Acknowledgment

This book is dedicated to all kshatriyas, who lived and

died for this timeless sanatana karmabhumi. It is an
offering of deep gratitude to all who serve and will
serve dharma, and protect the dharmi.

I am grateful to Dr. Shreerang Godbole, Ms. Sandhya
Jain and Dr. Krishen Kak for their periodic review of the
manuscript and for their significant inputs which has
improved the book substantively. I am also deeply
thankful to Srimathi D. Kausalya for her unfailing
courtesy and promptness in printing the manuscript at
different stages of its evolution and forwarding them to
friends for their critical comments. And as always I am
grateful to my vast, long-suffering family (two-legged
and four-legged) for patiently putting up with chaos and
a time-schedule that was oftentimes in total disarray.


Title page
Respect of persons must always give place to truth and
conscience; and the demand that we should be silent because
of the age or past services of our opponents, is politically
immoral and unsound. Open attack, unsparing criticism, the
severest satire, the most wounding irony, are all methods
perfectly justifiable and indispensable in politics. We have
strong things to say; let us say them strongly; we have stern
things to do; let us do them sternly.

Aurobindo

INTRODUCTION
This book is concerned with the systemic and well-organized
political disempowerment of Indias Hindu community. A
nations polity reflects its peoples notion of nation and
nationhood. Nowhere in the world and never in history can
there be found a country whose ruling elite has not emerged
from its native and/or majority populace, nor has there ever
been a power-elite which rejected the ethos of its majority
populace, except perhaps in South Africa, the Americas, and
India. The native populace of South Africa managed to seize
control of its polity after a long, bloody and painful struggle to
end Apartheid White rule, and the nations of South America
are struggling for native assertion via the ballot box. But North
America, invaded and occupied by Europeans after decimating
the Native American populace, is unlikely to witness any
meaningful change in its power equations in the foreseeable
future. Its polity is likely to retain its White Christian edge, a
fact increasingly challenged by its African-American populace.
The situation is similar in Canada, Australia and New Zealand.

Contemporary India is thus the only country in the world
whose polity is actively hostile to native (Hindu) interests, the
only country whose sense of nationhood is still repressed by
state power. Adherents of Islam and Christianity have a highly
developed political sense as both religions are essentially
political in their goals conquest of territory and decimation or
subjugation of non-Islamic and non-Christian people till the
time the whole world becomes their dominion. This objective is
deemed legitimate not only by their respective believers, but
also by Indian secularists who regard Christian violence and
intimidation in the North-East and jihad by Muslims as
compatible with their quest for a non-Hindu India, and
consider Hindu nationalism a serious threat to the established
polity dominated by Nehruvian secularism (read minority-ism),
anti-Hindu southern Dravidianism, and all shades of
communism. It is established political orthodoxy that a
nations polity derives from and reflects the racial or religious
ethos of its majority populace. Indias constitutionally-
enshrined secularism is a killer virus whose offspring, freedom
of religion, allows Islam and Christianity the liberty to function
in a Hindu land while keeping their critical political core intact,
indeed, actively nurtured by its democratic constitution. A
Hindu backlash against these challenges was inevitable.

Historically, the sense of nation and nationhood among Hindus
has been cultural and civilisational. The culture and its unique
value system, founded in an extraordinary concept of dharma,
touched every aspect of individual and collective life. Politics, a
means to protect and preserve dharma, was subordinate to
dharma. Historically, until Hindus faced successive Islamic and
Christian conquests, they had no sense of civilisational,
adversarial political-cultural purposes. However, confronted
with the hostility of Islam and Christianity, a heightened Hindu
nationalism manifested itself over the last 1200 years as
organized resistance and as individual acts of extreme courage
to protect Hindus and the Hindu way of life. Rana Pratap
Singh, Rani Laxmibhai of Jhansi, Chatrapati Shivaji, Guru
Gobind Singh, the Gosamrakshana Samitis, Sri Aurobindo,
Veer Savarkar, Madanlal Dhingra and the host of
revolutionaries who followed each other into the twentieth
century, are but a few examples of this continuing resistance.
These individual and group resistance movements ignited the
fire of Hindu nationalism and gave to this nation of Hindus a
political consciousness which sought to bring Indian polity in
line with the Hindu ethos, to wean it away from the acutely
inimical anti-Hindu path it is even now traversing.

Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi
1
and later Jawaharlal Nehru
successfully stifled the march of Hindu nationalism. Nehru
viewed a politically vibrant Hindu nationalism as a threat to his
preeminence and invoked the might of state patronage to
promote an academic discourse and an authorized history
that relegated Hindu civilization to the margins of national
consciousness.
2


Writers of modified history
3
perpetuated the colonial fiction
that India was always pluralist, never Hindu, the implication
being that Hindus cannot claim this land as their special
janmabhumi, and cannot legitimately undertake steps to
protect their territory, their way of life, or their cultural
sensibilities. Public expression of support for the Hindu way of
life was termed backward, superstitious, majoritarian

1
As standard academic practice, we are using names without suffixes such as
Mahatma or Gandhiji.
2
The dubious motives behind international awards for those that propagate a
non-Hindu India is exemplified by the American Kluge prize awarded jointly
to Romilla Thapar. Ms. Thapar created a new and more pluralistic view of
Indian civilization, which had seemed more unitary and unchanging by
scrutinising its evolution over two millennia and searching out its historical
consciousness, the Library of Congress said. (Deccan Chronicle, Chennai
edition, page 8, 5
th
December, 2008)
3
Historians such as R.S. Sharma, D.N. J ha and Romila Thapar exemplify this
school of writing.
communalism and retrogressive vis--vis superior virtues like
scientific temper, secularism and pluralism, which India
unquestioningly adopted via Gandhi and Nehru from their
White-Christian-British masters. Hindus were insidiously
conditioned to equate Hindu political intentions with jihad. So
intolerant was Indian political discourse to Hindu nationalism
that even eminent Hindu political leaders took to mouthing
inanities, like Hindu nationalism is only cultural nationalism.
That this misconceived articulation amounted to a denial of
territorial content and political intent in Hindu nationalism was
either overlooked or ignored or simply not understood at all.

The present work is an attempt to balance Indias distorted
public discourse by outlining the contours and content of Hindu
nationalism. This is a responsibility and an imperative that can
no longer be evaded. The anti-Hindu polity today constitutes
the greatest threat to Hindus and the Hindu nation. This work
seeks to delineate the parameters of Hindu nationalism and
fire it with strategic intent. In the process the book critically
examines the freedom movement between the years 1890-
1947, particularly the events that launched Gandhi to the
commanding heights of the movement. Gandhi did not rise
naturally to demonstrated leadership potential; rather, this
exalted position was reserved for him and he simply walked to
the pinnacle immediately after his return to India from South
Africa.

Gandhis leadership of the Indian National Congress and the
freedom movement sounded the death-knell for Hindu
nationalism, as we hope to demonstrate; and after Gandhi and
Nehru (who inherited Gandhis political mantle) hand-picked all
Congress members to the Constituent Assembly, the Hindus of
the nation were presented with a Constitution that did not
reflect the nations timeless civilisational ethos or heritage nor
represent the interests of the nations majority Hindu
populace. The beginning of the post-independence era in the
nations history was the beginning of an active anti-Hindu
polity that continues to hold sway till the present. This book
seeks to correct the anti-Hindu political discourse which owes
its existence to Gandhi and Nehru; this book signals the
beginning of the collective effort of political-minded Hindus to
set down the coffins of Gandhi and Nehru from the unwilling
shoulders of the Hindu nation.


Strategic Intent of Hindu Nationalism
The strategic intent of Hindu nationalism can be summed up
as achieving conscious state power, rajya, to correct the
course and content of Indian polity. This course correction is
necessary -

To transform this nation of Hindus into a Hindu Nation
protected by a conscious Hindu state
To bring Indian polity in line with Hindu ethos and
Hindu interests
To protect, safeguard and retain all territories
belonging to the Hindu nation as of 15 August 1947
and facilitate the return of territories lost to colonial
machinations
To actively facilitate the return to the Hindu fold, those
whose forefathers fell victims to predatory religions and
ideologies. Return of people to Hindu dharma will result
in return of territory
To signal the Indian States determination to deal firmly
with forces inimical to the Hindu nation (jihad and
Muslim intransigence, evangelization and global
Christianitys control of powerful domestic institutions
and corporate firms, Marxism and its branches, and all
their international partners and collaborators)
To ensure Indian military and economic primacy in the
region to achieve our strategic goals
To evolve a foreign policy that actively promotes and
sustains our regional influence.

This is a Herculean task, even as an intellectual exercise. This
work will scan the events of the last two centuries and critique
the rendition of these events by motivated history-writing. As
Aurobindo said, we have strong things to say, so we will say
them strongly, we have stern things to do and we will do them
sternly.

NOTE
We use Hindu to connote all the panthas and sampradayas
(streams and traditions) that are indigenous to the Indian
subcontinent, notwithstanding an occasional distinctive title
(e.g., Sikh) for topical effect.

*
Chapter 1

A Hindu Nation but not a Hindu State

1.1 Rashtra and Rajya
In Arthasastra, the Hindu science of statecraft, rashtra implies
both territory with well-defined borders, and its inhabitants.
Hindus comprise 83% of Indias population, but when colonial
rule ended in 1947, despite being a nation of Hindus we failed
to establish a Hindu rajya (polity) enjoined and empowered to
protect sanatana dharma and the dharmi, that is, the Hindu
dharma and the Hindu people
1
. This failure to establish a
Hindu rajya may be attributed to the fact that

Both the British Raj and the Indian National Congress
(INC), which assumed control of the freedom
movement in its decisive last phase, discredited and/or
ruthlessly put down all Hindu expressions of resistance
and rebellion.

Gandhi and his doctrines of passive resistance and
non-violence occupied the public space vacated by
Tilak, Aurobindo and Savarkar (towering Hindu thinkers
and votaries of armed resistance); Gandhi de-
legitimized Hindu anger and all expressions of Hindu
anger.

Nehru inherited the mantle of leadership from Gandhi
and was acutely hostile to everything Hindu.

No significant leader of the freedom struggle, neither
Tilak nor Aurobindo or Gandhi, explicitly articulated or
delineated the concept of Hindu rajya as the ultimate
objective of the freedom movement.

After the advent of Gandhi and the ascent of Nehru,
with the exception of Savarkar, there was no sense of
conscious Hindu political objectives to the freedom
movement in general and to the Indian National
Congress in particular, as there was no collective and
conscious realization of the nature of a Hindu rashtra

1
Words Hinduism and Hindus wherever used in the book connote Hindu
dharma and Hindu people
and the objectives of Hindu rajya, and hence no
intention or determination to achieve them.

Currently pluralism and secularism are the internationally
legitimate themes of statecraft and even intelligent Hindus
have failed to distinguish between Hindu rashtra and rajya and
their mutual inter-dependence and have compounded this
failure by equating Hindu rashtra with Hindu rajya, and
associating both with an Abrahamic religion-driven or
controlled theocratic state. As the non-Abrahamic and
Abrahamic faiths have vastly differing perceptions about the
purpose of human life and the moral worth of the individual
and society, the social and political theories arising out of their
respective worldviews are not readily interchangeable. The
political theories of the dominant colonial power however,
have been superimposed upon a dormant colonized people,
and their silence mistaken for acquiescence.

Kautilyas Arthasastra
2
accorded primacy to Rajya as the most
important and ultimate, if not sole, instrument to protect and
enforce dharma. Rajya has seven components (prakritis)
Svamin (King), Amatya (Minister), Rashtra (Nation), Durga
(Capital), Kosa (Treasury), Danda (Armed forces) and Mitra
(Allied kings and kingdoms). Some earlier texts list the
seventh component as bala, which connotes not only the
enforcing authority of the king but also the military or armed
forces. In Kautilya however, bala is implicit in danda which
Kangle translates as armed forces.
3
Hindu rashtra is thus
clearly a constituent of Hindu rajya (polity); it follows that
while Hindu rajya derives from rashtra, the rashtra can be
protected and defended only by the rajya. As evident,
contemporary English-language political lexicon offers near-
equivalents of the constituents of rajya.

The above constituents of rajya are not listed in order of
relative importance as all are equally important, though some
gain precedence in times of peace and some in times of crisis.
Kautilya makes the exemplary point of the relative importance
of the components of Hindu rajya and if we accept this as the

2
All quotations and references henceforth to Kautilyas Arthasatra in the book
are from the monumental work in three volumes, The Kautiliya Arthasatra
(TKA) by RP Kangle, Motilal Banarsidass Publishers Private Limited, 1963
3
The king, the minister, the country, the fortified city, the treasury, the army
and the ally are the constituent elements (of the state), Book 6, Chapter 1,
Sutra 1, The Kautiliya Arthasastra (TKA), Part II, page 314
yardstick to judge the state of well-being of the nation and its
rulers, we can easily find examples from contemporary history
of the conditions described by him:-

A king endowed with personal qualities endows with
excellences the constituent elements not so endowed.
One not endowed with personal qualities destroys the
constituent elements that are prosperous and devoted
(to him).

Then (that) king not endowed with personal qualities,
with defective constituent elements, is either killed by
the subjects or subjugated by the enemies, even if he
be ruler up to the four ends of the earth.

But one possessed of personal qualities, though ruling
over a small territory, being united with the excellences
of the constituent elements, (and) conversant with (the
science of) politics, does conquer the entire earth and
never loses
4
.

Even a cursory glance at the acute problems confronting the
nation will serve to show that almost all of them have
assumed threatening proportions not just because the leaders
of the Hindu nation suffered from one or all of the weaknesses
listed above but also because even political-minded Hindus
have failed to grasp the critical importance of a Hindu rajya
and Hindu society therefore failed to throw up such a leader
during the critically important period between 1890-1947; this
notwithstanding the fact that Tilak, Aurobindo and Savarkar,
all had great intellectual and organizing capability. Hindus are
failing even now to put the Hindu rajya in place because of
their incapacity to produce a Hindu visionary political leader
with the stamina to stay the course. Gandhis untested
mahatmahood gave him a ready constituency but he declared
that neither he nor the INC represented Hindu interests.

1.2 Problems confronting the Hindu nation
1. Almost total de-Hinduising of Indian polity, resulting in
politics of minority-ism and Hindu inability to influence
the polity.


4
TKA, Book 6, Chapter 1, Sutras 16, 17, 18, Part II, page 317

2. Cavalier attitude to territory and failure to understand
the need to monitor and keep under constant
surveillance the character of the people living in the
territory, and hence supreme indifference/ignorance
about the critical importance of rashtra.

3. De-Hinduised and/or virulently hostile anti-Hindu state
structures and administration.

4. Growing Muslim and Christian population percentage.

5. Aggressive evangelization with the open support and
endorsement of White Western nations as instruments
of their foreign policy.

6. Intensified jihad against Hindus and Hindu territory,
unchecked infiltration of Bangladeshi Muslims into India
constituting a significant threat.

7. Growing power of anti-Hindu Marxist/Maoist/Naxalite
groups.

8. The increasing possibility of a significant segment of
overseas Indians People of Indian Origin (PIOs) and
Non-Resident Indians (NRIs) being used as agents
against the Indian State and/or her people.

9. Indias total isolation in the region and political
unwillingness to deal resolutely with neighboring
countries lending their territory for anti-Hindu terrorist
activities.

10. The persisting inability of Hindus to consciously come
together as Hindus.

11. Absence of a powerful Hindu leadership with the ability
to grasp the critical importance of rajya to deal with the
above-mentioned problems, and

12. The inability of Indian polity to resist and challenge
western political idioms and theories, which have by
default received universal and international status.



1.3 Hindu determination to protect Hindu territory and
religion
The British Government in India used state power to brutalize
and break the spirit of Hindu nationalists to discourage all
thoughts of armed resistance and political independence. Post-
independence Indian polity continued with use of state power
to quell Hindu nationalism because Hindu nationalism
threatened to dismantle the shaky edifice of the bogus but
highly remunerative secular polity which sustains politics of
minority-ism and their votaries. Hindus may be cowed down
and disempowered today by state power but they were not
always so dispirited.

In the Indian tradition, the principal rajadharma
or the responsibility of the State in India is the
preservation of Dharma. Srimad Bhagavadgita
teaches that Dharma samsthapana
(preservation of dharma) involves both
protection of society Paritrana and destruction of
its enemies Vinasa.

In the first millennium of the so-called historical
period, during 5
th
century BC to 6
th
century AD,
Indians successfully repulsed all major invasions
of Persians, Greeks, Sakas and Hunas.

Indian civilization and Sanatana Dharma faced a
major challenge during the Islamic invasion
(635-1190) and subsequent Islamic domination
of large regions of India during 1200-1700.

The great kingdoms and armies of the
Chalukyas, Karkotas (Kashmir), Gurjara-
Pratiharas and the Rashtrakutas and the
Rajputs, rose to the occasion and successfully
prevented the Islamic forces, which had
spectacular success elsewhere in Asia, Africa
and Europe, from establishing themselves in the
Indian heartland for nearly six centuries during
630-1200.

When the Islamic forces conquered North India
and invaded South India, they were thwarted by
the establishment of the major Hindu empire of
Vijayanagara (1336-1565). In fact, most of
South India, Orissa, and Assam could not be
brought under Islamic rule for any significant
period of time.

Thus, during the height of Mughal rule
5
around
1600 (and after nearly four centuries of Islamic
domination) it was estimated that only about
one-sixth of the Indian population (in the
regions that constituted the Mughal Empire) had
become adherents of Islam.

From about the middle of the 17
th
century,
people all over India, especially the Marathas,
Sikhs, Jats, and the Bundelas created powerful
military organizations that shook the Mughal
empire. By the 18
th
century, the Mughal Empire
had collapsed and the indigenous rulers were in
the process of establishing themselves
everywhere in India.

In 1760, the Maratha Samrajya exercised
control over a very large part of India , including
Northern Karnataka, Maharashtra, Gujarat,
Rajasthan, Punjab, Western and Southern Uttar
Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Chhatisgarh,
Jharkhand and Orissa. There were also
important Hindu Rajyas in Mysore,
Thiruvananthapuram, Assam, Nepal and Jammu
at that time.
6


When Hindu society was unable to mount effective military
challenge to Islamic and Christian-colonial invaders, it
responded with great religious activity to strengthen sanatana
dharma in a manner not easily amenable to destruction by
invading Muslim or Christian hordes. Having drawn appropriate
lessons from the massive devastation of temples, great
acharyas wrote intellectually enthralling bhashyas
(commentary) created new and powerful streams of panthas
(denominations within Hindu dharma), composed elegant and
immensely elevating songs and poetry of bhakti (devotion), all

5
I personally prefer the word Islamic because to Hindus, it matters little if
the jihadis were Arab, Turk, Mongol or Persian
6
Indian response to the challenge of Islam and Christianity, Center for Policy
Studies, Chennai, December 2006

of which continue to inspire and motivate Hindu society to
respond to continuing challenges to the survival of their
dharma and way of life.

The politically paralyzing and defeatist role played by Gandhi,
and Aurobindos comprehensive failure to stay the course,
must be seen against the backdrop of complete
disempowerment and disarming of the indefatigable martial
spirit of Hindus who have ever picked up arms to defend dharti
and dharma against all threats. It is largely because of
Aurobindo and Gandhi that we did not set Hindu rajya to
protect the rashtra as the goal of the freedom movement
during its last phase between 1890 and1947.

1.4 Origins of current Hindu powerlessness The Indian
National Congress
We are concerned here with the twin issues of Hindu
powerlessness to influence Indian polity and the need for
conscious Hindu state power. The Hindu community has been
victimized by an Indian polity powered by the phony mantra of
secularism and the bogey of Hindu communalism. For
decades, Indian polity has successfully disempowered Hindus
and rendered them incapable of organizing themselves to
demonstrate strength, anger and resolve when confronted by
a hostile State or other provocations. And on occasions when
Hindus gathered together to exhibit their collective will or
anger, Indian polity used ruthless state power to quell all such
protests.
7

While the Muslim League government in the Bengal
province used state power to fuel jihad against Hindus
in response to Jinnahs call for Direct Action in August
1946, the Congress government in Bihar used police
and military power to quell the Hindus who reacted
violently to the jihad in Bengal. Over 200 Hindus were
killed in police and military firing alone.
The Central Government in Delhi and the state
governments of Bihar and Uttar Pradesh arrested all
important leaders of the Bharatiya Janata Party and the
Vishwa Hindu Parishad at the height of the
Ramjanmabhumi movement in October 1990. These
governments were headed by Hindus. In November

7
The recent determined and well-organized protest by the Hindus of J ammu
and the displaced Kashmiri Hindu community as embodied by the Amarnath
Sangharsh Samiti has been the exception to the established rule and is a portent
of things to come.
1990, over 50 Hindu bhaktas or karsevaks were killed
in police firing in Ayodhya, Uttar Pradesh.
Over 200 Hindus were killed in police firing in Gujarat,
in March 2002 during riots that followed the burning
alive of 58 Hindu pilgrims by jihadis in Godhra, Gujarat
in February 2002.
The Tamil Nadu government arrested and jailed 6
Hindu activists under the draconian National Security
Act in 2006 for attempting to remove the statue of a
violent, anti-Hindu dravidian iconoclast, placed with
state support in front of a revered Hindu temple in
Srirangam, Tamil Nadu.

Since 1947 secular Indian polity has been consciously anti-
Hindu; it proactively promotes politics of minority-ism to the
detriment of the Hindu faith and Hindu way of life. However,
the aspect of Hindu powerlessness which manifests itself as an
inability to demonstrate strength or outrage needs clinical
analysis in the light of recent history. This malaise can be
specifically attributed to the last phase of the freedom
struggle, to the Indian National Congress and the INC leaders
who abdicated their responsibility to the Hindu nation at a
critical time, particularly, in our view, Gandhi and Aurobindo.
We will substantiate our claim through extensive quotations
from the hitherto largely ignored corpus of writings and
speeches of these two towering personalities.

The first war of independence was a serious challenge to
British supremacy in India, the first warning to the British that
Indian society could throw up leaders with the capacity to
translate the seething anger of the people into organized and
sustained armed attacks against their rule. The much-
publicized catalyst for the revolt, the alleged use of animal fat-
smeared cartridges was just that a catalyst; for the Hindus,
the widespread rebellion in the armed forces in 1857 which
soon spilled over into society and spread across the country
was in a sense, the culmination of widespread Hindu anger
and protests against intensified cow slaughter under the Raj
while Muslims were fighting to re-establish Islamic rule over
the Indian nation. The Muslims knew what they were fighting
for and what they were fighting against; for Muslims and
Christians the ultimate goal of their respective religions is
political to establish the universal Dar-ul-Islam and Christian
Kingdom of God on Earth.

Indian Muslims, to the last man considered Christian colonial
rule as temporary defeat and eclipse of Islamic rule over Hindu
India; Hindu India was just one theater in the unrelenting war
that the two Abrahamic faiths were waging around the world
for ultimate annihilation of the other and the final victory
culminating in total control over the earth. Under the
circumstances, the strategy of Indian Muslims in 1857 was to
seek Hindu co-operation in a superficial bonding on the basis
of race to challenge the Whiteman. The ploy worked, even if
only minimally within the British Indian Army; but outside, the
fierce resistance of the Mahrattas to the growing menace of
the East India Company, which was using trade and Church to
tighten its political grip over the country, was yet another
chapter in the ceaseless and determined, centuries-long
civilisational struggle of the Hindus against both Islam and
Christianity.

The anti-cow slaughter movement by local Gosamrakshana
Samitis (Gosamrakshana Movement, 1860-1920) was led by
Hindu sadhus and community leaders, and spread across the
country. The British Raj perpetrated cow slaughter on a
horrendous scale in order to keep the British Army and
establishment supplied with beef. Strangely and as a portent
of things to come, the intense Hindu anger at increasing cow
slaughter was viewed with strong distaste by Gandhi in Hind
Swaraj.
8
In what was to become his trademark style, Gandhi,
instead of confronting the British establishment and its allied
Muslim community on the question of cow slaughter, de-
legitimized Hindu anger.
9
Indeed, he did not even formally
hold the British fundamentally responsible for the scale of cow-
slaughter at the time, but made it a Hindu-Muslim issue and
laid the onus for cow protection completely on the Hindus:

I myself respect the cow, that is, I look upon her
with affectionate reverence. The cow is the
protector of India, because it, being an
agricultural country, is dependent on the cows
progeny. She is a most useful animal in

8
Henceforth all references to and quotations from Hind Swaraj are from,
Gandhi Hind Swaraj and Other Writings, (HS) Edited by Anthony J Parel,
Cambridge Texts in Modern Politics, Cambridge University Press, 1997
9
An unbiased reading of Gandhis huge corpus of writings will show
consistent lack of sympathy towards the legitimate civilisational concerns of
Hindus and excessive accommodation towards their tormentors
hundreds of ways. Our Mahomedan brethren will
admit this.

But just as I respect the cow, so do I respect my
fellow-men. A man is just as useful as a cow, no
matter whether he be a Mahomedan or a
Hindu....

When the Hindus became insistent, the killing of
cows increased. In my opinion, cow protection
societies may be considered cow-killing
societies. It is a disgrace to us that we should
need such societies. When we forgot how to
protect cows, I suppose we needed such
societies....

Who protects the cow from destruction by
Hindus when they cruelly ill-treat her? Who ever
reasons with the Hindus when they mercilessly
belabour the progeny of the cow with their
sticks? But this has not prevented us from
remaining one nation
10
.

We shall later go into greater detail about Gandhis peculiar
views and questionable attitudes on several issues in Hindu
dharma and tradition besides cow slaughter. It is, however,
pertinent to note that Hindu powerlessness is a recent
phenomenon, in complete contrast to the combative history of
the previous twelve centuries, when Hindus displayed fierce
and consistent determination to protect their territory and
dharma. Indeed, the war of 1857 was a continuation of the
organized resistance of hundreds of years to desecration and
destruction of temples, to cow slaughter, and thus an
extension of Hindu societys resistance to the Islamic invasion
of Hindu territory and destruction of the Hindu way of life.

1.5 Why the British manufactured the INC
As Gandhi wielded enormous clout in the INC owing to an
allegedly successful political sojourn in South Africa, as a
result of which he received the sobriquet, Mahatma, we shall
examine the following issues:


10
Hind Swaraj (HS), Chapter X, The condition of India (cont.): the Hindus and
the Mahomedans, pp 54-55

The purpose and timing of Hind Swaraj which many
consider Gandhis seminal work.
The not-so-well-known aspects of Gandhis career in
South Africa.
Gandhis interpretation of satyagraha and ahimsa
Gandhis limited and even flawed understanding of
contemporary issues and events, and his skewed
understanding of the Bible and the Bhagwad Gita.
Gandhis leadership qualities.
Gandhis judgment of White civilization, the British
Empire, and the Muslims.
Gandhis moral authority, which put his every word
and action beyond the pale of critical scrutiny and thus
thwarted all attempts at objective assessment of his
political legacy; and
The consequences for Hindus of the Gandhian legacy in
the Indian polity.

The Muslim League was set up in December 1906 as a
creature of British inspiration, just as the Indian National
Congress was conceived in 1885. Both initiatives aimed to
weaken intensifying Hindu armed resistance to colonial regime
and to politically dis-empower the Hindus vis--vis the
Muslims. The timing of the move to create both the Congress
and the Muslim League is significant. Allan Octavian Hume,
father of the INC
11
, was a Scotsman posted as Collector in
Etawah at the time the conflict broke out in 1857. Hume
repulsed the advance of Mughal prince Feroze Shah into
Etawah from Rohailkhand. His contribution to colonial victory
in the Central Indian Campaign of the war earned him the
Order of the Bath, because this was a campaign that was
fought over the widest area in terms of length and breadth as
compared to all the other campaigns of 1857. It took the
British longer in terms of time to suppress the rebellion in
Central India as compared to all other regions involved in the
rebellion
12
, not the least because they had to confront a
determined Rani Laxmibhai of Jhansi and the formidable and
extremely skilled Tantia Tope.

The First War of Independence alarmed London, which saw
intense Hindu anger and Hindu skills at armed resistance,
including guerilla warfare, unleashed by Tantia Tope. Yet

11
Hindus seem to have a father obsession; Gandhi was designated father of
the Nation and Tilak the father of Indian Unrest.
12
http://www.defencejournal.com/2000/feb/central-indian.htm
London learnt to its advantage that Hindus could be pressured,
bribed, beguiled or flattered to betray their own. It must have
amused the British that a section of Hindus fought fiercely not
only to defeat the East India Company but to reinstate Muslim
rule over India; a stated objective of the war was to make
Bahadur Shah Zafar the real power in Delhi once again!
Having learnt several important lessons from the war, London
moved decisively to retain the jewel in the British Crown at
any cost.

The Queen promptly wound up the East India Company and
brought all territories controlled by it directly under the British
Government
13
. Having unleashed ruthless State power to
pacify the natives, the British soon afterwards played their
masterstroke by weaning away important sections of society
from armed resistance and opposition to their rule with the
offer of political participation through self-governance.

This task was entrusted to Allan Octavian Hume, and in 1885
he founded the Indian National Congress, touted by
motivated historians as the ultimate vehicle of Indian
nationalism. The ideologically inept Hindus were enchanted by
the ruse and the best Hindu minds, conditioned by English
education, were entranced by the thought of being dark-white
partners (dark in skin, white in thinking) of the British Raj. The
British, however, made of sterner stuff, sought to ensure that
the natives did not entertain original ideas of independence
and initially planted their own countrymen as INC Presidents.
Later they relied upon other tactics to execute their unstated
agenda of neutralizing all Hindu resistance and weaning the
Hindu intelligentsia away from revolutionary objectives and
away from Hindu society, culture and roots. The Indian
National Congress was set up by A.O. Hume to make Indians
willing and/or unwitting collaborators of the Raj. Gandhi, in
1909 happily pranced to the tune of the British piper
Reader: Do you consider that a desire for Home
Rule has been created among us?
Editor: That desire gave rise to the National
Congress. The choice of the word National
implies it.

13
It is surprising that we have failed to draw upon this single fact to demolish
the myth that the East India Company came to India just for trade and was
accidentally drawn into her domestic affairs. If that were indeed so, then
European trade would never have metamorphosed into colonialism and the
consequent enslavement of colonised nations
Reader: That surely is not the case. Young
India
14
seems to ignore the Congress. It is
considered to be an instrument for perpetuating
British Rule.
Editor: That opinion is not justified. Had not the
Grand Old Man of India (Dadabai Naoroji)
prepared the soil, our young men could not have
even spoken about Home Rule. How can we
forget what Mr. Hume has written, how he has
lashed us into action, and with what effort he
has awakened us, in order to achieve the
objects of the Congress? Sir William Wedderburn
has given his body, mind and money to the
same cause.
15

.
Aurobindo may not have bluntly articulated the British
subterfuge behind founding the INC but while he politely
welcomed its creation, he was also aware of its serious
deficiencies. Aurobindo wrote a series of nine scathing articles
about the INC, titled New lamps for old, in Indu Prakash, a
Marathi-English Bombay daily, when he was only 21 years and
the INC barely eight years old!
16
In the last part of the series
written on March 6, 1894, Aurobindo uses the English
language effectively to describe what he thought of the
Service to which Hume belonged. Hume as mentioned earlier
was an officer of the Indian Civil Services (ICS).
And when one knows the stuff of which the
Service is made, one ceases to wonder at it. A
shallow school-boy stepping from a cramming
establishment to the command of high and
difficult affairs can hardly be expected to give us
anything magnificent or princely. Still less can it
be expected when the sons of small tradesmen
are suddenly promoted from the counter to
govern great provinces. Not that I have any

14
Young India the Indian revolutionaries associated with India House
(1905-9), London, referred to themselves as the Young India Party. The
name had its origin in Mazzinis concept of Young Italy. Young India was also
the name of the weekly newspaper Gandhi edited in India from 1919-1931.
(Editor Parels foot-note to the above excerpt from HS, Chapter I, page 14)
15
HS, Chapter I, The Congress and its Officials, page 14
16
Excerpts from Aurobindos writings reproduced in the book, unless
otherwise specified have been sourced from Sri Aurobindo Birth Centenary
Library Deluxe Edition, Vol. 1, Published by the Sri Aurobindo Ashram,
Pondicherry, 1972
fastidious prejudice against small tradesmen. I
simply mean that the best education men of
that class can get in England does not
adequately qualify a raw youth to rule over
millions of his fellow-beings.
17


Aurobindos criticism of the Indian National Congress and its
leaders was just as blunt and as unsparing.
I am quite aware that in doing this, my motive
and my prudence may be called into question. I
am not ignorant that I am about to censure a
body which to many of my countrymen seems
the mightiest outcome of our new national
life...and if I were not fully confident that this
fixed idea of ours is a snare and a delusion,
likely to have the most pernicious effects, I
should simply have suppressed my own doubts
and remained silent.
18


I say, of the Congress, then, thisthat its aims
are mistaken, that the spirit in which it proceeds
towards their accomplishment is not a spirit of
sincerity and whole-heartedness, and that the
methods it has chosen are not the right
methods, and the leaders in whom it trusts, not
the right sort of men to be leaders; in brief, that
we are at present the blind led, if not by the
blind, at any rate by the one-eyed
19


Like the best laid plans of mice and men however, some
elements in the INC were neither pliant nor compliant. The
economic rape and plunder of India began to be documented
(Poverty and un-British rule in India by Dadabhai Naoroji) and
the anger against the colonial government soon became a
war-cry. Yet Dadabhai Naoroji, like Gandhi later in Hind
Swaraj, blamed the British only partially, indeed, half-
heartedly. Naoroji understood that the predatory Raj was
responsible for Indias gross impoverishment and economic
deprivation, yet he defined this rapaciousness un-British!
Gandhi picked up this theme readily -

17
New lamps for old, Indu Prakash, March 6, 1894, pp 52-53

18
New lamps for old, Indu Prakash, August 7, 1893, page 15

19
New lamps for old, Indu Prakash, August 28, 1893, page 15
It is my deliberate opinion that India is being
ground down not under the English heel but
under that of modern civilization.
20

The true remedy lies, in my humble opinion, in
England discarding modern civilization which is
ensouled by this spirit of selfishness and
materialism, is vain and purposeless and is a
negation of the spirit of Christianity.
21


Gandhi in Hind Swaraj and Other Writings attributed the evils
of colonial administration to modern Western civilization,
ignoring the Christian roots that drove this civilization to
plunder and exploit most of Asia, Africa and America.
Aurobindo saw the roots and exposed them.
Under the stimulus of an intolerable wrong,
Bengal in the fervour of the Swadeshi
movement parted company with the old ideals
and began to seek for its own strength. It has
found it in the people. But the awakening of this
strength immediately brought the whole
movement into collision with British interests
and the true nature of the Englishman, when his
interests are threatened, revealed itself. The
Swadeshi movement threatened British trade
and immediately an unholy alliance was formed
between the magistracy, the non-officials and
the pious missionaries of Christ, to crush the
new movement by every form of prosecution
and harassment.
22


1.6 Manufacturing the Muslim League
The Swaraj and Swadeshi movement masterminded by
Aurobindo, Bhupendranath Dutta, Barin Ghosh and
Chittaranjan Das, among other Bengali luminaries, was akin to
the go-samrakshana (cow-protection) movement of the
nineteenth century, in that it was a spontaneous eruption of
Hindu society, except that it made economic and broader
cultural issues central to its concerns, and was a spontaneous

20
HS, Chapter VIII, The condition of India, page 42
21
Supplementary writings (HS), Gandhis letter to Lord Ampthill, London,
October 30, 1909
22
Lessons at J amalpur,, Bande Mataram, September 1, 1906, page 21.

and determined reaction to the partition of Bengal.
23
The
Swaraj and Swadeshi movement which came to be known
even at that time as Boycott, aimed at total political
independence from the British and not merely self-
governance, Home Rule, or Dominion Status, which would
keep Indian people in serfdom within the British Empire. Their
Swaraj was self governance as obtained not in the colonies of
the Raj but in the Raj itself. Aurobindo demanded self-rule, not
like that of Canada but like that of the United Kingdom. As
articulated by Tilak and Aurobindo, Swaraj and Swadeshi
meant total and complete political independence and therefore
entailed the total boycott of all British goods, government
schools and the judiciary. Boycott or Swaraj and Swadeshi,
was only passive resistance or satyagraha, which post-
independence Indian polity, for vested interests, continues to
propagate as a Gandhian principle and virtue. Between April
11 and April 23, 1907, Aurobindo in Bande Mataram under the
general title New Thought wrote a series of brilliant articles on
Passive Resistance, after reading which Gandhis exposition
on Satyagraha or passive resistance seems vacuous by
comparison.
24
There was little that Gandhi could add to
Aurobindos discourse on passive resistance but in typical
Gandhi vein he does not give credit where it is due in Hind
Swaraj, considered by Gandhians to be his seminal work. The
comprehensive boycott of British goods, British schools and
the judiciary had such an inspirational impact on the nation at
large that in spite of the fact that it was neither well-organized
nor directed by any individual or group, its fire spread outside
of Bengal and frightened both the imperial government in
London and the British government in India. Aurobindos
passive resistance movement triggered a series of chain
reactions which culminated tragically for Hindus in 1909. This
period saw the meteoric rise of intellectual stalwarts like Tilak,
Aurobindo and Savarkar, their tragic eclipse, and fading away
from the political arena.

The first partition of Bengal, which the colonial regime claimed
was undertaken for administrative purposes, was intentionally
crafted on communal lines, viz., Muslim majority East Bengal
and Hindu majority West Bengal, a measure which Aurobindo
declared -

23
Lord Curzon announced the partition of Bengal in 1903 and elaborated it in
1904.
24
Excerpts from Aurobindos phenomenal exposition on passive resistance is
reproduced at the end of Chapter 4.
Was no mere administrative proposal but a blow
straight at the heart of the nation. That it is
something far other than this (administrative
purpose), that the danger involved far more
urgent and appalling, is what I shall try to point
out in this article.
Unfortunately, to do this is impossible without
treading on Lord Curzons corns; and indeed one
of the tenderest of all the crop. We have
recently been permitted to know that our great
Viceroy particularly objects to the imputation of
motives to his government and not
unnaturally; for Lord Curzon is a vain man
loving praise and sensitive to dislike and
censure; more than that he is a statesman of
unusual genius who is following a subtle and
daring policy on which immense issues hang and
it is naturally disturbing him to find that there
are wits in India as subtle as his own and which
can perceive something at least of the goal at
which he is aiming.
25


The British met with a fierce and violent backlash from Bengal
Hindus; Muslims in general and Bengali Muslims in particular
were delighted with the move. This period saw Bankim
Chandra Chatterjis Vande Mataram acquiring high Hindu
nationalist overtones which inspired some of the most brilliant
writings of Tilak and Aurobindo along with widespread, nation-
wide Hindu armed resistance to the partition.

It seems reasonable to infer that alarmed over the fierce
Hindu backlash to the partition and encouraged by the
absence of Muslim anger with the government on any issue
(as evidenced by the scarcity of Muslim presence in the INC),
the British took measures to strengthen, if not Muslim support
for the Raj, at least their non-cooperation with the INC, by
widening the rift between Hindus and Muslims. Viceroy Mintos
inspired meeting with important Muslim leaders in Shimla in
October 1906, wherein the demand for separate electorate for
Muslims, proportional quotas in government employment,
appointment of Muslim judges to the High Courts, and Muslim
members in the Viceroys Council, was a critical link in the
series of measures planned to this end. Indeed lady Minto had

25
Incomplete and undated article titled, The Proposed Reconstruction of
Bengal Partition or Annihilation, pp77-78
this to say about this far-sighted move by the British
Government
Very very big thing had happened today; A work
of statesmanship that will affect India and
Indian history for many long years. It is nothing
less than pulling back 62 millions of people from
joining the ranks of the seditious opposition.
26


Two months after the Shimla conclave, in December 1906, the
Muslim League was set up as a counterfoil to what was
perceived as a Hindu INC. Its mandate was to fulfill the
incomplete agenda of 1857; the partition of Bengal was seen
as the first step towards the return of Muslim rule over
Hindustan; with hindsight, it was also the precursor to the
vivisection of 1947. It seems logical to deduce that just as the
British created the INC to wean away important Hindus from
opposition to British rule and particularly armed resistance,
they sponsored the Muslim League to counter the Swaraj and
Swadeshi movement, to Jugantar, a Bengal revolutionary
organization and to the nation-wide anger over the partition of
Bengal. In the immediate aftermath of the partition of Bengal
and British appeasement of the Muslims, Aurobindo observed:

The idea that by encouraging Mahomedan
rowdyism, the present agitation may be put
down, is preposterous; and those who cherish
this notion forget that the bully is neither the
strongest nor the bravest of men; and that
because the self-restraint of the Hindu,
miscalled cowardice, has been a prominent
feature of his national character, he is absolutely
incapable of striking straight and striking hard
when any sacred situation demands this
27
.

The British government conceived the Muslim League as a
thorn in the flesh of the Hindus. State power made an
ascendant Islam possible by undermining Indias Hindu
community. A striking feature of the evolving Indian polity at
this time was that while the Raj exploited the gullibility of the
English-educated Hindu political leadership of the INC and

26
Majumdar RC, History of Freedom Movement in India, Ed. 2, Vol. 2, Firma
KLM Pvt. Ltd, Calcutta, 1975, page 216
27
Partition of Bengal, Bande Mataram, 4 September 1906, in Sri Aurobindo Birth
Centenary Library, Vol 27, Supplement edition, p. 21.
.
planted British officials within the party besides getting one of
them to create it in the first place, the Muslim League
steadfastly resisted White penetration while playing ball with
the regime, wringing as many concessions and benefits for the
Muslim community as government was prepared to concede in
separate but parallel attempts to check the rising tide of Hindu
nationalism.

Aurobindo astutely perceived the dangers of the British ruse of
empowering Muslims to weaken Hindus, but erroneously
concluded that this was happening because the INC did not go
out of its way to include Muslims in the movement. He averred
the INC must be an all-inclusive organization drawing upon all
sections of Indians in order to transform itself into a national
movement; the critical flaw in this argument was that he
assumed Muslims shared the Hindu sense of nationhood and
nationalism.

The true policy of the Congress movement
should have been from the beginning to gather
together under its flag all the elements of
strength that exist in this huge country. The
Brahman Pandit and the Mahomedan Maulavi,
the caste organisation and the trade-union, the
labourer and the artisan, the coolie at his work
and the peasant in his field, none of these
should have been left out of the sphere of our
activities. For each is a strength, a unit of force;
and in politics the victory is to the side which
can marshal the largest and most closely serried
number of such units and handle them most
skilfully, not to those who can bring forward the
best arguments or talk the most eloquently. But
the Congress started from the beginning with a
misconception of the most elementary facts of
politics and with its eyes turned towards the
British Government and away from the people.
28


To their great satisfaction, Indian Muslims had learnt in 1857
that their ploy to seek racial convergence with the Hindus
against the British found resonance not only among sections of
ordinary Hindus but even among the English-educated
leadership of the Indian National Congress. Aurobindo and

28
By the Way Lessons at Jamalpur, Bande Mataram, 1 September, 1906, p.145.
.
Gandhi exemplified the success of the Muslim ploy. Decades
later, Subhash Boses Indian National Army (INA) would
traverse the same path.

1.7 Armed resistance and British response
Jugantar, a revolutionary off-shoot of the Anusilan Samiti and
one of the earliest armed Hindu resistance movements of the
twentieth century came into being in the early 1900s. The
partition of Bengal, British appeasement of Muslims by Viceroy
Minto, and the creation of the Muslim League added an edge
to the resistance, which also influenced a section of the INC.
Tilak and Aurobindo, among others, refused to allow the INC
to serve as implementing agency of British intent. As a
definitive response to the Muslim League and Muslim
appeasement policies of the colonial power, and as a response
to the meek leadership of the INC which neither responded
effectively to the creation of the League nor opposed the
British successfully, the INC, under the Presidentship of
Aurobindo split vertically in December 1907, just one year
after the League was born, with Tilak and Aurobindo leading
the nationalist faction
29
. The Nationalist section soon began
to be pejoratively labeled as Extremist, while the faction led
by Surendranath Banerjea and Gopal Krishna Gokhale was
termed Moderate.

We should be absolutely unsparing in our attack
on whatever obstructs the growth of the nation,
and never be afraid to call a spade a spade.
Excessive good nature, chakshu lajja [the desire
to be always pleasant and polite], will never do
in serious politics. Respect of persons must
always give place to truth and conscience; and
the demand that we should be silent because of
the age or past services of our opponents, is
politically immoral and unsound. Open attack,
unsparing criticism, the severest satire, the
most wounding irony, are all methods perfectly
justifiable and indispensable in politics. We have
strong things to say; let us say them strongly;
we have stern things to do; let us do them
sternly. But there is always a danger of strength
degenerating into violence and sternness into

29
Implicit in the term nationalist was Hindu nationalist.
ferocity, and that should be avoided so far as it
is humanly possible
30
.

Unnerved by the armed revolution of Jugantar and the rise of
votaries of armed resistance within the INC, the British
government, consistent with its response in 1857, employed
the full might of repressive State power against the members
of Jugantar and the nationalist segment of the INC, in order
to break the backbone of Hindu resistance. National sentiment
over the partition of Bengal, fuelled by the swaraj and
swadeshi movement soon spread to the Punjab, Central
Provinces, Poona, Bombay, Madras and other cities of the
country. It was a dangerous replay of 1857 and the Raj
reacted just as ferociously. Within two years, by the end of
1909, almost all the leaders of Jugantar, the nationalists in the
Congress including Tilak, Aurobindo, and Savarkar had been
hanged, deported, or arrested and confined in jails; some
opted for voluntary exile.

Savarkar was inspired by the three Chapekar brothers
Damodar, Balakrishna and Vasudev, who had been found
guilty of conspiring to kill and killing British ICS officer Walter
Rand on 22
nd
June 1897, on Ganeshkhind Road, in Pune, when
Rand was returning from a party to celebrate the anniversary
of Queen Victorias coronation. The three brothers and their
close associate, Mahadev Ranade were hanged in Pune over a
period of 13 months between April 1898-99 and Lokmanya
Tilak was arrested and sentenced to 18 months rigorous
imprisonment for seditious writing which allegedly inspired
the Chapekar brothers to take up arms against an officer of
the British government. This act of great courage by the
Chapekar brothers and Ranade and their brave death left a
deep impression upon the teenaged Savarkar who too decided
to take up armed struggle against the British. To this end he
set up the Abhinav Bharat Society which preached only armed
resistance to British rule.

But in the two years between 1907 and1909 an enraged and
extremely frightened British government brutally crushed this
spontaneous and soon well-organized armed revolution by the
nationalist faction of the INC, by Jugantar, and Savarkar.
Aurobindo was first arrested in August 1907 and jailed for a

30
By the Way Bande Mataram, 13 April, 1907, page 257
.

month on charges of seditious writing in Bande Mataram; he
was arrested again in May 1908 in the Alipore Bomb Case,
Tilak was charged with seditious writing and jailed in Mandalay
in the then Burma
31
and Savarkar who was arrested in France
in 1910, following the killing of Sir Curzon Wyllie by Madanlal
Dhingra in London, was sentenced with transportation for life
and suffered confinement in the Cellular Jail in the Andamans,
a sentence unparalleled in the history of the British Empire; it
is significant that Vasudeo Balwant Phadke, Tilak and
Savarkar, all Hindu Nationalists were sentenced to
Transportation which in effect meant removing them from the
scene and from public consciousness with a view to denying
them martyrdom.
32


Aurobindo was arrested, tried and released in the Alipore
bomb case but when he was threatened again with fresh
arrest for seditious writing in Karmayogin; he decided
inexplicably to abandon politics and armed resistance. As in
1906, the British Government in 1909 again empowered the
Muslim community while simultaneously decapitating the
Hindu nationalist leadership. The Minto-Morley reforms of
1909 granted the Muslim League demand for separate
electorates for Muslims, and thus Muslim separatism acquired
a sharper edge. In more ways than one, the year 1909 was a
turning point in the political destiny of the Hindus.

Unable to cope with the barbaric use of British State power,
which left the nationalist movement in complete disarray,
Aurobindo, immediately after his release on May 6, 1909 in his
famous Uttarapara Speech delivered on May 30, 1909,
signaled his retreat from active politics and armed resistance;
justifying this abdication as deference to what he termed was
the call of his inner voice. To his own physical advantage but
to the detriment of Hindu nationalism, Aurobindo declared his

31
Tilak was sentenced to transportation and removed to Mandalay in Burma,
over 3000 miles away. The life expectancy of an average British male in 1908
was around 48 years while for an average Indian male living in conditions of
slavery would have been even less. The barbarity of British rule can be
estimated from the fact that Tilak was aged 52 years when he was sentenced to
transportation to Mandalay.
32
The very idea of Transportation, if it werent so tragic, would be
considered black humour. That invaders who were forcibly occupying territory
not their own, were actually transporting natives of that territory as
punishment, to alien lands surely belongs to the realm of the absurd. For details
of Savarkars trial and the sentence, see end of chapter.
intention to depart from Bengal, his political karmabhumi and
seek refuge in the distant French colony of Pondicherry down
South, beyond the reach of the British government and
henceforth work only for the spiritual uplift of the nation.
Relieved on this front, the British took further measures to
ensure that Hindu armed resistance from within the INC was
effectively neutralized. A part of this grand strategy was to get
Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, who had already positioned
himself against armed resistance, against the nationalists and
who always spoke with tremendous affection and awe of the
English, to quietly occupy the space vacated by the
nationalists.

1.8 The rise and retreat of Aurobindo
There is a stark difference in the style and content of
Aurobindos writings in the two distinct periods before and
after he left for Pondicherry, which accurately reflect his state
of mind and his life mission. From 1893 until mid-1908 when
he was arrested, his writings focus on the political
disempowerment of Indians; he is most scathing when he
attacks Western civilization and English education; and his
language is lucid and powerful; most importantly, he connects
Hindu dharma to national political objectives. Aurobindo
unambiguously articulated the contours and substance of the
Hindu rashtra, but the major lacuna in his thinking and writing
at this time and even later, was that while he bemoaned
Indias enslavement to shopkeepers and traders, he failed to
make the vital connection between Hindu rashtra and the
critical importance of Hindu rajya to protect and sustain the
rashtra. Then from mid-1909 when he was released from jail,
he made a deliberate disconnect between politics and
spirituality. Fatally for Hindu nationalism, he completely
renounced active involvement in politics and gave nationalism
an unconvincing, un-Hindu spiritual-only connotation. As this
detachment was against Hindu ethos, his writings became
ponderous, thoughts laborious, and language unnatural;
obviously neither Aurobindo nor his later writings inspired or
galvanized Hindus towards political action or towards
spirituality.

Inexplicably scholars have failed to note that Aurobindo and
his inner voice communicated with each other in poor
imitation of ponderous Biblical English, and that the voice
exhorted him in much the same manner as the Christian God
probably exhorted Jesus before sending him to earth on his
mission to establish the kingdom of god on earth.
If Thou art, then Thou knowest my heart. Thou
knowest that I do not ask for Mukti
33
, I do not
ask for anything which others ask for. I ask only
for strength to uplift this nation, I ask only to be
allowed to live and work for this people whom I
love and to whom I pray that I may devote my
life. I strove long for the realisation of yoga
34

and at last to some extent I had it, but in what I
most desired, I was not satisfied. Then in the
seclusion of the jail, of the solitary cell I asked
for it again, I said, Give me Thy Adesh
35
. I do
not know what work to do or how to do it. Give
me a message. In the communion of Yoga two
messages came. The first message said, I have
given you a work and it is to help to uplift this
nation. Before long the time will come when you
will have to go out of jail; for it is not my will
that this time either you should be convicted or
that you should pass the time, as others have to
do, in suffering for their country. I have called
you to work, and that is the Adesh for which you
have asked. I give you the Adesh to go forth
and do my work. The second message came
and it said, Something has been shown to you
in this year of seclusion, something about which
you had your doubts and it is the truth of the
Hindu religion. It is this religion that I am raising
up before the world; it is this that I have
perfected and developed through the Rishis
36
,
saints and Avatars
37
, and now it is going forth to
do my work among the nations. I am raising up
this nation to send forth my word.... When
therefore it is said that India shall rise, it is the
Sanatan Dharma that shall rise. When it is said
that India shall be great, it is the Sanatan
Dharma that shall be great. When it is said that
India shall expand and extend herself, it is the
Sanatan Dharma that shall expand and extend

33
Ultimate liberation from life and re-birth
34
The perfect union and harmony of mind and body
35
Directive or injunction
36
In Hindu religious tradition, the repositories of knowledge and wisdom
37
Earthly manifestation as some life-form of the Divine also known as
Ishvara, Brahman or Narayana
itself over the world. It is for the Dharma and by
the Dharma that India exists.
38

Thus, Aurobindos inner voice
39
told him that he should not
allow himself, like others, to be convicted again and to spend
time suffering for his country in jail. Obedient to its call,
Aurobindo redefined his nationalism (unconvincingly) and his
mission. Aurobindos towering intellect accurately analysed the
nature of the monumental work nationalists had to undertake
to rejuvenate the nation. Hindu dharma and its adherents and
structures had been weakened by the ruthless use of state
power by successive Muslim rulers and Christian-colonialism;
Hindu society had been debilitated economically by the
organised rapacity of the East India Company followed by
British Crown rule, and assaulted culturally as foreign
missionaries ran amok pitting caste against caste. The result
was all-pervasive economic, spiritual and cultural deprivation,
and enervating tamas (inertia) in thought and action.

Tilak and Aurobindo failed to articulate the crucial point that
this all-pervasive weakening and deprivation was effected by
alien faiths which machinated within Hindu society with the full
backing of their respective state powers. Had they considered
and articulated this unambiguously in their writings and made
this the core of public discourse, its natural corollary would
have been for Tilak and Aurobindo to not only postulate total
and complete independence from colonial rule as the goal of
the freedom movement, which was the content of their
Swaraj in the early 1900s, but also to assert that Swaraj
was synonymous with Hindu rajya protecting the Hindu
rashtra.

Articulating such a demand would have entailed confronting
the reality that Hindu society had to unshackle itself from
Christian-colonialism and all its structures and institutions, and
acquire the capacity to thwart Muslim efforts to re-establish
Muslim rule in India after the departure of the British. The
political expositions of both Tilak and Aurobindo failed to

38
Excerpt from Aurobindos landmark Uttarapara Speech, May 30, 1909 Sri
Aurobindo Birth Centenary Library, Vol. 2, page 1 (Pondicherry: Sri Aurobindo
Ashram, 1972).

39
This was startlingly reminiscent of J esus too exhorting his disciples after his
Resurrection. Later, Gandhi also held his inner voice responsible for every
act of appeasement towards Muslims and of coercion of Hindus.
address the question of how Hindus could undertake all-round
rejuvenation of their society, religion and nation without state
power and with colonial structures and separatist Muslims in
their midst. Savarkar however confronted the issue frontally
and in his Presidential address at the 21
st
session of the Hindu
Mahasabha in Kolkata in 1935, stated his apprehensions
bluntly and with startling foresight
No realist can be blind to the probability that the
extra-territorial designs and the secret urge
goading on the Moslems to transform India into
a Moslem State may at any time confront the
Hindusthani State even under self-government
either with a Civil War or treacherous overtures
to alien invaders by the Moslems. Then again
there is every likelihood that there will ever
continue at least for a century to come a danger
of fanatical riots, the scramble for services,
Legislative seats, weightages out of proportion
to their population on the part of the Moslem
minority and consequently a constant danger
threatening internal peace.

Despite witnessing growing Muslim separatism and despite
their sound understanding of the substance and character of
the Hindu nation, Tilak and Aurobindo failed to grapple with
the potential consequences of Muslim hostility to a Hindu
polity, and its implications after the end of colonial rule. But
my line and intention of political activity would differ
considerably from anything now current in the field, said
Aurobindo, to justify his abdication of political responsibility to
the Hindus, though he never spelled out how he differed and
how he envisioned the course that Indian polity would have to
take to realise and protect the Hindu rashtra. This was his core
incompetence and failure.

Contemporary nationalists have an important lesson to learn
from 1909: in stark contrast to the manner in which Hindu
society had habitually confronted the onslaught of Islam over
centuries, English education and the tantalizing exposure to
western modernism eroded our spirit of resistance and
lowered our threshold for physical and mental pain. Perhaps
Aurobindos spirit was broken by the Rajs persistent assaults
upon his person and his physical and intellectual liberty, and
perhaps because he and other nationalists were physically
isolated from each other and rendered alone without support
from even the INC which fell under the complete sway of the
moderates; the truth however remains that Aurobindo
abandoned politics despite knowing that politics was critically
important at that time and sought personal solace in
spirituality.

Two important Congress leaders from Nagpur, Dr. Moonje and
Dr. Hedgewar, who would later be renowned as the founder of
the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), with a chilling
premonition about the tragic consequences which would afflict
the nation after the advent of Gandhi in India, persuaded
Aurobindo in 1920 to return to active politics immediately and
assume Presidentship of the soon-to-be-held Nagpur
Congress.
Dear Dr. Munje,
As I have already wired to you, I find myself
unable to accept your offer of the Presidentship
of the Nagpur Congress. There are reasons even
within the political field itself which in any case
would have stood in my way. In the first place I
have never signed and would never care to sign
as a personal declaration of faith in the
Congress creed, as my own is of a different
character. In the next place, since my
retirement from British India, I have developed
an outlook and views which have diverged a
great deal from those I held at the time and, as
they are remote from present actualities and do
not follow the present stream of political action,
I should find myself very much embarrassed
what to say to the Congress. I am entirely in
sympathy with all that is being done so far as its
object is to secure liberty for India, but I should
be unable to identify myself with the programme
of any of the parties. The President of the
Congress is really a mouthpiece of the Congress
and to make from the presidential chair a purely
personal pronouncement miles away from what
the Congress is thinking and doing would be
grotesquely out of place.
The central reason however is this that I am no
longer first and foremost a politician, but have
definitely commenced another kind of work with
a spiritual basis, a work of spiritual, social,
cultural and economic reconstruction of an
almost revolutionary kind, and am even making
or at least supervising a sort of practical or
laboratory experiment in that sense which needs
all the attention and energy that I can have to
spare. A gigantic movement of non-cooperation
merely to get some Punjab officials punished or
to set up again the Turkish Empire which is dead
and gone, shocks my ideas both of proportion
and of common sense.
40

Divorced from politics, Aurobindos writings after May 1909
lacked the originality and inspirational fire characteristic of his
works between 1893 and 1908. More than anyone else in that
period, barring perhaps Savarkar, Aurobindo perceived that
the Moderates and Gandhi were leading the Congress and the
nation in a direction that would inevitably prove suicidal for
the Hindus. Hence his flight from the political arena in 1909
became the single most important cause for Gandhis entrance
and subsequent occupation of that space; Aurobindos
adamant refusal to return to active politics even after 1914
when Gandhi returned to India, pushed the nation inexorably
towards vivisection in 1947 and Hindu political
disempowerment thereafter.

Thus in 1909, barely three years after the creation of the
Muslim League, the stage was set for the ascent of Mohandas
Karamchand Gandhi on Indias political stage. His arrival was
timed to neutralize the powerful and growing influence of Tilak
and Aurobindo. Lord Minto considered Aurobindo the most
dangerous man we have to deal with at the present, whose
writings prior to and in Jugantar and Bande Mataram, together
with Tilaks fiery writings in Kesari and Mahratta, were
inflaming Hindu passions within the INC and among educated
Hindus. I attribute the spread of seditious doctrines to him
personally in a greater degree than to any other single
individual in Bengal, or possibly in India, Edward Baker,
Lieutenant-Governor of Bengal, said of Aurobindo. There can
be no doubt that the raging fire of Swaraj and Swadeshi as
articulated by Aurobindo and Tilak in their writings and
speeches, threatened the British stranglehold on a restive
nation. Tilak was in jail; Aurobindo had abdicated, Bande
Mataram was closed down by the British in 1909; Gandhi and
Gandhis Hind Swaraj were ready to take over.



40
Aurobindos Letter to Dr. Moonje, August 30, 1920 Vol. 26, page 432.
1.9 Why Hind Swaraj
In 1906, Gandhi had just begun his satyagraha in South
Africa, two years after the fire of Aurobindos Boycott or
swaraj and swadeshi passive resistance had begun to rage in
Bengal. As a tool of engagement with the British government,
it had not been tested adequately or frequently enough
between 1906 and 1909 for its efficacy when Hind Swaraj was
written; nor had Gandhis own character been tested on the
crucible of consistency for his doctrine of satyagraha to
deserve elevation to the status of Indias sole symbol of moral
force. It is also pertinent to note here that the narrow
objectives of his struggle in South Africa, that of ending laws
discriminatory to Indians (alone), would not be achieved until
1914.

These facts need to be borne in mind considering that in
January 1915, when Gandhi returned to India for good from
South Africa via London, he arrived as de jure leader of the
freedom movement, even though he would not be nominated
President of the INC until 1918. This leadership position flowed
from Indians accepting the skillful propaganda that Gandhian
Satyagraha was an effective and morally superior tool of
engagement with the British Raj as opposed to Aurobindos
passive resistance. Satyagrahas moral superiority in turn
rested on the moral authority then vested in Gandhi, which in
turn rested on his public pronouncement of abstinence from
conjugal relations and the misinformation that ahimsa was the
primary dharma of Hindus.

Englishmen then close to Gandhi, along with vested interests
in the Indian National Congress who were close to the Raj,
especially Gopal Krishna Gokhale, Pheroze Shah Mehta and
Surendranath Banerjea, were behind the motivated
propaganda that propelled Gandhi and his satyagraha
prematurely to undeserved heights. In the period 1906-1909,
none of Gandhis public writings suggested that he
contemplated returning to India in the near future to
participate in the freedom movement, let alone assume
leadership of the INC.

The question legitimately arises: why did Gandhi pen the Hind
Swarajin 1909? What is more, why did he personally translate
it post-haste into English in just a few months and publish it
with alacrity in 1910? From a confidential letter Gandhi wrote
in 1909 to Lord Ampthill, former Governor of Madras and Pro
Tempore Viceroy of India (discussed later), it is apparent that
by this time he had made up his mind (or he had been
persuaded to make up his mind) to play a decisive role within
the INC and the freedom movement. We can safely deduce
from the letter itself that the subject matter of Gandhis letter
to Ampthill would have been concealed from the general
Indian public of the time and even the leaders of the INC,
except perhaps Gokhale.

To quote Hind Swaraj
Had I not known that there was a danger of
methods of violence becoming popular, even in
South Africa, had I not been called upon by
hundreds of my countrymen, and not a few
English friends (emphasis added), to express my
opinion on the Nationalist movement in India, I
would even have refrained, for the sake of the
struggle, from reducing my views to writing.
But, occupying the position I do, it would have
been cowardice on my part to postpone
publication under the circumstances just
referred to
41
.

A reader would legitimately wonder what position Gandhi
claims to be occupying at this time in the struggle in South
Africa against the British Government. We shall, however see
later from the timeline of his sojourn in South Africa, that
between 1906 and 1909, Gandhi enjoyed easy access to
important officers of the British Government and Members of
Parliament in London. It is notable that at this time, well
before the outbreak of the First World War, the British Empire
was at it peak and regarded as invincible. It seems unlikely
that the Empire would smile benevolently upon a mutineer and
allow its highest officials to hobnob with an inconsequential
native posing a genuine challenge to the Empire in the
mineral-rich South Africa.

It seems logical to conclude therefore, that the INC leadership,
specifically Gopal Krishna Gokhale, then a member of the
prestigious Viceroys Council, Dadabhai Naoroji and Sir William
Wedderburn, took the initiative to promote Gandhi as future
leader of the INC with the British government. Within a month
of the extremely significant Calcutta Congress in September

41
Hind Swaraj, Preface to the first English Edition, J ohannesburg, March 20,
1910.

1906, Gandhi was in London on a deputation to meet with
important government officials. Also in London were Dadabhai
Naoroji and Wedderburn. Gandhi met them in London in
October 1906 and also with Winston Churchill no less!
Gokhales patronage fanned Gandhis political ambitions, first
kindled in South Africa, and gave them the thrust that took
him to the forefront of the INC in 1915, which after the exit of
Tilak and Aurobindo was leaderless and rudderless.

In retrospect, it seems likely that Gopal Krishna Gokhale and
Gandhis English friends asked him to write a prescriptive book
whose central theme would focus on how Indians should view
and deal with the colonial administration. Hind Swaraj was
written only to project Gandhi as a political theorist no less,
and as a contrast to Aurobindo and as Aurobindos intellectual
peer. The leadership of the Moderate section of the Congress
built up Gandhis Satyagraha as a foil to Aurobindos passive
resistance. Gokhale and Gandhis White friends may have
wished Gandhis Satyagraha to influence the INC with his
variation of passive resistance to put an immediate end to
and ultimately halt all violent attacks against British
government officials. The INC moderates favoured Gandhi
propagating his satyagraha as the only tool of engagement
with the colonial power in order to boost their sagging
relevance within the Hindu community and perpetuate their
status as sole representatives of the Indian people in all such
engagements, as the Raj was making major concessions to the
recalcitrant Muslim community with whose leadership it was
similarly engaged.

The British saw great merit in covertly promoting the view that
Gandhis Satyagraha was an effective tool, and in fact the only
legitimate tool of engagement for Indians with the British
government. Satyagraha was perceived as a guarantor of the
safety of British lives in the immediate present, and the
assurance of safe passage for the British while exiting from
India. Certainly the Raj was not short-sighted. When Winston
Churchill met the still inconspicuous Gandhi in London in
October 1906, the first steps in the plan to transport Gandhi
back to India had been taken.

1.10 Significance of Gandhis letter to Lord Ampthill
Prior to his appointment as Governor of Madras in 1901, Lord
Ampthill was Principal Secretary to Joseph Chamberlain, father
of future Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain. In an extremely
private and confidential letter dated 30 October 1909, during
his second visit to London from South Africa, again on
deputation, Gandhi gave Lord Ampthill a preview of Hind
Swaraj and revealed his intention to play a major role in the
freedom movement. Discussing his politico-economic ideas
and the respective philosophies of the leaders of the freedom
movement, Gandhi positions himself to Lord Ampthill as a
possible future leader of the INC, as an alternative to the
extremist leadership for which he repeatedly expresses great
disdain, and as an alternative even to the Moderates.

As the British had ruthlessly persecuted and decimated the
nationalists in the INC, and as the Moderates were
projecting him as some kind of leader in 1909, it is
inexplicable and even indefensible that Gandhi secretly
positioned himself as a future leader by expressing negative
opinions about both sections of the INC to an influential British
Government official who had intimate knowledge of the
freedom movement and its leaders in his capacity as Governor
and later as Viceroy. Gandhi writes

Opposed as I am to violence in any shape or
form, I have endeavoured specially to come into
contact with the so-called extremists who may
be better described as the party of violence.
This I have done in order to if possible to
convince them of the error of their ways.

Let us not forget that Gandhi is actually speaking in this vein
to an important British government official about Tilak,
Aurobindo and Savarkar. He reveals to the colonial official the
seething anger of the people against the British, unmindful or
possibly uncaring about the fact that the administration might
consider his report as an authentic account of the mood and
sentiment of the people and may resort to even greater
repression against the INC leadership and the common
people:

I have noticed that some of the members of this
party are earnest spirits, possessing a high
degree of morality, great intellectual ability and
lofty self-sacrifice. They wield an undoubted
influence on the young Indians here. They are
certainly unsparing in their efforts to impress
upon the latter their convictions.

