Acknowledgment This book is dedicated to all kshatriyas, who lived and died for this timeless sanatana karmabhumi. It is an offering of deep gratitude to all who serve and will serve dharma, and protect the dharmi. I am grateful to Dr. Shreerang Godbole, Ms. Sandhya Jain and Dr. Krishen Kak for their periodic review of the manuscript and for their significant inputs which has improved the book substantively. I am also deeply thankful to Srimathi D. Kausalya for her unfailing courtesy and promptness in printing the manuscript at different stages of its evolution and forwarding them to friends for their critical comments. And as always I am grateful to my vast, long-suffering family (two-legged and four-legged) for patiently putting up with chaos and a time-schedule that was oftentimes in total disarray.
Title page Respect of persons must always give place to truth and conscience; and the demand that we should be silent because of the age or past services of our opponents, is politically immoral and unsound. Open attack, unsparing criticism, the severest satire, the most wounding irony, are all methods perfectly justifiable and indispensable in politics. We have strong things to say; let us say them strongly; we have stern things to do; let us do them sternly. – Aurobindo
INTRODUCTION This book is concerned with the systemic and well-organized political disempowerment of India’s Hindu community. A nation’s polity reflects its peoples’ notion of nation and nationhood. Nowhere in the world and never in history can there be found a country whose ruling elite has not emerged from its native and/or majority populace, nor has there ever been a power-elite which rejected the ethos of its majority populace, except perhaps in South Africa, the Americas, and India. The native populace of South Africa managed to seize control of its polity after a long, bloody and painful struggle to end Apartheid White rule, and the nations of South America are struggling for native assertion via the ballot box. But North America, invaded and occupied by Europeans after decimating the Native American populace, is unlikely to witness any meaningful change in its power equations in the foreseeable future. Its polity is likely to retain its White Christian edge, a fact increasingly challenged by its African-American populace. The situation is similar in Canada, Australia and New Zealand.
Contemporary India is thus the only country in the world whose polity is actively hostile to native (Hindu) interests, the only country whose sense of nationhood is still repressed by state power. Adherents of Islam and Christianity have a highly developed political sense as both religions are essentially political in their goals – conquest of territory and decimation or subjugation of non-Islamic and non-Christian people till the time the whole world becomes their dominion. This objective is
deemed legitimate not only by their respective believers, but also by Indian secularists who regard Christian violence and intimidation in the North-East and jihad by Muslims as compatible with their quest for a non-Hindu India, and consider Hindu nationalism a serious threat to the established polity dominated by Nehruvian secularism (read minority-ism), anti-Hindu
southern
Dravidianism,
and
all
shades
of
communism. It is established political orthodoxy that a nation’s polity derives from and reflects the racial or religious ethos
of
its
majority
populace.
India’s
constitutionally-
enshrined secularism is a killer virus whose offspring, ‘freedom of religion’, allows Islam and Christianity the liberty to function in a Hindu land while keeping their critical political core intact, indeed, actively nurtured by its democratic constitution. A Hindu backlash against these challenges was inevitable. Historically, the sense of nation and nationhood among Hindus has been cultural and civilisational. The culture and its unique value system, founded in an extraordinary concept of dharma, touched every aspect of individual and collective life. Politics, a means to protect and preserve dharma, was subordinate to dharma. Historically, until Hindus faced successive Islamic and Christian conquests, they had no sense of civilisational, adversarial political-cultural purposes. However, confronted with the hostility of Islam and Christianity, a heightened Hindu nationalism manifested itself over the last 1200 years as organized resistance and as individual acts of extreme courage to protect Hindus and the Hindu way of life. Rana Pratap Singh, Rani Laxmibhai of Jhansi, Chatrapati Shivaji, Guru Gobind Singh, the Gosamrakshana Samitis, Sri Aurobindo, Veer
Savarkar,
Madanlal
Dhingra
and
the
host
of
revolutionaries who followed each other into the twentieth century, are but a few examples of this continuing resistance. These individual and group resistance movements ignited the fire of Hindu nationalism and gave to this nation of Hindus a political consciousness which sought to bring Indian polity in line with the Hindu ethos, to wean it away from the acutely inimical anti-Hindu path it is even now traversing. Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi1 and later Jawaharlal Nehru successfully stifled the march of Hindu nationalism. Nehru viewed a politically vibrant Hindu nationalism as a threat to his preeminence and invoked the might of state patronage to promote an academic discourse and an ‘authorized’ history that relegated Hindu civilization to the margins of national consciousness.2 Writers of modified history3 perpetuated the colonial fiction that India was always pluralist, never Hindu, the implication being that Hindus cannot claim this land as their special janmabhumi, and cannot legitimately undertake steps to protect their territory, their way of life, or their cultural sensibilities. Public expression of support for the Hindu way of life 1
was
termed
backward,
superstitious,
majoritarian
As standard academic practice, we are using names without suffixes such as Mahatma or Gandhiji. 2 The dubious motives behind international awards for those that propagate a non-Hindu India is exemplified by the American Kluge prize awarded jointly to Romilla Thapar. “Ms. Thapar created a new and more pluralistic view of Indian civilization, which had seemed more unitary and unchanging by scrutinising its evolution over two millennia and searching out its historical consciousness”, the Library of Congress said. (Deccan Chronicle, Chennai edition, page 8, 5th December, 2008) 3 Historians such as R.S. Sharma, D.N. Jha and Romila Thapar exemplify this school of writing.
communalism and retrogressive vis-à-vis superior virtues like ‘scientific temper’, secularism and pluralism, which India unquestioningly adopted via Gandhi and Nehru from their White-Christian-British
masters.
Hindus
were
insidiously
conditioned to equate Hindu political intentions with jihad. So intolerant was Indian political discourse to Hindu nationalism that even eminent Hindu political leaders took to mouthing inanities, like ‘Hindu nationalism is only cultural nationalism’. That this misconceived articulation amounted to a denial of territorial content and political intent in Hindu nationalism was either overlooked or ignored or simply not understood at all. The present work is an attempt to balance India’s distorted public discourse by outlining the contours and content of Hindu nationalism. This is a responsibility and an imperative that can no longer be evaded. The anti-Hindu polity today constitutes the greatest threat to Hindus and the Hindu nation. This work seeks to delineate the parameters of Hindu nationalism and fire it with strategic intent. In the process the book critically examines the freedom movement between the years 18901947, particularly the events that launched Gandhi to the commanding heights of the movement. Gandhi did not rise naturally to demonstrated leadership potential; rather, this exalted position was reserved for him and he simply walked to the pinnacle immediately after his return to India from South Africa. Gandhi’s leadership of the Indian National Congress and the freedom
movement
sounded
the
death-knell
for
Hindu
nationalism, as we hope to demonstrate; and after Gandhi and Nehru (who inherited Gandhi’s political mantle) hand-picked all
Congress members to the Constituent Assembly, the Hindus of the nation were presented with a Constitution that did not reflect the nation’s timeless civilisational ethos or heritage nor represent
the
interests
of
the
nation’s
majority
Hindu
populace. The beginning of the post-independence era in the nation’s history was the beginning of an active anti-Hindu polity that continues to hold sway till the present. This book seeks to correct the anti-Hindu political discourse which owes its existence to Gandhi and Nehru; this book signals the beginning of the collective effort of political-minded Hindus to set down the coffins of Gandhi and Nehru from the unwilling shoulders of the Hindu nation.
Strategic Intent of Hindu Nationalism The strategic intent of Hindu nationalism can be summed up as achieving conscious state power, ‘rajya’, to correct the course and content of Indian polity. This course correction is necessary ·
To transform this nation of Hindus into a Hindu Nation protected by a conscious Hindu state
·
To bring Indian polity in line with Hindu ethos and Hindu interests
·
To
protect,
safeguard
and
retain
all
territories
belonging to the Hindu nation as of 15 August 1947 and facilitate the return of territories lost to colonial machinations ·
To actively facilitate the return to the Hindu fold, those whose forefathers fell victims to predatory religions and
ideologies. Return of people to Hindu dharma will result in return of territory ·
To signal the Indian State’s determination to deal firmly with forces inimical to the Hindu nation (jihad and Muslim
intransigence,
evangelization
and
global
Christianity’s control of powerful domestic institutions and corporate firms, Marxism and its branches, and all their international partners and collaborators) ·
To ensure Indian military and economic primacy in the region to achieve our strategic goals
·
To evolve a foreign policy that actively promotes and sustains our regional influence.
This is a Herculean task, even as an intellectual exercise. This work will scan the events of the last two centuries and critique the rendition of these events by motivated history-writing. As Aurobindo said, we have strong things to say, so we will say them strongly, we have stern things to do and we will do them sternly. NOTE We use “Hindu” to connote all the panthas and sampradayas (streams and traditions) that are
indigenous to the Indian
subcontinent, notwithstanding an occasional distinctive title (e.g., “Sikh”) for topical effect. *
Chapter 1 A Hindu Nation but not a Hindu State 1.1 Rashtra and Rajya In Arthasastra, the Hindu science of statecraft, rashtra implies both territory with well-defined borders, and its inhabitants. Hindus comprise 83% of India’s population, but when colonial rule ended in 1947, despite being a nation of Hindus we failed to establish a Hindu rajya (polity) enjoined and empowered to protect sanatana dharma and the dharmi, that is, the Hindu dharma and the Hindu people1. This failure to establish a Hindu rajya may be attributed to the fact that –
1
·
Both the British Raj and the Indian National Congress (INC), which assumed control of the freedom movement in its decisive last phase, discredited and/or ruthlessly put down all Hindu expressions of resistance and rebellion.
·
Gandhi and his doctrines of ‘passive resistance’ and ‘non-violence’ occupied the public space vacated by Tilak, Aurobindo and Savarkar (towering Hindu thinkers and votaries of armed resistance); Gandhi delegitimized Hindu anger and all expressions of Hindu anger.
·
Nehru inherited the mantle of leadership from Gandhi and was acutely hostile to everything Hindu.
·
No significant leader of the freedom struggle, neither Tilak nor Aurobindo or Gandhi, explicitly articulated or delineated the concept of Hindu rajya as the ultimate objective of the freedom movement.
·
After the advent of Gandhi and the ascent of Nehru, with the exception of Savarkar, there was no sense of conscious ‘Hindu’ political objectives to the freedom movement in general and to the Indian National Congress in particular, as there was no collective and conscious realization of the nature of a Hindu rashtra
Words Hinduism and Hindus wherever used in the book connote Hindu dharma and Hindu people
and the objectives of Hindu rajya, and hence no intention or determination to achieve them. Currently ‘pluralism’ and ‘secularism’ are the internationally legitimate themes of statecraft and even intelligent Hindus have failed to distinguish between Hindu rashtra and rajya and their mutual inter-dependence and have compounded this failure by equating Hindu rashtra with Hindu rajya, and associating both with an Abrahamic religion-driven or controlled theocratic state. As the non-Abrahamic and Abrahamic faiths have vastly differing perceptions about the purpose of human life and the moral worth of the individual and society, the social and political theories arising out of their respective worldviews are not readily interchangeable. The political theories of the dominant colonial power however, have been superimposed upon a dormant colonized people, and their silence mistaken for acquiescence. Kautilya’s Arthasastra2 accorded primacy to Rajya as the most important and ultimate, if not sole, instrument to protect and enforce dharma. Rajya has seven components (prakritis) – Svamin (King), Amatya (Minister), Rashtra (Nation), Durga (Capital), Kosa (Treasury), Danda (Armed forces) and Mitra (Allied kings and kingdoms). Some earlier texts list the seventh component as bala, which connotes not only the enforcing authority of the king but also the military or armed forces. In Kautilya however, bala is implicit in danda which Kangle translates as ‘armed forces’.3 Hindu rashtra is thus clearly a constituent of Hindu rajya (polity); it follows that while Hindu rajya derives from rashtra, the rashtra can be protected and defended only by the rajya. As evident, contemporary English-language political lexicon offers nearequivalents of the constituents of rajya. The above constituents of rajya are not listed in order of relative importance as all are equally important, though some gain precedence in times of peace and some in times of crisis. Kautilya makes the exemplary point of the relative importance of the components of Hindu rajya and if we accept this as the 2
All quotations and references henceforth to Kautilya’s Arthasatra in the book are from the monumental work in three volumes, The Kautiliya Arthasatra (TKA) by RP Kangle, Motilal Banarsidass Publishers Private Limited, 1963 3 “The king, the minister, the country, the fortified city, the treasury, the army and the ally are the constituent elements (of the state)”, Book 6, Chapter 1, Sutra 1, The Kautiliya Arthasastra (TKA), Part II, page 314
yardstick to judge the state of well-being of the nation and its rulers, we can easily find examples from contemporary history of the conditions described by him:·
A king endowed with personal qualities excellences the constituent elements not One not endowed with personal qualities constituent elements that are prosperous (to him).
endows with so endowed. destroys the and devoted
·
Then (that) king not endowed with personal qualities, with defective constituent elements, is either killed by the subjects or subjugated by the enemies, even if he be ruler up to the four ends of the earth.
·
But one possessed of personal qualities, though ruling over a small territory, being united with the excellences of the constituent elements, (and) conversant with (the science of) politics, does conquer the entire earth and never loses4.
Even a cursory glance at the acute problems confronting the nation will serve to show that almost all of them have assumed threatening proportions not just because the leaders of the Hindu nation suffered from one or all of the weaknesses listed above but also because even political-minded Hindus have failed to grasp the critical importance of a Hindu rajya and Hindu society therefore failed to throw up such a leader during the critically important period between 1890-1947; this notwithstanding the fact that Tilak, Aurobindo and Savarkar, all had great intellectual and organizing capability. Hindus are failing even now to put the Hindu rajya in place because of their incapacity to produce a Hindu visionary political leader with the stamina to stay the course. Gandhi’s untested mahatmahood gave him a ready constituency but he declared that neither he nor the INC represented Hindu interests. 1.2 Problems confronting the Hindu nation 1. Almost total de-Hinduising of Indian polity, resulting in politics of minority-ism and Hindu inability to influence the polity.
4
TKA, Book 6, Chapter 1, Sutras 16, 17, 18, Part II, page 317
2. Cavalier attitude to territory and failure to understand the need to monitor and keep under constant surveillance the character of the people living in the territory, and hence supreme indifference/ignorance about the critical importance of rashtra. 3. De-Hinduised and/or virulently hostile anti-Hindu state structures and administration. 4. Growing Muslim and Christian population percentage. 5. Aggressive evangelization with the open support and endorsement of White Western nations as instruments of their foreign policy. 6. Intensified jihad against Hindus and Hindu territory, unchecked infiltration of Bangladeshi Muslims into India constituting a significant threat. 7. Growing power of anti-Hindu Marxist/Maoist/Naxalite groups. 8. The increasing possibility of a significant segment of overseas Indians – People of Indian Origin (PIOs) and Non-Resident Indians (NRIs) – being used as agents against the Indian State and/or her people. 9. India’s total isolation in the region and political unwillingness to deal resolutely with neighboring countries lending their territory for anti-Hindu terrorist activities. 10. The persisting inability of Hindus to consciously come together as Hindus. 11. Absence of a powerful Hindu leadership with the ability to grasp the critical importance of rajya to deal with the above-mentioned problems, and 12. The inability of Indian polity to resist and challenge western political idioms and theories, which have by default received universal and international status.
1.3 Hindu determination to protect Hindu territory and religion The British Government in India used state power to brutalize and break the spirit of Hindu nationalists to discourage all thoughts of armed resistance and political independence. Postindependence Indian polity continued with use of state power to quell Hindu nationalism because Hindu nationalism threatened to dismantle the shaky edifice of the bogus but highly remunerative secular polity which sustains politics of minority-ism and their votaries. Hindus may be cowed down and disempowered today by state power but they were not always so dispirited. In the Indian tradition, the principal rajadharma or the responsibility of the State in India is the preservation of Dharma. Srimad Bhagavadgita teaches that Dharma samsthapana (preservation of dharma) involves both protection of society Paritrana and destruction of its enemies ‘Vinasa’. In the first millennium of the so-called historical period, during 5th century BC to 6th century AD, Indians successfully repulsed all major invasions of Persians, Greeks, Sakas and Hunas. Indian civilization and Sanatana Dharma faced a major challenge during the Islamic invasion (635-1190) and subsequent Islamic domination of large regions of India during 1200-1700. The great kingdoms and armies of the Chalukyas, Karkotas (Kashmir), GurjaraPratiharas and the Rashtrakutas and the Rajputs, rose to the occasion and successfully prevented the Islamic forces, which had spectacular success elsewhere in Asia, Africa and Europe, from establishing themselves in the Indian heartland for nearly six centuries during 630-1200. When the Islamic forces conquered North India and invaded South India, they were thwarted by the establishment of the major Hindu empire of Vijayanagara (1336-1565). In fact, most of South India, Orissa, and Assam could not be
brought under Islamic rule for any significant period of time. Thus, during the height of Mughal rule5 around 1600 (and after nearly four centuries of Islamic domination) it was estimated that only about one-sixth of the Indian population (in the regions that constituted the Mughal Empire) had become adherents of Islam. From about the middle of the 17th century, people all over India, especially the Marathas, Sikhs, Jats, and the Bundelas created powerful military organizations that shook the Mughal empire. By the 18th century, the Mughal Empire had collapsed and the indigenous rulers were in the process of establishing themselves everywhere in India. In 1760, the Maratha Samrajya exercised control over a very large part of India , including Northern Karnataka, Maharashtra, Gujarat, Rajasthan, Punjab, Western and Southern Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Chhatisgarh, Jharkhand and Orissa. There were also important Hindu Rajyas in Mysore, Thiruvananthapuram, Assam, Nepal and Jammu at that time.”6 When Hindu society was unable to mount effective military challenge to Islamic and Christian-colonial invaders, it responded with great religious activity to strengthen sanatana dharma in a manner not easily amenable to destruction by invading Muslim or Christian hordes. Having drawn appropriate lessons from the massive devastation of temples, great acharyas wrote intellectually enthralling bhashyas (commentary) created new and powerful streams of panthas (denominations within Hindu dharma), composed elegant and immensely elevating songs and poetry of bhakti (devotion), all 5
I personally prefer the word ‘Islamic’ because to Hindus, it matters little if the jihadis were Arab, Turk, Mongol or Persian 6 Indian response to the challenge of Islam and Christianity, Center for Policy Studies, Chennai, December 2006
of which continue to inspire and motivate Hindu society to respond to continuing challenges to the survival of their dharma and way of life. The politically paralyzing and defeatist role played by Gandhi, and Aurobindo’s comprehensive failure to stay the course, must be seen against the backdrop of complete disempowerment and disarming of the indefatigable martial spirit of Hindus who have ever picked up arms to defend dharti and dharma against all threats. It is largely because of Aurobindo and Gandhi that we did not set Hindu rajya to protect the rashtra as the goal of the freedom movement during its last phase between 1890 and1947. 1.4 Origins of current Hindu powerlessness – The Indian National Congress We are concerned here with the twin issues of Hindu powerlessness to influence Indian polity and the need for conscious Hindu state power. The Hindu community has been victimized by an Indian polity powered by the phony mantra of ‘secularism’ and the bogey of Hindu ‘communalism’. For decades, Indian polity has successfully disempowered Hindus and rendered them incapable of organizing themselves to demonstrate strength, anger and resolve when confronted by a hostile State or other provocations. And on occasions when Hindus gathered together to exhibit their collective will or anger, Indian polity used ruthless state power to quell all such protests.7 · While the Muslim League government in the Bengal province used state power to fuel jihad against Hindus in response to Jinnah’s call for Direct Action in August 1946, the Congress government in Bihar used police and military power to quell the Hindus who reacted violently to the jihad in Bengal. Over 200 Hindus were killed in police and military firing alone. · The Central Government in Delhi and the state governments of Bihar and Uttar Pradesh arrested all important leaders of the Bharatiya Janata Party and the Vishwa Hindu Parishad at the height of the Ramjanmabhumi movement in October 1990. These governments were headed by Hindus. In November 7
The recent determined and well-organized protest by the Hindus of Jammu and the displaced Kashmiri Hindu community as embodied by the Amarnath Sangharsh Samiti has been the exception to the established rule and is a portent of things to come.
·
·
1990, over 50 Hindu bhaktas or karsevaks were killed in police firing in Ayodhya, Uttar Pradesh. Over 200 Hindus were killed in police firing in Gujarat, in March 2002 during riots that followed the burning alive of 58 Hindu pilgrims by jihadis in Godhra, Gujarat in February 2002. The Tamil Nadu government arrested and jailed 6 Hindu activists under the draconian National Security Act in 2006 for attempting to remove the statue of a violent, anti-Hindu dravidian iconoclast, placed with state support in front of a revered Hindu temple in Srirangam, Tamil Nadu.
Since 1947 ‘secular’ Indian polity has been consciously antiHindu; it proactively promotes politics of minority-ism to the detriment of the Hindu faith and Hindu way of life. However, the aspect of Hindu powerlessness which manifests itself as an inability to demonstrate strength or outrage needs clinical analysis in the light of recent history. This malaise can be specifically attributed to the last phase of the freedom struggle, to the Indian National Congress and the INC leaders who abdicated their responsibility to the Hindu nation at a critical time, particularly, in our view, Gandhi and Aurobindo. We will substantiate our claim through extensive quotations from the hitherto largely ignored corpus of writings and speeches of these two towering personalities. The first war of independence was a serious challenge to British supremacy in India, the first warning to the British that Indian society could throw up leaders with the capacity to translate the seething anger of the people into organized and sustained armed attacks against their rule. The muchpublicized catalyst for the revolt, the alleged use of animal fatsmeared cartridges was just that – a catalyst; for the Hindus, the widespread rebellion in the armed forces in 1857 which soon spilled over into society and spread across the country was in a sense, the culmination of widespread Hindu anger and protests against intensified cow slaughter under the Raj while Muslims were fighting to re-establish Islamic rule over the Indian nation. The Muslims knew what they were fighting for and what they were fighting against; for Muslims and Christians the ultimate goal of their respective religions is political – to establish the universal Dar-ul-Islam and Christian Kingdom of God on Earth.
Indian Muslims, to the last man considered Christian colonial rule as temporary defeat and eclipse of Islamic rule over Hindu India; Hindu India was just one theater in the unrelenting war that the two Abrahamic faiths were waging around the world for ultimate annihilation of the other and the final victory culminating in total control over the earth. Under the circumstances, the strategy of Indian Muslims in 1857 was to seek Hindu co-operation in a superficial bonding on the basis of race to challenge the Whiteman. The ploy worked, even if only minimally within the British Indian Army; but outside, the fierce resistance of the Mahrattas to the growing menace of the East India Company, which was using trade and Church to tighten its political grip over the country, was yet another chapter in the ceaseless and determined, centuries-long civilisational struggle of the Hindus against both Islam and Christianity. The anti-cow slaughter movement by local Gosamrakshana Samitis (Gosamrakshana Movement, 1860-1920) was led by Hindu sadhus and community leaders, and spread across the country. The British Raj perpetrated cow slaughter on a horrendous scale in order to keep the British Army and establishment supplied with beef. Strangely and as a portent of things to come, the intense Hindu anger at increasing cow slaughter was viewed with strong distaste by Gandhi in ‘Hind Swaraj’.8 In what was to become his trademark style, Gandhi, instead of confronting the British establishment and its allied Muslim community on the question of cow slaughter, delegitimized Hindu anger.9 Indeed, he did not even formally hold the British fundamentally responsible for the scale of cowslaughter at the time, but made it a Hindu-Muslim issue and laid the onus for cow protection completely on the Hindus: I myself respect the cow, that is, I look upon her with affectionate reverence. The cow is the protector of India, because it, being an agricultural country, is dependent on the cow’s progeny. She is a most useful animal in
8
Henceforth all references to and quotations from Hind Swaraj are from, Gandhi – Hind Swaraj and Other Writings, (HS) Edited by Anthony J Parel, Cambridge Texts in Modern Politics, Cambridge University Press, 1997 9 An unbiased reading of Gandhi’s huge corpus of writings will show consistent lack of sympathy towards the legitimate civilisational concerns of Hindus and excessive accommodation towards their tormentors
hundreds of ways. Our Mahomedan brethren will admit this. But just as I respect the cow, so do I respect my fellow-men. A man is just as useful as a cow, no matter whether he be a Mahomedan or a Hindu.... When the Hindus became insistent, the killing of cows increased. In my opinion, cow protection societies may be considered cow-killing societies. It is a disgrace to us that we should need such societies. When we forgot how to protect cows, I suppose we needed such societies.... Who protects the cow from destruction by Hindus when they cruelly ill-treat her? Who ever reasons with the Hindus when they mercilessly belabour the progeny of the cow with their sticks? But this has not prevented us from remaining one nation10. We shall later go into greater detail about Gandhi’s peculiar views and questionable attitudes on several issues in Hindu dharma and tradition besides cow slaughter. It is, however, pertinent to note that Hindu powerlessness is a recent phenomenon, in complete contrast to the combative history of the previous twelve centuries, when Hindus displayed fierce and consistent determination to protect their territory and dharma. Indeed, the war of 1857 was a continuation of the organized resistance of hundreds of years to desecration and destruction of temples, to cow slaughter, and thus an extension of Hindu society’s resistance to the Islamic invasion of Hindu territory and destruction of the Hindu way of life. 1.5 Why the British manufactured the INC As Gandhi wielded enormous clout in the INC owing to an allegedly successful political sojourn in South Africa, as a result of which he received the sobriquet, ‘Mahatma’, we shall examine the following issues:
10
Hind Swaraj (HS), Chapter X, The condition of India (cont.): the Hindus and the Mahomedans, pp 54-55
· · · · · · ·
·
The purpose and timing of Hind Swaraj which many consider Gandhi’s seminal work. The not-so-well-known aspects of Gandhi’s career in South Africa. Gandhi’s interpretation of satyagraha and ahimsa Gandhi’s limited and even flawed understanding of contemporary issues and events, and his skewed understanding of the Bible and the Bhagwad Gita. Gandhi’s leadership qualities. Gandhi’s judgment of White civilization, the British Empire, and the Muslims. Gandhi’s ‘moral authority’, which put his every word and action beyond the pale of critical scrutiny and thus thwarted all attempts at objective assessment of his political legacy; and The consequences for Hindus of the Gandhian legacy in the Indian polity.
The Muslim League was set up in December 1906 as a creature of British inspiration, just as the Indian National Congress was conceived in 1885. Both initiatives aimed to weaken intensifying Hindu armed resistance to colonial regime and to politically dis-empower the Hindus vis-à-vis the Muslims. The timing of the move to create both the Congress and the Muslim League is significant. Allan Octavian Hume, ‘father’ of the INC11, was a Scotsman posted as Collector in Etawah at the time the conflict broke out in 1857. Hume repulsed the advance of Mughal prince Feroze Shah into Etawah from Rohailkhand. His contribution to colonial victory in the Central Indian Campaign of the war earned him the Order of the Bath, because this was a campaign “that was fought over the widest area in terms of length and breadth as compared to all the other campaigns of 1857. It took the British longer in terms of time to suppress the rebellion in Central India as compared to all other regions involved in the rebellion”12, not the least because they had to confront a determined Rani Laxmibhai of Jhansi and the formidable and extremely skilled Tantia Tope. The First War of Independence alarmed London, which saw intense Hindu anger and Hindu skills at armed resistance, including guerilla warfare, unleashed by Tantia Tope. Yet 11
Hindus seem to have a ‘father’ obsession; Gandhi was designated ‘father’ of the Nation and Tilak the ‘father’ of Indian Unrest. 12 http://www.defencejournal.com/2000/feb/central-indian.htm
London learnt to its advantage that Hindus could be pressured, bribed, beguiled or flattered to betray their own. It must have amused the British that a section of Hindus fought fiercely not only to defeat the East India Company but to reinstate Muslim rule over India; a stated objective of the war was to make Bahadur Shah Zafar the real power in Delhi once again! Having learnt several important lessons from the war, London moved decisively to retain the ‘jewel’ in the British Crown at any cost. The Queen promptly wound up the East India Company and brought all territories controlled by it directly under the British Government13. Having unleashed ruthless State power to pacify the natives, the British soon afterwards played their masterstroke by weaning away important sections of society from armed resistance and opposition to their rule with the offer of ‘political participation’ through self-governance. This task was entrusted to Allan Octavian Hume, and in 1885 he ‘founded’ the Indian National Congress, touted by motivated historians as the ultimate vehicle of Indian nationalism. The ideologically inept Hindus were enchanted by the ruse and the best Hindu minds, conditioned by English education, were entranced by the thought of being dark-white partners (dark in skin, white in thinking) of the British Raj. The British, however, made of sterner stuff, sought to ensure that the natives did not entertain original ideas of independence and initially planted their own countrymen as INC Presidents. Later they relied upon other tactics to execute their unstated agenda of neutralizing all Hindu resistance and weaning the Hindu intelligentsia away from revolutionary objectives and away from Hindu society, culture and roots. The Indian National Congress was set up by A.O. Hume to make Indians willing and/or unwitting collaborators of the Raj. Gandhi, in 1909 happily pranced to the tune of the British piper – Reader: Do you consider that a desire for Home Rule has been created among us? Editor: That desire gave rise to the National Congress. The choice of the word ‘National’ implies it. 13
It is surprising that we have failed to draw upon this single fact to demolish the myth that the East India Company came to India just for trade and was accidentally drawn into her domestic affairs. If that were indeed so, then European trade would never have metamorphosed into colonialism and the consequent enslavement of colonised nations
Reader: That surely is not the case. Young India14 seems to ignore the Congress. It is considered to be an instrument for perpetuating British Rule. Editor: That opinion is not justified. Had not the Grand Old Man of India (Dadabai Naoroji) prepared the soil, our young men could not have even spoken about Home Rule. How can we forget what Mr. Hume has written, how he has lashed us into action, and with what effort he has awakened us, in order to achieve the objects of the Congress? Sir William Wedderburn has given his body, mind and money to the same cause.15 . Aurobindo may not have bluntly articulated the British subterfuge behind founding the INC but while he politely welcomed its creation, he was also aware of its serious deficiencies. Aurobindo wrote a series of nine scathing articles about the INC, titled ‘New lamps for old’, in Indu Prakash, a Marathi-English Bombay daily, when he was only 21 years and the INC barely eight years old!16 In the last part of the series written on March 6, 1894, Aurobindo uses the English language effectively to describe what he thought of the Service to which Hume belonged. Hume as mentioned earlier was an officer of the Indian Civil Services (ICS). And when one knows the stuff of which the Service is made, one ceases to wonder at it. A shallow school-boy stepping from a cramming establishment to the command of high and difficult affairs can hardly be expected to give us anything magnificent or princely. Still less can it be expected when the sons of small tradesmen are suddenly promoted from the counter to govern great provinces. Not that I have any 14
“‘Young India’ the Indian revolutionaries associated with India House (1905-9), London, referred to themselves as the “Young India Party’. The name had its origin in Mazzini’s concept of Young Italy. Young India was also the name of the weekly newspaper Gandhi edited in India from 1919-1931”. (Editor Parel’s foot-note to the above excerpt from HS, Chapter I, page 14) 15 HS, Chapter I, The Congress and its Officials, page 14 16 Excerpts from Aurobindo’s writings reproduced in the book, unless otherwise specified have been sourced from Sri Aurobindo Birth Centenary Library Deluxe Edition, Vol. 1, Published by the Sri Aurobindo Ashram, Pondicherry, 1972
fastidious prejudice against small tradesmen. I simply mean that the best education men of that class can get in England does not adequately qualify a raw youth to rule over millions of his fellow-beings.17 Aurobindo’s criticism of the Indian National Congress and its leaders was just as blunt and as unsparing. I am quite aware that in doing this, my motive and my prudence may be called into question. I am not ignorant that I am about to censure a body which to many of my countrymen seems the mightiest outcome of our new national life...and if I were not fully confident that this fixed idea of ours is a snare and a delusion, likely to have the most pernicious effects, I should simply have suppressed my own doubts and remained silent.18 I say, of the Congress, then, this—that its aims are mistaken, that the spirit in which it proceeds towards their accomplishment is not a spirit of sincerity and whole-heartedness, and that the methods it has chosen are not the right methods, and the leaders in whom it trusts, not the right sort of men to be leaders; in brief, that we are at present the blind led, if not by the blind, at any rate by the one-eyed19 Like the best laid plans of mice and men however, some elements in the INC were neither pliant nor compliant. The economic rape and plunder of India began to be documented (Poverty and un-British rule in India by Dadabhai Naoroji) and the anger against the colonial government soon became a war-cry. Yet Dadabhai Naoroji, like Gandhi later in Hind Swaraj, blamed the British only partially, indeed, halfheartedly. Naoroji understood that the predatory Raj was responsible for India’s gross impoverishment and economic deprivation, yet he defined this rapaciousness ‘un-British’! Gandhi picked up this theme readily 17
New lamps for old, Indu Prakash, March 6, 1894, pp 52-53
18 19
New lamps for old, Indu Prakash, August 7, 1893, page 15 New lamps for old, Indu Prakash, August 28, 1893, page 15
It is my deliberate opinion that India is being ground down not under the English heel but under that of modern civilization.20 The true remedy lies, in my humble opinion, in England discarding modern civilization which is ensouled by this spirit of selfishness and materialism, is vain and purposeless and is a negation of the spirit of Christianity.21 Gandhi in Hind Swaraj and Other Writings attributed the evils of colonial administration to modern Western civilization, ignoring the Christian roots that drove this ‘civilization’ to plunder and exploit most of Asia, Africa and America. Aurobindo saw the roots and exposed them. Under the stimulus of an intolerable wrong, Bengal in the fervour of the Swadeshi movement parted company with the old ideals and began to seek for its own strength. It has found it in the people. But the awakening of this strength immediately brought the whole movement into collision with British interests and the true nature of the Englishman, when his interests are threatened, revealed itself. The Swadeshi movement threatened British trade and immediately an unholy alliance was formed between the magistracy, the non-officials and the pious missionaries of Christ, to crush the new movement by every form of prosecution and harassment.22 1.6 Manufacturing the Muslim League The Swaraj and Swadeshi movement masterminded by Aurobindo, Bhupendranath Dutta, Barin Ghosh and Chittaranjan Das, among other Bengali luminaries, was akin to the go-samrakshana (cow-protection) movement of the nineteenth century, in that it was a spontaneous eruption of Hindu society, except that it made economic and broader cultural issues central to its concerns, and was a spontaneous
20
HS, Chapter VIII, The condition of India, page 42 Supplementary writings (HS), Gandhi’s letter to Lord Ampthill, London, October 30, 1909 21 22
Lessons at Jamalpur,, Bande Mataram, September 1, 1906, page 21.
and determined reaction to the partition of Bengal.23 The Swaraj and Swadeshi movement which came to be known even at that time as ‘Boycott’, aimed at total political independence from the British and not merely selfgovernance, Home Rule, or Dominion Status, which would keep Indian people in serfdom within the British Empire. Their Swaraj was self governance as obtained not in the colonies of the Raj but in the Raj itself. Aurobindo demanded self-rule, not like that of Canada but like that of the United Kingdom. As articulated by Tilak and Aurobindo, Swaraj and Swadeshi meant total and complete political independence and therefore entailed the total boycott of all British goods, government schools and the judiciary. ‘Boycott’ or Swaraj and Swadeshi, was only passive resistance or satyagraha, which postindependence Indian polity, for vested interests, continues to propagate as a Gandhian principle and virtue. Between April 11 and April 23, 1907, Aurobindo in Bande Mataram under the general title New Thought wrote a series of brilliant articles on ‘Passive Resistance’, after reading which Gandhi’s exposition on Satyagraha or passive resistance seems vacuous by comparison.24 There was little that Gandhi could add to Aurobindo’s discourse on passive resistance but in typical Gandhi vein he does not give credit where it is due in Hind Swaraj, considered by Gandhians to be his seminal work. The comprehensive boycott of British goods, British schools and the judiciary had such an inspirational impact on the nation at large that in spite of the fact that it was neither well-organized nor directed by any individual or group, its fire spread outside of Bengal and frightened both the imperial government in London and the British government in India. Aurobindo’s passive resistance movement triggered a series of chain reactions which culminated tragically for Hindus in 1909. This period saw the meteoric rise of intellectual stalwarts like Tilak, Aurobindo and Savarkar, their tragic eclipse, and fading away from the political arena. The first partition of Bengal, which the colonial regime claimed was undertaken for administrative purposes, was intentionally crafted on communal lines, viz., Muslim majority East Bengal and Hindu majority West Bengal, a measure which Aurobindo declared 23
Lord Curzon announced the partition of Bengal in 1903 and elaborated it in 1904. 24 Excerpts from Aurobindo’s phenomenal exposition on passive resistance is reproduced at the end of Chapter 4.
Was no mere administrative proposal but a blow straight at the heart of the nation. That it is something far other than this (administrative purpose), that the danger involved far more urgent and appalling, is what I shall try to point out in this article. Unfortunately, to do this is impossible without treading on Lord Curzon’s corns; and indeed one of the tenderest of all the crop. We have recently been permitted to know that our great Viceroy particularly objects to the imputation of motives to his government – and not unnaturally; for Lord Curzon is a vain man loving praise and sensitive to dislike and censure; more than that he is a statesman of unusual genius who is following a subtle and daring policy on which immense issues hang and it is naturally disturbing him to find that there are wits in India as subtle as his own and which can perceive something at least of the goal at which he is aiming.25 The British met with a fierce and violent backlash from Bengal Hindus; Muslims in general and Bengali Muslims in particular were delighted with the move. This period saw Bankim Chandra Chatterji’s Vande Mataram acquiring high Hindu nationalist overtones which inspired some of the most brilliant writings of Tilak and Aurobindo along with widespread, nationwide Hindu armed resistance to the partition. It seems reasonable to infer that alarmed over the fierce Hindu backlash to the partition and encouraged by the absence of Muslim anger with the government on any issue (as evidenced by the scarcity of Muslim presence in the INC), the British took measures to strengthen, if not Muslim support for the Raj, at least their non-cooperation with the INC, by widening the rift between Hindus and Muslims. Viceroy Minto’s inspired meeting with important Muslim leaders in Shimla in October 1906, wherein the demand for separate electorate for Muslims, proportional quotas in government employment, appointment of Muslim judges to the High Courts, and Muslim members in the Viceroy’s Council, was a critical link in the series of measures planned to this end. Indeed lady Minto had 25
Incomplete and undated article titled, The Proposed Reconstruction of Bengal – Partition or Annihilation, pp77-78
this to say about this far-sighted move by the British Government – Very very big thing had happened today; A work of statesmanship that will affect India and Indian history for many long years. It is nothing less than pulling back 62 millions of people from joining the ranks of the seditious opposition.26 Two months after the Shimla conclave, in December 1906, the Muslim League was set up as a counterfoil to what was perceived as a ‘Hindu’ INC. Its mandate was to fulfill the incomplete agenda of 1857; the partition of Bengal was seen as the first step towards the return of Muslim rule over Hindustan; with hindsight, it was also the precursor to the vivisection of 1947. It seems logical to deduce that just as the British created the INC to wean away important Hindus from opposition to British rule and particularly armed resistance, they sponsored the Muslim League to counter the Swaraj and Swadeshi movement, to Jugantar, a Bengal revolutionary organization and to the nation-wide anger over the partition of Bengal. In the immediate aftermath of the partition of Bengal and British appeasement of the Muslims, Aurobindo observed: The idea that by encouraging Mahomedan rowdyism, the present agitation may be put down, is preposterous; and those who cherish this notion forget that the bully is neither the strongest nor the bravest of men; and that because the self-restraint of the Hindu, miscalled cowardice, has been a prominent feature of his national character, he is absolutely incapable of striking straight and striking hard when any sacred situation demands this27. The British government conceived the Muslim League as a thorn in the flesh of the Hindus. State power made an ascendant Islam possible by undermining India’s Hindu community. A striking feature of the evolving Indian polity at this time was that while the Raj exploited the gullibility of the English-educated Hindu political leadership of the INC and 26
Majumdar RC, History of Freedom Movement in India, Ed. 2, Vol. 2, Firma KLM Pvt. Ltd, Calcutta, 1975, page 216 27
“Partition of Bengal,” Bande Mataram, 4 September 1906, in Sri Aurobindo Birth Centenary Library, Vol 27, Supplement edition, p. 21. .
planted British officials within the party besides getting one of them to create it in the first place, the Muslim League steadfastly resisted White penetration while playing ball with the regime, wringing as many concessions and benefits for the Muslim community as government was prepared to concede in separate but parallel attempts to check the rising tide of Hindu nationalism. Aurobindo astutely perceived the dangers of the British ruse of empowering Muslims to weaken Hindus, but erroneously concluded that this was happening because the INC did not go out of its way to include Muslims in the movement. He averred the INC must be an all-inclusive organization drawing upon all sections of Indians in order to transform itself into a national movement; the critical flaw in this argument was that he assumed Muslims shared the Hindu sense of nationhood and nationalism. The true policy of the Congress movement should have been from the beginning to gather together under its flag all the elements of strength that exist in this huge country. The Brahman Pandit and the Mahomedan Maulavi, the caste organisation and the trade-union, the labourer and the artisan, the coolie at his work and the peasant in his field, none of these should have been left out of the sphere of our activities. For each is a strength, a unit of force; and in politics the victory is to the side which can marshal the largest and most closely serried number of such units and handle them most skilfully, not to those who can bring forward the best arguments or talk the most eloquently. But the Congress started from the beginning with a misconception of the most elementary facts of politics and with its eyes turned towards the British Government and away from the people.28 To their great satisfaction, Indian Muslims had learnt in 1857 that their ploy to seek racial convergence with the Hindus against the British found resonance not only among sections of ordinary Hindus but even among the English-educated leadership of the Indian National Congress. Aurobindo and 28
.
“By the Way” Lessons at Jamalpur, Bande Mataram, 1 September, 1906, p.145.
Gandhi exemplified the success of the Muslim ploy. Decades later, Subhash Bose’s Indian National Army (INA) would traverse the same path. 1.7 Armed resistance and British response ‘Jugantar’, a revolutionary off-shoot of the Anusilan Samiti and one of the earliest armed Hindu resistance movements of the twentieth century came into being in the early 1900s. The partition of Bengal, British appeasement of Muslims by Viceroy Minto, and the creation of the Muslim League added an edge to the resistance, which also influenced a section of the INC. Tilak and Aurobindo, among others, refused to allow the INC to serve as implementing agency of British intent. As a definitive response to the Muslim League and Muslim appeasement policies of the colonial power, and as a response to the meek leadership of the INC which neither responded effectively to the creation of the League nor opposed the British successfully, the INC, under the Presidentship of Aurobindo split vertically in December 1907, just one year after the League was born, with Tilak and Aurobindo leading the ‘nationalist’ faction29. The ‘Nationalist’ section soon began to be pejoratively labeled as ‘Extremist’, while the faction led by Surendranath Banerjea and Gopal Krishna Gokhale was termed ‘Moderate’. We should be absolutely unsparing in our attack on whatever obstructs the growth of the nation, and never be afraid to call a spade a spade. Excessive good nature, chakshu lajja [the desire to be always pleasant and polite], will never do in serious politics. Respect of persons must always give place to truth and conscience; and the demand that we should be silent because of the age or past services of our opponents, is politically immoral and unsound. Open attack, unsparing criticism, the severest satire, the most wounding irony, are all methods perfectly justifiable and indispensable in politics. We have strong things to say; let us say them strongly; we have stern things to do; let us do them sternly. But there is always a danger of strength degenerating into violence and sternness into
29
Implicit in the term nationalist was ‘Hindu’ nationalist.
ferocity, and that should be avoided so far as it is humanly possible30. Unnerved by the armed revolution of ‘Jugantar’ and the rise of votaries of armed resistance within the INC, the British government, consistent with its response in 1857, employed the full might of repressive State power against the members of ‘Jugantar’ and the nationalist segment of the INC, in order to break the backbone of Hindu resistance. National sentiment over the partition of Bengal, fuelled by the swaraj and swadeshi movement soon spread to the Punjab, Central Provinces, Poona, Bombay, Madras and other cities of the country. It was a dangerous replay of 1857 and the Raj reacted just as ferociously. Within two years, by the end of 1909, almost all the leaders of Jugantar, the nationalists in the Congress including Tilak, Aurobindo, and Savarkar had been hanged, deported, or arrested and confined in jails; some opted for voluntary exile. Savarkar was inspired by the three Chapekar brothers – Damodar, Balakrishna and Vasudev, who had been found guilty of conspiring to kill and killing British ICS officer Walter Rand on 22nd June 1897, on Ganeshkhind Road, in Pune, when Rand was returning from a party to celebrate the anniversary of Queen Victoria’s coronation. The three brothers and their close associate, Mahadev Ranade were hanged in Pune over a period of 13 months between April 1898-99 and Lokmanya Tilak was arrested and sentenced to 18 months rigorous imprisonment for ‘seditious writing’ which allegedly inspired the Chapekar brothers to take up arms against an officer of the British government. This act of great courage by the Chapekar brothers and Ranade and their brave death left a deep impression upon the teenaged Savarkar who too decided to take up armed struggle against the British. To this end he set up the Abhinav Bharat Society which preached only armed resistance to British rule. But in the two years between 1907 and1909 an enraged and extremely frightened British government brutally crushed this spontaneous and soon well-organized armed revolution by the nationalist faction of the INC, by Jugantar, and Savarkar. Aurobindo was first arrested in August 1907 and jailed for a 30
.
“By the Way” Bande Mataram, 13 April, 1907, page 257
month on charges of seditious writing in Bande Mataram; he was arrested again in May 1908 in the Alipore Bomb Case, Tilak was charged with seditious writing and jailed in Mandalay in the then Burma31 and Savarkar who was arrested in France in 1910, following the killing of Sir Curzon Wyllie by Madanlal Dhingra in London, was sentenced with ‘transportation for life’ and suffered confinement in the Cellular Jail in the Andamans, a sentence unparalleled in the history of the British Empire; it is significant that Vasudeo Balwant Phadke, Tilak and Savarkar, all Hindu Nationalists were sentenced to ‘Transportation’ which in effect meant removing them from the scene and from public consciousness with a view to denying them martyrdom.32 Aurobindo was arrested, tried and released in the Alipore bomb case but when he was threatened again with fresh arrest for ‘seditious writing’ in Karmayogin; he decided inexplicably to abandon politics and armed resistance. As in 1906, the British Government in 1909 again empowered the Muslim community while simultaneously decapitating the Hindu nationalist leadership. The Minto-Morley reforms of 1909 granted the Muslim League demand for separate electorates for Muslims, and thus Muslim separatism acquired a sharper edge. In more ways than one, the year 1909 was a turning point in the political destiny of the Hindus. Unable to cope with the barbaric use of British State power, which left the nationalist movement in complete disarray, Aurobindo, immediately after his release on May 6, 1909 in his famous Uttarapara Speech delivered on May 30, 1909, signaled his retreat from active politics and armed resistance; justifying this abdication as deference to what he termed was the call of his ‘inner voice’. To his own physical advantage but to the detriment of Hindu nationalism, Aurobindo declared his 31
Tilak was sentenced to transportation and removed to Mandalay in Burma, over 3000 miles away. The life expectancy of an average British male in 1908 was around 48 years while for an average Indian male living in conditions of slavery would have been even less. The barbarity of British rule can be estimated from the fact that Tilak was aged 52 years when he was sentenced to transportation to Mandalay. 32 The very idea of ‘Transportation’, if it weren’t so tragic, would be considered black humour. That invaders who were forcibly occupying territory not their own, were actually transporting natives of that territory as punishment, to alien lands surely belongs to the realm of the absurd. For details of Savarkar’s trial and the sentence, see end of chapter.
intention to depart from Bengal, his political karmabhumi and seek refuge in the distant French colony of Pondicherry down South, beyond the reach of the British government and henceforth work only for the spiritual uplift of the nation. Relieved on this front, the British took further measures to ensure that Hindu armed resistance from within the INC was effectively neutralized. A part of this grand strategy was to get Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, who had already positioned himself against armed resistance, against the nationalists and who always spoke with tremendous affection and awe of the English, to quietly occupy the space vacated by the nationalists. 1.8 The rise and retreat of Aurobindo There is a stark difference in the style and content of Aurobindo’s writings in the two distinct periods before and after he left for Pondicherry, which accurately reflect his state of mind and his life mission. From 1893 until mid-1908 when he was arrested, his writings focus on the political disempowerment of Indians; he is most scathing when he attacks Western civilization and English education; and his language is lucid and powerful; most importantly, he connects Hindu dharma to national political objectives. Aurobindo unambiguously articulated the contours and substance of the Hindu rashtra, but the major lacuna in his thinking and writing at this time and even later, was that while he bemoaned India’s enslavement to “shopkeepers and traders”, he failed to make the vital connection between Hindu rashtra and the critical importance of Hindu rajya to protect and sustain the rashtra. Then from mid-1909 when he was released from jail, he made a deliberate disconnect between politics and spirituality. Fatally for Hindu nationalism, he completely renounced active involvement in politics and gave nationalism an unconvincing, un-Hindu spiritual-only connotation. As this detachment was against Hindu ethos, his writings became ponderous, thoughts laborious, and language unnatural; obviously neither Aurobindo nor his later writings inspired or galvanized Hindus towards political action or towards ‘spirituality’. Inexplicably scholars have failed to note that Aurobindo and his ‘inner voice’ communicated with each other in poor imitation of ponderous Biblical English, and that the voice exhorted him in much the same manner as the Christian God probably exhorted Jesus before sending him to earth on his mission to establish the kingdom of god on earth.
If Thou art, then Thou knowest my heart. Thou knowest that I do not ask for Mukti33, I do not ask for anything which others ask for. I ask only for strength to uplift this nation, I ask only to be allowed to live and work for this people whom I love and to whom I pray that I may devote my life. I strove long for the realisation of yoga34 and at last to some extent I had it, but in what I most desired, I was not satisfied. Then in the seclusion of the jail, of the solitary cell I asked for it again, I said, ‘Give me Thy Adesh35. I do not know what work to do or how to do it. Give me a message’. In the communion of Yoga two messages came. The first message said, ‘I have given you a work and it is to help to uplift this nation. Before long the time will come when you will have to go out of jail; for it is not my will that this time either you should be convicted or that you should pass the time, as others have to do, in suffering for their country. I have called you to work, and that is the Adesh for which you have asked. I give you the Adesh to go forth and do my work’. The second message came and it said, ‘Something has been shown to you in this year of seclusion, something about which you had your doubts and it is the truth of the Hindu religion. It is this religion that I am raising up before the world; it is this that I have perfected and developed through the Rishis36, saints and Avatars37, and now it is going forth to do my work among the nations. I am raising up this nation to send forth my word.... When therefore it is said that India shall rise, it is the Sanatan Dharma that shall rise. When it is said that India shall be great, it is the Sanatan Dharma that shall be great. When it is said that India shall expand and extend herself, it is the Sanatan Dharma that shall expand and extend 33
Ultimate liberation from life and re-birth The perfect union and harmony of mind and body 35 Directive or injunction 36 In Hindu religious tradition, the repositories of knowledge and wisdom 37 Earthly manifestation as some life-form of the Divine also known as Ishvara, Brahman or Narayana 34
itself over the world. It is for the Dharma and by the Dharma that India exists’.38 Thus, Aurobindo’s ‘inner voice39 told him that he should not allow himself, like others, to be convicted again and to spend time “suffering for his country” in jail. Obedient to its call, Aurobindo redefined his nationalism (unconvincingly) and his mission. Aurobindo’s towering intellect accurately analysed the nature of the monumental work nationalists had to undertake to rejuvenate the nation. Hindu dharma and its adherents and structures had been weakened by the ruthless use of state power by successive Muslim rulers and Christian-colonialism; Hindu society had been debilitated economically by the organised rapacity of the East India Company followed by British Crown rule, and assaulted culturally as foreign missionaries ran amok pitting caste against caste. The result was all-pervasive economic, spiritual and cultural deprivation, and enervating ‘tamas’ (inertia) in thought and action. Tilak and Aurobindo failed to articulate the crucial point that this all-pervasive weakening and deprivation was effected by alien faiths which machinated within Hindu society with the full backing of their respective state powers. Had they considered and articulated this unambiguously in their writings and made this the core of public discourse, its natural corollary would have been for Tilak and Aurobindo to not only postulate total and complete independence from colonial rule as the goal of the freedom movement, which was the content of their ‘Swaraj’ in the early 1900s, but also to assert that ‘Swaraj’ was synonymous with Hindu rajya protecting the Hindu rashtra. Articulating such a demand would have entailed confronting the reality that Hindu society had to unshackle itself from Christian-colonialism and all its structures and institutions, and acquire the capacity to thwart Muslim efforts to re-establish Muslim rule in India after the departure of the British. The political expositions of both Tilak and Aurobindo failed to 38
Excerpt from Aurobindo’s landmark Uttarapara Speech, May 30, 1909 Sri
Aurobindo Birth Centenary Library, Vol. 2, page 1 (Pondicherry: Sri Aurobindo Ashram, 1972). 39
This was startlingly reminiscent of Jesus too exhorting his disciples after his Resurrection. Later, Gandhi also held his ‘inner voice’ responsible for every act of appeasement towards Muslims and of coercion of Hindus.
address the question of how Hindus could undertake all-round rejuvenation of their society, religion and nation without state power and with colonial structures and separatist Muslims in their midst. Savarkar however confronted the issue frontally and in his Presidential address at the 21st session of the Hindu Mahasabha in Kolkata in 1935, stated his apprehensions bluntly and with startling foresight – No realist can be blind to the probability that the extra-territorial designs and the secret urge goading on the Moslems to transform India into a Moslem State may at any time confront the Hindusthani State even under self-government either with a Civil War or treacherous overtures to alien invaders by the Moslems. Then again there is every likelihood that there will ever continue at least for a century to come a danger of fanatical riots, the scramble for services, Legislative seats, weightages out of proportion to their population on the part of the Moslem minority and consequently a constant danger threatening internal peace. Despite witnessing growing Muslim separatism and despite their sound understanding of the substance and character of the Hindu nation, Tilak and Aurobindo failed to grapple with the potential consequences of Muslim hostility to a Hindu polity, and its implications after the end of colonial rule. “But my line and intention of political activity would differ considerably from anything now current in the field,” said Aurobindo, to justify his abdication of political responsibility to the Hindus, though he never spelled out how he differed and how he envisioned the course that Indian polity would have to take to realise and protect the Hindu rashtra. This was his core incompetence and failure. Contemporary nationalists have an important lesson to learn from 1909: in stark contrast to the manner in which Hindu society had habitually confronted the onslaught of Islam over centuries, English education and the tantalizing exposure to ‘western modernism’ eroded our spirit of resistance and lowered our threshold for physical and mental pain. Perhaps Aurobindo’s spirit was broken by the Raj’s persistent assaults upon his person and his physical and intellectual liberty, and perhaps because he and other nationalists were physically isolated from each other and rendered alone without support from even the INC which fell under the complete sway of the
‘moderates’; the truth however remains that Aurobindo abandoned politics despite knowing that politics was critically important at that time and sought personal solace in ‘spirituality’. Two important Congress leaders from Nagpur, Dr. Moonje and Dr. Hedgewar, who would later be renowned as the founder of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), with a chilling premonition about the tragic consequences which would afflict the nation after the advent of Gandhi in India, persuaded Aurobindo in 1920 to return to active politics immediately and assume Presidentship of the soon-to-be-held Nagpur Congress. Dear Dr. Munje, As I have already wired to you, I find myself unable to accept your offer of the Presidentship of the Nagpur Congress. There are reasons even within the political field itself which in any case would have stood in my way. In the first place I have never signed and would never care to sign as a personal declaration of faith in the Congress creed, as my own is of a different character. In the next place, since my retirement from British India, I have developed an outlook and views which have diverged a great deal from those I held at the time and, as they are remote from present actualities and do not follow the present stream of political action, I should find myself very much embarrassed what to say to the Congress. I am entirely in sympathy with all that is being done so far as its object is to secure liberty for India, but I should be unable to identify myself with the programme of any of the parties. The President of the Congress is really a mouthpiece of the Congress and to make from the presidential chair a purely personal pronouncement miles away from what the Congress is thinking and doing would be grotesquely out of place. The central reason however is this that I am no longer first and foremost a politician, but have definitely commenced another kind of work with a spiritual basis, a work of spiritual, social, cultural and economic reconstruction of an almost revolutionary kind, and am even making
or at least supervising a sort of practical or laboratory experiment in that sense which needs all the attention and energy that I can have to spare. A gigantic movement of non-cooperation merely to get some Punjab officials punished or to set up again the Turkish Empire which is dead and gone, shocks my ideas both of proportion and of common sense.40 Divorced from politics, Aurobindo’s writings after May 1909 lacked the originality and inspirational fire characteristic of his works between 1893 and 1908. More than anyone else in that period, barring perhaps Savarkar, Aurobindo perceived that the Moderates and Gandhi were leading the Congress and the nation in a direction that would inevitably prove suicidal for the Hindus. Hence his flight from the political arena in 1909 became the single most important cause for Gandhi’s entrance and subsequent occupation of that space; Aurobindo’s adamant refusal to return to active politics even after 1914 when Gandhi returned to India, pushed the nation inexorably towards vivisection in 1947 and Hindu political disempowerment thereafter. Thus in 1909, barely three years after the creation of the Muslim League, the stage was set for the ascent of Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi on India’s political stage. His arrival was timed to neutralize the powerful and growing influence of Tilak and Aurobindo. Lord Minto considered Aurobindo the ‘most dangerous man we have to deal with at the present’, whose writings prior to and in Jugantar and Bande Mataram, together with Tilak’s fiery writings in Kesari and Mahratta, were inflaming Hindu passions within the INC and among educated Hindus. ‘I attribute the spread of seditious doctrines to him personally in a greater degree than to any other single individual in Bengal, or possibly in India’, Edward Baker, Lieutenant-Governor of Bengal, said of Aurobindo. There can be no doubt that the raging fire of Swaraj and Swadeshi as articulated by Aurobindo and Tilak in their writings and speeches, threatened the British stranglehold on a restive nation. Tilak was in jail; Aurobindo had abdicated, Bande Mataram was closed down by the British in 1909; Gandhi and Gandhi’s Hind Swaraj were ready to take over.
40
Aurobindo’s Letter to Dr. Moonje, August 30, 1920 Vol. 26, page 432.
1.9 Why ‘Hind Swaraj’ In 1906, Gandhi had just begun his ‘satyagraha’ in South Africa, two years after the fire of Aurobindo’s ‘Boycott’ or swaraj and swadeshi passive resistance had begun to rage in Bengal. As a tool of engagement with the British government, it had not been tested adequately or frequently enough between 1906 and 1909 for its efficacy when Hind Swaraj was written; nor had Gandhi’s own character been tested on the crucible of consistency for his doctrine of satyagraha to deserve elevation to the status of India’s sole symbol of ‘moral force’. It is also pertinent to note here that the narrow objectives of his struggle in South Africa, that of ending laws discriminatory to Indians (alone), would not be ‘achieved’ until 1914. These facts need to be borne in mind considering that in January 1915, when Gandhi returned to India for good from South Africa via London, he arrived as de jure leader of the freedom movement, even though he would not be nominated President of the INC until 1918. This leadership position flowed from Indians accepting the skillful propaganda that Gandhian Satyagraha was an effective and morally superior tool of engagement with the British Raj as opposed to Aurobindo’s passive resistance. Satyagraha’s moral superiority in turn rested on the moral authority then vested in Gandhi, which in turn rested on his public pronouncement of abstinence from conjugal relations and the misinformation that ahimsa was the primary dharma of Hindus. Englishmen then close to Gandhi, along with vested interests in the Indian National Congress who were close to the Raj, especially Gopal Krishna Gokhale, Pheroze Shah Mehta and Surendranath Banerjea, were behind the motivated propaganda that propelled Gandhi and his satyagraha prematurely to undeserved heights. In the period 1906-1909, none of Gandhi’s public writings suggested that he contemplated returning to India in the near future to participate in the freedom movement, let alone assume leadership of the INC. The question legitimately arises: why did Gandhi pen the ‘Hind Swaraj’in 1909? What is more, why did he personally translate it post-haste into English in just a few months and publish it with alacrity in 1910? From a confidential letter Gandhi wrote in 1909 to Lord Ampthill, former Governor of Madras and Pro Tempore Viceroy of India (discussed later), it is apparent that
by this time he had made up his mind (or he had been persuaded to make up his mind) to play a decisive role within the INC and the freedom movement. We can safely deduce from the letter itself that the subject matter of Gandhi’s letter to Ampthill would have been concealed from the general Indian public of the time and even the leaders of the INC, except perhaps Gokhale. To quote Hind Swaraj – Had I not known that there was a danger of methods of violence becoming popular, even in South Africa, had I not been called upon by hundreds of my countrymen, and not a few English friends (emphasis added), to express my opinion on the Nationalist movement in India, I would even have refrained, for the sake of the struggle, from reducing my views to writing. But, occupying the position I do, it would have been cowardice on my part to postpone publication under the circumstances just referred to41. A reader would legitimately wonder what ‘position’ Gandhi claims to be occupying at this time in the struggle in South Africa against the British Government. We shall, however see later from the timeline of his sojourn in South Africa, that between 1906 and 1909, Gandhi enjoyed easy access to important officers of the British Government and Members of Parliament in London. It is notable that at this time, well before the outbreak of the First World War, the British Empire was at it peak and regarded as invincible. It seems unlikely that the Empire would smile benevolently upon a mutineer and allow its highest officials to hobnob with an inconsequential native posing a genuine challenge to the Empire in the mineral-rich South Africa. It seems logical to conclude therefore, that the INC leadership, specifically Gopal Krishna Gokhale, then a member of the prestigious Viceroy’s Council, Dadabhai Naoroji and Sir William Wedderburn, took the initiative to promote Gandhi as future leader of the INC with the British government. Within a month of the extremely significant Calcutta Congress in September 41
Hind Swaraj, ‘Preface to the first English Edition’, Johannesburg, March 20, 1910.
1906, Gandhi was in London on a deputation to meet with important government officials. Also in London were Dadabhai Naoroji and Wedderburn. Gandhi met them in London in October 1906 and also with Winston Churchill no less! Gokhale’s patronage fanned Gandhi’s political ambitions, first kindled in South Africa, and gave them the thrust that took him to the forefront of the INC in 1915, which after the exit of Tilak and Aurobindo was leaderless and rudderless. In retrospect, it seems likely that Gopal Krishna Gokhale and Gandhi’s English friends asked him to write a prescriptive book whose central theme would focus on how Indians should view and deal with the colonial administration. Hind Swaraj was written only to project Gandhi as a political theorist no less, and as a contrast to Aurobindo and as Aurobindo’s intellectual peer. The leadership of the ‘Moderate’ section of the Congress built up Gandhi’s Satyagraha as a foil to Aurobindo’s passive resistance. Gokhale and Gandhi’s White friends may have wished Gandhi’s Satyagraha to influence the INC with his variation of ‘passive resistance’ to put an immediate end to and ultimately halt all violent attacks against British government officials. The INC ‘moderates’ favoured Gandhi propagating his satyagraha as the only tool of engagement with the colonial power in order to boost their sagging relevance within the Hindu community and perpetuate their status as sole representatives of the Indian people in all such engagements, as the Raj was making major concessions to the recalcitrant Muslim community with whose leadership it was similarly engaged. The British saw great merit in covertly promoting the view that Gandhi’s Satyagraha was an effective tool, and in fact the only legitimate tool of engagement for Indians with the British government. Satyagraha was perceived as a guarantor of the safety of British lives in the immediate present, and the assurance of safe passage for the British while exiting from India. Certainly the Raj was not short-sighted. When Winston Churchill met the still inconspicuous Gandhi in London in October 1906, the first steps in the plan to transport Gandhi back to India had been taken. 1.10 Significance of Gandhi’s letter to Lord Ampthill Prior to his appointment as Governor of Madras in 1901, Lord Ampthill was Principal Secretary to Joseph Chamberlain, father of future Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain. In an extremely private and confidential letter dated 30 October 1909, during
his second visit to London from South Africa, again on deputation, Gandhi gave Lord Ampthill a preview of Hind Swaraj and revealed his intention to play a major role in the freedom movement. Discussing his politico-economic ideas and the respective philosophies of the leaders of the freedom movement, Gandhi positions himself to Lord Ampthill as a possible future leader of the INC, as an alternative to the extremist leadership for which he repeatedly expresses great disdain, and as an alternative even to the Moderates. As the British had ruthlessly persecuted and decimated the ‘nationalists’ in the INC, and as the ‘Moderates’ were projecting him as some kind of leader in 1909, it is inexplicable and even indefensible that Gandhi secretly positioned himself as a future leader by expressing negative opinions about both sections of the INC to an influential British Government official who had intimate knowledge of the freedom movement and its leaders in his capacity as Governor and later as Viceroy. Gandhi writes – Opposed as I am to violence in any shape or form, I have endeavoured specially to come into contact with the so-called extremists who may be better described as the party of violence. This I have done in order to if possible to convince them of the error of their ways. Let us not forget that Gandhi is actually speaking in this vein to an important British government official about Tilak, Aurobindo and Savarkar. He reveals to the colonial official the seething anger of the people against the British, unmindful or possibly uncaring about the fact that the administration might consider his ‘report’ as an authentic account of the mood and sentiment of the people and may resort to even greater repression against the INC leadership and the common people: I have noticed that some of the members of this party are earnest spirits, possessing a high degree of morality, great intellectual ability and lofty self-sacrifice. They wield an undoubted influence on the young Indians here. They are certainly unsparing in their efforts to impress upon the latter their convictions.
An awakening of the national consciousness is unmistakable. But among the majority it is in a crude shape and there is not a corresponding spirit of self-sacrifice. Everywhere I have noticed impatience of British rule. In some cases the hatred of the whole race is virulent. In almost all cases distrust of British statesman is writ large on their minds. They (the statesmen) are supposed to do nothing unselfishly. Those who are against violence are so only for the time being. They do not disapprove of it. But they are too cowardly or too selfish to avow their opinions publicly. Some consider that the time for violence is not yet. I have practically met no one who believes that India can ever become free without resort to violence (emphasis added). This letter was written in 1909 and it is pertinent that just three years previously, Lord Ampthill had served in India as Governor of Madras between 1901 and 1906 and pro tem Viceroy in India in the wake of Lord Curzon’s retirement and would have been a man of great influence in London in 1909. It would thus appear that the timing, tone and content of Gandhi’s letter to Lord Ampthill would in contemporary slang amount to ‘squealing’; he was, to put it politely, informing Lord Ampthill, about his views regarding the ‘Moderates’, the ‘Extremists’, and also the ordinary people of India. There is no plausible reason why Gandhi should discuss the opinion of the people of India about British rule and the British people, the INC, and the nature of the freedom movement with Lord Ampthill. Yet he constantly makes use of highly expressive terms such as ‘virulent’, ‘violence’, ‘hatred’, ‘selfish’, and ‘cowardly’ to describe ordinary Indians. There can be no doubt that Gandhi was presenting himself to an important British government official as a ‘non-violent’ pacifist alternative, and was seeking British legitimacy and grace to assume the leadership of the INC and the freedom movement! Gandhi positions himself – Holding these views, I share the national spirit but I totally dissent from the methods whether of the extremists or of the moderates. For either party relies ultimately on violence. Gandhi signals his intention –
I do not know how far I have made myself understood and I do not know how far I carry you with me in my reasoning (emphasis added). But I have put the case in the above manner before my countrymen. My purpose in writing to Your Lordship is twofold. The first is to tell Your Lordship that, whenever I can get the time, I would like to take my humble share in national regeneration and the second, is either to secure Your Lordship’s cooperation in the larger work if it ever comes to me or to invite your criticism. The operative part of the letter – The information I have given Your Lordship is quite confidential and not to be made use of prejudicially to my countrymen. I feel that no useful purpose will be served unless the truth be known and proclaimed. This ‘truth’ that Gandhi made ‘known and proclaimed’ to an important Englishman contained the reality of Gandhi’s views and intentions, and also the truth about the mood of Indians and the consequent nature of the freedom movement. Hence it is against this backdrop that we must critique Gandhi’s Satyagraha and ahimsa, and its consequences for the nation’s Hindus. Knowing what we now know, it seems safe to conclude that Gandhi wrote Hind Swaraj to counter and neutralize the fiery, inspirational writings of Tilak and Aurobindo, with the aim of weaning the nation away from the methods pursued by nationalists like the Chapekar brothers, Tilak, Aurobindo, Savarkar and Madanlal Dhingra. Gandhi’s South African ‘satyagraha’ was to provide an alternative to Aurobindo’s passive resistance, to armed struggle; and ‘Hind Swaraj’ was intended to be the definitive Word for Gandhi’s nascent cult of ‘satyagraha’ monotheists, with Gandhi as the Last Prophet. His mandate was to douse the fire of Hindu nationalism, and as leader of the Congress, to-direct the INC back to the path desired by the Raj when it instructed A.O. Hume to create the organization. Interestingly, Hind Swaraj was originally titled ‘Indian Home Rule.’ The fact that Gandhi renamed it ‘Hind Swaraj’, seizing the slogan of Tilak and Aurobindo, signaled to Indians and the British his intention to challenge the political doctrines and
philosophy of Tilak and Aurobindo on their home turf. In Hind Swaraj, Gandhi pays glowing tributes to Hume, Gokhale and Naoroji, completely ignoring and dismissing with scant respect Tilak, Aurobindo and Savarkar. ***** Appendix I Savarkar sentenced to a double term of Transportation for life – Fifty Years! As retribution for the sentence of Transportation meted out to Ganesh Damodar (Babarao) Savarkar, Veer Savarkar’s elder brother and Dhingra’s martyrdom, the revolutionaries in Nashik, Anant Kanhere, Karve and Deshpande conspired and assassinated A.M.T. Jackson, the Collector of Nashik on 21 December 1909. Savarkar, in London at that time, developed double-pneumonia and was shifted to Dr. Muthu’s hospital in Wales to recuperate. In hospital Savarkar received a telegram from Shyamji Krishnavarma informing him of Jackson’s assassination. Following Dhingra’s assassination of Sir Curzon Wyllie, Savarkar was arrested at Victoria Station, London on 13 March 1910 when arriving from Paris on an Indian warrant, charging him with sedition and inciting to murder in India. The extradition of Savarkar was handled at the highest level. On 29 June 1910, then Home Secretary Winston Churchill issued the following order, ‘Now I, the Right Honourable Winston Leonard Churchill, do hereby order that the said Vinayak Damodar Savarkar be returned to the Empire of India’. Accordingly, on 01 July 1910, Savarkar was made to board the S.S. Morea to bring him to India. The Governor of Bombay Sir George Clarke who played a major role in Savarkar’s conviction had this to say, ‘V.D. Savarkar, a Konkanastha Brahmin, was one of the the most dangerous men that India has produced. He was the leading spirit at the India House when the murders at the Imperial Institute were planned, and one of his satellites accompanied the wretched assassin Dhingra to keep him to his fatal resolve. Savarkar sent twenty Browning pistols, purchased in Paris, to Bombay and one of them was used for the murder of Mr. Jackson at Nasik’. It was on 08 July 1910 while S.S. Morea was docked at Marseilles that Savarkar made his epic leap into the ocean and
braving bullets, he swam to the French soil. His subsequent arrest and handover to British Police on French soil caused an international furore. The case went to the International Court of Justice at The Hague. Savarkar was lodged initially in Nashik and then in Yerawada Jail, Pune. The British Government rejected efforts to stay his trial till the international ramifications of his arrest by British detectives on French soil had settled. Finally, ‘the Government of the French Republic and the Government of His Majesty, having agreed by means of an exchange of notes dated October 4 and 5, 1910, to submit to arbitration, on the one hand the questions of fact and right raised by the arrest and the taking back, on board the Steamship Morea on July 8th, 1910, at Marseilles, of the Indian Vinayak Damodar Savarkar, who escaped from boat on which he was a prisoner, and on the other hand, the claim of the Government of the republic for the surrender of Savarkar’ agreed to an arbitration tribunal. In the meanwhile, Savarkar’s trial began at the Bombay High Court on 15 September 1910 before a three-judge bench. There were 37 co-accused in three cases running concurrently, an unprecedented number for the trial of any revolutionary! The following eight charges were slapped on all the accused in the three cases: 1. Waging war against the King Emperor for a period of three years till December 1909 in Nashik and other places in India, and in London in the case of Savarkar 2. Attempt to wage such a war 3. Indulged in conspiracy to that end 4. Conspired to commit crimes under Section 121 of the Indian Penal Code 5. Conspired to deprive the King Emperor of the sovereignty of India 6. Conspired to overawe the Government of India or the Government of Bombay by criminal force 7. Collected arms and explosives with the aim of waging war 8. Concealed by illegal means the objective of waging war The marathon trial lasted for 69 days. The sentence was read on 24 December 1910. It said, ‘We find the accused guilty of abetment of waging war by instigation, by circulation of
printed matter inciting to war, the providing of arms and the distribution of instructions for the manufacture of explosives. He is therefore, guilty of an offence punishable under section 121 A of the Indian Penal Code. We also find him guilty of conspiring with others of the accused to overawe, by criminal force or show of criminal force, the Government of India and the Local Government’. Savarkar was sentenced to Transportation for Life and forfeiture of all property. On the very day (29 November 1910) the task of collecting evidence in the Nashik Conspiracy Case was completed, the Bombay Government sent a telegram to the Government of India asking that a second trial of Savarkar on charges of abetting the Jackson murder be started after the outcome of the tribunal at The Hague. The Government of India replied that it could not wait for the tribunal to give its verdict. On behalf of the Government of India, Lord Hardinge opined, ‘Savarkar is an extremely dangerous man and would be regarded as a hero and his influence and power for mischief would be greatly increased if set free’. Actually, Savarkar was in London when Jackson was assassinated. The evidence of having sent pistols and pamphlets had already been used in the first trial. However, the Government was hell-bent on securing death penalty for Savarkar. Hence it charged that the pistol used to kill Jackson was one of the many sent by Savarkar. The charge-sheet said that while in London in 1909, Vinayak Damodar Savarkar abetted the murder of A.M.T. Jackson on 21 December 1910 and was involved in the same and had thus committed crimes under Sections 109 and 302 of the Indian Penal Code. For this, Savarkar was sentenced on 30 January, 1911, to Transportation for Life for a second time. On hearing this sentence, Savarkar made the following remarkable statement, ‘I am prepared to face ungrudgingly the extreme penalty of your laws in the belief that it is through sufferings and sacrifice alone that our beloved Motherland can march on to an assured, if not a speedy triumph’. NOTE: One Transporation for Life meant 25 years; thus two sentences of Transportation for Life meant 50 years. However, after a few years in the Cellular Jail, as per the Jail manual, prisoners were allowed to stay outside the Cellular jail and raise a family. Even this was denied to the Savarkar brothers. In fact their release from the Cellular Jail did not mean release from jail. They were imprisoned on arrival on Indian mainland. Even when Savarkar was interned in
Ratnagiri district and prohibited from carrying out activities (1924), the stipulated period was five However, the Government periodically extended this that Savarkar was finally unconditionally released 1937.
political years. term so only in
Separation of the two brothers The steamship Maharaja carrying the two Savarkar brothers Babarao and Tatyarao (Savarkar’s nickname) from the Andamans landed in Calcutta on 06 May 1921. From here, the two brothers were separated. Tatyarao was sent to Alipore Jail and then in utmost secrecy taken to Bombay. From there, he was lodged first in Ratnagiri Jail where he was made to undergo rigorous imprisonment (It was in Ratnagiri Jail that Savarkar wrote his immortal and seminal book Essentials of Hindutva; he also organized the shuddhi of a Christian officer and his wife while in Ratnagiri Jail) and then in Yerwada Jail, Pune. Babarao was initially lodged in Alipore Jail for a day or two. From there, the two brothers were separated. Babarao was sent to solitary confinement in the Belgaum Jail (May 1921 to January 1922). From there, he was lodged in Sabarmati jail. It was only when the Government was convinced that Babarao would surely die (they did not want a martyr on their hands) that he was released in September 1922 (Babarao Savarkar was thus in jail from June 1909 to September 1922). Savarkar spent 11 years in prison in the Andamans, another three years in Indian jails followed by over thirteen years interned in Ratnagiri. *****
Chapter 2 De-constructing Gandhian Satyagraha 2.1 Gandhian Satyagraha then The five year interregnum between Gandhi’s penning of Hind Swaraj in 1909 and his final return to India from South Africa in January 1915 was used to prepare the ground for his return. Gandhi may have hoped that his Christ-inspired ‘non-violence’ to get the South African government to amend discriminatory laws, would find resonance in the British mind, but in the interim the government in South Africa and the Imperial Government in London took notice of satyagraha and its contents for other reasons. By the time Gandhi returned from his second trip to London in 1909, the South African government was ready to direct and orchestrate the Satyagraha movement in the direction of its choice to make it look convincingly effective as a tool of resistance. Tilak, who had been jailed in 1908 for seditious writing was released only in 1914, and in this period this last formidable opponent of the Raj was subjected to extreme physical and mental persecution, as was the case with Aurobindo in 1908-09. This paved the way for Gandhi to return and seize control of the INC and make it once again a pacifist body, content to limit its objectives to petitioning the government for greater participation in governance. Gokhale passed away soon afterwards in 1915, and the mantle of leadership which Hume had transmitted down a lineage where Gokhale was readily positioned, now fell naturally upon Gandhi and ultimately Nehru. Notwithstanding the practice of annual presidents elected at the time of each conference, Congress leadership vested in real terms only in A.O. Hume, Dadabhai Naoroji, Gopal Krishna Gokhale, Mohandas K Gandhi and finally Jawaharlal Nehru; leadership was handed down to persons positioned for several years in the line of succession. Barring the brief but turbulent era in which Tilak and Aurobindo and later Subhash Bose tried to veer it away from British control, the INC under Gokhale, Gandhi, and Nehru1 remained a faithful creature of colonial intent. Between 1910 and 1914, the British government in South Africa diligently promoted the myth of the efficacy of Satyagraha. Working in tandem in India to prepare the soil for Gandhi’s 1
The Italian-born Sonia Gandhi’s ascent as party president is a logical continuation of this tradition.
impending return, and to strengthen his image as a Christ-like non-violent warrior wielding matchless moral force, Viceroy Lord Hardinge expressed sympathy with the Indian passive resistance movement in South Africa in a speech in Madras in November 1913! The same Hardinge, let us recollect, who had earlier pronounced Savarkar to be a dangerous man who would become a hero among the people were he to be set free.2 Meanwhile in South Africa, on 14 October 1912, Gopal Krishna Gokhale met Prime Minister Gen. Louis Botha, Gen. J.C. Smuts3 and Cabinet Member Abraham Fischer. Barely a year after this historic meeting, and within months of the Viceroy of India endorsing the Indian community’s passive resistance in South Africa, Gen. Smuts concluded an agreement with Gandhi. In January 1914, he granted the miniscule demands not ceded to Indians since the late 1890s, ostensibly on account of Gandhi’s Satyagraha. With this token but significant concession, Gen. Smuts anointed Gandhi with the appellation ‘the saint’ and virtually pushed him out of South Africa. The stage was set for Gandhi’s return. He took a surprisingly circuitous route to India, via London, confident that his Satyagraha and ‘moral authority’ would get the ordinary people of India behind him. Besides the British government in India, other powerful vested interest groups were awaiting his arrival. They had the grand title ‘Mahatma’, the Hindi version of Gen. Smuts’ original ‘the saint’, ready to adorn him, and had also planned how to elevate Satyagraha to delusory heights of moral authority in India. 2.2 Gandhian Satyagraha now It can hardly be a coincidence that attempts to resuscitate Gandhian pacifism began around the late 1990s when the BJP was catapulted to power in New Delhi. Increasing terrorist attacks by domestic and foreign jihadis against Hindus and Hindu temples; sustained attacks against Hindu religious leaders and Hindu sensibilities by Indian polity; genocide of Hindus in Jammu & 2
For what Hardinge said about Savarkar, see end of chapter notes to Chapter 1, “Savarkar sentenced to a double term of Transportation for life – fifty years”. 3 Jan Christian Smuts, leading guerilla leader of the Boer War (1899-1902), held several cabinet posts, including Defense Minister, under President Botha. In 1917, he joined the Imperial War Cabinet in London. He played a leading role in both World Wars, and was the only man to sign the peace treaties at the end of both wars. Smuts played an important role in drafting the constitution of the League of Nations and later the United Nations Covenant. A man of formidable intellect, his friends included the apparently irreconcilable duo - Winston Churchill and Mohandas Gandhi!
Kashmir; the 2002 jihadi attack on Hindu pilgrims in Godhra, Gujarat; and aggressive evangelization by Church groups with foreign funds and active support of Western nations, all of which fuelled Hindu anger, have triggered a frenzied revival of Gandhian pacifism4 in public discourse. India’s secular polity thrives upon Hindu political powerlessness, the seeds of which were first sown by Hind Swaraj; the rising obsession to drag Gandhigiri to centerstage in public discourse testifies to corresponding Hindu assertiveness. Mounting Hindu anger and an ascendant BJP, which involves a measure of RSS assertion in the polity, is potentially threatening to a carefully-crafted world order, as it could impact upon regional and international power equations. A small but significant giveaway sign of Western nervousness at Hindu assertion, and determination to resell Gandhigiri to Hindus, is the University of Cambridge-published 1997 edition of Hind Swaraj, edited by Anthony J. Parel, as part of a series on Cambridge Texts in Modern Politics. In his Introduction to the work, Parel succinctly posits the purpose of the edition to re-invent Gandhian pacifism and place it firmly within the parameters of an Indian polity being redefined by an ascendant Hindu political consciousness as well as by Hindu caste consciousness. Indian polity, as it evolved in the 1990s brought more and more Hindu middle and backward classes into mainstream politics and empowered them in a manner which threatened the politics of minority-ism and ‘secularism’ practiced by the Indian National Congress. The question legitimately arises whether Sonia Gandhi’s forcible, even muscular entry into Indian politics at this time, and the accompanying intrusive interest of Western nations in India’s domestic affairs, was mere coincidence. The Cambridge edition of Hind Swaraj reveals Western interest in growing Hindu political power. The Editor’s allusion to the caste system and forceful Hindu political assertion is intentional and purposeful, as is his rather patronizing interpretation of dharma and Hindu social principles of order and organization. The editor makes an amazing assertion when he re-names the timeless dharma of this land, ‘Indian or Gandhian Civic Humanism’, whatever that may mean. Finally, Gandhi believed that through Hind Swaraj he would be able to give Indians a practical philosophy, an updated concept of dharma that would fit them for life in the modern world. In the past dharma was tied to a hierarchical system of duties and obligations and to the preservation of 4
Gandhian pacifism is euphemism for Hindu suicidal pacifism; Gandhigiri its popular cinematic expression.
status. It gave little or no attention to the idea of democratic citizenship. Gandhi felt that the time had come to redefine the scope of dharma to include notions of citizenship, equality, liberty, fraternity and mutual assistance. And in Hind Swaraj he presents in simple language his notion of such a refined dharma, the vision of a new Indian or Gandhian Civic Humanism, one that the Gita and Ramayana had always contained in potentia, but something which Indian civilization had not actualized fully in practice. In Hind Swaraj a conscious attempt is being made to actualize that potential: ‘This is not a mere political book’, he writes. ‘I have used the language of politics, but I have really tried to offer a glimpse of dharma. What is the meaning of Hind Swaraj? It means rule of dharma or Ramrajya (CW 32:489). We may read the Gita or the Ramayana or Hind Swaraj. But what we have to learn from them is desire for the welfare of others’. (CW 32:496)5 In the ‘Foreword’ (22 November 1909) and ‘Preface to the English translation’ (9 March 1910), Gandhi reveals an inexplicable urgency to pen Hind Swaraj in Gujarati in just 10 days in November 1909, and to personally undertake the English translation within the next four months. The present work is concerned with the root causes of Hindu incapacity to organize and show strength to express protest or disapproval; the disempowerment of Hindus in Indian polity; and the pervasive deHinduisation of the nation by what is called ‘secularism’. Both Gandhi and Hind Swaraj deserve scrutiny in this critique. The English translation of Hind Swaraj is structured as a dialogue between the ‘Editor’ Gandhi and a nameless ‘Reader’, whose role is confined to raising simple-minded questions and concerns about contemporary Indian politics. It is difficult to read Hind Swaraj from cover to cover without a sense of seething disbelief. This prescriptive text, which Gandhi boldly equates with the Gita and Ramayana, insults the intelligence of ordinary Hindus with its craftily designed ‘Reader’, who plays the role of the admiring, uncritical acolyte who obediently spouts only such questions and articulates only such doubts and concerns for which Gandhi has ready-made answers and absolute, un-nuanced remedies. It is pertinent that the ‘Reader’ has been crafted by Gandhi as an advocate of armed resistance who conveniently poses naive 5
HS, Editor’s Introduction, ‘Gandhi’s Intentions, pp xvi-xvii
questions and arguments in favour of violence; Gandhi refutes these with scathing arguments in favour of passive resistance. The intent is clear - to depict votaries of armed resistance, in this case, Tilak, Aurobindo and Savarkar, as being incapable of deep thinking and reason; while the votary of peace, in this case, Gandhi, has all the answers which shrivels these towering men and reduces them to groveling acquiescence after listening to his arguments. We have to conclude that Gandhi chose this literary style only to facilitate depiction of the nationalist ‘reader’ as submitting readily to the superior intellect of Gandhi the ‘editor’. There is some profundity in parts of Hind Swaraj, as when Gandhi critically evaluates the ‘modern’ professions of law and medicine, or when he refers to ‘self-contained villages’ and the critical importance of restoring the traditional autonomy of every social unit to realize full independence or ‘purna swaraj’; issues which are taken up again by Gandhi in the 1940s when he joins cause with Nehru on the issue of independent India’s development model.6 But it must be reiterated, as shown in the previous chapter, that there is not a single idea or issue that Gandhi raises and discusses in Hind Swaraj which had not been dealt with by Aurobindo with greater brilliance and originality in his masterly treatise on passive resistance in Bande Mataram in April 1906. Sadly, Gandhi opted not to acknowledge Aurobindo’s seminal treatise on passive resistance nor recognize with humility the comprehensive treatment meted out to the concept. The central purpose of Gandhi’s exposition of passive resistance or satyagraha as he chose to call it, was to emphasize non-violence as its uncompromising and defining characteristic; thus all other issues became centripetal to the core chapters on ‘Brute force’ and ‘Passive Resistance’; Nehru personally considered them completely dispensable for the shape of Indian polity to come. The INC and post-independence Indian polity rejected Gandhi’s views on machines, lawyers, doctors and self-contained villages. Nehru rebutted the best of Gandhi’s politico-economic philosophy which critiqued the senseless dependence on technology and recognized the centrality of villages to India’s independence and nationalism. In pursuit of his own objectives, however, he elevated Gandhian non-violence to rarefied heights of national morality and made it the basis of the anti-Hindu Nehruvian Secularism which defined Indian polity after 1947: It is many years ago since I read Hind Swaraj and I have only a vague picture in my mind. But even when I read it 20 or more years ago it seemed to 6
HS, The condition of India, Chapters XI and XII, pp 58-65 and Gandhi’s Political Vision: The Pyramid vs The Oceanic Circle (1946) pp. 188-9.
me completely unreal. In your writings and speeches since then I have found much that seemed to me an advance on that old position and an appreciation of modern trends. I was therefore surprised when you told us that the old picture still remains intact in your mind. As you know, the Congress has never considered that picture, much less adopted it….How far it is desirable for the Congress to consider these fundamental questions, involving varying philosophies of life, it is for you to judge. I should imagine that a body like the Congress should not lose itself in arguments over such matters which can only produce great confusion in people’s minds resulting in inability to act in the present.7 It is apparent that the INC, according to Nehru, never intended Hind Swaraj to be the seminal economic doctrine that Gandhi desired and hoped would shape the Congress creed and independent India’s economic policy. This brings us back to the original question: why did Gandhi write Hind Swaraj in such haste in late 1909? Why did Nehru, Patel, Rajaji, and the galaxy of intellectuals in the INC, despite strong reservations about Satyagraha, allow Gandhi’s writ to run unchallenged in the INC? Gandhi, as we hope to establish, was in a hurry because he had made up his mind to accept the proposal made by the ‘Moderates’ to lead the INC and the freedom movement, and wished to reaffirm in writing to the British government his commitment to satyagraha or non-violence. He further used the occasion to articulate his fundamental political tenet that if Indian villages could replicate the Tolstoy and Phoenix Farms he set up in South Africa, inspired by Tolstoy’s ascetic lifestyle and Ruskin’s ‘Unto This Last’, which rejected the destructive science and technology of ‘modern civilization’, it wouldn’t matter if India was ruled by Indians or British or other non-Indians, so long as they ruled ‘according to my wish’. This was exactly what the British government wanted to hear – an idea in stark contrast to Aurobindo’s exposition in 1906 on the same issue: Self-development of an independent nation is one thing; self-development from a state of servitude under an alien and despotic rule without the forcible or peaceful removal of that rule as an indispensable preliminary, is quite another. No national selfdevelopment is possible without the support of raja7
Nehru’s reply to Gandhi, Anand Bhavan, Allahabad, October 9, 1945; HS, pp 153-4
sakti, organized political strength, commanding and whenever necessary compelling general allegiance and obedience. Political freedom is the life-breath of a nation; to attempt social reform, educational reform, industrial expansion, the moral improvement of the race without aiming first and foremost at political freedom, is the very height of ignorance and futility. Such attempts are foredoomed to disappointment and failure; yet when the disappointment and failure come, we choose to attribute them to some radical defect in the national character; as if the nation were at fault and not its wise men, who would not or could not understand the first elementary conditions for success. The primary requisite for national progress, national reform, is the free habit of free and healthy national thought and action which is impossible in a state of servitude. The second is the organization of the national will in a strong central authority.8 As early as 1906, Aurobindo forthrightly demanded that the British must quit and unambiguously articulated the reasons for demanding total political independence. Yet Gandhi, writing three years later, ignores these arguments and posits a foolish ‘Reader’ on the issue of total independence: Reader: I would now like to know your views on Swaraj. I fear that our interpretation is not the same. Editor: It is quite possible that we do not attach the same meaning to the term. You and I and all Indians are impatient to obtain Swaraj, but we are certainly not decided as to what it is. To drive the English from out of India is a thought heard from many mouths, but it does not seem that many have properly considered why it should be so. I must ask you a question. Do you think that it is necessary to drive away the English if we get all we want? (emphasis added). Reader: That question cannot be answered at this stage. The state after withdrawal will depend largely upon the manner of it. If, as you assume, 8
Introduction, The Doctrine of Passive Resistance, Bande Mataram, April 11 to April 23, 1906, pp 85-86
they retire, it seems to me we shall keep their constitution, and shall carry on the government. If they simply retire for the asking, we should have an army, etc; ready at hand. We should therefore have no difficulty in carrying on the government.9 The discussion on Swaraj then veers firmly in Gandhi’s favour as he puts into the mouth of the Reader words and ideas not to be found in Tilak or Aurobindo. Editor: Why do we want to drive away the English? Reader; Because India has become impoverished by their government. They take away our money, from year to year. The most important posts are reserved for themselves. We are kept in a state of slavery. They behave insolently towards us, and disregard our feelings. Editor: If they do not take our money away, become gentle, and give us responsible posts, would you still consider their presence to be harmful?10 Astonishing as it appears, this is from the pen of a man hailed for having won history’s first non-violent political struggle against the mightiest empire in the world! As we shall demonstrate later in the timeline of his struggle in South Africa, Gandhi kept a close watch on people and events in India and was in regular communication with Naoroji and Gokhale. He was sure to have read Aurobindo’s treatise on passive resistance. It seems evident that Gandhi was positioning himself and promoting his brand of passive resistance as distinct from that of Aurobindo. He wrote to Lord Ampthill Opposed as I am to violence in any shape or form, I have endeavoured specially to come into contact with the so-called extremists who may be better described as the party of violence.... One of them came to me with a view to convince me that I was wrong in my methods and that nothing but the use of violence, covert or open or both, was likely to bring about redress of the wrongs they consider they suffer. Gandhi’s choice of words and phrases is not accidental; he wrote to Ampthill with deliberate intent. ‘Wrongs they consider they 9
HS, Chapter IV, What is Swaraj, pp 26-27 Same as foot-note 8.
10
suffer’ (emphasis added) signaled to Ampthill that Gandhi did not share the view that colonial rule was an outrage that needed to be undone. I share the national spirit but I totally dissent from the methods whether of the extremists or of the moderates. For either party relies ultimately on violence. Violent methods must mean acceptance of modern civilization and therefore of the same ruinous competition we notice here and consequent destruction of true morality. I should be uninterested in the fact as to who rules. I should expect rulers to rule according to my wish otherwise I cease to help them to rule me. I become a passive resister against them. Passive resistance is soul-force exerted against physical force. In other words love conquering hatred.11 At the time of writing Hind Swaraj, some basic tenets of Gandhi’s political theology included disinterest in who ruled India as long as the rulers ruled ‘according to my wish’. His ‘wish’ was a polity centered round simple, non-competitive idyllic village life, with no use for the gadgets of modern science and technology, and where all people lived in harmony, sharing a common worldview and way of life. It is suffice to say here that Gandhi’s village was far removed from the traditional Indian village, which was always linked to the larger society, kingdom, and civilization, and never the isolated hamlet of his imagination. For Gandhi to supersede Tilak, Aurobindo and Savarkar as preeminent leader and for Hind Swaraj to supplant Bande Mataram, Kesari and Mahratta, the most important criterion to capture the minds and hearts of ordinary Indians would be to be seen as a victim of the Raj. The British Government conveniently banned Hind Swaraj immediately after its publication in Gujarati in 1909; this gave Gandhi an excuse to express disapproval of the British Government. Yet the book was a strong defense of the English people; Gandhi severely condemned the nationalists and unequivocally discouraged notions of armed resistance against the English people or the British government. He re-affirmed his loyalty to the British Empire. It seems reasonable to conclude that the British ban on the book was part of a well-conceived plot that began to unfold: I do not know why Hind Swaraj has been seized in India. To me the seizure constitutes further condemnation of the civilization represented by the British Government. There is in the book, not a 11
Letter to Lord Ampthill, October 30, 1909; HS, pp 134-35
trace of approval of violence in any shape or form. The methods of the British Government are undoubtedly severely condemned. To do otherwise would be for me to be a traitor to Truth, to India and to the Empire to which I owe allegiance.12 2.3 Beyond the pale of criticism Gandhi’s politico-economic doctrine rested on the utopian conclaves he created in South Africa which, to put it bluntly, resembled laboratory experiments under controlled settings. Gandhi’s conclave comprised Hindus, Muslims, Parsis, and White men and women, bound by common victimhood and/or distaste for the repressive Apartheid regime. Away from home, and in an alien land, the normal and inevitable sharp differences in customs, traditions and worldview become blurred, and in trying situations are even papered over. Life in these settlements was akin to replicating life in a laboratory or wildlife in a zoo – with the same degree of authenticity and with a pre-determined objective. Gandhi wished to replicate this experiment in India’s villages. It is puzzling why leaders like Patel and Rajaji allowed Gandhi’s writ to run unchallenged in the INC. The only convincing answer seems to be that at least in the early years after Gandhi’s return to India, they saw him being treated differently by the British, in sharp contrast to the muscular fashion in which the Raj had dealt with Tilak, Aurobindo and Savarkar, and a decade later with Bhagat Singh and Subhash Bose. A calculated impression had been created that Gandhi’s unflinching insistence on non-violence had captured British attention, and that the latter showed signs of at least listening to him. The British shrewdly promoted Gandhi’s passive resistance as the antidote to the armed resistance of Aurobindo, Savarkar and later Bhagat Singh – as an effective tool to engage the Raj. In that epoch, it would not have occurred to anybody to question Gandhi’s views and methodology, let alone challenge them; yet it is well to remember that those who did challenge or question Gandhi and later Nehru, and who publicly expressed differences or dissent, were ruthlessly marginalized and even evicted from the INC. Gandhi vehemently opposed Subhash Bose’s election as President of the INC; faced by relentless hostility from Gandhi, as we will see later in the book, Bose had perforce to distance himself from the Congress and form his own party, the Forward Bloc. Rajaji, who saw the inevitability of partition, advised Congress to retrieve whatever territory could still be retrieved, but was asked by Gandhi to exit from the Congress in 1942, if he wanted to gather support for his idea - a fact reputed historians of the freedom movement unfailingly omit 12
HS, Preface to the English Translation, page 7
to mention! And when K M Munshi wrote to Gandhi in 1942 saying that Gandhi’s un-nuanced and prescriptive ‘non-violence’ was unacceptable to the Hindus who looked upon him (Munshi) as their leader, Gandhi asked Munshi to leave the Congress too. Unsurprisingly, Gandhi’s staggering claim that Hind Swaraj was Ramrajya-made-simple remained un-critiqued and unchallenged. Nehru, imposed by Gandhi on an unwilling INC as his political heir, probably saw merit in throwing his weight behind Gandhi, at least in his lifetime. Yet it may be closer to the truth to suggest that other leaders of the Congress feared challenging a ‘saint’ close to becoming a Second Jesus Christ, whose political doctrine was fast acquiring the connotations of a Christ-ian Ramrajya. This is underlined by the repeated allusions to Jesus and Christian doctrine in the ‘Editor’s Introduction’ to Hind Swaraj and other Writings: It (Hind Swaraj) has been compared to such diverse works as Rousseau’s Social Contract, the Spiritual Exercises of St Ignatius Loyola, and chapter IV of St Matthew or St Luke. This last comparison, though its allusion to Jesus would have embarrassed Gandhi, still merits attention. Just as it is in these Gospel chapters that we find Jesus first announcing his messianic mission, so it is in Hind Swaraj that we find Gandhi first announcing his lifemission. This is nothing other than showing the way for the moral regeneration of Indians and the political emancipation of India.13 Far from embarrassing him, Gandhi would have felt honoured at the comparison because Gandhi too fancied himself as Jesus Christ – Gandhiji asked about the rumours of war with Russia. I said there was a good deal of talk about war but perhaps it was only talk. “You should turn your attention to the West,” I added. He replied: I? I have not convinced India. There is violence all around us. I am a spent bullet. Since the end of the Second World War, I suggested, many Europeans and Americans were conscious of a spiritual emptiness. He might fill a corner of it. But I am an Asiatic. A mere Asiatic. He laughed, then after a pause:
13
HS, xiii-iv
Jesus was an Asiatic.14 During Gandhi’s lifetime, no attempt was made by any Indian within or outside the INC to critically examine the issues raised in Hind Swaraj; nor has such an attempt been made in the century that has lapsed since it was penned. It is safe to assume that in Nehruvian Secularist India, a critique of Hind Swaraj, Gandhi, or Gandhian Pacifism is akin to heresy. The very idea of Hindu assertion terrified Nehru;15 hence both Nehru and Nehruvian India placed Gandhi’s personage and his for-Hindus-only passive resistance beyond the pale of critical scrutiny and criticism. Yet with Machiavellian intent, they gave Gandhi’s politico-economic doctrines a quiet burial. 2.4 How both Maharishi and Mahatma failed the Hindu nation Among the great literature Gandhi is supposed to have read while serving time in prison in South Africa and in India are the Bible, the Koran and the Bhagwad Gita. He himself asserted that he believed Ramrajya was the rule of dharma and Srirama the ultimate exemplar of dharma. On this basis, we are compelled to conclude that:
14
·
After frequently reading the Bible, Gandhi still believed Jesus Christ was an apostle of love, peace and nonviolence.
·
After reading the Koran often, he still believed Muslims could live peacefully with Hindus as one nation.
·
Despite returning repeatedly to the Bhagwad Gita for inspiration and guidance, Gandhi believed the only thing
Interview to Louis Fischer, New Delhi, June 26, 1946, The Life of Mahatma
Gandhi, p. 454, CWMG Vol. 91, page 203 15
In his Outside the Archives, pp 209-10, Sangam Books, 1984, YD Gundevia, Prime Minister Nehru’s last Foreign Secretary, recalls a Friday morning in December 1963, when Nehru held his customary open house meeting with secretaries, joint secretaries, under-secretaries and deputy secretaries. There being no specific agenda that particular day, Gundevia asked Nehru what would happen to the civil servant if after being attuned to Congress policies so long, the Communists were, tomorrow, elected to power in New Delhi. Nehru is supposed to have pondered long over the question and then said, “Why do you ever imagine the Communists will ever be voted into power at the centre?’ After a long pause, he said, spelling it out slowly and very deliberately, ‘The danger to India, mark you, is not Communism. It is Hindu right-wing communalism’. Towards the end of the meeting he repeated the thesis.”
‘we have to learn from it, is desire for the welfare of others’! ·
Gandhi deliberately never referred to the two defining wars in the Ramayana and the Mahabharata, or to the fact that both Srirama and Srikrishna were compelled to resort to arms against evil perpetrated by misuse of State power as epitomized in Ravana, Kamsa, Jarasandha and Duryodhana, as this would pose the Himalayan dilemma of reconciling the dharmic wars in itihasa with his claim that ahimsa was India’s one and only dharma.
