Mahatma Gandhi and the Nationalist Movement PDF

346 THEMES IN INDIAN HISTORY – PART III THEME Mahatma Gandhi and THIRTEEN the Nationalist Movement Civil Disobedience and Be...

346 THEMES IN INDIAN HISTORY – PART III THEME Mahatma Gandhi and THIRTEEN the Nationalist Movement Civil Disobedience and Be Beyyond e d h In the history of nationalism a single individual is often identified with the making of a nation. Thus, for example, we associate Garibaldi T s with the making of Italy, George Washington with the American War i of Independence, and Ho Chi Minh with the struggle to free Vietnam l from colonial rule. In the same manner, Mahatma Gandhi has been R regarded as the ‘Father’ of the Indian nation. b In so far as Gandhiji was the most influential and revered of all the E leaders who participated in the freedom struggle, that characterisation u is not misplaced. However, like Washington or Ho Chi-Minh, Mahatma C Gandhi’s political career was shaped and constrained by the society p in which he lived. For individuals, even great ones, are made by history even as they make history. N re This chapter analyses Gandhiji’s activities in India during the crucial period 1915-1948. It explores his interactions with different sections of the Indian society and the popular struggles that he © e inspired and led. It introduces the student to the different kinds of sources that historians use in reconstructing the career of a leader and of the social movements that he was associated with. b to o t n Fig. 13.1 People gather on the banks of the Sabarmati River to hear Mahatma Gandhi speak before starting out on the Salt March in 1930 MAHATMA GANDHI AND THE NATIONALIST MOVEMENT 347 1.ALeaderAnnouncesHimself In January 1915, Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi returned to his homeland after two decades of residence abroad. These years had been spent for the most part in South Africa, where he went as a lawyer, and in time became a leader of the Indian d community in that territory. As the historian e Chandran Devanesan has remarked, South Africa was “the making of the Mahatma”. It was in South Africa h that Mahatma Gandhi first forged the distinctive techniques of non-violent protest known as T s satyagraha, first promoted harmony between religions, i and first alerted upper -caste Indians to their R l discriminatory treatment of low castes and women. The India that Mahatma Gandhi came back to in E b 1915 was rather different from the one that he had left in 1893. Although still a colony of the British, u it was far more active in a political sense. The Indian C National Congress now had branches in most major p cities and towns. Through the Swadeshi movement N re of 1905-07 it had greatly broadened its appeal among the middle classes. That movement had thrown up some towering leaders – among them © e Bal Gangadhar T ilak of Maharashtra, Bipin Chandra Pal of Bengal, and Lala Lajpat Rai of Punjab. The three were known as “Lal, Bal and Pal”, Fig. 13.2 b the alliteration conveying the all-India character Mahatma Gandhi in Johannesburg, of their struggle, since their native provinces were South Africa, February 1908 very distant from one another. Where o these leaders advocated militant t opposition to colonial rule, there was a group of “Moderates” who preferred t a more gradual and persuasive approach. Among these Moderates o was Gandhiji’s acknowledged political mentor, Gopal Krishna Gokhale, as n well as Mohammad Ali Jinnah, who, like Gandhiji, was a lawyer of Gujarati extraction trained in London. On Gokhale’s advice, Gandhiji spent a year travelling around British India, getting to know the land and its peoples. His first major public appearance was at the opening of the Banaras Hindu University (BHU) in February 1916. Among the invitees to 348 THEMES IN INDIAN HISTORY – PART III this event were the princes and philanthropists whose donations had contributed to the founding of the BHU. Also present were important leaders of the Congress, such as Annie Besant. Compared to these dignitaries, Gandhiji was relatively unknown. He had been invited on account of his work in South Africa, d rather than his status within India. When his turn came to speak, Gandhiji charged e the Indian elite with a lack of concern for the labouring poor. The opening of the BHU, he said, h was “certainly a most gorgeous show”. But he worried T s about the contrast between the “richly bedecked i noblemen” present and “millions of the poor” Indians l who were absent. Gandhiji told the privileged invitees R that “there is no salvation for India unless you strip b yourself of this jewellery and hold it in trust for your E countrymen in India”. “There can be no spirit of self- u government about us,” he went on, “if we take away C or allow others to take away from the peasants almost p the whole of the results of their labour. Our salvation N re can only come through the farmer. Neither the lawyers, nor the doctors, nor the rich landlords are going to secure it.” The opening of the BHU was an occasion for © e celebration, marking as it did the opening of a nationalist university, sustained by Indian money and Indian initiative. But rather than adopt a tone b Fig. 13.3 of self-congratulation, Gandhiji chose instead to Mahatma Gandhi in Karachi, March 1916 remind those present of the peasants and workers o who constituted a majority of the Indian population, t yet were unrepresented in the audience. t Gandhiji’s speech at Banaras in February 1916 o was, at one level, merely a statement of fact – namely, n that Indian nationalism was an elite phenomenon, a creation of lawyers and doctors and landlords. But, at another level, it was also a statement of intent – the first public announcement of Gandhiji’s own desire to make Indian nationalism more properly MAHATMA GANDHI AND THE NATIONALIST MOVEMENT 349 representative of the Indian people as a whole. In the last month of that year, Gandhiji was presented with Discuss... an opportunity to put his precepts into practice. At the Find out more about the annual Congress, held in Lucknow in December 1916, national movement in India he was approached by a peasant from Champaran in before 1915 and see whether Bihar, who told him about the harsh treatment of Mahatma Gandhi’s comments d peasants by British indigo planters. are justified. e 2.TheMakingandUnmakingofNon- cooperation h Mahatma Gandhi was to spend much of 1917 in T s Champaran, seeking to obtain for the peasants security i of tenure as well as the freedom to cultivate the crops R l of their choice. The following year, 1918, Gandhiji was involved in two campaigns in his home state of E b Gujarat. First, he intervened in a labour dispute in Ahmedabad, demanding better working conditions for u the textile mill workers. Then he joined peasants in C Kheda in asking the state for the remission of taxes p following the failure of their harvest. N re These initiatives in Champaran, Ahmedabad and Kheda marked Gandhiji out as a nationalist with a deep sympathy for the poor. At the same time, © e these were all localised struggles. Then, in 1919, the colonial rulers delivered into Gandhiji’s lap an issue from which he could construct a much b wider movement. During the Great War of 1914-18, the British had instituted censorship of the press and permitted detention without trial. Now, on o the recommendation of a