Explanation:

Statement 1: He wanted to know the land of India and its peoples, and hence decided to travel across India on the advice of Gokhale. His first major public appearance was at the opening of the Banaras Hindu University (BHU) in February 1916. We have covered the speech in the previous test.

Statement 2: In 1915, Gandhi returned to his homeland after two decades of residence abroad. These years had been spent for the most part in South Africa, where he went as a lawyer, and in time became a leader of the Indian community in that territory. As the historian Chandran Devanesan has remarked, South Africa was “the making of the Mahatma”. It was in South Africa that Mahatma Gandhi first forged the distinctive techniques of non-violent protest known as satyagraha, first promoted harmony between religions, and first alerted upper-caste Indians to their discriminatory treatment of low castes and women.