Despite India’s long political tradition of knowing and understanding the ‘other’ and dealing resolutely with those who posed a threat to her way of life, the Hindu nation has lost territory and Hindus have been politically disempowered when Hindu leaders failed to heed the warning stricture to ‘know your enemy’. India’s failure to ‘know the enemy’ and inability to deal ruthlessly with the enemy was aggravated by English education, then under the heady influence of Europe’s newly invented trends in political and religious ‘liberalism’ and the intellectual Enlightenment movement. Aurobindo and Gandhi were no exception to this unfortunate, general rule. The failure to ‘know the enemy’ or unwillingness to even recognize the enemy, led to serious, irreparable lacunae in their writings. The glaring lacuna in Hind Swaraj, as in all Gandhi’s subsequent writings, and the conspicuous absence in Aurobindo’s political and spiritual writings was a failure to articulate the basis of Indian nationhood. Both Gandhi and Aurobindo, throughout their political career and political writings, failed to define the nation and the basis of nationhood.16 They failed to do so because the critical distinction and connection between rashtra and rajya simply eluded them. Both Aurobindo and Gandhi faulted the British rajya, both independently described the broad contours of Swaraj, and both failed to either see or articulate that the fundamental duty of the rajya (State, Government) was to protect the rashtra (the polity, the territory, the people). This failure led inevitably to the 16
This book has avoided as far as possible, unless absolutely necessary, from making reference to anything that Aurobindo may have written about Gandhi, the Muslim question or the freedom movement after his decision in 1909 to beat the retreat from the political battlefield for the only reason that having removed himself from the political kurukshetra, Aurobindo’s opinions about Gandhi or the course of the freedom movement ceased to have any impact on the INC or on ordinary Indians
vivisection of 1947 and the subsequent disempowerment of Hindus and the de-Hinduising of the nation. Both men touched lightly upon the intractable nature of Muslims, but failed either to understand or articulate what the threat was from their religious creed. Those who do not wish to misunderstand things may read up the Koran, and will find therein hundreds of passages acceptable to the Hindus; and the Bhagwad Gita contains passages to which not a Mahomedan can take exception. Am I to dislike a Mahomedan because there are passages in the Koran I do not understand or like? It takes two to make a quarrel. If I do not want to quarrel with a Mahomedan, the latter will be powerless to foist a quarrel on me, and similarly, I should be powerless if a Mahomedan refuses his assistance to quarrel with me. 17 In typical Gandhian fashion, Gandhi seizes only one half of the issue – the Hindu half. While raising the question if the Hindu ought to dislike the Muslim because he dislikes or does not understand some passages in the Koran, Gandhi deliberately omits to raise the other half, viz., will the Mahomedan accept the Bhagwad Gita in the same spirit that he thinks Hindus should accept the Koran? The flip side of this question remains: how should the Hindu Nation conduct itself when faced by Muslim inhabitants who believe they are true Muslims only when they convincingly demonstrate to the world their unflinching adherence to every word of the Koran, particularly words and passages which Hindus ‘do not understand or like’ and which include exhortations to jihad with regard to kafirs? Gandhi and Aurobindo, inexplicably, failed to critique the Islamic tenet of jihad, especially the fact that jihad entailed enslaving or exterminating the nonMuslim populace, followed by control and occupation of kafir territory. Jihad was a tool to transform the land of the infidels (Dar-ul-Harb) into the land of the faithful (Dar-ul-Islam. Aurobindo and Gandhi rendered great disservice to the Hindu Nation by their failure to ‘know the enemy’. ‘It takes two to quarrel’ is a Gandhian half-truth; the Hindu experience of the other half, after the advent of Islam into the country and successive hordes of Muslim invaders is that it takes only one to undertake jihad, only one to invade and occupy the Hindu nation, only one to seize and occupy Hinduism’s most 17
HS, Chapter X, The condition of India (cont.): the Hindus and the Mahomedans, page 56
sacred shrines, only one to affront Hindu sensibilities, only one to commit genocide, and only one to vivisect and threaten to repeatedly vivisect the Hindu nation. The sheer brutality of the Islamic conquest of the Hindu nation has been intentionally kept out of the post-independence, state-funded historical narrative where details of the ceaseless civilisational struggle of the Hindus against the depredations of Islam have been exorcised to serve the dishonorable intent by Nehruvian-secular academe of reinventing the nation and its nationhood. Thus our children’s history books in schools and colleges will never tell them that the Slave Dynasty was Muslim jihad from Turkey, that the Lodhi Dynasty was jihad from Afghanisthan or that the Mughal Dynasty was jihad claiming descent from two different jihadi strains – from the Mongol and Turkish jihadis, or to be precise, from jihadis par exemplar, Timur the Lame and Ghenghis Khan. The success of Gandhi-Nehru secularism is best gauged from Indian polity’s reaction to the destruction of the Babri Masjid in Ayodhya. Three of Hinduism’s most sacred shrines in Ayodhya, Mathura and Kashi were defiled and then occupied by jihadis belonging to the Mughal Dynasty. Post-independence writers of official history with the connivance of Indian polity have also kept out of the narrative and political public discourse, the bloodcurdling details of how Islam and Islamic rule over India destroyed and defiled Hindu temples and religious institutions for centuries before Gandhi and continuing for decades after Gandhi. The Gandhian episode of the freedom movement interrupted the civilisational struggle of the Hindus against Islam and left it unresolved in 1947; Nehru and later Nehruvian polity ensured that the Hindu struggle was not revived. The destruction of the Babri Masjid was the first step that Hindu society took to revive the civilisational struggle against continuing Muslim affront to Hindu sensibilities and posed the first major challenge to established convention of keeping Hindus politically disempowered and socially fragmented to assert their dharma. Gandhi was forced to drink the poison of his willful misreading of Muslim psyche when he presided over the Partition of India, not ‘over my dead body’ as he had promised, but over the dead bodies of tens of thousands of Hindus and Muslims during the violent and bloody process of an imperfect and incomplete ‘transfer of population’ in 1947. Gandhian Satyagraha which kept Hindus in a state of discontented pacifism collapsed when Hindu anger over his failure to avert Partition exploded with unprecedented ferocity. Gandhi wrote sternly against British administration in India and ‘modern civilization’, but refused to link the Raj in India to the evil
of colonialism, and to link ‘modern civilization’ and colonialism’s compulsive destruction of cultures, religions, faiths and entire nations, to Christianity and the Church. Gandhi spoke and wrote sharply against Christian missionaries, but failed to articulate or even to recognize the truth that the Church and trade have historically worked in tandem and symbiotically, and that the basis and impetus for colonialism was provided in equal measure by trade and Church. He therefore assured the Bishop of Calcutta, Rev. Foss Westcott, who enquired anxiously about their right to carry on with religious conversion that religious conversion would be allowed to continue even after independence only it would have no state backing as during British rule. Dear Friend, I fear that I have neglected your question for a long time. You know the reason why. Many of my activities, including important correspondence, are held up and must remain so for the time being. Meanwhile I pick up what comes uppermost for the moment. Such before me is your letter to Pyarelalji. Of course conversions will, so far as I know, continue under swaraj but there would be no State favouritism as there has been during the British regime.18 It is remarkable, that completely impervious to the fire that had engulfed the whole of India at that time, Christian missionaries used the troubled times to raise issues critically important to their long-term agenda in the country, significantly with Gandhi and not the other leaders of the INC; and just as remarkable that Gandhi thought he could unilaterally announce a major policy with little thought to the consequences for Hindus and Hindu society. Gandhi’s pious declaration that there would be no state favouritism for conversion was meaningless at best because the Gandhi-Nehru hand-picked Congress members of the Constituent Assembly gave minorities the sweeping right to preach, practice and propagate their religions, a right that has been consistently interpreted by both Abrahamic faiths as their constitutional right to undertake religious conversion.
18
Letter to Foss Westcott, Srirampur, Noakhali, November 29, 1946, CWMG Vol. 93, page 76. Dr. Foss Westcott was Bishop of Calcutta and Metropolitan of India, Burma and Ceylon, 1919-45. Henceforth in the book, all quotations from Gandhi have been sourced from the Collected Works of Mahatma Gandhi (CWMG), the internet version of Gandhi’s Collected Works (CW). The internet version of Gandhi’s Collected Works has been made compiled by the GandhiServe Foundation, which describes itself as Mahatma Gandhi Research and Media Service. In the Foundation’s own words, “The purpose of the Foundation is the promotion of science, cultural and historical research and education”.
And even though both Aurobindo and Gandhi lived to see the ascendance of virulent, anti-religion communism in the Soviet Union and countries of Europe, they failed to absorb within the INC and Hinduise the ideology of two of India’s fiercest and tallest nationalists - the Left-leaning Bhagat Singh and Subhash Bose. In short, both Aurobindo and Gandhi failed to warn the nation that Islam, Christianity and the de-Hinduised communist movement in India posed equal and triple dangers to Hindus and the Hindu nation. Aurobindo, by vacating space for Gandhi within Indian polity when he abdicated his political responsibility, and Gandhi, on the other hand by his obdurate, bordering-on-paranoia insistence on Satyagraha as the only legitimate weapon of the Hindus, allowed the triple monotheisms of Islam, Christianity and Communism to be legitimized by default even during the freedom movement; they were constitutionally legitimized after independence. Today all three creeds are partners in the powerful anti-Hindu coalition that defines post-independence Nehruviansecular Indian polity. 2.5 The non-truth of Satyagraha Gandhi’s Satyagraha has no precedent in Hindu tradition or history as a weapon in any war to re-establish dharma. We have to agree with Gandhi that Satyagraha is not for the weak; but it was a method which only individuals or small, homogenous groups could practice when confronting a more powerful enemy. What is more, this method of shaming the adversary may be effective in battle only and only if the cultural or religious symbolism of Satyagraha finds resonance with the enemy’s own moral universe, and thus compels him to concede, back down, or retreat. Gandhi’s Satyagraha must therefore be analyzed as a tool of engagement from two angles – Gandhi in South Africa, and Gandhi in India against the British government. Mahatma Gandhi makes the following core submissions on Satyagraha in Hind Swaraj and in the following English idiom: · Satyagraha is ‘passive resistance’ or ‘ahimsa’ · Passive resistance is ‘soul force’ · Soul force is ‘love’ · Only ‘soul force’ is the defining characteristic of Hinduism · Equates force with violence and intentionally stigmatizes and de-legitimizes force · Asserts that force which is the same as violence, is un-Hindu ‘Satyagraha’ is best translated as ‘force of truth’. Gandhi made the unconvincing but unchallenged leap of equating ‘force of truth’
with ‘ahimsa’19 whereas in Hindu dharma and in Hinduism’s classical texts and their Bhashyas, truth (satya) and ahimsa (noninjury) are two distinct concepts. Satya is nirguna,20 which means it is beyond the capacity of the human intellect to describe or define it. Satya is satya. Gandhi’s equating of satya with ahimsa was unjustified, and equating both with God, un-Hindu; equating force with violence and ahimsa with love or soul-force was doubly flawed thinking. The force of love is the same as the force of the soul or truth.21 The force implied in this may be described as loveforce, soul-force, or more popularly but less accurately, passive resistance.22 He compounded the chaos by insisting that ‘self-suffering’, akin to Christian self-mortification, was an integral component of Satyagraha: The function of violence is to obtain reform by external means; the function of passive resistance, that is soulforce, is to obtain it by growth from within; which, in its turn, is obtained by self-suffering, self-purification.23 The Gandhian error which is the root factor for continuing Hindu disempowerment is the equating of satya with ahimsa and force with violence. Force involves the exercise of power or authority in right or appropriate measure to achieve or enforce dharma, which includes adherence to an accepted/appropriate code of conduct, justice and/or rule of law, which at times may involve loss of life and property. Violence, on the other hand, connotes both misuse and abuse of physical power and State power for self-serving ends, resulting in needless bloodletting, and destruction and/or loss of life and property. In Hindu ethos, such violence is castigated as adharmic, even asuric. The permanent removal of the offender of dharma by use of force is effected with the precision of a surgeon wielding a scalpel: dispassionately, precisely, and as a necessary measure. Durga slaying Mahishaasura, Srikrishna destroying Putana and Kamsa, 19
“Truth itself is God, and non-violence is just a synonym for truth” (Speech at prayer meeting , Bombay, held at Rungta House, March 13, 1946, CWMG, vol. 90, page 75. 20 Literally, ‘without attributes’. ‘Nir-‘, without, ‘Guna’ – attributes’ . 21 HS, Chapter XVII, Passive Resistance, page 89. 22 HS, Chapter XVI, Brute Force, page 85. 23 HS, Gandhi’s reply to Wybergh, May 10, 1910, page 146.
Srikrishna beheading Shishupala, Bhima killing Jarasandha, Arjuna eliminating Karna and Jayadrata, and Srirama executing Ravana, are examples of the rightful use of force to destroy evil. Gandhi in his treatise on Satyagraha ignored the compelling arguments for use of force and advocated Christian non-violence and love, on the basis of a flawed reading of the Bible and a faulty understanding of its central character, Jesus Christ. Contrast Gandhi’s un-Hindu rejection of the use of force with Aurobindo: Justice and righteousness are the atmosphere of political morality; but the justice and righteousness of a fighter, not of the priest. Aggression is unjust only when unprovoked; violence, unrighteous when used wantonly for unrighteous ends. It is a barren philosophy which applies a mechanical rule to all actions, or takes a word and tries to fit all human life into it. The sword of the warrior is as necessary to the fulfillment of justice and righteousness as the holiness of the saint. Ramdas is not complete without Shivaji. To maintain justice and prevent the strong from despoiling, and the weak from being oppressed, is the function for which the kshatriya is created. ‘Therefore’, says Srikrishna in the Mahabharata, ‘God created battle and armour, the sword, the bow and the dagger’.24 Aurobindo’s advocacy of force and articulation of kshatriya dharma is in line with Hindu tradition of statecraft as exemplified by Kautilya’s Arthasastra. Gandhi’s absolutism on non-violence contrasts sharply with Kautilya’s exhortations on the use of force, and it is pertinent that notwithstanding the motivated propaganda about Kautilya’s ‘evil genius’, the Arthasastra is addressed to the dharmic king. Nor was Kautilya unique in prescribing the use of force or State power; he cited earlier opinions while explaining his own views: The means of ensuring the pursuit of philosophy, the three Vedas and economics is the Rod (wielded by the king); its administration constitutes the science of politics, having for its purpose the acquisition of (things) not possessed, the preservation of (things) possessed, the augmentation of (things) preserved and the bestowal of (things) augmented on a worthy 24
Aurobindo’s treatise on passive resistance, The Morality of Boycott, vol. 1, pp 127-8
recipient. On it is dependent the orderly maintenance of worldly life. Therefore, the king, seeking the orderly maintenance of worldly life, should ever hold the Rod lifted up (to strike). For there is no such means for the subjugation of beings as the Rod, say the (ancient) teachers. No, says Kautilya. For the king, severe with the Rod, becomes a source of terror to beings. The king mild with the Rod is despised. The king just with the Rod is honoured. (emphasis added) For, the Rod used after full consideration, endows the subjects with spiritual good, material well-being and pleasures of the senses. Used unjustly, whether in passion or in anger, or in contempt, it enrages even forest anchorites, how much more then the householders? If not used at all, it gives rise to the law of the fishes. For the stronger swallows the weak in the absence of the wielder of the Rod. Protected by him, he prevails.25 Gandhi’s choice of English words and an alien idiom must be placed in the context of the education he received and the fact that he was not a scholar of Hindu texts with knowledge of precise words to be used for specific concepts. English words like ‘soul force’, ‘love’ and ‘passive resistance’ denote Christian ideals, and while Christians may claim (incorrectly, in view of the Crusades, colonialism and the slave trade) that these are the defining features of their faith, the fact that they have no equivalents in Sanskrit denotes that they do not define or describe dharma, much less rajadharma, which belongs to the realms of state, state power and statecraft. 2.6 Satyagraha in South Africa Indians began migrating to South Africa around 1859-1860, both as indentured labour and as ‘free’ Indians, as traders, artisans, teachers and shop assistants. The colonial administration enacted the first of a series of discriminatory laws against Indians in 25
TKA, Part II, , Section 1 (contd.), ‘Establishing the necessity of Economics, and the Science of Politics’) – Sutras 3-15
1885.26 These laws applied equally ‘to any of the native races of Asia, including so-called Coolies, Arabs, Malays and the Mohammedan subjects of the Turkish Empire’ who migrated to South Africa. The second half of the nineteenth century in South Africa saw the decisive beginnings of what would soon develop into a brutal Apartheid regime by the White colonizers, which would not end until 1990. So when Gandhi decided to confront, first the Boer and then the British Government in South Africa against Indianspecific discriminatory laws, he was confronting Apartheid, the official policy of ‘racial segregation involving political, legal and economic discrimination against non-whites’. The first discriminatory laws against Indians covered areas as broad as right to citizenship, voting rights, trading rights, habitation, marriage customs, and restrictions on movement, not just from one locality to another, but also from province to province. But Gandhi did not combat Apartheid as an unmitigated evil. Indeed, his failure to link Apartheid with Colonialism, and Colonialism with Christianity began in South Africa, and till the very end, nothing in his writings shows he ever realized this truth and made the connection. Our critique of Gandhi is based solely on his own writings; and as far as possible, writings closest in time to the events themselves. By this yardstick, we maintain that the record of events and incidents described by Gandhi in Indian Opinion, Hind Swaraj, Young India and Harijan are closer to the truth and more completely reflect Gandhi’s thought processes at specific moments of his career than his later writings, which describe the same events with more discretion and the judicious equivocation that comes from hindsight. Gandhi limited his confrontation with the British administration in South Africa to ending discriminatory laws against Indians because in those significant Mahatma-making years in South Africa, and even long thereafter, he believed the Empire was a good thing and that British colonial rule was beneficial to the natives whose homelands were invaded and occupied, whose resources were exploited to fill colonial coffers, and who were disempowered and enslaved. Our scrutiny covers Gandhi’s understanding (or lack of it) of colonization and its fundamental premises. It is pertinent that Gandhi and Aurobindo were closer in age to each other than other important leaders of the time, yet compared to the exceptional mind of Aurobindo and the scintillating intellect which wrote ‘Old lamps for new’ at the 26
This was the year when A.O. Hume launched the Indian National Congress in India.
unbelievable age of 21 years, Gandhi stands out as ill-informed and even worse, as having imbibed and internalized much of the colonial prejudice against tribal Indian and Asian groups. Gandhi voices his politically incorrect prejudices with considerable élan: We are not to assume that the English have changed the nature of the Pindaris, and the Bhils. It is therefore, better to suffer the Pindari peril than that someone else should protect us from it and thus render us effeminate. I should prefer to be killed by the arrow of the Bhil than to seek unmanly protection. Moreover I must remind you who desire Home Rule that after all, the Bhils, the Pindaris, the Assamese and the Thugs are our own countrymen. To conquer them is your own and my work.27 Not merely in Hind Swaraj, but repeatedly in his talks and writings long after its publication, Gandhi consciously made three disconnects: that the individual White man was different from his repressive regime; that British administration in India did not measure up to the nobility of purpose of the British Empire or British nation; and that colonialism was not Christian. The influence of the Bible is perceptible here: he called the British colonial administration the Kingdom of Satan; he invoked Christ’s missionary objective to describe ancient Hindu civilization and dubbed Hindu civilization the Kingdom of God! I am not so much concerned about the stability of the Empire as I am about that of the ancient civilization of India, which in my opinion, represents the best that the world has ever seen. The British government in India constitutes a struggle between the Modern Civilization, which is the Kingdom of Satan, and the Ancient Civilization which is the Kingdom of God. The one is the God of War, the other is the God of Love.28 This is probably the first time an important Hindu professing faith in Srirama as Indian civilization’s exemplary ruler, has described the timeless Hindu civilization as the Christian ‘Kingdom of God’, where the deity is the God of Love! Actually, God of Love and God of War are throwbacks to Greek and Roman mythology, hardly 27
HS, Chapter VII, The condition of India, pp 44-45. Needless to say, the Bhils and the Pindaris were martial tribes, the ‘kshatriyas’ of Hindu ithihasa 28 HS, Preface to the English Translation, page 7
applicable to Hindu civilization. Even as late as 1942, after making the weak and farcical call to the British to Quit India, Gandhi still thinks he is a citizen of the Empire: I mention it as an earnest of my desire to be true to the British nation, to be true to the Empire. I mention it to testify that when that Empire forfeited my trust, the Englishman who was its Viceroy came to know of it.29 Gandhi’s position changed marginally towards the very end of his life, in that he no longer considered himself a citizen of the Empire and called British rule in India immoral; but it was immoral only because it was not Christian in spirit! Gandhi’s delusions about White civilization and his infatuation with the Empire were at a peak during his sojourn in South Africa; these included the critical years between 1900-1910 when Tilak’s and Aurobindo’s passionate espousal of Hindu nationalism departed radically from the general diffidence, even timidity of the INC which continued to genuflect before the White man, the colonial administration, and the Empire. In this period Gandhi eagerly rushed to serve his White masters, first during the Boer War30 and then during the Bambatha or Zulu uprising, in the vain hope that his role in getting Indians to demonstrate loyalty to the British Empire during these wars would persuade a grateful White administration to treat them more kindly. In Gandhi’s own words: That the English people are somewhat more selfish than others is true, but that does not prove that every Englishman is bad. We who seek justice will have to do justice to others. Sir William (Wedderburn) does not wish ill to India – that should be enough for us. As we proceed, you will see that, if we act justly, India will be sooner free. You will see too, that, if we shun every Englishman as an enemy, Home Rule will be delayed. But if we are just to them, we shall receive their support in our progress towards the goal.31 Thus at the very beginning of Hind Swaraj, Gandhi communicated to the British his intention to douse the fire of hostility and armed resistance that the passionate nationalism of Tilak, Aurobindo and Savarkar had kindled in the hearts of ordinary Indians. In a new 29
HS, Gandhi’s ‘Quit India’ Speech, Bombay, August 8, 1942, page 184 It seems reasonable to deduce he encountered Gen. Smuts here, and the genesis of his politico-spiritual career was born, unknown, on this forgotten colonial battlefield. 31 HS, Chapter 1, The Congress and its officials, page 17 30
and significant departure from the line taken by nationalists in the INC and outside it, Gandhi declared that the enslaved people of India had the same responsibility as the ruling British race and that Indians must conduct themselves as justly towards the English as Gandhi expected the English to treat Indians. Gandhi coaxed Indians to be satisfied that William Wedderburn, a British civil servant and President of the INC was well-meaning and hence Indians should not despise and shun every Englishman. This is the crux of the matter: Gandhi placed the oppressor and the oppressed at par on the matter of doing ‘justice’; proclaimed that good intentions sufficed to lend credibility to the British government in the eyes of Indians; and most significantly, sent a veiled warning to Indians that unless they stopped viewing the entire English race as an enemy and doused their hostility towards the British government, the latter was not obliged to treat Indians better and could legitimately delay Home Rule. Gandhi issued the explicit warning that if Indians used force (he termed it violence) to attain their objectives, then the British would be justified in their use of force to repress all resistance: To use brute force, to use gun-powder is contrary to passive resistance, for it means that we want our opponent to do by force that which we desire, but he does not. And if such a use of force is justifiable, surely he is entitled to do likewise by us.32 Gandhi’s astonishing declamation regarding the sense of justice inherent in British rule flew in the face of the most recent conduct of the Raj. Tilak was arrested in 1908 on charges of seditious writing – a charge laid against the three most important leaders of the age who advocated ending colonial rule by all and every means. All three were charged for sedition and incarcerated to create the vacuum required for Gandhi’s return to India. Tilak was first tried in the ‘Police Court’ in Mumbai where he was defended by a Parsee lawyer by name Davar. From the ‘Police Court’ the case against Tilak was then moved to the Mumbai High Court where it was posted before Justice Davar – the father of Barrister Davar who defended Tilak in the ‘Police Court’. This was trial by jury and the jury comprised nine members: seven Englishmen and two Parsees. Not surprisingly Tilak was found guilty of sedition by seven-to-two and exiled to Mandalay33
32
33
HS, Chapter XVII, Passive Resistance, pp 92-93 In present day Myanmar
for six years.34 The British government placed seven Englishmen in a jury deciding a case for sedition against the King of England; such was the inherent justice of the British government so admired by Gandhi and yet this is the theme song of Hind Swaraj. But the most striking aspect of the trials of Tilak, Aurobindo and Savarkar was that not a single luminary of the INC whose ranks included distinguished barristers and lawyers trained in London, such as Gokhale and Naoroji to name just two, came forward to defend or speak in support of these intrepid warriors. These legal luminaries were Congress stalwarts and were either empire loyalists or ‘moderates’. This raises suspicions that the brutal repression and removal from public life of Tilak, Aurobindo and Savarkar with conniving silence from the Congress including Gandhi, himself an ardent faithful of the empire and a Londoneducated lawyer finally broke the backbone of the Hindu nationalist movement. Tilak was transported from India in the critical years between 1908 and 1914, Aurobindo driven from public life between 1908 and 1909 and Savarkar entombed in the Andamans for the next 11 years after being sentenced with transportation for life. Tilak’s health suffered irretrievable damage and he died soon thereafter in 1920; Aurobindo bid adieu to politics in 1910 and Savarkar was compelled to give an undertaking to the British government to desist from politics and stay confined to Ratnagiri. Modern Indian politicians who opposed the unveiling of Savarkar’s portrait in Parliament should examine the true history of those whom they acknowledge as their leaders, who made common cause with the Raj against their own people who fought, not for Home Rule or Self-Rule within the Empire, but to throw the British out of India. When Savarkar was arrested in 1948 on mere suspicion for conspiring to assassinate Gandhi, Nehru intended to incarcerate him under any pretext, even without proof of his guilt. The lawyer who defended Savarkar at this trial was L.B. (Annasaheb) Bhopatkar, from Pune. When, after his successful defense of his client, Bhopatkar returned to Pune, some of his close friends invited him to dinner where Bhopatkar told them the story which was not given publicity at the time. It was not until June 16, 1983, that it appeared in a Pune Marathi newspaper called ‘Kal, edited by S.R. Date, and is reproduced in an English translation in the
34
Flashbacks of a different age, by Manohar Malgonkar, The Tribune, May 16, 1999
Savarkar Memorial volume published on February 16, 1989. I quote relevant excerpts from it. While in Delhi for the trial, Bhopatkar had made the Hindu Mahasabha office his headquarters. It seems that Bhopatkar was trying to work out his defense strategy and found that, ‘while specific charges had been framed against Savarkar’s co-accused, there were no specific charges against Savarkar himself’. He was ‘pondering’ about how to proceed when he was told that there was a telephone call for him, so he went to the telephone and said: ‘This is Annasaheb Bhopatkar speaking’. The caller replied, ‘This is Dr Ambedkar speaking, kindly meet me this evening at 6-30 at the sixth milestone on the (Mathura?) Road’. Before Bhopatkar could say anything more, the caller had put down the receiver. That evening Bhopatkar drove up to the appointed place at the appointed time. Babasaheb Ambedkar was already there. He had driven up in his own car and had brought no one else with him. He motioned to Bhopatkar to get into his car and drove on for another mile or so before stopping. Then he turned to Bhopatkar and said: ‘There is no charge against your client. Quite worthless evidence has been concocted. Several members of the Cabinet were strongly of the opinion that Savarkar should not be implicated on mere doubt. But, because of the insistence of a topranking leader, he was implicated in this case. Even Sardar Patel could not go against him. You fight the case fearlessly. You will win’. After that Ambedkar ‘turned his car, brought me to my own car, and left’. After recounting this incident, Bhopatkar warned his listeners that ‘this should not be divulged because it would be a betrayal of Babasaheb Ambedkar’. It does not need much imagination to identify the person referred to as ‘a top-ranking leader’. But it is not for me to pass judgment on the veracity or otherwise of this story; either way it raises
embarrassing questions as to the motives and methods of national leaders held in the highest esteem. What I wish to stress is the fact that Bhimrao Ambedkar and Vinayakrao Savarkar did not see eye-to-eye on many of the major political and social issues of those times, but that did not detract from the respect which each had for the other. Here Ambedkar was going out of the way to make sure that his being in the nation’s Cabinet did not mean that he necessarily endorsed the questionable practices of some of its members to settle scores with their political opponents.35 In his Pondicherry retreat, Aurobindo observed the destructive path along which Gandhi was leading the INC and the freedom movement. He scathingly dismissed Gandhi's loyalism and passive resistance as a tactic to disarm Indians against the Whiteman: Gandhi's loyalism is not a pattern for India which is not South Africa, and even Gandhi's loyalism is corrected by passive resistance. An abject tone of servility in politics is not ‘diplomacy’ and is not good politics. It does not deceive or disarm the opponent; it does encourage nervelessness, fear and a cringing cunning in the subject people. What Gandhi has been attempting in South Africa is to secure for Indians the position of kindly treated serfs,—as a stepping-stone to something better.... Our position is different and our aim is different, not to secure a few privileges, but to create a nation of men fit for independence and able to secure and keep it.36 The Boer War was a conflict between two colonial powers with competing and conflicting interests in keeping South Africa and native Africans enslaved. Gandhi chose to side with the Empire during the Boer War (1899-1902), though his sympathies (for inexplicable reasons) lay with the Boers.37 He organized an ambulance corps for the British army and commanded a Red Cross unit. The war took the lives of 14,000 native Africans. The 1906 Bambatha Revolution, an uprising of Zulus against White colonizers, was akin to 1857 in India. Here again, Gandhi rushed 35
Flashbacks of a different age, by Manohar Malgonkar, The Tribune, May 16, 1999 36 August 29, 1914, from a letter to Motilal Roy, a revolutionary from Chandernagore who later attempted to create a commune based on Sri Aurobindo's ideals. 37 Descendants of the early Dutch colonizers.
to demonstrate his loyalty to the Crown and organized an ambulance corps ‘to assist the British in the campaign to put down the rebellion’. Gandhi’s decision to use his leadership status to involve Indians in wars not their own, wars which plunged native Africans deeper into the abyss of colonial repression, deserves the severest criticism. As leader of Indians in South Africa and later in India of the INC, Gandhi actively exhorted Indians on as many as three occasions to fight and die for the British Empire in wars where Indians had no stake. The man who penned Hind Swaraj as a prescriptive book on non-violence as the only tool of engagement, the messianic crusader against armed resistance by Indians against colonial rule, actively coaxed Indians to die for the Empire! Indians died by the thousands during the Boer War, during the Zulu uprising, during the First World War, and during the Second World War. They died for their colonial oppressors, and without furthering the cause of their enslaved nation. We do not know the exact numbers of Indians who died in these wars because the Empire lacked the sense of moral obligation to maintain a scrupulous account of the ‘collateral damage’ caused by competing colonialisms. Neither the entrenched academia nor the polity has dared assert that Gandhi, till the very end of his life, displayed two contrasting and even contradictory characteristics: the first, a slavish adoration of the British Empire, and the second, a despotic and coercive conduct towards his colleagues and acolytes. With these attributes he subjugated the Indian community in South Africa and later an entire nation in India to his individual will and subjective opinions on loyalty to the Empire, non-violence, the merits and rewards of self-suffering, and eventually forced the nation to accept Jawaharlal Nehru as his political heir. It merits attention that after each of these acts of toadying, the British Empire in South Africa and India only hardened its stance against Indians to make sure they understood where they stood in colonial esteem. More repressive laws and measures were introduced in the immediate aftermath of the first three wars, and after the fourth, the Empire declared its intention to vivisect the motherland as a reward for Indian participation in the Second World War. The sequence is self-revelatory: ·
1902, 31 May: the Boer War ends with signing of the Treaty of Vereeniging.
· · · · ·
1903: The Peace Preservation Ordinance and Ordinance No. 5 of 1903 is passed38 1906, February-June: The Bambatha uprising erupts and is put down ruthlessly. 1906 August: The British administration appreciates Gandhi for bearing stretchers in the war and promptly introduces the Asiatic Law Amendment Ordinance. 1918: World War I draws to an end and the draconian Rowlatt Act is passed in India, leading to widespread protests culminating in the Jalianwala Bagh massacre. 1945: World War II ends; the British Empire announces India’s independence and partition in the same breath.
2.7 Satyagraha’s USP Satyagraha’s special allure lay in the fact that it was propagated by Gandhi and thus vested with a high degree of sanctity, and because of motivated propaganda that it delivered astounding results. Satyagraha, in popular imagination moulded by motivated history writing, reputedly brought the British Empire to its knees and forced its withdrawal from India without shedding a drop of blood. Yet it bears remembering that when Gandhi penned Hind Swaraj in 1909, his satyagraha was just three years old, and when he left South Africa for India via London in 1914, it was not even ten years old and had very little to show for itself. Nevertheless, when Gandhi stepped on Indian soil in January 1915, he was made de facto leader of the Indian National Congress on account of the moral authority vested upon him and his Satyagraha. Gandhi’s moral authority rested on the following: · ·
· ·
He is supposed to have taken a public vow to abstain from sex. He undertook ‘partial’ fasts lasting several days either as a ‘non-violent’ coercive measure to have his way, which on at least two occasions in South Africa was an act of penitence for the ‘sins’ of his disciples. These fasts were promoted as the highest expression of selfsuffering. Self-suffering was in turn promoted as the noblest human virtue, synonymous with passive resistance.
The constant use of words like ‘self-suffering’, ‘love’, ‘soul’ and ‘body’ reveals the influence of Christian theology upon Gandhi’s 38
The Peace Preservation Ordinance and Ordinance no. 5 of 1903 regulated the reentry of Indians who had left the Transvaal for Natal, the Cape Colony and India when war broke out. It segregated Asiatics into locations, refused trading licenses except in Asiatic bazaars, and pre-war licenses of Asiatics became nontransferable.
thinking. At this point, the core of his thought comprised the mutually antagonistic Christian dichotomy of body/soul. And just as Gandhi attributed the quality of ahimsa to satya, he bestowed the quality of love to the soul, though ‘atman’ in Hindu thought, like satya, stands on its own. Atman has no qualities; atman is just atman. One need not accept all that Tolstoy says – some of his facts are not accurately stated – to realize the central truth of his indictment of the present system – which is, to understand and act upon the irresistible power of the soul over the body, of love, which is an attribute of the soul, over the brute or body force generated by the stirring up in us of evil passions.39 In Hindu dharmic tradition, dualities like body/mind, nature/culture, man/woman, are complementary in their roles and relationships, not antagonistic, much less mutually exclusive. Yet, as we see in the quotation above, Gandhi equates the wholesome Hindu concept of kama, the legitimate quest for emotional pleasure and stability, with ‘evil passions’, thus reducing human emotions to mere sexuality, and equating the latter with sin. This flawed understanding of dharma had previously led Gandhi to equate force with violence; ahimsa with truth; and to uphold ahimsa and self-suffering as the noblest of human qualities. Indeed, Mahatma Gandhi posited self-suffering as a noble contrast to the use of force/violence, and equated violence with Aurobindo, Savarkar, Dhingra, Bhagat Singh and Subhash Bose. In this manner, towering nationalists who wanted the British to pay with their blood for the sins of colonialism were de-legitimized by Gandhi who elevated his masochistic fasting to a high exemplar of Hindu culture. We shall now examine Gandhi’s experiments with the truth of his vow of continence and his celebrated fasts. 2.8 Gandhi inspired most by Christ The striking feature of Gandhi’s religious and spiritual leanings is that they seem more influenced by Christ and Christianity than by traditional Hindu Gurus and Hindu scriptures, which he is alleged to have read copiously during his second term of imprisonment in South Africa between October-December 1908. A hotchpotch of extreme Christian practices like self-mortification and ordinary Hindu customs like ‘vrata’ and ‘upvas’ to which he would have 39
HS, Preface to Gandhi’s edition of the English translation of Leo Tolstoy’s ‘Letter To A Hindoo’, November 19, 1909, page 138
been exposed as a child, seem to have gone into the making of the baffling brew called Gandhian Satyagraha. There is no mention in any of Gandhi’s writings that he was influenced by any past or contemporary Hindu religious teacher. We have no way of knowing if, in the critical years of his activism in South Africa, he ever met or sought an audience with any Guru or Acharya who could have educated him on the nuances of the use of force against evil (adharma) and about self-sacrifice and selfabnegation being more Hindu in approach even in war time than Gandhi’s adamant propagation of self-suffering and selfmortification which was and is un-Hindu in character. The only ‘religious’ leader Gandhi is reported to have met, other than the pervasive presence of Christian priests and believers in his life, is Madame Blavatsky, founder of the Theosophical Movement. There was a very brief encounter with the Paramacharya of Kanchi matham when Gandhi was touring the South, and an equally brief interaction with Sri Narayana Guru at the time of the Vaikkom movement for temple entry, but these do not amount to consistent guidance by gurus rooted in dharma. Even the Jaina tradition of ahimsa did not find merit with Gandhi, according to his close associate K.G. Mashruwala: Of the influences of the Buddha and Buddhism, Mahavira and Jainism, and Christ and Christianity on Gandhi, KG Mashruwala, one of his close associates, declared that of the three, Buddha and Buddhism exerted relatively little influence on Gandhi; as for Mahavira and Jainism he was attracted more to their doctrine of the manysidedness of truth (syadvada) than to their theory of non-violence (ahimsa); by contrast, Christ and Christianity exerted a relatively strong influence on him. He recognized that there was a ‘great difference between Christ’s active non-violence coupled with humanitarian service and the retiring, inactive non-violence of Jainism and Buddhism.’ The latter two religions did not have a concept of God, which presented him with a theoretical problem in dealing with his Buddhist and Jain friends.40 Albert West, a close associate and inmate of Gandhi’s Phoenix Settlement, who managed Indian Opinion for over fourteen years, averred:
40
HS, Footnote by Editor in Foreword, page 9
On the wall of his office was a framed engraving of the head of Jesus Christ, and it occupied a place over his desk. Perhaps this started off our conversations on spiritual matters, which showed me how Gandhi, a Hindu, could be, at the same time, one of the most thorough followers of Christ's teachings that I ever met even among professing Christians. He had a good knowledge of the New Testament, and he put into actual day-to-day practice the principles laid down in the Sermon on the Mount.41 Deeply influenced by Ruskin’s ‘Unto This Last’, Gandhi set up the Phoenix Settlement near Durban in 1904. Considering himself a loyal citizen of the British Empire and inflamed by Christ’s ‘active non-violence coupled with humanitarian service’, and enthused by the Empire’s response to his stretcher-boy role during the Boer War, Gandhi again organized the Indian Ambulance Corps in service of the Empire during the Bambatha Uprising. His soul aflame with the ideals Christ stood for, Gandhi decided to transform the Phoenix Settlement into a kind of Christian Mission whose inhabitants would live lives of self-suffering Christian monks. He believed the defining characteristics of self-suffering Christian monks were embracing poverty and abstaining from sex. Equating Hindu self-realisation with achieving the Christian Kingdom of God within us, in as many words, Gandhi further equated Christian ‘embracing poverty’ with the average Hindu’s simple and unostentatious way of life. After a great deal of experience, it seems to me that those who want to become passive resisters for the service of the country have to observe perfect chastity, adopt poverty, follow truth and cultivate fearlessness.42 Hindu tradition celebrated abundance and prosperity for all institutions and collectives: for temples, mathams, kingdoms, for village, society and nation, while Christ and Christianity celebrated poverty for the individual of faith. Varnashramdharma’s primary responsibility was creating abundance and prosperity in every aspect of collective life: in food, in the creative arts and culture, in knowledge, and in trade and commerce. Kshatriya dharma ensured that society remained peaceful, stable and undisturbed in its primary responsibility to create wealth and abundance for all. ‘Embracing poverty’ militates against Hindu varna dharma. Even when Gandhi spoke and wrote 41 42
http://www.mkgandhi.org/articles/earlydays.htm HS, Chapter XVII, Passive Resistance, page 96
about economic development and progress, he did not invoke Hindu dharmic traditions but quoted from the Bible, even to an Indian audience: The question we are asking ourselves this evening is not a new one. It was addressed to Jesus two thousand years ago. St. Mark (ch.10, vv. 17-31) has vividly described the scene. Jesus is in his solemn mood; he is earnest. He talks of eternity. He knows the world about him. He is himself the greatest economist of his time. He succeeded in economizing time and space – he transcended them. It is to him at his best that one comes running, kneels down and asks: ‘Good Master, what shall I do that I may inherit eternal life?’ Then Jesus beholding him, loved him and said unto him: ‘One thing thou lackest. Go thy way, sell whatever thou hast and give to the poor and thou shalt have treasure in Heaven – come take up the cross and follow me’ …And Jesus looked around about and said unto his disciples: ‘How hardly shall they that have riches enter into the kingdom of God’. And the disciples were astonished at his words. But Jesus answereth again and said unto them: ‘Children, how hard it is for them that trust in riches to enter into the kingdom of God. It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of God’.43 Gandhi made this exposition on the Bible and Jesus Christ in his lecture, ‘Does economic progress clash with real progress?’ delivered at the Muir Central College Economic Society, Allahabad. Having set up the unnatural monastic Phoenix Settlement in 1904, and having emulated Christ’s ‘humanitarian service’ by organizing the Indian Ambulance Corps for the British Empire during the Bambatha Uprising in 1906, Gandhi went on to implement the second most important Christian monastic vow, of continence for life. Like everything else about Gandhi, this decision was not confined to him alone, but imposed upon all who chose to live with him. All inhabitants of the settlement were expected to abstain from sex. The vow of continence for life that Gandhi made and imposed on others violated the basic tenets of ashrama dharma governing the 43
HS, Economic development and Moral development, 22 December, 1916, page 159
different stages of life: brahmacharya, grihasta (householder/familyman), vanaprastha (householder who becomes a forest-dweller in pursuit of spiritual self-realisation) and sanyasa. Abstinence from sex for life in Hindu tradition was demanded even at a young age only from sanyasis; for a brahmachari the discipline applied only as long as he remained within that ashrama. The vow ended naturally when the brahmachari became a grihastha. Abstinence from sex was undertaken by grihasthas with total ease for specific periods on specific occasions as important disciplines of the mind and body for fulfilling the several vratas a grihasta would undertake in his lifetime; the bottom line however, was that grihasthas were not expected to undertake a vow of continence for life unless they gave up their grihastasharama with finality to enter vanaprastha or sanyasa. It is hardly surprising that there were ‘lapses’ in the Phoenix Settlement. Gandhi, who had a Christian understanding of sex as abominable, undertook penitential fasts to atone for the ‘moral lapse’, once in 1913 and again in January 1914, just months before he left South Africa for India. These penitential fasts may have been fresh in the memory of the adoring crowds which gathered to receive the ‘saint’ as he arrived in Mumbai in January 1915. That Gandhi unnaturally imposed upon himself and others a discipline for which neither he nor they had prepared themselves is evident not only from the ‘lapses’ of his colleagues and acolytes, for which he undertook fasts of atonement, but also from the fact that Gandhi himself was never confident that he had conquered his senses in this regard (as he says), and therefore conducted unprecedented and un-Hindu experiments in brahmacharya. These unconventional experiments were conducted by Gandhi in Kasturba’s lifetime and even after her death in 1944, causing deep anger and sorrow among Gandhi’s close associates and friends. By 1946, even his son Devdas had stopped talking to him. The striking contrast in thinking and articulation between Aurobindo and Gandhi on every subject is driven home on the issue of compelling all persons to fit into a certain mould without heed to their individual capabilities and circumstances – in this case Gandhi’s insistence that passive resistance was the only virtue with attendant qualities of chastity, poverty and truth linked uncompromisingly to it. Aurobindo articulated with great accuracy the different ideals that Hindu dharma placed before people belonging to different varnas. Hinduism recognizes human nature and makes no such impossible demand. It sets one ideal for the saint, another for the man of action, a third for the
trader, a fourth for the serf. To prescribe the same ideal for all is to bring about varnasankara, the confusion of duties, and destroy society and race. If we are content to be serfs, then indeed, boycott is a sin for us, not because it is a violation of love, but because it is a violation of the sudra’s duty of obedience and contentment. Politics is the ideal of the kshatriya, and the morality of the kshatriya ought to govern our political actions. To impose in politics the brahminical duty of saintly sufferance is to preach varnasankara.44 Given Gandhi’s shallow understanding of politics and given that his satyagraha had not been tested on home soil, it would seem that the halo of ‘Mahatma’ that greeted him in January 1915 was premature to say the least, motivated by a need to promote the concept of satyagraha to Hindus at large and to the INC in particular, not only as an effective tool of engagement but also as the noblest of virtues. The British saw in Gandhi’s Satyagraha the first real possibility of keeping the INC in check and of ensuring that a loyalist of the British Empire emerged as the tallest Indian leader. 2.9 The truth about Satyagraha’s effectiveness As previously mentioned, at the time of writing Hind Swaraj in 1909, Satyagraha was just three years old and had little to show for its efficacy. Gandhi made two ‘lobbying’ visits to London, once in 1906 and again in 1909, to meet high government officials, including Winston Churchill, to persuade them to act upon the South African government to end discriminatory laws against Indians. Nothing substantial emerged out of the visits for the Indians in South Africa, but Gandhi’s political career received a major boost from both visits, not least because he had the political backing of Dadabhai Naoroji, Gopal Krishna Gokhale and William Wedderburn in 1906, who promoted him among British government officials. It bears recollection that Gandhi was an unremarkable student of law and could not make a profitable career in India after returning from his studies abroad. He went to South Africa only because there was then a dearth of Indian lawyers among the Indian community. The Indian community in South Africa, in the last decade of the nineteenth century and early decades of the twentieth century comprised largely of illiterate Indians taken as 44
Aurobindo’s treatise on passive resistance, The Morality of Boycott, vol. 1, page 125
contracted indentured labour and scantily-educated traders who migrated as ‘free’ Indians. It was only natural that with his foreign education in law and his knowledge of the English language, Gandhi not only assumed leadership of the Indians in South Africa but had leadership thrust upon him, to adapt an English adage on greatness. Gandhi was faced with bestial and rapacious colonial powers which had reduced the native Africans to utter poverty, servitude and slavery. If Gandhi had had an understanding of the concept of nation, the basis of nationhood and its decisive place in the polity of a nation, had he understood the concept of janmabhoomi or matrubhoomi, had he understood the identical nature of the brutal conquest of Africa and America by White Christians in faithful adherence to the tenets of their religion, and seen the enslavement of Indians in India as similar to the enslavement of native Africans in Africa, he may have viewed native Africans without the contempt and ridicule he expressed in speech and writing; and perhaps the nature and objectives of his ‘struggle’ in South Africa and later in India may have been different. Gandhi however remained blind to the connection between Christianity, the British Empire, colonialism and apartheid. The unexpected leadership role thrust upon him probably compelled Gandhi, already enamoured of the White race, to undertake a motivated study of the Bible. Thus an uninformed mind infatuated with the Empire, which saw no evil in the White race, fell easily under the spell of the New Testament biblical hero. Accepting the leadership thrust upon him on account of his knowledge of law and the English language, Gandhi sought to strengthen his leadership with moral authority by fashioning himself self-consciously in the mould of Christ. Gopal Krishna Gokhale saw great potential in Gandhi as a possible foil to the fiery Aurobindo and the highly revered Tilak in the INC and took him under his wing. He began to take active interest in Indian affairs in South Africa and used his position as Member in the Viceroy’s Council to promote Gandhi with the British political establishment in London in 1906, when Gandhi was still an obscure Indian lawyer in South Africa. It is possible that Gandhi’s Satyagraha, first launched in 1906 and coinciding with the period when the INC was passing through an extremely turbulent phase attracted Gokhale’s attention. The INC would later split in December 1907, but Tilak, Aurobindo and Savarkar, who advocated swaraj and swadeshi in the sense of total political independence, had captured the imagination of ordinary Hindus and the moderate stance of Gokhale, Motilal Nehru and others was losing even the minimal influence it wielded among Indians.
The British government sensed an opportunity in Gokhale’s promotion of Gandhi in 1906 when the latter was in London, especially in Gandhi’s modeling himself after Christ. Unknown perhaps to Gokhale and Gandhi, the Raj may have started to make its own calculations. The immediate consequence of British interest in Gandhi was that within three years, by the time Gandhi returned to London in 1909 on his second advocacy tour, Joseph Doke, a British missionary, wrote the first biography of Gandhi. At this time, the 39-year-old Gandhi had few legitimate achievements that merited a biography in his honour. It seems reasonable to conclude that the biography was written because Gandhi openly acknowledged finding tremendous inspiration in the Bible and Jesus Christ; because he invoked the New Testament hero’s methods in his political career; and hence to promote Gandhi as a saintly man with great moral force. Given the reception accorded to him in London in 1909, and the ready access he had to high government officials, Gandhi can be forgiven for taking his saintliness seriously and thinking satyagraha legitimized by his ‘saintliness’ was effective in getting the British to amend at least a few of the vast body of discriminatory laws against Indians. The ‘making’ of the Mahatma by vested interests had begun in right earnest. *****
Chapter 3 Gandhi’s success in South Africa 3.1 The build-up to becoming and being Mahatma The time-line of Gandhi’s political career in South Africa until his final departure for India in 1914 is suggestive of the intentions of all the lead players – the Imperial British government in London, Gandhi himself, and the then Congress leadership. In September 1888, Gandhi left for England to pursue higher studies in law. At best a mediocre student, in December 1889 he failed to pass the London matriculation exam in the first attempt. As son of the Dewan of Porbundar, Gandhi would have enjoyed a certain social status in India; in England, because he belonged to the miniscule section of Indians who could at that time afford to travel abroad for higher studies, he would not have been exposed to the kind of naked racism he would soon experience in South Africa. Unable to establish himself as a lawyer after his return to India in June 1891, Gandhi seized the offer of legal work by Dada Abdullah and Co., and set sail for Durban in April 1893. Here he quickly experienced the ugly manifestations of apartheid in every aspect of life in South Africa. Having consciously chosen to adopt western clothes and manners, Gandhi felt personally humiliated that his western demeanor, London education, and status as a British citizen (which at that time meant being Indian serf in a British-occupied colony) did not count for anything in South Africa – not in Natal, a British colony, nor in the Boer-ruled Transvaal. Apartheid was as deeply entrenched in Natal as it was in the Transvaal. Gandhi began to realize that a White British citizen of a British colony was more equal than a Brown or Black British citizen of a British colony. He was also beginning to realize that the White supremacists in Natal and in the Transvaal treated all ‘coloured races’ or non-White peoples with the same contempt and brutality. The son of the Dewan of Porbundar could not digest this unfamiliar slight to his self-esteem - that he and other Indians were not equal with the White British citizen before the Queen Empress; worse, they could be ‘degraded’ to the level of native Africans. From then on, Gandhi made it his mission to fight to get the Natal and Transvaal governments to raise the status of Indians above that of the native African populace. To this end he began to write protest letters and memorandums (or ‘memorials’ as he called them), to everyone in power in South Africa and in London. He wrote persistently to the Viceroy in India, to Chamberlain, Secretary of State for the Colonies in London, to Dadabhai Naoroji, Gokhale and the Bombay-born Sir Mancherji
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Bhownaggree, (Bhavnagari) the first non-White British Member of Parliament and President of the Parsee Association of Europe. In a remarkable turn of events, and too frequently for sheer coincidence, Gandhi’s path now begins to cross the same people, in different positions, at different times, between 1895 and 1909. The imperial government, it seems reasonable to conclude, was shuffling the same officials around in positions from where they had to deal with India and, more pertinently, with Gandhi. Joseph Chamberlain was Secretary of State for the Colonies from 1895 to 1903. During this period, between 1895 and 1900, Lord Ampthill served Chamberlain as assistant private secretary and then as private secretary; possibly he learnt about Gandhi from the latter’s prolific letters to Chamberlain. During this period, Lord Elgin was Viceroy of India. In 1903, following a change of government in Britain, Lord Elgin replaced Chamberlain as Secretary of State for the Colonies. Lord Ampthill, already Governor of Madras in 1900, at the age of 31 years, was elevated to pro-tem Viceroy 1904. In 1906, when Gandhi traveled to London from South Africa on a deputation mission, Winston Churchill was Undersecretary of State for the Colonies; on his second deputation visit to London in 1909, Lord Ampthill was back in London and facilitating Gandhi’s meetings with important government officials. It was in 1909 that Gandhi wrote the famous letter to the young Lord Ampthill, positioning himself for a leadership role in India in the near future. Gandhi’s path would cross that of Winston Churchill again more than two decades later when Gandhi would participate in the Round Table Conference in London. All these men knew Gandhi from the 1890s itself, and all of them knew India exceedingly well. Initially, Gandhi’s copious letters had little effect on these important men, but as his ceaseless efforts to highlight the severe discrimination faced by Indians in South Africa began to catch the hostile attention of the Natal and Transvaal governments, domestic political compulsions and the beginnings of internal rumbling within the INC forced Gokhale, Wedderburn and Dadabhai Naoroji to take note of Gandhi and the plight of South African Indians. Around this time, London also began to take note of the condition of Indians in the Transvaal as a means of scoring political points against the Boer regime, while making only cosmetic changes to Natal’s severely discriminatory laws against the Indian community. Britain’s intrusive interest in the plight of Indians under the Boer regime achieved no lasting gains for the Indians; however, after 1906, when Gandhi adopted passive resistance as the tool of engagement, converging interests in his pacifism forced Congress and the Raj to collaborate with each other. Gandhi went to London on two futile missions to canvass with important British government officials to improve the condition of Indians in Natal and the Transvaal, but after the Boer War, when Britain annexed the
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Boer republics as self-governing entities into the Empire, matters worsened for Indians and the Imperial government saw no reason to engage itself further with the Indian question. But Gandhi retained the attention of the Raj. Well-to-do and well educated Parsees in London, who were well networked with Parsees in South Africa and in the Congress in India, important London-educated and/or London-based Indians, now evinced interest in Gandhi. Their clout with the imperial government in London coincided with the British government’s own interest in Gandhi. All these pieces would soon mesh neatly into each other to form the emerging picture of India’s immediate political future. The years between 1900 and 1909 show Gandhi, under the motivated patronage of the ‘Moderate’ leadership of the INC, positioning himself as Empire-loyalist and hence also a virulent critic of the Nationalists (the so-called ‘Extremists’) and of armed resistance. During this critical period in the making of the Mahatma, Gandhi earned his halo by throwing in his lot, first with the Queen Empress, and then with the King of the British Empire. It matters little if Gandhi’s loyalties possibly changed by the 1940s; we hope to show through the timeline that follows that Gandhi chose his friends and allies well at a time when it mattered most to him. · 1888 October 28, Gandhi arrived in London to study law. · 1889 November, he is introduced to Madame Blavatsky and Annie Besant and from then on, under the influence of the Theosophists, read religious literature and began to attend church services. · 1891 June, attended lectures by Dadabhai Naoroji. · 1891 June 12, returned to India after completion of studies. · 1893 April, sailed for Durban on legal work from Dada Abdullah and Co. · 1893 Sometime after May, vowed to fight colour prejudice; met Baker, attorney and Christian preacher, who introduced him to other White Christians. · 1894 August 22, Gandhi took his first important political step by establishing the Natal Indian Congress in response to the proposed Franchise Law Amendment Bill which sought to disenfranchise the Indian community 3.2 Christianity’s early and lasting impact on Gandhi · 1894 November 26, Gandhi’s growing interest in Christianity made him an agent for selling Christian literature: If there is anyone who would like to have a chat on the subject, it would afford me the greatest pleasure to have a quiet interchange of views. In such a case, I would thank any such gentleman to correspond with me personally. I need hardly mention that the sale of the books is not a pecuniary concern.
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The books will be gladly lent in some cases. I would try to conclude with a quotation from a letter of the late Abbe Constant to the authors: ‘Humanity has always and everywhere asked itself these three supreme questions: Whence come we? What are we? Whither go we? Now these questions at length find an answer complete, satisfactory, and consolatory in The Perfect Way’.1 1895 April, visited Trappist monastery near Durban and was impressed with the practice of vegetarianism from a so-called Christian ‘spiritual’ point of view: The settlement is a quiet little model village, owned on the truest republican principles. The principle of liberty, equality and fraternity is carried out in its entirety. Every man is a brother, every woman a sister. The monks number about 120 on the settlement, and the nuns, or the sisters as they are called, number about 60. They take no intoxicating liquors except under medical advice. None may keep money for private use. All are equally rich or poor. They may not read newspapers and books that are not religious. They may not read any religious books but only those that are allowed. For bedrooms they have a large hall (but none too large for the inmates) which contains about 80 beds. Every available space is utilized for the beds. In the Native quarters they seem to have overdone it in point of beds. As soon as we entered the sleeping hall for Natives, we noticed the closeness and the stuffy air. The beds are all joined together, separated by only single boards. There was hardly space enough to walk. They believe in no colour distinctions. The Natives are accorded the same treatment as the whites. They are mostly children. They get the same food as the brothers, and are dressed as well as they themselves are. While it is generally said, not without some truth, that the Christian Kaffir is a failure, everyone, even the wildest skeptic, admit that the mission of the Trappists has proved the most successful in point of turning out really good, Christian Natives. While the mission schools of other
1
Letter to The Natal Mercury, November 26, The Natal Mercury, 3-12-1896, CWMG, Vol. 1, pp 18586.
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denominations very often enable the Natives to contract all the terrible vices of the Western civilization, and very rarely produce any moral effect on them, the Natives of the Trappist mission are patterns of simplicity, virtue and gentleness. It was a treat to see them saluting passers-by in a humble yet dignified manner. There are about 1,200 Natives on the mission, including children and adults. They have all exchanged a life of sloth, indolence and superstition, for one of industry, usefulness and devotion to one Supreme God. They love and respect, and are in turn loved and respected by, the Natives living in their neighbourhood who, as a rule, supply them with the converts. The most prominent feature of the settlement is that you see religion everywhere. Every room has a Cross and, on the entrance, a small receptacle for holy water which every inmate reverently applies to his eyelids, the forehead and the chest. Even the quick walk to the flour mill is not without some reminder of the Cross. It is a lovely footpath. The walk thus forms a continuous exercise for calm contemplation, unmarred by any other thoughts, or outside noise and bustle. Some of the inscriptions are: ‘Jesus falls a first time’; ‘Jesus falls a second time’; ‘Simon carries the Cross’; ‘Jesus is nailed to the Cross’; ‘Jesus is laid in his mother’s lap’, etc., etc.. There are about twelve such settlements in South Africa, most of which are in Natal. There are in all about 300 monks and about 120 nuns. Such are our vegetarians in Natal. Though they do not make of vegetarianism a creed, though they base it simply on the ground that a vegetarian diet helps them to crucify the flesh better, and though, perhaps, they are not even aware of the existence of the vegetarian societies, and would not even care to read any vegetarian literature, where is the vegetarian who would not be proud of this noble band, even a casual intercourse with whom fills one with a spirit of love, charity and self-sacrifice, and who are a living testimony to the triumph of vegetarianism from a spiritual point of view? I know from personal experience that a visit to
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the farm is worth a voyage from London to Natal. It cannot but produce a lasting holy impression on the mind. No matter whether one is a Protestant, a Christian or a Buddhist or what not, one cannot help exclaiming, after a visit to the farm: ‘If this is Roman Catholicism, everything said against it is a lie’. It proves conclusively, to my mind, that a religion appears divine or devilish, according as its professors choose to make it appear.2 (emphasis added) ‘The Natives of the Trappist mission are patterns of simplicity, virtue and gentleness. It was a treat to see them saluting passers-by in a humble yet dignified manner’ remarked Gandhi for whom the saluting native symbolised the successfully civilized slave. Aurobindo’s comment on the other hand on the issue of the saluting Indian native is typically laced with biting sarcasm. A ‘veteran’ laments the decay of manners among the people of this country, in the hospitable columns of the Pioneer. There was a time, only forty years ago, when on the approach of a European, Indian lads would cry – ‘Gora ata, gora ata’ – and skid. When the same class of lads now ‘pass a European with a cigarette between their lips and stare him calmly in the face’ and a ‘large number of natives salaam with their left hands’ – the world or the British Empire, which means the same thing, must be nearing its end.3 It is impossible to argue with a man who sees but refuses to acknowledge. Gandhi saw native Africans cramped into habitations no bigger than cattle pens, saw that the missionaries were bringing in children from the neighbouring villages to convert them, saw that the Trappist missionaries were living in closed communes from where all outside influences, including books were either banned or closely monitored, thereby disproving his eulogy of ‘liberty, equality and fraternity’, saw that the missionaries were practicing vegetarianism from a narrow understanding of some aspect of their own religion. Yet, because vegetarianism was then Gandhi’s pet fetish, he closed his eyes and mind to the truth of life in a Christian mission and exuded breathless admiration. Possibly the Trappist monastery inspired Gandhi’s own Phoenix and Tolstoy settlements, soon
2
3
‘A band of vegetarian missionaries’, The Vegetarian, 18-5-1895, CWMG, Vol. 1, pp 239-44.
By the Way, Bande Mataram, October 11, 1906, page 189
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established in South Africa, and his later ashrams in Wardha and Sabarmati in India. · 1896 January, The Times, London, striking a racially uncharacteristic editorial note, referred to Gandhi as one ‘whose efforts on behalf of his Indian fellow-subjects in South Africa entitle him to respect’. 3.3 Gandhi links Indian polity with South Africa · 1896 June 5, Gandhi left for India to meet important public figures and to address public meetings between August and October 1896, to raise awareness about the discrimination faced by the Indian community in South Africa. Gandhi travelled to Bombay, Pune, Madras, Calcutta and Nagpur and met M.G. Ranade, Badruddin Tyabji, Pherozeshah Mehta, B.G. Tilak, G.K. Gokhale, Dr. RG Bhandarkar and Surendranath Banerjea. · 1896 September 26, Gandhi addressed a public meeting in Bombay, presided over by Sir Pherozeshah Mehta under the auspices of the Framji Cowasji Institute: A general feeling throughout South Africa is that of hatred towards Indian, encouraged by the newspapers and connived at, even countenanced by, the legislators. Every Indian, without exception, is a coolie in the estimation of the general body of the Europeans. Storekeepers are ‘coolie storekeepers’. Indian clerks and schoolmasters are ‘coolie clerks’ and ‘coolie schoolmasters’. Naturally, neither the traders nor the English-educated Indians are treated with any degree of respect. Wealth and abilities in an Indian count for naught in that country except to serve the interests of the European Colonists. We are the ‘Asian dirt to be heartily cursed’. We are ‘squalid coolies with truth-less tongues’. We are ‘the real canker that is eating into the very vitals of the community’. We are ‘parasites, semi-barbarous Asiatics’. We ‘live upon rice and we are chock-full of vice’. Statute-books describe the Indians as belonging to the ‘aboriginal or semi-barbarous races of Asia’, while, as a matter of fact, there is hardly one Indian in South Africa belonging to the aboriginal stock. The Santhals of Assam will be as useless in South Africa as the natives of that country. You can easily imagine how difficult it must be for a respectable Indian to exist in such a country. I am sure, gentlemen, that if our President went to South Africa, he would find it, to use a colloquial phrase, ‘mighty hard’ to
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secure accommodation in a hotel, and he would not feel very comfortable in a first-class railway carriage in Natal, and, after reaching Volksrust, he would be put out unceremoniously from his first-class compartment and accommodated in a tin compartment where Kaffirs are packed like sheep. Ours is one continual struggle against a degradation sought to be inflicted upon us by the Europeans, who desire to degrade us to the level of the raw Kaffir whose occupation is hunting, and whose sole ambition is to collect a certain number of cattle to buy a wife with and, then, pass his life in indolence and nakedness. The aim of the Christian Governments, so we read, is to raise people whom they come in contact with or whom they control. It is otherwise in South Africa. There, the deliberately expressed object is not to allow the Indian to rise higher in the scale of civilization but to lower him to the position of the Kaffir.4 (emphasis added) Gandhi’s ‘epoch-making struggle’ in South Africa was limited to getting the imperial regime in London and the Boer government to dilute apartheid just enough to raise the status of Indians above that of native Africans. While the reference to Indians as ‘coolies’ enraged Gandhi, he himself employed the pejorative and derogatory ‘kaffir’ without qualms for the native Africans. Throughout his sojourn in South Africa, Gandhi never once felt that what was humiliating and morally wrong for Indians was so much more humiliating and worse for native Africans whose homeland had been invaded and occupied by sundry Europeans and to which even educated Indians had migrated to make a better living. Gandhi’s infatuation for Christianity, for the Queen and for the Empire, his contempt for Hinduism as practiced by ordinary Hindus, his delusions about Christian rule, all remained intact when he returned to India in 1915. Some of his views changed minimally, but the core remained undisturbed till his death. Gandhi’s abject ignorance about the consequences of religious conversion is evident from his casual observation about native Africans ‘who supply them with the converts’. Gandhi’s poor understanding of the life of native Africans and their worldview was similar to that held by White colonialists when they doubled as Christian missionaries and herded Native Americans5 into Christian missions on the pretext that the indolent, loafing natives would 4
Speech at Public Meeting, Bombay, September 26, 1896, The Times of India, 27-9-1896, and Bombay Gazette, 27-9-1896, CWMG, Vol.1 pp 407-17 5 The politically correct term for those once called Red Indians.
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be subjected to the civilizing mission of the Church and taught to do an honest day’s work. Gandhi’s eulogy of South African Christian missions, whose inhabitants were mostly children, sharply differs from what missionaries did in Australia when they separated Native children from parents to raise them as ‘good, civilized Christians’, and the heartrending description by Ward Churchill, a Native-American scholar-writer, of Christian missions in America when sundry Europeans altered the religious demography of America by converting the Native Americans or simply exterminating them: Some of the worst policy-driven escalations of death from disease north of the Rio Grande were the result of slave-labor systems on the Spanish (Christian) missions in Florida, Texas, California, Arizona, and New Mexico from roughly 1690-1845. Run first by the Jesuits, later by Franciscans, these institutions were supposedly devoted to the Indians’ physical well-being, as well as their spiritual/moral “enlightenment” through revelation of the ‘benefits of work’. As late as 1865, New Mexico Indian Superintendent Felipe Delgado wrote to US Indian Commissioner William P Dole in response to queries concerning traffic in native slaves by the missions in his area that the object of the priests’ efforts ‘has not been to reduce them to slavery, but rather from Christian piety to instruct and educate them in civilization. This has been the practice in this country for the last century and a half, and the result arising from it has been to the captives, favorable, humane and satisfactory’. In actuality the (Christian) missions were death-mills in which Indians, often delivered en masse by the military, were allotted an average of seven feet by two feet of living space in what one observer VM Golovin, described as ‘specially constructed cattle pens’. Usually segregated by sex unless married by Catholic ceremony, each gender typically shared an open pit serving as a toilet facility for hundreds of people. 6 (emphasis added) Several laws were passed and Bills introduced which affected the lives of the Indian community with regard to their habitation, restricting free profession of their trade and de-legitimizing their customs and 6
Churchill, Ward, A Little Matter of Genocide, 1997, City Lights Books, San Francisco, pp 140-41.
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traditions.7 To cite an instance of Gandhi’s ‘struggle’ to elevate Indians to a higher status than native Africans, he said of the proposed Natal Municipal Corporation Bill: The definitions given of the terms ‘Coloured person’ and ‘uncivilized races’ are very unsatisfactory, and are calculated to incorporate into the Bill the mischief that has been already created by the definition of ‘Coloured person’. According to the Bill, the term includes, among others, ‘any Hottentot, Coolie, Bushman or Lascar’. Now the terms ‘coolie’ and ‘lascar’ themselves require defining, and it is exceedingly dangerous to leave their interpretation to the administrators of the measure, from the Attorney-General down to Kaffir policemen. How, for instance, is a Kaffir policeman to know who is a ‘coolie’ and who a ‘lascar’? Why, again, should the term ‘coolie’ be at all retained in the Bill, when it is well known how offensive it has become? The definition of the term ‘uncivilized races’ is an insult to the Indians concerned, and more so to their descendants. An infallible test of civilization is that a man claiming to be civilized should be an intelligent toiler, that he should understand the dignity of labour, and that his work should be such as to advance the interests of the community to which he belongs. Clause 200 makes provision for registration of persons belonging to uncivilized races, resident and employed within the Borough. One can understand the necessity of registration of Kaffirs who will not work, but why should registration be required for indentured Indians who have become free, and for their descendants about whom the general complaint is that they work too much.8 3.4 Gandhi the Empire loyalist · 1899 October, Boer War begins. · 1899 October 17, Gandhi offered his services to the British government in the Boer War: About 100 English-speaking Indians of Durban met together at few hours’ notice on the 17th 7 8
For a complete list of all such crippling laws see end of chapter. The Natal Municipal Corporations Bill, Indian Opinion, March 18, 1905, CWMG, Vol 4, page 214.
10
inst. to consider the desirability of unreservedly and unconditionally offering their services to the Government or the Imperial authorities in connection with the hostilities now pending between the Imperial Government and the two Republics in South Africa. The motive underlying this humble offer is to endeavour to prove that, in common with other subjects of the Queen-Empress in South Africa, the Indians, too, are ready to do duty for their Sovereign on the battlefield. The offer is meant to be an earnest of the Indian loyalty. I venture to trust that our prayer would be granted; a favour for which the petitioners will be ever grateful and which would, in my humble opinion; be a link to bind closer still the different parts of the mighty empire of which we are so proud. I have the honour to be, Sir, your obedient servant M. K. Gandhi9 Gandhi’s stretcher-boy service in this war proved he had no conception of colonialism as evil, and that he considered the White Boers and the White British colonial government as legitimate entities in South Africa. Gandhi, unlike Aurobindo and Tilak, did not see British rule of India as an abomination. This is why he could not personally make, and refused to allow the Indian community in South Africa to make common cause with native Africans; that is why he served the Empire in a war which killed 14,000 native Africans. Gandhi’s sympathies in this war lay with one colonial power, the Boers, but he served another White colonial power, the British Empire. The native Africans thus bore the collective brunt of the animosity and ill-will of the Boers, the British Empire, and the migrant Indian community. · 1899 December 14, organized the Natal Indian Ambulance Corps with around 300 free Indians and 800 indentured Indians, and left for the front. The Ambulance Corps was temporarily disbanded on December 19 and re-formed on 7 January 1900; it was permanently disbanded on 28 January 1900. Gandhi served the British Empire for 25 days in a war that had nothing to do with Indians in South Africa or India. · 1900 March 14, Gandhi addressed public meeting of Indians and Europeans to felicitate British Generals for victory in the Boer War. · 1900 May 21, conveyed to Queen Victoria greetings on her birthday. 9
The Indian Offer, Durban, October 19, 1899, from the photostats of a typed office copy, a rough pencil draft in Gandhi’s own hand, S.N. 3301-2, and The Natal Mercury, dated 25-10-1899, CWMG Vol. 2, pp 316-17.
11
·
1900 August 14, informed Colonial Secretary of having forwarded to Turkish Ambassador in London the felicitation of Indians to the Sultan of Turkey on the occasion of the silver jubilee of his reign (possibly a foreshadow of Gandhi’s endorsement of the Indian Muslim agitation for restoration of the Turkish Caliphate). · 1901 January 23, conveyed to Colonial Secretary, on behalf of the Indian community in Natal, condolences over the passing away of the Queen. · 1901 February 2, Gandhi laid a wreath on the pedestal of the statue of Queen Victoria in Durban and addressed a memorial meeting, paying tributes to the late Queen: Mr. M. K. Gandhi dwelt on the noble virtues of the late Queen. He referred to the Indian Proclamation of 1858 and the Queen’s deep interest in Indian affairs—how she commenced the study of Hindustani language at a ripe age, and how, although she herself could not go to India to be in the midst of her beloved people, she sent her sons and grandsons to represent her.10 · 1901 March 30, Gandhi singled out for mention in dispatches for services in Boer War; protests at being singled out Over a thousand Indians had been recruited by Gandhi to fight in the war between two colonial regimes and yet, the British Government chose to acknowledge only Gandhi’s services; and Gandhi protested at being singled out, not because the services of all the other Indians did not even merit a passing mention but because “if I am entitled to any credit for having done my duty, it is due in a great measure to Mr. Shire, Asst. Supt. Indian Ambulance Corps and Dr. Booth, now Dean of St. John’s”.11 · 1901 October 18, Gandhi left for India promising to return if his services were required. · 1901 December 17, left Rajkot for Mumbai on his way to the Calcutta Congress; in Mumbai Gandhi met British Member of Parliament Sir Bhownaggree. · 1901 December 27, Gandhi got INC to move resolution on South Africa in the Calcutta Congress. · 1902 March 30, sent copy of this resolution to Bhownaggree. · 1902 April 8, sent note to Gokhale congratulating him on his Budget speech in the Imperial Legislative Council. · 1902 July 10, left Rajkot for Mumbai to set up law office. · 1902 August 1, wrote to Gokhale informing him of the move and offering his services.
10
Mourning the Queen’s Death, February 1, 1901, The Natal Advertiser, 4-2-1901, CWMG, Vol. 2 page 388. 11 Letter to Colonial Secretary, March 30, 1901, Pietermaritzburg Archives: C. S. O. 1901/2888, CWMG Vol. 2, page 394.
12
·
1902 November 14, wrote to Gokhale informing him about his return to South Africa.
3.5 Beginning of Gandhi’s political career in South Africa Gandhi first went to South Africa in 1893; returned to India in 1896; went back to South Africa and returned to India again in 1901; and went back to South Africa for a third time in 1902. It is obvious that since his return to India after studying law, and until 1902, Gandhi failed to establish himself as a lawyer in India or to find a niche in politics. While it is evident that he had a taste for politics even at this time, his political career did not take off until his return to South Africa in 1902, after which both his legal and political career moved rapidly. Gandhi realized his entry into active politics would be possible only through his profession as a lawyer, which is why he returned to South Africa in 1902. He also realized that he could achieve status as a political leader there only if he was perceived as a person with some standing with the political leadership in India. The Boer Republics were annexed to the Empire even before the war ended in 1902, and Lord Milner arrived from London to take charge as Governor of South Africa. Despite Gandhi having compelled 1100 Indians to run the Ambulance Corps, Lord Milner introduced more disempowering laws, making life even more difficult for the Indian community. The Peace Preservation Ordinance and Ordinance No. 5 of 1903 were promulgated in the Transvaal to regulate the re-entry of Indians who had left the Transvaal for Natal, Cape Colony, and India, when war broke out. As previously mentioned (Chapter 2), this ordinance segregated Asiatics into locations, refused trading licenses except in Asiatic bazaars, and made pre-war licenses of Asiatics non-transferable. Under the Peace Preservation Ordinance, all entrants to the Transvaal were to be issued permits on request, but as a rule Indians were refused permits and thus prevented from returning to their homes and businesses. Milner set up the Asiatic Affairs Department to enforce the provisions of Law 3 of 1885. The Department was charged with compiling a dossier of all anti-Indian measures that prevailed in the Boer Republics, and these measures were subsequently applied with a vengeance. Gandhi’s volunteering the services of the Indian community proved sterile for the community as a whole, though Gandhi received the Boer War Medal for his loyalty and dedicated service to the Empire. · ·
1903 February 16, opened law office in Johannesburg and enrolled at the Bar of the Transvaal Supreme Court. 1903, February 23, forwarded to Dadabhai Naoroji a comprehensive statement on the Indian Question in the Transvaal and Orange River Colonies; wrote to Gokhale that events in the Transvaal were progressing fast and he was “in the thick of the fight.”
13
Gandhi would henceforth brief these leaders regularly about his work in South Africa. The fact that Congress leaders had the time to engage with Indian affairs in South Africa and involve the INC in the same (without meaningfully improving the condition of the Indian community there), reveals there was no raging “freedom movement” in India. ·
1903 December 1, wrote to Indian National Congress, Madras, to realize the seriousness of situation in Natal and make early and earnest efforts to prevail upon the Imperial British government to secure relief. · 1904 October, read Ruskin’s ‘Unto this Last’ on the way to Durban and decided to establish a commune along the lines indicated by Ruskin; assumed entire responsibility for Indian Opinion. · 1904 November-December, founded the Phoenix Settlement. · 1904 December 24, first number of Indian Opinion issued from Phoenix Settlement. Indian Opinion’s objective was to bring the European and Indian subjects of King Edward closer together; educate public opinion; remove causes for misunderstanding; put before Indians their own blemishes and show them the path of duty while they insisted on securing their rights. This was an Imperial and pure ideal, towards the fruition of which anyone could work unselfishly.12 ·
1905 August 19, called for united opposition to Bengal partition and supported boycott of British goods. · 1905 September 16, Gandhi opined that Gokhale was outstanding among the candidates for the post of President of the INC. This marks the beginning of Gandhi’s intervention in the affairs of the Indian National Congress. Hitherto, Gandhi had successfully persuaded the INC, through his influence with important leaders, to involve itself in the affairs of the Indian community in South Africa. Now Gandhi began to involve himself in the affairs of the INC in India. The Congress, it may be kept in mind, was then the sole vehicle for a meaningful political career in India; the Muslim League was as yet unborn. · 1905 November 1, called for communal harmony in Bengal to strengthen anti-partition agitation, even though he was aware that Muslims were celebrating the partition. The cablegram from India that has appeared lately in the newspapers brings the aphorism (divide and rule) vividly home to us. It is said that twenty thousand Mahomedans at Dacca, the capital of the new province partitioned from 12
Ourselves, Indian Opinion, 24-12-1904, CWMG Vol. 4, page 145.
14
Bengal, assembled together and offered prayers of thanksgiving to the Almighty for the partition, and their consequent deliverance from Hindu oppression.13 Gandhi’s unequal insistence on Hindu-Muslim unity began in South Africa; he carried it unchanged to India in 1915, and retained it even after vivisection of the Hindu bhoomi in 1947 and until his assassination in 1948. Both Congress and the Nehruvian secular polity faithfully bear the coffin of Gandhian sentimentalism on their shoulders to this day. ·
1905 December 4, in his capacity as Secretary, British Indian Association, Gandhi bade farewell to Sir Arthur Lawley, LieutenantGovernor of the Transvaal, and Governor-designate of Madras.
This was yet another instance of ‘shuffling’ by the imperial government in London. Arthur Lawley, confirmed proponent of apartheid who had supported confining Indians and other ‘Asiatics’ to specified locations, was appointed Governor of Madras to succeed Lord Ampthill. Notwithstanding such dubious antecedents, Gandhi bestowed upon Lawley a glowing write-up in Indian Opinion, going do far as to present his personal opinion as that of the entire British Indian community in South Africa: We congratulate Sir Arthur Lawley on his appointment as Governor of Madras. It is a distinction well deserved by His Excellency. Sir Arthur is always kindly, courteous, and solicitous for the welfare of those whose interests are entrusted to him. His views about Indians are strange, and we have been often obliged to comment upon many inaccuracies into which he has been led in considering this question, but we have always believed that these views have been honestly held. Moreover, wrongly though we consider it to be so, Sir Arthur has believed that, in upholding the antiIndian policy, he would best serve the interests of the European inhabitants of the Transvaal. The mere fact, however, that Sir Arthur has been led to hold such views, owing to his extreme anxiety to serve the European interests in the Transvaal, may be his strength in Madras, for his kindliness, his courtesy, his sympathy and his anxiety have now to be transferred to the millions of Indians over whose destiny he is to preside for the next five 13
Divide and Rule, Indian Opinion, 4-11-1905, CWMG Vol. 4, page 477.
15
years. Sir Arthur Lawley is to fill the place vacated by Lord Ampthill, who has endeared himself to the people of the Madras Presidency. We hope that Sir Arthur will continue the traditions he inherits.14 (emphasis added) The column in Indian Opinion shows that Gandhi knew that Lawley was an unbridled racist. Lawley favoured apartheid, was virulently anti-Indian in South Africa, yet Gandhi, instead of raising a hue and cry over his appointment and warning Gokhale, Naoroji and others to resist it, actually congratulated Lawley and declared he would be good for Madras and her people with his “kindliness, courtesy, sympathy and anxiety”! Gandhi’s hope that Lawley would treat the people of Madras Presidency with the same kindliness, courtesy, sympathy and anxiety with which he practiced apartheid in South Africa, was akin to his call for Hindu-Muslim unity to fight the partition of Bengal despite knowing that over 20,000 Muslims had gathered in Dacca to tender thanks to Allah for delivering them from Hindu rule. This sublime indifference to ground realities would manifest again in 1946, when in spite of knowing Mountbatten’s role in delivering Indonesia back to her colonial oppressors and splintering the country, Gandhi, and the INC dominated by him, permitted Mountbatten to enter India as last Viceroy. Within months of Mountbatten assuming charge as Viceroy in January 1947, vivisection was not only an accepted condition for transfer of power in April 1947, but became a fact of history on 15 August 1947. ·
· · · · · · ·
14 15
1906 February 26, Gandhi suggested to Dadabhai Naoroji that a deputation of British Indians in South Africa meet with British Ministers on the issue of safeguarding Indian interests in the Transvaal and Orange River Colony. 1906 February, Bambatha Uprising or ‘Zulu Uprising’. 1906 March 17, Gandhi exhorted Indians to volunteer their services to the Government on the occasion of the Zulu Rebellion. March 1906, Gandhi took a vow of absolute continence for life. Before March 31, Imperial Government set up a commission to look into the proposed Transvaal constitution after becoming a selfgoverning colony of the British Empire. 1906 April 12, wrote to William Wedderburn about the deteriorating conditions of Indians in the Transvaal. 1906 April 14, Natal Indian Congress decided to send a deputation led by Gandhi to London to meet British Ministers. 1906 April 24, Natal Indian Congress agreed to Gandhi’s proposal to set up the Indian Ambulance Corps to serve the government in its war against the Zulus in the Bambatha Uprising.15
Sir Arthur Lawley as Governor of Madras, Indian Opinion, 2-12-1905, CWMG Vol. 5, page 32. For details about the Zulu massacre see appendix at end of chapter.
16
This was a brutal genocide of Zulus by the British, at par with the genocide of Native Americans: Columbus stands, by this definition, not as Italian, Spaniard, Portuguese or Jew but as the penultimate European of his age, the emblematic personality of all that Europe was, had been and would become in the course of its subsequent expansion across the face of the earth. As a symbol then, Christopher Columbus vastly transcends himself. He stands before the bar of history and humanity, culpable not only for his deeds on Espanola, but, in spirit at least, for the carnage and cultural obliteration which attended the conquests of Mexico and Peru during the 1500s. And the ghost of Columbus stood with the British in their wars against the Zulus and various Arab nations, with the United States against the ‘Moros’ of the Philippines, the French against the peoples of Algeria and Indochina, the Belgians in the Congo, the Dutch in Indonesia. Nazism was never unique: it was instead only one of an endless succession of “New World Orders” set in motion by the Discovery. It was neither more nor less detestable than the order imposed by Christopher Columbus upon Espanola; 1493 or 1943, they were part of the same irreducible whole.16 (emphasis added) This is a devastating commentary by a Native American scholar of a man whose ‘discovery’ of the New World exterminated entire civilizations, cultures and peoples in the Americas and the Caribbean; yet in 1992, the western world sought to make the five hundredth anniversary of Columbus discovering the Americas for the Pope and the Catholic faith into a global celebration. Tilak and Aurobindo understood the nature of colonialism and hence insisted on political freedom preceding all other nation-building activities. But Gandhi never made the critical connection between the White race, Christianity, and colonialism; his stretcher-boy service to the empire attests to this monumental ignorance. · ·
16
1906 May 12, Gandhi supports home rule for India “in the name of justice and for the good of humanity”. 1906 May 26, ahead of Queen Victoria’s birthday celebrations, Gandhi appealed to public men of South Africa to abjure race hatred and colour prejudice.
Churchill, Ward, op. cit., page 92.
17
· · ·
· · · · · ·
·
17
1906 May 30, British Indian Association decides to include Haji Habib and H O Ally in deputation to England. Natal government accepts Natal Indian Congress offer to organize ambulance corps. 1906 June 16, Indian stretcher-bearer corps’ pledge of allegiance published in Indian Opinion: We, the undersigned, solemnly and sincerely declare that we will be faithful and bear true allegiance to His Majesty King Edward the Seventh, His Heirs and Successors, and that we will faithfully serve in the supernumerary list of the Active Militia Force of the Colony of Natal as Stretcher-Bearers, until we shall lawfully cease to be members thereof, and the terms of the service are that we should each receive Rations, Uniform, Equipment and 1s. 6d. per day. M.K. Gandhi, U.M. Sehlat, H.I. Joshi, S.B. Medh, Khan Mahomed, Mahomed Shaikh, Dada Mian, Pooti Naiken, Appa Samy, Kunjee, Shaikh Madar, Mahomed Alwar, Muthusamy, Coopoosamy, Ajodhya Singh, Kistama, Ali, Bhailal, Jamaludin.17 1906 June 21, ambulance corps receives marching orders. 1906 June 22, Gandhi given rank of Sergeant-Major by British government. 1906 July 19, Indian stretcher-bearer corps disbanded. 1906 August 7, Sir Henry MacCallum, Governor of Natal, thanked Gandhi for services rendered by stretcher-bearer corps. 1906 August 25, Gandhi demanded Indians no longer be classified as ‘coloured people’. 1906 September, despite Gandhi’s services to the Empire, owing allegiance not only to the then king but also his heirs and successors and persuading a reluctant Natal Indian Congress and other Indians to join him on the promise of possible full citizenship if they served the Empire loyally, the British regime in South Africa promulgated the draconian Asiatic Law Amendment Ordinance, No. 29 of 1906, later known as the Black Act. However, Gandhi was decorated with the Zulu War Medal as compensation. 1906 September 11, Gandhi announced first Satyagraha campaign against proposed Asiatic Ordinance at a mass meeting of Indians at the Empire Theatre in Johannesburg. Gandhi ‘threatened’ Satyagraha if the ordinance was made into law. Satyagraha was the first of the two resolutions passed at the meeting. The second resolution decided to send a deputation led by Gandhi to London to meet British ministers.
Pledge of allegiance, Indian Opinion, 16-6-1906, CWMG, Vol. 5, page 262
18
The vow of continence for life and Satyagraha mark the well-crafted official beginning of the ‘making of the Mahatma’. 3.6 The course of Satyagraha was directed from behind · · · · · · · · · · ·
1906 October 20, Gandhi arrived in Southampton en route to London on his first deputation visit; met Dadabhai Naoroji. 1906 sometime before October 25, met Sir Mancherji Bhownaggree. 1906 October 26, met Wedderburn and Dadabhai Naoroji. 1906 October 27, interviewed by Reuter. 1906 October 27 and 30, met Bhownaggree again. 1906 October 31, met Sir Richard Solomon at the House of Commons. 1906 November 7, addressed Members of Parliament. 1906 November 8, deputation to Lord Elgin. 1906 November 23, deputation met John Morley, Secretary of State for India. 1906 November 26, Liberal members of Parliament asked Prime Minister to receive the deputation regarding Asiatic Law Amendment Ordinance. 1906 November 28, Gandhi met Winston Churchill to protest the Transvaal Asiatic Law Amendment Ordinance No.29.
It is pertinent that Gandhi returned to South Africa with the intention of making something of his life only in 1902. In 1906, he was a still a nonentity; hence it is strange that Members of Parliament, Winston Churchill, the Under-Secretary of State, and other powerful government officials agreed to meet an obscure Indian lawyer from South Africa. Even if Gandhi had been a man of consequence, a person like Churchill would have associated with him only if Gandhi was perceived as no threat to the Empire, and possibly also as a gesture of reward for his public professions of loyalty to the Empire and his Ambulance Corps services during the Boer War and the Bambatha Uprising. ·
· ·
1906 December 3, Secretary of State for the Colonies, Lord Elgin, declined to approve the Asiatic Law Amendment Ordinance; this was announced in the House of Commons by Churchill the same day. This was a small but temporary concession by the British government to Gandhi; it would be rendered futile as the Asiatic Law would come back in another guise. 1906 December 6, Transvaal received responsible ‘self-government’ from Britain; there followed a slew of laws discriminatory to Indians and increasing segregation, including in schools. 1907, The South African Indian community comprising the Natal Indian Patriotic Union and the Natal Indian Congress grew very critical of Gandhi as he had made Indians willy-nilly partners in his personal whims with regard to the Empire and the methods to be
19
·
·
·
employed to assert their rights, without getting tangible or lasting relief from the government. 1907 February 7, fortuitously for Gandhi’s shaky leadership, Winston Churchill informed the British House of Commons that the Natal government had been refused leave to introduce legislation excluding Asiatics from obtaining trading licenses. 1907 March 19, Transvaal Colonial Secretary, Gen. J.C. Smuts reintroduced the Asiatic Law Amendment Ordinance which had failed to gain assent in December 1906, under the name Transvaal Asiatic Registration Bill, also known as the Black Act. 1907 March 22, the Asiatic Registration Bill was passed by the Transvaal Parliament; it required all male Asians to register and be finger-printed and carry registration passes at all times.
Gandhi protested not so much against the registration of all male Asians, but because the Indian community stood ‘degraded’ to a level lower than native Africans. The Regulations for Towns stipulated that Coloured people could not walk on pavements, sidewalks or stoeps of the streets or towns; the habitation of the Indian community was segregated within ‘coolie settlements’. ·
·
·
· · · ·
1907 March 29, Indians held a mass protest meeting in Gaiety Hall, Johannesburg; after the perfunctory noises, Gandhi inexplicably capitulated to the regime and offered to register voluntarily if the Act was withdrawn. 1907 April 4, Gandhi led a deputation to meet Gen. J.C. Smuts to present the resolutions passed on 29th March in Johannesburg. Gen. Smuts agreed to meet Gandhi. (This was tantamount to the South African government meeting Gandhi). 1907 June 7, the Transvaal British Indian Association sent a deputation on a similar mission to meet Transvaal Prime Minister Gen. Louis Botha, who refused to meet it. (The South African government which met Gandhi, refused to meet other Indians). 1907 July 1, The Asiatic Registration Act came into operation. 1907 July 31, an open air mass meeting was held in Pretoria against the Black Act and Indians decided to launch satyagraha in protest, to go to prison rather than register. 1907 August 8, Gandhi wrote to Gen. Smuts with suggested amendments to the Asiatic Registration Act. 1907 November 22, wrote to Gokhale suggesting Hindu-Muslim compact be made special feature of forthcoming Indian National Congress at Surat. Gandhi’s recommendation for a Hindu-Muslim compact was a significant indicator of the course that events in India would take after Gandhi’s return to India; the word ‘compact’ was also symptomatic of how Gandhi perceived the place of Muslims in the nation. By calling for a ‘compact’ Gandhi reiterated the theme of limited convergence of interests offered by the Muslims in 1857, thus legitimising the innate separateness of the Muslim identity. Unlike
20
Aurobindo, Gandhi did not ask for assimilating all sections of Indian society, including the Muslims into the INC but acknowledged the separateness of the Muslim identity and asked for a ‘compact’ or ‘partnership’. This was no small ideological positioning and perhaps one of the reasons why the Congress split into two distinct ideological groups – the Moderates and the Nationalists (Extremists) in December 1907 at Surat: Dear Professor Gokhale, I have sent a letter addressed to you through Mr. Ameeroodeen Fajandar, one of the delegates from the Transvaal who will attend the Congress at Surat. May I draw your attention to the fact that the struggle we are undergoing here has resulted in making us feel that we are Indians first and Hindus, Mahomedans, Tamils, Parsees, etc. afterwards. You will notice, too, that all our delegates are Mahomedans. I am personally glad of the fact. And it may also happen that there will be many Mahomedans, having South African connections, attending the Congress. May I ask you to interest yourself in them and make them feel perfectly at home? A Hindu-Mahomedan compact may even become a special feature of this Congress. The rest of the struggle you know from the papers. Yours sincerely, M. K. Gandhi18 1908 saw a slew of anti-Indian laws passed by Gen. Smuts. One was The Immorality Amendment Ordinance, Act No. 16 of 1908 which outlawed sexual relations between Whites and non-Whites. ·
·
·
1908 January 1, Transvaal Immigrants’ Restriction Act (henceforth referred to as TIRA) (No. 15 of 1907) came into force. Mass meeting held at Surti Mosque, Fordsburg, to protest against TIRA and Transvaal Asiatic Registration Act (henceforth TARA) (Law 2 of 1907). 1908 January 4, the Transvaal British Indian Association informed the Transvaal government that if trading licenses were refused to them for failing to register, they would trade without license. Gen. Smuts refused to withdraw the Asiatic Registration Act and refused to meet Gandhi. Smuts added that Indians had been misled by their leaders and declared that no Parliament in the country could repeal TARA. 1908 January 8, within four days of Gen. Smuts refusing to meet Gandhi, Gandhi told Reuters that if the Asiatic Registration Act was
18
Letter to GK Gokhale, Johannesburg, November 22, 1907, From a photostat of the typewritten original signed by Gandhi: G.N. 4109, CWMG Vol. 7, page 354.
21
suspended (a quiet shift from the demand to ‘withdraw’), Indians would register voluntarily. · 1908 January 10, Gandhi arrested and sentenced to two months’ imprisonment for refusing to obey court orders to leave Transvaal. On this day Gandhi first used the word Satyagraha for his brand of passive resistance. · 1908 January 21, Gen. Smuts sent an emissary to meet Gandhi in prison with settlement proposals with regard to the Asiatic Registration Act. · 1908 January 28, At meeting in New Reform Club, London, Sir. W. Wedderburn declared that as the Imperial Government spent £ 3 million annually on the defense of the Transvaal, it had a right to demand that Transvaal Indians be treated in keeping with Imperial traditions. Sir M.M. Bhownaggree warned of an ‘Imperial danger’ and M.A. Jinnah (appointed by Anjuman Islam, Bombay, ‘to proceed to England and there to place the position of the Transvaal Indians before the people of England and to do all in his power to create public opinion in favor of a settlement of the Asiatic difficulty in the Colonies’, Indian Opinion, 11.1.1908) said all Indians were united in their protest against the humiliating treatment of Transvaal Indians. · 1908 January 28, emissary Albert Cartwright met Gandhi in prison with a ‘compromise formula.’ Gandhi made some face-saving token amendments and signed the proposal. · 1908 February 3, G.K. Gokhale asked at the Viceroy’s Council if the Government was aware of ‘the depth and intensity of public feeling’ at the ‘injustice and indignities’ of Transvaal Indians. Replying for Government, Findlay said that they sympathized with their Transvaal subjects and had reason to hope ‘current negotiations’ would remove their ‘just grievances’. · 1908 February 3, Gandhi met Gen. Smuts who agreed to repeal the Asiatic Registration Act if Indians registered voluntarily. · 1908 February 4, Lord Ampthill places a ‘calling-attention’ motion in House of Lords on the issue, Lord Curzon also spoke. The position that William Wedderburn, Mancherjee Bhownagree, Gopalkrishna Gokhale and Ampthill were taking with regard to the ‘injustices and indignities’ of Transvaal Indians and their righteous indignation over the treatment meted to Gandhi in prison was ironical to put it mildly, considering the fact that it was exactly at this time that the British government in India was decimating Tilak, Aurobindo and other nationalists in the INC. · 1908 February 5, Gen. Smuts hardened stand and declared the Act would not be repealed as long as even a single Indian failed to comply with requirements. · 1908 February 10, voluntary registration of Indians begins; Gandhi attacked and wounded by Mir Alam Khan for entering into this humiliating agreement with Gen. Smuts. Gandhi recuperated under the care of Christian missionaries and appealed for forgiveness for his assailants:
22
I am well in the brotherly and sisterly hands of Mr. and Mrs. Doke. I hope to take up my duty shortly. Those who have committed the act did not know what they were doing. They thought that I was doing what was wrong. They have had their redress in the only manner they know. I, therefore, request that no steps be taken against them. Assault or no assault, my advice remains the same. The large majority of Asiatics ought to give finger-prints. Those who have real conscientious scruples will be exempted by the Government. To ask for more would be to show ourselves as children. The spirit of passive resistance, rightly understood, should make the people fear none and nothing but God—no cowardly fear, therefore, should deter the vast majority of sober-minded Indians from doing their duty. The promise of repeal of the Act against voluntary registration having been given, it is the sacred duty of every good Indian to help the Government and the Colony to the uttermost.19 · · · · · ·
·
1908 March 5, Addressed public meeting under auspices of Natal Indian Congress at Durban; another attempted assault on Gandhi by Pathans. 1908 March 6, Met Durban Pathans who insisted he had betrayed the community; reported that this conciliatory meeting was a failure. 1908 June 24, Tilak arrested in India on charges of sedition. 1908 June 31, Gen. Smuts reneged on earlier commitment and declared that repeal of the Asiatic Registration Act was preposterous; Gandhi cried ‘foul’. 1908 July 20, Gandhi began Satyagraha to protest Transvaal Asiatic Registration Act, Transvaal Immigration Restriction Act and Transvaal Municipal Consolidation Bill. 1908 on or before August 1, Gandhi wrote in Indian Opinion that ‘after great deliberation’ Tilak’s views on British rule should be rejected. It would be harmful, even useless, to use violence to uproot British rule.20 1908 August 14, Gandhi appealed to Gen. Smuts to repeal the Black Act, failing which he would intensify the stir.
19
Letter to Friends, Indian Opinion, 15-2-1908, CWMG pp 135-36. Gandhi began to position himself as a votary of non-violence, in contrast to Aurobindo and Tilak. For full text of Gandhi’s repudiation of Tilak, see end of chapter. 20
23
·
1908 August 18, apparently in response to Gandhi’s warning of intensifying Satyagraha, Transvaal Prime Minister Louis Botha and Transvaal Colonial Secretary Gen. Smuts met Gandhi to ‘discuss the Indian question’. · 1908 August 20, Indians reject proposed amendments to the Registration Act; at a mass meeting Gandhi issues ultimatum to Gen. Smuts to repeal the Act. · 1908 August 21, the very next day, Gen. Smuts introduced the Amendment Bill in Parliament; the Bill was passed. · 1908 September 9, British Indian Association assumed Gandhi’s financial responsibilities, his own needs being looked after by Dr. Hermann Kallenbach. · 1908 September 18, Sanction of Royal assent to new Asiatic Act reported; also decision authorizing Lord Ampthill to represent grievances of Transvaal Indians to Imperial Government. · 1908 October 7, Arrested at Volksrust, along with fifteen other Indians, for entering Transvaal without registration certificates. · 1908 October 13, Gandhi in detention sent message exhorting Indians to go to jail for the sake of the motherland. It may be pertinent to question which motherland? If it was India, how did Indians going to jail in the Transvaal serve the cause of political freedom, if political freedom was indeed the goal of the Indian National Congress? If it was South Africa, Gandhi had no sympathy or affinity with its true native populace. ·
1908 October 14, sent to two months’ imprisonment with hard labour. · 1908 October 15, Gandhi reported at road-making work on Market Square. Reuter’s Volkrust correspondent wrote, ‘Mr. Gandhi expressed himself as being the happiest man in the Transvaal’. It is notable that Reuter now embarks upon a mission to give extensive publicity to the ‘Mahatma in the making.’ · 1908 October 21, In reply to a question in the House of Lords by Ampthill, the Earl of Crewe stated he had wired Transvaal for facts about Gandhi’s arrest and added that Gandhi had been participating in ‘passive resistance campaign, and paid the penalty’. · 1908 October 22, Viceroy of India conveyed to India Office the Indian resentment at the treatment meted out to passive resisters in Transvaal, recommended civility and urged concession of India demand for entry of six educated India annually into the Transvaal · 1908 October 25, Gandhi removed from Volksrust Gaol to Johannesburg in convict’s garb to testify in Daya Lala’s case; refused offer of cab, and marched on foot from Park Station to Fort, carrying prison knapsack. These were not just ‘mahatma-making’ but also ‘politician-making’ years. · 1908 November 28, Muslims telegraphed protest against General Botha’s statement that many Mahomedans had declined to join passive resistance movement.
24
· · · ·
1908 December 12, Gandhi released from Volksrust prison. 1908 December 15, General Botha communicated to Lord Selborne his inability to revise policy. Transvaal Colonial Secretary, in reply to Transvaal Governor, denied promise of repeal of Act 2 of 1907. 1908 December 23, Gandhi presented to the Volksrust prison officer a copy of Tolstoy’s The Kingdom of God is within You. 1908 December 31, Indian National Congress resolution on South Africa considered harsh, humiliating and cruel treatment of British Indians as injurious to British Empire.