committee chaired by t Sir Sidney Rowlatt, these tough measures were continued. In response, Gandhiji called for a t countrywide campaign against the “Rowlatt Act”. In towns across North and West India, life came to o a standstill, as shops shut down and schools closed in response to the bandh call. The protests were n particularly intense in the Punjab, where many men had served on the British side in the War – expecting to be rewarded for their service. Instead they were given the Rowlatt Act. Gandhiji was detained while proceeding to the Punjab, even as prominent local Congressmen were arrested. The situation in the province grew progressively more tense, reaching a bloody climax in Amritsar in April 1919, when a British Brigadier ordered his troops to open fire on a nationalist meeting. More 350 THEMES IN INDIAN HISTORY – PART III than four hundred people were killed in what is known as the Jallianwala Bagh massacre. It was the Rowlatt satyagraha that made Gandhiji a truly national leader. Emboldened by its success, Gandhiji called for a campaign of “non-cooperation” with British rule. Indians who wished colonialism to d end were asked to stop attending schools, colleges and law courts, and not pay taxes. In sum, they were e asked to adhere to a “renunciation of (all) voluntary association with the (British) Government”. If non- h cooperation was effectively carried out, said Gandhiji, T s India would win swaraj within a year. To further i broaden the struggle he had joined hands with the l Khilafat Movement that sought to restore the R Caliphate, a symbol of Pan-Islamism which had b recently been abolished by the Turkish ruler E Kemal Attaturk. u 2.1 Knitting a popular movement C Gandhiji hoped that by coupling non-cooperation with p Khilafat, India’s two major religious communities, N re Hindus and Muslims, could collectively bring an end to colonial rule. These movements certainly unleashed a surge of popular action that was © e What was the altogether unprecedented in colonial India. Students stopped going to schools and colleges Khilafat Movement? run by the government. Lawyers refused to attend b The Khilafat Movement, court. The working class went on strike in many (1919 -1920) was a movement towns and cities: according to official figures, there of Indian Muslims, led by were 396 strikes in 1921, involving 600,000 o Muhammad Ali and Shaukat Ali, workers and a loss of seven million workdays. The t that demanded the following: countryside was seething with discontent too. Hill The Turkish Sultan or Khalifa tribes in northern Andhra violated the forest laws. t must retain control over the Farmers in Awadh did not pay taxes. Peasants in Muslim sacred places in the Kumaun refused to carry loads for colonial officials. o erstwhile Ottoman empire; the These protest movements were sometimes carried jazirat-ul-Arab (Arabia, Syria, out in defiance of the local nationalist leadership. n Iraq, Palestine) must remain Peasants, workers, and others interpreted and acted under Muslim sovereignty; and upon the call to “non-cooperate” with colonial rule the Khalifa must be left with in ways that best suited their interests, rather than sufficient territory to enable conform to the dictates laid down from above. him to defend the Islamic faith. “Non-cooperation,” wrote Mahatma Gandhi’s The Congress supported the American biographer Louis Fischer, “became the name movement and Mahatma Gandhi of an epoch in the life of India and of Gandhiji. sought to conjoin it to the Non-cooperation was negative enough to be peaceful Non-cooperation Movement. but positive enough to be effective. It entailed denial, renunciation, and self-discipline. It was training for MAHATMA GANDHI AND THE NATIONALIST MOVEMENT 351 self-rule.” As a consequence of the Non-Cooperation Movement the British Raj was shaken to its foundations for the first time since the Revolt of 1857. Then, in February 1922, a group of d peasants attacked and torched a police station in the hamlet of e Chauri Chaura, in the United Provinces (now, Uttar Pradesh and h Uttaranchal). Several constables T s perished in the conflagration. This i act of violence prompted Gandhiji l to call off the movement altogether. R “No provocation,” he insisted, b “can possibly justify (the) brutal E murder of men who had been rendered defenceless Fig. 13.4 u and who had virtually thrown themselves on the Non-cooperation Movement, C July 1922 mercy of the mob.” Foreign cloth being collected to p During the Non-Cooperation Movement thousands be burnt in bonfires. N re of Indians were put in jail. Gandhiji himself was arrested in March 1922, and charged with sedition. The judge who presided over his trial, Justice C.N. Broomfield, made a remarkable speech © e while pronouncing his sentence. “It would be impossible to ignore the fact,” remarked the judge, “that you are in a different category from any person b I have ever tried or am likely to try. It would be impossible to ignore the fact that, in the eyes of o millions of your countrymen, you are a great patriot and a leader. Even those who differ from you in politics t look upon you as a man of high ideals and of even saintly life.” Since Gandhiji had violated the law it t was obligatory for the Bench to sentence him to six years’ imprisonment, but, said Judge Broomfield, “If o the course of events in India should make it possible for the Government to reduce the period and release n you, no one will be better pleased than I”. 2.2 A people’s leader By 1922, Gandhiji had transformed Indian nationalism, thereby redeeming the promise he made in his BHU speech of February 1916. It was no longer a movement of professionals and intellectuals; now, hundreds of thousands of peasants, workers and artisans also participated in it. Many of them venerated Gandhiji, referring to him as their 352 THEMES IN INDIAN HISTORY – PART III “Mahatma”. They appreciated the fact that he dressed like them, lived like them, and spoke their language. Unlike other leaders he did not stand apart from the common folk, but empathised and even identified with them. This identification was strikingly reflected in his d dress: while other nationalist leaders dressed for mally, wearing a Western suit or an Indian e bandgala, Gandhiji went among the people in a Fig. 13.5 simple dhoti or loincloth. Meanwhile, he spent part h Mahatma Gandhi with the charkha has become the most abiding image of each day working on the charkha (spinning wheel), T s of Indian nationalism. and encouraged other nationalists to do likewise. i In 1921, during a tour of South The act of spinning allowed Gandhiji to break the l India, Gandhiji shaved his head boundaries that prevailed within the traditional caste R and began wearing a loincloth system, between mental labour and manual labour. b in order to identify with the poor. In a fascinating study, the historian Shahid Amin E His new appearance also came has traced the image of Mahatma Gandhi among to symbolise asceticism and u abstinence – qualities he the peasants of eastern Uttar Pradesh, as conveyed C celebrated in opposition to the by reports and rumours in the local press. When he p consumerist culture of the travelled through the region in February 1921, N re modern world. Gandhiji was received by adoring crowds everywhere. Source 1 Charkha © e Mahatma Gandhi was profoundly critical of the modern age in which