Three Sources, One Claim: Measuring the 1930 Boycott in Dharwad
In 1930, a Congress volunteer in Dharwad writes in his diary that “two thousand people gathered at the salt protest and burned foreign cloth.” A police intelligence report from the same week records 400 arrests and says the crowd was “mostly idlers.” A cloth merchant’s ledger shows imported cloth sales fell from Rs 18,000 in 1929 to Rs 7,500 in 1931, while local handloom sales rose from Rs 4,000 to Rs 9,000. The three sources disagree in tone but overlap in time and place. A student is asked to write two sentences for a school magazine claiming that the boycott was a mass movement. The student has no other sources and cannot interview anyone. The magazine has a 60-word limit and the teacher wants at least one number in the claim. The ledger covers one shop on Poona Road.
1. Which of the three sources is the strongest evidence that an economic boycott actually occurred, and which claim does each of the other two support? Answer in 3-4 sentences.
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The ledger is strongest for the economic claim because it records repeated transactions rather than opinions: imported cloth sales fell by Rs 10,500 (about 58%) between 1929 and 1931 while handloom sales more than doubled. That pattern is consistent with a boycott, though it could also reflect falling incomes or a supply shortage; one shop on one road cannot represent the whole taluk. The diary supports the claim that protest was public and symbolic, but 'two thousand' is an estimate by a participant. The police report supports the claim that the state treated the movement as serious enough to arrest 400 people, not that the crowd was 'idle'. Used together, the three sources show economic, symbolic and repressive dimensions.
2. A classmate writes: 'The police arrested 400 people, so the movement must have been massive.' Evaluate this reasoning.
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The figure shows the state's response, not the size of participation. Arrests can be many even in a small movement if police target organisers, and the report's description of 'idlers' is a hostile judgement, not a count. To infer mass participation, we need a denominator: how many adults lived in the town, how many attended, and whether arrests were spread across occupations and neighbourhoods. The diary's crowd estimate and the ledger's wide fall in cloth sales give better, though still imperfect, evidence of breadth. A sound answer separates the fact of 400 arrests from the inference of mass support.
3. Suggest one additional source that would most improve the student's two-sentence claim, and explain what it would add.
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Municipal octroi or import records for cloth entering Dharwad over 1928-1932 would help because they cover many shops and are compiled by officials, not activists. They would show whether the fall in imported cloth was town-wide or confined to one merchant, and whether handloom sales rose at the same time. Alternatively, Congress membership registers or police station arrest lists by occupation would show who participated. The best choice depends on the claim: for 'economic boycott', trade records; for 'mass movement', membership or arrest lists that show spread across groups.