No substantial concessions were granted by the Imperial government in London or the South African regime, despite sympathetic noises by important British officials in London, by Congress in India, and by Gandhi in South Africa. It bears remembering that at this time Gandhi was attempting to challenge entrenched apartheid, which was not to end until 1990, through non-violent passive resistance, which he re-designated ‘Satyagraha’. · · · · · ·
·
·
·
1909 January 20, Gandhi wrote to the press stating that Indians had entered the third and final phase of struggle. 1909 January 27, Gandhi wrote to Lord Curzon hoping latter’s intervention would result in happy termination of struggle. 1909 February 2, Lord Curzon obligingly informed Gandhi of his discussion with Botha and Smuts and of ‘their anxiety to treat British Indians in spirit of liberality and justice’. 1909 February 22, Gandhi left Phoenix for Johannesburg, and was arrested on 25th with Polak and Vyas; sentenced to three months’ imprisonment. 1909 March 3, reached Pretoria Central Gaol. 1909 March 10, Gandhi taken in handcuffs to court as witness. Passive resisters congratulated Kasturba Gandhi on Gandhi’s third sentence of imprisonment for sake of self-respect and honour of Asiatic communities. 1909 March 11, Joseph Doke, in letter to Johannesburg press, referring to Gandhi being handcuffed, observed that ‘the great majority of our Colonists feel ashamed that a man of the character and position of Mr. Gandhi should be needlessly insulted in this way’; the implication being these ‘colonists’ had not felt just as indignant when politically obscure persons had been handcuffed and otherwise treated with little dignity. 1909 March 26, Government of India, in reply to cable of March 17 from BIA, Port Elizabeth, assured continued ‘endeavours to obtain sympathetic treatment for British Indians in the Transvaal, but regretted inability to interfere in cases of penalty for noncompliance with law’. (emphasis added) 1909 March 29, Transvaal Governor communicated to BIA reply from Secretary of State of Colonies to their petition of September 9, 1908, that Transvaal Government was unwilling to repeal Registration
25
·
· · ·
Act and Imperial Government not in a position to press repeal; and that views of two sides on yearly admission of six educated Indians differed only as regards method and machinery. 1909 April 12, Question of Gandhi being marched in handcuffs raised in Commons; Under Secretary of State for Colonies (Winston Churchill) insisted that no special disability or indignity was imposed on Gandhi as passive resister. 1909 May 24, Gandhi released from Pretoria Central Gaol at 7.30 a.m.; said at meeting in Mohammedan Mosque Hall that he felt no pleasure at being free. 1909 June 16, Addressed Johannesburg Indian mass meeting convened to appoint deputations to England and India. 1909 June 21, Gandhi replies to Habib Motan on the issue of a Muslim in the Viceroy’s Council and his familiar prescription for Hindu-Muslim unity. It is pertinent that in 1909, this prescription was proffered, with great confidence - a measure of Gandhi’s surging confidence and determination to lead the INC in India. That his prescription was de-linked from ground reality was neither here nor there can be witnessed below: Here is my reply to your letter dated 17th June. I do not know exactly what the demands of the Muslim League are, for I was in gaol at the time, and I have not yet acquainted myself with what happened during my imprisonment. I think it reasonable that a Muslim should be appointed to the Viceroy’s Council. If Lord Morley has ordered such an appointment, I think he is justified. I make no distinction between Hindus and Muslims. To me both are sons of Mother India. My personal view is that, since numerically Hindus are in a great majority, and are, as they themselves believe, better-placed educationally, they should cheerfully concede to their Muslim brethren the utmost they can. As a satyagrahi, I am emphatically of the view that the Hindus should give to the Muslims whatever they ask for, and willingly accept whatever sacrifice this may involve. Unity will be brought about only through such mutual generosity. If Hindus and Muslims observe, in their dealings with one another, the same principles that govern the relations of bloodbrothers, there will be unbroken harmony
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between the two communities, and then alone will India prosper.21 (emphasis added) A great disconnect between Gandhian prescriptions and logic is evident here. Gandhi describes himself as a satyagrahi, but why should that compel Hindus to give the Muslims ‘whatever they ask for’? Gandhi proclaims authoritatively that ‘Unity will be brought about only through such mutual generosity’, but the fact is that if Hindus make all the sacrifices and Muslims only receive, there surely is little ‘mutual generosity’ involved. It seems a heavy price to pay for ‘unbroken harmony’. 3.7 1909 - The turning point in Indian history ·
1909 June 21, Gandhi and Haji Habib sailed to England on second lobbying mission. ‘British Parliament was debating a draft bill for the creation of the Union of South Africa. To lobby for their interests, the Transvaal Asians sent a two-member deputation comprising Hajee Habib and Gandhi to London. It spent four disappointing months between July and November in London and returned empty-handed.’22
·
1909 July 1, Sir Curzon Wyllie, Private Secretary to Lord Morley, assassinated by Madanlal Dhingra. Dr. Cowasji Lalkaka also killed. Madanlal Dhingra’s act, like that of the Chapekar brothers and later of Bhagat Singh, was inspired by nationalist personages like Tilak, Aurobindo, Savarkar, Bipin Chandra Pal, Lajpat Rai and others who advocated armed resistance to the evil of colonial occupation of the motherland and the resulting slavery of the people. Gandhi’s writing on the issue indicated his thinking and probably enticed the imperial British government to examine his potential. Gandhi’s arguments rested on his favourite presumption – that only people incapable of reason, logic and deep thinking took recourse to armed resistance. He dismissed with sublime contempt the intellectually stimulating writings of Tilak, Aurobindo and Savarkar as mere ‘worthless writings’, while people like Dhingra, the Chapekar brothers and Bhagat Singh acted as they did only because of their poor intellect, resulting in ‘ill-digested reading’. Yet Tilak had already been arrested for inspiring the Chapekar brothers; Aurobindo was also incarcerated. Gandhi’s call to punish those that ‘incited him’ was a pointer in
21
Letter to Habib Motan, Johannesburg, before June 21, Indian Opinion, 26-6-1909, CWMG Vol. 9, page 384 22 Footnote to Foreword, HS, page 9
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Savarkar’s direction, which the British government followed with alacrity. Gandhi’s logic regarding what Britain or the British people would do in the event of a German attack is simply surreal even as his potshot at India’s surviving Hindu rulers was at grim variance with reality: It is being said in defense of Sir Curzon Wyllie’s assassination that it is the British who are responsible for India’s ruin, and that, just as the British would kill every German if Germany invaded Britain, so too it is the right of any Indian to kill any Englishman. Every Indian should reflect thoughtfully on this murder. It has done India much harm; the deputation’s efforts have also received a setback. But that need not be taken into consideration. It is the ultimate result that we must think of. Mr. Dhingra’s defence is inadmissible. In my view, he has acted like a coward. All the same, one can only pity the man. He was egged on to do this act by ill-digested reading of worthless writings. His defence of himself, too, appears to have been learnt by rote. It is those who incited him to this that deserve to be punished. In my view, Mr. Dhingra himself is innocent. The murder was committed in a state of intoxication. It is not merely wine or bhang that makes one drunk; a mad idea also can do so. That was the case with Mr. Dhingra. The analogy of Germans and Englishmen is fallacious.23 If the Germans were to invade [Britain], the British would kill only the invaders. They would not kill every German whom they met. Moreover, they would not kill an unsuspecting German, or Germans who are guests. If I kill someone in my own house without a warning—someone who has done me no harm—I cannot but be called a coward. There is an ancient custom among the Arabs that they would not kill anyone in their own house, even if the person be their enemy. They would kill him after he had left the house and after he had been given time to arm himself. 23
This was in response to Dhingra’s unassailable logic at the inquest when he demanded, “If the Germans have no right to rule over England, then what right does England have to rule over India”?
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Those who believe in violence would be brave men if they observe these rules when killing anyone. Otherwise, they must be looked upon as cowards. It may be said that what Mr. Dhingra did, publicly and knowing full well that he himself would have to die, argues courage of no mean order on his part. But as I have said above, men can do these things in a state of intoxication, and can also banish the fear of death. Whatever courage there is in this is the result of intoxication, not a quality of the man himself. A man’s own courage consists in suffering deeply and over a long period. That alone is a brave act which is preceded by careful reflection. I must say that those who believe and argue that such murders may do good to India are ignorant men indeed. No act of treachery can ever profit a nation. Even should the British leave in consequence of such murderous acts, who will rule in their place? The only answer is: the murderers. Who will then be happy? Is the Englishman bad because he is an Englishmen? Is it that everyone with an Indian skin is good? If that is so, we can claim no rights in South Africa, nor should there be any angry protest against oppression by Indian princes. India can gain nothing from the rule of murderers— no matter whether they are black or white. Under such a rule, India will be utterly ruined and laid waste. This train of thought leads to a host of reflections, but I have no time to set them down here. I am afraid some Indians will commend this murder. I believe they will be guilty of a heinous sin. We ought to abandon such fanciful ideas. More about this later.24 (emphasis added) Gandhi’s reference to ‘worthless writings’ was an attack against Tilak, Aurobindo and Savarkar, while his reference to ‘rule of murderers’ must have re-assured the British government about Gandhi’s disinclination to end British rule in India; Gandhi’s third reference, this time to Indian princes had an ominous ring to it and was a signal indicating how he
24
London, after July 16, 1909, Curzon Wyllie’s assassination, Indian Opinion 14-8-1909, CWMG Vol. 9, pp 428-29 For more on Gandhi’s opinions about Dhingra, see end of chapter.
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would be dealing with them on his return to India.25 All this must have been music to British ears. · 1909 July 9, Bengal Provincial Congress Committee proposed Gandhi’s name as one of the three nominees for Presidentship of the INC. · 1909 July 22, repudiated in letter to South Africa that SABIC (South Africa British Indian Committee) was associated with extremist movement in India. · 1909 July 29, Gandhi in a letter to Lord Ampthill denied any connection between Transvaal passive resistance movement and the ‘party of sedition’ in India: Most people, that is, most Indians and AngloIndians, express their detestation of bomb throwing and violence in words or in unreasonable action. The movement in the Transvaal, with which I have identified myself is an eloquent and standing protest in action against such methods. The test of passive resistance is self-suffering and not infliction of suffering on others. May I add, too, that the idea of passive resistance originated in South Africa was independent of any movement in India and that we have sometimes been bitterly assailed by some of our Indian friends for pinning our faith to passive resistance pure and simple?26 (emphasis added) Gandhi’s claim that passive resistance as it originated in South Africa had nothing to do with the Swadeshi or Boycott movement in India, to understate it, is a deviation from truth. That Gandhi usurped all names and concepts associated with the nationalist faction of the INC, and passed it off as his own, has been discussed previously. ·
1909 August 4, Repudiated categorically, in a letter to Lord Ampthill, that Transvaal passive resistance movement was ‘fomented’ or financed from India or had anything to do with the “party of violence” there: Indian passive resistance in the Transvaal had its rise in that Colony and has been continued absolutely independent of anything that is being said or done in India; indeed, sometimes, even
25
Chapter 7 deals with Gandhi’s failure to build bridges with Indian States in the critically important period of the 1940s decade. 26 Excerpts of Gandhi’s groveling letter to Ampthill on July 29 and August 4 at end of chapter.
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in defiance of what has been said or written to the contrary in India or elsewhere. Our movement is absolutely unconnected with any extremist movement in India. I do not know the extremists personally. .....and now Mr. Henry S. L. Polak is in Bombay, from the Transvaal, in order to place the position before the Indian public. He has gone there with definite instructions not to come into touch with the Extremist Party, but to be guided largely by the Editor of The Times of India, Professor Gokhale and the Aga Khan. It would be improper for me not to add that I follow what is going on in India with the keenest interest and some of the phases of the national movement with the gravest anxiety. (emphasis added) · · ·
·
1909 September 6, In letter to Ameer Ali, declared his life devoted to demonstrating that Hindu-Muslim cooperation was an indispensable condition of India’s salvation. 1909 November 13, Gandhi leaves for South Africa. 1909 November, on the return journey by sea from England to South Africa, Gandhi penned Indian Home Rule, later re-named Hind Swaraj; a preview of the same was given to Lord Ampthill in the famous letter. 1909 September 20, King Edward VII signed the draft constitution for the Union of South Africa into law as the South Africa Act of 1909. Sections 26, 35, 44, 147 and 151 left intact anti-Indian and other discriminatory legislation against native Africans. Even as the British government in India was removing Tilak and Aurobindo from the INC and from the political arena in 1909, the Imperial Government in London was shaping Gandhi’s political career in such a way that would make him the unchallenged leader of the INC in India in the not-too-distant future; crafting him to occupy the political space created by them with foresight and flawless planning. From 1910, until Gandhi’s hurried departure to India in 1914, there was little or no advance in Gandhi’s ‘struggle’ in South Africa, though in 1913 Smuts precipitated a crisis that facilitated Gandhi emerging center-stage again. The events following the ‘crisis’ enabled the imperial British government, the South African government, and the INC, to act in tandem to catapult Gandhi to India as de-facto leader of the Congress.
·
1910 January 6, in letter to J.C. Gibson, Gandhi refuted the charge that the South African movement was engineered and controlled from India.
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·
1910 February 9, In Gandhi’s office, Mrs. Amacanoo and Mrs. Packirsamy took off their ornaments, vowing not to wear them till struggle was over. · 1910 May 30, Gandhi set up the 1100-acre Tolstoy Farm near Johannesburg, a gift from his friend Hermann Kallenbach, for use by satyagrahi families. · 1910 June 1, Union of South Africa came into being. · 1910 July 30, Churchill announced in the House of Commons that he had given instructions that all persons imprisoned as passive resisters or as suffragettes be spared unnecessary degradation. · 1911 February 28, Smuts told Parliament that Indians belonged to an ancient civilization and hence could not be classified as ‘barbarians.’ · 1911 April 27, Indian Passive Resistance protesting Poll Tax suspended when Gen. Smuts entered into negotiations with Gandhi. · 1911 June 22, Coronation of King George V at West minister Abbey; in Durban Indians boycotted celebrations. · 1911 June 24, Gandhi in Indian Opinion affirmed loyalty to the king.27 The importance of Gandhi’s affirmation to King and Empire cannot be underestimated. Gandhi repeatedly affirmed his loyalty to the Empire and the British Monarchy, and prescribed non-violence to fight for what he believed were rights guaranteed by the monarchy in theory, but denied in practice. His adulation for British monarchy deserves critical scrutiny in the face of an almost pathological dislike for Indian-Hindu princes and maharajas. Till the end of his life, his aversion for Hindu rulers remained unchanged and, as we shall see later, this prejudice had catastrophic consequences for the shape of Indian polity to come after transfer of power in 1947. · 1911 September 24, Gandhi wrote to Dr. Pranjivan Mehta telling him he was preparing himself for work in India. · 1911 September 28, Italy invaded Turkish territory. · 1911 October 2, Gandhi attended meeting of Muslims at Johannesburg to condemn Italy for waging war against Turkey. · 1912 January 12, Gandhi, in letter to Gokhale, welcomed his visit to South Africa; suggested visit on way to London. · 1912 October 22, Gokhale arrives in Cape Town. In his capacity as member of the Viceroy’s Council, Gokhale met Prime Minister Louis Botha and Gen. Smuts; visited Tolstoy Farm. · 1913 January 11, Gandhi in Indian Opinion acknowledged contribution of Rs. 2500 by the Nizam of Hyderabad to passive resistance fund. The same Gandhi, years later, still carrying the chip of his paranoiac resentment of Hindu maharajas and princes on his shoulders, would refuse in 1946 a similar donation from the Maharaja of Rewa for reasons we may assume were peculiarly and typically Gandhian whims. 27
For more on Gandhi’s loyalty to the Empire and the King, see end of chapter.
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Maharaja Saheb, Yesterday you presented me a cheque for Rs. 1,001. I considered whether or not I should accept it. My heart says that I should not; I am, therefore, returning it. Please excuse me. Yours, M. K. Gandhi28 · 1913 January 18, Indian Opinion announced Gandhi’s decision to go to India about the middle of the year, if expected Immigration Bill was passed in forthcoming session of Parliament. · 1913 January, Tolstoy Farm closed down.29 · 1913 Gandhi began a penitential fast (one meal a day for over four months) because of a ‘moral lapse’ by two members of Phoenix Farm. · 1913 October 19, meeting of Natal Indian Congress (NIC) in Durban; NIC secretaries M.C. Anglia and Dada Osman sharply castigated Gandhi and tendered their resignations. The resignations were not accepted and the meeting withdrew NIC’s support for the passive resistance campaign. In retaliation, Gandhi and his supporters withdrew from the meeting and formed the Natal Indian Association (NIA), at Parsee Rustomjee’s house. The NIC would become defunct until its resuscitation in 1920. 3.8 Gandhi’s last phase in South Africa – Prelude to India · 1913 November, the third Satyagraha campaign launched; Gandhi arrested thrice in four days; at the second trial he received a sentence of three months’ imprisonment, but was released before completing the term. Very little is known about this Satyagraha, also known as the Natal Indian Strike or Miners’ Strike, Gandhi’s last campaign before finally departing from South Africa in July 1914.30 By this time the opposition to Gandhi was growing among the Indian community; one section began to get both disillusioned and dissatisfied with his Satyagraha and his refusal to even consider more effective methods of resistance and 28
Martand Singh, the Yuvaraj ascended the throne on the dramatic deposition of the Ruler, Gulab Singh Ju Deo, while out on camp near the border, by the Resident Lt. Col. Campbell. The dismissal was condemned by Jawaharlal Nehru, for it implied British displeasure at the ex-maharaja’s desire to give self-government to his subjects.(Letter to Maharaja of Rewa, Dinshaw Mehta Clinic, Poona, February 20, 1946, From a copy of the Hindi: Pyarelal Papers. Courtesy: Pyarelal, CWMG Vol. 89, page 430) 29 There is no information why this happened. 30 The timing of his departure is significant. Though tensions had been building up in Europe, the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand, Crown Prince of the AustroHungarian Empire, by a Serbian nationalist in Sarajevo on 28 June 1914 proved to be the spark that finally triggered off World War I. G.K. Gokhale was already dying and Britain would have worried about Tilak and the other nationalists.
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protest; this resulted in a split in the Natal Indian Congress. The timing of the last South African Satyagraha is significant. Gandhi undertook this campaign within a month of the split in the NIC, almost as though to drive home the point that he alone could organize people into a mass-protest movement and that the regime would deal with Indians only with and through him. Yet the split in the NIC was the first crack in the myth about Gandhi’s leadership, namely, that he was so saintly and his methods so moral and noble that his leadership was beyond criticism, his methods beyond reproach. Gandhi had to repair the image of his infallibility among the community for the sake of his political career in the immediate future in India; the British Empire had a stake in that mission because if Gandhi had to take over the leadership of the Congress and steer it away from armed resistance and political independence, towards passive acceptance of self-rule within the Empire, then Gandhi had to return to India with the image of being not only infallible but also morally superior to others in the INC. The British Empire could not afford to have Gandhi’s authority eroded nor have Indians perceive him as impotent. The South African government, for no tangible political reason and knowing that it would cause grave unrest within the Indian community, almost as if eager to present Gandhi with an explosive issue guaranteed to inflame passions and enable him to bring people to the streets, decided to de-recognize all marriages not conducted according to Christian rites and/or not registered with the Registrar of Marriages. In one stroke, it rendered illegal the unions of Indian Muslims and Hindus married according to their respective religious customs. Gandhi organized his satyagraha jointly against three laws: to protest the March 1913 ruling by Justice Searle in the Cape Supreme Court which de-recognized Hindu and Muslim marriages; the June 1913 Immigrants Regulation Amendment Act; and the notorious Three Pound Tax which came into effect in March 1911 and made it mandatory for every Indian family who did not wish to continue their contracts as indentured labour and chose to stay on in South Africa as ‘free’ Indians, to pay a tax of three pounds per head to the South African state. In this way, an ex-indentured family paid as much as 15, 20 or even 25 pounds, depending on the size of the family. Children of ex-indentured Indians were not spared, and boys above 16 years and girls over 13 had to pay this crippling tax. Clearly the South African regime was determined to precipitate a crisis. Gandhi’s last Satyagraha in South Africa thus brought to the streets indentured and ex-indentured Indians along with vast numbers of the Indian community, making this his largest campaign in South Africa, and covering a large segment of Apartheid laws in force against the Indian community. The coal miners from Newcastle in northern Natal were the
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first to down tools and join Gandhi in the strike, followed by workers across Natal. The satyagraha coincided with a general and paralyzing railway strike, and Gandhi was in a position to push the government into a corner, demanding immediate repeal of discriminatory laws in return for ending the non-cooperation movement. As a perfect prelude to what would become a pattern in India, first in 1922, and then in 1931, even as many Indians were brutally beaten up, killed in police firing, and as more and more Indians, particularly women, joined the strike, choosing to die for Gandhi’s satyagraha, the leader himself was simply lodged in jail. As protests mounted over his ‘arrest’ and over police brutality, Gandhi called off the civil disobedience movement. In this instance, Gandhi called off the strike at a time when it had gained optimum momentum and reached its peak, because he allegedly did not want to add to the troubles of the South African government which had already been brought to its knees by the general railway strike. So as a loyal citizen of the Empire, having demonstrated his ability to inflame passions and get people killed by repressive State power, he withdrew the strike and rendered the sacrifice of ordinary Indians completely futile. Gandhi’s unique ability to arouse and deflate human passions somehow always benefited the colonial government and increased his own grip over the organizations he headed: first NIC, then NIA, and finally INC. Each time his moral halo was burnished by his acolytes, yet it pushed the people’s movement into an abyss of vulnerability and impotence, because every time Satyagraha or civil disobedience ended prematurely, it ended in failure. ·
1913 November, Lord Hardinge, Viceroy of India, a speech in Madras expressed sympathy with the Indian Passive Resistance struggle in South Africa, boosting Gandhi’s political and moral stature in India, which had already been enhanced by Gokhale’s towering praise for him after Gokhale returned from South Africa: ‘Only those who have come into personal contact with Mr. Gandhi as he is now can realize the wonderful personality of the man. He is without doubt made of the stuff which heroes and martyrs are made. Nay, more. He has in him the marvelous spiritual power to turn ordinary men around him into heroes and martyrs’. Hardinge, let us recall, had just sentenced Savarkar to two sentences of ‘transportation for life’. · · · ·
1913 December, Gandhi released unconditionally in expectation of a settlement with Gen. Smuts. 1913 December 18, the Indian Inquiry Commission or Solomon Commission began its proceedings in Pretoria. 1914 January sometime, Gandhi undertook 14 days’ fast for the ‘moral lapse’ of members of the Phoenix Settlement. 1914 January 2, Rev. C.F. Andrews and W.W. Pearson arrive in Durban (sent by G.K. Gokhale to negotiate with the South African government; Andrews met Gandhi here for the first time).
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· · · ·
·
· · ·
· · ·
31
Satyagraha campaign suspended pending agreement between Gandhi, Andrews and Gen. Smuts. 1914 January 7, Andrews and Gandhi leave for Pretoria to meet Smuts. 1914 January 21, Gandhi received written statement from Pretoria Muslims and Hindus repudiating allegation of split on the issue of passive resistance. 1914 January 21, Gandhi met Benjamin Robertson; wrote to Ministry of Interior that passive resistance would not be revived or the Commission’s work hampered in any wise. 1914 January 22, Andrews facilitated and oversaw the provisional settlement between Gandhi and Smuts; the government accepted principle of consultation with Indians. Gandhi left Pretoria for Phoenix; passive resistance suspended. 1914 January 30, Gandhi, Andrews jointly cabled Gokhale that NIC meeting of January 28 had been engineered and was of no significance. (NIC had broken away from Gandhi on the issue of futility of passive resistance and Gandhi started NIA in reaction). 1914 February 27, Gandhi wrote to Gokhale from Cape Town expressing desire to return to India in case of settlement, observe compact of silence for a year and learn at Gokhale’s feet. 1914 March 7, Solomon Commission report submitted to government. 1914 June 26, after a protracted passive resistance campaign led by Gandhi, the Indian Relief Act was passed following the report of the Solomon Commission. The Act abolished the £3 poll tax, recognized marriages contracted in terms of traditional Indian (Muslim or Hindu) rites, and facilitated the entry into the Union of the wives of Indians already domiciled locally. However, Indians remained disenfranchised and were still not allowed to own property in the two former Boer Republics (Transvaal, Orange Free State), or to live in the Orange Free State. Further, restrictions on Indian trading remained in force. In short, the South African government did only the minimum necessary to boost Gandhi’s image as the non-violent deliverer of the Indian people. As Smuts himself stated in the Senate on March 11, 1914, Gandhi was allowed to function in South Africa as he did ‘because he never advocated methods of violence to overthrow the government’. 1914 July 18, sailed for England en route to India on SS Kinfauns Castle.31 1914 August 8, Gandhi given reception at Hotel Cecil, London, by English and Indian friends; Jinnah, Lala Lajpat Rai, Sarojini Naidu among those present. 1914 August 13, Circular signed by Gandhi, Kasturba, Sarojini Naidu affirming resolve to tender unconditional service to Empire, issued for signature by supporters. This obviously circuitous route is perplexing and has never been explained.
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We, the undersigned have, after mature deliberation, decided for the sake of the Motherland and the Empire to place our services unconditionally, during this crisis, at the disposal of the Authorities. We advisedly use the word ‘unconditionally’ as we believe that, at a moment like this, no service that can be assigned to us can be considered to be beneath our dignity or inconsistent with our self-respect. This secretive pledge of unconditional support was sent round in connection with and preceded the Indian offer to assist the British Government during the War. It was signed by Gandhi, Kasturba, Sarojini Naidu and fifty others.32 The first inkling of such an assurance by Gandhi to the Imperial British government – which significantly was not signed by Lajpat Rai and Jinnah – was given in the Indian Opinion only two months later, in September. The phrase ‘Indian offer to assist the British government’ is intriguing, as is the fact that Kasturba too signed the secret affirmation of unconditional support. In what capacity did Kasturba sign, and on whose behalf did Gandhi, Kasturba, Sarojini Naidu and ‘fifty others’ sign? Who or what constituted the ‘Indian’ in ‘Indian offer’ – Gandhi? The Indian National Congress? Or the British Indian government? This pledge of loyalty and support, however, set the stage for Gandhi’s return to India. 3.9 Preparing the Indian soil Gandhi’s imprisonment during the last satyagraha campaign, Lord Hardinge’s speech sympathizing with satyagraha in South Africa, Gandhi’s subsequent unconditional release followed by the Gandhi-Smuts agreement under the aegis of the Solomon Commission which paved the way for Gandhi’s triumphal return to India, must be viewed in the light of the growing disenchantment of the South African Indian community with satyagraha and passive resistance. Satyagraha did not improve their living or work conditions in any lasting or tangible form, resulting in the split of the Natal Indian Congress. The disenchantment with Gandhi was due not just to satyagraha’s inability to deliver desired results, but more pertinently, because Gandhi was perceived as an Empire loyalist. Circumstances suggest that the British Empire synchronized with the South African regime to gently nudge and manipulate Gandhi’s Satyagraha in the direction and time of its choice, with a view to projecting satyagraha as the most effective tool to persuade the Empire to treat its slaves more humanely. A clinical analysis of the time-line of Gandhi’s political career in South Africa reveals that Satyagraha gave the Indian community there nothing more than what the Transvaal government was willing to bestow for its own reasons. In 1914, Gandhi 32
A Confidential Circular, Indian Opinion, 16-9-1914, CWMG Vol. 14, page 284.
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received small concessions in the laws and two war medals, the Zulu War Medal and the Boer War Medal, for his services to the British Empire. But this was still in the future. Gandhi did not know this in 1909 when he embarked on his eventually fruitless lobbying mission to London, though he was personally satisfied with the visit. One important factor which may have contributed to the failure of Gandhi’s deputation in 1909 may have been Gen. Smuts’ simultaneous presence in London. Still, enthused by his leadership role in South Africa, the response from high British officials in London, and probably encouraged by Gokhale’s patronage, Gandhi during his four month stay in London began to toy with the idea of returning to India to play a decisive role in the Indian National Congress. It was to signal this intention of intervening in Indian politics to supplant the Nationalists in the hearts of ordinary Indians that Gandhi wrote ‘Indian Home Rule’ (later re-named Hind Swaraj) in 1909. Hind Swaraj is a political manifesto; the language is mild and the velvet gloves are on in the early chapters when first references are made to the Nationalists. As the monogram progresses, however, Gandhi makes his anger against Aurobindo and Savarkar, and his own intentions, abundantly clear. From the moment the INC split in December 1907 into Nationalists and Moderates, the British began ruthless persecution of the Nationalists, a policy which lasted up to 1910. Almost all Nationalist leaders, Tilak, Aurobindo, and Lajpat Rai, were either imprisoned or deported and the movement thrown into complete disarray. Gandhi would certainly have known at the time of writing Hind Swaraj that most leaders of the Nationalist segment had been imprisoned or deported, and in 1910, when he translated the Hind Swaraj in English, that Savarkar had been dispatched to the Andamans. He would be aware that the colonial power had used the most brutal and repressive measures to weaken the leaders and break the nationalist movement and spirit of ordinary Indians who saw in Aurobindo, Tilak, and Lajpat Rai their only hope for liberation from colonial oppression. In this context, Gandhi’s views are illustrative of his positioning: Some call the moderates the timid party, and the extremists the bold party. All interpret the two words according to their preconceptions. This much is certain – that there has arisen an enmity between the two. The one distrusts the other, and imputes motives. At the time of the Surat Congress, there was almost a fight. I think that this division is not a good thing for the country, but I think also that such divisions will not last long. It all depends upon the
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leaders how long they will last.33 (emphasis added) Gandhi's use of the word 'Extremist' instead of 'Nationalist' is instructive. He had to de-legitimize them and render their advocacy of armed resistance abhorrent to Indian minds if he had to supplant them as INC leader. Notwithstanding his pious declarations of adherence to satya, Gandhi would have faced difficulty in publicly condemning Savarkar for advocating use of force because in 1910 public opinion was firmly with the Nationalists. He could vent his hostility to Aurobindo and Savarkar only through his writings in Indian Opinion (the heightened atmosphere in the country at that time would not permit public speech of this kind). The British Indian government, in the wake of its brutal repression of Aurobindo, Tilak and Savarkar, had also banned Gandhi’s Hind Swaraj and Tolstoy’s Letter to a Hindoo. This gave Gandhi the perfect opportunity to label the Nationalists as ‘terrorists’: India is being severely tested now. For the repressive laws that have been passed and the suppression of writings, the primary responsibility lies with the terrorists but the matter does not rest there. Indiscriminate suppression of newspapers by the Government will not ensure peace. 34 In Hind Swaraj, however, Gandhi was forced to fudge the issue by equating Aurobindo and Savarkar’s advocacy of armed resistance against colonialism as a contest with European civilization! We must marvel at the psychological warfare unleashed by Gandhi, the clever intellectual tight-rope he walked; he needed ordinary Indians to follow him and accept his leadership. He did so with well-planned equivocation and implied the following in his speech and writings · British rule in India is excellent in theory. This assertion helped Gandhi avoid antagonizing the British and assured them of his loyalty. British rule was imperfect not because the British were bad humans or because the Empire was ignoble, but because British rule in India had moved away from its great Christian roots, away from Christ’s teachings, and become an ugly thing called ‘modern civilization’. This charming strategy got several missionaries and devout Christian intellectuals to distance themselves from the Raj and come to his side and boost his ‘saintly’ image – Joseph Doke in South Africa, Charlie Andrews, Margaret Slade (Mirabehn), Agatha Harrison and Horace Alexander in India. Charlie Andrews made the critical decision in early August 1914 to leave the Order on ‘conscientious grounds.’
33 34
HS, Ch. II, The Partition of Bengal, pp 22-23. Never Mind, Indian Opinion, 9-4-1910, CWMG, Vol. 10, page 484.
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·
Modern civilization, manifesting as dependence on machinery and driven by competition, is evil. This intellectual acrobatic exercise helped Gandhi point to British rule as evil, and in the same breath claim the British were not evil! ·
The British have not enslaved us; we have enslaved ourselves because of our dependence on machinery.35 This was a repetition of Tolstoy’s opinion on India’s enslavement and essentially reduced British colonialism to a puerile exercise of enslaving Indians with gadgets, pointedly ignoring colonialism’s greed for the territory of non-Christian peoples and the Church’s greed for new converts to the faith: A commercial company enslaved a nation comprising 200 million. Tell this to a man free from superstition and he will fail to grasp what these words mean. What does it mean that thirty thousand people, not athletes but rather weak and ill-looking have enslaved 200 million of vigorous, clever, strong, freedom-loving people? Do not the figures make it clear that not the English but the Indians have enslaved themselves?36 Both Tolstoy and Gandhi pointedly ignored the vastly superior weapons of warfare in the possession of the colonial powers. With advanced arms and weapons neither their numbers nor their physical weakness was of any consequence, not to mention their stubborn insistence under these terribly unequal circumstances, on passive resistance as the sole weapon to confront the British government! ·
British rule in India, driven and inspired by modern European civilization, rests on violence; armed resistance by Indians using the same weapons of warfare like guns and explosives is as evil as modern civilization. · Armed resistance is therefore the same as European civilization. This is an unparalleled example of fallacious logic. It was Gandhi’s simplistic proposition that armed resistance or use of force was not a Hindu or Indian act, but was an expression of modern or European civilization.37 35
“Machinery has begun to desolate Europe. Ruination is now knocking at the Indian gates. Machinery is the chief symbol of modern civilisation: it represents a great sin”. HS, Chapter XIX Machinery, page 107. 36 HS, Preface to Gandhi’s Edition of the English Translation of Leo Tolstoy’s “Letter to a Hindoo”, page 137. 37 Possibly Gandhi was so overawed by the modern weaponry (guns, cannon) of the British that he overlooked the presence of puissant warriors in Hindu tradition, from Srirama and
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Later in his Indian career, Gandhi exhibited on several occasions the same despotic streak bordering on cruelty and intolerance towards detractors and dissenters within and without the INC – his secretary Pyarelal, Sardar Patel, and Subhash Bose, each of whom had good reasons to fault Gandhi, distanced themselves from him; their own greatness and strength of mind protected them from Gandhi’s destructive streak. But the women in Gandhi’s ashram – Amtussalam, Kanchan Shah, Susheela Nayyar and his grand-niece Manu to name a few, were not so lucky and Gandhi’s cruelty bordering on sadism left them mentally shattered and physically destroyed. Gandhi was paternally benign towards those who obeyed him without demur and were slavishly servile; the only person for whom he exhibited one-sided indulgence was Nehru, who was not only physically attractive and charming but had the imperious ways of an Englishman. Nehru knew well enough the great advantages of staying on the right side of Gandhi and his shrewdness paid off when Gandhi anointed him his political heir – a move that propelled Gandhi’s political ideology on an anti-Hindu trajectory after independence. Little is known of Kasturba’s experience of living with a man so coercive in his methods and given to grim experiments in brahmacharya. Gandhi took a vow of continence without the preparation and pre-conditioning of mind and body mandated by Hindu dharmic tradition; stopped sleeping with his wife because of this vow; yet was unsure even in his old age that he had perfected his brahmacharya. Even in Kasturba’s lifetime and after her death, Gandhi continued with these experiments until his own death in 1948. After a great deal of experience, it seems to me that those who want to become passive resisters for the service of the country have to observe perfect chastity, adopt poverty, follow truth, and cultivate fearlessness. Chastity is one of the greatest disciplines without which the mind cannot attain requisite firmness. A man who is unchaste loses stamina, becomes emasculated and cowardly. He whose mind is given over to animal passions is not capable of any great effort. This can be proved by innumerable instances. What then is a married person to do is the question that arises naturally; and yet it need not. When a husband and wife gratify the passions, it is no less an animal indulgence on that account. Such an indulgence, except for perpetuating the race, is strictly prohibited. Srikrishna to Chhatrapati Shivaji, Rana Pratap, Rani Jhansi, Guru Gobind Singh, Aurobindo, Savarkar, Bhagat Singh, Subhash Bose.
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But a passive resister has to avoid even that very limited indulgence because he can have no desire for progeny. A married man therefore can observe perfect chastity. The subject is not capable of being treated at greater length. Several questions arise: How is one to carry one’s wife with one? What are her rights, and other such questions? Yet those who wish to take part in a great work are bound to solve these puzzles.38 Gandhi’s unconventional attempts to test if he had overcome these ‘animal passions’ and ‘animal indulgence’, suggest he did not ‘solve these puzzles’. Given his unchallenged iconic status in Indian public discourse, we shall never know if Kasturba concurred with these experiments. A woman of great dignity, Kasturba, like most women of her generation, would have drawn a veil over such serious embarrassments and personal trauma and therefore maintained stoic silence all her life. Yet with nearly a century between the events, it is imperative that Indian academia scale the walls of complicit silence and engage in an honest evaluation of Gandhi’s life and work. Gandhi left South Africa forever in July 1914, after Gen. Smuts allegedly succumbed to the pressure of his ‘unrelenting’ Satyagraha and passed the Indian Relief Act in June 1914. These concessions to the Indian community did not shake even a brick in the foundation or superstructure of the Apartheid regime, and more repressive laws were introduced in subsequent years and decades. Yet Gandhi regarded this as adequate victory for him personally and his Satyagraha. With a sense of mission accomplished, he decided to set off for India via London, for a more ambitious political assignment. ***** Appendix I Legalised Apartheid Natal became a British Crown Colony ruled from the Cape. The Natal Charter of 1856 was proclaimed and Natal received representative selfgovernment. Most councillors in the legislature were elected, but the British Government appointed the executive. The right to vote was based on property qualification. 1859: Natal Coolie Law, Law 14 of 1859 After protracted negotiations between the Natal government and the Secretary of State for the Colonies, the Natal Coolie Law, No.14 of 1859, was passed making it possible for the Natal colony to introduce the immigration of Indians as indentured labour with the option to return to 38
HS, Chapter XVII, Passive Resistance, page 97
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India after a five-year period. At the end of five years the labourers had the option of renewing their indenture contract for another five-year term, which entitled them to the gift of Crown land and full citizenship rights. Needless to say, as more and more Indians law was amended to the disadvantage of from India and other Asian countries. This the proclamation of Act No 25 of 1891 settlement of Indians in the province.
began to come to Natal, this all future indentured labour proviso was withdrawn with intended to discourage the
1872: The Coolie Consolidation Amendment Act, Law No. 12 of 1872 made provision for a Protector of Indian Immigrants, abolishing flogging for breaches of the masters and Servants Act for improvement of medical treatment for Indian immigrants. 1876: the Free State Republic (a Boer republic) passed legislation allowing Indians to enter the Republic with the understanding that they had no permanent right of residence. 1885: Law 3 of 1885 The first discriminatory legislation directed at Indians passed in the Transvaal. 1. This law shall apply to the persons belonging to any of the native races of Asia, including so-called Coolies, Arabs, Malays, and Mohammedan subjects of the Turkish Empire. 2. With regard to the persons mentioned in Article one the following provisions shall apply:(a) They cannot obtain the burgher right of the South African Republic (Transvaal). (b) They cannot be owners of fixed property in the Republic except only in such streets, wards and locations as the Government for purposes of sanitation shall assign to them to live in. (c) They shall be inscribed in a Register, if they settled with the object of trading. (d) The government shall have the right for purposes of sanitation, to assign to them certain streets, wards and locations to live in. This provision does not apply to those who live with employers. 1888: The Registration of Servants Act, Law No. 2 of 1888 passed in Natal, a British colony, classified Indians as members of an “uncivil race” and forced Indians to register. Free Indians are forced to carry passes or court arrest. The South African Republic rejects a British Indian petition and places all Asians in the same category as the native African people – as labourers.
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1890: The Orange Free State Act 29 is passed. This law ensured against the influx of ‘Asiatics’ and the removal of ‘White criminals’ entering the state from elsewhere 1891: The Statute law of the Orange Free State The Statute Law of the Orange Free State prohibits ‘an Arab, a Chinaman, a Coolie or any other Asiatic or coloured person from carrying on business or farming in the Orange Free State.’ All Indian businesses are forced to close by 11 September and owners deported from the Orange Free State without compensation. 1894: The Franchise Bill is introduced in Natal to disenfranchise Indians. It is as response to this Bill that Gandhi founds the Natal Indian Congress. 1895: The Indian Immigration Amendment Act, Law No. 17 of 1895 The colony of Natal imposes a £3 tax on ex-indentured Indians, who fail to re-indenture or return to India after completion of their labour contracts. The penalty is imprisonment or deportation. In 1900 it is extended to children (boys, 16 years and over, girls, 12 years and over) and becomes operational in 1901. 1896: The Franchise Act No 8 of 1896 This Act disenfranchised Indians. Africans were disenfranchised in 1865. Only three Africans and 251 Indians ever acquired voting rights in Natal. 1897: The Immigration Restrictions Act The Immigration Restriction Act (Natal) and subsequent amendments in 1900, 1903, and 1906, imposed an educational, health, age and means test, against Indians other than indentured workers, seeking admission to the country, or entry to the Transvaal and Cape. This act virtually stops all further immigration of free Indians into the colony. The Dealers Licenses Act No 18 Natal Licensing Officers are empowered to issue or refuse licenses. Law 3 of 1897 prohibits marriage of whites with persons of colour within the SA Republic (Transvaal). 1899: The Regulations of Towns in the South African Republic. The Regulations for Towns in the South African Republic (Transvaal) states that Persons of colour prohibited from walking on the side-walks (pavements) or stoeps serving as a side-walk of the streets of its towns and ‘coolie locations’ are established for Indians in the Transvaal.
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1902: The Immigration Act is passed in the Cape Colony and made future immigration of Indians to the Cape subject to an education and literacy test. 1902: May 31, The Boer war ends with the signing of the Treaty of Vereeniging. Transvaal and the Orange Free State become British colonies. Indians, native Africans, Coloured and White refugees return to the Transvaal. 1903: Peace Preservation Ordinance and Ordinance No. 5 of 1903 This Act regulated the re-entry of Indians who had left the Transvaal for Natal, the Cape Colony and India when war broke out. It segregates Asiatics into locations, refuses trading licenses except in Asiatic bazaars and pre-war licenses of Asiatics become non-transferable. The Transvaal Corporations Ordinance No 58 authorized local authorities to proclaim, move, de-proclaim and manage townships for non-whites. The residents cannot buy land and have to rent. They do have the right to compensation if moved and are allowed to erect buildings under strict regulations. The Immorality Ordinance, Law 46 of 1903 is passed in the Transvaal. The Immigration Restriction immigration of Indians to Natal.
Act
passed
in
Natal;
restricted
Lord Milner, British High Commissioner and Governor of Cape Colony, established the Asiatic Affairs Department to enforce the provisions of Law 3 of 1885. In addition, the Department was charged with compiling a dossier of all anti-Indian measures that prevailed in the Boer republics prior to the Boer War, and these measures were subsequently applied with a vengeance. Thus did the imperial British government in London reward Gandhi and other stretcher-boys of the Boer War. 1905: The Immigration Restriction Act The act enabled the government to control entry of Indians into Transvaal through a special permit system. 1906: The Immigration Act in Cape Colony made all future immigration of Indians to the Cape subject to literacy requirements. The Transvaal Asiatic Law Amendment Ordinance 29 subjected all Indians to compulsory registration and identification by means of finger prints. Registration Certificates (Passes) to be carried at all times and produced on request to a police officer under penalty of fine or imprisonment.
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1906 January 1, a poll tax of three British Pounds on Indians 18 years and over is enforced in Natal. 1907: The Asiatic Law amendment Act Colonial Secretary, General Smuts, introduces The Asiatic Law Amendment Act, 2/1907 “The Black Act” is identical to Ordinance 29/1906. All male Asians to be registered and finger printed; to carry certificate (pass) at all times, to be shown to police on demand. Act 2/1907 operative from 1 July 1907. 1907 March 19, General J C Smuts re-introduces the Asiatic Law Amendment Ordinance 29 of 1906 which failed to gain assent in December 1906 as the Transvaal Asiatic Registration Bill. 1907 March 22 The Transvaal Asiatic Registration Bill passed by the Transvaal parliament. Transvaal Asiatic Registration Act is gazetted. Royal assent is given in May. Apartheid became institutionalized with the passing of several crippling discriminatory laws. From 1895 to 1914, Gandhi’s satyagraha, petitions, memorandums, fervent letters to Pietermaritzburg, London and India and two deputation visits to London in 1906 and 1909 achieved little. Apartheid would not be ended until 1990. ***** II SENTENCE ON THE GREAT TILAK The sentence passed on Mr. Tilak, the great patriot, is terrible. The few days’ imprisonment which the Transvaal Indians suffer is as nothing compared to transportation for six years. The sentence is not so much surprising as terrible. At the same time it is nothing to be unhappy about. It is not surprising that a Government we seek to defy should inflict oppressive measures on us. Mr. Tilak is so great a man and scholar that it would be impertinent, in this country, to write of his work. He deserves to be adored for his work in the service of the motherland. His simplicity is extraordinary; but the light of his scholarship has reached even Europe. Yet we should not blindly follow the policies of those whom we regard as great. It would be casting a reflection on Mr. Tilak’s greatness to argue that his writings had no bitterness in them or to offer some such defence. Pungent, bitter and penetrating writing was his objective. He aimed at inciting Indians against British rule. To attempt to minimize this would be to detract from Mr. Tilak’s greatness. The rulers are justified, from their point of view, in taking action against such a man. We would do the same in their place. If we look at the matter thus, we realize that we need not feel bitter towards them. Mr. Tilak, however, deserves our congratulations. He has, by his suffering, attained undying fame and laid the foundations of India’s freedom. If the
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people, instead of being overawed at the sentence passed on Mr. Tilak or being intimidated by it, rejoice at it and keep up their courage, the sentence will in the sequel prove to have been a blessing. What we need to consider is whether Indians should accept the views of Mr. Tilak and his party. We submit, after great deliberation, that Mr. Tilak’s views should be rejected. It will be harmful, even useless, to use force or violence for uprooting that rule. Freedom gained through violence would not endure. And the sufferings to which the people of Europe submit would also become our lot then. As for the masses, they would merely pass from one form of slavery to another. No one will gain this way and almost everyone will lose—that is what the result will be. We believe that the easiest way to make British rule beneficent is to adopt the way of satyagraha. If British rule becomes tyrannical, it will come to an end as soon as the British Government attempts to resist satyagraha. If the same workers who went on strike in protest against the sentence on Mr. Tilak were to become satyagrahis, they would be able to get the Government to agree to any reasonable demands. What is our duty in this context? Though Mr. Tilak and other great Indians like him differ from us, we should continue to hold them in the highest esteem. We must emulate them in their capacity to suffer. Since they are great patriots, we must consider no honour too great for them, and act in the same spirit of patriotism. Their object is the same as ours, namely, to serve the motherland and to work for its prosperity. Compared to what they have been doing to secure that end, the course we have chosen is not in the least difficult. But we are convinced that the outcome of our exertions will be a thousand times better. Indian Opinion, 1-8-1908, CWMG Vol. 9, pp 28-29. ***** III The Bambatha Uprising or Zulu Massacre The Bambatha Uprising was a Zulu revolt against British rule and taxation in Natal, South Africa, in 1906. The revolt was led by Bambatha kaMancinza, leader of the Zondi clan of the Zulu people, who lived in the Mpanza Valley: a district near Greytown, KwaZulu-Natal. In the years following the Anglo-Boer War white settlers in Natal had difficulty recruiting native African farm workers because of increased competition from the gold mines of the Witwatersrand. The British government introduced a £1 poll tax in addition to the existing hut tax to encourage native African men to enter the labour market. Bambatha, who ruled about 5,500 people living in about 1,100 households, was one of the chiefs who resisted the introduction and collection of the hut tax and the poll tax. The government of Natal sent police officers to collect the tax from Zulus who refused to pay the tax, and in February 1906 two white officers were killed near Richmond, kwaZulu-Natal. In the resulting introduction of martial law, Bambatha fled north to consult King Dinizulu, who gave tacit
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support to Bambatha and invited him and his family to stay at the royal homestead. Bambatha returned to the Mpanza Valley to discover that the Natal government had deposed him as chief. He gathered together a small force of supporters and began launching a series of guerrilla attacks, using the Nkandla forest as a base. Following a series of initial successes, colonial troops under the command of Colonel Duncan McKenzie set out on an expedition in late April 1906, culminating in a fierce battle in the Mome Gorge. Bambatha was killed and beheaded during the battle (many of his supporters believed that he was still alive, and his wife refused to go into mourning). Bambatha's main ally, the 95-year-old Zulu aristocrat Inkosi Sigananda Shezi of the AmaCube clan (cousin and near-contemporary of the Zulu King Shaka) was captured by the colonial troops and died a few days later. Nearly 14,000 Zulus were killed during the revolt while thousands were imprisoned and/or flogged. King Dinizulu was arrested and sentenced to four years imprisonment for treason. ***** IV Aurobindo on apartheid in the Transvaal – Indians Abroad ‘India’ to hand. This mail laments the exclusion of Indians from the representative system on which the new constitution in the Transvaal is to be based and plaintively recalls the professions and promises of the British Government at the time of the Boer war. The saintly simplicity of India grows daily more and more wearisome to us. Everybody who knew anything at all about politics understood at the time that those professions were merely a diplomatic move and the promises made were never meant to be carried out. We see no reason to lament what was foreseen. What we do regret and blame is the spirit of Indians in the Transvaal, who seek escape from the oppression they suffer under by ignoble methods, in spirit to those practiced by the constitutionalists in this country. The more the Transvaal Indians are kicked and insulted, the more loyal they seem to become. After their splendid services in the Transvaal war had been rewarded by the grossest ingratitude, they had no business to offer their services again in the recent Natal rebellion. By their act they associated themselves with the colonists in their oppression of the natives of the country and have only themselves to thank if they also are oppressed by the same narrow and arrogant colonial spirit. Their eagerness to disassociate themselves from the Africans is shown in Dr. Abdurrrahman’s letter quoted by India. All such methods are as useless as they are unworthy. So long as the Indian nation at home does not build itself into a strong and self-governing people, they can expect nothing from Englishmen in their colonies except
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oppression and contumely. (Bande Mataram, August 20, 1906, page 132) ***** V Excerpts from ‘Letter to Lord Ampthill’, London July 29, 1909 MY LORD, I am extremely obliged to Your Lordship for the very great trouble you are taking over the Indian cause in the Transvaal which you have made your own. Immediately on reading your letter, I telegraphed saying that nothing would be done without consultation with Your Lordship and that I was writing this letter and sending the statement. I am enclosing statement in proof form because, in anticipation of Your Lordship’s approval, it was sent to the printers yesterday, but it will not be published or submitted without consultation with Your Lordship. It is to me a test of Your Lordship’s very great interest in our struggle as also, may I say, of your high-mindedness. Will you excuse me for saying that I know of no Indian, whether here, in South Africa or in India, who had so steadily, even defiantly, set his face against sedition—as I understand it— as I have. It is part of my faith not to have anything to do with it, even at the risk of my life. Most people, that is most Indians and Anglo-Indians, express their detestation of bomb throwing and violence in words or in unreasonable action. The movement in the Transvaal, with which I have identified myself is an eloquent and standing protest in action against such methods. The test of passive resistance is self-suffering and not infliction of suffering on others. We have, therefore, not only never received a single farthing from “ the party of sedition” in India or else-where, but even if there was any offer, we should, if we were true to our principles, decline to receive it. We have hitherto made it a point not to approach the Indian public in India for financial assistance. The accounts of the British Indian Association are open to the world. A statement of income and expenditure is published from time to time and is advertised in Indian Opinion. Mr. Doke, Mr. Phillips, and other notable men who are working in the Transvaal for us, know this fact most intimately. May I add, too, that the idea of passive resistance originated in South Africa was independent of any movement in India and that we have sometimes been bitterly assailed by some of our Indian friends for pinning our faith to passive resistance pure and simple? I hope Your Lordship will pardon me for introducing so much of the personal element, as also for the length of this letter, which was unavoidable. If any further elucidation or information be necessary, you can only add to the debt of gratitude to me by commanding me to furnish the same. (CWMG Vol. 9, pp 447-49)
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Excerpts from ‘Letter to Lord Ampthill’, August 4, 1909 MY LORD, Your Lordship‘s question was whether passive resistance was financed or fomented from India. As to the “fomenting”, I did not go into details; I very nearly did so and then refrained for fear of making my letter too long and burdensome, but, as you have kindly invited me to express myself more fully, I gladly avail myself of the opportunity. I am fully aware of the allegation that we are acting in co-operation with the Extremist Party in India. I however give Your Lordship the emphatic assurance that the charge is totally without foundation. Indian passive resistance in the Transvaal had its rise in that Colony and has been continued absolutely independent of anything that is being said or done in India; indeed, sometimes, even in defiance of what has been said or written to the contrary in India or elsewhere. Our movement is absolutely unconnected with any extremist movement in India. I do not know the extremists personally. .....and now Mr. Henry S.L. Polak is in Bombay, from the Transvaal, in order to place the position before the Indian public. He has gone there with definite instructions not to come into touch with the Extremist Party, but to be guided largely by the Editor of The Times of India, Professor Gokhale and the Aga Khan. It would be improper for me not to add that I follow what is going on in India with the keenest interest and some of the phases of the national movement with the gravest anxiety. I believe, too, that the fullest expansion of national sentiment is quite consistent with the stability of British rule in India and I further believe that much of what we suffer in India is easy of remedy by effort from within. I know that under the British constitution, British subjects, no matter to what race they belong, have never got and never can get their rights until they have performed their corresponding duties and until they are willing to fight for them. The fight takes the form either of physical violence, as in the case of the extremists in India, or of personal suffering by the fighters, as in the case of our passive resisters in the Transvaal. In my opinion, the first form of seeking redress is largely barbarous and, in any case, inconsistent with the genius of the people of India, not because they are physically too weak to take that course, but because their training has adapted them to the latter mode, and I am free to confess that passive resistance in the Transvaal is a practical demonstration to the party of violence in India that they are entirely on the wrong track and that, so long as they pin their faith to violence for obtaining relief of any kind whatsoever, so long are they beating the air. I am quite aware that this exposition of my own view may not be of any use to Your Lordship and possibly is devoid of any interest whatsoever. The only reason why I mention it is to guard myself against being misunderstood. I am most anxious not to withhold anything at all from Your Lordship and I am anxious also to retain, in any work that I
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undertake, the support of one who so loves the Empire and the country of my birth as yourself. With many thanks for the deep interest you are taking in our troubles and with apologies for the unavoidable length of this letter. (CWMG Vol. 9, pp 457-59) ***** VI The Coronation Our countrymen through out South Africa sent their loyal greeting to their Majesties on the Coronation Day. It may seem somewhat anomalous to a stranger why and how British Indians of South Africa should tender their loyalty to the Throne or rejoice over the crowning of Sovereigns in whose dominions they do not even enjoy the ordinary civil rights of orderly men. The anomaly would however, disappear, if the stranger were to understand the British constitution. British Sovereigns represent, in theory, purity and equality of justice. The ideal of King George is to treat his subjects with equality. His happiness depends upon that of his subjects. British statesmen make an honest attempt to realize the ideals. That they often fail miserably in doing so is too true but irrelevant to the issue before us. The British monarchy is limited and rightly so under the existing circumstances. Those then who are content to remain under the British flag may, ought to, without doing any violence to their conscience, tender their loyalty to the Sovereign for the time being of these mighty dominions, although, like us, they may be labouring under severe disabilities. In tendering our loyalty, we but show our devotion to the ideals just referred to; our loyalty is an earnest of our desire to realize them. The genius of the British constitution requires that every subject of the Crown should be as free as any other, and, if he is not, it is his duty to demand and fight for his freedom so long as he does so without injuring anyone else. There is no room for helotry and slavery in this constitution, though both exist abundantly. Largely it is the fault of the helots and the slaves themselves. The British constitution provides a happy means of freedom but it must be confessed that it is not easy of adoption. There is no royal road to freedom. British people themselves have reached what they mistake for freedom through much travail and suffering. Yet they are strangers to real freedom—the freedom of self. They cannot and do not blame the constitution for the disability. Nor can we because we have ours. And we have not even bled for our freedom, real or so called. If, however, we understand the spirit of the British constitution, though we suffer from disabilities in this sub-continent and though we are far from happy in the sacred land of our birth, we are bound heartily to shout LONG LIVE THE KING !
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Indian Opinion, 24-6-1911, CWMG Vol. 11, pp 451-52 Our view of the matter is that, if those who argue in this manner feel that they cannot be loyal, they should declare their want of loyalty and outlaw themselves. Otherwise they will lay themselves open to the charge of insincerity and cowardice. We believe, however, that we can remain loyal to His Majesty despite our untold sufferings. Our sufferings here are to be blamed on the local authorities, and more so on ourselves. If we become truthful [that is] if we rebel against ourselves (against the Satanic within us), thus exorcizing the devil, and ourselves manage our affairs instead, we will not have to put up with any hardship whatever and shall be able to declare, ‘Oh, how happy we are under the reign of King George!’ To the extent that we are unable to exorcize the Satan in us, we shall have to take to entreating the local authorities, and we might thereby slake our burning woes. If we do not do either, how is King George to blame? Someone may answer saying that everything is done in the name of King George, and therefore the credit for the good things and blame for the wrong things should both be his. What we have said above disposes of that argument. The British monarchy is not free, but is confined within limits. These checks are implicit in that British system of monarchy. If the King oversteps the limits, he will be dethroned. Moreover, the British Constitution aims at securing equality of rights and equality before the law for every subject. Those who do not enjoy such equality are free to fight for it, the only restriction being that the mode of agitation shall not harm others. Not only is every British subject free to fight in this way, but it is his duty to do so. It is a duty to express one’s loyalty to such a constitution and to its head, the King Emperor, for that will only be an expression of loyalty to one’s own manhood. The loyalty of a slave is no loyalty. He only serves. If a slave can be loyal, that must be due to coercion. The loyalty of a free man is willed. It may be urged against this reasoning that it would justify submission even to a wicked king or a vicious constitution; the argument then is not quite proper. For instance, we could not, as free men, be loyal to the pre-War Boer constitution and to its head, President Kruger, for the constitution itself laid down that there shall be no equality between Europeans and Coloureds in the governance of the country or in ecclesiastical affairs. We cannot fight such a constitution and be loyal to it at the same time. In a situation like that we would have to defy not only the head but the basis of his authority as well. If we refused to fight, we would cease to be men and be thought brutes. If the British Constitution were to change and lay down that there would be no equality, not even in theory, as between whites and Coloureds, we could no longer owe allegiance to such a constitution and would have to oppose it. Even in such a contingency, however, we could remain loyal to the King within limits; such is the virtue of the British system. It is not here necessary to explore these limits for the question does not arise.
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It must be remembered that the British people won what they consider their freedom after they had let rivers of blood flow. Real freedom, however, even they have yet to win. We, on the other hand, have shed no blood, endured nothing, for the sake of freedom, real or imaginary. The Transvaal satyagrahis alone gave evidence of having suffered in some measure in the course of their great campaign. But their suffering was a drop in the ocean. Only when we come forward to suffer as much—and infinitely more—shall we succeed in winning freedom for ourselves. The British Constitution permits one to seek this freedom. The British Emperor must wish that all his subjects get such freedom; such is the British way. And there are Englishmen who sincerely strive to act on these principles according to their own lights. We can, therefore, and ought to, remain loyal to the British Emperor, our grievances notwithstanding. [From Gujarati] Indian Opinion, 24-6-1911, CWMG Vol. 11, pp 452-54 ***** VII Dhingra Case Mr. Madanlal Dhingra’s case came up for hearing today (the 23rd). We were not permitted not be present in the court. Since Mr. Dhingra did not put up any defence, the case did not take much time. He only stated that he had done the deed for the good of his country, and that he did not regard it as a crime. The presiding judge sentenced him to death. I have already given my views about this assassination. Mr. Dhingra’s statement, according to me, argues mere childishness or mental derangement. Those who incited him to this act will be called to account in God’s court, and are also guilty in the eyes of the world. THE SHADOW OF THE DHINGRA CASE Mr. Dhingra’s case has led to Government action against The Indian Sociologist. The journal had published a categorical statement that homicide for the good of one’s country was no murder. The printer, poor man, has been sentenced to four months’ imprisonment for printing such a violent article. The man who has been sentenced is a poor, innocent Englishman, who was entirely ignorant [of what he was printing]. The authors* are in Paris, and hence the Government is unable to get at them. Such acts will not advance the progress of the nation. So long as the people do not throw up men who will be prepared to invite the utmost suffering on themselves, India will never prosper. *Allusion to Savarkar. Gandhi was baying for Savarkar’s blood. Indian Opinion, 21-8-1909, CWMG Vol. 9, pp 436-37. *****
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Chapter 4 Gandhian Swaraj – diminishing the Kshatriya 4.1 The freedom movement that never was This work attempts to trace the origins and the trajectory of Indian polity over the last 130 years, culminating in the deHinduization of the polity and political disempowering of the Hindus. Gandhi stepped into a vacuum created by Aurobindo’s abdication of political responsibility, which he signaled through the much-touted Uttarapara speech, to meander into a spiritual domain but did not add substantively to the nation’s religious heritage. As an anti-colonial activist and articulate leader with extraordinary vision of the nation and its nationhood, rooted in the civilization’s religious and spiritual traditions, Aurobindo was unparalleled and has few equals even today. He was the exemplary rajarishi and had he stayed the course and remained in the political battlefield, pitching his war camp in the French colony of Pondicherry, the journey to independence may well have culminated in Hindu resurgence and the idea of Pakistan could have been aborted at conception.1 The end of colonial rule in 1947, while it ceded state power to the Hindus who then comprised 87.22% of the population did not however put in place a self-conscious Hindu state. Contrary to the conventions of world history, India alone after a decisive end of Muslim and White Christian rule in 1947, failed to establish a state reflecting the religion, culture and civilisational ethos of its majority populace. This was also the religion and culture of the soil, adhered to by the native populace, unlike the situation in the North America, Australia, New Zealand and Islamic countries, where all traces of pre-Islamic and pre-Christian faiths have been wiped out. Wherever pre-Christian and pre-Islamic faiths and people have managed to survive, their numbers are puny like the Native Americans in North and South America, the Maoris of New Zealand or the Aborigines of Australia, and pose no threat to the conquering religion and/or race, as their numbers are too insignificant to dislodge their tormentors. In India alone, post-1947 a polity and state emerged, powered by what came to be called Nehruvian secularism, actively hostile to 1
Sadly, Aurobindo’s only tangible legacy is a small commune in Pondicherry, peopled mostly by foreign nationals disenchanted with Christianity and western civilization and engaged in organic farming and other cottage/village industry, attracted by the legend of his French companion, Mirra Alfassa.
the majority populace, a state which effectively de-Hinduized all public spaces, de-Hinduized the content and character of the polity, and politically disempowered the Hindus. Nehruvian Secularism owed its existence to Gandhi and Nehru; the latter was Gandhi’s endowment to the fledgling nation-state. Nehru was Gandhi’s political continuum, just as Gandhi’s career in India was a continuum of his calling in South Africa; there was no difference in intent or objective, hence no different in character. Just as Gandhi was positioned to take over from Gokhale, Nehru was positioned to succeed Gandhi. A.O. Hume, Gokhale, Gandhi, Nehru,2 was the natural lineage of the INC of colonial intent. Others who came before, after, or in between, including Aurobindo, Bose, Rajaji, Patel (even Indira Gandhi) were, if they showed signs of veering the INC away from the chosen path, either sidelined or summarily removed. Keeping in mind that Gandhi was maneuvered into a commanding position within the INC, and considering Indian polity insists he ‘fathered’ this nation, we must perforce look at the path traveled by the INC until and after the advent of Gandhi, its goals, methods and final success or failure. Our objective is to see if Gandhi’s INC, Gandhi himself, and his legacy have any bearing on Hindu political disempowerment. Our study of Gandhi’s political career in South Africa demonstrated that his Satyagraha did not yield anything the Empire was not willing to concede. It established tangentially that Gandhi’s encounter with the British Empire in South Africa was not intended to bring the Empire down by ending Apartheid colonial rule in South Africa, but merely to persuade the British government to look favourably upon the migrant Indian community there and enhance their social and political status above that of native Africans, through amendment or repeal of some discriminatory laws. We hope to establish that when Gandhi returned to India, his political career was consistent with his sojourn in South Africa, with no difference in objectives, and with disastrous consequences for Hindus and their motherland. Gandhi rendered Hindus politically impotent and fathered modern India’s politics of minority-ism. It is our contention that: · ·
2
The so-called freedom movement was never a freedom movement. Until 1942, the INC under Gandhi’s leadership and under his explicit injunction, never contemplated ending colonial rule.
And now Sonia Gandhi.
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The call for ‘swaraj’ at the 1920 Nagpur Congress and for ‘purna swaraj’ at the 1928 Lahore Congress was a mockery of the Tilak/Aurobindo war-cry that galvanized the entire nation in the two decades between 1890-1910 on one hand, and on the other hand deceived ordinary Indians about the content and meaning of Gandhian swaraj which was never intended to be complete political independence entailing the exit of the Empire. It was only in 1942 when world events weakened the Empire and made continued occupation of India increasingly untenable that the INC issued the utterly redundant notice to ‘Quit India’. When the Empire finally decided to quit, it did so only on its terms with an ascendant Islam vivisecting the Hindu nation, with Nehru firmly positioned to inherit the mantle of leadership from Gandhi, with Jammu & Kashmir twisted into a permanent thorn in the nation’s flesh by Nehru and Mountbatten, with Hindus decisively disempowered politically, and the basis of nationhood of the new nationstate floundering in rampant confusion. But the most disgraceful situation was that on 15 August 1947, when India allegedly became ‘independent’ to the emotive vacuity of Nehru’s tryst with ‘freedom at midnight,’ the nation was actually a Dominion of the British Empire. What we achieved on 15 August was self-rule within the Empire because Nehru had consented to the King of England to remain Head of State for three more years, until January 1950, while falsely celebrating 15 August 1947 as official Independence Day. Complete political independence was thus still in the future, though the groves of Nehruvian academia continued to perpetuate a falsehood.
4.2 The significant interim between Gandhi in South Africa and Gandhi in India Gen. Smuts saw off ‘the saint’ Gandhi in July 1914 from South Africa, but the latter arrived in India only in January 1915, after a six-month stopover in London, a contrary route that deserves closer scrutiny. One of the first things Gandhi did in London, in a remarkable replay of his years in South Africa, was to actively campaign for Indians to be conscripted into the army to fight for the Empire in World War I. Nearly 130,000 Indians enlisted and were posted in France; over 70,000 died in a war in which Indians had no stake. Delhi’s India Gate was erected as a memorial to the Indians killed in the war; but Gandhi received his third medal, the
Kaiser-e-Hind medal,3 from the Empire for his recruitment drive. Much later, in 1939, Gandhi would be interviewed by the Parsi journal ‘Kaiser-e-Hind”, thus raising intriguing questions about the medal itself. The six month sojourn in London was significant for two reasons: Gandhi received a complete image make-over and his signature on the Confidential Circular (Chapter 3) as mentioned, affirming unconditional support for the Empire put the British Indian government in a benevolent mood, conducive for his return. It must be borne in mind that the leadership of the INC, and the British government unknown to the INC, had both, independent of each other, already planned by 1909-1910 that Gandhi would return to India to wean the INC and the people of India away from ideas of political independence or armed resistance and steer them towards Home Rule or Dominion Status. Either of these stratagems would keep India within the Empire with a pretext of self-governance. Gokhale understood well that Tilak and Aurobindo’s call for Swadeshi and Swaraj resounded in the hearts and minds of ordinary Indians, who wanted political independence and the end of British rule, even if it meant armed resistance and use of force. Gokhale and other Moderates and empire loyalists knew that even though Aurobindo beat the retreat with his Uttarapara speech, efforts were still underway by elements in the INC to get him back into the Congress and lead it from the front. Gokhale understood that if Gandhi had to supplant Tilak and Aurobindo as leader, he would have to symbolize some aspect of swadeshi and convince the ordinary people that he was one of them. Gandhi renounced western garments and attired in dhoti, kurta and pagdi, arrived in India in January 1915 to begin the Indian phase of his political career. Gandhi’s version of swadeshi gave an esoteric, metaphysical and completely impossible twist to swaraj and effectively subverted the freedom movement. Whereas Aurobindo and Tilak invoked the kshatriya in society by calling upon the people to realize their strength, Gandhi consistently pointed to the weakness and helplessness of ‘dumb millions’ and diminished the kshatriya. 4.3 Tilak-Aurobindo swaraj versus Gandhi swaraj The INC under the leadership of the empire loyalists adhered to its original intent – a political vehicle for the English-educated Indian to make the British government responsive, however minimally to Indian concerns. This could be done only through
3
Kaiser-e-Hind was one of the appellations for the King or Queen of Britain; its English equivalent was King-Emperor or Queen-Empress of India
prayers and petitions and Aurobindo bluntly dismissed the Congress policy of mendicancy – The talk of this Colonial self-government or selfgovernment within the Empire at a time they are going to have an Imperial Conference of the Colonial Prime Ministers and have condescended to admit a representative of India to the same, may very well entrap the unwary, especially when it comes from a personage who is said to have explained to the Secretary of State all that India needs in a five-minute interview. But the pretension of the frog to rank as a quadruped of the elephant class with the mere expression of a pious wish should receive a heavy shock on learning from Reuter that either Mr. Morley or his nominee will represent India at the coming Colonial Conference. The spurious politics that has so long lived only on the delusion of the people has very nearly been found out and thus elaborate preparations are going on to give it a fresh lease of life. But when the gods want to destroy a thing no human efforts can avail. Mendicancy is no longer consistent with the stand-up position that Indians have taken up. The imposing deal of self-government within the Empire with which begging politics has been making its last attempt to catch the fancy of the people will hardly survive such disenchanting strokes as the representation of India on the Colonial Conference by the Secretary of State himself or his own nominee. If India is to be India, if her civilization is to retain a distinctive stamp and extend its spiritual conquests for the benefit of the world at large, it must be propped up with the strength of her own people. The patriotism that wishes the country to lose itself within an Empire which justifies its name by its conquest – the colonies being no portion of the Empire in its strict sense – is also madness without method. But to talk of absolute independence and autonomy – though this be madness, yet there is method in it.4 (Emphasis added) Tilak’s battle-cry, ‘Swaraj is my birthright and I shall have it’, unambiguously implied political independence; it was a call to 4
Yet there is method in it, Bande Mataram, February 25, 1907, page 205-206
galvanize Indians to expel the Empire from the land. When Tilak and Aurobindo demanded swaraj, they told the Empire to quit India or face determined Indians who would throw them out. When Tilak and Aurobindo advocated swadeshi, they meant total and complete boycott of everything British; their swadeshi meant boycotting British goods, rejecting British schools in favour of national education and boycotting the British legal system; in effect, their swaraj and swadeshi meant returning traditional autonomy to the villages and to all traditional social institutions, and regaining control of both the polity and the economy.5 In contrast, Gandhi’s ‘swaraj’ was vague and esoteric, wandering confusedly in the realms of Christian metaphysics. Tilak and Aurobindo sought to make the Indian National Congress the vehicle for India’s total independence - economic, cultural and political, and not serve as an instrument of colonial intent. Tilak and Aurobindo realized the debilitating effect of English education, and recognized that the loss of political autonomy had led the educated elite in our village and urban communities into inertia (tamas) and despair. As Aurobindo put it, ‘It is high time we abandoned the fat and comfortable selfish middle-class training we give to our youth and make a nearer approach to the physical and moral education of our old kshatriyas or the Japanese Samurai.’6 Both leaders jointly sounded the bugle of swaraj and swadeshi, the battle-cry for total national resurgence. Tilak used ‘Kesari’ and ‘Mahratta’, and Aurobindo used ‘Indu Prakash’, ‘Bande Mataram’, ‘Karmayogin’ and ‘Yugantar’ to force realization upon our intellectuals about the state of society and nation, and simultaneously to put the fire of rebellion back into Indian blood, to kindle a flaming determination to throw off the morass of tamas and fight back, and if need be, even to use force to end colonial rule. Naturally, colonial newspapers of the day, professing the ‘religion of love’ accused them of fanning hatred; but Aurobindo placed even hatred of colonial rule and colonialists in traditional Hindu perspective If hatred is demoralising, it is also stimulating. The web of life has been made a mingled strain of good and evil and God works his ends through evil as well as through the good. Let us discharge our minds of hate, but let us not deprecate a great and necessary movement because, in the inevitable course of human nature, it has engendered feelings of hostility and hatred. If hatred came, it was
5 6
For more on Aurobindo’s description of swaraj and swadeshi, see end of chapter British protection or self-protection, Bande Mataram, March 18, 1907, page 219
necessary that it should come as a stimulus, as a means of awakening. When tamas, inertia, torpor have benumbed a nation, the strongest forms of rajas are necessary to break the spell; there is no form of rajas so strong as hatred. Through rajas we rise to sattva and for the Indian temperament, the transition does not take long.7 Even before the INC split decisively in December 1907 into two factions – those advocating the mendicant policy calling themselves Moderates, while those wanting nothing less than total political independence calling themselves Nationalists, the radically different objectives before the Congress as perceived among followers of these two sections was already evident by 1906 on the issue of who should be the president of the Calcutta Congress in December that year. The Nationalists wanted Tilak while the Moderates wanted to import Dadabhai Naoroji from London knowing that Tilak would never set himself up against a man who was widely respected and held in high esteem. Aurobindo unerringly concluded that objections to Tilak becoming president of the INC originated from Gokhale, Surendranath Banerjea and Pherozeshah Mehta because Tilak was perceived as being Hindu and as advocating Hindu nationalism. The Indian Mirror, which is now the chief ally of the government among the Congress organs in Bengal, has chosen naturally enough to fall foul of Mr.Tilak. Mr. Tilak, we learn, has seriously offended our contemporary by giving honour to Mr.Bhopatkar on his release from jail; his speeches on the Shivaji festival were displeasing to the thoughtful and enlightened men who congregate in the office of the Indian Mirror; and to sum up the whole matter, he is a man of extreme views and without ‘tact’. Ergo, he is no fit man for the presidential chair of the Congress. It is interesting to learn on this unimpeachable authority, what are the qualifications which the moderate and loyalist mind demands in a President of the ‘national’ Congress. It is not the great protagonist and champion of Swadeshi in Western India. It is not the one man whom the whole Hindu community in Western India delights to honour, from Peshawar to Kolhapur and from Bombay to our own borders; it is one who will 7
The morality of Boycott, Bande Mataram, page 127
not talk about Shivaji and Bhavani – only about Mahatmas.8 His social and religious views may not agree with those of the ‘enlightened’, but we have yet to learn that the Congress platform is sacred to advanced social reformers, that the profession of the Hindu religion is a bar to leadership in its ranks. Mr. Tilak’s only other offence is the courage and boldness of his views and his sturdiness in holding by them.9 (Emphasis added) Aurobindo’s incisive intelligence perceived the nascent trend in the INC to de-Hinduise itself; but even he failed to develop the thought further. In 1906, the move to dilute the Hinduness of the prominent leaders of the INC could only have been either to please the powerful Parsee community or the Imperial and Indian British governments because courting the Muslims was still in the future. Knowing well enough that nominating Gokhale (who had expressed regret to the British government for the Boycott campaign) for Presidentdship would trigger a revolt in the Congress ranks, in what would become decades later a trendsetting back-room manoeuvre or a coup d’etat, the ‘moderate’ and loyalist factions in 1906 presented Dadabhai Naoroji for presidentship as fait accompli.10 It follows therefore that the Presidentship was unconstitutionally offered to Mr.Naoroji by one or two individuals behind the back of the Reception Committee. It is now explained that Mr. Naoroji simply wired his willingness to accept the Presidentship offered to him. On this theory the offer was a private suggestion of individuals and the individuals made a public announcement of their private suggestion and its private acceptance, in order to compromise the Reception Committee and force its hands. The explanation therefore does not exculpate the authors of the stratagem; it only makes their action more disingenuous and tricky. No any individual has any right to take privately the consent of Mr. Naoroji or another, as if the Presidentship depended on his choice. Until the 8
Aurobindo noticed as early as 1906 that the Moderates did not want a selfconscious Hindu as President of the INC but wanted a person who spoke, not of Shivaji and Bhavani like the Hindu Nationalists but of ‘Mahatmas’ although it is not clear who the ‘mahatma’ is in 1906. 9 The “Mirror” and Mr. Tilak, Bande Mataram, August 28, 1906, pp 140-41 10 Although Sitaram Kesari was no Tilak and Sonia Gandhi no Naoroji
Reception Committee has decided to whom it will offer the function, all that individuals, be they never so much leaders, have the authority to do is to put forward name or names for recommendation by the Committee. It is only after the Committee has made its decision that the person selected can be asked whether he is willing to accept the offer. The plea that it had long been known Mr. Naoroji was coming to India and it was therefore thought fit to ask him to preside at the Congress, is one which will command no credit. Not until Mr. Tilak’s name was before the country and they saw that none of their mediocrities they had suggested could weigh in the scale with the great Maratha leader. Not by these sophisms will the Calcutta autocrats escape the discredit of their actions.11 A similar coup d’etat was attempted in October 1911 when a private suggestion was made to Gandhi, after his profitable London visit in 1909 and now the author of the ‘banned’ Hind Swaraj, to accept the Presidentship of the INC; Gandhi, eager by now to return to India for a more ambitious political role, wired his acceptance with alacrity but withdrew his acceptance when it was communicated to him that it was merely an ‘inquiry’ and not an offer. Pandit Bishen Narayan Dhar was subsequently elected President. Needless to say, the choice of President for the Congress was determined only by the goal that the Congress had set for itself: the goal was not political freedom or end of colonial rule. Our immediate problem as a nation is not how to be intellectual and well-informed or how to be rich and industrious, but how to stave off imminent death, how to put an end to the white peril, how to assert ourselves and live. It is for this reason that whatever minor differences there may be between different exponents of the new spirit, they are all agreed on the immediate necessity of an organized national resistance to the state of things which is crushing us out of existence as a nation, and on the one goal of that resistance – freedom.12 ‘End to white peril’, ‘organized national resistance’, ‘freedom’, these were the goals which the Nationalists sought to place before the Congress by nominating Tilak for Presidentship. The Congress 11 12
A Disingenuous Defence, September 14, 1906, Bande Mataram, pp 171-72 Aurobindo, The Doctrine of Passive Resistance, Its Necessity, page 96
rejected the attempt by the Nationalists to redefine its raison d’etre and signalled its rejection by choosing instead to bring back empire loyalist Dadabhai Naoroji from London. Aurobindo accurately diagnosed the condition of educated Indians as being steeped in tamas – a state of languor which did not perceive its enslavement and therefore felt no desire to end it. Many of us, utterly overcome by Tamas, the dark and heavy demon of inertia, are saying nowadays that it is impossible, that India is decayed, bloodless and lifeless, too weak ever to recover; that our race is doomed to extinction. It is a foolish and idle saying. No man or nation need be weak unless he chooses; no man or nation need perish unless he deliberately chooses extinction.13 The English-educated leaders of the Congress, co-opted into the government and its administrative organs, had a stake in the continuance of colonial rule and slavery was a price they were willing to pay. We are dissatisfied also with the conditions under which education is imparted in this country, its calculated poverty and insufficiency, its antinational character, its subordination to the government and the use made of that subordination for the discouragement of patriotism and the inculcation of loyalty (to the Empire).14 Tilak, Aurobondo and Savarkar did not choose extinction for the Hindu nation and having diagnosed the malaise afflicting even the best among men, they realised that their primary responsibility was to rejuvenate the spirit of the kshatriya yet again in society. Hindu dharma apportioned different responsibilities to the four varnas; the kshatriya’s primary responsibility was to protect and defend the nation or rashtra – the territory and the people inhabiting the territory. Tilak invoked Shivaji, the exemplary kshatriya, while Aurobindo invoked Sakthi the female divinity symbolising strength. British rule had to be forcefully ended and the nation liberated from physical and mental slavery – that would be the only karma for the kshatriya. Politics is the work of the Kshatriya and it is the virtues of the Kshatriya we must develop if we are to be morally fit for freedom. But the first virtue of 13
Aurobindo, Bhawani Mandir, India can be Reborn, page 65. Bhawani Mandir sometimes referred to as a ‘tract’ and sometimes as ‘pamphlet’ was written in 1903 14 Aurobindo, The Doctrine of Passive Resistance, Its Methods, page 102; (words in brackets mine)
the Kshatriya is not to bow his neck to an unjust yoke but to protect his weak and suffering countrymen against the oppressor and welcome death in a just and righteous battle.15 But we reiterate with all the emphasis we can command that the Kshatriya of old must again take his rightful position in our social polity to discharge the first and foremost duty of defending its interests. The brain is impotent without the right arm of strength. India is now conscious of this longforgotten truth. And the hand must hold up-to-date arms. An awakened nation consults its necessity and proceeds to the invention.16 (Emphasis added) Together, Tilak and Aurobindo revived the sense of nationalism, and national pride underlying nationalism, and brought them to the fore of the collective consciousness of this enslaved nation. Aurobindo was a visionary and even as he understood the need for force, he understood the need for caution and wisdom in the use of force. Aurobindo juxtaposed passive resistance or organized resistance as he called it and the use of force or armed resistance; passive resistance is effective only if the rulers belong to the same civilisational ethos while armed resistance may become necessary if the offender refuses to return to dharma or if the end objective is to overthrow the foreign race. Later in this chapter we will see how Aurobindo is articulating views identical to those held by Kautilya on foreign rule or vairajya which is in marked contrast to Gandhi’s view that as long as the ruler ruled according to Gandhi’s wish, he did not care of he was ruled by an Indian or an Englishman. The choice by a subject nation of the means it will use for vindicating its liberty is best determined by the circumstances of its servitude. The present circumstances in India seem to point to passive resistance as our most natural and suitable weapon. We would not for a moment be understood to base this conclusion upon any condemnation of other methods as in all circumstances criminal and unjustifiable. It is the common habit of established governments and especially those which are themselves oppressors, to brand all violent methods in subject peoples and communities as criminal and wicked. 15
Aurobindo, Many Delusions, Bande Mataram, April 5, 1907, pp 235-36 Aurobindo, The writing on the wall, Bande Mataram, April 8, 1907, page 240
16
When you have disarmed your slaves and legalised the infliction of bonds, stripes and death on any one of them, man, woman or child, who may dare to speak or to act against you, it is natural and convenient to try and lay a moral as well as a legal ban on any attempt to answer violence by violence, the knout by the revolver, the prison by riot or agrarian rising, the gallows by the dynamite bomb. Under certain circumstances a civil struggle becomes in reality a battle and the morality of war is different from the morality of peace. To shrink from bloodshed and violence under such circumstances is a weakness deserving as severe a rebuke as Srikrishna addressed to Arjuna when he shrank from the colossal civil slaughter on the field of Kurukshetra.17 Liberty is the life-breath of a nation; and when the life is attacked, when it is sought to suppress all chance of breathing by violent pressure, then any and every means of self-preservation becomes right and justifiable – just as it is lawful for a man who is being strangled, to rid himself of the pressure on his throat by any means in his power. It is the nature of the pressure that determines the nature of the resistance18. (Emphasis added) If Savarkar and Aurobindo were indeed advocating overthrowing the British using weapons of war designed by the White European nations against White Europeans occupying India by force, they were only treading the path shown by Srikrishna who urged Arjuna to use the same tactics and methods against the adharmic Kauravas and their allies as they had used against Abhimanyu. Srikrishna in the Mahabharata taught the cardinal principle of reciprocity and through his epic exposition on war-as-karma in the Bhagwad Gita, taught the invaluable lesson of taking up arms against the violators of dharma if they were not amenable to reason. The fire of nationalism had been kindled and the dark cloud of tamas was finally beginning to lift. 4.4 Gandhi’s Modus Operandi 17
For Gandhi’s exposition on the Bhagwad Gita which rejected its historicity and gave it a metaphysical connotation, see end of chapter 18 Aurobindo, The doctrine of passive resistance, part 3, Its Necessity, Bande Mataram, April 11-April 27, 1907, pp 97-98
However, until the advent of Gandhi in India, this physical and mental tamas afflicted only a section of English-educated elite Indians. Some like Aurobindo, his brother Barin Ghosh, Savarkar, Madam Bhikaji Cama and Virendranath Chatopadhyaya or ‘Chatto’ (the less famous brother of Sarojini Naidu), and later Subhash Bose, either fell out with the Congress or with Gandhi and preferred to live abroad to wage war against the Empire by forging visionary and sometimes bizarre international alliances. Gandhi’s career in Indian politics from 1915 onwards aimed only at mentally disarming ordinary Indians and physically stopping them from taking up arms against the British. The mental and physical paralysis which gripped a small section of educated Indians now spread in the form of Gandhian pacifism and afflicted even ordinary Indians who were otherwise ready to do anything (exemplified by Bhagat Singh and his compatriots) and follow any leader to expel the British Empire It is noteworthy that after the creation of the INC, ordinary Indians, despite sporadic acts of violence and revolt against British rule, had not until the advent of Gandhi organized as a force against the British Empire and had hence been spared the brutal use of repressive British state power against them. But Gandhi’s satyagraha, which brought ordinary men and women out on the streets, made them vulnerable to police brutality and draconian laws under which thousands were imprisoned, brutally beaten, and many killed (secular historians have not told us how many), all without furthering the cause of political independence. They suffered in vain; their suffering had no impact upon the Empire or on Gandhi. While Gandhi coerced the INC and the people not to take up arms against the British, he was not averse to encouraging Indians to participate in Satyagraha and suffer repressive state power. Gandhi was a coercive votary of selfsuffering for the people. It is pertinent that other than being imprisoned for months together, Gandhi himself never suffered physical abuse or pain on account of repressive state power. Future generations of scholars may like to investigate why the British always imprisoned him first after the launch of every civil disobedience campaign, including the 1942 campaign at the start of the ‘Quit India’ movement, and kept him safe in jail until the orgy of martyrdom of ordinary Indians subsided. More study is also required to investigate why repeated jail terms took irreparable toll of the health of Gandhi’s close associates – Mahadev Desai, Kasturba and Patel leading ultimately to death while Gandhi himself emerged unscathed from all prison terms and fell only to the assassin’s bullet. Our concern is to examine if Gandhi’s Satyagraha, which took such a terrible toll of the lives of ordinary men and women, served any meaningful purpose for the Hindu nation.
In the very opening chapter of Hind Swaraj, Gandhi made clear his intention to dislodge Aurobindo and the nationalists from any leadership role in the INC and among the people. He did this by: · Labelling the Nationalists as ‘extremists’. · Equating use of force with violence, labelling violence as European civilisation, and holding refusal to take up arms as the only civilisational virtue · Defending the INC and richly praising its founding members, including its British presidents, in the opening chapter itself. · Not according even minimal respect to the Nationalists and misrepresenting the truth by accusing them of promoting European civilization because they advocated use of force, when Aurobindo and Tilak had nothing but contempt for European civilization, English education, and the entire baggage that came with it. · Usurping the concepts of ‘swaraj’ and ‘swadeshi’ from the Nationalists and later usurping the name ‘Young India’ from them just as he usurped the phrase ‘passive resistance ‘ from Aurobindo and re-christened it satyagraha It bears repetition that Gandhi’s political career in India had three core objectives: · To discredit the Nationalists in the minds of Indians. · To stave off or at least delay political independence by giving ‘swaraj’ a completely un-Hindu and un-political connotation until his pet fetishes in the social domain were fulfilled · To immediately stop all physical attacks against the British people while simultaneously doing nothing to prevent Indians from dying as a consequence of the use of British state power. Gandhi usurped the concept of swaraj and the name ‘Young India’ so that the two would never be remembered as having been first associated with the Nationalists; he succeeded because postindependence Indian academia, dominated by deracinated Hindus or Marxists, peddled myth as history to generations of Indians born in or after the decade of the 1940’s. To re-invent the basis of Indian nationhood, where Hindus constituted 87% of the population, academics needed to render Hindu thinkers and warriors invisible. Gandhi and Nehru therefore received disproportionate space in the chronicle of the freedom-movementthat-wasn’t, even as the heroic saga of Hindus of the civilisation waging relentless war against all invaders was effaced from collective memory. It was critical for the success of motivated
history to de-Hinduize Indian history; on the flip side, secularists needed to purge knowledge of the religious identity of not only the invaders and occupiers but also of their victims. It is our contention that Gandhi’s exposition of swaraj had a severely emasculating effect on the Hindu community. It is pertinent that despite the course of events after 1910 when Gandhi translated Hind Swaraj into English, including the violent ascendance of Islamic separatism and nascent neo-jihad against Hindus, Gandhi in his correspondence with Nehru in October 1945 reiterated his commitment to his definition of swaraj and the political theories contained in Hind Swaraj. The first thing I want to write about is the difference of outlook between us. If the difference is fundamental then I feel the public should also be made aware of it. It would be detrimental to our work for swaraj to keep them in the dark. I have said that I still stand by the system of government envisaged in Hind Swaraj. These are not mere words. All the experience gained by me since 1909 when I wrote the booklet has confirmed the truth of my belief.19 Gandhi’s swaraj was more socio-economic than political in content. The Hindu nation would have no quarrel with Gandhi’s description which departed radically from that of Aurobindo and Tilak if it had been limited as a socio-economic doctrine; but Gandhi’s swaraj reached beyond socio-economic boundaries and suffered from political pretensions which first marginalised and then completely obliterated the political content and objectives of the freedom movement. The INC under Gandhi’s leadership redefined swaraj and ceased to aim for the end of colonial rule. Dominion Status, Home Rule, and greater participation in governance remained its limited political goals, with the understanding that the INC would demand home rule only by passive resistance and not by taking up arms against the British. Implicit in this redefinition of the methods and objectives of the INC was that India would remain part and parcel of the British Empire. Thus the freedom movement led by Tilak, Aurobindo, Savarkar and Lajpat Rai between 1890 and 1910 with complete political independence as its goal was transformed into a freedom-movement-that-wasn’t from 1915 onwards, when Gandhi returned to India. In the period between 1910 and 1917,
19
Gandhi to Nehru, October 5, 1945, Supplementary Writings, HS, page 149
the INC remained in a limbo, a condition into which it would fall repeatedly until 1947. 4.5 Retrieving Kautilya’s Kshatriya India will judge Gandhi’s political career in this land, particularly its debilitating impact on Hindus, on the basis of her lived experience and civilizational understanding of polity and statecraft, best reflected in Kautilya’s Arthasastra. The sheer genius of Kautilya (also known as Chanakya) lies in the fact that even after two millennia Arthasastra has remained refreshingly relevant and contemporary. The nature of polity and the theory of statecraft expounded and codified by Kautilya, with exquisite details on effective politics, administration and governance, is unsurpassed in world history. The Arthasastra is not about village politics and village economy, though it can be adapted to village polity and economy too; but from the scale of salaries Kautilya laid down for different categories of State servants, Kangle conceded: ‘it would appear possible only in a state with large resources at its command’. The Arthasastra undoubtedly concerns managing a vast kingdom, even an empire. Kautilya’s genius gave birth to original and path-breaking theories and policy measures, but the very first sutra in his text refers respectfully to principles of Arthasastra in texts composed by earlier teachers. Om. Salutations to Sukra and Brhaspati. This single (treatise on the) Science of Politics has been prepared mostly by bringing together (the teaching of) as many treatises on the Science of Politics as have been composed by ancient teachers for the acquisition and protection of the earth.20 The desire for continuity of tradition, in contrast to stark divergence, is characteristic of the Hindu ethos. Kautilya makes mention in Chapter 8, Section 4 titled ‘Appointment of Ministers’, of Bharadwaja, Visalaksha, Parasara, Pisuna, Kaunapadanta, Vatavyadhi and Bahudantiputra as other teachers of Arthasastra. The Kautiliya Arthasastra therefore provides evidence that even before Kautilya, India had competent treatises on polity and statecraft, derived from a rich history of well-organized states in the land. The Arthasastra was first published in 1909, the very year Gandhi penned Hind Swaraj. Gandhi’s political career was strongly influenced by alien religious personages like Jesus Christ, Tolstoy, Ruskin, via the several books he is supposed to have read in different prisons.21 It seems unlikely that subsequent to 20
TKA, Part II, Book One, Chapter One, page 1. It was routine British stratagem to provide certain types of literature to political prisoners to influence their thinking. 21
Hind Swaraj, Gandhi would not have heard of Kautilya’s Arthasastra; yet it is consistent with his practice to ignore Indian traditions and history of statecraft and peddle an alien, atypical concept of non-violence as the only weapon of resistance to the Hindu people. We emphasize Hindu because the Muslims of India, who chartered their own political course leading to Pakistan in 1947, did not subscribe to Gandhi’s non-violence. The Arthasastra maintains that the ultimate objective of the ruler or State is two-fold: first and foremost to protect and if possible to expand the territory of his kingdom or rajya, and second, to ensure all-round well being or yogakshemam of his people or praja. A prosperous praja, a stable samaj, and a secure rajya ensure a thriving rashtra; this is the message of Arthasastra. For the first time in the civilisational tradition of polity and statecraft, Kautilya places the concept and idea of ‘vijigisu’ or would-be world conqueror. In contemporary international politics, this would be synonymous with becoming a regional or global superpower. A Hindu rajya would therefore have only achieving superpower status as its foreign policy objective. It is unnecessary to get into the nitty-gritty of the several measures Arthasastra says a king must undertake to achieve his ultimate objectives; our intention is to demonstrate that within the Hindu nation, kingdoms were not made, protected, or expanded by Gandhian passive resistance and non-violence. Such passive resistance equals inaction; injected by Gandhi into Hindu society, this crippling malaise metamorphosed into Nehruvian secularism in post-independence India, with a State and administration controlled in equal measure by anti-Hindus, nonHindus and deracinated Hindus. Nehruvian secularism could be grafted only upon a body weakened by Gandhian appeasement of minorities and for-Hindus-only Gandhian non-violence. Gandhi’s iconic status in India is based on a very narrow and motivated appraisal of his work and ideas. It was promoted and entrenched by Nehru and the Indian National Congress for vested interests; both derived their power to decide the fate of the Hindu nation from Gandhi who legitimised their leadership, and both survived the earthshaking catastrophe of Partition without a shadow on their reputations because Nehru personally, and the Congress as the longest ruling party, ensured that official responsibility for vivisection was never laid at Gandhi’s doors. Had Gandhi been held guilty of the vivisection in 1947, Nehru and the INC could not have escaped their share of blame or responsibility. Nehru then, despite serious differences with Gandhi’s economic ideas had to, and the Congress party even now has to continue to
promote and sustain Gandhi’s iconic status to protect themselves from being judged harshly (and correctly) by the nation. Gandhi’s ideas on self-contained autonomous villages for economic regeneration are not our concern here, though Gandhi’s ideas were workable and desirable in this respect. Our concern is with Gandhi’s political ideas which pushed the country inevitably towards vivisection, and Hindus towards total political disempowerment. Kautilya in his minutely detailed treatise on the science of politics leaves very little to the imagination of the reader with regard to practical measures of politics, governance and administration; the reader has to make logical inferences about what the text does not state explicitly: the basis of nationhood, basis and legitimacy of rulership, reasons for war by the state, and reasons for people’s revolt against the ruler. Great emperors or Chakravartins brought large parts of this land under their empire; India has experienced Golden Rule under each of these great emperors, a testimony to the deep sense of nationhood in the people of this bhumi. The vijigisu (world conqueror) and the Chakravartin ruling over his mighty empire could effortlessly maintain social stability and harmony only because of this sense of nationhood derived form adherence to sanatana dharma. The seat of empire has historically moved from the North, to the East, to the West, to the South, and the people of these regions, under different Emperors, have experienced a shared sense of belonging to a nation under the Chandelas, Senas, Palas, Mauryas, Guptas, Marathas, Cholas and Pandyas. These mighty empires and dynasties welded the people of this bhumi into an organised state only because the people had a sense of common nationhood and, more importantly, the rulers were part of the nation and derived their legitimacy to rule not only because they belonged to the nation they ruled, but also because they subscribed to the civilisational principles and values that defined the sense of nationhood of the people they ruled. The core intent of Hindu nationalism is to bring about a radical change in the ideological basis of Indian polity, to bring polity and governance in line with the principles of polity and nationhood prevalent prior to Islamic and Christian colonial invasion and occupation of India. Kautilya’s Arthasastra is the guide to understanding and practically implementing this tradition. Muslim and British rule corrupted and perverted the sense of nationhood of the people of this bhumi and distorted the basis of what constitutes the legitimate right of rulership. The strategic intent of Hindu nationalism is to restore not only the civilisational sense of nationhood but also the basis of legitimacy of the right to rule the
people of this nation. This work has relied exclusively on Kautilya’s Arthasastra for one specific reason. Kautilya’s treatise rests on the foundations of the Hindu tradition of rajadharma and arthasastra, the science of the principles of polity and statecraft, as exemplified by the Manusmriti where Chapter 7 deals only with rajadharma, the Ramayana which has given this civilisation the ultimate example of Ramarajya as the ideal state with the ideal ruler in the person of Srirama, and the Mahabharata where both Srikrishna and Bhishma detail the duties and responsibilities of the king. Kautilya adheres firmly to these traditional roots and foundations, but makes significant departures in methods and tactics because he had already confronted cultures outside the pale of influence of sanatana dharma and understood that methods of statecraft have to be modified over time to deal effectively and in accordance with threats posed by alien cultures to our territories and way of life. Without referring to these cultures by name, Kautilya explicitly emphasizes the need for the demonstrable use of the soft power of rajadharma as well as its hard power when confronting forces which violate and do not belong to the culture derived from sanatana dharma. 4.6 Nation and Nationhood in Hindu tradition The extent of distortion Gandhi introduced into this nation’s body politic is best understood by returning to Kautilya. So wide was Kautilya’s vision that he even dealt with deviations to the accepted form of monarchic rule, occasioned by some calamity. Kautilya disapproved of the deviations and emphasized that the two he listed were inferior to the usual form of monarchy, but were sometimes inevitable due to a monumental calamity or crisis within the kingdom. The two forms of deviant rulership he described were dvairajya and vairajya; both are relevant to the course of Indian polity under Gandhi’s leadership. Dvairajya involves partitioning the kingdom between two conflicting and competing power centres, mostly within the family; it is also joint rule of the kingdom by two members of the same family such as father and son, or two brothers.22 A variation of dvairaja is found in the Mahabharata wherein the Pandavas are exiled to an uninhabited, inhospitable and undeveloped part of Kuru territory to establish their ‘kingdom in exile’. But in all these cases, while the territory of the kingdom was either divided or 22
Example: Kaniska and his brother Jushka in Kashmir, Vidarbha by Agnimitra as found in Malavikaagnimitra 5.14 of Kalidasa; In the Mahabharata, Bhishma tries to avert war by hiving a portion of the territory as a new kingdom for the Pandavas.
jointly ruled or parallel in nature, their character remained the same – the rulers were a part of the nation they ruled and they subscribed to its dharma and culture even when the people regarded them as mainly evil or adharmic. Just as the civilizational understanding of polity and statecraft did not rest solely on the concept of ahimsa, the dharma of Indian citizens also did not subscribe to Gandhian passive resistance. The text very frequently refers to the possibility of the subjects being discontented (atusta) or even disaffected (apacarita). It enumerates a very large number of acts on the part of the ruler which were likely to make subjects disaffected with his rule (7.5.19-26). It is added that if the subjects become disaffected they may join hands with the ruler’s enemies or may rise in revolt and themselves slay him (7.5.27). The threat of prakrtikopa or a revolt of the people is expected to serve as a check on the wanton use of this coercive power by the ruler. This shows at the same time how the ruler’s authority is, in the last analysis, dependent on the contentment of the subjects. The latter may have no voice in the choice of the ruler; but it is they who have, in the ultimate analysis, the power to allow him to continue or to remove him, depending on how he behaves. The sastra23 has nothing against regicide if the ruler is unjustly behaved or fails to protect his subjects.24 Kautilya’s forthright advocacy of forcibly removing an adharmic ruler who violates his principal duty of keeping his people happy and contented contrasts sharply with the Gandhian prescription of Satyagraha or soul-force, which Gandhi sometimes called civil disobedience and non-violence. Gandhi himself admitted that Satyagraha could not be used in a general cause, but had to be limited in its objective with the distinct possibility of ending the cause for discontent or anger. There is confusion in Indian public discourse about the overlapping of the two concepts of civil disobedience and non-violence; for Gandhi the two were one and the same. We shall subsequently see how, each time Gandhi’s civil disobedience campaigns against specific laws were rapidly transformed by the Indian people into armed resistance to colonial rule, Gandhi called off the campaigns and put the INC and the freedom movement in a limbo for years; sometimes he would 23 24
Treatise, Exposition TKA, Part III, Chapter 5, The State in Kautilya, page 120.
take a decade to conjure up an occasion to kick-start the paralysed freedom movement again. While Kautilya strongly disapproved of both dvairajya and vairajya, he preferred dvairajya as the lesser evil. Vairajya is rule by a foreign ruler who has seized the kingdom by force and ousted the legitimate ruler. A kingdom is seized by a foreign ruler only when the ruler or any of the other seven prakritis (components of the rajya) has become so weak and vulnerable that the weakness has rendered the entire kingdom vulnerable to invasion, conquest and occupation. There are two views regarding the interpretation of ‘foreign’ in Kautilya’s description of vairajya. The first is that he is describing conquest by a king from outside the kingdom; the second is that Kautilya, who had already faced the Greeks and Alexander’s march into India, was describing the conquest of territory and enslavement of the people by a king not of the nation, who does not subscribe to its civilisational values and principles. Kautilya disapproved of vairajya. He argued that the foreign ruler, having no interest in the welfare of the conquered state, was likely to deplete it of its men and resources, or sell it for money to a third party, or if altogether disgusted with the people there, just leave them to their fate and go away.25 The foreign aggressor who invaded and occupied the nation did so by use of force and it followed that he would be ready to use force to keep what he had forcibly acquired. It should be obvious that the vairajya imposed on the nation by Islamic and later European colonialism could never have been terminated by Gandhian Satyagraha. Kautilya’s scintillating intellect in the theory of polity and statecraft remains as relevant today as two millennia ago. The description of the evil of vairajya synchronizes with the successive colonial invasions of India. The political enslavement of Hindus accompanied by molestation and destruction of gods, religious structures and sensibilities; the economic rape and plunder of resources; the catastrophic vivisection of the nation jointly by the alien monotheisms; the sale of our territory by Pakistan to China; and the manipulated ascension of a White Christian European in the polity; all accord with Kautilya’s description of vairajya. In striking contrast to Gandhi’s axiom that he did not care who ruled him as long as they ruled according to his wish, Aurobindo thinks acquiescing to foreign rule is an unnatural state of being.
25
TKA, Part III, Chapter 5, The State in Kautilya, page 123
Liberty is the first requisite for the sound health and vigorous life of a nation. A foreign despotism is in itself an unnatural condition and if permitted, must bring about other unhealthy and unnatural conditions in the subject people which will lead to fatal decay and disorganization. Foreign rule cannot build up a nation – only the resistance to foreign rule can weld the discordant elements of a people into an indivisible unity. When a people, predestined to unity, cannot accomplish its destiny, foreign rule is a provision of Nature by which the necessary compelling pressure is applied to drive its jarring parts into concord. The unnatural condition of foreign rule is brought in for a time in order to cure the previous unnatural condition of insufficient cohesiveness; but this can only be done by the resistance of the subject people; for the incentive to unity given by the alien domination consists precisely in the desire to get rid of it; and if this desire is absent, if the people acquiesce, there can be no force making for unity. Foreign rule was therefore made to be resisted; and to acquiesce in it is to defeat the very intention with which Nature created it.26 (Emphasis added) The sheer brilliance of Aurobindo’s exposition and clarity of thinking testifies to his traditional moorings. It must be borne in mind that in 1907 Kautilya’s Arthasastra was still unpublished. And yet here was Aurobindo articulating with great simplicity and directness complex issues of state, rulership, and the dharma of the praja or the citizens of a nation. We are critical of Gandhi’s leadership of the INC and the movement which never desired complete political independence, and the failure of Aurobindo and Gandhi to envisage the nature of the post-independence Indian polity and State without resolving the issue of Islam’s political intent. Aurobindo’s failure to comprehend the political nature of Islam and Gandhi’s failure to recognize the threat of vairajya in the form of both the Muslims and the British, foretold the failure that ended in partition in 1947, in the rise of Nehru, anti-Hindu Nehruvian secularism, and the complete political disempowerment of Hindus. 4.7 Gandhian Swaraj led to Nehruvian secularism Gandhi’s iconic status defines even today how Indian polity, especially Nehruvian secularists and deracinated intellectuals, 26
Shall India be Free, Bande Mataram, April 27, 1907, page 300
views the two large, vocal and well-organized minorities of Abrahamic lineage. Gandhi’s stubborn refusal to recognize the political content of Islam and Christianity, and the global political intent of states rooted in these two faiths, helped Nehruvian secularism to distort and then pervert the basis of Indian nationhood. India cannot cease to be a nation because people of different religions live in it. The introduction of foreigners does not necessarily destroy the nation; they merge in it. A country is one nation only when such conditions obtain within it; and such a country must have a faculty for assimilation. India has ever been such a country: in a sense there are as many faiths as there are individuals, but those conscious of the spirit of nationality do not interfere with one another’s religion. If they do, they are not fit to be considered a nation. If Hindus believe India should be peopled only by Hindus, they are living in a fool’s paradise. Hindus, Muslims, Parsis and Christians who have made India their home are fellow countrymen; they will have to live in unity if only for their own interests. In no part of the world are one nationality and one religion synonymous terms; nor has this ever been the case in India. Should we not remember that many Hindus and Mahomedans own the same ancestors, and the same blood runs through their veins? Do people become enemies because they change their religion? Is the God of the Mahomedan different from the God of the Hindu? Religions are different roads converging to the same point. What does it matter that we take different roads, so long as we reach the same goal?27 Post-independence Indian polity has been blinded by such vintage Gandhian vacuity and abject ignorance of the nature of ‘foreign’. Gandhi’s exposition on Hindu-Muslim relations lends itself to the conclusion that: ·
27
Gandhi equated the sampradayas and panthas within sanatana dharma with the alien monotheistic Abrahamic
HS, Chapter X, The condition of India (cont.): the Hindus and the Mahomedans, pp 52-53
·
·
·
·
·
·
·
religions and hence declared that they converged to the same goal. Gandhi either failed to understand or wilfully ignored the overtly political content and political objectives of Islam and Christianity, of the Koran and Bible, of Prophet Mohammad and the Church. The only nation Muslims recognized was the Muslim nation, umma; their only State was the Khilafat or Caliphate. This was known and endorsed by Gandhi when he led the agitation for restoration of the Turkish Caliphate. Despite history, Gandhi maintained that the God of the Hindus (the very idiom is faulty) was the same as the God of the Muslims and the Christians (which neither of the latter two will ever accept). Gandhi blithely ignored the reality that it was the political content of Islam and Christianity that subjugated India to several centuries of barbaric rule; besides British rule India also suffered French colonialism and the brutal depredations of the Portuguese. Gandhi refused to acknowledge the continuing and insidious presence of the symbols of their power and the pervasive presence of the ruins of Hindu society, traditions and temples, just as he failed to acknowledge that the ultimate objective of religious conversion to Islam and Christianity forced or otherwise, was to expand and strengthen their political power. Gandhi chose to ignore the truth that the Hindu nation could not assimilate alien elements that refused to be assimilated because their religions were essentially politically and culturally separatist by nature and intent and had the sole objective of Islamising and Christianising all nations. Gandhi failed to understand from history that Islam and Christianity have always laid claim to the territory of nations which they invaded or occupied, without subscribing to the nationhood of those lands.