machines b enslaved humans and displaced labour. He saw the charkha as a symbol of a human society that would not glorify machines and technology. The spinning wheel, moreover, could provide the poor with supplementary income and o make them self-reliant. t What I object to, is the craze for machinery as such. The craze is for what they call labour- saving machinery. Men go on “saving labour”, t till thousands are without work and thrown on the open streets to die of starvation. I want o to save time and labour, not for a fraction of mankind, but for all; I want the concentration n of wealth, not in the hands of few, but in the hands of all. YOUNG INDIA, I3 NOVEMBER 1924 Khaddar does not seek to destroy all machinery but it does regulate its use and check its weedy growth. It uses machinery for the service of the poorest in their own cottages. The wheel is itself an exquisite piece of machinery. Fig. 13.5 Y OUNG INDIA, 17 MARCH 1927 MAHATMA GANDHI AND THE NATIONALIST MOVEMENT 353 This is how a Hindi newspaper in Gorakhpur reported the atmosphere during his speeches: At Bhatni Gandhiji addressed the local public and then the train started for Gorakhpur. There were not less than 15,000 to 20,000 people at Nunkhar, Deoria, Gauri Bazar, Chauri Chaura d and Kusmhi (stations) … Mahatmaji was very pleased to witness the scene at Kusmhi, as e despite the fact that the station is in the middle of a jungle there were not less than 10,000 h people here. Some, overcome with their love, T s were seen to be crying. At Deoria people wanted i to give bhent (donations) to Gandhiji, but he l asked them to give these at Gorakhpur. But R at Chauri Chaura one Marwari gentleman b managed to hand over something to him. Then Source 2 E there was no stopping. A sheet was spread and currency notes and coins started raining. It The miraculous and u the unbelievable C was a sight … Outside the Gorakhpur station the Mahatma was stood on a high carriage p and people had a good darshan of him for a Local newspapers in the United N re couple of minutes. Provinces recorded many of the rumours that circulated at that Wherever Gandhiji went, rumours spread of his time. There were rumours that miraculous powers. In some places it was said that © e every person who wanted to test he had been sent by the King to redress the the power of the Mahatma had grievances of the farmers, and that he had the power been surprised: to overrule all local officials. In other places it was b claimed that Gandhiji’s power was superior to that 1. Sikandar Sahu from a village in Basti said on of the English monarch, and that with his arrival 15 February that he would o the colonial rulers would flee the district. There were believe in the Mahatmaji also stories reporting dire consequences for those when the karah (boiling t who opposed him; rumours spread of how villagers pan) full of sugar cane juice who criticised Gandhiji found their houses in his karkhana (where gur t mysteriously falling apart or their crops failing. was produced) split into Known variously as “Gandhi baba”, “Gandhi two. Immediately the karah o Maharaj”, or simply as “Mahatma”, Gandhiji appeared actually split into two from to the Indian peasant as a saviour, who would rescue the middle. n them from high taxes and oppressive officials and 2. A cultivator in Azamgarh restore dignity and autonomy to their lives. Gandhiji’s said that he would appeal among the poor, and peasants in particular, believe in the Mahatmaji’s was enhanced by his ascetic lifestyle, and by his authenticity if sesamum sprouted on his field planted shrewd use of symbols such as the dhoti and the with wheat. Next day all charkha. Mahatma Gandhi was by caste a merchant, the wheat in that field and by profession a lawyer; but his simple lifestyle became sesamum. and love of working with his hands allowed him to empathise more fully with the labouring poor and for contd them, in turn, to empathise with him. Where most 354 THEMES IN INDIAN HISTORY – PART III Source 2 (contd) other politicians talked down to them, Gandhiji appeared not just to look like them, but to There were rumours understand them and relate to their lives. that those who opposed While Mahatma Gandhi’s mass appeal was Mahatma Gandhi invariably undoubtedly genuine – and in the context of Indian met with some tragedy. politics, without precedent – it must also be stressed d 1. A gentleman from that his success in broadening the basis of nationalism Gorakhpur city questioned was based on careful organisation. New branches of e the need to ply the charkha. the Congress were set up in various parts of India. His house caught fire. A series of “Praja Mandals” were established to promote h 2. I n A p r i l 1 9 2 1 s o m e the nationalist creed in the princely states. Gandhiji people were gambling in a T s encouraged the communication of the nationalist village of Uttar Pradesh. i Someone told them to stop. message in the mother tongue, rather than in the l language of the rulers, English. Thus the provincial R Only one from amongst the group refused to stop and committees of the Congress were based on linguistic b abused Gandhiji. The next regions, rather than on the artificial boundaries of E day his goat was bitten by British India. In these different ways nationalism was u four of his own dogs. taken to the farthest corners of the country and C 3. In a village in Gorakhpur, embraced by social groups previously untouched by it. p the peasants resolved to give By now, among the supporters of the Congress up drinking liquor. One N re were some very prosperous businessmen and person did not keep his industrialists. Indian entrepreneurs were quick to promise. As soon as he recognise that, in a free India, the favours enjoyed started for the liquor shop by their British competitors would come to an end. © e brickbats started to rain in his Some of these entrepreneurs, such as G.D. Birla, path. When he spoke the supported the national movement openly; others did name of Gandhiji the brick- so tacitly. Thus, among Gandhiji’s admirers were b bats stopped flying. both poor peasants and rich industrialists, although F ROM S HAHID A MIN , “G ANDHI A S the reasons why peasants followed Gandhiji were MAHATMA”, S UBALTERN S TUDIES III , o OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS, DELHI. somewhat different from, and perhaps opposed to, the reasons of the industrialists. t While Mahatma Gandhi’s own role was vital, the growth of what we might call “Gandhian nationalism” t You have read about also depended to a very substantial extent on his followers. Between 1917 and 1922, a group of highly o rumours in Chapter 11 and seen that the circulation of talented Indians attached themselves to Gandhiji. rumours tells us about the They included Mahadev Desai, Vallabh Bhai Patel, n structure of the belief of a J.B. Kripalani, Subhas Chandra Bose, Abul Kalam time: they tell us about the Azad, Jawaharlal Nehru, Sarojini Naidu, Govind mind of the people who Ballabh Pant and C. Rajagopalachari. Notably, these believe in the rumours and close associates of Gandhiji came from different the circumstances that regions as well as different religious traditions. In make this belief possible. turn, they inspired countless other Indians to join What do you think these the Congress and work for it. rumours about Gandhiji Mahatma Gandhi was released from