hearted because _____
(a) he had no sorrows or burdens
(b) he had no worldly possessions
(c) he enjoyed inner harmony
(d) his life was an open book

Q.6. The word ‘material’ in para 1 means _____
(a) fabric for clothes/customs
(b) information or ideas used in books
(c) items used in a performance
(d) relating to worldly possessions

B. Answer the following questions in brief:

Q.7. Why was Gandhiji accepted as leader by his followers?

Q.8. Why did Gandhiji fight for national Independence?

Q.9. How can you say that Gandhiji was no Indo-maniac?

Q.10. Why was Gandhiji healthy, happy and light hearted?

Q.11. Find the words from the passage in meaning similar to these words.
(a) Haled (para 2)
(b) To give up (para 1)