Gandhi’s complete failure to understand the nature of Islam and Christianity led to his failure to foresee the consequences of the presence of their adherents within India on equal terms with the Hindus. The ‘Reader’ in Hind Swaraj was fictional in nature and a proponent of armed resistance; this gave Gandhi several opportunities to slight and mock at the feeble intellect of those who advocated armed resistance against the British, implying that those taking to arms were incapable of thinking. To articulate his pet theories on politics and religion, Gandhi created the ‘Reader’ who asks silly and leading questions, to which Gandhi had sharp
answers which were never countered or challenged by the ‘Reader’. Thus Gandhi’s theories in Hind Swaraj acquired the frail armour of infallibility and the brittle halo of piety. He absolved Islam and Christianity from any inherent religious tenet of violence and intolerance and attributed their violence to modern civilisation, with the rider that the ‘cruelties’ practised by these two religions left no aftermath. In the face of the pervasive presence of the ruins of Hindu dharma by Muslim rule, Gandhi peddled the favourite lie of the secularists that Hindus and Muslims lived in peace until the advent of the British. Let us contrast Gandhi’s purblind sentimentalism with what Savarkar said about the illusory ‘Hindu-Muslim unity’ before the advent of the British. In his Presidential address to the 21st session of the Akhil Bharat Hindu Mahasabha in Calcutta in 1939, Savarkar said, The Congress always used to fancy that the Moslems, if left to themselves would never have indulged in any anti-national, ulterior, anti-Hindu designs. The Moslems -including Messers. Jinnah, Huq and Hayat Khan- were very simple-minded folk incapable of any political subterfuges and as devotees of Islam -peace and goodwill, had no aggressive political aims of their own against the Hindus. Nay, even the Frontier tribes, the ‘brave brothers Moplas’, the Moslem populations in Bengal or Sindh who indulge in such horrible outrages against Hindus have no taste for it at all, nursed within themselves - but were almost compelled to rise and revolt against the Hindus by ‘the third party’ the Britishers. When the British did not step in, we Hindus and Moslems lived together in perfect amity and brotherly concord and Hindu-Moslem riots was a thing simply unheard of. Thousands of Congressite Hindus are observed to have been duped in to this silliest of political superstitions. As if Mahamed Kasim, Gazanis, Ghoris, Allaudins, Aurangzebs were all instigated by the British, by this third party, to invade and lay waste Hindu India with a mad fanatical fury. As if the history of the last ten centuries of perpetual war between the Hindus and Moslems was an interpolation and a myth. As if the Alis or Mr. Jinnah or Sir Sikandar were mere school children to be spoiled with the offer of sugar pills by the British vagabonds in the class and persuaded to throw stones at the house of their neighbours. They say, ‘before the British came, Hindu-Moslem riots were a thing unheard
of.’ Yes, but because instead of riots, Hindu-Muslim wars were the order of the day. This wilful misinformation poisoned even the meagre trickle of native intellect and scholarship that survived the onslaught of English education; today this farcical Hindu-Muslim peaceful relationship is the torrential poisoned river of Marx-leaning academe. Reader: In the name of religion Hindus and Mahomedans fought against one another. For the same cause Christians fought Christians. Thousands of innocent men have been murdered, thousands have been burned and tortured in its name. Surely, this is much worse than any civilisation. Editor: I certainly submit that the above hardships are far more bearable than those of civilisation. Everybody understands that the cruelties you have named are not part of religion, although they have been practised in its name; therefore, there is no aftermath to these cruelties.28 Reader: But what about the inborn enmity between Hindus and Mahomedans? Editor: That phrase has been invented by our mutual enemy. When the Hindus and Mahomedans fought against one another, they certainly spoke in that strain. They have long ceased to fight. How, then can there be any inborn enmity? Pray remember this too, that we did not cease to fight only after British occupation. The Hindus flourished under Moslem sovereigns, and Moslems under the Hindu. Each party recognized that mutual fighting was suicidal, and that neither party would abandon its religion by force of arms. Both parties, therefore, decided to live in peace. With the English advent the quarrels recommenced.29
28 29
HS,Chapter VIII, The condition of India, page 43
Chapter X, Hind Swaraj, The condition of India (cont.): the Hindus and the Mahomedans, page 53
Relentless jihad against the Hindu nation for over eight centuries by Islamic hordes from different parts of the world and the sturdy resistance by Hindu society were thus blithely reduced to the level of a school boys’ ‘quarrel’. This intellectual equation of Islam and Muslims with Hinduism and Hindus was either Gandhi’s inexcusable ignorance of the truth of Islamic rule in India or wilful misinformation, which is equally unpardonable. Nowhere in the contemporary world, barring India, do we find a nation whose State is actively hostile to its majority populace, a State that does not protect and reflect the civilisational ethos, culture and religious values of its native, majority community. Nehru’s intentionally crafted de-Hinduised Indian State derived directly from Gandhi’s cupidity and quickly led to Pakistan’s aggression against and occupation of vast territories of Jammu & Kashmir, to the genocide and eviction of Hindus from Kashmir, to the near total Christianisation of the North-East, and to the increasing insolence of minorities professing Abrahamic faiths, which today is in direct proportion to Hindu political disempowerment. Hindu disempowerment and the rise of the European Sonia Gandhi in Indian polity six decades after independence is the fruition of Gandhi’s ignorance of Kautilya’s warning on vairajya. The wish to be reborn we have in abundance, there is no deficiency there. How many attempts have been made, how many movements have been begun in religion, in society, in politics! But the same fate has overtaken or is preparing to overtake them all. They flourish for a moment, then the impulse wanes, the fire dies out, and if they endure, it is only as empty shells, forms from which the Brahma has gone or in which it lies overpowered with Tamas and inert. Our beginnings are mighty, but they have neither sequel nor fruit.30 Like everything that Aurobindo wrote, this too has the haunting ring of truth, bitter truth though it may be. True as these words were to the state of the Hindu nation, just as true was the fact that Aurobindo, with tragic prescience, scripted his own epitaph. *****
30
Aurobindo, We in India fail in all things for want of Shakti, Bhawani Mandir, page 62
Appendix I Aurobindo on ‘The Doctrine of Passive Resistance’ This series of articles first appeared in the daily Bande Mataram under the general title of New Thought from April 11 to April 23, 1907. The treatise is in seven parts – Introduction, Its Object, Its Necessity, Its Methods, Its Obligations, Its Limits, Conclusions. We present very brief excerpts from this remarkable exposition to demonstrate how comprehensive Aurobindo’s treatment of the theme of passive resistance was as early as 1907, two years before Gandhi penned Hind Swaraj, considered to be his seminal work on passive resistance or Satyagraha. Introduction It is idle to disguise from ourselves that the Boycott is not as yet effective except spasmodically and in patches. Yet to carry through the Boycott was a solemn national decision which has not been reversed but rather repeatedly confirmed. Never indeed has the national will been so generally and unmistakably declared. It is idle to talk of self-development unless we first evolve a suitable central authority or Government which all will or must accept. This popular authority will have to dispute every part of our national life and activity, one by one, step by step, with the intruding force, to the extreme point of entire emancipation from alien control. This, and no less than this, is the task before us. For success depends on the presence of several very rare conditions. · It demands in the first place a country for its field of action in which the people are more powerfully swayed by the fear of social ex-communication and the general censure of their fellows than by the written law. · It demands a country where the capacity for extreme selfdenial is part of the national character or for centuries has taken a prominent place in the national discipline. The attempt at self-development by self-help is absolutely necessary for our national salvation, whether we can carry it peacefully to the end or not. In no other way can we get rid of the fatal dependence, passivity and helplessness in which a century of all pervasive British control has confirmed us. To recover the habit of independent motion and independent action is the first necessity.
1. Its Object Organised resistance to an existing form of government may be undertaken either for the vindication of national liberty, or in order to substitute one form of government for another, or to remove particular objectionable features in the existing system without any entire or radical alteration of the whole, or simply for the redress of particular grievances. Our political agitation in the nineteenth century was entirely confined to the smaller and narrower objects. · To mitigate executive tyranny by the separation of judicial from executive functions, · To diminish the drain on the country naturally resulting from foreign rule by more liberal employment of Indians in the services To these half-way houses our wise men and political seers directed our steps - with this limited ideal they confined the rising hopes and imaginations of a mighty people re-awakening after a great downfall. Their political inexperience prevented them from realizing that these measures on which we have misspent half a century of unavailing effort, were not only paltry and partial in their scope but in their nature ineffective. The huge price India has to pay England for the inestimable privilege of being ruled by Englishmen is a small thing compared with the murderous drain by which we purchase the more exquisite privilege of being exploited by British capital. The redress of particular grievances and the reformation of particular objectionable features in a system of government are sufficient objects for organized resistance only when the government is indigenous and all classes have a recognized place in the political scheme of the state. They are still less a sufficient object when the despotic oligarchy is alien by race, and has not even a permanent home in the country, for in that case the government cannot be relied on to look after the general interest of the country, as in nations ruled by indigenous despotism; on the contrary, they are bound to place the interests of their own country and their own race first and foremost. Organized resistance in subject nations which mean to live and not to die can have no less an object than an entire and radical change of the system of government;
But if the subject nation desires, not a provincial existence and a maimed development, but the full, vigorous and noble realization of its national existence, even a change in the system of government will not be enough; it must aim not only at a national government responsible to the people but a free national government unhampered even in the least degree by foreign control. It is not surprising that our politicians of the nineteenth century could not realise these elementary truths of modern politics. They had no national experience behind them of politics under modern conditions; they had no teachers except English books and English liberal ‘sympathizers’ and ‘friends of India’. Schooled by British patrons, trained to the fixed idea of English superiority and Indian inferiority, their imaginations could not embrace the idea of national liberty, and perhaps they did not even desire it at heart, preferring the comfortable ease which at that time still seemed possible in a servitude under British protection, to the struggles and sacrifices of a hard and difficult independence. They could not then understand that the experience of the independent nation is not valid to guide a subject nation, unless and until the subject nation, throws off the yoke and itself becomes independent. At a bound we passed therefore from mere particular grievances, however serious and intolerable, to the use of passive resistance as a means of cure for the basest and evilest feature of the present system - the bleeding to death of a country by foreign exploitation. And from that stage we are steadily advancing, under the guidance of such able political thinking as modern India has not before seen and with the rising tide of popular opinion at our back, to the one true object of all resistance, passive or active, aggressive or defensive - the creation of the free popular government and the vindication of Indian liberty. 2. Its Necessity The control of the young mind in its most impressionable period is of vital importance to the continuance of the hypnotic spell by which alone the foreign domination manages to subsist; the exploitation of the country is the chief reason for its existence; the control of the judiciary is one of its chief instruments of repression. None of these things can it yield up without bringing itself nearer to its doom. It is only by organized national resistance, passive or aggressive, that we can make our self-development effectual.
We may have our own educational theories; but we advocate national education not as an educational experiment or to subserve any theory, but as the only way to secure truly national and patriotic control and discipline for the mind of the country in its malleable youth. We desire industrial expansion, but swadeshi without boycott, non-political swadeshi, Lord Minot’s ‘honest’ swadeshi, has no attractions for us; since we know that it can bring no safe and permanent national gain; that can only be secured by the industrial and fiscal independence of the Indian nation. Organized national resistance to existing conditions, whether directed against the system of government as such or against some particular feature of it, has three courses open to it: · It may attempt to make administration under existing conditions impossible by an organized passive resistance. · It may attempt to make administration under existing conditions impossible by an organized aggressive resistance in the shape of an untiring and implacable campaign of assassination and a confused welter of riots, strikes and agrarian risings all over the country. This is the spectacle we have all watched with such eager interest in Russia. · It is the nature of the pressure which determines the nature of the resistance. Where, as in Russia, the denial of liberty is enforced by legalized murder and outrage, or, as in Ireland formerly, by brutal coercion, the answer of violence to violence is justified and inevitable. Where the need for immediate liberty is urgent and it is a present question of national life or death on the instant, revolt is the only course. But where the oppression is legal and subtle in its methods and respects life, liberty and property and there is still breathing time, the circumstances demand that we should make the experiment of a method of resolute but peaceful resistance which, while less bold and aggressive than other methods, calls for perhaps as much heroism of a kind and certainly more universal endurance and suffering. In other methods, a daring minority purchase with their blood the freedom of the millions; but for passive resistance it is necessary that all should share in the struggle and the privation.
This peculiar character of passive resistance is one reason why it has found favour with the thinkers of the New Party. There are certain moral qualities necessary to self-government which have become atrophied by long disuse in our people and can only be restored either by the healthy air of a free national life in which alone they can permanently thrive or by their vigorous exercise in the intensity of a national struggle for freedom. Passive resistance affords the best possible training for these qualities. Something also is due to our friends, the enemy. We have ourselves made them reactionary and oppressive and deserved the Government we possess. The reason why even a radical opportunist like Mr. Morley refuses us selfgovernment is not that he does not believe in India’s fitness for self-government, but that he does not believe in India’s determination to be free; on the contrary, the whole experience of the past shows that we have not been in earnest in our demand for self-government.
3. Its Methods The essential difference between passive or defensive and active or aggressive resistance is this, that while the method of the aggressive resister is to do something by which he can bring about positive harm to the Government, the method of the passive resister is to abstain from doing something by which he would be helping the Government. The object in both cases is the same, - to force the hands of the Government; the line of attack is different. The passive method is especially suitable to countries where the Government depends mainly for the continuance of its administration on the voluntary help and acquiescence of the subject people. The first principle of passive resistance, therefore, which the new school have placed in the forefront of their programme, is to make administration under present conditions impossible by an organized refusal to do anything which shall help either British commerce in the exploitation of the country or British officialdom in the administration of it, - unless and until the conditions are changed in the manner and to the extent demanded by the people. This attitude is summed up in the one word, Boycott.
·
We are dissatisfied with the fiscal and economical conditions of British rule in India, with the foreign exploitation of the country, the continual bleeding of its resources, the chronic famine and rapid impoverishment which result, and the refusal of the Government to protect the people and their industries. Accordingly, we refuse to help the process of exploitation and impoverishment in our capacity as consumers; we refuse henceforth to purchase foreign and especially British goods or to condone their purchase by others. By an organized and relentless boycott of British goods, we propose to render the further exploitation of the country impossible. ·
We are dissatisfied also with the conditions under which education is imparted in this country, its calculated poverty and insufficiency, its anti-national character, its subordination for the discouragement of patriotism and the inculcation of loyalty. Accordingly we refused to send our boys to government schools or to schools aided and controlled by the government; if this educational boycott is general and well organized, the educational administration of the country will be rendered impossible and the control of its youthful minds pass out of the hands of the foreigner. ·
We are dissatisfied with the administration of justice, the ruinous costliness of the civil side, the brutal rigour of its criminal penalties and procedure, its partiality, its frequent subordination to political objects. We refuse accordingly to have any resort to the alien courts of justice, and by an organized judicial boycott propose to make the bureaucratic administration of justice impossible while these conditions continue. ·
Finally, we disapprove of the executive administration, its arbitrariness, its meddling and inquisitorial character, its thoroughness of repression, its misuse of the police for the repression instead of the protection of the people. We refuse, accordingly, to go to the executive for help or advice or protection or to tolerate any paternal interference in our public activities, and by an organized boycott of the executive control and interference to a mere skeleton of its former self.
The bureaucracy depends for the success of its administration on the help of the few and the acquiescence of the many. If the few refused to help, if Indians no longer consented to teach in government schools or work in government offices, or serve the alien as police, the administration could not continue for a day. We will suppose the bureaucracy able to fill their places by Eurasians, aliens or traitors; even then the refusal of the many to acquiesce, by the simple process of no longer resorting to government schools, courts of justice or magistrates’ katcherries, would put an end to administration. Such is the nature of passive resistance as preached by the new school in India. It is at once clear that self-development and such a scheme of passive resistance are supplementary and necessary to each other: 1. If we refuse to supply our needs from foreign source, we must obviously supply them ourselves; we cannot have the industrial boycott without swadeshi and the expansion of indigenous industries. 2. If we decline to enter the alien courts of justice, we must have arbitration courts of our own to settle our disputes and differences. 3. If we do not send our boys to schools owned or controlled by the government, we must have schools in our own in which they may receive a thorough and national education. 4. If we do not go for protection to the executive, we must have a system of self-protection and mutual protection of our own. Just as swadeshi is the natural accompaniment of an industrial boycott, so also arbitration stands in the same relation to a judicial boycott, national education to an educational boycott, a league of mutual defence to an executive boycott. From this, emerges close union of self-help with passive resistance as a temporary measure for the partial ends. 4. Its Obligations IN the early days of the new movement it was declared, in a very catching phrase, by a politician who has now turned his back on the doctrine which made him famous, that a subject nation has no politics. (Possible allusion to Gokhale who had tendered a public apology to the British government for the total inconvenience caused by Aurobindo and Tilak’s call for
boycott) And it was commonly said that we as a subject nation should altogether ignore the Government and turn our attention to emancipation by self-help and self-development. (The substance of Gandhi’s passive resistance or Satyagraha as Gandhi chose to call it to distinguish it from Aurobindo’s original passive resistance which Gokhale was then trying to impose on the nation through the INC) Far from preaching non-resistance, it has now become abundantly clear that our determination not to submit to political wrong and injustice was far deeper and sterner than that of our critics. The method of opposition differed, of course. The Moderate method of resistance was verbal only – prayer, petition and protest; the method we proposed was practical - boycott. Even under present conditions in India there is at least one direction in which, it appears, many of us are already breaking what Anglo-Indian courts have determined to be the law. The law relating to sedition and the law relating to the offence of causing racial enmity are so admirably vague in their terms that there is nothing which can escape from their capacious embrace. If this penalty of sedition is at present the chief danger which the adherent or exponent of passive resistance runs under the law, yet there is no surety that it will continue to be unaccompanied by similar or more serious perils. The making of the laws is at present in the hands of our political adversaries and there is nothing to prevent them from using this power in any way they like, however iniquitous or tyrannical, nothing except their fear of public reprobation outside and national resistance within India. At present they hope by the seductive allurements of Morleyism to smother the infant strength of the national spirit in its cradle; but as that hope is dissipated and the doctrine of passive resistance takes more and more concrete and organized from, the temptation to use the enormously powerful weapon which the unhampered facility of legislation puts in their hands, will become irresistible. It is therefore necessary to mete out the heaviest penalty open to us in such cases -the penalty of social excommunication. We are not in favour of this weapon being lightly used; but its employment, here the national will in a vital matter is deliberately disregarded, becomes essential.
When, for instance, all Bengal staked its future upon the Boycott and specified three foreign articles, - salt, sugar and cloth, - as to be religiously avoided, anyone purchasing foreign salt or foreign sugar or foreign cloth became guilty of treason to the nation and laid himself open to the penalty of social boycott. Wherever passive resistance has been accepted, the necessity of the social boycott has been recognized as its natural concomitant. ‘Boycott foreign goods and boycott those who use foreign goods’. For without this boycott of persons the boycott of things cannot be effective; without the social boycott no national authority depending purely on moral pressure can get its decrees effectively executed; and without effective boycott enforced by a strong national authority the new policy cannot succeed. But the only possible alternatives to the new policy are either despotism tempered by petitions or aggressive resistance. We must therefore admit a third canon of the doctrine of passive resistance, that social boycott is legitimate and indispensable as against persons guilty of Treason to the nation. 5. Its Limits The moment these three unavoidable obligations are put into force, the passive resistance movement will lose its character of inoffensive legality and we shall be in the thick of a struggle which may lead us anywhere. Passive resistance, when it is confined – as at present – to lawful abstention from actions which it lies within our choice as subjects to do or not to do, is of the nature of the strategical movements and large manoeuvrings previous to the meeting of armies in the field; but the enforcement of our three canons brings us to the actual shock of battle. There is a limit however to passive resistance. So long as the action of the executive is peaceful and within the rules of the fight, the passive resister scrupulously maintains his attitude of passivity, but he is not bound to do so a moment beyond. To submit to illegal or violent methods of coercion, to accept outrage and hooliganism as part of the legal procedure of the country is to be guilty of cowardice, and, by dwarfing national manhood, to sin against the divinity within ourselves and the divinity in our motherland.
The moment coercion of this kind is attempted, passive resistance ceases and active resistance becomes a duty. If the instruments of the executive choose to disperse our meeting by breaking the heads of those present, the right of selfdefence entitles us not merely to defend our heads but to retaliate on those of the head-breakers. For the myrmidons of the law have ceased then to be guardians of the peace and become breakers of the peace, rioters and not instruments of authority, and their uniform is no longer a bar to the right of self-defence. Nor does it make any difference if the instruments of coercion happen to be the recognized and usual instruments or are unofficial hooligans in alliance or sympathy with the forces or coercion. In both cases active resistance becomes a duty and passive resistance is, for that occasion, suspended. The new politics, therefore, while it favours passive resistance, does not include meek submission to illegal outrage under that term; it has no intent of overstressing the passivity at the expense of the resistance. Passive resistance cannot build up a strong and great nation unless it is masculine, bold and ardent in its spirit and ready at any moment and at the slightest notice to supplement itself with active resistance. We do not want to develop a nation of women who know only how to suffer and not how to strike. Moreover, the new politics must recognize the fact that beyond a certain point passive resistance puts a strain on human endurance which our natures cannot endure. This may come in particular instances where an outrage is too great or the stress of tyranny too unendurable for anyone to stand purely on the defensive; to hit back, to assail and crush the assailant, to vindicate one’s manhood becomes an imperious necessity to outraged humanity. Or it may come in the mass when the strain of oppression a whole nation has to meet in its unarmed struggle for liberty, overpasses its powers of endurance. It then becomes the sole choice either to break under the strain and go under or to throw it off with violence. The school of politics which we advocate is not based upon abstractions, formulas and dogmas, but on practical
necessities and the teaching of political common sense and the world’s history.
experience,
We have not the slightest wish to put forward passive resistance as an inelastic dogma. We preach defensive resistance mainly passive in its methods at present, but active whenever active resistance is needed; but defensive resistance within the limits imposed by human nature and by the demands of self-respect and the militant spirit of true manhood. If at any time the laws obtaining in India or the executive action of the bureaucracy were to become so oppressive as to render a struggle for liberty on the lines we have indicated, impossible; if after a fair trial given to this method, the object with which we undertook it, proved to be as far-off as ever; or if passive resistance should turn out either not feasible or necessarily ineffectual under the conditions of this country, we should be the first to recognize that everything must be reconsidered and that the time for new men and new methods had arrived. We recognize no political object of worship except the divinity in our Motherland, no present object of political endeavour except liberty, and no method or action as politically good or evil except as it truly helps or hinders our progress towers national emancipation.
Conclusions The object of all our political movements and therefore the sole object with which we advocate passive resistance is Swaraj or national freedom. The Congress has contented itself with demanding selfgovernment as it exists in the Colonies. We of the new school would not pitch our ideal one inch lower than absolute Swaraj, - self-government as it exists in the United Kingdom. We believe that no smaller ideal can inspire national revival or nerve the people of India for the fierce, stubborn and formidable struggle by which alone they can again become a nation. To be content with the relations of master and dependent or superior and subordinate, would be a mean and pitiful aspiration unworthy of manhood; to strive for anything less than a strong and glorious freedom would be to insult the
greatness of our past and the magnificent possibilities of our future. It is a vain dream to suppose that what other nations have won by struggle and battle, by suffering and tears of blood, we shall be allowed to accomplish easily, without terrible sacrifices, merely by spending the ink of the journalist and petition-framer and the breath of the orator. Resistance may be of many kinds, - armed revolt, or aggressive resistance short of armed revolt, or defensive resistance whether passive or active; the circumstances of the country and the nature of the despotism from which it seeks to escape must determine what form of resistance is best justified and most likely to be effective at the time or finally successful. We wish to kill utterly the pernicious delusion that a foreign and adverse interest can be trusted to develop us to its own detriment, and entirely to do away with the foolish and ignoble hankering after help from our natural adversaries. The work of national emancipation is a great and holy yajna of which Boycott, Swadeshi, National Education and every other activity, great and small, are only major or minor parts. Liberty is the fruit we seek from the sacrifice and the Motherland the goddess to whom we offer it; into the seven leaping tongues of the fire of the yajan we msut offer all that we are and all that we have, feeding the fire even with our blood and lives and happiness of our nearest and dearest; for the Motherland is a goddess who loves not a maimed and imperfect sacrifice, and freedom was never won from the gods by a grudging giver. But every great yajna has its Rakshasas who strive to baffle the sacrifice, to bespatter it with their own dirt or by guile or violence put out the flame. Passive resistance is an attempt to meet such disturbers by peaceful and self-contained brahmatejas; but even the greatest Rishis of old could not, when the Rakshasas were fierce and determined, keep up the sacrifice without calling in the bow of the Kshatriya ready for use, though in the background. Politics is especially the business of the Kshatriya, and without Kshatriya strength at its back, all political struggle is unavailing. Vedantism accepts no distinction of true or false religions, but considers only what will lead more or less surely, more or less quickly to moksa, spiritual emancipation and the realization of the
Divinity within. Our attitude is a political Vendantism. India, free, one and indivisible, is the divine realization to which we move, - emancipation our aim; to that end each nation must practice the political creed which is the most suited to its temperament and circumstances; for that is the best for it which leads most surely and completely to national liberty and national self-realisation. But whatever leads only to continued subjection must be spewed out as mere vileness and impurity. Passive resistance may be the final method of salvation in our case or it may be only the preparation for the final sadhana. In either case, the sooner we put it into full and perfect practice, the nearer we shall be to national liberty. ***** II How Gandhi reconciled his passive resistance with Srikrishna’s Bhagwad Gita Satyagraha Leaflet No.18, May 8, 1919 – True meaning of Bhagwad Gita’s teachings Brothers and Sisters, I shall now endeavour to consider in all humility a doubt raised by some Hindu friends regarding the meaning of the Bhagavad Gita. They say that in the Bhagavad Gita Sri Krishna has encouraged Arjuna to slay his relations and they therefore argue that there is warrant in that work for violence and that there is no satyagraha in it. Now the Bhagavad Gita is not a historical work, it is a great religious book, summing up the teaching of all religions. The poet has seized the occasion of the war between the Pandavas and the Kauravas on the field of Kurukshetra for drawing attention to the war going on in our bodies between the forces of Good (Pandavas) and the forces of Evil (Kauravas) and has shown that the latter should be destroyed and there should be no remissness in carrying on the battle against the forces of Evil, mistaking them through ignorance for forces of Good. In Islam, Christianity, Judaism, it is a war between God and Satan, in Zoroastrianism between Aurmazd and Ahriman. To confuse the description of this universally acknowledged spiritual war with a momentary world strife is to call holy unholy. We, who are saturated with the teachings of the Bhagavad Gita but who do not pretend to any special spiritual qualifications, do not draw out sword against our relations whenever they perpetrate injustice but we win them over by our affection for them. If the physical interpretation alluded to of the Bhagavad Gita be correct, we sin against it in not inflicting physical punishment upon our relatives whom we consider to have done us injustice. Everywhere in that Divine Song, we note the following advice given to Arjuna: Fight without anger, conquer the two great enemies, desire and anger, be the
same to friend and foe; physical objects cause pleasure and pain, they are fleeting; endure them. That one cannot strike down an adversary without anger is universal experience. Only an Arujna who destroys the devil within him can live without attachment. It was Ramdas brought up in the teaching of the Bhagavad Gita who not only endured the lashes of a wrongdoer but actually produced for him a Jagir. Narsinh Mehta, the first poet of Gujarat and the prince among bhaktas, was nurtured in the Bhagavad Gita teaching. He conquered his enemies only by love and has given through one single poem of matchless beauty the great text of their conduct to his fellow-Vaishnavas. That encouragement for violence can be deduced from the Bhagavad Gita demonstrates the deadliness of Kaliyuga. It is only too true that we often find an echo of our sentiments in what we read and see. If it is true that God made men in his own image, it is equally true that man makes God also in his own image. I have found nothing but love in every page of the Gita and I hope and pray that everyone will have similar experience of Sunday. Printed by Rustom N. Vatchaghandy at the Sanj Vartaman Press, Nos. 22-2426, Mint Road, Fort, Bombay. From the printed original preserved in Gandhi Smarak Sangrahalaya, Delhi. Courtesy: H. S. L. Polak CWMG, Vol. 17, pp 25-26 The Ramayana and the Mahabharatha are both referred to as ‘ithihasa’ (it happened so) or history. Gandhi denied historicity to both Srirama and Srikrishna because the two defining wars in the two great Hindu epics contradicted his own unnatural insistence that non-violence was the only virtue. ‘No religion teaches anyone to kill his neighbors’, he claimed erroneously in 1947, despite claiming that he knew the Koran better than the Indian converts to Islam. ‘Righteous wars do take place but I do not approve of them either. In the Bhagwadgita too oppressors and tyrants were resisted in a righteous war”. (Speech at a prayer meeting, Chorhuan, March 21, 1947, From Urdu, Gandhijike Dukhe Dilki Pukar—II, pp. 29-32, CWMG Vol. 94, page 164) Later on in Chapter 7 we will see how Gandhi gave a similar, peculiar metaphysical interpretation to Srirama too. The dharma of the King is different from the dharma of the grihasta or householder. Gandhi insisted on projecting the Mahabharatha war as a war between relations while Srikrishna exhorts us to pick up arms even against relations if they are adharmic and not amenable to reason or persuasion. Gandhi had to project it as ‘drawing the sword against relations’ because he was propagating
his pet theory that Hindus and Muslims in the country had the same forefathers and were therefore blood relations. The Hindus of Bihar in 1947 sought inspiration in our history, in the Bhagwadgita, when faced by jihad to retaliate in similar vein. It was in these circumstances that Gandhi denied our history and stood the central theme of our epics on its head. *****
Chapter 5 Freedom Movement turns retrograde 5.1 Self-rule, Home-rule, Swaraj, Dominion Status, Passive Resistance – What was Gandhi's goal? Gandhi swaraj, as we saw in the previous chapter, was a radical departure from the political independence of Tilak and Aurobindo. Gandhi described his swaraj as the inner state that obtains after self-transformation; in effect his swaraj was equal to selfliberation which he called self-rule. Gandhi’s articulation of selfrule meant the inner transformation of an individual, which is conceptually different from the INC Self Rule/Home Rule, which was a political exercise and meant limited self-governance by Indians even as India remained within the British Empire. A core premise of Gandhi’s political career in India was that even Home Rule of the type he envisaged was possible only after every individual had realised self-rule within himself. Real Home Rule is self-rule or self-control. The way to it is passive resistance: that is soul force or love force.1 If we bear in mind the above fact, we can see that, if we (the individual) become free, India is free. And in this thought you have a definition of swaraj. It is swaraj when we learn to rule ourselves. It is therefore in the palm of our hands. Do not consider this swaraj to be like a dream. Here there is no idea of sitting still. The swaraj that I wish to picture before you and me is such that, after we have once realised it (inner realisation), we will endeavour to the end of our lifetime to persuade others to do likewise. But such swaraj has to be experienced by each one for himself….Now you will have seen that it is not necessary for us to have as our goal the expulsion of the English.2 (Emphasis added) If man will only realise that it is unmanly to obey laws that are unjust, no man's tyranny will enslave him. This is the key to self-rule or home-rule.3 For Gandhi then, self-rule was not limited self-governance under British rule but refusal to obey unjust laws put in place and 1
HS, Chapter XX, Conclusion, page 118 HS, chapter XIV, How can India become free, page 73 (Brackets and italics, mine) 3 HS, Chapter XVII, Passive Resistance, page 92 2
enforced by the foreign regime. According to Gandhi, it is sufficient for slaves ruled by foreign powers to develop the capacity to resist unjust laws; they need not strive to end foreign rule. Gokhale and other moderates of the INC made way for Gandhi to come back to India to assume leadership of the Congress because they knew that Gandhi would not deviate from their agenda of self-rule within the Empire and also that he would veer the Congress away from the idea of political independence. The Gujarati text of Hind Swaraj uses 'swaraj' to define both selfrule and Home Rule, causing great confusion among ordinary people and even English-educated Indians who chose to follow Gandhi, about the real nature and objective of Gandhi swaraj. Was it a religious/spiritual journey of individuals towards selfliberation, or a dharmic responsibility of the praja undertaking a political movement leading the nation towards political independence from vairajya or alien rule? Contrary to Aurobindo’s assertion that passive resistance was a necessary tactical move to invoke and strengthen in citizens the much-needed qualities of endurance, capacity for suffering pain and punishment, unflinching courage and the moral strength to ultimately launch if need be, a full-scale war against foreign rulers, Gandhi’s passive resistance became a goal in itself for ordinary ‘Gandhian’ Indians to practise and achieve successfully. But the unanswered question remains - what did Gandhi really desire for the Indians who followed him on the streets? Self-Rule as inner liberation, Home-Rule as the Home Rule League wanted or small victories with passive resistance in local issues? What goal did he explicitly set for the INC? Ordinary Indians who responded to Gandhi’s call and took to the streets for satyagraha and became victims of British repressive state power, did not know that they had suffered great physical abuse and pain, imprisonment, even death, not for political independence, but only for Gandhi’s swaraj-as-self-rule which was equal to inner self-liberation. The stalwarts of the freedom movement, the leaders of the INC and Gandhi himself did not think they needed to spell out their goal explicitly to ordinary Indians. This was tragic because in the Hindu tradition, Hindus do not have to suffer the repressive power of the state to achieve self-liberation. There were other, more fulfilling and less painful ways to attain the same, though Gandhi indulges in considerable Portian quality-of-mercy eloquence to sell his idea on selfsuffering passive resistance: Passive resistance is a method of securing rights by personal suffering; it is the reverse of resistance by arms. Everybody admits that sacrifice of self is infinitely superior to sacrifice of others.
Passive resistance is an all-sided sword, it can be used anyhow; it blesses him who uses it and him against whom it is used. Real home-rule is possible only where passive resistance is the guiding force of the people. Any other rule is foreign rule.4 It is not clear how and when passive resistance acquired the capacity to ‘bless’ people while the last is a snide reference to the Nationalists who were prepared, if need be, to also take to arms. Gandhi cleverly uses the Love-is-blind, God-is-love, therefore God-is-blind reasoning. According to Gandhi (with no supportive historical reference to substantiate his claim) only passive resistance can lead to self-rule; use of active resistance or force is therefore not self-rule but foreign rule. Therefore says Gandhi, the Nationalists who say they want to end foreign rule, when they advocate armed resistance which is the antithesis to passive resistance, are not enabling self-rule but its antithesis, foreign rule! Gandhi concluded his astonishing dissertation on passive resistance with the astounding, bordering-on-the-juvenile story about facing a lion: It may be as well here to note that a physical-force man has to have many other useless qualities which a passive resister never needs. And you will find that whatever extra effort a swordsman needs is due to lack of fearlessness. If he is an embodiment of the latter, the sword will drop from his hand that very moment. He does not need its support. One who is free from hatred requires no sword. A man with a stick suddenly came face to face with a lion; and instinctively raised his weapon in self-defence. The man saw that he had only prated about fearlessness when there was none in him. That moment he dropped the stick, and found himself free of fear.5 In the above story of the man and the lion Gandhi surprisingly uses hatred and fear interchangeably; if one were to accept Gandhi’s opinions as the last word on any issue, it seems there can be no other weighty, compelling reason than fear and hatred, to take up arms. This is not in line with Hindu ithihasa. If anything, the defining war in the Ramayana and the war at Kurukshetra, teach us that sometimes people will have to take up arms and wage war to remove forces inimical to dharma. Hindu 4 5
HS, Chapter XVII, Passive Resistance, pp 88-99 HS, Chapter XVII, Passive Resistance, page 99
nationalists do not need to look anywhere else except at their own history and tradition for lessons on how to protect and defend the Hindu nation. Gandhi also did not tell his readers about the story’s end: was it happy for the man or the lion? It seems surprising how Indians particularly, and the world at large accepted these self-defeating and self-destructive Gandhian arguments for absolute, unqualified and un-nuanced non-violence, even when world history and the history of the victims of Islam and Christianity and other deadly political ideologies have proved repeatedly that violence has never been checked or defeated by professions of love or peace or use of unequal force of arms. Gandhi advocated passive resistance not only to man against lion, but to Hindus against their aggressors, native Australians against White Christian invaders, and Jews against Nazis. He even advocated passive resistance to the Allies against Nazi Germany and offered his services to mediate actively between Hitler and the Allies! Gandhi on the genocide of Native Australians: Those people who have been warred against have disappeared, as, for instance, the natives of Australia, of whom hardly a man was left alive by the intruders. Mark please, that these natives did not use soul-force in self-defence, and it does not require much foresight to know that the Australians will share the same fate as their victims.6 Gandhi prescribed the same solution to the British fighting the Nazis: I venture to present you with a nobler and a braver way, worthy of the bravest soldiers. I want you to fight Nazism without arms or ... with non-violent arms. I would like you to lay down the arms you have as being useless for saving you or humanity. You will invite Herr Hitler and Signor Mussolini to take what they want of the countries you call your possessions....If they do not give you free passage out, you will allow yourself, man, woman and child, to be slaughtered, but you will refuse to owe allegiance to them.7 And for the Hindus against jihad: Hindus should not harbour anger in their hearts against Muslims even if the latter wanted to destroy them. Even if the Muslims want to kill us all we should face death bravely. If they established their 6 7
HS, Chapter XVII, Passive Resistance, page 89 To Every Briton, New Delhi, July 2, 1940, Harijan, 6-7-1940, CWMG Vol. 78, pp 386-
88; For complete text of the appeal see end of chapter
rule after killing Hindus we would be ushering in a new world by sacrificing our lives. None should fear death. Birth and death are inevitable for every human being. Why should we then rejoice or grieve? If we die with a smile we shall enter into a new life, we shall be ushering in a new India.8 That nation is great which rests its head upon death as its pillow. Those who defy death are free from all fear.9 Gandhi’s explicit injunction that evil should not be ended at any cost was standing Hindu dharma on its head. Gandhi’s arguments rest on poor understanding of the following – · He did not consider colonialism and all its attendant oppressions and destruction to be as evil as Nazism · He failed to see that both colonialism and Nazism were derivatives of the fundamentals of Abrahamic Monotheism which refuses to accept and live with other Gods, other faiths, other ways of life and another worldview · He rejected recourse to all and every means to end evil; and this flies in the face of the core principles of rajadharma and kshatriya dharma 5.2 Gandhiji's Passive resistance – Panacea or slow-poison Gandhi nursed an un-Hindu masochistic obsession with death and self-suffering which was characteristic more of New Testament ‘Jesus-died-for-your-sins’ Christianity than Hindu understanding of death and suffering. His insistence on self-suffering and dying bordered on fetish and inhibited the Indian people from forcibly ending their slavery under British rule. Foreign rule had to be ended not only because it violated all traditional principles of polity and statecraft as understood and practised in this country, but also to restore to society its traditional autonomy. Loss of autonomy had resulted in the loss of society’s right to manage its polity and economy in accordance with its needs and traditional practices. Loss of autonomy led ordinary people deep into poverty, leading them further into dispiritedness or tamas. As Aurobindo saw clearly, leaders had to restore rajas and shakti in society. In this perspective, the INC ought to have waged war on two fronts: fight to end laws that robbed the people of autonomy to manage their affairs; and fight to end British rule which gave
8
Prayer meeting, April 6, 1947, New Delhi, from Prarthna Pravachan-Part I, pp 29-32 as in CWMG, Volume 94, page 249 9 HS, Chapter XVII, Passive Resistance, pp 94-95
the Empire the means and power to keep the nation economically impoverished and politically enslaved. Had this been the INC’s vision and Gandhi’s understanding, the freedom movement would have had two core objectives: to strengthen and rejuvenate traditional social structures and institutions, and total political independence from British rule. Had Gandhi so desired, he could have personally led the movement for social and economic transformation. He should have shunned politics and walked from village to village only with this objective in mind and this great tapasya would have yielded dramatic and far-reaching, lasting results in the three decades which he wasted on disastrous political activism. But Gandhi desired to dominate the heights: he wanted the sole right to initiate social transformation and to be the sole leader of the so-called political movement. He ended up merely dabbling in both, with catastrophic results: he could not heal the socially fractured Hindu society into even a semblance of cohesion, nor stop the march of anti-Hindu Dravidian forces in the South. He accentuated the alienation of Babasaheb Ambedkar and stood by helplessly as his capricious pandering to Muslims led the country inexorably towards vivisection and post-independence Nehruvian secularism. Gandhi's passive resistance only delayed political independence and facilitated the exit of the British on their terms and at a time of their choosing. Thus: · Because Gandhi's resistance to British rule was 'passive', it was essentially non-violent. · Passive resistance by Gandhi's own admission could not be employed for a general objective, but only locally for a limited purpose. · Passive resistance was therefore not intended to end British rule in India or for India's political independence. · Passive resistance was meant only to resist specific, unfair and repressive laws in India. · Gandhi's political career in India was only a continuation of his career in South Africa, both in terms of the methods he employed and his objectives. Gandhi consciously made passive resistance the defining principle of his relationship with the British, which could not even be termed confrontation, much less a battle or war. Gandhi's objective was self-rule through passive resistance by every individual which over time would lead to 'genuine home rule', after every individual had attained inner self-liberation. In retrospect, it seems incredible that Gandhi kept the INC mesmerized with this illusory, utopian fantasy.
Gandhi pulled back the 'freedom movement' from the earlier objective of total political independence to merely campaigning for abolition of certain laws he considered unfair or burdensome to Indians. Between January 1915 and 1917, the INC could do little to energise the languishing 'freedom movement' as Gandhi was familiarising himself with the lives of ordinary people in cities and villages by travelling extensively around the country by rail, the very railroad he considered evil and sharply criticised in Hind Swaraj. Gandhi's active political career in India took off in 1917 with his campaigns in Champaran and Kheda, using his by now hallowed tool of passive resistance. The satyagraha campaigns in Champaran and Kheda signalled the beginning of Gandhi's political career in India and were regarded as hugely successful because the British Raj was perceived as yielding to the 'revolt' by granting Champaran farmers some degree of autonomy to decide what crops to raise. The British also withdrew the decision to implement a 23% hike in taxes that Kheda farmers were asked to pay despite a famine in Gujarat. This was supposed to be a spectacular victory of non-violent passive resistance over the colonial regime; but given the truth of Gandhi’s career in South Africa, one is left with a nagging doubt. Gandhi was taking the first steps in his political career in India, and the British needed to project his Satyagraha as a more effective tool for securing people’s rights than the vastly more popular route of armed resistance. It is pertinent that these rights were being secured as enslaved subjects of the mighty empire and did not pose the kind of threat that persons like Tilak, Aurobindo, Savarkar and Bose posed by demanding complete political independence, swaraj. Hence the British re-worked an old script and granted Gandhi's first Satyagraha campaign in India the success it needed to get Indians to follow him and abandon the idea of political independence. As we shall soon see, there was more to the story of Gandhi’s Satyagraha in Champaran and Kheda than was told us by our history books. The nagging doubt that the British gave Gandhi's satyagraha with one hand what they would later take back from the people of India, repeatedly, is augmented as the passive resistance crusade against unfair laws hurting the livelihood of ordinary people was pushed into cold storage as political events overtook Gandhi's pet project of transforming the lives of people in the villages. Gandhi the politician made the deliberate choice of marginalising Gandhi the social activist, and although in 1909 in Hind Swaraj he referred (with a peculiar sense of proportion) to the unjust salt tax as being as unjust as the Partition of Bengal, Gandhi turned his attention to the salt tax again only twenty years after Hind Swaraj and nearly twelve years after Champaran and Kheda.
When Gandhi began his legendary Dandi March against the salt tax, Bhagat Singh and Bose had captured the imagination of the Indian people. Nehru was positioning himself to inherit the political mantle from Gandhi and the Muslim League was becoming increasingly strident. Gandhi was no longer central to British designs; hence the Raj was in no mood to grant further concessions to Satyagraha. The Dandi March yielded nothing and did not in any substantive way further the cause of freedom. Gandhi undertook the Dandi March ostensibly to force the colonial power to repeal the law which he considered as unjust as the partition of Bengal. But the Raj, rightly interpreting the march as nothing more than a grand gesture by Gandhi to distract people's attention away from Bhagat Singh's extraordinary act of courage and great sacrifice, contemptuously dismissed the demand for repeal. The salt tax would be repealed much later by Nehru as a conciliatory gesture towards Gandhi, from whose other more important economic and social theories he had steered the INC away and had personally rejected. As far back as 1905, the salt question had entered Gandhi's political consciousness (CW 5:9). On 6 April 1946, at Gandhi's personal request, Sir Archibald Rowlands, the Finance Member of the Viceroy's Executive Council, on his own initiative ordered the abolition of the salt tax. But the Viceroy, Lord Wavell, vetoed the initiative on the grounds that premature abolition of the tax would create a salt famine. He thought that 'vanity' was prompting Gandhi (Moon 1973, 236). Gandhi was greatly upset by this. The salt tax was finally abolished by Nehru's Interim Government in October 1946.10 A clinical analysis of the freedom movement as described by committed historians after independence will reveal that the Indian National Congress was never intended to be the vehicle of India's political independence from British rule, and that after the advent of Gandhi as supreme leader with unchallenged moral authority, the spirit of Hindu community was methodically broken by his passive resistance, even as Gandhi allowed Muslims to carry their inherent political objectives violently towards climax. In the following segment which takes a critical view of the freedom movement, the timeline details five events which reveal Gandhi’s mind, his modus operandi and what important leaders 10
HS, Editor's foot-note, Chapter II, The Partition of Bengal, page 20
within the INC and his friends outside the INC thought of him. We have chosen Gandhi’s first Satyagraha campaign in India, in Champaran and Kheda, the slaughter at Jallianwala Bagh, the Mopla jihadi massacre of Hindus, the Quit India Satyagraha campaign and the Cabinet Mission, for detailed analysis. 5.3 Timeline of the freedom movement that never was We shall now examine events that were important in terms of their political impact on the freedom movement. Our timeline will highlight only those political landmarks and civil disobedience campaigns launched by Gandhi on different occasions to achieve political objectives. We have consciously ignored events which some readers may consider equally or more important, if in our view they lacked political content, did not serve a political cause, or is not germane to the central theme of this book. This critique is necessary because India's freedom movement is generally understood as being political freedom from colonial occupation and not as the sum total of Gandhian spiritual self-liberation or self-rule movement of individuals. Our purpose is to establish our core submissions that: · Gandhi's leadership of the freedom movement shifted the focus of the INC from political freedom as demanded by Tilak and Aurobindo to sharing power in the colonial regime, as desired by Dadabhai Naoroji and Gokhale. · After the advent of Gandhi, the INC until the very end until 1942 was not a vehicle for political freedom but only an instrument to secure power-sharing concessions from the British, while keeping the nation securely within the British Empire. · The INC movement was therefore no freedom movement but a feeble exercise in power-sharing embedded within a larger, turbulent, people's movement for genuine national resurgence and independence. · Gandhi launched his major civil disobedience campaigns to re-assert his power and the relevance of the INC only when he saw Hindu passions inflamed after some grievous injury to their sensibilities and faced the very real possibility that they would reject him, his passive resistance, and the INC. · Gandhi coerced Hindus into non-violence and passive resistance but endorsed Muslim violence and paved the way for Muslims to follow a parallel path in the national movement, leading to vivisection. · Gandhi called off each civil disobedience campaign whenever the people used it to mount a political offensive against the British Raj or whenever the British promised Gandhi some sops and used him to dampen the extreme anger of the people
·
·
· · · · ·
Gandhi could not check the march of an ascendant, separatist Muslim community because he knew he could not coax Muslims as he could coerce Hindus into giving up their political identity and accepting passive resistance. Gandhi made the redundant call to the British to quit India in 1942 only when he realised that both he and the INC looked helpless and ineffective in contrast to Subhash Bose and his Indian National Army. All opposition to Gandhi's objectives and methods within the INC was silenced by his coercive ‘moral authority’ or by expelling dissenters like Subhash Bose and Rajaji. The Quit India movement was the last major political initiative by Gandhi and the INC; it faded into nothingness. Gandhi probably realised he had failed as a political leader and unilaterally anointed Nehru as his political heir. Nehru brought to fruition Gandhi's mission to disarm and politically disempower Hindus through his despotic control over the Constituent Assembly. The Constituent Assembly, dominated by the Congress had the final say on the Constitution which would politically disempower Hindus, and which attempted to re-define the nation and its nationhood.
The timeline is revealing. A perusal of the different phases of the freedom movement after Gandhi returned to India and began passive resistance shows that the INC repeatedly lapsed into protracted periods of complete political inaction. The first long hibernation was caused by the ruthless decimation of the nationalists after the Surat split of the INC in December 1907: Tilak was first physically removed to be imprisoned in Mandalay and after his release he was kept forcibly pre-occupied with his rapidly deteriorating health, in fighting his cases in the court; Aurobindo retreated into voluntary exile and Savarkar was deported to the Andamans,. The limbo lasted eight years, from 1910 until 1918 when Gandhi launched his first Satyagraha in India, in Champaran and Kheda. There were other long periods of political inaction, which is uncharacteristic in war. But the Gandhiled movement was not a war for political independence to end colonial rule; it was only a polite campaign demanding, sometimes greater participation in governance, sometimes selfrule within the British Empire. Gandhi's passive resistance acted like slow poison within the INC and Hindu society, paralysing both, and facilitating continuation of British rule. The rising power of the Muslim League was directly proportionate to the growing weakness of the INC and Hindu society.
5.4 The first phase 1918-1922 · Champaran, Kheda and Ahmedabad Textile Workers – 1918 These were the first and last of Gandhi's socio-economic Satyagraha campaigns which propelled him to the political centrestage. Thereafter, Gandhi's activism, except for sporadic bouts in the cause of temple entry for Harijans and to eradicate untouchability, relied almost completely on Civil Disobedience for its political objectives. As this civil disobedience campaign was Gandhi's first in India, the colonial government was anxious to grant the concessions demanded by the farmers. These concessions established Gandhi as the non-violent messiah who would deliver the innocent and credulous Indians from bondage. · Gandhi and the War Conference – 1918 Gandhi’s first Satyagraha campaigns in India, in Champaran and Kheda, the Viceroy’s invitation to Gandhi to participate in the War Conference and the Montague-Chelmsford reforms cannot be placed in a rigid chronology of sequences. The three overlapped and to some extent influenced each other as we shall see. The three events read together are a startling revelation of the continuity of the imperial government’s agenda, Gandhi’s character and political objectives from South Africa to India. Gandhi was given a hero’s send-off from South Africa with Gen. Smuts’ appellation ‘the saint’ adorning his head. The popular myth doing the rounds in India was that Gandhi’s Satyagraha had wrung the heart of the South African government which saw the evil of its ways and agreed to end discrimination against Indians. We know that this was not quite true and that nothing had changed for the Indians and nothing would change for them not even in 1948 when Gandhi passed away. Yet, Gandhi arrives to a hero’s welcome and neatly steps into the vacuum in the INC created by Tilak’s failing health and Aurobindo’s retreat. With perfect timing and in smooth continuity from South Africa, Gandhi launches his first Satyagraha campaign in Champaran and Kheda and simultaneously plays the role of point-man for the British government. With a shrewdness few could surpass, Gandhi plays the role of leader with the Indian ‘masses’ as he calls them, and the servile ‘loyalist’ with the British government; the roles of leader here and slave there, were symbiotic. Gandhi was invited to participate in the War Conference convened by Viceroy Chelmsford not only to be made member of one of the sub-committees to be constituted for war effort but also to speak on the resolution which the Viceroy proposed should be passed in the conference. Gandhi makes a token protest and issues a half-hearted rejection of the
invitation citing the absence of Tilak, Annie Besant and the Ali Brothers in the conference. It bears mention that the Viceroy was keener to have Gandhi as a member of the War Conference than the notable absentees mentioned by Gandhi – for good reasons as it turned out; Gandhi struck a deal with the Viceroy that if the Viceroy suspended collection of revenue from the villagers of Kheda (Kaira), then Gandhi in turn would actively recruit men for the war, including from Kheda. In what will soon be typical Gandhian two-faced approach to the ‘freedom movement’, Gandhi would say one thing to the British government and quite another to the ordinary people. The myth that the Satyagraha campaigns in Champaran and Kheda were great successes because of the triumph of Gandhi’s ahimsa thus stands exposed. First Gandhi grandstands to the British government about the virtues of soul-force or loveforce as compared to brute force and then tells the government how he has convinced the people of Champaran and Kheda that the British government is responsive to ahimsa and will always render them justice as long as people protested non-violently. Gandhi, in fact, tells the British government to concede in Champaran and Kheda as a ‘war measure’; meaning, as a measure taken at wartime to enable recruitment of the locals into the British army. Gandhi makes it clear in the same sentence that if the British were to declare it as a ‘war measure’, then the people of India will not see it as a precedent for making more and similar demands. And then in the same breath he offers them the bargain – concede in Champaran and Kheda and he, Gandhi, will be their recruiting agent, for a violent, non-ahimsa war, it may be added. I hope to translate the spoken word into action as early as the Government can see its way to accept my offer, which I am submitting simultaneously herewith in a separate letter. I recognize that, in the hour of its danger, we must give, as we have decided to give - ungrudging and unequivocal support to the Empire, of which we aspire, in the near future, to be partners in the same sense as the Dominions overseas. I would make India offer all her able-bodied sons as a sacrifice to the Empire at its critical moment; and I know that India by this very act would become the most favoured partner in the Empire and racial distinctions would become a thing of the past. I feel sure that nothing less than a definite vision of Home Rule - to be realized in the shortest possible time - will satisfy the Indian people. I know that
there are many in India who consider no sacrifice too great in order to achieve the end; and they are wakeful enough to realize that they must be equally prepared to sacrifice themselves for the Empire in which they hope and desire to reach their final status. In Champaran, by resisting an age-long tyranny, I have shown the ultimate sovereignty of British justice. In Kaira, a population that was cursing the Government now feels that it, and not the Government, is the power when it is prepared to suffer for the truth it represents. It is, therefore, losing its bitterness and is saying to itself that the Government must be a Government for the people, for it tolerates orderly and respectful disobedience where injustice is felt. Thus, Champaran and Kaira affairs are my direct, definite, and special contribution to the war. Ask me to suspend my activities in that direction, and you ask me to suspend my life. If I could popularize the use of soul-force, which is but another name for loveforce, in the place of brute force, I know that I could present you with an India that could defy the whole world to do its worst. I write this, because I love the English Nation, and I wish to evoke in every Indian the loyalty of the Englishman. (Emphasis added) I remain, Your Excellency’s faithful servant, M. K. Gandhi11 Gandhi indicates at the very first step in his political career in India and repeatedly thereafter until 1947, that when he says ‘we’ with regard to offering sacrifices, spinning the charkha, suffering physical and mental pain and even death for his satyagraha, it means not him but others - the ordinary people of India; but when it comes to formulating policies, taking crucial decisions and interacting with the British government on behalf of the entire country, he is just as clear about the use of the word ‘I’. I recognize that, in the hour of its danger, we must give, as we have decided to give ungrudging and unequivocal support to the Empire, of which we aspire, in the near future, to be
11
Excerpts from Letter to Viceroy, Delhi, April 29, 1918, N.A.I: Home, War (Deposit); October 1918 No. 26, CWMG, Vol. 17, pp 7-10
partners in the same sense as the Dominions overseas. I would make India offer all her able-bodied sons as a sacrifice to the Empire at its critical moment; and I know that India by this very act would become the most favoured partner in the Empire and racial distinctions would become a thing of the past. (Emphasis added) Dear Mr. Maffey, In pursuance of my declaration at the Conference yesterday, I wish respectfully to state that I place my services at the disposal of the authorities to be utilized by them in any manner they choose, save that I personally will not kill or injure anybody, friend or foe. But it would be better perhaps if I were to state how in my opinion, my services may be best used. Further I desire relief regarding the Kaira trouble. Relief will entirely disengage me from that preoccupation which I may not entirely set aside. It will also enable me to fall back for war purposes upon my co-workers in Kaira and it may enable me to get recruits from the district. The problem there is extremely simple. I have suggested that the revenue—now probably less than four lakhs of rupees - be suspended this year, with the proviso that those who can will be put upon their honour and expected to pay revenue voluntarily. I have already offered myself to see that the well-to-do cultivators pay the revenue. If this offer is not acceptable, I have suggested an impartial committee to inquire into the differences between the authorities and the cultivators. I suggest that action in this matter be taken as a war measure. This will obviate the fear of the relief being regarded as a precedent. Pray understand that my offer is not conditional upon relief in either case. I merely ask for relief in the two cases in furtherance of the common object. I suppose I must give you something of my past record. I was in charge of the Indian Ambulance Corps consisting of 1,100 men during the Boer Campaign and was present at the battles of Colenso, Spionkop and Vaalkranz. I was specially mentioned in General Buller’s despatches. I was in
charge of a similar corps of 90 Indians at the time of the Zulu Campaign in 1906, and I was specially thanked by the then Government of Natal, Lastly, I raised the Ambulance Corps in London consisting of nearly 100 students on the outbreak of the present war, and I returned to India in 1915 only because I was suffering from a bad attack of pleurisy brought about while I was undergoing the necessary training. On my being restored to health, I offered my services to Lord Hardinge, and it was then felt that I should not be sent out to Mesopotamia or France, but that I should remain in India. I omit reference to renewals of my offer to Provincial authorities. (Emphasis added) Yours sincerely, M. K. Gandhi 12 This exposes without doubt the truth that Gandhi was seeking relief from the British government for the farmers of Champaran and Kheda only “in furtherance of the common object”, which was to get the villagers to recruit in large numbers for World War I.. Gandhi cynically used ordinary people in Satyagraha to further his own political ends but there is a small difference from his efforts in South Africa because in South Africa, Gandhi was at least incessantly engaged in trying to bring modifications and amendments to severely discriminatory laws. In India, during the very first much-touted Satyagraha campaign in Champaran and Kheda, Gandhi declares that he was not seeking to establish a precedent and that the British Government therefore need not entertain any apprehension that he would launch more such campaigns to procure relief. The last part of Gandhi’s letter to Maffey actually reads like Gandhi citing previous work experience for the job he was now applying for with the British Government – that of recruiting agent. Having struck a deal with the Viceroy to recruit poor Indian villagers for the war in return for granting concessions in Champaran and Kheda, seemingly as the fruit of the efficacy of satyagraha, Gandhi now skillfully wears two faces – the first face told the Viceroy that he expected every Indian to make the supreme sacrifice for the sake of Gandhi’s love of the Empire so that Indians may soon be the “partners” of the British without racial discrimination; and the second face spoke to the Indian people, asking them to enroll for the war as training for possible 12
Letter top JL Maffey (Secretary to the Viceroy), Nadiad, April 30, 1918, N.A.I: Home, War (Deposit): October 18, 1918, CWMG, Vol. 17, pp 10-12
future use against the British Government, thus giving Hind Swaraj soul-force/love-force non-violence a tidy burial – The other enclosure contains my offer. You will do with it what you like. I would like to do something which Lord Chelmsford would consider to be real war work. I have an idea that, if I became your recruiting agent-in-chief, I might rain men on you. Pardon me for the impertinence. (Emphasis added) The Viceroy looked pale yesterday. My whole heart went out to him as I watched him listening to the speeches. My God watch over and protect him and you, his faithful and devoted Secretary. I feel you are more than a secretary to him. Yours sincerely, M.K. Gandhi PS. The Reverend Mr. Ireland of St. Stephen’s College has kindly offered to deliver this letter into your hands. M.K.G. 13 The fawning, toadying language that Gandhi employs in communications with the Viceroy reflects Gandhi’s estimation about the inherent superiority of the average Englishman in India and is in marked contrast to Aurobindo’s estimation of the same people. I really cannot see why we should rage so furiously against the Anglo-Indians14 and call them by all manner of opprobrious epithets. I grant that they are rude and arrogant, that they govern badly, that they are devoid of any great or generous emotion, that their conduct is that of a small coterie of masters surrounded by a nation of Helots. But to say all this is simply to say that they are very commonplace men put into a quite unique position...They are really very ordinary men, and not only ordinary men, but ordinary Englishmen – types of the middle-class or Philistines, in the graphic English phrase, with the narrow hearts and commercial habit of mind peculiar to that sort of people. It is something very like folly to
13
Letter to JL Maffey, N.A.I.: Home, War (Deposit): October 1918, No. 26, CWMG Vol
17, pp 12, 13 14
“Anglo-Indians” in those times referred to Englishmen in India and was not used in the sense we use it today for descendants of those born in mixed marriages between Indians and the English
quarrel with them for not transgressing the law of their own nature. If we were not so dazzled by the artificial glare of English prestige, we should at once acknowledge that these men are really not worth being angry with; and if it is idle to be angry with them, it is still more unprofitable to rate their opinion of us at more than a straw’s value. When we cease to hanker after the soiled crumbs which England may cast to us from her table then it will be to that sense of manhood, to that sincere fellow-feeling that we shall finally and forcibly appeal.15 (Emphasis added) Aurobindo was writing this at the tender age of 21, and it must be remembered, he was writing this not privately in his youthful diary, but publicly in the Indu Prakash; and for a nation used to groveling sycophancy masking deep fear of the Englishman, Aurobindo’s words must have had the same kind of shocking, bracing effect as being hit by water cannons. The contemptuous diminishing of the fearsome ruler as a creature unable to ‘transgress the law of its own nature’ was a necessary strategy to diminish our own fears of the Raj; Aurobindo’s bold articulation must have had a salutary effect not only on the Congress leadership which was still petitioning the British government for the ‘soiled crumbs’ from their high table but also on the government itself. Now contrast Gandhi’s tone and substance of his language with the people of India and note how he slips effortlessly into the ‘we’ mode as he begins his campaign to recruit ordinary villagers for the First World War. He begins with the people of Nadiad From my personal experience of dealings with it, I have learnt this at any rate: that we would do well not to be content with a subordinate position in the Empire. It is a characteristic trait of the British that they would treat people who did so as beasts of burden. We can benefit by our connection with them only if we live as their friends or partners. They will protect the honour of their allies and be loyal to them unto death. As a nation, they have some virtues. They love justice; they have shielded men against oppression. The liberty of the individual is very dear to them. Why, then, should we think of breaking off our connection with them altogether? 15
Excerpts from New Lamps for Old, Indu Prakash, August 21, 1893, pp 12-13
Everyone needs a friend. Japan, America, England - they are all obliged to maintain friendship with some nation or other. Every country maintains a connection with another with which it is temperamentally allied. India can be no exception to this.16 (Emphasis added) There is no doubt that Gandhi was speaking from his close encounters with the British people not only during those years when as an enslaved native, he pursued his studies in law in London but also as an aspiring lawyer in South Africa. In the critical years of his political career in South Africa and in the early years in India, the British love of justice has been one of Gandhi’s surprising refrains; and that he was certifying to British nobility which shielded men against oppression even when he knew of what the British did and was doing to the nationalists at home, raises serious questions about Gandhi’s understanding of colonialism and the colonizing race even when his own personal experience with them gave him a different insight. · Gandhi knew that the White race treated those peoples it considered inferior like ‘beasts of burden’ · He came upon this truth not from the way the White race was treating the native Africans in South Africa but when he was tossed out of the first class compartment in a train in the country · Gandhi always wanted to be treated with respect and on equal terms not just by the lowest man of the White race but also by the imperial government in London · He realized that to be treated with respect by the ordinary Whiteman, he had to become a man of importance in his chosen profession · He realized also that if the imperial government and all those big, powerful men in government like Ministers, Prime Ministers and Viceroys had to treat him with a measure of equality that he craved, he had to become someone of political consequence not in South Africa, which was not his country, but in India · That is why Gandhi wrote the Hind Swaraj in 1909, signaling his intention to play a significant role in the INC and · That is why he returned to India permanently from South Africa even though his mission in South Africa was incomplete and fruitless
16
Speech at Nadiad, June 21, 1918, CWMG Vol. 17, pp 79-82
On returning to India, Gandhi wore the two faces of ‘supplicant’ to the British and ‘leader’ of the Indians with the ease that came with practice. As the years progressed and the freedom movement entered increasingly turbulent phases, the core premises of Gandhi’s understanding of the White psyche influenced his character and his operations. From the innumerable letters that he wrote to hundreds of people, on issues ranging from the serious to the downright mundane, it is evident that Gandhi treated people in exactly the same manner that he discovered the ruling White race treated inferior races and subordinate persons. Gandhi used one tone in his communications with dependants in his ashram and with the supplicants in the INC but quite another when he communicated with the British government or with important Indians like GD Birla, Jamnalal Bajaj or Vinobha Bhave. He publicly and in private communications humiliated Patel in 1946 because he knew that Patel’s innate decency would not permit him to challenge Gandhi publicly while he never quite dared to do so with Nehru because Gandhi knew that not only was Nehru, unlike Patel, volatile by nature but that he was also the quintessential Whiteman in brown skin, with the same attitude to people. Nehru already was what Gandhi always aspired to be. The same dichotomy of Gandhi’s clever manipulation of human relationships was seen by the way Gandhi handled two of his most vocal and strident critics – Bose and Rajaji. Gandhi succeeded in distancing both of them from the INC but he handled them differently. Gandhi was a shrewd judge of human nature. We aspire to independence, but on this basis. In this context, the examples of Australia and Canada are generally cited; we demand a status like theirs. They enjoy protection and, likewise, help in the defence effort. That is exactly what we want for ourselves. India cannot stand on her own feet. If the British left us, we would not be able to defend ourselves. We could not protect ourselves against the criminal tribes or stand against an invading foreign army. If anyone blames the British for this terrible state of affairs, he will be quite right. That nation has many such things to answer for. But our task is to turn their virtues to account for our uplift. We can, therefore, free ourselves only through a friendly approach. This is not possible unless we render all possible help to the Government at the present juncture. We want to be partners in the Empire. If there were no Empire, with whom would we be partners? Our hopes lie in the
survival of the Empire. Besides, we shall learn military discipline as we help the Empire, gain military experience and acquire the strength to defend ourselves. With that strength, we may even fight the Empire, should it play foul with us. It knows this, and, therefore, it will prove the bona fides of the British Government if they permit us to enlist. By raising an army now, we shall be insuring against future eventualities. The difference between their point of view and that of some of us is this: we say we will have swaraj first and then fight; they say they will not be coerced, that swaraj will be ours if we help. They invite us to examine their history. The Boers got swaraj because they could fight the British. When we can do so, they say, we too shall have swaraj. We can count only on our own military strength. The Indians who are fighting now do not represent our strength but the Government’s. If we, who would have swaraj, can train ourselves to be their equals as soldiers, if we renounce the fear of death, we shall be soldiers in a national army. If, at this juncture, they hear in England that the whole of India has lined up for enlistment, the House of Commons will rejoice at the news and concede all our reasonable demands. Even if it does not, what then? It is they who will have reason to be sorry afterwards. An India trained for fighting will be able to wrest freedom in a moment. But the Government is not so foolish as all that. The British are a nation of heroes. They will recognize heroism. If we but rouse the heroic spirit which has been slumbering in us, we can have everything today. It is, therefore, my request to everyone of you to give up all hesitation and join up.17 (Emphasis added) Let us recall that Gandhi was passionately espousing the cause of getting ordinary Indians to fight a world war for England (while he himself refused to pick up arms and fight like a soldier) in the 17
Speech at Nadiad, June 21, 1918, CWMG Vol 17, pp 79-82
name of democracy, when the Empire’s colonial shadow was still hovering over half the world with no pretence of democracy, civil liberties or even the basic freedoms. Gandhi on his recruiting mission at Kheda Sisters and brothers of Kheda District: You have just emerged successful from a glorious Satyagraha campaign. You have, in the course of this struggle, given such evidence of fearlessness, tact and other virtues that I venture to advise and urge you to undertake a still greater campaign. You have successfully demonstrated how you can resist Government with civility, and how you can retain your self-respect without hurting theirs. I now place before you an opportunity of proving that you bear no hostility to Government despite your having given it a strenuous fight. You are all lovers of swaraj; some of you are members of the Home Rule League. One meaning of Home Rule is that we should become partners in the Empire. Today we are a subject people. We do not enjoy all the rights of Englishmen. We are not today partners in the Empire as are Canada, South Africa and Australia. We are a dependency. We want the rights of Englishmen, and we aspire to be as much partners in the Empire as the Dominions overseas. We look forward to a time when we may aspire to the Viceregal office. To bring about such a state of things we should have the ability to defend ourselves, that is, the ability to bear arms and to use them. As long as we have to look to Englishmen for our defence, as long as we are not free from the fear of the military, so long we cannot be regarded as equal partners with Englishmen. It behoves us, therefore, to learn the use of arms and to acquire the ability to defend ourselves. If we want to learn the use of arms with the greatest possible despatch, it is our duty to enlist ourselves in the army. There can be no friendship between the brave and the effeminate. We are regarded as a cowardly people. If we want to become free from that reproach, we should learn the use of arms. There are 600 villages in Kheda district. Every village has on an average a population of over 1,000. If every village gave at least twenty men, Kheda district would be able to raise an army of 12,000 men. The population of the whole district is
seven lakhs and this number will then work out at 1.7 per cent, a rate which is lower than the death rate. If we are not prepared to make even this sacrifice for the Empire, for the sake of swaraj, no wonder that we should be regarded unworthy of it. If every village gives at least twenty men, on their return from the war they will be the living bulwarks of their village. If they fall on the battle-field, they will immortalize themselves, their village and their country, and twenty fresh men will follow their example and offer themselves for national defence. If we mean to do this, we have no time to lose. I desire that the fittest and the strongest in every village should be selected and their names forwarded. I ask this of you, brothers and sisters.18 (Emphasis added) These lengthy excerpts from the letters that Gandhi wrote to the Viceroy and his secretary and his talks with villagers in Kheda and Nadiad, besides being vintage Gandhi on the carefully chosen ‘I, you and we’, also seek to establish that Gandhi was not above clever dissimulation and calculated misinformation to persuade ordinary Indians to follow his lead. These excerpts also establish that when Gandhi returned to India after his ‘successful’ mission in South Africa, the imperial government in London had a wellchalked out plan for his political career. Gandhi may or may not have known about British plans for what they intended to achieve from his role in India, but from 1918 until vivisection of the nation in 1947, every word that Gandhi spoke, every move that he made, served British political objectives and strategic interests. · Montague-Chelmsford reforms – December 1918 Secretary of State for India, Edwin Montague put before the British Cabinet a proposed statement with a phrase he intended to invoke: "the gradual development of free institutions in India with a view to ultimate self-government". Lord Curzon thought this placed too much emphasis on working towards self-government and suggested: “increasing association of Indians in every branch of the administration and the gradual development of selfgoverning institutions with a view to the progressive realization of responsible government in India as an integral part of the British Empire”. The cabinet approved the statement incorporating Curzon's phrase in the place of Montague's original formulation.
18
Excerpts from Appeal for Enlistment, Nadiad, June 22, 1918, CWMG Vol. 17, pp 83-87
Both the Gandhi-led Indian National Congress and the Congressled freedom movement faithfully adhered to Curzon's goals and till the very end, until 1942, neither Gandhi nor the Congress ever made political independence or British departure the objective of their engagement with the Raj. This point should be kept in mind as we proceed. The Montague-Chelmsford Reforms report which received royal assent on 24 December, 1918, looked at several aspects of constitutional reforms in India, some of which were: 1. The Council of the Secretary of State was to comprise 8-12 persons. Three of these should be Indian, and at least half of them should have spent at least ten years in India. (Indian participation in the Council at the highest level was thus more perfunctory and cosmetic than functional). 2. The Secretary of State was supposed to follow the advice of his Council. (Historians have omitted to tell us about the occasions when the advice of the Indian members of the Council departed sharply from that of British members, and by which whose advice the Secretary of State took action). 3. The Secretary of State was not allowed to interfere in administrative matters of the provinces concerning the 'Transferred Subjects' and also in matters on which Governor General and his Legislative Council were in agreement. (This should not be construed as any kind of relative political autonomy for Indians. The Secretary of State was merely not to tread on the toes of the Governor-General or Viceroy). 4. The Governor General had the power to nominate as many members to his Executive Council as he wanted. 5. The Central Legislature was to consist of two houses i.e. the Council of the State (Upper House) and the Legislative Assembly (Lower House). 6. The Executive Council was not responsible to the Legislature and the Governor General had the right to refuse its advice. (This provision unequivocally exposed the nature of these reforms. Neither the Cabinet nor the Viceroy would be accountable to Parliament which comprised largely of Indians. Here again the presence of Indians in Parliament, whether elected or appointed, was only cosmetic). 7. Besides Muslims, other minorities including Sikhs, AngloIndians, Christians and Europeans were also given the right of separate electorates. 8. New reforms were to be introduced after ten years. (This would be the Simon Commission which would result directly in the death of Lala Lajpat Rai and consequently of Bhagat Singh).
These were the ‘soiled crumbs’ referred to by Aurobindo, which were thrown at us from the English high-table in London in the form of the Government of India Act 1919. · Rowlatt Act – March-April, 1919 Even though Gandhi attended the Viceroy's War Conference in Delhi in 1918 and agreed that Indians be recruited for World War I and personally undertook the recruiting campaign, the British Government decided to perpetuate suspension of civil liberties for seditious crimes. The Anarchical and Revolutionary Crimes Act or the Rowlatt Act as it was commonly known, received the assent of the GovernorGeneral on March 21, 1919, indefinitely extending ‘emergency measures’ enacted during World War I in order to ‘control public unrest and root out conspiracy’. It effectively authorized the government to imprison without trial any person suspected of terrorism living in the Raj. The Rowlatt Act gave English officers power to deal with revolutionary activities. The government issued a formal communiqué on the Rowlatt Act on 5th April 1919. The draconian Rowlatt Act (and not the Government of India Act 1919) was slapped on Indians as a reward for fighting the White Christian World War I, a war remote from India, but one for which Indians fought and died, and for which Gandhi enthusiastically recruited Indians to serve the international objectives of the colonial power. The British government acknowledged Gandhi's services and awarded him the Kaiser-e-Hind medal; Indians were rewarded with the Rowlatt Act. ·
Civil disobedience movement for Khilafat, against Rowlatt - 1919 Gandhi’s first passive resistance campaign with political intent had the twin objectives of protesting against the draconian and repressive Rowlatt Act introduced to thwart resurrection of demands for political independence, and making common cause with Indian Muslims demanding restoration of the symbol of Muslim nationhood, viz., the Islamic Caliphate in Turkey. Gandhi constantly endorsed the concepts of Muslim nationhood and Muslim nation and Muslim violence as natural and consistent with Islam and with being good religious Muslims, while decrying assertion of Hindu nationalism and Hindu nationhood. In Hind Swaraj he advanced the idea that the Hindu bhumi belonged equally to Muslims and Christians, elements determined to be inassimilable within sanatana dharma and the nation. By Gandhi's own admission, when the INC or ordinary Indians looked up to him and did as he bade them to do, it was the Hindu
community he was referring to, whether on passive resistance, non-violence, or support for Khilafat. Ambedkar was one of the very few persons who not only assessed Gandhi critically but was also not reluctant to express his opinions publicly. After inaugurating the Non-co-operation Movement as an active member of the Khilafat Committee, Mr. Gandhi next directed his energy to the cause of persuading the Congress to adopt non-co-operation and strengthen the Khilafat movement. With that object in view Mr. Gandhi toured the country between 1st August and 1st September 1920 in the company of the Ali brothers, who were the founders of the Khilafat movement, impressing upon the people the necessity of non-co-operation. People could notice the disharmony in the tune of Mr. Gandhi and the Ali brothers. As the Modern Review pointed out, “Reading between the lines of their speeches, it is not difficult to see that with one of them the sad plight of the Khilafat in distant Turkey is the central fact; while with the other, attainment of Swaraj here in India is the object in view”. The dichotomy of interest did not augur well for the success of the ultimate purpose. Nonetheless Mr. Gandhi succeeded in carrying the Congress with him in support of the Khilafat cause.19 Mr. Gandhi repudiated the suggestion of the Modern Review and regarded it as “cruelest cut”. Dealing with the criticism of the Modern Review in his article in Young India for 20th October 1921, Mr. Gandhi said, “I claim that with us both, the Khilafat is the central fact; with Maulana Mahomed Ali because it is his religion, with me because, in laying down my life for the Khilafat, I ensure safety of the cow, that is my religion, from the Musalman knife”.20 Taking Gandhi’s preposterous claim that he was ready to lay down his life for the cause of Khilafat hoping to prevail upon the Muslims to give up cow slaughter at face value, a section of the Hindus insisted that their participation in the Satyagraha for Khilafat was conditional upon Muslims agreeing to give up cow 19
All quotations citing Dr. Ambedkar are from Dr. Babasaheb Ambedkar, Writings and Speeches, Vol. 8, Reprint of “Pakistan or The Partition of India”, Education Department, Government of Maharashtra, 1990, page 151 20 Dr. Babasaheb Ambedkar as comment in foot-note to the above, Vol. 8, page 151
slaughter. But to substantiate the charge made earlier that all of Gandhi’s exhortations were binding only upon the Hindus – I submit that the Hindus may not open the Goraksha (cow protection) question here. The test of friendship is assistance in adversity and that too, unconditional assistance. Co-operation that needs consideration is a commercial contract and not friendship….It is the duty of the Hindus, if they see justice of the Mahomedan cause to render cooperation….I do not want to make the stopping of cow killing a condition precedent to co-operation.21 As will soon become routine, and as would be proved by the jihadi massacre of Hindus by the Moplah Muslims in Malabar, Hindus paid with their lives for Gandhi’s stubborn refusal to gauge the Muslim psyche. Gandhi’s nation-wide Satyagraha in support of Khilafat and against the Rowlatt Act was a re-play of his last Satyagraha in South Africa; however with one radical departure. The people of India who were inspired by contemporary warrior-nationalists and their acts of extreme courage and self-sacrifice saw in Gandhi’s Satyagraha an opportunity to wage their own war against colonial occupation. There were fierce riots in Delhi, Amritsar, Ahmedabad and Lahore accompanied by attacks against Englishmen. 1. Rowlatt Act receives Governor-General’s assent – March 21, 1919 2. Riots in Delhi, police fire against protestors – March 30, 1919 3. Military control over city – March 31, 1919 4. Srirama Navami celebrations, peaceful processions in Amritsar – April 9, 1919 5. Gandhi arrested, moved to Bombay and released – April 911, 1919 6. All-India hartal to protest Gandhi’s arrest – April 10, 1919 7. Deportation of Doctors Satyapal and Kitchlew22, violent protests, several Europeans killed, police firing in Amritsar – April 10, 1919 21
Young India, 10th December 1919, as quoted by Dr. Babasaheb Ambedkar, vol. 8, page 153 22 Dr. Saif-ud-Din Kitchlew practicing lawyer, headed the Punjab unit of the INC and became the General Secretary, AICC in 1924. Dr. Kitchlew who opposed Partition, left the Congress party after independence and joined the Communist Party of India. Dr. Kitchlew died on October 9, 1963. Dr. Satyapal obtained his MBBS from King Medical College, Lahore, was an Arya Samaji and like most Arya Samajis of the time participated actively in the freedom movement. His name is inextricably linked with that of Dr. Kitchlew and the agitation against the
8. Police firing in Lahore – April 10, 1919 9. Arrests in Bombay, violent protests in Ahmedabad, telegraph office and Collector’s office burnt down in Ahmedabad – April 11, 1919 10. Meeting at Badshahi Mosque in Lahore, firing by troops, derailment and burning of train – April 12, 1919 11. Protests in Bombay, Viramgram, Nadiad and Amritsar – April 12, 1919 12. Riots and blood-shed in Calcutta – April 12, 1919 13. Jallianwala Bagh massacre – April 13, 1919 14. Violent protests in Gujranwala, telegraph wires cut in Lahore, Amritsar and several places – April 14, 1919 15. Martial Law in the Punjab – April 14, 1919 16. Gandhi upbraided people for violence and announced three-day penitential fast – April 14, 1919 17. Protests and arrests in Gujranwala, continuing cutting of telegraph wires – April 16, 1919 18. Police firing in Delhi – April 17, 1919 19. Deportation of leaders in the Punjab – April 17, 1919 20. Gandhi announces “temporary suspension” of civil disobedience – April 18, 1919 21. “Crawling Order” issued by Brigadier-General Dyer – April 20, 191923 While one section of the people used the mass movement for armed resistance, another section of Indians followed Gandhi to the streets in faithful adherence to his brand of non-violence. The
Rowlatt Act. Deeply troubled by what he alleged was Gandhi’s dictatorial control over the INC, Dr. Satyapal resigned in protest from the Congress on July 12, 1941 and re-joined the party in 1953, only after Gandhi’s death. 23 Protestors wanting to know what the Punjab Government had done with Drs. Satyapal and Kitchlew sought out Europeans in the city. On April 9, 1919, Marcella Sherwood, Christian missionary/teacher at the Mission Day School for Girls was bicycling round the city to close her schools when she was assaulted in a narrow street, the Kucha Kurrichhan, was beaten and left wounded. She was rescued by local Indians who hid her from protesting crowds and moved her to the fort. This attack on the missionary lady incensed Dyer, who was the commandant of the infantry brigade in Jalandar. He instructed the troops of the garrison regarding reprisals against Indians. Brigadier Dyer designated the spot where Marcella Sherwood was assaulted ‘sacred’ and daytime pickets were placed at either end of the street. Anyone wishing to proceed in the street between 6am and 8pm was made to crawl the 150 yards on all fours, lying flat on their bellies. The order was not required at night due to a curfew. The humiliation of the order struck the Indians deeply. Most importantly, the order effectively closed the street. The houses had no back doors and the inhabitants could not go out without climbing down from their roofs. This order was in effect from April 19 until April 25, 1919. No doctor or supplier was allowed in.
government reacted predictably. The Delhi police opened fire against the satyagrahis in Delhi killing several; Gandhi was arrested at Kosi when he was on his way from Mumbai to Delhi and the Punjab, was moved back to Mumbai and promptly released; but ordinary Indians faced brutal state repression which culminated in the horrific Jallianwala Bagh massacre. This massacre of peaceful demonstrators by use of repressive state power first in Delhi and then in Amritsar, was the first of its kind in India after Gandhi's advent, when ordinary people suffered death, grievous physical injury and harsh imprisonment for Gandhi's passive resistance. But Gandhi was quite exultant at the loss of lives in Delhi To, Sanyasi Swami Shraddanandji, Arya Samaj, Delhi, April 3, 1919 Just arrived from Madras tour. Read scrappy accounts tragedy yesterday train. Read also your spirited statement press. Feel proud of it. Tender my congratulations to you and people of Delhi for exemplary patience in opposing Rowlatt legislation. We are resisting spirit of terrorism lying behind. No easy task. We may have to give much more such innocent blood as Delhi gave Sunday last. For satyagrahis it is a further call to sacrifice themselves to the uttermost.24 (Emphasis added) The function of violence is to obtain reform by external means; the function of passive resistance that is soul-force, is to obtain it by growth from within; which in its turn, is obtained by selfsuffering, self-purification. Violence ever fails; passive resistance is ever successful. The fight of a passive resister is none the less spiritual because he fights to win. Indeed, he is obliged to fight to win, that is, to obtain the mastery of self. Passive resistance is always moral, never cruel; and any activity, mental or otherwise, which fails in this test, is undoubtedly not passive resistance.25 Gandhi maintained that passive resistance always succeeded while ‘violence’ always failed; we have to keep in mind though that when Gandhi juxtaposed passive resistance with violence, he was not alluding to mindless violence rooted in base self-interest but to the just use of force to end adharma. When Gandhi 24
Telegram to Swami Shrraddanand, From a photostat: S.N. 6494; also The Hindu, 5-4-
1919, CWMG Vol. 17, pp 370-71 25
Hind Swaraj, Appendix, Gandhi's reply to Wybergh, May 10, 1910.
declared passive resistance always succeeded, he was citing his ‘successes’ in South Africa; we know that there was no such success; Apartheid would end only in 1990 and the small successes granted to him by Gen. Smuts were nullified by more repressive laws soon after Gandhi returned to India. But Gandhi continued to maintain that passive resistance, self-suffering and death were the only ‘religious’, therefore vastly superior instruments to end unjust laws. When Gandhi toured the Madras Presidency in March 1919 to mobilize support for his passive resistance to support Khilafat and against the Rowlatt legislation, Gandhi chose his words with great deliberation.26 He played upon the religious sentiments of the people and was careful not to speak about Khilafat. In Madras as elsewhere he spoke of the campaign as targeting only the Rowlatt Act although most people, Ambedkar among them, saw through the subterfuge as illustrated above. Gandhi cited Prahalad as the best exemplar of passive resistance against his father Hiranyakashipu but typical of Gandhi’s propensity to speak of only one half of the truth, Gandhi intentionally fails to mention that Hiranyakashipu was removed from the earth, not by Prahalad’s passive resistance, but by Bhagwan Narasimha in the most befitting manner commensurate with Hiranyakashipu’s transgression of dharma. During the course of this vast movement people routinely converted it to achieve their local ends; several times people participating in the movement confronted local police authorities to release those that had been arrested; in some cases the protests were far from passive or peaceful. Gandhi unambiguously stated in one of his prolific communications to the people that he would not tolerate any transgression of the strict guidelines laid down for passive resistance. He exhorted people not to get people released from jails because seeking imprisonment was an integral part of the self-suffering component of the movement.27 · Jalianwala Bagh – 1919 The general unrest and anger against the British government triggered by Gandhi’s passive resistance movement spread to Amritsar where a peaceful procession on 10th April was soon transformed into an angry crowd on the 11th April after news broke out of the deportation of Doctors Satyapal and Kitchlew. In the meanwhile, defying the ban imposed on his entry into Delhi and the Punjab, Gandhi decides to court arrest and issues a message to his countrymen exhorting them not to feel any 26
For more on Gandhi’s beguiling speech at Madura, Tuticorin and Nagapatnam to canvass for passive resistance, see end of chapter 27 For Gandhi’s note to the Press disapproving of transgressions by satyagrahis of the Satyagraha Pledge, see end of chapter
resentment over his arrest and also not to unleash violence against Englishmen or Indians after his arrest.28 Taking their cue promptly from Gandhi’s message, the people of Ahmedabad reacted sharply to Gandhi’s arrest, while in Amritsar thousands of Sikhs gathered for a peaceful assemblage at Jallianwala Bagh on the occasion of Baisakhi on 13th April demanding to know what the Punjab Government had done to Doctors Satyapal and Kitchlew. The Punjab had been placed under martial law following violent protests on the 10th, 11th and 12th of April, which killed several Englishmen, destroyed telegraph poles, disrupted rail services and burnt government office buildings and banks. With the full backing of Sir Michael O’Dwyer, LieutenantGovernor of the Punjab, Brigadier-General Reginald Dyer ordered his soldiers, armed with rifles and kukris to open fire on people who had gathered there. The resulting massacre left several hundreds of fleeing Sikh men, women and children dead, thousands injured and several hundreds ‘missing’. Gandhi, who spoke and wrote regularly to the Press before or after every major event, Gandhi who spoke and wrote to his countrymen frequently on the need for abjuring violence, for not attacking Englishmen, for Hindu-Muslim unity, deploring people’s violence in Ahmedabad, and on state terrorism underlying the Rowlatt act, however maintained a deafening silence on the massacre at Jallianwala Bagh. Instead he issued a blistering warning to satyagrahis, after incidents of violence in Ahmedabad and Amritsar, threatening to launch Satyagraha against satyagrahis. Gandhi issues his characteristic threat which would go on to disarm the Hindus and render them progressively more impotent and helpless in the face of violence against them by the government and the Muslims. We have demanded the release of about 50 men who have been arrested for committing deeds of violence. Our duty is quietly to submit to being arrested. It is a breach of religion or duty to endeavour to secure the release of those who have committed deeds of violence. We are not therefore justified on any grounds whatsoever for demanding the release of those who have been arrested. But I know how to offer Satyagraha against ourselves as against the rulers. What kind of Satyagraha can I offer against ourselves on such 28
Message to Countrymen, April 9, 1919, The Hindu, 10-4-1919, CWMG vol.
17 pp 407-409
occasions? What penance can I do for such sins? The Satyagraha and the penance I can conceive can only be one and that is for me to fast and if need be by so doing to give up this body and thus to prove the truth of Satyagraha.29 (Emphasis added) Gandhi, in a eerie replay of his letter to Ampthill, writes to JL Maffey, personal Secretary to the Viceroy, Lord Chelmsford, faulting his own countrymen and reassuring Maffey about his unflinching commitment to non-violence Dear Mr. Maffey, You will not consider that I was discourteous in not sending even an acknowledgment of your last letter. The fact is that I have treasured that letter as worthy of you and the friendship that I hope will ever exist between us, no matter what differences of opinion and standpoint there may be between us. I did not wish to send you a mere acknowledgment, I wanted to reach a decided stage before writing to you again, and I have also reached more than a decided stage, and in the place I have made my abode I find utter lawlessness bordering almost on Bolshevism. Englishmen and women have found it necessary to leave their bungalows and to confine themselves to a few well-guarded houses. It is a matter of the deepest humiliation and regret for me. I see that I over-calculated the measure of permeation of Satyagraha amongst the people. I underrated the power of hatred and ill will. My faith in Satyagraha remains undiminished, but I am only a poor creature just as liable to err as any other. I am correcting the error. I have somewhat retraced my steps for the time being. Until I feel convinced that my co-workers can regulate and restrain crowds, and keep them peaceful, I promise to refrain from seeking to enter Delhi or the other parts of the Punjab. My Satyagraha, therefore, will, at the present moment, be directed against my own countrymen.30 (Emphasis added) Gandhi issued a threat to satyagrahis, re-assured the Viceroy through his personal secretary about his continuing love for the 29
Excerpts from Gandhi’s Satyagraha Leaflet No. 3. Emphasis as in original. For the complete text of the leaflet, see end of chapter 30 Letter to JL Maffey, April 14, 1919, CWMG Vol. 17 pp 418-19
Empire and his commitment to non-violence, but nary a word on the Jallianwala Bagh massacre. On the 13th of April, the day of the massacre, Gandhi issues a message to the people of Ahmedabad; on the 14th, the day after the massacre he pens another leaflet Satyagrahi: II and also writes to GE Chatfield the Collector of Ahmedabad and Maffey, addresses a mass meeting at Ahmedabad on the 14th but makes no mention of the massacre in any of these writings or talks. Subsequently, until a week after the massacre Gandhi wrote several times to Maffey, to Chatfield, penned two more satyagraha leaflets, wrote to Swami Shraddanand, Sir Stanley Reed, Sir Ibrahim Rahimtoolla, member, Governor’s Council, Bombay Presidency, and even made a speech at a preparatory meeting for the Hindi Conference in Mumbai. The long and short of it all is that Gandhi makes no mention in any of his writings or speeches to the Amritsar massacre. In his letter to Sir Stanley Creed (Editor, The Times of India, 1907-1924) Gandhi in fact severely castigates the people of Ahmedabad for their violence and declares to Reed that the people had only themselves to blame for and deserved the repressive measures of the government and the local police. The view I have taken of this is that the people of Ahmedabad have no right to complain of these sad occurrences, after the ruthlessness with which the mob destroyed the property, hacked to pieces Sergeant Fraser, and committed many other excesses. It is highly likely that the English lads—I call them lads, because they looked like lads—who were posted as pickets during martial law, had arrived on the scene with the knowledge that a wicked plot was hatched in order to kill the force that was sent from Bombay, of which these lads were members. I refer to the derailing near Nadiad, and in their fury to wreak vengeance upon the Ahmedabad people without any nice or exact discrimination, they may have been too free with their rifles. I describe this shooting in order to show that the people have been sufficiently punished, and there should be no further punitive measures taken and no prosecutions undertaken.31 Gandhi’s defense of Englishmen who fired upon the people of Ahmedabad as “English lads who may have been too free with
31
Letter to Sir Stanley Creed, The Ashram, April 15, 1919, From a photostat: S.N.
6534, CWMG Vol. 17 page 429
their rifles” (mercifully Gandhi did not call it innocent sport), is akin to the “misguided youth” misnomer secular India has bestowed upon contemporary Indian jihadis in Kashmir and elsewhere in the country. In one of his letters to the Collector of Ahmedabad Gandhi asks for the names of Englishmen killed or “seriously disabled during mob-rule” so that he may offer his condolences to the families of the victims and also raise money as compensation for the loss and injuries suffered by them! Reacting to the violence against Englishmen in Ahmedabad and Viramgram, Gandhi calls off the civil disobedience campaign and issues a press notice to the effect. It is in this press notice that Gandhi makes a passing reference to the horrendous Jallianwala Bagh massacre, dismissing it lightly as “events in Punjab” – It is not without sorrow that I feel compelled to advise the temporary suspension of civil disobedience. I give this advice not because I have less faith now in its efficacy, but because I have, if possible, greater faith than before. It is my perception of the law of Satyagraha which impels me to suggest the suspension. I am sorry, when I embarked upon a mass movement, I underrated the forces of evil and I must now pause and consider how best to meet the situation. But whilst doing so, I wish to say that from a careful examination of the tragedy at Ahmedabad and Viramgam, I am convinced that satyagraha had nothing to do with the violence of the mob and that many swarmed round the banner of mischief raised by the mob, largely because of their affection for Anasuyabai and myself. Had the Government in an unwise manner not prevented me from entering Delhi and so compelled me to disobey their order, I feel certain that Ahmedabad and Viramgam would have remained free from the horrors of the past week. In other words, Satyagraha has neither been the cause nor the occasion of the upheaval. If anything, the presence of Satyagraha has acted as a check even so slight upon the previously existing lawless elements. As regards events in the Punjab, it is admitted that they are unconnected with the Satyagraha movement.32 (Emphasis added)
32
Press statement on suspension of Civil Disobedience, Bombay, April 18, 1919,
The Hindu, 21-4-1919, CWMG, Vol. 17, pp 443-44
So long as the British government was using the might of its state power against Gandhi’s loyalists, Gandhi labeled it ‘terrorism’ but because the mind-boggling insanity of gunning down and stabbing to death fleeing men, women and children at Jallianwala Bagh had nothing to do with Gandhi’s satyagraha (or so he says), Gandhi refused to condemn the barbarity of the slaughter even one week after the event. Even as this book goes into print, governmentsponsored history writing is yet to include the Jallianwala Bagh massacre as an important and integral part of the freedom movement although the incumbent Government of India has promised to look into the matter. It had consistently been Gandhi’s position that when people took up arms against the British government or Englishmen, the British government had the right to use repressive measures against Indians. Gandhi, unbeknown to him, was effectively living up to the calculations of the British government when it created the vacuum in the INC between 1908 and 1911 to enable his return to India – that he was the only person capable of halting violence against officers of the British government and other Englishmen. Years later, consistent with the founding principle of his political career, that he would not tolerate violent reprisals against the British, Gandhi condemned the killing of Sir Michael O’Dwyer by Udham Singh who had nurtured the sorrow and anger of the Jallianwala Bagh Massacre in his heart till just such a moment when he could avenge the humiliation of the ‘crawling order’ and the killing of peaceful satyagrahis on that fateful day in 1919. Gandhi also makes gratuitous reference to the etymology of the word ‘assassin’. Further details that have come through the press of the assassination of Sir Michael O’Dwyer and the attempted assassination of Lord Zetland, Lord Lamington and Sir Louis Dane confirm my opinion that it was a work of insanity. It is none the less reprehensible on that account. We had our differences with Sir Michael O’Dwyer, but that should not prevent us from being grieved over his assassination or condoling with Lady O’Dwyer and her family. I would like every Indian patriot to share with me the shame of the act and the joy that the lives of the three distinguished Englishmen were saved. We have our grievance against Lord Zetland. We must fight his reactionary policy. But there should be no malice or vindictiveness in our resistance. The papers tell us that the accused acted with amused nonchalance when he faced the
court and the spectators. This does not command my admiration. It is to me a sure sign of continuing insanity. The accused is intoxicated with the thought of his bravery. I have known drunken men act with a recklessness of which they would be incapable in a sober state. I understand that extra rum is issued to soldiers who are sent to specially hazardous tasks. What am I to praise, the rum or its aftereffect? The word assassin owes its origin to the hasheesh that was administered to the wouldbe assassins in order to deaden their conscience. This continuing insanity of the accused should fill us with pity and grief. If we are to fight fairly and squarely, we must, as far as is humanly possible, make every Englishman feel that he is as safe in our midst as he is in his own home. It fills me with shame and sorrow that for some time at least every Indian face in London will be suspect. Is it not possible for us all to realize that the masses will never mount to freedom through murder? I would like every reader of these lines to know that every such act harms our non-violent struggle and therefore to dissociate himself in the secret of his heart and openly from such acts of insanity.33 (Emphasis added) In July 1920, when Gandhi visited Amritsar to address the people on the non-co-operation that he had launched again, Gandhi referred to the massacre and what followed. All through 1919, Gandhi traveled across India soliciting support for his non-cooperation movement in the name of the Rowlatt Act; there was not even a whisper of the khilafat cause then. Once the movement gathered momentum, in 1920, Gandhi traveled yet again across the country, this time soliciting support for his relaunched non-co-operation, in the name of the Jallianwala Bagh massacre and the khilafat cause. Whenever Gandhi spoke of the massacre and what followed thereafter, he rightly castigated the people for their craven cowardice in subjecting to Dyer’s humiliating order to crawl along the lane, rubbing their noses in the dirt; but instead of advising them to die rather than suffer this humiliation, Gandhi could have served the nation and the Sikhs better by living in their midst to instill in them the qualities of fearlessness and pride; Gandhi also did not envisage other more satisfying options than suffering death, which would effectively 33
NOTES The London Assassination, Ramgarh, March 17, 1940 Harijan, 23-31940 Vol. 78 pp 67-68
deter Englishmen like Dyer who used brutal, pacifying measures to quell the spirit of revolt. Whilst he said he wanted to emphasize that the people were also in the wrong, even as the authorities had been, the difference being one of degree. Whilst they had committed a few pound of wrong the authorities were guilty of tons of wrong. But as long as the least amount of wrong had been done by people they should be prepared for hundreds of Jallianwalas and he would not be satisfied by them until people had not the slightest share in violence. Speaking of the Punjab, Mr. Gandhi said he could not but confess to a sense of feeling that, however noted the Punjabis were for their bravery, they had not played well their part in April last. They were terrified, their spirit was broken. He had not the slightest doubt about this. For how else could they consent to such inhumanities as crawling like reptiles rubbing their noses against the ground. How, if they had any sense of self-respect, if they felt that they were men, could they thus consent to be pulled down from man’s state. If they had a sense of their manhood, of their self-respect and honour they should have willingly faced death rather than tamely accept such dishonours. But he was not there to cavil at the Punjab. His mortal frame was made of the same stuff as that of Punjabis. He was not sure that his spirit would remain unbroken under similar circumstances. He would only pray that he should never submit to such indignities even if he was faced with death as the only alternative.34 (Emphasis added) Death certainly was not the only alternative! Gandhi in Lahore – Only the deserving got justice from God. They were made to crawl because they deserved it. In Europe even a boy would refuse to do it. To the Hindus, the speaker said that he supported the Muslims and went about with them because they wished to protect the Hindus themselves. If the Hindus wished to live peacefully with the Muslims, the former should help the latter. 34
Speech on Non-Co-operation, Amritsar, July 16, 1920, The Tribune, 27-7-
1920, CWMG Vol. 21, page 52
Several people had told him that the Muslims would desert the Hindus after the khilafat question was decided. From his twenty years’ experience, during which period he had been closely associated with the Muslims he could say it was false.35 (Emphasis added) The fatal flaw in Gandhi’s argument – people did not always subject themselves to humiliation for fear of death; sometimes it called for greater courage and endurance for self-suffering to undergo humiliation in order that one may continue to live because of unfulfilled responsibilities to family, religion or nation. Savarkar understood this probably much better than Gandhi; he therefore swallowed the poison of subjecting himself to the conditions laid down by the British government for release rather than continue to waste away his life in exile in the Andamans. Savarkar chose the indignity of choosing to abide by the conditions of the British government for his release, for the larger intent to live to fulfill a bigger cause. The second serious flaw in Gandhi’s argument was that he presented death of self as the only alternative to humiliation. Gandhi did not consider killing the enemy or the tormentor as the more legitimate alternative. On the one hand he was taunting the Sikhs for ‘crawling’ while in the same breath he was condemning the people of Ahmedabad, Viramgram and Gujranwala for their redeeming acts of vengeance. This was still early years after Gandhi’s return to India and the polish on his halo was still intact. He could make these pronouncements unchallenged. But for then, Gandhi was killing the spirit and idea of the kshatriya. ·
Government of India Act – 1919
· Amritsar Congress – December 27-January 1, 1919 This would be long remembered for the Gandhi-Tilak face off at what would actually turn out to be Tilak’s last Congress; Tilak would pass away on 31st July, 1920. Tilak and CR Das placed before Congress a resolution expressing their stern dissatisfaction with the reforms report and the subsequent GoI Act 1919. Tilak and Das described the report as “inadequate, unsatisfactory and disappointing”. The resolution was supported by S Satyamurti, Hasrat Mohani, Rambhuj Dutt Choudry and Chandra Bansi Sahai. Gandhi took exception to the word ‘disappointing’ and presented an amendment to Tilak’s 35
Speech on Khilafat and Non-Co-operation, Lahore, July 17, 1920, The Tribune,
20-7-1920, CWMG Vol. 21, pp 55-56
resolution, supported by Jinnah and Madanmohan Malaviya, in which he insisted on re-wording the entire resolution to the effect that Congress must place on record its gratitude to Montague. With the same peculiar sense of proportion by which Gandhi equated the salt tax with the partition of Bengal in Hind Swaraj, Gandhi advises Tilak to accept the amendment by appealing to Tilak in the name of religion, culture and civilization. Gandhi also threatened to travel extensively across the country to explain to the people why he opposed Tilak’s resolution, why he thought the country must welcome the reforms report, must thank Monatgue and extend the hand of fellowship to him! 36 The same sense of seething disbelief grips us when we read Gandhi’s speech at the Congress making much ado about a trivial issue. However, Gandhi knew exactly what he was doing. It was a trial of strength and Gandhi was flexing his muscles, all the while signaling his intention to stonewall any move by the nationalists to set the agenda, even as his language remained profusely respectful of Tilak at the Amritsar Congress. Gandhi was just as profuse and fulsome in his praise for Tilak after his death. It is with the same intriguing and characteristic sense of proportion that Gandhi insisted, despite resolute opposition by several members, on passing a self-defeating, self-deprecating resolution at Amritsar, condemning our people for the violent protests which spread across North India in April 1919, after his arrest. The most important resolution, however, was the one in which we admitted and condemned our lapses. It was a little difficult to understand the unwillingness to pass this. That in Ahmedabad, Viramgam, Amritsar, Gujranwala and Kasur, our own people set fire to buildings, killed people, burnt down bridges, removed rail tracks and cut wires needs no proof. Maybe there is truth in what some people say, that the C.I.D. instigated the mobs, that it had a hand in it; even then, the fact remains that some of us played into their hands and did unforgivable things. We must denounce these. The individual or nation that refuses to see his or its lapses or fears to admit them can never progress. So long as we refuse to see the evil around us, we do not acquire the strength to fight it and the evil goes deep. Moreover, we have no right whatsoever either to 36
For the complete text of Gandhi’s speech against Tilak, see end of chapter.
notice or condemn other people’s faults so long as we do not roundly denounce our own. We cannot be purified unless we feel sorry for having set Government buildings on fire and atone for it; until then we have no right to condemn General Dyer’s terrible crime and, if we fail to admit our faults, we dare not demand the dismissal of Sir Michael O’Dwyer and the recall of Lord Chelmsford. It is also asked whether we should not take into account the nature of the provocation to the people. The answer to this is that, even so, we are bound to denounce our misdeeds such as setting fire to buildings and killing innocent people. That man alone wins who, whatever the cause, refuses to be provoked and such a one alone may be said to be a law-abiding man. The nation which does not know how to obey laws has no right to protest against injustice.37 (Emphasis added) Which laws and whose laws? Decades later it would be in similar Gandhian vein that important Hindu political leaders would term December 2, 1992 as the saddest day of their lives and would subsequently repeatedly and profusely apologize for the Gujarat riots of 2002. Till the end, Gandhi never saw the wisdom of closing ranks against the British, never saw the wisdom of uniting all Hindu centers of power and strength to check the British-driven ascendance of Islam. Gandhi declared, yet again with a skewed sense of proportion that he would travel across the four corners of the country if Tilak refused to welcome the reforms and extend his hand of fellowship to Montague – a monumental exercise for a less than trivial cause, in support of a British government official and against a towering Indian nationalist! Six months later, when Gandhi would issue a call to boycott the reception to the visiting Prince of Wales, the same Montague would label the same Gandhi ‘disloyal and unmannerly’. Montague has said that I have served the country in the past but that now I have lost my head and may have to be arrested, if necessary. I ask you not to lose your balance of mind if they arrest me. You went mad for the sake of Kitchlew. For Satyapal, too, you lost your head, set fire to 37
‘The Congress’ , Navjivan, 11-1-1920, CWMG Vol. 19, page 304
houses, and killed innocent people. If you love me, you should keep your patience, should they arrest both of us, even if they hang us on the gallows. I know, my heart tells me, that if I were a Prime Minister and were opposed by any person whom I believed to be a mad Gandhi, I would certainly send such a Gandhi to the Andamans. Montague thinks I am mad; if he believes this honestly and arrests me, where is the cause for anger? If you do not consider me mad, listen to what I say, do what I have asked you to do and go to jail. Where a tyrant reigns, a prison is a palace and a palace a prison. If you have learnt this equation of prison and palace, do as I tell you. If you believe that what I am telling you is only what God tells me through my inner voice, then give me the assurance, I beg you, that you will restrain your passion and will not boil over even if they sentence me.38 This was extraordinary, skillful oratory, holding people in thrall, not to say brilliant tactic – projecting himself as a possible victim of state repression, and citing his ‘inner voice’ to put the people at a psychological disadvantage. Gandhi yet again exhorts people not to take to violence if the government arrested him or even if he were to be sent to the gallows! Send Gandhi to the gallows for boycotting the reception to a member of the royal family? Gandhi was attributing to the British government his own sense of disproportion and the snide reference to the Andamans, which was actually a reference to the sentence of transportation and the kind of people who were sent there (Savarkar and the Bengal revolutionaries) is also typically Gandhi. Indeed Gandhi knew how to choose his words when he was addressing a captive audience. Gandhi would not only fall out with Montague but would also go on to reject the Montague-Chelmsford reforms for which he had postured against Tilak only six months ago, so that he could legitimately launch his non-co-operation movement again, this time for the khilafat cause. In 1919, Gandhi packaged the khilafat cause in the Rowlatt Act; in 1920 he packaged it in the Punjab issue. Gandhi who two years earlier had actively recruited Indians for a war in Europe, now in the name of non-co-operation, campaigned against Indians being recruited into the army for the war in Mesopotamia; the same. Gandhi would also tell people to reject the Government of India Act 1919 resting on Montague’s 38
Speech at Rawalpindi, July 19, 1920, Navajivan, 15-8-1920, CWMG Vol.
