Multiple choice

The passage suggests that Gandhi's leadership

Directions: Read the passage and answer the following questions.

Passage I
Mahatma Gandhi exercised leadership through his personal example and influence rather than through power. But would his style of leadership have worked in the West? Gandhi's example, even more than those of Lincoln, de Gaulle and Hitler, reveals the extent to which leadership is bound up with culture. For a long time the word 'culture' was used mainly as a synonym for Western civilization - the secular process of human development. In England it acquired definite class associations. But in the late eighteenth century the German writer Johann Herder challenged this view, 'Nothing is more indeterminate than this word, 'he wrote, 'and nothing more deceptive than its application to all nations and periods. 'Herder attacked the comfortable assumption that the self-development of humanity had moved in a unilinear progression to flower in the European culture around him. Indeed, he attacked the European assumption of cultural superiority.

Men of all the quarters of the globe, who have perished over the ages, you have not lived solely to. manure the earth with your ashes, so .that at the end of time your prosperity should be made happy by European culture majesty of Nature. It is then necessary, he concluded, to talk of 'cultures' in the plural: the specific and variable cultures of different natures and period, and even the sub-cultures (as we call them) of different social groups within the nation In India, the equivalent of leader is the word neta. In its positive sense it is used for a person who commands respect and even &w€: and has charismatic qualities about him. Because of the misdeeds and misdemeanors of some of the political leaders in the post-Independence era, the word has also come td be used as a taunt for those who pose as leaders but are not accepted as such. In India, the test of leadership lies in personal example, inspirational image and acceptance of the leaders qualities and attributes by the followers.

  1. was inferior to that of Lincoln, de Gaulle and Hitler

  2. would not have worked in the West

  3. was more closely related to culture than the leadership of other leaders mentioned

  4. would definitely work anywhere in the world

Reveal answer Fill a bubble to check yourself
B Correct answer
Explanation

The passage begins by questioning if Gandhi's style of leadership would have worked in the West, implying that it was culturally specific and might not have been effective elsewhere.