prison in reflect? February 1924, and now chose to devote his attention to the promotion of home-spun cloth (khadi ), and MAHATMA GANDHI AND THE NATIONALIST MOVEMENT 355 the abolition of untouchability. For, Gandhiji was as much a social reformer as he was a politician. He Discuss... believed that in order to be worthy of freedom, Indians What was Non-cooperation? had to get rid of social evils such as child marriage Find out about the variety and untouchability. Indians of one faith had also to of ways in which different cultivate a genuine tolerance for Indians of another – social groups participated d hence his emphasis on Hindu-Muslim harmony. in the movement. Meanwhile, on the economic front Indians had to learn e to become self-reliant – hence his stress on the significance of wearing khadi rather than mill-made h cloth imported from overseas. T s 3.TheSaltSatyagraha l i ACaseStudy R For several years after the Non-cooperation Movement E b ended, Mahatma Gandhi focused on his social reform work. In 1928, however, he began to think of re-entering u politics. That year there was an all-India campaign in C opposition to the all-White Simon Commission, sent p from England to enquire into conditions in the colony. N re Gandhiji did not himself participate in this movement, although he gave it his blessings, as he also did to a peasant satyagraha in Bardoli in the same year. © e In the end of December 1929, the Congress held its annual session in the city of Lahore. The meeting was significant for two things: the election of Jawaharlal b Nehru as President, signifying the passing of the baton of leadership to the younger generation; and the proclamation of commitment to “Purna Swaraj”, or o complete independence. Now the pace of politics picked t up once more. On 26 January 1930, “Independence Day” was observed, with the national flag being hoisted t in different venues, and patriotic songs being sung. Gandhiji himself issued precise instructions as to how o the day should be observed. “It would be good,” he said, “if the declaration [of Independence] is made by n whole villages, whole cities even... It would be well if all the meetings were held at the identical minute in all the places.” Gandhiji suggested that the time of the meeting be advertised in the traditional way, by the beating of drums. The celebrations would begin with the hoisting of the national flag. The rest of the day would be spent “in doing some constructive work, whether it is spinning, or service of ‘untouchables’, or reunion of Hindus and Mussalmans, or prohibition work, or even all these 356 THEMES IN INDIAN HISTORY – PART III together, which is not impossible”. Participants would take a pledge affirming that it was “the inalienable right of the Indian people, as of any other people, to have freedom and to enjoy the fruits of their toil”, and that “if any government deprives a people of these rights and oppresses them, the people have a further right to alter d it or abolish it”. e 3.1 Dandi Soon after the observance of this “Independence Day”, h Mahatma Gandhi announced that he would lead a march to break one of the most widely disliked laws in T s British India, which gave the state a monopoly in the i manufacture and sale of salt. His picking on the salt R l monopoly was another illustration of Gandhiji’s tactical wisdom. For in every Indian household, salt was E b indispensable; yet people were forbidden from making salt even for domestic use, compelling them to buy it u from shops at a high price. The state monopoly over C salt was deeply unpopular; by making it his target, p Gandhiji hoped to mobilise a wider discontent against N re Fig. 13.6 British rule. On the Dandi March, March 1930 © e b to o t n MAHATMA GANDHI AND THE NATIONALIST MOVEMENT 357 Where most Indians understood the significance of Gandhiji’s challenge, the British Raj apparently did not. Although Gandhiji had given advance notice of his “Salt March” to the Viceroy Lord Irwin, Irwin failed to grasp d the significance of the action. On 12 March 1930, Gandhiji began walking e from his ashram at Sabarmati towards the ocean. He reached his destination h three weeks later, making a fistful of T s salt as he did and thereby making i himself a criminal in the eyes of the Fig. 13.7 l law. Meanwhile, parallel salt marches R Satyagrahis picking up natural salt at the end were being conducted in other parts of of the Dandi March, 6 April 1930 b the country. E Source 3 C u Why the Salt Satyagraha? N re p Why was salt the symbol of protest? This is what Mahatma Gandhi wrote: The volume of information being gained daily shows how wickedly the salt tax has been designed. In order to prevent the use of salt that has not paid the © e tax which is at times even fourteen times its value, the Government destroys the salt it cannot sell profitably. Thus it taxes the nation’s vital necessity; it prevents the public from manufacturing it and destroys what nature b manufactures without effort. No adjective is strong enough for characterising this wicked dog-in-the-manger policy. From various sources I hear tales of such wanton destruction of the nation’s property in all parts of India. Maunds o if not tons of salt are said to be destroyed on the Konkan coast. The same tale comes from Dandi. Wherever there is likelihood of natural salt being taken t away by the people living in the neighbourhood of such areas for their personal use, salt officers are posted for the sole purpose of carrying on t destruction. Thus valuable national property is destroyed at national expense and salt taken out of the mouths of the people. o The salt monopoly is thus a fourfold curse. It deprives the people of a valuable easy village industry, involves wanton destruction of property that n nature produces in abundance, the destruction itself means more national expenditure, and fourthly, to crown this folly, an unheard-of tax of more than 1,000 per cent is exacted from a starving people. This tax has remained so long because of the apathy of the general public. Now that it is sufficiently roused, the tax has to go. How soon it will be abolished depends upon the strength the people. THE COLLECTED WORKSOF MAHATMA GANDHI (CWMG), VOL. 49 Why was salt destroyed by the colonial government? Why did Mahatma Gandhi consider the salt tax more oppressive than other taxes? 