Reassessing Mahatma: Did Gandhi-giri really worked?
Several weeks ago, I came across this piece by Dr Dipak Basu (Professor in International Economics in Nagasaki University, Japan) examining the role of Satyagraha in the national freedom movement.
Until I read the article, I used to believe that Satyagraha as a tactic was effective to at least some extent in the fight for freedom. Now I am beginning to have some doubts. I would be very interested to hear from other readers on this topic.
But before that, excerpts from “Satyagraha and India”s freedom Movement” in which Dr Base analyses Gandhi-ji’s three major Satyagraha movements and their impact on the struggle for independence.
Although Gandhi-ji’s involvement with the freedom movement began with his visit to India in 1896, it was not until six years later that he began to get seriously involved.
*** EXCERPTS BEGIN ***
“…In his second visit for a year in 1901-2 he attended the Congress session in Calcutta and spent more than a month with G.K. Gokhale, who was very loyal to the British and was opposed to the ideas of freedom movement of Tilak, Lajpat Rai, Chittaranjan Das, Surendranath Banerjee and Bipin Pal. Thus, Gandhi has joined the Empire-loyalist camp within the Congress, disinterested in the Swaraj movement of Tilak.
Gandhi’s first Satyagraha:
Returning to South Africa, Gandhi began to defy the Transvaal Asiatic Ordinance, where the government wanted all Asiatic, Arabs and Turks to carry a pass all the time to prove their eligibility to stay in South Africa. It was not a big issue, as in most countries even today foreigners must carry such documents anyway.
Throughout the Satyagraha, Gandhi emphasized that it was not so much for the rights of the Indians in South Africa as for the honour of the motherland, but which “motherland’ Gandhi was talking about was not clear.
One of the most dramatic events of the Satyagraha was the burning of the passes. The question is did that help the Indians in South Africa. The answer is definitely negative. Indians were rounded up and deported in many cases. The campaign lasted for over seven years, and in 1913 hundreds of people went to jail - and thousands of striking Indian miners faced imprisonment and injury.
Even when General Smut decided to meet Gandhi, it was made clear that there would be no further immigration of the Indians to South Africa. Passes were withdrawn temporarily but soon after laws were passed to restrict the non-Europeans into designated areas in every cities; that was the beginning of the legal racial segregations in South Africa.
By all means Gandhi’s Satyagraha was not a success, but that had not stopped certain people and the English language media in India at that time to propagate Gandhi as victorious against a racist government of British origin for whom Gandhi had worked as medical orderly in the war against the Dutch settlers in South Africa and became a recruitment agent during the First World War…”
Dr Basu also notes that “…(during this time)..Gandhi had practically no contact with the African and their liberation movement”.
Gandhi’s second Satyagraha :
“…Through extraordinary good fortune, due to the deaths of Tilak by September 1920 Gandhi in an extraordinary political coup was elected himself as the president of the All-India Home Rule League and steered a resolution in favour of Non-Cooperation to preserve the Khilafat but got rid of the freedom movement in the Congress session in Calcutta.
Later all the important leaders of the Congress, Bipin Pal, Surendranath Banerjee, Ajit Singh were either expelled or neutralized by Gandhi. Tilak had gathered about Rs.10 lakhs, a huge sum these days to finance his freedom movement. Gandhi used that up to please the followers of Turkish Khalifa, who was defied by the Muslims in the Turkish occupied Arabia, Iran, Iraq, Syria and in Turkey itself by the reforming leader Kamal Attaturk. Gandhi and the Muslim leaders of India were ignorant about these political developments in the Middle East.
The agitation to save the Turkish Sultan by the “Non-Cooperation’ of the Congress party was initiated by the Khilafat leadership, not by the Congress.
Gandhi without consulting other leaders of the Congress made these two issues his own by presiding over the All India Khilafat Conference in Delhi in November 1919, and started his programme of peaceful non co-operation with the British included boycotts of British goods and institutions to protect the Turkish Sultan, leading to arrests of thousands of the people for defying British laws.
Thus, the second Satyagraha has nothing to do with the freedom movement of India and was a regressive movement to preserve the violent crude feudal Sultanate of Turkey who had colonized a vast part of the world, from Iraq to Greece with its inhuman rule…”
Gandhi’s third Satyagraha:
Gandhis political influence was minimal for some years, until the Calcutta Congress in December 1928, where he demanded dominion status for India, and threatened a nation-wide campaign but he had also expelled Srinivas Iyenger from the Congress for demanding complete independence of India.
Subhas Chandra Bose was expelled along with more than 200 of his followers from the Congress party for similar reason in 1939.
On March 12, 1930 Gandhi started a March in Dandi, Gujarat to break the law, which had deprived the people of his right to make his own salt, although for most of the people of India it was only symbolic as they never did used to make their own salt in any way. On April 6, 1930 Gandhi broke the Salt law at the sea beach at Dandi. This simple act was immediately followed by a nation-wide defiance of the law.
This movement came to be known as Civil Disobedience Movement. Within a few weeks about a hundred thousand men and women, thinking mistakenly that it was the beginning of the freedom movement, were in jail, throwing mighty machinery of the British Government out of gear. Gandhi was arrested on May 5, 1930.
After his arrest, a more aggressive non-violent rebellion took place in which 2500 volunteers raided salt depots at Dharsana. In April 1930 there were violent police-crowd clashes in Calcutta. Approximately over 100,000 people were imprisoned in the course of the Civil disobedience movement (1930-31), while in Peshawar unarmed demonstrators were fired upon by the British. Gandhi withdrew himself from the movement. Sacrifice of the people was in vain. The British government had never withdrawn the tax on salt.
In January 1931, the Viceroy, Lord Irwin, ordered the release of Gandhi and together they signed the Gandhi-Irwin Pact, which called for an end of Congresss civil disobedience. In August, Gandhi went to London to represent the Indian National Congress at the Second Round Table Conference; the first one was held without Congress participation in November 1930. That Conference in 1931has failed mainly because of the change of government in Britain.