An awakening of the national consciousness is
unmistakable. But among the majority it is in a
crude shape and there is not a corresponding
spirit of self-sacrifice. Everywhere I have noticed
impatience of British rule. In some cases the
hatred of the whole race is virulent. In almost all
cases distrust of British statesman is writ large
on their minds. They (the statesmen) are
supposed to do nothing unselfishly. Those who
are against violence are so only for the time
being. They do not disapprove of it. But they are
too cowardly or too selfish to avow their
opinions publicly. Some consider that the time
for violence is not yet. I have practically met no
one who believes that India can ever become
free without resort to violence (emphasis
added).

This letter was written in 1909 and it is pertinent that just
three years previously, Lord Ampthill had served in India as
Governor of Madras between 1901 and 1906 and pro tem
Viceroy in India in the wake of Lord Curzons retirement and
would have been a man of great influence in London in 1909.
It would thus appear that the timing, tone and content of
Gandhis letter to Lord Ampthill would in contemporary slang
amount to squealing; he was, to put it politely, informing
Lord Ampthill, about his views regarding the Moderates, the
Extremists, and also the ordinary people of India. There is no
plausible reason why Gandhi should discuss the opinion of the
people of India about British rule and the British people, the
INC, and the nature of the freedom movement with Lord
Ampthill. Yet he constantly makes use of highly expressive
terms such as virulent, violence, hatred, selfish, and
cowardly to describe ordinary Indians. There can be no doubt
that Gandhi was presenting himself to an important British
government official as a non-violent pacifist alternative, and
was seeking British legitimacy and grace to assume the
leadership of the INC and the freedom movement!

Gandhi positions himself
Holding these views, I share the national spirit but I
totally dissent from the methods whether of the
extremists or of the moderates. For either party relies
ultimately on violence.

Gandhi signals his intention
I do not know how far I have made myself
understood and I do not know how far I carry
you with me in my reasoning (emphasis added).
But I have put the case in the above manner
before my countrymen. My purpose in writing to
Your Lordship is twofold. The first is to tell Your
Lordship that, whenever I can get the time, I
would like to take my humble share in national
regeneration and the second, is either to secure
Your Lordships cooperation in the larger work if
it ever comes to me or to invite your criticism.

The operative part of the letter
The information I have given Your Lordship is
quite confidential and not to be made use of
prejudicially to my countrymen. I feel that no
useful purpose will be served unless the truth be
known and proclaimed.

This truth that Gandhi made known and proclaimed to an
important Englishman contained the reality of Gandhis views
and intentions, and also the truth about the mood of Indians
and the consequent nature of the freedom movement. Hence
it is against this backdrop that we must critique Gandhis
Satyagraha and ahimsa, and its consequences for the nations
Hindus.

Knowing what we now know, it seems safe to conclude that
Gandhi wrote Hind Swaraj to counter and neutralize the fiery,
inspirational writings of Tilak and Aurobindo, with the aim of
weaning the nation away from the methods pursued by
nationalists like the Chapekar brothers, Tilak, Aurobindo,
Savarkar and Madanlal Dhingra. Gandhis South African
satyagraha was to provide an alternative to Aurobindos
passive resistance, to armed struggle; and Hind Swaraj was
intended to be the definitive Word for Gandhis nascent cult of
satyagraha monotheists, with Gandhi as the Last Prophet. His
mandate was to douse the fire of Hindu nationalism, and as
leader of the Congress, to-direct the INC back to the path
desired by the Raj when it instructed A.O. Hume to create the
organization.

Interestingly, Hind Swaraj was originally titled Indian Home
Rule. The fact that Gandhi renamed it Hind Swaraj, seizing
the slogan of Tilak and Aurobindo, signaled to Indians and the
British his intention to challenge the political doctrines and
philosophy of Tilak and Aurobindo on their home turf. In Hind
Swaraj, Gandhi pays glowing tributes to Hume, Gokhale and
Naoroji, completely ignoring and dismissing with scant respect
Tilak, Aurobindo and Savarkar.

*****

Appendix

I Savarkar sentenced to a double term of Transportation
for life Fifty Years!
As retribution for the sentence of Transportation meted out to
Ganesh Damodar (Babarao) Savarkar, Veer Savarkars elder
brother and Dhingras martyrdom, the revolutionaries in
Nashik, Anant Kanhere, Karve and Deshpande conspired and
assassinated A.M.T. Jackson, the Collector of Nashik on 21
December 1909. Savarkar, in London at that time, developed
double-pneumonia and was shifted to Dr. Muthus hospital in
Wales to recuperate. In hospital Savarkar received a telegram
from Shyamji Krishnavarma informing him of Jacksons
assassination. Following Dhingras assassination of Sir Curzon
Wyllie, Savarkar was arrested at Victoria Station, London on
13 March 1910 when arriving from Paris on an Indian warrant,
charging him with sedition and inciting to murder in India.
The extradition of Savarkar was handled at the highest level.
On 29 June 1910, then Home Secretary Winston Churchill
issued the following order, Now I, the Right Honourable
Winston Leonard Churchill, do hereby order that the said
Vinayak Damodar Savarkar be returned to the Empire of
India.
Accordingly, on 01 July 1910, Savarkar was made to board the
S.S. Morea to bring him to India. The Governor of Bombay Sir
George Clarke who played a major role in Savarkars
conviction had this to say, V.D. Savarkar, a Konkanastha
Brahmin, was one of the the most dangerous men that India
has produced. He was the leading spirit at the India House
when the murders at the Imperial Institute were planned, and
one of his satellites accompanied the wretched assassin
Dhingra to keep him to his fatal resolve. Savarkar sent twenty
Browning pistols, purchased in Paris, to Bombay and one of
them was used for the murder of Mr. Jackson at Nasik.
It was on 08 July 1910 while S.S. Morea was docked at
Marseilles that Savarkar made his epic leap into the ocean and
braving bullets, he swam to the French soil. His subsequent
arrest and handover to British Police on French soil caused an
international furore. The case went to the International Court
of Justice at The Hague.
Savarkar was lodged initially in Nashik and then in Yerawada
Jail, Pune. The British Government rejected efforts to stay his
trial till the international ramifications of his arrest by British
detectives on French soil had settled. Finally, the Government
of the French Republic and the Government of His Majesty,
having agreed by means of an exchange of notes dated
October 4 and 5, 1910, to submit to arbitration, on the one
hand the questions of fact and right raised by the arrest and
the taking back, on board the Steamship Morea on July 8
th
,
1910, at Marseilles, of the Indian Vinayak Damodar Savarkar,
who escaped from boat on which he was a prisoner, and on
the other hand, the claim of the Government of the republic
for the surrender of Savarkar agreed to an arbitration
tribunal.
In the meanwhile, Savarkars trial began at the Bombay High
Court on 15 September 1910 before a three-judge bench.
There were 37 co-accused in three cases running concurrently,
an unprecedented number for the trial of any revolutionary!
The following eight charges were slapped on all the accused in
the three cases:
1. Waging war against the King Emperor for a period of
three years till December 1909 in Nashik and other
places in India, and in London in the case of Savarkar
2. Attempt to wage such a war
3. Indulged in conspiracy to that end
4. Conspired to commit crimes under Section 121 of the
Indian Penal Code
5. Conspired to deprive the King Emperor of the
sovereignty of India
6. Conspired to overawe the Government of India or the
Government of Bombay by criminal force
7. Collected arms and explosives with the aim of waging
war
8. Concealed by illegal means the objective of waging war
The marathon trial lasted for 69 days. The sentence was read
on 24 December 1910. It said, We find the accused guilty of
abetment of waging war by instigation, by circulation of
printed matter inciting to war, the providing of arms and the
distribution of instructions for the manufacture of explosives.
He is therefore, guilty of an offence punishable under section
121 A of the Indian Penal Code. We also find him guilty of
conspiring with others of the accused to overawe, by criminal
force or show of criminal force, the Government of India and
the Local Government. Savarkar was sentenced to
Transportation for Life and forfeiture of all property.
On the very day (29 November 1910) the task of collecting
evidence in the Nashik Conspiracy Case was completed, the
Bombay Government sent a telegram to the Government of
India asking that a second trial of Savarkar on charges of
abetting the Jackson murder be started after the outcome of
the tribunal at The Hague. The Government of India replied
that it could not wait for the tribunal to give its verdict. On
behalf of the Government of I ndia, Lord Hardinge
opined, Savarkar is an extremely dangerous man and
would be regarded as a hero and his influence and
power for mischief would be greatly increased if set
free. Actually, Savarkar was in London when Jackson was
assassinated. The evidence of having sent pistols and
pamphlets had already been used in the first trial. However,
the Government was hell-bent on securing death penalty for
Savarkar. Hence it charged that the pistol used to kill Jackson
was one of the many sent by Savarkar. The charge-sheet said
that while in London in 1909, Vinayak Damodar Savarkar
abetted the murder of A.M.T. Jackson on 21 December 1910
and was involved in the same and had thus committed crimes
under Sections 109 and 302 of the Indian Penal Code. For
this, Savarkar was sentenced on 30 January, 1911, to
Transportation for Life for a second time. On hearing this
sentence, Savarkar made the following remarkable statement,
I am prepared to face ungrudgingly the extreme penalty of
your laws in the belief that it is through sufferings and sacrifice
alone that our beloved Motherland can march on to an
assured, if not a speedy triumph.
NOTE: One Transporation for Life meant 25 years; thus two
sentences of Transportation for Life meant 50 years.
However, after a few years in the Cellular Jail, as per the Jail
manual, prisoners were allowed to stay outside the Cellular jail
and raise a family. Even this was denied to the Savarkar
brothers. In fact their release from the Cellular Jail did not
mean release from jail. They were imprisoned on arrival on
Indian mainland. Even when Savarkar was interned in
Ratnagiri district and prohibited from carrying out political
activities (1924), the stipulated period was five years.
However, the Government periodically extended this term so
that Savarkar was finally unconditionally released only in
1937.
Separation of the two brothers
The steamship Maharaja carrying the two Savarkar brothers
Babarao and Tatyarao (Savarkars nickname) from the
Andamans landed in Calcutta on 06 May 1921. From here, the
two brothers were separated. Tatyarao was sent to Alipore
Jail and then in utmost secrecy taken to Bombay. From there,
he was lodged first in Ratnagiri Jail where he was made to
undergo rigorous imprisonment (It was in Ratnagiri Jail that
Savarkar wrote his immortal and seminal book Essentials of
Hindutva; he also organized the shuddhi of a Christian officer
and his wife while in Ratnagiri Jail) and then in Yerwada Jail,
Pune. Babarao was initially lodged in Alipore Jail for a day or
two. From there, the two brothers were separated. Babarao
was sent to solitary confinement in the Belgaum Jail (May
1921 to January 1922). From there, he was lodged in
Sabarmati jail. It was only when the Government was
convinced that Babarao would surely die (they did not want a
martyr on their hands) that he was released in September
1922 (Babarao Savarkar was thus in jail from June 1909 to
September 1922).
Savarkar spent 11 years in prison in the Andamans, another
three years in Indian jails followed by over thirteen years
interned in Ratnagiri.
*****













Chapter 2

De-constructing Gandhian Satyagraha

2.1 Gandhian Satyagraha then
The five year interregnum between Gandhis penning of Hind
Swaraj in 1909 and his final return to India from South Africa in
January 1915 was used to prepare the ground for his return.
Gandhi may have hoped that his Christ-inspired non-violence to
get the South African government to amend discriminatory laws,
would find resonance in the British mind, but in the interim the
government in South Africa and the Imperial Government in
London took notice of satyagraha and its contents for other
reasons. By the time Gandhi returned from his second trip to
London in 1909, the South African government was ready to
direct and orchestrate the Satyagraha movement in the direction
of its choice to make it look convincingly effective as a tool of
resistance.

Tilak, who had been jailed in 1908 for seditious writing was
released only in 1914, and in this period this last formidable
opponent of the Raj was subjected to extreme physical and
mental persecution, as was the case with Aurobindo in 1908-09.
This paved the way for Gandhi to return and seize control of the
INC and make it once again a pacifist body, content to limit its
objectives to petitioning the government for greater participation
in governance. Gokhale passed away soon afterwards in 1915,
and the mantle of leadership which Hume had transmitted down a
lineage where Gokhale was readily positioned, now fell naturally
upon Gandhi and ultimately Nehru. Notwithstanding the practice
of annual presidents elected at the time of each conference,
Congress leadership vested in real terms only in A.O. Hume,
Dadabhai Naoroji, Gopal Krishna Gokhale, Mohandas K Gandhi
and finally Jawaharlal Nehru; leadership was handed down to
persons positioned for several years in the line of succession.
Barring the brief but turbulent era in which Tilak and Aurobindo
and later Subhash Bose tried to veer it away from British control,
the INC under Gokhale, Gandhi, and Nehru
1
remained a faithful
creature of colonial intent.

Between 1910 and 1914, the British government in South Africa
diligently promoted the myth of the efficacy of Satyagraha.
Working in tandem in India to prepare the soil for Gandhis

1
The Italian-born Sonia Gandhis ascent as party president is a logical continuation
of this tradition.
impending return, and to strengthen his image as a Christ-like
non-violent warrior wielding matchless moral force, Viceroy Lord
Hardinge expressed sympathy with the Indian passive resistance
movement in South Africa in a speech in Madras in November
1913! The same Hardinge, let us recollect, who had earlier
pronounced Savarkar to be a dangerous man who would become
a hero among the people were he to be set free.
2
Meanwhile in
South Africa, on 14 October 1912, Gopal Krishna Gokhale met
Prime Minister Gen. Louis Botha, Gen. J.C. Smuts
3
and Cabinet
Member Abraham Fischer. Barely a year after this historic
meeting, and within months of the Viceroy of India endorsing the
Indian communitys passive resistance in South Africa, Gen.
Smuts concluded an agreement with Gandhi. In January 1914, he
granted the miniscule demands not ceded to Indians since the
late 1890s, ostensibly on account of Gandhis Satyagraha. With
this token but significant concession, Gen. Smuts anointed Gandhi
with the appellation the saint and virtually pushed him out of
South Africa.

The stage was set for Gandhis return. He took a surprisingly
circuitous route to India, via London, confident that his
Satyagraha and moral authority would get the ordinary people of
India behind him. Besides the British government in India, other
powerful vested interest groups were awaiting his arrival. They
had the grand title Mahatma, the Hindi version of Gen. Smuts
original the saint, ready to adorn him, and had also planned how
to elevate Satyagraha to delusory heights of moral authority in
India.

2.2 Gandhian Satyagraha now
It can hardly be a coincidence that attempts to resuscitate
Gandhian pacifism began around the late 1990s when the BJP was
catapulted to power in New Delhi. Increasing terrorist attacks by
domestic and foreign jihadis against Hindus and Hindu temples;
sustained attacks against Hindu religious leaders and Hindu
sensibilities by Indian polity; genocide of Hindus in Jammu &

2
For what Hardinge said about Savarkar, see end of chapter notes to Chapter 1,
Savarkar sentenced to a double term of Transportation for life fifty years.
3
J an Christian Smuts, leading guerilla leader of the Boer War (1899-1902), held
several cabinet posts, including Defense Minister, under President Botha. In 1917,
he joined the Imperial War Cabinet in London. He played a leading role in both
World Wars, and was the only man to sign the peace treaties at the end of both
wars. Smuts played an important role in drafting the constitution of the League of
Nations and later the United Nations Covenant. A man of formidable intellect, his
friends included the apparently irreconcilable duo - Winston Churchill and
Mohandas Gandhi!

Kashmir; the 2002 jihadi attack on Hindu pilgrims in Godhra,
Gujarat; and aggressive evangelization by Church groups with
foreign funds and active support of Western nations, all of which
fuelled Hindu anger, have triggered a frenzied revival of Gandhian
pacifism
4
in public discourse. Indias secular polity thrives upon
Hindu political powerlessness, the seeds of which were first sown
by Hind Swaraj; the rising obsession to drag Gandhigiri to center-
stage in public discourse testifies to corresponding Hindu
assertiveness.

Mounting Hindu anger and an ascendant BJP, which involves a
measure of RSS assertion in the polity, is potentially threatening
to a carefully-crafted world order, as it could impact upon regional
and international power equations. A small but significant give-
away sign of Western nervousness at Hindu assertion, and
determination to resell Gandhigiri to Hindus, is the University of
Cambridge-published 1997 edition of Hind Swaraj, edited by
Anthony J. Parel, as part of a series on Cambridge Texts in
Modern Politics. In his Introduction to the work, Parel succinctly
posits the purpose of the edition to re-invent Gandhian pacifism
and place it firmly within the parameters of an Indian polity being
redefined by an ascendant Hindu political consciousness as well as
by Hindu caste consciousness. Indian polity, as it evolved in the
1990s brought more and more Hindu middle and backward
classes into mainstream politics and empowered them in a
manner which threatened the politics of minority-ism and
secularism practiced by the Indian National Congress.

The question legitimately arises whether Sonia Gandhis forcible,
even muscular entry into Indian politics at this time, and the
accompanying intrusive interest of Western nations in Indias
domestic affairs, was mere coincidence. The Cambridge edition of
Hind Swaraj reveals Western interest in growing Hindu political
power. The Editors allusion to the caste system and forceful
Hindu political assertion is intentional and purposeful, as is his
rather patronizing interpretation of dharma and Hindu social
principles of order and organization. The editor makes an amazing
assertion when he re-names the timeless dharma of this land,
Indian or Gandhian Civic Humanism, whatever that may mean.
Finally, Gandhi believed that through Hind Swaraj
he would be able to give Indians a practical
philosophy, an updated concept of dharma that
would fit them for life in the modern world. In the
past dharma was tied to a hierarchical system of
duties and obligations and to the preservation of

4
Gandhian pacifism is euphemism for Hindu suicidal pacifism; Gandhigiri its
popular cinematic expression.
status. It gave little or no attention to the idea of
democratic citizenship. Gandhi felt that the time
had come to redefine the scope of dharma to
include notions of citizenship, equality, liberty,
fraternity and mutual assistance. And in Hind
Swaraj he presents in simple language his notion of
such a refined dharma, the vision of a new Indian
or Gandhian Civic Humanism, one that the Gita and
Ramayana had always contained in potentia, but
something which Indian civilization had not
actualized fully in practice. In Hind Swaraj a
conscious attempt is being made to actualize that
potential: This is not a mere political book, he
writes. I have used the language of politics, but I
have really tried to offer a glimpse of dharma. What
is the meaning of Hind Swaraj? It means rule of
dharma or Ramrajya (CW 32:489). We may read
the Gita or the Ramayana or Hind Swaraj. But what
we have to learn from them is desire for the welfare
of others. (CW 32:496)
5


In the Foreword (22 November 1909) and Preface to the English
translation (9 March 1910), Gandhi reveals an inexplicable
urgency to pen Hind Swaraj in Gujarati in just 10 days in
November 1909, and to personally undertake the English
translation within the next four months. The present work is
concerned with the root causes of Hindu incapacity to organize
and show strength to express protest or disapproval; the
disempowerment of Hindus in Indian polity; and the pervasive de-
Hinduisation of the nation by what is called secularism. Both
Gandhi and Hind Swaraj deserve scrutiny in this critique.

The English translation of Hind Swaraj is structured as a dialogue
between the Editor Gandhi and a nameless Reader, whose role
is confined to raising simple-minded questions and concerns
about contemporary Indian politics. It is difficult to read Hind
Swaraj from cover to cover without a sense of seething disbelief.
This prescriptive text, which Gandhi boldly equates with the Gita
and Ramayana, insults the intelligence of ordinary Hindus with its
craftily designed Reader, who plays the role of the admiring,
uncritical acolyte who obediently spouts only such questions and
articulates only such doubts and concerns for which Gandhi has
ready-made answers and absolute, un-nuanced remedies.

It is pertinent that the Reader has been crafted by Gandhi as an
advocate of armed resistance who conveniently poses naive

5
HS, Editors Introduction, Gandhis Intentions, pp xvi-xvii
questions and arguments in favour of violence; Gandhi refutes
these with scathing arguments in favour of passive resistance.
The intent is clear - to depict votaries of armed resistance, in this
case, Tilak, Aurobindo and Savarkar, as being incapable of deep
thinking and reason; while the votary of peace, in this case,
Gandhi, has all the answers which shrivels these towering men
and reduces them to groveling acquiescence after listening to his
arguments. We have to conclude that Gandhi chose this literary
style only to facilitate depiction of the nationalist reader as
submitting readily to the superior intellect of Gandhi the editor.

There is some profundity in parts of Hind Swaraj, as when Gandhi
critically evaluates the modern professions of law and medicine,
or when he refers to self-contained villages and the critical
importance of restoring the traditional autonomy of every social
unit to realize full independence or purna swaraj; issues which
are taken up again by Gandhi in the 1940s when he joins cause
with Nehru on the issue of independent Indias development
model.
6
But it must be reiterated, as shown in the previous
chapter, that there is not a single idea or issue that Gandhi raises
and discusses in Hind Swaraj which had not been dealt with by
Aurobindo with greater brilliance and originality in his masterly
treatise on passive resistance in Bande Mataram in April 1906.
Sadly, Gandhi opted not to acknowledge Aurobindos seminal
treatise on passive resistance nor recognize with humility the
comprehensive treatment meted out to the concept. The central
purpose of Gandhis exposition of passive resistance or
satyagraha as he chose to call it, was to emphasize non-violence
as its uncompromising and defining characteristic; thus all other
issues became centripetal to the core chapters on Brute force
and Passive Resistance; Nehru personally considered them
completely dispensable for the shape of Indian polity to come.

The INC and post-independence Indian polity rejected Gandhis
views on machines, lawyers, doctors and self-contained villages.
Nehru rebutted the best of Gandhis politico-economic philosophy
which critiqued the senseless dependence on technology and
recognized the centrality of villages to Indias independence and
nationalism. In pursuit of his own objectives, however, he
elevated Gandhian non-violence to rarefied heights of national
morality and made it the basis of the anti-Hindu Nehruvian
Secularism which defined Indian polity after 1947:
It is many years ago since I read Hind Swaraj and I
have only a vague picture in my mind. But even
when I read it 20 or more years ago it seemed to

6
HS, The condition of India, Chapters XI and XII, pp 58-65 and Gandhis Political
Vision: The Pyramid vs The Oceanic Circle (1946) pp. 188-9.
me completely unreal. In your writings and
speeches since then I have found much that
seemed to me an advance on that old position and
an appreciation of modern trends. I was therefore
surprised when you told us that the old picture still
remains intact in your mind. As you know, the
Congress has never considered that picture, much
less adopted it.How far it is desirable for the
Congress to consider these fundamental questions,
involving varying philosophies of life, it is for you to
judge. I should imagine that a body like the
Congress should not lose itself in arguments over
such matters which can only produce great
confusion in peoples minds resulting in inability to
act in the present.
7


It is apparent that the INC, according to Nehru, never intended
Hind Swaraj to be the seminal economic doctrine that Gandhi
desired and hoped would shape the Congress creed and
independent Indias economic policy. This brings us back to the
original question: why did Gandhi write Hind Swaraj in such haste
in late 1909? Why did Nehru, Patel, Rajaji, and the galaxy of
intellectuals in the INC, despite strong reservations about
Satyagraha, allow Gandhis writ to run unchallenged in the INC?

Gandhi, as we hope to establish, was in a hurry because he had
made up his mind to accept the proposal made by the Moderates
to lead the INC and the freedom movement, and wished to
reaffirm in writing to the British government his commitment to
satyagraha or non-violence. He further used the occasion to
articulate his fundamental political tenet that if Indian villages
could replicate the Tolstoy and Phoenix Farms he set up in South
Africa, inspired by Tolstoys ascetic lifestyle and Ruskins Unto
This Last, which rejected the destructive science and technology
of modern civilization, it wouldnt matter if India was ruled by
Indians or British or other non-Indians, so long as they ruled
according to my wish. This was exactly what the British
government wanted to hear an idea in stark contrast to
Aurobindos exposition in 1906 on the same issue:
Self-development of an independent nation is one
thing; self-development from a state of servitude
under an alien and despotic rule without the forcible
or peaceful removal of that rule as an indispensable
preliminary, is quite another. No national self-
development is possible without the support of raja-

7
Nehrus reply to Gandhi, Anand Bhavan, Allahabad, October 9, 1945; HS, pp
153-4
sakti, organized political strength, commanding and
whenever necessary compelling general allegiance
and obedience.

Political freedom is the life- breath of a nation;
to attempt social reform, educational reform,
industrial expansion, the moral improvement of the
race without aiming first and foremost at political
freedom, is the very height of ignorance and
futility. Such attempts are foredoomed to
disappointment and failure; yet when the
disappointment and failure come, we choose to
attribute them to some radical defect in the national
character; as if the nation were at fault and not its
wise men, who would not or could not understand
the first elementary conditions for success. The
primary requisite for national progress, national
reform, is the free habit of free and healthy national
thought and action which is impossible in a state of
servitude. The second is the organization of the
national will in a strong central authority.
8


As early as 1906, Aurobindo forthrightly demanded that the
British must quit and unambiguously articulated the reasons for
demanding total political independence. Yet Gandhi, writing three
years later, ignores these arguments and posits a foolish Reader
on the issue of total independence:
Reader: I would now like to know your views on
Swaraj. I fear that our interpretation is not the
same.

Editor: It is quite possible that we do not attach the
same meaning to the term. You and I and all
Indians are impatient to obtain Swaraj, but we are
certainly not decided as to what it is. To drive the
English from out of India is a thought heard from
many mouths, but it does not seem that many have
properly considered why it should be so. I must ask
you a question. Do you think that it is necessary to
drive away the English if we get all we want?
(emphasis added).

Reader: That question cannot be answered at this
stage. The state after withdrawal will depend
largely upon the manner of it. If, as you assume,

8
Introduction, The Doctrine of Passive Resistance, Bande Mataram, April 11 to
April 23, 1906, pp 85-86
they retire, it seems to me we shall keep their
constitution, and shall carry on the government. If
they simply retire for the asking, we should have an
army, etc; ready at hand. We should therefore have
no difficulty in carrying on the government.
9


The discussion on Swaraj then veers firmly in Gandhis favour as
he puts into the mouth of the Reader words and ideas not to be
found in Tilak or Aurobindo.
Editor: Why do we want to drive away the English?

Reader; Because India has become impoverished
by their government. They take away our money,
from year to year. The most important posts are
reserved for themselves. We are kept in a state of
slavery. They behave insolently towards us, and
disregard our feelings.

Editor: If they do not take our money away,
become gentle, and give us responsible posts,
would you still consider their presence to be
harmful?
10


Astonishing as it appears, this is from the pen of a man hailed for
having won historys first non-violent political struggle against the
mightiest empire in the world! As we shall demonstrate later in
the timeline of his struggle in South Africa, Gandhi kept a close
watch on people and events in India and was in regular
communication with Naoroji and Gokhale. He was sure to have
read Aurobindos treatise on passive resistance. It seems evident
that Gandhi was positioning himself and promoting his brand of
passive resistance as distinct from that of Aurobindo. He wrote to
Lord Ampthill -
Opposed as I am to violence in any shape or form, I
have endeavoured specially to come into contact
with the so-called extremists who may be better
described as the party of violence.... One of them
came to me with a view to convince me that I was
wrong in my methods and that nothing but the use
of violence, covert or open or both, was likely to
bring about redress of the wrongs they consider
they suffer.

Gandhis choice of words and phrases is not accidental; he wrote
to Ampthill with deliberate intent. Wrongs they consider they

9
HS, Chapter IV, What is Swaraj, pp 26-27
10
Same as foot-note 8.
suffer (emphasis added) signaled to Ampthill that Gandhi did not
share the view that colonial rule was an outrage that needed to
be undone.
I share the national spirit but I totally dissent from
the methods whether of the extremists or of the
moderates. For either party relies ultimately on
violence. Violent methods must mean acceptance of
modern civilization and therefore of the same
ruinous competition we notice here and consequent
destruction of true morality. I should be
uninterested in the fact as to who rules. I should
expect rulers to rule according to my wish
otherwise I cease to help them to rule me. I
become a passive resister against them. Passive
resistance is soul-force exerted against physical
force. In other words love conquering hatred.
11


At the time of writing Hind Swaraj, some basic tenets of Gandhis
political theology included disinterest in who ruled India as long as
the rulers ruled according to my wish. His wish was a polity
centered round simple, non-competitive idyllic village life, with no
use for the gadgets of modern science and technology, and where
all people lived in harmony, sharing a common worldview and
way of life. It is suffice to say here that Gandhis village was far
removed from the traditional Indian village, which was always
linked to the larger society, kingdom, and civilization, and never
the isolated hamlet of his imagination.

For Gandhi to supersede Tilak, Aurobindo and Savarkar as pre-
eminent leader and for Hind Swaraj to supplant Bande Mataram,
Kesari and Mahratta, the most important criterion to capture the
minds and hearts of ordinary Indians would be to be seen as a
victim of the Raj. The British Government conveniently banned
Hind Swaraj immediately after its publication in Gujarati in 1909;
this gave Gandhi an excuse to express disapproval of the British
Government. Yet the book was a strong defense of the English
people; Gandhi severely condemned the nationalists and
unequivocally discouraged notions of armed resistance against the
English people or the British government. He re-affirmed his
loyalty to the British Empire. It seems reasonable to conclude that
the British ban on the book was part of a well-conceived plot that
began to unfold:
I do not know why Hind Swaraj has been seized in
India. To me the seizure constitutes further
condemnation of the civilization represented by the
British Government. There is in the book, not a

11
Letter to Lord Ampthill, October 30, 1909; HS, pp 134-35
trace of approval of violence in any shape or form.
The methods of the British Government are
undoubtedly severely condemned. To do otherwise
would be for me to be a traitor to Truth, to India
and to the Empire to which I owe allegiance.
12


2.3 Beyond the pale of criticism
Gandhis politico-economic doctrine rested on the utopian
conclaves he created in South Africa which, to put it bluntly,
resembled laboratory experiments under controlled settings.
Gandhis conclave comprised Hindus, Muslims, Parsis, and White
men and women, bound by common victimhood and/or distaste
for the repressive Apartheid regime. Away from home, and in an
alien land, the normal and inevitable sharp differences in
customs, traditions and worldview become blurred, and in trying
situations are even papered over. Life in these settlements was
akin to replicating life in a laboratory or wildlife in a zoo with the
same degree of authenticity and with a pre-determined objective.
Gandhi wished to replicate this experiment in Indias villages.

It is puzzling why leaders like Patel and Rajaji allowed Gandhis
writ to run unchallenged in the INC. The only convincing answer
seems to be that at least in the early years after Gandhis return
to India, they saw him being treated differently by the British, in
sharp contrast to the muscular fashion in which the Raj had dealt
with Tilak, Aurobindo and Savarkar, and a decade later with
Bhagat Singh and Subhash Bose. A calculated impression had
been created that Gandhis unflinching insistence on non-violence
had captured British attention, and that the latter showed signs of
at least listening to him. The British shrewdly promoted Gandhis
passive resistance as the antidote to the armed resistance of
Aurobindo, Savarkar and later Bhagat Singh as an effective tool
to engage the Raj. In that epoch, it would not have occurred to
anybody to question Gandhis views and methodology, let alone
challenge them; yet it is well to remember that those who did
challenge or question Gandhi and later Nehru, and who publicly
expressed differences or dissent, were ruthlessly marginalized and
even evicted from the INC. Gandhi vehemently opposed Subhash
Boses election as President of the INC; faced by relentless
hostility from Gandhi, as we will see later in the book, Bose had
perforce to distance himself from the Congress and form his own
party, the Forward Bloc. Rajaji, who saw the inevitability of
partition, advised Congress to retrieve whatever territory could
still be retrieved, but was asked by Gandhi to exit from the
Congress in 1942, if he wanted to gather support for his idea - a
fact reputed historians of the freedom movement unfailingly omit

12
HS, Preface to the English Translation, page 7
to mention! And when K M Munshi wrote to Gandhi in 1942 saying
that Gandhis un-nuanced and prescriptive non-violence was
unacceptable to the Hindus who looked upon him (Munshi) as
their leader, Gandhi asked Munshi to leave the Congress too.

Unsurprisingly, Gandhis staggering claim that Hind Swaraj was
Ramrajya-made-simple remained un-critiqued and unchallenged.
Nehru, imposed by Gandhi on an unwilling INC as his political
heir, probably saw merit in throwing his weight behind Gandhi, at
least in his lifetime. Yet it may be closer to the truth to suggest
that other leaders of the Congress feared challenging a saint
close to becoming a Second Jesus Christ, whose political doctrine
was fast acquiring the connotations of a Christ-ian Ramrajya. This
is underlined by the repeated allusions to Jesus and Christian
doctrine in the Editors Introduction to Hind Swaraj and other
Writings:

It (Hind Swaraj) has been compared to such
diverse works as Rousseaus Social Contract, the
Spiritual Exercises of St Ignatius Loyola, and
chapter IV of St Matthew or St Luke. This last
comparison, though its allusion to Jesus would have
embarrassed Gandhi, still merits attention. Just as
it is in these Gospel chapters that we find Jesus first
announcing his messianic mission, so it is in Hind
Swaraj that we find Gandhi first announcing his life-
mission. This is nothing other than showing the way
for the moral regeneration of Indians and the
political emancipation of India.
13


Far from embarrassing him, Gandhi would have felt honoured at
the comparison because Gandhi too fancied himself as Jesus
Christ
Gandhiji asked about the rumours of war with
Russia. I said there was a good deal of talk about
war but perhaps it was only talk. You should turn
your attention to the West, I added. He replied:
I? I have not convinced India. There is violence all
around us. I am a spent bullet.
Since the end of the Second World War, I
suggested, many Europeans and Americans were
conscious of a spiritual emptiness. He might fill a
corner of it.
But I am an Asiatic. A mere Asiatic.
He laughed, then after a pause:

13
HS, xiii-iv
Jesus was an Asiatic.
14


During Gandhis lifetime, no attempt was made by any Indian
within or outside the INC to critically examine the issues raised in
Hind Swaraj; nor has such an attempt been made in the century
that has lapsed since it was penned. It is safe to assume that in
Nehruvian Secularist India, a critique of Hind Swaraj, Gandhi, or
Gandhian Pacifism is akin to heresy. The very idea of Hindu
assertion terrified Nehru;
15
hence both Nehru and Nehruvian India
placed Gandhis personage and his for-Hindus-only passive
resistance beyond the pale of critical scrutiny and criticism. Yet
with Machiavellian intent, they gave Gandhis politico-economic
doctrines a quiet burial.

2.4 How both Maharishi and Mahatma failed the Hindu
nation
Among the great literature Gandhi is supposed to have read while
serving time in prison in South Africa and in India are the Bible,
the Koran and the Bhagwad Gita. He himself asserted that he
believed Ramrajya was the rule of dharma and Srirama the
ultimate exemplar of dharma. On this basis, we are compelled to
conclude that:

After frequently reading the Bible, Gandhi still believed
Jesus Christ was an apostle of love, peace and non-
violence.

After reading the Koran often, he still believed Muslims
could live peacefully with Hindus as one nation.

Despite returning repeatedly to the Bhagwad Gita for
inspiration and guidance, Gandhi believed the only thing

14
Interview to Louis Fischer, New Delhi, J une 26, 1946, The Life of Mahatma
Gandhi, p. 454, CWMG Vol. 91, page 203
15
In his Outside the Archives, pp 209-10, Sangam Books, 1984, YD Gundevia,
Prime Minister Nehrus last Foreign Secretary, recalls a Friday morning in
December 1963, when Nehru held his customary open house meeting with
secretaries, joint secretaries, under-secretaries and deputy secretaries. There being
no specific agenda that particular day, Gundevia asked Nehru what would happen
to the civil servant if after being attuned to Congress policies so long, the
Communists were, tomorrow, elected to power in New Delhi. Nehru is supposed to
have pondered long over the question and then said, Why do you ever imagine the
Communists will ever be voted into power at the centre? After a long pause, he
said, spelling it out slowly and very deliberately, The danger to India, mark you, is
not Communism. It is Hindu right-wing communalism. Towards the end of the
meeting he repeated the thesis.
we have to learn from it, is desire for the welfare of
others!

Gandhi deliberately never referred to the two defining wars
in the Ramayana and the Mahabharata, or to the fact that
both Srirama and Srikrishna were compelled to resort to
arms against evil perpetrated by misuse of State power as
epitomized in Ravana, Kamsa, Jarasandha and
Duryodhana, as this would pose the Himalayan dilemma of
reconciling the dharmic wars in itihasa with his claim that
ahimsa was Indias one and only dharma.

Despite Indias long political tradition of knowing and
understanding the other and dealing resolutely with those who
posed a threat to her way of life, the Hindu nation has lost
territory and Hindus have been politically disempowered when
Hindu leaders failed to heed the warning stricture to know your
enemy. Indias failure to know the enemy and inability to deal
ruthlessly with the enemy was aggravated by English education,
then under the heady influence of Europes newly invented trends
in political and religious liberalism and the intellectual
Enlightenment movement.

Aurobindo and Gandhi were no exception to this unfortunate,
general rule. The failure to know the enemy or unwillingness to
even recognize the enemy, led to serious, irreparable lacunae in
their writings. The glaring lacuna in Hind Swaraj, as in all
Gandhis subsequent writings, and the conspicuous absence in
Aurobindos political and spiritual writings was a failure to
articulate the basis of Indian nationhood. Both Gandhi and
Aurobindo, throughout their political career and political writings,
failed to define the nation and the basis of nationhood.
16
They
failed to do so because the critical distinction and connection
between rashtra and rajya simply eluded them.

Both Aurobindo and Gandhi faulted the British rajya, both
independently described the broad contours of Swaraj, and both
failed to either see or articulate that the fundamental duty of the
rajya (State, Government) was to protect the rashtra (the polity,
the territory, the people). This failure led inevitably to the

16
This book has avoided as far as possible, unless absolutely necessary, from
making reference to anything that Aurobindo may have written about Gandhi, the
Muslim question or the freedom movement after his decision in 1909 to beat the
retreat from the political battlefield for the only reason that having removed himself
from the political kurukshetra, Aurobindos opinions about Gandhi or the course of
the freedom movement ceased to have any impact on the INC or on ordinary
Indians
vivisection of 1947 and the subsequent disempowerment of
Hindus and the de-Hinduising of the nation. Both men touched
lightly upon the intractable nature of Muslims, but failed either to
understand or articulate what the threat was from their religious
creed.

Those who do not wish to misunderstand things
may read up the Koran, and will find therein
hundreds of passages acceptable to the Hindus;
and the Bhagwad Gita contains passages to which
not a Mahomedan can take exception. Am I to
dislike a Mahomedan because there are passages in
the Koran I do not understand or like? It takes two
to make a quarrel. If I do not want to quarrel with a
Mahomedan, the latter will be powerless to foist a
quarrel on me, and similarly, I should be powerless
if a Mahomedan refuses his assistance to quarrel
with me.
17


In typical Gandhian fashion, Gandhi seizes only one half of the
issue the Hindu half. While raising the question if the Hindu
ought to dislike the Muslim because he dislikes or does not
understand some passages in the Koran, Gandhi deliberately
omits to raise the other half, viz., will the Mahomedan accept the
Bhagwad Gita in the same spirit that he thinks Hindus should
accept the Koran? The flip side of this question remains: how
should the Hindu Nation conduct itself when faced by Muslim
inhabitants who believe they are true Muslims only when they
convincingly demonstrate to the world their unflinching adherence
to every word of the Koran, particularly words and passages
which Hindus do not understand or like and which include
exhortations to jihad with regard to kafirs? Gandhi and Aurobindo,
inexplicably, failed to critique the Islamic tenet of jihad, especially
the fact that jihad entailed enslaving or exterminating the non-
Muslim populace, followed by control and occupation of kafir
territory. Jihad was a tool to transform the land of the infidels
(Dar-ul-Harb) into the land of the faithful (Dar-ul-Islam.
Aurobindo and Gandhi rendered great disservice to the Hindu
Nation by their failure to know the enemy.

It takes two to quarrel is a Gandhian half-truth; the Hindu
experience of the other half, after the advent of Islam into the
country and successive hordes of Muslim invaders is that it takes
only one to undertake jihad, only one to invade and occupy the
Hindu nation, only one to seize and occupy Hinduisms most

17
HS, Chapter X, The condition of India (cont.): the Hindus and the Mahomedans,
page 56
sacred shrines, only one to affront Hindu sensibilities, only one to
commit genocide, and only one to vivisect and threaten to
repeatedly vivisect the Hindu nation. The sheer brutality of the
Islamic conquest of the Hindu nation has been intentionally kept
out of the post-independence, state-funded historical narrative
where details of the ceaseless civilisational struggle of the Hindus
against the depredations of Islam have been exorcised to serve
the dishonorable intent by Nehruvian-secular academe of re-
inventing the nation and its nationhood. Thus our childrens
history books in schools and colleges will never tell them that the
Slave Dynasty was Muslim jihad from Turkey, that the Lodhi
Dynasty was jihad from Afghanisthan or that the Mughal Dynasty
was jihad claiming descent from two different jihadi strains from
the Mongol and Turkish jihadis, or to be precise, from jihadis par
exemplar, Timur the Lame and Ghenghis Khan.

The success of Gandhi-Nehru secularism is best gauged from
Indian politys reaction to the destruction of the Babri Masjid in
Ayodhya. Three of Hinduisms most sacred shrines in Ayodhya,
Mathura and Kashi were defiled and then occupied by jihadis
belonging to the Mughal Dynasty. Post-independence writers of
official history with the connivance of Indian polity have also kept
out of the narrative and political public discourse, the blood-
curdling details of how Islam and Islamic rule over India
destroyed and defiled Hindu temples and religious institutions for
centuries before Gandhi and continuing for decades after Gandhi.
The Gandhian episode of the freedom movement interrupted the
civilisational struggle of the Hindus against Islam and left it
unresolved in 1947; Nehru and later Nehruvian polity ensured
that the Hindu struggle was not revived. The destruction of the
Babri Masjid was the first step that Hindu society took to revive
the civilisational struggle against continuing Muslim affront to
Hindu sensibilities and posed the first major challenge to
established convention of keeping Hindus politically disempowered
and socially fragmented to assert their dharma.

Gandhi was forced to drink the poison of his willful misreading of
Muslim psyche when he presided over the Partition of India, not
over my dead body as he had promised, but over the dead
bodies of tens of thousands of Hindus and Muslims during the
violent and bloody process of an imperfect and incomplete
transfer of population in 1947. Gandhian Satyagraha which kept
Hindus in a state of discontented pacifism collapsed when Hindu
anger over his failure to avert Partition exploded with
unprecedented ferocity.

Gandhi wrote sternly against British administration in India and
modern civilization, but refused to link the Raj in India to the evil
of colonialism, and to link modern civilization and colonialisms
compulsive destruction of cultures, religions, faiths and entire
nations, to Christianity and the Church. Gandhi spoke and wrote
sharply against Christian missionaries, but failed to articulate or
even to recognize the truth that the Church and trade have
historically worked in tandem and symbiotically, and that the
basis and impetus for colonialism was provided in equal measure
by trade and Church. He therefore assured the Bishop of Calcutta,
Rev. Foss Westcott, who enquired anxiously about their right to
carry on with religious conversion that religious conversion would
be allowed to continue even after independence only it would
have no state backing as during British rule.
Dear Friend,
I fear that I have neglected your question for a long
time. You know the reason why. Many of my
activities, including important correspondence, are
held up and must remain so for the time being.
Meanwhile I pick up what comes uppermost for the
moment. Such before me is your letter to Pyarelalji.
Of course conversions will, so far as I know,
continue under swaraj but there would be no State
favouritism as there has been during the British
regime.
18

It is remarkable, that completely impervious to the fire that had
engulfed the whole of India at that time, Christian missionaries
used the troubled times to raise issues critically important to their
long-term agenda in the country, significantly with Gandhi and
not the other leaders of the INC; and just as remarkable that
Gandhi thought he could unilaterally announce a major policy with
little thought to the consequences for Hindus and Hindu society.
Gandhis pious declaration that there would be no state
favouritism for conversion was meaningless at best because the
Gandhi-Nehru hand-picked Congress members of the Constituent
Assembly gave minorities the sweeping right to preach, practice
and propagate their religions, a right that has been consistently
interpreted by both Abrahamic faiths as their constitutional right
to undertake religious conversion.


18
Letter to Foss Westcott, Srirampur, Noakhali, November 29, 1946, CWMG Vol. 93, page
76. Dr. Foss Westcott was Bishop of Calcutta and Metropolitan of India, Burma and Ceylon,
1919-45.
Henceforth in the book, all quotations from Gandhi have been sourced from the Collected
Works of Mahatma Gandhi (CWMG), the internet version of Gandhis Collected Works
(CW). The internet version of Gandhis Collected Works has been made compiled by the
GandhiServe Foundation, which describes itself as Mahatma Gandhi Research and Media
Service. In the Foundations own words, The purpose of the Foundation is the promotion of
science, cultural and historical research and education.

And even though both Aurobindo and Gandhi lived to see the
ascendance of virulent, anti-religion communism in the Soviet
Union and countries of Europe, they failed to absorb within the
INC and Hinduise the ideology of two of Indias fiercest and tallest
nationalists - the Left-leaning Bhagat Singh and Subhash Bose. In
short, both Aurobindo and Gandhi failed to warn the nation that
Islam, Christianity and the de-Hinduised communist movement in
India posed equal and triple dangers to Hindus and the Hindu
nation. Aurobindo, by vacating space for Gandhi within Indian
polity when he abdicated his political responsibility, and Gandhi,
on the other hand by his obdurate, bordering-on-paranoia
insistence on Satyagraha as the only legitimate weapon of the
Hindus, allowed the triple monotheisms of Islam, Christianity and
Communism to be legitimized by default even during the freedom
movement; they were constitutionally legitimized after
independence. Today all three creeds are partners in the powerful
anti-Hindu coalition that defines post-independence Nehruvian-
secular Indian polity.

2.5 The non-truth of Satyagraha
Gandhis Satyagraha has no precedent in Hindu tradition or
history as a weapon in any war to re-establish dharma. We have
to agree with Gandhi that Satyagraha is not for the weak; but it
was a method which only individuals or small, homogenous
groups could practice when confronting a more powerful enemy.
What is more, this method of shaming the adversary may be
effective in battle only and only if the cultural or religious
symbolism of Satyagraha finds resonance with the enemys own
moral universe, and thus compels him to concede, back down, or
retreat. Gandhis Satyagraha must therefore be analyzed as a tool
of engagement from two angles Gandhi in South Africa, and
Gandhi in India against the British government.

Mahatma Gandhi makes the following core submissions on
Satyagraha in Hind Swaraj and in the following English idiom:
Satyagraha is passive resistance or ahimsa
Passive resistance is soul force
Soul force is love
Only soul force is the defining characteristic of Hinduism
Equates force with violence and intentionally stigmatizes and
de-legitimizes force
Asserts that force which is the same as violence, is un-Hindu

Satyagraha is best translated as force of truth. Gandhi made
the unconvincing but unchallenged leap of equating force of truth
with ahimsa
19
whereas in Hindu dharma and in Hinduisms
classical texts and their Bhashyas, truth (satya) and ahimsa (non-
injury) are two distinct concepts. Satya is nirguna,
20
which means
it is beyond the capacity of the human intellect to describe or
define it. Satya is satya. Gandhis equating of satya with ahimsa
was unjustified, and equating both with God, un-Hindu; equating
force with violence and ahimsa with love or soul-force was doubly
flawed thinking.

The force of love is the same as the force of the
soul or truth.
21

The force implied in this may be described as love-
force, soul-force, or more popularly but less
accurately, passive resistance.
22


He compounded the chaos by insisting that self-suffering, akin to
Christian self-mortification, was an integral component of
Satyagraha:

The function of violence is to obtain reform by external
means; the function of passive resistance, that is soul-
force, is to obtain it by growth from within; which, in its
turn, is obtained by self-suffering, self-purification.
23


The Gandhian error which is the root factor for continuing Hindu
disempowerment is the equating of satya with ahimsa and force
with violence. Force involves the exercise of power or authority in
right or appropriate measure to achieve or enforce dharma, which
includes adherence to an accepted/appropriate code of conduct,
justice and/or rule of law, which at times may involve loss of life
and property. Violence, on the other hand, connotes both misuse
and abuse of physical power and State power for self-serving
ends, resulting in needless bloodletting, and destruction and/or
loss of life and property. In Hindu ethos, such violence is
castigated as adharmic, even asuric.

The permanent removal of the offender of dharma by use of force
is effected with the precision of a surgeon wielding a scalpel:
dispassionately, precisely, and as a necessary measure. Durga
slaying Mahishaasura, Srikrishna destroying Putana and Kamsa,

19
Truth itself is God, and non-violence is just a synonym for truth (Speech at
prayer meeting , Bombay, held at Rungta House, March 13, 1946, CWMG, vol.
90, page 75.
20
Literally, without attributes. Nir-, without, Guna attributes .
21
HS, Chapter XVII, Passive Resistance, page 89.
22
HS, Chapter XVI, Brute Force, page 85.
23
HS, Gandhis reply to Wybergh, May 10, 1910, page 146.
Srikrishna beheading Shishupala, Bhima killing Jarasandha,
Arjuna eliminating Karna and Jayadrata, and Srirama executing
Ravana, are examples of the rightful use of force to destroy evil.
Gandhi in his treatise on Satyagraha ignored the compelling
arguments for use of force and advocated Christian non-violence
and love, on the basis of a flawed reading of the Bible and a faulty
understanding of its central character, Jesus Christ. Contrast
Gandhis un-Hindu rejection of the use of force with Aurobindo:
Justice and righteousness are the atmosphere of
political morality; but the justice and righteousness
of a fighter, not of the priest. Aggression is unjust
only when unprovoked; violence, unrighteous when
used wantonly for unrighteous ends. It is a barren
philosophy which applies a mechanical rule to all
actions, or takes a word and tries to fit all human
life into it.

The sword of the warrior is as necessary to the
fulfillment of justice and righteousness as the
holiness of the saint. Ramdas is not complete
without Shivaji. To maintain justice and prevent the
strong from despoiling, and the weak from being
oppressed, is the function for which the kshatriya is
created. Therefore, says Srikrishna in the
Mahabharata, God created battle and armour, the
sword, the bow and the dagger.
24


Aurobindos advocacy of force and articulation of kshatriya
dharma is in line with Hindu tradition of statecraft as exemplified
by Kautilyas Arthasastra. Gandhis absolutism on non-violence
contrasts sharply with Kautilyas exhortations on the use of force,
and it is pertinent that notwithstanding the motivated propaganda
about Kautilyas evil genius, the Arthasastra is addressed to the
dharmic king. Nor was Kautilya unique in prescribing the use of
force or State power; he cited earlier opinions while explaining his
own views:

The means of ensuring the pursuit of philosophy,
the three Vedas and economics is the Rod (wielded
by the king); its administration constitutes the
science of politics, having for its purpose the
acquisition of (things) not possessed, the
preservation of (things) possessed, the
augmentation of (things) preserved and the
bestowal of (things) augmented on a worthy

24
Aurobindos treatise on passive resistance, The Morality of Boycott, vol. 1, pp
127-8
recipient. On it is dependent the orderly
maintenance of worldly life. Therefore, the king,
seeking the orderly maintenance of worldly life,
should ever hold the Rod lifted up (to strike).

For there is no such means for the subjugation of
beings as the Rod, say the (ancient) teachers.

No, says Kautilya.

For the king, severe with the Rod, becomes a
source of terror to beings. The king mild with the
Rod is despised. The king just with the Rod is
honoured. (emphasis added)

For, the Rod used after full consideration, endows
the subjects with spiritual good, material well-being
and pleasures of the senses. Used unjustly,
whether in passion or in anger, or in contempt, it
enrages even forest anchorites, how much more
then the householders?

If not used at all, it gives rise to the law of the
fishes. For the stronger swallows the weak in the
absence of the wielder of the Rod. Protected by
him, he prevails.
25


Gandhis choice of English words and an alien idiom must be
placed in the context of the education he received and the fact
that he was not a scholar of Hindu texts with knowledge of precise
words to be used for specific concepts. English words like soul
force, love and passive resistance denote Christian ideals, and
while Christians may claim (incorrectly, in view of the Crusades,
colonialism and the slave trade) that these are the defining
features of their faith, the fact that they have no equivalents in
Sanskrit denotes that they do not define or describe dharma,
much less rajadharma, which belongs to the realms of state, state
power and statecraft.

2.6 Satyagraha in South Africa
Indians began migrating to South Africa around 1859-1860, both
as indentured labour and as free Indians, as traders, artisans,
teachers and shop assistants. The colonial administration enacted
the first of a series of discriminatory laws against Indians in

25
TKA, Part II, , Section 1 (contd.), Establishing the necessity of Economics, and
the Science of Politics) Sutras 3-15

1885.
26
These laws applied equally to any of the native races of
Asia, including so-called Coolies, Arabs, Malays and the
Mohammedan subjects of the Turkish Empire who migrated to
South Africa.

The second half of the nineteenth century in South Africa saw the
decisive beginnings of what would soon develop into a brutal
Apartheid regime by the White colonizers, which would not end
until 1990. So when Gandhi decided to confront, first the Boer
and then the British Government in South Africa against Indian-
specific discriminatory laws, he was confronting Apartheid, the
official policy of racial segregation involving political, legal and
economic discrimination against non-whites. The first
discriminatory laws against Indians covered areas as broad as
right to citizenship, voting rights, trading rights, habitation,
marriage customs, and restrictions on movement, not just from
one locality to another, but also from province to province.

But Gandhi did not combat Apartheid as an unmitigated evil.
Indeed, his failure to link Apartheid with Colonialism, and
Colonialism with Christianity began in South Africa, and till the
very end, nothing in his writings shows he ever realized this truth
and made the connection. Our critique of Gandhi is based solely
on his own writings; and as far as possible, writings closest in
time to the events themselves. By this yardstick, we maintain
that the record of events and incidents described by Gandhi in
Indian Opinion, Hind Swaraj, Young India and Harijan are closer
to the truth and more completely reflect Gandhis thought
processes at specific moments of his career than his later
writings, which describe the same events with more discretion
and the judicious equivocation that comes from hindsight. Gandhi
limited his confrontation with the British administration in South
Africa to ending discriminatory laws against Indians because in
those significant Mahatma-making years in South Africa, and
even long thereafter, he believed the Empire was a good thing
and that British colonial rule was beneficial to the natives whose
homelands were invaded and occupied, whose resources were
exploited to fill colonial coffers, and who were disempowered and
enslaved. Our scrutiny covers Gandhis understanding (or lack of
it) of colonization and its fundamental premises.

It is pertinent that Gandhi and Aurobindo were closer in age to
each other than other important leaders of the time, yet
compared to the exceptional mind of Aurobindo and the
scintillating intellect which wrote Old lamps for new at the

26
This was the year when A.O. Hume launched the Indian National Congress in
India.
unbelievable age of 21 years, Gandhi stands out as ill-informed
and even worse, as having imbibed and internalized much of the
colonial prejudice against tribal Indian and Asian groups. Gandhi
voices his politically incorrect prejudices with considerable lan:

We are not to assume that the English have
changed the nature of the Pindaris, and the Bhils. It
is therefore, better to suffer the Pindari peril than
that someone else should protect us from it and
thus render us effeminate. I should prefer to be
killed by the arrow of the Bhil than to seek unmanly
protection.

Moreover I must remind you who desire Home Rule
that after all, the Bhils, the Pindaris, the Assamese
and the Thugs are our own countrymen. To conquer
them is your own and my work.
27


Not merely in Hind Swaraj, but repeatedly in his talks and
writings long after its publication, Gandhi consciously made three
disconnects: that the individual White man was different from his
repressive regime; that British administration in India did not
measure up to the nobility of purpose of the British Empire or
British nation; and that colonialism was not Christian. The
influence of the Bible is perceptible here: he called the British
colonial administration the Kingdom of Satan; he invoked Christs
missionary objective to describe ancient Hindu civilization and
dubbed Hindu civilization the Kingdom of God!

I am not so much concerned about the stability of
the Empire as I am about that of the ancient
civilization of India, which in my opinion, represents
the best that the world has ever seen. The British
government in India constitutes a struggle between
the Modern Civilization, which is the Kingdom of
Satan, and the Ancient Civilization which is the
Kingdom of God. The one is the God of War, the
other is the God of Love.
28


This is probably the first time an important Hindu professing faith
in Srirama as Indian civilizations exemplary ruler, has described
the timeless Hindu civilization as the Christian Kingdom of God,
where the deity is the God of Love! Actually, God of Love and God
of War are throwbacks to Greek and Roman mythology, hardly

27
HS, Chapter VII, The condition of India, pp 44-45. Needless to say, the Bhils and
the Pindaris were martial tribes, the kshatriyas of Hindu ithihasa
28
HS, Preface to the English Translation, page 7
applicable to Hindu civilization. Even as late as 1942, after making
the weak and farcical call to the British to Quit India, Gandhi still
thinks he is a citizen of the Empire:
I mention it as an earnest of my desire to be true to
the British nation, to be true to the Empire. I
mention it to testify that when that Empire forfeited
my trust, the Englishman who was its Viceroy came
to know of it.
29


Gandhis position changed marginally towards the very end of his
life, in that he no longer considered himself a citizen of the
Empire and called British rule in India immoral; but it was
immoral only because it was not Christian in spirit!

Gandhis delusions about White civilization and his infatuation
with the Empire were at a peak during his sojourn in South Africa;
these included the critical years between 1900-1910 when Tilaks
and Aurobindos passionate espousal of Hindu nationalism
departed radically from the general diffidence, even timidity of the
INC which continued to genuflect before the White man, the
colonial administration, and the Empire. In this period Gandhi
eagerly rushed to serve his White masters, first during the Boer
War
30
and then during the Bambatha or Zulu uprising, in the vain
hope that his role in getting Indians to demonstrate loyalty to the
British Empire during these wars would persuade a grateful White
administration to treat them more kindly. In Gandhis own words:
That the English people are somewhat more selfish
than others is true, but that does not prove that
every Englishman is bad. We who seek justice will
have to do justice to others. Sir William
(Wedderburn) does not wish ill to India that
should be enough for us. As we proceed, you will
see that, if we act justly, India will be sooner free.
You will see too, that, if we shun every Englishman
as an enemy, Home Rule will be delayed. But if we
are just to them, we shall receive their support in
our progress towards the goal.
31


Thus at the very beginning of Hind Swaraj, Gandhi communicated
to the British his intention to douse the fire of hostility and armed
resistance that the passionate nationalism of Tilak, Aurobindo and
Savarkar had kindled in the hearts of ordinary Indians. In a new

29
HS, Gandhis Quit India Speech, Bombay, August 8, 1942, page 184
30
It seems reasonable to deduce he encountered Gen. Smuts here, and the genesis
of his politico-spiritual career was born, unknown, on this forgotten colonial
battlefield.
31
HS, Chapter 1, The Congress and its officials, page 17
and significant departure from the line taken by nationalists in the
INC and outside it, Gandhi declared that the enslaved people of
India had the same responsibility as the ruling British race and
that Indians must conduct themselves as justly towards the
English as Gandhi expected the English to treat Indians. Gandhi
coaxed Indians to be satisfied that William Wedderburn, a British
civil servant and President of the INC was well-meaning and
hence Indians should not despise and shun every Englishman.

This is the crux of the matter: Gandhi placed the oppressor and
the oppressed at par on the matter of doing justice; proclaimed
that good intentions sufficed to lend credibility to the British
government in the eyes of Indians; and most significantly, sent a
veiled warning to Indians that unless they stopped viewing the
entire English race as an enemy and doused their hostility
towards the British government, the latter was not obliged to
treat Indians better and could legitimately delay Home Rule.
Gandhi issued the explicit warning that if Indians used force (he
termed it violence) to attain their objectives, then the British
would be justified in their use of force to repress all resistance:
To use brute force, to use gun-powder is contrary
to passive resistance, for it means that we want our
opponent to do by force that which we desire, but
he does not. And if such a use of force is justifiable,
surely he is entitled to do likewise by us.
32


Gandhis astonishing declamation regarding the sense of justice
inherent in British rule flew in the face of the most recent conduct
of the Raj. Tilak was arrested in 1908 on charges of seditious
writing a charge laid against the three most important leaders
of the age who advocated ending colonial rule by all and every
means. All three were charged for sedition and incarcerated to
create the vacuum required for Gandhis return to India. Tilak was
first tried in the Police Court in Mumbai where he was defended
by a Parsee lawyer by name Davar. From the Police Court the
case against Tilak was then moved to the Mumbai High Court
where it was posted before Justice Davar the father of Barrister
Davar who defended Tilak in the Police Court.

This was trial by jury and the jury comprised nine members:
seven Englishmen and two Parsees. Not surprisingly Tilak was
found guilty of sedition by seven-to-two and exiled to Mandalay
33


32
HS, Chapter XVII, Passive Resistance, pp 92-93
33
In present day Myanmar
for six years.
34
The British government placed seven Englishmen
in a jury deciding a case for sedition against the King of England;
such was the inherent justice of the British government so
admired by Gandhi and yet this is the theme song of Hind Swaraj.
But the most striking aspect of the trials of Tilak, Aurobindo and
Savarkar was that not a single luminary of the INC whose ranks
included distinguished barristers and lawyers trained in London,
such as Gokhale and Naoroji to name just two, came forward to
defend or speak in support of these intrepid warriors. These legal
luminaries were Congress stalwarts and were either empire
loyalists or moderates. This raises suspicions that the brutal
repression and removal from public life of Tilak, Aurobindo and
Savarkar with conniving silence from the Congress including
Gandhi, himself an ardent faithful of the empire and a London-
educated lawyer finally broke the backbone of the Hindu
nationalist movement.

Tilak was transported from India in the critical years between
1908 and 1914, Aurobindo driven from public life between 1908
and 1909 and Savarkar entombed in the Andamans for the next
11 years after being sentenced with transportation for life. Tilaks
health suffered irretrievable damage and he died soon thereafter
in 1920; Aurobindo bid adieu to politics in 1910 and Savarkar was
compelled to give an undertaking to the British government to
desist from politics and stay confined to Ratnagiri. Modern Indian
politicians who opposed the unveiling of Savarkars portrait in
Parliament should examine the true history of those whom they
acknowledge as their leaders, who made common cause with the
Raj against their own people who fought, not for Home Rule or
Self-Rule within the Empire, but to throw the British out of India.

When Savarkar was arrested in 1948 on mere suspicion for
conspiring to assassinate Gandhi, Nehru intended to incarcerate
him under any pretext, even without proof of his guilt.
The lawyer who defended Savarkar at this trial was
L.B. (Annasaheb) Bhopatkar, from Pune. When,
after his successful defense of his client, Bhopatkar
returned to Pune, some of his close friends invited
him to dinner where Bhopatkar told them the story
which was not given publicity at the time. It was
not until June 16, 1983, that it appeared in a Pune
Marathi newspaper called Kal, edited by S.R. Date,
and is reproduced in an English translation in the

34
Flashbacks of a different age, by Manohar Malgonkar, The Tribune, May 16,
1999
Savarkar Memorial volume published on February
16, 1989. I quote relevant excerpts from it.
While in Delhi for the trial, Bhopatkar had made the
Hindu Mahasabha office his headquarters. It seems
that Bhopatkar was trying to work out his defense
strategy and found that, while specific charges had
been framed against Savarkars co-accused, there
were no specific charges against Savarkar himself.
He was pondering about how to proceed when he
was told that there was a telephone call for him, so
he went to the telephone and said: This is
Annasaheb Bhopatkar speaking. The caller replied,
This is Dr Ambedkar speaking, kindly meet me this
evening at 6-30 at the sixth milestone on the
(Mathura?) Road. Before Bhopatkar could say
anything more, the caller had put down the
receiver.
That evening Bhopatkar drove up to the appointed
place at the appointed time. Babasaheb Ambedkar
was already there. He had driven up in his own car
and had brought no one else with him. He motioned
to Bhopatkar to get into his car and drove on for
another mile or so before stopping. Then he turned
to Bhopatkar and said:
There is no charge against your client. Quite
worthless evidence has been concocted. Several
members of the Cabinet were strongly of the
opinion that Savarkar should not be implicated on
mere doubt. But, because of the insistence of a top-
ranking leader, he was implicated in this case. Even
Sardar Patel could not go against him. You fight the
case fearlessly. You will win.
After that Ambedkar turned his car, brought me to
my own car, and left.
After recounting this incident, Bhopatkar warned his
listeners that this should not be divulged because it
would be a betrayal of Babasaheb Ambedkar.
It does not need much imagination to identify the
person referred to as a top-ranking leader. But it is
not for me to pass judgment on the veracity or
otherwise of this story; either way it raises
embarrassing questions as to the motives and
methods of national leaders held in the highest
esteem. What I wish to stress is the fact that
Bhimrao Ambedkar and Vinayakrao Savarkar did
not see eye-to-eye on many of the major political
and social issues of those times, but that did not
detract from the respect which each had for the
other. Here Ambedkar was going out of the way to
make sure that his being in the nations Cabinet did
not mean that he necessarily endorsed the
questionable practices of some of its members to
settle scores with their political opponents.
35


In his Pondicherry retreat, Aurobindo observed the destructive
path along which Gandhi was leading the INC and the freedom
movement. He scathingly dismissed Gandhi's loyalism and passive
resistance as a tactic to disarm Indians against the Whiteman:
Gandhi's loyalism is not a pattern for India which is
not South Africa, and even Gandhi's loyalism is
corrected by passive resistance. An abject tone of
servility in politics is not diplomacy and is not good
politics. It does not deceive or disarm the
opponent; it does encourage nervelessness, fear
and a cringing cunning in the subject people. What
Gandhi has been attempting in South Africa is to
secure for Indians the position of kindly treated
serfs,as a stepping-stone to something better....
Our position is different and our aim is different, not
to secure a few privileges, but to create a nation of
men fit for independence and able to secure and
keep it.
36


The Boer War was a conflict between two colonial powers with
competing and conflicting interests in keeping South Africa and
native Africans enslaved. Gandhi chose to side with the Empire
during the Boer War (1899-1902), though his sympathies (for
inexplicable reasons) lay with the Boers.
37
He organized an
ambulance corps for the British army and commanded a Red
Cross unit. The war took the lives of 14,000 native Africans. The
1906 Bambatha Revolution, an uprising of Zulus against White
colonizers, was akin to 1857 in India. Here again, Gandhi rushed

35
Flashbacks of a different age, by Manohar Malgonkar, The Tribune, May 16,
1999
36
August 29, 1914, from a letter to Motilal Roy, a revolutionary from
Chandernagore who later attempted to create a commune based on Sri Aurobindo's
ideals.
37
Descendants of the early Dutch colonizers.
to demonstrate his loyalty to the Crown and organized an
ambulance corps to assist the British in the campaign to put
down the rebellion.

Gandhis decision to use his leadership status to involve Indians in
wars not their own, wars which plunged native Africans deeper
into the abyss of colonial repression, deserves the severest
criticism. As leader of Indians in South Africa and later in India of
the INC, Gandhi actively exhorted Indians on as many as three
occasions to fight and die for the British Empire in wars where
Indians had no stake. The man who penned Hind Swaraj as a
prescriptive book on non-violence as the only tool of engagement,
the messianic crusader against armed resistance by Indians
against colonial rule, actively coaxed Indians to die for the
Empire!