358 THEMES IN INDIAN HISTORY – PART III Source 4 “Tomorrow we shall break the salt tax law” d On 5 April 1930, Mahatma Gandhi spoke at Dandi: e When I left Sabarmati with my companions for this seaside hamlet of Dandi, I was not certain in my mind that we would be allowed to reach this place. Even while I was at Sabarmati there was a rumour that I h might be arrested. I had thought that the Government might perhaps let T s my party come as far as Dandi, but not me certainly. If someone says that i this betrays imperfect faith on my part, I shall not deny the charge. l That I have reached here is in no small measure due to the power of R peace and non-violence: that power is universally felt. The Government may, if it wishes, congratulate itself on acting as it has done, for it E b could have arrested every one of us. In saying that it did not have the courage to arrest this army of peace, we praise it. It felt ashamed to u arrest such an army. He is a civilised man who feels ashamed to do C anything which his neighbours would disapprove. The Government deserves p to be congratulated on not arresting us, even if it desisted only from N re fear of world opinion. Tomorrow we shall break the salt tax law. Whether the Government will tolerate that is a different question. It may not tolerate it, but it deserves congratulations on the patience and forbearance it has displayed in regard © e to this party. … What does the What if I and all the eminent leaders in Gujarat speech tell us about and in the rest of the country are arrested? This b how Gandhiji saw the movement is based on the faith that when a whole colonial state? nation is roused and on the march no leader is necessary. o CWMG, VOL.49 t t As with Non-cooperation, apart from the officially o sanctioned nationalist campaign, there were numerous other streams of protest. Across large parts of India, n peasants breached the hated colonial forest laws that kept them and their cattle out of the woods in which they had once roamed freely. In some towns, factory workers went on strike while lawyers boycotted British courts and students refused to attend government-run educational institutions. As in 1920-22, now too Gandhiji’s call had encouraged Indians of all classes to make manifest their own discontent with colonial rule. The rulers responded by detaining the dissenters. In the wake of the Salt March, nearly 60,000 Indians were arrested, among them, of MAHATMA GANDHI AND THE NATIONALIST MOVEMENT 359 course, Gandhiji himself. The progress of Gandhiji’s march to the seashore can be traced from the secret reports filed by the police officials deputed to monitor his movements. These reproduce the speeches he gave at the villages en route, in which he called upon local officials to renounce d government employment and join the freedom struggle. In one village, Wasna, Gandhiji told the upper castes e that “if you are out for Swaraj you must serve untouchables. You won’t get Swaraj merely by the repeal h of the salt taxes or other taxes. For Swaraj you must T s make amends for the wrongs which you did to the i untouchables. For Swaraj, Hindus, Muslims, Parsis l and Sikhs will have to unite. These are the steps R towards Swaraj.” The police spies reported that b Gandhiji’s meetings were very well attended, by villagers E of all castes, and by women as well as men. They u observed that thousands of volunteers were flocking to C the nationalist cause. Among them were many officials, p who had resigned from their posts with the colonial Fig. 13.8 N re government. Writing to the government, the District After Mahatma Gandhi’s Superintendent of Police remarked, “Mr Gandhi release from prison in January appeared calm and collected. He is gathering more 1931, Congress leaders met at strength as he proceeds.” Allahabad to plan the future © e The progress of the Salt March can also be traced course of action. from another source: the American newsmagazine, You can see (from right to left) Jawaharlal Nehru, Jamnalal T ime. This, to begin with, scorned at Gandhiji’s looks, b Bajaj, Subhas Chandra Bose, writing with disdain of his “spindly frame” and his Gandhiji, Mahadev Desai “spidery loins”. Thus in its first report on the march, (in front), Sardar Vallabh o T ime was deeply sceptical of the Salt March reaching Bhai Patel. t t no 360 THEMES IN INDIAN HISTORY – PART III Source 5 its destination. It claimed that Gandhiji “sank to the The problem with ground” at the end of the second day’s walking; the separate electorates magazine did not believe that “the emaciated saint would be physically able to go much further”. But within a week it had changed its mind. The massive At the Round Table popular following that the march had garnered, wrote Conference Mahatma Gandhi d stated his arguments against T ime, had made the British rulers “desperately separate electorates for anxious”. Gandhiji himself they now saluted as a e the Depressed Classes: “Saint” and “Statesman”, who was using “Christian acts as a weapon against men with Christian beliefs”. h Separate electorates to the “Untouchables” 3.2 Dialogues T s will ensure them The Salt March was notable for at least three reasons. i bondage in perpetuity First, it was this event that first brought Mahatma l … Do you want the R Gandhi to world attention. The march was widely covered “Untouchables” to by the European and American press. Second, it was b remain “Untouchables” E the first nationalist activity in which women for ever? Well, the separate electorates participated in large numbers. The socialist activist u would perpetuate Kamaladevi Chattopadhyay had persuaded Gandhiji not C the stigma. What is to restrict the protests to men alone. Kamaladevi was p needed is destruction herself one of numerous women who courted arrest by N re of “Untouchability”, breaking the salt or liquor laws. Third, and perhaps and when you have most significant, it was the Salt March which forced done it, the bar- upon the British the realisation that their Raj would s i n i s t e r, w h i c h h a s © e not last forever, and that they would have to devolve been imposed by an some power to the Indians. insolent “superior” To that end, the British government convened a series class upon an “inferior” b class will be destroyed. of “Round Table Conferences” in London. The first meeting When you have was held in November 1930, but without the pre-eminent destroyed the bar- political leader in India, thus rendering it an exercise in o sinister to whom will futility. Gandhiji was released from jail in January 1931 t you give the separate and the following month had several long meetings with electorates? the Viceroy. These culminated in what was called t the “Gandhi-Irwin Pact’, by the terms of which civil disobedience would be called off, all prisoners released, o and salt manufacture allowed along the coast. The pact was criticised by radical nationalists, for Gandhiji was n unable to obtain from the Viceroy a commitment to political independence for Indians; he could obtain merely an assurance of talks towards that possible end. A second Round Table Conference was held in London in the latter part of 1931. Here, Gandhiji represented the Congress. However, his claims that his party represented all of India came under challenge from three parties: from the Muslim League, which claimed to stand for the interests of the Muslim minority; from the Princes, who claimed that the Congress had no stake in their territories; MAHATMA GANDHI AND THE NATIONALIST MOVEMENT 361 Source 6 Ambedkar on separate electorates In response to Mahatma Gandhi’s opposition to the d demand for separate electorates for the Depressed Classes, e Ambedkar wrote: h Here is a class which is undoubtedly not in a T s position to sustain itself in i the struggle for existence. l The religion, to which they R are tied, instead of providing b them an honourable place, E brands them as lepers, not fit for ordinary intercourse. u Fig. 13.9 Economically, it is a class C At the Second Round Table Conference, London, November 1931 entirely dependent upon p Mahatma Gandhi opposed the demand for separate the high-caste Hindus for N re electorates for “lower castes”. He believed that this would earning its daily bread with prevent their integration into mainstream society and no independent way of living permanently segregate them from other caste Hindus. open to it. Nor are all ways