Gandhi returned to India and decided to resume the civil disobedience movement in January 1932. India was then under the repressive policies of the new Viceroy, Lord Willingdon. The Indian National Congress had been outlawed. Gandhi had restricted the civil disobedience movement to him and suspended it completely in 1934.Gandhi then had started his campaign against untouchability.
Thus, Gandhi’s second Satyagraha also could not achieve anything much because Gandhi as usual refused to continue it. That was Gandhi’s last and the only Satyagraha as a mass political movement for the freedom movement.
…
In August 1942, Gandhi gave forth the slogan Quit India for the British but he had no plan how to execute the programme. The Congress passed a resolution on 8 August 1942, which stated that, the immediate ending of the British rule in India, was an urgent necessity both for the sake of India and the success of United Nations. The congress resolved to launch a mass Civil Disobedience struggle on the widest possible scale for the vindication of India’s unalienable right to freedom and independence if the British rule did not end immediately. The day after the resolution was passed, the Congress was banned and all the important leaders were arrested including Gandhi. That provoked spontaneous demonstrations at many places and people resorted to the use of violence, not Satyagraha, to dislodge the foreign rule.
Unarmed crowds faced police and military firing on many occasions and they were also machine gunned by low- flying aircraft. Repression also took the form of taking hostages from the villages, imposing collective fines, whipping of suspects and burning of villages. By the end of 1942, over 60,000 persons had been arrested. Martial law had not been proclaimed but the army did whatever it wanted. The brutal and all-out repression succeeded within a period of 6 or 7 weeks in bringing about a cessation of the struggle. As usual Gandhi already withdrew himself from that movement within a few days after it has started.
Since 1942, Gandhi was busy making plans to partition India to create Pakistan, the idea of which Gandhi has accepted even in 1940, according to both B.R.Ambedkar and Sri Aurobindo. Nehru and Patel as representative of Gandhi were in regular consultations with the Vice-Roy of India on how best to help the British war efforts against Japan and the Azad Hind Fauz. Freedom movement was not in their mind.
Gandhi had initiated a number of his personal Satyagraha on a number of issues unrelated to the freedom movement; most of these were not successful.
Sri Aurobindo made this comment about Satyagraha:
“Gandhi fasted in the Ahmedabad mill-hands strike to settle the question between mill- owners and workers. The mill-owners did not want to be responsible for his death and so they gave way, without of course, being convinced of his position. But as soon as they found the situation normal they reverted to their old ideas. The same thing happened in South Africa. He got some concessions there by passive resistance and when he came back to India it became worse than before.”
Analysis:
It is a common belief in India and in the Western world that Gandhi through his non-violence Satyagraha has gave India independence from the British rule. The truth is somehow very different.
According to the British Prime Minister Clement Attlee…the creation of the INA( Indian National Army) and mutiny the RIN ( Royal Indian Navy) of February 18–23 1946 made the British realise that their time was up in India.
An extract from a letter written by P.V. Chuckraborty, former Chief Justice of Calcutta High Court, on March 30 1976, reads thus:
“When I was acting as Governor of West Bengal in 1956, Lord Clement Attlee, who as the British Prime Minister in post war years was responsible for India’s freedom, visited India and stayed in Raj Bhavan Calcutta for two days. I put it straight to him like this: “The Quit India Movement of Gandhi practically died out long before 1947 and there was nothing in the Indian situation at that time which made it necessary for the British to leave India in a hurry. Why then did they do so?’ In reply Attlee cited several reasons, the most important of which were the INA activities of Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose, which weakened the very foundation of the British Empire in India, and the RIN Mutiny which made the British realise that the Indian armed forces could no longer be trusted to prop up the British. When asked about the extent to which the British decision to quit India was influenced by Mahatma Gandhi’s 1942 movement, Attlee’s lips widened in smile of disdain and he uttered, slowly, “Minimal’.”*
(Reference: Anuj Dhar’s website: www.hindustantime.com/news/specials/Netaji/; Dhanjaya Bhat, The Tribune, February 12, 2006; Majumdar, R. C., Jibanera Smritideepe, Calcutta, General Printers and Publishers, 1978, pp. 229-230; R.Borra, “Subhas Chandra Bose, The Indian National Army, and The War of Indias Liberation’, The Journal of Historical Review, Winter 1982 (Vol. 3, No. 4), pages 407-439; http://www.ihr.org/jhr/v03/v03p407_Borra.html)
Famous historian Ramesh Chadra Majumdar dismissed the contribution of Satyagraha to the eventual independence of India.
He said, “ The campaigns of Gandhi… came to an ignoble end about fourteen years before India achieved independence… In particular, the revelations made by the INA trial, and the reaction it produced in India, made it quite plain to the British, already exhausted by the war, that they could no longer depend upon the loyalty of the sepoys for maintaining their authority in India. This had probably the greatest influence upon their final decision to quit India. (Majumdar, R.C., Three Phases of Indias Struggle for Freedom, Bombay, Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan).
Thus, one should not just believe in the official version of the recent Indian history, which has propagated that only Gandhi and Nehru through the Satyagraha has brought freedom to India.
The reality is quite different, but was hidden so far due the massive state power to advertise Satyagraha, which as a mass movement has failed everywhere whether in India or in South Africa.
*** EXCERPTS END ***
Related Posts:
Would “Gandhi…have become an asterisk of history rather than an icon”?
Lies and half-truths in the name of national integration
We should look at Gandhi’s patent Satyagrah thing from a practical point of view. What Gandhi wants is that if someone attacks us we should not fight back, far from that we should not even try to stop him from hurting us…and go on receiving blow after blow. And in due process a time would come when the beater will feel pity upon us and hence stop beating us ! This will be our victory - the victory of the good over evil ! Simple ! What a wonderful idea…and how nice it sounds
Comment by Jagmohan Singh Khurmi | December 3, 2007
Dear Sir,
It is not that the author is wrong in his views. Please understand that for the first fifty years after our independence nothing was more stupid than to question the acts of Gandhi and Nehru.
Today questions are being asked , but such a right is being trampled upon by the English media, as the language still rules supreme, and the bullying of the criminal politicians.
Unless a few “true” historians “really” go through all the original documents and the records maintained at that time the truth will never be revealed.