Indians died by the thousands during the Boer War, during the
Zulu uprising, during the First World War, and during the Second
World War. They died for their colonial oppressors, and without
furthering the cause of their enslaved nation. We do not know the
exact numbers of Indians who died in these wars because the
Empire lacked the sense of moral obligation to maintain a
scrupulous account of the collateral damage caused by
competing colonialisms.

Neither the entrenched academia nor the polity has dared assert
that Gandhi, till the very end of his life, displayed two contrasting
and even contradictory characteristics: the first, a slavish
adoration of the British Empire, and the second, a despotic and
coercive conduct towards his colleagues and acolytes. With these
attributes he subjugated the Indian community in South Africa
and later an entire nation in India to his individual will and
subjective opinions on loyalty to the Empire, non-violence, the
merits and rewards of self-suffering, and eventually forced the
nation to accept Jawaharlal Nehru as his political heir. It merits
attention that after each of these acts of toadying, the British
Empire in South Africa and India only hardened its stance against
Indians to make sure they understood where they stood in
colonial esteem. More repressive laws and measures were
introduced in the immediate aftermath of the first three wars, and
after the fourth, the Empire declared its intention to vivisect the
motherland as a reward for Indian participation in the Second
World War. The sequence is self-revelatory:

1902, 31 May: the Boer War ends with signing of the Treaty of
Vereeniging.
1903: The Peace Preservation Ordinance and Ordinance No. 5
of 1903 is passed
38

1906, February-June: The Bambatha uprising erupts and is
put down ruthlessly.
1906 August: The British administration appreciates Gandhi
for bearing stretchers in the war and promptly introduces the
Asiatic Law Amendment Ordinance.
1918: World War I draws to an end and the draconian Rowlatt
Act is passed in India, leading to widespread protests
culminating in the Jalianwala Bagh massacre.
1945: World War II ends; the British Empire announces
Indias independence and partition in the same breath.

2.7 Satyagrahas USP
Satyagrahas special allure lay in the fact that it was propagated
by Gandhi and thus vested with a high degree of sanctity, and
because of motivated propaganda that it delivered astounding
results. Satyagraha, in popular imagination moulded by motivated
history writing, reputedly brought the British Empire to its knees
and forced its withdrawal from India without shedding a drop of
blood. Yet it bears remembering that when Gandhi penned Hind
Swaraj in 1909, his satyagraha was just three years old, and
when he left South Africa for India via London in 1914, it was not
even ten years old and had very little to show for itself.
Nevertheless, when Gandhi stepped on Indian soil in January
1915, he was made de facto leader of the Indian National
Congress on account of the moral authority vested upon him and
his Satyagraha. Gandhis moral authority rested on the following:

He is supposed to have taken a public vow to abstain from
sex.
He undertook partial fasts lasting several days either as a
non-violent coercive measure to have his way, which on at
least two occasions in South Africa was an act of penitence for
the sins of his disciples.
These fasts were promoted as the highest expression of self-
suffering.
Self-suffering was in turn promoted as the noblest human
virtue, synonymous with passive resistance.

The constant use of words like self-suffering, love, soul and
body reveals the influence of Christian theology upon Gandhis

38
The Peace Preservation Ordinance and Ordinance no. 5 of 1903 regulated the re-
entry of Indians who had left the Transvaal for Natal, the Cape Colony and India
when war broke out. It segregated Asiatics into locations, refused trading licenses
except in Asiatic bazaars, and pre-war licenses of Asiatics became non-
transferable.
thinking. At this point, the core of his thought comprised the
mutually antagonistic Christian dichotomy of body/soul. And just
as Gandhi attributed the quality of ahimsa to satya, he bestowed
the quality of love to the soul, though atman in Hindu thought,
like satya, stands on its own. Atman has no qualities; atman is
just atman.

One need not accept all that Tolstoy says some of
his facts are not accurately stated to realize the
central truth of his indictment of the present
system which is, to understand and act upon the
irresistible power of the soul over the body, of love,
which is an attribute of the soul, over the brute or
body force generated by the stirring up in us of evil
passions.
39


In Hindu dharmic tradition, dualities like body/mind,
nature/culture, man/woman, are complementary in their roles
and relationships, not antagonistic, much less mutually exclusive.
Yet, as we see in the quotation above, Gandhi equates the
wholesome Hindu concept of kama, the legitimate quest for
emotional pleasure and stability, with evil passions, thus
reducing human emotions to mere sexuality, and equating the
latter with sin. This flawed understanding of dharma had
previously led Gandhi to equate force with violence; ahimsa with
truth; and to uphold ahimsa and self-suffering as the noblest of
human qualities. Indeed, Mahatma Gandhi posited self-suffering
as a noble contrast to the use of force/violence, and equated
violence with Aurobindo, Savarkar, Dhingra, Bhagat Singh and
Subhash Bose. In this manner, towering nationalists who wanted
the British to pay with their blood for the sins of colonialism were
de-legitimized by Gandhi who elevated his masochistic fasting to
a high exemplar of Hindu culture. We shall now examine Gandhis
experiments with the truth of his vow of continence and his
celebrated fasts.

2.8 Gandhi inspired most by Christ
The striking feature of Gandhis religious and spiritual leanings is
that they seem more influenced by Christ and Christianity than by
traditional Hindu Gurus and Hindu scriptures, which he is alleged
to have read copiously during his second term of imprisonment in
South Africa between October-December 1908. A hotchpotch of
extreme Christian practices like self-mortification and ordinary
Hindu customs like vrata and upvas to which he would have

39
HS, Preface to Gandhis edition of the English translation of Leo Tolstoys
Letter To A Hindoo, November 19, 1909, page 138

been exposed as a child, seem to have gone into the making of
the baffling brew called Gandhian Satyagraha. There is no
mention in any of Gandhis writings that he was influenced by any
past or contemporary Hindu religious teacher. We have no way of
knowing if, in the critical years of his activism in South Africa, he
ever met or sought an audience with any Guru or Acharya who
could have educated him on the nuances of the use of force
against evil (adharma) and about self-sacrifice and self-
abnegation being more Hindu in approach even in war time than
Gandhis adamant propagation of self-suffering and self-
mortification which was and is un-Hindu in character.

The only religious leader Gandhi is reported to have met, other
than the pervasive presence of Christian priests and believers in
his life, is Madame Blavatsky, founder of the Theosophical
Movement. There was a very brief encounter with the
Paramacharya of Kanchi matham when Gandhi was touring the
South, and an equally brief interaction with Sri Narayana Guru at
the time of the Vaikkom movement for temple entry, but these do
not amount to consistent guidance by gurus rooted in dharma.
Even the Jaina tradition of ahimsa did not find merit with Gandhi,
according to his close associate K.G. Mashruwala:

Of the influences of the Buddha and Buddhism,
Mahavira and Jainism, and Christ and Christianity
on Gandhi, KG Mashruwala, one of his close
associates, declared that of the three, Buddha and
Buddhism exerted relatively little influence on
Gandhi; as for Mahavira and Jainism he was
attracted more to their doctrine of the many-
sidedness of truth (syadvada) than to their theory
of non-violence (ahimsa); by contrast, Christ and
Christianity exerted a relatively strong influence on
him. He recognized that there was a great
difference between Christs active non-violence
coupled with humanitarian service and the retiring,
inactive non-violence of Jainism and Buddhism.
The latter two religions did not have a concept of
God, which presented him with a theoretical
problem in dealing with his Buddhist and Jain
friends.
40


Albert West, a close associate and inmate of Gandhis Phoenix
Settlement, who managed Indian Opinion for over fourteen years,
averred:


40
HS, Footnote by Editor in Foreword, page 9
On the wall of his office was a framed engraving of
the head of Jesus Christ, and it occupied a place
over his desk. Perhaps this started off our
conversations on spiritual matters, which showed
me how Gandhi, a Hindu, could be, at the same
time, one of the most thorough followers of Christ's
teachings that I ever met even among professing
Christians. He had a good knowledge of the New
Testament, and he put into actual day-to-day
practice the principles laid down in the Sermon on
the Mount.
41


Deeply influenced by Ruskins Unto This Last, Gandhi set up the
Phoenix Settlement near Durban in 1904. Considering himself a
loyal citizen of the British Empire and inflamed by Christs active
non-violence coupled with humanitarian service, and enthused by
the Empires response to his stretcher-boy role during the Boer
War, Gandhi again organized the Indian Ambulance Corps in
service of the Empire during the Bambatha Uprising. His soul
aflame with the ideals Christ stood for, Gandhi decided to
transform the Phoenix Settlement into a kind of Christian Mission
whose inhabitants would live lives of self-suffering Christian
monks. He believed the defining characteristics of self-suffering
Christian monks were embracing poverty and abstaining from sex.
Equating Hindu self-realisation with achieving the Christian
Kingdom of God within us, in as many words, Gandhi further
equated Christian embracing poverty with the average Hindus
simple and unostentatious way of life.
After a great deal of experience, it seems to me
that those who want to become passive resisters for
the service of the country have to observe perfect
chastity, adopt poverty, follow truth and cultivate
fearlessness.
42


Hindu tradition celebrated abundance and prosperity for all
institutions and collectives: for temples, mathams, kingdoms, for
village, society and nation, while Christ and Christianity
celebrated poverty for the individual of faith.
Varnashramdharmas primary responsibility was creating
abundance and prosperity in every aspect of collective life: in
food, in the creative arts and culture, in knowledge, and in trade
and commerce. Kshatriya dharma ensured that society remained
peaceful, stable and undisturbed in its primary responsibility to
create wealth and abundance for all. Embracing poverty militates
against Hindu varna dharma. Even when Gandhi spoke and wrote

41
http://www.mkgandhi.org/articles/earlydays.htm
42
HS, Chapter XVII, Passive Resistance, page 96
about economic development and progress, he did not invoke
Hindu dharmic traditions but quoted from the Bible, even to an
Indian audience:

The question we are asking ourselves this evening
is not a new one. It was addressed to Jesus two
thousand years ago. St. Mark (ch.10, vv. 17-31)
has vividly described the scene. Jesus is in his
solemn mood; he is earnest. He talks of eternity.
He knows the world about him. He is himself the
greatest economist of his time. He succeeded in
economizing time and space he transcended
them. It is to him at his best that one comes
running, kneels down and asks: Good Master, what
shall I do that I may inherit eternal life? Then Jesus
beholding him, loved him and said unto him: One
thing thou lackest. Go thy way, sell whatever thou
hast and give to the poor and thou shalt have
treasure in Heaven come take up the cross and
follow me And Jesus looked around about and
said unto his disciples: How hardly shall they that
have riches enter into the kingdom of God. And the
disciples were astonished at his words. But Jesus
answereth again and said unto them: Children,
how hard it is for them that trust in riches to enter
into the kingdom of God. It is easier for a camel to
go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man
to enter into the kingdom of God.
43


Gandhi made this exposition on the Bible and Jesus Christ in his
lecture, Does economic progress clash with real progress?
delivered at the Muir Central College Economic Society, Allahabad.
Having set up the unnatural monastic Phoenix Settlement in
1904, and having emulated Christs humanitarian service by
organizing the Indian Ambulance Corps for the British Empire
during the Bambatha Uprising in 1906, Gandhi went on to
implement the second most important Christian monastic vow, of
continence for life. Like everything else about Gandhi, this
decision was not confined to him alone, but imposed upon all who
chose to live with him. All inhabitants of the settlement were
expected to abstain from sex.

The vow of continence for life that Gandhi made and imposed on
others violated the basic tenets of ashrama dharma governing the

43
HS, Economic development and Moral development, 22 December, 1916, page
159

different stages of life: brahmacharya, grihasta
(householder/familyman), vanaprastha (householder who
becomes a forest-dweller in pursuit of spiritual self-realisation)
and sanyasa. Abstinence from sex for life in Hindu tradition was
demanded even at a young age only from sanyasis; for a
brahmachari the discipline applied only as long as he remained
within that ashrama. The vow ended naturally when the
brahmachari became a grihastha. Abstinence from sex was
undertaken by grihasthas with total ease for specific periods on
specific occasions as important disciplines of the mind and body
for fulfilling the several vratas a grihasta would undertake in his
lifetime; the bottom line however, was that grihasthas were not
expected to undertake a vow of continence for life unless they
gave up their grihastasharama with finality to enter vanaprastha
or sanyasa.

It is hardly surprising that there were lapses in the Phoenix
Settlement. Gandhi, who had a Christian understanding of sex as
abominable, undertook penitential fasts to atone for the moral
lapse, once in 1913 and again in January 1914, just months
before he left South Africa for India. These penitential fasts may
have been fresh in the memory of the adoring crowds which
gathered to receive the saint as he arrived in Mumbai in January
1915. That Gandhi unnaturally imposed upon himself and others a
discipline for which neither he nor they had prepared themselves
is evident not only from the lapses of his colleagues and
acolytes, for which he undertook fasts of atonement, but also
from the fact that Gandhi himself was never confident that he had
conquered his senses in this regard (as he says), and therefore
conducted unprecedented and un-Hindu experiments in
brahmacharya. These unconventional experiments were
conducted by Gandhi in Kasturbas lifetime and even after her
death in 1944, causing deep anger and sorrow among Gandhis
close associates and friends. By 1946, even his son Devdas had
stopped talking to him.

The striking contrast in thinking and articulation between
Aurobindo and Gandhi on every subject is driven home on the
issue of compelling all persons to fit into a certain mould without
heed to their individual capabilities and circumstances in this
case Gandhis insistence that passive resistance was the only
virtue with attendant qualities of chastity, poverty and truth
linked uncompromisingly to it. Aurobindo articulated with great
accuracy the different ideals that Hindu dharma placed before
people belonging to different varnas.
Hinduism recognizes human nature and makes no
such impossible demand. It sets one ideal for the
saint, another for the man of action, a third for the
trader, a fourth for the serf. To prescribe the same
ideal for all is to bring about varnasankara, the
confusion of duties, and destroy society and race. If
we are content to be serfs, then indeed, boycott is
a sin for us, not because it is a violation of love, but
because it is a violation of the sudras duty of
obedience and contentment. Politics is the ideal of
the kshatriya, and the morality of the kshatriya
ought to govern our political actions. To impose in
politics the brahminical duty of saintly sufferance is
to preach varnasankara.
44


Given Gandhis shallow understanding of politics and given that
his satyagraha had not been tested on home soil, it would seem
that the halo of Mahatma that greeted him in January 1915 was
premature to say the least, motivated by a need to promote the
concept of satyagraha to Hindus at large and to the INC in
particular, not only as an effective tool of engagement but also as
the noblest of virtues. The British saw in Gandhis Satyagraha the
first real possibility of keeping the INC in check and of ensuring
that a loyalist of the British Empire emerged as the tallest Indian
leader.

2.9 The truth about Satyagrahas effectiveness
As previously mentioned, at the time of writing Hind Swaraj in
1909, Satyagraha was just three years old and had little to show
for its efficacy. Gandhi made two lobbying visits to London, once
in 1906 and again in 1909, to meet high government officials,
including Winston Churchill, to persuade them to act upon the
South African government to end discriminatory laws against
Indians. Nothing substantial emerged out of the visits for the
Indians in South Africa, but Gandhis political career received a
major boost from both visits, not least because he had the
political backing of Dadabhai Naoroji, Gopal Krishna Gokhale and
William Wedderburn in 1906, who promoted him among British
government officials.

It bears recollection that Gandhi was an unremarkable student of
law and could not make a profitable career in India after returning
from his studies abroad. He went to South Africa only because
there was then a dearth of Indian lawyers among the Indian
community. The Indian community in South Africa, in the last
decade of the nineteenth century and early decades of the
twentieth century comprised largely of illiterate Indians taken as

44
Aurobindos treatise on passive resistance, The Morality of Boycott, vol. 1, page
125

contracted indentured labour and scantily-educated traders who
migrated as free Indians. It was only natural that with his foreign
education in law and his knowledge of the English language,
Gandhi not only assumed leadership of the Indians in South Africa
but had leadership thrust upon him, to adapt an English adage on
greatness.

Gandhi was faced with bestial and rapacious colonial powers
which had reduced the native Africans to utter poverty, servitude
and slavery. If Gandhi had had an understanding of the concept of
nation, the basis of nationhood and its decisive place in the polity
of a nation, had he understood the concept of janmabhoomi or
matrubhoomi, had he understood the identical nature of the
brutal conquest of Africa and America by White Christians in
faithful adherence to the tenets of their religion, and seen the
enslavement of Indians in India as similar to the enslavement of
native Africans in Africa, he may have viewed native Africans
without the contempt and ridicule he expressed in speech and
writing; and perhaps the nature and objectives of his struggle in
South Africa and later in India may have been different. Gandhi
however remained blind to the connection between Christianity,
the British Empire, colonialism and apartheid.

The unexpected leadership role thrust upon him probably
compelled Gandhi, already enamoured of the White race, to
undertake a motivated study of the Bible. Thus an uninformed
mind infatuated with the Empire, which saw no evil in the White
race, fell easily under the spell of the New Testament biblical
hero. Accepting the leadership thrust upon him on account of his
knowledge of law and the English language, Gandhi sought to
strengthen his leadership with moral authority by fashioning
himself self-consciously in the mould of Christ.

Gopal Krishna Gokhale saw great potential in Gandhi as a possible
foil to the fiery Aurobindo and the highly revered Tilak in the INC
and took him under his wing. He began to take active interest in
Indian affairs in South Africa and used his position as Member in
the Viceroys Council to promote Gandhi with the British political
establishment in London in 1906, when Gandhi was still an
obscure Indian lawyer in South Africa. It is possible that Gandhis
Satyagraha, first launched in 1906 and coinciding with the period
when the INC was passing through an extremely turbulent phase
attracted Gokhales attention. The INC would later split in
December 1907, but Tilak, Aurobindo and Savarkar, who
advocated swaraj and swadeshi in the sense of total political
independence, had captured the imagination of ordinary Hindus
and the moderate stance of Gokhale, Motilal Nehru and others
was losing even the minimal influence it wielded among Indians.
The British government sensed an opportunity in Gokhales
promotion of Gandhi in 1906 when the latter was in London,
especially in Gandhis modeling himself after Christ. Unknown
perhaps to Gokhale and Gandhi, the Raj may have started to
make its own calculations.

The immediate consequence of British interest in Gandhi was that
within three years, by the time Gandhi returned to London in
1909 on his second advocacy tour, Joseph Doke, a British
missionary, wrote the first biography of Gandhi. At this time, the
39-year-old Gandhi had few legitimate achievements that merited
a biography in his honour. It seems reasonable to conclude that
the biography was written because Gandhi openly acknowledged
finding tremendous inspiration in the Bible and Jesus Christ;
because he invoked the New Testament heros methods in his
political career; and hence to promote Gandhi as a saintly man
with great moral force.

Given the reception accorded to him in London in 1909, and the
ready access he had to high government officials, Gandhi can be
forgiven for taking his saintliness seriously and thinking
satyagraha legitimized by his saintliness was effective in getting
the British to amend at least a few of the vast body of
discriminatory laws against Indians. The making of the Mahatma
by vested interests had begun in right earnest.

*****

1

Chapter 3

Gandhis success in South Africa

3.1 The build-up to becoming and being Mahatma
The time-line of Gandhis political career in South Africa until his final
departure for India in 1914 is suggestive of the intentions of all the lead
players the Imperial British government in London, Gandhi himself, and
the then Congress leadership.

In September 1888, Gandhi left for England to pursue higher studies in
law. At best a mediocre student, in December 1889 he failed to pass the
London matriculation exam in the first attempt. As son of the Dewan of
Porbundar, Gandhi would have enjoyed a certain social status in India; in
England, because he belonged to the miniscule section of Indians who
could at that time afford to travel abroad for higher studies, he would not
have been exposed to the kind of naked racism he would soon
experience in South Africa. Unable to establish himself as a lawyer after
his return to India in June 1891, Gandhi seized the offer of legal work by
Dada Abdullah and Co., and set sail for Durban in April 1893. Here he
quickly experienced the ugly manifestations of apartheid in every aspect
of life in South Africa.

Having consciously chosen to adopt western clothes and manners,
Gandhi felt personally humiliated that his western demeanor, London
education, and status as a British citizen (which at that time meant being
Indian serf in a British-occupied colony) did not count for anything in
South Africa not in Natal, a British colony, nor in the Boer-ruled
Transvaal. Apartheid was as deeply entrenched in Natal as it was in the
Transvaal. Gandhi began to realize that a White British citizen of a British
colony was more equal than a Brown or Black British citizen of a British
colony. He was also beginning to realize that the White supremacists in
Natal and in the Transvaal treated all coloured races or non-White
peoples with the same contempt and brutality. The son of the Dewan of
Porbundar could not digest this unfamiliar slight to his self-esteem - that
he and other Indians were not equal with the White British citizen before
the Queen Empress; worse, they could be degraded to the level of
native Africans.

From then on, Gandhi made it his mission to fight to get the Natal and
Transvaal governments to raise the status of Indians above that of the
native African populace. To this end he began to write protest letters and
memorandums (or memorials as he called them), to everyone in power
in South Africa and in London. He wrote persistently to the Viceroy in
India, to Chamberlain, Secretary of State for the Colonies in London, to
Dadabhai Naoroji, Gokhale and the Bombay-born Sir Mancherji
2
Bhownaggree, (Bhavnagari) the first non-White British Member of
Parliament and President of the Parsee Association of Europe. In a
remarkable turn of events, and too frequently for sheer coincidence,
Gandhis path now begins to cross the same people, in different
positions, at different times, between 1895 and 1909. The imperial
government, it seems reasonable to conclude, was shuffling the same
officials around in positions from where they had to deal with India and,
more pertinently, with Gandhi.

Joseph Chamberlain was Secretary of State for the Colonies from 1895 to
1903. During this period, between 1895 and 1900, Lord Ampthill served
Chamberlain as assistant private secretary and then as private secretary;
possibly he learnt about Gandhi from the latters prolific letters to
Chamberlain. During this period, Lord Elgin was Viceroy of India. In
1903, following a change of government in Britain, Lord Elgin replaced
Chamberlain as Secretary of State for the Colonies. Lord Ampthill,
already Governor of Madras in 1900, at the age of 31 years, was
elevated to pro-tem Viceroy 1904. In 1906, when Gandhi traveled to
London from South Africa on a deputation mission, Winston Churchill was
Undersecretary of State for the Colonies; on his second deputation visit
to London in 1909, Lord Ampthill was back in London and facilitating
Gandhis meetings with important government officials. It was in 1909
that Gandhi wrote the famous letter to the young Lord Ampthill,
positioning himself for a leadership role in India in the near future.
Gandhis path would cross that of Winston Churchill again more than two
decades later when Gandhi would participate in the Round Table
Conference in London. All these men knew Gandhi from the 1890s itself,
and all of them knew India exceedingly well.

Initially, Gandhis copious letters had little effect on these important
men, but as his ceaseless efforts to highlight the severe discrimination
faced by Indians in South Africa began to catch the hostile attention of
the Natal and Transvaal governments, domestic political compulsions and
the beginnings of internal rumbling within the INC forced Gokhale,
Wedderburn and Dadabhai Naoroji to take note of Gandhi and the plight
of South African Indians.

Around this time, London also began to take note of the condition of
Indians in the Transvaal as a means of scoring political points against the
Boer regime, while making only cosmetic changes to Natals severely
discriminatory laws against the Indian community. Britains intrusive
interest in the plight of Indians under the Boer regime achieved no
lasting gains for the Indians; however, after 1906, when Gandhi adopted
passive resistance as the tool of engagement, converging interests in his
pacifism forced Congress and the Raj to collaborate with each other.
Gandhi went to London on two futile missions to canvass with important
British government officials to improve the condition of Indians in Natal
and the Transvaal, but after the Boer War, when Britain annexed the
3
Boer republics as self-governing entities into the Empire, matters
worsened for Indians and the Imperial government saw no reason to
engage itself further with the Indian question. But Gandhi retained the
attention of the Raj.

Well-to-do and well educated Parsees in London, who were well
networked with Parsees in South Africa and in the Congress in India,
important London-educated and/or London-based Indians, now evinced
interest in Gandhi. Their clout with the imperial government in London
coincided with the British governments own interest in Gandhi. All these
pieces would soon mesh neatly into each other to form the emerging
picture of Indias immediate political future. The years between 1900 and
1909 show Gandhi, under the motivated patronage of the Moderate
leadership of the INC, positioning himself as Empire-loyalist and hence
also a virulent critic of the Nationalists (the so-called Extremists) and of
armed resistance. During this critical period in the making of the
Mahatma, Gandhi earned his halo by throwing in his lot, first with the
Queen Empress, and then with the King of the British Empire. It matters
little if Gandhis loyalties possibly changed by the 1940s; we hope to
show through the timeline that follows that Gandhi chose his friends and
allies well at a time when it mattered most to him.
1888 October 28, Gandhi arrived in London to study law.
1889 November, he is introduced to Madame Blavatsky and Annie
Besant and from then on, under the influence of the Theosophists,
read religious literature and began to attend church services.
1891 June, attended lectures by Dadabhai Naoroji.
1891 June 12, returned to India after completion of studies.
1893 April, sailed for Durban on legal work from Dada Abdullah and
Co.
1893 Sometime after May, vowed to fight colour prejudice; met
Baker, attorney and Christian preacher, who introduced him to other
White Christians.
1894 August 22, Gandhi took his first important political step by
establishing the Natal Indian Congress in response to the proposed
Franchise Law Amendment Bill which sought to disenfranchise the
Indian community

3.2 Christianitys early and lasting impact on Gandhi
1894 November 26, Gandhis growing interest in Christianity made
him an agent for selling Christian literature:
If there is anyone who would like to have a chat
on the subject, it would afford me the greatest
pleasure to have a quiet interchange of views.
In such a case, I would thank any such
gentleman to correspond with me personally. I
need hardly mention that the sale of the books
is not a pecuniary concern.
4
The books will be gladly lent in some cases. I
would try to conclude with a quotation from a
letter of the late Abbe Constant to the authors:
Humanity has always and everywhere asked
itself these three supreme questions: Whence
come we? What are we? Whither go we? Now
these questions at length find an answer
complete, satisfactory, and consolatory in The
Perfect Way.
1

1895 April, visited Trappist monastery near Durban and was
impressed with the practice of vegetarianism from a so-called
Christian spiritual point of view:
The settlement is a quiet little model village,
owned on the truest republican principles. The
principle of liberty, equality and fraternity is
carried out in its entirety. Every man is a
brother, every woman a sister. The monks
number about 120 on the settlement, and the
nuns, or the sisters as they are called, number
about 60. They take no intoxicating liquors
except under medical advice. None may keep
money for private use. All are equally rich or
poor. They may not read newspapers and books
that are not religious. They may not read any
religious books but only those that are allowed.
For bedrooms they have a large hall (but none
too large for the inmates) which contains about
80 beds. Every available space is utilized for the
beds. In the Native quarters they seem to have
overdone it in point of beds. As soon as we
entered the sleeping hall for Natives, we noticed
the closeness and the stuffy air. The beds are
all joined together, separated by only single
boards. There was hardly space enough to walk.
They believe in no colour distinctions. The
Natives are accorded the same treatment as the
whites. They are mostly children. They get the
same food as the brothers, and are dressed as
well as they themselves are. While it is
generally said, not without some truth, that the
Christian Kaffir is a failure, everyone, even the
wildest skeptic, admit that the mission of the
Trappists has proved the most successful in
point of turning out really good, Christian
Natives. While the mission schools of other

1
Letter to The Natal Mercury, November 26, The Natal Mercury, 3-12-1896, CWMG, Vol. 1, pp 185-
86.
5
denominations very often enable the Natives to
contract all the terrible vices of the Western
civilization, and very rarely produce any moral
effect on them, the Natives of the Trappist
mission are patterns of simplicity, virtue and
gentleness. It was a treat to see them saluting
passers-by in a humble yet dignified manner.
There are about 1,200 Natives on the mission,
including children and adults. They have all
exchanged a life of sloth, indolence and
superstition, for one of industry, usefulness and
devotion to one Supreme God.
They love and respect, and are in turn loved
and respected by, the Natives living in their
neighbourhood who, as a rule, supply them with
the converts.
The most prominent feature of the settlement is
that you see religion everywhere. Every room
has a Cross and, on the entrance, a small
receptacle for holy water which every inmate
reverently applies to his eyelids, the forehead
and the chest. Even the quick walk to the flour
mill is not without some reminder of the Cross.
It is a lovely footpath. The walk thus forms a
continuous exercise for calm contemplation,
unmarred by any other thoughts, or outside
noise and bustle. Some of the inscriptions are:
Jesus falls a first time; Jesus falls a second
time; Simon carries the Cross; Jesus is nailed
to the Cross; Jesus is laid in his mothers lap,
etc., etc..
There are about twelve such settlements in
South Africa, most of which are in Natal. There
are in all about 300 monks and about 120 nuns.
Such are our vegetarians in Natal. Though they
do not make of vegetarianism a creed, though
they base it simply on the ground that a
vegetarian diet helps them to crucify the flesh
better, and though, perhaps, they are not even
aware of the existence of the vegetarian
societies, and would not even care to read any
vegetarian literature, where is the vegetarian
who would not be proud of this noble band,
even a casual intercourse with whom fills one
with a spirit of love, charity and self-sacrifice,
and who are a living testimony to the triumph
of vegetarianism from a spiritual point of view?
I know from personal experience that a visit to
6
the farm is worth a voyage from London to
Natal. It cannot but produce a lasting holy
impression on the mind. No matter whether one
is a Protestant, a Christian or a Buddhist or
what not, one cannot help exclaiming, after a
visit to the farm: If this is Roman Catholicism,
everything said against it is a lie. It proves
conclusively, to my mind, that a religion
appears divine or devilish, according as its
professors choose to make it appear.
2

(emphasis added)

The Natives of the Trappist mission are patterns of simplicity, virtue and
gentleness. It was a treat to see them saluting passers-by in a humble
yet dignified manner remarked Gandhi for whom the saluting native
symbolised the successfully civilized slave. Aurobindos comment on the
other hand on the issue of the saluting Indian native is typically laced
with biting sarcasm.
A veteran laments the decay of manners
among the people of this country, in the
hospitable columns of the Pioneer. There was a
time, only forty years ago, when on the
approach of a European, Indian lads would cry
Gora ata, gora ata and skid. When the
same class of lads now pass a European with a
cigarette between their lips and stare him
calmly in the face and a large number of
natives salaam with their left hands the world
or the British Empire, which means the same
thing, must be nearing its end.
3


It is impossible to argue with a man who sees but refuses to
acknowledge. Gandhi saw native Africans cramped into habitations no
bigger than cattle pens, saw that the missionaries were bringing in
children from the neighbouring villages to convert them, saw that the
Trappist missionaries were living in closed communes from where all
outside influences, including books were either banned or closely
monitored, thereby disproving his eulogy of liberty, equality and
fraternity, saw that the missionaries were practicing vegetarianism
from a narrow understanding of some aspect of their own religion.
Yet, because vegetarianism was then Gandhis pet fetish, he closed
his eyes and mind to the truth of life in a Christian mission and
exuded breathless admiration. Possibly the Trappist monastery
inspired Gandhis own Phoenix and Tolstoy settlements, soon

2
A band of vegetarian missionaries, The Vegetarian, 18-5-1895, CWMG, Vol. 1, pp 239-44.
3
By the Way, Bande Mataram, October 11, 1906, page 189
7
established in South Africa, and his later ashrams in Wardha and
Sabarmati in India.
1896 January, The Times, London, striking a racially
uncharacteristic editorial note, referred to Gandhi as one whose
efforts on behalf of his Indian fellow-subjects in South Africa
entitle him to respect.

3.3 Gandhi links Indian polity with South Africa
1896 June 5, Gandhi left for India to meet important public figures
and to address public meetings between August and October 1896, to
raise awareness about the discrimination faced by the Indian
community in South Africa. Gandhi travelled to Bombay, Pune,
Madras, Calcutta and Nagpur and met M.G. Ranade, Badruddin
Tyabji, Pherozeshah Mehta, B.G. Tilak, G.K. Gokhale, Dr. RG
Bhandarkar and Surendranath Banerjea.
1896 September 26, Gandhi addressed a public meeting in
Bombay, presided over by Sir Pherozeshah Mehta under the auspices
of the Framji Cowasji Institute:
A general feeling throughout South Africa is that
of hatred towards Indian, encouraged by the
newspapers and connived at, even
countenanced by, the legislators. Every Indian,
without exception, is a coolie in the estimation
of the general body of the Europeans.
Storekeepers are coolie storekeepers. Indian
clerks and schoolmasters are coolie clerks and
coolie schoolmasters. Naturally, neither the
traders nor the English-educated Indians are
treated with any degree of respect. Wealth and
abilities in an Indian count for naught in that
country except to serve the interests of the
European Colonists. We are the Asian dirt to be
heartily cursed. We are squalid coolies with
truth-less tongues. We are the real canker that
is eating into the very vitals of the community.
We are parasites, semi-barbarous Asiatics. We
live upon rice and we are chock-full of vice.
Statute-books describe the Indians as belonging
to the aboriginal or semi-barbarous races of
Asia, while, as a matter of fact, there is hardly
one Indian in South Africa belonging to the
aboriginal stock. The Santhals of Assam will be
as useless in South Africa as the natives of that
country. You can easily imagine how difficult it
must be for a respectable Indian to exist in such
a country. I am sure, gentlemen, that if our
President went to South Africa, he would find it,
to use a colloquial phrase, mighty hard to
8
secure accommodation in a hotel, and he would
not feel very comfortable in a first-class railway
carriage in Natal, and, after reaching Volksrust,
he would be put out unceremoniously from his
first-class compartment and accommodated in a
tin compartment where Kaffirs are packed like
sheep. Ours is one continual struggle against a
degradation sought to be inflicted upon us by
the Europeans, who desire to degrade us to the
level of the raw Kaffir whose occupation is
hunting, and whose sole ambition is to collect a
certain number of cattle to buy a wife with and,
then, pass his life in indolence and nakedness.
The aim of the Christian Governments, so
we read, is to raise people whom they
come in contact with or whom they
control. It is otherwise in South Africa. There,
the deliberately expressed object is not to allow
the Indian to rise higher in the scale of
civilization but to lower him to the position of
the Kaffir.
4
(emphasis added)

Gandhis epoch-making struggle in South Africa was limited to getting
the imperial regime in London and the Boer government to dilute
apartheid just enough to raise the status of Indians above that of native
Africans. While the reference to Indians as coolies enraged Gandhi, he
himself employed the pejorative and derogatory kaffir without qualms
for the native Africans. Throughout his sojourn in South Africa, Gandhi
never once felt that what was humiliating and morally wrong for Indians
was so much more humiliating and worse for native Africans whose
homeland had been invaded and occupied by sundry Europeans and to
which even educated Indians had migrated to make a better living.
Gandhis infatuation for Christianity, for the Queen and for the Empire,
his contempt for Hinduism as practiced by ordinary Hindus, his delusions
about Christian rule, all remained intact when he returned to India in
1915. Some of his views changed minimally, but the core remained
undisturbed till his death. Gandhis abject ignorance about the
consequences of religious conversion is evident from his casual
observation about native Africans who supply them with the converts.

Gandhis poor understanding of the life of native Africans and their
worldview was similar to that held by White colonialists when they
doubled as Christian missionaries and herded Native Americans
5
into
Christian missions on the pretext that the indolent, loafing natives would

4
Speech at Public Meeting, Bombay, September 26, 1896, The Times of India, 27-9-1896, and
Bombay Gazette, 27-9-1896, CWMG, Vol.1 pp 407-17
5
The politically correct term for those once called Red Indians.
9
be subjected to the civilizing mission of the Church and taught to do an
honest days work. Gandhis eulogy of South African Christian missions,
whose inhabitants were mostly children, sharply differs from what
missionaries did in Australia when they separated Native children from
parents to raise them as good, civilized Christians, and the heartrending
description by Ward Churchill, a Native-American scholar-writer, of
Christian missions in America when sundry Europeans altered the
religious demography of America by converting the Native Americans or
simply exterminating them:
Some of the worst policy-driven escalations of
death from disease north of the Rio Grande
were the result of slave-labor systems on the
Spanish (Christian) missions in Florida, Texas,
California, Arizona, and New Mexico from
roughly 1690-1845. Run first by the Jesuits,
later by Franciscans, these institutions were
supposedly devoted to the Indians physical
well-being, as well as their spiritual/moral
enlightenment through revelation of the
benefits of work. As late as 1865, New Mexico
Indian Superintendent Felipe Delgado wrote to
US Indian Commissioner William P Dole in
response to queries concerning traffic in native
slaves by the missions in his area that the
object of the priests efforts has not been to
reduce them to slavery, but rather from
Christian piety to instruct and educate them in
civilization. This has been the practice in this
country for the last century and a half, and the
result arising from it has been to the captives,
favorable, humane and satisfactory. I n
actuality the ( Christian) missions were
death- mills in which Indians, often delivered
en masse by the military, were allotted an
average of seven feet by two feet of living
space in what one observer VM Golovin,
described as specially constructed cattle
pens. Usually segregated by sex unless
married by Catholic ceremony, each gender
typically shared an open pit serving as a toilet
facility for hundreds of people.
6
(emphasis
added)

Several laws were passed and Bills introduced which affected the lives of
the Indian community with regard to their habitation, restricting free
profession of their trade and de-legitimizing their customs and

6
Churchill, Ward, A Little Matter of Genocide, 1997, City Lights Books, San Francisco, pp 140-41.
10
traditions.
7
To cite an instance of Gandhis struggle to elevate Indians to
a higher status than native Africans, he said of the proposed Natal
Municipal Corporation Bill:
The definitions given of the terms Coloured
person and uncivilized races are very
unsatisfactory, and are calculated to incorporate
into the Bill the mischief that has been already
created by the definition of Coloured person.
According to the Bill, the term includes, among
others, any Hottentot, Coolie, Bushman or
Lascar. Now the terms coolie and lascar
themselves require defining, and it is
exceedingly dangerous to leave their
interpretation to the administrators of the
measure, from the Attorney-General down to
Kaffir policemen. How, for instance, is a Kaffir
policeman to know who is a coolie and who a
lascar? Why, again, should the term coolie be
at all retained in the Bill, when it is well known
how offensive it has become? The definition of
the term uncivilized races is an insult to the
Indians concerned, and more so to their
descendants. An infallible test of civilization is
that a man claiming to be civilized should be an
intelligent toiler, that he should understand the
dignity of labour, and that his work should be
such as to advance the interests of the
community to which he belongs.

Clause 200 makes provision for registration of
persons belonging to uncivilized races, resident
and employed within the Borough. One can
understand the necessity of registration of
Kaffirs who will not work, but why should
registration be required for indentured Indians
who have become free, and for their
descendants about whom the general complaint
is that they work too much.
8


3.4 Gandhi the Empire loyalist
1899 October, Boer War begins.
1899 October 17, Gandhi offered his services to the British
government in the Boer War:
About 100 English-speaking Indians of Durban
met together at few hours notice on the 17th

7
For a complete list of all such crippling laws see end of chapter.
8
The Natal Municipal Corporations Bill, Indian Opinion, March 18, 1905, CWMG, Vol 4, page 214.
11
inst. to consider the desirability of unreservedly
and unconditionally offering their services to the
Government or the Imperial authorities in
connection with the hostilities now pending
between the Imperial Government and the two
Republics in South Africa. The motive
underlying this humble offer is to endeavour to
prove that, in common with other subjects of
the Queen-Empress in South Africa, the
Indians, too, are ready to do duty for their
Sovereign on the battlefield. The offer is meant
to be an earnest of the Indian loyalty.
I venture to trust that our prayer would be
granted; a favour for which the petitioners will
be ever grateful and which would, in my humble
opinion; be a link to bind closer still the
different parts of the mighty empire of which we
are so proud.
I have the honour to be, Sir, your obedient
servant
M. K. Gandhi
9


Gandhis stretcher-boy service in this war proved he had no conception
of colonialism as evil, and that he considered the White Boers and the
White British colonial government as legitimate entities in South Africa.
Gandhi, unlike Aurobindo and Tilak, did not see British rule of India as an
abomination. This is why he could not personally make, and refused to
allow the Indian community in South Africa to make common cause with
native Africans; that is why he served the Empire in a war which killed
14,000 native Africans. Gandhis sympathies in this war lay with one
colonial power, the Boers, but he served another White colonial power,
the British Empire. The native Africans thus bore the collective brunt of
the animosity and ill-will of the Boers, the British Empire, and the
migrant Indian community.
1899 December 14, organized the Natal Indian Ambulance Corps
with around 300 free Indians and 800 indentured Indians, and left for
the front. The Ambulance Corps was temporarily disbanded on
December 19 and re-formed on 7 January 1900; it was permanently
disbanded on 28 January 1900. Gandhi served the British Empire for
25 days in a war that had nothing to do with Indians in South Africa
or India.
1900 March 14, Gandhi addressed public meeting of Indians and
Europeans to felicitate British Generals for victory in the Boer War.
1900 May 21, conveyed to Queen Victoria greetings on her birthday.

9
The Indian Offer, Durban, October 19, 1899, from the photostats of a typed office copy, a rough
pencil draft in Gandhis own hand, S.N. 3301-2, and The Natal Mercury, dated 25-10-1899, CWMG
Vol. 2, pp 316-17.
12
1900 August 14, informed Colonial Secretary of having forwarded to
Turkish Ambassador in London the felicitation of Indians to the Sultan
of Turkey on the occasion of the silver jubilee of his reign (possibly a
foreshadow of Gandhis endorsement of the Indian Muslim agitation
for restoration of the Turkish Caliphate).
1901 January 23, conveyed to Colonial Secretary, on behalf of the
Indian community in Natal, condolences over the passing away of the
Queen.
1901 February 2, Gandhi laid a wreath on the pedestal of the statue
of Queen Victoria in Durban and addressed a memorial meeting,
paying tributes to the late Queen:
Mr. M. K. Gandhi dwelt on the noble virtues of
the late Queen. He referred to the Indian
Proclamation of 1858 and the Queens deep
interest in Indian affairshow she commenced
the study of Hindustani language at a ripe age,
and how, although she herself could not go to
India to be in the midst of her beloved people,
she sent her sons and grandsons to represent
her.
10

1901 March 30, Gandhi singled out for mention in dispatches for
services in Boer War; protests at being singled out
Over a thousand Indians had been recruited by Gandhi to fight in the
war between two colonial regimes and yet, the British Government chose
to acknowledge only Gandhis services; and Gandhi protested at being
singled out, not because the services of all the other Indians did not
even merit a passing mention but because if I am entitled to any credit
for having done my duty, it is due in a great measure to Mr. Shire, Asst.
Supt. Indian Ambulance Corps and Dr. Booth, now Dean of St. Johns.
11

1901 October 18, Gandhi left for India promising to return if his
services were required.
1901 December 17, left Rajkot for Mumbai on his way to the
Calcutta Congress; in Mumbai Gandhi met British Member of
Parliament Sir Bhownaggree.
1901 December 27, Gandhi got INC to move resolution on South
Africa in the Calcutta Congress.
1902 March 30, sent copy of this resolution to Bhownaggree.
1902 April 8, sent note to Gokhale congratulating him on his Budget
speech in the Imperial Legislative Council.
1902 July 10, left Rajkot for Mumbai to set up law office.
1902 August 1, wrote to Gokhale informing him of the move and
offering his services.

10
Mourning the Queens Death, February 1, 1901, The Natal Advertiser, 4-2-1901, CWMG, Vol. 2
page 388.
11
Letter to Colonial Secretary, March 30, 1901, Pietermaritzburg Archives: C. S. O. 1901/2888,
CWMG Vol. 2, page 394.
13
1902 November 14, wrote to Gokhale informing him about his
return to South Africa.

3.5 Beginning of Gandhis political career in South Africa
Gandhi first went to South Africa in 1893; returned to India in 1896;
went back to South Africa and returned to India again in 1901; and went
back to South Africa for a third time in 1902. It is obvious that since his
return to India after studying law, and until 1902, Gandhi failed to
establish himself as a lawyer in India or to find a niche in politics. While it
is evident that he had a taste for politics even at this time, his political
career did not take off until his return to South Africa in 1902, after
which both his legal and political career moved rapidly. Gandhi realized
his entry into active politics would be possible only through his profession
as a lawyer, which is why he returned to South Africa in 1902. He also
realized that he could achieve status as a political leader there only if he
was perceived as a person with some standing with the political
leadership in India.

The Boer Republics were annexed to the Empire even before the war
ended in 1902, and Lord Milner arrived from London to take charge as
Governor of South Africa. Despite Gandhi having compelled 1100 Indians
to run the Ambulance Corps, Lord Milner introduced more disempowering
laws, making life even more difficult for the Indian community. The
Peace Preservation Ordinance and Ordinance No. 5 of 1903 were
promulgated in the Transvaal to regulate the re-entry of Indians who had
left the Transvaal for Natal, Cape Colony, and India, when war broke out.
As previously mentioned (Chapter 2), this ordinance segregated Asiatics
into locations, refused trading licenses except in Asiatic bazaars, and
made pre-war licenses of Asiatics non-transferable.

Under the Peace Preservation Ordinance, all entrants to the Transvaal
were to be issued permits on request, but as a rule Indians were refused
permits and thus prevented from returning to their homes and
businesses. Milner set up the Asiatic Affairs Department to enforce the
provisions of Law 3 of 1885. The Department was charged with compiling
a dossier of all anti-Indian measures that prevailed in the Boer Republics,
and these measures were subsequently applied with a vengeance.
Gandhis volunteering the services of the Indian community proved
sterile for the community as a whole, though Gandhi received the Boer
War Medal for his loyalty and dedicated service to the Empire.

1903 February 16, opened law office in Johannesburg and enrolled
at the Bar of the Transvaal Supreme Court.
1903, February 23, forwarded to Dadabhai Naoroji a
comprehensive statement on the Indian Question in the Transvaal
and Orange River Colonies; wrote to Gokhale that events in the
Transvaal were progressing fast and he was in the thick of the fight.

14
Gandhi would henceforth brief these leaders regularly about his work in
South Africa. The fact that Congress leaders had the time to engage with
Indian affairs in South Africa and involve the INC in the same (without
meaningfully improving the condition of the Indian community there),
reveals there was no raging freedom movement in India.

1903 December 1, wrote to Indian National Congress, Madras, to
realize the seriousness of situation in Natal and make early and
earnest efforts to prevail upon the Imperial British government to
secure relief.
1904 October, read Ruskins Unto this Last on the way to
Durban and decided to establish a commune along the lines indicated by
Ruskin; assumed entire responsibility for Indian Opinion.
1904 November-December, founded the Phoenix Settlement.
1904 December 24, first number of Indian Opinion issued from
Phoenix Settlement.

Indian Opinions objective was to bring the
European and Indian subjects of King Edward
closer together; educate public opinion; remove
causes for misunderstanding; put before
Indians their own blemishes and show them the
path of duty while they insisted on securing
their rights. This was an Imperial and pure
ideal, towards the fruition of which anyone
could work unselfishly.
12


1905 August 19, called for united opposition to Bengal partition and
supported boycott of British goods.
1905 September 16, Gandhi opined that Gokhale was outstanding
among the candidates for the post of President of the INC.
This marks the beginning of Gandhis intervention in the affairs of the
Indian National Congress. Hitherto, Gandhi had successfully persuaded
the INC, through his influence with important leaders, to involve itself in
the affairs of the Indian community in South Africa. Now Gandhi began
to involve himself in the affairs of the INC in India. The Congress, it may
be kept in mind, was then the sole vehicle for a meaningful political
career in India; the Muslim League was as yet unborn.
1905 November 1, called for communal harmony in Bengal to
strengthen anti-partition agitation, even though he was aware
that Muslims were celebrating the partition.
The cablegram from India that has appeared
lately in the newspapers brings the aphorism
(divide and rule) vividly home to us. It is said
that twenty thousand Mahomedans at Dacca,
the capital of the new province partitioned from

12
Ourselves, Indian Opinion, 24-12-1904, CWMG Vol. 4, page 145.
15
Bengal, assembled together and offered prayers
of thanksgiving to the Almighty for the
partition, and their consequent deliverance from
Hindu oppression.
13


Gandhis unequal insistence on Hindu-Muslim unity began in South
Africa; he carried it unchanged to India in 1915, and retained it even
after vivisection of the Hindu bhoomi in 1947 and until his assassination
in 1948. Both Congress and the Nehruvian secular polity faithfully bear
the coffin of Gandhian sentimentalism on their shoulders to this day.

1905 December 4, in his capacity as Secretary, British Indian
Association, Gandhi bade farewell to Sir Arthur Lawley, Lieutenant-
Governor of the Transvaal, and Governor-designate of Madras.

This was yet another instance of shuffling by the imperial government in
London. Arthur Lawley, confirmed proponent of apartheid who had
supported confining Indians and other Asiatics to specified locations,
was appointed Governor of Madras to succeed Lord Ampthill.
Notwithstanding such dubious antecedents, Gandhi bestowed upon
Lawley a glowing write-up in Indian Opinion, going do far as to present
his personal opinion as that of the entire British Indian community in
South Africa:
We congratulate Sir Arthur Lawley on his
appointment as Governor of Madras. It is a
distinction well deserved by His Excellency. Sir
Arthur is always kindly, courteous, and
solicitous for the welfare of those whose
interests are entrusted to him. His views about
Indians are strange, and we have been often
obliged to comment upon many inaccuracies
into which he has been led in considering this
question, but we have always believed that
these views have been honestly held. Moreover,
wrongly though we consider it to be so, Sir
Arthur has believed that, in upholding the anti-
Indian policy, he would best serve the interests
of the European inhabitants of the Transvaal.
The mere fact, however, that Sir Arthur has
been led to hold such views, owing to his
extreme anxiety to serve the European interests
in the Transvaal, may be his strength in
Madras, for his kindliness, his courtesy, his
sympathy and his anxiety have now to be
transferred to the millions of Indians over
whose destiny he is to preside for the next five

13
Divide and Rule, Indian Opinion, 4-11-1905, CWMG Vol. 4, page 477.
16
years. Sir Arthur Lawley is to fill the place
vacated by Lord Ampthill, who has endeared
himself to the people of the Madras Presidency.
We hope that Sir Arthur will continue the
traditions he inherits.
14
(emphasis added)

The column in Indian Opinion shows that Gandhi knew that Lawley was
an unbridled racist. Lawley favoured apartheid, was virulently anti-Indian
in South Africa, yet Gandhi, instead of raising a hue and cry over his
appointment and warning Gokhale, Naoroji and others to resist it,
actually congratulated Lawley and declared he would be good for Madras
and her people with his kindliness, courtesy, sympathy and anxiety!
Gandhis hope that Lawley would treat the people of Madras Presidency
with the same kindliness, courtesy, sympathy and anxiety with which he
practiced apartheid in South Africa, was akin to his call for Hindu-Muslim
unity to fight the partition of Bengal despite knowing that over 20,000
Muslims had gathered in Dacca to tender thanks to Allah for delivering
them from Hindu rule. This sublime indifference to ground realities would
manifest again in 1946, when in spite of knowing Mountbattens role in
delivering Indonesia back to her colonial oppressors and splintering the
country, Gandhi, and the INC dominated by him, permitted Mountbatten
to enter India as last Viceroy. Within months of Mountbatten assuming
charge as Viceroy in January 1947, vivisection was not only an accepted
condition for transfer of power in April 1947, but became a fact of history
on 15 August 1947.

1906 February 26, Gandhi suggested to Dadabhai Naoroji that a
deputation of British Indians in South Africa meet with British
Ministers on the issue of safeguarding Indian interests in the
Transvaal and Orange River Colony.
1906 February, Bambatha Uprising or Zulu Uprising.
1906 March 17, Gandhi exhorted Indians to volunteer their services
to the Government on the occasion of the Zulu Rebellion.
March 1906, Gandhi took a vow of absolute continence for life.
Before March 31, Imperial Government set up a commission to look
into the proposed Transvaal constitution after becoming a self-
governing colony of the British Empire.
1906 April 12, wrote to William Wedderburn about the deteriorating
conditions of Indians in the Transvaal.
1906 April 14, Natal Indian Congress decided to send a deputation
led by Gandhi to London to meet British Ministers.
1906 April 24, Natal Indian Congress agreed to Gandhis proposal to
set up the Indian Ambulance Corps to serve the government in its
war against the Zulus in the Bambatha Uprising.
15



14
Sir Arthur Lawley as Governor of Madras, Indian Opinion, 2-12-1905, CWMG Vol. 5, page 32.
15
For details about the Zulu massacre see appendix at end of chapter.
17
This was a brutal genocide of Zulus by the British, at par with the
genocide of Native Americans:
Columbus stands, by this definition, not as
Italian, Spaniard, Portuguese or Jew but as the
penultimate European of his age, the
emblematic personality of all that Europe was,
had been and would become in the course of its
subsequent expansion across the face of the
earth. As a symbol then, Christopher Columbus
vastly transcends himself. He stands before the
bar of history and humanity, culpable not only
for his deeds on Espanola, but, in spirit at least,
for the carnage and cultural obliteration which
attended the conquests of Mexico and Peru
during the 1500s. And the ghost of Columbus
stood with the British in their wars against the
Zulus and various Arab nations, with the United
States against the Moros of the Philippines, the
French against the peoples of Algeria and
Indochina, the Belgians in the Congo, the Dutch
in Indonesia. Nazism was never unique: it was
instead only one of an endless succession of
New World Orders set in motion by the
Discovery. It was neither more nor less
detestable than the order imposed by
Christopher Columbus upon Espanola; 1493 or
1943, they were part of the same irreducible
whole.
16
(emphasis added)

This is a devastating commentary by a Native American scholar of a man
whose discovery of the New World exterminated entire civilizations,
cultures and peoples in the Americas and the Caribbean; yet in 1992, the
western world sought to make the five hundredth anniversary of
Columbus discovering the Americas for the Pope and the Catholic faith
into a global celebration. Tilak and Aurobindo understood the nature of
colonialism and hence insisted on political freedom preceding all other
nation-building activities. But Gandhi never made the critical connection
between the White race, Christianity, and colonialism; his stretcher-boy
service to the empire attests to this monumental ignorance.

1906 May 12, Gandhi supports home rule for India in the name of
justice and for the good of humanity.
1906 May 26, ahead of Queen Victorias birthday celebrations,
Gandhi appealed to public men of South Africa to abjure race hatred
and colour prejudice.

16
Churchill, Ward, op. cit., page 92.
18
1906 May 30, British Indian Association decides to include Haji
Habib and H O Ally in deputation to England.
Natal government accepts Natal Indian Congress offer to organize
ambulance corps.
1906 June 16, Indian stretcher-bearer corps pledge of allegiance
published in Indian Opinion:
We, the undersigned, solemnly and sincerely
declare that we will be faithful and bear true
allegiance to His Majesty King Edward the
Seventh, His Heirs and Successors, and that we
will faithfully serve in the supernumerary list of
the Active Militia Force of the Colony of Natal as
Stretcher-Bearers, until we shall lawfully cease
to be members thereof, and the terms of the
service are that we should each receive Rations,
Uniform, Equipment and 1s. 6d. per day.
M.K. Gandhi, U.M. Sehlat, H.I. Joshi, S.B. Medh, Khan Mahomed,
Mahomed Shaikh, Dada Mian, Pooti Naiken, Appa Samy, Kunjee,
Shaikh Madar, Mahomed Alwar, Muthusamy, Coopoosamy, Ajodhya
Singh, Kistama, Ali, Bhailal, Jamaludin.
17


1906 June 21, ambulance corps receives marching orders.
1906 June 22, Gandhi given rank of Sergeant-Major by British
government.
1906 July 19, Indian stretcher-bearer corps disbanded.
1906 August 7, Sir Henry MacCallum, Governor of Natal, thanked
Gandhi for services rendered by stretcher-bearer corps.
1906 August 25, Gandhi demanded Indians no longer be classified
as coloured people.
1906 September, despite Gandhis services to the Empire, owing
allegiance not only to the then king but also his heirs and successors
and persuading a reluctant Natal Indian Congress and other Indians
to join him on the promise of possible full citizenship if they served
the Empire loyally, the British regime in South Africa promulgated the
draconian Asiatic Law Amendment Ordinance, No. 29 of 1906, later
known as the Black Act. However, Gandhi was decorated with the
Zulu War Medal as compensation.
1906 September 11, Gandhi announced first Satyagraha campaign
against proposed Asiatic Ordinance at a mass meeting of Indians at
the Empire Theatre in Johannesburg. Gandhi threatened Satyagraha
if the ordinance was made into law. Satyagraha was the first of the
two resolutions passed at the meeting. The second resolution decided
to send a deputation led by Gandhi to London to meet British
ministers.


17
Pledge of allegiance, Indian Opinion, 16-6-1906, CWMG, Vol. 5, page 262
19
The vow of continence for life and Satyagraha mark the well-crafted
official beginning of the making of the Mahatma.

3.6 The course of Satyagraha was directed from behind

1906 October 20, Gandhi arrived in Southampton en route to
London on his first deputation visit; met Dadabhai Naoroji.
1906 sometime before October 25, met Sir Mancherji
Bhownaggree.
1906 October 26, met Wedderburn and Dadabhai Naoroji.
1906 October 27, interviewed by Reuter.
1906 October 27 and 30, met Bhownaggree again.
1906 October 31, met Sir Richard Solomon at the House of
Commons.
1906 November 7, addressed Members of Parliament.
1906 November 8, deputation to Lord Elgin.
1906 November 23, deputation met John Morley, Secretary of State
for India.
1906 November 26, Liberal members of Parliament asked Prime
Minister to receive the deputation regarding Asiatic Law Amendment
Ordinance.
1906 November 28, Gandhi met Winston Churchill to protest the
Transvaal Asiatic Law Amendment Ordinance No.29.

It is pertinent that Gandhi returned to South Africa with the intention of
making something of his life only in 1902. In 1906, he was a still a
nonentity; hence it is strange that Members of Parliament, Winston
Churchill, the Under-Secretary of State, and other powerful government
officials agreed to meet an obscure Indian lawyer from South Africa.
Even if Gandhi had been a man of consequence, a person like Churchill
would have associated with him only if Gandhi was perceived as no
threat to the Empire, and possibly also as a gesture of reward for his
public professions of loyalty to the Empire and his Ambulance Corps
services during the Boer War and the Bambatha Uprising.

1906 December 3, Secretary of State for the Colonies, Lord Elgin,
declined to approve the Asiatic Law Amendment Ordinance; this was
announced in the House of Commons by Churchill the same day. This
was a small but temporary concession by the British government to
Gandhi; it would be rendered futile as the Asiatic Law would come
back in another guise.
1906 December 6, Transvaal received responsible self-government
from Britain; there followed a slew of laws discriminatory to Indians
and increasing segregation, including in schools.
1907, The South African Indian community comprising the Natal
Indian Patriotic Union and the Natal Indian Congress grew very
critical of Gandhi as he had made Indians willy-nilly partners in his
personal whims with regard to the Empire and the methods to be
20
employed to assert their rights, without getting tangible or lasting
relief from the government.
1907 February 7, fortuitously for Gandhis shaky leadership,
Winston Churchill informed the British House of Commons that the
Natal government had been refused leave to introduce legislation
excluding Asiatics from obtaining trading licenses.
1907 March 19, Transvaal Colonial Secretary, Gen. J.C. Smuts re-
introduced the Asiatic Law Amendment Ordinance which had failed to
gain assent in December 1906, under the name Transvaal Asiatic
Registration Bill, also known as the Black Act.
1907 March 22, the Asiatic Registration Bill was passed by the
Transvaal Parliament; it required all male Asians to register and be
finger-printed and carry registration passes at all times.

Gandhi protested not so much against the registration of all male Asians,
but because the Indian community stood degraded to a level lower than
native Africans. The Regulations for Towns stipulated that Coloured
people could not walk on pavements, sidewalks or stoeps of the streets
or towns; the habitation of the Indian community was segregated within
coolie settlements.

1907 March 29, Indians held a mass protest meeting in Gaiety Hall,
Johannesburg; after the perfunctory noises, Gandhi inexplicably
capitulated to the regime and offered to register voluntarily if the Act
was withdrawn.
1907 April 4, Gandhi led a deputation to meet Gen. J.C. Smuts to
present the resolutions passed on 29
th
March in Johannesburg. Gen.
Smuts agreed to meet Gandhi. (This was tantamount to the South
African government meeting Gandhi).
1907 June 7, the Transvaal British Indian Association sent a
deputation on a similar mission to meet Transvaal Prime Minister
Gen. Louis Botha, who refused to meet it. (The South African
government which met Gandhi, refused to meet other Indians).
1907 July 1, The Asiatic Registration Act came into operation.
1907 July 31, an open air mass meeting was held in Pretoria against
the Black Act and Indians decided to launch satyagraha in protest, to
go to prison rather than register.
1907 August 8, Gandhi wrote to Gen. Smuts with suggested
amendments to the Asiatic Registration Act.
1907 November 22, wrote to Gokhale suggesting Hindu-Muslim
compact be made special feature of forthcoming Indian National
Congress at Surat. Gandhis recommendation for a Hindu-Muslim
compact was a significant indicator of the course that events in India
would take after Gandhis return to India; the word compact was
also symptomatic of how Gandhi perceived the place of Muslims in
the nation. By calling for a compact Gandhi reiterated the theme of
limited convergence of interests offered by the Muslims in 1857, thus
legitimising the innate separateness of the Muslim identity. Unlike
21
Aurobindo, Gandhi did not ask for assimilating all sections of Indian
society, including the Muslims into the INC but acknowledged the
separateness of the Muslim identity and asked for a compact or
partnership. This was no small ideological positioning and perhaps
one of the reasons why the Congress split into two distinct ideological
groups the Moderates and the Nationalists (Extremists) in
December 1907 at Surat:

Dear Professor Gokhale,
I have sent a letter addressed to you through Mr.
Ameeroodeen Fajandar, one of the delegates from the
Transvaal who will attend the Congress at Surat. May I
draw your attention to the fact that the struggle we are
undergoing here has resulted in making us feel that we
are Indians first and Hindus, Mahomedans, Tamils,
Parsees, etc. afterwards. You will notice, too, that all
our delegates are Mahomedans. I am personally glad
of the fact. And it may also happen that there will be
many Mahomedans, having South African connections,
attending the Congress. May I ask you to interest
yourself in them and make them feel perfectly at
home? A Hindu-Mahomedan compact may even
become a special feature of this Congress. The rest of
the struggle you know from the papers.
Yours sincerely, M. K. Gandhi
18


1908 saw a slew of anti-Indian laws passed by Gen. Smuts. One was The
Immorality Amendment Ordinance, Act No. 16 of 1908 which outlawed
sexual relations between Whites and non-Whites.

1908 January 1, Transvaal Immigrants Restriction Act (henceforth
referred to as TIRA) (No. 15 of 1907) came into force. Mass meeting
held at Surti Mosque, Fordsburg, to protest against TIRA
and Transvaal Asiatic Registration Act (henceforth TARA) (Law 2 of
1907).
1908 January 4, the Transvaal British Indian Association informed
the Transvaal government that if trading licenses were refused to
them for failing to register, they would trade without license. Gen.
Smuts refused to withdraw the Asiatic Registration Act and refused to
meet Gandhi. Smuts added that Indians had been misled by their
leaders and declared that no Parliament in the country could repeal
TARA.
1908 January 8, within four days of Gen. Smuts refusing to meet
Gandhi, Gandhi told Reuters that if the Asiatic Registration Act was

18
Letter to GK Gokhale, J ohannesburg, November 22, 1907, From a photostat of the typewritten
original signed by Gandhi: G.N. 4109, CWMG Vol. 7, page 354.
22
suspended (a quiet shift from the demand to withdraw), Indians
would register voluntarily.
1908 January 10, Gandhi arrested and sentenced to two months
imprisonment for refusing to obey court orders to leave Transvaal.
On this day Gandhi first used the word Satyagraha for his
brand of passive resistance.
1908 January 21, Gen. Smuts sent an emissary to meet Gandhi in
prison with settlement proposals with regard to the Asiatic
Registration Act.
1908 January 28, At meeting in New Reform Club, London, Sir. W.
Wedderburn declared that as the Imperial Government spent 3
million annually on the defense of the Transvaal, it had a right to
demand that Transvaal Indians be treated in keeping with Imperial
traditions. Sir M.M. Bhownaggree warned of an Imperial danger and
M.A. Jinnah (appointed by Anjuman Islam, Bombay, to proceed to
England and there to place the position of the Transvaal Indians
before the people of England and to do all in his power to create
public opinion in favor of a settlement of the Asiatic difficulty in the
Colonies, Indian Opinion, 11.1.1908) said all Indians were united in
their protest against the humiliating treatment of Transvaal Indians.
1908 January 28, emissary Albert Cartwright met Gandhi in prison
with a compromise formula. Gandhi made some face-saving token
amendments and signed the proposal.
1908 February 3, G.K. Gokhale asked at the Viceroys Council if the
Government was aware of the depth and intensity of public feeling
at the injustice and indignities of Transvaal Indians. Replying for
Government, Findlay said that they sympathized with their Transvaal
subjects and had reason to hope current negotiations would remove
their just grievances.
1908 February 3, Gandhi met Gen. Smuts who agreed to repeal the
Asiatic Registration Act if Indians registered voluntarily.
1908 February 4, Lord Ampthill places a calling-attention motion in
House of Lords on the issue, Lord Curzon also spoke.
The position that William Wedderburn, Mancherj ee Bhownagree,
Gopalkrishna Gokhale and Ampthill were taking with regard to
the inj ustices and indignities of Transvaal I ndians and their
righteous indignation over the treatment meted to Gandhi in
prison was ironical to put it mildly, considering the fact that it
was exactly at this time that the British government in I ndia was
decimating Tilak, Aurobindo and other nationalists in the I NC.
1908 February 5, Gen. Smuts hardened stand and declared the Act
would not be repealed as long as even a single Indian failed to
comply with requirements.
1908 February 10, voluntary registration of Indians begins; Gandhi
attacked and wounded by Mir Alam Khan for entering into this
humiliating agreement with Gen. Smuts. Gandhi recuperated under
the care of Christian missionaries and appealed for forgiveness for his
assailants:
23
I am well in the brotherly and sisterly hands of
Mr. and Mrs. Doke. I hope to take up my duty
shortly. Those who have committed the act did
not know what they were doing. They thought
that I was doing what was wrong. They have
had their redress in the only manner they know.
I, therefore, request that no steps be taken
against them.