closed by reason of the social © e and from the brilliant lawyer and thinker B.R. prejudices of the Hindus but Ambedkar, who argued that Gandhiji and the Congress there is a definite attempt did not really represent the lowest castes. all through our Hindu b The Conference in London was inconclusive, so Society to bolt every possible Gandhiji returned to India and resumed civil door so as not to allow the disobedience. The new Viceroy, Lord Willingdon, was Depressed Classes any o opportunity to rise in the deeply unsympathetic to the Indian leader. In a t scale of life. private letter to his sister, Willingdon wrote: “It’s a beautiful world if it wasn’t for Gandhi... At the In these circumstances, it t would be granted by all fair- bottom of every move he makes which he always minded persons that as the says is inspired by God, one discovers the political o only path for a community manouevre. I see the American Press is saying what so handicapped to succeed a wonderful man he is... But the fact is that we in the struggle for life against n live in the midst of very unpractical, mystical, and organised tyranny, some superstitious folk who look upon Gandhi as share of political power in something holy,...” order that it may protect itself In 1935, however, a new Government of India Act is a paramount necessity … promised some form of representative government. Two years later, in an election held on the basis FROM DR B ABASAHEB AMBEDKAR, “W H AT C ONGRESS AND G ANDHI of a restricted franchise, the Congress won a HAVE DONE TO THE UNTOUCHABLES”, comprehensive victory. Now eight out of 11 provinces WRITINGS AND SPEECHES, VOL. 9, P. 312 had a Congress “Prime Minister”, working under the supervision of a British Governor. 362 THEMES IN INDIAN HISTORY – PART III Fig. 13.10 Mahatma Gandhi and Rajendra Prasad on their way to a meeting with the Viceroy, Lord Linlithgow, 13 October 1939 In the meeting the nature of India’s involvement in the War d was discussed. When negotiations with the Viceroy broke down, the e Congress ministries resigned. T s h R l i b The offer was refused. In protest, the Congress E ministries resigned in October 1939. Through 1940 u and 1941, the Congress organised a series of individual C satyagrahas to pressure the rulers to promise freedom p once the war had ended. Fig. 13.11 Meanwhile, in March 1940, the Muslim League N re Mahatma Gandhi with Stafford Cripps, March 1942 passed a resolution demanding a measure of autonomy for the Muslim-majority areas of the subcontinent. The political landscape was now © e becoming complicated: it was no longer Indians versus the British; rather, it had become a three- way struggle between the Congress, the Muslim b League, and the British. At this time Britain had an all-party government, whose Labour members were sympathetic to Indian aspirations, but whose o Conservative Prime Minister, Winston Churchill, was t a diehard imperialist who insisted that he had not been appointed the King’s First Minister in order to t preside over the liquidation of the British Empire. In the spring of 1942, Churchill was persuaded to o send one of his ministers, Sir Stafford Cripps, to India to try and forge a compromise with Gandhiji n and the Congress. Talks broke down, however, after the Congress insisted that if it was to help the British defend India from the Axis powers, then the Viceroy had first to appoint an Indian as the Defence Member of his Executive Council. Discuss... Read Sources 5 and 6. Write an imaginary dialogue between Ambedkar and Mahatma Gandhi on the issue of separate electorates for the Depressed Classes. MAHATMA GANDHI AND THE NATIONALIST MOVEMENT 363 In September 1939, two years after the Congress ministries assumed office, the Second World War Satara, 1943 broke out. Mahatma Gandhi and Jawaharlal Nehru had both been strongly critical of Hitler and the From the late nineteenth Nazis. Accordingly, they promised Congress support century, a non-Brahman to the war effort if the British, in return, promised movement, which opposed the caste system and landlordism, d to grant India independence once hostilities ended. had developed in Maharashtra. 4. Quit India e This movement established After the failure of the Cripps Mission, Mahatma links with the national Gandhi decided to launch his third major movement h movement by the 1930s. against British rule. This was the “Quit India” In 1943, some of the T s campaign, which began in August 1942. Although younger leaders in the Satara i Gandhiji was jailed at once, younger activists district of Maharashtra set up l organised strikes and acts of sabotage all over the a parallel government ( prati R country. Particularly active in the underground sarkar) , with volunteer corps b resistance were socialist members of the Congress, (seba dals) and village E such as Jayaprakash Narayan. In several districts, units (tufan dals ). They ran u such as Satara in the west and Medinipur in the people’s courts and organised C east, “independent” governments were proclaimed. constructive work. Dominated p The British responded with much force, yet it took by kunbi peasants and supported by dalits, the Satara N re more than a year to suppress the rebellion. “Quit India” was genuinely a mass movement, prati sarkar functioned till bringing into its ambit hundreds of thousands of the elections of 1946, despite ordinary Indians. It especially energised the young government repression and, © e who, in very large numbers, left their colleges to go in the later stages, Congress to jail. However, while the Congress leaders disapproval. languished in jail, Jinnah and his colleagues in the b to o t n Fig. 13.12 Women’s procession in Bombay during the Quit India Movement 364 THEMES IN INDIAN HISTORY – PART III Muslim League worked patiently at expanding their influence. It was in these years that the League began to make a mark in the Punjab and Sind, provinces where it had previously had scarcely any presence. In June 1944, with the end of the war in sight, Gandhiji was released from prison. Later that year d he held a series of meetings with Jinnah, seeking to bridge the gap between the Congress and the League. e In 1945, a Labour government came to power in Britain and committed itself to granting h independence to India. Meanwhile, back in India, T s the Viceroy, Lord Wavell, brought the Congress and i the League together for a series of talks. l Early in 1946 fresh elections were held to the R provincial legislatures. The Congress swept the b “General” category, but in the seats specifically E reserved for Muslims the League won an u overwhelming majority. The political polarisation C Fig. 13.13 was complete. A Cabinet Mission sent in the summer p Mahatma Gandhi conferring with of 1946 failed to get the Congress and the League to Jawaharlal Nehru (on his right) and N re agree on a federal system that would keep India Sardar Vallabh Bhai Patel (on his left) together while allowing the provinces a degree of Nehru and Patel represented two distinct political tendencies within autonomy. After the talks broke down, Jinnah called for a “Direct Action Day” to press the League’s © e the Congress – the socialist and the conservative. Mahatma demand for Pakistan. On the designated day, Gandhi had to often mediate 16 August 1946, bloody riots broke out in Calcutta. between these groups. The violence spread