We will only have the histories as propounded by the Stephenians, Loyolites, Xavierites and nobody else, and the truth will never be revealed.
A few questions, related to the pre independence period; Where did all these Institutions get their land to build such institutions, did they pay for them, or a lease was granted or what was the source?
If I can hazard a guess these were outright gifts to these institutions and hence what do you expect from their outputs, something other than what the author has questioned?
Regards,
vck
Comment by v.c.krishnan | December 3, 2007
@Shantanu: The hindustantimes link to Anuj Dhar’s website is broken.
It is hard for me to understand that historians can just tweak information while people who have watched the events live amongst their midst. However, I do agree with some of this thoughts.
While I can understand that satyagraha evoked sympathy from indians who might have enlisted with the brits, I am not sure exactly what it did to the colonists to leave the country.
May be they felt the cost-benefit ratio (cost of running the country to the loot) was such that it made it non-profitable and they left. And satyagraha created enough restlessness in the country to mess up their budgets.
May be satyagraha was the most effective way at that time, since we were lagging behind in weapon technology anyway.
Comment by Prakash | December 4, 2007
@ Prakash: Good points…and I have the feeling that we may never know the full truth (as vck has hinted as well).
The picture is grey, not black and white and history unfortunately, rarely has answers to “what if?”.
Comment by B Shantanu | December 5, 2007
We have this disgraceful habit of looking at our great Independence struggle from a bania point of view. Why do we try to sideline the fundamental question : was Gandhi-giri relevant during those troubled times ? Did Gandhi and his experiments with truths (or what he wrongly believed to be truths) really helped the actual heroes of the Movement ? or it simply helped the enemy within get more and more out of nothing ?
Comment by Jagmohan Singh Khurmi | December 5, 2007
>> May be satyagraha was the most effective way at that time, since we were lagging behind in weapon technology anyway >>
Agree with your first point.
Not so sure about the second one.The Vietnamese were also behind in weapons technology but they kicked out the French at Dien Bein Phu. We also had access to Japanese help under Bose.
I suspect the real answer to why the British were so successful in India lies in their wily exploitation of the caste system. The castes most prone to violence were brutally suppressed and branded criminal tribes. These tribes then diverted their anger from the British to the society around them that accepted such an insult to them.
Nonetheless, a lot of members of the INA were from these groups (at least from my knowledge of TN)
I really do not think the British would have survived even a moderately violent co-ordinated struggle on the scale of the war being waged by the LTTE.
We never really tried and full credit to the British for that.
Comment by rc | December 5, 2007
It is difficult to separate cause and effect, especially when you have multiple events occurring at the same time. Just as Dr Basu has built a circumstantial case against Gandhi, similarly one can do the same for pretty much everyone else who contributed to the Indian Independence movement.
One can keep arguing about what was more important and critical among these:
1. The Civil Disobedience movement - the first real mass mobilisation of Indian people. Dr Basu makes the mistake of saying that this did not achieve anything tangible, but is not the first-time-mobilisation of millions of common people (and not just rajputs or marathas) across the country itself not an achievement? And, the fact that for the first time the British Empire spoke to an Indian politician as an equal interloculator?
2. The killing of Saunders (I think) in Pune - for the first time, the British awoke to the fact that their top officials could also be targeted directly by Indian revolutionaries (terrorists) and they could be picked off one by one.
3. The Dandi Satyagragha - Again Dr Basu, I think deliberately, misses the point about the Dandi March. This was open flouting by an individual and his unarmed followers of the most powerful empire in the world (past and then). Can you imagine the effect of that on the common people of India?
4. The INA reaching India’s North East - This was as at the height of World War II when the British was increasingly being sandwiched between the Germans and the Japanese. I think India’s history would have looked different (not necessarily better!) if Bose had managed to break through Imphal and march towards Delhi. But the shock to the system was huge, despite the defeat of the INA.
5. The Navy Mutiny in Bombay - this was literally the last straw that broke the camel’s back. The final catalyst that led to Independence, and I don’t think our history books underplay this event.
But, think about it - could #5 have come about if national consciousness had not been raised by events #1 and #3? And, could #4 have come about if #2 had not shown the way? And would #1-3 have had any meaning without events #4-5?
Berating and belittling Gandhi has become the latest fashion, I think.
Comment by Patriot | December 6, 2007
While the history that is taught in schools may have been recast in a heroic Nehru-Gandhi mold, is that the only reason that the “rural” people of India hold Gandhi in such high esteem?
Remember that at the time of India’s independence, literacy rates outside the cities was sub-30% if not lower. So, Gandhi’s stories were passed on in the great verbal tradition by parents, grandparents and great-grandparents to their offspring. By people WHO WERE THERE to their near and dear ones …. that is how the legend of Gandhi has built up.
I wonder what locus standi a historian of today can have against these stories that have been handed down?
Comment by Patriot | December 6, 2007
It is also true that Gandhi was believed to have said many times in the 20’s and 30’s that people of India were not yet ready for full Independence.
And, when I read that, I wondered how can any person not be ready for independence? Don’t we all desire freedom?
And, today, when I see my fellow citizens break every rule and law that they think they can get away with, I wonder if Gandhi was not indeed not right? That we got freedom, but no civic values or sense or responsibility.
Comment by Patriot | December 6, 2007
@rc: Thanks for the cmment. This is an intriguing thought:
“I suspect the real answer to why the British were so successful in India lies in their wily exploitation of the caste system.
Does anyone else believes this may have been a contributing factor? I would like to explore this more.
Also, this is interesting:
Nonetheless, a lot of members of the INA were from these groups (at least from my knowledge of TN)
and I would tend to agree with: “I really do not think the British would have survived even a moderately violent co-ordinated struggle
***
@ Patriot: My point was not against “Gandhi” as such but against the tactic of Satyagraha.
Good points re. #1-5.
As for why Gandhi-ji is still remembered in villages, there could be many reasons. Although literacy rates were low, India was ruled by Congress for several decades after independence and Gandhiji was the main icon of INC (less so Tilak and even less so, Bose).
It is possible that the ruling elites continued to project the icon and prop up these stories to a point where reality got mixed up with “perception”.