Assault or no assault, my advice remains the
same. The large majority of Asiatics ought to
give finger-prints. Those who have real
conscientious scruples will be exempted by the
Government. To ask for more would be to show
ourselves as children. The spirit of passive
resistance, rightly understood, should make the
people fear none and nothing but Godno
cowardly fear, therefore, should deter the vast
majority of sober-minded Indians from doing
their duty. The promise of repeal of the Act
against voluntary registration having been
given, it is the sacred duty of every good Indian
to help the Government and the Colony to the
uttermost.
19


1908 March 5, Addressed public meeting under auspices of Natal
Indian Congress at Durban; another attempted assault on Gandhi by
Pathans.
1908 March 6, Met Durban Pathans who insisted he had betrayed
the community; reported that this conciliatory meeting was a failure.
1908 June 24, Tilak arrested in India on charges of sedition.
1908 June 31, Gen. Smuts reneged on earlier commitment and
declared that repeal of the Asiatic Registration Act was preposterous;
Gandhi cried foul.
1908 July 20, Gandhi began Satyagraha to protest Transvaal Asiatic
Registration Act, Transvaal Immigration Restriction Act and Transvaal
Municipal Consolidation Bill.
1908 on or before August 1, Gandhi wrote in Indian Opinion that
after great deliberation Tilaks views on British rule should be
rejected. It would be harmful, even useless, to use violence to uproot
British rule.
20

1908 August 14, Gandhi appealed to Gen. Smuts to repeal the
Black Act, failing which he would intensify the stir.

19
Letter to Friends, Indian Opinion, 15-2-1908, CWMG pp 135-36.
20
Gandhi began to position himself as a votary of non-violence, in contrast to Aurobindo
and Tilak. For full text of Gandhis repudiation of Tilak, see end of chapter.
24
1908 August 18, apparently in response to Gandhis warning of
intensifying Satyagraha, Transvaal Prime Minister Louis Botha and
Transvaal Colonial Secretary Gen. Smuts met Gandhi to discuss the
Indian question.
1908 August 20, Indians reject proposed amendments to the
Registration Act; at a mass meeting Gandhi issues ultimatum to Gen.
Smuts to repeal the Act.
1908 August 21, the very next day, Gen. Smuts introduced the
Amendment Bill in Parliament; the Bill was passed.
1908 September 9, British Indian Association assumed Gandhis
financial responsibilities, his own needs being looked after by Dr.
Hermann Kallenbach.
1908 September 18, Sanction of Royal assent to new Asiatic Act
reported; also decision authorizing Lord Ampthill to represent
grievances of Transvaal Indians to Imperial Government.
1908 October 7, Arrested at Volksrust, along with fifteen other
Indians, for entering Transvaal without registration certificates.
1908 October 13, Gandhi in detention sent message exhorting
Indians to go to jail for the sake of the motherland.
It may be pertinent to question which motherland? If it was India, how
did Indians going to jail in the Transvaal serve the cause of political
freedom, if political freedom was indeed the goal of the Indian National
Congress? If it was South Africa, Gandhi had no sympathy or affinity with
its true native populace.

1908 October 14, sent to two months imprisonment with hard
labour.
1908 October 15, Gandhi reported at road-making work on Market
Square. Reuters Volkrust correspondent wrote, Mr. Gandhi
expressed himself as being the happiest man in the Transvaal.
It is notable that Reuter now embarks upon a mission to give extensive
publicity to the Mahatma in the making.
1908 October 21, In reply to a question in the House of Lords by
Ampthill, the Earl of Crewe stated he had wired Transvaal for facts
about Gandhis arrest and added that Gandhi had been participating
in passive resistance campaign, and paid the penalty.
1908 October 22, Viceroy of India conveyed to India Office the
Indian resentment at the treatment meted out to passive resisters in
Transvaal, recommended civility and urged concession of India
demand for entry of six educated India annually into the Transvaal
1908 October 25, Gandhi removed from Volksrust Gaol to
Johannesburg in convicts garb to testify in Daya Lalas case; refused
offer of cab, and marched on foot from Park Station to Fort, carrying
prison knapsack. These were not just mahatma-making but also
politician-making years.
1908 November 28, Muslims telegraphed protest against General
Bothas statement that many Mahomedans had declined to join
passive resistance movement.
25
1908 December 12, Gandhi released from Volksrust prison.
1908 December 15, General Botha communicated to Lord Selborne
his inability to revise policy. Transvaal Colonial Secretary, in reply to
Transvaal Governor, denied promise of repeal of Act 2 of 1907.
1908 December 23, Gandhi presented to the Volksrust prison
officer a copy of Tolstoys The Kingdom of God is within You.
1908 December 31, Indian National Congress resolution on South
Africa considered harsh, humiliating and cruel treatment of British
Indians as injurious to British Empire.

No substantial concessions were granted by the Imperial government in
London or the South African regime, despite sympathetic noises by
important British officials in London, by Congress in India, and by Gandhi
in South Africa. It bears remembering that at this time Gandhi was
attempting to challenge entrenched apartheid, which was not to end until
1990, through non-violent passive resistance, which he re-designated
Satyagraha.

1909 January 20, Gandhi wrote to the press stating that Indians
had entered the third and final phase of struggle.
1909 January 27, Gandhi wrote to Lord Curzon hoping latters
intervention would result in happy termination of struggle.
1909 February 2, Lord Curzon obligingly informed Gandhi of his
discussion with Botha and Smuts and of their anxiety to treat British
Indians in spirit of liberality and justice.
1909 February 22, Gandhi left Phoenix for Johannesburg, and was
arrested on 25
th
with Polak and Vyas; sentenced to three months
imprisonment.
1909 March 3, reached Pretoria Central Gaol.
1909 March 10, Gandhi taken in handcuffs to court as witness.
Passive resisters congratulated Kasturba Gandhi on Gandhis third
sentence of imprisonment for sake of self-respect and honour of
Asiatic communities.
1909 March 11, Joseph Doke, in letter to Johannesburg press,
referring to Gandhi being handcuffed, observed that the great
majority of our Colonists feel ashamed that a man of the character
and position of Mr. Gandhi should be needlessly insulted in this way;
the implication being these colonists had not felt just as indignant
when politically obscure persons had been handcuffed and otherwise
treated with little dignity.
1909 March 26, Government of I ndia, in reply to cable of March
17 from BIA, Port Elizabeth, assured continued endeavours to obtain
sympathetic treatment for British Indians in the Transvaal, but
regretted inability to interfere in cases of penalty for
noncompliance with law. (emphasis added)
1909 March 29, Transvaal Governor communicated to BIA reply
from Secretary of State of Colonies to their petition of September 9,
1908, that Transvaal Government was unwilling to repeal Registration
26
Act and Imperial Government not in a position to press repeal; and
that views of two sides on yearly admission of six educated Indians
differed only as regards method and machinery.
1909 April 12, Question of Gandhi being marched in handcuffs
raised in Commons; Under Secretary of State for Colonies (Winston
Churchill) insisted that no special disability or indignity was imposed
on Gandhi as passive resister.
1909 May 24, Gandhi released from Pretoria Central Gaol at 7.30
a.m.; said at meeting in Mohammedan Mosque Hall that he felt no
pleasure at being free.
1909 June 16, Addressed Johannesburg Indian mass meeting
convened to appoint deputations to England and India.
1909 June 21, Gandhi replies to Habib Motan on the issue of a
Muslim in the Viceroys Council and his familiar prescription for
Hindu-Muslim unity. It is pertinent that in 1909, this prescription was
proffered, with great confidence - a measure of Gandhis surging
confidence and determination to lead the INC in India. That his
prescription was de-linked from ground reality was neither here nor
there can be witnessed below:
Here is my reply to your letter dated 17th June.
I do not know exactly what the demands of the
Muslim League are, for I was in gaol at the
time, and I have not yet acquainted myself with
what happened during my imprisonment. I
think it reasonable that a Muslim should be
appointed to the Viceroys Council. If Lord
Morley has ordered such an appointment, I
think he is justified. I make no distinction
between Hindus and Muslims. To me both are
sons of Mother India. My personal view is
that, since numerically Hindus are in a
great maj ority, and are, as they
themselves believe, better- placed
educationally, they should cheerfully
concede to their Muslim brethren the
utmost they can. As a satyagrahi, I am
emphatically of the view that the Hindus
should give to the Muslims whatever they
ask for, and willingly accept whatever
sacrifice this may involve. Unity will be
brought about only through such mutual
generosity. If Hindus and Muslims observe, in
their dealings with one another, the same
principles that govern the relations of blood-
brothers, there will be unbroken harmony
27
between the two communities, and then alone
will India prosper.
21
(emphasis added)

A great disconnect between Gandhian prescriptions and logic is
evident here. Gandhi describes himself as a satyagrahi, but why
should that compel Hindus to give the Muslims whatever they ask
for? Gandhi proclaims authoritatively that Unity will be brought
about only through such mutual generosity, but the fact is that if
Hindus make all the sacrifices and Muslims only receive, there surely
is little mutual generosity involved. It seems a heavy price to pay for
unbroken harmony.

3.7 1909 - The turning point in Indian history

1909 June 21, Gandhi and Haji Habib sailed to England on second
lobbying mission.
British Parliament was debating a draft bill for
the creation of the Union of South Africa. To
lobby for their interests, the Transvaal Asians
sent a two-member deputation comprising
Hajee Habib and Gandhi to London. I t spent
four disappointing months between J uly
and November in London and returned
empty- handed.
22


1909 July 1, Sir Curzon Wyllie, Private Secretary to Lord Morley,
assassinated by Madanlal Dhingra. Dr. Cowasji Lalkaka also killed.

Madanlal Dhingras act, like that of the Chapekar brothers and later of
Bhagat Singh, was inspired by nationalist personages like Tilak,
Aurobindo, Savarkar, Bipin Chandra Pal, Lajpat Rai and others who
advocated armed resistance to the evil of colonial occupation of the
motherland and the resulting slavery of the people. Gandhis writing
on the issue indicated his thinking and probably enticed the imperial
British government to examine his potential. Gandhis arguments
rested on his favourite presumption that only people incapable of
reason, logic and deep thinking took recourse to armed resistance.
He dismissed with sublime contempt the intellectually stimulating
writings of Tilak, Aurobindo and Savarkar as mere worthless
writings, while people like Dhingra, the Chapekar brothers and
Bhagat Singh acted as they did only because of their poor intellect,
resulting in ill-digested reading. Yet Tilak had already been arrested
for inspiring the Chapekar brothers; Aurobindo was also incarcerated.
Gandhis call to punish those that incited him was a pointer in

21
Letter to Habib Motan, J ohannesburg, before J une 21, Indian Opinion, 26-6-1909,
CWMG Vol. 9, page 384
22
Footnote to Foreword, HS, page 9
28
Savarkars direction, which the British government followed with
alacrity. Gandhis logic regarding what Britain or the British people
would do in the event of a German attack is simply surreal even as
his potshot at Indias surviving Hindu rulers was at grim variance with
reality:
It is being said in defense of Sir Curzon Wyllies
assassination that it is the British who are
responsible for Indias ruin, and that, just as the
British would kill every German if Germany
invaded Britain, so too it is the right of any
Indian to kill any Englishman. Every Indian
should reflect thoughtfully on this murder. It
has done India much harm; the deputations
efforts have also received a setback. But that
need not be taken into consideration. It is the
ultimate result that we must think of. Mr.
Dhingras defence is inadmissible. I n my
view, he has acted like a coward. All the
same, one can only pity the man. He was
egged on to do this act by ill- digested
reading of worthless writings. His defence
of himself, too, appears to have been
learnt by rote. I t is those who incited him
to this that deserve to be punished. I n my
view, Mr. Dhingra himself is innocent. The
murder was committed in a state of
intoxication. I t is not merely wine or bhang
that makes one drunk; a mad idea also can
do so. That was the case with Mr. Dhingra. The
analogy of Germans and Englishmen is
fallacious.
23
If the Germans were to invade
[Britain], the British would kill only the
invaders. They would not kill every German
whom they met. Moreover, they would not kill
an unsuspecting German, or Germans who are
guests. If I kill someone in my own house
without a warningsomeone who has done me
no harmI cannot but be called a coward.
There is an ancient custom among the Arabs
that they would not kill anyone in their own
house, even if the person be their enemy. They
would kill him after he had left the house and
after he had been given time to arm himself.

23
This was in response to Dhingras unassailable logic at the inquest when he demanded,
If the Germans have no right to rule over England, then what right does England have to
rule over India?
29
Those who believe in violence would be brave
men if they observe these rules when killing
anyone. Otherwise, they must be looked upon
as cowards. It may be said that what Mr.
Dhingra did, publicly and knowing full well that
he himself would have to die, argues courage of
no mean order on his part. But as I have said
above, men can do these things in a state of
intoxication, and can also banish the fear of
death. Whatever courage there is in this is the
result of intoxication, not a quality of the man
himself. A mans own courage consists in
suffering deeply and over a long period. That
alone is a brave act which is preceded by
careful reflection. I must say that those who
believe and argue that such murders may do
good to India are ignorant men indeed. No act
of treachery can ever profit a nation. Even
should the British leave in consequence of such
murderous acts, who will rule in their place?
The only answer is: the murderers. Who will
then be happy? Is the Englishman bad because
he is an Englishmen? I s it that everyone with
an I ndian skin is good? I f that is so, we
can claim no rights in South Africa, nor
should there be any angry protest against
oppression by I ndian princes. I ndia can
gain nothing from the rule of murderers
no matter whether they are black or white.
Under such a rule, India will be utterly ruined
and laid waste. This train of thought leads to a
host of reflections, but I have no time to set
them down here. I am afraid some Indians will
commend this murder. I believe they will be
guilty of a heinous sin. We ought to abandon
such fanciful ideas. More about this later.
24

(emphasis added)

Gandhis reference to worthless writings was an attack against Tilak,
Aurobindo and Savarkar, while his reference to rule of murderers must
have re-assured the British government about Gandhis disinclination to
end British rule in India; Gandhis third reference, this time to Indian
princes had an ominous ring to it and was a signal indicating how he

24
London, after J uly 16, 1909, Curzon Wyllies assassination, Indian Opinion 14-8-1909,
CWMG Vol. 9, pp 428-29 For more on Gandhis opinions about Dhingra, see end of
chapter.
30
would be dealing with them on his return to India.
25
All this must have
been music to British ears.
1909 July 9, Bengal Provincial Congress Committee proposed
Gandhis name as one of the three nominees for Presidentship of the
INC.
1909 July 22, repudiated in letter to South Africa that SABIC (South
Africa British Indian Committee) was associated with extremist
movement in India.
1909 July 29, Gandhi in a letter to Lord Ampthill denied any
connection between Transvaal passive resistance movement and the
party of sedition in India:
Most people, that is, most Indians and Anglo-
Indians, express their detestation of bomb
throwing and violence in words or in
unreasonable action. The movement in the
Transvaal, with which I have identified myself is
an eloquent and standing protest in action
against such methods. The test of passive
resistance is self-suffering and not infliction of
suffering on others.
May I add, too, that the idea of passive
resistance originated in South Africa was
independent of any movement in India and
that we have sometimes been bitterly
assailed by some of our Indian friends for
pinning our faith to passive resistance
pure and simple?
26
(emphasis added)

Gandhis claim that passive resistance as it originated in South Africa had
nothing to do with the Swadeshi or Boycott movement in India, to
understate it, is a deviation from truth. That Gandhi usurped all names
and concepts associated with the nationalist faction of the INC, and
passed it off as his own, has been discussed previously.

1909 August 4, Repudiated categorically, in a letter to Lord
Ampthill, that Transvaal passive resistance movement was
fomented or financed from India or had anything to do with the
party of violence there:
Indian passive resistance in the Transvaal had
its rise in that Colony and has been continued
absolutely independent of anything that is being
said or done in India; indeed, sometimes, even

25
Chapter 7 deals with Gandhis failure to build bridges with Indian States in the critically
important period of the 1940s decade.
26
Excerpts of Gandhis groveling letter to Ampthill on J uly 29 and August 4 at end of
chapter.
31
in defiance of what has been said or written to
the contrary in India or elsewhere. Our
movement is absolutely unconnected with any
extremist movement in India. I do not know the
extremists personally.
.....and now Mr. Henry S. L. Polak is in
Bombay, from the Transvaal, in order to
place the position before the Indian public.
He has gone there with definite
instructions not to come into touch with
the Extremist Party, but to be guided largely
by the Editor of The Times of India, Professor
Gokhale and the Aga Khan. It would be
improper for me not to add that I follow what is
going on in India with the keenest interest and
some of the phases of the national movement
with the gravest anxiety. (emphasis added)

1909 September 6, In letter to Ameer Ali, declared his life devoted
to demonstrating that Hindu-Muslim cooperation was an
indispensable condition of Indias salvation.
1909 November 13, Gandhi leaves for South Africa.
1909 November, on the return journey by sea from England to
South Africa, Gandhi penned Indian Home Rule, later re-named Hind
Swaraj; a preview of the same was given to Lord Ampthill in the
famous letter.
1909 September 20, King Edward VII signed the draft constitution
for the Union of South Africa into law as the South Africa Act of 1909.
Sections 26, 35, 44, 147 and 151 left intact anti-Indian and
other discriminatory legislation against native Africans.

Even as the British government in India was removing Tilak and
Aurobindo from the INC and from the political arena in 1909, the
Imperial Government in London was shaping Gandhis political career
in such a way that would make him the unchallenged leader of the
INC in India in the not-too-distant future; crafting him to occupy the
political space created by them with foresight and flawless planning.
From 1910, until Gandhis hurried departure to India in 1914, there
was little or no advance in Gandhis struggle in South Africa, though
in 1913 Smuts precipitated a crisis that facilitated Gandhi emerging
center-stage again. The events following the crisis enabled the
imperial British government, the South African government, and the
INC, to act in tandem to catapult Gandhi to India as de-facto leader
of the Congress.

1910 January 6, in letter to J.C. Gibson, Gandhi refuted the
charge that the South African movement was engineered and
controlled from India.
32
1910 February 9, In Gandhis office, Mrs. Amacanoo and Mrs.
Packirsamy took off their ornaments, vowing not to wear them till
struggle was over.
1910 May 30, Gandhi set up the 1100-acre Tolstoy Farm near
Johannesburg, a gift from his friend Hermann Kallenbach, for use by
satyagrahi families.
1910 June 1, Union of South Africa came into being.
1910 July 30, Churchill announced in the House of Commons that
he had given instructions that all persons imprisoned as passive
resisters or as suffragettes be spared unnecessary degradation.
1911 February 28, Smuts told Parliament that Indians belonged to
an ancient civilization and hence could not be classified as
barbarians.
1911 April 27, Indian Passive Resistance protesting Poll Tax
suspended when Gen. Smuts entered into negotiations with Gandhi.
1911 June 22, Coronation of King George V at West minister Abbey;
in Durban Indians boycotted celebrations.
1911 June 24, Gandhi in Indian Opinion affirmed loyalty to the
king.
27

The importance of Gandhis affirmation to King and Empire cannot be
underestimated. Gandhi repeatedly affirmed his loyalty to the Empire
and the British Monarchy, and prescribed non-violence to fight for
what he believed were rights guaranteed by the monarchy in theory,
but denied in practice. His adulation for British monarchy deserves
critical scrutiny in the face of an almost pathological dislike for
Indian-Hindu princes and maharajas. Till the end of his life, his
aversion for Hindu rulers remained unchanged and, as we shall see
later, this prejudice had catastrophic consequences for the shape of
Indian polity to come after transfer of power in 1947.
1911 September 24, Gandhi wrote to Dr. Pranjivan Mehta telling
him he was preparing himself for work in India.
1911 September 28, Italy invaded Turkish territory.
1911 October 2, Gandhi attended meeting of Muslims at
Johannesburg to condemn Italy for waging war against Turkey.
1912 January 12, Gandhi, in letter to Gokhale, welcomed his visit to
South Africa; suggested visit on way to London.
1912 October 22, Gokhale arrives in Cape Town.
In his capacity as member of the Viceroys Council, Gokhale met
Prime Minister Louis Botha and Gen. Smuts; visited Tolstoy Farm.
1913 January 11, Gandhi in Indian Opinion acknowledged
contribution of Rs. 2500 by the Nizam of Hyderabad to passive
resistance fund.
The same Gandhi, years later, still carrying the chip of his paranoiac
resentment of Hindu maharajas and princes on his shoulders, would
refuse in 1946 a similar donation from the Maharaja of Rewa for reasons
we may assume were peculiarly and typically Gandhian whims.

27
For more on Gandhis loyalty to the Empire and the King, see end of chapter.
33
Maharaja Saheb,
Yesterday you presented me a cheque for Rs. 1,001. I
considered whether or not I should accept it. My heart
says that I should not; I am, therefore, returning it.
Please excuse me.
Yours,
M. K. Gandhi
28

1913 January 18, Indian Opinion announced Gandhis decision to
go to India about the middle of the year, if expected Immigration Bill
was passed in forthcoming session of Parliament.
1913 January, Tolstoy Farm closed down.
29

1913 Gandhi began a penitential fast (one meal a day for over four
months) because of a moral lapse by two members of Phoenix Farm.
1913 October 19, meeting of Natal Indian Congress (NIC) in
Durban; NIC secretaries M.C. Anglia and Dada Osman sharply
castigated Gandhi and tendered their resignations. The resignations
were not accepted and the meeting withdrew NICs support for the
passive resistance campaign. In retaliation, Gandhi and his
supporters withdrew from the meeting and formed the Natal Indian
Association (NIA), at Parsee Rustomjees house. The NIC would
become defunct until its resuscitation in 1920.

3.8 Gandhis last phase in South Africa Prelude to India
1913 November, the third Satyagraha campaign launched; Gandhi
arrested thrice in four days; at the second trial he received a
sentence of three months imprisonment, but was released before
completing the term.

Very little is known about this Satyagraha, also known as the Natal
Indian Strike or Miners Strike, Gandhis last campaign before finally
departing from South Africa in July 1914.
30
By this time the opposition
to Gandhi was growing among the Indian community; one section began
to get both disillusioned and dissatisfied with his Satyagraha and his
refusal to even consider more effective methods of resistance and

28
Martand Singh, the Yuvaraj ascended the throne on the dramatic deposition of the Ruler,
Gulab Singh J u Deo, while out on camp near the border, by the Resident Lt. Col. Campbell.
The dismissal was condemned by J awaharlal Nehru, for it implied British displeasure at the
ex-maharajas desire to give self-government to his subjects.(Letter to Maharaja of Rewa,
Dinshaw Mehta Clinic, Poona, February 20, 1946, From a copy of the Hindi: Pyarelal
Papers. Courtesy: Pyarelal, CWMG Vol. 89, page 430)
29
There is no information why this happened.
30
The timing of his departure is significant. Though tensions had been building up in
Europe, the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand, Crown Prince of the Austro-
Hungarian Empire, by a Serbian nationalist in Sarajevo on 28 J une 1914 proved to be the
spark that finally triggered off World War I. G.K. Gokhale was already dying and Britain
would have worried about Tilak and the other nationalists.

34
protest; this resulted in a split in the Natal Indian Congress. The timing
of the last South African Satyagraha is significant.

Gandhi undertook this campaign within a month of the split in the NIC,
almost as though to drive home the point that he alone could organize
people into a mass-protest movement and that the regime would deal
with Indians only with and through him. Yet the split in the NIC was the
first crack in the myth about Gandhis leadership, namely, that he was so
saintly and his methods so moral and noble that his leadership was
beyond criticism, his methods beyond reproach. Gandhi had to repair the
image of his infallibility among the community for the sake of his political
career in the immediate future in India; the British Empire had a stake in
that mission because if Gandhi had to take over the leadership of the
Congress and steer it away from armed resistance and political
independence, towards passive acceptance of self-rule within the Empire,
then Gandhi had to return to India with the image of being not only
infallible but also morally superior to others in the INC. The British
Empire could not afford to have Gandhis authority eroded nor have
Indians perceive him as impotent.

The South African government, for no tangible political reason and
knowing that it would cause grave unrest within the Indian community,
almost as if eager to present Gandhi with an explosive issue guaranteed
to inflame passions and enable him to bring people to the streets,
decided to de-recognize all marriages not conducted according to
Christian rites and/or not registered with the Registrar of Marriages. In
one stroke, it rendered illegal the unions of Indian Muslims and Hindus
married according to their respective religious customs.

Gandhi organized his satyagraha jointly against three laws: to protest
the March 1913 ruling by Justice Searle in the Cape Supreme Court
which de-recognized Hindu and Muslim marriages; the June 1913
Immigrants Regulation Amendment Act; and the notorious Three Pound
Tax which came into effect in March 1911 and made it mandatory for
every Indian family who did not wish to continue their contracts as
indentured labour and chose to stay on in South Africa as free Indians,
to pay a tax of three pounds per head to the South African state. In this
way, an ex-indentured family paid as much as 15, 20 or even 25 pounds,
depending on the size of the family. Children of ex-indentured Indians
were not spared, and boys above 16 years and girls over 13 had to pay
this crippling tax. Clearly the South African regime was determined to
precipitate a crisis.

Gandhis last Satyagraha in South Africa thus brought to the streets
indentured and ex-indentured Indians along with vast numbers of the
Indian community, making this his largest campaign in South Africa, and
covering a large segment of Apartheid laws in force against the Indian
community. The coal miners from Newcastle in northern Natal were the
35
first to down tools and join Gandhi in the strike, followed by workers
across Natal. The satyagraha coincided with a general and paralyzing
railway strike, and Gandhi was in a position to push the government into
a corner, demanding immediate repeal of discriminatory laws in return
for ending the non-cooperation movement.

As a perfect prelude to what would become a pattern in India, first in
1922, and then in 1931, even as many Indians were brutally beaten up,
killed in police firing, and as more and more Indians, particularly women,
joined the strike, choosing to die for Gandhis satyagraha, the leader
himself was simply lodged in jail. As protests mounted over his arrest
and over police brutality, Gandhi called off the civil disobedience
movement. In this instance, Gandhi called off the strike at a time when it
had gained optimum momentum and reached its peak, because he
allegedly did not want to add to the troubles of the South African
government which had already been brought to its knees by the general
railway strike. So as a loyal citizen of the Empire, having demonstrated
his ability to inflame passions and get people killed by repressive State
power, he withdrew the strike and rendered the sacrifice of ordinary
Indians completely futile. Gandhis unique ability to arouse and deflate
human passions somehow always benefited the colonial government and
increased his own grip over the organizations he headed: first NIC, then
NIA, and finally INC. Each time his moral halo was burnished by his
acolytes, yet it pushed the peoples movement into an abyss of
vulnerability and impotence, because every time Satyagraha or civil
disobedience ended prematurely, it ended in failure.

1913 November, Lord Hardinge, Viceroy of India, a speech in
Madras expressed sympathy with the Indian Passive Resistance
struggle in South Africa, boosting Gandhis political and moral stature
in India, which had already been enhanced by Gokhales towering
praise for him after Gokhale returned from South Africa:
Only those who have come into personal contact with Mr. Gandhi as he
is now can realize the wonderful personality of the man. He is without
doubt made of the stuff which heroes and martyrs are made. Nay, more.
He has in him the marvelous spiritual power to turn ordinary men around
him into heroes and martyrs. Hardinge, let us recall, had just sentenced
Savarkar to two sentences of transportation for life.

1913 December, Gandhi released unconditionally in expectation of a
settlement with Gen. Smuts.
1913 December 18, the Indian Inquiry Commission or Solomon
Commission began its proceedings in Pretoria.
1914 January sometime, Gandhi undertook 14 days fast for the
moral lapse of members of the Phoenix Settlement.
1914 January 2, Rev. C.F. Andrews and W.W. Pearson arrive in
Durban (sent by G.K. Gokhale to negotiate with the South African
government; Andrews met Gandhi here for the first time).
36
Satyagraha campaign suspended pending agreement between
Gandhi, Andrews and Gen. Smuts.
1914 January 7, Andrews and Gandhi leave for Pretoria to meet
Smuts.
1914 January 21, Gandhi received written statement from Pretoria
Muslims and Hindus repudiating allegation of split on the issue of
passive resistance.
1914 January 21, Gandhi met Benjamin Robertson; wrote to
Ministry of Interior that passive resistance would not be revived
or the Commissions work hampered in any wise.
1914 January 22, Andrews facilitated and oversaw the provisional
settlement between Gandhi and Smuts; the government accepted
principle of consultation with Indians. Gandhi left Pretoria for
Phoenix; passive resistance suspended.
1914 January 30, Gandhi, Andrews jointly cabled Gokhale that NIC
meeting of January 28 had been engineered and was of
no significance. (NIC had broken away from Gandhi on the issue of
futility of passive resistance and Gandhi started NIA in reaction).
1914 February 27, Gandhi wrote to Gokhale from Cape Town
expressing desire to return to India in case of settlement, observe
compact of silence for a year and learn at Gokhales feet.
1914 March 7, Solomon Commission report submitted to
government.
1914 June 26, after a protracted passive resistance campaign led by
Gandhi, the Indian Relief Act was passed following the report of the
Solomon Commission. The Act abolished the 3 poll tax, recognized
marriages contracted in terms of traditional Indian (Muslim or Hindu)
rites, and facilitated the entry into the Union of the wives of Indians
already domiciled locally. However, Indians remained disenfranchised
and were still not allowed to own property in the two former Boer
Republics (Transvaal, Orange Free State), or to live in the Orange
Free State. Further, restrictions on Indian trading remained in force.
In short, the South African government did only the minimum
necessary to boost Gandhis image as the non-violent deliverer of the
Indian people. As Smuts himself stated in the Senate on March 11,
1914, Gandhi was allowed to function in South Africa as he did
because he never advocated methods of violence to overthrow the
government.
1914 July 18, sailed for England en route to India on SS Kinfauns
Castle.
31

1914 August 8, Gandhi given reception at Hotel Cecil, London, by
English and Indian friends; Jinnah, Lala Lajpat Rai, Sarojini Naidu
among those present.
1914 August 13, Circular signed by Gandhi, Kasturba, Sarojini
Naidu affirming resolve to tender unconditional service to Empire,
issued for signature by supporters.

31
This obviously circuitous route is perplexing and has never been explained.
37
We, the undersigned have, after mature
deliberation, decided for the sake of the
Motherland and the Empire to place our services
unconditionally, during this crisis, at the
disposal of the Authorities. We advisedly use
the word unconditionally as we believe that, at
a moment like this, no service that can be
assigned to us can be considered to be beneath
our dignity or inconsistent with our self-respect.

This secretive pledge of unconditional support was sent round in
connection with and preceded the Indian offer to assist the British
Government during the War. It was signed by Gandhi, Kasturba, Sarojini
Naidu and fifty others.
32
The first inkling of such an assurance by Gandhi
to the Imperial British government which significantly was not signed
by Lajpat Rai and Jinnah was given in the Indian Opinion only two
months later, in September. The phrase Indian offer to assist the British
government is intriguing, as is the fact that Kasturba too signed the
secret affirmation of unconditional support. In what capacity did
Kasturba sign, and on whose behalf did Gandhi, Kasturba, Sarojini Naidu
and fifty others sign? Who or what constituted the Indian in Indian
offer Gandhi? The Indian National Congress? Or the British Indian
government? This pledge of loyalty and support, however, set the stage
for Gandhis return to India.

3.9 Preparing the Indian soil
Gandhis imprisonment during the last satyagraha campaign, Lord
Hardinges speech sympathizing with satyagraha in South Africa,
Gandhis subsequent unconditional release followed by the Gandhi-Smuts
agreement under the aegis of the Solomon Commission which paved the
way for Gandhis triumphal return to India, must be viewed in the light of
the growing disenchantment of the South African Indian community with
satyagraha and passive resistance. Satyagraha did not improve their
living or work conditions in any lasting or tangible form, resulting in the
split of the Natal Indian Congress. The disenchantment with Gandhi was
due not just to satyagrahas inability to deliver desired results, but more
pertinently, because Gandhi was perceived as an Empire loyalist.

Circumstances suggest that the British Empire synchronized with the
South African regime to gently nudge and manipulate Gandhis
Satyagraha in the direction and time of its choice, with a view to
projecting satyagraha as the most effective tool to persuade the Empire
to treat its slaves more humanely. A clinical analysis of the time-line of
Gandhis political career in South Africa reveals that Satyagraha gave the
Indian community there nothing more than what the Transvaal
government was willing to bestow for its own reasons. In 1914, Gandhi

32
A Confidential Circular, Indian Opinion, 16-9-1914, CWMG Vol. 14, page 284.
38
received small concessions in the laws and two war medals, the Zulu War
Medal and the Boer War Medal, for his services to the British Empire.

But this was still in the future. Gandhi did not know this in 1909 when he
embarked on his eventually fruitless lobbying mission to London, though
he was personally satisfied with the visit. One important factor which
may have contributed to the failure of Gandhis deputation in 1909 may
have been Gen. Smuts simultaneous presence in London.

Still, enthused by his leadership role in South Africa, the response from
high British officials in London, and probably encouraged by Gokhales
patronage, Gandhi during his four month stay in London began to toy
with the idea of returning to India to play a decisive role in the Indian
National Congress. It was to signal this intention of intervening in Indian
politics to supplant the Nationalists in the hearts of ordinary Indians that
Gandhi wrote Indian Home Rule (later re-named Hind Swaraj) in 1909.
Hind Swaraj is a political manifesto; the language is mild and the velvet
gloves are on in the early chapters when first references are made to the
Nationalists. As the monogram progresses, however, Gandhi makes his
anger against Aurobindo and Savarkar, and his own intentions,
abundantly clear.

From the moment the INC split in December 1907 into Nationalists and
Moderates, the British began ruthless persecution of the Nationalists, a
policy which lasted up to 1910. Almost all Nationalist leaders, Tilak,
Aurobindo, and Lajpat Rai, were either imprisoned or deported and the
movement thrown into complete disarray. Gandhi would certainly have
known at the time of writing Hind Swaraj that most leaders of the
Nationalist segment had been imprisoned or deported, and in 1910,
when he translated the Hind Swaraj in English, that Savarkar had been
dispatched to the Andamans. He would be aware that the colonial power
had used the most brutal and repressive measures to weaken the leaders
and break the nationalist movement and spirit of ordinary Indians who
saw in Aurobindo, Tilak, and Lajpat Rai their only hope for liberation from
colonial oppression. In this context, Gandhis views are illustrative of his
positioning:
Some call the moderates the timid party, and
the extremists the bold party. All interpret the
two words according to their preconceptions.
This much is certain that there has arisen an
enmity between the two. The one distrusts the
other, and imputes motives. At the time of the
Surat Congress, there was almost a fight. I
think that this division is not a good thing for
the country, but I think also that such divisions
will not last long. I t all depends upon the
39
leaders how long they will last.
33
(emphasis
added)

Gandhi's use of the word 'Extremist' instead of 'Nationalist' is instructive.
He had to de-legitimize them and render their advocacy of armed
resistance abhorrent to Indian minds if he had to supplant them as INC
leader. Notwithstanding his pious declarations of adherence to satya,
Gandhi would have faced difficulty in publicly condemning Savarkar for
advocating use of force because in 1910 public opinion was firmly with
the Nationalists. He could vent his hostility to Aurobindo and Savarkar
only through his writings in Indian Opinion (the heightened atmosphere
in the country at that time would not permit public speech of this kind).
The British Indian government, in the wake of its brutal repression of
Aurobindo, Tilak and Savarkar, had also banned Gandhis Hind Swaraj
and Tolstoys Letter to a Hindoo. This gave Gandhi the perfect
opportunity to label the Nationalists as terrorists:
India is being severely tested now. For the
repressive laws that have been passed and the
suppression of writings, the primary
responsibility lies with the terrorists but the
matter does not rest there. Indiscriminate
suppression of newspapers by the Government
will not ensure peace.
34


In Hind Swaraj, however, Gandhi was forced to fudge the issue by
equating Aurobindo and Savarkars advocacy of armed resistance against
colonialism as a contest with European civilization! We must marvel at
the psychological warfare unleashed by Gandhi, the clever intellectual
tight-rope he walked; he needed ordinary Indians to follow him and
accept his leadership. He did so with well-planned equivocation and
implied the following in his speech and writings -

British rule in India is excellent in theory.
This assertion helped Gandhi avoid antagonizing the British and assured
them of his loyalty. British rule was imperfect not because the British
were bad humans or because the Empire was ignoble, but because
British rule in India had moved away from its great Christian roots, away
from Christs teachings, and become an ugly thing called modern
civilization. This charming strategy got several missionaries and devout
Christian intellectuals to distance themselves from the Raj and come to
his side and boost his saintly image Joseph Doke in South Africa,
Charlie Andrews, Margaret Slade (Mirabehn), Agatha Harrison and
Horace Alexander in India. Charlie Andrews made the critical decision in
early August 1914 to leave the Order on conscientious grounds.


33
HS, Ch. II, The Partition of Bengal, pp 22-23.
34
Never Mind, Indian Opinion, 9-4-1910, CWMG, Vol. 10, page 484.
40
Modern civilization, manifesting as dependence on machinery
and driven by competition, is evil.
This intellectual acrobatic exercise helped Gandhi point to British rule as
evil, and in the same breath claim the British were not evil!

The British have not enslaved us; we have enslaved ourselves
because of our dependence on machinery.
35

This was a repetition of Tolstoys opinion on Indias enslavement and
essentially reduced British colonialism to a puerile exercise of enslaving
Indians with gadgets, pointedly ignoring colonialisms greed for the
territory of non-Christian peoples and the Churchs greed for new
converts to the faith:
A commercial company enslaved a nation
comprising 200 million. Tell this to a man free
from superstition and he will fail to grasp what
these words mean. What does it mean that
thirty thousand people, not athletes but rather
weak and ill-looking have enslaved 200 million
of vigorous, clever, strong, freedom-loving
people? Do not the figures make it clear that
not the English but the Indians have enslaved
themselves?
36


Both Tolstoy and Gandhi pointedly ignored the vastly superior weapons
of warfare in the possession of the colonial powers. With advanced arms
and weapons neither their numbers nor their physical weakness was of
any consequence, not to mention their stubborn insistence under these
terribly unequal circumstances, on passive resistance as the sole weapon
to confront the British government!

British rule in India, driven and inspired by modern European
civilization, rests on violence; armed resistance by Indians using the
same weapons of warfare like guns and explosives is as evil as
modern civilization.
Armed resistance is therefore the same as European
civilization.
This is an unparalleled example of fallacious logic. It was Gandhis
simplistic proposition that armed resistance or use of force was not a
Hindu or Indian act, but was an expression of modern or European
civilization.
37


35
Machinery has begun to desolate Europe. Ruination is now knocking at the Indian gates.
Machinery is the chief symbol of modern civilisation: it represents a great sin. HS, Chapter
XIX Machinery, page 107.
36
HS, Preface to Gandhis Edition of the English Translation of Leo Tolstoys Letter to a
Hindoo, page 137.
37
Possibly Gandhi was so overawed by the modern weaponry (guns, cannon) of the British
that he overlooked the presence of puissant warriors in Hindu tradition, from Srirama and
41

Later in his Indian career, Gandhi exhibited on several occasions the
same despotic streak bordering on cruelty and intolerance towards
detractors and dissenters within and without the INC his secretary
Pyarelal, Sardar Patel, and Subhash Bose, each of whom had good
reasons to fault Gandhi, distanced themselves from him; their own
greatness and strength of mind protected them from Gandhis
destructive streak. But the women in Gandhis ashram Amtussalam,
Kanchan Shah, Susheela Nayyar and his grand-niece Manu to name a
few, were not so lucky and Gandhis cruelty bordering on sadism left
them mentally shattered and physically destroyed. Gandhi was paternally
benign towards those who obeyed him without demur and were slavishly
servile; the only person for whom he exhibited one-sided indulgence was
Nehru, who was not only physically attractive and charming but had the
imperious ways of an Englishman. Nehru knew well enough the great
advantages of staying on the right side of Gandhi and his shrewdness
paid off when Gandhi anointed him his political heir a move that
propelled Gandhis political ideology on an anti-Hindu trajectory after
independence.

Little is known of Kasturbas experience of living with a man so coercive
in his methods and given to grim experiments in brahmacharya. Gandhi
took a vow of continence without the preparation and pre-conditioning of
mind and body mandated by Hindu dharmic tradition; stopped sleeping
with his wife because of this vow; yet was unsure even in his old age
that he had perfected his brahmacharya. Even in Kasturbas lifetime and
after her death, Gandhi continued with these experiments until his own
death in 1948.

After a great deal of experience, it seems to me that
those who want to become passive resisters for the
service of the country have to observe perfect chastity,
adopt poverty, follow truth, and cultivate fearlessness.

Chastity is one of the greatest disciplines without
which the mind cannot attain requisite firmness. A man
who is unchaste loses stamina, becomes emasculated
and cowardly. He whose mind is given over to animal
passions is not capable of any great effort. This can be
proved by innumerable instances. What then is a
married person to do is the question that arises
naturally; and yet it need not. When a husband and
wife gratify the passions, it is no less an animal
indulgence on that account. Such an indulgence,
except for perpetuating the race, is strictly prohibited.

Srikrishna to Chhatrapati Shivaji, Rana Pratap, Rani J hansi, Guru Gobind Singh, Aurobindo,
Savarkar, Bhagat Singh, Subhash Bose.
42
But a passive resister has to avoid even that very
limited indulgence because he can have no desire for
progeny. A married man therefore can observe perfect
chastity. The subject is not capable of being treated at
greater length. Several questions arise: How is one to
carry ones wife with one? What are her rights, and
other such questions? Yet those who wish to take part
in a great work are bound to solve these puzzles.
38


Gandhis unconventional attempts to test if he had overcome these
animal passions and animal indulgence, suggest he did not solve these
puzzles. Given his unchallenged iconic status in Indian public discourse,
we shall never know if Kasturba concurred with these experiments. A
woman of great dignity, Kasturba, like most women of her generation,
would have drawn a veil over such serious embarrassments and personal
trauma and therefore maintained stoic silence all her life. Yet with nearly
a century between the events, it is imperative that Indian academia scale
the walls of complicit silence and engage in an honest evaluation of
Gandhis life and work.

Gandhi left South Africa forever in July 1914, after Gen. Smuts allegedly
succumbed to the pressure of his unrelenting Satyagraha and passed
the Indian Relief Act in June 1914. These concessions to the Indian
community did not shake even a brick in the foundation or
superstructure of the Apartheid regime, and more repressive laws were
introduced in subsequent years and decades. Yet Gandhi regarded this as
adequate victory for him personally and his Satyagraha. With a sense of
mission accomplished, he decided to set off for India via London, for a
more ambitious political assignment.

*****
Appendix

I Legalised Apartheid
Natal became a British Crown Colony ruled from the Cape. The Natal
Charter of 1856 was proclaimed and Natal received representative self-
government. Most councillors in the legislature were elected, but the
British Government appointed the executive. The right to vote was based
on property qualification.

1859: Natal Coolie Law, Law 14 of 1859
After protracted negotiations between the Natal government and the
Secretary of State for the Colonies, the Natal Coolie Law, No.14 of 1859,
was passed making it possible for the Natal colony to introduce the
immigration of Indians as indentured labour with the option to return to

38
HS, Chapter XVII, Passive Resistance, page 97

43
India after a five-year period. At the end of five years the labourers had
the option of renewing their indenture contract for another five-year
term, which entitled them to the gift of Crown land and full citizenship
rights.

Needless to say, as more and more Indians began to come to Natal, this
law was amended to the disadvantage of all future indentured labour
from India and other Asian countries. This proviso was withdrawn with
the proclamation of Act No 25 of 1891 intended to discourage the
settlement of Indians in the province.

1872: The Coolie Consolidation Amendment Act, Law No. 12 of 1872
made provision for a Protector of Indian Immigrants, abolishing flogging
for breaches of the masters and Servants Act for improvement of medical
treatment for Indian immigrants.

1876: the Free State Republic (a Boer republic) passed legislation
allowing Indians to enter the Republic with the understanding that they
had no permanent right of residence.

1885: Law 3 of 1885
The first discriminatory legislation directed at Indians passed in the
Transvaal.
1. This law shall apply to the persons belonging to any of the native
races of Asia, including so-called Coolies, Arabs, Malays, and
Mohammedan subjects of the Turkish Empire.
2. With regard to the persons mentioned in Article one the following
provisions shall apply:-
(a) They cannot obtain the burgher right of the South African Republic
(Transvaal).
(b) They cannot be owners of fixed property in the Republic except only
in such streets, wards and locations as the Government for purposes of
sanitation shall assign to them to live in.
(c) They shall be inscribed in a Register, if they settled with the object of
trading.
(d) The government shall have the right for purposes of sanitation, to
assign to them certain streets, wards and locations to live in. This
provision does not apply to those who live with employers.

1888: The Registration of Servants Act, Law No. 2 of 1888 passed
in Natal, a British colony, classified Indians as members of an uncivil
race and forced Indians to register. Free Indians are forced to carry
passes or court arrest.

The South African Republic rejects a British Indian petition and places all
Asians in the same category as the native African people as labourers.

44
1890: The Orange Free State Act 29 is passed. This law ensured
against the influx of Asiatics and the removal of White criminals
entering the state from elsewhere

1891: The Statute law of the Orange Free State
The Statute Law of the Orange Free State prohibits an Arab, a
Chinaman, a Coolie or any other Asiatic or coloured person from carrying
on business or farming in the Orange Free State. All Indian businesses
are forced to close by 11 September and owners deported from the
Orange Free State without compensation.

1894: The Franchise Bill is introduced in Natal to disenfranchise
Indians. It is as response to this Bill that Gandhi founds the Natal Indian
Congress.

1895: The Indian Immigration Amendment Act, Law No. 17 of
1895
The colony of Natal imposes a 3 tax on ex-indentured Indians, who fail
to re-indenture or return to India after completion of their labour
contracts. The penalty is imprisonment or deportation. In 1900 it is
extended to children (boys, 16 years and over, girls, 12 years and over)
and becomes operational in 1901.

1896: The Franchise Act No 8 of 1896
This Act disenfranchised Indians. Africans were disenfranchised in 1865.
Only three Africans and 251 Indians ever acquired voting rights in Natal.

1897: The Immigration Restrictions Act
The Immigration Restriction Act (Natal) and subsequent amendments in
1900, 1903, and 1906, imposed an educational, health, age and means
test, against Indians other than indentured workers, seeking admission
to the country, or entry to the Transvaal and Cape. This act virtually
stops all further immigration of free Indians into the colony.

The Dealers Licenses Act No 18 Natal Licensing Officers are
empowered to issue or refuse licenses.

Law 3 of 1897 prohibits marriage of whites with persons of colour
within the SA Republic (Transvaal).

1899: The Regulations of Towns in the South African Republic.
The Regulations for Towns in the South African Republic (Transvaal)
states that Persons of colour prohibited from walking on the side-walks
(pavements) or stoeps serving as a side-walk of the streets of its towns
and coolie locations are established for Indians in the Transvaal.

45
1902: The Immigration Act is passed in the Cape Colony and made
future immigration of Indians to the Cape subject to an education and
literacy test.

1902: May 31, The Boer war ends with the signing of the Treaty of
Vereeniging. Transvaal and the Orange Free State become British
colonies. Indians, native Africans, Coloured and White refugees return to
the Transvaal.

1903: Peace Preservation Ordinance and Ordinance No. 5 of 1903
This Act regulated the re-entry of Indians who had left the Transvaal for
Natal, the Cape Colony and India when war broke out. It segregates
Asiatics into locations, refuses trading licenses except in Asiatic bazaars
and pre-war licenses of Asiatics become non-transferable.

The Transvaal Corporations Ordinance No 58 authorized local
authorities to proclaim, move, de-proclaim and manage townships for
non-whites. The residents cannot buy land and have to rent. They do
have the right to compensation if moved and are allowed to erect
buildings under strict regulations.

The Immorality Ordinance, Law 46 of 1903 is passed in the
Transvaal.

The Immigration Restriction Act passed in Natal; restricted
immigration of Indians to Natal.

Lord Milner, British High Commissioner and Governor of Cape Colony,
established the Asiatic Affairs Department to enforce the provisions of
Law 3 of 1885. In addition, the Department was charged with compiling
a dossier of all anti-Indian measures that prevailed in the Boer republics
prior to the Boer War, and these measures were subsequently applied
with a vengeance. Thus did the imperial British government in London
reward Gandhi and other stretcher-boys of the Boer War.

1905: The Immigration Restriction Act
The act enabled the government to control entry of Indians into
Transvaal through a special permit system.

1906: The Immigration Act in Cape Colony made all future
immigration of Indians to the Cape subject to literacy requirements.

The Transvaal Asiatic Law Amendment Ordinance 29 subjected all
Indians to compulsory registration and identification by means of finger
prints. Registration Certificates (Passes) to be carried at all times and
produced on request to a police officer under penalty of fine or
imprisonment.

46
1906 January 1, a poll tax of three British Pounds on Indians 18 years
and over is enforced in Natal.

1907: The Asiatic Law amendment Act
Colonial Secretary, General Smuts, introduces The Asiatic Law
Amendment Act, 2/1907 The Black Act is identical to Ordinance
29/1906. All male Asians to be registered and finger printed; to carry
certificate (pass) at all times, to be shown to police on demand. Act
2/1907 operative from 1 July 1907.

1907 March 19, General J C Smuts re-introduces the Asiatic Law
Amendment Ordinance 29 of 1906 which failed to gain assent in
December 1906 as the Transvaal Asiatic Registration Bill.

1907 March 22 The Transvaal Asiatic Registration Bill passed by
the Transvaal parliament. Transvaal Asiatic Registration Act is gazetted.
Royal assent is given in May.

Apartheid became institutionalized with the passing of several crippling
discriminatory laws. From 1895 to 1914, Gandhis satyagraha, petitions,
memorandums, fervent letters to Pietermaritzburg, London and India
and two deputation visits to London in 1906 and 1909 achieved little.
Apartheid would not be ended until 1990.
*****

II SENTENCE ON THE GREAT TILAK

The sentence passed on Mr. Tilak, the great patriot, is terrible. The few
days imprisonment which the Transvaal Indians suffer is as nothing
compared to transportation for six years. The sentence is not so much
surprising as terrible. At the same time it is nothing to be unhappy
about. It is not surprising that a Government we seek to defy should
inflict oppressive measures on us. Mr. Tilak is so great a man and scholar
that it would be impertinent, in this country, to write of his work. He
deserves to be adored for his work in the service of the motherland. His
simplicity is extraordinary; but the light of his scholarship has reached
even Europe. Yet we should not blindly follow the policies of those whom
we regard as great. It would be casting a reflection on Mr. Tilaks
greatness to argue that his writings had no bitterness in them or to offer
some such defence. Pungent, bitter and penetrating writing was his
objective. He aimed at inciting Indians against British rule. To attempt to
minimize this would be to detract from Mr. Tilaks greatness.

The rulers are justified, from their point of view, in taking action against
such a man. We would do the same in their place. If we look at the
matter thus, we realize that we need not feel bitter towards them. Mr.
Tilak, however, deserves our congratulations. He has, by his suffering,
attained undying fame and laid the foundations of Indias freedom. If the
47
people, instead of being overawed at the sentence passed on Mr. Tilak or
being intimidated by it, rejoice at it and keep up their courage, the
sentence will in the sequel prove to have been a blessing. What we need
to consider is whether Indians should accept the views of Mr. Tilak and
his party. We submit, after great deliberation, that Mr. Tilaks views
should be rejected. It will be harmful, even useless, to use force or
violence for uprooting that rule. Freedom gained through violence would
not endure. And the sufferings to which the people of Europe submit
would also become our lot then. As for the masses, they would merely
pass from one form of slavery to another. No one will gain this way and
almost everyone will losethat is what the result will be. We believe that
the easiest way to make British rule beneficent is to adopt the way of
satyagraha. If British rule becomes tyrannical, it will come to an end as
soon as the British Government attempts to resist satyagraha. If the
same workers who went on strike in protest against the sentence on Mr.
Tilak were to become satyagrahis, they would be able to get the
Government to agree to any reasonable demands. What is our duty in
this context? Though Mr. Tilak and other great Indians like him differ
from us, we should continue to hold them in the highest esteem. We
must emulate them in their capacity to suffer. Since they are great
patriots, we must consider no honour too great for them, and act in the
same spirit of patriotism. Their object is the same as ours, namely, to
serve the motherland and to work for its prosperity. Compared to what
they have been doing to secure that end, the course we have chosen is
not in the least difficult. But we are convinced that the outcome of our
exertions will be a thousand times better.
I ndian Opinion, 1-8-1908, CWMG Vol. 9, pp 28-29.
*****

III The Bambatha Uprising or Zulu Massacre
The Bambatha Uprising was a Zulu revolt against British rule and
taxation in Natal, South Africa, in 1906. The revolt was led by Bambatha
kaMancinza, leader of the Zondi clan of the Zulu people, who lived in the
Mpanza Valley: a district near Greytown, KwaZulu-Natal.

In the years following the Anglo-Boer War white settlers in Natal had
difficulty recruiting native African farm workers because of increased
competition from the gold mines of the Witwatersrand. The British
government introduced a 1 poll tax in addition to the existing hut tax to
encourage native African men to enter the labour market. Bambatha,
who ruled about 5,500 people living in about 1,100 households, was one
of the chiefs who resisted the introduction and collection of the hut tax
and the poll tax.

The government of Natal sent police officers to collect the tax from Zulus
who refused to pay the tax, and in February 1906 two white officers were
killed near Richmond, kwaZulu-Natal. In the resulting introduction of
martial law, Bambatha fled north to consult King Dinizulu, who gave tacit
48
support to Bambatha and invited him and his family to stay at the royal
homestead.

Bambatha returned to the Mpanza Valley to discover that the Natal
government had deposed him as chief. He gathered together a small
force of supporters and began launching a series of guerrilla attacks,
using the Nkandla forest as a base. Following a series of initial successes,
colonial troops under the command of Colonel Duncan McKenzie set out
on an expedition in late April 1906, culminating in a fierce battle in the
Mome Gorge.

Bambatha was killed and beheaded during the battle (many of his
supporters believed that he was still alive, and his wife refused to go into
mourning). Bambatha's main ally, the 95-year-old Zulu aristocrat Inkosi
Sigananda Shezi of the AmaCube clan (cousin and near-contemporary of
the Zulu King Shaka) was captured by the colonial troops and died a few
days later.

Nearly 14,000 Zulus were killed during the revolt while thousands were
imprisoned and/or flogged. King Dinizulu was arrested and sentenced to
four years imprisonment for treason.

*****

IV Aurobindo on apartheid in the Transvaal I ndians Abroad
India to hand. This mail laments the exclusion of Indians from the
representative system on which the new constitution in the Transvaal is
to be based and plaintively recalls the professions and promises of the
British Government at the time of the Boer war. The saintly simplicity of
India grows daily more and more wearisome to us. Everybody who knew
anything at all about politics understood at the time that those
professions were merely a diplomatic move and the promises made were
never meant to be carried out. We see no reason to lament what was
foreseen. What we do regret and blame is the spirit of Indians in the
Transvaal, who seek escape from the oppression they suffer under by
ignoble methods, in spirit to those practiced by the constitutionalists in
this country. The more the Transvaal Indians are kicked and insulted, the
more loyal they seem to become. After their splendid services in the
Transvaal war had been rewarded by the grossest ingratitude, they had
no business to offer their services again in the recent Natal rebellion. By
their act they associated themselves with the colonists in their
oppression of the natives of the country and have only themselves to
thank if they also are oppressed by the same narrow and arrogant
colonial spirit. Their eagerness to disassociate themselves from the
Africans is shown in Dr. Abdurrrahmans letter quoted by India. All such
methods are as useless as they are unworthy. So long as the Indian
nation at home does not build itself into a strong and self-governing
people, they can expect nothing from Englishmen in their colonies except
49
oppression and contumely. (Bande Mataram, August 20, 1906, page
132)

*****

V Excerpts from Letter to Lord Ampthill, London July 29, 1909
MY LORD,
I am extremely obliged to Your Lordship for the very great trouble you
are taking over the Indian cause in the Transvaal which you have made
your own. Immediately on reading your letter, I telegraphed saying that
nothing would be done without consultation with Your Lordship and that I
was writing this letter and sending the statement. I am enclosing
statement in proof form because, in anticipation of Your Lordships
approval, it was sent to the printers yesterday, but it will not be
published or submitted without consultation with Your Lordship.

It is to me a test of Your Lordships very great interest in our struggle as
also, may I say, of your high-mindedness. Will you excuse me for saying
that I know of no Indian, whether here, in South Africa or in India, who
had so steadily, even defiantly, set his face against seditionas I
understand it as I have. It is part of my faith not to have anything to
do with it, even at the risk of my life. Most people, that is most Indians
and Anglo-Indians, express their detestation of bomb throwing and
violence in words or in unreasonable action. The movement in the
Transvaal, with which I have identified myself is an eloquent and
standing protest in action against such methods. The test of passive
resistance is self-suffering and not infliction of suffering on others. We
have, therefore, not only never received a single farthing from the
party of sedition in India or else-where, but even if there was any offer,
we should, if we were true to our principles, decline to receive it. We
have hitherto made it a point not to approach the Indian public in India
for financial assistance. The accounts of the British Indian Association are
open to the world. A statement of income and expenditure is published
from time to time and is advertised in Indian Opinion. Mr. Doke, Mr.
Phillips, and other notable men who are working in the Transvaal for us,
know this fact most intimately. May I add, too, that the idea of passive
resistance originated in South Africa was independent of any movement
in India and that we have sometimes been bitterly assailed by some of
our Indian friends for pinning our faith to passive resistance pure and
simple?

I hope Your Lordship will pardon me for introducing so much of the
personal element, as also for the length of this letter, which was
unavoidable. If any further elucidation or information be necessary, you
can only add to the debt of gratitude to me by commanding me to
furnish the same. (CWMG Vol. 9, pp 447-49)


50
Excerpts from Letter to Lord Ampthill, August 4, 1909
MY LORD,
Your Lordships question was whether passive resistance was financed or
fomented from India. As to the fomenting, I did not go into details; I
very nearly did so and then refrained for fear of making my letter too
long and burdensome, but, as you have kindly invited me to express
myself more fully, I gladly avail myself of the opportunity. I am fully
aware of the allegation that we are acting in co-operation with the
Extremist Party in India. I however give Your Lordship the emphatic
assurance that the charge is totally without foundation. Indian passive
resistance in the Transvaal had its rise in that Colony and has been
continued absolutely independent of anything that is being said or done
in India; indeed, sometimes, even in defiance of what has been said or
written to the contrary in India or elsewhere. Our movement is
absolutely unconnected with any extremist movement in India. I do not
know the extremists personally.

.....and now Mr. Henry S.L. Polak is in Bombay, from the Transvaal, in
order to place the position before the Indian public. He has gone there
with definite instructions not to come into touch with the Extremist Party,
but to be guided largely by the Editor of The Times of India, Professor
Gokhale and the Aga Khan. It would be improper for me not to add that I
follow what is going on in India with the keenest interest and some of the
phases of the national movement with the gravest anxiety.

I believe, too, that the fullest expansion of national sentiment is quite
consistent with the stability of British rule in India and I further believe
that much of what we suffer in India is easy of remedy by effort from
within. I know that under the British constitution, British subjects, no
matter to what race they belong, have never got and never can get their
rights until they have performed their corresponding duties and until
they are willing to fight for them. The fight takes the form either of
physical violence, as in the case of the extremists in India, or of personal
suffering by the fighters, as in the case of our passive resisters in the
Transvaal. In my opinion, the first form of seeking redress is largely
barbarous and, in any case, inconsistent with the genius of the people of
India, not because they are physically too weak to take that course, but
because their training has adapted them to the latter mode, and I am
free to confess that passive resistance in the Transvaal is a practical
demonstration to the party of violence in India that they are entirely on
the wrong track and that, so long as they pin their faith to violence for
obtaining relief of any kind whatsoever, so long are they beating the air.

I am quite aware that this exposition of my own view may not be of any
use to Your Lordship and possibly is devoid of any interest whatsoever.
The only reason why I mention it is to guard myself against being
misunderstood. I am most anxious not to withhold anything at all from
Your Lordship and I am anxious also to retain, in any work that I
51
undertake, the support of one who so loves the Empire and the country
of my birth as yourself. With many thanks for the deep interest you are
taking in our troubles and with apologies for the unavoidable length of
this letter. (CWMG Vol. 9, pp 457-59)
*****


VI The Coronation
Our countrymen through out South Africa sent their loyal greeting to
their Majesties on the Coronation Day. It may seem somewhat
anomalous to a stranger why and how British Indians of South Africa
should tender their loyalty to the Throne or rejoice over the crowning of
Sovereigns in whose dominions they do not even enjoy the ordinary civil
rights of orderly men. The anomaly would however, disappear, if the
stranger were to understand the British constitution. British Sovereigns
represent, in theory, purity and equality of justice. The ideal of King
George is to treat his subjects with equality. His happiness depends upon
that of his subjects. British statesmen make an honest attempt to realize
the ideals. That they often fail miserably in doing so is too true but
irrelevant to the issue before us. The British monarchy is limited and
rightly so under the existing circumstances. Those then who are content
to remain under the British flag may, ought to, without doing any
violence to their conscience, tender their loyalty to the Sovereign for the
time being of these mighty dominions, although, like us, they may be
labouring under severe disabilities. In tendering our loyalty, we but show
our devotion to the ideals just referred to; our loyalty is an earnest of
our desire to realize them.

The genius of the British constitution requires that every subject of the
Crown should be as free as any other, and, if he is not, it is his duty to
demand and fight for his freedom so long as he does so without injuring
anyone else. There is no room for helotry and slavery in this constitution,
though both exist abundantly. Largely it is the fault of the helots and the
slaves themselves. The British constitution provides a happy means of
freedom but it must be confessed that it is not easy of adoption. There is
no royal road to freedom. British people themselves have reached what
they mistake for freedom through much travail and suffering. Yet they
are strangers to real freedomthe freedom of self. They cannot and do
not blame the constitution for the disability. Nor can we because we have
ours. And we have not even bled for our freedom, real or so called. If,
however, we understand the spirit of the British constitution, though we
suffer from disabilities in this sub-continent and though we are far from
happy in the sacred land of our birth, we are bound heartily to shout
LONG LIVE THE KING !




52
I ndian Opinion, 24-6-1911, CWMG Vol. 11, pp 451-52

Our view of the matter is that, if those who argue in this manner feel
that they cannot be loyal, they should declare their want of loyalty and
outlaw themselves. Otherwise they will lay themselves open to the
charge of insincerity and cowardice. We believe, however, that we can
remain loyal to His Majesty despite our untold sufferings. Our sufferings
here are to be blamed on the local authorities, and more so on ourselves.
If we become truthful [that is] if we rebel against ourselves (against the
Satanic within us), thus exorcizing the devil, and ourselves manage our
affairs instead, we will not have to put up with any hardship whatever
and shall be able to declare, Oh, how happy we are under the reign of
King George! To the extent that we are unable to exorcize the Satan in
us, we shall have to take to entreating the local authorities, and we
might thereby slake our burning woes. If we do not do either, how is
King George to blame? Someone may answer saying that everything is
done in the name of King George, and therefore the credit for the good
things and blame for the wrong things should both be his. What we have
said above disposes of that argument. The British monarchy is not free,
but is confined within limits. These checks are implicit in that British
system of monarchy. If the King oversteps the limits, he will be
dethroned. Moreover, the British Constitution aims at securing equality of
rights and equality before the law for every subject. Those who do not
enjoy such equality are free to fight for it, the only restriction being that
the mode of agitation shall not harm others. Not only is every British
subject free to fight in this way, but it is his duty to do so. It is a duty to
express ones loyalty to such a constitution and to its head, the King
Emperor, for that will only be an expression of loyalty to ones own
manhood. The loyalty of a slave is no loyalty. He only serves. If a slave
can be loyal, that must be due to coercion. The loyalty of a free man is
willed. It may be urged against this reasoning that it would justify
submission even to a wicked king or a vicious constitution; the argument
then is not quite proper. For instance, we could not, as free men, be
loyal to the pre-War Boer constitution and to its head, President Kruger,
for the constitution itself laid down that there shall be no equality
between Europeans and Coloureds in the governance of the country or in
ecclesiastical affairs. We cannot fight such a constitution and be loyal to
it at the same time. In a situation like that we would have to defy not
only the head but the basis of his authority as well. If we refused to
fight, we would cease to be men and be thought brutes. If the British
Constitution were to change and lay down that there would be no
equality, not even in theory, as between whites and Coloureds, we could
no longer owe allegiance to such a constitution and would have to
oppose it. Even in such a contingency, however, we could remain loyal to
the King within limits; such is the virtue of the British system. It is not
here necessary to explore these limits for the question does not arise.

53
It must be remembered that the British people won what they consider
their freedom after they had let rivers of blood flow. Real freedom,
however, even they have yet to win. We, on the other hand, have shed
no blood, endured nothing, for the sake of freedom, real or imaginary.
The Transvaal satyagrahis alone gave evidence of having suffered in
some measure in the course of their great campaign. But their suffering
was a drop in the ocean. Only when we come forward to suffer as
muchand infinitely moreshall we succeed in winning freedom for
ourselves. The British Constitution permits one to seek this freedom. The
British Emperor must wish that all his subjects get such freedom; such is
the British way. And there are Englishmen who sincerely strive to act on
these principles according to their own lights. We can, therefore, and
ought to, remain loyal to the British Emperor, our grievances
notwithstanding.
[From Gujarati]
I ndian Opinion, 24-6-1911, CWMG Vol. 11, pp 452-54

*****

VII Dhingra Case
Mr. Madanlal Dhingras case came up for hearing today (the 23rd). We
were not permitted not be present in the court. Since Mr. Dhingra did not
put up any defence, the case did not take much time. He only stated that
he had done the deed for the good of his country, and that he did not
regard it as a crime. The presiding judge sentenced him to death. I have
already given my views about this assassination. Mr. Dhingras
statement, according to me, argues mere childishness or mental
derangement. Those who incited him to this act will be called to account
in Gods court, and are also guilty in the eyes of the world.

THE SHADOW OF THE DHINGRA CASE
Mr. Dhingras case has led to Government action against The Indian
Sociologist. The journal had published a categorical statement that
homicide for the good of ones country was no murder. The printer, poor
man, has been sentenced to four months imprisonment for printing such
a violent article. The man who has been sentenced is a poor, innocent
Englishman, who was entirely ignorant [of what he was printing]. The
authors* are in Paris, and hence the Government is unable to get at
them. Such acts will not advance the progress of the nation. So long as
the people do not throw up men who will be prepared to invite the
utmost suffering on themselves, India will never prosper.

*Allusion to Savarkar. Gandhi was baying for Savarkars blood.

I ndian Opinion, 21-8-1909, CWMG Vol. 9, pp 436-37.

*****
Chapter 4

Gandhian Swaraj diminishing the Kshatriya

4.1 The freedom movement that never was
This work attempts to trace the origins and the trajectory of
Indian polity over the last 130 years, culminating in the de-
Hinduization of the polity and political disempowering of the
Hindus. Gandhi stepped into a vacuum created by Aurobindos
abdication of political responsibility, which he signaled through the
much-touted Uttarapara speech, to meander into a spiritual
domain but did not add substantively to the nations religious
heritage. As an anti-colonial activist and articulate leader with
extraordinary vision of the nation and its nationhood, rooted in
the civilizations religious and spiritual traditions, Aurobindo was
unparalleled and has few equals even today. He was the
exemplary rajarishi and had he stayed the course and remained in
the political battlefield, pitching his war camp in the French colony
of Pondicherry, the journey to independence may well have
culminated in Hindu resurgence and the idea of Pakistan could
have been aborted at conception.
1


The end of colonial rule in 1947, while it ceded state power to the
Hindus who then comprised 87.22% of the population did not
however put in place a self-conscious Hindu state. Contrary to the
conventions of world history, India alone after a decisive end of
Muslim and White Christian rule in 1947, failed to establish a state
reflecting the religion, culture and civilisational ethos of its
majority populace. This was also the religion and culture of the
soil, adhered to by the native populace, unlike the situation in the
North America, Australia, New Zealand and Islamic countries,
where all traces of pre-Islamic and pre-Christian faiths have been
wiped out. Wherever pre-Christian and pre-Islamic faiths and
people have managed to survive, their numbers are puny like the
Native Americans in North and South America, the Maoris of New
Zealand or the Aborigines of Australia, and pose no threat to the
conquering religion and/or race, as their numbers are too
insignificant to dislodge their tormentors.