21, page 66
reforms report, and call for boycotting elections to enter the legislatures, on the specious argument that towering patriots like Tilak would not have been able to do even a fraction of the work that they had done had they entered the legislatures or council of ministers! Mr. Gandhi spoke in support of his motions. He expressed his utter distrust of the bureaucracy and stated that as British people were past masters in the art of diplomacy he felt convinced now, though he felt otherwise in Amritsar, that these reforms were a dangerous trap which concealed gilded chains that enslaved the country. He warned his hearers not to fall in that trap. He assured them that if they would only start the movement in the right spirit and carry it out as he desired, he was sure that they would secure full independence for the country within a year. He also stated that the masses were still backward in political action and had no initiation in the working of the electoral machinery. The electorate in his view, had not yet the ability to discriminate on complicated political issues and were unable to understand the objective they had in view. They would be at the mercy of unscrupulous men and he wound up by saying that boycott of elections was the pivot upon which the programme in his resolution turned and therefore he was not prepared to yield to any appeal made in the name of unity. On this head, patriots like Mr. Tilak would not have been able to do even the small part of work they had done if they had got into councils.39 (Emphasis added) And in what was a complete turnaround from his covert mission just two years ago to get entire villages in Gujarat to enlist in the army to fight in World War I, Gandhi declares piously that in his conception of swaraj, no power could send Indians abroad to ‘enslave’ other nationalities! He also equates swaraj to the Hindu moksha and the Christian salvation. Under that swaraj, the nation will have the power to impose a heavy protective tariff on such foreign goods as are capable of being manufactured in India, as also the power to refuse to send a single soldier outside India for the purpose of enslaving the surrounding or remote nationalities. The swaraj 39
Speech at Subjects Committee Meeting, Calcutta, September 5, 1920, The
Hindu, 6-9-1920, CWMG Vol. 21, pp 237-38
that I dream of will be a possibility only when the nation is free to make its choice both of good and evil. I adhere to all I have said in that booklet and I would certainly recommend it to the reader. Government over self is the truest swaraj. It is synonymous with moksha or salvation, and I have seen nothing to alter the view that doctors, lawyers and railways are no help, and are often a hindrance to the one thing worth striving after.40 · Nagpur Congress – 1920 Call for Swaraj After the swadeshi war-cry in Amritsar, Gandhi issued the swaraj war-cry which he said would be obtained within the year. Gandhi rightly assessed the Hindu outrage after Jalianwala Bagh and realized that given the violent protests in Ahmedabad, Calcutta and Gujranwala in April 1919, the threat of forceful retaliation against the British was very real. It is pertinent that Muslim civil disobedience during this campaign was not against the Rowlatt Act or the Jalianwala Bagh massacre, but for their exclusive goal of restoration of the Turkish Caliphate. The Muslims used Gandhi's Satyagraha to entrench their separatist and hegemonic identities;41 Gandhi encouraged the sense of the Muslim Ummah in the vain hope that the Muslims would come along with the INC under his leadership. Gandhi launched this phase of his civil disobedience campaign for the Khilafat with the twin objectives of dousing the fire of revenge burning in Hindu and Sikh hearts and to assume leadership of the Muslims by getting the INC and Hindus across the country to take up their cause. Tilak had passed away in July and Gandhi called for swarajwithin-a-year to stave off the second imminent split in the INC by assuaging the sense of seething discontent and revolt among the nationalists. But what exactly did Gandhi mean by swaraj and what did he mean when he declared at Nagpur that he wanted it within one year? Gandhi’s response on December 8, 1920, to Lord Ronaldshay’s42 critique of swaraj as conceptualized by Gandhi in Hind Swaraj, and his own position which he articulated at the special session of the Congress in Calcutta, in September 1920, only added to the growing confusion about the definition of swaraj. Gandhi admitted that his swaraj was different from the swaraj as defined in the Congress resolution 40
Notes, On the wrong Track, Young India, 8-12-1920, CWMG Vol. 22, page 63
41
The minority tendency to use the secular constitution to propel their separatism is a continuation of this phenomenon; as is the secular Hindu abetment of this practice. 42
1844-1929; diplomat and author; Governor of Bengal, 1917-22
·
·
·
·
The preamble to the resolution passed in the special session of the Congress in September 1920, as drafted by CR Das and accepted by Gandhi defined “the aim of non co-operation to be the attainment of complete swaraj”43 Gandhi “accepted the amendment regarding full selfgovernment in his proposal not on the ground that the Khilafat question was subservient to the question of swaraj. To him the Khilafat and the Punjab were greater than swaraj.”44 “To him swaraj was only a means to an end and he for his part was prepared to exchange swaraj for any other system of Government if, in his opinion, it was for the good of the country.”45 Government over self is the truest swaraj. It is synonymous with moksha or salvation.46 I am sorry that the swaraj of the Congress resolution does not mean the swaraj depicted in the booklet (Hind Swaraj); swaraj according to the Congress means the swaraj that the people of India want, not what the British Government may condescend to give. In so far as I can see, swaraj (as desired by the Congress) will be a parliament chosen by the people with the fullest power over the finance, the police, the military, the navy, the courts and the educational institutions.47
From the above, it would seem that for the Congress swaraj was what the people of India wanted; but for Gandhi it was not even what the people of India wanted but something else. To the Congress swaraj was self-government within the empire; for Gandhi it was Hindu moksha which he equated with the Christian salvation. And the INC was not a homogenous party with unanimity of views or objectives. The moderates opposed Gandhi’s non-co-operation for attainment of swaraj which entailed 43
Speech at Subjects Committee meeting, Calcutta, September 5, 1920, The Hindu, 6-91920, CWMG Vol. 21, page 238 44
Speech at Subjects Committee meeting, Calcutta, September 7, 1920, The
Hindu, 8-9-1920, CWMG Vol. 21, page 239 45 46 47
Same as foot-note 41, page 240 Notes, On the wrong Track, Young India, 8-12-1920, CWMG Vol. 22, page 63
Notes, On the wrong Track, Young India, 8-12-1920, CWMG Vol. 22, page 63, (words in parenthesis, mine)
boycott of elections because they believed that it was only through the election route that they could achieve total self-rule, while the nationalists also desired self-rule but without the insistence on passive resistance. Sadly, the ‘nationalists’ in 1920, of whom Motilal Nehru was one and whose swaraj too was only self-rule within the empire, were a far cry from Aurobindo and Tilak who wanted not only end of colonial rule but also complete severance from the Raj. Gandhi, differing from the nationalists of 1909 and from contemporary nationalists in 1920 and also from the moderates, wanted inner self-purification or moksha or salvation. It is obvious that when Gandhi issued the call for swaraj at the Nagpur Congress in December 1920, there was no single understanding of swaraj, or consensus on how to achieve it. But the INC went along with Gandhi, confusion, dissent and all. Gandhi wanted this undefined swaraj within a year; the muchhyped Nagpur Congress’ call for swaraj was neither a call for ending colonial rule nor a call for complete political independence. Gandhi had effectively reversed and even perverted Tilak and Aurobindo's swaraj. In February 1922, more than a year after the Nagpur Congress, the freedom movement was standing still, straining at the leash. Gandhi attributed the failure to achieve swaraj within a year to the fact that both the Congress and the ordinary people of India refused to adhere strictly to the two core Gandhian conditions for swaraj – total non-violence and wearing khadi inside and outside the house! By and by the list expanded to include Hindu-Muslim unity, ending untouchability and even brahmacharya. Gandhi declared that swaraj was not possible until these conditions were fulfilled without breach. Gandhi was not leading a freedom movement moving towards political independence; he was occupying political space and assuming political leadership for effecting social changes through coercive methods. We have discussed the conditions for swaraj several times before now. But, as long as we have not learnt to observe them, we must continue to think about them and tell ourselves that there can be no swaraj till then. Swaraj cannot be won merely by people becoming volunteers. It will be won only by volunteers observing the conditions laid down for them. If recruits are required to have a minimum height of five feet, any pigmies of four feet who manage to get in will certainly not help to win the battle but will become a burden, and may possibly be the cause of their side being defeated.
Similarly, if some volunteers inclined to violence join those who observe the condition of nonviolence, they can only do harm. When enlistment as volunteers is open only to those who wear nothing but hand-spun khadi at home and outside and on all occasions, how can persons who wear khadi containing mill-made warp, or who wear pure khadi only at the time of enrolment and while on duty as volunteers, help to win swaraj? If we are demanding swaraj for the sake of the poorest of the poor and the lowest of the low, for the sake of victims of famines and for all those who live by begging, if we wish to banish hunger from the country, then we shall find that we cannot do without hand-spun khadi, for by no other means can we provide the homes of such people with the necessaries of life. To cling to the sin of untouchability as a part of dharma and at the same time to hope to preserve Hinduism, protect the cow, practice non-violence and have equal regard for all, —I believe all this to be impossible. Just as crops will not ripen without sunshine, so we shall certainly not reap the harvest of swaraj till the darkness of untouchability has vanished. There can be no swaraj without fearlessness. And yet the Hindus fear the Muslims and the latter fear the former. The Parsis and the Christians fear them both. How, then, can we get swaraj? How can anyone who has not shed all fear, that is to say, does not look upon all Indians as his brothers and sisters, be considered as a lover of swaraj?48 This in essence sums up the tragedy of Gandhi. No right-thinking person will quarrel with Gandhi’s description of ideal society. Hindus have known and lived in such societies. The king, in Hindu tradition had to ensure the contentment of his people and also ensure that peace and harmony prevailed in every corner of his kingdom to facilitate the peaceful pursuit of the purusharthas – dharma artha, dharma kama and moksha. This was ‘surajya’ or good governance. Even the king in Hindu tradition, symbolizing the formal state was a later development. When dharma was allprevailing, there was no state in Hindu bhumi – people were selfgoverning, swa-raj. We can concede to Gandhi that this was possibly what he meant when he spoke of swaraj. As dharma 48
Conditions for Swaraj, Navajivan, l2-2-1922, CWMG Vol. 26, pp 142-45
began to erode, Hindus moved from statelessness to limited state – from swaraj to surajya. The tragedy and ultimate failure of Gandhi was that he wanted the ideal Hindu state without its core component – the ruler who subordinated himself to dharma. Only adherence to sanatana dharma could ensure swaraj. If Gandhi wanted to realize swaraj, he should have known that his first task would be to end vairajya or rule by aliens with an alien worldview far removed from dharma; in fact a worldview which was the very antithesis of dharma. Swaraj of Gandhi’s conception would have to go through several stages before evolving completely to mean selfgovernance – end of colonial rule, choosing rulers committed to dharma or the Hindu worldview and then re-building our society and nation on Hindu understanding of autonomy and selfgovernance. This autonomy was however inextricably linked to the larger pradesh or region, and desh or nation. By aiming straightaway for swaraj of the ideal Hindu nation Gandhi thwarted the spirited move to first end colonial rule. Political independence from vairajya by any means ought to have been the first step. Gandhi’s insistence on habits which were usual to the ideal state aborted the spirited beginning required for political independence leading to that ideal state. Thus was the freedom movement stalled and ultimately perverted. We achieved political independence at the cost of territory and the state which came into being after political independence was actively hostile to the Hindu ethos. Gandhi failed to deliver both on surajya and swaraj because his notion of nationhood rested on the false premise that people practicing alien faiths not born on this bhumi, also subscribed to dharma or Hindu nationhood. To insist therefore that Hindus, Muslims, Christians and Parsis had equal claim on this bhumi was to pervert our traditional understanding of nation and nationhood. It was this significant failure by Gandhi to judge the British Christian and Indian Muslim/Christian psyche correctly, which led to the horrendous tragedy of 1947 and the continuing tragedy for the Hindus in post-independence India. ·
Moplah rebellion in Kerala and the massacre of Hindus – August 20, 1921 Secular and Marxist historians have tried unsuccessfully to disguise the religious identity and religious motivations of the assailants of Hindus in Kerala during what has been called the ‘Moplah rebellion’. The latter was a jihad against Malabar Hindus and was inspired by the Khilafat movement. The Khilafat movement was a political movement by Indian Muslims in support of the pan-Islamic Muslim nation and Muslim
state. The Khilafat Committee set up by Gandhi's associates, the Ali brothers, contained in its ranks the most fanatic and bloodthirsty elements. The Ali brothers would no doubt have headed the Khilafat movement and set up the Khilafat Committee even without endorsement or support from Gandhi or the INC, but the fact is Gandhi and the INC endorsed and supported the Khilafat movement and Khilafat Committees. The latter was a coming together of jihadi elements of the Muslim community, a virtual terrorist arm of the All-India Muslim League, which put on a tactical ‘liberal Muslim’ mask for polite discourse with the British government. However, as the League progressed decisively towards vivisection of India, it gave up all pretensions of liberalism and invited the Khilafat Committee to merge with the League. Gandhi's perception of the Muslim community is best defined in Aurobindo's words as 'purblind sentimentalism'. The Khilafat Committee provided those nursing ambitions of re-establishing Muslim rule in India with an avenue for not only opposing colonial rule, but also with an outlet for a long-suspended jihad against Hindus. The civil disobedience movement that Gandhi most fortuitously launched in support of Khilafat encouraged Kerala Muslims to hoist the Khilafat flag across the Malabar, and the frenzy of Islamist revivalism inevitably culminated in the massacre of Hindu men and women and children, accompanied by rape, molestation and brutal mutilation of the dead. The outbreak was essentially a rebellion against the British government. The aim was to establish the kingdom of Islam by overthrowing the British government. Knives, swords and spears were secretly manufactured, bands of desperados collected for an attack on British authority. On 20th August, a severe encounter took place between the Moplas and the British forces at Pirunangdi. Roads were blocked, telegraph lines cut, and the railway destroyed in a number of places. As soon as the administration had been paralysed, the Moplas declared that Swaraj had been established. A certain Ali Mudaliar was proclaimed Raja, Khilafat flags were flown, and Ernad and Wallurana were declared Khilafat kingdoms. As a rebellion against the British government it was quite understandable. But what baffled most was the treatment accorded by the Moplas to the Hindus of Malabar. The Hindus were visited by a dire fate at the hands of the Moplas. Massacres, forcible conversions, desecration of temples, foul outrages upon women such as ripping open pregnant women, pillage,
arson and destruction – in short, all the accompaniments of brutal and unrestrained barbarism, were perpetuated freely by the Moplas upon the Hindus until such time as troops could be hurried to the task of restoring order through a difficult and extensive tract of the country.49 There is no credible reason for Gandhi not to have attributed the massacre of the Malabar Hindus to the Khilafat movement or to jihad. Typically, however, Gandhi condoned the massacre and justified it on the grounds that the Muslims who perpetrated the horror were only being true and sincere adherents of their faith! The blood-curdling atrocities committed by the Moplas in Malabar against the Hindus were indescribable. All over southern India a wave of horrified feeling had spread among the Hindus of every shade of opinion, which was intensified when certain Khilafat leaders were so misguided as to pass resolutions of “congratulations to the Moplas on the brave fight they were conducting for the sake of religion”. Any person could have said that this was too heavy a price for Hindu-Muslim unity. But Mr. Gandhi was so much obsessed by the necessity of establishing Hindu-Muslim unity that he was prepared to make light of the doings of the Moplas and the Khilafats who were congratulating them. He spoke of the Moplas as the “brave, Godfearing Moplas who were fighting for what they consider as religion and in a manner which they consider as religious”.50 Relentless and barbaric jihad against them, by different hordes of Muslims who had invaded and settled upon their bhumi, has been the lived experience of Hindus and it is not as though Gandhi had not heard of this inherent tenet of Islam. Swami Shraddanand, Gandhi’s contemporary who would himself become a victim of jihad soon, wrote this in July 1926 in his weekly journal Liberator – There was another prominent fact to which I drew the attention of Mahatma Gandhi. Both of us went together one night to the Khilafat Conference at Nagpur. The Ayats (verses) of the Quran recited by the Maulanas on that occasion, contained frequent references to Jihad and killing of the kaffirs. But 49 50
Dr. Babasaheb Ambedkar, Vol. 8, page 163. Dr. Babasaheb Ambedkar, Vol. 8, page 158
when I drew his attention to this face of the Khilafat movement, Mahatmaji smiled and said, “They are alluding to the British bureaucracy”.51 Gandhi’s purblind sentimentalism was compounded by his intentional misrepresentation of Hindu sensitivities to the massacre. My belief is that the Hindus as a body have received the Mopla madness with equanimity and that the cultured Mussalmans are sincerely sorry of the Mopla’s perversion of the teaching of the Prophet.52 Gandhi’s despotic control over the INC was so total that the INC resolution passed by the Working Committee was insult to grievous injury. The INC actually condoned the massacre of Hindus and absolved the Muslims of all responsibility, laying the blame at the door of the British government for having provoked the Muslims to frenzied rage; a trend that continues even today when blame for every act of terror by Muslims against the Hindus is laid at the door of the Hindus for having goaded the Muslims to seek redress for their ‘grievances’ through recourse to terror. Whilst however condemning violence on the part of the Moplas, the Working Committee desires it to be known that the evidence in its possession shows that provocation beyond endurance was given to the Moplas and that the reports published by and on behalf of the government have given a onesided and highly exaggerated account of the wrongs done by the Moplas and an understatement of the needless destruction of life resorted to by the government in the name of peace and order. The Working Committee regrets to find that there have been instances of so-called forcible conversions by some fanatics among Moplas, but warns the public against believing in the government and inspired versions. The report before the Committee says, “The families, which have been reported to have been forcibly converted into Mahomedanism, lived in the neighborhood of Manjeri. It is clear that conversions were forced upon Hindus by a fanatic gang which was always opposed to the Khilafat and non-co-operation
51 52
Dr. Babasaheb Ambedkar,Vol. 8, page 159 Dr. Babasaheb Ambedkar, Vol. 8, page 158
movement and there were only three cases so far as our information goes”.53 A familiar sinking feeling of déjà vu overtakes Hindus who have been told repeatedly and after every act of terror by Pakistani jihadis that these attacks were perpetrated by fanatics opposed to the ‘peace process’. Not content with absolving the Muslims of blame for the massacre Gandhi makes his contempt for the Hindus abundantly clear – And, in a Young India issue of 1924, Gandhi wrote, "My own experience but confirms the opinion that the Mussalman as a rule is a bully, and the Hindu as a rule is a coward. Need the Hindus blame the Mussalman for his cowardice?”54 Gandhi's defining words for Hindus and Muslims, ‘coward’ and 'bully', were not accidental. From the inception of his political career in India, Gandhi had usurped Tilak’s and Aurobindo’s words, opinions and concepts, and given them an entirely different meaning in consonance with his own views. We have already seen this in the case of the terms Swaraj and Young India. This is what Aurobindo said of Hindus and Muslims in 1906, in the context of the movement against the partition of Bengal: The idea that by encouraging Mahomedan rowdyism, the present agitation may be put down, is preposterous; and those who cherish this notion forget that the bully is neither the strongest nor the bravest of men; and that because the self-restraint of the Hindu, miscalled cowardice, has been a prominent feature of his national character, he is absolutely incapable of striking straight and striking hard when any sacred situation demands this.55 It is noteworthy that Gandhi did not call off the civil disobedience movement in the wake of the Moplah massacre nor call for disbanding the Khilafat committees. Though a member of the Central Khilafat Committee, he did not even resign his membership to protest the massacre! It is in line with Gandhian exculpation of Islamic jihad that the jihadi massacre of Malabar Hindus was consistently described by secular-Marxist historians as the 'Moplah rebellion', thus politely converting jihad against Hindus into a ‘rebellion’ and jihadis into 'rebels'. 53
Dr. Babasaheb Ambedkar, Vol. 8, pp 158, 159 Arvind Lavakare in his column for Rediff, in April 2002, “On Sabarmati, secularism and non-violence” 54 55
“Partition of Bengal,” Bande Mataram, 4 September 1906, in Sri Aurobindo Birth Centenary Library, Vol 27, Supplement edition, p. 21.
· Chauri Chaura – February 4, 1922 An unintended consequence of Gandhi's civil disobedience campaign was that it roused the Muslim community to jihad against the Hindus while stoking the dormant embers of nationalism amongst the Hindus who took to the streets in everincreasing numbers in support of swaraj which they perceived as end of colonial rule. The British government used extreme repressive measures against the Hindus who participated in Gandhi's civil disobedience campaigns in spite of the fact that these campaigns were always peaceful and non-violent. This included uncivilized conduct like public flogging of people who took to the streets for Gandhi’s satyagraha violating government ban on assembly and stripping people naked on the streets before sending them home and of course imprisonment. The regime also hanged several satyagrahis, deported others to imprisonment in the Andamans, and used the police to quell popular uprising with unimaginable brutality. The British adopted different and discriminatory measures against Hindus and Muslims. Farsighted British vested interests restrained the Raj from antagonizing the explicitly political and violent Muslim community, while at the same time they greatly feared the Hindu majority may take to armed resistance against them. The British were therefore particularly harsh in their treatment of even peaceful satyagrahis. The Chauri Chaura incident was sparked by brutal police repression of satyagrahis marching in protest, enraged over the Jalianwala Bagh massacre of satyagrahis in the Punjab in 1919 and the jihadi massacre of Hindus in Kerala in 1921. Hindu anger exploded at Chauri Chaura, in Gorakhpur District of Uttar Pradesh and the normally peaceful satyagrahis chased their tormentors who locked themselves in a police chowki, set the chowki on fire, burning alive 21 policemen and another young man, the son of a policeman. Gandhi himself acknowledged that the policemen had offered grave provocation to the peaceful satyagrahis I understand that the constables who were so brutally hacked to death had given much provocation. They had even gone back upon the word just given by the Inspector that they would not be molested, but when the procession had passed the stragglers were interfered with and abused by the constables. The former cried out for help. The mob returned. The constables opened fire. The little ammunition they had was exhausted and they retired to the Thana for safety. The mob, my informant tells me, therefore set fire to the Thana. The self-imprisoned constables had to come
out for dear life and as they did so, they were hacked to pieces and the mangled remains were thrown into the raging flames.56 An infuriated establishment imposed martial law in Chauri Chaura and surrounding areas. All areas were raided and hundreds arrested; 172 persons were charged and put on the trial. On 20 April 1923, the Allahabad high court awarded death sentence to 19, jail terms including life imprisonment to two years jail to 113 accused, and acquitted 38 due to lack of evidence; three accused died during the course of the trial. · Calling off civil disobedience – February 12, 1922 Horrified at the display of extreme anger by the people, Gandhi, true to his position in Hind Swaraj, called off the civil disobedience movement in 1922, thus dousing not just Hindu anger, but attempting to douse the fire of Hindu nationalism. Gandhi called off the civil disobedience movement not when he was faced by Muslim jihad that claimed Hindu lives in Kerala in 1921, but when confronted with Hindu nationalism targeting the colonial regime and government officials in Chauri Chaura. As was becoming routine Gandhi tactic, he wrapped his sanctimonious argument in religion and capped it with a five-day penitential fast which he said he undertook as ‘punishment’ against those who had erred. God has been abundantly kind to me. He has warned me the third time that there is not as yet in India that truthful and non-violent atmosphere which and which alone can justify mass disobedience which can be at all described as civil, which means gentle, truthful, humble, knowing, willful yet loving, never criminal and hateful. He warned me in 1919 when the Rowlatt Act agitation was started. Ahmedabad, Viramgam, and Kheda erred; Amritsar and Kasur erred. I retraced my steps, called it a Himalayan miscalculation1, humbled myself before God and man, and stopped not merely mass civil disobedience but even my own which I knew was intended to be civil and nonviolent. The next time it was through the events of Bombay that God gave a terrific warning. He made me eyewitness of the deeds of the Bombay mob on the 17th November. The mob acted in the interest of 56
The Crime of Chauri Chaura, Young India, 16-2-1922, CWMG Vol. 26 pp
177-78
non-co-operation. I announced my intention to stop the mass civil disobedience which was to be immediately started in Bardoli. The humiliation was greater than in 1919. But it did me good. I am sure that the nation gained by the stopping. India stood for truth and non violence by the suspension. But the bitterest humiliation was still to come. Madras did give the warning, but I heeded it not. But God spoke clearly through Chauri Chaura. Nonviolent attainment of self-government presupposes a non-violent control over the violent elements in the country. Non-violent non-co-operators can only succeed when they have succeeded in attaining control over the hooligans of India, in other words, when the latter also have learnt patriotically or religiously to refrain from their violent activities at least whilst the campaign of non-co-operation is going on. The tragedy at Chauri Chaura, therefore, roused me thoroughly. The drastic reversal of practically the whole of the aggressive programme may. be politically unsound and unwise, but there is no doubt that it is religiously sound, and I venture to assure the doubters that the country will have gained by my humiliation and confession of error. After deep consideration, therefore, I am imposing on myself a five days’ continuous fast, permitting myself water. It commenced on Sunday evening; it ends on Friday evening. This is the least I must do. I urge co-workers not to copy my example. The motive in their case will be lacking. All fasting and all penance must as far as possible be secret. But my fasting is both a penance and a punishment, and a punishment has to be public.57 It is penance for me and punishment for those whom I try to serve, for whom I love to live and would equally love to die. They have unintentionally sinned against the laws of the Congress though they were sympathizers if not actually connected with it. Probably they hacked the constables—their countrymen and fellow-beings—with my name on their lips. The only way love punishes is by suffering.. But whether the murderers accept my advice or not, I would like them to know that they have seriously interfered with swaraj operations, 57
It was also an excellent ruse for public emotional blackmail
that in being the cause of the postponement of the movement in Bardoli, they have injured the very cause they probably intended to serve.58 Gandhi by his own admission subordinated the nation’s political struggle to his personal fetish which he clothed in the garb of religion. The gathering momentum of the people’s movement was throttled and turned retrograde. It bears repetition that it was only the INC and the Hindus who were stopped in their tracks; the Muslim League, the Khilafat Committees, the Ali Brothers continued on their way towards their political objective, undeterred by Gandhi’s penitential fast or call for self-purification. The freedom-movement went into hibernation again as Gandhi compelled the INC and the ordinary people of India to give up political aspirations and undertake constructive work in social reform as penance for Chauri Chaura. In an interview to the Bombay Chronicle, Gandhi even refused, as an act of penance, to lift his little finger to get over 15,000 satyagrahis released; these were the peaceful satyagrahis who had taken to the streets for Gandhi’s civil disobedience. Q - Have you no fear that the machinery of Congress organization will be loosened and there will be absence of zeal on account of repeated disappointments? A - I have absolutely no such fear for the simple reason that earnest workers must realize as they have realized already, that there must be in all organic growth constant adaptability to changes that take place in the environment. Q - Have you no fear, Mahatmaji, that as the result of the suspension people might lose faith in your principle of nonviolence? A - I have none. Q - What about the prisoners at least 15,000 of whom have gone to jail in expectation of the early attainment of swaraj? Will not that question alone drive you to discover some form of resistance at least to get them released? A - The issue has been changed by the Gorakhpur tragedy. The Congress must, for the time being, sacrifice the prisoners. They must suffer for the popular misdeeds at Gorakhpur. Q - Do you think the fanatical portion will not get out of hand through indefinite suspension of mass civil disobedience?
58
Excerpts from The Crime of Chauri Chaura, Young India, 16-2-1922, CWMG Vol.
26 pp 177-83
A - I hope not. If the fanatical portion will get out of hand it will demonstrate lack of Congress discipline and, therefore, justify suspension of mass civil disobedience.59 This interview is remarkable for two things – Gandhi was playing God with the lives of 15000 individuals and their families and his Mahatmahood subjugated the INC to his will, his fetishes and his personal preferences on all issues; this in spite of the fact that important leaders within the Congress had serious differences of opinion with Gandhi all through the course of the so-called freedom movement. 5.5 The Third phase – 1927-1931 · Simon Commission – 1927-28 The Government of India Act 1919 had promised to review after a decade the power-sharing arrangement through diarchy, and other constitutional affairs. The Imperial Government set up the Indian Statutory Commission comprising Sir John Simon and six Members of Parliament, popularly known as the Simon Commission to review the working of the Montague-Chelmsford reforms and the Government of India Act 1919. The Simon Commission arrived in Bombay on 3rd February, 1928. The INC decided to boycott the Commission as it did not include a single Indian member. This is significant – that the Congress was opposing not the continuing effort by the Imperial government at constitutional reforms while keeping India within the Empire as the jewel in its crown, but the fact that the reforms commission did not have even one Indian member in its group. This proves that the Congress under Gandhi’s leadership, even in 1928, was not aiming at political independence and throwing the Empire out of India but merely greater participation in the British Indian government; some of them aimed at a completely Indian government but still within the Empire possibly with the Viceroy remaining as the overseer. ·
Lala Lajpat Rai beaten to death by Police Chief Scott – October 31, 1928 Lala Lajpat Rai’s death is probably the most famous instance of more Indians dying for Gandhi's satyagraha than if they had taken up arms against the British. The Simon Commission arrived in Lahore in October 1928 and the INC protest against it was led by Lala Lajpat Rai, a known advocate of armed resistance and a fiery nationalist. The Raj, keen to deal appropriately with him,
59
Interview to The Bombay Chronicle, The Bombay Chronicle, 18-2-1922, CWMG
Vol. 26, page 170
found this protest timely. On October 31, Lajpat Rai was beaten mercilessly on the chest and shoulder by a man named Scott, the then police chief in Lahore. Within a fortnight, on 17th November 1928, Lajpat Rai succumbed to his grievous injuries and died of heart failure. The callous death of Lajpat Rai subsequently led to another tragedy, the hanging of Bhagat Singh. Ten days before Lajpat Rai would succumb to his injuries, this is what Gandhi had to say about the assault on Lalaji – For whether the revolution is non-violent or violent, there is no doubt about it that before we come to our own, we shall have to learn the art of dying in the country’s cause. Authority will not yield without a tremendous effort even to non-violent pressure. Under an ideal and complete non-violence, I can imagine full transformation of authority to be possible. But whilst an ideally perfect programme is possible its full execution is never possible. It is therefore the most economical thing that leaders get assaulted or shot. Hitherto obscure people have been assaulted or done to death. The assault on Lala Lajpat Rai has attracted far greater attention than even the shooting of a few men could have. The moral therefore I would have national workers to draw from this incident is not to be depressed or taken aback by the assault, but to treat it as part of the game we have to play, to turn the irritation caused by the wanton assault into dynamic energy and husband it and utilize it for future purposes.60 Bhagat Singh had witnessed the police brutality against Lajpat Rai and was enraged at Lalaji’s death. Decisively rejecting Gandhi's passive resistance, Bhagat Singh sought vengeance on Police Chief Scott. But in an unfortunate twist of mistaken identity, he killed Assistant Superintendent of Police John Poyantz Sanders instead of Scott. · Motilal Nehru Report – December 1928 At the Calcutta Congress in December 1928, the Motilal Nehru Report,61 which was the Indian response to the all-White Simon Commission, was tabled before the Congress Working Committee. 60
The Inevitable, Young India, 8-11-1928, CWMG Vol. 43, pp 199-201 For salient features of the Nehru report and Jinnah’s counter-proposals see end of chapter 61
Congress had appointed an all-Indian, all-party commission to propose constitutional reforms for India in reaction to Lord Birkenhead’s speech in the House of Lords taunting the Congress to prepare a constitution that would be widely acceptable to all sections of the populace followed by his letter to Lord Irwin, the then Viceroy, as being in favour of “inducing the malcontents to produce their own proposals”. Three important meetings took place in December 1928 to decide on the Nehru report – the annual Congress meeting where the report was placed before the Congress Working Committee, the meeting of the Muslim League separately from the INC and the All-Party Convention. At the Congress meeting vehement objections to the report were expressed by Jawaharlal Nehru and Subhash Bose; however for entirely different reasons. The resolution on the report placed before the Working Committee was, as usual, drafted by Gandhi and made two important submissions – that all political parties signatory to the report should give the imperial parliament two years’ time, until December 1930 to ratify the Nehru report for Dominion Status, failing which Gandhi would re-launch civil disobedience calling for total independence62 and sending the text of the resolution and a copy of the Nehru report to the Viceroy. Nehru and Subhash Bose objected to giving the imperial parliament two years to make up their mind while Subhash Bose objected to Dominion Status; Bose wanted nothing short of complete independence immediately; there were also wide-spread protests to the suggestion that the Viceroy should be kept informed. In asking for a copy of the resolution to be sent to the Viceroy, Gandhi was endorsing the fashionable practice of the times - recognizing the legislative supremacy of the Imperial Parliament. Gandhi’s Congress, which was asking for self-determination was in fact bowing to the sovereign and ultimate authority of British Parliament to ratify the Congress resolution. That the Nehru scheme requires endorsement by the British Parliament is no defect in it. Since we are connected with Britain, we shall in every case need some sort of endorsement from her Parliament whether the scheme is to be transmutation of the present bondage into an absolutely equal partnership to be destroyed at will or whether it is to end every sort of connection with Britain. I shall always maintain that the
62
It seemed a little comical that Gandhi would threaten the total ending of national slavery if his demand for partial slavery was not met.
transmutation, complete conversion, is any day a higher status than destruction.63 However, in the face of strong objections to the resolution, it was withdrawn and a new resolution was tabled; this time without reference to the Viceroy and reducing the time given to the imperial government from two years to one; Gandhi however insisted that the country should not ask for complete independence but must settle for dominion status because while it was well within the power of the British parliament to “give” India dominion status, the country (read INC) did not have the strength or the means to enforce the demand for total independence! In his speech before the Subjects Committee of the meeting, Gandhi argues passionately for retaining the phrase dominion status instead of independence and with the clear intent of getting the Congress to go along with him he raises the possibility that he may have to die in the attempt to back up and enforce the demand for complete independence. The emotional appeal bordering on emotional blackmail had its natural result – the Congress went along with him and Subhash Bose’s amendments to Gandhi’s second resolution were defeated by a very narrow margin.64 Nehru chose not to attend the meeting on the day Gandhi was forced to withdraw his first resolution; that day set the precedent for the more (in)famous day when Nehru would absent himself from the proceedings of the Constituent Assembly when the House was scheduled to discuss and vote on Article 370 providing for the dangerous ‘special status” for Jammu and Kashmir, leaving Gopalaswamy Aiyangar to perform the unpleasant task, which was not at all in the national interest. Considering that both Bose and Nehru had strong reservations about the resolution moved by Gandhi, in what would be a significant pointer to the future Gandhi deals with them differently – Nehru with affection bordering on adoration and Bose with great sternness.65 Subhash Bose, however was made of sterner stuff than Nehru and not only were he and his supporters present on the eventful day but Bose held his ground and refused to withdraw his amendments to the second resolution moved by Gandhi.
63
What’s in a name, December 29, 1928, Young India, 3-1-1929, CWMG Vol.
43, page 467 64
For more details on Gandhi’s speeches on the Nehru report in Calcutta, see end of chapter. 65 For more details on Gandhi’s handling of the objections raised by Nehru and Bose, see end of chapter.
This book raises questions about the three core assumptions underlying the Nehru report – that the constitution which Indians drafted as reaction to the all-British Simon Commission must not only involve all major political parties of the time but must also be ‘widely acceptable’; the concept of ‘minorities’ in a religion-less state and that the draft constitution must be endorsed by the British parliament. The three major parties agreeing to come together to draft the Constitution was the INC, the Muslim League and the Liberal Party. Gandhi had made it clear to the INC that it was not on his agenda to get the British out of the country; he only wanted the British government to treat Indians equally to the British. Gandhi had also made it clear that the illusory HinduMuslim unity was the bedrock of his satyagraha and for him and for the INC under his leadership, satyagraha or complete nonviolence was the only way to achieve whatever minimal political reforms that the Imperial British Parliament was willing to grant. And so – · The British could not be forced out of the country by sustained armed resistance · The British government in 1928 was under no compelling reason to contemplate withdrawing from India · The British government had already empowered the Muslim community and found in Gandhi’s Hindu-Muslim-unity fetish an enabling instrument to check the political aspirations of the 87% strong Hindu majority populace and counter the growing sense of Hindu nationalism · The primary objective of the Nehru Committee was therefore only to draft a constitution which would effectively deal with the ‘communal problem’ or settle the ‘communal issue’; in short, pander to Muslim separatism This Convention is of opinion that the resolutions it has already passed on the recommendations of the All-Parties Committee contained in clauses one to six of their Report sufficiently indicate the will of the nation as to the nature and main principles of the constitution acceptable to it and is further of opinion that except on points on which notes of dissent have been recorded at the instance of some of the parties present there is a general agreement on the basis of the solution of communal problem recommended by the said Committee.66 · The British government played up Gandhi’s fetish and convinced even intelligent Indians that resolving the 66
Speech at All-Parties Convention, Calcutta, January 1, 1929, CWMG Vol. 43, page 487
‘communal problem’ (read appeasing Muslims) must be one of the core objectives of constitution-making and also that the assent of the British parliament was mandatory for implementing contemplated reforms The logic was childishly simple. The only way parliament assent could be by-passed or rendered irrelevant was to use force to implement the constitution with or without British consent. If it had to be ‘without’ it could only be with the country’s readiness to use retaliatory force against the almost certain use of force by the British government to thwart implementation of the independent constitution. By insisting on the all-party committee to draft the constitution and by insisting on British parliament assent for the report with the matching insistence on non-violence, Gandhi reduced the Nehru report to a cosmetic exercise. Sections of the INC rejected the resolution, the Muslim League rejected the report in toto and the British government tossed it aside and made the Simon Commission Report the basis for the Government of India Act, 1935. · Defence of India Act – 1929 Unnerved by the intense anger spreading across the country against the British government for the killing of Lajpat Rai and intimidated by Subhash Bose’s insistence on complete political independence compounded by the growing feeling inspired by Bhagat Singh, Sukhdev and Rajguru that violence unleashed by the Raj against the Indian people was best responded to by retaliatory violence in equal measure, the government declared its intention to pass the draconian Defense of India Act by ordinance. It would be used against all nationalists, whether passive or armed resisters. ·
Bombing the Central Assembly by Bhagat Singh – April 8, 1929 Bhagat Singh, Sukhdev and Rajguru decided to bomb Delhi's Central Legislative Assembly (today's Lok Sabha) where the ordinance Defense of India Act was set to be passed. In Bhagat Singh's own words: Consequently, bearing in mind the words of the late Mr. S.R. Das, once Law Member of the GovernorGeneral's Executive Council, which appeared in the famous letter he had addressed to his son, to the effect that the 'Bomb was necessary to awaken England from her dreams', we dropped the bomb on the floor of the Assembly Chamber to register our protest on behalf of those who had no other means left to give expression to their heart-rending
agony. Our sole purpose was "to make the deaf hear" and to give the heedless a timely warning. Others have as keenly felt as we have done, and from under the seeming stillness of the sea of Indian humanity, a veritable storm is about to break out. We have only hoisted the "dangersignal" to warn those who are speeding along without heeding the grave dangers ahead. We have only marked the end of an era of Utopian nonviolence, of whose futility the rising generation has been convinced beyond the shadow of doubt.67 Bhagat Singh rightly and categorically rejected Gandhi's uncompromising non-violence as 'utopian non-violence'. His statement, which was read out in court was reproduced in the Congress Bulletin dated July 1, 1929. My Dear Jawaharlal, I read the current Congress Bulletin. I think that the reproduction of that statement was out of place in an official publication which is designed merely to record Congress activities. Is it not like a government gazette? On merits too, I understand that it was prepared by their counsel. It is not the outpouring of earnest souls as you and I thought it was. Nor did I like your advocacy and approval of the fast they are undergoing. In my opinion, it is an irrelevant performance and in so far as it may be relevant, it is like using Nasmyth hammer to crush a fly.68 Gandhi derides the fact that the statement read out by Bhagat Singh in court was drafted by his counsel, while he himself routinely drafted every statement to the press, every resolution of the Congress Working Committee, on behalf of the Congress party. Bhagat Singh was arrested and three months later was sentenced to ‘transportation for life’ in June 1929. The ‘fast’ referred to by Gandhi with such disparagement was the fast undertaken by Bhagat Singh in prison demanding better living conditions and also insisting that political prisoners be treated with dignity and not like common criminals. By a tragic turn of events the British Government came to know of his role in the 67
Excerpt from ' Full Text of Statement of S. Bhagat Singh and B.K. Dutt in the Assembly Bomb Case', read in Court on 6th June, 1929, by Mr. Asaf Ali on behalf of Bhagat Singh and B.K. Dutt http://www.shahidbhagatsingh.org/index.asp?link=june6) 68
Letter to Jawaharlal Nehru, After July 1, 1929, Gandhi-Nehru Papers, 1930. Courtesy: Nehru Memorial Museum and Library, CWMG Vol. 46, page 233
killing of Deputy Superintendent of Police Saunders in 1928 and Bhagat Singh was then tried for murder and sentenced to death. · Lahore Congress Purna Swaraj – 1929 The INC and particularly Gandhi were equally alarmed at the growing impatience of ordinary Indians with passive resistance which was leading the nation nowhere. Gandhi had to douse the fire of vengeance quickly and effectively. He was compelled to make a call to the Indian people with a political slogan signifying independence. Nehru, elected President of the Lahore Congress on September 29, 1929, read out a resolution drafted by Gandhi, containing the second clarion cry of 'purna swaraj'. This 'purna swaraj' sounded more powerful than Tilak and Aurobindo's plain swaraj and it took Gandhi and the INC nine years after the Nagpur ‘swaraj’ to utter it. And despite the efforts of postindependence in-house historians, this too was no more than an illusion. Nagpur swaraj=home rule=self-rule with dominion status=Nehru report for dominion status=Lahore purna swaraj=home-rule=greater power sharing still within the Empire. Purna Swaraj was thus never equal to political independence and the end of colonial rule; Yet maintaining the charade of marching towards independence, Jawaharlal Nehru gave the first demonstration of his penchant for midnight when at the stroke of midnight on New Year's Eve in 1930, he hoisted the tricolour with much bravado and called for complete political independence. The British Government, after maneuvering Gandhi into the INC had also seemingly given up the menacing big cat role but had perfected the cat and mouse game in its dealings with the Congress under Gandhi. The Viceroy and the imperial government knew that Gandhi, in the face of relentless opposition from Subhash Bose and others, had staked his prestige in the Calcutta Congress of December 1928 in persuading the Congress to pass the resolution for dominion status (which Gandhi said was the same as independence) and which was supposed to receive parliament assent before the December 31, 1929 deadline set at Calcutta. Gandhi had also declared that if by December 31, 1929 the British Parliament refused to accord dominion status to India then the world would wake up to find Gandhi an ‘independencewala’; not that alone, but that Gandhi would launch civil disobedience which would then not be called off under any circumstance until the goal of complete independence or purna swaraj was attained non-violently. Knowing all this, the British Government allowed the deadline to come and go. Just to make sure that the message was driven home, Earl Russell, the Under-Secretary of State for India,
announced dominion status for India, exactly four days after the deadline, on January 4, 1930 with the rider that even if Dominion Status were to be given to India it would not be like that of the White colonies of South Africa, Canada, New Zealand and Australia. The insolent message – White rulers will treat their White colonies better than non-White colonies (India) or nonWhite peoples in the same colony (native Africans and Indians in South Africa). We cannot accuse the British government or Viceroy Irwin of not knowing Gandhi well enough to offer this slight. Gandhi, at the Lahore Congress, declared that the Nehru report would no longer be the basis for negotiations with the British government, that the Nehru report stood null and void and that he Gandhi would now announce civil disobedience, nonviolently. Having made its insulting point that (secure in Gandhi’s nonviolence) it will move only when it is ready to move, having pushed Gandhi (seemingly) to the point of no return, the British Government then announced its readiness to sit across the table with Gandhi and the Congress for negotiations – at the Round Table and outside it. In the same breath, the Viceroy also denied that the purpose of the Round Table Conference was to give India dominion status or get the participants to discuss the contents of the status. The threat of dire vengeance uttered against civil and criminal resisters is idle and therefore uncalled for. There is this in common between both. Both have counted the cost. They are out for suffering. Would that their means were also common. Unfortunately instead of being complementary, they neutralize each other. I know that the non-violent revolutionary like me impedes the progress of the violent revolutionary. I wish the latter would realize that he impedes my progress more than I do his, and that I, being a Mahatma, if left unhampered by him, am likely to make greater progress than he can ever hope to make. Let him realize too that he has never yet given me a fair chance. Some of them no doubt have been most considerate. I want full suspension of his activity. If it will please him, I am free to admit that I dread him more than I dread Lord Irwin’s wrath. His Excellency the Viceroy deserves the thanks of every Congressman for
having cleared the atmosphere and let us know exactly where he and we stand.69 The domestic cat, with all the wiliness at its command succeeded in sowing discord within the Congress. As in Calcutta in December 1928, so in Lahore in December-January 1930, Subhash Bose, Pandit Madan Mohan Malaviya, Satyamurti, Srinivasa Iyengar and Srinivasa Sastry all differed sharply with Gandhi70 on varied issues ranging from non-violence as the only creed, to boycotting Councils and Legislatures and rejecting the offer of a Round Table. So vehement was the opposition to Gandhi’s un-nuanced nonviolence that Gandhi labeled his critics ‘criminal resisters’. Gandhi’s suffocating influence on the Congress and his seeming influence with the British government had begun its downward trajectory. The slide would gather momentum as the Muslim League too would begin its strident demand for a separate Muslim state. · Declaration of 'Independence' – January 29, 1930 The declaration of independence was officially promulgated on 26 January 1930, but following this triumphant call and hoisting of the flag, Gandhi entered into the infamous Gandhi-Irwin Pact, followed by two rounds of the Round Table Conference seeking Dominion Status. Then came the Government of India Act 1935 through which the INC happily agreed to power-sharing yet again. The people of India were dazzled by the illusion of moving forward rapidly towards freedom; while in fact, the half-step taken towards passing resolutions on independence was rendered futile by taking three steps back with the Gandhi-Irwin Pact. Purna Swaraj 1929 = hoisting of tricolour on New Year's 1930 = Declaration of Independence 26 January, 1930 – did not equal resolute march towards political independence or ending colonial rule. Having rejected the offer to participate in the Round Table Conference, Gandhi however entered into negotiations with Viceroy Irwin culminating in the Gandhi-Irwin Pact, one year later, in March 1931. But we have to keep in mind that even 17 years after 1930, until January 1947, there was no further movement with deliberate intent towards Dominion Status or Independence. · 69
Dandi March – March 12 – April 6, 1930
Clearing the Issue, Young India, 30-1-1930, CWMG Vol. 48, page 272 For more information on Gandhi’s reaction to these differences, see end of chapter 70
The INC had to swallow the bitter pill that Lala Lajpat Rai's death and Bhagat Singh's valiant acts of revenge captured the imagination of ordinary Indians more effectively than the INC had ever been able to after 1910. Both Gandhi and the INC were under great pressure to act swiftly to regain the eroding faith of Indians in them as instruments of political freedom. It was their good fortune that ordinary Indians never quite grasped the real content of Gandhi's swaraj or purna swaraj and readily responded to his calls to offer passive resistance. Gandhi needed to conjure up a measure as dramatic as Bhagat Singh bombing the Central Legislative Assembly. He came up with his famous march to Dandi, walking 241 miles in 24 days, which historians project as an act that ‘shook the empire’, though there was no evidence of any tremor within the empire. If anything, the Empire struck back. As seen earlier in the paper, the salt tax, which Gandhi was supposed to have challenged by the Dandi March, was abolished only by Nehru's interim government in 1946. The Raj shrewdly realized the impact Bhagat Singh had made on ordinary Indians and knew that the Jugantar Party in Calcutta was not only recruiting young Indians but keeping alive the embers of revolution and armed resistance. The British probably concluded that unless they maneuvered public opinion towards Gandhi and the INC again, the threat of ordinary Indians following Bhagat Singh was increasingly real. Their apprehensions were not without basis because while Gandhi's uncompromising adherence to passive resistance froze all movement towards political independence and facilitated continuance of colonial rule, his campaigns simultaneously stoked the embers of nationalism into raging fires, as we shall see in December 1931 and later in 1942. The Raj therefore made heroes of Gandhi and other important INC leaders, particularly the members of the Congress Working Committee, by arresting them swiftly in the wake of the Dandi March; simultaneously the British ruthlessly quelled satyagrahis who tried valiantly to make salt the Gandhian way. The national indignation at the treatment meted to the Congress leaders would have satisfied the British, who promptly invited Gandhi for dialogue with Viceroy Irwin. This was now the routine ruse of the Empire: use Gandhi to hit out at Indians with one hand and offer the other hand in invitation for talks. Gandhi's passive resistance was thus reinstated as the most effective tool for engaging the regime and the colonial power allowed Indians to continue with civil disobedience.
The pertinent question, however, was: what did the Dandi March achieve in real terms for the freedom movement? · Gandhi-Irwin Pact – March 5, 1931 There are in fact two closely linked mysterious questions. 'What was the real reason why Gandhi undertook the Dandi March' and 'Why did Gandhi hold talks with Lord Irwin?’ There are no clear answers as the Dandi March yielded nothing concrete in the direction of political freedom, and the Gandhi-Irwin talks concluding in the Gandhi-Irwin Pact also led nowhere, not even towards dominion status. The British government arrested Gandhi, Nehru and other members of the Congress Working Committee at the height of the civil disobedience movement and lodged them in jail. It was left to ordinary Indians faithfully offering peaceful and civil ‘disobedience’ to face the harsh repressive power of the government. Srinivasa Sastry, Tej Bahadur Sapru and MR Jayakar attended the First Round Table Conference as did the Muslim League. It was brought home to Gandhi that by not permitting the Congress to participate in the Conference and by rejecting all offers for talks with the Viceroy, Gandhi was only facilitating the ascendancy of the Muslim League. There were only two possible ways for forward movement – violent uprising presenting the British with internal compelling reasons to quit India; or if non-violence was the only way, to keep talking to the British government hoping that non-violence would compel the British government to give independence immediately as per the Lahore Congress resolution 1930. Given these choices, Gandhi had no other option but to enter into a dialogue with Viceroy Irwin. Considering the state of utter helplessness to which Gandhi had reduced the Congress with his obduracy, the contents of the Gandhi-Irwin Pact could not have been any different. Gandhi’s dialogue with Lord Irwin at this juncture was reminiscent of his agreement with the South African government, which the Indian community in South Africa perceived as a sell-out. Gandhi was assaulted by Mir Alam, who was enraged by the accord with Gen. Smuts because like many others he felt it compromised the struggle against apartheid. Gandhi made a second agreement with Gen. Smuts at the height of his last civil disobedience campaign in that country, which also claimed several lives. Just as Gen. Smuts debilitated the struggle of the Indian community against discriminatory laws through Gandhi, so did Viceroy Irwin via the Gandhi-Irwin Pact apply the brakes on the feeble political movement, effectively stalling the civil disobedience campaign of 1928-32, and more significantly, causing immense dissatisfaction and even disaffection between
Subhash Bose and Gandhi, leading eventually to Bose's expulsion from the INC in 1939. The Gandhi-Irwin Pact extracted more significant returns from the Indians than what the British government ceded to the Indians. The terms of the Pact were: · · · · · ·
Discontinuation of the civil disobedience movement by the Indian National Congress. Participation by the INC in the Round Table Conference. Withdrawal of all ordinances issued by the British Government imposing curbs on the activities of the INC. Withdrawal of all prosecutions relating to various offences except those involving violence. Release of all persons imprisoned for participating in the civil disobedience movement. Removal of the tax on salt which would make it possible for Indians to legitimately manufacture, trade and sell salt, including for their own use.
From the terms of the pact, it is clear that Gandhi was negotiating only on behalf of the INC and those who followed him in his passive resistance campaign. Gandhi did not threaten to go on a fast-unto-death for Bhagat Singh as he probably knew it would be fruitless, just as he did not threaten to fast-unto-death when partition of the bhumi loomed large. Gandhi undertook his famous fasts only when he knew it was possible to coerce his target to yield. The end-result of Gandhi's fasts usually proved detrimental to Hindu political interests; it is pertinent that he never so coerced the Muslims or the British to achieve political objectives. One of the persuasive arguments that Gandhi put before the people of the country was that by implementing the terms of the accord resolutely, there was every chance that the Viceroy may well pardon those who were condemned to be hanged and may also release political prisoners. There is, no doubt, a small but active organization in India which would secure India’s liberty through violent action. I appeal to that organization, as I have done before, to desist from its activities, if not yet out of conviction, then out of expedience. They have perhaps somewhat realized what great power non-violence has. They will not deny that the almost miraculous mass awakening was possible only because of the mysterious and yet unfailing effect of non-violence. I want them to be patient, and give the Congress, or if they will, me, a chance to work out the plan of truth and non-violence.
After all it is hardly yet a full year since the Dandi march. One year in the life of an experiment affecting 300 millions of human beings is but a second in the cycle of time. Let them wait yet awhile. Let them preserve their precious lives for the service of the Motherland to which all will be presently called and let them give to the Congress an opportunity of securing the release of all the other political prisoners and maybe even rescuing from the gallows those who are condemned to them as being guilty of murder. But I want to raise no false hopes. I can only state publicly what is my own and the Congress aspiration. It is for us to make the effort. The result is always in God’s hands.71 Ten days after Gandhi’s false promise that the Gandhi-Irwin accord may actually save Indians from the gallows, Bhagat Singh, Sukhdev and Rajguru would be hanged as announced. It is not surprising at all that the movement towards independence was stalled yet again; and it was stalled successfully by the Viceroy’s astute manipulation of Gandhi. In the course of a short discussion we had about this, he revealed what I have by now discovered as the right method of dealing with him. He said: “When you or Mr. Emerson use your best arguments it does not always have much effect on me, but, when you tell me that Government is in a difficulty and cannot do what I want, then I am inclined to capitulate to you”! (SD. Irwin, 4-3-31)72 The Imperial Government in London had always picked its Viceroys well. ·
Calling off Civil Disobedience as per Gandhi-Irwin Pact Subhash Bose termed the Gandhi-Irwin Pact a "cruel betrayal". Bose declared that between Indians and the British lay “an ocean of blood and a mountain of corpses” and that nothing could induce him to accept the compromise which Gandhi had signed. But Gandhi alone spoke for the INC and it suited the British to allow Gandhi to declare that the INC spoke for all Indians.
71
Statement to the Press, Delhi, March 5, 1931, Young India, 12-3-1931,
CWMg, Vol. 51, page 212 72
Interview with Viceroy, March 3, 1931, From a photostat : G.N. 8953, CWMG Vol
51, page 201
· Bhagat Singh hanged – March 23, 1931 Gandhi did not set the release of Bhagat Singh, Sukhdev and Rajguru as pre-condition for talks with Lord Irwin; but Gandhi did raise the issue of Bhagat Singh’s hanging perfunctorily with the Viceroy. Bhagat Singh was arrested immediately after he threw a bomb in the Central Assembly in April 1929 but except for the one occasion when he chided Nehru for publishing Bhagat Singh’s statement in the court in the Congress Bulletin, Gandhi neither speaks about him nor writes about him until February 1931 when settlement with Lord Irwin was imminent and the fear of public opprobrium for failure to raise the issue forced Gandhi to report on his conversation with Viceroy Irwin. It was the same deafening silence about Bhagat Singh as Gandhi had earlier maintained with regard to Aurobindo. But in 1931 as Bhagat Singh became a heroic figure in every home, Gandhi realised that 1931 was not 1909 and he could ill-afford to by-pass public opinion. Pressure built up on Gandhi to make Bhagat Singh’s release a pre-condition for any settlement with the Viceroy but Gandhi did not threaten to escalate civil disobedience or threaten to go on an indefinite fast leave alone fast-unto-death. All he did do was to make a token gesture of asking Lord Irwin to commute the death sentence and if that were not possible at least to suspend the hanging until a settlement was reached between Gandhi and Irwin. In the words of Viceroy Irwin – In conclusion and not connected with the above, he mentioned the case of Bhagat Singh. He did not plead for commutation, although he would, being opposed to all taking of life, take that course himself. He also thought it would have an influence for peace. But he did ask for postponement in present circumstances. I contented myself with saying that, whatever might be the decision as to exact dates, I could not think there was any case for commutation which might not be made with equal force in the case of any other violent crime. The Viceroy’s powers of commutation were designed for use on well-known grounds of clemency, and I could not feel that they ought to be invoked on grounds that were admittedly political.(Sd.) Irwin73 In the words of Gandhi I talked about Bhagat Singh. I told him: “This has no connection with our discussion, and it may even
73
Interview with Viceroy (Viceroy’s Version), February 18, 1931, From a photostat :
G.N. 8947, CWMG Vol. 51, page 151
be inappropriate on my part to mention it. But if you want to make the present atmosphere more favourable, you should suspend Bhagat Singh’s execution.” The Viceroy liked this very much. He said: “I am very grateful to you that you have put this thing before me in this manner. Commutation of sentence is a difficult thing, but suspension is certainly worth considering.” I said about Bhagat Singh: “He is undoubtedly a brave man but I would certainly say that he is not in his right mind. However, this is the evil of capital punishment, that it gives no opportunity to such a man to reform himself. I am putting this matter before you as a humanitarian issue and desire suspension of sentence in order that there may not be unnecessary turmoil in the country. I myself would release him, but I cannot expect any Government to do so. I would not take it ill even if you do not give any reply on this issue.”74 In a dramatic last-minute effort to ‘save their lives’ Gandhi wrote a letter to the Viceroy on the very day Bhagat Singh was scheduled to be hanged; naturally to no avail. Bhagat Singh was hanged as announced by the government, on the 23 of March, 1931. Gandhi, for his part, paid him, what may best be described as a back-handed compliment after his death, replete with suggestio falsi and reductio ad absurdum. Brave Bhagat Singh and his two associates have been hanged. Many attempts were made to save their lives and even some hopes were entertained, but all was in vain. Bhagat Singh did not wish to live. He refused to apologize; declined to file an appeal. If at all he would agree to live, he would do so for the sake of others; if at all he would agree to it, it would be in order that his death might not provoke anyone to indiscriminate murder. Bhagat Singh was not a devotee of non-violence, but he did not subscribe to the religion of violence; he was prepared to commit murder out of a sense of helplessness. His last letter was as follows: “I have been arrested while waging a war. For me there can be no gallows. Put me into the mouth of a cannon and blow me off.”
74
Interview with Viceroy (Gandhiji’s Report), February 18, 1931, From the manuscript of Mahadev Desai’s Diary. Courtesy : Narayan Desai, CWMG Vol. 51, page 155
These heroes had conquered the fear of death. Let us bow to them a thousand times for their heroism. But we should not imitate their act. I am not prepared to believe that the country has benefited by their action. I can see only the harm that has been done. We could have won swaraj long ago if that line of action had not been pursued and we could have waged a purely nonviolent struggle. There may well by two opinions on this conjecture of mine. However, no one can deny the fact that if the practice of seeking justice through murders is established amongst us, we shall start murdering one another for what we believe to be justice. In a land of crores of destitute and crippled persons, this will be a terrifying situation. These poor people are bound to become victims of our atrocities. It is desirable that everyone should consider the consequences of this. Further, we want a swaraj which is theirs and for them. By making a dharma of violence, we shall be reaping the fruit of our own actions. Hence, though we praise the courage of these brave men, we should never countenance their activities. While negotiating the settlement, Bhagat Singh’s hanging was weighing upon us. We had hoped that the Government would be cautious enough to pardon Bhagat Singh and his associates to the extent of remitting the sentence of hanging. We should not break the pledge we have taken just because our hopes have not been fulfilled, but should bear this blow which has fallen upon us and honour our pledge. By doing so under even such trying circumstances, our strength to get what we desire will increase rather than decrease, while, if we break our pledge or violate the truce, we shall suffer loss of vigour, loss of strength and it will add to our present difficulties in reaching our objective. Hence our dharma is to swallow our anger, abide by the settlement and carry out our duty.75 Gandhi justified the powerless and inefficient tool of passive resistance with the plea that he feared state reprisal against ordinary Indians if they followed in Bhagat Singh's footsteps to liberate the nation through recourse to armed resistance. Yet it is our contention that Gandhi's passive resistance campaigns caused 75
Bhagat Singh, Navajivan, 29-3-1931, CWMG Vol. 51, pp 316-17
the death and imprisonment of more Indians than would have been the case had there been a sustained armed uprising against the British. It is estimated that approximately 90,000 people were imprisoned in the course of the Civil Disobedience Movement (1930-31), of which at least 15,000 hailed from Bengal province alone. In Karachi, faced with persistent criticism against passive resistance and for his failure to save Bhagat Singh, yet again taking recourse to suggestio falsi leading to absurd conclusions, Gandhi said: And now a message for the young men. If you want my service, do not disown me; come and understand everything from me. You must know that it is against my creed to punish even a murderer, a thief or a dacoit. There can be therefore no excuse for suspicion that I did not want to save Bhagat Singh. But I want you also to realize Bhagat Singh’s error. If I had had an opportunity of speaking to Bhagat Singh and his comrades, I should have told them that the way they pursued was wrong and futile. I declare that we cannot win swaraj for our famishing millions, for our deaf and dumb, for our lame and crippled, by the way of the sword. With the Most High as witness I want to proclaim this truth that the way of violence cannot bring swaraj, it can only lead to disaster. I wish to tell these young men with all the authority with which a father can speak to his children that the way of violence can only lead to perdition. Would our women known as the meekest on earth, would women like Gangabehn, who stood the lathiblows until her white sari was drenched in blood, have done the unique service they did if we had violence in us? With God’s name on their lips she and her sisters hurled defiance at their oppressors, without anger in their hearts. And our children - our vanarasena (monkey-army). How could you have had these innocent ones, who renounced their toys, their kites and their crackers, and joined as soldiers of swaraj - how could you have enlisted them in a violent struggle? We were able to enlist as soldiers millions of men, women and children because we were pledged to nonviolence. I agree that the Government has given sufficient cause for provocation, but I want the impatient youth in the name of God, in the name of our dear
Motherland, to throw themselves heart and soul in the non-violent struggle. I ask them to trust my unbroken experience of forty years of the practice of non-violence. But if they will not, they might kill me but they cannot kill Gandhism. If Truth can be killed Gandhism can be killed. If nonviolence can be killed Gandhism can be killed. For what is Gandhism but winning swaraj by means of truth and nonviolence?76 The struggle to liberate the nation from vairajya or forcible occupation by an alien power can never be won by women and children offering passive resistance until the goal is reached. Were this possible, Pakistan, like the British who quivered when Gandhi undertook the Dandi March, would have ceased terrorism in Jammu & Kashmir in response to candle lights at the Wagah border and there would have been no Kargil war. Gandhi's passive resistance was a one-size-fits-all illusion against all evil, from Nazism, colonialism, Islamic jihad to Stalinism. Suffice it to say that women and children did die in the hundreds and in the most violent manner, not in any direct war against the British Government to end vairajya but needlessly, by brutal state repression, for Gandhi’s Satyagraha; Gandhism did not win for India her independence in August 1947. Independence became inevitable for other reasons as we shall see later. · Round Table Conference 2 and 3, 1931-32 Gandhi, as per the agreement with Lord Irwin, claiming to represent the INC and all Indians barring Muslims (who never countenanced any vehicle other than the Khilafat Committees and the Muslim League), attended the Second Round Table Conference in London. Having defused the anger over the hanging of Bhagat Singh with the Gandhi-Irwin Pact, the British were in no mood to make further conciliatory gestures towards Gandhi or the INC. Gandhi returned empty-handed and in a fit of pique relaunched the civil disobedience he had called off at Irwin's behest. The Raj lost no time in retaliating. Prominent Congressmen were arrested and the Congress declared it an illegal act. Despite the ruthless repression, the Civil Disobedience Movement continued and within a short time nearly 120,000 people courted arrest. The ruthless official action slowed down the movement and consequently it was suspended for three months in May 1933, and ultimately ended in April 1934. Like all previous campaigns by Gandhi from 1918 onwards, it proved fruitless: no self-rule, no 76
Excerpts from Speech at Karachi Congress, March 26, 1931, Young India, 2-
4-1931, CWMG Vol 51, pp 305-307
movement towards political freedom and so, no freedom movement. Notwithstanding official history, the INC was rendered hors-dcombat after the Gandhi-Irwin Pact and the collapse of the Round Table Conference when the British refused to yield anything to Gandhi or the INC. The so-called freedom movement came to a grinding halt and the Congress went into hibernation. It would emerge from this Gandhi-imposed hibernation after five years, with the rise of an angry Subhash Bose within the INC. 5.6 The third phase 1934-1941 ·
Gandhi announces retirement from politics – September 17, 1934. Gandhi announced his decision to resign from the primary membership of the Congress and to retire from politics after the Congress session in October to engage himself only in constructive work – “campaign to end untouchability, HinduMuslim unity, total prohibition, hand-spinning with khadi and cent per cent swadeshi in the sense of the revival of village industries and general reorganization of seven lakhs of villages”. The rumour that I had contemplated severing all physical connection with the Congress was true. However, for considerations urged by many friends who had come to Wardha during the meetings of the Working Committee and the Parliamentary Board last week, I agreed with them that it might be safer for me to leave the Congress, if at all, after the forthcoming session. Sardar Vallabhbhai had agreed with me that the time had arrived for me to retire from the Congress but many others would not endorse that view. After due consideration of all the pros and cons, I have adopted the safe and prudent course of postponing the final step, at least till after the meeting of the Congress session in October. One tempting idea behind the insistence on postponement was that it would enable me to test the accuracy of my impression that a very large body of Congress intelligentsia were tired of my method and views, and the programme based upon them, that I was a hindrance rather than a help to the natural growth of the Congress, that instead of remaining the most democratic and representative institution in the country, the Congress had degenerated into an organization dominated by my
one personality and that in it there was no free play of reason. It has appeared to me that there is a growing and vital difference of outlook between many Congressmen and myself. I seem to be going in a direction just opposite of what many of the most intellectual Congressmen would gladly and enthusiastically take, if they were not hampered by their unexampled loyalty to me. No leader can expect greater loyalty and devotion than I have received from intellectually-minded Congressmen even when they have protested and signified their disapproval of the policies It have laid before the Congress. For me any more to draw upon this loyalty and devotion is to put undue strain upon them. Their loyalty cannot blind my eyes to what appears to me to be fundamental differences between the Congress intelligentsia and me. Let me state them. I put the spinning-wheel and khadi in the forefront. Hand-spinning by the Congress intelligentsia has all but disappeared. The general body of them have no faith in it and yet if I could carry their reason with me, I would substitute the four-anna franchise by personal daily handspinning. The khadi clause of the Congress constitution has been almost a dead letter from the beginning and Congressmen have not been wanting who have reminded me that I am responsible for the hypocrisy and evasion about the working of the khadi clause. I ought to have realized that it was not passed out of deep conviction, but largely out of personal loyalty to me. I must own that there is considerable force in the argument. Up to a point suppression of one’s views in favour of those of another considered superior in wisdom or experience is virtuous and desirable for healthy growth of an organization. It becomes a terrible oppression when one is called upon to repeat the performance from day to day. Though I have never wished any such untoward result, I cannot conceal from me or the public the tragic fact that such has been my own experience. Many have despaired of resisting me. This is a humiliating revelation to me, a born democrat.77 77
Excerpts from Statement to the Press, Wardhagunj, September 17, 1934, The
Bombay Chronicle, 18-9-1934, CWMG Vol. 65, pp 4-13
·
Gandhi resigned from Congress – October 30, 1934 Every time Gandhi suffered a personal setback at the hands of the British, he froze whatever meager political activity the INC was engaged in and turned to social activity. By assuming total and absolute control of both political and social activity in the country Gandhi paralyzed both at different times when he was preoccupied with one or the other totally to the exclusion of the other. In 1934, confronted by a determined Subhash Bose and an equally angry Pandit Madanmohan Malaviya over Gandhi’s stand on the communal award, Gandhi opts to resign from the Congress and retire from politics; after Gandhi announced his retirement from politics, the INC went into hibernation and waited for Gandhi to turn to politics again to end their hibernation. ·
Government of India Act 1935, enabling greater power-sharing and more self-rule in Provinces.
·
Elections to Provincial governments on the basis of the Government of India Act 1935 - 1937. The Government of India Act 1935 enabled the election of representative governments in the Provinces, but this was only provincial self-rule, not total self-rule with Dominion Status as demanded by Gandhi in Lahore. So what did the Nagpur call for swaraj and Lahore declaration 'Purna Swaraj' really mean? Gandhi’s non-violence and a docile INC were perfect instruments which enabled the British to prolong their occupation of India. ·
Subhash Bose elected Congress President – 1937.
·
Subhash Bose elected Congress President again and expelled from the INC – 1939. Despite valiant attempts to rewrite history, it was Gandhi who manipulated Bose's expulsion from the INC, thus removing from sight and silencing his persistent critic. Gandhi, in a statement to the press on Bose’s re-election as President said Pattabhi Sitaramayya's defeat was his own defeat.78 Subhash Bose had never quite seen eye to eye with Gandhi and his disagreements began from 1921 when Gandhi called off the civil disobedience movement following Chauri Chaura. There were probably many more within the INC similarly critical of Gandhi and his ways, but 78
For the complete text of Gandhi’s statement to the press on Subhash Bose’s reelection, see end of chapter
none had dared openly defy him until Bose, and none would dare again until Rajaji in 1942. Not surprisingly, Rajaji was also maneuvered out of the INC in 1942. In the 1910s and 20s, Tilak and Aurobindo were Gandhi's most strident critics; while Aurobindo chose to abdicate his political responsibility, Tilak remained in the INC even after Gandhi's advent, though the British made sure Tilak was kept busy defending his life and liberty, thus giving Gandhi the space and time needed to strengthen his hold on the Congress. The long-simmering differences between Bose and Gandhi spilled into the open during the December 1928 Calcutta Congress, which was a prelude to the Lahore 'purna swaraj' Congress of 1929. Significantly Gandhi’s reprimand of Bose in Lahore 'You may take the name of Independence on your lips just as the Muslims utter the name of Allah or a pious Hindu utters the name of Krishna or Rama, but all that muttering will be an utterly empty formula if there is no honour behind it. If you are not prepared to stand by your own words, where will Independence be?’ was an echo of his Hind Swaraj formula for home rule, where he said home rule would come much faster if we stopped considering all British evil and if we did them justice, so that they in turn would do us justice and give us home rule: That the English people are somewhat more selfish than others is true, but that does not prove that every Englishman is bad. We who seek justice will have to do justice to others. Sir William (Wedderburn) does not wish ill to India – that should be enough for us. As we proceed, you will see that, if we act justly, India will be sooner free. You will see too, that, if we shun every Englishman as an enemy, Home Rule will be delayed. But if we are just to them, we shall receive their support in our progress towards the goal.79 “If we act justly” with the British Government, was a not-so-wellknown Gandhian fad of South African origin. At the time of the Ahmedabad Mill Workers' strike in 1918, Gandhi recalled his last civil disobedience campaign in South Africa with a view to promoting passive resistance among Indians at home as the best possible means of getting justice from the British government. 79
Hind Swaraj, Chapter I, The Congress and its officials, page 17
But typically, Gandhi did not give the striking workers the full truth about his last campaign. Indians could get justice only if they did justice to the British government, he advised the striking mill workers of Ahmedabad. Ahmedabad Mill-Hands` Strike: Leaflets Of March 4, 5 And 6, 1918, Leaflet No. 7 of March 4, 1918 South Africa is a large British colony. The Europeans have been settled there for over four hundred years. They enjoy autonomy. Many European workers are employed in the railways of that country. These workers felt that they did not receive just wages. Instead of merely trying to get their wages increased, they thought of capturing the Government. That was unjust; it was Satanic justice. It increased the bitterness between the Government and the labour, and the whole of South Africa was in the grip of fear. Nobody felt secure. Ultimately, there was even open fighting between the parties and some innocent persons were killed. The military took over control everywhere. Both parties suffered heavily. Each desired to defeat the other. Neither cared for justice as such. Each side magnified the other’s misdeeds. Neither had regard for the feelings of the other. While this was going on, our workers behaved justly. When the railway strike was launched, a strike involving 20,000 Indian workers had already begun. We were fighting the Government of that country for justice, pure and simple. The weapon our workers employed was satyagraha. They did not wish to spite the Government, nor did they wish it ill. They had no desire to dislodge it. The European workers wanted to exploit the strike of the Indians. Our workers refused to be exploited. They said, "Ours is a satyagraha struggle. We do not desire to harass the Government. We will, therefore, suspend our struggle while you are fighting." Accordingly, they called off the strike. We may call this true justice. Eventually, our workers succeeded and the Government, too, got credit because it did justice by accepting our demands. Our workers obeyed sentiment and did not seek to take advantage of the opponent’s embarrassment. The end of the struggle saw better mutual regard between the Government and the people and we came to be treated with more respect. Thus, a
struggle fought on the basis of true justice benefits both. Gandhi's unsustainable claim that Indians came to be treated with more respect notwithstanding, conditions for Indians only got worse in the years following his return to India. During the civil disobedience movement which Gandhi called off because of the General Railway Strike, this was the toll passive resistance took of ordinary Indians and this was how the colonial government in South Africa dealt with peaceful protestors: On 29 October 1913, hundreds of men, women and children led by Gandhi marched from Newcastle into the Transvaal to purposefully defy the Immigrants Regulation Act of 1913 (Act no. 22). The success of the resistance was not without its casualties. A group of 16 women resisters from Phoenix who were arrested at the border, were tried and sentenced for three months. There, they were herded with ordinary criminals, given food unfit for human consumption, harassed and made to undertake laundry work. Many brave resisters, both men and women, courted imprisonment and suffered subsequent hardships. Some were shot, others died in prison. The resistance had taken its toll. Valliama, a young resister gave up her life for the cause after duly serving a term of imprisonment. Harbatsingh, a Hindustani stalwart died in the Durban jail. The widow of Selvan, a free labourer, was shot dead during the strike. The late Narainsamy was deported to India as a Passive Resister and died at Delagoa Bay after being hunted from port to port by the Union Government. Gandhi writes, 'There were two women with little ones, one of whom died of exposure on the march. The other fell from the arms of its mother while she was crossing a spruit and was drowned. But the brave mothers refused to be dejected and continued their march.' The treatment of Indians had reached pathetic limits. The prisons were too small to house the resisters. Mr Hult, a mine manager had flogged 300 Indian prisoners placed under his custody. By now
the movement had reached a crisis point and drew attention in both the local and international press.80 Gandhi persisted stubbornly with his beliefs and even in Calcutta in 1928 his illusions about the 'inherent justice' of the British people, the Empire, and the British constitution appeared to be intact. His public reprimand of Bose proved he continued to maintain that Indians must honour all promises (that he, on behalf of the INC and all Hindus) made to the British and do justice to the British if we wanted the British to do justice to us and give us Independence (rather Dominion Status). This was a prescription Gandhi reserved for the Hindu victims of colonial rule alone. Bose's anger with Gandhi intensified after Gandhi failed to save Bhagat Singh from the gallows, and when Gandhi refused to make release of political detenus in Bengal a pre-condition for his talks with Irwin and when he saw that despite the Gandhi-Irwin Pact, the three rounds of the Round Table Conference did not provide any impetus towards political independence, and when he clearly perceived that Gandhi's piloting of the INC was not carrying the movement forward but that people's initiatives for freedom were being thwarted and even paralyzed by Gandhi in the name of passive resistance and 'doing justice'. Gandhi repeatedly violated the Mahabharata dictum of reciprocity to the detriment of Indian national interests. Once Gandhi declared Bose's victory was his defeat, the slavish INC did not dare murmur a protest and several Working Committee members including Maulana Azad and Rajendra Prasad obediently offered to resign. Taking their cue from Gandhi’s statement to the press on Bose’s re-election (see end of chapter) the Congress Ministries too threatened to resign. Gandhi’s psychological warfare against Bose succeeded and Bose resigned as Congress President on 29the April, 1939. Not content with inciting revolt in the Congress ranks to force Bose to resign, Gandhi, who had resigned from the primary membership of the Congress and had also announced his retirement from politics, drafted the Congress Working Committee resolution of August 11, 1939 which removed Subhash Bose as President of the Bengal Provincial Congress Committee on ‘disciplinary’ grounds (read opposing the Gandhi-drafted Tripuri
80
http://scnc.udw.ac.za/doc/TEXTS/kc/kctext2.html , Gandhi: Mahatma in the Making, 1893 – 1914 By K Chetty, University of Durban-Westville, Durban, 1996
resolution).81 Gandhi was determined to evict Bose completely out of the Congress and this he did in step after measured step; Bose was a serious impediment to Gandhi’s despotic control over the Working Committee. The Working Committee has come to the painful conclusion that it will fail in its duty if it condones the deliberate and flagrant breach of discipline by Subhas Babu. The Working Committee therefore resolves that for his grave act of indiscipline Shri Subhas Babu is declared disqualified as President of the Bengal Provincial Congress Committee for three years as from August 1939. The Working Committee trusts that Shri Subhas Babu will see the error of his ways and loyally submit to this disciplinary action. The Working Committee has taken note of the indiscipline of many other Congressmen including responsible officials. But it has refrained from taking any action as the members acted under the inspiration of Shri Subhas Babu.82 Removing Subhash Chandra Bose as President of BPCC was Gandhi’s psy-war against Bose to push him into a corner from where the only option for Bose would be to quit the Congress party. This was nothing short of expulsion and Bose’s expulsion was Gandhi’s handiwork from beginning to end. ·
Second World War – 1939
·
Subhash Bose demands British handover of India within six months – 1939 As World War II broke out, war clouds gathered over the Indian sky as the colonial government unilaterally announced its decision to dispatch Indian soldiers to fight abroad. Aurobindo, Savarkar, and Rajaji welcomed the decision as they thought this provided Indians an excellent opportunity to pick up arms and wage war as a training exercise which would stand Indians in good stead in the future, and also because in their view it gave the INC a powerful bargaining chip to demand political independence.
81
Not only did Gandhi after his so-called ‘retirement from politics’ draft all AICC and CWC resolutions but it was Gandhi who always issued statements to the press on behalf of the Congress. For the complete text of Subhash Bose’s letter to the CWC and Gandhi’s statement to the press, see end of chapter. 82 Congress Working Committee Resolution, August 11, 1939, The Indian Annual Register, 1939, Vol. II, pp. 212-3, CWMG Vol. 76, pp 226-27
Gandhi, however, oblivious of the irony that he had supported the British government against the Boers in South Africa and had personally recruited Indians to serve the Raj in the First World War, now opposed Aurobindo, Savarkar and Rajaji, claiming his adherence to non-violence would not permit him to consent to Indians participating in war! This Gandhi-drafted CWC war resolution was Gandhi’s response to Subhash Bose’s demand and his prescription for Indian response to the Second World war which was threatening to involve Indians – hand-spinning, Muslim serving, and ending untouchability. The declarations made on behalf of the British Government83, being inadequate, have compelled the Congress to dissociate itself from British policy and war efforts, and, as a first step in noncooperation, to bring about the resignations of all the Congress Governments in the Provinces. That policy of non-co-operation continues and must continue unless the British Government revises its policy and accepts the Congress contention. The Working Committee would remind Congressmen that it is inherent in every form of satyagraha that no effort is spared to achieve an honourable settlement with the opponent. While a satyagrahi is ever ready for a non-violent fight, if it has to come, he never relaxes his efforts for peace and always works for its attainment. The Working Committee will, therefore, continue to explore the means of arriving at an honourable settlement, even though the British Government have banged the door in the face of the Congress. The Committee must, however, resist, by the nonviolent methods of the Congress, all attempts to coerce the people of India along paths which are not of their choice and everything that is against the dignity and freedom of India. The Working Committee appreciate and express their pleasure at the readiness exhibited by Congressmen for launching civil disobedience, should this become necessary. But civil disobedience requires the same strict discipline as an army organized for an armed conflict. The army is helpless unless it possesses its weapons of destruction and knows how to use them; so also an army of non-violent soldiers is 83
The Viceroy assured the Congress that His Majesty was prepared to grant Dominion Status to India in return for co-operation in war efforts and that Dominion Status would be given immediately after the war.
ineffective unless it understands and possesses the essentials of nonviolence. The Working Committee desire to make it clear that the true test of preparedness for civil disobedience lies in Congressmen themselves spinning and promoting the cause of khadi to the exclusion of mill-cloth, and deeming it their duty to establish harmony between the communities by personal acts of service to those other than members of their own community, and individual Hindu Congressmen seeking an occasion for fraternizing with the Harijans as often as possible. The Congress organizations and Congressmen should, therefore, prepare for future action by promoting this programme. They should explain to the people the message and policy and implications of the Constituent Assembly which is the crux of the Congress programme for the future.84 Unimpressed by Gandhi's spurious objections, Bose agreed to Indian participation in the war on the condition that the British leave India within six months, failing which they would face widespread revolt from the Indians. Bose's threat was very real and the British recognized that the danger of armed rebellion spreading across India was imminent. Gandhi promptly stepped in to save the government from worry on this score. Gandhi did not relish the idea of control of the INC-led freedom movement slipping out of his hands; nor did he appreciate Bose asking the Empire to withdraw from India. So despite announcing his retirement from politics in 1934, Gandhi returned and a submissive Congress and shrewdly calculating Nehru (who perceived Bose as a threat to his own overarching ambitions) rejected Bose's call, leading ultimately to Bose's expulsion from the INC. Subhash Bose, expelled from the INC, was a loose but determined cannon with a vast following and the British feared he would stoke the simmering fires of rebellion, first in Bengal, which would spread rapidly across India. Bose was speedily arrested and placed under house arrest. On 17 January, 1941, he staged a dramatic escape to Afghanistan, from where he made his way to Germany.
84
Congress Working Committee Resolution, November 22, 1939, Harijan, 2-12-
1939, CWMG Vol. 76, pp 123-24
·
Gandhi asks KM Munshi to resign from the Congress – June 15, 1941 KM Munshi expressed his disagreement with the Gandhi-Congress creed on non-violence on the grounds that while he agreed in principle on ahimsa he did not think he could practice it given the communal tensions in Bombay. Shri K. M. Munshi came to me as soon as it was possible after his return to Bombay. In the course of the discussion, I discovered that whilst he accepted in the abstract the principle of ahimsa with all its implications, he felt the greatest difficulty in acting upon it, the more so as with his intimate knowledge of Bombay he was sure that he could not carry the Hindus with him, much less the Muslims. He knew that the numerous Hindus who were under his influence would look to him for guidance and would seek his advice. He saw no way of convincing them that they could defend themselves through ahimsa. As a political weapon and therefore of immediate use in the midst of the riots which looked more like a miniature civil war, he could not make any effective use of ahimsa. With him the question was not one of interpretation of Congress resolutions but of being truthful to himself and to the country. In view, therefore, of the following resolution4 by the A.I.C.C. explaining the Wardha statement, I advised that the only dignified and brave course for him was to resign from the Congress and attain freedom of action unhampered by restrictions entailed by the Congress non-violence.85 ·
Subhash Bose seeks help from Hitler's regime to overthrow the British in India - 1941 Gandhi, the INC, and particularly the British government, recognized that Bose's alliance with Germany and its allies, primarily Japan, constituted a very real threat to the might of an Empire that boasted that the sun-never-set on its sheer expanse. The salutary effect of the INC-Gandhi expulsion was defused with Bose’s masterstroke in seeking a tactical alliance with Germany and Japan to end colonial rule. Unwittingly, Bose had plucked the right page from Kautilya’s thesis on war strategy: do everything possible and take recourse to any measure to secure the kingdom and the safety of the people. Books VI and VII of Arthasastra, titled "The Circle of Kings as Basis" and "The Six Measures of
85
Statement to the Press, Sevagram, June 15, 1941, The Bombay Chronicle, 27-61941; also Pilgrimage to Freedom, pp. 415-6, CWMG Vol. 80, page 311
Foreign Policy", detail magnificently the kind of allies to be chosen in war and the methods to be adopted, depending on one's strength or weakness vis-à-vis the enemy. Nazi Germany was intrinsically evil, and was an enemy of the West comprising America and Europe. But Nazi evil was no worse than colonial Europe which had plundered the resources of Africa, Asia, the Americas, Caribbean, and Australia; which had carried out genocide of native populaces of these continents and forcibly invaded and occupied their territory; with the Church walking hand-in-hand with the invading forces. Colonial Europe was Nazi Germany magnified many times over. While Nazi atrocities were perpetrated mainly in one continent (Europe) over a few decades only, European atrocities spread over centuries and across all continents. Bose rightly perceived that Nazi Germany posed no threat to India and Indians, and colonial Europe, especially Britain, was the real threat to India. Hence, Bose’s seeking to overthrow the British with the help of Germany and Japan was pragmatic Kautilyan foreign policy, namely, there are no permanent friends, no permanent enemies, only enduring national interests. Bose presented a striking contrast to Gandhi in more ways than one. In a sharp rebuttal of Gandhi's passive resistance and his view that discussions and negotiations with the Raj would lead to political freedom, Subhash Bose's war cry was typical of a general leading his soldiers in war: "One individual may die for an idea. But that idea will, after his death, incarnate itself in a thousand lives. That is how the wheel of evolution moves on and the ideas and dreams of one nation are bequeathed to the next. As soldiers, you will always have to cherish and live up to the three ideals of faithfulness, duty and sacrifice. Soldiers who always remain faithful to their nation, who are always prepared to sacrifice their lives, are invincible. If you too want to be invincible, engrave these three ideals in the innermost core of your hearts. Give me blood, and I shall give you freedom. No real change in history has ever been achieved by discussions. Jai Hind."86 5.7 The fourth phase, 1941-1946 Having succeeded in silencing his fiercest critic, seeing him placed under house arrest, and thus successfully facilitating continuance of the Raj, Gandhi tired of politics and in December
86
( http://www.indianetzone.com/6/subhash_chandra_bose.htm)
1941 sought to be relieved of political chores. The Working Committee obediently relieved him. Yet again! ·
Formation of the Indian National Army – February 1942 Subhash Bose took charge of the INA in 1943 and with delicious irony named the Second Guerilla Regiment as the Gandhi Regiment! · Cripps Mission – March 1942 Cripps Mission was a British initiative to make the best of a defeated position; it offered India Dominion Status after the war. This was a tempting move aimed at persuading Gandhi to pressurize Indians to defend the British Empire in India when (not if) Bose marched to Delhi. Gandhi, who was under considerable pressure himself and was aware of mounting Hindu resentment against him as the Muslim League was growing from strength to strength, did not wish to alienate Hindus as he had done when he signed the Gandhi-Irwin Pact. Hence he declined to entertain the Cripps’ proposals. ·
INA frees Andaman and Nicobar from the British – March 1942 On 23 March 1942, Japan seized the islands and occupied them until the end of the war. On 29 December 1943, political control of the islands was ceded to the Azad Hind government. Subhash Bose visited Port Blair to raise the tricolour flag of the Indian National Army. ·
Gandhi asks Rajaji to resign from the INC – July 5, 1942 Official history, linked to Congress funding, threw a veil over some unpalatable facts about Gandhi, Nehru and the INC. Few Indians are aware that besides Bose and KM Munshi, C. Rajagopalachari or Rajaji, was also ‘politely’ expelled from the INC by Gandhi for daring to express differences with Gandhi over the issue of Jinnah’s demand for Pakistan. Two of the three disgraceful expulsions were disguised as ‘resignations’ while Munshi was compelled to distance himself from Gandhi’s insistence on anti-Hindu non-violence even in situations of communal riots. Rajaji allegedly 'resigned' from the INC because he advocated acceptance of Partition which he considered inevitable (rightly, it would seem in retrospect, considering Gandhi had no plan to avert Partition and did not allow the Congress to even think it should be averted by all and every means); only he proffered his own formula for Partition famously
called the CR Formula.87 But, possibly discomfited over Bose's expulsion and with the INC's inability to stand up to Gandhi’s control over the CWC, its paralyzing weakness vis-à-vis the Muslim League and its consequent growing irrelevance, Rajaji convened a meeting of non-Congress legislators in Madras and asked the Governor to invite him to form a ministry under him as Prime Minister. The Muslim League wanted Pakistan and Rajaji who saw the growing incapacity of Gandhi-led Congress to deal with the Muslim League advocated separation but on terms different from that of the Muslim League (Rajaji favoured partition of the country which included partition of Bengal and the Punjab accompanied by total transfer of population) to enable the immediate formation of a national government. But Gandhi refused to see the writing on the wall and strangely enough Patel too and both were of the opinion that Rajaji’s public espousal of separation may precipitate the British Government to move in that direction. Neither Gandhi nor Patel saw the advantages of having Rajaji argue his case from within the Congress which would have polarized opinions more sharply and clearly; instead Gandhi asked Rajaji to resign from the Congress and campaign for his formula from outside the Congress.88 Besides Sardar Patel, Rajaji was the only politically powerful person in the INC who could stand up to Gandhi and notwithstanding the fact that Gandhi and Rajaji were ‘sambandhi’ (Rajaji’s daughter Lakshmi married Gandhi’s son Devdas), Rajaji and Devdas were among those who later distanced themselves from Gandhi in serious objection to Gandhi’s experiments with women. · Quit India Movement – August 1942 Bose's defiance and growing popularity and influence among Indians unnerved the INC and Gandhi in the manner in which Bhagat Singh had demoralized them previously; they realized they would have to make a grand gesture to re-assert their leadership of the nation. Between 1939 when the war broke out, and 1942 when the INC had been weakened by an ascendant Bose, KM Munshi’s repudiation of Gandhi’s ahimsa, Rajaji's expulsion, and Japan's invincible march across Asia threatening the Allies, the INC recognized that the disenchantment of ordinary Indians was growing, that British coffers were empty, and that London would no longer be able to keep India by force. Economic blood-sucking of India had become impossible by 1942.
83 For details on the CR Formula, see end of chapter 88
Letter to C Rajagopalachari, Sevagram, Wardha, July 5, 1942, From a photostat:
G.N. 2091, CWMG Vol. 83, pp 78-79
London realized that the jewel of their imperial crown was slipping surely from their hands; Gandhi and the INC also seemed finally to have recognized this truth and needed to reassert themselves swiftly to pre-empt Subhash Bose and the INA from occupying the political space soon to be vacated by the British. Bose had become Prime Minister of the Provincial Government of Azad Hind and by August 1942 appeared all set to overthrow not only the British Empire from India, but also the INC from the Indian political arena. Gandhi issued his third empty battle-cry after Swaraj and Purna Swaraj: Quit India. The slogan 'Quit India', besides being meaningless, was redundant; the British were quitting of their own accord and had already begun planning their withdrawal. Those born after 1947 and raised on a diet of official history will be surprised to learn that Gandhi's call to the British to 'Quit India', far from being a decisive moment in the freedom struggle, was a whimper, a tearful plea, and above all, a reaction to the triumphant advance of Japan across Asia and Subhash Bose's INA into India. Gandhi's slogan for the 'Quit India' satyagraha was 'do or die', and as in all his campaigns, he and all important Congress functionaries were arrested the moment he gave the call, leaving ordinary Indian men and women to do and to die. Here is a mantra, a short one, that I give you. You may imprint it on your hearts and let every breath of yours give expression to it. The mantra is: ‘Do or Die.’ We shall either free India or die in the attempt; we shall not live to see the perpetuation of our slavery. Every true Congressman or [Congress] woman will join the struggle with an inflexible determination not to remain alive to see the country in bondage and slavery. Let that be your pledge. Keep jails out of your consideration. If the Government keep me free, I will spare you the trouble of filling the jails. I will not put on the Government the strain of maintaining a large number of prisoners at a time when it is in trouble. Let every man and woman live every moment of his or her life hereafter in the consciousness that he or she eats or lives for achieving freedom and will die, if need be, to attain that goal. Take a pledge with God and your own conscience as witness, that you will no longer rest till freedom is achieved and will be prepared to lay down your lives in the attempt to
achieve it. He who loses his life will gain it; he who will seek to save it shall lose it.89 On 8 August 1942 the All-India Congress Committee adopted a resolution demanding "the immediate ending of British rule in India'. It also authorized Gandhi "to take the lead and guide the nation" in the Quit India satyagraha that followed the adoption of the resolution. Before Gandhi could take any actual steps to lead the campaign, he and the entire Congress leadership were thrown in jail by the government. Nationwide riots followed, which were put down with an unprecedented show of force. Gandhi's 'do or die' slogan was taken from Lord Alfred Tennyson's 'Charge of the Light Brigade which commemorated the British soldiers who died in the Crimean War. The suspicion arises that Gandhi was using psychological warfare against Subhash Bose. The latter was leading a real army of fighting soldiers who were actually engaged in 'do or die' mission to overthrow the Empire; whereas Gandhi was merely giving a façade of war to his ineffective satyagraha. He was attempting to give Indians who still believed in his sainthood the illusion that they were soldiers in a war in which he was their 'chosen' commander: In the 1920s he incorporated Tennyson's ideal of heroism and "soldierly spirit of obedience"90 into his own philosophy of non-violence. Satyagraha, he said, was a form of spiritual warfare, its leader, a 'commander' or 'general', and each satyagrahi, a soldier. One joins the satyagraha 'army' voluntarily and after due 'reasoning'; but once he has joined the 'army', orders must be followed in the spirit of military discipline – with faith supporting reason. The 'general' alone knows the right strategy; and the plans of battle, known only to him, are kept secret from ordinary 'soldiers'. Whereas the 'military general' changes plans according to the needs of external circumstances, the satyagrahi 'general' changes his plans according to the needs of 'internal circumstances, i.e., the promptings of the 'inner voice'. In both satyagraha and military warfare "the position of the soldier is very nearly the same….In ordinary warfare one soldier cannot
89
Speech at AICC Meeting, Bombay, August 8, 1942, Mahatma, Vol. VI, pp.