A historian’s locus standi must always be facts - to the extent that we can find them. In that sense, a re-examination of the past is not necessarily something to shy away from (this is my point of view - you may disagree)
As for ” we got freedom, but no civic values or sense or responsibility , that is a separate and I belive quite complex discussion in itself.
Comment by B Shantanu | December 6, 2007
Shantanu: “A historian’s locus standi must always be facts - to the extent that we can find them. In that sense, a re-examination of the past is not necessarily something to shy away from (this is my point of view - you may disagree)”
Fully agree with the above. I think we certainly need independent historians to revisit our “history” …. I was actually comparing and contrasting this particular historian with current folk lore, nothing more or less.
Also, a historian may depend on facts, but ultimately he interprets them according to his reasoning. That is why you have many histories!!!!
Comment by Patriot | December 6, 2007
I don’t think Gandhi-giri has really worked. The gained the momentum when the movie called Munnabhai gained popularity with a different subject. Some people also tried to popularise the tradition but the spoiled Indian system has depressed it as at last it is not of a use to any any of the Indian work. The Gandhi giri which rise at the time of movie release is no where seen now.
So I don’t think its working.
ASHU
________
ad posting
Comment by ASHU | July 5, 2008
http://www.vijayvaani.com/FrmPublicDisplayArticle.aspx?id=152
Gandhi under Cross Examination
Leo Rebello
02 Oct 2008
As a student, I was much impressed by the short biographical textbook we had in the tenth grade on Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi. It was so well written that it left an indelible mark on my mind about the courage and honesty of Mahatma Gandhi.
Later, I had the opportunity to work with many stalwarts of the Gandhi era. I know Arun Gandhi (his grandson, now residing in the United States), Rajmohan Gandhi (his grandson in India) and Ela Gandhi (his granddaughter residing in South Africa) who, in 2000, personally took me to the Phoenix settlement (Gandhi’s spiritual retreat in South Africa).
Therefore, some years ago, when an Indian journalist said, “Gandhi was a bastard bania†on Star TV, I reprimanded him as did many others. His “derogatory comments†remained a bone of contention for more than a month. The anchor who interviewed him lost her lucrative job and the journalist had to apologize to avoid legal proceedings.
Then I came across a celebrated book The 100 – a ranking of most influential persons in history by Michael Hart. Gandhi was nowhere on the list of 100, in which Muhammad appeared first, Isaac Newton second, Jesus Christ third, Buddha fourth and Niels Bohr (father of the theory of atomic structure) the last entry. I was shocked; but the reasons given by the author for including Gandhi in a supplementary chapter titled Honourable Mentions and Interesting Misses seemed sound to me. Below are the first three of five paragraphs on page 526 of the said book:
“Mohandas K. Gandhi was the outstanding leader of the movement for an independent India, and for that reason alone several people have suggested that he be included in the main section of this book. It should be remembered, though, that Indian independence from England was bound to come sooner or later; in fact, given the strength of the historical forces tending towards decolonization, we can today see that Indian independence would surely have been achieved within a few years of 1947 even had Gandhi never lived.
“It is true that Gandhi’s technique of non violent civil disobedience was ultimately successful in persuading the British to leave India. It has been suggested, however, that India might have gained independence sooner if the Indians had adopted more forceful methods instead. Since it is hard to decide whether on the whole Gandhi speeded up or delayed Indian independence, we might reasonably conclude that the net effect of his actions was (at least in that respect) rather small. It might also be pointed out that Gandhi was not the founder of the movement for Indian independence (the Indian National Congress had been founded as early as 1885), nor was he the main political leader at the time independence was finally achieved.
“Still, it might be maintained that Gandhi’s principal importance lies in his advocacy of non-violence. (His ideas, of course, were not entirely original: Gandhi specifically said that they were derived in part from his readings of Thoreau, Tolstoy, and the New Testament, as well as from various Hindu writings.) There is little doubt that Gandhi’s policies, if universally adopted, would transform the world. Unfortunately, they have not been generally accepted, even in India.â€
I am not much of a student of history, so the more I read about Gandhi’s contribution to the freedom struggle of India, that more the halo of ‘Mahatma’ (great soul) lost its glow. The final blow came when the authors of this book asked me to write a foreword.
Writing a foreword to a formidable treatise whose subject is an icon for millions is not easy. I have gone through this manuscript and can say that it is an excellent analytical work. For two reasons: (a) the authors are quoting directly from ‘authentic sources’ like Gandhi’s ‘An Autobiography: My Experiments with Truth’ and (b) the questions they are asking have never been asked before.
Rev. Joseph Doke (the first biographer of Gandhi) asks Gandhi if he was prepared to be a martyr. Gandhi asks Doke if he would like him to write part of the biography. Then Gandhi promotes this biography with precision, in London, India and throughout the empire, while suppressing its release in South Africa where he lived for 21 years. Why? Through questions like these Col. G.B. Singh and Dr. Timothy Watson put Gandhi in the witness box, which makes this book different.
G.B. Singh has been researching Gandhi for over two decades and also studying Hinduism and Indian politics. He is a career military officer in the American army and claims to have been influenced by the modern skeptical movements. His first book Gandhi Behind the Mask of Divinity (Prometheus Books, 2004) has been succeeded by Gandhi Under Cross-Examination, which probes the subject more deeply. Here Watson joins Singh in an intensive ‘re-search’ conducted without prejudice. Watson is a Canadian educationist.
The authors claim that Gandhi worked for the empire. The evidence is contained in the Collected Works of Mahatma Gandhi in Gandhi’s own words, they aver. Gandhi made repeated appeals to the high caste Indian population of South Africa to join in the war effort to stem the Zulu uprising in Natal in South Africa. He even led a campaign to form a volunteer ambulance corps made up of Indians, which he led as a commissioned officer with the rank of sergeant major. He also acted as a wartime correspondent through his own newspaper, Indian Opinion. Why would Gandhi have done this? Why would he act as a recruitment officer in the Boer War, the campaign against the Zulus, and the First World War on behalf of the British Empire? Questions such as these need to be addressed to set the record straight.