to rural Bengal, then to Bihar, b and then across the country to the United o Provinces and the Punjab. In some places, Muslims t were the main sufferers, in other places, Hindus. t In February 1947, Wavell was replaced as o Viceroy by Lord M o u n t b a t t e n. n Mountbatten called onelast round of talks, but when these too proved inconclusive he announced that British India would be freed, but also divided. The formal transfer of power was fixed for 15 August. When that day came, it MAHATMA GANDHI AND THE NATIONALIST MOVEMENT 365 was celebrated with gusto in different parts of India. In Delhi, there was “prolonged applause” when the President of the Constituent Assembly began the meeting by invoking the Father of the Nation – Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi. Outside the Assembly, the crowds shouted “Mahatma Gandhi ki jai”. d 5.TheLastHeroicDays e As it happened, Mahatma Gandhi was not present at the festivities in the capital on 15 August 1947. He h was in Calcutta, but he did not attend any function or T s hoist a flag there either. Gandhiji marked the day with i a 24-hour fast. The freedom he had struggled so long R l for had come at an unacceptable price, with a nation divided and Hindus and Muslims at each other’s throats. b T h r o u g h S e p t e m b e r a n d O c t o b e r, w r i t e s h i s E biographer D.G. Tendulkar, Gandhiji “went round u hospitals and refugee camps giving consolation to C distressed people”. He “appealed to the Sikhs, the p Hindus and the Muslims to forget the past and not N re to dwell on their sufferings but to extend the right hand of fellowship to each other, and to determine to live in peace...” At the initiative of Gandhiji and Nehru, the Congress © e now passed a resolution on “the rights of minorities”. The party had never accepted the “two-nation theory”: forced against its will to accept Partition, it still believed b that “India is a land of many religions and many races, and must remain so”. Whatever be the situation in Fig. 13.14 o Pakistan, India would be “a democratic secular State On the way to a riot-torn t where all citizens enjoy full rights and are equally village,1947 entitled to the protection of the State, irrespective of the religion to which t they belong”. The Congress wished to o “assure the minorities in India that it will continue to protect, to the best n of its ability, their citizen rights against aggression”. Many scholars have written of the months after Independence as being Gandhiji’s “finest hour”. After working to bring peace to Bengal, Gandhiji now shifted to Delhi, from where he hoped to move on to the riot-torn districts of Punjab. While in the capital, his meetings were disrupted 366 THEMES IN INDIAN HISTORY – PART III by refugees who objected to readings from the Koran, or shouted slogans asking why he did not speak of the sufferings of those Hindus and Sikhs still living in Pakistan. In fact, as D.G. Tendulkar writes, Gandhiji “was equally concerned with the sufferings of the minority community in Pakistan. He would d have liked to be able to go to their succour. But with e what face could he now go there, when he could not guarantee full redress to the Muslims in Delhi?” There was an attempt on Gandhiji’s life on h 20 January 1948, but he carried on undaunted. T s On 26 January, he spoke at his prayer meeting of i how that day had been celebrated in the past as R l Independence Day. Now freedom had come, but its first few months had been deeply disillusioning. b However, he trusted that “the worst is over”, that E Indians would henceforth work collectively for the u “equality of all classes and creeds, never the C domination and superiority of the major community p Fig. 13.15 over a minor, however insignificant it may be in The death of the Mahatma, N re a popular print numbers or influence”. He also permitted himself In popular representations, the hope “that though geographically and politically Mahatma Gandhi was deified, India is divided into two, at heart we shall ever be © e and shown as the unifying force friends and brothers helping and respecting one within the national movement. another and be one for the outside world”. Here you can see Jawaharlal Gandhiji had fought a lifelong battle for a free Nehru and Sardar Patel, b and united India; and yet, when the country was representing two strands within the Congress, standing on two divided, he urged that the two parts respect and sides of Gandhiji’s pyre. Blessing befriend one another. o them both from a heavenly realm, Other Indians were less forgiving. At his daily t is Mahatma Gandhi, at the centre. prayer meeting on the evening of 30 January, Gandhiji was shot dead by a young man. The t assassin, who surrendered afterwards, was a Brahmin from Pune named Nathuram Godse, the o editor of an extremist Hindu newspaper who had denounced Gandhiji as “an appeaser of Muslims”. n Gandhiji’s death led to an extraordinary outpouring of grief, with rich tributes being paid to him from across the political spectrum in India, and moving appreciations coming from such international figures as George Orwell and Albert Einstein. Time magazine, which had once mocked Gandhiji’s physical size and seemingly non-rational ideas, now compared his martyrdom to that of Abraham Lincoln: it was a bigoted American who had killed Lincoln for believing that human beings were equal regardless of their race or skin colour; and it was a bigoted Hindu who had killed Gandhiji MAHATMA GANDHI AND THE NATIONALIST MOVEMENT 367 for believing that friendship was possible, indeed necessary, between Indians of different faiths. In this respect, as Time wrote, “The world knew that it had, in a sense too deep, too simple for the world to understand, connived at his (Gandhiji’s) death as it had connived at Lincoln’s.” d 6.KnowingGandhi There are many different kinds of sources from which we can e reconstruct the political career of Gandhiji and the history of the nationalist movement. h 6.1 Public voice and private scripts T s One important source is the writings and speeches of Mahatma i Gandhi and his contemporaries, including both his associates R l and his political adversaries. Within these writings we need to distinguish between those that were meant for the public E b and those that were not. Speeches, for instance, allow us to hear the public voice of an individual, while private letters u give us a glimpse of his or her private thoughts. In letters we C see people expressing their anger and pain, their dismay and p anxiety, their hopes and frustrations in ways in which they N re may not express themselves in public statements. But we must remember that this private-public distinction often breaks down. Many letters are written to individuals, and are therefore © e personal, but they are also meant for the public. The language of the letters is often shaped by the awareness that they may one day be published. Conversely, the fear that a letter may get into print often b prevents people from expressing their opinion freely in personal letters. Mahatma Source Gandhi7 regularly published in his journal, Harijan, letters that others wrote to him. Nehru edited a collection of letters written to him during the national movement o and published A Bunch of Old Letters. t t One event through letters no In the 1920s, Jawaharlal Nehru was increasingly influenced by socialism, and he returned from Europe in 1928 deeply impressed with the Soviet Union. As he began working closely with the socialists (Jayaprakash Narayan, Narendra Dev, N.G. Ranga and others), a rift developed between the socialists and the conservatives within the Congress. After becoming the Congress President in 1936, Nehru spoke passionately against fascism, and upheld the demands of workers and peasants. Worried by Nehru’s socialist rhetoric, the conservatives, led by Rajendra Prasad and Sardar Patel, threatened to resign from the Working Committee, and some prominent industrialists in Bombay issued a statement attacking Nehru. Both Prasad and Nehru turned to Mahatma Gandhi and met him at his ashram at Wardha. The latter acted as the mediator, as he often did, restraining Nehru’s radicalism and persuading Prasad and others to see the significance of Nehru’s leadership. In A Bunch of Old Letters , 1958, Nehru reprinted many of the letters that were exchanged at the time. Read the extracts in the following pages. 