154-64, CWMG Vol 83, page 197 90
(CW 25: 588)
reason why. In our warfare there is enough scope for reasoning, but there is a limit to it".91 The last was a not-so-subtle hint from Gandhi that if people chose to follow him he expected that they should do so unquestioningly. Well aware of the general frustration of the people of India with his passive resistance, Gandhi attempts here to give it a nuance of ‘war’ and expresses his demand that he is a general of sorts, and his followers - soldiers of sorts; and therefore must adhere to the military discipline of unquestioning obedience to the leader. Gandhi decried the military and the use of force but desired the unquestioning obedience which was the defining characteristic of the armed forces. In short, Gandhi wanted the sweetness of the fruit without the tree. The ‘limit’ as expected by Gandhi was reached when Bose, Munshi, Satyamurti, Srinivasa Iyengar and Rajaji dared to question the ‘General’ and along the lines normally expected within the armed forces in dealing with insubordination or mutiny, they were chastised, court-martialed and/or expelled depending on their stature and threat in real terms to Gandhi’s authority. Far from being a war and far from leading like a 'general', Gandhi's address to the AICC was an admixture of bravado, falsehumility, a plea to the Viceroy in the name of friendship, his daughter and his ADC son-in-law; Gandhi pleaded with the United Nations, with the US, with Europe to give India her independence - a plea of the ‘dumb millions to the mighty”, and a continuation of his character that was expressed in his letter to Maffey in 1918. Gandhi’s pleading tone to the British government and the international community was in sharp contrast to the summary manner in which he deals with Abul Kalam Azad when he realized that the Maulana disapproved of the Quit India satyagraha launched by Gandhi in the name of the INC, without the support or the approval of the President of the INC! And taking a page out of Tennyson and Goldsmith as well, Gandhi stooped in great selfabasement, first to please the British and second, to win over his 'soldiers' to follow him.92 The last is significant; Gandhi knew it was still possible that the British would refuse political independence. Yet he continued to maintain, even in the face of continued slavery, that non-violence would remain the guiding principle of the INC. Rajaji and Maulana Azad, who was then President of the INC, disagreed with Gandhi’s 91
(CW 69: 274; see also CW 43: 381) For complete text of Gandhi’s speech at the AICC directed at the country-atlarge, at Britain and at the international community, see end of chapter 92
call to Quit India. But typical of Gandhi’s reaction to dissent and opposition as witnessed earlier with Bose, Gandhi demanded Azad’s resignation as President.93 Patel’s relations with Gandhi had run into troubled waters over the issue of Gandhi’s experiments with women and communication between the two men was few and far between. Rajaji, on the other hand, saw through Gandhi’s ploy to incite violence and accused Gandhi of powering his satyagraha with the latent violence of the imminent advance of axis powers into India providing both the context and the pretext, and knowingly inciting ordinary people to take up arms against the British government. Rajaji not only saw through Gandhi but did not hesitate to convey to Gandhi that he saw through him. In 1939, after Gandhi had manipulated Bose out of the Congress he had announced to the world that he would no longer launch any civil disobedience campaign because he was convinced that the country as a whole was not non-violent in thought and deed. But that seems to lead one to a rather dreadful conclusion, viz., that compromise with non-violence was necessary for a widespread awakening! But that is not the conclusion. The conclusion is that God chooses as his instruments the humblest and weakest of His creatures to fulfill Himself. Today with [this] great realization I would not lead another Dandi March. The breach of the salt laws was a perfect proposition, but violence of the mind had crept in almost from the beginning. All that we had learnt then was that it was expedient to refrain from the use of physical violence. This was the nonviolence of the calculating Bania, not of the brave Kshatriya. This non-violence of the calculating Bania has not, could not have, carried us far. It could not possibly avail to win and retain swaraj, to 93
“This is my plea about Maulana Saheb. I find that the two of us have drifted apart. I do not understand him nor does he understand me. We are drifting apart on the Hindu-Muslim question as well as on other questions. I have also a suspicion that Maulana Saheb does not entirely approve of the proposed action. No one is at fault. We have to face the facts. Therefore I suggest that the Maulana should relinquish Presidentship but remain in the Committee, the Committee should elect an interim President and all should proceed unitedly. This great struggle cannot be conducted properly without unity and without a President who comes forth with a hundred per cent co-operation. Please show this letter to Maulana Saheb”. From the Hindi original: Gandhi-Nehru Papers. Courtesy: Nehru Memorial Museum and Library Letter To Jawaharlal Nehru, Sevagram, Wardha, July 13, 1942 CWMG vol. 83 page 98
win over our opponent who believed in the use of arms. Today I sense violence everywhere, smell it inside and outside Congress ranks. In 1921 even goonda element outside the Congress was more or less under our control.94 The ‘goonda element’ outside the Congress (and inside it) had demonstrated time and again that on every occasion that Gandhi launched a Civil Disobedience campaign, they could convert it into an opportunity for armed attacks against British officers and government buildings and installations. So, when after declaring in 1939 that he would not launch any more campaigns, Gandhi announced a non-violent Civil Disobedience movement to demand that the British ‘Quit India’, he knew well enough that there was every likelihood of the movement becoming yet another opportunity for armed resistance. Rajaji was in no doubt about Gandhi’s intentions My dear Bapu, ......You may reiterate and insist as much as you like on non-violence. But there is not a shadow of doubt. The momentum of your present move is wholly —almost wholly—the violence of the Axis powers and the critical state to which the British have been thereby reduced—not the non-violence or love inherent in your proposals and plans. You are scientific enough to see this as plain as the chemist in a laboratory. What am I driving at? It is this. What you are now doing is not an adventure in non-violence though it may have that delusive appearance. It is generating intense hatred in the British mind as a result of the utilization of the violence of others that they feel you are pitilessly making at a most critical point of time in the war. There is no room in this for fasting and all that. If you undertake it, the great hatred you have generated will prevent the operation of the forces of non-violence. It is politics, pure and simple, and let it be done as politics are done. There is no ahimsa in what you have got the Congress finally to accept or rather what the Congress has got you to accept. Plans suitable only for ahimsa have no place in this. Love.
94
Speech at Kathiawar Political Conference, Rajkot, May 31, 1939,
Harijan, 17-6-1939, CWMG Vol. 77, pp 1-3
RAJA95 Gandhi however did not dare to treat Rajaji with the public contempt with which he treated Azad now and how he would treat Patel in 1946. As foretaste of things to come in 1946, the INC ignores Gandhi’s diktat to have Azad replaced as President; despite the fact that Gandhi instructed Nehru to get Azad to step down as President because Azad, like Patel and Rajendra Prasad had distanced himself from Gandhi, Azad remained President of the Congress party until July 1946. As Rajaji had foreseen and as was seen in all of Gandhi’s earlier satyagraha campaigns, the ordinary people of India used the Quit India satyagraha as an opportunity for taking up arms against the government. The Jugantar party, which with great foresight had merged with the Congress to escape persecution by the British, now unleashed upon the British the full might of its revolutionaries. Government offices, railway lines, communication cables and telecommunication poles were targeted by the people and notwithstanding Gandhi's gentlemanly non-violence, his bended knees and his earnest desire to be true to the British nation and Empire, the Raj responded by summarily removing him and the INC from their path and brutally quelling the civil disobedience campaign. The British government arrested Gandhi and the entire Working Committee the very next day and lodged them in different prisons. Gandhi as usual was lodged comfortably in the Aga Khan palace with an entire retinue of people to ‘serve’ him – an unusual concession for a man in prison. Kasturba, Mirabehn, his grandniece Manu Gandhi, his secretary Mahadev Desai, his stenographer Pyarelal, Dr. Susheela Nayyar, one of Gandhi’s victims of his experiments and Pyarelal’s sister, were all lodged in the Aga Khan palace with him. In prison, Gandhi’s daily routine was carefully noted, recorded and reported to the government.96 Far from devoting himself to spinning the whole day to clothe the naked as he never failed to
95
Appendix VI Letter From C. Rajagopalachari 48 Bazullah Road, Thyagarayanagar, Madras, August 8, 1942 From a copy: C.W. 10925. Courtesy: C. R. Narasimhan,
CWMG Vol 83, pp 455-56 96
For Text of Gandhi’s daily routine in the Aga Khan Palace, see end of chapter
exhort ordinary Indians97 while he reserved for himself the exalted task of playing politics, Gandhi devoted a mere 45 minutes everyday for spinning while he received a massage for 45 minutes and a bath for one and half hours from Doctors Nayyar and Gilder, while continuing with his experiments with brahmacharya in ‘prison’. Gandhi's Quit India movement died without a whimper as events outside India preoccupied the British government in India and the Imperial government in London, while Gandhi's "dumb millions" applauded Bose's escape from India and waited in anticipation for his army to march to Delhi. Gandhi and the INC went into hibernation for the last time before 1947. This time their slumber would be ended four years later by the Cabinet Mission, in March 1946. · · · · · ·
INA enters Kohima, Moirang, encircles Imphal and is ready to march to Delhi – April 1944 Siege of Imphal ends – June 1944 INA and Japanese advance repulsed in Manipur – July 1944 Death of Subhash Bose – August 1945 Japan surrenders, end of World War II – September 1945 British Indian Mutiny and Naval Mutiny – February 1946
After the war, three INA officers, General Shah Nawaz Khan, Colonel Prem Sehgal and Colonel Gurbux Singh Dhillon, were put to trial at the Red Fort in Delhi for “waging war against the King Emperor”, i.e. the British Empire. The colonial government, which had always handled the Muslim League with kid-gloves and never dealt with Muslims as ruthlessly as it had dealt with ordinary Hindus and the INC, was so enraged with Bose that in a telling political move, it hand-picked one Hindu, one Muslim, and one Sikh, for public trial. Contrary to the British Government’s hope that picking one Hindu, one Muslim and one Sikh will have a dampening effect on all sections of the populace, the INA trials became a rallying point for all Indians across the political spectrum, and the release of INA 97
“This is an occasion when everyone—rich and poor, young and old, men and women—ought to take up spinning for the sake of the country. If the charkha is not there, there is a distinct possibility of a time coming when we shall have to go about naked. Blessings from BAPU”. A MESSAGE SEVAGRAM, WARDHA, July 15, 1942 From a facsimile of the Gujarati: Sutarne Tantane Swaraj, CWMG Vol 83, page 102
prisoners and suspension of the trials gained precedence over the campaign for political freedom. The situation was explosive and volatile. The beginning of the first trial saw violence and a series of riots on a scale that should have alerted Gandhi and the INC of the state of things to come. Gandhi's assertion on 8 August 1942 that ordinary Indians were 'dumb millions' and "non-violence will never end" was never true, as proved when the trial of INA soldiers began in Delhi. Anger against the British government spread within the British Indian troops. Indians serving in the Forces saw the INA as a nationalist army, as one of their own, and as being what they aspired to be. Their anger against the British was thus compounded by guilt, a potentially explosive mix. The anger and unrest among the British Indian armed forces affected the Royal Indian Navy. In February 1946, while the trials were going on, a general strike ratings of the Royal Indian Navy rapidly deteriorated into a mutiny, incorporating ships and shore establishments of the RIN throughout India, from Karachi to Bombay and from Vizag to Calcutta. The central rallying cry of the ratings concerned the INA trials; their slogans invoked Subhash Bose. In some places, Non-Commissioned Officers (NCOs) began ignoring orders from their British superiors. In Madras and Pune, the British garrisons had to face revolts within the ranks of the British Indian Army. Another Army mutiny occurred in Jabalpur during the last week of February 1946, soon after the Navy mutiny at Bombay. This was suppressed by force, including the use of the bayonet by British troops, but lasted nearly two weeks. Later, about 45 persons were tried by court martial and 41 sentenced to varying terms of imprisonment or dismissal; many were discharged on administrative grounds. News of the Jabalpur army mutiny had a contagious effect and soon spread to Hyderabad, Madras, Pune, Lucknow and Calcutta. Prime Minister Attlee, asked why the British were leaving India, specifically mentioned the army's role. Indian soldiers, he said, could not be trusted to 'hold' India any longer. Confronted by this monumental truth, the imperial government sent the Cabinet Mission to India with proposals for transfer of power. ***** Appendix I Gandhi’s open letter to the British people on how to deal with Hitler and Nazism Excerpts from To Every Briton
I appeal to every Briton, wherever he may be now, to accept the method of non-violence instead of that of war for the adjustment of relations between nations and other matters. Your statesmen have declared that this is a war on behalf of democracy. There are many other reasons given in justification. You know them all by heart. I suggest that at the end of the war, whichever way it ends, there will be no democracy left to represent democracy. This war has descended upon mankind as a curse and a warning. It is a curse inasmuch as it is brutalizing man on a scale hitherto unknown. All distinctions between combatants and noncombatants have been abolished. No-one and nothing is to be spared. I appeal for cessation of hostilities, not because you are too exhausted to fight, but because war is bad in essence. You want to kill Nazism. You will never kill it by its indifferent adoption. Your soldiers are doing the same work of destruction as the Germans. The only difference is that perhaps yours are not as thorough as the Germans. If that be so, yours will soon acquire the same thoroughness as theirs, if not much greater. On no other condition can you win the war. In other words, you will have to be more ruthless than the Nazis. No cause, however just, can warrant the indiscriminate slaughter that is going on minute by minute. I do not want Britain to be defeated, nor do I want her to be victorious in a trial of brute strength, whether expressed through the muscle or the brain. Your muscular bravery is an established fact. Need you demonstrate that your brain is also as unrivalled in destructive power as your muscle? I venture to present you with a nobler and a braver way, worthy of the bravest soldier. I want you to fight Nazism without arms, or, if I am to retain the military terminology, with non-violent arms. I would like you to lay down the arms you have as being useless for saving you or humanity. You will invite Herr Hitler and Signor Mussolini to take what they want of the countries you call your possessions. Let them take possession of your beautiful island, with your many beautiful buildings. You will give all these, but neither your souls, nor your minds. If these gentlemen choose to occupy your homes, you will vacate them. If they do not give you free passage out, you will allow yourself, man, woman and child, to be slaughtered, but you will refuse to owe allegiance to them. May God give power to every word of mine. In His name I began to write this, and in His name I close it. May your statesman have the wisdom and courage to respond to my appeal. I am telling His
Excellency the Viceroy that my services are at the disposal of His Majesty’s Government, should they consider them of any practical use in advancing the object of my appeal. (New Delhi, July 2, 1940 Harijan, 6-7-1940, CWMG Vol. 78, pp 386-88) ***** II Excerpts from Gandhi’s speech at Madura, Tuticorin and Nagapatnam Gandhi cites Prahlad as an exemplar of non-violence but is silent about the method employed to kill his father Hiranyakashipu When the national conscience is hurt, people whose conscience is hurt either seek redress through methods of violence or through methods which I have described as Satyagraha. I consider that methods of violence prove in the end to be of absolute failure. True paurusha, true bravery, consists in driving out the brute in us and then only can you give freest play to your conscience. The other force which I have in various places described as Satyagraha, soul-force or love-force, is best illustrated in the story of Prahlad. Prahlad, as you know, offered respectful disobedience to the laws and orders of his own father. He did not resort to violence; but he had unquenchable belief in what he was doing. He obeyed a higher call in disobeying the orders of his father. And in applying Satyagraha to this movement, we shall be only copying the brilliant and eternal insistence of Prahlad. But we are living today in a world of unbelief. We are skeptical about our past records and many of you may be inclined to consider the story of Prahlad to be a mere fable. I therefore propose to give to you this evening two instances that have happened practically before your eyes. Speech on Satyagraha movement, Madura, The Hindu, 293-1919, March 26, 1919, CWMG Vol. 17, page 355 Gandhi seeks refuge in religion to persuade ordinary people to die for his Satyagraha It is the doctrine of self-suffering in which there is therefore no defeat. Our countrymen in South Africa, where they were labouring, copied these examples with the results you probably know. In that movement all joined hands but the majority were the common people. There were two beautiful boys and one beautiful girl in South Africa who lost their lives for the cause of national honour. You should know their sacred names, which will be remembered from day to day so long as this struggle lasts and even after. The girl’s name is Valliamma, the boys’ names are Nagappan and Narayansami. They were all about 15 years old and they were drawn from the labouring classes. They did not
receive liberal education nor had they read of the deeds of the Ramayana and the Mahabharata—Indian blood flowed through their veins. The law of suffering was engraved upon their hearts and I ask everyone present here to copy the example of these two heroes and heroine. If you and I are in suffering, if our properties are taken away from us, no matter, for we preserve our dignity and national honour. More than any other part of India, you have preserved the national traditions in a superior manner. You have preserved most decidedly the outward form. You have also great faith in divinity. When I look at you, my mind reminds me of our great rishis1. I am sure they could not have lived simpler lives, but one thing is simple [sic]. You have to infuse into the form, that you have so beautifully preserved, the spirit of the rishis. Then you will be a power in the land and you will preserve the dignity of the nation and realize her future destiny. I hope that God will give you sufficient strength for this. (Excerpts from Speech on Capital and Labour and Rowlatt Bills, Nagapatnam, March 29, 1919 The Hindu, 3-4-1919, CWMG Vol. 17 pp 362-64) ***** III Gandhi disapproved of Satyagrahis seeking release from prison Excerpts from Gandhi’s Letter to the Press on the Delhi Tragedy TO The Editor THE BOMBAY CHRONICLE Bombay Sir, I venture to seek the hospitality of your columns to make a few remarks on the Delhi tragedy. My purpose in writing this letter is merely to issue a note of warning to all satyagrahis The movement being essentially one to secure the greatest freedom for all, satyagrahis cannot forcibly demand the release of those who might be arrested, whether justly or unjustly. The essence of the Pledge is to invite imprisonment and until the committee decides upon the breach of the Riot Act, it is the duty of satyagrahis to obey, without making the slightest ado, magisterial order to disperse, etc., and thus to demonstrate their law-abiding nature Yours, etc.,
M. K. Gandhi (The Bombay Chronicle, 4-4-1919, CWMG Vol. 17, pp 37374 ***** IV Satyagraha Leaflet No. 3 Mahatma Gandhi’s Warning to Satyagrahis and Sympathizers On Friday evening the 12th day2 of April, 1919, on the Chawpati sea beach, Mahatma Gandhi sounded the following note of warning to satyagrahis and sympathizers assembled in a mass meeting: Brothers And Sisters, As you see I have been set free by the Government. The two days’ detention was no detention for me. It was like heavenly bliss. The officials in charge of me were all attention and all kindness to me. Whatever I needed was supplied to me, and I was afforded greater comforts than I am used to when free. I have not been able to understand so much excitement and disturbance that followed my detention. It is not Satyagraha. It is worse than duragraha. Those who join Satyagraha demonstration are bound at all hazards to refrain from violence, not to throw stones or in any way whatsoever to injure anybody. But in Bombay, we have been throwing stones. We have obstructed tram-cars by putting obstacles in the way. This is not Satyagraha. We have demanded the release of about 50 men who have been arrested for committing deeds of violence. Our duty is quietly to submit to being arrested. It is a breach of religion or duty to endeavour to secure the release of those who have committed deeds of violence. We are not therefore justified on any grounds whatsoever for demanding the release of those who have been arrested. The time may come for me to offer satyagraha against ourselves. I would not deem it a disgrace that we die. I shall be pained to hear of the death of a satyagrahi. But I shall consider it to be a proper sacrifice given for the sake of the struggle. I have even just heard that some Englishmen have been injured. Some may have died from such injuries. If so, it would be a great blot upon Satyagraha. For me Englishmen too are our brethren. We can have nothing against them. And for me sins such as I have described are simply unbearable. But I know how to offer Satyagraha against ourselves as against the rulers. What kind of Satyagraha can I offer against ourselves on such occasions? What penance can I do for such sins? The Satyagraha and the penance I can conceive can only be one and that is for me to fast and if
need be by so doing to give up this body and thus to prove the truth of Satyagraha. (Excerpts from the printed original preserved in Gandhi Smarak Sangrahalaya, Delhi. Courtesy: H. S. L. Polak, CWMG Vol.17, pp 411-12) ***** V Gandhi’s speech at Amritsar Congress, January 1, 1919 Mr. Gandhi, speaking in Hindi, said that he was pained to speak against the resolution moved by Mr. Das and seconded by Mr. Tilak. He agreed with the resolution to a great extent but he was not prepared to characterize the Reform as “disappointing”. By “disappointing” it was meant that one was unable to do any work in that connection. But those who called the Reforms “disappointing” had said that they would fill the Council with their own candidates. Mr. Gandhi asked the Congress to consider that. If they wanted to utilize the Reforms Act, why should they call it “disappointing”? He then moved his amendment which was different from the one printed in the agenda paper yesterday. Mr. Gandhi’s altered amendment omitted the word “disappointing” at the end and ran: ‘Pending such introduction [of Responsible Government] this Congress begs loyally to respond to the sentiments expressed in the Royal Proclamation, namely, “Let it (the new era) begin with a common determination among my people and my officers to work together for a common purpose” and trusts that both the authorities and the people will co-operate so to work the Reforms as to secure an early establishment of full responsible government and this Congress offers its warmest thanks to the Right Hon’ble E.S. Montagu for his labours in connection with them’. My Dear Friends, You have heard those who spoke in English. I do not need to read my amendment to them. You have seen the amendment that stands in my name. I want to give you the fullest assurance that nothing could have pleased me more than not to have appeared before you in order to divide this House, but when I found that duty demanded of me that I should say a word, even against revered countrymen of mine, even against those who have sacrificed themselves for the sake of the country, when I found that they did not make sufficient appeal to my head or to my heart, and when I felt that an acceptance of the position that underlay their proposition would mean something not good for the country, I felt I at least should have my own say and make my own position clear to the country.
It is not a matter of removing a word here and a word there. If I could have managed to have the word “disappointing”, believe me, I would not have risen before this audience, wasted your time and my nation’s valuable time in higgling over a word. I say to you it is not right to have the word “disappointing”. I do believe with Tilak Maharaj, Mr. Das and that we are fit for responsible government hear). I do believe that what we are getting Congress ideal. (Hear, hear). I do believe possible moment we should have responsible accord with them. What then?
all the other friends, fully to-day. (Hear, falls far short of the that at the earliest government. I am in
Their position again was, why should we thank a servant of ours? After all, who is Mr. Montagu? He is our servant. If he has done a little bit of his duty, why do you want to thank him? It is an attitude you may sympathize with sometimes, but I say to this great audience that that is not an attitude which is worthy of yourselves. My amendment also means that we may not say these reforms are disappointing in the sense in which that word is used there. We should stare the situation in the face as it exists before the country today, and if, as I say, Tilak Maharaj tells you that we are going to make use of the Reforms Act, as he must, and as he has already told Mr. Montagu, as he has told the country, that we are going to take the fullest advantage of the Reforms, then I say be true to yourselves, be true to the country and tell the country you are going to do it. But if you want to say, after having gone there, you shall put any obstruction, say that also. But on the question of the propriety of obstruction, I say, that the Indian culture demands that we shall trust the man who extends the hand of fellowship. The King-Emperor has extended the hand of fellowship. (Hear, hear.) I suggest to you that Mr. Montagu has extended the hand of fellowship, and if he has extended the hand of fellowship, do not reject his advances. Indian culture demands trust, and full trust, and if we are sufficiently manly, we shall not be afraid of the future, but face the future in manly manner and say, All right, Mr. Montagu, all right, all officials of the bureaucracy, we are going to trust you; we shall put you in a corner, and when you resist us, when you resist the advance of the country, you shall do so at your peril.’ That is the manly attitude that I suggest to you. I again appeal to Tilak Maharaj, and I appeal to Mr. Das and to every one of you, not on the strength of my service - it counts for nothing, not on the strength of my experience - but on the strength of inexorable logic. If you accept your own civilization, I
ask the author of the commentaries on Bhagavad Gita1, if he accepts the teachings of Bhagavad Gita, then let him extend the hand of fellowship to Mr. Montagu (Here, hear, and applause.) (Report of the Thirty-fourth Session of the Indian National Congress, CWMG Vol. 19, pp 200-204) ***** VI Nehru Report and Jinnah’s Counter-proposals Motilal Nehru Report [1928] 1. An all party conference was held in 1927-28 in Delhi to prepare a draft constitutional reform as a challenge to British after the Simon Commission, in which the British had declared that the Indian were so divided that they could not reach an unanimous decision on constitutional reforms 2. Committee was appointed under Motilal Nehru to frame the future constitution for India. Members: 1. Sir Tej Bahadur Sapru 2. G.R. Pardhan. 3. N.A. Joshi Muslim Members 1. Sir Ali Imam 2. Shoaib Qureshi
3. Salient features: Unlike the Government of India Act 1935, which would soon be in place, the Nehru report had a Bill of Rights
Jinnah’s Fourteen Points Jinnah issued his points in reply to Nehru Report
14 the
1. Any future constitution should be federal, with power resting with the provinces. 2. All provinces should have the same amount f autonomy. 3. All legislatures and local bodies should be constituted with adequate representation of minorities. 4. Muslims should have one-third of the sears in the Central Assembly. 5. Election should be by separate electorates. 6. Any territorial changes should not affect the Muslim majority in Bengal, the Punjab and the NWFP. 7. Full liberty of belief and worship shall be granted to all communities. 8. No bill shall be passed in any elected body if ¾ of any community
A. All power of government and all authority - legislative, executive and judicial - are derived from the people and the same shall be exercised through organisations established by, or under, and in accord with, this Constitution B. There shall be no state religion; men and women shall have equal rights as citizens. C. Hindi should be made the official language (Both Devnagari and Urdu to be accorded official script status). D. Unitary form of Government established in the center with residuary powers vesting with the central government E. It included a description of the machinery of government including a proposal for the creation of a Supreme Court and a suggestion that the provinces should be linguistically determined F. Hindi would be the national language and the official script would be both Devnagari and Urdu G. Full provincial status given to N.W.F.P and Baluchistan. H. Sindh should separate from Bombay, if it were capable of independent financial existence. I. Foreign affairs, Army and Defense should be placed under the direct control of the
is that body opposed it. 9. Sindh shall be separated from Bombay. 10. There should be reforms in the NWFP and Baluchistan to put them on the same footing as other provinces. 11. Muslims should have an adequate share in the services of the state. 12. Muslim culture, education, language, religion and charities should be protected by the constitution. 13. All Cabinets [at central or local level] should have at least 1/3 Muslim representation. 14. The federation of India must not change laws without the consent of the provinces. Key to Jinnah’s 14 points 1. Points 1, 2 and 14 should be supported as features of a federal system 2. Points 3, 4, 5 and 13 should be supported as guarantees to Muslim representation in any legislature. 3. Points 6 and 8 should be supported as response to Muslim fears. 4. Point 10 and 11
parliament and Viceroy. J. Separate electorates to replace joint electorates with reservation of seats for the minorities in proportion to their population. [Separate Muslim electorates to be abolished]
should be discussed as reforms. 5. Point 7 and 12 religious and cultural rights should be protected.
K. Full responsible government on the model of self governing dominions like South Africa and Canada. 4. Jinnah at the Calcutta Congress in December 1928, proposed 3 amendments to the Nehru Report. 1. 1/3 Muslim representation in the central legislature. 2. Muslim representation in Punjab and Bengal on the basis of population. 3. Residuary powers should rest with the provinces instead of the Central Government. 5. The amendments were rejected by the Congress. The Nehru Report was rejected by the Muslim League. .
***** VII Excerpts from Gandhi’s speech on the Nehru Report at the Congress meeting in Calcutta, December 1928 It is an open secret that we have in our camp sharp differences of opinion as to the lead Congressmen should receive in connection with the epoch-making Report.
You cannot take this Report piecemeal or chop it up, for it is an organic whole. As Dr. Ansari has pointed out if you attack the central theme of the Report you stab the heart itself and the centre is what is known as Dominion Status. I suggest to you that it will be a grievous blunder to (?)98 Independence against Dominion Status or compare the two and suggest that Dominion Status carries humiliation with it and that Independence is something that is triumphant. Don’t run to the hasty conclusion that the distinguished authors of the Report had the interest of the country less at their heart than any of us, or most of us. Do not run away with the hasty conclusion that they want anything else than Complete Independence for the country. The word ‘independence’ is much abused and is an equally misunderstood word. The contents of that word would vary with the strength that the nation can call to its aid from time to time. You might have easily slept over the goal you set before yourselves in Madras. But here by this resolution you dare not sleep over your goal; for at the end of two years you will have to work out your independence and practically you will have to declare independence. Some of us, and I include myself among them if I survive two years, may have to die in order to give a good account of ourselves for the sake of achieving independence and it may be till it is achieved, you will have to see our carcases. The fire of independence is burning within me as much as in the most fiery breast of anyone in the country but the ways and methods may differ and it may be that when I am nearing my destiny on this earth you may say, ‘For independence we may wait for fifty years’. If it is so, you will tell me and point out that I am weakened and you will then not listen to me but hiss me out of the Congress platform. You may say, ‘Doctors have ordered rest for you, you can take well-deserved rest, we shall run and if you march side by side with us we may have to crawl.’ I say crawling we have buried in that wretched lane at Amritsar. We shall never crawl.99 98 99
Omission as in source Speech on resolution on Nehru Report, Calcutta Congress – I, December 26, 1928,
Amrita Bazar Patrika, 27-12-1928, CWMG Vol. 43, pp 439-445
***** VIII Gandhi on Nehru and Bose at the Calcutta Congress, December 1928, the sharp difference in tone and content when he speaks about them Mr. Sambamurthi was surprised why Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru was not here today. He was, as he said at the outset, not in sympathy with much that was going on in our midst. He has become impatient to throw off the yoke. Every twenty-four hours of his life he simply broods upon the grievances of his countrymen. He is impatient to remove the grinding pauperism of the masses. He is impatient against capitalists who are in the country exploiting the masses as he is against the capitalists who rule over this country and exploit and bleed this country in the words of late Lord Salisbury. I may tell you frankly that he is not in sympathy even with this resolution which I seek to substitute for the resolution which will be withdrawn if you give permission. He thinks this resolution itself falls far short of what he wants but, a highsouled man as he is, he does not want to create unnecessary bitterness. Bitterness and worse he is prepared to face if face them he must. He sees deliverance out of it by seeking to impose silence upon himself and remaining absent. Hence you find that even though he is a Secretary, and a faithful and diligent Secretary of the Congress, he feels that it is better for him this morning to absent himself than be a helpless witness to proceedings with which he is not in sympathy. I am sorry because I do not share his discontent over this resolution, while I share all his grief, the intensity of grief over the pauperism of our country and the slavery which is grinding us down. I do not share his belief that what we are doing at the present moment is not sufficient for the present needs of the country. But how can he help feeling dissatisfied? He would not be Jawaharlal if he did not strike out for himself an absolutely unique and original line in pursuance of his path. He considers nobody, not even his father, nor wife, nor child. His own country and his duty to his own country he considers and nothing else. Now you understand why he is absent and now perhaps you will also understand why I have to perform the painful duty of withdrawing the resolution which I moved. Gandhi on Subhash Bose’s Objections to the Resolution on Nehru Report
There are in our midst today those who would stop at nothing, who in their impatience do not mind if they rush headlong even to perdition. What are we to do? What am I to do—a man approaching his end? What am I to say to those flowers of the country who prize its liberty just as much as I do, if not perhaps much more? What am I to say to it? Am I to say I shall no longer come with you because I consider that my principle is better, my method is better, therefore you shall work out your own destiny; you shall work out that without my services? I assure you, it is not without a considerable pain, that I have taken up this position. I could have defied them just as they could have defied me, but they say: ‘We do not do it, because we want your services also, if we get them; but not altogether at your price. We want you to pay the same price to us also. We want you to meet us also.’ I could not possibly resist it without stultifying myself and without degrading myself. (Speech on resolution on Nehru report, Calcutta Congress-II, December 28, 1928, Amrita Bazar Patrika, 29-12-1928 and Forward, 29-12-1928, CWMG Vol. 43, page 457)
Gandhi’s response to the objections Mahatmaji in the course of his speech said that after due consideration and carefully judging the whole situation he was going to move the resolution before the house. The younger group in the house were eager for Complete Independence. “If you all wish India to become free you should stop all this controversy about Dominion Status and Independence. You should remember swaraj is what we have outlined here [in this Report]. I have come all the way from Sabarmati Ashram to support the Nehru Committee’s recommendation. And that also because the Report is the tangible fruit of the directive given by the Madras Congress. Today we may accept this as swaraj in a way. I don’t know what shape it will take tomorrow. You must honour the compromise I have worked out in the Subjects Committee. If you think I am lowering the ideal of Congress, you may repudiate me and not listen to me. I do not want you to accept the resolution simply because I have moved it. You must accept it only if you are prepared to work the specified programme. If you reject this then you will have to find yourself another President, as your present President is the moving spirit behind this resolution. I do not believe in resorting to dirty manoeuvring to obtain a majority vote. It will only delay swaraj. If you want swaraj you must cleanse your mind of all such ideas by voting for this Resolution.”
Replying to the debate, Mahatma Gandhi said that his remarks were principally addressed to young Bengal and if they considered for one moment that a mere Gujarati could not understand young Bengal, then young Bengal would commit a most serious blunder. I will ask you not to interrupt me when I am endeavouring to address a few words to you, as a fellow-worker of yours. If however you want to interrupt me, I shall certainly retire and not address you. If on the other hand you want to listen to me, then listen to me in perfect silence. I want to make it absolutely clear that if you are wise, you will dismiss from your mind the bogey of Independence v. Dominion Status. There is no opposition between Dominion Status and Independence. I do not want a Dominion Status that will interfere with my fullest growth, with my independence. These words, I suggest, are misleading. That resolution was not framed by me only; there were many heads behind that. There was an attempt to placate as many parties as it was possible to placate. That resolution was discussed by various men, men who were supposed to represent different parties. I do not want to suggest that you are bound by that resolution but I do want to say that those who were supposed to be behind that resolution were honour-bound to support it. If anybody runs away with the idea that I am here appealing to sentiment, he is in the wrong. You can appeal to one’s sense of honour and I am proud of having made my appeal to that sense of honour. You may take the name of Independence on your lips just as the Muslims utter the name of Allah or a pious Hindu utters the name of Krishna or Rama, but all that muttering will be an utterly empty formula if there is no honour behind it. If you are not prepared to stand by your own words, where will Independence be? Independence is after all a thing made of sterner stuff. It is not made by wriggling of words. I suggest that if you want to vindicate the honour of this nation, because the Viceroy insults us or president of a European Chamber of Commerce insults us, we say, we want our independence because we want to vindicate our honour, then you are dragging independence into the mire. If you think it is not a matter of honour, if you think that the independence of the country will be lost if you accept my resolution, I invite you to throw out my resolution by an overwhelming majority. But if you accept my resolution by an overwhelming majority or even by any majority whatsoever, then those who vote for this resolution should understand that it would be a matter of honour for them to work for it because they pledge
themselves for it. (Excerpts from Speech on resolution on Nehru report, Calcutta Congress-III, Amrita Bazar Patrika, 1-1-1929 and Aaj, 2-1-1929, CWMG Vol. 43, pp 476-79) *****
IX Dissent at Lahore Congress, December 1929-January 1930 Letter to Subhash Chandra Bose, Sabarmati, January 3, 1930 You are becoming more and more an enigma to me. I want you to live up to the certificate that Deshbandhu once gave me for you. He pictured you to me as a young man of brilliant parts, singleness of purpose, great determination and above pettiness. Your conduct in Calcutta1 therefore grieved me, but I reconciled myself to its strangeness. But in Lahore you became inscrutable and I smelt petty jealousy. I do not mind stubborn opposition. I personally thrive on it and learn more from opponents than from friends. I therefore always welcome sincere and intelligent opposition. But in Lahore you became an obstructionist. In connection with the Bengal dispute, in your writings to the Press you were offensive and the discourteous, impatient walk-out nearly broke my heart. You should have bravely recognized the necessity and the propriety of your and other friends’ exclusion (from being appointed to the newly- constituted Congress Working Committee) It was not aimed at you, Prakasam or Srinivasa Iyengar. It was meant merely to strengthen the hands of the young President by providing him with a cabinet that would be helpful in carrying forward the national work. There was no question surely of distributing patronage, of placating personal interest, however high they may be. The question was one of devising measures for achieving independence in the shortest possible time. How could you, having no faith in the programme, or Prakasam, with philosophic contempt for the present programme, or Srinivasa Iyengar, with his unfathomable unbelief in Jawaharlal and Pandit Motilalji, forward the nation’s work? But all the three could help by becoming sympathetic critics offering sound suggestions along their own lines. There was certainly no undemocratic procedure. If the putting of the names en bloc did not commend itself to the Committee, the Committee could have so expressed its opinion and that would have been also a fair measure of the strength of your party.1 But I do not want to continue the argument. I simply write this to ask you to retrace your steps and otherwise also prove to me and those whose cooperation you would seek, the truth of the certificate issued by
Deshbandhu. I do not want to change your view about anything, but I do want you to change your conduct in enforcing those views. (From a copy: Kusumbehn Desai’s Diary. S. N. 32579/37, CWMG Vol. 48, pp 189-90) Letter to S Srinivasa Iyengar, Sabarmati, January 3, 1930 I was deeply distressed over your walk-out and the whole of your uncertain behaviour. Uncertainty there always has been behind your acts, but I had not detected before any unworthiness about them. When we first met your sincerity and high aspiration attracted me towards you. That attraction was increasing with closer contact. How is it that it has been decreasing of late and reached almost the ebbing point? I do not mind difference of opinion, but it would cut me if my regard for you were to be diminished. Please correct me if I have erred. If I have not, I would have you retrace your steps and be what you were when I first knew you. Political life need not debase us. (From a photostat: C.W. 10754. Courtesy: Nehru Memorial Museum and Library, CWMG Vol. 48, page 190) Letter to S Satyamurti, Sabarmati, January 3, 1930 It would be wrong of me to conceal from you the grief which I have expressed to others over your highly ungentlemanly, unpatriotic and uncalled-for conduct on the 1st instant at the A.I.C.C. meeting. I do not mind opposition even though it may be merely destructive, but I do mind want of manners, which I am afraid you were betrayed into on the very day when you would be expected to be restrained and helpful, even though you did not believe in the programme or even the procedure. (From a copy: Kusumbehn Desai’s Diary. S.N. 32579/39, CWMG Vol. 48, page 191) Letter to V S Srinivasa Sastry, Sabarmati, January 12, 1930 I do hope you are not over-angry with me for my doings in Lahore. I have but followed the inner voice. I saw no other honourable way out. Russell’s speech (where at a Labour Party meeting in Cambridge he is supposed to have said that none knew better than Indians themselves that complete independence was impossible) has justified the decision, i.e., in my opinion of course. But I know that we can love one another in spite of sharp differences of opinion. (Letters of Srinivasa Sastri, p. 189, CWMG Vol. 48, page 223) Letter to S Srinivasa Iyengar, Sabarmati, January 17, 1930 I can no longer delay acknowledging your angry letter. Though I have an answer to every one of the statements you have made I must restrain myself. I can only give you my assurance that my
affection for you is no more diminished because of political differences than for Malaviyaji for the same cause. But this I cannot prove by words. Future conduct alone can prove the truth of my assurance. I did not write my letter to hurt your feelings. I wrote in order to be true to you, a friend and associate, and to myself. We shall know each other better when the mists have rolled away. Meanwhile I anticipate your forgiveness for offence given utterly unconsciously. (From a photostat: S.Srinivasa Iyengar Papers. Courtesy: Nehru Memorial Museum and Library, CWMG, Vol. 48, page 238) ***** X Gandhi’s statement to the Press on Subhash Bose’s reelection as Congress President Shri Subhas Bose has achieved a decisive victory over his opponent, Dr. Pattabhi Sitaramayya. I must confess that from the very beginning I was decidedly against his re-election for reasons into which I need not go. I do not subscribe to his facts or the arguments in his manifestos. I think that his references to his colleagues were unjustified and unworthy. Nevertheless, I am glad of his victory. And since I was instrumental in inducing Dr. Pattabhi not to withdraw his name as a candidate when Maulana Saheb withdrew, the defeat is more mine than his. I am nothing if I do not represent definite principles and policy. Therefore, it is plain to me that the delegates do not approve of the principles and policy for which I stand. I rejoice in this defeat. It gives me an opportunity of putting into practice what I preached in my article1 on the walk-out of the minority at the last A. I. C. C. meeting in Delhi. Subhas Babu, instead of being President on the sufferance of those whom he calls rightists, is now President elected in a contested election. This enables him to choose a homogeneous cabinet and enforce his programme without let or hindrance. There is one thing common between majority and minority, viz., insistence on internal purity of the Congress organization. My writings in the Harijan have shown that the Congress is fast becoming a corrupt organization in the sense that its registers contain a very large number of bogus members.2 I have been suggesting for the past many months the overhauling of these registers. I have no doubt that many of the delegates who have been elected on the strength of these bogus voters would be unseated on scrutiny. But I suggest no such drastic step. It will be enough if the registers are purged of all bogus voters and are made fool-proof for the future. The minority has no cause for being disheartened. If they believe in the current programme of the Congress, they will find that it
can be worked, whether they are in a minority or a majority and even whether they are in the Congress or outside it. The only thing that may possibly be affected by the changes is the parliamentary programme. The ministers have been chosen and the programme shaped by the erstwhile majority. But parliamentary work is but a minor item of the Congress programme. Congress ministers have after all to live from day to day. It matters little to them whether they are recalled on an issue in which they are in agreement with the Congress policy or whether they resign because they are in disagreement with the Congress. After all Subhas Babu is not an enemy of his country. He has suffered for it. In his opinion his is the most forward and boldest policy and programme. The minority can only wish it all success. If they cannot keep pace with it, they must come out of the Congress. If they can, they will add strength to the majority. The minority may not obstruct on any account. They must abstain when they cannot co-operate. I must remind all Congressmen that those who, being Congress-minded, remain outside it by design, represent it most. Those, therefore, who feel uncomfortable in being in the Congress may come out, not in a spirit of ill will, but with the deliberate purpose of rendering more effective service. (Statement to the Press, Bardoli, January 31, 1939, Harijan, 4-2-1939, CWMG Vol. 75, pp 13-15) Gandhi’s statement to the Press on removing Subhash Bose as President of the Bengal Provincial Congress Committee I continue to receive letters, mostly abusive, about what may be called the Subhas Babu resolution of the Working Committee. I also saw a letter addressed to Rajendra Babu, which can hardly be surpassed in the use of filthy language. I have seen some criticisms about the war resolution. I owe it to the public to make my position clear about both these resolutions. I must confess that the Subhas Babu resolution was drafted by me. I can say that the members of the Working Committee would have shirked the duty of taking action if they could have. They knew that there would be a storm of opposition against their action. It was easier for them to have a colourless resolution than to have one which was no respecter of persons. Not to take some action would have amounted to abdication of their primary function of preserving discipline among Congressmen. Subhas Babu had invited action. He had gallantly suggested that if any action was to be taken it should be taken against him as the prime mover. In my opinion the action taken by the Working Committee was the mildest
possible. There was no desire to be vindictive. Surely the word vindictiveness loses all force and meaning when the position of Subhas Babu is considered. He knew that he could not be hurt by the Working Committee. His popularity had put him above being affected by any action that the Working Committee might take. He had pitted himself against the Working Committee, if not the Congress organization. The members of the Working Committee, therefore, had to perform their duty and leave the Congressmen and the public to judge between themselves and Subhas Babu. It has been suggested that Subhas Babu has done what I would have done under similar circumstances. I cannot recall a single instance in my life of having done what Subhas Babu has done, i.e., defied an organization to which I owed allegiance. I could understand rebellion after secession from such an organization. That was the meaning and secret of the non- violent non-cooperation of 1920. But I am not penning these lines so much to justify the action of the Working Committee as to appeal to Subhas Babu and his supporters to take the decision of the Working Committee in the right spirit an submit to it while it lasts. He has every right to appeal to the A.I.C.C. against the decision. If he fails there, he can take the matter before the annual session of the Congress. All this can be done with-out bitterness and without imputing motives of the worst type to the members of the Working Committee. Why not be satisfied with the belief that the members have committed an error of judgment? I fancy that if a majority of the A.I.C.C. members signify in writing their disapproval of the action of the Working Committee, the latter will gladly resign. By imputing motives whenever there are differences of opinion, Congressmen pull down the structure that has been built up by the patient labour of half a century. Indeed, even if a bad motive is suspected, it is better to refrain from imputing it, unless it can be proved beyond doubt. It is necessary for the sake of healthy public education that leaders of public opinion should judge events and decisions on their merits. (Statement to the Press, Segaon, August 23, 1939, Harijan, 26-8-1939, CWMG Vol. 76, pp 258-59) Subhash Bose’s Letter to the Congress Working Committee on Why He Opposed the Bombay Resolution I am exceedingly sorry for the delay in replying to your letter of the 18th July, from Ranchi. You have asked me for an explanation of my action in protesting against certain resolutions of the All-India Congress Committee passed at Bombay. In the first place, one has to distinguish between protesting against a certain resolution and actually defying it or violating it. What has so far happened is that I have only protested against two resolutions of the A.I.C C. It is my
constitutional right to give expression to my opinion regarding any resolution passed by the A.I.C.C. You will perhaps admit that it is customary with a large number of Congressman to express their views on resolutions passed by the A.I.C.C. when a particular session of that body comes to a close. If you grant Congressmen the right to express their views on resolutions passed by the A.I.C.C, you cannot draw a line and say that only favourable opinions will be allowed expression and unfavourable opinions will be banned. If we have the constitutional right to express our views then it does not matter if those views are favourable or unfavourable. Your letter seems to suggest that only expression of unfavourable views is to be banned. We have so long been fighting the British Government among other things for our civil liberty. Civil liberty, I take it, includes freedom of speech. According to your point of view we are not to claim freedom of speech when we do not see eye to eye with the majority in the A.I.C.C. or in the Congress. It would be a strange situation if we are to have the right of freedom of speech as against the British Government but not as against the Congress or any body subordinate to it. If we are denied the right to adversely criticize resolutions of the A.I.C.C. which in our view are harmful to the country’s cause then it would amount to denial of a democratic right. May I ask you in all seriousness if democratic rights are to be exercised only outside the Congress but not inside it? I hope you will agree that when a resolution is once passed by the A.I.C.C., it is open to us to have it reviewed or amended or altered or rescinded at a subsequent meeting of that body. I hope you will also agree that it is open to us to appeal against the A.I.C.C. to the higher court of appeal, namely, the open session of the Congress. You will agree further, I hope, that it is open to a minority to carry on a propaganda with a view to converting the majority to its point of view. Now how can we do this except by appealing to Congressmen through public meetings and through writings in the Press? The Congress today is not an organization of a handful of men. Its membership has, I believe, reached the neighbourhood of 45 lakhs. We can hope to appeal to the rank and file of the Congress and to convert them to our point of view only if we are allowed to write in the Press and also to hold meetings. If you maintain that once a resolution is passed in the A.I.C.C. it is sacrosanct and must hold good for ever, then you may have some justification for banning criticism of it. But if you grant us the right to review or amend or alter or rescind a particular resolution of the A.I.C.C. either through that body or through the open session of the Congress, then I do not see how you can gag
criticism, as you have been trying to do. I am afraid you are giving an interpretation to the word ‘discipline’ which I cannot accept. I consider myself to be a stern disciplinarian and I am afraid that in the name of discipline you are trying to check healthy criticism. Discipline does not mean denying a person his constitutional and democratic right. Apart from the fact that it is our constitutional and democratic right to protest against resolutions which in our view are harmful to the country’s cause, a consideration of the merits of the two resolutions will show that such protests were really called for. In this connection I cannot help drawing your attention to certain incidents at the time of the Gaya Congress in 1922 and after. Please do not forget what the Swaraj Party did in those days. Please do not forget either that when the A.I.C.C. amended the resolution of the Gaya Congress, the Gujarat P.C.C. resolved to defy it. Lastly, please do not forget that Mahatma Gandhi wrote in Young India, if my recollection is correct, that the minority has the right to rebel. We have not gone so far yet as to actually rebel against the decision of the majority. We have simply taken the liberty of criticizing certain resolutions passed by the majority in the teeth of our opposition. I am really surprised that you have made so much of what we regard as our inherent right. I hope you will accept my explanation as satisfactory. But if you do not do so, and if you decide to resort to disciplinary action, I shall gladly face it for the sake of what I regard as a just cause. In conclusion, I have to request that if any Congressman is penalized in connection with the events of the 9th July, then you will also take action against me. If the observance of an All-India Day of the 9th is a crime then I confess, I am the arch-criminal. With kindest regards, (Letter from Subhash Chandra Bose to the Congress President, The Indian Annual Register, 1939, Vol. II, pp. 219-20, CWMG Vol. 76, Appendix VIII, pp 426-28) *****
XI CR Formula for Partition Basis for terms of settlement between the Indian National Congress and the AII-India Muslim League to which Gandhiji and Mr. Jinnah agree and which they will endeavour respectively to get the Congress and the League to approve: (1) Subject to the terms set out below as regards the Constitution for free India, the Muslim League endorses the Indian demand for
independence and will co-operate with the Congress in the formation of a provisional interim government for the transitional period. (2) After the termination of the War, a commission shall be appointed for demarcating contiguous districts in the north-west and east of India, wherein the Muslim population is in absolute majority. In the areas thus demarcated, a plebiscite of all the inhabitants held on the basis of adult suffrage or other practicable franchise shall ultimately decide the issue of separation from Hindustan. If the majority decide in favour of forming a sovereign State separate from Hindustan, such decision shall be given effect to, without prejudice to the right of districts on the border to choose to join either State. (3) It will be open to all parties to advocate their points of view before the plebiscite is held. (4) In the event of separation, mutual agreements shall be entered into for safeguarding defence, and commerce and communications and for other essential purposes. (5) Any transfer of population shall only be on an absolutely voluntary basis. (6) These terms shall be binding only in case of transfer by Britain of full power and responsibility for the governance of India. (CWMG Vol. 83, Appendix III, C Rajagopalachari’s Formula, pp 449-50) ***** XII Gandhi’s Speech at the AICC Meeting on the ‘Quit India’ campaign I have taken such an inordinately long time over pouring out what was agitating my soul to those whom I had just now the privilege of serving. I have been called their leader or, in military language, their commander. But I do not look at my position in that light. I have no weapon but love to wield my authority over anyone. I do sport a stick which you can break into bits without the slightest exertion. It is simply my staff with the help of which I walk. Such a cripple is not elated, when he is called upon to bear the greatest burden. You can share that burden only when I appear before you not as your commander but as a humble servant. And he who serves best is the chief among equals. I have yet to go through much ceremonial as I always do. The burden is almost unbearable and I have got to continue to reason in those circles with whom I have lost my credit for the time being. I know that in the course of the last few weeks I have forfeited my credit with a large number of friends, so much so that some of them have now begun to doubt not only my wisdom but even my honesty. Now, I hold that my wisdom is not such a
treasure which I cannot afford to lose; but my honesty is a precious treasure to me and I can ill afford to lose it. I have been a humble servant of humanity and have rendered on more than one occasion such service as I could to the Empire; and here let me say without fear of challenge that throughout my career never have I asked for any personal favour. I have enjoyed the privilege of friendship, as I enjoy it today, with Lord Linlithgow. It is a friendship which has outgrown official relationship. Whether Lord Linlithgow will bear me out I do not know; but there has sprung up a personal bond between him and myself. And yet let me declare here that no personal bond will ever interfere with the stubborn struggle which, if it falls to my lot, I may have to launch against Lord Linlithgow, as the representative of the Empire. It seems to me that I will have to resist the might of that Empire with the might of the dumb millions, with no limit but non-violence as policy confined to this struggle. It is a terrible job to have to offer resistance to a Viceroy with whom I enjoy such relations. He has more than once trusted my word, often about my people. I mention this with great pride and pleasure. I mention it as an earnest of my desire to be true to the British nation, to be true to the Empire. I mention it to testify that when that Empire forfeited my trust, the Englishman who was its Viceroy came to know it. Then there is the sacred memory of Charlie Andrews which wells up within me at this moment. Years ago he came to South Africa1 with a note of introduction from the late Gokhale. He is unfortunately gone. He was a fine Englishman. I know that the spirit of Andrews is listening to me. Then I have received a warm telegram from the Metropolitan (Dr. Westcote) of Calcutta, conveying his blessings, though, I know, he is opposed to my move today. I hold him to be a man of God. I can understand the language of his heart, and I know that his heart is with me. With this background, I want to declare to the world that, whatever may be said to the contrary, and although I might have forfeited the regard and even the trust of many friends in the West, and I bow my head low, but even for their friendship or their love, I must not suppress the voice within, call it ‘conscience’, call it the ‘prompting of my inner basic nature’. That something in me which never deceives me tells me now: ‘You have to stand against the whole world although you may
have to stand alone. You have to stare the world in the face although the world may look at you with bloodshot eyes. Do not fear. Trust that little thing which resides in the heart.’ It says, ‘Forsake friends, wife, and all; but testify to that for which you have lived, and for which you have to die.’ Believe me, friends, I am not anxious to die. I want to live my full span of life. According to me, it is 120 years at least. By that time India will be free, the world will be free. It is the fundamental truth with which India has been experimenting for 22 years. Unconsciously, from its very foundations, long ago, the Congress has departed though nonviolently from what is known as the constitutional method. Dadabhai and Pherozshah who held the Congress India in the palm of their hands had held on to the latter. They were lovers of the Congress. They were its masters. But above all they were real servants. They never countenanced murder and secrecy and the like. I confess there are many black sheep amongst us Congressmen. But I trust the whole of India to launch upon a non-violent struggle on the widest scale. I trust the innate goodness of human nature which perceives the truth and prevails during a crisis as if by instinct. But even if I am deceived in this, I shall not swerve. From its very inception the Congress based its policy on peaceful methods, and the subsequent generations added non-co-operation. It is with all these things as the background that I want Englishmen, Europeans and all the United Nations to examine in their heart of hearts what crime India has committed in demanding independence today. I ask: Is it right for you to distrust us? Is it right to distrust such an organization with all its background, tradition and record of over half a century and misrepresent its endeavours before all the world by every means at your command? Is it right, I ask, that by hook or crook, aided by the Foreign Press, aided, I hope not, by the President of the U.S.A. or even by the Generalissimo of China, who has yet to win his laurels, you should present India’s stand in shocking lights? Even if the whole of the world forsakes me, I will say: ‘You are wrong. India will wrench with non-violence her liberty from unwilling hands.’ Even if my eyes close and there is no freedom for India, non-violence will not end. They will be dealing a mortal blow to China and to Russia if they oppose the freedom of non-violent India which today is pleading with bended knees for the fulfilment of a debt long overdue. Does a creditor ever go to the debtor like that? And even when India is met with such angry opposition, she says: ‘We won’t hit below the belt. We
have learnt sufficient gentlemanliness. We are pledged to nonviolence.’ There are representatives of the Foreign Press assembled here today. Through them I wish to say to the world that United Nations, who say that they have need for India, have the opportunity now to declare India free and prove their bona fides. If they miss it, they will be missing opportunity of their lifetime, and history will record that they did not discharge their obligations to India in time and lost the battle. I want the blessing of the whole world, so that I may succeed with them. I do not want the United Powers to go beyond their obvious limitations. I do not want them to accept non-violence and disarm today. There is a fundamental difference between Fascism and even this imperialism which I am fighting. If India feels that freedom, she will command that freedom for China. The road for running to Russia’s help will be opened. Englishmen did not die in Malaya or on the soil of Burma. What shall enable us to retrieve this situation? Where shall I go and where shall I take the forty crores of India? How is this vast mass of humanity to be aflame in the cause of world-deliverance, unless and until it has touched and felt freedom? Today they have no touch of life left. It has been crushed out of them. If lustre is to be put into their eyes, freedom has to come not tomorrow but today. I have, therefore, pledged the Congress and the Congress has pledged herself that she will do or die. (Speech at AICC meeting, Bombay, August 8, 1942, From a typed office copy. Courtesy: Nehru Memorial Museum and Library, CWMG Vol 83 pp 201-206) *****
XIII Gandhi’s Daily Routine as Prisoner in the Aga Khan Palace THE INSPECTOR-GENERAL OF PRISONS POONA SIR, With reference to your confidential D.O. No. 6247 dated December 14 1943, I have the honour to give below the required information. 1. Mr. Gandhi discusses political questions with other inmates, especially with Mr. Pyarelal and Miss Slade; Miss Nayyar is always there. Very rarely with Dr. Gilder. This takes place generally when they are reading newspapers. 2. The daily routine of life of Mr. Gandhi:
He gets up about 6.30 a.m. and, after finishing morning ablution and breakfast, he reads books or newspapers. From 8.15 to 9.0 a.m. morning walk in the garden with Pyarelal and Misses Slade, Nayyar and Manu. While walking, they talk on political and other subjects. Doctors Gilder and Nayyar give him massage for about 45 minutes and then bath up to 11.15. From 11.15 to 12 noon he takes his food, and Miss Slade talks or reads books to him. From 12 noon to 1.0 p.m. teaching Sanskrit to Miss Nayyar. 1.0 to 2.0 p.m. rest. From 2.0 to 3.0 p.m. Mr. Pyarelal reads papers to him and discusses on several points arising from the papers, while he is either spinning or filing cuttings from the papers. From 3.0 to 4.0 p.m. teaching Miss Manu. From 4.0 to 5.30 p.m. indexing of newspaper cuttings on various subjects. He is assisted in this work by Pyarelal, Drs. Gilder and Nayyar. They remove the selected and marked portions from the papers, paste them on slips of paper and give them to Mr. Gandhi for indexing and filing. From 5.30 to 6.30 p.m. Miss Slade reads papers to him and discusses on various political and other subjects. From 6.30 to 7.15 p.m. evening walk with other inmates in the garden. From 7.30 p.m. to 8.15 p.m. spinning, while Pyarelal reads to him some books. From 8.15 to 9.0 p.m. prayer. From 9.0 to 10.0 p.m. reading and talking with Mr. Pyarelal and Miss Nayyar.
He goes to bed at 10 p.m. He changes his time according to climatic conditions. 3. Mr. Pyarelal does the typing work of Mr. Gandhi. When the big letter was sent to the Government of India regarding the reply to the Congress Responsibility, Dr. Gilder typed the major part of the letter. I have the honour to be, Sir, Your most obedient servant, (Signed) OFFICER I/C, AGA KHAN’S PALACE (Appendix XV Letter From Officer--In-Charge, Aga Khan Palace To Inspector-General Of Prisons, Poona, Aga Khan Palace, Yeravada, December 15, 1943, CWMG Vol 83 pp 473-4) *****
CHAPTER 6 The Indian National Congress' last hurrah ·
The Cabinet Mission – May, 1946
The ultimate failure of the Cabinet Mission, despite protracted discussions among the Cabinet Delegation, the INC and the Muslim League, led to the vivisection of the Hindu bhumi and marked the beginning of the process of political disempowerment of the Hindu people, a process accelerated by the Lucknow Pact and Gandhi’s ascendancy. Chapter 5 demonstrated – ·
Gandhi made unqualified absolute non-violence his USP
·
Gandhi controlled the Congress Working Committee and always ensured that only his loyalists or Nehru’s loyalists were appointed to the CWC; he was also the sole deciding factor in selecting the Congress President
·
Gandhi controlled the Congress indirectly through direct control of the CWC and the President
·
Gandhi was ambitious to play a huge political role with his own pack of playing cards which comprised only of nonviolence as Gandhian USP and absolute control of the Congress President and the Working Committee
·
Because his unreal and unqualified non-violence had no precedent in Hindu tradition rooted in Hindu dharmic values, Gandhi’s non-violence was rejected time and again by the Hindus of the country
·
Gandhi
mocked
at,
disparaged,
marginalized
and
ultimately evicted all the real kshatriyas, including the intellectual kshatriyas in the Congress before him and in his time
·
Gandhi, overriding general opinion in the Congress in favour of Sardar Patel, adorned Nehru with the mantle of political leader
·
Gandhi’s political career in India, for the first time since Mahabharata, resulted in vivisection of territory, saw the rise
of
irreligious
and
anti-Hindu
Nehru
and
the
recrudescence of Islam in the sub-continent, unabashedly exhibiting its nature – political objectives through jihad. ·
The Hindu nation and the nation’s polity is paying the price of towering Gandhian arrogance which led directly to towering Nehruvian arrogance
The timing of the Cabinet Mission was a clear sign of surrender by the British government to the inevitable: India could no longer be held by force. Within a month of ending the siege of Imphal, London sent the Cabinet Mission to India in March 1946. The Cabinet Mission came to India ostensibly to devise a mechanism for the smooth transfer of power. It comprised three members – Sir Pethick-Lawrence, Secretary of State for India, Sir Stafford Cripps, President, Board of Trade and AV Alexander, First Lord of the Admiralty. The Mission had twin objectives: to devise a constitution for the independent Indian state, and the formation of an interim government or Executive Council to assist the Viceroy to administer the country until the making of the constitution, with the rider that the Viceroy would continue to enjoy overriding powers. The proposals were made public in what has come to be known as the Statement of May 16 or State Paper of May 16, 1946.1 The paper broadly set out the basis and mechanism of Constitution-making and the need for setting up an interim government until the process of Constitution-making was 1
Statement of Cabinet Delegation and Viceroy, The Transfer of Power 1942-47, Vol. VII, pp. 582-91, CWMG Vol. 90, Appendix XX, pp 438-47
complete. India would be a free country after the Constitution was in place. The important features of the State Paper were – ·
The British Government accepts the anxiety of Muslims to protect their religion, culture and language
·
The British Government concedes fully the Muslim claim that they fear Hindu domination and hence cannot accept being ruled by Hindus
·
The Cabinet Mission therefore provides for grouping of provinces into Groups A, B and C which permits grouping of provinces with sizeable Muslim population into Groups B and C allowing the Muslim League political control of sizeable territory
·
The Cabinet Mission rules out a separate state of Pakistan not only to get the INC on board for the negotiations but also on the ground that the Pakistan of Jinnah’s demand would exist on two sides of partitioned India – Group B on India’s west and Group C on India’s east
·
The Union of India would have only three subjects under its control – Foreign Affairs, Defense and Communications. All other subjects would vest with the provinces
·
If any province wished to opt out of the Group into which it had been placed it could so at the time of the first general elections in independent India2
·
No clause of the State paper could be modified or changed and nothing could be added or deleted without a majority of
the
representatives
of
the
two
major
political
formations, and a majority of the total representatives present in the Constituent Assembly, agreeing to it
2
The State Paper is very clear on this and makes the point in simple language; yet Gandhi, realizing that he alone was responsible for the march of the Muslim League inexorably towards its goal of a separate Pakistan, latched on to this provision in a feeble attempt to retrieve the already lost situation
Thus all subjects other than Foreign Affairs, Defense and Communications would vest in the provinces, and the provinces would be free to form larger groups, with their own executives and legislatures, with powers to deal with such subjects as the provinces within that group might assign to them.3 In this manner, the provinces that Jinnah claimed for Pakistan could form groups or sub-federations and enjoy a large measure of autonomy approximating to but not quite Pakistan. Notwithstanding Jinnah's repeated insistence on carving out the Muslim state of Pakistan, Viceroy Wavell's ultimatum that if Jinnah insisted on Pakistan he would get only a truncated Pakistan4, ultimately persuaded Jinnah to accept the Mission's proposal for a three-tier Constitution which allowed maximum autonomy for all provinces within the Indian Union, including the Princely states, which would be prevailed upon to join the Union by sending their representatives into the Constituent Assembly. The Cabinet Mission had provided for the Princes and rulers of the Indian States to send 93 delegates to the Constituent Assembly to participate in the making of the constitution. Jinnah’s, and subsequently the Muslim League’s acquiescence to accepting the Mission proposal for maximum autonomy without partition was a well-planned tactical gesture because Jinnah intended to water the seeds of Partition once the
3
Provinces should be free to form groups with Executives and Legislatures, and each Group could determine the Provincial subjects to be taken in common. (Clause 15 (5), Statement of Cabinet Delegation and Viceroy, May 16, 1946, Appendix XX, CWMG, vol. 90, pp 438-47) 4 ‘Truncated Pakistan’ was the CR Formula (C Rajagopalachari, ‘Rajaji’ formula for partition) which demanded the partition of the Punjab and Bengal without ceding Assam while Jinnah’s Pakistan envisaged the whole of the Punjab, Sindh, the North-West Frontier province and the whole of Bengal and Assam. The CR formula also envisaged a total transfer of population in Bengal, the Punjab and the rest of India as the natural and desirable fallout of partition with the Gandhian, selfdefeating rider of all such transfer being wholly voluntary.
Muslim League came to power in these provinces and after the British quit India.5 The State Paper dealt even-handedly with the INC and the Muslim League – it effectively averted the looming threat of vivisection and also gave enough to Jinnah and the Muslim League to force them to accept the proposals. It also issued a direct warning to both parties about the possible catastrophic consequences for the people if because of the intransigence on the part of one or other of the parties, the Mission were to fail in its objective.6 The Imperial Government had also sent the Cabinet delegation fully prepared with a back-up plan in the following circumstances – ·
The INC or the Muslim League or both could reject the mechanism for the formation of the Interim Government
·
Either or both political parties could refuse to participate in the making of the Constitution
5
“….the Muslim League having regard to the grave issues involved, and prompted by its earnest desire for a peaceful solution, if possible, of the Indian constitutional problem, and in as much as the basis and the foundation of Pakistan are inherent in the Mission’s plan by virtue of the compulsory grouping of the six Muslim provinces, in sections B and C, is willing to co-operate the constitution-making machinery proposed in the scheme outlined by the Mission, in the hope that it would ultimately result in the establishment of complete sovereign Pakistan…” (Resolution of Muslim League Council, June 6, 1946, the Transfer of Power 194247, Vol. VII, pp 836-8, CWMG, Vol. 91, Appendix V, page 439) 6 We ask you to consider the alternative to acceptance of these proposals. After all the efforts which we and the Indian Parties have made together for agreement, we must state that in our view there is a small hope for peaceful settlement by agreement of the Indian Parties alone. The alternative therefore would be a grave danger of violence, chaos and even civil war. The result and duration of such a disturbance cannot be foreseen; but it is certain that it would be a terrible disaster for many millions of men, women and children. This is a possibility which must be regarded with equal abhorrence by the Indian people, our own countrymen and the world as a whole. We therefore lay these proposals before you in the profound hope that they will be accepted and operated by you in the spirit of accommodation and good-will in which they are offered. (Statement of Cabinet Delegation and Viceroy, May 16, 1946, The Transfer of Power, 1942-47, Vol. VII, pp 582-91, CWMG, Vol. 90, Appendix XX, page 447)
·
Either or both could reject the Mission proposals in toto
The covert and undisclosed back-up plan, which manifested itself with unfolding events in the subsequent weeks, and which we now understand retrospectively, was as follows – ·
If the INC and the Muslim League failed to come together to jointly decide on the composition of the coalition Interim Government, the Viceroy would nominate members from the INC and the Muslim League or from other parties which accepted the State Paper of May 16
·
If
the
Muslim
League
refused
to
join
the
Interim
Government, then the Viceroy would call upon the INC to form the government ·
If however, the INC refused to form the government, the Muslim League would not be invited to form the interim government on its own, even if it accepted the State Paper of May 16
·
If the Muslim League refused to enter the Constituent Assembly, the INC would go ahead with the formation of the Interim Government and proceed to constitute the Assembly which would get down to the business of Constitution-making for all groups and provinces
·
If
the
INC
refused
to
agree
to
participate
in
the
Constituent Assembly then the six provinces assigned to Group A would be immediately declared by the Viceroy to be independent and the INC could then go ahead with forming an Interim Government to administer these provinces as it desired and set up its own Constituent Assembly, while groups B and C would continue to remain under the control of the Viceroy until such time each of the Provinces in the two groups decided upon their own mechanisms for governance and administration
The back-up plan was such that it would provoke the Muslim League to violence if pushed that far. The acceptance resolution of the Muslim League in fact declared unambiguously that the League would do everything in its means and power to eventually make Pakistan a reality.7 The provisions of the covert back-up plan with the potential to ignite the Muslim League into violent reaction were – ·
The Viceroy’s prerogative to nominate League Muslims (as distinct from Congress Muslims) to the Interim Government, without seeking the opinion of the Muslim League, in the event of the Muslim League and the INC not agreeing upon the names for the members of the coalition Interim Government
·
The Viceroy’s prerogative not to call upon the Muslim League to form the Interim Government if the INC refused to join the Interim Government while the Viceroy may exercise his authority to call upon the INC to form the Interim Government if the Muslim League rejected the offer
·
To deny automatic independence to Muslim-majority Groups B and C if the Muslim League or the INC were to refuse to join the Constituent Assembly whereas the Viceroy was prepared to declare Group A and all the provinces within Group A as being a unified whole and as having become independent, under similar circumstances
7
In order that there may be no manner of doubt in any quarter, the Council of the All-India Muslim league reiterates that the attainment of the goal of a complete sovereign Pakistan still remains the unalterable objective of the Muslims in India, for the achievement of which they will, if necessary, employ every means in their power and consider no sacrifice or suffering too great. (Resolution of Muslim League Council, June 6, 1946, the Transfer of Power 1942-47, Vol. VII, pp 836-8, CWMG, Vol. 91, Appendix V, page 439)
·
To provide the individual provinces in Groups B and C the right to decide individually, under the circumstance described immediately above, about the arrangements they would like to make for themselves, thus effectively scuttling the concept of a consolidated Pakistan while at the same time the critically important territory of these provinces, including Baluchistan and the NWFP remained effectively partitioned from the Hindu nation
Gandhi, who was not even a four-anna member of the INC, was involved totally in the discussions in Delhi and Simla; and as had become the convention in the Congress, Gandhi’s views were binding upon the INC and by extension, the nation as a whole, barring the Muslims. Gandhi realized that the State Paper was an exquisitely crafted trap – vivisection of the Hindu nation while the possible scuttling of a “complete and sovereign Pakistan” was the trap intended to snare both major political parties. The averment that there would be no independent State of Pakistan was the bait to inveigle the INC into the trap while the lure of the principle of Pakistan contained in the Grouping clause was the bait for the Muslim League. But in a move that defies logic and good sense, Gandhi, within four days of the State Paper being made public, on 20th May, in New Delhi, endorses the Mission paper – “…my conviction abides that it is the best document the British Government could have produced in the circumstances”.8 Having endorsed the State Paper warmly, Gandhi then proceeds to extricate the country from the trap into which he had led it, much like a man removing his dhoti millimeter by careful millimeter from a bush of thorns. Gandhi first questioned the rationale 8
For the text of Gandhi’s analysis of the Cabinet Mission’s Statement Paper, see end of chapter
behind the State Paper assigning the groups to which the provinces would belong. Specifically Gandhi took exception to the Punjab being clubbed together with Baluchisthan, Sindh and the North-West Frontier provinces into one group, and to Assam, whose majority populace was ‘non-Muslim’ as he put it delicately, being placed within the same group as Bengal9. In the days following his fulsome praise for the State Paper, Gandhi would begin to question other provisions too. When Gandhi questioned the rationale of the composition of provinces which went into the making of these groups, it was an admission of failure on three fronts – ·
He realized that notwithstanding his pious advice to Hindus to offer selfless service to their Muslim neighbors, Muslims did not want to live with Hindus and the Muslim League was adamant about partition if not immediately but subsequent to “watering the seeds of partition”
·
He realized that the British were not impressed with his fasts or non-violence and that they were going to sow the seeds of separatism leading to partition with the Cabinet Mission proposals which placed immense pressure only on the INC and ultimately on the Hindus to avert vivisection and not on the League or the Muslims who were determined to achieve Pakistan one way or the other
·
He realized also that the British government was fully behind the Muslim League on this score and considered the grouping clause as final and binding with no provision for
9
But what about the units? Are the Sikhs for whom the Punjab is the only home in India, to consider themselves, against their will, as part of the section which takes in Sindh, Baluchisthan and the Frontier province? Or is the Frontier Province also against its will to belong to the Punjab called ‘B’ in the Statement, or Assam to ‘C’ although it is a predominantly non-Muslim province? (An Analysis, New Delhi, May 20, 1946, Harijan, 26-5-1946, CWMG, vol. 91, pp 1-3)
immediate secession of provinces from any of the groups into which they were placed. The last was to ensure that a sizeable portion of the territory of the Hindu nation was wrested from the control of Hindus and permanently alienated. The truth that Rajaji saw in 1942 was beginning to dawn on Gandhi post-facto in 1946 - that the Muslim League was going to succeed in its objectives, wholly or in substantial part, and also that the British government had the same objective but for its own reasons. By objecting to the Punjab being placed in the same group as Sindh and the NWFP, and Assam with Bengal, Gandhi it was clear was now moving towards accepting the idea of partition as had been proposed by Rajaji in 1942 and was only hoping to retrieve the Punjab and Assam from the clutches of the League and the Imperial British Government. M R Jayakar in fact cautions Gandhi against conceding any such thing in any form because he knew that Gandhi’s
concession
would
be
binding 10
consequently upon the entire nation.
upon
the
INC
and
Gandhi who erroneously
declared that the Punjab was the only home for the Sikhs, could however not bring himself to see that India was the only home for 10
Dear Mahatmaji, You will kindly excuse this letter, which is consequent on the eventful news in today’s press that H.H the Aga Khan is meeting you on the 20th at Poona. This is an astute move, which he foreshadowed during his interview on reaching India a few days ago. Why should he be bothering you with his attention instead of meeting Mr. Jinnah, it is not difficult to understand. You have done your best to meet Mr. Jinnah’s point of view by offering a division of India, though on the basis of a friendly transaction between two brothers. Mr. Jinnah contemptuously spurned it wanting the division as between two separate nations. With this background, the Aga Kahn should be busy in meeting Mr. Jinnah and not you. But he wont do this because he knows that Mr. Jinnah will show him the door, if he tried to interfere. So he turns in your direction. I need not say anything more. I am aware, as you said in one of your replies to me that you will not be wanting in caution, remembering that anything which you think of conceding, it will be difficult for the country later to avoid. (Letter from MR Jayakar, Bombay, February 8, 1946, Gandhi-Jayakar Papers, File No. 826, pg 36a, Courtesy: National Archives of India, CWMG Vol. 89, page 461)
the Hindus when he insisted that the territory belonged as much to Muslims and Christians as it did to Hindus. Gandhi could not even bring himself to pronounce ‘Hindu’ when he referred to the ‘non-Muslim’ population of Assam, which besides Muslims had only a small and insignificant Christian population. The nation is now left with yet another of several unanswered critical questions – why did Gandhi endorse the Mission proposals in the first instance? The British back-up plan as became evident soon, was intended to secure the strategic interests of the British Empire in the region and was predicated upon one or the other of the two major political parties rejecting the Mission proposals. An ascendant communist Soviet Union posed, for Europe and America, the biggest threat to the very basis of their nationhood - Christianity and its derivative, western parliamentary democracy. The critical relevance of the geography of what became West Pakistan for the strategic objectives of western powers vis-à-vis communism and the Soviet Union is better understood today. The Cabinet Mission proposals were an overt not-to-be-implemented agenda, while the back-up plan was the real but covert road-map of the British exit from India. The British were very clear about India’s place in the Empire - for economic reasons until the early years of the twentieth century; subsequently, after the emergence of the new Soviet Union in 1917, India’s territory became critically important for geo-political reasons.
Indians
inspired
by
determined
nationalists
like
Aurobindo, Savarkar, Bhagat Singh and Bose seized every opportunity to strike at British nationals and government officials. The attacks against British government officials first by the Chapekar brothers, then by Dhingra, subsequently by members of
Jugantar, of the Anusilan Samiti, by individuals like Bhagat Singh and his friends, and then by Bose’s INA, and finally the rebellion in the British Indian Army and the Royal Indian Navy taught the British government two very important lessons – one, that ordinary Hindus outside the Congress would readily pick up arms against the British government and British nationals; and two, that the country could no longer be held by force of the military. The British government therefore feared the all-too-real possibility of a violent backlash from the majority populace more than anything else at that critical juncture in history. To them Gandhi, with his coercive pressure that Hindus abide by non-violence under all circumstances, was the best bet to exit safely from India. However, they intended to exit only after wresting territory important for their strategic interests, from Hindu control. Vivisection of the Hindu nation was the real objective of the British and the Cabinet Mission’s hidden agenda was to achieve their objective at no cost to themselves but by using Muslim separateness and communal strife. The British plan to secure their objectives rested on their ability to ignite Muslim violence and ensure that Hindu anger turned, not against the British but in reaction against the Muslims. The Muslims were just as clear as the British about their intentions for the Hindu bhumi – return of Muslim rule over the whole nation after the British withdrew from the territory; failing which, at least a Muslim state in Muslim majority provinces from out of the body of the Hindu nation. It is likely that Jinnah and the Muslim League were as shocked as the British by the rise of militant Hindu nationalism, from around the middle of the nineteenth century, which was determined to protect the Hindu people and Hindu territory, by use of force if necessary. They would have realized too that organized Hindu resistance and
retaliation against Muslims had been contained only by protective Muslim state power until the advent of colonial rule and that such a protection was no longer available to them. For Jinnah and the Muslim League therefore the best way to achieve a Muslim state, with little or no loss of Muslim lives to the anger of the majority populace, was through the British government. Jinnah was prepared to go along with the Cabinet Mission and accept the proposal of maximum autonomy short of partition because he intended to use this autonomy after transfer of power, to carve out the Muslim state of Pakistan. The British were preparing to use the Muslims to wrest control of important territory away from the Hindus while the Muslim League was just as determined to use the British government to create a Muslim state in the Hindu nation. It is doubtful if Gandhi grasped the reality that the British and the Muslim mind were working in tandem. While the British government was working towards realizing its goal and the Muslim League was working towards attaining its objective, Gandhi who spoke and acted on behalf of the Congress in discussions with the Viceroy and the Cabinet Mission, all the while insisting that the Congress did not represent the Hindus but the whole nation, the Hindus of the Hindu bhumi, tragically for them, had no one to protect them or their bhumi from the triple threat posed by the British, the Muslims and Gandhi. It is clear now and it ought to have been clear to Gandhi and the INC then, that only a determined Hindu response to the threat posed by the British government and the Muslims to the Hindu bhumi could have protected the Hindu nation from vivisection. The Hindu nation and the Hindus of this bhumi paid the heavy price of the tragic absence of Hindu consciousness among the leaders of the so-called freedom movement.
To the utter surprise of the British government perhaps tinged by a measure of consternation, both Gandhi and Jinnah bit the bait; Gandhi termed the Cabinet Mission proposals the best document and route map the British could have prepared under the circumstances
for
transfer
of
power,
and
contrary
to
all
expectations, Jinnah too accepted the proposals. Not stopping with endorsing the Mission proposals Gandhi also certified to their noble intentions; he exonerated the British from nurturing any intention to vivisect the territory or ignite the flames of communal strife.11 Given the Muslim League's relentless demand for Pakistan, it must have come as a blow to the British government when both major parties accepted the proposals for a three-tier constitution and the attendant proposal for interim government, thus making it almost impossible for the Raj to realize its hidden agenda. If Gandhi had had the political understanding to gauge the cunning mind of the British Government and had he allowed the INC to proceed according to the initial plan, he may well have thwarted the hidden agenda of the British and India may have been spared vivisection and its accompanying bloodbath. But as already mentioned,
Gandhi
not
only
endorsed
the
proposals
and
exonerated the British government of any malignant motives but inexplicably he also simultaneously begins to extricate himself and the INC from what he perceived was a well-laid trap.
11
The Congress and the Muslim League did not, could not agree. We would grievously err if at this time we foolishly satisfy ourselves that the differences are a British creation. The Mission have not come all the way from England to exploit them. The authors of the document have endeavoured to say fully what they mean. They have gathered from their talks the minimum they thought would bring the parties together for framing India’s charter of freedom. Their one purpose is to end British rule as early as may be. They would do so, if they could, by their effort leave united India not torn asunder by internecine quarrel bordering on civil war. (An Analysis, New Delhi, May 20, 1946, Vol. 91, CWMG, page 1)
The British government moved fast and the following timeline of events subsequent to the State Paper leading to the Muslim League rejecting the Mission proposals and announcing Direct Action points to Gandhi’s hubris and his ultimate failure. ·
Gandhi welcomes State Paper – New Delhi, May 20, 1946
·
Simultaneously
Gandhi
begins
the
process
of
extrication – New Delhi, May 20, 1946 Gandhi wrote to the Secretary of State Pethick-Lawrence making several stipulations and raising a series of objections: 1. European members of the provincial assemblies in Bengal
and
Assam
should
not
vote
to
elect
delegates to the constituent assembly nor should they be elected.12
Gandhi realized too late the
potential of the European vote to tilt the balance in favour of the Muslims of Assam and Bengal to serve British strategic interests. 2. Gandhi stipulated that election of the 93 delegates from among Indian rulers of the princely states to the Constituent Assembly will be determined by the Nawab of Bhopal and Nehru. If the princely states, a majority of whom were Hindus, failed to come to an agreeable solution there will be no delegates to represent them and their issue must be transferred to the Advisory Committee referred to in Clause 20 of the State Paper. Gandhi usurped to himself the
12
The Government of India Act of 1935 gave a number of seats in the Legislatures to the Europeans. For instance, in Bengal alone there was a solid block of 25 Europeans. In Assam there were 9.
right to decide not only who would be the delegates to the Constituent Assembly on behalf of the princely states but also arrogated to himself the right to deny them agency to decide their future. 3. Gandhi stipulated that Paramountcy, the agreement between the British Government and the princely states must be withdrawn immediately. Gandhi makes the utterly preposterous generalization that Indian rulers were the creation of the British government
and
the
rulers,
secure
Paramountcy oppressed their people.
under
13
4. Gandhi expresses his strong reservation over the grouping clause 5. Gandhi stipulates that British troops must leave India
immediately.
The
Constituent
Assembly
cannot function naturally with the looming presence of British troops challenging their autonomy. 6. Gandhi objects to beginning the process of electing members to the Constituent Assembly before the formation of the Interim Government. He stipulated that the Interim Government should be responsible, not to the Viceroy but to the Central Legislative Assembly and therefore the Interim Government should be in place before the process of electing the members to the Constituent Assembly begins. 13
I ventured to suggest that Paramountcy should cease even while independence is at work in fact, though not in law, till the Constituent Assembly has finished its labours and devised a constitution…Acceptance of my proposal would vivify the people of the States as if by a stroke of the pen…But if this Indian feeling did not find an echo in your hearts, I personally would be satisfied with Sir Stafford’s view that Paramountcy which had admittedly been used to protect the princes against their people in the shape of suppressing their liberty and progress, should for the time continue for the protection and progress of the people. (Letter to Lord PethickLawrence, New Delhi, May 20, 1946, Gandhiji’s correspondence with the Government, 1944-47, pp 193-5, Vol. 91, CWMG, pp 4-6)
We are left with the question - if Gandhi had so many objections and stipulations to make with regard to the Cabinet Mission proposals, why did he endorse it in the first place and call it the best document that
could have been prepared under the
circumstances. Why did Gandhi not reject the Mission proposals at once? The Sapru Committee Proposals was a well-thought out and comprehensive blueprint for the Constitution of independent India. The Sapru report, like the Motilal Nehru report earlier was an all-Indian exercise and it is quite possible that given Sir Tej Bhadur Sapru’s credentials as a non-Congress statesman, and also given the excellent credentials of Sapru’s colleague MR Jayakar in public life, Jinnah may have been persuaded to step back from his maximalist position and give the Sapru Committee Proposals a fair chance to prove itself. The Sapru Committee Proposals was a more practicable alternative to the Cabinet Mission Proposals and was attuned to the concerns and anxieties of all sections of people without the distinct minority slant that was evident in both the Nehru Report and the GOI Act 1935; but Gandhi did not accord Sir Sapru and his committee’s proposals the same respect and legitimacy that he had accorded to Motilal Nehru and his report. Gandhi inexplicably endorsed the all-British Cabinet Mission Proposals and despite all misgivings about the inherent mischief in the proposals, went along with it, alienating in the process not only the Muslim League but also eminent leaders of the Congress.14 ·
Gandhi adds momentum to the process of extrication with his public statement titled ‘Vital Defects’ – New Delhi, May 26, 1946
14
For the complete text of the Sapru Committee Proposals, see end of chapter
Gandhi publicly expresses the objections and stipulations he made privately to Pethick-Lawrence on May 20 ·
Gandhi, for the first time at his routine prayer meetings indicates the possibility that there may be a breakdown in the talks – New Delhi, June 11, 194615
·
A day later, notwithstanding Gandhi’s brave face at the prayer meeting, he confesses to a nameless fear - Before June 12, 1946 A nameless fear has seized me that all is not well. As a result, I feel paralysed. But I will not corrupt your mind by communicating my unsupported suspicions to you.16
Gandhi’s process of extrication was proceeding gradually and surely. ·
Jinnah insists on parity in the number of portfolios allotted to the INC and the Muslim League in the interim government, Gandhi opposes, the Viceroy plays a double game – June 12, 1946
15
Besides, the prestige of the Cabinet Mission is at stake. They cannot afford a breakdown. If the aim of all the parties, the Congress, the Muslim League and the Mission is the same, viz., the independence of India, the present dialogue should not end in failure. The fact that the Congress Working Committee even at this stage is giving it the most serious consideration shows how anxious it is to avoid a breakdown, if it is humanly possible without sacrificing the honour or the interests of India’s dumb millions…If however in spite of our efforts to avoid it, the talks in the end do break down, we should not despair. Those who have faith in God will leave the result to Him. (Speech at a prayer meeting, New Delhi, June 11, 1946, Vol.91, CWMG, page 146) 16 Letter to a friend, before June 12, 1946, Reproduced from Pyarelal’s ‘Weekly Letter’ Vol.91, CWMG, page 147)
In his letter to Lord Wavell dated June 8, M A Jinnah claimed that the Viceroy had given him “the assurance that there would be only 12 portfolios, five on behalf of the League, five Congress, one Sikh, and one Christian or Anglo-Indian”. During the meeting with the Cabinet Delegation on June 8, the Viceroy said “that he had given no assurance to Mr. Jinnah” but that he thought that the “5:5:2 ratio as the most hopeful basis of settlement” and that he was working on that basis. He told them that M A Jinnah “had taken a very strong line about the Interim Government and had said that the Muslim League would not be prepared to come in except
on
portfolios
the
basis
between
of
the
5:5:2
distribution
Muslim
League,
of the
Congress and the minorities”. This parity between the Congress and the Muslim League was wholly unacceptable to the Congress’.17 The INC came up with its formula of 12 portfolios – 5 Congress, 4 Muslim League, 1 non-Indian Christian, 1 Sikh and 1 Congress woman. Startling as it may seem, from this letter it is evident that Gandhi may have had some knowledge of the back-up plan because he is pushing the Viceroy to take an extreme step, which in turn was sure to goad Jinnah to threaten violence. Gandhi writes to Lord Wavell that in the event of the two parties not being able to come to an agreement on the Interim Government, the Viceroy must choose the list prepared by the Muslim League or the Congress
17
Foot-note 1 in Gandhi’s Letter to Lord Wavell, New Delhi, June 12, 1946, Gandhi’s correspondence with the Government, 1944-47, pp 204-5, Also The Transfer of Power, 1942-47, Vol. VII, pp 877-8, Vol. 91, CWMG, pp 148-9)
and not thrust upon the INC an amalgam of the Viceroy’s choice! In effect, Gandhi was pushing the Viceroy into inviting either the Muslim League or the INC to form the Interim Government.18 In the letter Gandhi also begins to exert pressure on Jinnah and the Viceroy that henceforth Maulana Abul Kalam Azad would be a party
to
any
joint
consultation
with
the
League;
Gandhi,
notwithstanding the fact that he had actually asked for the removal of Azad from President-ship of the INC in 1942, now begins to promote him enthusiastically because he was beginning to promote the incendiary idea of ‘Congress Muslim’ versus ‘League Muslim’. ·
After pushing the Viceroy, Gandhi, on the same day, brings
pressure
to
bear
on
Pethick-Lawrence,
member of the Cabinet Mission, to act fast in choosing between the League or the Congress to form the interim government – New Delhi June 12, 1946 I suppose the Statesman’s leading article today represents the general British attitude in India. The article
is
wariness, discussions loquacity
headed sobriety are or
‘Slow in
an
proper; delays
Motion’.
approach
but
due
“Deliberation,
not to
to
great
swither mere
and
tactical
maneuvering”. All this is a letter to what I consider an unwarranted attack on the Congress. If you, of the Mission, and the Viceroy share the view you should really have no dealings with the Congress, however powerful or representative it may be. For my part, as a detached observer, as I hold myself 18
For complete details on the issue of parity, see end of chapter for Gandhi’s letter to the Viceroy and the Viceroy’s record of his meeting with Gandhi.
to be, I think that the Congress has not been procrastinating. It has been extraordinarily prompt in its dealings in connection with the work of the high mission which you are shouldering. But my purpose in writing this letter is to tell you that it will be wrong on my part if I advise the Congress to wait indefinitely until the Viceroy has formed the Interim Government or throws up the sponge in despair. Despair he must, if he hopes to bring into being
a
coalition
government
between
two
incompatibles. The safest, bravest and straightest course
is
to
invite
that
party
to
form
the
government, which in the Viceroy’s estimation, inspires greater confidence”.19 This was a shrewd and cunning statement by Gandhi because if after this, the Viceroy, under duress from Gandhi’s threat to instruct the Congress to withdraw from the talks, invited not the Muslim League but the INC, then it was bound to incense Jinnah because the Viceroy would be sending the signal that he did not repose any confidence in the Muslim League. ·
Gandhi continues to maintain in public, with ordinary Indians that the Cabinet Mission proposals are good – New Delhi June 12, 1946 Referring to the political situation he said he was still not ready to say anything. There was however, one thing to which he was free to draw their attention. He had called the Cabinet plan good and
19
Letter to Lord Pethick-Lawrence, New Delhi, June 12, 1946, Gandhi’s correspondence with the Government, 1944-7, pp 209-10, Vol. 91, CWMG pp 15152
he still held to this opinion with the interpretation he put on it. (Emphasis added)20 The penchant for dissimulation and misinformation which was so obvious in 1918! ·
Gandhi pushes the Viceroy yet again to settle the issue promptly by choosing the Congress or the League – June 13, 1946 You are a great soldier – a daring soldier. Dare to do the right. You must make your choice of one horse or the other. So far as I can see, you will never succeed in riding two at the same time. Choose
the
names
submitted
either
by
the
Congress or the League. For God’s sake do not make an incompatible mixture and in trying to do so produce a fearful explosion. Anyway, fix your time limit and tell us all to leave when the limit is over.21 From threatening the Viceroy that he would instruct the Congress not to wait indefinitely, Gandhi does a marginal climb-down and asks the Viceroy to fix the time limit. Gandhi never explained to the country, and Hindu intellectuals have until now never raised the question in the public domain how, if he thought a combination of the League and the Congress would produce a “fearful explosion”, did he maintain that this bhumi belonged in equal measure to the Muslims as much as to the Hindus and how did he expect Hindus to live in peace with Muslims who are by the 20
Speech at prayer meeting, The Hindustan Times report has been collated with Pyarelal’s version in his ‘Weekly Letter’ in Harijan, Vol. 91, CWMG, page 152 21 Letter to Lord Wavell, New Delhi, June 13, 1946, Vol. 91, CWMG, page 156
very nature of their religious beliefs, separatist in their objective with jihad as the ultimate weapon of separatism. ·
Gandhi now writes to another member of the Cabinet Mission, Sir Stafford Cripps, asking the Mission to leave – New Delhi, June 13, 1946 Every day you pass here coquetting now with the Congress, now with the League, and again with the Congress, wearing yourself away, will not do. Either you swear by what is right or by what the exigencies of British policy may dictate. In either case
bravery
is
required.
Only
stick
to
the
programme. Stick to the dates even though the heavens may fall. Leave by the 16th whether you allow the Congress to form a coalition or the League…A word to the wise.22 Gandhi probably did not realize that the British were not going to risk causing the perception that the Cabinet Mission failed because of their impatience or arrogance. The British government was craftily manipulating the process of causing the overt Mission proposals to fail seemingly because of the intransigence of the Congress, the League or both. A wily politician of long years’ standing, Cripps sends his reply to Gandhi the same day, oozing friendliness – I am afraid, you, like some others of us, are feeling somewhat impatient! But I always remember you advised me to show ‘infinite patience’ in dealing with these difficult matters. Certainly I shall never
22
Letter to Sir Stafford Cripps, New Delhi, June 13, 1946, Gandhi’s correspondence with the government, 1942-47, page 207, Vol. 91, CWMG, page 158
put my desire to return home and rest, before my determination to leave nothing undone which may help a solution of the difficult problems here. I can assure you, neither I nor my colleagues lack courage to act but we want to temper that courage with prudence. I still have great hopes that before we leave India, we may have helped towards a settlement of the problem.23 ·
Congress
President
writes
to
Viceroy
rejecting
proposals for formation of Interim Government – June 13, 1946 ·
In the face of Congress rejection, Viceroy Wavell does not invite the Muslim League to form the government but announces his own list of members of the Interim Government – June 16, 194624
Having failed to get the INC to agree to the original formula for the formation of the Interim Government, Wavell announces his own list which is an amalgam of the Muslim League, the INC and representatives of minorities; only, he increased the number of portfolios from 12 to 14, continuing to maintain however, parity in the number of portfolios between the INC and the Muslim League. The June 16 statement by the Cabinet Delegation and the Viceroy announcing the formation of the Interim Government was the second most significant stage in the process. Clause 8 of the June
23
Foot-note 2, Letter to Sir Stafford Cripps, New Delhi, June 13, 1946, CWMG Vol. 91, page 158 24 Lord Wavell’s Statement, New Delhi, June 16, 1946, The Transfer of Power 194247, Vol. VII, pp. 954-5, CWMG Vol. 91, Appendix VIII, pp 441-42
16 statement which would soon be used by Gandhi to obstruct the discussion stated – In the event of two major parties or either of them proving unwilling to join in the setting up of a Coalition Government on the above lines, it is the intention of the Viceroy to proceed
with the
formation of the Interim Government which will be as representative as possible of those willing to accept the statement of May 16. ·
Gandhi at the prayer meeting on the same day exhorts people to look at the bright side of the Viceroy’s decision – New Delhi, June 16, 194625
Gandhi’s address to the ordinary people at the prayer meeting on that day establishes the following – ·
Gandhi’s was the only voice that the people of India heard representing the INC, during the course of the entire process of discussions and deliberations on the Cabinet Mission proposals
·
The people therefore knew only what Gandhi chose to tell them
·
Gandhi continued to maintain, despite his obstructionist role in the discussions, that the proposals were good and
25
What is surprising is that instead of following the democratic process of inviting the one or the other party to form the national government, the Viceroy and the Cabinet Mission have decided to impose a government of their choice on the country. The result may well be an incompatible and explosive mixture. There are however, two ways of looking at a picture. You can look upon it from the bright side or you can look upon it from the dark. Gandhiji declared that he believes in looking at the bright side and has invited the others to do likewise. (Speech at Prayer Meeting, New Delhi, June 16, 1946, The Bombay Chronicle, 17-6-1946, and Harijan, 23-6-1946, CWMG Vol. 91, pp 167-68)
that the British government was doing its very best under difficult circumstances ·
Gandhi made sure that the people were given a positive image of the INC and the British government to prevent any backlash against them
·
He also never gave them any inkling of the dominant role he was playing in the negotiations
·
Gandhi’s draft letter to the Viceroy insisting on a Congress Muslim in the Interim Government – New Delhi June 17, 1946
Realizing, that by announcing his own expanded list without giving up the principle of parity, the Viceroy had skillfully deflected Gandhi’s pressure tactics to choose between the INC or the League and in fact out-maneuvered him in that round, Gandhi conjures up another spanner in the works – from out of the blue he insists that the Viceroy, over and above the Muslims in the Muslim League must now appoint a Congress Muslim in the Interim Government! Gandhi also began to realize the danger that an Interim Government chosen not by the two political parties but by the Viceroy himself would be answerable and accountable only to the Viceroy and the imperial government in London and not to the Central Legislative Assembly The League being avowedly a Muslim organization could not include any non-Muslim representative in its
list;
(2)
the
Congress
as
a
nationalist
organization must have the right to include a Congress Muslim in its list; (3) the League could not have any say in the selection of any names outside those belonging to its quota of five Muslims. This would mean that, in the event of a vacancy
occurring
among
the
seats
allotted
to
the
minorities, the Congress alone would have the right to select names to fill up the vacancies as it claimed to represent all sections by right of service; and (4) in
action,
regarded
the as
Interim
being
Government
responsible
to
should the
be
elected
26
representatives in the Assembly.
After reporting the prayer speech of June 16, Pyarelal introduces this as follows: ‘At night Gandhiji woke up at half past one and dictated for the Working Committee the draft of a letter to the Viceroy. The Congress Working Committee, however, in its afternoon session next day put Gandhiji’s draft practically into cold storage. On June 18, a tentative decision accepting the scheme of the Interim Government was taken by the Congress Working Viceroy”.
Committee
but
it
was
not
communicated
to
the
27
It is obvious that the patience of the Congress Working Committee was wearing thin and serious disagreements between the Working Committee and Gandhi were beginning to emerge; not that alone, members of the Congress Working Committee were
gearing
up
to
dissociate
themselves
from
Gandhi’s
obstructionist ways. ·
Gandhi addresses Congress Working Committee – New Delhi, June 18, 1946
Gandhi insists at the CWC meeting on June 18 that the Congress must refuse parity and also insist on a Congress Muslim and 26
Draft letter to Lord Wavell, June 17, 1946, which the CWC did not send to the Viceroy, Vol.91, CWMG, pp 168-9 27 Comments by Pyarelal as foot-note to the above draft letter
Congress woman member in the Interim Government. “In conclusion I can only say that the Congress will lose prestige if it ceases to have a national character”. Typically of Gandhi, he thinks the national character of the Congress is exemplified in having a Congress Muslim in the interim government and not a member from the scheduled castes. If Gandhi had insisted on a scheduled caste member, the government’s balance would have tilted in favour of the Hindus whereas in his formula, the Congress Muslim would have tilted in favour of the Muslims already overwhelmingly represented in the list of League members. ·
Gandhi coerces the Congress Working Committee to accept his conditions for consent – New Delhi, June 19, 1946 ‘Bapu gave a final notice to the Working Committee today that if they agreed to the non-inclusion of a nationalist Muslim, and the inclusion of the name of N P Engineer, which the Viceroy had foisted upon them, he would have nothing to do with the whole business and leave Delhi’.28
·
Speech at prayer meeting – June 19, 1946
Newspapers,
probably
because
of
leaks
from
within,
had
accurately reported the turmoil within the CWC, the serious differences of opinion within the Committee and Gandhi’s own intransigencies. Joining issue with the media Gandhi declares that if he were to become Viceroy for a day, he would ban all newspapers. He then advises people not to pay any attention to newspaper reports because, he said, “If the people were to
28
Speech at Congress Working Committee Meeting, New Delhi June 19, 1946, Mahatma Gandhi – The last phase, Vol. 1, Book 1, page 222, CWMG, Vol. 91, page 174
believe what had been appearing in the Press about his part in the deliberations of the Working Committee, Hindus would be right to execrate him as the enemy of their interests. It was further being made to appear, he observed, that
his
was
the
only
intransigent
voice
in
the
Working
Committee…The Congress had constituted itself, into a trustee, not of any particular community, but of India as a whole. In an organization like that it always became the duty of the majority to make sacrifices for the minorities and the backward sections, not in a spirit of patronizing favour, but in a dignified manner and as a duty”.29 ·
Gandhi meets Stafford Cripps – New Delhi, June 20, 1946
Gandhi’s meeting with Stafford Cripps on June 20 marks the decisive turning point in the deliberations on the Cabinet Mission. Gandhi pre-empts any other contrary move that the CWC may be intending to make and tells Cripps that he will no longer cooperate with the Cabinet Mission. Bapu again urged upon him that the Cabinet Mission must choose between the one or the other party,
not
attempt
an
amalgam;
the
Cabinet
Mission were pursuing the wrong course. Cripps was apologetic. It would be difficult to begin anew after coming so far; Jinnah would not listen, and so on. In the end Bapu told him in that case the Cabinet Mission could go the way they liked; he would have nothing to do with it.30
29
Speech at a prayer meeting, New Delhi, June 19, 1946, CWMG, Vol. 91, pp 174-5 30 Interview with Stafford Cripps, New Delhi, June 20, 1946, CWMG, Vol. 91, page 176
Meeting Stafford Cripps to announce his rejection of the Mission proposals was a move of political one-upmanship by Gandhi, not against the British Government and the Cabinet Mission which were even otherwise going only the way they liked, but against the INC which now could not publicly go against Gandhi’s wishes without incurring the wrath of a majority of Indians who believed that Gandhi was not only a Mahatma but also infallible on all counts. Gandhi’s despotic control over the INC and people’s readiness generally to allow him this overarching power rested on the myth of his saintliness and perceived infallibility. ·
Gandhi addresses CWC and tells them it is better for them to allow the Muslim League to form the Interim Government – New Delhi June 21, 1946 “Bapu’s draft was again discussed in the Working Committee. Bapu warned the members that they would not gain anything by entering on their new venture on bended knees. He reiterated his opinion that if the Cabinet Mission did not accept their conditions, it would be better to let the Muslim League form a nationalist government at the center during the interim period”.31
·
Gandhi meets with Cabinet Delegation, tells them not to be in a hurry to invite the Muslim League to form government – New Delhi, June 24, 1946
31
Speech at Congress Working Committee, Mahatma Gandhi – the last phase, Vol. 1, Book 1, page 222, CWMG Vol. 91. page 180
In the course of this meeting the Cabinet Delegation made their intentions clear to Gandhi – that if the INC and the Muslim League both accepted to form the Constituent Assembly and if the Congress refused to join the Interim Government, then the Cabinet Mission would be compelled to invite the Muslim League to form the government because it had not only accepted the state paper of May 16, but also the Viceroy’s formula of June 16 for the formation of the Interim Government. Gandhi made a fetish out of his silence days and would not break his silence even when he had scheduled important meetings. One such instance was when Gandhi visited Sir Srinivasa Sastri on his death bed in Chennai. Sastri’s heart and mind were overwhelmed at the sight of Gandhi and he was eager to speak to him but Gandhi was observing one of his routine silence days and when he refused to break his silence even for Sastri whom he would not see again, Sastri’s frustration took the edge away from his happiness. The make or break meeting with the Cabinet Delegation on June 24 is another case in point. Gandhi did not re-schedule the meeting nor did he break his silence. ‘Gandhiji was observing his silence…I read out what he wrote… “Then if you say that you will form the government out of the acceptances, it won’t work as far as I can see. If you are not in desperate hurry, and if you would discuss the thing with me, I would gladly do so after I have opened my lips, i.e., after 8 p.m.”.32 Gandhi had begun to realize that the situation was fast slipping out of his despotic control; and after several days of almost pushing the Viceroy and the members of the Cabinet Mission to 32
Interview with Cabinet Delegation, New Delhi, June 24, 1946, Gandhi’s Emissary, pp 171-3, CWMG, Vol. 91, pp 188-89
make a hasty decision choosing the INC or the Muslim League, Gandhi is now almost pleading with them not to be in a hurry, and not that alone, after advising the Congress just a day ago to allow the Muslim League to form the government, when he realized that the government was indeed going to do just that, he pleads with the Cabinet Delegation not to be in a hurry to invite the Muslim League. ·
Sardar Patel expresses his displeasure to Gandhi about what he thinks are Gandhi’s dilatory tactics – June 24, 1946 After the meeting…on the way Sardar asked Bapu: “There is a meeting of the Working Committee; what am I to tell them?” Bapu answered that he was not satisfied with the talk with the Cabinet Mission. The Sardar was irritated. “You raised doubts as regards para 19. They have given a clear assurance on that. What more do you want?”