The authors prove that Gandhi has not presented the truth before the world. Considerable evidence analyzed by them shows that the racial train and coach incidents (travelling from Durban to Pretoria) in South Africa, and other instances, are not true. Gandhi fabricated, embellished, and even lied to further his own political agenda. Obviously, his conscience was pricking him for lying. He knew he was playing with the truth. Hence, he very aptly titled his biography My Experiments with the Truth.
As a professional writer and having worked closely with several Gandhians and been influenced by many Gandhian precepts, I understand that the reputation of an icon of the modern era hangs in the balance. But let it be noted that neither the writer of the foreword nor the authors of this book are out to demolish the reputation of a great man.
The book helps readers understand that M.K. Gandhi was an astute businessman, a cunning politician and a deeply religious man. To that extent this book makes you a scholar rather than a pedantic follower. No doubt it is a provocative book. But it also offers a new perspective on history and helps to de-programme our minds from establishment indoctrination. After reading this book the readers will be in a better position to decide whether Gandhi is relevant today or not.
The author is World Peace Envoy and lives in Mumbai. This article is based on his forward to Gandhi Under Cross-Examination, by Col. G.B. Singh and Dr. Timothy Watson, Sovereign Star Publishing Inc., 2008
Comment by K Kak | October 2, 2008
Mr. K Kak
Nothing can steal the glow of Gandhiji! What ever you explained or is written in many books deregotory about him will only be enjoyed by those who wants to make him small. I am saying this not because of I am great follower or is influeced by him. How can Muhmmad be the first one? Does any one researched on him? Why some one is just picking Gandhiji? No amount of throwing dust on him will take away his glow! There can be difference of opinions and thoughts but that doesnot make anyone smaller than other luminaries.
Thanks
Comment by Indian | October 2, 2008
Shantanu,
I havenot read full post in details but I am describing my over all feelings.
I agree that only Gandhiji and Nehru didnot bring freedom. There are many who fought, sacrifised and dedicated their life for Freedom. We should not forget many brave hearts, like Vir sawarkar, Bhagat Sing and his friends, Mangal Pandey, Subash Chandra Bose and many many…
Gandhiji never said it is because of me freedom was or is possible. Today we may discuss many things associted with him. But the fact of that period of time is very important. How people felt, why gandhiji got momentum or why he lead the freedom team, why people kept faith in him and believed him. Why he got more attention than any others. May be at that point of time he was the necessity.
Lets not make efforts for freedom small by evaluating freedom fighters. To learn from the the history, the past mistakes, and wrong decision and conclusions is fine but please dont weigh the freedom figters or because of who we got the freedom. They all are as as important as they were.
I also agree his type of Gandhigiri couldnot have worked or may not be work in present time. But something in Gandhiji clicked many at that time.
Jai Hind!
Comment by Indian | October 2, 2008
@ Indian: Just a small point…The comment is not by Sh Kak but an article written by Dr Leo Rebello reviewing a book by Col G B Singh and Dr Timothy Watson.
Comment by B Shantanu | October 3, 2008
I am the author of that article, which due to the strength of the Gandhi Brigade, could not be published anywhere except in Indiacause.com a web magazine. Thus, propaganda is much more powerful than the truth.
Some of errors I have the noticed in the comments written above.
a) Khilafat Movement was not the first non-violent mass movement in India. Most possibly it was the Swadesi Movement of 1905 after the partition of Bengal to satisfy the demands of the Muslims of India by Lord Curzon
.
Gandhi’s mentor Sir.Ghokale was against the Swadesi Movement and because of his opposition it was curtailed at the end much to the satisfaction of Jinnah, who was a leader of The Congress at that time.
Ghokhle then went to London to have some long meetings with William Gladstone, the British Prime Minister and a conspiracy to sabotage the freedom movement of India was designed in London. Ghokhle thereafter went to South Africa and brought Gandhi to London, where Gandhi has stayed for about six months before he came to India. Gokhle has asked The Congress, along with the pro-British media of India at that time, to accept Gandhi as the sole leader of The Congress but without any election. In fact there was no election in the Congress since Gandhi entered The Congress until 1938-39, when Subhas Bose gatecrashed into it and was expelled as a result.
After the entry of Gandhi into The Congress, both Tilak and Chittaranjan Das died mysteriously and prematurely; Lajpat Rai was killed by the British police; Bipin Pal, Anne Besant, Surendranath Banerjee, Ajit Singh and later Iyenger were practically forced to resign from The Congress. Gandhi became the supreme decision maker in The Congress. Gandhi was financed by the very pro-British business leaders of India, mill owners of Gujarat, G.D.Birla and J.L.Bajaj in particular who had financed Gandhi’s Ashram.
Recently it was revealed by The Statesman that Gandhi had several meeting with Teggart, the notorious police commissioner of Calcutta during the 1920s when the revolutionary movement was very strong and Teggart had personally killed a number of revolutionaries or tortured them to death. Gandhi’s vile statements against the revolutionaries, when they were already sentenced to death, are well documented. It is also a fact that the members of the British intelligence service dressed up as poor peasants used to surround Gandhi to protect him ( from whom??).
Gandhi refused to support the revolt of the Indian Navy in 1946, by saying that only the lower class people of India were united to support that revolt through strikes in Karachi, Bombay and Calcutta, not the upper class people of India. However, within a week after the suppression of that revolt against the persecutions of the members of the Azad Hind Fauz, Clement Attlee, the British Prime Minister declared his intention to leave India as Britain had no such big army and resources to suppress India any more(so said Stafford Cripps in the British House of Commons in 1946).
Comment by Dipak Basu | May 9, 2009
Dear Dipak: First of all, thank you for taking the time to read the comments here and share your thoughts.
Do you have any more references to Gandhi’s stay in London before coming to India in the early part of last century and do you have any links to his comment(s) on the revolt by Indian Navy?
Thanks.
Comment by B Shantanu | May 9, 2009
(1) In the Complete Volume of Gandhi, Vol 4 has letters and telegrams of Gandhi to and from Gokhle during 1914. Also it contains several meetings of Gandhi and Gokhle with Gladstone.