In India alone, post-1947 a polity and state emerged, powered by
what came to be called Nehruvian secularism, actively hostile to

1
Sadly, Aurobindos only tangible legacy is a small commune in Pondicherry,
peopled mostly by foreign nationals disenchanted with Christianity and western
civilization and engaged in organic farming and other cottage/village industry,
attracted by the legend of his French companion, Mirra Alfassa.

the majority populace, a state which effectively de-Hinduized all
public spaces, de-Hinduized the content and character of the
polity, and politically disempowered the Hindus. Nehruvian
Secularism owed its existence to Gandhi and Nehru; the latter
was Gandhis endowment to the fledgling nation-state. Nehru was
Gandhis political continuum, just as Gandhis career in India was
a continuum of his calling in South Africa; there was no difference
in intent or objective, hence no different in character. Just as
Gandhi was positioned to take over from Gokhale, Nehru was
positioned to succeed Gandhi. A.O. Hume, Gokhale, Gandhi,
Nehru,
2
was the natural lineage of the INC of colonial intent.
Others who came before, after, or in between, including
Aurobindo, Bose, Rajaji, Patel (even Indira Gandhi) were, if they
showed signs of veering the INC away from the chosen path,
either sidelined or summarily removed.

Keeping in mind that Gandhi was maneuvered into a commanding
position within the INC, and considering Indian polity insists he
fathered this nation, we must perforce look at the path traveled
by the INC until and after the advent of Gandhi, its goals,
methods and final success or failure. Our objective is to see if
Gandhis INC, Gandhi himself, and his legacy have any bearing on
Hindu political disempowerment.

Our study of Gandhis political career in South Africa
demonstrated that his Satyagraha did not yield anything the
Empire was not willing to concede. It established tangentially that
Gandhis encounter with the British Empire in South Africa was
not intended to bring the Empire down by ending Apartheid
colonial rule in South Africa, but merely to persuade the British
government to look favourably upon the migrant Indian
community there and enhance their social and political status
above that of native Africans, through amendment or repeal of
some discriminatory laws. We hope to establish that when Gandhi
returned to India, his political career was consistent with his
sojourn in South Africa, with no difference in objectives, and with
disastrous consequences for Hindus and their motherland. Gandhi
rendered Hindus politically impotent and fathered modern Indias
politics of minority-ism. It is our contention that:

The so-called freedom movement was never a freedom
movement.
Until 1942, the INC under Gandhis leadership and under
his explicit injunction, never contemplated ending colonial
rule.

2
And now Sonia Gandhi.
The call for swaraj at the 1920 Nagpur Congress and for
purna swaraj at the 1928 Lahore Congress was a mockery
of the Tilak/Aurobindo war-cry that galvanized the entire
nation in the two decades between 1890-1910 on one
hand, and on the other hand deceived ordinary Indians
about the content and meaning of Gandhian swaraj which
was never intended to be complete political independence
entailing the exit of the Empire.
It was only in 1942 when world events weakened the
Empire and made continued occupation of India
increasingly untenable that the INC issued the utterly
redundant notice to Quit India.
When the Empire finally decided to quit, it did so only on
its terms with an ascendant Islam vivisecting the Hindu
nation, with Nehru firmly positioned to inherit the mantle
of leadership from Gandhi, with Jammu & Kashmir twisted
into a permanent thorn in the nations flesh by Nehru and
Mountbatten, with Hindus decisively disempowered
politically, and the basis of nationhood of the new nation-
state floundering in rampant confusion.
But the most disgraceful situation was that on 15 August
1947, when India allegedly became independent to the
emotive vacuity of Nehrus tryst with freedom at
midnight, the nation was actually a Dominion of the British
Empire. What we achieved on 15 August was self-rule
within the Empire because Nehru had consented to the
King of England to remain Head of State for three more
years, until January 1950, while falsely celebrating 15
August 1947 as official Independence Day. Complete
political independence was thus still in the future, though
the groves of Nehruvian academia continued to perpetuate
a falsehood.

4.2 The significant interim between Gandhi in South Africa
and Gandhi in India
Gen. Smuts saw off the saint Gandhi in July 1914 from South
Africa, but the latter arrived in India only in January 1915, after a
six-month stopover in London, a contrary route that deserves
closer scrutiny. One of the first things Gandhi did in London, in a
remarkable replay of his years in South Africa, was to actively
campaign for Indians to be conscripted into the army to fight for
the Empire in World War I. Nearly 130,000 Indians enlisted and
were posted in France; over 70,000 died in a war in which Indians
had no stake. Delhis India Gate was erected as a memorial to the
Indians killed in the war; but Gandhi received his third medal, the
Kaiser-e-Hind medal,
3
from the Empire for his recruitment drive.
Much later, in 1939, Gandhi would be interviewed by the Parsi
journal Kaiser-e-Hind, thus raising intriguing questions about the
medal itself.

The six month sojourn in London was significant for two reasons:
Gandhi received a complete image make-over and his signature
on the Confidential Circular (Chapter 3) as mentioned, affirming
unconditional support for the Empire put the British Indian
government in a benevolent mood, conducive for his return. It
must be borne in mind that the leadership of the INC, and the
British government unknown to the INC, had both, independent of
each other, already planned by 1909-1910 that Gandhi would
return to India to wean the INC and the people of India away
from ideas of political independence or armed resistance and
steer them towards Home Rule or Dominion Status. Either of
these stratagems would keep India within the Empire with a
pretext of self-governance. Gokhale understood well that Tilak
and Aurobindos call for Swadeshi and Swaraj resounded in the
hearts and minds of ordinary Indians, who wanted political
independence and the end of British rule, even if it meant armed
resistance and use of force. Gokhale and other Moderates and
empire loyalists knew that even though Aurobindo beat the
retreat with his Uttarapara speech, efforts were still underway by
elements in the INC to get him back into the Congress and lead it
from the front. Gokhale understood that if Gandhi had to supplant
Tilak and Aurobindo as leader, he would have to symbolize some
aspect of swadeshi and convince the ordinary people that he was
one of them. Gandhi renounced western garments and attired in
dhoti, kurta and pagdi, arrived in India in January 1915 to begin
the Indian phase of his political career. Gandhis version of
swadeshi gave an esoteric, metaphysical and completely
impossible twist to swaraj and effectively subverted the freedom
movement. Whereas Aurobindo and Tilak invoked the kshatriya in
society by calling upon the people to realize their strength,
Gandhi consistently pointed to the weakness and helplessness of
dumb millions and diminished the kshatriya.

4.3 Tilak-Aurobindo swaraj versus Gandhi swaraj
The INC under the leadership of the empire loyalists adhered to
its original intent a political vehicle for the English-educated
Indian to make the British government responsive, however
minimally to Indian concerns. This could be done only through

3
Kaiser-e-Hind was one of the appellations for the King or Queen of Britain; its
English equivalent was King-Emperor or Queen-Empress of India
prayers and petitions and Aurobindo bluntly dismissed the
Congress policy of mendicancy
The talk of this Colonial self-government or self-
government within the Empire at a time they are
going to have an Imperial Conference of the
Colonial Prime Ministers and have condescended to
admit a representative of India to the same, may
very well entrap the unwary, especially when it
comes from a personage who is said to have
explained to the Secretary of State all that India
needs in a five-minute interview. But the pretension
of the frog to rank as a quadruped of the elephant
class with the mere expression of a pious wish
should receive a heavy shock on learning from
Reuter that either Mr. Morley or his nominee will
represent India at the coming Colonial Conference.
The spurious politics that has so long lived only on
the delusion of the people has very nearly been
found out and thus elaborate preparations are
going on to give it a fresh lease of life. But when
the gods want to destroy a thing no human efforts
can avail. Mendicancy is no longer consistent with
the stand-up position that Indians have taken up.
The imposing deal of self-government within the
Empire with which begging politics has been making
its last attempt to catch the fancy of the people will
hardly survive such disenchanting strokes as the
representation of India on the Colonial Conference
by the Secretary of State himself or his own
nominee.

If India is to be India, if her civilization is to retain a
distinctive stamp and extend its spiritual conquests
for the benefit of the world at large, it must be
propped up with the strength of her own people.
The patriotism that wishes the country to lose itself
within an Empire which justifies its name by its
conquest the colonies being no portion of the
Empire in its strict sense is also madness without
method. But to talk of absolute independence
and autonomy though this be madness, yet
there is method in it.
4
(Emphasis added)

Tilaks battle-cry, Swaraj is my birthright and I shall have it,
unambiguously implied political independence; it was a call to

4
Yet there is method in it, Bande Mataram, February 25, 1907, page 205-206
galvanize Indians to expel the Empire from the land. When Tilak
and Aurobindo demanded swaraj, they told the Empire to quit
India or face determined Indians who would throw them out.
When Tilak and Aurobindo advocated swadeshi, they meant total
and complete boycott of everything British; their swadeshi meant
boycotting British goods, rejecting British schools in favour of
national education and boycotting the British legal system; in
effect, their swaraj and swadeshi meant returning traditional
autonomy to the villages and to all traditional social institutions,
and regaining control of both the polity and the economy.
5
In
contrast, Gandhis swaraj was vague and esoteric, wandering
confusedly in the realms of Christian metaphysics.

Tilak and Aurobindo sought to make the Indian National Congress
the vehicle for Indias total independence - economic, cultural and
political, and not serve as an instrument of colonial intent. Tilak
and Aurobindo realized the debilitating effect of English education,
and recognized that the loss of political autonomy had led the
educated elite in our village and urban communities into inertia
(tamas) and despair. As Aurobindo put it, It is high time we
abandoned the fat and comfortable selfish middle-class training
we give to our youth and make a nearer approach to the physical
and moral education of our old kshatriyas or the Japanese
Samurai.
6
Both leaders jointly sounded the bugle of swaraj and
swadeshi, the battle-cry for total national resurgence. Tilak used
Kesari and Mahratta, and Aurobindo used Indu Prakash,
Bande Mataram, Karmayogin and Yugantar to force realization
upon our intellectuals about the state of society and nation, and
simultaneously to put the fire of rebellion back into Indian blood,
to kindle a flaming determination to throw off the morass of
tamas and fight back, and if need be, even to use force to end
colonial rule. Naturally, colonial newspapers of the day, professing
the religion of love accused them of fanning hatred; but
Aurobindo placed even hatred of colonial rule and colonialists in
traditional Hindu perspective -
If hatred is demoralising, it is also stimulating. The
web of life has been made a mingled strain of good
and evil and God works his ends through evil as
well as through the good. Let us discharge our
minds of hate, but let us not deprecate a great and
necessary movement because, in the inevitable
course of human nature, it has engendered feelings
of hostility and hatred. If hatred came, it was

5
For more on Aurobindos description of swaraj and swadeshi, see end of chapter
6
British protection or self-protection, Bande Mataram, March 18, 1907, page 219
necessary that it should come as a stimulus, as a
means of awakening.
When tamas, inertia, torpor have benumbed a
nation, the strongest forms of rajas are necessary
to break the spell; there is no form of rajas so
strong as hatred. Through rajas we rise to sattva
and for the Indian temperament, the transition
does not take long.
7


Even before the INC split decisively in December 1907 into two
factions those advocating the mendicant policy calling
themselves Moderates, while those wanting nothing less than
total political independence calling themselves Nationalists, the
radically different objectives before the Congress as perceived
among followers of these two sections was already evident by
1906 on the issue of who should be the president of the Calcutta
Congress in December that year. The Nationalists wanted Tilak
while the Moderates wanted to import Dadabhai Naoroji from
London knowing that Tilak would never set himself up against a
man who was widely respected and held in high esteem.
Aurobindo unerringly concluded that objections to Tilak becoming
president of the INC originated from Gokhale, Surendranath
Banerjea and Pherozeshah Mehta because Tilak was perceived as
being Hindu and as advocating Hindu nationalism.
The Indian Mirror, which is now the chief ally of the
government among the Congress organs in Bengal,
has chosen naturally enough to fall foul of Mr.Tilak.
Mr. Tilak, we learn, has seriously offended our
contemporary by giving honour to Mr.Bhopatkar on
his release from jail; his speeches on the Shivaji
festival were displeasing to the thoughtful and
enlightened men who congregate in the office of the
Indian Mirror; and to sum up the whole matter, he
is a man of extreme views and without tact. Ergo,
he is no fit man for the presidential chair of the
Congress.
It is interesting to learn on this unimpeachable
authority, what are the qualifications which the
moderate and loyalist mind demands in a
President of the national Congress. It is not
the great protagonist and champion of Swadeshi in
Western India. It is not the one man whom the
whole Hindu community in Western India delights
to honour, from Peshawar to Kolhapur and from
Bombay to our own borders; it is one who will

7
The morality of Boycott, Bande Mataram, page 127
not talk about Shivaj i and Bhavani only
about Mahatmas.
8

His social and religious views may not agree with
those of the enlightened, but we have yet to learn
that the Congress platform is sacred to advanced
social reformers, that the profession of the
Hindu religion is a bar to leadership in its
ranks. Mr. Tilaks only other offence is the courage
and boldness of his views and his sturdiness in
holding by them.
9
(Emphasis added)

Aurobindos incisive intelligence perceived the nascent trend in
the INC to de-Hinduise itself; but even he failed to develop the
thought further. In 1906, the move to dilute the Hinduness of the
prominent leaders of the INC could only have been either to
please the powerful Parsee community or the Imperial and Indian
British governments because courting the Muslims was still in the
future. Knowing well enough that nominating Gokhale (who had
expressed regret to the British government for the Boycott
campaign) for Presidentdship would trigger a revolt in the
Congress ranks, in what would become decades later a trend-
setting back-room manoeuvre or a coup detat, the moderate
and loyalist factions in 1906 presented Dadabhai Naoroji for
presidentship as fait accompli.
10

It follows therefore that the Presidentship was
unconstitutionally offered to Mr.Naoroji by one or
two individuals behind the back of the Reception
Committee. It is now explained that Mr. Naoroji
simply wired his willingness to accept the
Presidentship offered to him. On this theory the
offer was a private suggestion of individuals and the
individuals made a public announcement of their
private suggestion and its private acceptance, in
order to compromise the Reception Committee and
force its hands. The explanation therefore does not
exculpate the authors of the stratagem; it only
makes their action more disingenuous and tricky.
No any individual has any right to take privately the
consent of Mr. Naoroji or another, as if the
Presidentship depended on his choice. Until the

8
Aurobindo noticed as early as 1906 that the Moderates did not want a self-
conscious Hindu as President of the INC but wanted a person who spoke, not of
Shivaji and Bhavani like the Hindu Nationalists but of Mahatmas although it is
not clear who the mahatma is in 1906.
9
The Mirror and Mr. Tilak, Bande Mataram, August 28, 1906, pp 140-41
10
Although Sitaram Kesari was no Tilak and Sonia Gandhi no Naoroji
Reception Committee has decided to whom it will
offer the function, all that individuals, be they never
so much leaders, have the authority to do is to put
forward name or names for recommendation by the
Committee. It is only after the Committee has
made its decision that the person selected can be
asked whether he is willing to accept the offer.
The plea that it had long been known Mr. Naoroji
was coming to India and it was therefore thought fit
to ask him to preside at the Congress, is one which
will command no credit. Not until Mr. Tilaks name
was before the country and they saw that none of
their mediocrities they had suggested could weigh
in the scale with the great Maratha leader. Not by
these sophisms will the Calcutta autocrats escape
the discredit of their actions.
11


A similar coup detat was attempted in October 1911 when a
private suggestion was made to Gandhi, after his profitable
London visit in 1909 and now the author of the banned Hind
Swaraj, to accept the Presidentship of the INC; Gandhi, eager by
now to return to India for a more ambitious political role, wired
his acceptance with alacrity but withdrew his acceptance when it
was communicated to him that it was merely an inquiry and not
an offer. Pandit Bishen Narayan Dhar was subsequently elected
President. Needless to say, the choice of President for the
Congress was determined only by the goal that the Congress had
set for itself: the goal was not political freedom or end of colonial
rule.
Our immediate problem as a nation is not how to be
intellectual and well-informed or how to be rich and
industrious, but how to stave off imminent death,
how to put an end to the white peril, how to assert
ourselves and live. It is for this reason that
whatever minor differences there may be between
different exponents of the new spirit, they are all
agreed on the immediate necessity of an organized
national resistance to the state of things which is
crushing us out of existence as a nation, and on the
one goal of that resistance freedom.
12


End to white peril, organized national resistance, freedom,
these were the goals which the Nationalists sought to place before
the Congress by nominating Tilak for Presidentship. The Congress

11
A Disingenuous Defence, September 14, 1906, Bande Mataram, pp 171-72
12
Aurobindo, The Doctrine of Passive Resistance, Its Necessity, page 96
rejected the attempt by the Nationalists to redefine its raison
detre and signalled its rejection by choosing instead to bring back
empire loyalist Dadabhai Naoroji from London. Aurobindo
accurately diagnosed the condition of educated Indians as being
steeped in tamas a state of languor which did not perceive its
enslavement and therefore felt no desire to end it.
Many of us, utterly overcome by Tamas, the dark
and heavy demon of inertia, are saying nowadays
that it is impossible, that India is decayed,
bloodless and lifeless, too weak ever to recover;
that our race is doomed to extinction. It is a foolish
and idle saying. No man or nation need be weak
unless he chooses; no man or nation need perish
unless he deliberately chooses extinction.
13


The English-educated leaders of the Congress, co-opted into the
government and its administrative organs, had a stake in the
continuance of colonial rule and slavery was a price they were
willing to pay.
We are dissatisfied also with the conditions under
which education is imparted in this country, its
calculated poverty and insufficiency, its anti-
national character, its subordination to the
government and the use made of that subordination
for the discouragement of patriotism and the
inculcation of loyalty (to the Empire).
14


Tilak, Aurobondo and Savarkar did not choose extinction for the
Hindu nation and having diagnosed the malaise afflicting even the
best among men, they realised that their primary responsibility
was to rejuvenate the spirit of the kshatriya yet again in society.
Hindu dharma apportioned different responsibilities to the four
varnas; the kshatriyas primary responsibility was to protect and
defend the nation or rashtra the territory and the people
inhabiting the territory. Tilak invoked Shivaji, the exemplary
kshatriya, while Aurobindo invoked Sakthi the female divinity
symbolising strength. British rule had to be forcefully ended and
the nation liberated from physical and mental slavery that
would be the only karma for the kshatriya.
Politics is the work of the Kshatriya and it is the
virtues of the Kshatriya we must develop if we are
to be morally fit for freedom. But the first virtue of

13
Aurobindo, Bhawani Mandir, India can be Reborn, page 65. Bhawani Mandir
sometimes referred to as a tract and sometimes as pamphlet was written in 1903
14
Aurobindo, The Doctrine of Passive Resistance, Its Methods, page 102; (words
in brackets mine)
the Kshatriya is not to bow his neck to an unjust
yoke but to protect his weak and suffering
countrymen against the oppressor and welcome
death in a just and righteous battle.
15

But we reiterate with all the emphasis we can
command that the Kshatriya of old must again take
his rightful position in our social polity to discharge
the first and foremost duty of defending its
interests. The brain is impotent without the right
arm of strength. India is now conscious of this long-
forgotten truth. And the hand must hold up-to-date
arms.
An awakened nation consults its necessity and
proceeds to the invention.
16
(Emphasis added)

Together, Tilak and Aurobindo revived the sense of nationalism,
and national pride underlying nationalism, and brought them to
the fore of the collective consciousness of this enslaved nation.
Aurobindo was a visionary and even as he understood the need
for force, he understood the need for caution and wisdom in the
use of force. Aurobindo juxtaposed passive resistance or
organized resistance as he called it and the use of force or armed
resistance; passive resistance is effective only if the rulers belong
to the same civilisational ethos while armed resistance may
become necessary if the offender refuses to return to dharma or if
the end objective is to overthrow the foreign race. Later in this
chapter we will see how Aurobindo is articulating views identical
to those held by Kautilya on foreign rule or vairajya which is in
marked contrast to Gandhis view that as long as the ruler ruled
according to Gandhis wish, he did not care of he was ruled by an
Indian or an Englishman.
The choice by a subject nation of the means it will
use for vindicating its liberty is best determined by
the circumstances of its servitude. The present
circumstances in India seem to point to passive
resistance as our most natural and suitable
weapon. We would not for a moment be understood
to base this conclusion upon any condemnation of
other methods as in all circumstances criminal and
unjustifiable.
It is the common habit of established governments
and especially those which are themselves
oppressors, to brand all violent methods in subject
peoples and communities as criminal and wicked.

15
Aurobindo, Many Delusions, Bande Mataram, April 5, 1907, pp 235-36
16
Aurobindo, The writing on the wall, Bande Mataram, April 8, 1907, page 240
When you have disarmed your slaves and
legalised the infliction of bonds, stripes and death
on any one of them, man, woman or child, who
may dare to speak or to act against you, it is
natural and convenient to try and lay a moral
as well as a legal ban on any attempt to
answer violence by violence, the knout by the
revolver, the prison by riot or agrarian rising, the
gallows by the dynamite bomb.
Under certain circumstances a civil struggle
becomes in reality a battle and the morality of
war is different from the morality of peace. To
shrink from bloodshed and violence under such
circumstances is a weakness deserving as severe a
rebuke as Srikrishna addressed to Arjuna when he
shrank from the colossal civil slaughter on the field
of Kurukshetra.
17

Liberty is the life-breath of a nation; and when the
life is attacked, when it is sought to suppress all
chance of breathing by violent pressure, then any
and every means of self-preservation becomes right
and justifiable just as it is lawful for a man who is
being strangled, to rid himself of the pressure on
his throat by any means in his power. I t is the
nature of the pressure that determines the
nature of the resistance
18
. (Emphasis added)

If Savarkar and Aurobindo were indeed advocating overthrowing
the British using weapons of war designed by the White European
nations against White Europeans occupying India by force, they
were only treading the path shown by Srikrishna who urged
Arjuna to use the same tactics and methods against the adharmic
Kauravas and their allies as they had used against Abhimanyu.
Srikrishna in the Mahabharata taught the cardinal principle of
reciprocity and through his epic exposition on war-as-karma in
the Bhagwad Gita, taught the invaluable lesson of taking up arms
against the violators of dharma if they were not amenable to
reason. The fire of nationalism had been kindled and the dark
cloud of tamas was finally beginning to lift.

4.4 Gandhis Modus Operandi

17
For Gandhis exposition on the Bhagwad Gita which rejected its historicity and
gave it a metaphysical connotation, see end of chapter
18
Aurobindo, The doctrine of passive resistance, part 3, Its Necessity, Bande
Mataram, April 11-April 27, 1907, pp 97-98

However, until the advent of Gandhi in India, this physical and
mental tamas afflicted only a section of English-educated elite
Indians. Some like Aurobindo, his brother Barin Ghosh, Savarkar,
Madam Bhikaji Cama and Virendranath Chatopadhyaya or Chatto
(the less famous brother of Sarojini Naidu), and later Subhash
Bose, either fell out with the Congress or with Gandhi and
preferred to live abroad to wage war against the Empire by
forging visionary and sometimes bizarre international alliances.
Gandhis career in Indian politics from 1915 onwards aimed only
at mentally disarming ordinary Indians and physically stopping
them from taking up arms against the British. The mental and
physical paralysis which gripped a small section of educated
Indians now spread in the form of Gandhian pacifism and afflicted
even ordinary Indians who were otherwise ready to do anything
(exemplified by Bhagat Singh and his compatriots) and follow any
leader to expel the British Empire

It is noteworthy that after the creation of the INC, ordinary
Indians, despite sporadic acts of violence and revolt against
British rule, had not until the advent of Gandhi organized as a
force against the British Empire and had hence been spared the
brutal use of repressive British state power against them. But
Gandhis satyagraha, which brought ordinary men and women out
on the streets, made them vulnerable to police brutality and
draconian laws under which thousands were imprisoned, brutally
beaten, and many killed (secular historians have not told us how
many), all without furthering the cause of political independence.
They suffered in vain; their suffering had no impact upon the
Empire or on Gandhi. While Gandhi coerced the INC and the
people not to take up arms against the British, he was not averse
to encouraging Indians to participate in Satyagraha and suffer
repressive state power. Gandhi was a coercive votary of self-
suffering for the people. It is pertinent that other than being
imprisoned for months together, Gandhi himself never suffered
physical abuse or pain on account of repressive state power.
Future generations of scholars may like to investigate why the
British always imprisoned him first after the launch of every civil
disobedience campaign, including the 1942 campaign at the start
of the Quit India movement, and kept him safe in jail until the
orgy of martyrdom of ordinary Indians subsided. More study is
also required to investigate why repeated jail terms took
irreparable toll of the health of Gandhis close associates
Mahadev Desai, Kasturba and Patel leading ultimately to death
while Gandhi himself emerged unscathed from all prison terms
and fell only to the assassins bullet. Our concern is to examine if
Gandhis Satyagraha, which took such a terrible toll of the lives of
ordinary men and women, served any meaningful purpose for the
Hindu nation.

In the very opening chapter of Hind Swaraj, Gandhi made clear
his intention to dislodge Aurobindo and the nationalists from any
leadership role in the INC and among the people. He did this by:
Labelling the Nationalists as extremists.
Equating use of force with violence, labelling violence as
European civilisation, and holding refusal to take up arms
as the only civilisational virtue
Defending the INC and richly praising its founding
members, including its British presidents, in the opening
chapter itself.
Not according even minimal respect to the Nationalists and
misrepresenting the truth by accusing them of promoting
European civilization because they advocated use of force,
when Aurobindo and Tilak had nothing but contempt for
European civilization, English education, and the entire
baggage that came with it.
Usurping the concepts of swaraj and swadeshi from the
Nationalists and later usurping the name Young India
from them just as he usurped the phrase passive
resistance from Aurobindo and re-christened it
satyagraha

It bears repetition that Gandhis political career in India had three
core objectives:
To discredit the Nationalists in the minds of Indians.
To stave off or at least delay political independence by
giving swaraj a completely un-Hindu and un-political
connotation until his pet fetishes in the social domain were
fulfilled
To immediately stop all physical attacks against the British
people while simultaneously doing nothing to prevent
Indians from dying as a consequence of the use of British
state power.

Gandhi usurped the concept of swaraj and the name Young India
so that the two would never be remembered as having been first
associated with the Nationalists; he succeeded because post-
independence Indian academia, dominated by deracinated Hindus
or Marxists, peddled myth as history to generations of Indians
born in or after the decade of the 1940s. To re-invent the basis of
Indian nationhood, where Hindus constituted 87% of the
population, academics needed to render Hindu thinkers and
warriors invisible. Gandhi and Nehru therefore received
disproportionate space in the chronicle of the freedom-movement-
that-wasnt, even as the heroic saga of Hindus of the civilisation
waging relentless war against all invaders was effaced from
collective memory. It was critical for the success of motivated
history to de-Hinduize Indian history; on the flip side, secularists
needed to purge knowledge of the religious identity of not only
the invaders and occupiers but also of their victims.

It is our contention that Gandhis exposition of swaraj had a
severely emasculating effect on the Hindu community. It is
pertinent that despite the course of events after 1910 when
Gandhi translated Hind Swaraj into English, including the violent
ascendance of Islamic separatism and nascent neo-jihad against
Hindus, Gandhi in his correspondence with Nehru in October 1945
reiterated his commitment to his definition of swaraj and the
political theories contained in Hind Swaraj.

The first thing I want to write about is the
difference of outlook between us. If the difference is
fundamental then I feel the public should also be
made aware of it. It would be detrimental to our
work for swaraj to keep them in the dark. I have
said that I still stand by the system of government
envisaged in Hind Swaraj. These are not mere
words. All the experience gained by me since 1909
when I wrote the booklet has confirmed the truth of
my belief.
19


Gandhis swaraj was more socio-economic than political in
content. The Hindu nation would have no quarrel with Gandhis
description which departed radically from that of Aurobindo and
Tilak if it had been limited as a socio-economic doctrine; but
Gandhis swaraj reached beyond socio-economic boundaries and
suffered from political pretensions which first marginalised and
then completely obliterated the political content and objectives of
the freedom movement. The INC under Gandhis leadership
redefined swaraj and ceased to aim for the end of colonial rule.
Dominion Status, Home Rule, and greater participation in
governance remained its limited political goals, with the
understanding that the INC would demand home rule only by
passive resistance and not by taking up arms against the British.
Implicit in this redefinition of the methods and objectives of the
INC was that India would remain part and parcel of the British
Empire. Thus the freedom movement led by Tilak, Aurobindo,
Savarkar and Lajpat Rai between 1890 and 1910 with complete
political independence as its goal was transformed into a
freedom-movement-that-wasnt from 1915 onwards, when
Gandhi returned to India. In the period between 1910 and 1917,

19
Gandhi to Nehru, October 5, 1945, Supplementary Writings, HS, page 149
the INC remained in a limbo, a condition into which it would fall
repeatedly until 1947.

4.5 Retrieving Kautilyas Kshatriya
India will judge Gandhis political career in this land, particularly
its debilitating impact on Hindus, on the basis of her lived
experience and civilizational understanding of polity and
statecraft, best reflected in Kautilyas Arthasastra. The sheer
genius of Kautilya (also known as Chanakya) lies in the fact that
even after two millennia Arthasastra has remained refreshingly
relevant and contemporary. The nature of polity and the theory of
statecraft expounded and codified by Kautilya, with exquisite
details on effective politics, administration and governance, is
unsurpassed in world history. The Arthasastra is not about village
politics and village economy, though it can be adapted to village
polity and economy too; but from the scale of salaries Kautilya
laid down for different categories of State servants, Kangle
conceded: it would appear possible only in a state with large
resources at its command. The Arthasastra undoubtedly concerns
managing a vast kingdom, even an empire. Kautilyas genius gave
birth to original and path-breaking theories and policy measures,
but the very first sutra in his text refers respectfully to principles
of Arthasastra in texts composed by earlier teachers.
Om. Salutations to Sukra and Brhaspati.
This single (treatise on the) Science of Politics has been
prepared mostly by bringing together (the teaching of) as
many treatises on the Science of Politics as have been
composed by ancient teachers for the acquisition and
protection of the earth.
20


The desire for continuity of tradition, in contrast to stark
divergence, is characteristic of the Hindu ethos. Kautilya makes
mention in Chapter 8, Section 4 titled Appointment of Ministers,
of Bharadwaja, Visalaksha, Parasara, Pisuna, Kaunapadanta,
Vatavyadhi and Bahudantiputra as other teachers of Arthasastra.
The Kautiliya Arthasastra therefore provides evidence that even
before Kautilya, India had competent treatises on polity and
statecraft, derived from a rich history of well-organized states in
the land. The Arthasastra was first published in 1909, the very
year Gandhi penned Hind Swaraj. Gandhis political career was
strongly influenced by alien religious personages like Jesus Christ,
Tolstoy, Ruskin, via the several books he is supposed to have
read in different prisons.
21
It seems unlikely that subsequent to

20
TKA, Part II, Book One, Chapter One, page 1.
21
It was routine British stratagem to provide certain types of literature to political
prisoners to influence their thinking.
Hind Swaraj, Gandhi would not have heard of Kautilyas
Arthasastra; yet it is consistent with his practice to ignore Indian
traditions and history of statecraft and peddle an alien, atypical
concept of non-violence as the only weapon of resistance to the
Hindu people. We emphasize Hindu because the Muslims of India,
who chartered their own political course leading to Pakistan in
1947, did not subscribe to Gandhis non-violence.

The Arthasastra maintains that the ultimate objective of the ruler
or State is two-fold: first and foremost to protect and if possible
to expand the territory of his kingdom or rajya, and second, to
ensure all-round well being or yogakshemam of his people or
praja. A prosperous praja, a stable samaj, and a secure rajya
ensure a thriving rashtra; this is the message of Arthasastra. For
the first time in the civilisational tradition of polity and statecraft,
Kautilya places the concept and idea of vijigisu or would-be
world conqueror. In contemporary international politics, this
would be synonymous with becoming a regional or global
superpower. A Hindu rajya would therefore have only achieving
superpower status as its foreign policy objective.

It is unnecessary to get into the nitty-gritty of the several
measures Arthasastra says a king must undertake to achieve his
ultimate objectives; our intention is to demonstrate that within
the Hindu nation, kingdoms were not made, protected, or
expanded by Gandhian passive resistance and non-violence. Such
passive resistance equals inaction; injected by Gandhi into Hindu
society, this crippling malaise metamorphosed into Nehruvian
secularism in post-independence India, with a State and
administration controlled in equal measure by anti-Hindus, non-
Hindus and deracinated Hindus. Nehruvian secularism could be
grafted only upon a body weakened by Gandhian appeasement of
minorities and for-Hindus-only Gandhian non-violence.

Gandhis iconic status in India is based on a very narrow and
motivated appraisal of his work and ideas. It was promoted and
entrenched by Nehru and the Indian National Congress for vested
interests; both derived their power to decide the fate of the Hindu
nation from Gandhi who legitimised their leadership, and both
survived the earthshaking catastrophe of Partition without a
shadow on their reputations because Nehru personally, and the
Congress as the longest ruling party, ensured that official
responsibility for vivisection was never laid at Gandhis doors. Had
Gandhi been held guilty of the vivisection in 1947, Nehru and the
INC could not have escaped their share of blame or responsibility.
Nehru then, despite serious differences with Gandhis economic
ideas had to, and the Congress party even now has to continue to
promote and sustain Gandhis iconic status to protect themselves
from being judged harshly (and correctly) by the nation.

Gandhis ideas on self-contained autonomous villages for
economic regeneration are not our concern here, though Gandhis
ideas were workable and desirable in this respect. Our concern is
with Gandhis political ideas which pushed the country inevitably
towards vivisection, and Hindus towards total political
disempowerment. Kautilya in his minutely detailed treatise on the
science of politics leaves very little to the imagination of the
reader with regard to practical measures of politics, governance
and administration; the reader has to make logical inferences
about what the text does not state explicitly: the basis of
nationhood, basis and legitimacy of rulership, reasons for war by
the state, and reasons for peoples revolt against the ruler.

Great emperors or Chakravartins brought large parts of this land
under their empire; India has experienced Golden Rule under
each of these great emperors, a testimony to the deep sense of
nationhood in the people of this bhumi. The vijigisu (world
conqueror) and the Chakravartin ruling over his mighty empire
could effortlessly maintain social stability and harmony only
because of this sense of nationhood derived form adherence to
sanatana dharma. The seat of empire has historically moved from
the North, to the East, to the West, to the South, and the people
of these regions, under different Emperors, have experienced a
shared sense of belonging to a nation under the Chandelas,
Senas, Palas, Mauryas, Guptas, Marathas, Cholas and Pandyas.
These mighty empires and dynasties welded the people of this
bhumi into an organised state only because the people had a
sense of common nationhood and, more importantly, the rulers
were part of the nation and derived their legitimacy to rule not
only because they belonged to the nation they ruled, but also
because they subscribed to the civilisational principles and values
that defined the sense of nationhood of the people they ruled.

The core intent of Hindu nationalism is to bring about a radical
change in the ideological basis of Indian polity, to bring polity and
governance in line with the principles of polity and nationhood
prevalent prior to Islamic and Christian colonial invasion and
occupation of India. Kautilyas Arthasastra is the guide to
understanding and practically implementing this tradition. Muslim
and British rule corrupted and perverted the sense of nationhood
of the people of this bhumi and distorted the basis of what
constitutes the legitimate right of rulership. The strategic intent of
Hindu nationalism is to restore not only the civilisational sense of
nationhood but also the basis of legitimacy of the right to rule the
people of this nation. This work has relied exclusively on
Kautilyas Arthasastra for one specific reason.

Kautilyas treatise rests on the foundations of the Hindu tradition
of rajadharma and arthasastra, the science of the principles of
polity and statecraft, as exemplified by the Manusmriti where
Chapter 7 deals only with rajadharma, the Ramayana which has
given this civilisation the ultimate example of Ramarajya as the
ideal state with the ideal ruler in the person of Srirama, and the
Mahabharata where both Srikrishna and Bhishma detail the duties
and responsibilities of the king. Kautilya adheres firmly to these
traditional roots and foundations, but makes significant
departures in methods and tactics because he had already
confronted cultures outside the pale of influence of sanatana
dharma and understood that methods of statecraft have to be
modified over time to deal effectively and in accordance with
threats posed by alien cultures to our territories and way of life.
Without referring to these cultures by name, Kautilya explicitly
emphasizes the need for the demonstrable use of the soft power
of rajadharma as well as its hard power when confronting forces
which violate and do not belong to the culture derived from
sanatana dharma.

4.6 Nation and Nationhood in Hindu tradition
The extent of distortion Gandhi introduced into this nations body
politic is best understood by returning to Kautilya. So wide was
Kautilyas vision that he even dealt with deviations to the
accepted form of monarchic rule, occasioned by some calamity.
Kautilya disapproved of the deviations and emphasized that the
two he listed were inferior to the usual form of monarchy, but
were sometimes inevitable due to a monumental calamity or crisis
within the kingdom. The two forms of deviant rulership he
described were dvairajya and vairajya; both are relevant to the
course of Indian polity under Gandhis leadership.

Dvairajya involves partitioning the kingdom between two
conflicting and competing power centres, mostly within the
family; it is also joint rule of the kingdom by two members of the
same family such as father and son, or two brothers.
22
A variation
of dvairaja is found in the Mahabharata wherein the Pandavas are
exiled to an uninhabited, inhospitable and undeveloped part of
Kuru territory to establish their kingdom in exile. But in all these
cases, while the territory of the kingdom was either divided or

22
Example: Kaniska and his brother J ushka in Kashmir, Vidarbha by Agnimitra as
found in Malavikaagnimitra 5.14 of Kalidasa; In the Mahabharata, Bhishma tries to
avert war by hiving a portion of the territory as a new kingdom for the Pandavas.
jointly ruled or parallel in nature, their character remained the
same the rulers were a part of the nation they ruled and they
subscribed to its dharma and culture even when the people
regarded them as mainly evil or adharmic.

Just as the civilizational understanding of polity and statecraft did
not rest solely on the concept of ahimsa, the dharma of Indian
citizens also did not subscribe to Gandhian passive resistance.
The text very frequently refers to the possibility of
the subjects being discontented (atusta) or even
disaffected (apacarita). It enumerates a very large
number of acts on the part of the ruler which were
likely to make subjects disaffected with his rule
(7.5.19-26). It is added that if the subjects become
disaffected they may join hands with the rulers
enemies or may rise in revolt and themselves slay
him (7.5.27). The threat of prakrtikopa or a revolt
of the people is expected to serve as a check on the
wanton use of this coercive power by the ruler. This
shows at the same time how the rulers authority is,
in the last analysis, dependent on the contentment
of the subjects. The latter may have no voice in the
choice of the ruler; but it is they who have, in the
ultimate analysis, the power to allow him to
continue or to remove him, depending on how he
behaves. The sastra
23
has nothing against regicide
if the ruler is unjustly behaved or fails to protect his
subjects.
24


Kautilyas forthright advocacy of forcibly removing an adharmic
ruler who violates his principal duty of keeping his people happy
and contented contrasts sharply with the Gandhian prescription of
Satyagraha or soul-force, which Gandhi sometimes called civil
disobedience and non-violence. Gandhi himself admitted that
Satyagraha could not be used in a general cause, but had to be
limited in its objective with the distinct possibility of ending the
cause for discontent or anger. There is confusion in Indian public
discourse about the overlapping of the two concepts of civil
disobedience and non-violence; for Gandhi the two were one and
the same. We shall subsequently see how, each time Gandhis
civil disobedience campaigns against specific laws were rapidly
transformed by the Indian people into armed resistance to
colonial rule, Gandhi called off the campaigns and put the INC and
the freedom movement in a limbo for years; sometimes he would

23
Treatise, Exposition
24
TKA, Part III, Chapter 5, The State in Kautilya, page 120.
take a decade to conjure up an occasion to kick-start the
paralysed freedom movement again.

While Kautilya strongly disapproved of both dvairajya and
vairajya, he preferred dvairajya as the lesser evil. Vairajya is rule
by a foreign ruler who has seized the kingdom by force and
ousted the legitimate ruler. A kingdom is seized by a foreign ruler
only when the ruler or any of the other seven prakritis
(components of the rajya) has become so weak and vulnerable
that the weakness has rendered the entire kingdom vulnerable to
invasion, conquest and occupation. There are two views regarding
the interpretation of foreign in Kautilyas description of vairajya.
The first is that he is describing conquest by a king from outside
the kingdom; the second is that Kautilya, who had already faced
the Greeks and Alexanders march into India, was describing the
conquest of territory and enslavement of the people by a king not
of the nation, who does not subscribe to its civilisational values
and principles.

Kautilya disapproved of vairajya. He argued that the foreign ruler,
having no interest in the welfare of the conquered state, was
likely to deplete it of its men and resources, or sell it for money to
a third party, or if altogether disgusted with the people there, just
leave them to their fate and go away.
25
The foreign aggressor
who invaded and occupied the nation did so by use of force and it
followed that he would be ready to use force to keep what he had
forcibly acquired.

It should be obvious that the vairajya imposed on the nation by
Islamic and later European colonialism could never have been
terminated by Gandhian Satyagraha. Kautilyas scintillating
intellect in the theory of polity and statecraft remains as relevant
today as two millennia ago. The description of the evil of vairajya
synchronizes with the successive colonial invasions of India. The
political enslavement of Hindus accompanied by molestation and
destruction of gods, religious structures and sensibilities; the
economic rape and plunder of resources; the catastrophic
vivisection of the nation jointly by the alien monotheisms; the
sale of our territory by Pakistan to China; and the manipulated
ascension of a White Christian European in the polity; all accord
with Kautilyas description of vairajya. In striking contrast to
Gandhis axiom that he did not care who ruled him as long as they
ruled according to his wish, Aurobindo thinks acquiescing to
foreign rule is an unnatural state of being.

25
TKA, Part III, Chapter 5, The State in Kautilya, page 123

Liberty is the first requisite for the sound health and
vigorous life of a nation. A foreign despotism is in
itself an unnatural condition and if permitted, must
bring about other unhealthy and unnatural
conditions in the subject people which will lead to
fatal decay and disorganization. Foreign rule cannot
build up a nation only the resistance to foreign
rule can weld the discordant elements of a people
into an indivisible unity. When a people,
predestined to unity, cannot accomplish its destiny,
foreign rule is a provision of Nature by which the
necessary compelling pressure is applied to drive its
jarring parts into concord. The unnatural condition
of foreign rule is brought in for a time in order to
cure the previous unnatural condition of insufficient
cohesiveness; but this can only be done by the
resistance of the subject people; for the incentive
to unity given by the alien domination consists
precisely in the desire to get rid of it; and if this
desire is absent, if the people acquiesce, there can
be no force making for unity. Foreign rule was
therefore made to be resisted; and to acquiesce in
it is to defeat the very intention with which Nature
created it.
26
(Emphasis added)

The sheer brilliance of Aurobindos exposition and clarity of
thinking testifies to his traditional moorings. It must be borne in
mind that in 1907 Kautilyas Arthasastra was still unpublished.
And yet here was Aurobindo articulating with great simplicity and
directness complex issues of state, rulership, and the dharma of
the praja or the citizens of a nation. We are critical of Gandhis
leadership of the INC and the movement which never desired
complete political independence, and the failure of Aurobindo and
Gandhi to envisage the nature of the post-independence Indian
polity and State without resolving the issue of Islams political
intent. Aurobindos failure to comprehend the political nature of
Islam and Gandhis failure to recognize the threat of vairajya in
the form of both the Muslims and the British, foretold the failure
that ended in partition in 1947, in the rise of Nehru, anti-Hindu
Nehruvian secularism, and the complete political disempowerment
of Hindus.

4.7 Gandhian Swaraj led to Nehruvian secularism
Gandhis iconic status defines even today how Indian polity,
especially Nehruvian secularists and deracinated intellectuals,

26
Shall India be Free, Bande Mataram, April 27, 1907, page 300
views the two large, vocal and well-organized minorities of
Abrahamic lineage. Gandhis stubborn refusal to recognize the
political content of Islam and Christianity, and the global political
intent of states rooted in these two faiths, helped Nehruvian
secularism to distort and then pervert the basis of Indian
nationhood.

India cannot cease to be a nation because people of
different religions live in it. The introduction of
foreigners does not necessarily destroy the nation;
they merge in it. A country is one nation only when
such conditions obtain within it; and such a country
must have a faculty for assimilation. India has ever
been such a country: in a sense there are as many
faiths as there are individuals, but those conscious
of the spirit of nationality do not interfere with one
anothers religion. If they do, they are not fit to be
considered a nation. If Hindus believe India should
be peopled only by Hindus, they are living in a
fools paradise. Hindus, Muslims, Parsis and
Christians who have made India their home are
fellow countrymen; they will have to live in unity if
only for their own interests. In no part of the world
are one nationality and one religion synonymous
terms; nor has this ever been the case in India.

Should we not remember that many Hindus and
Mahomedans own the same ancestors, and the
same blood runs through their veins? Do people
become enemies because they change their
religion? Is the God of the Mahomedan different
from the God of the Hindu? Religions are different
roads converging to the same point. What does it
matter that we take different roads, so long as we
reach the same goal?
27


Post-independence Indian polity has been blinded by such vintage
Gandhian vacuity and abject ignorance of the nature of foreign.
Gandhis exposition on Hindu-Muslim relations lends itself to the
conclusion that:

Gandhi equated the sampradayas and panthas within
sanatana dharma with the alien monotheistic Abrahamic

27
HS, Chapter X, The condition of India (cont.): the Hindus and the
Mahomedans, pp 52-53
religions and hence declared that they converged to the
same goal.
Gandhi either failed to understand or wilfully ignored the
overtly political content and political objectives of Islam
and Christianity, of the Koran and Bible, of Prophet
Mohammad and the Church.
The only nation Muslims recognized was the Muslim nation,
umma; their only State was the Khilafat or Caliphate. This
was known and endorsed by Gandhi when he led the
agitation for restoration of the Turkish Caliphate.
Despite history, Gandhi maintained that the God of the
Hindus (the very idiom is faulty) was the same as the God
of the Muslims and the Christians (which neither of the
latter two will ever accept).
Gandhi blithely ignored the reality that it was the political
content of Islam and Christianity that subjugated India to
several centuries of barbaric rule; besides British rule India
also suffered French colonialism and the brutal
depredations of the Portuguese.
Gandhi refused to acknowledge the continuing and
insidious presence of the symbols of their power and the
pervasive presence of the ruins of Hindu society, traditions
and temples, just as he failed to acknowledge that the
ultimate objective of religious conversion to Islam and
Christianity forced or otherwise, was to expand and
strengthen their political power.
Gandhi chose to ignore the truth that the Hindu nation
could not assimilate alien elements that refused to be
assimilated because their religions were essentially
politically and culturally separatist by nature and intent
and had the sole objective of Islamising and Christianising
all nations.
Gandhi failed to understand from history that Islam and
Christianity have always laid claim to the territory of
nations which they invaded or occupied, without
subscribing to the nationhood of those lands.
Gandhis complete failure to understand the nature of Islam and
Christianity led to his failure to foresee the consequences of the
presence of their adherents within India on equal terms with the
Hindus. The Reader in Hind Swaraj was fictional in nature and a
proponent of armed resistance; this gave Gandhi several
opportunities to slight and mock at the feeble intellect of those
who advocated armed resistance against the British, implying that
those taking to arms were incapable of thinking. To articulate his
pet theories on politics and religion, Gandhi created the Reader
who asks silly and leading questions, to which Gandhi had sharp
answers which were never countered or challenged by the
Reader. Thus Gandhis theories in Hind Swaraj acquired the frail
armour of infallibility and the brittle halo of piety. He absolved
Islam and Christianity from any inherent religious tenet of
violence and intolerance and attributed their violence to modern
civilisation, with the rider that the cruelties practised by these
two religions left no aftermath. In the face of the pervasive
presence of the ruins of Hindu dharma by Muslim rule, Gandhi
peddled the favourite lie of the secularists that Hindus and
Muslims lived in peace until the advent of the British. Let us
contrast Gandhis purblind sentimentalism with what Savarkar
said about the illusory Hindu-Muslim unity before the advent of
the British. In his Presidential address to the 21
st
session of the
Akhil Bharat Hindu Mahasabha in Calcutta in 1939, Savarkar said,
The Congress always used to fancy that the
Moslems, if left to themselves would never have
indulged in any anti-national, ulterior, anti-Hindu
designs. The Moslems -including Messers. Jinnah,
Huq and Hayat Khan- were very simple-minded folk
incapable of any political subterfuges and as
devotees of Islam -peace and goodwill, had no
aggressive political aims of their own against the
Hindus. Nay, even the Frontier tribes, the brave
brothers Moplas, the Moslem populations in Bengal
or Sindh who indulge in such horrible outrages
against Hindus have no taste for it at all, nursed
within themselves - but were almost compelled to
rise and revolt against the Hindus by the third
party the Britishers. When the British did not step
in, we Hindus and Moslems lived together in perfect
amity and brotherly concord and Hindu-Moslem
riots was a thing simply unheard of. Thousands of
Congressite Hindus are observed to have been
duped in to this silliest of political superstitions. As
if Mahamed Kasim, Gazanis, Ghoris, Allaudins,
Aurangzebs were all instigated by the British, by
this third party, to invade and lay waste Hindu India
with a mad fanatical fury. As if the history of the
last ten centuries of perpetual war between the
Hindus and Moslems was an interpolation and a
myth. As if the Alis or Mr. Jinnah or Sir Sikandar
were mere school children to be spoiled with the
offer of sugar pills by the British vagabonds in the
class and persuaded to throw stones at the house
of their neighbours. They say, before the British
came, Hindu-Moslem riots were a thing unheard
of. Yes, but because instead of riots, Hindu-Muslim
wars were the order of the day.
This wilful misinformation poisoned even the meagre trickle of
native intellect and scholarship that survived the onslaught of
English education; today this farcical Hindu-Muslim peaceful
relationship is the torrential poisoned river of Marx-leaning
academe.

Reader: In the name of religion Hindus and
Mahomedans fought against one another. For the
same cause Christians fought Christians. Thousands
of innocent men have been murdered, thousands
have been burned and tortured in its name. Surely,
this is much worse than any civilisation.

Editor: I certainly submit that the above hardships
are far more bearable than those of civilisation.
Everybody understands that the cruelties you have
named are not part of religion, although they have
been practised in its name; therefore, there is no
aftermath to these cruelties.
28


Reader: But what about the inborn enmity between
Hindus and Mahomedans?

Editor: That phrase has been invented by our
mutual enemy. When the Hindus and Mahomedans
fought against one another, they certainly spoke in
that strain. They have long ceased to fight. How,
then can there be any inborn enmity? Pray
remember this too, that we did not cease to fight
only after British occupation. The Hindus flourished
under Moslem sovereigns, and Moslems under the
Hindu. Each party recognized that mutual fighting
was suicidal, and that neither party would abandon
its religion by force of arms. Both parties, therefore,
decided to live in peace. With the English advent
the quarrels recommenced.
29



28
HS,Chapter VIII, The condition of India, page 43

29
Chapter X, Hind Swaraj, The condition of India (cont.): the Hindus and the
Mahomedans, page 53


Relentless jihad against the Hindu nation for over eight centuries
by Islamic hordes from different parts of the world and the sturdy
resistance by Hindu society were thus blithely reduced to the level
of a school boys quarrel. This intellectual equation of Islam and
Muslims with Hinduism and Hindus was either Gandhis
inexcusable ignorance of the truth of Islamic rule in India or wilful
misinformation, which is equally unpardonable.

Nowhere in the contemporary world, barring India, do we find a
nation whose State is actively hostile to its majority populace, a
State that does not protect and reflect the civilisational ethos,
culture and religious values of its native, majority community.
Nehrus intentionally crafted de-Hinduised Indian State derived
directly from Gandhis cupidity and quickly led to Pakistans
aggression against and occupation of vast territories of Jammu &
Kashmir, to the genocide and eviction of Hindus from Kashmir, to
the near total Christianisation of the North-East, and to the
increasing insolence of minorities professing Abrahamic faiths,
which today is in direct proportion to Hindu political
disempowerment. Hindu disempowerment and the rise of the
European Sonia Gandhi in Indian polity six decades after
independence is the fruition of Gandhis ignorance of Kautilyas
warning on vairajya.

The wish to be reborn we have in abundance, there
is no deficiency there. How many attempts have
been made, how many movements have been
begun in religion, in society, in politics! But the
same fate has overtaken or is preparing to overtake
them all. They flourish for a moment, then the
impulse wanes, the fire dies out, and if they
endure, it is only as empty shells, forms from which
the Brahma has gone or in which it lies
overpowered with Tamas and inert. Our beginnings
are mighty, but they have neither sequel nor fruit.
30


Like everything that Aurobindo wrote, this too has the haunting
ring of truth, bitter truth though it may be. True as these words
were to the state of the Hindu nation, just as true was the fact
that Aurobindo, with tragic prescience, scripted his own epitaph.
*****




30
Aurobindo, We in India fail in all things for want of Shakti, Bhawani Mandir,
page 62
Appendix

I Aurobindo on The Doctrine of Passive Resistance
This series of articles first appeared in the daily Bande Mataram
under the general title of New Thought from April 11 to April 23,
1907. The treatise is in seven parts Introduction, Its Object, Its
Necessity, Its Methods, Its Obligations, Its Limits, Conclusions.
We present very brief excerpts from this remarkable exposition to
demonstrate how comprehensive Aurobindos treatment of the
theme of passive resistance was as early as 1907, two years
before Gandhi penned Hind Swaraj, considered to be his seminal
work on passive resistance or Satyagraha.

Introduction
It is idle to disguise from ourselves that the Boycott is not as yet
effective except spasmodically and in patches. Yet to carry
through the Boycott was a solemn national decision which has not
been reversed but rather repeatedly confirmed.

Never indeed has the national will been so generally and
unmistakably declared.

It is idle to talk of self-development unless we first evolve a
suitable central authority or Government which all will or must
accept.

This popular authority will have to dispute every part of our
national life and activity, one by one, step by step, with the
intruding force, to the extreme point of entire emancipation
from alien control. This, and no less than this, is the task
before us.

For success depends on the presence of several very rare
conditions.
It demands in the first place a country for its field of action
in which the people are more powerfully swayed by the
fear of social ex-communication and the general censure of
their fellows than by the written law.
It demands a country where the capacity for extreme self-
denial is part of the national character or for centuries has
taken a prominent place in the national discipline.
The attempt at self-development by self-help is absolutely
necessary for our national salvation, whether we can carry it
peacefully to the end or not. In no other way can we get rid of
the fatal dependence, passivity and helplessness in which a
century of all pervasive British control has confirmed us. To
recover the habit of independent motion and independent
action is the first necessity.

1. Its Object
Organised resistance to an existing form of government may be
undertaken either for the vindication of national liberty, or in
order to substitute one form of government for another, or to
remove particular objectionable features in the existing system
without any entire or radical alteration of the whole, or simply for
the redress of particular grievances.

Our political agitation in the nineteenth century was
entirely confined to the smaller and narrower obj ects.
To mitigate executive tyranny by the separation of judicial
from executive functions,
To diminish the drain on the country naturally resulting
from foreign rule by more liberal employment of Indians in
the services

To these half- way houses our wise men and political seers
directed our steps - with this limited ideal they confined the
rising hopes and imaginations of a mighty people re-awakening
after a great downfall. Their political inexperience prevented them
from realizing that these measures on which we have misspent
half a century of unavailing effort, were not only paltry and
partial in their scope but in their nature ineffective.

The huge price India has to pay England for the inestimable
privilege of being ruled by Englishmen is a small thing compared
with the murderous drain by which we purchase the more
exquisite privilege of being exploited by British capital.

The redress of particular grievances and the reformation of
particular objectionable features in a system of government are
sufficient objects for organized resistance only when the
government is indigenous and all classes have a recognized place
in the political scheme of the state.

They are still less a sufficient obj ect when the despotic
oligarchy is alien by race, and has not even a permanent home
in the country, for in that case the government cannot be relied
on to look after the general interest of the country, as in nations
ruled by indigenous despotism; on the contrary, they are
bound to place the interests of their own country and their
own race first and foremost.

Organized resistance in subject nations which mean to live and
not to die can have no less an object than an entire and radical
change of the system of government;

But if the subject nation desires, not a provincial existence and a
maimed development, but the full, vigorous and noble realization
of its national existence, even a change in the system of
government will not be enough; it must aim not only at a national
government responsible to the people but a free national
government unhampered even in the least degree by
foreign control.

It is not surprising that our politicians of the nineteenth century
could not realise these elementary truths of modern politics. They
had no national experience behind them of politics under modern
conditions; they had no teachers except English books and
English liberal sympathizers and friends of I ndia.
Schooled by British patrons, trained to the fixed idea of English
superiority and Indian inferiority, their imaginations could not
embrace the idea of national liberty, and perhaps they did not
even desire it at heart, preferring the comfortable ease which at
that time still seemed possible in a servitude under British
protection, to the struggles and sacrifices of a hard and difficult
independence.

They could not then understand that the experience of the
independent nation is not valid to guide a subj ect nation,
unless and until the subj ect nation, throws off the yoke
and itself becomes independent.

At a bound we passed therefore from mere particular grievances,
however serious and intolerable, to the use of passive resistance
as a means of cure for the basest and evilest feature of the
present system - the bleeding to death of a country by foreign
exploitation. And from that stage we are steadily advancing,
under the guidance of such able political thinking as modern India
has not before seen and with the rising tide of popular opinion at
our back, to the one true obj ect of all resistance, passive or
active, aggressive or defensive - the creation of the free
popular government and the vindication of I ndian liberty.

2. Its Necessity
The control of the young mind in its most impressionable
period is of vital importance to the continuance of the
hypnotic spell by which alone the foreign domination manages
to subsist; the exploitation of the country is the chief reason for
its existence; the control of the j udiciary is one of its chief
instruments of repression. None of these things can it yield up
without bringing itself nearer to its doom. It is only by organized
national resistance, passive or aggressive, that we can make our
self-development effectual.

We may have our own educational theories; but we advocate
national education not as an educational experiment or to sub-
serve any theory, but as the only way to secure truly national and
patriotic control and discipline for the mind of the country in its
malleable youth.

We desire industrial expansion, but swadeshi without boycott,
non-political swadeshi, Lord Minots honest swadeshi, has no
attractions for us; since we know that it can bring no safe
and permanent national gain; that can only be secured by
the industrial and fiscal independence of the I ndian nation.

Organized national resistance to existing conditions, whether
directed against the system of government as such or against
some particular feature of it, has three courses open to it:
It may attempt to make administration under existing
conditions impossible by an organized passive resistance.
It may attempt to make administration under existing
conditions impossible by an organized aggressive
resistance in the shape of an untiring and implacable
campaign of assassination and a confused welter of
riots, strikes and agrarian risings all over the
country. This is the spectacle we have all watched with
such eager interest in Russia.
It is the nature of the pressure which determines the
nature of the resistance.

Where, as in Russia, the denial of liberty is enforced by legalized
murder and outrage, or, as in Ireland formerly, by brutal
coercion, the answer of violence to violence is justified and
inevitable.

Where the need for immediate liberty is urgent and it is a present
question of national life or death on the instant, revolt is the only
course.

But where the oppression is legal and subtle in its methods
and respects life, liberty and property and there is still
breathing time, the circumstances demand that we should
make the experiment of a method of resolute but peaceful
resistance which, while less bold and aggressive than other
methods, calls for perhaps as much heroism of a kind and
certainly more universal endurance and suffering.

I n other methods, a daring minority purchase with their
blood the freedom of the millions; but for passive
resistance it is necessary that all should share in the
struggle and the privation.

This peculiar character of passive resistance is one reason why it
has found favour with the thinkers of the New Party. There are
certain moral qualities necessary to self-government which have
become atrophied by long disuse in our people and can only be
restored either by the healthy air of a free national life in which
alone they can permanently thrive or by their vigorous
exercise in the intensity of a national struggle for freedom.

Passive resistance affords the best possible training for these
qualities. Something also is due to our friends, the enemy. We
have ourselves made them reactionary and oppressive and
deserved the Government we possess. The reason why even a
radical opportunist like Mr. Morley refuses us self-
government is not that he does not believe in I ndias
fitness for self- government, but that he does not believe in
I ndias determination to be free; on the contrary, the whole
experience of the past shows that we have not been in earnest in
our demand for self-government.



3. Its Methods
The essential difference between passive or defensive and active
or aggressive resistance is this, that while the method of the
aggressive resister is to do something by which he can bring
about positive harm to the Government, the method of the
passive resister is to abstain from doing something by which he
would be helping the Government.

The object in both cases is the same, - to force the hands of the
Government; the line of attack is different.

The passive method is especially suitable to countries where the
Government depends mainly for the continuance of its
administration on the voluntary help and acquiescence of the
subject people.

The first principle of passive resistance, therefore, which
the new school have placed in the forefront of their
programme, is to make administration under present
conditions impossible by an organized refusal to do
anything which shall help either British commerce in the
exploitation of the country or British officialdom in the
administration of it, - unless and until the conditions are
changed in the manner and to the extent demanded by the
people. This attitude is summed up in the one word, Boycott.

We are dissatisfied with the fiscal and economical
conditions of British rule in India, with the foreign
exploitation of the country, the continual bleeding of its
resources, the chronic famine and rapid impoverishment
which result, and the refusal of the Government to protect
the people and their industries.
Accordingly, we refuse to help the process of exploitation
and impoverishment in our capacity as consumers; we
refuse henceforth to purchase foreign and especially
British goods or to condone their purchase by others.

By an organized and relentless boycott of British goods, we
propose to render the further exploitation of the country
impossible.

We are dissatisfied also with the conditions under which
education is imparted in this country, its calculated poverty
and insufficiency, its anti-national character, its
subordination for the discouragement of patriotism and the
inculcation of loyalty.
Accordingly we refused to send our boys to government
schools or to schools aided and controlled by the
government; if this educational boycott is general and well
organized, the educational administration of the country
will be rendered impossible and the control of its youthful
minds pass out of the hands of the foreigner.

We are dissatisfied with the administration of justice, the
ruinous costliness of the civil side, the brutal rigour of its
criminal penalties and procedure, its partiality, its frequent
subordination to political objects.
We refuse accordingly to have any resort to the alien
courts of j ustice, and by an organized j udicial boycott
propose to make the bureaucratic administration of j ustice
impossible while these conditions continue.


Finally, we disapprove of the executive administration, its
arbitrariness, its meddling and inquisitorial character, its
thoroughness of repression, its misuse of the police for the
repression instead of the protection of the people.
We refuse, accordingly, to go to the executive for help or
advice or protection or to tolerate any paternal
interference in our public activities, and by an organized
boycott of the executive control and interference to a mere
skeleton of its former self.

The bureaucracy depends for the success of its
administration on the help of the few and the acquiescence
of the many. If the few refused to help, if Indians no longer
consented to teach in government schools or work in government
offices, or serve the alien as police, the administration could not
continue for a day.

We will suppose the bureaucracy able to fill their places by
Eurasians, aliens or traitors; even then the refusal of the many to
acquiesce, by the simple process of no longer resorting to
government schools, courts of justice or magistrates katcherries,
would put an end to administration.

Such is the nature of passive resistance as preached by the
new school in I ndia.

It is at once clear that self-development and such a scheme of
passive resistance are supplementary and necessary to each
other:
1. If we refuse to supply our needs from foreign source, we
must obviously supply them ourselves; we cannot have the
industrial boycott without swadeshi and the expansion of
indigenous industries.
2. If we decline to enter the alien courts of justice, we must
have arbitration courts of our own to settle our disputes
and differences.
3. If we do not send our boys to schools owned or controlled
by the government, we must have schools in our own in
which they may receive a thorough and national education.
4. If we do not go for protection to the executive, we must
have a system of self-protection and mutual protection of
our own.

Just as swadeshi is the natural accompaniment of an industrial
boycott, so also arbitration stands in the same relation to a
judicial boycott, national education to an educational boycott, a
league of mutual defence to an executive boycott.

From this, emerges close union of self-help with passive
resistance as a temporary measure for the partial ends.

4. Its Obligations
IN the early days of the new movement it was declared, in a very
catching phrase, by a politician who has now turned his back on
the doctrine which made him famous, that a subject nation has no
politics. (Possible allusion to Gokhale who had tendered a
public apology to the British government for the total
inconvenience caused by Aurobindo and Tilaks call for
boycott) And it was commonly said that we as a subject nation
should altogether ignore the Government and turn our attention
to emancipation by self-help and self-development. (The
substance of Gandhis passive resistance or Satyagraha as Gandhi
chose to call it to distinguish it from Aurobindos original passive
resistance which Gokhale was then trying to impose on the nation
through the INC)

Far from preaching non-resistance, it has now become abundantly
clear that our determination not to submit to political wrong
and inj ustice was far deeper and sterner than that of our critics.

The method of opposition differed, of course. The Moderate
method of resistance was verbal only prayer, petition and
protest; the method we proposed was practical - boycott.

Even under present conditions in India there is at least one
direction in which, it appears, many of us are already breaking
what Anglo-Indian courts have determined to be the law. The law
relating to sedition and the law relating to the offence of causing
racial enmity are so admirably vague in their terms that there is
nothing which can escape from their capacious embrace.

If this penalty of sedition is at present the chief danger which the
adherent or exponent of passive resistance runs under the law,
yet there is no surety that it will continue to be unaccompanied by
similar or more serious perils.

The making of the laws is at present in the hands of our political
adversaries and there is nothing to prevent them from using this
power in any way they like, however iniquitous or tyrannical, -
nothing except their fear of public reprobation outside and
national resistance within India.

At present they hope by the seductive allurements of Morleyism
to smother the infant strength of the national spirit in its cradle;
but as that hope is dissipated and the doctrine of passive
resistance takes more and more concrete and organized from, the
temptation to use the enormously powerful weapon which the
unhampered facility of legislation puts in their hands, will become
irresistible.

It is therefore necessary to mete out the heaviest penalty open to
us in such cases -the penalty of social excommunication. We are
not in favour of this weapon being lightly used; but its
employment, here the national will in a vital matter is deliberately
disregarded, becomes essential.

When, for instance, all Bengal staked its future upon the Boycott
and specified three foreign articles, - salt, sugar and cloth, - as to
be religiously avoided, anyone purchasing foreign salt or foreign
sugar or foreign cloth became guilty of treason to the nation and
laid himself open to the penalty of social boycott.

Wherever passive resistance has been accepted, the necessity of
the social boycott has been recognized as its natural concomitant.
Boycott foreign goods and boycott those who use foreign
goods.

For without this boycott of persons the boycott of things cannot
be effective; without the social boycott no national authority
depending purely on moral pressure can get its decrees effectively
executed; and without effective boycott enforced by a strong
national authority the new policy cannot succeed. But the only
possible alternatives to the new policy are either despotism
tempered by petitions or aggressive resistance. We must
therefore admit a third canon of the doctrine of passive
resistance, that social boycott is legitimate and
indispensable as against persons guilty of Treason to the
nation.

5. Its Limits
The moment these three unavoidable obligations are put into
force, the passive resistance movement will lose its character of
inoffensive legality and we shall be in the thick of a struggle which
may lead us anywhere.

Passive resistance, when it is confined as at present to
lawful abstention from actions which it lies within our choice as
subjects to do or not to do, is of the nature of the strategical
movements and large manoeuvrings previous to the
meeting of armies in the field; but the enforcement of our
three canons brings us to the actual shock of battle.

There is a limit however to passive resistance. So long as
the action of the executive is peaceful and within the rules of the
fight, the passive resister scrupulously maintains his attitude of
passivity, but he is not bound to do so a moment beyond.

To submit to illegal or violent methods of coercion, to
accept outrage and hooliganism as part of the legal
procedure of the country is to be guilty of cowardice, and,
by dwarfing national manhood, to sin against the divinity
within ourselves and the divinity in our motherland.