Later, at the meeting of the Congress Working Committee Patel tells Gandhi that the CWC is committed to giving their answer one way or the other to the Cabinet Delegation by the afternoon. Gandhi insists that the CWC should not give their answer that day and that the Working Committee must wait until after he has met the Cabinet Delegation again later in the evening, after he breaks his silence. It would seem from the petulant tone of the message that Gandhi scribbled in reply, that a majority of the CWC disagreed with Gandhi. “There is no question of my feelings being
hurt. I am against deciding this issue today but you are free to decide as you like”.33 ·
Congress sends letter to Lord Wavell rejecting the Interim Government proposals – New Delhi, June 24, 1946 The decision was in fact taken yesterday but we felt that it would be better if we wrote to you fully on all aspects of the proposals made by you and the Cabinet Delegation. The Working Committee have been
sitting
meeting
at
almost 2
p.m
continuously again
and
today.
will
After
be full
consideration and deliberation they have been reluctantly obliged to decide against the acceptance of the Interim Government proposals as framed by you. A detailed and reasoned reply will follow later.34 The letter to the Viceroy sent in the name of the Congress President was drafted by Gandhi who, let us reiterate was not even a four-anna member of the INC. And the statement in the letter that the decision to reject “was taken yesterday” was untrue considering that it was Gandhi who alone was against accepting the Interim Government proposals and it was to preempt a rebellious CWC that Gandhi, claiming to speak on behalf of the INC rejects the proposals in his meeting with Stafford Cripps on June 20.
33
Talk with Vallabhbhai Patel – I, Discussion at Congress Working Committee – I, Mahatma Gandhi, The last Phase, Vol. 1, Book 1, pp 225-6, CWMG Vol. 91, pp 189-190 34 Draft Letter to Lord Wavell, June 24, 1946, The Indian Register, 1946, Vol. 1, page 173, CWMG, Vol. 91, page 190
Gandhi first sends the rejection letter to the Viceroy and then proceeds to meet him accompanied by Sardar Patel. At the meeting with the Viceroy and the Cabinet Delegation, Gandhi raised
objections
based
on
nothing
more
than
his
own
unsubstantiated suspicions (notwithstanding the fact that he continued to tell ordinary Indians in his prayer meetings that they must not doubt the motives or the intentions of the British government); objections which were patiently and effectively neutralized by the Viceroy and the Mission. Patel is convinced but Gandhi continues to maintain that the CWC must reject the Mission proposals. On returning from there the Sardar again asked Bapu: “Were you satisfied?” Bapu replied, “On the contrary, my suspicion has deepened. I suggest that hereafter you should guide the Working Committee. The Sardar replied, “Nothing of the sort. I am not going to say a word. You yourself tell them whatever you want”.35 Gandhi had only two ways of dealing with dissent and opposition – to threaten to distance himself from the issue or belittle and even degrade the dissenter. The lesser known side of Gandhi includes his biting tongue bordering on viciousness which sought to annihilate his opponent through public humiliation – a tendency which we will examine closely in chapter 7. ·
Gandhi sounds a new warning at a meeting of the CWC about joining the Constituent Assembly – afternoon of June 24, 1946, at the meeting of the CWC
35
Talk with Vallabhbhai Patel-II, June 24, 1946, Mahatma Gandhi – The Last Phase, Vol. 1, Book 1, page 227, CWMG, Vol. 91, page 193
At the meeting, after sending the draft letter to Lord Wavell rejecting the Interim Government proposals and before meeting the Cabinet Delegation again later in the day, Gandhi addresses the CWC again. At this meeting Gandhi comes up with a new objection – he now tells the Working Committee that it made no sense to him for the Congress to enter the Constituent Assembly when they had no control over the Interim Government. Gandhi justifies his warning on the grounds that his “mind is in a fog” and “I see darkness where four days ago I saw light”.36 ·
Gandhi writes to Stafford Cripps that joining the Constituent
Assembly
is
linked
to
the
Interim
Government – 10 p.m., June 24, 1946 In spite of the readiness, as it seems to me, of the
Working
Committee
to
go
in
for
the
Constituent Assembly, I would not be able to advise the leap in the dark…I therefore propose to advise the Working Committee not to accept the long-term proposition without its being connected with the Interim Government. I must not act against my instinct and shall advise them to be guided solely by their own judgment. I shall simply say that the conversation gave me no light to dispel the darkness surrounding me. I shall say I had nothing tangible to prove that there were danger signals. (Emphasis mine)37
36
Discussion at Congress Working Committee Meeting, June 24, 1946, Mahatma Gandhi – The Last Phase, Vol. 1, Book 1, pp 226-7, CWMG, Vol. 91, pp 191-2 37 Letter to Stafford Cripps, Bhangi Colony, Reading Road, New Delhi, June 24, 1946, Gandhiji’s Correspondence with the Government, 1944-47, page 212, CWMG, Vol. 91, 193-4
·
Congress Working Committee writes to the Cabinet Mission rejecting Interim Government proposals but accepting long-term plan for Constituent Assembly – New Delhi, June 25, 1946
·
Viceroy and Cabinet Mission announce formation of caretaker government - June 26, 1946
·
Gandhi leaves Delhi for Pune, attempt made to derail the train en route – June 28, 1946
·
Cabinet Mission leaves for England – June 29, 1946
The nation is left with the question – what game was Gandhi playing and why. The timeline of the negotiations with the Cabinet Mission
proves
that
Gandhi
deliberately
and
systematically
sabotaged the negotiations. Gandhi knew that – 1. The mechanism of the Constituent Assembly provided for putting in place a three tier constitution resting on the State Paper provision for grouping of provinces, which would have, at least then, averted the separate state of Pakistan as was being demanded by Jinnah 2. The Viceroy would never call upon the Muslim League to form the Interim Government without the Congress, particularly after the League’s acceptance resolution which stated unambiguously that they would do everything in their means to attain a sovereign Pakistan. Had the League been invited to form the government on their own, they would have used their power in the Constituent Assembly to facilitate a constitution best suited to their political objectives, or at the worst either unilaterally altered the
State Paper in line with their objectives, or discarded the State Paper in its entirety. 3. If the Congress and the League jointly formed the Interim Government they could keep a watch over each other as the only possible way to deal with their mutual suspicion that if the government was formed by one or the other party on their own, then there was every likelihood of the government being used to serve their respective objectives in the Constituent Assembly and that is why Gandhi finally links
the
Interim
Government
with
the
Constituent
Assembly 4. What Gandhi knew, Jinnah would have known that much better and the British, as the mastermind behind the unraveling plot, would have known best 5. By coercing the INC to reject Mission proposals he would be pushing the Viceroy into threatening to invite the League, which, were the League to accept, would have jeopardized the entire constitution-making process 6. Or having invited them, if the Viceroy were to fail to implement it, Jinnah would be sure to feel betrayed, and a frustrated Jinnah could have goaded the Muslim League to take recourse to violence. Knowing fully all the possible consequences of sabotaging the Mission, Gandhi nevertheless keeps to his path and does just that. When tested on the crucible of the reality of British intentions to withdraw from India, Gandhi failed to implement his famous, brave prescription of 1942 when he asked the British to “Quit India now and immediately”. Then, in 1942, when he spoke to domestic and foreign journalists spanning several days about the ‘Quit India’ civil disobedience campaign, very pointed questions were posed to him about the consequences and desirability of the
British
withdrawing
immediately
and
about
the
kind
of
government that Indians would put in place if they had to deal with the anarchy and the chaos that was likely to follow. Q. How will free India function? G. Leave India to God or anarchy. But in practice what will happen is this…People would have to come to their own without disturbance. Wise people from among the responsible sections will come together and will evolve a provisional government.
There
will
be
no
anarchy,
no
interruption, and a crowning glory. It is not clear to which wise people and which responsible sections Gandhi was referring to – there were only 2 major political formations and one of them had declared already that the sovereign state of Pakistan was their only political objective. But typical of Gandhian despotism, his personal views, his individual misconceptions, his fantasies became Congress policy. 1942 was no different. Q. Can you visualize the composition of the provisional government? G. I do not need to do so. But I am clear that it won’t be a party government. All parties – including the Congress – will automatically dissolve. They may function later and when they do, they may function complementary to one another, each looking to the other in order to grow. Then, as I have said, all unreality disappears like mist before the morning sun – we don’t know how though we witness the phenomenon everyday. This was Gandhi at his fantasising best. He was actually scripting the fairy-tale that the Muslim League would dissolve itself, would look to the
Congress for its growth and would be complementary to the Congress in every way! Q. Can you give me an idea who would take the lead in forming a provisional government – you, Congress or the Muslim League? G. The Muslim League certainly can; the Congress can. If everything went right, it would be a combined leadership. No one party would take the lead. The question to Gandhi is significant – the questioner wants to know who will take the lead – Gandhi or the Congress, implying that as far as decision making was concerned Gandhi was seen routinely to take the lead separately from, but on behalf of the Congress. Gandhi’s reply is equally significant for his reference to “if everything went right”. Given Jinnah’s volatile temperament and the Muslim League’s proclaimed separatist goal, the ‘if’ was a certainty. Gandhi, it was apparent, was not averse to chaos. Q. But what does ‘free India’ mean if, as Mr. Jinnah said, Muslims will not accept Hindu rule? G. I have not asked the British to hand over India to the Congress or to the Hindus. Let them entrust India to God, or in modern parlance, to anarchy. Then all the parties will fight one another like dogs, or will, when real responsibility faces them, come to a reasonable agreement. In a similar vein to another group of correspondents, Gandhi says – Hindusthan belongs to all those who are born and bred here and who have no other country to look to. Therefore it belongs to Parsis, Beni-Israels, to Indian Christians, Muslims, and other non-Hindus as much as to Hindus. Free India will be no Hindu-raj, it will be Indian raj based not on the majority of any religious sect or community but on the
representatives of the whole people without distinction of religion. I can conceive a mixed majority putting the Hindus in a minority. Religion is a personal matter which should have no place in politics. This was the core and essence of Gandhi’s political ideology which has come to define Indian polity in the name of Nehruvian secularism. Nehruvian secularism is an improvement on Gandhi in that while Gandhi only sought to marginalize Hindus and Hindu nationalism by rendering the Hindus into a political minority through a contrived non-Hindu majority, Nehru and Nehruvian secularism facilitated the political coming together of all non-Hindu forces. These forces are today encouraged by politics as defined by Gandhi and Nehru, by Nehruvian secular academic discourse and the Christian-western print and electronic media in their anti-Hindu political orientation. It is this Gandhian legacy which has crafted the winning combination of Marxists, Dravidians, Muslims and Christians which calls itself an “anti-communal, secular coalition”. This coalition, living up faithfully to Gandhi’s perversion of nation and nationhood, violently insists on claiming the territory of this nation for their separatist, anti-Hindu and de-Hinduising political objectives, without however subscribing to the nationhood deriving from its majority populace. To get back to the aborted mission of the Cabinet Delegation in 1946, Gandhi who sabotaged the proposals in 1946 conveniently chose to forget Gandhi of 1942 and all pious pronouncements about wise men in both parties, about the League forming the government on its own, and about combined leadership. When Gandhi was severely criticized for inviting chaos upon the ordinary Indian people, by not just the British but even by farsighted and shrewd Indians like Aurobindo and Rajaji, Gandhi declared even more piously –
I do not mind honest, strong, healthy criticism. All the manufactured criticism that I find being made today is sheer tomfoolery, meant to overawe me and demoralize the Congress ranks. It is foul game. They do not know the fire that is raging in my breast. I have no false notions of prestige; no personal considerations would make me take a step that I know is sure to plunge the country into a conflagration. The country was plunged into a conflagration almost immediately and the fires raged well into 1948. ·
Communal riots break out in Ahmedabad – July 1, 1946
Riots broke out in Ahmedabad on July 1 on the occasion of ashad sud 2 or the rath-yatra day. The rioting by Muslims on this auspicious day for Hindus was a grim warning of things to come and cannot be seen de-linked from the results of the Congress’ deliberations with the Cabinet Mission and Gandhi’s systematic moves to marginalize and humiliate the League. A study of Gandhi’s reaction to the riots in Ahmedabad is instructive for many reasons. Gandhi conveys the unmistakable signal that he considered himself as some kind of legitimate extra-constitutional authority who instructed and issued orders to democratically elected representatives of the INC. As mentioned earlier, Gandhi’s psywar tactics included degrading individuals and institutions to place himself and his opinions on moral high-ground. His letter to Morarji Desai, who was then the Minister of Home and Revenue in the Government of Bombay and his talk at a prayer meeting in Poona on the riots in Ahmedabad drive home the point forcefully.
I was somewhat alarmed on hearing about the incidents at Ahmedabad. I was aware of the Rathyatra day. They must have anticipated a skirmish. Why
did
the
police
not
take
precautionary
measures? Does not the police now belong to the people? Why did they not seek the people’s cooperation before hand? Our real defense force ought to be the people. Why call the military for such
tasks?
The people ought
to have
been
forewarned that they would not get the help of the military. The State too may not rule with the help of the military. This could not be. Now realize your mistake and start afresh. Withdraw the military if you can. If you find it risky to withdraw the military immediately let them do policing. They may not carry rifles, and if they carry bayonets these should be used sparingly. Don’t mind if a few have to die.
They
monkeys.
have
been
Under
your
trained
to
act
administration
like they
should cease to be monkeys and become human beings. Think about all this. Don’t do anything only because I am saying it. Do what you are convinced about. Remember one thing, viz., the [British] Government’s rule will take deeper root the more use you make of the military. Till now it has only been shaken, it may soon entrench itselfsecurely. Well, “a word is enough for the wise”.38 Mathatma
Gandhi
said
that
the
outbreak
of
communal riots in Ahemedabad had pained him
38
Letter to Morarji Desai, Poona July 1, 1946 CWMG, Vol. 91, pp 222-3
deeply and he had told Mr. Morarji Desai, Bombay’s Home Minister, who had come to see him before his departure for Ahmedabad, that he, (Mr. Desai) must go to meet the flames under the sole protection of God, not that of the police and military. If need be, he must perish in the flames in the attempt to quell them as the late Mr. Ganesh Shankar Vidyarthi had done.[1] [1] In March, 1931. Vide “Speech on Kanpur Riots, Subjects Committee Meeting,
Karachi”,
27-3-1931,
“Telegram
to
Balkrishna Sharma”, 1-4-1931 and “Notes”, 9-41931.39 Gandhi adds details to his degradation of the police and the military and instructs the Government of Bombay to use them as sanitary workers. Gandhi instructed Morarji Desai to withdraw the military and instead quell the riots by throwing himself into the flames; but to a very pointed question from a correspondent on why Gandhi did not set an example by going to Ahmedabad himself and offering himself to the flames, Gandhi neatly sidesteps the core of the question and hums and haws on nonviolence. Gandhi knew well enough and so did the ordinary Indians listening to him that no White British soldier in the military was going to undertake sanitation work on Gandhi’s recommendation nor till the fields to produce food for their slaves; but Gandhi nevertheless makes this laughable comment and we can only infer that he was typically degrading high institutions publicly and with impunity only to promote the notion that he had the stature and the authority to do so. Gandhi also 39
Speech at Prayer Meeting, Poona, July 2, 1946, CWMG Vol.91, pp 228-29
chose to consciously ignore the fact that it was the Indian component of the military which, through the mutiny in the army and the navy had taught the British government their most salutary lesson – that the British could no longer use Indians in their army and navy to keep India enslaved – a lesson which four decades of Gandhi’s satyagraha and ahimsa could not teach. There are ways even of fighting. If we must fight, why should we seek the help of the police and the military? The Government too should clearly say that the military, whilst it is in India, will only be used for the work of sanitation, for cultivating unused land and the like. And the police similarly will be used for catching thieves and dacoits, but never to put down communal riots. Let the people of Ahmedabad be brave enough to say that they will not seek the help of the police and the military, and they will not flee in panic. Rioters are mostly goondas. Even the white-collared goondas murder by stealth. I am told that nearly all the stabbings have been in the back, none or very few in the chest or the face. Why should one be frightened of such people? One should either die at their hands in the hope that they will in the end give up their madness and goondaism, or if one does not have that much courage one should fight to defend oneself.40 C. Just as you have taught us how to fight against the British Government non-violently, you should go to some place of riot and show
40
Bloodshed in Ahmedabad, Harijan, 28-7-1946, CWMG, Vol. 91, pp 334-5
us the way of quelling riots in a non-violent manner by personal example. Supposing you were in Ahmedabad today and went out to quell the riots, any number of volunteers will join you. Two of our Congress workers, Shri Vasantrao and Shri Rajabali, went out in such a quest and fell a prey to the goonda’s knife. They laid down their lives in the pursuit of an ideal and they deserve all praise. But no one else had the courage to follow in their footsteps. They have not the same self-confidence. If they had it, there would be no riots and, even if riots broke out, they would never assume the proportions and the form that the present day riots do. But the fact remains that such a state is merely an imaginary thing today. Your guidance and example can inspire many like me with courage and self-confidence. Once you have shown the way, the local workers will be able to follow it whenever occasion demands it. I feel that unless you set an example in action, your writings and utterances will not be of any use to the ordinary people, and even Congressmen, in organizing non-violent protection of society. G. I like the suggestion mentioned above. People followed
my
advice
and
took
to
non-violent
resistance against the British Government because they wanted to offer some sort of resistance. But their non-violence, I must confess, was born of their helplessness. Therefore, it was the weapon of the weak. That is why today we worship Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose and his Azad Hind Fauj. We forget that Netaji himself had told his soldiers that
on going to India, they must follow the way of nonviolence. This I have from the leaders of the I.N.A. But we have lost all sense of discrimination. To restore it, the I.N.A. men will have to live up to the ideal placed before them by Netaji. The work of those who believe in non-violence is very difficult in this atmosphere which is full of violence. But the path of true nonviolence requires much more courage than violence. We have not been able to give proof of such non-violence. We might look upon the action of Shri Ganesh Shankar Vidyarthi, Shri Vasantrao and Shri Rajabali as examples of the non-violence of the brave. But when communal feelings run high, we are unable to demonstrate any effect of the sacrifices mentioned above. For that, many like Shri Ganesh Shankar Vidyarthi will have to lay down their lives. The fact that no one else in Ahmedabad has followed the example set by Shri Vasantrao and Shri Rajabali shows that we have not yet developed the spirit of sacrifice to the extent of laying down our lives in non-violent action. The correspondent has rightly said that under these circumstances, I should act myself whether others join me or not. It will be disgraceful on my part to sit at home and tell others to go and lay down their lives. Such a thing cannot be an indication of nonviolence. I have never had the chance to test my non-violence in the face of communal riots. It might be argued that it was my cowardice which prevented me from seeking such a chance. Be that as it may, God willing, the chance will still come to me, and by throwing me in the
fire, He will purify me and make the path of nonviolence clear. No one should take it to mean that sacrifice of my life will arrest all violence. Several lives like mine will have to be given if the terrible violence that has spread all over, is to stop and non-violence is to reign supreme in its place. The poet has sung: “The path of Truth is for the brave, never for the coward.” The path of Truth is the path of non-violence.41 But he didn’t go! Gandhi didn’t go to Ahmedabad to offer himself in sacrifice and “perish in the flames” as he asked Morarji Desai and the ordinary people of Ahmedabad to do. He fobbed off the correspondent with the excuse that his death would not stop the riots. Maybe not; but Gandhi had no qualms about exhorting others to die in large numbers so that the rioters may be ‘shamed’ into stopping! This interchange has been reproduced almost completely for readers to experience the same sense of seething disbelief that grips us when we read the prescriptive Hind Swaraj. There are strong grounds to suspect that for Gandhi the riots in Ahmedabad were a forerunner to what may eventually happen if the Muslim League triggered nation-wide violence were the Cabinet Mission to fail ultimately. For Gandhi’s hubris Ahmedabad was a small theater; as he put it revealingly, “God willing, the chance will still come to me, and by throwing me in the fire, He will purify me and make the path of non-violence clear”. God-willing, not God forbid!
41
Panchgani, July 25, 1946, Harijan, 4-8-1946, CWMG, Vol.91, 348-49
Gandhi wished for a nation-wide canvas of violent communal strife as a fitting theater for his last Christ-like martyrdom.42 ·
Muslim League rejects Cabinet Mission proposals in toto – July 29, 1946.
Incensed over what they considered was a gross betrayal by the Viceroy of Clause 8 of the June 16 statement, the Muslim League convened in Bombay on 29th July and passed two resolutions – the first withdrawing the previous acceptance of the Mission proposals and the second announcing direct action to achieve Pakistan – And whereas it has become abundantly clear that the Muslims of India would not rest content with anything else than the immediate establishment of an independent and full sovereign State of Pakistan and would resist any attempt to impose any
42
In the course of the talk, one of them asked Gandhiji whether he would recommend fasting to check the orgy of communal madness that was spreading in Bengal. Gandhiji’s reply was in the negative. He narrated how a valuable colleague from Ahmedabad had invited him to immolate himself. “We believe in the nonviolent way but lack the strength. Your example would steady our wavering faith and fortify us.” The logic was perfect and the temptation great. But I resisted it and said no. There is no inner call. When it comes, nothing will keep me back. I have reasoned with myself too about it. But I need not set forth my reasons. Let people call me a coward if they please. I have faith that when the hour arrives God will give me the strength to face it and I won’t be found unready. Fasting cannot be undertaken mechanically. It is a powerful thing but a dangerous thing if handled amateurishly. It requires complete self-purification, much more than is required in facing death without a thought of retaliation. One such act of perfect sacrifice would suffice for the whole world. Such is held to be Jesus’ example. The idea is that you appropriate to yourself and assimilate the essence of His sacrifice symbolically represented by the bread and wine of the Eucharist. A man who was completely innocent offered himself as a sacrifice for the good of others, including his enemies, and became the ransom of the world. It was a perfect act. “It is finished” were the last words of Jesus, and we have the testimony of his four disciples as to its authenticity - death without a thought of retaliation. (Discussion with Co-workers, On or before October 18, 1946, CWMG, Vol. 92, pp345-6)
constitution, long-term or short-term, or setting up of any Interim Government at the centre without the approval and consent of the Muslim League. The Council of the All-India Muslim League is convinced that now the time has come for the Muslim nation to resort to Direct Action to achieve Pakistan and to get rid of the present slavery under the British and contemplated future caste Hindu domination.43 ·
Viceroy
invites
Congress
to
form
Interim
Government and the Congress accepts – August 12, 1946 ·
Muslim League declares Direct Action Day – August 16, 1946
·
Communal riots in Bengal and Bihar
·
Communal riots in Bombay – 1st September, 1946
The mind-games that Gandhi thought he was playing brilliantly with Jinnah and the British eventually boomeranged on the nation. Jinnah felt betrayed by Gandhi and the Viceroy when the League was not invited to form the interim government on its own as per Clause 8 of the statement of June 16 and the Muslim League rejected the Cabinet Mission proposals in toto making the threat of a violent eruption by the League very real. But contrary to what the British government wanted, the Muslim League did not unleash violence on the 29th of June even though they did
43
Stern Reckoning, GD Khosla, Oxford University Press, Oxford India Paperbacks, Second Impression, 1999, page 38
reject the State Paper and refuse to co-operate with the Cabinet Mission. Almost as if they wanted to ignite the tinder-box of seething anger in the Muslim League, the Viceroy invites the Congress to form the interim government on the 12th of August. The stage had been set for the imperial government’s back-up plan to be unraveled with perfect timing. The Viceroy did not invite the Muslim League to form the interim government after the Congress rejected the interim government proposals but went ahead to invite the Congress to form the interim government after the League rejected the Mission proposals. An enraged Jinnah declared ‘direct action’ on the 16th of August, with the sole objective of making the sovereign state of Pakistan a reality. Partition, which had been averted by the groupings clause in the State paper and the proposal to make a three-tier constitution, was now imminent – thanks to Gandhi’s megalomaniac insistence on disregarding the general view of the Congress Working Committee to accept the State Paper as a starting point for the transfer of power, and on being the only person to negotiate on behalf of the Congress and by extension, it is worth repeating, the whole nation barring the Muslims. Whose agenda was Gandhi really serving? Gandhi lived to see the sand castle of his unnatural, un-Hindu edifice of absolute non-violence disintegrate in the cataclysmic Hindu-Muslim riots that engulfed Bengal, Bihar and Bombay following Jinnah’s call for direct action.44 Jinnah and the Muslim
44
For chilling details of the jihad unleashed against the Hindus of Bengal, see end of chapter for excerpts from the book Stern Reckoning, A Survey of the Events Leading Up To and Following the Partition of India by GD Khosla, Oxford India Paperbacks, Second Impression, 1999
League demanded Pakistan on the basis that Muslims were a separate nation and that their religion mandated that they should not live under Hindu or any non-Islamic rule. To this day the country’s polity, faithfully inheriting the Gandhian mindset of upholding and even endorsing the right of the Abrahamic minorities to live true to every word of their book and prophets, has never challenged the Muslims or the Christians on what they claim are the basic tenets of their religion. The guiding ideology of post-independence Indian polity which calls itself Nehruvian secularism and which donned the mantle of Gandhian minorityappeasement, therefore could not bring itself to see the truth of the political objectives of these religions and so never summoned the political will to tame them. The inassimilable sense of separate
nationhood
inalienable
right
of
Muslims
therefore
to
and
convert
Christians Hindus
and
by
their
force
or
allurement to their respective faiths which alters the religious demography leading ultimately to secession, has been the neverending experience of the Hindus of this Hindu bhumi. In August 1946 after Jinnah blamed Gandhi squarely for aborting the Cabinet Mission proposals for transfer of power, and to emphasize the point that Muslims were not only a separate nation but also hostile to all non-Islamic faiths, he called upon the Muslims
to
launch
direct
action,
not
against
the
British
government, but going by the horrific numbers of Hindus killed in Calcutta on August 16th alone, against the Hindus. Additionally it also served to debunk Gandhi’s stubborn insistence that Muslims can and will live peacefully with Hindus if only the Hindus would serve them wholeheartedly and without political motives.45
45
Hindu-Muslim unity can come only by selfless service of Muslims untainted by political motives. They (Muslims) are just like us and we must be friends with
Habitual Muslim violence in the name of jihad, lasting for over a thousand years had claimed Hindu victims disproportionate to their actual numbers despite determined resistance from the Hindu community, only because jihad was abetted by Muslim state power. Loss of state power to European colonialists had dealt a severe blow to jihad against the Hindus which however received a fillip during the Gandhian years when Gandhi injected the slow poison of non-violence into Hindu-Muslim relations. The massacre of Hindus in the Malabar by the Mopla Muslims in 1921 saw jihad raising its head yet again only because Indian Muslims scented state power through the Khilafat agitation supported by Gandhi and Gandhi’s INC. Having scented and tasted the blood of Hindus, Jinnah’s call for direct action to create the Islamic state of Pakistan enflamed the glowing embers of jihad burning in the heart of every true Muslim and Bengal witnessed the replay of the Mopla massacre which was now carried out over a much larger expanse of territory with little interference from the British government and administration and the active support of the Muslim League which was ruling the Bengal province. The Hindus of Bihar took note of the events in Bengal and proceeded to demonstrate that they would seek revenge for the massacre of Hindus in those regions and would not be obstructed by Gandhian non-violence. The whole of North them. (Speech to Congress workers, Rampurhat, December 20, 1945, Amrita Bazar Patrika, 21-12-1945, CWMG vol. 89, pp 71-72) Q. What could Congressmen do to draw Muslims to the Congress? A. Gandhiji said that in the presence of the prevailing distrust there should be no attempt to enlist the Muslims or any other group or individuals. What however every Hindu could do was mutely to serve his Muslim or for that matter every nonHindu neighbour as his blood brother. Such selfless service was bound to tell in the end. That was the way of non-violence, otherwise called love. (Discussion with political workers, Sodepur, December 23, 1945, Amrita Bazar Patrika, 25-12-1945, CWMG, vol.89, pp 89-91)
India was burning and the imperial government in London and the British government in India could have asked for nothing better. Vivisection of the nation was Britain’s exit policy and violent communal upheaval leading to vivisection of the nation was Britain’s exit strategy. The riots which engulfed the country, particularly the riots in Bihar, following Jinnah’s call for direct action proved, if proof were indeed needed, two things to Gandhi; that the Muslims would never give up jihad against the kaffirs in their religious intent to establish Dar-ul-Islam and that Hindus could deal effectively with jihad if Muslims were denied the protection of Islamic or any other state power. Gandhi was nothing if not a dramatist. He had a perfect sense of timing as was proved when he wrote the Hind Swaraj and when he returned to India permanently from South Africa. It bears mention that Gandhi, seeking as he was, the perfect backdrop to stage his magnificent exit from the world a-la-Christ, was not going to enter the scene of the unfolding tragic drama until it was not right for maximum effect. The riots broke in August and Gandhi did not go to Bengal until the very end of October.46 Just as he fobbed off a correspondent who wanted to know why Gandhi did not go to Ahmedabad and show the people how to quell riots through non-violence, he fobbed off a pointed invitation to come to Bengal and undertake a fast unto death to quell the riots there. But at every available opportunity, he exhorted others to go to the scene of riots and offer themselves as sacrifice. In a discussion with co-workers from Bengal who came to seek Gandhi’s permission to go to Bengal before he himself went there, Gandhi gives them a comforting lecture on the virtues of his
46
Vide footnote 40
Champaran satyagraha in 1918 and then sends them off on their mission in ponderous biblical English Go forth, therefore. I have done. I won’t detain you for a day longer. You have my blessings. And I tell you there will be no tears but only joy if tomorrow I get the news that all the three of you are killed. “It will be pure joy to be so killed,” they echoed. Go, but mark my words. Let there be no foolhardiness about it. You should go because you feel you must and not because I ask you to.47 These may well have been the last words of the commander of a bunch of extremists before sending them on a suicide mission for their religion! Gandhi sends the young men into the cauldron of riot-torn Bengal and exhorts them to die by painting a blatantly false picture of the success of his satyagraha in Champaran and Kheda; Gandhi had chosen to stage the climax of his political career in India with a grand satyagraha against the backdrop of Hindu-Muslim riots and during that time he utilized every opportunity to promote his satyagraha, even if he presented questionable
versions
of
past
events
which
did
not
quite
approximate to the truth. Such strikes never do harm to anyone. It was such a strike perhaps that brought General Smuts to his knees. “If you had hurt an Englishman,” said Jan Smuts, “I would have shot you, even deported your people. As it is, I have put you in prison and tried to subdue you and your people in every way. But how long can I go on like this when you do not retaliate?” And so he had to come to terms with a
47
Discussion with co-workers, on or before October 18, 1946, Harijan, 2-10-1946, CWMG, Vol. 92, page 346
mere coolie on behalf of coolies as all Indians were then called in South Africa.48 A U. S. Army general came to visit me a little before the prayer this evening. I was spinning at the time. As you all know the charkha to me is an inseparable companion. Whether I went to jail or journeyed to England, the charkha went with me. I laughingly told the American friend that since he would soon be going back to the U. S. A. he should tell his compatriots that Gandhi intended to defeat them with his puny spindles. The general laughed heartily at this but he understood the economic necessity of everyone producing to satisfy his own wants. This is what I meant by defeating the U. S. A.49 It must be remembered that Gandhi (unconvincingly) promoted the charkha as the noblest symbol of Satyagraha or ahimsa and he equated ahimsa with truth. The charkha was as cosmetic to Gandhi as was the cigar to Churchill except that the ordinary people of the country, who looked up to Gandhi as the Mahatma sat glued to the charkha as if India’s independence hinged upon it – which is exactly what Gandhi had told them repeatedly although he himself devoted exactly 45 minutes in a day to the charkha in the Aga Khan Palace where he was imprisoned for more than
48
Talk with a Christian Missionary, Extracted from Pyarelal’s “Weekly Letter”, 16-9-1946, Harijan, 22-9-1946, CWMG, Vol.92, page 191 49 Speech at a prayer meeting, (From Hindi), Hindusthan, 19-9-1946, CWMG, Vol. 92, page 204
three years between 1942 and ’45, and when he had nothing to do the whole day except wait to be released from confinement.50 Gandhi’s raging desire to be ‘purified’ in the flames of communal riots and to make the ultimate sacrifice had more to do with events in his personal life and the “non-co-operation” undertaken in protest against him by a small but powerful group of persons close to Gandhi - by his friend of long-years standing, Kishorelal Mashruwala,
Gandhi’s
son
Devdas,
Sardar
Patel,
his
stenographers Pyarelal and Parasuram, and workers at Sevagram, Sabarmati Ashram, Navjivan Trust and Kasturba Memorial Trust.51
50
A typical Gandhi fetish was always an admixture of facts on the ground, an element of insightful understanding and a large dose of fiction with self-delusory fantasy. 51 CHI. GHANSHYAMDAS, I sent you a letter through Sushila. But I have been upset somewhat by Sardar’s letter. Devdas’s letter is still ringing in my ears. I do not remember what I wrote to you, for I have not kept a copy of it. All I wish today to write is that you should give up your attitude of neutrality. Sardar is quite clear in his mind that what I look upon as my dharma is really adharma. Devdas of course has written as much. I have great faith in Sardar’s judgment. I have faith in Devdas’s judgment too, but then, though grown up, in my eyes he is still a child. This cannot be said of Sardar. Kishorelal and Narahari too are grown-ups; but it is not difficult for me to understand their opposition. The link between you and me is your faith that my life is pure, spotless and wholly dedicated to the performance of dharma. If that is not so, very little else remains. I would, therefore, like you to take full part in this discussion, though not necessarily publicly—for I certainly do not want your business to suffer. But if I am conducting myself sinfully, it becomes the duty of all friends to oppose me vehemently. A satyagrahi may end up as a duragrahi if he comes to regard untruth as truth—that being the only distinction between the two. I believe that is not the case with me; but that means little, for after all I am not God. I can commit mistakes; I have committed mistakes; this may prove to be my biggest at the fag end of my life. If that be so, all my well-wishers can open my eyes if they oppose me. If they do not I shall go from here even as I am. Whatever I am doing here is as a part of my yajna. There is nothing I do knowingly which is not a part and parcel of that yajna. Even the rest I take is as a part of that yajna. (Letter to G D Birla, Raipura, Feb 15, 1947, From the Hindi original: C. W. 8086. Courtesy: G. D. Birla, CWMG, Vol. 93, page 406 This is a very personal letter but not private. Manu Gandhi, my grand-daughter as we consider blood relations, shares the bed with me, strictly as my very blood, not to give me animal satisfaction but as part of what might be my last yajna. This has cost me dearest associates, i.e., Vallabhbhai, Kishorelal, probably C.R. and others. This includes Devdas. I have lost caste with them. You as one of the dearest and
GD Birla, Vinobha Bhave and Amritlal Thakker (Bapa) too were greatly distressed and even angry with Gandhi. Gandhi’s perverse experiments of sleeping unclothed with women, in complete disregard for the effect it had on the women who perforce had to become the victims of his experiments, and on those who worked closely with him, was slowly beginning to be whispered about among people who came into close contact with Gandhi in these institutions. Patel’s barely concealed anger with Gandhi during the negotiations on the Cabinet Mission proposals and the Congress Working Committee’s rejection of Gandhi’s suggestion not to enter the constituent assembly have to be seen as Gandhi’s waning influence over this small but powerful group of people, in the context of his fast eroding moral authority. As the whispers gained credence and as events in Bengal and Bihar would soon prove, the halo of ‘mahatma’ was beginning to lose its shine among the important leaders of the INC and also among those eminent men who were hitherto Gandhi’s friends and co-travelers on the path of nation-building. ·
Congress
interim
government
takes
office
–
September 2, 1946 ·
INC comes to an agreement with the Muslim League – October 4, 1946
·
Muslim League joins interim government – October 16, 1946
earliest comrades, certainly before Sardar and Kishorelal, should reconsider your position in the light of what they have to say. Perhaps Sucheta will help you somewhat. She knows something of this episode. (Letter to JB Kripalani, Feb 24, 1947, From a copy: Pyarelal Papers. Nehru Memorial Museum and Library. Courtesy: Beladevi Nayyar and Dr. Sushila Nayyar, CWMG, Vol. 94, page 34)
Despite Gandhi’s ceaseless efforts to manipulate the Muslim League out of the interim government and the constituent assembly which the Congress Working Committee correctly perceived to be self-destructive and catastrophic for the nation, the Congress overrules Gandhi yet again and enters into an agreement with the League which brings the League into the interim government52 - an agreement that bears Gandhi’s signature! The parties to the agreement are the INC, the Muslim League and the ubiquitous Nawab of Bhopal although why the Nawab of Bhopal must be a party to this agreement that concerned only the two major political formations of the country is difficult to fathom; unless he represented (with no formal endorsement to the effect from the Princes) all Indian states in the issue because he was Gandhi’s choice to head the twomember committee with Nehru to oversee the process of electing the 93 representatives of the Indian states to the Constituent Assembly. Twice in two months the Congress Working Committee overruled Gandhi on crucial issues arising from the Cabinet Mission proposals. From the middle of June 1946, as demonstrated in the timeline of the negotiations with the cabinet delegation, there was general disagreement in the Working Committee with Gandhi’s 52
The Congress does not challenge and accepts that the Muslim League now is the authoritative representative of an overwhelming majority of the Muslims of India. As such and in accordance with democratic principles they alone have today an unquestionable right to represent the Muslims of India. But the Congress cannot agree that any restriction or limitation should be put upon the Congress to choose such representatives as they think proper from amongst the members of the Congress as their representatives. It is understood that all the Ministers of the Interim Government will work as a team for the good of the whole of India and will never invoke the intervention of the Governor-General in any case. I accept this formula. M. K. Gandhi
Hamidullah [Nawab Of Bhopal] Shoaib Qureshi (Agreement Between The Congress, The Muslim League And The Nawab Of Bhopal, October 4, 1946, Sardar Patel’s Correspondence, Vol. III, p. 282, CWMG, Vol. 92, page 279)
suggestion to reject first the formula for the formation of the interim government and then to refuse entering the constituent assembly. In the first week of July immediately after the Working Committee headed by the Congress President refused to join the interim
government
but
agreed
to
enter
the
Constituent
Assembly, Gandhi manipulated the INC to elect a new President; Maulana Azad was replaced now by Gandhi’s blue-eyed boy Nehru and a new Working Committee was also put in place. Gandhi did not choose Patel, Rajaji or Rajendra Prasad, all of whom had begun to distance themselves quietly from Gandhi, but Nehru, whose relations with Gandhi was cordial and even filial. Again, in August 1946, when Nehru (and not Patel or Rajendra Prasad or Maulana Azad) was chosen to head the interim government which was sworn in on September 2nd, 1946, the Congress had to perforce elect a new President. Gandhi rejected Nehru’s suggestion to appoint Patel, Maulana Azad or Rajendra Prasad and instead chose the pliant JB Kripalani to replace Nehru as President.53 JB Kripalani, an adoring acolyte of Gandhi not only accepts submissively Gandhi’s explanation for his experiments with women but even gives Gandhi’s halo an additional coat of polish.54 But Jinnah utilized the interim government to get back at
53
I have before me your letter of the 20th. It came to me yesterday via Wardha. It
dwells on the question of who should be the Congress President in view of the fact that you will be the Prime Minister. You incline in favour of Maulana Saheb. This I do not understand and cannot understand. In my view, Maulana Saheb should not accept nomination. Maulana Saheb hesitates to accept ministership. The responsibilities of the President, especially in the present juncture, are I feel arduous. But in my view it is not the only reason why he should not be president. I cannot accept, too, that other than Maulana Saheb, Sardar Patel and Rajendra Babu, no suitable person can be found.(Letter to Jawaharlal Nehru, August 29, 1946, From a copy of the Hindi: Pyarelal Papers. Nehru Memorial Museum and Library. Courtesy: Beladevi Nayyar and Dr. Sushila Nayyar – CWMG, Vol. 92, page 84)
54
. . . These matters are, I find, beyond my depth. Moreover I have enough to do to keep myself morally straight to sit in judgment on others and specially those who are morally and
Gandhi’s insistence on appointing a Congress Muslim in its quota of six Congress members, by nominating a scheduled caste member in his quota of five League members. Jinnah signaled to Gandhi that if Gandhi thought he could speak for the Muslims then Jinnah arrogated to himself the right to speak for Hindu scheduled castes. Gandhi was playing these futile mind games with Jinnah even as riots continued to rage in Bengal, Bombay and Bihar. Gandhi’s desire to die in the flames of the communal riots in Bengal and Bihar was his last desperate gesture to try and regain his moral authority which had allowed him unchallenged despotic control of the INC so far, and to restore the myth of his saintliness in public life. It is a different matter altogether that in the end, he himself did not make the ultimate sacrifice by perishing in the flames of Noakhali, Tippera or Patna as he exhorted Morarji Desai and other co-workers to do earlier in Ahmedabad. Three months after communal riots engulfed Bengal and Bihar following Jinnah’s call for ‘direct action’ to attain Pakistan, and three months after wide-spread rape, plunder, loot and forced conversions in Bengal, Gandhi’s inner voice asked him to go to Bengal in the last week of October 1946. Even as Gandhi was spiritually miles ahead of me. I can only say that I have the fullest faith in you. No sinful man can go about his business the way you are doing. Even if I had a lurking suspicion, I would rather distrust my eyes and ears than distrust you Sometimes I thought that .you may be employing human beings as means rather than as ends in themselves. But then I take consolation in the thought that that consideration cannot be absent from your mind and that if you are sure of yourself, no harm can come to them. Then knowing you to be a great student of the Gita I have wondered if you are not doing violence to the principle of lokasangraha (conservation of social good), wisely propounded therein. But this consideration, too, I am sure, must not be absent from your calculations, in this experiment of yours. . . . I know your attitude to woman is the only right attitude as you are one of those who consider her an end in herself and not merely as a means. You have never exploited her. (Letter from JB Kripalani, March 1, 1947, Mahatma Gandhi—The Last Phase, Vol. I, Bk. II, p. 221, Appendix II, CWMG, Vol. 94, page 420)
walking from village to riot-torn village, he was still preoccupied with his ‘experiments in brahmacharya’, which in his own mind was now given the grand name of ‘tapascharya’ and ‘yagna’. He summons his grand-niece Manu Gandhi, young enough to be his grand-daughter, to Bengal although he dissuades everyone else from coming to him. Manu Gandhi, who had been made victim of Gandhi’s experiments earlier in the Aga Khan palace55 is afraid to come to Bengal56 but such was the fear in which his close associates and relatives, whom Gandhi did not treat as equals, held him that Manu Gandhi does indeed come to Bengal with her father although Gandhi tells the father that he must leave Manu with him and go back. His close associates of several years and quite possibly victims of his ‘experiments’, Susheela Nayyar, Abha Gandhi wife of Kanu Gandhi,
and Amtussalam are deputed by
Gandhi to different villages and different parts of Bengal; Gandhi permits no one to live with him after Manu joins him in Bengal. 55
God belongs to everyone. He will do as He wills. I am doing only that. I am having her sleep close to me. She sleeps naked but sleeps soundly. She has to be woken up whenever there is work, be it at 2 o’clock or 3 o’clock. I consider it a very good sign that she is able to sleep like that. I have known it since the Aga Khan Palace days that she is quite unself-conscious. The main thing was that she should be with me, in my care and associate with you and learn. That has happened. Now we must all wish that only what spontaneously occurs to her will happen. Only then will she be completely free from fear.... For the present we cannot all three of us hope to be together. What is possible is that when you come, the three of us may occasionally sit together. It is not proper that I would keep you with me right now. The present sadhana consists in our being apart. (Letter to Pyarelal, December 30, 1946, From the Gujarati original: Pyarelal Papers. Nehru Memorial Museum and Library. Courtesy: Beladevi Nayyar and Dr. Sushila Nayyar, CWMG, Vol. 93, pp 213-4) 56 I am not calling you to me to make you unhappy. You are not afraid of me, are you? It can never be that I would make you do anything against your wishes. I only wish you well. I wish to see you healthy and well. (Letter to Manu Gandhi, October 14, 1946, From a copy of the Gujarati: Pyarelal Papers. Nehru Memorial Museum and Library. Courtesy: Beladevi Nayyar and Dr. Sushila Nayyar, CWMG, Vol. 92, page 322)
Even Pyarelal, Dr. Susheela Nayyar’s brother who wanted to marry Manu Gandhi is expressly forbidden by Gandhi to even visit him and is asked to ‘serve’ in a different village. It says much for the greatness and moral rectitude of these men that, keeping national interests alone in view, they did not expose Gandhi to the nation at large; and though Gandhi pretended in his letter to Mashruwala on the 4th of November from Calcutta that his stock remained high with the inmates of the ashram, Mashruwala, the oldest inmate in the Sabarmati Ashram wrote to Gandhi barely three months later, on 9th February, 1947, that he was leaving the ashram. Because you are the oldest person in the Ashram, I am writing to you. Read this to all. Bihar has moved me. Chiefly for the sake of the body, I am on a semi-fast. Later on it may take the shape of a gradual complete fast. Gradual because I still have some work on hand. I have to go to Noakhali. You can read further details in the newspapers. Nobody should run up to me, nobody should fast in sympathy, all should stick to their place and be completely engrossed in their work. Each should try to remove his own defects and should obtain purity for hard tapas. Nobody should worry about me. Let all pray for me that I may come out with flying colours through this penance and that I should not prove to be a coward57
57. (Lettter to Kishorelal G Mashruwala, Calcutta November 4, 1946, CWMG, Vol. 92, page 443) SORRY YOUR DECISION. YOU ARE ENTITLED. REGARD IT HASTY. ANY CASE YOU WILL RENDER NECESSARY HELP TILL NEW ARRANGEMENT MADE. WIRED JIVANJI BAPU (Telegram to Kishorelal G Mashruwala, On or after February 9, 1947, CWMG, Vol. 93, page 390)
Had Gandhi been publicly discredited at that point in history by even one of these great men, the INC would have suffered great humiliation and consequent setback; and this would have further strengthened Jinnah and the Muslim League. As things stood, few people in Gandhi’s lifetime knew of his experiments with women and fewer still had the courage to speak or write about his dark side
at
that
time
and
not
even
now,
sixty
years
after
independence. It would seem that the British government, for reasons best known to it, also did not discredit Gandhi publicly even though they did know of his ‘experiments’ with women. As cited earlier, Gandhi had used Manu Gandhi for these experiments even earlier in the Aga Khan Palace where he was interned after his so-called arrest in 1942. The British Government knew this well-kept secret of Gandhi’s private life and would have accorded him political importance and pre-eminence in all their interactions with the INC for well-calculated reasons. We cannot help but wonder if Gandhi’s insistence in laying all the blame for the failure of the Cabinet Mission at the door of the Muslim League and completely exonerating the British from evil motives and protecting them from the wrath of ordinary Indians may not have had something to do with this.
CHI. PYARELAL, Herewith is a copy of the letter to the Professor. You will learn from it what is happening. My association with Harijan now seems to have ended. I am not worried in the least. I am anxious about Manu’s state of mind. All this is an ordeal for me. May truth alone triumph. Blessings from BAPU [P.S.] Send the papers about me. (From the Gujarati original: Pyarelal Papers. Nehru Memorial Museum and Library. Courtesy: Beladevi Nayyar and Dr. Sushila Nayyar, CWMG, Vol. 94, page 35)
The British government’s silence on Gandhi’s secret was possibly because they could not afford to discredit Gandhi before the nation on whose behalf Gandhi was negotiating with the British government and with the Muslim League; the British government needed Gandhi, not only to implement their covert agenda through the instrument of the Cabinet Mission but to exit safely from India; however, the Muslim League government in Bengal and the Congress government in Bihar rendered Gandhi impotent and ineffective when he toured the riot-torn provinces of Bengal and Bihar between November 1946 and April 1947, with Manu Gandhi in tow. Not surprisingly the Muslim League-run provincial government in Bengal did not like Gandhi touring the villages of riot-torn Bengal and on more than one occasion asked him to leave Bengal and proceed to Bihar where the Hindus of Bihar were extracting their revenge for the events in Bengal.58 Despite Gandhi’s prolonged stay in Bengal lasting four months until the beginning of March, Gandhi could not douse the flames of the riots in Bengal, could not succeed in getting the Muslim League government to stop its support for the jihadis and only aggravated Hindu anger against him
for
what
the
Hindus
of
Bengal
saw
as
his
Muslim
appeasement ways. An honest rendition of the history of the time, based only on Gandhi’s own writings reveals that Hindu anger against Gandhi was pervasive and intense. Not just the Hindus of Bengal but even earlier, in Delhi, Hindus who had gathered at one 58
Your letter . is . . .hysterical. . . I would like you to tell me how I can serve the Muslims better by going to Bihar. Whilst I do not endorse your remark that the atrocities committed by the Hindus in Bihar have no parallel in history, I am free to admit that they were in magnitude much greater than in Noakhali. . .I would urge you, as President of the Monghyr District Muslim League, to confine yourself to proven facts which, I am sorry to say, you have not done. Letter to President Monghyr District Muslim League, January 25, 1947, Mahatma Gandhi—The Last Phase, Vol. I, Book II, p. 247, CWMG, Vol 93, page 321
of his prayer meetings accused him of emasculating Hindu society.59 Gandhi’s famous prescription of ahimsa had failed and he was forced to confront the unpalatable truth that outside of a section of the INC, ordinary Hindus had rejected him and his unrealistic formulae for Hindu-Muslim relations. But more importantly, Gandhi was beginning to re-examine himself; his manic conviction about his infallibility and the indestructibility of his saintliness, which
were
being
brought
home
to
him
painfully
and
humiliatingly. Have been awake since 2 a. m. God’s grace alone is sustaining me. I can see there is some grave defect in me somewhere which is the cause of all this. All around me is utter darkness. When will God take me out of this darkness into His light? Pyarelal explains: “On the day of his departure from Srirampur, Gandhiji woke up at 2 a.m. once more to ask himself the question: ‘Why does it not work?’ He woke up Manu, too, and told her to remain alert and wide awake all the time in view of the ordeal that
lay
ahead
of
them.
Referring
to
the
atmosphere around him, he muttered to himself: ‘There must be some serious flaw deep down in me which I am unable to discover. Where could I have missed my way? There must be something terribly
59
Gandhiji added that he was daily receiving letters of abuse saying that his doctrine of non violence was emasculating Hindus, that he was no Mahatma, that he was injuring them and leading them astray. He had never laid claim to being a Mahatma. He was an ordinary mortal as anyone of them. He hoped he had never injured anyone. What he told them he told them for their own and universal good. (Speech at a prayer meeting, New Delhi, October 3, 1946, The Hindustan Times, 410-1946, CWMG, Vol 92, pp 277-80
lacking in my ahimsa and faith which is responsible for all this.”
60
Frantically seeking to find the right word and the right move to regain his lost authority with the ordinary people of Bengal, Gandhi turned his attention to Bihar. Gandhi was failing and failing badly to make any impact not only on the people of Bengal but even on his close associates in the INC. The stalwarts of the Congress Party, who were against Gandhi fishing in the troubled waters of Bengal to make a personal point, communicated their displeasure to GD Birla because except for Nehru, all of them had distanced themselves from Gandhi and wanted Birla to make Gandhi see reason. I have come here determined to emerge successful from this ordeal. If you are anxious to see me, then you can come over here. I personally do not see any necessity for it. If you wish to send a messenger to know something or carry letters by hand, you can do so... Friends will also do well to bear in mind that what I am doing here is not in the name of the Congress. Nor is there any thought of associating it with this work. What I am doing is only from my personal view of non-violence. Anybody, if he so desires, can publicly oppose my work. That in fact is his right; it may even be his duty. Therefore, whosoever wishes to do
60
(Extract from Diary, January 2, 1947, Mahatma Gandhi—The Last Phase, Vol. I, Book II, p. 115, CWMG, Vol. 93, page 227)
anything or say anything, let him do so fearlessly. If anybody wants to warn me of anything, let him do that too. Please send a copy of this to Sardar so that he may tell the others named above. Or you can get copies made and send them to the five friends (Sardar, Maulana, Rajendra Babu, Rajaji and Nehru) yourself. Do express whatever you wish to. Write to me direct so that I may reply.61 Gandhi had repeatedly assured the Muslims of Bengal that there was no need for him to go to Bihar to end the revenge killings of Muslims and that because it was a Congress government in Bihar, he could control the events in that province sitting in Bengal! For all his brave words about being able to control the Congress government in Bihar, the Hindus of Bihar proved unrelenting and finally in a weak move intended to appease the Muslim League government in Bengal, Gandhi asks Srikrishna Sinha, Prime Minister of the Bihar province to send him official reports from Bihar. Notwithstanding the fact that Nehru and Rajendra Prasad, Govind Vallabh Pant and Rafi Ahmed Kidwai were camping in Bihar in efforts to quell the riots and notwithstanding the fact that Bihar was administered by Congress government, Gandhi’s repeated demands to be kept informed are ignored as are his suggestions, opinions and objections. I wrote a letter to you but have not received a reply. Possibly it was lost. It does happen 61 Letter to GD Birla, From the Hindi original: C. W. 8081. Courtesy: G. D. Birla. also G. N. 2212, CWMG Vol.93, page 70
to some of my letters. I have received a copy of the Bihar Provincial Muslim League’s report. You too must have received a copy. I am therefore not sending it to you. It is a terrible thing if even half of what is stated were true. It even mentions that I should ask the Bihar Ministry for a full clarification of
the
massacre
for
which
they
were
responsible. And if one has been already issued, I may be sent a copy. I should like to take you even further than that. I read in some newspaper that the Bihar Ministry does not propose to hold any inquiry. I was sorry to note it. I want the ministries of both the provinces to hold an impartial inquiry by a joint committee to probe the incidents in both the provinces. Even if Bengal does not co-operate, it is the Bihar Ministry’s duty to hold such an enquiry. It will be good if you can also let me know the true condition at present. What is the truth in the report that many Muslims have left Bihar and many are still leaving? There is also a complaint that representatives of the Muslim League are not even allowed to visit the Muslim refugee camps set up by the Bihar Government. I am sending a copy of this to Rajendra Babu. (Letter
to
Srikrishna
December 21, 1946)
62
Sinha,
Srirampur,
62
Letter to Srikrishna Sinha, January 12, 1947 From a copy of the Hindi: Pyarelal Papers. Courtesy: Pyarelal, CWMG, Vol. 93, page 170
It is bad that the enquiry commission has not yet been appointed. I think that it should be appointed immediately. Many letters of complaint
are
coming
in.
Only
commission can answer these letters.
the
63
I was to get a note on Bihar. I have not received it, nor has a single well-informed person from Bihar come to me. It does not matter if someone cannot come but the note must
come.
What
happened
about
the
Commission? (Letter to Srikrishna Sinha, January 13, 1947)64 It was some gentleman from Bihar who gave me the information. I did not note down his name. Is it not a fact that you, the Governor and the Viceroy are against the appointment of a Commission and that this is sufficient to stop the Chief Minister from appointing one? In spite of all this, I am strongly of opinion that if no commission is appointed, the League’s report will be accepted as true. I alone know what pressure is being put on me. (Letter to Vallabhbhai Patel, January 14, 1947)65
63
From a copy of the Hindi: Pyarelal Papers. Courtesy: Pyarelal, CWMG, Vol. 93, page 270 64 From a copy of the Hindi: Pyarelal Papers. Courtesy: Pyarelal, CWMG, Vol. 93, page 275 65 Bapuna Patro—: Sardar Vallabhbhaine, pp. 344-5, CWMG, Vol. 93, pp 276-7
Extremely angry at being so slighted, Gandhi turns his ire on JB Kripalani and in a replay of his petulance in 1942 and again in July 1946, he asks Kripalani to resign as Congress President!66 Nobody of consequence from the INC visits him in Bengal to report to him about the events in Bihar, and his demand for a Commission of Inquiry to go into the causes and the course of the riots in Bihar are politely but firmly rejected by Patel and Sinha.67 The Bihar government with its hands full in dealing with the riots, did not want Gandhi to visit Bihar (a move which was sure to enrage the Hindus), and therefore agrees to constitute the inquiry commission if that could stop Gandhi from coming to Bihar. On February 13, Shrikrishna Sinha, Chief Minister of Bihar, while replying to the debate in the Assembly on the no-confidence motion against his Ministry, announced the Government’s
decision
to
appoint
a
Commission of Inquiry to report on the 66 Your letter and enclosure. You cannot sit still if you find that even justice is not done. You have to discuss things with Pantji, Kidwai and finally with Jawaharlal and Sardar. If nobody listens to you, you should resign. If these steps are not taken and if what you say is true, the Congress will collapse. You can show this to the parties I have named. (LETTER TO J. B. KRIPALANI, Confidential January 28, 1947, From a photostat: C. W. 10871. Courtesy: J. B. Kripalani, CWMG, Vol. 93, page 335 67
I hear that your opposition is reported to be the reason why the Bihar Ministry does not appoint an inquiry commission. I do not believe the story, but I bring it to your notice. If a commission is not appointed, it will do great harm. The Ministry will be regarded as guilty. If their work has been above board, what harm can the Commission do to them? Considerable pressure is being exerted on me, but I do not go because I have reposed confidence in the Ministers. But if a Commission is not appointed after all, I shall have no choice but to go to Bihar. In his reply dated February 10, the addressee (Patel) wrote : “Who told you I have a hand in the non-appointment of a Commission of Inquiry in Bihar? I do hold the opinion that there is no gain but only harm if the Commission is appointed. If in spite of it a Commission is appointed, how can I prevent it? . . .The Bihar Governor is behind the non-appointment of the Commission. The Viceroy, too, does not want it”. (Letter to Vallabhbhai Patel, Srinagar (Bengal), February 5, 1947, Bapuna Patrao – 2, Sardar Vallabhbhaine, pp 348-9, CWMG, Vol. 93, page 369)
communal
disturbances in Bihar. Justice
Reuben of Patna High Court was to be the one-man Commission. Ultimately however, on 30th October, 1947, the Bihar Cabinet decided to drop the idea of appointing the Commission.68 Gandhi’s carefully nurtured image and the motivated propaganda about the infallibility of his Satyagraha had been shattered mercilessly and even as Gandhi was confronting his failure and powerlessness, he embarks cynically on another misadventure, this time in the Punjab and Assam. The following points need to be kept in view to understand the extent of Gandhi’s cynical manipulation of people to serve his agenda or prove his point. ·
The Muslim League and the British government had planned to use each other to realise their respective converging interest – to vivisect the Hindu nation
·
Gandhi
knew
that
the
Cabinet
Mission
proposals,
particularly the ‘grouping’ clause, was the best possible way to avert vivisection ·
The Muslim League had nothing to lose but everything to gain by unleashing violence against the Hindus
·
The Muslim psyche is never afraid of violence and Muslims are as prepared to suffer death as inflict death on their enemies
·
Gandhi knew well enough that ordinary Hindus, far from being ‘dumb’ or ‘weak’ or ‘helpless’ as he repeatedly told them they were, were ready to confront all forces which
68
Note on terms of reference for Inquiry Commission, Before February 13, 1947, Mahatma Gandhi—The Last Phase, Vol. II, p. 28, CWMG, Vol. 93, page 399
they perceived as threatening their dharma and their way of life – Christians, Muslims, the British and even Gandhi Gandhi knew all this and yet, he kept harping on the ‘grouping’ clause when all other ruse to abort the mission proposals failed; and he therefore finally goaded the Muslim League to launch ‘direct action’ thus setting in motion a chain of events which inevitably culminated in vivisection. Even after violent riots broke out in Bengal, Bombay and Bihar, and Gandhi was forced to come to terms with the truth that he was failing on all fronts in Bengal – to bring about Hindu-Muslim unity, to quell the riots, and to avert vivisection, he instigates Assam Congressmen and the Sikhs of the Punjab in December 1946, to revolt against the central Congress leadership for accepting to enter the constituent assembly and advises them to secede from the Congress and to resist the ‘grouping’ clause with all their might. Gandhi, by sowing the seeds of the idea of secession in Assam and the Punjab in 1946, was responsible for fanning the flames of Muslim violence in the immediate, and fanning the flames of separatism in the Punjab and in Assam decades later in post-independence India. If Assam keeps quiet, it is finished. No one can force Assam to do what it does not want to do. It is autonomous to a large extent today. It must become fully independent and autonomous.
Whether
you
have
that
courage, grit and the gumption, I do not know. You alone can say that. But if you can make that declaration, it will be a fine thing. As
soon
as
the
time
comes
for
the
Constituent Assembly to go into Sections you will say, “Gentlemen, Assam retires.” For the independence of India it is the only condition. Each unit must be able to decide
and act for itself. I am hoping that in this Assam will lead the way. I have the same advice for the Sikhs. But your position is much happier than that of the Sikhs. You are a whole Province. They are a community inside a Province. But I feel every individual has the right to act for himself, just as I have.69 Gandhiji in a letter to the Sikhs has advised them to demand an unequivocal declaration from the Congress that it shall never agree to Grouping in any shape or form. He has further advised them to walk out if no such undertaking
was
against
Congress.
the
forthcoming. I
have
“Revolt revolted
several times myself”.70 Instead of welding the provinces together in the common objective of averting vivisection, as the overarching need of the times, Gandhi encouraged them to fragment themselves to evade the grasp of the Muslim League but eventually left the embers of separatism glowing and dormant in their polity. Gandhi did not have an intelligent or effective response to Muslim separatism; and rather than go along with the Cabinet Mission proposals to avert vivisection and thus buy the much-needed time to deal with the Muslim League after transfer of power, he continued to dabble inexpertly in politics, to torture the course of events in a direction 69
Interview to Assam Congressmen, December 15, 1946, CWMG Vol. 93, pp 142145 70 Fragment of letter to Sikhs, On or before December 19, 1946, The Bombay Chronicle, 20-12-1946, CWMG, Vol. 93, page 160
that led only to bloodbath in the vain and foolish hope that the violence would halt the Muslim League in its tracks. As pointed out earlier only two things could have averted vivisection permanently – ·
Denying jihadi Muslims state protection and patronage, and
·
A violent nationalist uprising by the Hindus in defense of the Hindu nation
Gandhi, by provoking the riots before transfer of power gave the British government the lollipop that they wanted – the opportunity to meddle both covertly and overtly to direct the resulting violence towards vivisection. Reputed historians and other eminent academicians have not undertaken so far any honest study of Gandhi’s character. Just as little is known of his perverse experiments with women, as little is known of his vicious anger and lacerating speech that he routinely spewed at people who opposed him or rejected him. While Gandhi was careful to treat such opponents as GD Birla and Kisorelal Mashruwala and Vinobha Bhave with respect, he treated those whom he considered inferior to him in status with contempt and in wounding language. His stenographers Pyarelal, Parasuram, the husband of one of his women victims, Munnalal Shah and Sardar Patel have all been victims of Gandhi’s arrogance and pride. The following letter that Gandhi wrote to Patel is a case in point. Patel had unsparingly and unambiguously conveyed to Gandhi his strong disapproval of Gandhi’s terrible experiments with women. That relations were extremely strained between them became obvious in the course of the INC’s negotiations with the Cabinet Mission. But as riots broke out in Bengal and Bihar, Gandhi’s
insistence on Muslim appeasement exacerbated the already strained relations and all cordial communication between Gandhi and the Sardar broke down completely. Gandhi had to send letters to Patel only through other Congress workers and even on those few occasions that Patel replied to him it was in terse and curt language. Gandhi’s venom is utterly exposed in the following letter that he wrote to Patel where he accuses Sardar Patel of everything from financial impropriety to lust for power. CHI. VALLABHBHAI, I have your letter. Jawahar and others will be able to tell you about what happened here. I hold strong views about. . . . The work being done here cannot be carried on with the Congress funds or funds collected by you. He should collect the money publicly both from Hindus and Muslims. I am also getting more convinced from experience that all activities which are carried on with the help of money alone are sure to fail. You also should give up any idea of getting things done with money. It is essential that...should not deviate even an inch from what is agreed to between him and me. I am resolved that I will get out of it as soon as I see even the slightest impurity. This mission is most delicate and the biggest that has fallen to my lot. God has sustained me so far. I wake up and start work at 1.30 a. m., standard time, and there has been no difficulty yet. About tomorrow, God alone knows. I have heard many complaints against you. If there is any exaggeration in “many”, it is unintended. Your speeches tend to be inflammatory and play to the gallery. You have lost sight of all distinction between violence and non-violence. You are teaching the
people to meet violence with violence. You miss no opportunity to insult the Muslim League in season and out of season. If all this is true, it is very harmful. They say you talk about holding on to office. That also is disturbing, if true. Whatever I heard I have passed on to you for you to think over. The times are very critical. If we stray from the straight and narrow path by ever so little, we are done for. The
Working
Committee
does
not
function
harmoniously as it should. Root out corruption; you know how to do it. If you feel like it, send some sensible and reliable person to explain things to me and understand my point of view. There is no need whatever for you to rush down here. You are no longer fit to run about. It is not good that you do not take care of your health. I will stop here. It is now 5.35, Calcutta time, and there are heaps of arrears to be disposed of. Blessings from BAPU71 Now contrast this with the letter that Gandhi wrote to Nehru on the same day; Nehru who knew that his towering political ambitions could be realized only by staying on the right side of Gandhi, did not publicly or privately express objections to Gandhi over his experiments. Nehru was doing what Patel and others refused to do – applying salve on Gandhi’s bruised ego by running to him frequently seeking his advice and opinions. On this occasion, Nehru was running to Gandhi carrying tales about Patel and as expected, Gandhi bends obligingly on Nehru’s side. Your affection is extraordinary and so natural! Come again, when you wish, or send someone who 71
Letter to Vallabhbhai Patel, , Srirampur, December 30, 1946, Bapuna Patro-2: Sardar Vallabhbhaine, pp. 341-3, CWMG, Vol 93, pp 211-12)
understands you and will faithfully interpret my reactions . . . when, in your opinion, consultation is necessary and you cannot come. Nor is it seemly that you should often run to me even though I claim to be like a wise father to you, having no less love towards you than Motilalji.... So, I suggest frequent consultations with an old, tried servant of the nation.72 Far from ‘rushing down here’ as Gandhi imagined Patel would do, Patel replies in characteristic style – The complaints are false of course but some of them do not make sense. The charge that I want to stick to office is a pure concoction. I was opposed to Jawaharlal’s hurling idle threats of resigning from the Interim Government. They damage the prestige of the Congress and have a demoralizing effect on the services. . . . Not even any Leaguer has said that I insult the League time and again. . . . It is my habit to tell people the bitterest truths. . . The remark about meeting the sword by the sword has been torn out of a long passage and presented out of context. .If any of my colleagues has complained to you about me, I should like to know. None of them has said anything to me.”73 ·
Gandhi visits Nandigram – December 23, 1946
Hindu refugees of Nandigram had threatened to go on a fast unto death, protesting government inaction and the total lack of
72
73
Mahatma Gandhi—The Last Phase, Vol. I, Book II, p. 127, CWMG, Vol 93, 210-11
Foot-note to Gandhi’s Letter to Vallabhbhai Patel from Srirampur dated 30 December, 1946, CWMG Vol. 93, page 211
protection and security from the marauding jihadis but Gandhi dissuaded them against it. This, and later as we shall see, the resentment of Hindu refugees in Delhi reveals that the barely repressed anger of the Hindus against Gandhi was not confined to the Hindus in the Hindu Mahasabha but was pervasive among the Hindu samaj who perceived Gandhi’s fasts for communal harmony as being only a coercive measure against the Hindus to not retaliate or seek revenge against the Muslims. This Nandigram that Gandhi visited in December 1946 is not the Nandigram of recent infamy in West Bengal, the scene of conflict between the Communist government and illegal Bangladeshi Muslims who comprise in the main the population of Nandigram, but is located in the Lakshmipur (pronounced Lokkhipur) zilla of Bangladesh, under the jurisdiction of the then Ramgonj police station. It was a part of the areas that bore the brunt of the terrible anti-Hindu pogrom that covered Noakhali and parts of Tipperah district in erstwhile undivided Bengal, beginning October 1946. This wellsuppressed fact of history is however well documented in a path breaking book by Tatagatha Roy.74 ·
First sitting of Constituent Assembly – December, 1946
·
Mountbatten, incumbent Viceroy, arrives in Delhi – January 30, 1947
·
Mountbatten as Viceroy – March 1947
After the Cabinet Mission, the decision to send Lord Louis Mountbatten as Viceroy of India when political independence seemed increasingly imminent was the second masterstroke by 74
A Suppressed Chapter in History: The Exodus of Hindus from East Pakistan and Bangladesh By Tathagata Roy, Bookwell Publications, 2006
the British government in London. Gandhi's public statement on the eve of the Quit India movement in 1942 made it clear that he was well aware of events in the nations of East and South-East Asia, in Malaya, Indonesia and Burma during World War II, when Japan was gaining ground and the Allied forces were engaged in fierce battles to keep their colonial empires in the region intact. We know from the fact that Gandhi met Indonesian soldiers in Madras in January 194675, that he was aware of Mountbatten's role
in
Britain’s
decision
to
sabotage
Indonesia's
fledgling
independence; and after the defeat of Japan, it was Mountbatten as head of Southeast Asia Command, who directed the liberation of Burma and Singapore. Mountbatten’s role entailed a stint in Indonesia too and during those critical months he enabled the return of Indonesia to her colonial masters. As the British withdrew from Indonesia, Mountbatten successfully broke the country into several parts, leaving each part simmering in political chaos. After re-taking Singapore, Mountbatten’s first act was to order the demolition of the war memorial honouring slain INA heroes. The INA War Memorial at Singapore to commemorate the "Unknown Warrior" was started on 8 July 1945 at Esplanade Park. It was razed to the ground by Mountbatten's allied troops when they re-occupied the city. Gandhi knew all this. Yet Gandhi, whose repudiation of the Cabinet Mission proposals facilitated Jinnah’s obduracy leading to partition, allowed Mountbatten to enter India as Viceroy without a murmur of protest. This allowed Mountbatten to implement the imperial plan to vivisect the Hindu bhoomi, and gave him the rare opportunity to fulfill Britain's second most important strategic
75
CWMG, vol.89, page 280
intent after partition, namely, the West's control of the critically important territory of Jammu & Kashmir, through the agency of the United Nations. ·
Vivisection of Hindu bhumi/Indian ‘Independence’ with Dominion Status – 15 August 1947
As a natural culmination of Gandhi’s insistence during the discussion on the Motilal Nehru Report that Dominion Status was the same as Independence, on 15th August 1947, India became a self-governing entity while continuing to remain a part of the British Empire. The King of England would continue to remain Head of State until January, 1950. Against the wishes of Nehru and Patel, Gandhi expressed strong objection to the idea of total transfer of populations from India. Thus Muslims unwilling to migrate to Pakistan continued to reside in India. Pakistan, however, expelled most Hindus from its territory; those who remained behind were far too few to pose any threat to Muslims there. By asking Muslims to continue to reside in India after they had wrenched away a large part of the territory to form a Muslim state, Gandhi fanned seething rage among Hindus. ·
Pakistan's aggression in Jammu and Kashmir – September 1947
On Mountbatten’s advice, Nehru halted the triumphant march of the Indian army into Jammu & Kashmir to seize all occupied territory, and without consulting Home Minister Patel or the Cabinet, rushed to the United Nations to plead with it to deal with Pakistan
and
restore
all
occupied
territories
to
India
(30
December 1947). Mountbatten thus successfully implemented the
colonial agenda of denying India’s legitimate claim to J&K, which to this day remains 'disputed'. It remains inexplicable to this day why Gandhi and Nehru, who supposedly struggled against a colonial regime for freedom, placed such extraordinary faith in post-Second World War institutions created by failing colonial powers. While India was not free at the time of World War I, it is inexplicable that she joined both the British Commonwealth and the United Nations. It is pertinent that in 1947, probably only The Philippines (1946) and India were free among the colonies, so India willfully became party to a post-colonial order being set up by European powers who realized that their hegemony was sooner or later coming to an end. Yet the early decades of the UN saw intense struggles of each colony to be free, and European colonial powers probably relinquished the last of their possessions only in the mid-1970s! Certainly the UN played a poor role in facilitating a free world! And South Africa, despite the fraud of sanctions, did not relinquish Apartheid until the 1990s, and mysteriously destroyed its nuclear arsenal before submitting to a form of Black African rule. In this context, the generous Western invitation to the newly freed India to join the Security Council deserves deeper scrutiny. ·
Gandhi's last fast-unto-death – January 12, 1948
Official history has blurred the truth about many of Gandhi's Muslim-appeasing, anti-Hindu actions. Such fudging is evident regarding Gandhi's last fast-unto-death in Delhi. The official version is that he fasted for communal harmony; the known truth is that Gandhi wanted to coerce Patel to release Rs. 550 million to Pakistan as part of the agreed-upon division of treasury funds as of 15 August 1947. Home Minister Patel was disinclined to giving Pakistan such a colossal sum when it had invaded Jammu and
Kashmir barely two months ago, and would probably use the money for more acts of aggression against India. Fortunately for Gandhi, doctors declared his life had entered the danger
zone
on
15
January,
barely
three
days
after
commencement of the fast. A cornered Patel reluctantly agreed to release the money to Pakistan. ·
January 18 1948 – Gandhi breaks his fast
In a typically wily manoeuvre, just so Hindus did not construe his fast as aimed at releasing treasury money to Pakistan, Gandhi continued to fast for another three days after Patel agreed to release the money, giving it the colour of a fast-for-communalharmony. ·
Bomb explodes at prayer meeting – January 20, 1948
·
Angry Hindu and Sikh refugees from Pakistan ask Gandhi to retire to the Himalayas – January 28, 1948
·
Assassination of Gandhi – 30 January, 1948
Regarding the trial of Nathuram Godse, one of the High Court judges observed: The audience was visibly and audibly moved. There was a deep silence when he ceased speaking. Many women were in tears and men were coughing and searching for their handkerchiefs….. I have, however, no doubt that had the audience on that day been constituted into a jury and entrusted with the task of deciding
Godse's appeal, they would have brought in a verdict of ‘not guilty’ by an overwhelming majority.76 *****
76
GD Khosla, “The murder of the Mahatma and other cases from a Judge’s Notebook, New Delhi, Jaico, 1977, pp 305-306 as reproduced in Koenraad Elst, “Gandhi and Godse”, New Delhi, Voice of India, page 6.
Appendix I Excerpts from Gandhi’s analysis of the Cabinet Mission Statement Paper After four days of searching examination of the State Paper issued by the Cabinet Mission and the Viceroy on behalf of the British Government, my conviction abides that it is the best document the
British
Government
could
have
produced
in
the
circumstances. It reflects our weakness, if we would be good enough to see it. The Congress and the Muslim League did not, could not agree. We would grievously err if at this time we foolishly satisfy ourselves that the differences are a British creation. The Mission have not come all the way from England to exploit them. They have come to devise the easiest and quickest method of ending British rule. The authors of the document have endeavoured to say fully what they mean. Their one purpose is to end British rule as early as may be. They would do so, if they could, by their effort, leave united India not torn asunder by internecine quarrel bordering on civil war. They would leave in any case. Since in Simla the two parties, though the
Mission
succeeded
in
bringing
them
together
at
the
Conference table (with what patience and skill they could do so, they alone could tell), could not come to an agreement, nothing daunted, they descended to the plains of India, and devised a worthy document for the purpose of setting up the Constituent Assembly which should frame India’s charter of independence, free of any British control or influence. It is an appeal and an advice. It has no compulsion in it.
Thus the Provincial Assemblies may or may not elect the delegates. The delegates, having been elected, may or may not join the Constituent Assembly. The Assembly having met, may lay down a procedure different from the one laid down in the Statement. Whatever is binding on any person or party arises out of the necessity of the situation. The separate voting is binding on both the major parties, only because it is necessary for the existence of the Assembly and in no otherwise. At the time of writing. I took up the Statement, reread it clause by clause, and came to the conclusion that there was nothing in it binding in law. Honour and necessity alone are the two binding forces. What is binding is that part of it which commits the British Government. Hence, I suppose, the four members of the British mission took the precaution of receiving full approval of the British Government and the two Houses of Parliament. Therefore,
when
Lord
Pethick-Lawrence
said
to
a
Press
correspondent1, ‘If they do come together on that basis, it will mean that they will have accepted that basis, but they can still change it, if a majortiy of each party they desire to do so’, he was right in the sense that those who became delegates, well knowing the contents of the Statement, were expected by the authors to abide by the basis, unless it was duly altered by the major parties. When two or more rival parties meet together, they do so under some understanding. A self-chosen umpire (in the absence of the one chosen by the parties, the authors constitute themselves one) fancies that the parties will come together only if he presents them with a proposal containing a certain minimum, and he makes his proposal, leaving them free to add to, subtract from or altogether change it by joint agreement.
This is perfect so far. But what about the units? Are the Sikhs, for whom the Punjab is the only home in India, to consider themselves against their will, as part of the section which takes in Sindh, Baluchistan and the Frontier Province? Or is the Frontier Province also against its will to belong to the Punjab, called “B” in the Statement, or Assam to “C” although it is a predominantly non-Muslim province? In my opinion, the voluntary character of the Statement demands that the liberty of the individual unit should be unimpaired. Any member of the sections is free to join it. The freedom to opt out is an additional safeguard. It can never be a substitute for the freedom retained in paragraph 15(5) which reads: “Provinces should be free to form groups with executives and legislatures and each group could determine the Provincial subject to be taken in common.” It is clear that this freedom was taken away by the authors by section 19 which ‘proposes’ (does not order) what should be done. It presupposes that the Chairman of the Constituent Assembly at its first meeting will ask the delegates of the Provinces whether they would accept the group principle and if they do, whether they [would] accept the assignment given to their Province. This freedom inherent in every Province and that given by 15(5) will remain intact. There appears to me to be no other way of avoiding the apparent conflict between the two paragraphs
as
also
charge
of
compulsion
which
would
immediately alter the noble character of the document. I would, therefore, ask all those who are perturbed by the group proposal
and
the
arbitrary
assignment,
that,
if
my
interpretation is valid there is not the slightest cause for perturbation.
There are other things in the document which would puzzle any hasty reader who forgets that it is simply an appeal and an advice to the nation showing how to achieve independence in the shortest time possible. The reason is clear. In the new world that is to emerge out of the present chaos, India in bondage will cease to be ‘the brightest jewel’ in the British crown it will become the blackest spot in that crown, so black that it will be fit only for the dustbin. Let me ask the reader to hope and pray with me that the British crown has a better use for Britain and the world. The ‘brightest jewel’ is an arrogation. When the promissory note is fully honoured, the British crown will have a unique jewel as of right flowing from due performance of duty. There are other matters outside the Statement which are required to back the promissory note. But I must defer that examination to the next issue of Harijan. (An Analysis, NEW DELHI, May 20, 1946, Harijan, 26-5-1946, CWMG Vol. 91, pp 1-3) ***** II Gandhi’s letter to Viceroy Wavell and the Viceroy’s own record of his meeting with Gandhi DEAR FRIEND, From
you, almost
straight
away, I
went
to the Working
Committee which, owing to his illness, was held at Maulana Saheb’s quarters. I gave them the gist of our conversation, told them that I gladly endorsed your suggestion about the parties meeting to fix up names subject to the provision that no party should talk of parity, you should invite them simply to submit to you a joint list of the Cabinet of the Provisional Interim Government which you would approve or, if you did not, you would invite them to submit a revised list bearing in mind your
amendments, Government
that
the
composed
list of
should
persons
represent of
proved
a
coalition
ability
and
incorruptibility. I suggested too that in the place of parity there should be active enforcement of the long-term provision in your joint Statement2 that in all major communal issues there should be communal voting to decide them. I suggested also that in the event of absence of agreement between the parties in spite of all effort, you should examine the merits of the respective lists of the two parties and accept either the one or the other (not an amalgam) and announce the names of the Interim Government but that before that final step was taken you should closet yourselves until a joint list was prepared. I told the Working Committee that you had seemed to endorse my suggestions. I told them further that, so far as I knew, it was a point of honour with Congressmen that there could be no joint consultation in which Maulana Saheb was not associated with the talks. You said it was a sore point with Quaid-e-Azam Jinnah and I replied that the soreness was wholly unwarranted and that the Congress could not be expected to sacrifice its faithful servant of twenty-five years’ standing whose self-sacrifice and devotion to the national cause had never been in question. But I told you that your great experience and ability to handle delicate matters would show you the way out of the difficulty. Finally, I told the Committee that I drew your attention to the fact that the European vote which was being
talked
of
was
unthinkable,
in
connection
with
the
Constituent Assembly and nothing but a public declaration by the European residents of India or one by you on their behalf could make possible the formation of the Constituent Assembly. I gathered from you that the question was already engaging your attention and that it should be satisfactorily solved. Probably you have already moved in the matter of the joint talk. Nevertheless,
I thought that I owed it to you and the Working Committee to put on record what I had reported about our talks. If I have in any way misunderstood you, will you please correct me? I may say that the Working Committee had its draft letter ready but at my suggestion it postponed consideration of it pending the final result of your effort adumbrated in this letter. The draft letter takes the same view that I placed before you yesterday on parity and the European vote and their election as members of the contemplated Constituent Assembly. I close with the hope that your effort will bear the fruit to which all are looking forward. Yours sincerely, M. K. GANDHI Foot-note to Letter, as in source In his letter to Lord Wavell dated June 8, M. A. Jinnah had claimed that the Viceroy had given him “the assurance that there will be only twelve portfolios, five on behalf of the League, five Congress, one Sikh and one Christian or Anglo-Indian”. During the meeting with the Cabinet Delegation on June 8, the Viceroy said that “he had given no assurance to Mr. Jinnah” but he thought that “the 5 : 5 : 2 ratio as the most hopeful basis of settlement” and that he was working on that basis. He told them that M. A. Jinnah “had taken a very strong line about the Interim Government and had said that the Muslim League would not be prepared to come in except on the basis of 5 : 5 : 2 distribution of portfolios, between the Muslim League, the Congress, and the minorities”. This parity between the Congress and the Muslim League was wholly unacceptable to the Congress. (Letter to Lord Wavell, Valmiki Mandir, Reading Road, New Delhi, June 12, 1946, Gandhiji’s Correspondence with the Government, 1944-47, pp. 204-5. Also The Transfer of
Power, 1942-47, Vol. VII, pp. 877-8, CWMG Vol. 91 pp 14849) * III Viceroy Wavell’s Record of his Meeting With Gandhi 1. I told Mr. Gandhi that I had asked him to come to see me because there appeared to be a deadlock over the last stage of the
Cabinet
Mission’s
work,
the
formation
of
an
Interim
Government. It would be very great pity if after all the hard and successful work of the Mission there was a breakdown at this point; and we must avoid it in the interests of India. The deadlock seemed likely to occur over the issue of parity between the Congress and the Muslim League in the Interim Government. It was quite clear that this Government must be a coalition of the two main parties; and the trouble threatened to arise because Mr. Jinnah would not commit the Muslim League to participation in the Interim Government unless he had parity with Congress, and it seemed that Congress would not come in on these terms. I said parity between the Congress and the Muslim League, in view of the respective number of voters whom they represented, was obviously illogical; but what we were concerned with was an expedient, which would not form a precedent, to get over the difficult interim period. I said that if both parties were determined to work for the common good of India in the interim period, parity had no real meaning; and that if one party was out to dominate the Government and order everything to its own advantage then obviously the Government would do no good. I said that I was personally convinced that Mr. Jinnah, if he came into the Government, would work for good administration and not merely politically; and that I was sure that the same would be true of the Congress.
2. I stressed the need for good administration in the forthcoming period, both to tide India over her present difficulties, the threatened famine and the railway strike, and also to lay the foundations of India’s future prosperity and independence. I said that I thought it was the opportunity for the Congress to make a generous gesture and to agree to Mr. Jinnah’s condition, even if they thought it illogical and unreasonable, and that I hoped they would be able to do so. The alternative to obtaining a stable Government in this interim period was likely to be chaos and disorder, and might ruin the last opportunity for a really united India. 3. I suggested that perhaps the best way out of this difficulty would be for me to see Jinnah and Nehru together and to endeavour to arrive at an agreed composition for the Interim Government with them. 4. Mr. Gandhi said that he was thoroughly anxious for a settlement, and that he agreed that a coalition was necessary. What was required was a homogeneous team which would work together. It should not lean too much upon the Viceroy, who was, he said, only a bird of passage, but to work together as a team by themselves. I said that this was undoubtedly the ideal but that it was the first step which was necessary and that a mediator between the two parties would undoubtedly be essential. Mr. Gandhi then went off into a rather long digression about the poverty of India and the necessity for more food and cloth; but at the end of it came back to my suggestion and agreed that the best thing would be for me to see the leaders of the Congress and the Muslim League together; and that since he realized the difficulty of Azad meeting Jinnah, the meeting should be between Jinnah and Nehru; he would advise me to pin them down to make a Government and not to allow them to leave the room until they had done so; that parity was of no account, nor whether the
members belonged to the Congress or the League or anyone, provided they were the best men available. He said I should be prepared to go out of the room and leave them to themselves if necessary. 5. He then turned on to the matter of the Europeans’ vote and said that it was a most important issue, and that the Europeans should make a declaration if they did not intend to vote. I said that it was a matter which must be left to the commonsense of the Europeans. 6. The conversation lasted for about forty minutes and Mr. Gandhi was quite friendly throughout. It is always difficult to fathom how his mind is working, but he gave the impression that he would advise the Congress to come to terms and not to allow a breakdown on the parity issue. (Interview With Lord Wavell, June 11, 1946, The Transfer of Power 1942-47, Vol. VII, pp. 864-5, CWMG Vol. 91 pp 436-37) ***** IV The Sapru Committee Proposals, Bombay, December 27, 1945 “The Committee stands for a single Union of India, including the whole of British India and all the Indian States, the claim for secession or non-accession, by which individual Provinces or States can keep out of the Union is not accepted,” says the Sapru Committee in its final report on constitutional proposals. This report, which was compiled by the Rt. Hon. Sir Tej Bahadur Sapru, the Rt. Hon. Mr. M. R. Jayakar, the Hon. Sir N.
Gopalaswami Iyengar and Kunwar Sir Jagadish Prasad, was released to the Press on December 27, 1945. Embodying
this
principle
in
its
proposals,
the
Committee
recommends that the constitution-making body to be appointed after the elections should proceed on the basis of framing a constitution for a single State, and urges that the right of secession or non-accession given to individual States or Provinces in the Cripps proposals should be withdrawn. The Committee maintains that throughout it has endeavoured to make a constructive approach to the many knotty problems that confront the country, to investigate them from every angle, to appraise as dispassionately as they could every fact, circumstance or conceivable argument and to reach conclusions which in their estimation were calculated to promote the lasting interests of India and were likely to elicit the approbation of thinking Indians. The report says : “It is the Committee’s firm conviction that the future of India lies in adopting a democratic constitution. The ultimate sovereign in a democracy is the electorate, which chooses those who are to represent it in the Legislature and Executive. Adult franchise is therefore recommended. Under existing conditions, it is excusable to give religious communities the right to a fair and adequate share of opportunities for service in the Legislature and Executive, but the aspirants for these opportunities should realize that they hold them in trust for the nation as a whole and should for that reason seek the support of all communities.” JOINT GENERAL ELECTORATES The Committee has recommended that separate communal electorates should disappear and should be replaced by joint general electorates with reservations of seats. In the opinion of the Committee, Parliamentary Government is not unsuited to India and can be worked even with communally composed
Legislature and Executive. One of the cardinal features of the constitutional proposals made by the Committee is the provision of ample and effective safeguards for the minorities. Emphasizing the importance of joint electorates, the Committee says : “No Government, which is not merely in power but accepts active responsibility for its decisions, can legitimately flinch from the task of righting a manifestly wrong decision (taken forty years ago, accepting separate electorate for Muslims), which has been so mischievous in its effects. We hope the present Labour Government in Britain, with its high democratic ideals and the enormous voting strength behind it, will not lack the courage to get this decision reversed with the support of Parliament. We have no doubt that such reversal would be to the lasting benefit of the Muslims themselves.” PARITY AT THE CENTRE It is because the Committee attaches great importance to the abolition of separate electorates that it considers parity of representation in the Central Legislative Assembly between Muslims and Hindus, other than Scheduled Castes, not too great a price to pay. Hindu objections to this proposal are strong, because it means on a population basis one Muslim will be regarded as equal to two Hindus, other than Scheduled Castes, also the fear that the British Government may accept the parity concession without
implementing
the
important
provision
that
joint
electorates must be introduced, is not unfounded in the light of past history. Each special concession has, in the past, been made the starting-point for fresh demands. But in the interests of communal harmony, which abolition of separate electorates will bring about, the Committee has ventured on this proposal, but it insists that in its recommendation on parity, the conditions and limitations it has laid down are equally important. Parity, however, is confined to the Lower House of the Union Legislature
and Union Executive, which are the final organs for determining all-India policy; and it is important that such policy should have the substantial backing of the bulk of Hindus and Muslims. The same considerations do not apply to the Provincial Legislatures or Executives, or to the Services, or to other fields of administration. Joint electorates, with reservation of seats, are admittedly a far cry from democracy, but they are a necessary halfway house between separate electorates and general electorates without any limitation even as to candidature. CONCESSION SHOULD NOT EXTEND TO THE SERVICES The Committee considers that it will be unjust and improper to extend the concession of parity to the Services, civil or military. Government Services, like any other service, must be based upon individual merit and fitness. Neither does the Committee think that the Muslims are educationally backward, as they were thirty or forty years back. As regards other communities, the present proportions are considered fair, but they may be revised by future Governments, so as to provide adequate representation for backward communities. The Committee also expresses the view that it will be dangerous to extend the principle of parity to the Defence Services. Maintaining that the Muslims are not a separate nation, the Committee in the chapter on Pakistan or partition of India says that the separate nationhood of Muslims cannot be established on grounds of race, language or culture. If religion alone will have to be the basis of division, then many other communities can also claim separate nationhood. Declaring that self-determination is not an absolute right and can only be applied with due regard to circumstances, the Committee examines the practicabilities of Pakistan in the context of Indian conditions and in the light of Indian opinion. It says : “The position is that the scheme of Pakistan put forward by Mr. Jinnah is not acceptable either to the Hindus of the Punjab and Bengal or to the Sikhs or to
the Congress or to the Hindu Mahasabha. The C. R. Formula has been totally rejected by Mr. Jinnah and has been opposed by the Hindus and Sikhs of the Punjab and Hindus of Bengal. PAKISTAN NOT A PRACTICABLE PROPOSITION “It is thus clear that Pakistan, whether whole, according to Mr. Jinnah’s ideals, or truncated, according to the C. R. Formula, cannot be established without the consent of parties and will meet with the strongest opposition. Arbitration has been ruled out and is out of place when the fate of the entire country is to be decided. The only alternatives for enforcing Pakistan are either British enforcement of it or civil war.” After considering the problems of Defence of the sub-Continent and the position of minorities after division, the report states the Committee’s conclusion that Pakistan “solves no communal problems and only raises fresh ones : that on grounds of Defence, leaving apart other major considerations, the division of the country into two independent States will endanger the safety of both, and that there is no justification for the British Government to support such a revolutionary scheme if they have genuine faith in the unity of India which they themselves have built up and fostered.” The report characterizes Prof. Coupland’s regional scheme as “fantastic, unreal and academic.” Rejecting all schemes of partition and division, the Committee concludes : “We are convinced that the partition of India would be an outrage justified neither by history nor by political expediency. It is incompatible
with
the
greatness,
safety
and
economic
development of the country and will lead either to constant internecine war or perpetual foreign domination. It multiplies and complicates the problem of minorities without solving it and threatens to plunge India back into the dark and dismal days of the 18th century.” The Committee feels certain that political unity can be maintained and
Hindus and Muslims can live together amicably as they have done for a thousand years.” The report proceeds to consider the arrangements to be made by which India will remain united and at the same time, afford the communities sufficient scope for selfdevelopment.
One
of
the
Committee’s
fundamental
recommendations in this regard is the provision by which in the Union Assembly, excluding the seats given to special interests, Muslim representation from British India will be on a par with the representation given to Hindus excluding the Scheduled Castes. The offer of parity is subject to the condition that joint electorates with reservation of seats are introduced throughout, i. e., for all elective bodies in the country and the Committee adds that, should the Muslims not agree to this condition and insist on separate electorates, not only should the offer stand withdrawn, but the Hindus should be free to ask for a revision of the Communal Award. PROVISION FOR ADULT FRANCHISE Another important recommendation is the provision for adult franchise. If political power is to be transferred to an Indian Democracy, so as to prevent its concentration in the hands of a few, the risk of enfranchising the entire adult population should be
taken.
Political
consciousness
among
the
masses
has
awakened to a great extent and the last elections in 1937 were in themselves a great educative force. The average man thinks more and more in terms of politics and, if his judgment is faulty, he is no better or no worse than the average voter in Europe, where franchise has been in existence for some time. Before Pakistan came to occupy the field, Muslim opinion generally seemed to demand that the residuary powers should be lodged with the Provinces, in order that the latter might have the fullest freedom to legislate in matters which were not covered expressly by the provisions enumerating the distribution of powers. Though the
case for a strong Centre is strong, the Committee, as a matter of compromise and for the sake of peace and amity, recommended the vesting of the residuary powers in the Provinces, in accordance with the Muslim view. Mr. P. R. Das and some other members disagree with this recommendation. While the subjects allotted to the Centre are reduced to a minimum, it is provided that the Centre shall have powers to co-ordinate legislation and administration of different units when necessary as well as to ensure the maintenance of the political integrity and economic unity of India as a whole. REPRESENTATION FOR COMMUNITIES The Committee recommends that the constitution should provide for
representation
of
different
communities
in
the
Central
Executive on the basis of their strength in the Legislature. The Cabinet will
be a composite one only in the sense that
communities will be represented on it, but in the interests of harmonious working “the Prime Minister’s choice of his colleagues is not to be fettered”. The Committee looks forward to the choice of members to whatever community they may belong on the basis of their political affiliations. The substitution of joint for separate electorate should, by compelling candidates to seek support from all communities, help the emergence of political parties each of which will contain members of different communities. It is on these considerations that “composite” instead of “coalition” Governments have been envisaged. It is also provided that there should
be
collective
responsibility
to
the
Legislature.
The
Committee prefers the British model, namely that the Prime Minister should choose his colleagues though a suggestion had been made that the Swiss model, under which the Central Legislature in joint session by single transferable vote elects the Cabinet and the Ministers hold office for the duration of the life of the Legislature, was made.
INDIAN STATES AND FEDERATION Dealing with the Indian States, the Committee says that provision should be made in the constitution for the accession from time to time of Indian States as units of a Federation on such terms as may be agreed upon but the establishment of the Indian Union should not be contingent on the accession to the Federation of any Indian State or of any minimum number of Indian States. The Committee, therefore, contemplates that the Union need not be identical with Federation and it may include States which have not formally federated. The Committee say: “Our recommendation is that the new constitution should continue at least the unity that now binds the States and British India, though the bond may not be federal. Federation, we recognize, is a closer and a more intimate and efficient bond and we earnestly hope that in due course and after the fullest consultation and investigation, all the States—a few individually but the great majority organized in groups and sub-federations—will have acceded as federated units of the Union. The inherent difficulties of bringing about such a happy consummation and the experience of negotiations which Lord Linlithgow inaugurated and conducted between 1936 and 1939 do not encourage the hope that these consultations and investigations can be successfully concluded, except with the exercise of infinite patience and after lapse of several years. To hang up the Federal Union of such units as are willing to federate until some States, or a minimum number of States, or the last hesitant State has agreed to accede, would be a policy which is calculated to postpone indefinitely the elimination of foreign rule and the achievement of full self-government. The Committee, therefore, insists that the Union of India should be established without any such waiting and that, while individual States might take their own time to make up their minds as to whether they would accede as federated units, all of them should, from the
outset, be treated as in the Union, united with each other and with the rest of India through paramountcy at the Union Centre.” As regards paramountcy, the report says, “British suzerainty, which is the mainspring of paramountcy jurisdiction today, will have to cease to exist and the new Union Centre, that is, the Federal Cabinet will come to exercise that jurisdiction over the unfederated States.” The Committee hopes that the Rulers of States will not object to this inevitable development. The Committee is also of the view that the Crown Representative as a separate office should disappear and the paramountcy
jurisdiction
now
exercised
by
him
should
be
transferred to the Union Cabinet. It is suggested that the Minister of the Union Cabinet should be in charge of the States affairs, assisted by a reformed Political Department. The Minister should also have a body of Indian Advisers to help him in administering paramountcy jurisdiction over the unfederated States. “HEAD OF STATE” On the question of “Head of the State”, the Committee says : “All parties are agreed that the constitution should be based on Indian independence and, therefore, in law and in fact the indefeasible sovereignty of the people of India from whom alone all powers of legislation
and
administration
should be derive, should
be
recognized. No foreign power should be allowed to exercise any jurisdiction over the Indian Union and therefore the existing practice by which all residuary powers are exercised by the United Kingdom
Parliament
on
the
theory
of
“the
indestructible
sovereignty of the King in Parliament over the land through-out the King’s dominions” will not be acceptable to any school of Indian political opinion. The Head of the State under the new constitution should replace the present chief Executive with his dual role as Viceroy and Crown’s Representative. He will have
such powers as are given to him under the constitution as also such other powers as are now vested in his Majesty the King, including powers connected with the exercise of the functions of the Crown in relation to Indian States. The Head of the State cannot act arbitrarily but only on the advice of the Ministry. His term of office may be for five years and ordinarily one person may not hold if for more than one term. MINORITY RIGHTS Dealing with the rights of the Scheduled Castes and other minorities, the Committee has provided that these communities will in future be accorded by statute a place on the Executive and will share in the responsibilities of administration. They will have adequate voice in framing the constitution with safeguards against hasty changes. They will have likewise the benefit of the fundamental rights with power to have more important ones enforced by the highest tribunal in the country. The Minorities Commission will keep a jealous watch over their welfare and will obtain relief when they are injured. The Committee hopes that with their rights ensured and protected, the minorities will not lose sight of their obligations to the sub-sections which exist in their midst. As regards the Scheduled Castes, the Committee recommends
the
continuation
of
the
method
of
election
prescribed in the Poona Pact. INDIANIZATION OF ARMED FORCES Dealing with the question of Indianization of armed forces the Committee says : “Under any system of real self-government, these must be in the charge of a member of a responsible ministry.
The
disciplinary
head
of
the
armed
forces,
the
Commander-in-Chief, has to work under the orders of the Ministry and, on the Dominion analogy, the supreme command of the armed forces has to be vested in the Head of the State; Indian statute law will make provision for the government of the armed
forces, the application of the British Army Act and any other enactment of a similar nature to the Indian Army being done away with.” The Committee lays great stress on the creation and rapid development of a National Army. SECESSION Dealing with the question of secession, the Committee takes strong exception to the provision contained in the Cripps offer in regard to secession. In the opinion of the Committee such a provision repudiates
amounts the
to
the
constitution.
recognition It
is,
in
of
revolt
essence,
from an
and
extra-
constitutional act and common sense is against the constitution recognizing it as a legal right to be unilaterally exercised at the option of the unit. In the opinion of the Committee, the constitution-making body should proceed on the basis of framing the constitution for a single State as a safe- guard for minorities, it is provided that no decision of the constitution- making body will be valid unless it is supported by three-fourths of the members present and voting. Valid decisions of the Constituent Assembly must be binding on the British Government. The Committee says that a stage has been reached when the British Government can no longer evade responsibility. Therefore they should not allow things to drift and the situation to deteriorate. INTERIM GOVERNMENT In conclusion the Committee makes an earnest appeal to all communities and parties in the country to accept the principles underlying its recommendation. In the event of there being no agreement, the Committee calls upon His Majesty’s Government to set up an interim Government at the Centre and proceed to establish a suitable machinery for framing a new constitution, substantially on the principles enuciated by it and to have it put into operation at the earliest possible date by handing over all the
power
now
vested
in
them
to
the
authorities
establised
thereunder. (CWMG Vol.89, Appendix I, pp 450-57, The Indian Annual Register, 1945, Vol. II, pp. 176-8) ***** V Excerpts from Stern Reckoning, A Survey of the Events Leading Up To and Following the Partition of India by GD Khosla, Oxford Indian Paperbacks, Second Impression, 1999 The meaning and purport of “Direct Action:” were not left in doubt. It meant “good-bye to constitutional methods”, the “forging of a pistol” and using it. Mr. Jinnah declared, “What we have done today is the most historic act in our history. Never have we in the whole history of the League done anything except by constitutional methods and by constitutionalism. But now we are obliged and forced into this position. This day we bid goodbye to constitutional methods”. (Chapter Two, Direct Action Day and after, page 4) Mr. Liaquat Ali Khan told the Associated Press of America that Direct Action meant “resorting to non-constitutional methods, and that can take any form and whatever form may suit the conditions under which we live”. He added, “We cannot eliminate any method. Direct Action means any action against the law”. Sardar Abdul Rab Nishtar was reported to have said that Pakistan could only be achieved by shedding blood and if opportunity arose, the blood of non-Muslims must be shed, for “Muslims are no believers in ahimsa”. Khwaja Nazimuddin (Home Minister in the Muslim
League Bengal Provincial Government) declared that Leaguers were not pledged to non-violence. (Chapter Two, page 43) A great deal of thought and argument went to shape the decision of the League leaders. It was finally decided that Calcutta should be the venue of the opening scene of the dark drama which the whole of India was to witness during the course of the next sixteen months and for this decision there were very good reasons. Bengal, on the other hand, had a powerful League Ministry with Mr. Suhrawardy at its head, and in him the Qaid-i-Azam saw a most efficient instrument for executing his design. The position of Bengal and more particularly of Calcutta was extremely important from the League point of view. Bengal was a Muslim-majority province with a Muslim population of 54.3 percent (1941). “In Calcutta Hindus predominate in numbers, commercial and professional
wealth
and
experience,
and
resources
and
organization; but in the course of events since the re-union of Bengal has made Calcutta the richest prize in what is now a Muslim majority province”. (Note on the Causes of the Calcutta Disturbances, August 1946, published by the Government of Bengal, Home Department in 1946) Mr. Suhrawardy undertook to shape the course of events in Calcutta in a manner calculated to inspire awe in the minds of the non-Muslims and to demonstrate to the world at large the strength and solidarity of the protagonists of Pakistan. As minister in
charge
of
the
portfolio
of
Law
and
Order,
he
made
arrangements for the transfer of Hindu police officers from all key posts. On August 16, twenty-two police stations out of a total of twenty-four were in charge of Muslim officials and the remaining two were controlled by Anglo-Indians. The programme for the fateful day was taken up with feverish activity. A programme was drawn up and this was later elaborated and given the widest publicity in the Muslim Press. The published programme called for total hartal and complete cessation of business on August 16. To this end Mr. Suhrawardy’s government declared August 16 a public holiday throughout the province. The hartal contemplated was to be complete. It was to take the form of a general strike in all spheres of civic, commercial and industrial life. Non-Muslims were also exhorted to join the hartal and make common cause with the League in its fight”. A mass rally and meeting were to be held at the foot of the Ochterlony Monument from 3 p.m. onwards and Mr. Suhrawardy was to preside over it. The Mayor of Calcutta wanted a million Muslims to congregate in the maidan and give evidence of their united strength. The programme reminded the Muslims of what stuff they were made: Muslims must remember that it was in Ramzan that the Quran was revealed. It was in Ramzan that the permission for Jehad was granted by Allah. It was in Ramzan that the battle of Badr, the first open conflict between Islam and heathenism was fought
and won by 313 Muslims; and again it was in Ramzan
that
10,00
under
the
Holy
Prophet
conquered Mecca and established the kingdom of Heaven and the commonwealth of Islam in Arabia. The Muslim League is fortunate that it is starting its action in this holy month. Another leaflet containing a special prayer for the crusade is worth quoting in full – Munajat For The Jehad (To be said at every mosque after the Jumma prayer) It was in the month of Ramzan that the Holy Quran was revealed. It was in this month of Ramzan that 313 Muslims were victorious through the grace of God over many kaffirs in the battle of Badr and the Jehad of Muslims commenced! It was in this month that ten thousand Muslims marched to Mecca and were conquerors and thus was the establishment of the Kingdom of Islam. By the grace of God, we are ten crores in India but through bad luck we have become slaves of the Hindus and the British. We are starting Jehad in Your Name in this very month of Ramzan. We promise before You that we entirely depend on You. Pray make us strong in body and mind – give Your helping hand in all our actions – make us victorious over the kaffirs – enable us to establish the Kingdom of Islam in India and make proper sacrifices for this jehad – by the grace of God may we build up in India the greatest Islamic kingdom in
the
world.