(2) For Gandhi’s hostile comments on the revolt of 1946 see, Chandra, Bipan and others (1989). India’s Struggle for Independence 1857-1947, New Delhi:Penguin, ISBN 0-14-010781-9, p.485
Comment by Dipak Basu | May 11, 2009
Thanks for the links Dipak. I will have a look.
Comment by B Shantanu | May 11, 2009
@Dipak:
“After the entry of Gandhi into The Congress, both Tilak and Chittaranjan Das died mysteriously and prematurely; Lajpat Rai was killed by the British police”
If you put forward such innuendos, no wonder a publishing house would not touch you.
I do not believe any person can be only white or black - our “history” books may have presented Gandhi as only white, but the response to that should not be innuendos and slander.
I do understand the Bengali angst against Gandhi, as he ensured that Bose was forced to leave the congress - and, he behaved like a petty politician in that regard, but his clear preference was for Nehru and he rooted for him. The key question in this episode is not why Gandhi acted the way he did, but why did the Congress kowtow to him? Who is at greater fault here, if you think about it rationally?
Does Bipin Chandra cite evidentiary sources for the comments attributed to Gandhi on the 1946 Naval revolt? The remarks do not seem to be believable, because Gandhi was too wily a politician to make such crass remarks.
And, finally we can cite small movements here and there to the contrary, but Gandhi was the first leader in the independence movement to really get the masses into the movement. Even Tilak (whom I respect a lot) managed little outside of Pune, and surrounding areas.
And, then Gandhi said - My life is my message. And, lived it as such. To me, therein lies his greatness.
Cheers
Comment by Patriot | May 12, 2009
Dear Patriot,
Gandhi was not the first to mobilise the masses. The first mass political movement was the swadesi movement in Bengal in 1905, which was spread in most parts of North India.
Gandhi’s Khilafat movement was participated mainly by the Muslims; it cannot be called a national mass movement.
Comment by Musafir | June 11, 2009
Dear Musafir,
I think you have mixed up your chronology - there was no swadeshi movement in Bengal in 1905. The 1905 Bengal movement was against the partition of Bengal into hindu-majority and muslim-majority parts by Curzon, then Viceroy of India, on the grounds of “administrative convenience”! The Bengal province in those days included present-day Assam and much of the north-east - and hence, you may think that the movement was present in the north. But, there was no activity in United Provinces at that point in time. The partition was eventually undone in 1911, before a second, more permanent partition was foisted on Bengal in 1947.
Gandhi’s first movement that fired the imagination of the masses was the Champaran movement in Bihar in 1918, against the cultivation of indigo, which forced the British to accept the demands of the indigo farmers. The second one was the non-cooperation movement in 1921, which showed up the first mention of swadeshi.
While the Khilafat movement was launched in 1920 in India by Khan Abdul Gaffar Khan, Gandhi extended support to it - he was, by no means, a leader in that movement. And, as an aside, to this day, people criticise Gandhi for this support.
And, finally, do keep in mind that Gandhi’s reputation preceded him to India - his struggle for the civil rights of Indian in South Africa took place between 1893 and 1913. The “weapons” of non-cooperation and satyagraha were honed much before Champaran.
Cheers
Comment by Patriot | June 11, 2009
Something that I read yesterday, related to this topic, laterally:
http://www.livemint.com/2009/06/10220421/Two-ideas-of-nationhood.html
And, that led me to think about another aspect of the partition of Bengal in 1947 - in Bengal, the ruling “tribal ethos” has always been the Bengali culture and language, not religion - before the “direct action” launched by the Muslim League (code for slaughtering hindus) in Kolkata in 1946, no one in Bengal really thought about whether they were hindu or muslim - they were simply Bengali. Even after independence, thanks to Gandhi’s actions in Noakhali and Kolkata, Bengal did not see the horrific massacres of Punjab. (As an aside, Mountbatten was moved to comment that there were hundreds of thousands of troops in Punjab, and yet thousands died. There was one man in Bengal, and no one died).
As a result, Hindus from East Bengal continued to work there and remit money to West Bengal, where their families were migrating. This process continued well into the 60’s, before Mujibur Rehman’s party won the majority of seats in then combined West and East Pakistan (Bengal) - then the Pakistani generals unleashed their troops.
But, the partition, I think, had another unintended consequence for West Bengal (and India) - as all the intellectuals and thinkers and progressives moved from East Bengal to reside in India, their disgust with how religion was used to partition Bengal turned them towards the thinking of Marx and then, communism. At least, that is my thinking!
I do dream of the golden day when Bengal is united again.
Comment by Patriot | June 12, 2009
@ Patriot: Very interesting…I was not aware of this historical backdrop…Thanks for sharing (although I do not entirely agree with Salil Tripathi’s article).
Comment by B Shantanu | June 13, 2009
Patriot:
Swadesi movement has started in 1905 in Bengal and it was the fiesr mass movement of India. Gandhi’s mentor Gokhale was against the Swadesi movement.
Gandhi was vice president of the Khilafat movement, which had nothing to do with the Freedom movement.
Champaran movement is a very localised issue in Bihar and it was a failure like all of Gandhi’s movements.
When Gandhi went to Britain to join the Round Table Conference, one of his main argument was that as a dominion country India would import more of Manchester textles.
Thus, Gandhi has nothing to do with Swadesi movement which has called for the boycott of the British goods.
Comment by Musafir | June 13, 2009
Swadesi movement was organized by Surendranath Banerjee ( Congress president in 1905), Bipin Pal, Arabindo Ghosh, Tilak, Lajpat Rai, Rabindranath Tagore, but was opposed by Gokhale, Firoj Shah Kotla etc
Comment by Musafir | June 14, 2009
@ Musafir:
I agree with you that the original Swadeshi thought was of Lal, Bal, Pal - as the trinity were known, before Gandhi stepped on the stage.
But, I have seen no historical records of people leaving govt jobs in Bengal or burning imported textiles during the Bengal agitation between 1905-1911.
Yet, this is what we saw and more during the Civil Disobedience movement launched by Gandhi, and later, too.
I have not said that the ideas of Swadeshi were those of Gandhi - Tilak proposed them along with his war cry of Swaraj, fully 15 years before Gandhi. But, Gandhi was the mass implementator. That was his greatness and his ability.