The moment coercion of this kind is attempted, passive resistance
ceases and active resistance becomes a duty.

If the instruments of the executive choose to disperse our
meeting by breaking the heads of those present, the right of self-
defence entitles us not merely to defend our heads but to retaliate
on those of the head-breakers.

For the myrmidons of the law have ceased then to be guardians of
the peace and become breakers of the peace, rioters and not
instruments of authority, and their uniform is no longer a bar to
the right of self-defence. Nor does it make any difference if the
instruments of coercion happen to be the recognized and usual
instruments or are unofficial hooligans in alliance or sympathy
with the forces or coercion. I n both cases active resistance
becomes a duty and passive resistance is, for that
occasion, suspended.

The new politics, therefore, while it favours passive resistance,
does not include meek submission to illegal outrage under that
term; it has no intent of overstressing the passivity at the
expense of the resistance.

Passive resistance cannot build up a strong and great
nation unless it is masculine, bold and ardent in its spirit
and ready at any moment and at the slightest notice to
supplement itself with active resistance. We do not want to
develop a nation of women who know only how to suffer and not
how to strike.

Moreover, the new politics must recognize the fact that beyond a
certain point passive resistance puts a strain on human endurance
which our natures cannot endure. This may come in particular
instances where an outrage is too great or the stress of
tyranny too unendurable for anyone to stand purely on the
defensive; to hit back, to assail and crush the assailant, to
vindicate ones manhood becomes an imperious necessity
to outraged humanity.

Or it may come in the mass when the strain of oppression a whole
nation has to meet in its unarmed struggle for liberty, overpasses
its powers of endurance. I t then becomes the sole choice
either to break under the strain and go under or to throw it
off with violence.

The school of politics which we advocate is not based upon
abstractions, formulas and dogmas, but on practical
necessities and the teaching of political experience,
common sense and the worlds history.

We have not the slightest wish to put forward passive
resistance as an inelastic dogma. We preach defensive
resistance mainly passive in its methods at present, but
active whenever active resistance is needed; but defensive
resistance within the limits imposed by human nature and
by the demands of self- respect and the militant spirit of
true manhood.

If at any time the laws obtaining in India or the executive action
of the bureaucracy were to become so oppressive as to render a
struggle for liberty on the lines we have indicated, impossible; if
after a fair trial given to this method, the object with which we
undertook it, proved to be as far-off as ever; or if passive
resistance should turn out either not feasible or necessarily
ineffectual under the conditions of this country, we should be the
first to recognize that everything must be reconsidered and that
the time for new men and new methods had arrived.

We recognize no political object of worship except the divinity in
our Motherland, no present object of political endeavour except
liberty, and no method or action as politically good or evil except
as it truly helps or hinders our progress towers national
emancipation.




Conclusions
The obj ect of all our political movements and therefore the
sole obj ect with which we advocate passive resistance is
Swaraj or national freedom.

The Congress has contented itself with demanding self-
government as it exists in the Colonies. We of the new school
would not pitch our ideal one inch lower than absolute
Swaraj , - self- government as it exists in the United
Kingdom. We believe that no smaller ideal can inspire national
revival or nerve the people of India for the fierce, stubborn and
formidable struggle by which alone they can again become a
nation.

To be content with the relations of master and dependent or
superior and subordinate, would be a mean and pitiful aspiration
unworthy of manhood; to strive for anything less than a
strong and glorious freedom would be to insult the
greatness of our past and the magnificent possibilities of
our future.

It is a vain dream to suppose that what other nations have won
by struggle and battle, by suffering and tears of blood, we shall
be allowed to accomplish easily, without terrible sacrifices, merely
by spending the ink of the journalist and petition-framer and the
breath of the orator.

Resistance may be of many kinds, - armed revolt, or aggressive
resistance short of armed revolt, or defensive resistance whether
passive or active; the circumstances of the country and the
nature of the despotism from which it seeks to escape must
determine what form of resistance is best justified and most likely
to be effective at the time or finally successful.

We wish to kill utterly the pernicious delusion that a foreign and
adverse interest can be trusted to develop us to its own
detriment, and entirely to do away with the foolish and ignoble
hankering after help from our natural adversaries.

The work of national emancipation is a great and holy yajna of
which Boycott, Swadeshi, National Education and every other
activity, great and small, are only major or minor parts.

Liberty is the fruit we seek from the sacrifice and the Motherland
the goddess to whom we offer it; into the seven leaping tongues
of the fire of the yajan we msut offer all that we are and all that
we have, feeding the fire even with our blood and lives and
happiness of our nearest and dearest; for the Motherland is a
goddess who loves not a maimed and imperfect sacrifice, and
freedom was never won from the gods by a grudging giver.

But every great yaj na has its Rakshasas who strive to
baffle the sacrifice, to bespatter it with their own dirt or by
guile or violence put out the flame. Passive resistance is an
attempt to meet such disturbers by peaceful and self-contained
brahmatejas; but even the greatest Rishis of old could not,
when the Rakshasas were fierce and determined, keep up
the sacrifice without calling in the bow of the Kshatriya
ready for use, though in the background. Politics is
especially the business of the Kshatriya, and without
Kshatriya strength at its back, all political struggle is
unavailing.

Vedantism accepts no distinction of true or false religions, but
considers only what will lead more or less surely, more or less
quickly to moksa, spiritual emancipation and the realization of the
Divinity within. Our attitude is a political Vendantism. I ndia,
free, one and indivisible, is the divine realization to which
we move, - emancipation our aim; to that end each nation
must practice the political creed which is the most suited
to its temperament and circumstances; for that is the best
for it which leads most surely and completely to national
liberty and national self- realisation.

But whatever leads only to continued subjection must be spewed
out as mere vileness and impurity. Passive resistance may be the
final method of salvation in our case or it may be only the
preparation for the final sadhana. In either case, the sooner we
put it into full and perfect practice, the nearer we shall be to
national liberty.

*****
II How Gandhi reconciled his passive resistance with
Srikrishnas Bhagwad Gita
Satyagraha Leaflet No.18, May 8, 1919 True meaning of
Bhagwad Gitas teachings
Brothers and Sisters,
I shall now endeavour to consider in all humility a doubt raised by
some Hindu friends regarding the meaning of the Bhagavad Gita.
They say that in the Bhagavad Gita Sri Krishna has encouraged
Arjuna to slay his relations and they therefore argue that there is
warrant in that work for violence and that there is no satyagraha
in it. Now the Bhagavad Gita is not a historical work, it is a great
religious book, summing up the teaching of all religions. The poet
has seized the occasion of the war between the Pandavas and the
Kauravas on the field of Kurukshetra for drawing attention to the
war going on in our bodies between the forces of Good
(Pandavas) and the forces of Evil (Kauravas) and has shown that
the latter should be destroyed and there should be no remissness
in carrying on the battle against the forces of Evil, mistaking them
through ignorance for forces of Good. In Islam, Christianity,
Judaism, it is a war between God and Satan, in Zoroastrianism
between Aurmazd and Ahriman. To confuse the description of this
universally acknowledged spiritual war with a momentary world
strife is to call holy unholy. We, who are saturated with the
teachings of the Bhagavad Gita but who do not pretend to any
special spiritual qualifications, do not draw out sword against our
relations whenever they perpetrate injustice but we win them
over by our affection for them. If the physical interpretation
alluded to of the Bhagavad Gita be correct, we sin against it in not
inflicting physical punishment upon our relatives whom we
consider to have done us injustice. Everywhere in that Divine
Song, we note the following advice given to Arjuna: Fight without
anger, conquer the two great enemies, desire and anger, be the
same to friend and foe; physical objects cause pleasure and pain,
they are fleeting; endure them. That one cannot strike down an
adversary without anger is universal experience. Only an Arujna
who destroys the devil within him can live without attachment. It
was Ramdas brought up in the teaching of the Bhagavad Gita who
not only endured the lashes of a wrongdoer but actually produced
for him a Jagir. Narsinh Mehta, the first poet of Gujarat and the
prince among bhaktas, was nurtured in the Bhagavad Gita
teaching. He conquered his enemies only by love and has given
through one single poem of matchless beauty the great text of
their conduct to his fellow-Vaishnavas. That encouragement for
violence can be deduced from the Bhagavad Gita demonstrates
the deadliness of Kaliyuga. It is only too true that we often find an
echo of our sentiments in what we read and see. If it is true that
God made men in his own image, it is equally true that man
makes God also in his own image. I have found nothing but love
in every page of the Gita and I hope and pray that everyone will
have similar experience of Sunday.
Printed by Rustom N. Vatchaghandy at the Sanj Vartaman Press,
Nos. 22-24-
26, Mint Road, Fort, Bombay.
From the printed original preserved in Gandhi Smarak
Sangrahalaya, Delhi.
Courtesy: H. S. L. Polak
CWMG, Vol. 17, pp 25-26

The Ramayana and the Mahabharatha are both referred to as
ithihasa (it happened so) or history. Gandhi denied historicity to
both Srirama and Srikrishna because the two defining wars in the
two great Hindu epics contradicted his own unnatural insistence
that non-violence was the only virtue. No religion teaches anyone
to kill his neighbors, he claimed erroneously in 1947, despite
claiming that he knew the Koran better than the Indian converts
to Islam. Righteous wars do take place but I do not approve of
them either. In the Bhagwadgita too oppressors and tyrants were
resisted in a righteous war. (Speech at a prayer meeting,
Chorhuan, March 21, 1947, From Urdu, Gandhijike Dukhe Dilki
PukarII, pp. 29-32, CWMG Vol. 94, page 164)

Later on in Chapter 7 we will see how Gandhi gave a similar,
peculiar metaphysical interpretation to Srirama too. The dharma
of the King is different from the dharma of the grihasta or
householder. Gandhi insisted on projecting the Mahabharatha war
as a war between relations while Srikrishna exhorts us to pick up
arms even against relations if they are adharmic and not
amenable to reason or persuasion. Gandhi had to project it as
drawing the sword against relations because he was propagating
his pet theory that Hindus and Muslims in the country had the
same forefathers and were therefore blood relations.

The Hindus of Bihar in 1947 sought inspiration in our history, in
the Bhagwadgita, when faced by jihad to retaliate in similar vein.
It was in these circumstances that Gandhi denied our history and
stood the central theme of our epics on its head.
*****











Chapter 5

Freedom Movement turns retrograde

5.1 Self-rule, Home-rule, Swaraj, Dominion Status, Passive
Resistance What was Gandhi's goal?
Gandhi swaraj, as we saw in the previous chapter, was a radical
departure from the political independence of Tilak and Aurobindo.
Gandhi described his swaraj as the inner state that obtains after
self-transformation; in effect his swaraj was equal to self-
liberation which he called self-rule. Gandhis articulation of self-
rule meant the inner transformation of an individual, which is
conceptually different from the INC Self Rule/Home Rule, which
was a political exercise and meant limited self-governance by
Indians even as India remained within the British Empire. A core
premise of Gandhis political career in India was that even Home
Rule of the type he envisaged was possible only after every
individual had realised self-rule within himself.
Real Home Rule is self-rule or self-control.
The way to it is passive resistance: that is soul force or
love force.
1

If we bear in mind the above fact, we can see that,
if we (the individual) become free, India is free.
And in this thought you have a definition of swaraj.
It is swaraj when we learn to rule ourselves. It is
therefore in the palm of our hands. Do not consider
this swaraj to be like a dream. Here there is no idea
of sitting still. The swaraj that I wish to picture
before you and me is such that, after we have once
realised it (inner realisation), we will endeavour to
the end of our lifetime to persuade others to do
likewise. But such swaraj has to be experienced by
each one for himself.Now you will have seen that
it is not necessary for us to have as our goal the
expulsion of the English.
2
(Emphasis added)
If man will only realise that it is unmanly to obey
laws that are unjust, no man's tyranny will enslave
him. This is the key to self-rule or home-rule.
3


For Gandhi then, self-rule was not limited self-governance under
British rule but refusal to obey unjust laws put in place and

1
HS, Chapter XX, Conclusion, page 118
2
HS, chapter XIV, How can India become free, page 73 (Brackets and italics,
mine)
3
HS, Chapter XVII, Passive Resistance, page 92
enforced by the foreign regime. According to Gandhi, it is
sufficient for slaves ruled by foreign powers to develop the
capacity to resist unjust laws; they need not strive to end foreign
rule. Gokhale and other moderates of the INC made way for
Gandhi to come back to India to assume leadership of the
Congress because they knew that Gandhi would not deviate from
their agenda of self-rule within the Empire and also that he would
veer the Congress away from the idea of political independence.
The Gujarati text of Hind Swaraj uses 'swaraj' to define both self-
rule and Home Rule, causing great confusion among ordinary
people and even English-educated Indians who chose to follow
Gandhi, about the real nature and objective of Gandhi swaraj.
Was it a religious/spiritual journey of individuals towards self-
liberation, or a dharmic responsibility of the praja undertaking a
political movement leading the nation towards political
independence from vairajya or alien rule?

Contrary to Aurobindos assertion that passive resistance was a
necessary tactical move to invoke and strengthen in citizens the
much-needed qualities of endurance, capacity for suffering pain
and punishment, unflinching courage and the moral strength to
ultimately launch if need be, a full-scale war against foreign
rulers, Gandhis passive resistance became a goal in itself for
ordinary Gandhian Indians to practise and achieve successfully.
But the unanswered question remains - what did Gandhi really
desire for the Indians who followed him on the streets? Self-Rule
as inner liberation, Home-Rule as the Home Rule League wanted
or small victories with passive resistance in local issues? What
goal did he explicitly set for the INC?

Ordinary Indians who responded to Gandhis call and took to the
streets for satyagraha and became victims of British repressive
state power, did not know that they had suffered great physical
abuse and pain, imprisonment, even death, not for political
independence, but only for Gandhis swaraj-as-self-rule which was
equal to inner self-liberation. The stalwarts of the freedom
movement, the leaders of the INC and Gandhi himself did not
think they needed to spell out their goal explicitly to ordinary
Indians. This was tragic because in the Hindu tradition, Hindus do
not have to suffer the repressive power of the state to achieve
self-liberation. There were other, more fulfilling and less painful
ways to attain the same, though Gandhi indulges in considerable
Portian quality-of-mercy eloquence to sell his idea on self-
suffering passive resistance:
Passive resistance is a method of securing rights by
personal suffering; it is the reverse of resistance by
arms. Everybody admits that sacrifice of self is
infinitely superior to sacrifice of others.
Passive resistance is an all-sided sword, it can be
used anyhow; it blesses him who uses it and him
against whom it is used.
Real home-rule is possible only where passive
resistance is the guiding force of the people. Any
other rule is foreign rule.
4


It is not clear how and when passive resistance acquired the
capacity to bless people while the last is a snide reference to the
Nationalists who were prepared, if need be, to also take to arms.
Gandhi cleverly uses the Love-is-blind, God-is-love, therefore
God-is-blind reasoning. According to Gandhi (with no supportive
historical reference to substantiate his claim) only passive
resistance can lead to self-rule; use of active resistance or force is
therefore not self-rule but foreign rule. Therefore says Gandhi,
the Nationalists who say they want to end foreign rule, when they
advocate armed resistance which is the antithesis to passive
resistance, are not enabling self-rule but its antithesis, foreign
rule! Gandhi concluded his astonishing dissertation on passive
resistance with the astounding, bordering-on-the-juvenile story
about facing a lion:
It may be as well here to note that a physical-force
man has to have many other useless qualities which
a passive resister never needs. And you will find
that whatever extra effort a swordsman needs is
due to lack of fearlessness. If he is an embodiment
of the latter, the sword will drop from his hand that
very moment. He does not need its support. One
who is free from hatred requires no sword. A man
with a stick suddenly came face to face with a lion;
and instinctively raised his weapon in self-defence.
The man saw that he had only prated about
fearlessness when there was none in him. That
moment he dropped the stick, and found himself
free of fear.
5


In the above story of the man and the lion Gandhi surprisingly
uses hatred and fear interchangeably; if one were to accept
Gandhis opinions as the last word on any issue, it seems there
can be no other weighty, compelling reason than fear and hatred,
to take up arms. This is not in line with Hindu ithihasa. If
anything, the defining war in the Ramayana and the war at
Kurukshetra, teach us that sometimes people will have to take up
arms and wage war to remove forces inimical to dharma. Hindu

4
HS, Chapter XVII, Passive Resistance, pp 88-99
5
HS, Chapter XVII, Passive Resistance, page 99
nationalists do not need to look anywhere else except at their own
history and tradition for lessons on how to protect and defend the
Hindu nation.

Gandhi also did not tell his readers about the storys end: was it
happy for the man or the lion? It seems surprising how Indians
particularly, and the world at large accepted these self-defeating
and self-destructive Gandhian arguments for absolute, unqualified
and un-nuanced non-violence, even when world history and the
history of the victims of Islam and Christianity and other deadly
political ideologies have proved repeatedly that violence has never
been checked or defeated by professions of love or peace or use
of unequal force of arms. Gandhi advocated passive resistance
not only to man against lion, but to Hindus against their
aggressors, native Australians against White Christian invaders,
and Jews against Nazis. He even advocated passive resistance to
the Allies against Nazi Germany and offered his services to
mediate actively between Hitler and the Allies!
Gandhi on the genocide of Native Australians:
Those people who have been warred against have
disappeared, as, for instance, the natives of
Australia, of whom hardly a man was left alive by
the intruders. Mark please, that these natives did
not use soul-force in self-defence, and it does not
require much foresight to know that the Australians
will share the same fate as their victims.
6

Gandhi prescribed the same solution to the British
fighting the Nazis:
I venture to present you with a nobler and a braver
way, worthy of the bravest soldiers. I want you to
fight Nazism without arms or ... with non-violent
arms. I would like you to lay down the arms you
have as being useless for saving you or humanity.
You will invite Herr Hitler and Signor Mussolini to
take what they want of the countries you call your
possessions....If they do not give you free passage
out, you will allow yourself, man, woman and child,
to be slaughtered, but you will refuse to owe
allegiance to them.
7

And for the Hindus against j ihad:
Hindus should not harbour anger in their hearts
against Muslims even if the latter wanted to destroy
them. Even if the Muslims want to kill us all we
should face death bravely. If they established their

6
HS, Chapter XVII, Passive Resistance, page 89
7
To Every Briton, New Delhi, J uly 2, 1940, Harijan, 6-7-1940, CWMG Vol. 78, pp 386-
88; For complete text of the appeal see end of chapter
rule after killing
Hindus we would be ushering in a new world by
sacrificing our lives. None should fear death. Birth
and death are inevitable for every human
being. Why should we then rejoice or grieve? If we
die with a smile we shall enter into a new life, we
shall be ushering in a new India.
8

That nation is great which rests its head upon death
as its pillow. Those who defy death are free from all
fear.
9


Gandhis explicit injunction that evil should not be ended at any
cost was standing Hindu dharma on its head. Gandhis arguments
rest on poor understanding of the following
He did not consider colonialism and all its attendant
oppressions and destruction to be as evil as Nazism
He failed to see that both colonialism and Nazism were
derivatives of the fundamentals of Abrahamic Monotheism
which refuses to accept and live with other Gods, other
faiths, other ways of life and another worldview
He rejected recourse to all and every means to end evil;
and this flies in the face of the core principles of
rajadharma and kshatriya dharma

5.2 Gandhiji's Passive resistance Panacea or slow-poison
Gandhi nursed an un-Hindu masochistic obsession with death and
self-suffering which was characteristic more of New Testament
Jesus-died-for-your-sins Christianity than Hindu understanding
of death and suffering. His insistence on self-suffering and dying
bordered on fetish and inhibited the Indian people from forcibly
ending their slavery under British rule. Foreign rule had to be
ended not only because it violated all traditional principles of
polity and statecraft as understood and practised in this country,
but also to restore to society its traditional autonomy. Loss of
autonomy had resulted in the loss of societys right to manage its
polity and economy in accordance with its needs and traditional
practices. Loss of autonomy led ordinary people deep into
poverty, leading them further into dispiritedness or tamas. As
Aurobindo saw clearly, leaders had to restore rajas and shakti in
society. In this perspective, the INC ought to have waged war on
two fronts: fight to end laws that robbed the people of autonomy
to manage their affairs; and fight to end British rule which gave

8
Prayer meeting, April 6, 1947, New Delhi, from Prarthna Pravachan-Part I, pp
29-32 as in CWMG, Volume 94, page 249
9
HS, Chapter XVII, Passive Resistance, pp 94-95

the Empire the means and power to keep the nation economically
impoverished and politically enslaved.

Had this been the INCs vision and Gandhis understanding, the
freedom movement would have had two core objectives: to
strengthen and rejuvenate traditional social structures and
institutions, and total political independence from British rule. Had
Gandhi so desired, he could have personally led the movement for
social and economic transformation. He should have shunned
politics and walked from village to village only with this objective
in mind and this great tapasya would have yielded dramatic and
far-reaching, lasting results in the three decades which he wasted
on disastrous political activism. But Gandhi desired to dominate
the heights: he wanted the sole right to initiate social
transformation and to be the sole leader of the so-called political
movement. He ended up merely dabbling in both, with
catastrophic results: he could not heal the socially fractured Hindu
society into even a semblance of cohesion, nor stop the march of
anti-Hindu Dravidian forces in the South. He accentuated the
alienation of Babasaheb Ambedkar and stood by helplessly as his
capricious pandering to Muslims led the country inexorably
towards vivisection and post-independence Nehruvian secularism.
Gandhi's passive resistance only delayed political independence
and facilitated the exit of the British on their terms and at a time
of their choosing. Thus:
Because Gandhi's resistance to British rule was 'passive', it
was essentially non-violent.
Passive resistance by Gandhi's own admission could not be
employed for a general objective, but only locally for a
limited purpose.
Passive resistance was therefore not intended to end
British rule in India or for India's political independence.
Passive resistance was meant only to resist specific, unfair
and repressive laws in India.
Gandhi's political career in India was only a continuation of
his career in South Africa, both in terms of the methods he
employed and his objectives.

Gandhi consciously made passive resistance the defining principle
of his relationship with the British, which could not even be
termed confrontation, much less a battle or war. Gandhi's
objective was self-rule through passive resistance by every
individual which over time would lead to 'genuine home rule',
after every individual had attained inner self-liberation. In
retrospect, it seems incredible that Gandhi kept the INC
mesmerized with this illusory, utopian fantasy.

Gandhi pulled back the 'freedom movement' from the earlier
objective of total political independence to merely campaigning
for abolition of certain laws he considered unfair or burdensome
to Indians. Between January 1915 and 1917, the INC could do
little to energise the languishing 'freedom movement' as Gandhi
was familiarising himself with the lives of ordinary people in cities
and villages by travelling extensively around the country by rail,
the very railroad he considered evil and sharply criticised in Hind
Swaraj. Gandhi's active political career in India took off in 1917
with his campaigns in Champaran and Kheda, using his by now
hallowed tool of passive resistance.

The satyagraha campaigns in Champaran and Kheda signalled the
beginning of Gandhi's political career in India and were regarded
as hugely successful because the British Raj was perceived as
yielding to the 'revolt' by granting Champaran farmers some
degree of autonomy to decide what crops to raise. The British also
withdrew the decision to implement a 23% hike in taxes that
Kheda farmers were asked to pay despite a famine in Gujarat.
This was supposed to be a spectacular victory of non-violent
passive resistance over the colonial regime; but given the truth of
Gandhis career in South Africa, one is left with a nagging doubt.
Gandhi was taking the first steps in his political career in India,
and the British needed to project his Satyagraha as a more
effective tool for securing peoples rights than the vastly more
popular route of armed resistance. It is pertinent that these rights
were being secured as enslaved subjects of the mighty empire
and did not pose the kind of threat that persons like Tilak,
Aurobindo, Savarkar and Bose posed by demanding complete
political independence, swaraj. Hence the British re-worked an old
script and granted Gandhi's first Satyagraha campaign in India
the success it needed to get Indians to follow him and abandon
the idea of political independence. As we shall soon see, there
was more to the story of Gandhis Satyagraha in Champaran and
Kheda than was told us by our history books.

The nagging doubt that the British gave Gandhi's satyagraha with
one hand what they would later take back from the people of
India, repeatedly, is augmented as the passive resistance crusade
against unfair laws hurting the livelihood of ordinary people was
pushed into cold storage as political events overtook Gandhi's pet
project of transforming the lives of people in the villages. Gandhi
the politician made the deliberate choice of marginalising Gandhi
the social activist, and although in 1909 in Hind Swaraj he
referred (with a peculiar sense of proportion) to the unjust salt
tax as being as unjust as the Partition of Bengal, Gandhi turned
his attention to the salt tax again only twenty years after Hind
Swaraj and nearly twelve years after Champaran and Kheda.
When Gandhi began his legendary Dandi March against the salt
tax, Bhagat Singh and Bose had captured the imagination of the
Indian people. Nehru was positioning himself to inherit the
political mantle from Gandhi and the Muslim League was
becoming increasingly strident. Gandhi was no longer central to
British designs; hence the Raj was in no mood to grant further
concessions to Satyagraha. The Dandi March yielded nothing and
did not in any substantive way further the cause of freedom.

Gandhi undertook the Dandi March ostensibly to force the colonial
power to repeal the law which he considered as unjust as the
partition of Bengal. But the Raj, rightly interpreting the march as
nothing more than a grand gesture by Gandhi to distract people's
attention away from Bhagat Singh's extraordinary act of courage
and great sacrifice, contemptuously dismissed the demand for
repeal. The salt tax would be repealed much later by Nehru as a
conciliatory gesture towards Gandhi, from whose other more
important economic and social theories he had steered the INC
away and had personally rejected.
As far back as 1905, the salt question had entered
Gandhi's political consciousness (CW 5:9). On 6
April 1946, at Gandhi's personal request, Sir
Archibald Rowlands, the Finance Member of the
Viceroy's Executive Council, on his own initiative
ordered the abolition of the salt tax. But the
Viceroy, Lord Wavell, vetoed the initiative on the
grounds that premature abolition of the tax would
create a salt famine. He thought that 'vanity' was
prompting Gandhi (Moon 1973, 236). Gandhi was
greatly upset by this. The salt tax was finally
abolished by Nehru's Interim Government in
October 1946.
10


A clinical analysis of the freedom movement as described by
committed historians after independence will reveal that the
Indian National Congress was never intended to be the vehicle of
India's political independence from British rule, and that after the
advent of Gandhi as supreme leader with unchallenged moral
authority, the spirit of Hindu community was methodically broken
by his passive resistance, even as Gandhi allowed Muslims to
carry their inherent political objectives violently towards climax.
In the following segment which takes a critical view of the
freedom movement, the timeline details five events which reveal
Gandhis mind, his modus operandi and what important leaders

10
HS, Editor's foot-note, Chapter II, The Partition of Bengal, page 20

within the INC and his friends outside the INC thought of him. We
have chosen Gandhis first Satyagraha campaign in India, in
Champaran and Kheda, the slaughter at Jallianwala Bagh, the
Mopla jihadi massacre of Hindus, the Quit India Satyagraha
campaign and the Cabinet Mission, for detailed analysis.

5.3 Timeline of the freedom movement that never was
We shall now examine events that were important in terms of
their political impact on the freedom movement. Our timeline will
highlight only those political landmarks and civil disobedience
campaigns launched by Gandhi on different occasions to achieve
political objectives. We have consciously ignored events which
some readers may consider equally or more important, if in our
view they lacked political content, did not serve a political cause,
or is not germane to the central theme of this book. This critique
is necessary because India's freedom movement is generally
understood as being political freedom from colonial occupation
and not as the sum total of Gandhian spiritual self-liberation or
self-rule movement of individuals. Our purpose is to establish our
core submissions that:
Gandhi's leadership of the freedom movement shifted the
focus of the INC from political freedom as demanded by
Tilak and Aurobindo to sharing power in the colonial
regime, as desired by Dadabhai Naoroji and Gokhale.
After the advent of Gandhi, the INC until the very end -
until 1942 was not a vehicle for political freedom but only
an instrument to secure power-sharing concessions from
the British, while keeping the nation securely within the
British Empire.
The INC movement was therefore no freedom movement
but a feeble exercise in power-sharing embedded within a
larger, turbulent, people's movement for genuine national
resurgence and independence.
Gandhi launched his major civil disobedience campaigns to
re-assert his power and the relevance of the INC only
when he saw Hindu passions inflamed after some grievous
injury to their sensibilities and faced the very real
possibility that they would reject him, his passive
resistance, and the INC.
Gandhi coerced Hindus into non-violence and passive
resistance but endorsed Muslim violence and paved the
way for Muslims to follow a parallel path in the national
movement, leading to vivisection.
Gandhi called off each civil disobedience campaign
whenever the people used it to mount a political offensive
against the British Raj or whenever the British promised
Gandhi some sops and used him to dampen the extreme
anger of the people
Gandhi could not check the march of an ascendant,
separatist Muslim community because he knew he could
not coax Muslims as he could coerce Hindus into giving up
their political identity and accepting passive resistance.
Gandhi made the redundant call to the British to quit India
in 1942 only when he realised that both he and the INC
looked helpless and ineffective in contrast to Subhash Bose
and his Indian National Army.
All opposition to Gandhi's objectives and methods within
the INC was silenced by his coercive moral authority or by
expelling dissenters like Subhash Bose and Rajaji.
The Quit India movement was the last major political
initiative by Gandhi and the INC; it faded into nothingness.
Gandhi probably realised he had failed as a political leader
and unilaterally anointed Nehru as his political heir.
Nehru brought to fruition Gandhi's mission to disarm and
politically disempower Hindus through his despotic control
over the Constituent Assembly.
The Constituent Assembly, dominated by the Congress had
the final say on the Constitution which would politically
disempower Hindus, and which attempted to re-define the
nation and its nationhood.

The timeline is revealing. A perusal of the different phases of the
freedom movement after Gandhi returned to India and began
passive resistance shows that the INC repeatedly lapsed into
protracted periods of complete political inaction. The first long
hibernation was caused by the ruthless decimation of the
nationalists after the Surat split of the INC in December 1907:
Tilak was first physically removed to be imprisoned in Mandalay
and after his release he was kept forcibly pre-occupied with his
rapidly deteriorating health, in fighting his cases in the court;
Aurobindo retreated into voluntary exile and Savarkar was
deported to the Andamans,. The limbo lasted eight years, from
1910 until 1918 when Gandhi launched his first Satyagraha in
India, in Champaran and Kheda. There were other long periods of
political inaction, which is uncharacteristic in war. But the Gandhi-
led movement was not a war for political independence to end
colonial rule; it was only a polite campaign demanding,
sometimes greater participation in governance, sometimes self-
rule within the British Empire. Gandhi's passive resistance acted
like slow poison within the INC and Hindu society, paralysing
both, and facilitating continuation of British rule. The rising power
of the Muslim League was directly proportionate to the growing
weakness of the INC and Hindu society.



5.4 The first phase 1918-1922
Champaran, Kheda and Ahmedabad Textile Workers
1918
These were the first and last of Gandhi's socio-economic
Satyagraha campaigns which propelled him to the political centre-
stage. Thereafter, Gandhi's activism, except for sporadic bouts in
the cause of temple entry for Harijans and to eradicate
untouchability, relied almost completely on Civil Disobedience for
its political objectives. As this civil disobedience campaign was
Gandhi's first in India, the colonial government was anxious to
grant the concessions demanded by the farmers. These
concessions established Gandhi as the non-violent messiah who
would deliver the innocent and credulous Indians from bondage.

Gandhi and the War Conference 1918
Gandhis first Satyagraha campaigns in India, in Champaran and
Kheda, the Viceroys invitation to Gandhi to participate in the War
Conference and the Montague-Chelmsford reforms cannot be
placed in a rigid chronology of sequences. The three overlapped
and to some extent influenced each other as we shall see. The
three events read together are a startling revelation of the
continuity of the imperial governments agenda, Gandhis
character and political objectives from South Africa to India.

Gandhi was given a heros send-off from South Africa with Gen.
Smuts appellation the saint adorning his head. The popular
myth doing the rounds in India was that Gandhis Satyagraha had
wrung the heart of the South African government which saw the
evil of its ways and agreed to end discrimination against Indians.
We know that this was not quite true and that nothing had
changed for the Indians and nothing would change for them not
even in 1948 when Gandhi passed away. Yet, Gandhi arrives to a
heros welcome and neatly steps into the vacuum in the INC
created by Tilaks failing health and Aurobindos retreat. With
perfect timing and in smooth continuity from South Africa, Gandhi
launches his first Satyagraha campaign in Champaran and Kheda
and simultaneously plays the role of point-man for the British
government.

With a shrewdness few could surpass, Gandhi plays the role of
leader with the Indian masses as he calls them, and the servile
loyalist with the British government; the roles of leader here and
slave there, were symbiotic. Gandhi was invited to participate in
the War Conference convened by Viceroy Chelmsford not only to
be made member of one of the sub-committees to be constituted
for war effort but also to speak on the resolution which the
Viceroy proposed should be passed in the conference. Gandhi
makes a token protest and issues a half-hearted rejection of the
invitation citing the absence of Tilak, Annie Besant and the Ali
Brothers in the conference.

It bears mention that the Viceroy was keener to have Gandhi as a
member of the War Conference than the notable absentees
mentioned by Gandhi for good reasons as it turned out; Gandhi
struck a deal with the Viceroy that if the Viceroy suspended
collection of revenue from the villagers of Kheda (Kaira), then
Gandhi in turn would actively recruit men for the war, including
from Kheda. In what will soon be typical Gandhian two-faced
approach to the freedom movement, Gandhi would say one thing
to the British government and quite another to the ordinary
people. The myth that the Satyagraha campaigns in Champaran
and Kheda were great successes because of the triumph of
Gandhis ahimsa thus stands exposed. First Gandhi grandstands
to the British government about the virtues of soul-force or love-
force as compared to brute force and then tells the government
how he has convinced the people of Champaran and Kheda that
the British government is responsive to ahimsa and will always
render them justice as long as people protested non-violently.
Gandhi, in fact, tells the British government to concede in
Champaran and Kheda as a war measure; meaning, as a
measure taken at wartime to enable recruitment of the locals into
the British army. Gandhi makes it clear in the same sentence that
if the British were to declare it as a war measure, then the
people of India will not see it as a precedent for making more and
similar demands. And then in the same breath he offers them the
bargain concede in Champaran and Kheda and he, Gandhi, will
be their recruiting agent, for a violent, non-ahimsa war, it may be
added.
I hope to translate the spoken word into action as
early as the Government can see its way to accept
my offer, which I am submitting simultaneously
herewith in a separate letter. I recognize that, in
the hour of its danger, we must give, as we have
decided to give - ungrudging and unequivocal
support to the Empire, of which we aspire, in the
near future, to be partners in the same sense as
the Dominions overseas.
I would make I ndia offer all her able- bodied
sons as a sacrifice to the Empire at its critical
moment; and I know that India by this very act
would become the most favoured partner in the
Empire and racial distinctions would become a
thing of the past.
I feel sure that nothing less than a definite vision of
Home Rule - to be realized in the shortest possible
time - will satisfy the Indian people. I know that
there are many in India who consider no sacrifice
too great in order to achieve the end; and they are
wakeful enough to realize that they must be equally
prepared to sacrifice themselves for the Empire in
which they hope and desire to reach their final
status.
In Champaran, by resisting an age-long tyranny, I
have shown the ultimate sovereignty of British
justice. In Kaira, a population that was cursing the
Government now feels that it, and not the
Government, is the power when it is prepared to
suffer for the truth it represents. It is, therefore,
losing its bitterness and is saying to itself that the
Government must be a Government for the people,
for it tolerates orderly and respectful disobedience
where injustice is felt. Thus, Champaran and Kaira
affairs are my direct, definite, and special
contribution to the war. Ask me to suspend my
activities in that direction, and you ask me to
suspend my life. If I could popularize the use of
soul-force, which is but another name for love-
force, in the place of brute force, I know that I
could present you with an India that could defy the
whole world to do its worst.

I write this, because I love the English Nation,
and I wish to evoke in every I ndian the loyalty
of the Englishman. (Emphasis added)
I remain, Your Excellencys faithful servant,
M. K. Gandhi
11


Gandhi indicates at the very first step in his political career in
India and repeatedly thereafter until 1947, that when he says we
with regard to offering sacrifices, spinning the charkha, suffering
physical and mental pain and even death for his satyagraha, it
means not him but others - the ordinary people of India; but
when it comes to formulating policies, taking crucial decisions and
interacting with the British government on behalf of the entire
country, he is just as clear about the use of the word I.
I recognize that, in the hour of its danger, we
must give, as we have decided to give -
ungrudging and unequivocal support to the Empire,
of which we aspire, in the near future, to be

11
Excerpts from Letter to Viceroy, Delhi, April 29, 1918, N.A.I: Home, War
(Deposit); October 1918 No. 26, CWMG, Vol. 17, pp 7-10
partners in the same sense as the Dominions
overseas.
I would make India offer all her able-bodied sons
as a sacrifice to the Empire at its critical moment;
and I know that India by this very act would
become the most favoured partner in the Empire
and racial distinctions would become a thing of the
past. (Emphasis added)

Dear Mr. Maffey,
In pursuance of my declaration at the Conference
yesterday, I wish respectfully to state that I place
my services at the disposal of the authorities to
be utilized by them in any manner they choose,
save that I personally will not kill or injure
anybody, friend or foe. But it would be better
perhaps if I were to state how in my opinion, my
services may be best used.

Further I desire relief regarding the Kaira trouble.
Relief will entirely disengage me from that
preoccupation which I may not entirely set aside.
It will also enable me to fall back for war purposes
upon my co-workers in Kaira and it may enable
me to get recruits from the district. The
problem there is extremely simple. I have
suggested that the revenuenow probably less
than four lakhs of rupees - be suspended this
year, with the proviso that those who can will be
put upon their honour and expected to pay
revenue voluntarily. I have already offered myself
to see that the well-to-do cultivators pay the
revenue. If this offer is not acceptable, I have
suggested an impartial committee to inquire into
the differences between the authorities and the
cultivators. I suggest that action in this matter be
taken as a war measure. This will obviate the fear
of the relief being regarded as a precedent. Pray
understand that my offer is not conditional upon
relief in either case. I merely ask for relief in the
two cases in furtherance of the common object.

I suppose I must give you something of my past
record. I was in charge of the Indian Ambulance
Corps consisting of 1,100 men during the Boer
Campaign and was present at the battles of
Colenso, Spionkop and Vaalkranz. I was specially
mentioned in General Bullers despatches. I was in
charge of a similar corps of 90 Indians at the time
of the Zulu Campaign in 1906, and I was specially
thanked by the then Government of Natal, Lastly, I
raised the Ambulance Corps in London consisting of
nearly 100 students on the outbreak of the present
war, and I returned to India in 1915 only because I
was suffering from a bad attack of pleurisy brought
about while I was undergoing the necessary
training. On my being restored to health, I offered
my services to Lord Hardinge, and it was then felt
that I should not be sent out to Mesopotamia or
France, but that I should remain in India. I omit
reference to renewals of my offer to Provincial
authorities. (Emphasis added)
Yours sincerely,
M. K. Gandhi
12


This exposes without doubt the truth that Gandhi was seeking
relief from the British government for the farmers of Champaran
and Kheda only in furtherance of the common object, which was
to get the villagers to recruit in large numbers for World War I..
Gandhi cynically used ordinary people in Satyagraha to further his
own political ends but there is a small difference from his efforts
in South Africa because in South Africa, Gandhi was at least
incessantly engaged in trying to bring modifications and
amendments to severely discriminatory laws. In India, during the
very first much-touted Satyagraha campaign in Champaran and
Kheda, Gandhi declares that he was not seeking to establish a
precedent and that the British Government therefore need not
entertain any apprehension that he would launch more such
campaigns to procure relief.

The last part of Gandhis letter to Maffey actually reads like
Gandhi citing previous work experience for the job he was now
applying for with the British Government that of recruiting
agent. Having struck a deal with the Viceroy to recruit poor Indian
villagers for the war in return for granting concessions in
Champaran and Kheda, seemingly as the fruit of the efficacy of
satyagraha, Gandhi now skillfully wears two faces the first face
told the Viceroy that he expected every Indian to make the
supreme sacrifice for the sake of Gandhis love of the Empire so
that Indians may soon be the partners of the British without
racial discrimination; and the second face spoke to the Indian
people, asking them to enroll for the war as training for possible

12
Letter top J L Maffey (Secretary to the Viceroy), Nadiad, April 30, 1918, N.A.I:
Home, War (Deposit): October 18, 1918, CWMG, Vol. 17, pp 10-12
future use against the British Government, thus giving Hind
Swaraj soul-force/love-force non-violence a tidy burial
The other enclosure contains my offer. You will do
with it what you like. I would like to do something
which Lord Chelmsford would consider to be real
war work. I have an idea that, if I became
your recruiting agent- in- chief, I might rain
men on you. Pardon me for the impertinence.
(Emphasis added)

The Viceroy looked pale yesterday. My whole
heart went out to him as I watched him listening
to the speeches. My God watch over and protect
him and you, his faithful and devoted Secretary. I
feel you are more than a secretary to him.
Yours sincerely,
M.K. Gandhi
PS. The Reverend Mr. Ireland of St. Stephens College has
kindly offered to deliver this letter into your hands.
M.K.G.
13


The fawning, toadying language that Gandhi employs in
communications with the Viceroy reflects Gandhis estimation
about the inherent superiority of the average Englishman in India
and is in marked contrast to Aurobindos estimation of the same
people.
I really cannot see why we should rage so furiously
against the Anglo-Indians
14
and call them by all
manner of opprobrious epithets. I grant that they
are rude and arrogant, that they govern badly, that
they are devoid of any great or generous emotion,
that their conduct is that of a small coterie of
masters surrounded by a nation of Helots. But to
say all this is simply to say that they are very
commonplace men put into a quite unique
position...They are really very ordinary men, and
not only ordinary men, but ordinary Englishmen
types of the middle-class or Philistines, in the
graphic English phrase, with the narrow hearts and
commercial habit of mind peculiar to that sort of
people. I t is something very like folly to

13
Letter to J L Maffey, N.A.I.: Home, War (Deposit): October 1918, No. 26, CWMG Vol
17, pp 12, 13
14
Anglo-Indians in those times referred to Englishmen in India and was not used
in the sense we use it today for descendants of those born in mixed marriages
between Indians and the English
quarrel with them for not transgressing the
law of their own nature. I f we were not so
dazzled by the artificial glare of English
prestige, we should at once acknowledge that
these men are really not worth being angry
with; and if it is idle to be angry with them, it
is still more unprofitable to rate their opinion
of us at more than a straws value.
When we cease to hanker after the soiled crumbs
which England may cast to us from her table then it
will be to that sense of manhood, to that sincere
fellow-feeling that we shall finally and forcibly
appeal.
15
(Emphasis added)

Aurobindo was writing this at the tender age of 21, and it must be
remembered, he was writing this not privately in his youthful
diary, but publicly in the Indu Prakash; and for a nation used to
groveling sycophancy masking deep fear of the Englishman,
Aurobindos words must have had the same kind of shocking,
bracing effect as being hit by water cannons. The contemptuous
diminishing of the fearsome ruler as a creature unable to
transgress the law of its own nature was a necessary strategy to
diminish our own fears of the Raj; Aurobindos bold articulation
must have had a salutary effect not only on the Congress
leadership which was still petitioning the British government for
the soiled crumbs from their high table but also on the
government itself. Now contrast Gandhis tone and substance of
his language with the people of India and note how he slips
effortlessly into the we mode as he begins his campaign to
recruit ordinary villagers for the First World War. He begins with
the people of Nadiad -
From my personal experience of dealings with it, I
have learnt this at any rate: that we would do
well not to be content with a subordinate position
in the Empire. It is a characteristic trait of the
British that they would treat people who did so as
beasts of burden. We can benefit by our
connection with them only if we live as their
friends or partners. They will protect the honour
of their allies and be loyal to them unto death. As
a nation, they have some virtues. They love
j ustice; they have shielded men against
oppression. The liberty of the individual is very
dear to them. Why, then, should we think of
breaking off our connection with them altogether?

15
Excerpts from New Lamps for Old, Indu Prakash, August 21, 1893, pp 12-13
Everyone needs a friend. Japan, America, England
- they are all obliged to maintain friendship with
some nation or other. Every country maintains a
connection with another with which it is
temperamentally allied. India can be no exception
to this.
16
(Emphasis added)

There is no doubt that Gandhi was speaking from his close
encounters with the British people not only during those years
when as an enslaved native, he pursued his studies in law in
London but also as an aspiring lawyer in South Africa. In the
critical years of his political career in South Africa and in the early
years in India, the British love of justice has been one of Gandhis
surprising refrains; and that he was certifying to British nobility
which shielded men against oppression even when he knew of
what the British did and was doing to the nationalists at home,
raises serious questions about Gandhis understanding of
colonialism and the colonizing race even when his own personal
experience with them gave him a different insight.
Gandhi knew that the White race treated those peoples it
considered inferior like beasts of burden
He came upon this truth not from the way the White race
was treating the native Africans in South Africa but when he
was tossed out of the first class compartment in a train in
the country
Gandhi always wanted to be treated with respect and on
equal terms not just by the lowest man of the White race
but also by the imperial government in London
He realized that to be treated with respect by the ordinary
Whiteman, he had to become a man of importance in his
chosen profession
He realized also that if the imperial government and all
those big, powerful men in government like Ministers, Prime
Ministers and Viceroys had to treat him with a measure of
equality that he craved, he had to become someone of
political consequence not in South Africa, which was not his
country, but in India
That is why Gandhi wrote the Hind Swaraj in 1909, signaling
his intention to play a significant role in the INC and
That is why he returned to India permanently from South
Africa even though his mission in South Africa was
incomplete and fruitless


16
Speech at Nadiad, J une 21, 1918, CWMG Vol. 17, pp 79-82

On returning to India, Gandhi wore the two faces of supplicant to
the British and leader of the Indians with the ease that came
with practice. As the years progressed and the freedom
movement entered increasingly turbulent phases, the core
premises of Gandhis understanding of the White psyche
influenced his character and his operations. From the innumerable
letters that he wrote to hundreds of people, on issues ranging
from the serious to the downright mundane, it is evident that
Gandhi treated people in exactly the same manner that he
discovered the ruling White race treated inferior races and
subordinate persons. Gandhi used one tone in his communications
with dependants in his ashram and with the supplicants in the INC
but quite another when he communicated with the British
government or with important Indians like GD Birla, Jamnalal
Bajaj or Vinobha Bhave. He publicly and in private
communications humiliated Patel in 1946 because he knew that
Patels innate decency would not permit him to challenge Gandhi
publicly while he never quite dared to do so with Nehru because
Gandhi knew that not only was Nehru, unlike Patel, volatile by
nature but that he was also the quintessential Whiteman in brown
skin, with the same attitude to people. Nehru already was what
Gandhi always aspired to be. The same dichotomy of Gandhis
clever manipulation of human relationships was seen by the way
Gandhi handled two of his most vocal and strident critics Bose
and Rajaji. Gandhi succeeded in distancing both of them from the
INC but he handled them differently. Gandhi was a shrewd judge
of human nature.
We aspire to independence, but on this basis. In
this context, the examples of Australia and
Canada are generally cited; we demand a status
like theirs. They enjoy protection and, likewise,
help in the defence effort. That is exactly what
we want for ourselves. I ndia cannot stand on
her own feet. I f the British left us, we would
not be able to defend ourselves. We could not
protect ourselves against the criminal tribes or
stand against an invading foreign army. If anyone
blames the British for this terrible state of affairs,
he will be quite right. That nation has many such
things to answer for. But our task is to turn their
virtues to account for our uplift.

We can, therefore, free ourselves only through a
friendly approach. This is not possible unless we
render all possible help to the Government at the
present juncture. We want to be partners in the
Empire. If there were no Empire, with whom
would we be partners? Our hopes lie in the
survival of the Empire. Besides, we shall learn
military discipline as we help the Empire, gain
military experience and acquire the strength to
defend ourselves. With that strength, we may
even fight the Empire, should it play foul with us.
It knows this, and, therefore, it will prove the
bona fides of the British Government if they
permit us to enlist. By raising an army now, we
shall be insuring against future eventualities.

The difference between their point of view and
that of some of us is this: we say we will have
swaraj first and then fight; they say they will not
be coerced, that swaraj will be ours if we help.
They invite us to examine their history. The Boers
got swaraj because they could fight the British.
When we can do so, they say, we too shall have
swaraj.

We can count only on our own military strength.
The Indians who are fighting now do not
represent our strength but the Governments. If
we, who would have swaraj, can train ourselves
to be their equals as soldiers, if we renounce the
fear of death, we shall be soldiers in a national
army.

If, at this juncture, they hear in England that the
whole of India has lined up for enlistment, the
House of Commons will rejoice at the news and
concede all our reasonable demands. Even if it
does not, what then? It is they who will have
reason to be sorry afterwards. An I ndia trained
for fighting will be able to wrest freedom in
a moment. But the Government is not so foolish
as all that. The British are a nation of heroes.
They will recognize heroism. If we but rouse the
heroic spirit which has been slumbering in us, we
can have everything today. I t is, therefore, my
request to everyone of you to give up all
hesitation and j oin up.
17
(Emphasis added)

Let us recall that Gandhi was passionately espousing the cause of
getting ordinary Indians to fight a world war for England (while he
himself refused to pick up arms and fight like a soldier) in the

17
Speech at Nadiad, J une 21, 1918, CWMG Vol 17, pp 79-82
name of democracy, when the Empires colonial shadow was still
hovering over half the world with no pretence of democracy, civil
liberties or even the basic freedoms. Gandhi on his recruiting
mission at Kheda -
Sisters and brothers of Kheda District:
You have just emerged successful from a glorious
Satyagraha campaign. You have, in the course of
this struggle, given such evidence of fearlessness,
tact and other virtues that I venture to advise
and urge you to undertake a still greater
campaign.
You have successfully demonstrated how you can
resist Government with civility, and how you can
retain your self-respect without hurting theirs. I
now place before you an opportunity of proving that
you bear no hostility to Government despite your
having given it a strenuous fight. You are all lovers
of swaraj; some of you are members of the Home
Rule League. One meaning of Home Rule is that we
should become partners in the Empire. Today we
are a subject people. We do not enjoy all the rights
of Englishmen. We are not today partners in the
Empire as are Canada, South Africa and Australia.
We are a dependency. We want the rights of
Englishmen, and we aspire to be as much partners
in the Empire as the Dominions overseas. We look
forward to a time when we may aspire to the
Viceregal office. To bring about such a state of
things we should have the ability to defend
ourselves, that is, the ability to bear arms and to
use them. As long as we have to look to Englishmen
for our defence, as long as we are not free from the
fear of the military, so long we cannot be regarded
as equal partners with Englishmen. It behoves us,
therefore, to learn the use of arms and to acquire
the ability to defend ourselves. I f we want to
learn the use of arms with the greatest
possible despatch, it is our duty to enlist
ourselves in the army. There can be no friendship
between the brave and the effeminate. We are
regarded as a cowardly people. If we want to
become free from that reproach, we should learn
the use of arms.
There are 600 villages in Kheda district. Every
village has on an average a population of over
1,000. If every village gave at least twenty men,
Kheda district would be able to raise an army of
12,000 men. The population of the whole district is
seven lakhs and this number will then work out at
1.7 per cent, a rate which is lower than the death
rate. If we are not prepared to make even this
sacrifice for the Empire, for the sake of swaraj, no
wonder that we should be regarded unworthy of it.
If every village gives at least twenty men, on their
return from the war they will be the living bulwarks
of their village. If they fall on the battle-field, they
will immortalize themselves, their village and their
country, and twenty fresh men will follow their
example and offer themselves for national defence.
If we mean to do this, we have no time to lose. I
desire that the fittest and the strongest in every
village should be selected and their names
forwarded. I ask this of you, brothers and sisters.
18

(Emphasis added)

These lengthy excerpts from the letters that Gandhi wrote to the
Viceroy and his secretary and his talks with villagers in Kheda and
Nadiad, besides being vintage Gandhi on the carefully chosen I,
you and we, also seek to establish that Gandhi was not above
clever dissimulation and calculated misinformation to persuade
ordinary Indians to follow his lead. These excerpts also establish
that when Gandhi returned to India after his successful mission
in South Africa, the imperial government in London had a well-
chalked out plan for his political career. Gandhi may or may not
have known about British plans for what they intended to achieve
from his role in India, but from 1918 until vivisection of the nation
in 1947, every word that Gandhi spoke, every move that he
made, served British political objectives and strategic interests.

Montague-Chelmsford reforms December 1918
Secretary of State for India, Edwin Montague put before the
British Cabinet a proposed statement with a phrase he intended to
invoke: "the gradual development of free institutions in India with
a view to ultimate self-government". Lord Curzon thought this
placed too much emphasis on working towards self-government
and suggested: increasing association of Indians in every branch
of the administration and the gradual development of self-
governing institutions with a view to the progressive realization of
responsible government in India as an integral part of the British
Empire. The cabinet approved the statement incorporating
Curzon's phrase in the place of Montague's original formulation.


18
Excerpts from Appeal for Enlistment, Nadiad, J une 22, 1918, CWMG Vol. 17,
pp 83-87
Both the Gandhi-led Indian National Congress and the Congress-
led freedom movement faithfully adhered to Curzon's goals and
till the very end, until 1942, neither Gandhi nor the Congress ever
made political independence or British departure the objective of
their engagement with the Raj. This point should be kept in mind
as we proceed.

The Montague-Chelmsford Reforms report which received royal
assent on 24 December, 1918, looked at several aspects of
constitutional reforms in India, some of which were:

1. The Council of the Secretary of State was to comprise 8-12
persons. Three of these should be Indian, and at least half of
them should have spent at least ten years in India. (Indian
participation in the Council at the highest level was thus more
perfunctory and cosmetic than functional).
2. The Secretary of State was supposed to follow the advice of
his Council. (Historians have omitted to tell us about the
occasions when the advice of the Indian members of the
Council departed sharply from that of British members, and by
which whose advice the Secretary of State took action).
3. The Secretary of State was not allowed to interfere in
administrative matters of the provinces concerning the
'Transferred Subjects' and also in matters on which Governor
General and his Legislative Council were in agreement. (This
should not be construed as any kind of relative political
autonomy for Indians. The Secretary of State was merely not
to tread on the toes of the Governor-General or Viceroy).
4. The Governor General had the power to nominate as many
members to his Executive Council as he wanted.
5. The Central Legislature was to consist of two houses i.e. the
Council of the State (Upper House) and the Legislative
Assembly (Lower House).
6. The Executive Council was not responsible to the Legislature
and the Governor General had the right to refuse its advice.
(This provision unequivocally exposed the nature of these
reforms. Neither the Cabinet nor the Viceroy would be
accountable to Parliament which comprised largely of Indians.
Here again the presence of Indians in Parliament, whether
elected or appointed, was only cosmetic).
7. Besides Muslims, other minorities including Sikhs, Anglo-
Indians, Christians and Europeans were also given the right of
separate electorates.
8. New reforms were to be introduced after ten years. (This
would be the Simon Commission which would result directly in
the death of Lala Lajpat Rai and consequently of Bhagat
Singh).

These were the soiled crumbs referred to by Aurobindo, which
were thrown at us from the English high-table in London in the
form of the Government of India Act 1919.

Rowlatt Act March-April, 1919
Even though Gandhi attended the Viceroy's War Conference in
Delhi in 1918 and agreed that Indians be recruited for World War
I and personally undertook the recruiting campaign, the British
Government decided to perpetuate suspension of civil liberties for
seditious crimes.

The Anarchical and Revolutionary Crimes Act or the Rowlatt Act as
it was commonly known, received the assent of the Governor-
General on March 21, 1919, indefinitely extending emergency
measures enacted during World War I in order to control public
unrest and root out conspiracy. It effectively authorized the
government to imprison without trial any person suspected of
terrorism living in the Raj. The Rowlatt Act gave English officers
power to deal with revolutionary activities. The government
issued a formal communiqu on the Rowlatt Act on 5
th
April 1919.

The draconian Rowlatt Act (and not the Government of India Act
1919) was slapped on Indians as a reward for fighting the White
Christian World War I, a war remote from India, but one for which
Indians fought and died, and for which Gandhi enthusiastically
recruited Indians to serve the international objectives of the
colonial power. The British government acknowledged Gandhi's
services and awarded him the Kaiser-e-Hind medal; Indians were
rewarded with the Rowlatt Act.

Civil disobedience movement for Khilafat, against
Rowlatt - 1919
Gandhis first passive resistance campaign with political intent had
the twin objectives of protesting against the draconian and
repressive Rowlatt Act introduced to thwart resurrection of
demands for political independence, and making common cause
with Indian Muslims demanding restoration of the symbol of
Muslim nationhood, viz., the Islamic Caliphate in Turkey. Gandhi
constantly endorsed the concepts of Muslim nationhood and
Muslim nation and Muslim violence as natural and consistent with
Islam and with being good religious Muslims, while decrying
assertion of Hindu nationalism and Hindu nationhood. In Hind
Swaraj he advanced the idea that the Hindu bhumi belonged
equally to Muslims and Christians, elements determined to be
inassimilable within sanatana dharma and the nation.

By Gandhi's own admission, when the INC or ordinary Indians
looked up to him and did as he bade them to do, it was the Hindu
community he was referring to, whether on passive resistance,
non-violence, or support for Khilafat. Ambedkar was one of the
very few persons who not only assessed Gandhi critically but was
also not reluctant to express his opinions publicly.
After inaugurating the Non-co-operation Movement
as an active member of the Khilafat Committee, Mr.
Gandhi next directed his energy to the cause of
persuading the Congress to adopt non-co-operation
and strengthen the Khilafat movement. With that
object in view Mr. Gandhi toured the country
between 1
st
August and 1
st
September 1920 in the
company of the Ali brothers, who were the founders
of the Khilafat movement, impressing upon the
people the necessity of non-co-operation. People
could notice the disharmony in the tune of Mr.
Gandhi and the Ali brothers. As the Modern Review
pointed out, Reading between the lines of their
speeches, it is not difficult to see that with one of
them the sad plight of the Khilafat in distant Turkey
is the central fact; while with the other, attainment
of Swaraj here in India is the object in view. The
dichotomy of interest did not augur well for the
success of the ultimate purpose. Nonetheless Mr.
Gandhi succeeded in carrying the Congress with
him in support of the Khilafat cause.
19


Mr. Gandhi repudiated the suggestion of the Modern
Review and regarded it as cruelest cut. Dealing
with the criticism of the Modern Review in his article
in Young India for 20
th
October 1921, Mr. Gandhi
said, I claim that with us both, the Khilafat is the
central fact; with Maulana Mahomed Ali because it
is his religion, with me because, in laying down my
life for the Khilafat, I ensure safety of the cow, that
is my religion, from the Musalman knife.
20


Taking Gandhis preposterous claim that he was ready to lay down
his life for the cause of Khilafat hoping to prevail upon the
Muslims to give up cow slaughter at face value, a section of the
Hindus insisted that their participation in the Satyagraha for
Khilafat was conditional upon Muslims agreeing to give up cow

19
All quotations citing Dr. Ambedkar are from Dr. Babasaheb Ambedkar,
Writings and Speeches, Vol. 8, Reprint of Pakistan or The Partition of India,
Education Department, Government of Maharashtra, 1990, page 151
20
Dr. Babasaheb Ambedkar as comment in foot-note to the above, Vol. 8, page
151
slaughter. But to substantiate the charge made earlier that all of
Gandhis exhortations were binding only upon the Hindus
I submit that the Hindus may not open the
Goraksha (cow protection) question here. The test
of friendship is assistance in adversity and that too,
unconditional assistance. Co-operation that needs
consideration is a commercial contract and not
friendship.It is the duty of the Hindus, if they see
justice of the Mahomedan cause to render co-
operation.I do not want to make the stopping of
cow killing a condition precedent to co-operation.
21


As will soon become routine, and as would be proved by the jihadi
massacre of Hindus by the Moplah Muslims in Malabar, Hindus
paid with their lives for Gandhis stubborn refusal to gauge the
Muslim psyche.

Gandhis nation-wide Satyagraha in support of Khilafat and
against the Rowlatt Act was a re-play of his last Satyagraha in
South Africa; however with one radical departure. The people of
India who were inspired by contemporary warrior-nationalists and
their acts of extreme courage and self-sacrifice saw in Gandhis
Satyagraha an opportunity to wage their own war against colonial
occupation. There were fierce riots in Delhi, Amritsar, Ahmedabad
and Lahore accompanied by attacks against Englishmen.
1. Rowlatt Act receives Governor-Generals assent March
21, 1919
2. Riots in Delhi, police fire against protestors March 30,
1919
3. Military control over city March 31, 1919
4. Srirama Navami celebrations, peaceful processions in
Amritsar April 9, 1919
5. Gandhi arrested, moved to Bombay and released April 9-
11, 1919
6. All-India hartal to protest Gandhis arrest April 10, 1919
7. Deportation of Doctors Satyapal and Kitchlew
22
, violent
protests, several Europeans killed, police firing in Amritsar
April 10, 1919

21
Young India, 10
th
December 1919, as quoted by Dr. Babasaheb Ambedkar, vol.
8, page 153
22
Dr. Saif-ud-Din Kitchlew practicing lawyer, headed the Punjab unit of the INC
and became the General Secretary, AICC in 1924. Dr. Kitchlew who opposed
Partition, left the Congress party after independence and joined the Communist
Party of India. Dr. Kitchlew died on October 9, 1963. Dr. Satyapal obtained his
MBBS from King Medical College, Lahore, was an Arya Samaji and like most
Arya Samajis of the time participated actively in the freedom movement. His name
is inextricably linked with that of Dr. Kitchlew and the agitation against the
8. Police firing in Lahore April 10, 1919
9. Arrests in Bombay, violent protests in Ahmedabad,
telegraph office and Collectors office burnt down in
Ahmedabad April 11, 1919
10. Meeting at Badshahi Mosque in Lahore, firing by troops,
derailment and burning of train April 12, 1919
11. Protests in Bombay, Viramgram, Nadiad and Amritsar
April 12, 1919
12. Riots and blood-shed in Calcutta April 12, 1919
13. Jallianwala Bagh massacre April 13, 1919
14. Violent protests in Gujranwala, telegraph wires cut in
Lahore, Amritsar and several places April 14, 1919
15. Martial Law in the Punjab April 14, 1919
16. Gandhi upbraided people for violence and announced
three-day penitential fast April 14, 1919
17. Protests and arrests in Gujranwala, continuing cutting of
telegraph wires April 16, 1919
18. Police firing in Delhi April 17, 1919
19. Deportation of leaders in the Punjab April 17, 1919
20. Gandhi announces temporary suspension of civil
disobedience April 18, 1919
21. Crawling Order issued by Brigadier-General Dyer April
20, 1919
23


While one section of the people used the mass movement for
armed resistance, another section of Indians followed Gandhi to
the streets in faithful adherence to his brand of non-violence. The

Rowlatt Act. Deeply troubled by what he alleged was Gandhis dictatorial control
over the INC, Dr. Satyapal resigned in protest from the Congress on J uly 12, 1941
and re-joined the party in 1953, only after Gandhis death.
23
Protestors wanting to know what the Punjab Government had done with Drs.
Satyapal and Kitchlew sought out Europeans in the city. On April 9, 1919,
Marcella Sherwood, Christian missionary/teacher at the Mission Day School for
Girls was bicycling round the city to close her schools when she was assaulted in a
narrow street, the Kucha Kurrichhan, was beaten and left wounded. She was
rescued by local Indians who hid her from protesting crowds and moved her to the
fort. This attack on the missionary lady incensed Dyer, who was the commandant
of the infantry brigade in J alandar. He instructed the troops of the garrison
regarding reprisals against Indians. Brigadier Dyer designated the spot where
Marcella Sherwood was assaulted sacred and daytime pickets were placed at
either end of the street. Anyone wishing to proceed in the street between 6am and
8pm was made to crawl the 150 yards on all fours, lying flat on their bellies. The
order was not required at night due to a curfew. The humiliation of the order struck
the Indians deeply. Most importantly, the order effectively closed the street. The
houses had no back doors and the inhabitants could not go out without climbing
down from their roofs. This order was in effect from April 19 until April 25, 1919.
No doctor or supplier was allowed in.
government reacted predictably. The Delhi police opened fire
against the satyagrahis in Delhi killing several; Gandhi was
arrested at Kosi when he was on his way from Mumbai to Delhi
and the Punjab, was moved back to Mumbai and promptly
released; but ordinary Indians faced brutal state repression which
culminated in the horrific Jallianwala Bagh massacre. This
massacre of peaceful demonstrators by use of repressive state
power first in Delhi and then in Amritsar, was the first of its kind
in India after Gandhi's advent, when ordinary people suffered
death, grievous physical injury and harsh imprisonment for
Gandhi's passive resistance. But Gandhi was quite exultant at the
loss of lives in Delhi -
To, Sanyasi Swami Shraddanandji, Arya Samaj,
Delhi, April 3, 1919
Just arrived from Madras tour. Read scrappy
accounts tragedy yesterday train. Read also your
spirited statement press. Feel proud of it. Tender
my congratulations to you and people of Delhi for
exemplary patience in opposing Rowlatt legislation.
We are resisting spirit of terrorism lying behind. No
easy task. We may have to give much more such
innocent blood as Delhi gave Sunday last. For
satyagrahis it is a further call to sacrifice
themselves to the uttermost.
24
(Emphasis added)

The function of violence is to obtain reform by
external means; the function of passive resistance
that is soul-force, is to obtain it by growth from
within; which in its turn, is obtained by self-
suffering, self-purification. Violence ever fails;
passive resistance is ever successful. The fight of a
passive resister is none the less spiritual because
he fights to win. Indeed, he is obliged to fight to
win, that is, to obtain the mastery of self. Passive
resistance is always moral, never cruel; and any
activity, mental or otherwise, which fails in this
test, is undoubtedly not passive resistance.
25


Gandhi maintained that passive resistance always succeeded
while violence always failed; we have to keep in mind though
that when Gandhi juxtaposed passive resistance with violence, he
was not alluding to mindless violence rooted in base self-interest
but to the just use of force to end adharma. When Gandhi

24
Telegram to Swami Shrraddanand, From a photostat: S.N. 6494; also The Hindu, 5-4-
1919, CWMG Vol. 17, pp 370-71
25
Hind Swaraj, Appendix, Gandhi's reply to Wybergh, May 10, 1910.
declared passive resistance always succeeded, he was citing his
successes in South Africa; we know that there was no such
success; Apartheid would end only in 1990 and the small
successes granted to him by Gen. Smuts were nullified by more
repressive laws soon after Gandhi returned to India. But Gandhi
continued to maintain that passive resistance, self-suffering and
death were the only religious, therefore vastly superior
instruments to end unjust laws. When Gandhi toured the Madras
Presidency in March 1919 to mobilize support for his passive
resistance to support Khilafat and against the Rowlatt legislation,
Gandhi chose his words with great deliberation.
26
He played upon
the religious sentiments of the people and was careful not to
speak about Khilafat. In Madras as elsewhere he spoke of the
campaign as targeting only the Rowlatt Act although most people,
Ambedkar among them, saw through the subterfuge as illustrated
above. Gandhi cited Prahalad as the best exemplar of passive
resistance against his father Hiranyakashipu but typical of
Gandhis propensity to speak of only one half of the truth, Gandhi
intentionally fails to mention that Hiranyakashipu was removed
from the earth, not by Prahalads passive resistance, but by
Bhagwan Narasimha in the most befitting manner commensurate
with Hiranyakashipus transgression of dharma.