The
Muslims
in
China,
Manchuria,
Mongolia, Malaya, java and Sumatra are all fighting for their freedom – pray be Your grace they may succeed. A Bengali pamphlet “Mugur’ (Club) concluded with a passionate appeal: The call to revolt comes from the Qaid-i-Azam of the Muslim leaders. Braves, this is what we want. This is the policy for the nation of heroes. For so long we have been acting like beggars. We are glad from the core of our hearts to hear this magnificent news. This is what we have been eagerly waiting for. God has granted to the Muslims in the month of Ramzan what they have been clamouring for. The day for an open fight which is the greatest desire of the Muslim nation has arrived. Come, those who want to rise to Heaven. Come, those who are simple, wanting in peace of mind and who are in distress. Those who are thieves, goondas, those without strength of character and those who do not say their prayers – all come. The shining gates of heaven have been opened for you. Let us enter in thousands. Let us all cry out – Victory to Pakistan, Victory to the Muslim nation and Victory to the army which has declared a jehad. A leaflet bearing a picture of Mr. Jinnah with a sword in hand said: The sword of Islam must be shining on the heavens and will subdue all evil designs. We Muslims have had the Crown and have ruled. Do not lose heart. Be
ready
and
take
your
swords.
Think,
you
Muslims, why we are under the kaffirs today. The result of loving the kaffirs is not good. Oh kaffir, do not be proud and happy. Your doom is not far and the general massacre will come. We shall show our glory with swords in hands and will have a special victory. Another leaflet asked Muslims to come into the arena with their swords and change their tactics. “We shall then see who will paly with us, for rivers of blood will flow. We shall have the swords in our hands and the noise of takbir. Tomorrow will be doom’s day”. The following table gives the number of dead bodies collected and disposed (of those that were killed on that one day alone, on 16th August, the Great Calcutta Killing, as it came to be called) – By government organizations – 1182 By Anjuman Modiful Islam – 761 By Hindu Satkar Samiti – 1230 Total – 3173 Comparative figures of persons wounded or killed in the course of the riots are not available. The report of the Surgeon-General based on the admissions to the various hospitals is to the following effect: Hindus – admissions 2322, brought in dead 11, deaths 151 Muslims - admissions 1832, brought in dead 12, deaths 138 Others – admissions 222, brought in dead 11, deaths 62 Unclassified – brought in dead 174, deaths 11 (Excerpts from Chapter two, pp 44-66) *****
Chapter 7 Unraveling the Mahatma 7.1 Why Gandhi failed The circumstance under which Gandhi was killed is a sad commentary on the ultimate failure of both Gandhi’s ‘mahatmahood’ and his political philosophy which stubbornly refused to acknowledge ground reality. Gandhi’s ultimate failure – vivisection of the Hindu bhumi and the pervasive anger of the Hindu community which held him solely responsible for the vivisection, was the inevitable climax caused by three factors – first, his monumental self-delusion till the very end about his brand of non-violence, about the Muslim psyche and about the inherent noble intentions of the imperial government; second, Gandhi’s insistence on not just simultaneously undertaking, but leading the two most urgent and equally taxing missions of nation building through social transformation and political independence; and third, Gandhi’s insistence on continuing with his questionable experiments in brahmacharya and outright refusal to separate and keep apart his personal, inner quest from his public, political career. You are mistaken, Bapa; it is not an experiment but an integral part of my yajna. One may forgo an experiment; one cannot forgo one’s duty. Now if I regard a thing as a part of my yajna — a sacred duty — I may not give it up even if public opinion is wholly against me. I am engaged in achieving selfpurification. The five cardinal observances are the five props of my spiritual striving. Brahmacharya is one of them. But all the five constitute an indivisible whole. They are inter-related and inter-dependent. If one of them is broken, all are broken. That being so, if in practice I resile in regard to brahmacharya to please Mrs. Grundy1, I jettison not only brahmacharya but truth, ahimsa and all the rest. I do not allow myself any divergence between theory and practice in respect of the rest. If then I temporize in the matter of brahmacharya, 1
Mrs. Grundy is the feminine equivalent to ‘Tom, Dick and Harry’
would it not blunt the edge of my brahmacharya and vitiate my practice of truth?2 Vivisection of the Indian nation was the inevitable result of not merely Gandhi’s incapacity to handle politics as practiced by Islam and Christian colonialism but also his insistence that the INC be bound by his personal preferences on all issues. What Gandhi liked or disliked became the Congress creed in his lifetime3 and the Congress ideology after his death in spite of the fact that he was not even a four-anna4 member of the INC as he kept pointing out repeatedly in his writings and speeches. Gandhi even drafted all major and minor resolutions including the one reproduced above on behalf of the Congress Working Committee, insisting that his nonviolence was the only defining characteristic of the INC. Vivisection of the Hindu bhumi became inevitable because of Gandhi’s persistent obduracy in misreading the Muslim psyche and his refusal to organize the nation to resist 2
Discussion with AV Thakkar, February 24, 1947, Mahatma Gandhi — The Last Phase, Vol. I, Bk. II, pp. 224-6, CWMG Vol. 94, page 41 3 After the arrest of the principal Congressmen in the August of 1942, the unguided masses took the reins in their own hands and acted almost spontaneously. If many acts of heroism and sacrifice are to their credit, there were acts done which could not be included in non-violence. It is therefore necessary for the Working Committee to affirm, for the guidance of all concerned, that the policy of non-violence adopted in 1920 by the Congress, continues unabated and that such non-violence does not include burning of public property, cutting of telegraph wires, derailing of trains and intimidation. The Working Committee is of opinion that the policy of non-violence as detailed in the Congress resolution of 1920, since expanded and explained from time to time, and action in accordance with it, has raised India to a height never attained before. The Working Committee is further of opinion that the constructive activities of the Congress, beginning with the spinning-wheel and khadi as the centre, are emblematic of the policy of non-violence and every other Congress activity including what is known as the parliamentary programme, is subservient to and designed to promote the constructive activities as explained by Mahatma Gandhi. (Congress Working Committee resolution, on or before December 11, 1945, The Hindu 12-12-1945. The resolution drafted by Gandhiji was passed by the Congress Working Committee on December 11, the concluding day of its five day session in Calcutta. CWMG, vol. 89, page 25) 4 Indian currency denomination now not in use; six paise made one anna.
vivisection by all and every means. Even at the height of jihad in Bengal after August 1946, Gandhi maintained that Islam meant only peace and that all heinous acts perpetrated against the Hindus in the name of jihad was a disgrace to the noble religion of Islam. In so far as misreading the Muslim psyche, Time, in Gandhi’s mind stood still between 1922 and 1946. Like in 1946, in 1922 too, after the Moplah jihad, Gandhi exculpated Islam on the ground that some Muslims had condemned the barbarity of the attacks against Hindus. To add insult to grievous injury, Gandhi with towering arrogance believed that his very gesture of writing about the massacre in Young India must be as salve for the Malabar Hindu victims. For the rest, Gandhi’s exposition has the usual suggestio falsi arguments descending to reductio ad absurdum. Though the letters on the Moplah trouble and the Mussulman attitude by Messrs Keshav Menon and others have already appeared in the Press, contrary to my wont I publish the two communications for the importance that attaches to them. Possibly the fact of their publication in the pages of Young India will be some balm for the wounds that the Moplah madness has inflicted on the Hindu heart. The writers were entitled to give vent to their pent up feelings. Maulana Hasrat Mohani is one of our most courageous men. He is strong and unbending. He is frank to a fault. In his insensate hatred of the English Government and possibly even of Englishmen in general, he has seen nothing wrong in anything that the Moplahs have done. Everything is fair in love and war with the Maulana. He has made up his mind that the Moplahs have fought for their religion. And that fact (in his estimation) practically absolves the Moplahs from all blame. That is no doubt a travesty of religion and morality. But to do irreligion for the sake of religion is the religious creed of Maulana Hasrat Mohani. I know it has no warrant in Islam. I have talked to several learned Mussulmans. They do not defend Hasrat Mohani’s attitude. I advise my Malabar friends not to mind the Maulana. In spite of his amazingly crude views about
religion, there is no greater nationalist or a greater lover of Hindu-Muslim unity than the Maulana. His heart is sound and superior to his intellect, which, in my humble opinion, has suffered aberration. The Malabar friends are wrong in thinking that the Mussulmans in general have not condemned or have in any way approved of the various crimes committed by the Moplahs. Islam protects even in war women, children and old men from molestation. Islam does not justify jehad except under well-defined conditions. So far as I know the law of Islam, the Moplahs could not, on their own initiative, declare jehad. Maulana Abdul Bari has certainly condemned the Moplah excesses. But what though the Mussulmans did not condemn them? Hindu-Muslim friendship is not a bargain. The very word friendship excludes any such idea. If we have acquired the national habit, the Moplah is every whit a countryman as a Hindu. Hindus may not attach greater weight to Moplah fanaticism than to Hindu fanaticism. If instead of the Moplahs, Hindus had violated Hindu homes in Malabar, against whom would the complaint be lodged? Hindus have to find out a remedy against such occurrences, as much as the Mussulmans. When a Hindu or a Mussulman does evil, it is evil done by an Indian to an Indian, and each one of us must personally share the blame and try to remove the evil. There is no other meaning to unity than this. Nationalism is nothing, if it is not at least this. Nationalism is greater than sectarianism. And in that sense we are Indians first and Hindus, Mussulmans, Parsis, Christians after. Whilst, therefore, we may regret Maulana Hasrat Mohani’s attitude on the Moplah question, we must not blame the Mussulmans as a whole, nor must we blame the Maulana as a Mussulman. We should deplore the fact that one Indian does not see the obvious wrong that our other brethren have done. There is no unity, if we must continuously look at things communally. Critics may say, “All this is
sheer nonsense, because it is so inconsistent with facts. It is visionary.” But my contention is that we shall never achieve solidarity unless new facts are made (emphasis as in source) to suit the principle, instead of performing the impossible feat of changing the principle to suit existing facts. I see nothing impossible in Hindus, as Indians, trying to wean the Moplahs, as Indians, from their error. I see nothing impossible in asking the Hindus to develop courage and strength to die before accepting forced conversion. I was delighted to be told that there were Hindus who did prefer the Moplah hatchet to forced conversion. If these have died without anger or malice, they have died as truest Hindus because they were truest among Indians and men. And thus would these men have died even if their persecutors had been Hindus instead of Mussulmans. Hindu-Muslim unity will be a very cheap and tawdry affair, if it has to depend upon mere reciprocation. Is a husband’s loyalty dependent upon the wife’s, or may a wife be faithless because the husband is a rake? Marriage will be a sordid thing when the partners treat their conduct as a matter of exchange, pure and simple. Unity is like marriage. It is more necessary for a husband to draw closer to his wife when she is about to fall. Then is the time for a double outpouring of love. Even so is it more necessary for a Hindu to love the Moplah and the Mussulman more, when the latter is likely to injure him or has already injured him. Unity to be real must stand the severest strain without breaking. It must be an indissoluble tie. And I hold that what I have put before the country in the foregoing lines is a simple selfish idea. Does a Hindu love his religion and country more than himself? If he does, it follows that he must not quarrel with an ignorant Mussulman who neither knows country nor religion. The process is like that of the world-famed woman who professed to give up her child to her rival instead of dividing it with the
latter—a performance that suited the latter admirably.
would
have
Let us assume (which is not the fact) that the Mussulmans really approve of all that the Moplahs have done. Is the compact, then, to be dissolved? And when it is dissolved, will the Hindus be any better off for the dissolution? Will they revenge themselves upon the Moplahs by getting foreign assistance to destroy them and their fellow Mussulmans, and be content to be for ever slaves? Non-co-operation is a universal doctrine, because it is as applicable to family relations as to any other. It is a process of evolving strength and self-reliance. Both the Hindus and Mussulmans must learn to stand alone and against the whole world, before they become really united. This unity is not to be between weak parties, but between men who are conscious of their strength. It will be an evil day for Mussulmans if, where they are in a minority, they have to depend for the observance of their religion upon Hindu goodwill and vice-versa. Non-cooperation is a process of self-realization. But this self-realization is impossible; if the strong become brutes and tread upon the weak. Then, they must be trodden under by the stronger. Hence, if Hindus and Mussulmans really wish to live as men of religion, they must develop strength from within. They must be both strong and humble. Hindus must find out the causes of Moplah fanaticism. They will find that they are not without blame. They have hitherto not cared for the Moplah. They have either treated him as a serf or dreaded him. They have not treated him as a friend and neighbour, to be reformed and respected. It is no use now becoming angry with the Moplahs or the Mussulmans in general. Whilst Hindus have a right to expect Mussulman aid and sympathy, the problem is essentially one of self-help, i.e., development of strength from within. It would be a sad day for Islam if the defence of the Khilafat was to depend upon Hindu
help. Hindu help is at the disposal of the Mussulmans, because it is the duty of the Hindus, as neighbours, to give it. And whilst Mussulmans accept help so ungrudgingly given, their final reliance is and must be upon God. He is the never-failing and sole Help of the helpless. And so let it be with the Hindus of Malabar.5
7.2 Embers of Hindu disaffection As events of 1946-47 turned out, Gandhi’s passive resistance proved tragic only for the Hindus in August 1946 and again in August 1947, and did not impress the Muslims or the colonial government which therefore never felt coerced or pressured to give in to Gandhi’s demands; and for whose politics moreover, conquest of territory of other nations and the subjugation of people practicing other religions and faiths constituted the primary objective. Both the Muslim community and the British government ultimately demonstrated that their respective political objectives with regard to the Hindu bhumi were not open to compromise or negotiation because of Gandhi’s passive resistance or perceived sainthood. The Muslim League, like the Khilafat Committee in 1922, faithfully represented Muslim interests and was the vehicle for Islam’s political objectives to carve out a Muslim state from the body of the Hindu nation, but Gandhi’s Indian National Congress never consciously represented Hindu interests, as Gandhi’s last and most important political decision, to abort the Cabinet Mission proposals, proves conclusively. This book aims to stoke the embers of the myth of Gandhi’s infallibility and aims also to open the wounds of the Hindu nation as the first step towards dealing with the core issues of nation and nationhood. Gandhi’s political hubris, which wanted to handle not just domestic politics but international politics too (he met with Mussolini in Italy, he addressed an open letter to the British people during the Second World War, he wrote twice to Hitler, he offered to mediate between the Allies 5
Gandhi’s exposition in Young India on the Moplah Massacre, Young India, 26-1-1922, CWMG Vol. 26 pp 24-27
and Hitler, and he wrote a letter to Franklin Roosevelt when he announced the ‘Quit India’ mass Civil Disobedience campaign), wasted his immense capacity to bring about social transformation and change. In the end, he merely dabbled in both and incurred the wrath of both the leaders of the INC and also the entire non-Congress Hindu community. His political activism ended in vivisection leaving behind a legacy of Hindu-Muslim, Hindu-Christian communal tensions, even as successive Congress governments genuflected to political opportunism and trashed his spinning wheel, gave prohibition the goby, neglected agriculture and village industry, and consigned our villages to the margins of political planning and responsibility. There was significant anger and displeasure against Gandhi · for exposing ordinary Hindus to the repressive might of British state power with his satyagraha · for weakening the INC which could not halt the triumphant growth and march of the Muslim League · for occupying all the political space like a Banyan tree without allowing the emergence or growth of alternate leadership within the INC and outside · for promoting and finally anointing, in 1942, the explicitly anti-Hindu and ideologically clueless Nehru as his political heir, · for antagonizing and alienating all Hindu rulers, Maharajas and Princes · for his insensitive experiments with women till the very end of his life and · For the most heinous crime of all – the bloody vivisection of the Hindu nation. The disaffection of very large sections of Hindus with Gandhi must be seen in the context of his persistent antiHindu coercive policies and methods which were perceived initially, in the early years of his political career in India after his return from South Africa · as pandering to Muslim religious sensibilities when he flirted with the Ali brothers and compelled the INC to take up the cause of the distant caliphate to please them; · as having caused the unchallenged growth of the Muslim League when he failed to neutralize Jinnah as effectively as he neutralized our own leaders Ambedkar and Bose; · And in the very end as appeasement of the Islamic state of Pakistan when he coerced Patel to release treasury funds to Pakistan in spite of the fact that
Pakistan had invaded the state of Jammu and Kashmir and had illegally occupied nearly one-third of Indian territory Indeed, consistent with Gandhi’s fads becoming the Congress creed, “serving the Muslims” has metamorphosed into a hard-core Muslim appeasement political ideology that goes by the name of Nehruvian secularism today. Hinduism’s venerable religious leaders, sanyasis and great acharyas, for as long as Islam occupied this nation, in stark contrast to Gandhi, never sought Hindu-Muslim unity; in fact, from the total absence of any reference to the Muslims and Christians in their speech and writing it is evident that these faiths and their adherents existed only on their civilizational horizon; and in their infinite wisdom they left it to Hindu society to deal with them through social institutions and through the instruments of their polity. The most serious charge that this book seeks to place at Gandhi’s door, besides politically de-Hinduising and unmanning the Congress is that he failed to carry along with him significant sections of the Hindu samaj; he did not even try. Gandhi’s adamant refusal to forge partnerships with different social groups and power centers in the Hindu community may be attributed in turn to Gandhi’s failure to define and therefore distinguish between ‘us’ and ‘them’, a necessary exercise to define the basis of our nation and nationhood, and his failure to grasp the centrality of territory to the health and very survival of a nation. For a man consumed by the towering ambition to handle politics and decide the destiny of a nation, Gandhi failed or refused to understand the core politico-religious objective of Islam or the underlying cause for White Christian colonialism – claiming territory without subscribing to the nationhood. Gandhi insisted that he had read the Koran and understood it better than most Indian converts to Islam and that he could state confidently that Islam meant only peace; this causes grave misgivings about Gandhi’s understanding because even a cursory reading of the Koran would have revealed that it leads inexorably only towards two ends – control of state power over the whole of the territory of non-Muslims, failing which breaking up a nation and seizing its territory to carve out an Islamic state. Gandhi ought to have learnt this lesson from the history of this bhumi or at least after the Moplah jihad but that he did not do so indicates that he did not have a sense of ‘us’ and
‘them’ and therefore did not have a sense of Hindu nation and nationhood. 7.3 Gandhi’s anti-Hindu coercion and its legacy Till the very end, until his death, only the INC felt the pressure of Gandhi’s coercive methods and only Hindus of this nation paid the price. The nation has to confront and acknowledge the truth that coercion of the kind Gandhi practiced is also violence. Gandhi’s passive resistance and penitential fasts undertaken to emphasize a ‘moral’ principle or for what Gandhi termed were ‘moral lapses’ of others, or the fasts that he undertook to attain political objectives (like the fast he undertook against the ruler of Rajkot, or the one he threatened to undertake in Bihar in 1946- 47 if the Hindus of Bihar did not stop the retaliatory violence against the Muslims or the last fast before his death against Patel’s decision not to release treasury funds to Pakistan), were acts of covert violence in the guise of self-suffering akin to self-flagellation, aimed however only at disarming the Hindu community. And since I claim to have better appreciation than you seem to have shown of what Bihari Hindus should do, I cannot rest till I have done some measure of penance. Predominantly for reasons of health, I had put myself on the lowest diet possible soon after my reaching Calcutta. That diet now continues as a penance after the knowledge of the Bihar tragedy. The low diet will become a fast unto death, if the erring Biharis have not turned over a new leaf. There is no danger of Bihar mistaking my act for anything other than pure penance as a matter of sacred duty.6 Not surprisingly, his threatened fast did not go down well either with Patel, Rajendra Prasad and Rajaji or with the Hindus of Bihar who saw his threat as being coercive of the Hindu community. “No friend should run to me for assistance or to show sympathy. I am surrounded by loving friends. It would be wholly wrong and irrelevant for any other person to copy me. No sympathetic fast or semifast is called for”, declared Gandhi in the same letter. But far from rushing to his assistance or undertaking even a 6
To Bihar, Sodepur, November 6, 1946, Harijan, 10-11-1946, CWMG, Vol. 92, page 452
semi-fast, the stalwarts who constituted the core group in the INC, had been opposed even to Gandhi’s tour of Bengal. They did not want to run the risk of Gandhi’s tour of riot-torn Bengal being perceived by the Muslim League government as Congress pressure tactics for fear that the League government (which unlike the Congress government in Bihar was actively encouraging Muslim violence, rape and forced conversions), would most likely re-double its support for even greater violence against the Bengal Hindus. Muslims constituted 14% then of Bihar’s total population and that was no ‘very small minority” as Gandhi opined, and his fear that the retaliatory violence by Bihar Hindus against the Muslims of the province would “sour” the Muslims in the rest of India has been Indian polity’s intellectual refrain till today to exert pressure on Hindus and stopping them by use of state force if necessary, from responding effectively to continuing Muslim violence and separatism. Two telegrams from Patna reprove me on my “threatened” fast. “Threatened” is the word used in one of the wires. My proposed fast is not meant to coerce anyone; it is meant to quicken the dead conscience into life. Those who act from fear harm themselves and the cause they profess to serve. Surely, it is as plain as A. B. C. that the action of the Biharis in injuring the very small minority of Muslims in Bihar must postpone the day of India’s independence and ultimately sour Muslims all over India unless Bihar repents her folly of senseless and cowardly violence. Rashtrapati Acharya Kripalani, whom every Bihari knows for his sterling services, Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru, Dr. Rajendra Prasad and now Maulana Abul Kalam Azad and Shri Jayaprakash Narayan are now in Bihar and expect to show fair Bihar that their terrible ill-treatment of the Muslims is communalism of the worst type and is calculated to defeat the growing nationalism of Bihar. I, therefore, warn everyone from abusing my contemplated fast which is in no way intended to deflect
anyone from what he believes is the course of duty for him.7 The ‘grouping’ clause in the Cabinet Mission’s Statement of May16 alone could have averted, at that point in our history, the Muslim League’s unchallenged march towards carving out an Islamic state from the body of the Hindu nation; going along with the Cabinet Mission would not only have made it difficult for the British government to implement its covert agenda but would have simultaneously prevented the blood-letting in Bengal, Bihar and the Punjab. And yet, Gandhi inexplicably, remained adamant about rejecting the grouping clause and his refusal to allow the Congress to go ahead with the formation of the Interim Government and subsequently advising them to reject the Constituent Assembly too on the basis of the original Statement, as described in the earlier chapter, led inexorably to Direct Action and finally to bloody vivisection. Had Gandhi not de-Hinduised and un-manned the Congress, the Congress would have gone along with the grouping clause with the determination to neutralize it with violence if need be, after transfer of power. But Gandhi was no Kautilya and with no sense of vairajya, Gandhi prescribed Islamic rule over the Hindu nation rather than stopping the Muslim League from vivisecting the nation. The greatest coercion is British coercion. And the Congress is impatient to get out of that coercion. My hope in desiring a Constituent Assembly is that whether the Muslims are represented by the Muslim League mentality or any other, the representatives when they are face to face with the reality will not think of cutting up India according to religions but will regard India as an indivisible whole and discover a national, i.e. Indian solution of even specially Muslim questions. But if the hope is frustrated, the Congress cannot forcibly resist the express will of the Muslims of India. Needless to say the Congress can never seek the assistance of British forces to resist the vivisection. It is the Muslims who will impose their will by force singly or with 7
Statement to the press, Chaumuhani, November 9, 1946, The Hindu 1111-1946, CWMG, Vol. 93, page 16
British assistance on an unresisting India. If I can carry the Congress with me, I would not put the Muslims to the trouble of using force. I would be ruled by them for it would still be Indian rule. In other words, the Congress will have only a non-violent approach to every question and difficulty arising.8 However, given the utter weakness of the Congress vis a vis the Muslim League’s avowal of violence to attain its political objectives, Gandhi depicted the grouping clause as a threat for greater concern than the de-Hinduising and un-manning of the Congress. He therefore used the grouping clause to abort the Cabinet Mission, a move that led to Jinnah’s call for Direct Action. 7.4 How Gandhi dealt with jihad; And its victims The manner in which Gandhi, the INC and the ordinary people dealt with the consequences of the League’s call for Direct Action has salutary lessons for Hindus today. When Gandhi aborted the Cabinet Mission and Jinnah saw the prospects of achieving Pakistan without blood-letting through the agency of the Cabinet Mission proposals fading away, he called for Direct Action on August 16, 1946. The call for Direct Action by the Muslim League was nothing less than open incitement to Muslims to let loose violence against the Hindus. It is estimated that around five thousand Hindus were killed in Calcutta alone on that single day. What followed was organized jihad in the cause of setting up an Islamic state in the land of the kaffirs and the 1946 jihad by Indian Muslims against the Hindus of India included abduction and rape of Hindu women, forcible conversion to Islam, terrorizing Hindu victims to eat beef, destruction of temples, vandalizing Hindu homes, and driving away Hindus from their villages. This was jihad, the Muslim League announced it was jihad and Gandhi knew it was jihad. Yet, Gandhi did not rush to Bengal. He remained in Delhi like a mill-stone around the Congress neck, obstructing, at every step, the Working Committee, in its negotiations with the Viceroy and the Muslim League. So strong was his desire to play politics in 8
Question Box, Ramgarh, MARCH 17, 1940 Harijan, 23-3-1940, CWMG Vol. 78 page 66
Delhi that Gandhi brushed aside pointed questions about why he was not going to Bengal with the answer that much as he wanted to, he could not do so until he heard the inner voice. In the course of the talk, one of them asked Gandhiji whether he would recommend fasting to check the orgy of communal madness that was spreading in Bengal. Gandhiji’s reply was in the negative. He narrated how a valuable colleague from Ahmedabad had invited him to immolate himself. “We believe in the nonviolent way but lack the strength. Your example would steady our wavering faith and fortify us.” The logic was perfect and the temptation great. But I resisted it and said no. There is no inner call. When it comes, nothing will keep me back. I have reasoned with myself too about it. But I need not set forth my reasons. Let people call me a coward if they please. I have faith that when the hour arrives God will give me the strength to face it and I won’t be found unready. Fasting cannot be undertaken mechanically. It is a powerful thing but a dangerous thing if handled amateurishly. It requires complete self-purification, much more than is required in facing death without a thought of retaliation.9 Gandhi stayed on in Delhi and confined himself to offering unrealistic prescriptions – I can never subscribe to the view that because certain members of a particular community have indulged in inhuman acts, therefore the whole community may be condemned outright and put beyond the pale. The Muslim League may call Hindus names and declare India to be Dar-ul-Harb, where the law of jehad operates and all Muslims who co-operate with the Congress are Quislings fit only to be exterminated. But we must not cease to aspire, in spite of this wild talk, to befriend all Mussalmans and 9
Discussion with co-workers, On or before October 18, 1946, Harijan, 210-1946, CWMG, Vol. 92, page 345
hold them fast as prisoners of our love. It would be a present possibility if Hindus in their lakhs offered themselves to be cut to pieces without retaliation or anger in their hearts. The Muslim Leaguers have today raised the slogan that ten crores of Indian Muslims are in danger of being submerged and swept out of existence unless they constitute themselves into a separate State. I call that slogan scare-mongering pure and simple. It is nonsense to say that any people can permanently crush or swamp out of existence one fourth of its population, which the Mussalmans are in India. But I would have no hesitation in conceding the demand of Pakistan if I could be convinced of its righteousness or that it is good for Islam. But I am firmly convinced that the Pakistan demand as put forth by the Muslim League is un-Islamic and I have not hesitated to call it sinful. Islam stands for the unity and brotherhood of mankind, not for disrupting the oneness of the human family. Therefore, those who want to divide India into possibly warring groups are enemies alike of India and Islam.10 Gandhi was fiddling with politics even as Bengal burned and even as the Muslim League government in Bengal presided benignly over the raging jihad against the Hindus. Gandhi left for Bengal only at the very end of October. A full two and a half months had elapsed since the fateful day in August; and the destruction of Hindu lives implemented with the total support of Bengal’s Muslim League government, was complete and irreversible. When Gandhi arrived in Bengal, the fire of jihad had burned itself out completely and Gandhi tested the infallibility of his non-violence only on its dying embers. Between November 1946 and March 1947, Gandhi visited 10
Answers to questions, New Delhi, On or after September 23, 1946, Harijan, 1011-1946, Extracted from Pyarelal’s report under the title “Some Posers”. The questions were asked by the Presidents and Secretaries of various Provincial Congress Committees who had assembled in Delhi for the A. I. C. C. session held on September 23 and 24. CWMG Vol. 92 pp 226-230
forty villages in Noakhali and seven in Tipperah, covering a distance of 116 miles, sometimes on foot. He put himself on a ‘low diet’ because he knew that not only would the Muslim League government and the Muslims of Bengal be unimpressed with a fast-unto-death, but also that his fast would not reverse anything that had happened to the Hindus. Gandhi’s fast could not have turned the clock back – those that had been killed would not return, victims of rape remained victims of rape, abducted women were not released, those forcibly converted to Islam were not allowed to re-convert, and the terror-struck Hindus who fled for their lives from East Bengal - from Noakhali and Tipperah, never returned to their homes and villages again. Acts of jihad are irreversible and when Muslims undertake jihad against Hindus, they do a thorough job of it. Gandhi therefore did not even try peddling non-violence to them and needless to say, he did not undertake one of his penitential fasts to atone for the moral lapse of the Muslims. So why did Gandhi go to Bengal? “But today he was not going to East Bengal as a Congressman. He was going there as a servant of God. If he could wipe away the tears of outraged women, he would be more than satisfied.”11 After wiping away their tears, he berated the Hindus for their “cowardice”, and advised the women to commit suicide rather than submit to rape and forcible conversions. Gandhiji advised the women in East Bengal to commit suicide by poison or some other means to avoid dishonour. Yesterday he told the women to suffocate themselves or to bite their tongues to end their lives. But two doctors, B. C. Roy of Calcutta and Sushila Nayyar, had informed him that such means of suicide were impossible. The only way known to medicine for instant selfimmolation was a strong dose of poison. If this was so, he, the speaker, would advise everyone running the risk of dishonour to take poison before submission to dishonour. He had, however, heard from those given to yogic practices that it was possible by some yogic practice to end life. He would try to 11
Speech at Kushtia, November 6, 1946, The Bombay Chronicle, 7-111946, CWMG, Vol. 92, page 455
inquire. His was not an idle idea. He meant all he had said.12 The tragedy is not that so many Muslims have gone mad, but that so many Hindus in East Bengal have been witnesses to these things. If every Hindu in East Bengal had been done to death, I would not have minded it. Do you know what the Rajputs did? They killed their womenfolk when they issued forth to sacrifice themselves on the battlefield. The surviving ones immolated themselves by mounting the funeral pyre before the fortress fell rather than allow themselves to be captured and dishonoured. There is nothing courageous in thousands of Mussalmans killing out a handful of Hindus in their midst, but that the Hindus should have degraded themselves by such cowardice, i.e., being witness to abduction and rape, forcible conversion and forcible marriage of their womenfolk, is heartrending.13 Notwithstanding the fact that what Gandhi was seeing in Bengal was naked jihad, he told the Hindus of Bengal not to retaliate by picking up arms against the Muslims because the Muslims had assured Gandhi that they wanted peace and also that Islam did not permit abduction of women or forcible conversion; the inference being that if some Muslim League politician told Gandhi something to get him out of Bengal, Gandhi expected the Hindus of Bengal to trust the Muslim League or else trust Gandhi’s faith in the Muslim League and his interpretation of Islam. The Hindus, said Gandhiji, might say: did not the Muslims start the troubles? He wanted them not to succumb to the temptation for retort but to think of their own duty and say firmly that whatever happened they would not fight. He wanted to tell them that the Muslims who were with 12
Speech at a prayer meeting, New Delhi October 18, 1946, The Hindusthan Times, 19-10-1946, CWMG Vol. 92, page 355 13 Talk to relief workers, Harijan, 8-12-1946; and Mahatma Gandhi—The Last Phase, Vol. I, Book II, pp. 20-1, CWMG, Vol. 93, page 11
him in the course of the day had assured him that they wanted peace.14 I have heard nothing but condemnation of these acts from Shaheed Suhrawardy downwards since I have come here. Words of condemnation may tickle your ears, but they are no consolation to the unfortunate women whose houses have been laid desolate or who have been abducted, forcibly converted and forcibly married. What a shame for Hindus, what a disgrace for Islam!15 He had heard of forcible conversions, forcible feeding of beef, abductions and forcible marriages, not to talk about murders, arson and loot. They had broken idols. The Muslims did not worship them nor did he. But why should they interfere with those who wished to worship them? These incidents are a blot on the name of Islam. He said: I have studied the Koran. The very word Islam means peace. The Muslim greeting ‘Salam Alaikum’ is the same for all, whether Hindus or Muslims or any other. Nowhere does Islam allow such things as had happened in Noakhali and Tippera. Shaheed Saheb and all the Ministers and League leaders who met me in Calcutta have condemned such acts unequivocally.16 “Nowhere does Islam allow such things as had happened in Noakhali and Tippera”, said Gandhi and yet, in the same breath he cites the example of the Rajputs and their women who preferred death to dishonour. But Gandhi ought to have known that the Rajputs and their women opted for death only as a last resort after fighting the jihadis till the very end; they opted for death only as helpless and defeated victims of jihad, not because they refused to pick up arms and not because they were cowards. The history of the expansion of Islam and Christianity across the
14
Speech at prayer meeting, Sodepur, November 5, 1946, harijan, 17-11-1946, CWMG, Vol. 92, page 450 15 Talk to relief workers, Chandpur, November 7, 1946, Harijan, 1-12-1946, CWMG Vol. 93, page 1 16
Speech at prayer meeting, Chaumuhani, November 7, 1946, Harijan 2411-1946, CWMG, Vol. 93, page 10. Idea by idea Gandhi’s exposition in 1946 is identical to his exposition in 1942 as shown earlier in the chapter.
globe is the story only about the annihilation of entire cultures, civilizations and religions and yet Gandhi asks the Hindus of Bengal to trust his faith in the nobility of Islam and the sincerity of the Muslim League government and not to pick up arms! On the one hand Gandhi asked Hindus to commit suicide and on the other he pleaded with the Muslims to protect the Hindus, but he pleaded in vain; he walked for communal harmony, to get Hindus and Muslims of Bengal “to live as blood brothers” as he put it, but he walked in vain. For dramatic effect, he repeatedly kept the possibility of his death as the ultimate sacrifice in the public domain but if truth be told, no sacrifice of the kind he talked about was made; he did not choose to die. Instead Hindus died as victims of relentless jihad while Gandhi preferred death of Hindus by the thousands rather than that they should seek revenge by use of arms. He had nothing but empty prescriptions to give the Hindus of Bengal – I know the women of Bengal better than probably the Bengalis do. Today they feel crushed and helpless. The sacrifice of myself and my companions would at least teach them the art of dying with self-respect. It might open, too, the eyes of the oppressors and melt their hearts. I do not say that the moment my eyes are closed theirs will open. But that will be the ultimate result I have not the slightest doubt. If ahimsa disappears, Hindu Dharma disappears.17 Question: How can we create a sense of security and self-confidence? Gandhiji: By learning to die bravely. Let us turn our wrath against ourselves. I am not interested in getting the police substituted by the military or the Muslim police by the Hindu police. They are broken reeds. Q: To whom should we appeal—the Congress, the League or the British Government? Gandhiji: To none of these. Appeal to yourselves, therefore to God. We are men—made of flesh and blood. We need some material support. Gandhiji: Then appeal to your own flesh and blood. Purify it of all dross. 17
Discussion with co-workers, Dattapara, November 13, 1946, Harijan, 24-11-1946, CWMG Vol. 93, page 25
A woman worker: What is your idea of rehabilitation? Gandhiji: Not to send them to Assam and West Bengal but to infuse courage in them so that they are not afraid to stay in their original homes. Q: How is that possible? Gandhiji: You must stay in their midst and say to them: ‘We shall die to the last person before a hair of your head is injured.’ Then you will produce heroines in East Bengal. That was once our idea too. Gandhiji: I do not mind if each and every one of the 500 families in your area is done to death. Here you are 20 per cent of the population. In Bihar, the Muslims constitute only 14 per cent.18 As Gandhi walked from village to village, wiping tears, he came upon a family that had lost nine of its members. Gandhi had only more empty words of fatalism to offer to the grief-stricken family. My heart weeps not to man but to God. I have not come here to make people weep. Gandhiji said that man could do nothing but surrender himself completely to the will of God, as everything happens by His will. Great empires had crumbled down. Hitler had desired to conquer the world. What had become of him? People here, as elsewhere, sometimes went mad, but on that account there should be no illwill between Hindus and Muslims, because they were brothers. Gandhiji visited a ruined house during his walk from Amishapara to Satgharia. The inmates of the house told him that they had nothing to offer him except
18
Talk to relief workers, Chaumuhani, On or after November 7, 1946, Harijan, 812-1946; and Mahatma Gandhi—The Last Phase, Vol. I, Book II, pp. 20-1, CWMG, Vol. 93, pp 11-12
ashes, for they had lost nine members of the family in the riots.19 Gandhi was forced to defend his non-violence when he realized that contrary to his decades-long propaganda that non-violence could be practiced by all even under the most trying circumstances, it was being proved in Bengal that his non-violence was only for individuals, not for groups, much less for an entire community or a nation.20 Gandhi also was forced to acknowledge that he was failing personally, his ahimsa was not working in Bengal, was not working in a situation of communal riots triggered, instigated and fanned by jihad. For as long as Gandhi had preached non-violence to the Hindus of India, he had never tested it on the crucible of jihad and the Hindu response to it. Truth and ahimsa by which I swear, and which have, to my knowledge, sustained me for sixty years, seem to fail to show the attributes I have ascribed to them. To test them, or better, to test myself, I am going to a village called Srirampur21 Gandhiji was next asked regarding the report that he found himself in darkness, and why and when the darkness came over him and whether he saw any release from it. Gandhiji said: I am afraid the report is substantial. Outside circumstances have never overwhelmed me. The reason for the present darkness lies within me. I find that my ahimsa does not seem to answer in the matter of 19
Talk with riot victims, February 2, 1946, The Hindu, 32-1947, Vol. 93, page 358 20
Non-violence is not meant to be practiced by the individual only. It can be and has to be practiced by society as a whole. I have come to test that for myself in Noakhali. Has my ahimsa become bankrupt? If I fail here, it won’t be any proof that the theory is wrong. It will simply mean that my sadhana has been imperfect, that there is some fault somewhere in my technique. (Discussion with SC Bose and others, Srirampur, November 24, 1946, Harijan, 12-1-1947; and Mahatma Gandhi—The Last Phase, Vol. I, Book II, pp. 48-50, CWMG, Vol. 93, page 63. 21
Statement to the press, November 20, 1946, Harijan, 1-12-1946, CWMG, Vol. 93, page 47
Hindu-Muslim relations. This struck me forcibly when I came to learn of the events in Noakhali. The reported forcible conversions and the distress of the Bengali sisters touched me deeply. I could do nothing through pen or speech. I argued to myself that I must be on the scene of action and test the soundness of the doctrine which has sustained me and made life worth living. Was it the weapon of the weak as it was often held by my critics or was it truly the weapon of the strong? The question arose in me when I had no ready-made solution for the distemper of which Noakhali was such a glaring symptom. And so setting aside all my activities, I hastened to Noakhali to find out where I stood. I know positively that ahimsa is a perfect instrument. If it did not answer in my hands, the imperfection was in me. My technique was at fault. I could not discover the error from a distance. Hence I came here trying to make the discovery. I must, therefore, own myself in darkness till I see light. God only knows when it will come.22 Gandhiji lastly said that today he was seeking for a non-violent solution for his own sake alone. For the time being, he had given up searching for a nonviolent remedy applicable to the masses. He had yet to see if nonviolence would prove successful in the present crisis or not.23 7.5 Gandhi’s preoccupation with brahmacharya eroded his moral authority Gandhi was in the throes of a deep, personal crisis; he was compelled to confront the bitter truth that his moral 22
Interview to the press, Srirampur, December 2, 1946, Harijan, 19-11947, CWMG Vol. 93, page 92 23 Interview to Deobhankar, December 9, 1946, My Days with Gandhi, pp. 102-4, CWMG, Vol. 93, page 125
authority was eroding within the INC and with a very large segment of the Hindu community. Gandhi privately agonized that he was failing, that his ahimsa was failing at the time of crisis and also that he could not emerge from the darkness that had engulfed him. But Gandhi’s agony and despair that he was failing was not known to the outside world; no one except his close associates knew that Gandhi was going through the worst crisis of his life. Certainly the world media which kept close to his heels did not suspect it. “And so setting aside all my activities, I hastened to Noakhali” said Gandhi to the press but we know that Gandhi was taking habitual liberties with the truth. He had not “hastened” to Noakhali as we know and ‘he had not set aside all activities”. When for the first time since Gandhi’s writ had come to be accepted as final in the INC, the Working Committee overruled his objections to first consent to entering the Constituent Assembly and then forming the Interim Government too, Gandhi realized his authority was beginning to wear thin. His friends of several years’ standing had begun to distance themselves from him; he decided to go to Bengal nearly three months after the riots started only because he had to do something to regain the moral high ground which alone gave him overriding powers in politics. Gandhi termed his activities in Bengal a yagna and in a letter to GD Birla he says his yagna rested on five pillars, three of which were satya, ahimsa and brahmacharya. Considering Gandhi chose to give his words and actions the fig-leaf of dharmic principles, Gandhi’s yagna and its ultimate failure will be judged only from the Hindu perspective. The objective of this book is to analyze the causes for the political disempowerment of Hindus; one important cause is the failure to link the country’s freedom movement after the advent of Gandhi to the basis of its nationhood. Since Gandhi sought cover in profound Hindu concepts, we will go on to show a little later in this chapter how Gandhi had a peculiar understanding even of Hinduism. Therefore we cannot avoid touching upon Gandhi’s experiments with women to test his brahmacharya because, as he himself confessed to AV Thakkar, all the five pillars of his yagna were closely interlinked and he could not give up or even modify any of the pillars. We will touch upon his experiments only to the extent of demonstrating the effect his experiments in brahmacharya had on the women he chose for his experiments, on the other inmates of his
ashram, on his close associates and colleagues, and on the important leaders of the INC, which affected his own mind, which in turn affected not only the yagna itself but also its end result.24 The yagna failed, the Hindu bhumi lost territory and Hindus were politically disempowered. A yagna is performed by an individual, a family, a community, a village, a desha or the king as a high religious act to seek the blessings of the Gods before embarking on a mission or to achieve something in the larger interest. A yagna is therefore the first step in undertaking a great social and national responsibility. The yagna is performed on behalf of the individual or the group only by vaidikas who not only have the requisite rigorous training and perfect discipline of the mind and body to perform this taxing vedic ritual but also purity of mind and purpose. It cannot be stressed enough that not only must the vaidika be pure of mind but the purpose for which the yagna is being performed must be rooted in dharma. If the objective of the yagna is not dharmic or if there is no purity of the mind, needless to say, the Gods will not bless the endeavour and the ‘yagna’ is destined to fail. Hindu ithihasa is replete with examples of such failed yagnas. From around May 1946, Gandhi was physically and mentally preoccupied at least with three extremely important missions – to steer the freedom movement in its last phase through the Cabinet Mission proposals towards political freedom; to bring together Hindus and Muslims to live together as “blood brothers” after the orgy of jihadi terror in Bengal and retaliatory attacks in Bihar; and his own personal inner quest to attain brahmacharya. Gandhi was the unchallenged leader of the INC and because he kept insisting his work was yagna, we have to conclude he was the vaidika performing the yagna for the people of this country, for the greater good of this country. Gandhi in 1946-47 was one man with three missions; of these only two may be termed to be in the larger interest while the third mission was a personal journey - his inner quest to attain brahmacharya.
24
Gandhi’s correspondence with several persons on the issue of his experiments is not reproduced in the text of the book to avoid needless distraction from the main theme. But some of his letters on brahmacharya have been reproduced as foot-notes and end of chapter appendix
Even one of these missions would have been the work of an entire lifetime; but Gandhi had undertaken three missions simultaneously. The fact that even towards the end of his long life, in 1946, Gandhi was sleeping unclothed with women young enough to be his daughters and grand-daughters, who were also forced to participate in the experiment unclothed, can only mean that although Gandhi announced with much fanfare in South Africa that he had taken the vow of continence for life, he was not sure he had transcended his impulses or that he had brought his senses under control. Gandhi admitted that he had been experimenting with his brahmacharya for several years, even decades. Had Gandhi been just a private person, he would have been held immediately accountable to his family, his community and to the society in which he lived. But being a public person with an iconic status, very few people outside the immediate circle of the closed commune which he ruled with an iron fist, knew of his peccadilloes. We have to bear in mind that this was just the beginning of the twentieth century; women were confined to their homes and to the kitchen even in their homes. Adherence to social norms was strict and mandatory even for men; demands on the woman to conform would have been that much more exacting. It was in such extremely conservative times that Gandhi was using women for his experiments. Needless to say, had the country known of his experiments and the names of women who had been forced to participate in these experiments, the ordinary people of India, whom Gandhi mobilized in the thousands and lakhs for his prayer meetings, would have steered clear of him; the women of course would have been destroyed completely. The first warning signs of the grave disquiet in Gandhi’s communes and ashrams, had people read the signs correctly, was the death of both Mahadev Desai and Kasturba in the Aga Khan Palace in 1942. Mahadev Desai died within 10 days of Gandhi’s arrest and incarceration in the Aga Khan palace in August 1942 while Ba seems to have simply wasted away. Neither of them had suffered from any terminal illness. Desai, a man of great learning and refinement, it is obvious sought relief from his great unhappiness in working himself to exhaustion leading ultimately to death while the same intense unhappiness seems to have eaten into Ba until she became bedridden and finally died in 1944.
We gather from Gandhi’s own writings that Kanchan Shah, one of the inmates of the ashram and a married woman, suffered a complete mental and physical breakdown and had to be nursed back to a semblance of health by Dr. Sushila Nayyar. Despite Gandhi’s strenuous efforts to separate Kanchan Shah from her husband Munnalal Shah, with diabolic arguments separately to both about how the other has no desire for conjugal life, they do get back together and even have a child within a year of living together as man and wife. Terribly disappointed with them both for deciding to live ordinary and normal married lives, Gandhi was not above taunting them both for their ‘fall’. Dr. Sushila Nayyar, Amtussalam and Manu Gandhi are the other women Gandhi used in his experiments in 1946 and 1947. When Gandhi decided to go to Bengal under the pretext of using his ahimsa to quell the riots, Sushila Nayyar, her brother Pyarelal who was also Gandhi’s private secretary and stenographer, and Amtussalam, all go to Bengal with him. Gandhi had already summoned his grand-niece Manu Gandhi to Bengal to continue with his experiments and with foresight he dispatched Pyarelal (who wanted to marry Manu Gandhi) and the desperately unhappy Sushila Nayyar and Amtussalam to different villages. When Amritlal Thakkar (Bapa), GD Birla and Acharya Vinobha Bhave confront Gandhi over his questionable experiments and ask him to stop the practice, Gandhi declares grandly that his satya, ahimsa and brahmacharya are linked to each other and he could not be expected to stop practicing one while practicing the others. One perverse dimension of Gandhi’s satya was to ‘confess’ in his writings or through his speeches, to his experiments with women and the names of the women who consented to sleep with him! Incensed over Gandhi’s insensitivity in exposing the women to public opprobrium, Pyarelal demanded of Gandhi that he henceforth stop speaking or writing about his sister Dr. Sushila Nayyar and Manu Gandhi. On two earlier occasions Gandhi had similarly publicly humiliated Kasturba; once accusing her of stealing money (Ba had kept back with her four rupees from some money that had been handed over to her at the ashram); Gandhi levels the utterly abnormal and disproportionate accusation of ‘stealing’ because Ba’s action violated Gandhi’s adherence to ‘non-possession’ and such was Gandhi’s paranoiac observance of what he considered was ‘truth’ that he termed Kasturba keeping four rupees with her as ‘stealing’. On the second instance Gandhi publicly
upbraided her for entering the Puri Jagannath mandir for worship. Gandhi humiliates Ba in a speech to the Gandhi Seva Sangh meeting in the presence of Jamnalal Bajaj, Kishorelal Mashruwala, JB Kriplani and other workers; and in typical Gandhi ploy to win support for his manic insistence on total obedience to his fetishes, Gandhi dramatizes his pain at Ba’s ‘fall from grace’ feigning fragile health. Yesterday I had decided to remain silent on what I am now going to say. But I changed my mind this morning. I am glad that Mahadev has told you something about what has happened, and now that he has said something I feel like speaking out all that is in me. The various items of constructive activity that you are doing are only outward expressions of truth and ahimsa. They only reveal how far they can carry you on the road of ahimsa and truth, and ultimately to freedom. The removal of untouchability is one of the highest expressions of ahimsa. It is my daily prayer, as it should be the prayer of you all that if untouchability does not perish it were far better that Hinduism perished. This prayer found its most poignant expression during my Harijan tour of which the principal objective was the opening of the temples to Harijans. They tell me that the untouchables do not wish to enter the temples. Even if this is true, the reason behind this is that we have made such monsters of them that they no longer have any need for temples. Even if they do not care to go into the temples it should be our concern to permit their entry. And I have declared day in and day out that whoever believed in the removal of untouchability should shun temples which were not open to Harijans. Now, how could I bear the thought of my wife or my daughters having gone to such temples? I would plead with them, would go on bended knees to dissuade them from going to these temples, and might have to deny myself personal ties with them if my entreaties failed. I have tried to live up to this principle all these years, and I felt humbled and humiliated when I knew that my wife
and two ashram inmates whom I regard as my daughters had gone into the Puri temple. The agony was enough to precipitate a collapse. The machine recorded an alarmingly high blood-pressure, but I knew better than the machine. I was in a worse condition than the machine could show. The Gita teaches us the lesson of detachment, but that detachment does not mean indifference to shocks of this kind— failure in duty on the part of one’s dearest ones. The three who went were the least to blame. They went in ignorance. But I was to blame, and Mahadev was more to blame in that he did not tell them what their dharma was and how any breach would shake me. He ought to have thought also of its social repercussions. We should understand our individual as well as our social dharma. How did it affect me? I turned pale. My grandson says that the Amrita Bazar Patrika reports that Kasturba did not go in but waited outside. If that was so I would have leapt high. But how could she at all go there after having lived with me for fifty years? And why did the two other women go? Are they not my daughters? That too is my fault. This act of theirs has depleted our soul force. We ought to be more vigilant. By looking upon women as [mere] women we overlook such matters. That is not the way of non-violence. This is a matter of awakening. It was Mahadev’s task to have reasoned with them. And, if they were not convinced, he should have brought them to me. I would have told them that I was their spiritual father and not opposed to their religion. I could be their spiritual father only if they and I belonged to one faith. If their faith could be identified with mine I could reason also with the people: “What is the use of such temples?” They were ignorant, I know, but we are responsible for their ignorance, and it is the reverse of ahimsa not to dispel their ignorance. I sent them to Puri not to go into the temple, but to stand just where the Harijans were allowed to go and refuse in protest to go beyond that limit. That would
have been the right kind of propaganda, and they would that way have done Harijan service. To do scavenging work or to eat with Harijans or to feed them is not enough, if we do not deny ourselves the going to temples and the like so long as our kith and kin, the Harijans, are denied their use. If we do not go even to the temples which have been regarded as sacred for hundreds and thousands of years, where such great men as Chaitanya have gone in to offer worship, where we long to go, simply because our Harijan brothers are not allowed, it would be a great act of dharma and, if God really is in the temples, as we believe, it will certainly have its effect. The pandas had come there and said that the Harijans could go along with us. Quite correct. For a panda the silver coin is God. I therefore prevented Rajendra Babu’s sister from going in. Some may say that I exercised undue pressure. I would say I saved her from adharma. If I intruded it was in the name of religion. Like these three women many others must have gone and must be intending to go. I have expressed my feelings for the sake of these people. What can I say to those who cannot restrain themselves even after this?25 Gandhi dressed his despotism in casuistry. This was not the reaction of a normal man to an ordinary act of worshipping in a temple. This extreme reaction borders on fascism if we bear in mind that he was inflicting public humiliation on his wife and sahadharmini. This incident serves to explain why several of Gandhi’s close associates, sooner or later distanced themselves from him and those who couldn’t, suffered immense physical and mental trauma. Burning with rage and humiliation over Gandhi continuing with his experiments choosing Manu Gandhi for his partner, Amtussalam picks on a trivial event in her village
25
Speech at Gandhi Seva Sangh Meeting, Delang, March 30, 1938,Gandhi Seva Sangh ke Chaturth Varshik Adhiveshan(Delang-Orissa)ka Vivaran, pp. 65-7, CWMG Vol. 73 pp 68-71
in Bengal and goes on a fast-unto-death.26 Pyarelal and Gandhi know the truth behind Amtussalam’s fast; and during these months, Gandhi’s dark side rule all his actions. Pyarelal pleads with Gandhi to intervene and persuade Amtussalam to end her fast but she holds firm to her resolve and asks Gandhi to send Manu Gandhi to her village to take care of her; Gandhi who understood the reason behind this demand, ruthlessly rejected Amtussalam’s desperate plea and remains impervious to her continuing fast. Gandhi’s bogus commitment to satya is exposed when on the one hand he contemptuously and heartlessly tells the superintendent of police of Ramgunj to simply allow Amtussalam to die if that was what she wanted27 while just a few days prior to the heartless pronouncement, he writes to her asking her why she wants to die with her head in his lap.28 Gandhi’s satya was not above poisoning Manu Gandhi’s father Jaisukhlal Gandhi’s mind against Pyarelal and while on the one hand he keeps assuring Pyarelal that he summoned Manu Gandhi to Bengal for Pyarelal’s peace of mind and that he had absolutely no objections to Pyarelal wanting to marry her, Gandhi tells Manu Gandhi that he wants her to remain a virgin all her life. Further, I shall be happy if you come over and have a talk with me. I do not wish to put any pressure on you. It is my earnest desire that you should remain a pure virgin till the end of your life and spend your life in service.29 7.6 Gandhi and Mirabehn There were two categories of women in Gandhi’s personal life – the highly educated, English-speaking women like Rajkumari Amrit Kaur, Mirabehn, Sarladevi, Sushila Nayyar and Mridula Sarabhai and the illiterate or poorly-educated 26
At Sirandi, Amtussalam had decided to go on a fast from December 26 in protest against some local Muslims who had stolen three khadags (sacrificial swords) belonging to Hindus. (CWMG Vol. 93, page 158) 27
Note to MA Abdullah, Shahpur, January 13, 1947, CWMG Vol. 93, page 272 28 Letter to Amtussalam, January 6, 1947, Vol. 93, page 243 28 (Letter to Manu Gandhi, New Delhi, October 11, 1946, From a microfilm of the Gujarati: M.M.U./XXIV, CWMG, Vol. 92, page 310
women from villages and small towns like Kasturba, Amtussalam, Kanchan Shah, Manu Gandhi and Abha. Gandhi used both categories only to serve him, literally as the much-despised word, ‘servants’; while Gandhi surrounded himself with the former possibly to raise himself in his own estimation, he used these Englisheducated women to handle his English correspondence with government officials and other foreigners and micromanage and organize his extensive travel around the country while the poorly educated women were used by Gandhi to clean toilets, work in his kitchen and also as frightened subjects of his questionable experiments in brahmacharya. Gandhi therefore vehemently opposed an elder in his ashram, Atmaram (Acharya) Bhagawat, arranging for the women in his ashram to get married because, as he himself tells one of his women friends Prema Kantak, Acharya Bhagawat was wrong to get them married because he preferred the women in his ashrams to remain unmarried.30 Gandhi also chose to keep only such women around him who did not know the English language! I rarely have English-knowing women around me. This one knows absolutely no English. She can read and write Gujarati. Please let me have an early reply to this if possible. Remember that Ramanama is the unfailing remedy for eradicating malaria. Having become a trustee of a nature-cure institution you have got to appreciate this thing. And Ramanama is the same as Ahurmazda.31
30
“And now your particular question. I should like the girls to remain unmarried, but they cannot be forced to do so. We must, therefore, help those who wish to get married. It was, and is, Acharya Bhagawat’s duty to plead with you and other coworkers and carry them with him in whatever he did. He made a mistake in doing what he did without consulting you. You also should not tolerate his improper conduct through your desire for gaining something from him.” Acharya Bhagawat had persuaded women workers of the Kasturba Trust to get married and even arranged their marriages. (Letter to Prema Kantak, New Delhi, October 16, 1946, From a photostat of the Gujarati: G. N. 10449. Also C. W. 6888. Courtesy: Prema Kantak, CWMG, Vol. 92, page 333 31
Letter to Jehangir Patel, Sevagram, August 8, 1946, From a copy of the Gujarati: Pyarelal Papers. Courtesy: Pyarelal, CWMG Vol. 91, page 430
There were innumerable English-knowing women around Gandhi – Mirabehn, Rajkumari Amrit Kaur, Sushila Nayyar, Prema Kantak to name just a few besides women in his own family who were living abroad and others who were very highly educated. While Kasturba exemplified what Gandhi sought in the women he chose to serve him personally and in his ashram – poorly educated, simple women from our villages and small towns who were grateful to be chosen to live in such close proximity to a saint to serve him with unquestioning obedience, Gandhi’s fear of English-knowing women may be attributed to the fact that these women were sometimes less amenable to being controlled by him; and in no mean measure to Mirabehn’s adoration for him turning to complete disenchantment possibly because of his experiments with brahmacharya even in the Aga Khan Palace but certainly due to sharp differences with Gandhi over his approach or lack of it towards Kasturba’s medical treatment. CHI. MIRA, This is after much debating for 48 hours within myself and sleepless night over my duty towards you on our differences and towards doctors regarding treatment. It hurt me yesterday when Ammajan told me that you had doubt about my willingness to part with the money that you gave me from time to time. The fact is that you [having] parted with the money, even resented it standing in your name in the Ashram books and insisted on the money being made part of the Ashram funds and the expenses on your account being treated as from the Ashram funds. I felt a delicacy in mentioning that it could be retransferred to you without any deduction. I, therefore, allowed Ghanshyamdas to tell you that you could have the money back whether the condition of the Ashram funds permitted the return or not. So when you told me that you would be glad to have the money, the measure of esteem in which I held you went down. It is due to you that I should not withhold this fact from you. But this is not written to
affect your decision. The return of the money is irrevocable.32 Mirabehn believed that Gandhi had not done enough to ask for eminent doctors to provide Kasturba with the best of medical attention which could have probably saved her life; it is also widely believed that Gandhi refused to allow the Doctors attending on Ba to administer Penicillin to treat Ba’s pneumonia. But knowing Gandhi’s readiness to ask for and allow others to die if it suited his agenda, one cannot help but think that Ba had probably outlived her utility for Gandhi. To his credit, as it became increasingly evident that Ba’s end was near Gandhi made angry demands for a naturopath known to him to attend to Ba and when even that, not surprisingly, failed to save her, he wrote blistering letters to British government officials after Ba’s death, condemning their general laxity. Unconfirmed stories abound (corroborated to me personally by the daughter of one of the then Prime Ministers of Congress Provincial Governments) about how Gandhi wept copious tears at Ba’s death, even seeking her death-bed pardon for all the grievous injuries he had inflicted on her. Mirabehn, whose disenchantment with Gandhi became more pronounced after Ba’s death in the Aga Khan palace because of what she suspected was Gandhi’s indifference to Ba’s health, sought her release from the palace prison ahead of Gandhi’s own release (uncharacteristic from a Gandhi acolyte) and turned away from him. She made new friends and formed new relationships; one such friend was Sardar Prithvi Singh, one of the founder members of the Ghadar Party.33 Enraged over Mirabehn’s desertion, Gandhi resorts to his favorite stratagem – he accuses Prithvi Singh 32
Letter to Mirabehn, Sundar Bun, June 11, 1944, From a copy: Pyarelal Papers. Nehru Memorial Museum and Library. Courtesy: Beladevi Nayyar and Dr. Sushila Nayyar, Vol 84, pp 100-1 33 Sardar Prithvi Singh was sentenced to death in the First Lahore Conspiracy Case 1915. The trial of Bhagat Singh was the Second Lahore Conspiracy Case. His death sentence was commuted to life imprisonment and Prithvi Singh was deported to the Andamans. While on transit to Nagpur Central Jail after being moved to the mainland again, Prithvi Singh escaped from police custody from a running mail train on 29-11-1922 and went underground for sixteen years. In 1938, he voluntarily surrendered to Mahatma Gandhi. He was again arrested by the British Government but was released with the outbreak of the Second World War (1939). Founded Ahimsak Vyayam Sangh and worked under the leadership of Gandhi as strategy to avoid government persecution. Just so would the Bengal revolutionaries of the Jugantar Party merge with the Congress in September 1938
of extortion and indecent advances to two women in the ashram! The second thing I want to tell you is the things I have been hearing from reliable sources about Prithvi Singh. They are terribly disturbing. He has been using questionable means to extort money. He made, without success, indecent approaches to two girls of Kathiawar. The girl whom he has married was engaged to a person who was her benefactor.34 In a fitting act of what he considered with great selfimportance was a measure of extreme punishment, Gandhi tells Mirabehn, in a petulant letter to her that he was stripping her of her Indian name which he gave her out of ‘love’ and will henceforth address her only as ‘Margaret’. Gandhi ‘punishes’ her further when she becomes ‘Dear Miss Slade’ in his communications to her, but still with “love and the greatest goodwill”. Dear Miss Slade, There is nothing wrong about being formal. “Familiarity breeds contempt.” The letters will not be destroyed. I have nothing to be ashamed of. I wrote after intense prayer. My language failed to transmit the love and the greatest goodwill that prompted it. The only regret is that I dared to be familiar. My love would have been as true as now if I had refused to call you by any other name than Miss Slade. I like the English coldness and correctness. But my regret is superficial. The change is good and substantial. I have given the warning. You have no reason to change your course because of any opinion I express. What I did was to suggest your waiting. But you need not since it does not commend itself to you. Yes, time and action will show what we are and what we meant. I have patience.35
34 35
Same as 25
Letter to Mirabehn, June 12, 1944, From a copy : Pyarelal Papers. Nehru Memorial Museum and Library.Courtesy : Beladevi Nayyar and Dr. Sushila Nayyar, Vol. 84, pp 102-3
Popular rendering of Gandhi’s life, Richard Attenborough’s film is a case in point, painted him in broad strokes of motivated imagination, never venturing into the details. This big-brush picture came with the halo of his mahatmahood around his head. Mirabehn was one among the very few, besides Sardar Patel who dared to voice her criticism of Gandhi unsparingly to his face. The strongwilled among those who lived with Gandhi and had seen him from very close quarters sooner or later were completely disillusioned with him and realizing that his saintliness was not what they thought it was, quietly but speedily distanced themselves from him. 7.7 Gandhi manipulated people close to him Bengal was burning and Gandhi, who was allegedly in Bengal to bring back peace to the province and communal harmony, was juggling with human emotions and moving his dependants as so many pawns on a chess board. Gandhi kept the Damocles’ Sword of infamy and possible exposure of misappropriating funds hanging over Jaisukhlal Gandhi’s head to coerce him to hand over Manu Gandhi into his charge for his experiments in 1946 after Gandhi reached Bengal. Gandhi kept the sword hanging over Jaisukhlal’s head for over two years, since 1944, doing little to exonerate Jaisukhlal or to bring the scandal to an end. I should like to tell you the thoughts which occurred to me about you. You seem to have such a lot of money that you have taught Manu to spend money as if she was more than even a multimillionaire. I very much appreciate your love for your daughters. But the question is from where you got all this money. You could not have saved it from khadi work. Did you, then, save it from your job there? Is it possible to save so much money in this way? If you have kept accounts, I should certainly like to see them. How can I hide from you the suspicion that has arisen in my mind? When I got angry, Shantikumar was present. When I asked him, he told me that you could not have saved so much from the Scindia job. He had no reason to suspect you, as strict care was taken to see that there was no scope for
corruption among their employees. Now let me have your reply.36 But before the arrival of Manu Gandhi, an incident involving Dr. Sushila Nayyar and Gandhi was witnessed by Nirmal Kumar Bose, a professor at the Calcutta University who had taken over from Pyarelal as Gandhi’s general factotum while Parasuram served as Gandhi’s new stenographer. Dr. Sushila Nayyar maintained stoic silence about the incident not only to protect her own dignity but also to protect Gandhi from gossip and resulting infamy; but Gandhi had no such moral qualms. NK Bose was not one of the usual indigent dependants who were forced into service with Gandhi but a professor in the Calcutta University who came to serve Gandhi, considering it a great privilege. Gandhi could not afford to have Bose entertain negative opinions of him and so in typical Gandhian style he insinuates to Bose that it was Dr. Sushila Nayyar who had made ‘advances’ to him that fateful night but since it was done with ‘a good intention’ Bose must not hold Dr. Nayyar in contempt.37 But Bose was no fool and by March 1947, within months of having resigned his position at the university to serve Gandhi, Bose departs thoroughly disillusioned and so does Parasuram. But Parasuram departed only after expressing 36
Letter to Jaisukhlal Gandhi, June 12, 1944, From a microfilm of the
Gujarati: M.M.U./XXIV, CWMG, Vol. 84, pp 10-11
37
In the morning, while I was administering his daily bath, Gandhiji spoke to me of his own accord about the happenings of the 17th. Ever since that day, no word had passed on this subject between him and me. He wished to learn from me as well as from Parasuram ‘if Sushila Nayyar had fallen in our estimation’ (Tumhari nazar me gir gai hai?) on account of that day’s incident. I said I could speak for myself, not for Parasuram. She had undoubtedly fallen, and the reason was this. No person however great had the right to disturb him as Sushila had apparently done. Gandhiji then said, ‘Supposing she did so with a good intention, perhaps to help me in my own work? She may have been suggesting certain steps even for my sake, not for her own; even then, would you say she was wrong?’ (Talk with NK Bose, Srirampur, December 19, 1946, My Days with Gandhi, pp. 114-5, CWMG Vol. 93, Appendix IV page 415) For Gandhi’s letter to NK Bose, see end of chapter
his great anger over Gandhi’s experiments with his brahmacharya in a letter to Gandhi and proceeded to work for Harijan. Parasuram chose to work for the Harijan only because the Navjivan Trust, which published Harijan and which was managed among others by Kishorelal Mashruwala and Sardar Patel, had politely asked Gandhi to disassociate himself from the Trust and to stop writing in the Harijan as a part of their determined boycott of Gandhi. They also refused to publish Gandhi’s ‘confessions’ about his experiments in the Harijan. Gandhi had made everyone who was close to him and those who worked closely with him totally unhappy, angry and disillusioned. By the end of 1946, Gandhi’s isolation was complete. The vaidika was unfit to perform the yagna because he had made self-interest an integral part of the yagna. Gandhi caused too much unhappiness, bitterness and anger in the people who had served him selflessly and yet refused to abandon his ways. Not only was Gandhi’s yagna tainted by self-interest but more to the point, there was no purity of the mind or purpose. Gandhi packaged the three missions into one yagna and calling his missions a total yagna was not only motivated but also calculating because Gandhi wanted to give his self-interest a dharmic cover. Gandhi refused to discontinue his experiments with the excuse that the world would benefit ultimately from his ‘yagna’38 and also because he had to perfect his brahmacharya so that if ever he had to share a bed with some woman his brahmacharya would find him ready for the test.39 That Gandhi could actually profess such indefensible reasons is testimony to his iconic status that no one dared to ask him why he thought the success of his personal quest to perfect his brahmacharya would enrich the world or why there should ever rise such an occasion 38
If I am successful, the world will be enriched by my venture. If on the other hand I am found to be a fraud or a misled fool, the world will reject me and I shall be debunked. In either case the world will be the gainer. This is as clear to me as two and two make four. (A Letter, February 22, 1947, Mahatma Gandhi — The Last Phase, Vol. I, Bk. II, p. 223, CWMG, Vol. 94 page 28 39
Thousands of Hindu and Muslim women come to me. They are to me like my own mother, sisters and daughters. But if an occasion should arise requiring me to share the bed with any of them I must not hesitate, if I am the brahmachari that I claim to be. If I shrink from the test, I write myself down as a coward and a fraud. (Discussion with AV Thakkar, February 24, 1947, Mahatma Gandhi — The Last Phase, Vol. I, Bk. II, pp. 224-6, CWMG, Vol. 94, pp 36-37
when any woman would be compelled to share a bed with him. 7.8 Gandhi insisted his word was law Motivated misnomers were typical of Gandhi’s stock-intrade. Just as he uprooted the terms ‘Swaraj’, Swadeshi’ and later ‘Young India’ from their original moorings and gave them his own taint, he did the same with the traditional dharmic concepts of brahmacharya and yagna. Gandhi rejected the accepted and traditional Hindu understanding and practice of brahmacharya. My meaning of brahmacharya is this: One who never has any lustful intention, who by constant attendance upon God has become proof against conscious or unconscious emissions, who is capable of lying naked with naked women, however beautiful they may be, without being in any manner whatsoever sexually excited. Such a person should be incapable of lying, incapable of intending or doing harm to a single man or woman in the whole world, is free from anger and malice and detached in the sense of the Bhagavadgita. Such a person is a full brahmachari. Brahmachari literally means a person who is making daily and steady progress towards God and whose every act is done in pursuance of that end and no other.40 Hindu tradition has attributed these qualities as being mandatory not for the brahmachari but for the sanyasi. He similarly degraded the practice of yagna by not only labeling it as “more or less a fraud”, he labeled it ‘sacrifice’ (which is more a monotheist idea and practice than Hindu) and even patronizingly advised a sanyasi to give up his saffron robes and become a better sanyasi without them. Bhai Bhagwadacharya, I have your letter after many days. I must admit that I don’t like it. Firstly, why should you involve yourself in the ritual sacrifice which is more or less a fraud? I can understand those who are ignorant of the true nature of dharma
40
Letter to Amrit Kaur, Patna, March 18, 1947, From the original: C. W. 3702. Courtesy: Amrit Kaur. Also G. N. 6511, CWMG Vol. 94, page 137
or are downright hypocrites busying themselves with it, but why a man like you should concern himself with it is something beyond my comprehension, especially because I don’t want to look upon you as a hypocrite and because I am not prepared to believe that you are so sunk in abysmal ignorance. And if there was a sacrifice, wherefore all the discrimination? Those who do not want to come may not; those who want may come. Hence, in no way can my heart accept either your act or your justification of it. I would wish you to devote yourself single-heartedly to what is straightforward and truthful, rather than indulge in mere casuistry. I am strongly opposed to sacrifice as it is currently interpreted. I consider it a sin to throw ghee into the sacrificial [fire] in our age. Sacrifice really means an act of service. I had therefore hoped hat you would follow only that which is truthful even by giving up your position as a swami.41 This diatribe sounds eerily like routine contemporary dravidian anti-Hindu ranting. Dravidian politicians too have publicly condemned as ‘criminal waste’ the Hindu religious practice of ‘abhisheka’42 of the temple murtis43 with milk, honey, curd, tender-water of the coconut and ‘panchaamritam’44. Gandhi describes the ‘ahuti’45 as “throwing ghee into the fire” and labels it a sin. Hindus do not ‘throw’ ghee into the fire, they offer ghee to agni; not only did he label the ahuti as ‘sin’, what strikes one is 41
Letter to Swami Bhagwadacharya, Delhi, April 24, 1946, From a copy of the
Gujarati : Pyarelal Papers. Courtesy : Pyarelal CWMG Vol. 90, page 307 42
Hindu ritual of anointing the presiding and other deities of a temple with all uncooked, natural cooling substances like those listed above 43 Presiding and other deities in a temple or in the home 44 This is made by mixing together banana, jackfruit, honey, jaggery and ghee 45 The act of making offerings to Agni the sacred fire of the yagna who carries the offering to the god who is being propitiated in the yagna.
Gandhi’s deliberate refusal to address the venerable Swami as ‘swami’. Dharmic Hindus - great kings and chakravartis46 not exempted - have always held all sanyasis, without distinction of caste, sect or sub-sect, particularly their gurus and acharyas in the highest esteem. Their position and status in Hindu society was considered to be first among equals. By addressing him as ‘Bhai Bhagwadacharya’ Gandhi did not elevate himself or other ordinary Hindus to the status of sanyasis, he merely lowered the revered swami’s status and equalized him with non-sanyasis and perfunctorily made him his ‘brother’. Gandhi believed that he had the right to pronounce judgment on traditional practices which Hindus have inherited as their civilisational and religious legacy. Not only did he consider the ahuti (offering) of ghee to agni (altar fire) a sin, he also discouraged people from performing the customary religious rites for the dead. Bhai Uddhav, on the death of your brother you performed only the yarn sacrifice and no religious rites. I liked it very much. It will bring great benefit if all do so.47 Notwithstanding the fact that India was a timeless civilisation, where sanatana dharma made it the punya bhumi and karma bhumi for all adherents of dharma, there were pressing political reasons for independent India’s academe to propagate the idea that post-independent India was an ideological contrast to Pakistan. Nehru and Nehruvian secularism, which percolated even into the portals of academic work, propagated the idea that this contrast derived from, and rested securely, only on the contrast that Gandhi and his mahatmahood provided in comparison to all that Jinnah stood for and represented. The contrast was not that of Hindu dharma to Islam but that of Gandhi to Jinnah. This was unparalleled academic whitewash because notwithstanding Gandhi’s glib utterances on Hindu practices on the one hand and his Hindu fig-leaf on the other, the fact remained that Gandhi failed to, in fact he strenuously rejected the idea of 46
47
Emperor and nuanced from ‘raja’ or ‘king’
Letter to Udhav, Sodepur, December 8, 1945, From a copy of the Hindi Pyarelal Papers. Courtesy Pyarelal, CWMG, Vol. 89, page 14
mobilizing all sections of the Hindu community not only as a unified front to fight for freedom but as a bulwark against Muslim separatism. 7.9 Gandhi’s failure to reach out to Hindu leaders Had Gandhi made half the effort to reach out to Aurobindo and Savarkar, Ambedkar and Subhash Bose, to the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh and the Hindu Mahasabha as he made to the British and to Muslims, Khilafat Committee and the Muslim League, had Gandhi consistently sought the advice and blessings of Hindu religious leaders in his political and social mission instead of allowing Christian missionaries and foreigners to influence his personal and political philosophy, had Gandhi approached Hindu maharajas and princes and made common cause with them, as much as he went out of his way to make common cause with Muslims ignoring in the process, the political interests of the scheduled castes, perhaps all sections of the Hindu community could have been organized in a powerful show of strength and solidarity which would not only have checked the unchallenged growth of the Muslim League but would also have made the British government exceedingly nervous and cautious about implementing their diabolic agenda at the time of transfer of power. Tilak, Aurobindo and Savarkar represented the intellectual might of the Hindus, as Madanlal Dhingra, Bhagat Singh and Bose represented the spirit and dharma of the kshatriya while Babasaheb Ambedkar represented the political and social aspirations of the culturally deprived and politically disempowered sections of Hindu society. Our religious leaders, sanyasis and mathathipathis are embodiments not only of our dharma but also of the strength of our civilisational continuum while our maharajas and princes ruling over territories which seemingly remained outside the direct administrative pale of the Raj, were an important segment constituting Hindu state power as well as our civilisational continuum in their role as the traditional guardians and ultimate protectors of dharma. Had Gandhi’s intent been to forge alliances with different segments of Hindu society, he would have seen the wisdom of talking to Hindu rulers whose support could have been harnessed effectively to give shape to the nature of polity that would have come into place after the Raj retreated. Instead, as we shall see, both Gandhi and Nehru failed to understand that which Aurobindo saw very
clearly, that these Hindu rulers were as much victims of Islamic conquest and imperial Britain as were all sections of this nation. Gandhi therefore rejected with towering arrogance the overtures of the Deccan Princes, the Maharajas of Kapurtala and Rewa, antagonised the Maharajas of Rajkot, Travancore, Mysore and Jammu and Kashmir so much so that in 1947, when the country was teetering on the brink of total anarchy, the Indian states refused to enter the Constituent Assembly and in the ensuing uncertain state of the nascent nation, Hindu rulers were in no position to offer a buffer to the country against the machinations of the Muslim Nawabs and Nizams. Gandhi, for his part had the matchless ability to mobilize ordinary people to participate in his passive resistance campaigns; we can only rue Gandhi’s colossal failure as a leader to take along with him all these leaders and their vast following with their diverse strengths and abilities. Jinnah had to project the INC and Gandhi as being ‘Hindu’ to justify his separatist Muslim agenda but the truth remains that Gandhi advocated a sanitised Hinduism which was far removed from the common understanding and common practices of dharma. Gandhi called himself a ‘sanatani Hindu’48 and in typical Gandhian vein he insisted on coercing others into his mould; and herein was the inner contradiction in Gandhi’s political ideology. For a man who insisted (correctly) that India lives in her villages, he refused to concede that the villages lived and breathed their religion, warts and all, with a routine naturalness which was far removed from Gandhi’s aseptic intellectual and therefore monotheist approach to Hinduism. Needless to say, Gandhi’s intellectual approach to understanding Hinduism was half-baked at best because this knowledge too was not acquired from his family or at the feet of any of our traditional acharyas of the time. Gandhi moved to London during his most impressionable years and thereafter, as indicated earlier, he sought and was sought in turn, mostly by Christian missionaries (Joseph Doke, Charlie Andrews, Dr. Stanley Jones, Agatha Harrison and Horace Alexander, to name only a few) and Christian thinkers (Tolstoy, Emerson, Thoreau, Mirabehn or
48
A Sanatani Hindu could choose not to worship ‘murtis’ of Gods. Gandhi rejected idol worship and could therefore not call himself a Vaishnava, Saiva, Shaakta or a bhakta of any one of the six primary streams of the Hindu religion.
Margaret Slade and Madame Blavatsky). While Joseph Doke wrote Gandhi’s biography during Gandhi’s South African days, Stanley Jones, an American missionary was author of The Christ of the Indian Road, a tribute to Gandhi. To make matters more complicated he also came under the influence of several Muslims - another important constituent of the monotheist, Abrahamic trio. There was no sustained, traditional Hindu influence on Gandhi in his adolescence, youth or anytime thereafter. This has to be borne in mind to understand his distaste for and therefore failure to reach out to important traditional Hindu constituencies. Uniting the Hindu samaj for a common objective was never core to Gandhi’s freedom movement because his thinking suffered from the fatal flaw that this bhumi did not belong to the Hindus alone.49 Hindu dharma was born on this bhumi and for Hindus or dharmis this nation alone is their homeland, their janmabhumi and pitrubhumi. And because he rejected the truth of the Hindu nation, for all he wore the fig-leaf of high Hindu concepts, Gandhi not only attributed the qualities of the Abrahamic God to Srirama and Srikrishna,50 but his ramarajya too was given Christian and Islamic hues. Gandhiji gave to his ideal society the name Ramarajya. “Let no one commit the mistake of thinking that Ramarajya means a rule of the Hindus. My Rama is another name for Khuda or God. I want Khudai raj, which is the same thing as the Kingdom of God on earth. The rule of the first four Caliphs was somewhat comparable to it. The establishment of such a rajya would not only
49
What we had to do was to prevent the Congress from turning into a Hindu communal organization. Anyone who had made India his home should be protected by the Congress. Hindus should never think that Hindustan belonged exclusively to them. The Parsis had come centuries ago, and the Syrian Christians were Christians ever since the time of St. Thomas. Every one of them had to be treated as an Indian enjoying the same rights as any other Indian. (Interview to Deobhankar, My Days with Gandhi, pp. 102-4, CWMG, Vol. 93, page 124) 50
But for me as a believer in non-violence out-and-out they cannot be my guides in life in so far as their faith in war is concerned, I believe in Krishna perhaps more than the writer. But my Krishna is the Lord of the Universe, the creator, preserver and destroyer of us all. He may destroy because He creates. (Guru Govind Singh, Sevagram, July 4, 1942 Harijan, 12-7-1942 – Vol. 93 pp 72 – 75
mean welfare of the whole of the Indian people but of the whole world”.51 Not only did Gandhi deliberately avoid Hindu religious leaders but he also distanced himself from the beliefs, practices, customs and rituals that were central to the way ordinary Hindus practiced their dharma. So strong was the influence of people professing Islam and Christianity on Gandhi that he told a group of Muslims that he was not an idolater but an iconoclast!52 Gandhi subscribed to the same fallacious argument first proffered by foreign Christian missionaries in South India – that caste was the root cause for untouchability. One of the pillars of Gandhi’s mahatmahood was the work his devotees undertook in cities and villages to remove untouchability. This work entitled Gandhi to arrogate to himself the right to make major pronouncements on caste which continues even now to hold sway in significant aspects of governance and administration.53 Had Gandhi approached the sin of 51
Speech at prayer meeting, Haimchar, February 26, 1947,
Harijan, 23-3-1947, and Mahatma Gandhi—The Last Phase, Vol. I, Bk. II, pp., CWMG Vol.94, page 76 52
It was ignorance to say that he coupled Rama, a mere man, with God. He had repeatedly made it clear that his Rama was the same as God. His Rama was before, is present now and would be for all time. He was Unborn and Uncreated. Therefore, let them tolerate and respect the different faiths. He was himself an iconoclast but he had equal regard for the so-called idolaters. Those who worshipped idols also worshipped the same God who was everywhere, even in a clod of earth, even in a nail that was pared off. (Speech at Prayer Meeting, Harijan 23-2-1947, CWMG Vol. 93, page 365) When I was in detention in the Aga Khan Palace, I once sat down to write a thesis on India as a protagonist of non-violence. But as I proceeded with my writing, I could not go on. I had to stop. There are two aspects of Hinduism. There is, on the one hand, the historical Hinduism with its untouchability, superstitious worship of sticks and stones, animal sacrifice and so on. On the other, we have the Hinduism of the Gita, the Upanishads and Patanjali’s Yoga Sutra which is the acme of ahimsa and oneness of all creation, pure worship of one immanent, formless imperishable God. (A Talk, Harijan 8-12-1946, CWMG, Vol.93, page 43) 53 Gandhiji said that all that he wanted to say on this was that if Hinduism was to survive, it would have to be casteless. He had long since forgotten that he belonged to any caste. Therefore, he delighted in calling himself a Bhangi and acting like
one. He did not believe in any artificial divisions. If caste Hindus meant Brahmin, Kshatriya and Vaishya, these three were a hopeless minority which, when the British had wholly withdrawn and independence was truly established would, as the three superior castes, be wholly extinct. Gandhiji hoped that all inequalities would be a thing of the past. Then the so-called downtrodden would come into their own. Gandhiji said that,
untouchability in the Hindu way, he would have strived to end the practice without insisting on destroying the structure. Caste, which derives from the Portuguese ‘casta’, is a misnomer that includes varna, jaati and kula, and is used interchangeably, was an organic social ordering principle which gave to Hindu dharma its famed diversity in all aspects of its manifestation in the lives of ordinary Hindus; untouchability was the ossification of a social practice which rendered society’s temporary punitive measure against an individual and/or his family for some social or religious transgression, into a permanent liability and stigma. Gandhi judged these principles from their degeneration and condemned them to extinction, disregarding the possibility of an unhealthy vacuum in the self-identity of both the individual and society. This vacuum was filled with great alacrity by Christian missionaries; Gandhi, like several other leaders of the time whose mind was formed by English education, failed to discern the ploy behind degrading varna, jaati and kula and fell into the diabolic Macaulay trap. This notwithstanding the fact that in the early years after his return to India from South Africa, Gandhi’s views on varnadharma were close to Hindu understanding of this traditional institution. But within a decade, his views about traditional Hindu practices became increasingly Christianised and un-Hindu. 7.10 Gandhi’s despotism and desire for control One of the core objectives behind the book is to expose how Gandhi’s personal views and fetishes became not just Congress creed but also aspects of our nation’s guiding philosophy. Some of the fetishes which proved disastrous for the Hindus and the Hindu nation were – · Gandhi’s un-nuanced non-violence · Gandhi’s total lack of understanding of the content of our nationhood · Gandhi’s ‘intellectual’ and monotheist approach to Hinduism · Gandhi’s contempt and derision for Hindu maharajas and princes which cost this nation dearly in 1946-47
when untouchability was really gone, there would be no caste. (Speech at Prayer meeting, The Hindu, 13-2-1947, and 15-2-1947, CWMG, Vol. 94, page 398)
·
Gandhi’s propensity for despotic individuals and organizations
control
of
The last was in fact the single most important factor leading to vivisection of the Hindu nation in 1947. Protected by the shield of his mahatmahood, and secure in the knowledge that few would dare to challenge it, Gandhi pursued his personal fetishes and exerted total control over everything and everyone he touched. His own writings testify to this unhealthy characteristic on innumerable occasions but some of the more mindboggling instances were · No individual working in his ashrams or other organizations could learn English without his permission54 · No individual in the Congress party and none of his associates and friends could undertake a fast without his permission55 · Gandhi gives his grand-niece Manu Gandhi a severe dressing-down for buying gifts for his stenographer Pyarelal’s sister’s child without consulting him; he gives Manu Gandhi and her father Jaisukhlal Gandhi a tongue-lashing and returns the gifts to Manu Gandhi56
54
Today I am dictating this letter in Gujarati. Those who feel themselves poor without the knowledge of English may be taught the language. The general policy should be understood that nobody should be taught English, and that, when it is found necessary to teach anybody, my permission should be obtained. (Letter to Krishnachandra, Sevagram, February 9, 1946, From a Photostat of Gujarati, G.N. 4545) 55
Chi. Dhiru, I cannot quite understand why you had to undertake the fast. Who made the complaint? And have I not said that no one may undertake a fast without asking me? This is the best course. Blessings from Bapu (Letter to Dhrubhai Dikshit, Sevagram, August 20, 1946, From a copy of the Gujarati: Pyarelal Papers. Courtesy: Pyarelal, CWMG Vol. 92, page 47)
56
Instead of calling you Manu I should call you Mridulabehn. Even before leaving Bombay you have disobeyed me. At this rate, how much of my advice are you going to follow? You have not earned a single pie yourself. You have a generous father, and so are wasting his money. Do you wish to spoil the baby? But I will not let you do so while I am alive. If you think the silver rattle and cups are all right for you, you may keep them yourself. If you do not want them, give them to someone like you. I
·
·
Gandhi berated ashram inmates for taking the initiative to serve food without his permission to harijans, who had gathered to celebrate his birthday and in complete violation of Hindu tradition, stopped food from being served to them Gandhi ordered VA Sundaram, personal assistant to the late MM Malaviya to listen to his own views on how the temple in the Benares Hindu University must be built and in fact orders Sundaram to disregard Malaviya’s explicit written instructions on the issue.
Gandhi’s proclivity for despotism was expressed in two distinct ways: either as benign advise (as long as he was sure his orders would be followed by those who submitted to his control) on everything from the mundane to the significant - the food to eat, clothes to wear, applying eye-packs, mudpacks, taking hot water baths, hip baths and friction baths, administering enema, planning the daily routine, attention to handwriting, personal habits, to marry or not to marry, the purpose of marriage, whom to marry, conduct towards spouses after marriage, and even on whether to have children or not; or as peremptory orders when he was not sure of compliance. Whenever Gandhi was not sure of compliance or on those occasions when he was challenged or simply overruled, Gandhi both privately and publicly degraded those who thus challenged him. In 1938, Gandhi forced the Congress Working Committee to expel NB Khare, the Prime Minister of the Central Provinces on the pretext that Khare had dared to deal directly with the Governor of the province without consulting the Working Committee or the Parliamentary Board; what it actually meant was that Khare did not allow Gandhi to play remote control.57 After his expulsion from the Congress, NB Khare rose to become a prominent leader of the Hindu Mahasabha, giving rise to the suspicion that Gandhi may have exerted pressure on
myself want that you should keep them as a reminder of your foolishness. I am returning the cup and rattle along with this letter. Rama Rama from your unhappy BAPU (Letter to Manu Gandhi, June 8, 1944, CWMG Vol. 84, page 91) 57
For Gandhi’s statement on why he advised the CWC to ask for Khare’s resignation, see end of chapter
the CWC to expel Khare possibly because of Khare’s latent Hindu nationalism Gandhi’s orders to Malaviya’s Secretary VA Sundaram on the kind of temple to be built inside the campus of the Benares Hindu University is striking for two reasons – that he had no qualms whatever in ordering Sundaram to disregard Pandit Malaviya’s wish on the issue and also for the fact that when, from the early years of the 1940s decade Gandhi’s mahatmahood started to come under a cloud, people so ordered quietly and simply ignored Gandhi’s orders and did what they thought was the correct thing to do in the circumstances. Gandhi’s conception of the temple in the BHU is also indicative of Gandhi’s conviction that Hindusim had to be rid of all its traditional customs and practices and thus ‘purified’ to resemble the intellectually vacuous monotheist religions. So great was Gandhi’s discomfort with Malaviya’s hinduness that in classic Gandhi style he pays Malaviya a back-handed compliment by calling him a great man with great limitations, whose greatness lay in ‘surmounting’ those limitations!58 Bhai Jugal Kishore, Baba Raghavdas gave me a full account of the passing away of Malaviyaji. He also mentioned your pledge. You should therefore certainly set apart Rs. 25 lacs for the temple. However, I am afraid, it will not be conducive to the progress of Hinduism if Malaviyaji’s concept of the temple complex is translated literally. If the spirit of his concept is followed, it would raise Hinduism to greater heights. Today Hinduism is being compared with other religions. Under the circumstances, if we followed [his words] literally Hinduism would perish, while the
58
I have not really the time to spare from the work here before me, but Panditji’s memory is a sacred trust for me. He was much greater than he himself knew. But his limitations were amazing. The wonder is that he surmounted them all. (Letter to VA Sundaram, December 11, 1946, From a photostat: G. N. 3200, CWMG, Vol. 93, pp 128-9)
spirit behind them will put new life into it. Baba Raghavdas will tell you the rest.59 I have already written to Sheth J. K. Birla and sent the note by hand through Baba Raghavdas. You will probably see that letter and you will see too that I have spoken about you to him. In my opinion, your course is clear. If you can breathe the soul of Hinduism into the Viswa Vidyalaya you should stay, not otherwise. I have advised that the stipulated sum should be collected as was desired by Panditji. Therefore, an appeal should go from the University to the Princes. They can easily find the sum expected of them and if it is properly managed they will do so. Businessmen will find their portion and the rest will come easily. But all this can and should be done only if a living, befitting temple is built. The whole of the sum will not be spent in stone and mortar. Some marble is necessary. It should be a unique thing. It ought not to contain any idol. An idol is not a necessity of Hindu belief or a Hindu temple. Such a model structure but very artistic has been built in the Harijan Colony, Kingsway, Delhi.60 Thus spake the Sanatani Hindu. Gandhi’s peremptory orders were overruled and a Shivalingam was installed inside the temple. He was overruled in 1942 when he told Jawaharlal Nehru that he wanted Maulana Azad to step down as President of the INC, and he was similarly overruled by the Working Committee when he expressed himself strongly against the Congress entering the Constituent Assembly during the Cabinet Mission discussions just as he was simply ignored when he kept insisting on constituting an enquiry commission in Bihar. Gandhi’s authority was beginning to erode. 7.11 From leader to cult-figure
52 Letter to Jugal Kishore Birla, December 7, 1946, From a copy of the Hindi: Pyarelal Papers. Courtesy:Pyarelal , CWMG, Vol. 93, page 116 60
Letter to VA Sundaram, December 11, 1946, From a photostat: G. N. 3200, CWMG, Vol. 93, pp 128-9
Gandhi’s prayer meetings were described by Gandhi himself as his “covenant with God” and attracted sometimes thousands and even lakhs of people. At these mammoth gatherings Gandhi spoke to the people about the importance of spinning, about growing more food, about maintaining silence and order in his presence, about hygiene, about the evil of untouchability, about serving the Muslims generously and without political motives and about the power of Ramanaama as the panacea for all physical and mental ills, including malaria and nervous breakdown. While Gandhi ascribed miracle cure powers to Ramanaama and made it sound like an incantation, Gandhi gave Srirama himself a monotheist Christian ‘father-whoart-in-heaven” connotation, cleverly sidestepping the pointed question of whether his Rama was the historical Rama who was the son of Dasaratha and the husband of Sita.61 Consistent with his discomfort of the Valmiki and Tulsi Ramayana, Gandhi even advised the heads of department in Santiniketan to accept the spirit of the slokas of the Tulsi Ramayana but to reject what he called
61
Q. You have often said that when you talk of ‘Rama’ you refer to the Ruler of the Universe and not to Rama, the son of Dasaratha. But we find that your Ramdhun calls on ‘Sitarama’, ‘Rajarama’, and it ends with ‘Victory to Rama, Lord of Sita’. Who is this Rama if not the son of the King Dasaratha? A. I have answered such questions before….In Ramdhun ‘Sitarama’, ‘Rajarama’ are undoubtedly repeated. Is not this Rama the same as the son of Dasaratha? Tulsidas has answered this question. But let me put down my own view. More potent than Rama is the name…Thousands of people doubtless look upon Rama and Krishna as historical figures and literally believe that God came down in person on earth in the form of Rama the son of Dasaratha, and that by worshipping him one can attain salvation….History, imagination and truth have got so inextricably mixed up, it is next to impossible to disentangle them. I have accepted all the names and forms attributed to God as symbols denoting one formless omnipotent Rama. (Who is Rama, New Delhi, May 26, 1946, Harijan 2-61946, vol. 91, CWMG, pp44-45) Tyagaraja had sung that if all the attributes are put on one side and the glory of Ramanama on the other, the latter would far outweigh the former. Thinking of the historical Rama of Valmiki or Tulsidas, one was liable to have many doubts as for instance why Rama banished Sita. And so on. But when one thought of Ramanama in the abstract, forgetting who Rama was and what he did, Rama at once became the omnipresent and omnipotent God, above doubt and criticism. (Speech at prayer meeting, Madras, January 24, 1946, The Hindu, 26-1- 1946, CWMG, Vol.89, pp298-99)
the ‘orthodoxy’ contained in the same slokas!62 Gandhi’s evasion of the historicity of Srirama, even his distaste for Hindu religious rituals, his conscious distancing from Hindu religious leaders, his extreme but covert hostility towards Hindu maharajas and princes attest to the abiding influence that foreigners and Christian missionaries who were closely associated with him, had had on his thinking, notwithstanding the fact that he takes refuge (unconvincingly) in the Ramayana, Srirama, Tyagaraga and Tulsidas. We have to pause awhile at this juncture to pursue this line of thought. The most striking feature of Gandhi’s prayer meetings was that he never spoke to these ordinary people, to whom he repeatedly referred in his writings as ‘dumb masses’ or ‘dumb millions’, about the evil of colonial administration, about the undesirability of continuing alien rule or about their responsibilities to end it. He consciously chose not to speak to them about the heroes of the immediate past and past history who had courageously resisted and fought threats to this civilization and its religious and cultural values. He never spoke to them about Shivaji, Maharana Pratap or Rani Jhansi; he did not speak to them about the great lives of Aurobindo, Tilak, Bhagat Singh or Bose unless it was to deprecate armed resistance. Gandhi spoke to the people only about his version of swaraj – as being social transformation but never about swaraj as political independence. This omission is glaring. In the end, his undoubted matchless ability to bring together thousands and even lakhs of people for these prayer meetings yielded no tangible benefits to the Hindu samaj or to the nation except propagating his personal opinion in the name of the Congress culture which supplanted this nation’s civilisational ethos in post-independence India as the public face of this nation while Gandhian fetishes supplanted Hindu dharma as the governing principle of Indian polity. Reading these accounts of Gandhi’s prayer meetings gives those familiar with similar large gatherings addressed by J 62
There is a remarkable string of verses in the Tulsi Ramayana to the effect that what is not possible through other means becomes possible through tapascharya….I commend these verses to you for your careful perusal. Only you will have to strip them of their orthodoxy. (Discussion with Heads of Department, Santiniketan, December 19, 1945, CWMG, vol.89, page 65, Vishva-Bharati News, vol. XIV, No. 9)
Krishnamurti, a feeling of déjà vu – this intentional denial of sanctity and authority to tradition and traditional Gurus, and promoting instead a personality and intellectual cult. A similar de-Hinduising cultural trend was perpetuated by Tagore in Bengal. What few people realized was that these gatherings provided Gandhi, like they provided his contemporaries Krishnamurti and Tagore, the most effective medium for collective mind-control and a platform to promote their respective de-hinduised cults. Gandhi reached out to ordinary people through his writings in several journals and through prayer meetings which were organized everyday even when he was on the move, in cities and villages. He wrote and spoke on all issues about which he had an opinion, which was just about everything from why he disapproved of people feeding dogs, ants and monkeys, about how his ahimsa did not include non-injury to animals63, on the miracle cure powers of Ramanaama, on nature cure, on hygiene and discipline, the necessity to maintain absolute silence in his presence (reminiscent yet again of the Krishnamurti gatherings), on why his brand of ahimsa permitted killing of animals but not people, to ensure that one partner in all marriages was a harijan,64 on armed resistance, on non-violence, on satyagraha or civil-disobedience, on the Cripps and Cabinet Mission proposals, on the nutritive value of mango kernels - on every issue about which Gandhi had an opinion. When we read the Collected Works of Mahatma Gandhi what strikes us at once is how these scraps of papers, his letters to hundreds of people on all issues, had been saved by him and by the recipients of these letters; these included bits of paper carrying his notes and jottings on days when he observed his ritual silence. Gandhi’s friends, secretaries and stenographers, over the years spanning at 63
For more on Gandhi’s attitude to animals, see end of chapter 64 As regards inter-dining and inter-caste marriages, Gandhiji said that so far as he understood the mind of the Congress he knew there was no difference of opinion about inter-dining but he thought that so long as one could not think himself one of the Harijans, the poison of untouchability could not be removed. If anybody was not prepared to marry a Harijan he found no occasion of giving his blessings to that marriage. The question of marrying a Harijan was not so difficult but the difficulty was only mental. (Discussion with Congress workers, January 1, 1946, CWMG, vol. 89, page 150, Amrita Bazar Patrika, 3-1-1946)
least five decades, diligently maintained at his bidding, not only news paper reports but also first-hand reports of his meetings with Indians and foreigners, with individuals and groups, with high and low government officials, with social service groups, with media persons and missionaries, and with several members of his vast and extended family, including nephews, nieces and grand-children. Gandhi was so obsessed with written communication that he wrote small notes even to people who lived with him and about the most trivial and mundane every-day issues. Such was the iconic status of the man that people who received letters from him kept them devotedly; while such was his own sense of self-importance and the immortality of his writings that his assistants followed his orders that copies of these letters, notes and jottings be made and preserved for “future reference”. For Gandhians, The Collected Works of Mahatma Gandhi may indeed be considered the Gandhi Hadith. It was this aspect of Gandhi’s leadership that his writ should prevail as policy, his complete stranglehold on the Congress Working Committee which alienated Ambedkar and the scheduled castes from him and kept them away from the Congress and the political movement led by Gandhi. 7.11 Gandhi, Ambedkar and the Scheduled Castes The nineteenth and twentieth century was a period of great turbulence and upheaval for the Hindus of the nation. Not only were they confronting the external adversaries, ascendant Islam and the Christian-colonial British government but internally too, Hindu society was being churned by the incipient movement to end untouchability. One of the most positive fallout of the political movement to end colonial rule was the increasing awareness of the intrinsic injustice and criminality of the practice of untouchability in Hindu society. Untouchability and the consequent cultural deprivation and social infirmity that it had caused to its victims, was beginning to rise to the surface of the collective Hindu consciousness, not the least because the harijans, as Gandhi insisted on calling the scheduled castes, were taking to English education and were becoming increasingly articulate and assertive in public life. Babasaheb Ambedkar was both the embodiment and symbol of this cataclysmic phenomenon and his inspirational life bestowed upon him iconic status among the scheduled castes; Ambedkar, in the last phase of the freedom movement was as powerful and influential as Gandhi and Jinnah, with a vast following of his own, not confined to his own community
Gandhi knew that his clout with the British government was proportional to the size of his following and his capacity to bend his followers to his will; and that his power and influence over the people of this nation in his role as the tallest leader of the Congress was proportional to his clout with the British government and his capacity to deliver on the political front. Gandhi’s towering ambition to be the sole leader of all sections of the Indian populace flowed from the astute understanding of this critically important political factor. Gandhi already had the INC under his thumb and he therefore sought to make the INC the only legitimate and all-representative political vehicle. The reasoning was simple and sound – control of the INC effectively meant control of all sections of people – Muslims, Hindus, scheduled castes and the people of the Indian states. But Gandhi failed to get all sections of the people behind him because he sought exclusive leadership; he wanted people to follow him but on his terms and without their leaders, unless their leaders were willing to subordinate themselves to his leadership. Gandhi wanted the Hindus without their rituals and daily observances, without their religious leaders and their caste and community leaders, he wanted the Muslims without Jinnah and the Muslim League, the scheduled castes without Ambedkar and the people of the Indian states without their Hindu maharajas and princes. Gandhi wanted to publicly de-link t