Even non-violence and satyagraha are not original ideas of Gandhi - he, himself, admits that he borrowed them from the life and behaviour of Jesus and the writings of Tolstoy.
The key is implementation, when it comes to politics!
Cheers
Comment by Patriot | June 14, 2009
@ Musafir:
And, people change as they grow and are faced with conflicting ideas - you are right about Gandhi at the first round table conference, when Gandhi had not yet embraced the idea of a free nation.
Yet, it was Gandhi’s call to disobey the Rowlatt Act, spurn foreign textiles and give up government jobs that led to India’s first mass movement after 1857.
And yet, it was Gandhi who marched to Dandi and broke English laws - if you read some of his earlier writing, you will find that he always wanted to stay within the bounds of the law, first - then, he came up with this breakthrough in his *own* thinking - that if the laws were unjust, then it was the duty of the citizen to oppose such unjust laws.
Gandhi was not born with all the accumulated wisdom of the ages - he also evolved, his thinking evolved - just like all of us. To hold some of his earlier transgresses against Indian nationhood against him, in perpetuity and in exclusion, is merely churlish, in my opinion.
Cheers
Comment by Patriot | June 14, 2009
@ Musafir:
“Gandhi was vice president of the Khilafat movement, which had nothing to do with the Freedom movement.”
I did not know this - but, was he really active at all in the Khilafat movemement or was he just an honorary member, designation given for his and Congress’ support?
Cheers
Comment by Patriot | June 14, 2009
(1)
For the Swadesi movement look at Wikipedia or search in Google, you can only see 1905 Partition of Bengal. That was the Swadesi movement. Gandhi at that time was serving in South Africa as a military officer for the British against the Dutch.
(2) Similarly search for Khilafat Movement, Gandhi was the main leader. Do not call it civil disobedient movement, it was Khilafat Movement to reestablish the Sultan of Turkey.
(3)
Gandhi has nothing to do with the movement against Rawlatt Act, against which there were countrywide mass movement and Jaliwanwala Bag Murder took place in that context. Gandhi has nothing to do with it, because it was Gandhi who was recruiting soldiers for the British at that time.
(4)
Salt March was ened in a total failure, it could not achieve anything.
(5) 1930 Civil Disobedient movement lasted 5 days only, Gandhi withdrew it.
(6) Gandhi never took part in First Round Table Conference, but took part in the Second.
(7) Gandhi came back to India at the age of 55, he was not a child then. Khudiram Bose gave his life at the age of 18.
Even at a very old age in 1947 Gandhi told Lord Mountbatten ” Have I ever disobeyed you” and went on to partition India.
Comment by Musafir | June 16, 2009
@ Musafir -
You have an anti-Gandhi bias - that is okay and your prerogative.
But, to say that the non-cooperation movement (civil disobedience) was not connected with Rowlatt Act or the Jalianwala Bagh Massacre is really stretching facts.
And, why, in your opinion, was the Dandi March a failure?
lso, please provide the source for the Gandhi quote to Mountbatten?
Everything I have read says that Gandhi was viscerally opposed to the partition. And, this was the key reason why he even refused to attend the Independence Declaration at the Red Fort. Can you imagine say, Thomas Jefferson not being in Washington and a part of the govt when the US attained independence? Or say, Nelson Mandela not being a part of the post-apartheid govt?
You may disagree with Gandhi but please do not ascribe such dubious aims to Gandhi.
Comment by Patriot | June 16, 2009
From the British POV, India was a profit center for more than a century. However during the World War, given the strain of resources needed to manage the country against the actual profits coming out an assessment was made which showed India was not as profitable as estimated.
The labour party of Atlee in a shrewd political move decided to work towards giving India freedom at a price (Partition).
A decision made with the tipping point reached during the INA trials.
Was Satyagraha powerful? I would say yes given that it gave people without weapons or money an capability to demonstrate their thoughts. But in the larger context of India’s freedom, history seems to suggest otherwise.
Comment by Dirt Digger | June 16, 2009
@ DD -
“But in the larger context of India’s freedom, history seems to suggest otherwise.”
Why do you say so? And, what events or narratives supports this hypothesis? I would be very interested to hear your thoughts on this aspect.
Thanks
Comment by Patriot | June 17, 2009
@Patriot
DD is right. Nothing more authorative than the Oxford History of Modern India states that it had become such an economic burdon that the Britain had every reason to get out except Gandhi’s so called freedom movements. We are going to reach a stage as regards Gandhi that he was in fact an insignificant man except to the Hindus of India who have been brainwashed to believe otherwise. Are there any takers fot making a film of Gandhi that exposes Gandhi for the man that he reaaly was?
Comment by Khandu Patel | June 17, 2009
@ Khandu -
As we are discussing on another thread - and at the beginning of this article - these are multi-variate analysis. If you try to replace this with a single variate analysis, you can reach whatever conclusion that you want. Especially, given that this is all interpretation, not factual - ie, if you could play out India’s freedom struggle, while removing Gandhi, from the scene, and India still achieved independence in 1947, your hypothesis would be proven.
And, would the OXFORD history of modern India not have a natural bias to say that they were not beaten by India, but they withdrew voluntarily?
Cheers
PS: Feel free to make the movie on Gandhi, yourself.
Comment by Patriot | June 17, 2009
@Patriot,
Again let me reiterate, I’m not discounting Gandhi’s contributions to the freedom struggle. But just the overall thought process that Satyagraha was crucial to the achievement of India’s freedom.
Let us not forget that Gandhi’s political machinations lead to the ouster of some key leaders like Netaji and sidelining of others like Sardar Patel when their impetus would’ve gained better results. The proof being their leadership and tangible results demonstrated when given the power.
Comment by Dirt Digger | June 17, 2009
@ DD -
“I’m not discounting Gandhi’s contributions to the freedom struggle. But just the overall thought process that Satyagraha was crucial to the achievement of India’s freedom.”
Is this not contradictory? What was Gandhi’s contribution, if not Satyagraha?