368 THEMES IN INDIAN HISTORY – PART III Source 7 (contd) From A Bunch of Old Letters My dear Jawaharlalji, Wardha, July 1, 1936 Since we parted yesterday we have had a long conversation with Mahatmaji and a prolonged consultation d among ourselves. We understand that you have felt much hurt by the course of action taken by us and particularly the tone of our letter has caused you much pain. It was never our intention either to embarrass e you or to hurt you and if you had suggested or indictated that it hurt you we would have without the least hesitation amended or altered the letter. But we have decided to withdraw it and our resignation h on a reconsideration of the whole situation. We have felt that in all your utterances as published in the Press you have been speaking not so much T s on the general Congress programme as on a topic which has not been accepted by the Congress and in i doing so you have been acting more as the mouthpiece of the minority of our colleagues on the Working l Committee as also on the Congress than the mouthpiece of the majority which we expected you as R Congress President to do. b There is regular continuous campaign against us treating us as persons whose time is over, who E represent and stand for ideas that are worn out and that have no present value, who are only obstructing the progress of the country and who deserve to be cast out of the positions which they undeservedly u hold … we have felt that a great injustice has been and is being done to us by others, and we are not C receiving the protection we are entitled from you as our colleague and as our President … p Yours sincerely N re Rajendra Prasad My Dear Bapu, Allahabad, July 5, 1936 © e I arrived here last night. Ever since I left Wardha I have been feeling weak in body and troubled in mind. … Since my return from Europe, I found that meetings of the Working Committee exhaust me greatly; they have a devitalising effect on me and I have almost the feeling of being older in years after b every fresh experience … I am grateful to you for all the trouble you took in smoothing over matters and in helping to avoid a crisis. o I read again Rajendra Babu’s letter to me (the second one) and his formidable indictment of me... t For however tenderly the fact may be stated, it amounts to this that I am an intolerable nuisance and the very qualities I possess – a measure of ability, energy, earnestness, some personality which has a vague appeal – become dangerous for they are harnessed to the wrong chariot (socialism). The t conclusion from all this is obvious. I have written at length, both in my book and subsequently, about my present ideas. There is no lack o of material for me to be judged. Those views are not casual. They are part of me, and though I might change them or vary them in future, so long as I hold them I must give expression to them. Because I n attached importance to a larger unity I tried to express them in the mildest way possible and more as an invitation to thought than as fixed conclusions. I saw no conflict in this approach and in anything that the Congress was doing. So far as the elections were concerned I felt that my approach was a definite asset to us as it enthused the masses. But my approach, mild and vague as it was, is considered dangerous and harmful by my colleagues. I was even told that my laying stress always on the poverty and unemployment in India was unwise, or at any rate the way I did it was wrong … You told me that you intended issuing some kind of a statement. I shall welcome this for I believe in every viewpoint being placed before the country. Yours affectionately Jawaharlal MAHATMA GANDHI AND THE NATIONALIST MOVEMENT 369 Source 7 (contd) Segaon, July 15, 1936 Dear Jawaharlal, Your letter is touching. You feel the most injured party. The fact is that your colleagues have d lacked your courage and frankness. The result has been disastrous. I have always pleaded with them to speak to you freely and fearlessly. But having lacked the courage, whenever they e have spoken they have done it clumsily and you have felt irritated. I tell you they have dreaded you, because of your irritability and impatience with them. They have chafed under your h rebukes and magisterial manner and above all your arrogation of what has appeared to them T s your infallibility and superior knowledge. They feel you have treated them with scant courtesy i and never defended them from socialist ridicule and even misrepresentation. l I have looked at the whole affair as a tragi-comedy. I would therefore like you to look at R the whole thing in a lighter vein. b I suggested your name for the crown of thorns (Presidentship of the Congress). Keep it E on, though the head be bruised. Resume your humour at the committee meetings. That is your most usual role, not that of care-worn, irritable man ready to burst on the slightest occasion. u How I wish you could telegraph me that on finishing my letter you felt as merry as you C were on that new year’s day in Lahore when you were reported to have danced around the p tricolour flag. N re You must give your throat a chance. Love Bapu © e (a) What do the letters tell us b about the way Congress ideals developed over time? (b) What do they reveal about the o role of Mahatma Gandhi within t the national movement? (c) Do such letters give us any special insight into the working of t the Congress, and into the nature of the national movement? no 370 THEMES IN INDIAN HISTORY – PART III 6.2 Framing a picture Autobiographies similarly give us an account of the past that is often rich in human detail. But here again we have to be careful of the way we read and interpret autobiographies. We need to remember that they are retrospective accounts written very often d from memory. They tell us what the author could recollect, what he or she saw as important, or was e keen on recounting, or how a person wanted his or her life to be viewed by others. Writing an h autobiography is a way of framing a picture of T s yourself. So in reading these accounts we have to i try and see what the author does not tell us; we l need to understand the reasons for that silence – R those wilful or unwitting acts of forgetting. E b 6.3 Through police eyes Another vital source is government records, for the u colonial rulers kept close tabs on those they regarded