Read of the following passage and answer the questions given below:
The essence of
Gandhi’s teaching was fearlessness and truth and action allied to these, always
keeping the welfare of the masses in view. The greatest gift for an individual
or a nation, so we had been told in our ancient books, was ‘abhaya’, fearlessness,
not merely bodily courage but the absence of fear from the mind. Janaka and Yajnavalka had
said, at the dawn of our history, that it was the function of the leaders of a
people to make them fearless. But the dominant impulse in India under British
rule was that of fear, pervasive, oppressive, strangling fear; fear of the
army, the police, the widespread secret service; fear of the official class;
fear of laws meant to suppress and of
prison; fear of the landlord’s agent; fear of the money-lender; fear of
unemployment and starvation, which were always on the threshold. It was against
the all pervasive fear that Gandhi’s quiet and determined voice was raised: Be
not afraid. Was it so simple as that? Not quite. And it fear builds its phatoms
which are more fearsome than reality itself, and reality when calmly analysed and
its consequences willingly accepted, loses much of its terror.
Questions:
1. What
according to the writer is the essence of Gandhi’s teachings?
2. What
according to ancient books was the greatest gift of a leader to an individual
or to a nation?
3. What did
Janaka and Yajnavalka said about the function of a leader?
4. What was the
dominant impulse in British India?
5. What’ kind of
fears did oppress Indians?
6. Against what
did Gandhi raise his voice?
7. What does one
do to overcome fear?