“Let us not forget that Gandhi’s political machinations lead to the ouster of some key leaders like Netaji and sidelining of others like Sardar Patel when their impetus would’ve gained better results”
Maybe, but as I said before, this is interpretive - Bose had the support of the Japanese supply chain, while bringing the Indian National Army through Burma, to India - the men of INA were valiant fighters, but would they have managed to reach where they did without the Japanese army supply chains? Again, interpretive in nature.
Sardar Patel, on the other hand, did conclusively demonstrate his administrative and political skills in assimilating all the princely states of India - but, did he have the thinking power of a Gandhi or a Nehru or even a Bose? I have not seen any writings of Patel - the lacuna could be entirely mine - maybe the early death of Patel also led to a diminished aura for the man.
Cheers
Comment by Patriot | June 18, 2009
From the Times of India:
Comment by B Shantanu | June 18, 2009
=>
Sardar Patel, on the other hand, did conclusively demonstrate his administrative and political skills in assimilating all the princely states of India - but, did he have the thinking power of a Gandhi or a Nehru or even a Bose?
=>
So, actions (of Sardar Patel) don’t speak louder than words?
Regarding Gandhi and Bose, the point is that Gandhi didn’t practice democracy and respect the wishes of Congress members when they elected Bose as the party president, and Gandhi forced him to resign because their visions differed and were irreconcilable.
Comment by Kaffir | June 18, 2009
@Patriot,
In any analysis of this sort, we are discussing the degree of influence. My contention being it was not significant in the final outcome based on historical analysis. (Some of the evidence already presented in this article by Shantanu and others).
There are several instances where in Gandhi’s political machinations could be questioned. These go in direct opposition to the principles he preached. Like,
- Support for the violent Khilafat movement and other similar movements just to keep certain sections of society involved.
- Disdain towards the actions of fighters like Bhagat Singh and inaction to secure their release even on a humanitarian basis.
- Rejection of Netaji as the righteous leader of Congress when he was elected and forcing him out of the mainstream struggle.
- Sidelining the excellent Sardar Patel whose acumen, political will and actions is the single most important reason why India is in its current coherent geographical structure during and after Partition.
Beyond all of this, the World War had almost bankrupted Britain and it was forced to work with the US on currency stabilization and rebuilding its economy.
In that economic conditions, managing colonies which were more of a burden than producing appropriate wealth plus the political conditions in the colonizing countries after the War when they could not justify colonialism when they were fighting Nazism oppression shifted the balance significantly.
In a sense you are making the analogy that a environmental group against the Hummers forced GM to sell the Hummer division while overlooking the whole economic turmoil.
Comment by Dirt Digger | June 19, 2009
@kaffir. Remember the saying “actions speak louder the words”.
The reality of British rule of India was that as the world superpower of the day, the British could not be easily forced to leave by ordinary means. When the INA was knocking at India’s gate, why was no assistance rendered to them by Indians in India? There was certainly little point in inviting another invader to replace one who was making the right noises about leaving after the war. Bose’s loss of power to Gandhi in India only indirectly benefited the freedom struggle when he became a threat to British rule from the outside.
The British may have been averse to display of brutality, but millions of Indian lives who lost because of the policy they administered. The best that Gandhi could offer was to atune his satyagraha by persuading Hindus to wage battle by their mind through soul force. Gandhi was so averse to inflicting any violance that he described the Mahabharta war as an imaginery one waged only in the mind.
Gandhi lost his relevannce to his followers like Sardar Patel as soon as the reigns of power were handed over. The paritition and the bloodshed was a consequence of Gandhi’s misguided illusions. Gandhi’s elevation as the father of India is misguided because the strongman Bharat after whom our country is named after is indisputably the father.
In answer to Kaffir, for all Gandhi’s thoughts what counted in naming the father of India is being a strongman. In comparison to Sardar Patel, Gandhi and Nehru cut weak sorry figures. Of course people who are too busy as strong men do not preoccupy themselves in self glorifying in words. If Patel had been a general, the sort of despatches written by Caesar would have been more than enough to ensure his place in history as the foremost man of the day in India. The only reason why his place had been eclipsed despite all the confidence of the people that mattered in his day from Congress to the armed forces, lessor men like Gandhi wanted to ensure their place in the Sun. It is time to right the wrongs of history and blow the cobwebs away.
Comment by Khandu Patel | June 19, 2009
hey shantanu ….. chk this link in the same site ….
http://www.blogs.ivarta.com/Did-Gandhis-Nonviolence-give-Freedom-India/blog-103.htm
this is an article by gopal alankar …..
Comment by vivekam.vairagyam | June 19, 2009
@ vck
that question about the xtian groups getting all that land is probably valid and needs a look …. ya .. i wonder if there is any data on how all these religious organisations got their lands and assets …
Comment by vivekam.vairagyam | June 19, 2009
Khandu Patel,
It seems that you may have misinterpreted my last comment regarding Patel, which was directed at Patriot, and was saying the same thing that you did in your exposition, i.e. Patel’s actions spoke louder than any words of any other leader.
Comment by Kaffir | June 19, 2009
@Patriot
There has been a lot of soul searching in these discussions about India’s independence struggle and the role of Gandhi in it. If we recognise that India’s Hindu’s by their very nature were never going to violently overthrow the British, that left them only Gandhi’s satyaghra as the only method open to them but nontheless one of many other methods that other Indians were willing to use. Gandhi’s method allowed the British to save face but if forced they would have left India any way as they had lost any rationale for staying. This arrangement suited Gandhi and Nehru as they inherited much of that British power, but that left India traumatised by partition and bloodshed because of the British design to create Pakistan. Gandhi did not have a plan B. It was Patel who had to give this message and reality to Gandhi. The fact is that the Muslims were willing to use street power and violence to achieve statehood and because Gandhi had wrapped himself round satagraha, there was nothing that he and his followers could do about it. That is so much water under the bridge. With another Gandhi at the seat of power in India, we realy need to be honest about the falsehoods that has been traded as facts and truths. We should start first of all by asking whether Gandhi really deserved to the father of the nation. There is no doubting his important role, but he was one of many other greater and better men.
Comment by Khandu Patel | June 19, 2009