... wide and diverse range of the population. He worked to improve the status and prevent discrimination of lower caste Hindu 'Untouchables' and mobilised peasants over the issue of excessive land revenue on a number of occasions, for example in Bardoli in 1928. Furthermore he broadened the social basis of the nationalist movement to include women who participated in huge numbers in the Civil Disobedience movement of 1930-1932 and also in the Quit India movement of 1942. Gandhi's ideology of ahimsa, meaning non-violence, and his technique of non-violent persuasion, Satyagraha, became an essential part of Indian nationalism and certainly did help to expand the movement and erode Britain's political legitimacy. According to Chatterjee, Satyagraha appealed to the Indian masses as it was considered a legitimate and moral form of political action against the injustices of the state2. However others such as Rabindranath Tagore have argued that Satyagraha was a flawed ideology ...

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