Notice the sentences in the text which are in ‘direct speech’.
Why does the author use quotations in his narration?
The sentences in the text which are in ‘direct speech’ are:
• When I first visited Gandhi in 1942 at his ashram in Sevagram, in central India, he said, “I will tell you how it happened that I decided to urge the departure of the British. It was in 1917.”
• During the proceedings, Gandhi recounted, “a peasant came up to me looking like any other peasant in India, poor and emaciated, and said, ‘I am Rajkumar Shukla. I am from Champaran, and I want you to come to my district’!’’
• and somebody had probably said, “Speak to Gandhi.”
• “Fix a date,” he begged.
• Impressed by the sharecropper’s tenacity and story Gandhi said, ‘‘I have to be in Calcutta on such-and-such a date. Come and meet me and take me from there.”
• ‘‘It was an extraordinary thing ‘in those days,’’ Gandhi commented, “for a government professor to harbour a man like me”.
• He said, ‘‘I have come to the conclusion that we should stop going to law courts. Taking such cases to the courts does litte good. Where the peasants are so crushed and fear-stricken, law courts are useless. The real relief for them is to be free from fear.’’
• ‘‘The commissioner,’’ Gandhi reports, ‘‘proceeded to bully me and advised me forthwith to leave Tirhut.’’
• He was involved, he told the court, in a “conflict of duties”— on the one hand, not to set a bad example as a lawbreaker; on the other hand, to render the “humanitarian and national service” for which he had come.
• He disregarded the order to leave, “not for want of respect for lawful authority, but in obedience to the higher law of our being, the voice of conscience”.
• “They thought, amongst themselves, that Gandhi was totally a stranger, and yet he was prepared to go to prison for the sake of the peasants; if they, on the other hand, being not only residents of the adjoining districts but also those who claimed to have served these peasants, should go home, it would be shameful desertion.”
• “But how much must we pay?” they asked Gandhi.
• “There he seemed adamant,” writes Reverend J. Z. Hodge
• “Thinking probably that he would not give way, the representative of the planters offered to refund to the extent of 25 per cent, and to his amazement Mr. Gandhi took him at his word, thus breaking the deadlock.”
• ‘‘Look, there is no box or cupboard here for clothes. The sari I am wearing is the only one I have.”
• ‘‘What I did,” he explained, “was a very ordinary thing. I declared that the British could not order me about in my own country.”
• He said, ‘‘You think that in this unequal fight it would be helpful if we have an Englishman on our side. This shows the weakness of your heart. The cause is just and you must rely upon yourselves to win the battle. You should not seek a prop in Mr. Andrews because he happens to be an Englishman’’.
• ‘‘He had read our minds correctly,’’ Rajendra Prasad comments, “and we had no reply… Gandhi in this way taught us a lesson in self-reliance’’.
Explanation:
The author uses quotations in his narrations to strengthen the effectiveness of narration. It adds emotion and a dramatic effect to the narration. In some cases, it shows the thought process of the person in the story. Quotations also preserve some memorable lines spoken by the person in its original form.