During the course of this vast movement people routinely
converted it to achieve their local ends; several times people
participating in the movement confronted local police authorities
to release those that had been arrested; in some cases the
protests were far from passive or peaceful. Gandhi unambiguously
stated in one of his prolific communications to the people that he
would not tolerate any transgression of the strict guidelines laid
down for passive resistance. He exhorted people not to get people
released from jails because seeking imprisonment was an integral
part of the self-suffering component of the movement.
27

Jalianwala Bagh 1919
The general unrest and anger against the British government
triggered by Gandhis passive resistance movement spread to
Amritsar where a peaceful procession on 10
th
April was soon
transformed into an angry crowd on the 11
th
April after news
broke out of the deportation of Doctors Satyapal and Kitchlew. In
the meanwhile, defying the ban imposed on his entry into Delhi
and the Punjab, Gandhi decides to court arrest and issues a
message to his countrymen exhorting them not to feel any

26
For more on Gandhis beguiling speech at Madura, Tuticorin and Nagapatnam to
canvass for passive resistance, see end of chapter
27
For Gandhis note to the Press disapproving of transgressions by satyagrahis of
the Satyagraha Pledge, see end of chapter
resentment over his arrest and also not to unleash violence
against Englishmen or Indians after his arrest.
28


Taking their cue promptly from Gandhis message, the people of
Ahmedabad reacted sharply to Gandhis arrest, while in Amritsar
thousands of Sikhs gathered for a peaceful assemblage at
Jallianwala Bagh on the occasion of Baisakhi on 13
th
April
demanding to know what the Punjab Government had done to
Doctors Satyapal and Kitchlew. The Punjab had been placed under
martial law following violent protests on the 10
th
, 11
th
and 12
th
of
April, which killed several Englishmen, destroyed telegraph poles,
disrupted rail services and burnt government office buildings and
banks. With the full backing of Sir Michael ODwyer, Lieutenant-
Governor of the Punjab, Brigadier-General Reginald Dyer ordered
his soldiers, armed with rifles and kukris to open fire on people
who had gathered there. The resulting massacre left several
hundreds of fleeing Sikh men, women and children dead,
thousands injured and several hundreds missing.

Gandhi, who spoke and wrote regularly to the Press before or
after every major event, Gandhi who spoke and wrote to his
countrymen frequently on the need for abjuring violence, for not
attacking Englishmen, for Hindu-Muslim unity, deploring peoples
violence in Ahmedabad, and on state terrorism underlying the
Rowlatt act, however maintained a deafening silence on the
massacre at Jallianwala Bagh. Instead he issued a blistering
warning to satyagrahis, after incidents of violence in Ahmedabad
and Amritsar, threatening to launch Satyagraha against
satyagrahis. Gandhi issues his characteristic threat which would
go on to disarm the Hindus and render them progressively more
impotent and helpless in the face of violence against them by the
government and the Muslims.
We have demanded the release of about 50 men
who have been arrested for committing deeds of
violence. Our duty is quietly to submit to being
arrested. It is a breach of religion or duty to
endeavour to secure the release of those who have
committed deeds of violence. We are not therefore
justified on any grounds whatsoever for demanding
the release of those who have been arrested.

But I know how to offer Satyagraha against
ourselves as against the rulers. What kind of
Satyagraha can I offer against ourselves on such

28
Message to Countrymen, April 9, 1919, The Hindu, 10-4-1919, CWMG vol.
17 pp 407-409
occasions? What penance can I do for such sins?
The Satyagraha and the penance I can conceive can
only be one and that is for me to fast and if need be
by so doing to give up this body and thus to prove
the truth of Satyagraha.
29
(Emphasis added)

Gandhi, in a eerie replay of his letter to Ampthill, writes to JL
Maffey, personal Secretary to the Viceroy, Lord Chelmsford,
faulting his own countrymen and reassuring Maffey about his
unflinching commitment to non-violence -
Dear Mr. Maffey,
You will not consider that I was discourteous in not
sending even an acknowledgment of your last
letter. The fact is that I have treasured that letter
as worthy of you and the friendship that I hope will
ever exist between us, no matter what differences
of opinion and standpoint there may be between us.
I did not wish to send you a mere acknowledgment,
I wanted to reach a decided stage before writing to
you again, and I have also reached more than a
decided stage, and in the place I have made my
abode I find utter lawlessness bordering almost on
Bolshevism. Englishmen and women have found it
necessary to leave their bungalows and to confine
themselves to a few well-guarded houses. It is a
matter of the deepest humiliation and regret for
me. I see that I over-calculated the measure of
permeation of Satyagraha amongst the people. I
underrated the power of hatred and ill will. My faith
in Satyagraha remains undiminished, but I am only
a poor creature just as liable to err as any other. I
am correcting the error. I have somewhat retraced
my steps for the time being. Until I feel convinced
that my co-workers can regulate and restrain
crowds, and keep them peaceful, I promise to
refrain from seeking to enter Delhi or the other
parts of the Punjab. My Satyagraha, therefore,
will, at the present moment, be directed
against my own countrymen.
30
(Emphasis
added)

Gandhi issued a threat to satyagrahis, re-assured the Viceroy
through his personal secretary about his continuing love for the

29
Excerpts from Gandhis Satyagraha Leaflet No. 3. Emphasis as in original. For
the complete text of the leaflet, see end of chapter
30
Letter to J L Maffey, April 14, 1919, CWMG Vol. 17 pp 418-19
Empire and his commitment to non-violence, but nary a word on
the Jallianwala Bagh massacre. On the 13th of April, the day of
the massacre, Gandhi issues a message to the people of
Ahmedabad; on the 14th, the day after the massacre he pens
another leaflet Satyagrahi: II and also writes to GE Chatfield the
Collector of Ahmedabad and Maffey, addresses a mass meeting at
Ahmedabad on the 14
th
but makes no mention of the massacre in
any of these writings or talks. Subsequently, until a week after
the massacre Gandhi wrote several times to Maffey, to Chatfield,
penned two more satyagraha leaflets, wrote to Swami
Shraddanand, Sir Stanley Reed, Sir Ibrahim Rahimtoolla,
member, Governors Council, Bombay Presidency, and even made
a speech at a preparatory meeting for the Hindi Conference in
Mumbai. The long and short of it all is that Gandhi makes no
mention in any of his writings or speeches to the Amritsar
massacre.

In his letter to Sir Stanley Creed (Editor, The Times of India,
1907-1924) Gandhi in fact severely castigates the people of
Ahmedabad for their violence and declares to Reed that the
people had only themselves to blame for and deserved the
repressive measures of the government and the local police.
The view I have taken of this is that the people of
Ahmedabad have no right to complain of these sad
occurrences, after the ruthlessness with which the
mob destroyed the property, hacked to pieces
Sergeant Fraser, and committed many other
excesses. It is highly likely that the English ladsI
call them lads, because they looked like ladswho
were posted as pickets during martial law, had
arrived on the scene with the knowledge that a
wicked plot was hatched in order to kill the force
that was sent from Bombay, of which these lads
were members. I refer to the derailing near Nadiad,
and in their fury to wreak vengeance upon the
Ahmedabad people without any nice or exact
discrimination, they may have been too free with
their rifles. I describe this shooting in order to show
that the people have been sufficiently punished,
and there should be no further punitive measures
taken and no prosecutions undertaken.
31


Gandhis defense of Englishmen who fired upon the people of
Ahmedabad as English lads who may have been too free with

31
Letter to Sir Stanley Creed, The Ashram, April 15, 1919, From a photostat: S.N.
6534, CWMG Vol. 17 page 429
their rifles (mercifully Gandhi did not call it innocent sport), is
akin to the misguided youth misnomer secular India has
bestowed upon contemporary Indian jihadis in Kashmir and
elsewhere in the country. In one of his letters to the Collector of
Ahmedabad Gandhi asks for the names of Englishmen killed or
seriously disabled during mob-rule so that he may offer his
condolences to the families of the victims and also raise money as
compensation for the loss and injuries suffered by them!

Reacting to the violence against Englishmen in Ahmedabad and
Viramgram, Gandhi calls off the civil disobedience campaign and
issues a press notice to the effect. It is in this press notice that
Gandhi makes a passing reference to the horrendous Jallianwala
Bagh massacre, dismissing it lightly as events in Punjab
It is not without sorrow that I feel compelled to
advise the temporary suspension of civil
disobedience. I give this advice not because I have
less faith now in its efficacy, but because I have, if
possible, greater faith than before. It is my
perception of the law of Satyagraha which impels
me to suggest the suspension. I am sorry, when I
embarked upon a mass movement, I underrated
the forces of evil and I must now pause and
consider how best to meet the situation. But whilst
doing so, I wish to say that from a careful
examination of the tragedy at Ahmedabad and
Viramgam, I am convinced that satyagraha had
nothing to do with the violence of the mob and that
many swarmed round the banner of mischief raised
by the mob, largely because of their affection for
Anasuyabai and myself. Had the Government in an
unwise manner not prevented me from entering
Delhi and so compelled me to disobey their order, I
feel certain that Ahmedabad and Viramgam would
have remained free from the horrors of the past
week. In other words, Satyagraha has neither been
the cause nor the occasion of the upheaval. If
anything, the presence of Satyagraha has acted as
a check even so slight upon the previously existing
lawless elements. As regards events in the
Punj ab, it is admitted that they are
unconnected with the Satyagraha
movement.
32
(Emphasis added)


32
Press statement on suspension of Civil Disobedience, Bombay, April 18, 1919,
The Hindu, 21-4-1919, CWMG, Vol. 17, pp 443-44
So long as the British government was using the might of its state
power against Gandhis loyalists, Gandhi labeled it terrorism but
because the mind-boggling insanity of gunning down and stabbing
to death fleeing men, women and children at Jallianwala Bagh had
nothing to do with Gandhis satyagraha (or so he says), Gandhi
refused to condemn the barbarity of the slaughter even one week
after the event. Even as this book goes into print, government-
sponsored history writing is yet to include the Jallianwala Bagh
massacre as an important and integral part of the freedom
movement although the incumbent Government of India has
promised to look into the matter.

It had consistently been Gandhis position that when people took
up arms against the British government or Englishmen, the British
government had the right to use repressive measures against
Indians. Gandhi, unbeknown to him, was effectively living up to
the calculations of the British government when it created the
vacuum in the INC between 1908 and 1911 to enable his return
to India that he was the only person capable of halting violence
against officers of the British government and other Englishmen.

Years later, consistent with the founding principle of his political
career, that he would not tolerate violent reprisals against the
British, Gandhi condemned the killing of Sir Michael ODwyer by
Udham Singh who had nurtured the sorrow and anger of the
Jallianwala Bagh Massacre in his heart till just such a moment
when he could avenge the humiliation of the crawling order and
the killing of peaceful satyagrahis on that fateful day in 1919.
Gandhi also makes gratuitous reference to the etymology of the
word assassin.

Further details that have come through the press of
the assassination of Sir Michael ODwyer and the
attempted assassination of Lord Zetland, Lord
Lamington and Sir Louis Dane confirm my opinion
that it was a work of insanity. It is none the less
reprehensible on that account. We had our
differences with Sir Michael ODwyer, but that
should not prevent us from being grieved over his
assassination or condoling with Lady ODwyer and
her family. I would like every Indian patriot to
share with me the shame of the act and the joy
that the lives of the three distinguished Englishmen
were saved. We have our grievance against Lord
Zetland. We must fight his reactionary policy. But
there should be no malice or vindictiveness in our
resistance. The papers tell us that the accused
acted with amused nonchalance when he faced the
court and the spectators. This does not command
my admiration. It is to me a sure sign of continuing
insanity. The accused is intoxicated with the
thought of his bravery. I have known drunken men
act with a recklessness of which they would be
incapable in a sober state. I understand that extra
rum is issued to soldiers who are sent to specially
hazardous tasks. What am I to praise, the rum or
its aftereffect? The word assassin owes its origin to
the hasheesh that was administered to the would-
be assassins in order to deaden their conscience.
This continuing insanity of the accused should fill us
with pity and grief. If we are to fight fairly and
squarely, we must, as far as is humanly possible,
make every Englishman feel that he is as safe in
our midst as he is in his own home. It fills me with
shame and sorrow that for some time at least every
Indian face in London will be suspect. Is it not
possible for us all to realize that the masses will
never mount to freedom through murder? I would
like every reader of these lines to know that every
such act harms our non-violent struggle and
therefore to dissociate himself in the secret of his
heart and openly from such acts of insanity.
33

(Emphasis added)

In July 1920, when Gandhi visited Amritsar to address the people
on the non-co-operation that he had launched again, Gandhi
referred to the massacre and what followed. All through 1919,
Gandhi traveled across India soliciting support for his non-co-
operation movement in the name of the Rowlatt Act; there was
not even a whisper of the khilafat cause then. Once the
movement gathered momentum, in 1920, Gandhi traveled yet
again across the country, this time soliciting support for his re-
launched non-co-operation, in the name of the Jallianwala Bagh
massacre and the khilafat cause. Whenever Gandhi spoke of the
massacre and what followed thereafter, he rightly castigated the
people for their craven cowardice in subjecting to Dyers
humiliating order to crawl along the lane, rubbing their noses in
the dirt; but instead of advising them to die rather than suffer this
humiliation, Gandhi could have served the nation and the Sikhs
better by living in their midst to instill in them the qualities of
fearlessness and pride; Gandhi also did not envisage other more
satisfying options than suffering death, which would effectively

33
NOTES The London Assassination, Ramgarh, March 17, 1940 Harijan, 23-3-
1940 Vol. 78 pp 67-68
deter Englishmen like Dyer who used brutal, pacifying measures
to quell the spirit of revolt.
Whilst he said he wanted to emphasize that the
people were also in the wrong, even as the
authorities had been, the difference being one of
degree. Whilst they had committed a few pound of
wrong the authorities were guilty of tons of wrong.
But as long as the least amount of wrong had been
done by people they should be prepared for
hundreds of Jallianwalas and he would not be
satisfied by them until people had not the slightest
share in violence.

Speaking of the Punjab, Mr. Gandhi said he could
not but confess to a sense of feeling that, however
noted the Punjabis were for their bravery, they had
not played well their part in April last. They were
terrified, their spirit was broken. He had not the
slightest doubt about this. For how else could they
consent to such inhumanities as crawling like
reptiles rubbing their noses against the ground.
How, if they had any sense of self-respect, if they
felt that they were men, could they thus consent to
be pulled down from mans state. If they had a
sense of their manhood, of their self-respect and
honour they should have willingly faced death
rather than tamely accept such dishonours. But he
was not there to cavil at the Punjab. His mortal
frame was made of the same stuff as that of
Punjabis. He was not sure that his spirit would
remain unbroken under similar circumstances. He
would only pray that he should never submit to
such indignities even if he was faced with death as
the only alternative.
34
(Emphasis added)

Death certainly was not the only alternative! Gandhi in Lahore
Only the deserving got justice from God. They
were made to crawl because they deserved it.
In Europe even a boy would refuse to do it.
To the Hindus, the speaker said that he supported
the Muslims and went about with them because
they wished to protect the Hindus themselves. I f
the Hindus wished to live peacefully with the
Muslims, the former should help the latter.

34
Speech on Non-Co-operation, Amritsar, J uly 16, 1920, The Tribune, 27-7-
1920, CWMG Vol. 21, page 52
Several people had told him that the Muslims would
desert the Hindus after the khilafat question was
decided. From his twenty years experience, during
which period he had been closely associated with
the Muslims he could say it was false.
35
(Emphasis
added)

The fatal flaw in Gandhis argument people did not always
subject themselves to humiliation for fear of death; sometimes it
called for greater courage and endurance for self-suffering to
undergo humiliation in order that one may continue to live
because of unfulfilled responsibilities to family, religion or nation.
Savarkar understood this probably much better than Gandhi; he
therefore swallowed the poison of subjecting himself to the
conditions laid down by the British government for release rather
than continue to waste away his life in exile in the Andamans.
Savarkar chose the indignity of choosing to abide by the
conditions of the British government for his release, for the larger
intent to live to fulfill a bigger cause.

The second serious flaw in Gandhis argument was that he
presented death of self as the only alternative to humiliation.
Gandhi did not consider killing the enemy or the tormentor as the
more legitimate alternative. On the one hand he was taunting the
Sikhs for crawling while in the same breath he was condemning
the people of Ahmedabad, Viramgram and Gujranwala for their
redeeming acts of vengeance. This was still early years after
Gandhis return to India and the polish on his halo was still intact.
He could make these pronouncements unchallenged. But for then,
Gandhi was killing the spirit and idea of the kshatriya.

Government of India Act 1919

Amritsar Congress December 27-January 1, 1919
This would be long remembered for the Gandhi-Tilak face off at
what would actually turn out to be Tilaks last Congress; Tilak
would pass away on 31
st
July, 1920. Tilak and CR Das placed
before Congress a resolution expressing their stern
dissatisfaction with the reforms report and the subsequent GoI
Act 1919. Tilak and Das described the report as inadequate,
unsatisfactory and disappointing. The resolution was supported
by S Satyamurti, Hasrat Mohani, Rambhuj Dutt Choudry and
Chandra Bansi Sahai. Gandhi took exception to the word
disappointing and presented an amendment to Tilaks

35
Speech on Khilafat and Non-Co-operation, Lahore, J uly 17, 1920, The Tribune,
20-7-1920, CWMG Vol. 21, pp 55-56
resolution, supported by Jinnah and Madanmohan Malaviya, in
which he insisted on re-wording the entire resolution to the
effect that Congress must place on record its gratitude to
Montague. With the same peculiar sense of proportion by which
Gandhi equated the salt tax with the partition of Bengal in Hind
Swaraj, Gandhi advises Tilak to accept the amendment by
appealing to Tilak in the name of religion, culture and
civilization. Gandhi also threatened to travel extensively across
the country to explain to the people why he opposed Tilaks
resolution, why he thought the country must welcome the
reforms report, must thank Monatgue and extend the hand of
fellowship to him!
36


The same sense of seething disbelief grips us when we read
Gandhis speech at the Congress making much ado about a
trivial issue. However, Gandhi knew exactly what he was doing.
It was a trial of strength and Gandhi was flexing his muscles, all
the while signaling his intention to stonewall any move by the
nationalists to set the agenda, even as his language remained
profusely respectful of Tilak at the Amritsar Congress. Gandhi
was just as profuse and fulsome in his praise for Tilak after his
death. It is with the same intriguing and characteristic sense of
proportion that Gandhi insisted, despite resolute opposition by
several members, on passing a self-defeating, self-deprecating
resolution at Amritsar, condemning our people for the violent
protests which spread across North India in April 1919, after his
arrest.
The most important resolution, however, was the
one in which we admitted and condemned our
lapses. It was a little difficult to understand
the unwillingness to pass this. That in
Ahmedabad, Viramgam, Amritsar, Gujranwala and
Kasur, our own people set fire to buildings, killed
people, burnt down bridges, removed rail tracks
and cut wires needs no proof. Maybe there is truth
in what some people say, that the C.I.D. instigated
the mobs, that it had a hand in it; even then, the
fact remains that some of us played into their
hands and did unforgivable things. We must
denounce these. The individual or nation that
refuses to see his or its lapses or fears to admit
them can never progress. So long as we refuse to
see the evil around us, we do not acquire the
strength to fight it and the evil goes deep.
Moreover, we have no right whatsoever either to

36
For the complete text of Gandhis speech against Tilak, see end of chapter.
notice or condemn other peoples faults so long as
we do not roundly denounce our own. We cannot
be purified unless we feel sorry for having set
Government buildings on fire and atone for it;
until then we have no right to condemn
General Dyers terrible crime and, if we fail to
admit our faults, we dare not demand the
dismissal of Sir Michael ODwyer and the recall
of Lord Chelmsford. It is also asked whether we
should not take into account the nature of the
provocation to the people. The answer to this is
that, even so, we are bound to denounce our
misdeeds such as setting fire to buildings and killing
innocent people. That man alone wins who,
whatever the cause, refuses to be provoked and
such a one alone may be said to be a law-abiding
man. The nation which does not know how to obey
laws has no right to protest against injustice.
37

(Emphasis added)

Which laws and whose laws? Decades later it would be in similar
Gandhian vein that important Hindu political leaders would term
December 2, 1992 as the saddest day of their lives and would
subsequently repeatedly and profusely apologize for the Gujarat
riots of 2002.

Till the end, Gandhi never saw the wisdom of closing ranks
against the British, never saw the wisdom of uniting all Hindu
centers of power and strength to check the British-driven
ascendance of Islam. Gandhi declared, yet again with a skewed
sense of proportion that he would travel across the four corners of
the country if Tilak refused to welcome the reforms and extend
his hand of fellowship to Montague a monumental exercise for a
less than trivial cause, in support of a British government official
and against a towering Indian nationalist! Six months later, when
Gandhi would issue a call to boycott the reception to the visiting
Prince of Wales, the same Montague would label the same Gandhi
disloyal and unmannerly.

Montague has said that I have served the country
in the past but that now I have lost my head and
may have to be arrested, if necessary. I ask you
not to lose your balance of mind if they arrest me.
You went mad for the sake of Kitchlew. For
Satyapal, too, you lost your head, set fire to

37
The Congress , Navjivan, 11-1-1920, CWMG Vol. 19, page 304
houses, and killed innocent people. If you love me,
you should keep your patience, should they arrest
both of us, even if they hang us on the gallows. I
know, my heart tells me, that if I were a Prime
Minister and were opposed by any person whom I
believed to be a mad Gandhi, I would certainly send
such a Gandhi to the Andamans. Montague thinks I
am mad; if he believes this honestly and arrests
me, where is the cause for anger? If you do not
consider me mad, listen to what I say, do what I
have asked you to do and go to jail. Where a tyrant
reigns, a prison is a palace and a palace a prison. If
you have learnt this equation of prison and palace,
do as I tell you. If you believe that what I am
telling you is only what God tells me through my
inner voice, then give me the assurance, I beg you,
that you will restrain your passion and will not boil
over even if they sentence me.
38


This was extraordinary, skillful oratory, holding people in thrall,
not to say brilliant tactic projecting himself as a possible victim
of state repression, and citing his inner voice to put the people at
a psychological disadvantage. Gandhi yet again exhorts people
not to take to violence if the government arrested him or even if
he were to be sent to the gallows! Send Gandhi to the gallows for
boycotting the reception to a member of the royal family? Gandhi
was attributing to the British government his own sense of
disproportion and the snide reference to the Andamans, which
was actually a reference to the sentence of transportation and the
kind of people who were sent there (Savarkar and the Bengal
revolutionaries) is also typically Gandhi. Indeed Gandhi knew how
to choose his words when he was addressing a captive audience.

Gandhi would not only fall out with Montague but would also go
on to reject the Montague-Chelmsford reforms for which he had
postured against Tilak only six months ago, so that he could
legitimately launch his non-co-operation movement again, this
time for the khilafat cause. In 1919, Gandhi packaged the khilafat
cause in the Rowlatt Act; in 1920 he packaged it in the Punjab
issue. Gandhi who two years earlier had actively recruited Indians
for a war in Europe, now in the name of non-co-operation,
campaigned against Indians being recruited into the army for the
war in Mesopotamia; the same. Gandhi would also tell people to
reject the Government of India Act 1919 resting on Montagues

38
Speech at Rawalpindi, J uly 19, 1920, Navajivan, 15-8-1920, CWMG Vol.
21, page 66
reforms report, and call for boycotting elections to enter the
legislatures, on the specious argument that towering patriots like
Tilak would not have been able to do even a fraction of the work
that they had done had they entered the legislatures or council of
ministers!
Mr. Gandhi spoke in support of his motions. He
expressed his utter distrust of the bureaucracy and
stated that as British people were past masters in
the art of diplomacy he felt convinced now, though
he felt otherwise in Amritsar, that these reforms
were a dangerous trap which concealed gilded
chains that enslaved the country. He warned his
hearers not to fall in that trap. He assured them
that if they would only start the movement in the
right spirit and carry it out as he desired, he was
sure that they would secure full independence for
the country within a year. He also stated that the
masses were still backward in political action and
had no initiation in the working of the electoral
machinery. The electorate in his view, had not yet
the ability to discriminate on complicated political
issues and were unable to understand the objective
they had in view. They would be at the mercy of
unscrupulous men and he wound up by saying that
boycott of elections was the pivot upon which the
programme in his resolution turned and therefore
he was not prepared to yield to any appeal made in
the name of unity. On this head, patriots like Mr.
Tilak would not have been able to do even the small
part of work they had done if they had got into
councils.
39
(Emphasis added)

And in what was a complete turnaround from his covert mission
just two years ago to get entire villages in Gujarat to enlist in the
army to fight in World War I, Gandhi declares piously that in his
conception of swaraj, no power could send Indians abroad to
enslave other nationalities! He also equates swaraj to the Hindu
moksha and the Christian salvation.
Under that swaraj, the nation will have the power to
impose a heavy protective tariff on such foreign
goods as are capable of being manufactured in
India, as also the power to refuse to send a single
soldier outside India for the purpose of enslaving
the surrounding or remote nationalities. The swaraj

39
Speech at Subjects Committee Meeting, Calcutta, September 5, 1920, The
Hindu, 6-9-1920, CWMG Vol. 21, pp 237-38
that I dream of will be a possibility only when the
nation is free to make its choice both of good and
evil. I adhere to all I have said in that booklet and I
would certainly recommend it to the reader.
Government over self is the truest swaraj. It is
synonymous with moksha or salvation, and I have
seen nothing to alter the view that doctors, lawyers
and railways are no help, and are often a hindrance
to the one thing worth striving after.
40


Nagpur Congress 1920 Call for Swaraj
After the swadeshi war-cry in Amritsar, Gandhi issued the swaraj
war-cry which he said would be obtained within the year. Gandhi
rightly assessed the Hindu outrage after Jalianwala Bagh and
realized that given the violent protests in Ahmedabad, Calcutta
and Gujranwala in April 1919, the threat of forceful retaliation
against the British was very real. It is pertinent that Muslim civil
disobedience during this campaign was not against the Rowlatt
Act or the Jalianwala Bagh massacre, but for their exclusive goal
of restoration of the Turkish Caliphate. The Muslims used Gandhi's
Satyagraha to entrench their separatist and hegemonic
identities;
41
Gandhi encouraged the sense of the Muslim Ummah
in the vain hope that the Muslims would come along with the INC
under his leadership. Gandhi launched this phase of his civil
disobedience campaign for the Khilafat with the twin objectives of
dousing the fire of revenge burning in Hindu and Sikh hearts and
to assume leadership of the Muslims by getting the INC and
Hindus across the country to take up their cause.

Tilak had passed away in July and Gandhi called for swaraj-
within-a-year to stave off the second imminent split in the INC by
assuaging the sense of seething discontent and revolt among the
nationalists. But what exactly did Gandhi mean by swaraj and
what did he mean when he declared at Nagpur that he wanted it
within one year? Gandhis response on December 8, 1920, to
Lord Ronaldshays
42
critique of swaraj as conceptualized by
Gandhi in Hind Swaraj, and his own position which he articulated
at the special session of the Congress in Calcutta, in September
1920, only added to the growing confusion about the definition of
swaraj. Gandhi admitted that his swaraj was different from the
swaraj as defined in the Congress resolution -

40
Notes, On the wrong Track, Young India, 8-12-1920, CWMG Vol. 22, page 63
41
The minority tendency to use the secular constitution to propel their separatism
is a continuation of this phenomenon; as is the secular Hindu abetment of this
practice.
42
1844-1929; diplomat and author; Governor of Bengal, 1917-22
The preamble to the resolution passed in the special
session of the Congress in September 1920, as drafted by
CR Das and accepted by Gandhi defined the aim of non
co-operation to be the attainment of complete swaraj
43

Gandhi accepted the amendment regarding full self-
government in his proposal not on the ground that the
Khilafat question was subservient to the question of
swaraj. To him the Khilafat and the Punjab were greater
than swaraj.
44

To him swaraj was only a means to an end and he for his
part was prepared to exchange swaraj for any other
system of Government if, in his opinion, it was for the
good of the country.
45

Government over self is the truest swaraj. It is
synonymous with moksha or salvation.
46


I am sorry that the swaraj of the Congress
resolution does not mean the swaraj depicted in the
booklet (Hind Swaraj); swaraj according to the
Congress means the swaraj that the people of India
want, not what the British Government may
condescend to give. In so far as I can see, swaraj
(as desired by the Congress) will be a parliament
chosen by the people with the fullest power over
the finance, the police, the military, the navy, the
courts and the educational institutions.
47


From the above, it would seem that for the Congress swaraj was
what the people of India wanted; but for Gandhi it was not even
what the people of India wanted but something else. To the
Congress swaraj was self-government within the empire; for
Gandhi it was Hindu moksha which he equated with the Christian
salvation. And the INC was not a homogenous party with
unanimity of views or objectives. The moderates opposed
Gandhis non-co-operation for attainment of swaraj which entailed

43
Speech at Subjects Committee meeting, Calcutta, September 5, 1920, The Hindu, 6-9-
1920, CWMG Vol. 21, page 238

44
Speech at Subjects Committee meeting, Calcutta, September 7, 1920, The
Hindu, 8-9-1920, CWMG Vol. 21, page 239
45
Same as foot-note 41, page 240
46
Notes, On the wrong Track, Young India, 8-12-1920, CWMG Vol. 22, page 63

47
Notes, On the wrong Track, Young India, 8-12-1920, CWMG Vol. 22,
page 63, (words in parenthesis, mine)

boycott of elections because they believed that it was only
through the election route that they could achieve total self-rule,
while the nationalists also desired self-rule but without the
insistence on passive resistance. Sadly, the nationalists in 1920,
of whom Motilal Nehru was one and whose swaraj too was only
self-rule within the empire, were a far cry from Aurobindo and
Tilak who wanted not only end of colonial rule but also complete
severance from the Raj. Gandhi, differing from the nationalists of
1909 and from contemporary nationalists in 1920 and also from
the moderates, wanted inner self-purification or moksha or
salvation. It is obvious that when Gandhi issued the call for swaraj
at the Nagpur Congress in December 1920, there was no single
understanding of swaraj, or consensus on how to achieve it. But
the INC went along with Gandhi, confusion, dissent and all.

Gandhi wanted this undefined swaraj within a year; the much-
hyped Nagpur Congress call for swaraj was neither a call for
ending colonial rule nor a call for complete political independence.
Gandhi had effectively reversed and even perverted Tilak and
Aurobindo's swaraj. In February 1922, more than a year after the
Nagpur Congress, the freedom movement was standing still,
straining at the leash. Gandhi attributed the failure to achieve
swaraj within a year to the fact that both the Congress and the
ordinary people of India refused to adhere strictly to the two core
Gandhian conditions for swaraj total non-violence and wearing
khadi inside and outside the house! By and by the list expanded
to include Hindu-Muslim unity, ending untouchability and even
brahmacharya. Gandhi declared that swaraj was not possible until
these conditions were fulfilled without breach.

Gandhi was not leading a freedom movement moving towards
political independence; he was occupying political space and
assuming political leadership for effecting social changes through
coercive methods.
We have discussed the conditions for swaraj several
times before now. But, as long as we have not
learnt to observe them, we must continue to think
about them and tell ourselves that there can be no
swaraj till then.
Swaraj cannot be won merely by people becoming
volunteers. It will be won only by volunteers
observing the conditions laid down for them.
If recruits are required to have a minimum height
of five feet, any pigmies of four feet who manage to
get in will certainly not help to win the battle but
will become a burden, and may possibly be the
cause of their side being defeated.
Similarly, if some volunteers inclined to violence
join those who observe the condition of
nonviolence, they can only do harm. When
enlistment as volunteers is open only to those who
wear nothing but hand-spun khadi at home and
outside and on all occasions, how can persons who
wear khadi containing mill-made warp, or who wear
pure khadi only at the time of enrolment and while
on duty as volunteers, help to win swaraj?
If we are demanding swaraj for the sake of the
poorest of the poor and the lowest of the low, for
the sake of victims of famines and for all those who
live by begging, if we wish to banish hunger from
the country, then we shall find that we cannot do
without hand-spun khadi, for by no other means
can we provide the homes of such people with the
necessaries of life.
To cling to the sin of untouchability as a part of
dharma and at the same time to hope to preserve
Hinduism, protect the cow, practice non-violence
and have equal regard for all, I believe all this to
be impossible. Just as crops will not ripen without
sunshine, so we shall certainly not reap the harvest
of swaraj till the darkness of untouchability has
vanished. There can be no swaraj without
fearlessness. And yet the Hindus fear the Muslims
and the latter fear the former. The Parsis and the
Christians fear them both. How, then, can we get
swaraj? How can anyone who has not shed all fear,
that is to say, does not look upon all Indians as his
brothers and sisters, be considered as a lover of
swaraj?
48


This in essence sums up the tragedy of Gandhi. No right-thinking
person will quarrel with Gandhis description of ideal society.
Hindus have known and lived in such societies. The king, in Hindu
tradition had to ensure the contentment of his people and also
ensure that peace and harmony prevailed in every corner of his
kingdom to facilitate the peaceful pursuit of the purusharthas
dharma artha, dharma kama and moksha. This was surajya or
good governance. Even the king in Hindu tradition, symbolizing
the formal state was a later development. When dharma was all-
prevailing, there was no state in Hindu bhumi people were self-
governing, swa-raj. We can concede to Gandhi that this was
possibly what he meant when he spoke of swaraj. As dharma

48
Conditions for Swaraj, Navajivan, l2-2-1922, CWMG Vol. 26, pp 142-45
began to erode, Hindus moved from statelessness to limited state
from swaraj to surajya.

The tragedy and ultimate failure of Gandhi was that he wanted
the ideal Hindu state without its core component the ruler who
subordinated himself to dharma. Only adherence to sanatana
dharma could ensure swaraj. If Gandhi wanted to realize swaraj,
he should have known that his first task would be to end vairajya
or rule by aliens with an alien worldview far removed from
dharma; in fact a worldview which was the very antithesis of
dharma. Swaraj of Gandhis conception would have to go through
several stages before evolving completely to mean self-
governance end of colonial rule, choosing rulers committed to
dharma or the Hindu worldview and then re-building our society
and nation on Hindu understanding of autonomy and self-
governance. This autonomy was however inextricably linked to
the larger pradesh or region, and desh or nation.

By aiming straightaway for swaraj of the ideal Hindu nation
Gandhi thwarted the spirited move to first end colonial rule.
Political independence from vairajya by any means ought to have
been the first step. Gandhis insistence on habits which were
usual to the ideal state aborted the spirited beginning required for
political independence leading to that ideal state. Thus was the
freedom movement stalled and ultimately perverted. We achieved
political independence at the cost of territory and the state which
came into being after political independence was actively hostile
to the Hindu ethos. Gandhi failed to deliver both on surajya and
swaraj because his notion of nationhood rested on the false
premise that people practicing alien faiths not born on this bhumi,
also subscribed to dharma or Hindu nationhood. To insist
therefore that Hindus, Muslims, Christians and Parsis had equal
claim on this bhumi was to pervert our traditional understanding
of nation and nationhood. It was this significant failure by Gandhi
to judge the British Christian and Indian Muslim/Christian psyche
correctly, which led to the horrendous tragedy of 1947 and the
continuing tragedy for the Hindus in post-independence India.

Moplah rebellion in Kerala and the massacre of Hindus
August 20, 1921
Secular and Marxist historians have tried unsuccessfully to
disguise the religious identity and religious motivations of the
assailants of Hindus in Kerala during what has been called the
Moplah rebellion. The latter was a jihad against Malabar Hindus
and was inspired by the Khilafat movement.

The Khilafat movement was a political movement by Indian
Muslims in support of the pan-Islamic Muslim nation and Muslim
state. The Khilafat Committee set up by Gandhi's associates, the
Ali brothers, contained in its ranks the most fanatic and blood-
thirsty elements. The Ali brothers would no doubt have headed
the Khilafat movement and set up the Khilafat Committee even
without endorsement or support from Gandhi or the INC, but the
fact is Gandhi and the INC endorsed and supported the Khilafat
movement and Khilafat Committees. The latter was a coming
together of jihadi elements of the Muslim community, a virtual
terrorist arm of the All-India Muslim League, which put on a
tactical liberal Muslim mask for polite discourse with the British
government. However, as the League progressed decisively
towards vivisection of India, it gave up all pretensions of
liberalism and invited the Khilafat Committee to merge with the
League.

Gandhi's perception of the Muslim community is best defined in
Aurobindo's words as 'purblind sentimentalism'. The Khilafat
Committee provided those nursing ambitions of re-establishing
Muslim rule in India with an avenue for not only opposing colonial
rule, but also with an outlet for a long-suspended jihad against
Hindus. The civil disobedience movement that Gandhi most
fortuitously launched in support of Khilafat encouraged Kerala
Muslims to hoist the Khilafat flag across the Malabar, and the
frenzy of Islamist revivalism inevitably culminated in the
massacre of Hindu men and women and children, accompanied by
rape, molestation and brutal mutilation of the dead.
The outbreak was essentially a rebellion against the
British government. The aim was to establish the
kingdom of Islam by overthrowing the British
government. Knives, swords and spears were
secretly manufactured, bands of desperados
collected for an attack on British authority. On 20
th

August, a severe encounter took place between the
Moplas and the British forces at Pirunangdi. Roads
were blocked, telegraph lines cut, and the railway
destroyed in a number of places. As soon as the
administration had been paralysed, the Moplas
declared that Swaraj had been established. A
certain Ali Mudaliar was proclaimed Raja, Khilafat
flags were flown, and Ernad and Wallurana were
declared Khilafat kingdoms. As a rebellion against
the British government it was quite understandable.
But what baffled most was the treatment accorded
by the Moplas to the Hindus of Malabar. The Hindus
were visited by a dire fate at the hands of the
Moplas. Massacres, forcible conversions,
desecration of temples, foul outrages upon women
such as ripping open pregnant women, pillage,
arson and destruction in short, all the
accompaniments of brutal and unrestrained
barbarism, were perpetuated freely by the Moplas
upon the Hindus until such time as troops could be
hurried to the task of restoring order through a
difficult and extensive tract of the country.
49

There is no credible reason for Gandhi not to have attributed the
massacre of the Malabar Hindus to the Khilafat movement or to
jihad. Typically, however, Gandhi condoned the massacre and
justified it on the grounds that the Muslims who perpetrated the
horror were only being true and sincere adherents of their faith!

The blood-curdling atrocities committed by the
Moplas in Malabar against the Hindus were
indescribable. All over southern India a wave of
horrified feeling had spread among the Hindus of
every shade of opinion, which was intensified when
certain Khilafat leaders were so misguided as to
pass resolutions of congratulations to the Moplas
on the brave fight they were conducting for the
sake of religion. Any person could have said that
this was too heavy a price for Hindu-Muslim unity.
But Mr. Gandhi was so much obsessed by the
necessity of establishing Hindu-Muslim unity that he
was prepared to make light of the doings of the
Moplas and the Khilafats who were congratulating
them. He spoke of the Moplas as the brave, God-
fearing Moplas who were fighting for what they
consider as religion and in a manner which they
consider as religious.
50


Relentless and barbaric jihad against them, by different hordes of
Muslims who had invaded and settled upon their bhumi, has been
the lived experience of Hindus and it is not as though Gandhi had
not heard of this inherent tenet of Islam. Swami Shraddanand,
Gandhis contemporary who would himself become a victim of
jihad soon, wrote this in July 1926 in his weekly journal Liberator

There was another prominent fact to which I drew
the attention of Mahatma Gandhi. Both of us went
together one night to the Khilafat Conference at
Nagpur. The Ayats (verses) of the Quran recited by
the Maulanas on that occasion, contained frequent
references to Jihad and killing of the kaffirs. But

49
Dr. Babasaheb Ambedkar, Vol. 8, page 163.
50
Dr. Babasaheb Ambedkar, Vol. 8, page 158
when I drew his attention to this face of the Khilafat
movement, Mahatmaji smiled and said, They are
alluding to the British bureaucracy.
51


Gandhis purblind sentimentalism was compounded by his
intentional misrepresentation of Hindu sensitivities to the
massacre.
My belief is that the Hindus as a body have received
the Mopla madness with equanimity and that the
cultured Mussalmans are sincerely sorry of the
Moplas perversion of the teaching of the Prophet.
52


Gandhis despotic control over the INC was so total that the INC
resolution passed by the Working Committee was insult to
grievous injury. The INC actually condoned the massacre of
Hindus and absolved the Muslims of all responsibility, laying the
blame at the door of the British government for having provoked
the Muslims to frenzied rage; a trend that continues even today
when blame for every act of terror by Muslims against the Hindus
is laid at the door of the Hindus for having goaded the Muslims to
seek redress for their grievances through recourse to terror.
Whilst however condemning violence on the part of
the Moplas, the Working Committee desires it to be
known that the evidence in its possession shows
that provocation beyond endurance was given to
the Moplas and that the reports published by and
on behalf of the government have given a one-
sided and highly exaggerated account of the wrongs
done by the Moplas and an understatement of the
needless destruction of life resorted to by the
government in the name of peace and order.

The Working Committee regrets to find that there
have been instances of so-called forcible
conversions by some fanatics among Moplas, but
warns the public against believing in the
government and inspired versions. The report
before the Committee says, The families, which
have been reported to have been forcibly converted
into Mahomedanism, lived in the neighborhood of
Manjeri. It is clear that conversions were forced
upon Hindus by a fanatic gang which was always
opposed to the Khilafat and non-co-operation

51
Dr. Babasaheb Ambedkar,Vol. 8, page 159
52
Dr. Babasaheb Ambedkar, Vol. 8, page 158
movement and there were only three cases so far
as our information goes.
53


A familiar sinking feeling of dj vu overtakes Hindus who have
been told repeatedly and after every act of terror by Pakistani
jihadis that these attacks were perpetrated by fanatics opposed to
the peace process. Not content with absolving the Muslims of
blame for the massacre Gandhi makes his contempt for the
Hindus abundantly clear
And, in a Young India issue of 1924, Gandhi wrote,
"My own experience but confirms the opinion that
the Mussalman as a rule is a bully, and the Hindu
as a rule is a coward. Need the Hindus blame the
Mussalman for his cowardice?
54

Gandhi's defining words for Hindus and Muslims, coward and
'bully', were not accidental. From the inception of his political
career in India, Gandhi had usurped Tilaks and Aurobindos
words, opinions and concepts, and given them an entirely
different meaning in consonance with his own views. We have
already seen this in the case of the terms Swaraj and Young
India. This is what Aurobindo said of Hindus and Muslims in 1906,
in the context of the movement against the partition of Bengal:
The idea that by encouraging Mahomedan
rowdyism, the present agitation may be put down,
is preposterous; and those who cherish this notion
forget that the bully is neither the strongest nor the
bravest of men; and that because the self-restraint
of the Hindu, miscalled cowardice, has been a
prominent feature of his national character, he is
absolutely incapable of striking straight and striking
hard when any sacred situation demands this.
55

It is noteworthy that Gandhi did not call off the civil disobedience
movement in the wake of the Moplah massacre nor call for
disbanding the Khilafat committees. Though a member of the
Central Khilafat Committee, he did not even resign his
membership to protest the massacre! It is in line with Gandhian
exculpation of Islamic jihad that the jihadi massacre of Malabar
Hindus was consistently described by secular-Marxist historians as
the 'Moplah rebellion', thus politely converting jihad against
Hindus into a rebellion and jihadis into 'rebels'.

53
Dr. Babasaheb Ambedkar, Vol. 8, pp 158, 159
54
Arvind Lavakare in his column for Rediff, in April 2002, On Sabarmati,
secularism and non-violence
55
Partition of Bengal, Bande Mataram, 4 September 1906, in Sri Aurobindo Birth
Centenary Library, Vol 27, Supplement edition, p. 21.



Chauri Chaura February 4, 1922
An unintended consequence of Gandhi's civil disobedience
campaign was that it roused the Muslim community to jihad
against the Hindus while stoking the dormant embers of
nationalism amongst the Hindus who took to the streets in ever-
increasing numbers in support of swaraj which they perceived as
end of colonial rule. The British government used extreme
repressive measures against the Hindus who participated in
Gandhi's civil disobedience campaigns in spite of the fact that
these campaigns were always peaceful and non-violent. This
included uncivilized conduct like public flogging of people who
took to the streets for Gandhis satyagraha violating government
ban on assembly and stripping people naked on the streets before
sending them home and of course imprisonment. The regime also
hanged several satyagrahis, deported others to imprisonment in
the Andamans, and used the police to quell popular uprising with
unimaginable brutality.

The British adopted different and discriminatory measures against
Hindus and Muslims. Farsighted British vested interests restrained
the Raj from antagonizing the explicitly political and violent
Muslim community, while at the same time they greatly feared
the Hindu majority may take to armed resistance against them.
The British were therefore particularly harsh in their treatment of
even peaceful satyagrahis. The Chauri Chaura incident was
sparked by brutal police repression of satyagrahis marching in
protest, enraged over the Jalianwala Bagh massacre of
satyagrahis in the Punjab in 1919 and the jihadi massacre of
Hindus in Kerala in 1921. Hindu anger exploded at Chauri Chaura,
in Gorakhpur District of Uttar Pradesh and the normally peaceful
satyagrahis chased their tormentors who locked themselves in a
police chowki, set the chowki on fire, burning alive 21 policemen
and another young man, the son of a policeman. Gandhi himself
acknowledged that the policemen had offered grave provocation
to the peaceful satyagrahis -
I understand that the constables who were so
brutally hacked to death had given much
provocation. They had even gone back upon the
word just given by the Inspector that they would
not be molested, but when the procession had
passed the stragglers were interfered with and
abused by the constables. The former cried out for
help. The mob returned. The constables opened
fire. The little ammunition they had was exhausted
and they retired to the Thana for safety. The mob,
my informant tells me, therefore set fire to the
Thana. The self-imprisoned constables had to come
out for dear life and as they did so, they were
hacked to pieces and the mangled remains were
thrown into the raging flames.
56


An infuriated establishment imposed martial law in Chauri Chaura
and surrounding areas. All areas were raided and hundreds
arrested; 172 persons were charged and put on the trial. On 20
April 1923, the Allahabad high court awarded death sentence to
19, jail terms including life imprisonment to two years jail to 113
accused, and acquitted 38 due to lack of evidence; three accused
died during the course of the trial.

Calling off civil disobedience February 12, 1922
Horrified at the display of extreme anger by the people, Gandhi,
true to his position in Hind Swaraj, called off the civil disobedience
movement in 1922, thus dousing not just Hindu anger, but
attempting to douse the fire of Hindu nationalism. Gandhi called
off the civil disobedience movement not when he was faced by
Muslim jihad that claimed Hindu lives in Kerala in 1921, but when
confronted with Hindu nationalism targeting the colonial regime
and government officials in Chauri Chaura. As was becoming
routine Gandhi tactic, he wrapped his sanctimonious argument in
religion and capped it with a five-day penitential fast which he
said he undertook as punishment against those who had erred.

God has been abundantly kind to me. He has
warned me the third time that there is not as yet in
India that truthful and non-violent atmosphere
which and which alone can justify mass
disobedience which can be at all described as civil,
which means gentle, truthful, humble, knowing,
willful yet loving, never criminal and hateful.
He warned me in 1919 when the Rowlatt Act
agitation was started. Ahmedabad, Viramgam, and
Kheda erred; Amritsar and Kasur erred. I retraced
my steps, called it a Himalayan miscalculation1,
humbled myself before God and man, and stopped
not merely mass civil disobedience but even my
own which I knew was intended to be civil and non-
violent.
The next time it was through the events of Bombay
that God gave a terrific warning. He made me
eyewitness of the deeds of the Bombay mob on the
17th November. The mob acted in the interest of

56
The Crime of Chauri Chaura, Young India, 16-2-1922, CWMG Vol. 26 pp
177-78
non-co-operation. I announced my intention to stop
the mass civil disobedience which was to be
immediately started in Bardoli. The humiliation was
greater than in 1919. But it did me good. I am sure
that the nation gained by the stopping. India stood
for truth and non violence by the suspension.
But the bitterest humiliation was still to come.
Madras did give the warning, but I heeded it not.
But God spoke clearly through Chauri Chaura. Non-
violent attainment of self-government presupposes
a non-violent control over the violent elements in
the country. Non-violent non-co-operators can only
succeed when they have succeeded in attaining
control over the hooligans of India, in other words,
when the latter also have learnt patriotically or
religiously to refrain from their violent activities at
least whilst the campaign of non-co-operation is
going on. The tragedy at Chauri Chaura, therefore,
roused me thoroughly.
The drastic reversal of practically the whole of the
aggressive programme may. be politically unsound
and unwise, but there is no doubt that it is
religiously sound, and I venture to assure the
doubters that the country will have gained by my
humiliation and confession of error.
After deep consideration, therefore, I am imposing
on myself a five days continuous fast, permitting
myself water. It commenced on Sunday evening; it
ends on Friday evening. This is the least I must do.
I urge co-workers not to copy my example. The
motive in their case will be lacking.
All fasting and all penance must as far as possible
be secret. But my fasting is both a penance and a
punishment, and a punishment has to be public.
57
It
is penance for me and punishment for those whom
I try to serve, for whom I love to live and would
equally love to die. They have unintentionally
sinned against the laws of the Congress though
they were sympathizers if not actually connected
with it. Probably they hacked the constablestheir
countrymen and fellow-beingswith my name on
their lips. The only way love punishes is by
suffering.. But whether the murderers accept my
advice or not, I would like them to know that they
have seriously interfered with swaraj operations,

57
It was also an excellent ruse for public emotional blackmail
that in being the cause of the postponement of the
movement in Bardoli, they have injured the very
cause they probably intended to serve.
58


Gandhi by his own admission subordinated the nations political
struggle to his personal fetish which he clothed in the garb of
religion. The gathering momentum of the peoples movement was
throttled and turned retrograde. It bears repetition that it was
only the INC and the Hindus who were stopped in their tracks; the
Muslim League, the Khilafat Committees, the Ali Brothers
continued on their way towards their political objective,
undeterred by Gandhis penitential fast or call for self-purification.
The freedom-movement went into hibernation again as Gandhi
compelled the INC and the ordinary people of India to give up
political aspirations and undertake constructive work in social
reform as penance for Chauri Chaura.

In an interview to the Bombay Chronicle, Gandhi even refused, as
an act of penance, to lift his little finger to get over 15,000
satyagrahis released; these were the peaceful satyagrahis who
had taken to the streets for Gandhis civil disobedience.

Q - Have you no fear that the machinery of Congress organization
will be loosened and there will be absence of zeal on account of
repeated disappointments?
A - I have absolutely no such fear for the simple reason that
earnest workers must realize as they have realized already, that
there must be in all organic growth constant adaptability to
changes that take place in the environment.
Q - Have you no fear, Mahatmaji, that as the result of the
suspension people might lose faith in your principle of non-
violence?
A - I have none.
Q - What about the prisoners at least 15,000 of whom have gone
to jail in expectation of the early attainment of swaraj? Will not
that question alone drive you to discover some form of resistance
at least to get them released?
A - The issue has been changed by the Gorakhpur tragedy. The
Congress must, for the time being, sacrifice the prisoners. They
must suffer for the popular misdeeds at Gorakhpur.
Q - Do you think the fanatical portion will not get out of hand
through indefinite suspension of mass civil disobedience?

58
Excerpts from The Crime of Chauri Chaura, Young India, 16-2-1922, CWMG Vol.
26 pp 177-83

A - I hope not. If the fanatical portion will get out of hand it will
demonstrate lack of Congress discipline and, therefore, justify
suspension of mass civil disobedience.
59


This interview is remarkable for two things Gandhi was playing
God with the lives of 15000 individuals and their families and his
Mahatmahood subjugated the INC to his will, his fetishes and his
personal preferences on all issues; this in spite of the fact that
important leaders within the Congress had serious differences of
opinion with Gandhi all through the course of the so-called
freedom movement.

5.5 The Third phase 1927-1931

Simon Commission 1927-28
The Government of India Act 1919 had promised to review after
a decade the power-sharing arrangement through diarchy, and
other constitutional affairs. The Imperial Government set up the
Indian Statutory Commission comprising Sir John Simon and six
Members of Parliament, popularly known as the Simon
Commission to review the working of the Montague-Chelmsford
reforms and the Government of India Act 1919. The Simon
Commission arrived in Bombay on 3
rd
February, 1928. The INC
decided to boycott the Commission as it did not include a single
Indian member. This is significant that the Congress was
opposing not the continuing effort by the Imperial government at
constitutional reforms while keeping India within the Empire as
the jewel in its crown, but the fact that the reforms commission
did not have even one Indian member in its group. This proves
that the Congress under Gandhis leadership, even in 1928, was
not aiming at political independence and throwing the Empire out
of India but merely greater participation in the British Indian
government; some of them aimed at a completely Indian
government but still within the Empire possibly with the Viceroy
remaining as the overseer.

Lala Lajpat Rai beaten to death by Police Chief Scott
October 31, 1928
Lala Lajpat Rais death is probably the most famous instance of
more Indians dying for Gandhi's satyagraha than if they had
taken up arms against the British. The Simon Commission arrived
in Lahore in October 1928 and the INC protest against it was led
by Lala Lajpat Rai, a known advocate of armed resistance and a
fiery nationalist. The Raj, keen to deal appropriately with him,

59
Interview to The Bombay Chronicle, The Bombay Chronicle, 18-2-1922, CWMG
Vol. 26, page 170
found this protest timely. On October 31, Lajpat Rai was beaten
mercilessly on the chest and shoulder by a man named Scott, the
then police chief in Lahore.

Within a fortnight, on 17th November 1928, Lajpat Rai
succumbed to his grievous injuries and died of heart failure. The
callous death of Lajpat Rai subsequently led to another tragedy,
the hanging of Bhagat Singh. Ten days before Lajpat Rai would
succumb to his injuries, this is what Gandhi had to say about the
assault on Lalaji

For whether the revolution is non-violent or violent,
there is no doubt about it that before we come to
our own, we shall have to learn the art of dying in
the countrys cause. Authority will not yield without
a tremendous effort even to non-violent pressure.
Under an ideal and complete non-violence, I can
imagine full transformation of authority to be
possible. But whilst an ideally perfect programme is
possible its full execution is never possible. It is
therefore the most economical thing that leaders
get assaulted or shot. Hitherto obscure people have
been assaulted or done to death. The assault on
Lala Lajpat Rai has attracted far greater attention
than even the shooting of a few men could have.
The moral therefore I would have national workers
to draw from this incident is not to be depressed or
taken aback by the assault, but to treat it as part of
the game we have to play, to turn the irritation
caused by the wanton assault into dynamic energy
and husband it and utilize it for future purposes.
60


Bhagat Singh had witnessed the police brutality against Lajpat Rai
and was enraged at Lalajis death. Decisively rejecting Gandhi's
passive resistance, Bhagat Singh sought vengeance on Police
Chief Scott. But in an unfortunate twist of mistaken identity, he
killed Assistant Superintendent of Police John Poyantz Sanders
instead of Scott.

Motilal Nehru Report December 1928
At the Calcutta Congress in December 1928, the Motilal Nehru
Report,
61
which was the Indian response to the all-White Simon
Commission, was tabled before the Congress Working Committee.

60
The Inevitable, Young India, 8-11-1928, CWMG Vol. 43, pp 199-201
61
For salient features of the Nehru report and J innahs counter-proposals see end
of chapter
Congress had appointed an all-Indian, all-party commission to
propose constitutional reforms for India in reaction to Lord
Birkenheads speech in the House of Lords taunting the Congress
to prepare a constitution that would be widely acceptable to all
sections of the populace followed by his letter to Lord Irwin, the
then Viceroy, as being in favour of inducing the malcontents to
produce their own proposals. Three important meetings took
place in December 1928 to decide on the Nehru report the
annual Congress meeting where the report was placed before the
Congress Working Committee, the meeting of the Muslim League
separately from the INC and the All-Party Convention. At the
Congress meeting vehement objections to the report were
expressed by Jawaharlal Nehru and Subhash Bose; however for
entirely different reasons.

The resolution on the report placed before the Working
Committee was, as usual, drafted by Gandhi and made two
important submissions that all political parties signatory to the
report should give the imperial parliament two years time, until
December 1930 to ratify the Nehru report for Dominion Status,
failing which Gandhi would re-launch civil disobedience calling for
total independence
62
and sending the text of the resolution and a
copy of the Nehru report to the Viceroy. Nehru and Subhash Bose
objected to giving the imperial parliament two years to make up
their mind while Subhash Bose objected to Dominion Status; Bose
wanted nothing short of complete independence immediately;
there were also wide-spread protests to the suggestion that the
Viceroy should be kept informed. In asking for a copy of the
resolution to be sent to the Viceroy, Gandhi was endorsing the
fashionable practice of the times - recognizing the legislative
supremacy of the Imperial Parliament. Gandhis Congress, which
was asking for self-determination was in fact bowing to the
sovereign and ultimate authority of British Parliament to ratify the
Congress resolution.
That the Nehru scheme requires endorsement by
the British Parliament is no defect in it. Since we
are connected with Britain, we shall in every case
need some sort of endorsement from her
Parliament whether the scheme is to be
transmutation of the present bondage into an
absolutely equal partnership to be destroyed at will
or whether it is to end every sort of connection with
Britain. I shall always maintain that the

62
It seemed a little comical that Gandhi would threaten the total ending of national
slavery if his demand for partial slavery was not met.
transmutation, complete conversion, is any day a
higher status than destruction.
63


However, in the face of strong objections to the resolution, it was
withdrawn and a new resolution was tabled; this time without
reference to the Viceroy and reducing the time given to the
imperial government from two years to one; Gandhi however
insisted that the country should not ask for complete
independence but must settle for dominion status because while it
was well within the power of the British parliament to give India
dominion status, the country (read INC) did not have the strength
or the means to enforce the demand for total independence! In
his speech before the Subjects Committee of the meeting, Gandhi
argues passionately for retaining the phrase dominion status
instead of independence and with the clear intent of getting the
Congress to go along with him he raises the possibility that he
may have to die in the attempt to back up and enforce the
demand for complete independence. The emotional appeal
bordering on emotional blackmail had its natural result the
Congress went along with him and Subhash Boses amendments
to Gandhis second resolution were defeated by a very narrow
margin.
64


Nehru chose not to attend the meeting on the day Gandhi was
forced to withdraw his first resolution; that day set the precedent
for the more (in)famous day when Nehru would absent himself
from the proceedings of the Constituent Assembly when the
House was scheduled to discuss and vote on Article 370 providing
for the dangerous special status for Jammu and Kashmir, leaving
Gopalaswamy Aiyangar to perform the unpleasant task, which
was not at all in the national interest. Considering that both Bose
and Nehru had strong reservations about the resolution moved by
Gandhi, in what would be a significant pointer to the future
Gandhi deals with them differently Nehru with affection
bordering on adoration and Bose with great sternness.
65
Subhash
Bose, however was made of sterner stuff than Nehru and not only
were he and his supporters present on the eventful day but Bose
held his ground and refused to withdraw his amendments to the
second resolution moved by Gandhi.


63
Whats in a name, December 29, 1928, Young India, 3-1-1929, CWMG Vol.
43, page 467
64
For more details on Gandhis speeches on the Nehru report in Calcutta, see end
of chapter.
65
For more details on Gandhis handling of the objections raised by Nehru and
Bose, see end of chapter.
This book raises questions about the three core assumptions
underlying the Nehru report that the constitution which Indians
drafted as reaction to the all-British Simon Commission must not
only involve all major political parties of the time but must also be
widely acceptable; the concept of minorities in a religion-less
state and that the draft constitution must be endorsed by the
British parliament. The three major parties agreeing to come
together to draft the Constitution was the INC, the Muslim League
and the Liberal Party. Gandhi had made it clear to the INC that it
was not on his agenda to get the British out of the country; he
only wanted the British government to treat Indians equally to the
British. Gandhi had also made it clear that the illusory Hindu-
Muslim unity was the bedrock of his satyagraha and for him and
for the INC under his leadership, satyagraha or complete non-
violence was the only way to achieve whatever minimal political
reforms that the Imperial British Parliament was willing to grant.
And so
The British could not be forced out of the country by
sustained armed resistance
The British government in 1928 was under no compelling
reason to contemplate withdrawing from India
The British government had already empowered the Muslim
community and found in Gandhis Hindu-Muslim-unity fetish
an enabling instrument to check the political aspirations of
the 87% strong Hindu majority populace and counter the
growing sense of Hindu nationalism
The primary objective of the Nehru Committee was therefore
only to draft a constitution which would effectively deal with
the communal problem or settle the communal issue; in
short, pander to Muslim separatism
This Convention is of opinion that the
resolutions it has already passed on the
recommendations of the All-Parties Committee
contained in clauses one to six of their Report
sufficiently indicate the will of the nation as to the
nature and main principles of the constitution
acceptable to it and is further of opinion that except
on points on which notes of dissent have been
recorded at the instance of some of the parties
present there is a general agreement on the
basis of the solution of communal problem
recommended by the said Committee.
66

The British government played up Gandhis fetish and
convinced even intelligent Indians that resolving the

66
Speech at All-Parties Convention, Calcutta, J anuary 1, 1929, CWMG Vol. 43,
page 487
communal problem (read appeasing Muslims) must be one
of the core objectives of constitution-making and also that
the assent of the British parliament was mandatory for
implementing contemplated reforms

The logic was childishly simple. The only way parliament assent
could be by-passed or rendered irrelevant was to use force to
implement the constitution with or without British consent. If it
had to be without it could only be with the countrys readiness to
use retaliatory force against the almost certain use of force by the
British government to thwart implementation of the independent
constitution. By insisting on the all-party committee to draft the
constitution and by insisting on British parliament assent for the
report with the matching insistence on non-violence, Gandhi
reduced the Nehru report to a cosmetic exercise. Sections of the
INC rejected the resolution, the Muslim League rejected the
report in toto and the British government tossed it aside and
made the Simon Commission Report the basis for the Government
of India Act, 1935.

Defence of India Act 1929
Unnerved by the intense anger spreading across the country
against the British government for the killing of Lajpat Rai and
intimidated by Subhash Boses insistence on complete political
independence compounded by the growing feeling inspired by
Bhagat Singh, Sukhdev and Rajguru that violence unleashed by
the Raj against the Indian people was best responded to by
retaliatory violence in equal measure, the government declared its
intention to pass the draconian Defense of India Act by ordinance.
It would be used against all nationalists, whether passive or
armed resisters.

Bombing the Central Assembly by Bhagat Singh
April 8, 1929
Bhagat Singh, Sukhdev and Rajguru decided to bomb Delhi's
Central Legislative Assembly (today's Lok Sabha) where the
ordinance Defense of India Act was set to be passed. In Bhagat
Singh's own words:

Consequently, bearing in mind the words of the late
Mr. S.R. Das, once Law Member of the Governor-
General's Executive Council, which appeared in the
famous letter he had addressed to his son, to the
effect that the 'Bomb was necessary to awaken
England from her dreams', we dropped the bomb
on the floor of the Assembly Chamber to register
our protest on behalf of those who had no other
means left to give expression to their heart-rending
agony. Our sole purpose was "to make the deaf
hear" and to give the heedless a timely warning.
Others have as keenly felt as we have done, and
from under the seeming stillness of the sea of
Indian humanity, a veritable storm is about to
break out. We have only hoisted the "danger-
signal" to warn those who are speeding along
without heeding the grave dangers ahead. We have
only marked the end of an era of Utopian non-
violence, of whose futility the rising generation has
been convinced beyond the shadow of doubt.
67

Bhagat Singh rightly and categorically rejected Gandhi's
uncompromising non-violence as 'utopian non-violence'.
His statement, which was read out in court was reproduced
in the Congress Bulletin dated July 1, 1929.
My Dear Jawaharlal,
I read the current Congress Bulletin. I think that
the reproduction of that statement was out of place
in an official publication which is designed merely to
record Congress activities. Is it not like a
government gazette? On merits too, I understand
that it was prepared by their counsel. It is not the
outpouring of earnest souls as you and I thought it
was. Nor did I like your advocacy and approval of
the fast they are undergoing. In my opinion, it is an
irrelevant performance and in so far as it may be
relevant, it is like using Nasmyth hammer to crush
a fly.
68


Gandhi derides the fact that the statement read out by Bhagat
Singh in court was drafted by his counsel, while he himself
routinely drafted every statement to the press, every resolution of
the Congress Working Committee, on behalf of the Congress
party. Bhagat Singh was arrested and three months later was
sentenced to transportation for life in June 1929. The fast
referred to by Gandhi with such disparagement was the fast
undertaken by Bhagat Singh in prison demanding better living
conditions and also insisting that political prisoners be treated
with dignity and not like common criminals. By a tragic turn of
events the British Government came to know of his role in the

67
Excerpt from ' Full Text of Statement of S. Bhagat Singh and B.K. Dutt in the
Assembly Bomb Case', read in Court on 6th J une, 1929, by Mr. Asaf Ali on behalf
of Bhagat Singh and B.K. Dutt
http://www.shahidbhagatsingh.org/index.asp?link=june6)

68
Letter to J awaharlal Nehru, After J uly 1, 1929, Gandhi-Nehru Papers, 1930.
Courtesy: Nehru Memorial Museum and Library, CWMG Vol. 46, page 233
killing of Deputy Superintendent of Police Saunders in 1928 and
Bhagat Singh was then tried for murder and sentenced to death.

Lahore Congress Purna Swaraj 1929
The INC and particularly Gandhi were equally alarmed at the
growing impatience of ordinary Indians with passive resistance
which was leading the nation nowhere. Gandhi had to douse the
fire of vengeance quickly and effectively. He was compelled to
make a call to the Indian people with a political slogan signifying
independence. Nehru, elected President of the Lahore Congress
on September 29, 1929, read out a resolution drafted by Gandhi,
containing the second clarion cry of 'purna swaraj'. This 'purna
swaraj' sounded more powerful than Tilak and Aurobindo's plain
swaraj and it took Gandhi and the INC nine years after the
Nagpur swaraj to utter it. And despite the efforts of post-
independence in-house historians, this too was no more than an
illusion. Nagpur swaraj=home rule=self-rule with dominion
status=Nehru report for dominion status=Lahore purna
swaraj=home-rule=greater power sharing still within the Empire.
Purna Swaraj was thus never equal to political
independence and the end of colonial rule; Yet maintaining
the charade of marching towards independence, Jawaharlal Nehru
gave the first demonstration of his penchant for midnight when at
the stroke of midnight on New Year's Eve in 1930, he hoisted the
tricolour with much bravado and called for complete political
independence.

The British Government, after maneuvering Gandhi into the INC
had also seemingly given up the menacing big cat role but had
perfected the cat and mouse game in its dealings with the
Congress under Gandhi. The Viceroy and the imperial government
knew that Gandhi, in the face of relentless opposition from
Subhash Bose and others, had staked his prestige in the Calcutta
Congress of December 1928 in persuading the Congress to pass
the resolution for dominion status (which Gandhi said was the
same as independence) and which was supposed to receive
parliament assent before the December 31, 1929 deadline set at
Calcutta. Gandhi had also declared that if by December 31, 1929
the British Parliament refused to accord dominion status to India
then the world would wake up to find Gandhi an
independencewala; not that alone, but that Gandhi would launch
civil disobedience which would then not be called off under any
circumstance until the goal of complete independence or purna
swaraj was attained non-violently.

Knowing all this, the British Government allowed the deadline to
come and go. Just to make sure that the message was driven
home, Earl Russell, the Under-Secretary of State for India,
announced dominion status for India, exactly four days after the
deadline, on January 4, 1930 with the rider that even if Dominion
Status were to be given to India it would not be like that of the
White colonies of South Africa, Canada, New Zealand and
Australia. The insolent message White rulers will treat their
White colonies better than non-White colonies (India) or non-
White peoples in the same colony (native Africans and Indians in
South Africa). We cannot accuse the British government or
Viceroy Irwin of not knowing Gandhi well enough to offer this
slight. Gandhi, at the Lahore Congress, declared that the Nehru
report would no longer be the basis for negotiations with the
British government, that the Nehru report stood null and void and
that he Gandhi would now announce civil disobedience, non-
violently.

Having made its insulting point that (secure in Gandhis non-
violence) it will move only when it is ready to move, having
pushed Gandhi (seemingly) to the point of no return, the British
Government then announced its readiness to sit across the table
with Gandhi and the Congress for negotiations at the Round
Table and outside it. In the same breath, the Viceroy also denied
that the purpose of the Round Table Conference was to give India
dominion status or get the participants to discuss the contents of
the status.

The threat of dire vengeance uttered against civil
and criminal resisters is idle and therefore uncalled
for. There is this in common between both. Both
have counted the cost. They are out for suffering.
Would that their means were also common.
Unfortunately instead of being complementary, they
neutralize each other. I know that the non-violent
revolutionary like me impedes the progress of the
violent revolutionary. I wish the latter would realize
that he impedes my progress more than I do his,
and that I, being a Mahatma, if left unhampered by
him, am likely to make greater progress than he
can ever hope to make. Let him realize too that he
has never yet given me a fair chance. Some of
them no doubt have been most considerate. I want
full suspension of his activity. If it will please him, I
am free to admit that I dread him more than I
dread Lord Irwins wrath. His Excellency the Viceroy
deserves the thanks of every Congressman for
having cleared the atmosphere and let us know
exactly where he and we stand.
69

The domestic cat, with all the wiliness at its command succeeded
in sowing discord within the Congress. As in Calcutta in December
1928, so in Lahore in December-January 1930, Subhash Bose,
Pandit Madan Mohan Malaviya, Satyamurti, Srinivasa Iyengar and
Srinivasa Sastry all differed sharply with Gandhi
70
on varied issues
ranging from non-violence as the only creed, to boycotting
Councils and Legislatures and rejecting the offer of a Round Table.
So vehement was the opposition to Gandhis un-nuanced non-
violence that Gandhi labeled his critics criminal resisters.
Gandhis suffocating influence on the Congress and his seeming
influence with the British government had begun its downward
trajectory. The slide would gather momentum as the Muslim
League too would begin its strident demand for a separate Muslim
state.

Declaration of 'Independence' January 29, 1930
The declaration of independence was officially promulgated on 26
January 1930, but following this triumphant call and hoisting of
the flag, Gandhi entered into the infamous Gandhi-Irwin Pact,
followed by two rounds of the Round Table Conference seeking
Dominion Status. Then came the Government of India Act 1935
through which the INC happily agreed to power-sharing yet again.
The people of India were dazzled by the illusion of moving forward
rapidly towards freedom; while in fact, the half-step taken
towards passing resolutions on independence was rendered futile
by taking three steps back with the Gandhi-Irwin Pact.

Purna Swaraj 1929 = hoisting of tricolour on New Year's 1930 =
Declaration of Independence 26 January, 1930 did not equal
resolute march towards political independence or ending colonial
rule.

Having rejected the offer to participate in the Round Table
Conference, Gandhi however entered into negotiations with
Viceroy Irwin culminating in the Gandhi-Irwin Pact, one year later,
in March 1931. But we have to keep in mind that even 17
years after 1930, until J anuary 1947, there was no further
movement with deliberate intent towards Dominion Status
or I ndependence.

Dandi March March 12 April 6, 1930

69
Clearing the Issue, Young India, 30-1-1930, CWMG Vol. 48, page 272
70
For more information on Gandhis reaction to these differences, see end of
chapter
The INC had to swallow the bitter pill that Lala Lajpat Rai's death
and Bhagat Singh's valiant acts of revenge captured the
imagination of ordinary Indians more effectively than the INC had
ever been able to after 1910. Both Gandhi and the INC were
under great pressure to act swiftly to regain the eroding faith of
Indians in them as instruments of political freedom. It was their
good fortune that ordinary Indians never quite grasped the real
content of Gandhi's swaraj or purna swaraj and readily responded
to his calls to offer passive resistance.

Gandhi needed to conjure up a measure as dramatic as Bhagat
Singh bombing the Central Legislative Assembly. He came up with
his famous march to Dandi, walking 241 miles in 24 days, which
historians project as an act that shook the empire, though there
was no evidence of any tremor within the empire. If anything, the
Empire struck back. As seen earlier in the paper, the salt tax,
which Gandhi was supposed to have challenged by the Dandi
March, was abolished only by Nehru's interim government in
1946.

The Raj shrewdly realized the impact Bhagat Singh had made on
ordinary Indians and knew that the Jugantar Party in Calcutta was
not only recruiting young Indians but keeping alive the embers of
revolution and armed resistance. The British probably concluded
that unless they maneuvered public opinion towards Gandhi and
the INC again, the threat of ordinary Indians following Bhagat
Singh was increasingly real. Their apprehensions were not without
basis because while Gandhi's uncompromising adherence to
passive resistance froze all movement towards political
independence and facilitated continuance of colonial rule, his
campaigns simultaneously stoked the embers of nationalism into
raging fires, as we shall see in December 1931 and later in 1942.

The Raj therefore made heroes of Gandhi and other important
INC leaders, particularly the members of the Congress Working
Committee, by arresting them swiftly in the wake of the Dandi
March; simultaneously the British ruthlessly quelled satyagrahis
who tried valiantly to make salt the Gandhian way. The national
indignation at the treatment meted to the Congress leaders would
have satisfied the British, who promptly invited Gandhi for
dialogue with Viceroy Irwin. This was now the routine ruse of the
Empire: use Gandhi to hit out at Indians with one hand and offer
the other hand in invitation for talks. Gandhi's passive resistance
was thus reinstated as the most effective tool for engaging the
regime and the colonial power allowed Indians to continue with
civil disobedience.

The pertinent question, however, was: what did the Dandi March
achieve in real terms for the freedom movement?

Gandhi-Irwin Pact March 5, 1931
There are in fact two closely linked mysterious questions. 'What
was the real reason why Gandhi undertook the Dandi March' and
'Why did Gandhi hold talks with Lord Irwin? There are no clear
answers as the Dandi March yielded nothing concrete in the
direction of political freedom, and the Gandhi-Irwin talks
concluding in the Gandhi-Irwin Pact also led nowhere, not even
towards dominion status. The British government arrested
Gandhi, Nehru and other members of the Congress Working
Committee at the height of the civil disobedience movement and
lodged them in jail. It was left to ordinary Indians faithfully
offering peaceful and civil disobedience to face the harsh
repressive power of the government. Srinivasa Sastry, Tej
Bahadur Sapru and MR Jayakar attended the First Round Table
Conference as did the Muslim League. It was brought home to
Gandhi that by not permitting the Congress to participate in the
Conference and by rejecting all offers for talks with the Viceroy,
Gandhi was only facilitating the ascendancy of the Muslim League.

There were only two possible ways for forward movement
violent uprising presenting the British with internal compelling
reasons to quit India; or if non-violence was the only way, to keep
talking to the British government hoping that non-violence would
compel the British government to give independence immediately
as per the Lahore Congress resolution 1930. Given these choices,
Gandhi had no other option but to enter into a dialogue with
Viceroy Irwin. Considering the state of utter helplessness to which
Gandhi had reduced the Congress with his obduracy, the contents
of the Gandhi-Irwin Pact could not have been any different.

Gandhis dialogue with Lord Irwin at this juncture was reminiscent
of his agreement with the South African government, which the
Indian community in South Africa perceived as a sell-out. Gandhi
was assaulted by Mir Alam, who was enraged by the accord with
Gen. Smuts because like many others he felt it compromised the
struggle against apartheid. Gandhi made a second agreement
with Gen. Smuts at the height of his last civil disobedience
campaign in that country, which also claimed several lives.

Just as Gen. Smuts debilitated the struggle of the Indian
community against discriminatory laws through Gandhi, so did
Viceroy Irwin via the Gandhi-Irwin Pact apply the brakes on the
feeble political movement, effectively stalling the civil
disobedience campaign of 1928-32, and more significantly,
causing immense dissatisfaction and even disaffection between
Subhash Bose and Gandhi, leading eventually to Bose's expulsion
from the INC in 1939.

The Gandhi-Irwin Pact extracted more significant returns from the
Indians than what the British government ceded to the Indians.
The terms of the Pact were:

Discontinuation of the civil disobedience movement by the
Indian National Congress.
Participation by the INC in the Round Table Conference.
Withdrawal of all ordinances issued by the British
Government imposing curbs on the activities of the INC.
Withdrawal of all prosecutions relating to various offences
except those involving violence.
Release of all persons imprisoned for participating in the
civil disobedience movement.
Removal of the tax on salt which would make it possible
for Indians to legitimately manufacture, trade and sell salt,
including for their own use.

From the terms of the pact, it is clear that Gandhi was negotiating
only on behalf of the INC and those who followed him in his
passive resistance campaign. Gandhi did not threaten to go on a
fast-unto-death for Bhagat Singh as he probably knew it would be
fruitless, just as he did not threaten to fast-unto-death when
partition of the bhumi loomed large. Gandhi undertook his famous
fasts only when he knew it was possible to coerce his target to
yield. The end-result of Gandhi's fasts usually proved detrimental
to Hindu political interests; it is pertinent that he never so coerced
the Muslims or the British to achieve political objectives. One of
the persuasive arguments that Gandhi put before the people of
the country was that by implementing the terms of the accord
resolutely, there was every chance that the Viceroy may well
pardon those who were condemned to be hanged and may also
release political prisoners.

There is, no doubt, a small but active organization
in India which would secure Indias liberty through
violent action. I appeal to that organization, as I
have done before, to desist from its activities, if not
yet out of conviction, then out of expedience. They
have perhaps somewhat realized what great power
non-violence has. They will not deny that the
almost miraculous mass awakening was possible
only because of the mysterious and yet unfailing
effect of non-violence. I want them to be patient,
and give the Congress, or if they will, me, a chance
to work out the plan of truth and non-violence.
After all it is hardly yet a full year since the Dandi
march. One year in the life of an experiment
affecting 300 millions of human beings is but a
second in the cycle of time. Let them wait yet
awhile. Let them preserve their precious lives for
the service of the Motherland to which all will be
presently called and let them give to the Congress
an opportunity of securing the release of all the
other political prisoners and maybe even rescuing
from the gallows those who are condemned to them
as being guilty of murder. But I want to raise no
false hopes. I can only state publicly what is my
own and the Congress aspiration. It is for us to
make the effort. The result is always in Gods
hands.
71


Ten days after Gandhis false promise that the Gandhi-Irwin
accord may actually save Indians from the gallows, Bhagat Singh,
Sukhdev and Rajguru would be hanged as announced. It is not
surprising at all that the movement towards independence was
stalled yet again; and it was stalled successfully by the Viceroys
astute manipulation of Gandhi.
In the course of a short discussion we had about
this, he revealed what I have by now discovered as
the right method of dealing with him. He said:
When you or Mr. Emerson use your best
arguments it does not always have much effect on
me, but, when you tell me that Government is in a
difficulty and cannot do what I want, then I am
inclined to capitulate to you! (SD. Irwin, 4-3-31)
72

The Imperial Government in London had always picked its
Viceroys well.

Calling off Civil Disobedience as per Gandhi-Irwin
Pact
Subhash Bose termed the Gandhi-Irwin Pact a "cruel betrayal".
Bose declared that between Indians and the British lay an ocean
of blood and a mountain of corpses and that nothing could
induce him to accept the compromise which Gandhi had signed.
But Gandhi alone spoke for the INC and it suited the British to
allow Gandhi to declare that the INC spoke for all Indians.


71
Statement to the Press, Delhi, March 5, 1931, Young India, 12-3-1931,
CWMg, Vol. 51, page 212
72
Interview with Viceroy, March 3, 1931, From a photostat : G.N. 8953, CWMG Vol
51, page 201
Bhagat Singh hanged March 23, 1931
Gandhi did not set the release of Bhagat Singh, Sukhdev and
Rajguru as pre-condition for talks with Lord Irwin; but Gandhi did
raise the issue of Bhagat Singhs hanging perfunctorily with the
Viceroy. Bhagat Singh was arrested immediately after he threw a
bomb in the Central Assembly in April 1929 but except for the one
occasion when he chided Nehru for publishing Bhagat Singhs
statement in the court in the Congress Bulletin, Gandhi neither
speaks about him nor writes about him until February 1931 when
settlement with Lord Irwin was imminent and the fear of public
opprobrium for failure to raise the issue forced Gandhi to report
on his conversation with Viceroy Irwin. It was the same deafening
silence about Bhagat Singh as Gandhi had earlier maintained with
regard to Aurobindo. But in 1931 as Bhagat Singh became a
heroic figure in every home, Gandhi realised that 1931 was not
1909 and he could ill-afford to by-pass public opinion. Pressure
built up on Gandhi to make Bhagat Singhs release a pre-condition
for any settlement with the Viceroy but Gandhi did not threaten to
escalate civil disobedience or threaten to go on an indefinite fast
leave alone fast-unto-death. All he did do was to make a token
gesture of asking Lord Irwin to commute the death sentence and
if that were not possible at least to suspend the hanging until a
settlement was reached between Gandhi and Irwin. In the words
of Viceroy Irwin
In conclusion and not connected with the above, he
mentioned the case of Bhagat Singh. He did not
plead for commutation, although he would, being
opposed to all taking of life, take that course
himself. He also thought it would have an influence
for peace. But he did ask for postponement in
present circumstances. I contented myself with
saying that, whatever might be the decision as to
exact dates, I could not think there was any case
for commutation which might not be made with
equal force in the case of any other violent crime.
The Viceroys powers of commutation were
designed for use on well-known grounds of
clemency, and I could not feel that they ought to be
invoked on grounds that were admittedly
political.(Sd.) Irwin
73


In the words of Gandhi -
I talked about Bhagat Singh. I told him: This has
no connection with our discussion, and it may even

73
Interview with Viceroy (Viceroys Version), February 18, 1931, From a photostat :
G.N. 8947, CWMG Vol. 51, page 151
be inappropriate on my part to mention it. But if
you want to make the present atmosphere more
favourable, you should suspend Bhagat Singhs
execution. The Viceroy liked this very much. He
said: I am very grateful to you that you have put
this thing before me in this manner. Commutation
of sentence is a difficult thing, but suspension is
certainly worth considering.
I said about Bhagat Singh: He is undoubtedly a
brave man but I would certainly say that he is not
in his right mind. However, this is the evil of capital
punishment, that it gives no opportunity to such a
man to reform himself. I am putting this matter
before you as a humanitarian issue and desire
suspension of sentence in order that there may not
be unnecessary turmoil in the country. I myself
would release him, but I cannot expect any
Government to do so. I would not take it ill even if
you do not give any reply on this issue.
74

In a dramatic last-minute effort to save their lives Gandhi wrote
a letter to the Viceroy on the very day Bhagat Singh was
scheduled to be hanged; naturally to no avail. Bhagat Singh was
hanged as announced by the government, on the 23 of March,
1931. Gandhi, for his part, paid him, what may best be described
as a back-handed compliment after his death, replete with
suggestio falsi and reductio ad absurdum.

Brave Bhagat Singh and his two associates have
been hanged. Many attempts were made to save
their lives and even some hopes were entertained,
but all was in vain.

Bhagat Singh did not wish to live. He refused to
apologize; declined to file an appeal. If at all he
would agree to live, he would do so for the sake of
others; if at all he would agree to it, it would be in
order that his death might not provoke anyone to
indiscriminate murder. Bhagat Singh was not a
devotee of non-violence, but he did not subscribe to
the religion of violence; he was prepared to commit
murder out of a sense of helplessness. His last
letter was as follows: I have been arrested while
waging a war. For me there can be no gallows. Put
me into the mouth of a cannon and blow me off.

74
Interview with Viceroy (Gandhijis Report), February 18, 1931, From the
manuscript of Mahadev Desais Diary. Courtesy : Narayan Desai, CWMG Vol. 51, page 155
These heroes had conquered the fear of death. Let
us bow to them a thousand times for their heroism.
But we should not imitate their act. I am not
prepared to believe that the country has benefited
by their action. I can see only the harm that has
been done. We could have won swaraj long ago if
that line of action had not been pursued and we
could have waged a purely nonviolent struggle.
There may well by two opinions on this conjecture
of mine. However, no one can deny the fact that if
the practice of seeking justice through murders is
established amongst us, we shall start murdering
one another for what we believe to be justice. In a
land of crores of destitute and crippled persons, this
will be a terrifying situation. These poor people are
bound to become victims of our atrocities. It is
desirable that everyone should consider the
consequences of this. Further, we want a swaraj
which is theirs and for them. By making a dharma
of violence, we shall be reaping the fruit of our own
actions. Hence, though we praise the courage of
these brave men, we should never countenance
their activities.
While negotiating the settlement, Bhagat Singhs
hanging was weighing upon us. We had hoped that
the Government would be cautious enough to
pardon Bhagat Singh and his associates to the
extent of remitting the sentence of hanging. We
should not break the pledge we have taken just
because our hopes have not been fulfilled, but
should bear this blow which has fallen upon us and
honour our pledge. By doing so under even such
trying circumstances, our strength to get what we
desire will increase rather than decrease, while, if
we break our pledge or violate the truce, we shall
suffer loss of vigour, loss of strength and it will add
to our present difficulties in reaching our objective.
Hence our dharma is to swallow our anger, abide by
the settlement and carry out our duty.
75


Gandhi justified the powerless and inefficient tool of passive
resistance with the plea that he feared state reprisal against
ordinary Indians if they followed in Bhagat Singh's footsteps to
liberate the nation through recourse to armed resistance. Yet it is
our contention that Gandhi's passive resistance campaigns caused

75
Bhagat Singh, Navajivan, 29-3-1931, CWMG Vol. 51, pp 316-17
the death and imprisonment of more Indians than would have
been the case had there been a sustained armed uprising against
the British. It is estimated that approximately 90,000 people were
imprisoned in the course of the Civil Disobedience Movement
(1930-31), of which at least 15,000 hailed from Bengal province
alone. In Karachi, faced with persistent criticism against passive
resistance and for his failure to save Bhagat Singh, yet again
taking recourse to suggestio falsi leading to absurd conclusions,
Gandhi said:

And now a message for the young men. If you want
my service, do not disown me; come and
understand everything from me. You must know
that it is against my creed to punish even a
murderer, a thief or a dacoit. There can be
therefore no excuse for suspicion that I did not
want to save Bhagat Singh. But I want you also to
realize Bhagat Singhs error. If I had had an
opportunity of speaking to Bhagat Singh and his
comrades, I should have told them that the way
they pursued was wrong and futile. I declare that
we cannot win swaraj for our famishing millions, for
our deaf and dumb, for our lame and crippled, by
the way of the sword. With the Most High as
witness I want to proclaim this truth that the way of
violence cannot bring swaraj, it can only lead to
disaster. I wish to tell these young men with all the
authority with which a father can speak to his
children that the way of violence can only lead to
perdition.
Would our women known as the meekest on earth,
would women like Gangabehn, who stood the lathi-
blows until her white sari was drenched in blood,
have done the unique service they did if we had
violence in us? With Gods name on their lips she
and her sisters hurled defiance at their oppressors,
without anger in their hearts.
And our children - our vanarasena (monkey-army).
How could you have had these innocent ones, who
renounced their toys, their kites and their crackers,
and joined as soldiers of swaraj - how could you
have enlisted them in a violent struggle? We were
able to enlist as soldiers millions of men, women
and children because we were pledged to non-
violence.
I agree that the Government has given sufficient
cause for provocation, but I want the impatient
youth in the name of God, in the name of our dear
Motherland, to throw themselves heart and soul in
the non-violent struggle. I ask them to trust my
unbroken experience of forty years of the practice
of non-violence. But if they will not, they might kill
me but they cannot kill Gandhism. If Truth can be
killed Gandhism can be killed. If nonviolence can be
killed Gandhism can be killed. For what is Gandhism
but winning swaraj by means of truth and non-
violence?
76


The struggle to liberate the nation from vairajya or forcible
occupation by an alien power can never be won by women and
children offering passive resistance until the goal is reached. Were
this possible, Pakistan, like the British who quivered when Gandhi
undertook the Dandi March, would have ceased terrorism in
Jammu & Kashmir in response to candle lights at the Wagah
border and there would have been no Kargil war. Gandhi's passive
resistance was a one-size-fits-all illusion against all evil, from
Nazism, colonialism, Islamic jihad to Stalinism. Suffice it to say
that women and children did die in the hundreds and in the most
violent manner, not in any direct war against the British
Government to end vairajya but needlessly, by brutal state
repression, for Gandhis Satyagraha; Gandhism did not win for
India her independence in August 1947. Independence became
inevitable for other reasons as we shall see later.

Round Table Conference 2 and 3, 1931-32
Gandhi, as per the agreement with Lord Irwin, claiming to
represent the INC and all Indians barring Muslims (who never
countenanced any vehicle other than the Khilafat Committees and
the Muslim League), attended the Second Round Table
Conference in London. Having defused the anger over the hanging
of Bhagat Singh with the Gandhi-Irwin Pact, the British were in no
mood to make further conciliatory gestures towards Gandhi or the
INC. Gandhi returned empty-handed and in a fit of pique re-
launched the civil disobedience he had called off at Irwin's behest.
The Raj lost no time in retaliating. Prominent Congressmen were
arrested and the Congress declared it an illegal act. Despite the
ruthless repression, the Civil Disobedience Movement continued
and within a short time nearly 120,000 people courted arrest. The
ruthless official action slowed down the movement and
consequently it was suspended for three months in May 1933,
and ultimately ended in April 1934. Like all previous campaigns by
Gandhi from 1918 onwards, it proved fruitless: no self- rule, no

76
Excerpts from Speech at Karachi Congress, March 26, 1931, Young India, 2-
4-1931, CWMG Vol 51, pp 305-307
movement towards political freedom and so, no freedom
movement.

Notwithstanding official history, the INC was rendered hors-d-
combat after the Gandhi-Irwin Pact and the collapse of the Round
Table Conference when the British refused to yield anything to
Gandhi or the INC. The so-called freedom movement came to a
grinding halt and the Congress went into hibernation. It would
emerge from this Gandhi-imposed hibernation after five years,
with the rise of an angry Subhash Bose within the INC.

5.6 The third phase 1934-1941

Gandhi announces retirement from politics
September 17, 1934.
Gandhi announced his decision to resign from the primary
membership of the Congress and to retire from politics after the
Congress session in October to engage himself only in
constructive work campaign to end untouchability, Hindu-
Muslim unity, total prohibition, hand-spinning with khadi and cent
per cent swadeshi in the sense of the revival of village industries
and general reorganization of seven lakhs of villages.
The rumour that I had contemplated severing all
physical connection with the Congress was true.
However, for considerations urged by many friends
who had come to Wardha during the meetings of
the Working Committee and the Parliamentary
Board last week, I agreed with them that it might
be safer for me to leave the Congress, if at all, after
the forthcoming session.
Sardar Vallabhbhai had agreed with me that the
time had arrived for me to retire from the Congress
but many others would not endorse that view.
After due consideration of all the pros and cons, I
have adopted the safe and prudent course of
postponing the final step, at least till after the
meeting of the Congress session in October.
One tempting idea behind the insistence on
postponement was that it would enable me to test
the accuracy of my impression that a very large
body of Congress intelligentsia were tired of my
method and views, and the programme based upon
them, that I was a hindrance rather than a help to
the natural growth of the Congress, that instead of
remaining the most democratic and representative
institution in the country, the Congress had
degenerated into an organization dominated by my
one personality and that in it there was no free play
of reason.
It has appeared to me that there is a growing and
vital difference of outlook between many
Congressmen and myself. I seem to be going in a
direction just opposite of what many of the most
intellectual Congressmen would gladly and
enthusiastically take, if they were not hampered by
their unexampled loyalty to me. No leader can
expect greater loyalty and devotion than I have
received from intellectually-minded Congressmen
even when they have protested and signified their
disapproval of the policies It have laid before the
Congress. For me any more to draw upon this
loyalty and devotion is to put undue strain upon
them. Their loyalty cannot blind my eyes to what
appears to me to be fundamental differences
between the Congress intelligentsia and me. Let me
state them. I put the spinning-wheel and khadi in
the forefront. Hand-spinning by the Congress
intelligentsia has all but disappeared. The general
body of them have no faith in it and yet if I could
carry their reason with me, I would substitute the
four-anna franchise by personal daily hand-
spinning. The khadi clause of the Congress
constitution has been almost a dead letter from the
beginning and Congressmen have not been wanting
who have reminded me that I am responsible for
the hypocrisy and evasion about the working of the
khadi clause. I ought to have realized that it was
not passed out of deep conviction, but largely out of
personal loyalty to me. I must own that there is
considerable force in the argument.
Up to a point suppression of ones views in favour
of those of another considered superior in wisdom
or experience is virtuous and desirable for healthy
growth of an organization. It becomes a terrible
oppression when one is called upon to repeat the
performance from day to day. Though I have never
wished any such untoward result, I cannot conceal
from me or the public the tragic fact that such has
been my own experience. Many have despaired of
resisting me. This is a humiliating revelation to me,
a born democrat.
77


77
Excerpts from Statement to the Press, Wardhagunj, September 17, 1934, The
Bombay Chronicle, 18-9-1934, CWMG Vol. 65, pp 4-13

Gandhi resigned from Congress October 30,
1934
Every time Gandhi suffered a personal setback at the hands of the
British, he froze whatever meager political activity the INC was
engaged in and turned to social activity. By assuming total and
absolute control of both political and social activity in the country
Gandhi paralyzed both at different times when he was
preoccupied with one or the other totally to the exclusion of the
other.

In 1934, confronted by a determined Subhash Bose and an
equally angry Pandit Madanmohan Malaviya over Gandhis stand
on the communal award, Gandhi opts to resign from the Congress
and retire from politics; after Gandhi announced his retirement
from politics, the INC went into hibernation and waited for Gandhi
to turn to politics again to end their hibernation.

Government of India Act 1935, enabling greater
power-sharing and more self-rule in Provinces.

Elections to Provincial governments on the basis of
the Government of India Act 1935 - 1937.
The Government of India Act 1935 enabled the election of
representative governments in the Provinces, but this was only
provincial self-rule, not total self-rule with Dominion Status as
demanded by Gandhi in Lahore. So what did the Nagpur call for
swaraj and Lahore declaration 'Purna Swaraj' really mean?
Gandhis non-violence and a docile INC were perfect instruments
which enabled the British to prolong their occupation of India.

Subhash Bose elected Congress President 1937.

Subhash Bose elected Congress President again and
expelled from the INC 1939.
Despite valiant attempts to rewrite history, it was Gandhi who
manipulated Bose's expulsion from the INC, thus removing from
sight and silencing his persistent critic. Gandhi, in a statement to
the press on Boses re-election as President said Pattabhi
Sitaramayya's defeat was his own defeat.
78
Subhash Bose had
never quite seen eye to eye with Gandhi and his disagreements
began from 1921 when Gandhi called off the civil disobedience
movement following Chauri Chaura. There were probably many
more within the INC similarly critical of Gandhi and his ways, but

78
For the complete text of Gandhis statement to the press on Subhash Boses re-
election, see end of chapter
none had dared openly defy him until Bose, and none would dare
again until Rajaji in 1942. Not surprisingly, Rajaji was also
maneuvered out of the INC in 1942. In the 1910s and 20s, Tilak
and Aurobindo were Gandhi's most strident critics; while
Aurobindo chose to abdicate his political responsibility, Tilak
remained in the INC even after Gandhi's advent, though the
British made sure Tilak was kept busy defending his life and
liberty, thus giving Gandhi the space and time needed to
strengthen his hold on the Congress.

The long-simmering differences between Bose and Gandhi spilled
into the open during the December 1928 Calcutta Congress,
which was a prelude to the Lahore 'purna swaraj' Congress of
1929.

Significantly Gandhis reprimand of Bose in Lahore 'You may take
the name of Independence on your lips just as the Muslims utter
the name of Allah or a pious Hindu utters the name of Krishna or
Rama, but all that muttering will be an utterly empty formula if
there is no honour behind it. If you are not prepared to stand by
your own words, where will Independence be? was an echo of his
Hind Swaraj formula for home rule, where he said home rule
would come much faster if we stopped considering all British evil
and if we did them justice, so that they in turn would do us justice
and give us home rule:

That the English people are somewhat more selfish
than others is true, but that does not prove that
every Englishman is bad. We who seek justice will
have to do justice to others. Sir William
(Wedderburn) does not wish ill to India that
should be enough for us. As we proceed, you will
see that, if we act justly, India will be sooner free.
You will see too, that, if we shun every Englishman
as an enemy, Home Rule will be delayed. But if we
are just to them, we shall receive their support in
our progress towards the goal.
79


If we act justly with the British Government, was a not-so-well-
known Gandhian fad of South African origin. At the time of the
Ahmedabad Mill Workers' strike in 1918, Gandhi recalled his last
civil disobedience campaign in South Africa with a view to
promoting passive resistance among Indians at home as the best
possible means of getting justice from the British government.

79
Hind Swaraj, Chapter I, The Congress and its officials, page 17

But typically, Gandhi did not give the striking workers the full
truth about his last campaign. Indians could get justice only if
they did justice to the British government, he advised the striking
mill workers of Ahmedabad.

Ahmedabad Mill-Hands` Strike: Leaflets Of March
4, 5 And 6, 1918, Leaflet No. 7 of March 4, 1918
South Africa is a large British colony. The
Europeans have been settled there for over four
hundred years. They enjoy autonomy. Many
European workers are employed in the railways of
that country. These workers felt that they did not
receive just wages. Instead of merely trying to get
their wages increased, they thought of capturing
the Government. That was unjust; it was Satanic
justice. It increased the bitterness between the
Government and the labour, and the whole of South
Africa was in the grip of fear. Nobody felt secure.
Ultimately, there was even open fighting between
the parties and some innocent persons were killed.
The military took over control everywhere. Both
parties suffered heavily. Each desired to defeat the
other. Neither cared for justice as such. Each side
magnified the others misdeeds. Neither had regard
for the feelings of the other.

While this was going on, our workers behaved
justly. When the railway strike was launched, a
strike involving 20,000 Indian workers had already
begun. We were fighting the Government of that
country for justice, pure and simple. The weapon
our workers employed was satyagraha. They did
not wish to spite the Government, nor did they wish
it ill. They had no desire to dislodge it. The
European workers wanted to exploit the strike of
the Indians. Our workers refused to be exploited.
They said, "Ours is a satyagraha struggle. We do
not desire to harass the Government. We will,
therefore, suspend our struggle while you are
fighting." Accordingly, they called off the strike. We
may call this true justice. Eventually, our workers
succeeded and the Government, too, got credit
because it did justice by accepting our demands.
Our workers obeyed sentiment and did not seek to
take advantage of the opponents embarrassment.
The end of the struggle saw better mutual regard
between the Government and the people and we
came to be treated with more respect. Thus, a
struggle fought on the basis of true justice benefits
both.

Gandhi's unsustainable claim that Indians came to be treated with
more respect notwithstanding, conditions for Indians only got
worse in the years following his return to India. During the civil
disobedience movement which Gandhi called off because of the
General Railway Strike, this was the toll passive resistance took of
ordinary Indians and this was how the colonial government in
South Africa dealt with peaceful protestors:

On 29 October 1913, hundreds of men, women and
children led by Gandhi marched from Newcastle
into the Transvaal to purposefully defy the
Immigrants Regulation Act of 1913 (Act no. 22).
The success of the resistance was not without its
casualties. A group of 16 women resisters from
Phoenix who were arrested at the border, were
tried and sentenced for three months. There, they
were herded with ordinary criminals, given food
unfit for human consumption, harassed and made
to undertake laundry work. Many brave resisters,
both men and women, courted imprisonment and
suffered subsequent hardships. Some were shot,
others died in prison. The resistance had taken its
toll.

Valliama, a young resister gave up her life for the
cause after duly serving a term of imprisonment.
Harbatsingh, a Hindustani stalwart died in the
Durban jail. The widow of Selvan, a free labourer,
was shot dead during the strike. The late
Narainsamy was deported to India as a Passive
Resister and died at Delagoa Bay after being hunted
from port to port by the Union Government. Gandhi
writes, 'There were two women with little ones, one
of whom died of exposure on the march. The other
fell from the arms of its mother while she was
crossing a spruit and was drowned. But the brave
mothers refused to be dejected and continued their
march.'

The treatment of Indians had reached pathetic
limits. The prisons were too small to house the
resisters. Mr Hult, a mine manager had flogged 300
Indian prisoners placed under his custody. By now
the movement had reached a crisis point and drew
attention in both the local and international press.
80


Gandhi persisted stubbornly with his beliefs and even in Calcutta
in 1928 his illusions about the 'inherent justice' of the British
people, the Empire, and the British constitution appeared to be
intact. His public reprimand of Bose proved he continued to
maintain that Indians must honour all promises (that he, on
behalf of the INC and all Hindus) made to the British and do
justice to the British if we wanted the British to do justice to us
and give us Independence (rather Dominion Status). This was a
prescription Gandhi reserved for the Hindu victims of colonial rule
alone.

Bose's anger with Gandhi intensified after Gandhi failed to save
Bhagat Singh from the gallows, and when Gandhi refused to make
release of political detenus in Bengal a pre-condition for his talks
with Irwin and when he saw that despite the Gandhi-Irwin Pact,
the three rounds of the Round Table Conference did not provide
any impetus towards political independence, and when he clearly
perceived that Gandhi's piloting of the INC was not carrying the
movement forward but that people's initiatives for freedom were
being thwarted and even paralyzed by Gandhi in the name of
passive resistance and 'doing justice'. Gandhi repeatedly violated
the Mahabharata dictum of reciprocity to the detriment of Indian
national interests. Once Gandhi declared Bose's victory was his
defeat, the slavish INC did not dare murmur a protest and several
Working Committee members including Maulana Azad and
Rajendra Prasad obediently offered to resign.

Taking their cue from Gandhis statement to the press on Boses
re-election (see end of chapter) the Congress Ministries too
threatened to resign. Gandhis psychological warfare against Bose
succeeded and Bose resigned as Congress President on 29the
April, 1939. Not content with inciting revolt in the Congress ranks
to force Bose to resign, Gandhi, who had resigned from the
primary membership of the Congress and had also announced his
retirement from politics, drafted the Congress Working Committee
resolution of August 11, 1939 which removed Subhash Bose as
President of the Bengal Provincial Congress Committee on
disciplinary grounds (read opposing the Gandhi-drafted Tripuri

80
http://scnc.udw.ac.za/doc/TEXTS/kc/kctext2.html , Gandhi: Mahatma in the
Making, 1893 1914 By K Chetty, University of Durban-Westville, Durban, 1996

resolution).
81
Gandhi was determined to evict Bose completely out
of the Congress and this he did in step after measured step; Bose
was a serious impediment to Gandhis despotic control over the
Working Committee.
The Working Committee has come to the painful
conclusion that it will fail in its duty if it condones
the deliberate and flagrant breach of discipline by
Subhas Babu. The Working Committee therefore
resolves that for his grave act of indiscipline Shri
Subhas Babu is declared disqualified as President of
the Bengal Provincial Congress Committee for three
years as from August 1939. The Working
Committee trusts that Shri Subhas Babu will see
the error of his ways and loyally submit to this
disciplinary action.
The Working Committee has taken note of the
indiscipline of many other Congressmen including
responsible officials. But it has refrained from
taking any action as the members acted under the
inspiration of Shri Subhas Babu.
82


Removing Subhash Chandra Bose as President of BPCC was
Gandhis psy-war against Bose to push him into a corner from
where the only option for Bose would be to quit the Congress
party. This was nothing short of expulsion and Boses expulsion
was Gandhis handiwork from beginning to end.

Second World War 1939

Subhash Bose demands British handover of India
within six months 1939
As World War II broke out, war clouds gathered over the Indian
sky as the colonial government unilaterally announced its decision
to dispatch Indian soldiers to fight abroad. Aurobindo, Savarkar,
and Rajaji welcomed the decision as they thought this provided
Indians an excellent opportunity to pick up arms and wage war as
a training exercise which would stand Indians in good stead in the
future, and also because in their view it gave the INC a powerful
bargaining chip to demand political independence.


81
Not only did Gandhi after his so-called retirement from politics draft all AICC
and CWC resolutions but it was Gandhi who always issued statements to the press
on behalf of the Congress. For the complete text of Subhash Boses letter to the
CWC and Gandhis statement to the press, see end of chapter.
82
Congress Working Committee Resolution, August 11, 1939, The Indian Annual
Register, 1939, Vol. II, pp. 212-3, CWMG Vol. 76, pp 226-27

Gandhi, however, oblivious of the irony that he had supported the
British government against the Boers in South Africa and had
personally recruited Indians to serve the Raj in the First World
War, now opposed Aurobindo, Savarkar and Rajaji, claiming his
adherence to non-violence would not permit him to consent to
Indians participating in war! This Gandhi-drafted CWC war
resolution was Gandhis response to Subhash Boses demand and
his prescription for Indian response to the Second World war
which was threatening to involve Indians hand-spinning, Muslim
serving, and ending untouchability.
The declarations made on behalf of the British
Government
83
, being inadequate, have compelled
the Congress to dissociate itself from British policy
and war efforts, and, as a first step in non-
cooperation, to bring about the resignations of all
the Congress Governments in the Provinces. That
policy of non-co-operation continues and must
continue unless the British Government revises its
policy and accepts the Congress contention. The
Working Committee would remind Congressmen
that it is inherent in every form of satyagraha that
no effort is spared to achieve an honourable
settlement with the opponent. While a satyagrahi is
ever ready for a non-violent fight, if it has to come,
he never relaxes his efforts for peace and always
works for its attainment.
The Working Committee will, therefore, continue to
explore the means of arriving at an honourable
settlement, even though the British Government
have banged the door in the face of the Congress.
The Committee must, however, resist, by the non-
violent methods of the Congress, all attempts to
coerce the people of India along paths which are
not of their choice and everything that is against
the dignity and freedom of India. The Working
Committee appreciate and express their pleasure at
the readiness exhibited by Congressmen for
launching civil disobedience, should this become
necessary. But civil disobedience requires the same
strict discipline as an army organized for an armed
conflict. The army is helpless unless it possesses its
weapons of destruction and knows how to use
them; so also an army of non-violent soldiers is

83
The Viceroy assured the Congress that His Majesty was prepared to grant
Dominion Status to India in return for co-operation in war efforts and that
Dominion Status would be given immediately after the war.
ineffective unless it understands and possesses the
essentials of nonviolence. The Working Committee
desire to make it clear that the true test of
preparedness for civil disobedience lies in
Congressmen themselves spinning and promoting
the cause of khadi to the exclusion of mill-cloth,
and deeming it their duty to establish harmony
between the communities by personal acts of
service to those other than members of their own
community, and individual Hindu Congressmen
seeking an occasion for fraternizing with the
Harijans as often as possible. The Congress
organizations and Congressmen should, therefore,
prepare for future action by promoting this
programme. They should explain to the people the
message and policy and implications of the
Constituent Assembly which is the crux of the
Congress programme for the future.
84


Unimpressed by Gandhi's spurious objections, Bose agreed to
Indian participation in the war on the condition that the British
leave India within six months, failing which they would face wide-
spread revolt from the Indians. Bose's threat was very real and
the British recognized that the danger of armed rebellion
spreading across India was imminent. Gandhi promptly stepped in
to save the government from worry on this score. Gandhi did not
relish the idea of control of the INC-led freedom movement
slipping out of his hands; nor did he appreciate Bose asking the
Empire to withdraw from India. So despite announcing his
retirement from politics in 1934, Gandhi returned and a
submissive Congress and shrewdly calculating Nehru (who
perceived Bose as a threat to his own overarching ambitions)
rejected Bose's call, leading ultimately to Bose's expulsion from
the INC.

Subhash Bose, expelled from the INC, was a loose but determined
cannon with a vast following and the British feared he would stoke
the simmering fires of rebellion, first in Bengal, which would
spread rapidly across India. Bose was speedily arrested and
placed under house arrest. On 17 January, 1941, he staged a
dramatic escape to Afghanistan, from where he made his way to
Germany.


84
Congress Working Committee Resolution, November 22, 1939, Harijan, 2-12-
1939, CWMG Vol. 76, pp 123-24
Gandhi asks KM Munshi to resign from the Congress
June 15, 1941
KM Munshi expressed his disagreement with the Gandhi-Congress
creed on non-violence on the grounds that while he agreed in
principle on ahimsa he did not think he could practice it given the
communal tensions in Bombay.
Shri K. M. Munshi came to me as soon as it was
possible after his return to Bombay. In the course of
the discussion, I discovered that whilst he accepted in
the abstract the principle of ahimsa with all its
implications, he felt the greatest difficulty in acting
upon it, the more so as with his intimate knowledge
of Bombay he was sure that he could not carry the
Hindus with him, much less the Muslims. He knew
that the numerous Hindus who were under his
influence would look to him for guidance and would
seek his advice. He saw no way of convincing them
that they could defend themselves through ahimsa.
As a political weapon and therefore of immediate use
in the midst of the riots which looked more like a
miniature civil war, he could not make any effective
use of ahimsa. With him the question was not one of
interpretation of Congress resolutions but of being
truthful to himself and to the country. In view,
therefore, of the following resolution4 by the A.I.C.C.
explaining the Wardha statement, I advised that the
only dignified and brave course for him was to resign
from the Congress and attain freedom of action
unhampered by restrictions entailed by the Congress
non-violence.
85


Subhash Bose seeks help from Hitler's regime to
overthrow the British in India - 1941
Gandhi, the INC, and particularly the British government,
recognized that Bose's alliance with Germany and its allies,
primarily Japan, constituted a very real threat to the might of an
Empire that boasted that the sun-never-set on its sheer expanse.
The salutary effect of the INC-Gandhi expulsion was defused with
Boses masterstroke in seeking a tactical alliance with Germany
and Japan to end colonial rule. Unwittingly, Bose had plucked the
right page from Kautilyas thesis on war strategy: do everything
possible and take recourse to any measure to secure the kingdom
and the safety of the people. Books VI and VII of Arthasastra,
titled "The Circle of Kings as Basis" and "The Six Measures of

85
Statement to the Press, Sevagram, J une 15, 1941, The Bombay Chronicle, 27-6-
1941; also Pilgrimage to Freedom, pp. 415-6, CWMG Vol. 80, page 311
Foreign Policy", detail magnificently the kind of allies to be chosen
in war and the methods to be adopted, depending on one's
strength or weakness vis--vis the enemy.

Nazi Germany was intrinsically evil, and was an enemy of the
West comprising America and Europe. But Nazi evil was no worse
than colonial Europe which had plundered the resources of Africa,
Asia, the Americas, Caribbean, and Australia; which had carried
out genocide of native populaces of these continents and forcibly
invaded and occupied their territory; with the Church walking
hand-in-hand with the invading forces. Colonial Europe was Nazi
Germany magnified many times over. While Nazi atrocities were
perpetrated mainly in one continent (Europe) over a few decades
only, European atrocities spread over centuries and across all
continents. Bose rightly perceived that Nazi Germany posed no
threat to India and Indians, and colonial Europe, especially
Britain, was the real threat to India. Hence, Boses seeking to
overthrow the British with the help of Germany and Japan was
pragmatic Kautilyan foreign policy, namely, there are no
permanent friends, no permanent enemies, only enduring national
interests. Bose presented a striking contrast to Gandhi in more
ways than one. In a sharp rebuttal of Gandhi's passive resistance
and his view that discussions and negotiations with the Raj would
lead to political freedom, Subhash Bose's war cry was typical of a
general leading his soldiers in war:
"One individual may die for an idea. But that idea
will, after his death, incarnate itself in a thousand
lives. That is how the wheel of evolution moves on
and the ideas and dreams of one nation are
bequeathed to the next. As soldiers, you will always
have to cherish and live up to the three ideals of
faithfulness, duty and sacrifice. Soldiers who always
remain faithful to their nation, who are always
prepared to sacrifice their lives, are invincible. If
you too want to be invincible, engrave these three
ideals in the innermost core of your hearts. Give me
blood, and I shall give you freedom. No real change
in history has ever been achieved by discussions.
Jai Hind."
86


5.7 The fourth phase, 1941-1946
Having succeeded in silencing his fiercest critic, seeing him
placed under house arrest, and thus successfully facilitating
continuance of the Raj, Gandhi tired of politics and in December

86
( http://www.indianetzone.com/6/subhash_chandra_bose.htm)

1941 sought to be relieved of political chores. The Working
Committee obediently relieved him. Yet again!

Formation of the Indian National Army February
1942
Subhash Bose took charge of the INA in 1943 and with delicious
irony named the Second Guerilla Regiment as the Gandhi
Regiment!

Cripps Mission March 1942
Cripps Mission was a British initiative to make the best of a
defeated position; it offered India Dominion Status after the war.
This was a tempting move aimed at persuading Gandhi to
pressurize Indians to defend the British Empire in India when (not
if) Bose marched to Delhi. Gandhi, who was under considerable
pressure himself and was aware of mounting Hindu resentment
against him as the Muslim League was growing from strength to
strength, did not wish to alienate Hindus as he had done when he
signed the Gandhi-Irwin Pact. Hence he declined to entertain the
Cripps proposals.

INA frees Andaman and Nicobar from the British
March 1942
On 23 March 1942, Japan seized the islands and occupied them
until the end of the war. On 29 December 1943, political control
of the islands was ceded to the Azad Hind government. Subhash
Bose visited Port Blair to raise the tricolour flag of the Indian
National Army.

Gandhi asks Rajaji to resign from the INC July 5,
1942
Official history, linked to Congress funding, threw a veil over
some unpalatable facts about Gandhi, Nehru and the INC. Few
Indians are aware that besides Bose and KM Munshi, C.
Rajagopalachari or Rajaji, was also politely expelled from the INC
by Gandhi for daring to express differences with Gandhi over the
issue of Jinnahs demand for Pakistan. Two of the three
disgraceful expulsions were disguised as resignations while
Munshi was compelled to distance himself from Gandhis
insistence on anti-Hindu non-violence even in situations of
communal riots. Rajaji allegedly 'resigned' from the INC because
he advocated acceptance of Partition which he considered
inevitable (rightly, it would seem in retrospect, considering
Gandhi had no plan to avert Partition and did not allow the
Congress to even think it should be averted by all and every
means); only he proffered his own formula for Partition famously
called the CR Formula.
87
But, possibly discomfited over Bose's
expulsion and with the INC's inability to stand up to Gandhis
control over the CWC, its paralyzing weakness vis--vis the
Muslim League and its consequent growing irrelevance, Rajaji
convened a meeting of non-Congress legislators in Madras and
asked the Governor to invite him to form a ministry under him as
Prime Minister. The Muslim League wanted Pakistan and Rajaji
who saw the growing incapacity of Gandhi-led Congress to deal
with the Muslim League advocated separation but on terms
different from that of the Muslim League (Rajaji favoured partition
of the country which included partition of Bengal and the Punjab
accompanied by total transfer of population) to enable the
immediate formation of a national government. But Gandhi
refused to see the writing on the wall and strangely enough Patel
too and both were of the opinion that Rajajis public espousal of
separation may precipitate the British Government to move in
that direction. Neither Gandhi nor Patel saw the advantages of
having Rajaji argue his case from within the Congress which
would have polarized opinions more sharply and clearly; instead
Gandhi asked Rajaji to resign from the Congress and campaign
for his formula from outside the Congress.
88


Besides Sardar Patel, Rajaji was the only politically powerful
person in the INC who could stand up to Gandhi and
notwithstanding the fact that Gandhi and Rajaji were sambandhi
(Rajajis daughter Lakshmi married Gandhis son Devdas), Rajaji
and Devdas were among those who later distanced themselves
from Gandhi in serious objection to Gandhis experiments with
women.

Quit India Movement August 1942
Bose's defiance and growing popularity and influence among
Indians unnerved the INC and Gandhi in the manner in which
Bhagat Singh had demoralized them previously; they realized
they would have to make a grand gesture to re-assert their
leadership of the nation. Between 1939 when the war broke out,
and 1942 when the INC had been weakened by an ascendant
Bose, KM Munshis repudiation of Gandhis ahimsa, Rajaji's
expulsion, and Japan's invincible march across Asia threatening
the Allies, the INC recognized that the disenchantment of ordinary
Indians was growing, that British coffers were empty, and that
London would no longer be able to keep India by force. Economic
blood-sucking of India had become impossible by 1942.


83 For details on the CR Formula, see end of chapter
88
Letter to C Rajagopalachari, Sevagram, Wardha, J uly 5, 1942, From a photostat:
G.N. 2091, CWMG Vol. 83, pp 78-79
London realized that the jewel of their imperial crown was slipping
surely from their hands; Gandhi and the INC also seemed finally
to have recognized this truth and needed to reassert themselves
swiftly to pre-empt Subhash Bose and the INA from occupying the
political space soon to be vacated by the British. Bose had
become Prime Minister of the Provincial Government of Azad Hind
and by August 1942 appeared all set to overthrow not only the
British Empire from India, but also the INC from the Indian
political arena.

Gandhi issued his third empty battle-cry after Swaraj and Purna
Swaraj: Quit India. The slogan 'Quit India', besides being
meaningless, was redundant; the British were quitting of their
own accord and had already begun planning their withdrawal.

Those born after 1947 and raised on a diet of official history will
be surprised to learn that Gandhi's call to the British to 'Quit
India', far from being a decisive moment in the freedom struggle,
was a whimper, a tearful plea, and above all, a reaction to the
triumphant advance of Japan across Asia and Subhash Bose's INA
into India. Gandhi's slogan for the 'Quit India' satyagraha was 'do
or die', and as in all his campaigns, he and all important Congress
functionaries were arrested the moment he gave the call, leaving
ordinary Indian men and women to do and to die.

Here is a mantra, a short one, that I give you. You
may imprint it on your hearts and let every breath
of yours give expression to it. The mantra is: Do or
Die. We shall either free India or die in the
attempt; we shall not live to see the perpetuation of
our slavery. Every true Congressman or [Congress]
woman will join the struggle with an inflexible
determination not to remain alive to see the
country in bondage and slavery. Let that be your
pledge. Keep jails out of your consideration. If the
Government keep me free, I will spare you the
trouble of filling the jails. I will not put on the
Government the strain of maintaining a large
number of prisoners at a time when it is in trouble.
Let every man and woman live every moment of his
or her life hereafter in the consciousness that he or
she eats or lives for achieving freedom and will die,
if need be, to attain that goal. Take a pledge with
God and your own conscience as witness, that you
will no
longer rest till freedom is achieved and will be
prepared to lay down your lives in the attempt to
achieve it. He who loses his life will gain it; he who
will seek to save it shall lose it.
89


On 8 August 1942 the All-India Congress Committee adopted a
resolution demanding "the immediate ending of British rule in
India'. It also authorized Gandhi "to take the lead and guide the
nation" in the Quit India satyagraha that followed the adoption of
the resolution. Before Gandhi could take any actual steps to lead
the campaign, he and the entire Congress leadership were thrown
in jail by the government. Nationwide riots followed, which were
put down with an unprecedented show of force.

Gandhi's 'do or die' slogan was taken from Lord Alfred Tennyson's
'Charge of the Light Brigade which commemorated the British
soldiers who died in the Crimean War. The suspicion arises that
Gandhi was using psychological warfare against Subhash Bose.
The latter was leading a real army of fighting soldiers who were
actually engaged in 'do or die' mission to overthrow the Empire;
whereas Gandhi was merely giving a faade of war to his
ineffective satyagraha. He was attempting to give Indians who
still believed in his sainthood the illusion that they were soldiers in
a war in which he was their 'chosen' commander:

In the 1920s he incorporated Tennyson's ideal of
heroism and "soldierly spirit of obedience"
90
into his
own philosophy of non-violence. Satyagraha, he
said, was a form of spiritual warfare, its leader, a
'commander' or 'general', and each satyagrahi, a
soldier. One joins the satyagraha 'army' voluntarily
and after due 'reasoning'; but once he has joined
the 'army', orders must be followed in the spirit of
military discipline with faith supporting reason.
The 'general' alone knows the right strategy; and
the plans of battle, known only to him, are kept
secret from ordinary 'soldiers'. Whereas the
'military general' changes plans according to the
needs of external circumstances, the satyagrahi
'general' changes his plans according to the needs
of 'internal circumstances, i.e., the promptings of
the 'inner voice'. In both satyagraha and military
warfare "the position of the soldier is very nearly
the same.In ordinary warfare one soldier cannot

89
Speech at AICC Meeting, Bombay, August 8, 1942, Mahatma, Vol. VI, pp.
154-64, CWMG Vol 83, page 197
90
(CW 25: 588)
reason why. In our warfare there is enough scope
for reasoning, but there is a limit to it".
91


The last was a not-so-subtle hint from Gandhi that if people chose
to follow him he expected that they should do so unquestioningly.
Well aware of the general frustration of the people of India with
his passive resistance, Gandhi attempts here to give it a nuance
of war and expresses his demand that he is a general of sorts,
and his followers - soldiers of sorts; and therefore must adhere to
the military discipline of unquestioning obedience to the leader.
Gandhi decried the military and the use of force but desired the
unquestioning obedience which was the defining characteristic of
the armed forces. In short, Gandhi wanted the sweetness of the
fruit without the tree. The limit as expected by Gandhi was
reached when Bose, Munshi, Satyamurti, Srinivasa Iyengar and
Rajaji dared to question the General and along the lines normally
expected within the armed forces in dealing with insubordination
or mutiny, they were chastised, court-martialed and/or expelled
depending on their stature and threat in real terms to Gandhis
authority.

Far from being a war and far from leading like a 'general',
Gandhi's address to the AICC was an admixture of bravado, false-
humility, a plea to the Viceroy in the name of friendship, his
daughter and his ADC son-in-law; Gandhi pleaded with the United
Nations, with the US, with Europe to give India her independence
- a plea of the dumb millions to the mighty, and a continuation
of his character that was expressed in his letter to Maffey in 1918.
Gandhis pleading tone to the British government and the
international community was in sharp contrast to the summary
manner in which he deals with Abul Kalam Azad when he realized
that the Maulana disapproved of the Quit India satyagraha
launched by Gandhi in the name of the INC, without the support
or the approval of the President of the INC! And taking a page out
of Tennyson and Goldsmith as well, Gandhi stooped in great self-
abasement, first to please the British and second, to win over his
'soldiers' to follow him.
92


The last is significant; Gandhi knew it was still possible that the
British would refuse political independence. Yet he continued to
maintain, even in the face of continued slavery, that non-violence
would remain the guiding principle of the INC. Rajaji and Maulana
Azad, who was then President of the INC, disagreed with Gandhis

91
(CW 69: 274; see also CW 43: 381)
92
For complete text of Gandhis speech at the AICC directed at the country-at-
large, at Britain and at the international community, see end of chapter
call to Quit India. But typical of Gandhis reaction to dissent and
opposition as witnessed earlier with Bose, Gandhi demanded
Azads resignation as President.
93
Patels relations with Gandhi
had run into troubled waters over the issue of Gandhis
experiments with women and communication between the two
men was few and far between. Rajaji, on the other hand, saw
through Gandhis ploy to incite violence and accused Gandhi of
powering his satyagraha with the latent violence of the imminent
advance of axis powers into India providing both the context and
the pretext, and knowingly inciting ordinary people to take up
arms against the British government.

Rajaji not only saw through Gandhi but did not hesitate to convey
to Gandhi that he saw through him. In 1939, after Gandhi had
manipulated Bose out of the Congress he had announced to the
world that he would no longer launch any civil disobedience
campaign because he was convinced that the country as a whole
was not non-violent in thought and deed.
But that seems to lead one to a rather dreadful
conclusion, viz., that compromise with non-violence
was necessary for a widespread awakening! But
that is not the conclusion. The conclusion is that
God chooses as his instruments the humblest and
weakest of His creatures to fulfill Himself. Today
with [this] great realization I would not lead
another Dandi March. The breach of the salt laws
was a perfect proposition, but violence of the mind
had crept in almost from the beginning. All that we
had learnt then was that it was expedient to refrain
from the use of physical violence. This was the non-
violence of the calculating Bania, not of the brave
Kshatriya. This non-violence of the calculating
Bania has not, could not have, carried us far. It
could not possibly avail to win and retain swaraj, to

93
This is my plea about Maulana Saheb. I find that the two of us have drifted
apart. I do not understand him nor does he understand me. We are drifting apart on
the Hindu-Muslim question as well as on other questions. I have also a suspicion
that Maulana Saheb does not entirely approve of the proposed action. No one is at
fault. We have to face the facts. Therefore I suggest that the Maulana should
relinquish Presidentship but remain in the Committee, the Committee should elect
an interim President and all should proceed unitedly. This great struggle cannot be
conducted properly without unity and without a President who comes forth with a
hundred per cent co-operation. Please show this letter to Maulana Saheb. From the
Hindi original: Gandhi-Nehru Papers. Courtesy: Nehru Memorial Museum and
Library Letter To Jawaharlal Nehru, Sevagram, Wardha, July 13, 1942 CWMG
vol. 83 page 98

win over our opponent who believed in the use of
arms. Today I sense violence everywhere, smell it
inside and outside Congress ranks. In 1921 even
goonda element outside the Congress was more or
less under our control.
94

The goonda element outside the Congress (and inside it) had
demonstrated time and again that on every occasion that Gandhi
launched a Civil Disobedience campaign, they could convert it into
an opportunity for armed attacks against British officers and
government buildings and installations. So, when after declaring
in 1939 that he would not launch any more campaigns, Gandhi
announced a non-violent Civil Disobedience movement to demand
that the British Quit India, he knew well enough that there was
every likelihood of the movement becoming yet another
opportunity for armed resistance. Rajaji was in no doubt about
Gandhis intentions -
My dear Bapu,
......You may reiterate and insist as much as you
like on non-violence. But there is not a shadow of
doubt. The momentum of your present move is
wholly almost whollythe violence of the Axis
powers and the critical state to which the British
have been thereby reducednot the non-violence
or love inherent in your proposals and plans. You
are scientific enough to see this as plain as the
chemist in a laboratory. What am I driving at? It is
this. What you are now doing is not an adventure in
non-violence though it may have that delusive
appearance. It is generating intense hatred in the
British mind as a result of the utilization of the
violence of others that they feel you are pitilessly
making at a most critical point of time in the war.
There is no room in this for fasting and all that. If
you undertake it, the great hatred you have
generated will prevent the operation of the forces of
non-violence. It is politics, pure and simple, and let
it be done as politics are done. There is no ahimsa
in what you have got the Congress finally to accept
or rather what the Congress has got you to accept.
Plans suitable only for ahimsa have no place in this.
Love.

94
Speech at Kathiawar Political Conference, Rajkot, May 31, 1939,
Harijan, 17-6-1939, CWMG Vol. 77, pp 1-3

RAJA
95


Gandhi however did not dare to treat Rajaji with the public
contempt with which he treated Azad now and how he would treat
Patel in 1946. As foretaste of things to come in 1946, the INC
ignores Gandhis diktat to have Azad replaced as President;
despite the fact that Gandhi instructed Nehru to get Azad to step
down as President because Azad, like Patel and Rajendra Prasad
had distanced himself from Gandhi, Azad remained President of
the Congress party until July 1946. As Rajaji had foreseen and as
was seen in all of Gandhis earlier satyagraha campaigns, the
ordinary people of India used the Quit India satyagraha as an
opportunity for taking up arms against the government. The
Jugantar party, which with great foresight had merged with the
Congress to escape persecution by the British, now unleashed
upon the British the full might of its revolutionaries. Government
offices, railway lines, communication cables and
telecommunication poles were targeted by the people and
notwithstanding Gandhi's gentlemanly non-violence, his bended
knees and his earnest desire to be true to the British nation and
Empire, the Raj responded by summarily removing him and the
INC from their path and brutally quelling the civil disobedience
campaign.

The British government arrested Gandhi and the entire Working
Committee the very next day and lodged them in different
prisons. Gandhi as usual was lodged comfortably in the Aga Khan
palace with an entire retinue of people to serve him an unusual
concession for a man in prison. Kasturba, Mirabehn, his grand-
niece Manu Gandhi, his secretary Mahadev Desai, his
stenographer Pyarelal, Dr. Susheela Nayyar, one of Gandhis
victims of his experiments and Pyarelals sister, were all lodged in
the Aga Khan palace with him.

In prison, Gandhis daily routine was carefully noted, recorded
and reported to the government.
96
Far from devoting himself to
spinning the whole day to clothe the naked as he never failed to

95
Appendix VI Letter From C. Rajagopalachari 48 Bazullah Road, Thyagarayanagar,
Madras, August 8, 1942 From a copy: C.W. 10925. Courtesy: C. R. Narasimhan,
CWMG Vol 83, pp 455-56

96
For Text of Gandhis daily routine in the Aga Khan Palace, see end
of chapter

exhort ordinary Indians
97
while he reserved for himself the
exalted task of playing politics, Gandhi devoted a mere 45
minutes everyday for spinning while he received a massage for 45
minutes and a bath for one and half hours from Doctors Nayyar
and Gilder, while continuing with his experiments with
brahmacharya in prison.

Gandhi's Quit India movement died without a whimper as events
outside India preoccupied the British government in India and the
Imperial government in London, while Gandhi's "dumb millions"
applauded Bose's escape from India and waited in anticipation for
his army to march to Delhi. Gandhi and the INC went into
hibernation for the last time before 1947. This time their slumber
would be ended four years later by the Cabinet Mission, in March
1946.

INA enters Kohima, Moirang, encircles Imphal and is
ready to march to Delhi April 1944
Siege of Imphal ends June 1944
INA and Japanese advance repulsed in Manipur
July 1944
Death of Subhash Bose August 1945
Japan surrenders, end of World War II September
1945
British Indian Mutiny and Naval Mutiny February
1946

After the war, three INA officers, General Shah Nawaz Khan,
Colonel Prem Sehgal and Colonel Gurbux Singh Dhillon, were put
to trial at the Red Fort in Delhi for waging war against the King
Emperor, i.e. the British Empire. The colonial government, which
had always handled the Muslim League with kid-gloves and never
dealt with Muslims as ruthlessly as it had dealt with ordinary
Hindus and the INC, was so enraged with Bose that in a telling
political move, it hand-picked one Hindu, one Muslim, and one
Sikh, for public trial.

Contrary to the British Governments hope that picking one Hindu,
one Muslim and one Sikh will have a dampening effect on all
sections of the populace, the INA trials became a rallying point for
all Indians across the political spectrum, and the release of INA

97
This is an occasion when everyonerich and poor, young and old, men and
womenought to take up spinning for the sake of the country. If the charkha is not
there, there is a distinct possibility of a time coming when we shall have to go
about naked. Blessings from BAPU. A MESSAGE SEVAGRAM, WARDHA,
July 15, 1942 From a facsimile of the Gujarati: Sutarne Tantane Swaraj, CWMG
Vol 83, page 102
prisoners and suspension of the trials gained precedence over the
campaign for political freedom. The situation was explosive and
volatile. The beginning of the first trial saw violence and a series
of riots on a scale that should have alerted Gandhi and the INC of
the state of things to come. Gandhi's assertion on 8 August 1942
that ordinary Indians were 'dumb millions' and "non-violence will
never end" was never true, as proved when the trial of INA
soldiers began in Delhi.

Anger against the British government spread within the British
Indian troops. Indians serving in the Forces saw the INA as a
nationalist army, as one of their own, and as being what they
aspired to be. Their anger against the British was thus
compounded by guilt, a potentially explosive mix.

The anger and unrest among the British Indian armed forces
affected the Royal Indian Navy. In February 1946, while the trials
were going on, a general strike ratings of the Royal Indian Navy
rapidly deteriorated into a mutiny, incorporating ships and shore
establishments of the RIN throughout India, from Karachi to
Bombay and from Vizag to Calcutta. The central rallying cry of the
ratings concerned the INA trials; their slogans invoked Subhash
Bose.

In some places, Non-Commissioned Officers (NCOs) began
ignoring orders from their British superiors. In Madras and Pune,
the British garrisons had to face revolts within the ranks of the
British Indian Army. Another Army mutiny occurred in Jabalpur
during the last week of February 1946, soon after the Navy
mutiny at Bombay. This was suppressed by force, including the
use of the bayonet by British troops, but lasted nearly two weeks.
Later, about 45 persons were tried by court martial and 41
sentenced to varying terms of imprisonment or dismissal; many
were discharged on administrative grounds. News of the Jabalpur
army mutiny had a contagious effect and soon spread to
Hyderabad, Madras, Pune, Lucknow and Calcutta. Prime Minister
Attlee, asked why the British were leaving India, specifically
mentioned the army's role. Indian soldiers, he said, could not be
trusted to 'hold' India any longer. Confronted by this monumental
truth, the imperial government sent the Cabinet Mission to India
with proposals for transfer of power.
*****
Appendix

I Gandhis open letter to the British people on how to deal
with Hitler and Nazism
Excerpts from To Every Briton
I appeal to every Briton, wherever he may be now, to accept the
method of non-violence instead of that of war for the adjustment
of relations between nations and other matters. Your statesmen
have declared that this is a war on behalf of democracy. There are
many other reasons given in justification. You know them all by
heart. I suggest that at the end of the war, whichever way it
ends, there will be no democracy left to represent democracy.
This war has descended upon mankind as a curse and a warning.
It is a curse inasmuch as it is brutalizing man on a scale hitherto
unknown. All distinctions between combatants and non-
combatants have been abolished. No-one and nothing is to be
spared.

I appeal for cessation of hostilities, not because you are too
exhausted to fight, but because war is bad in essence. You want
to kill Nazism. You will never kill it by its indifferent adoption.
Your soldiers are doing the same work of destruction as the
Germans. The only difference is that perhaps yours are not as
thorough as the Germans. If that be so, yours will soon acquire
the same thoroughness as theirs, if not much greater. On no
other condition can you win the war. In other words, you will have
to be more ruthless than the Nazis. No cause, however just, can
warrant the indiscriminate slaughter that is going on minute by
minute.

I do not want Britain to be defeated, nor do I want her to be
victorious in a trial of brute strength, whether expressed through
the muscle or the brain. Your muscular bravery is an established
fact. Need you demonstrate that your brain is also as unrivalled in
destructive power as your muscle?

I venture to present you with a nobler and a braver way, worthy
of the bravest soldier. I want you to fight Nazism without arms,
or, if I am to retain the military terminology, with non-violent
arms. I would like you to lay down the arms you have as being
useless for saving you or humanity. You will invite Herr Hitler and
Signor Mussolini to take what they want of the countries you call
your possessions. Let them take possession of your beautiful
island, with your many beautiful buildings. You will give all these,
but neither your souls, nor your minds. If these gentlemen choose
to occupy your homes, you will vacate them. If they do not give
you free passage out, you will allow yourself, man, woman and
child, to be slaughtered, but you will refuse to owe allegiance to
them.

May God give power to every word of mine. In His name I began
to write this, and in His name I close it. May your statesman have
the wisdom and courage to respond to my appeal. I am telling His
Excellency the Viceroy that my services are at the disposal of His
Majestys Government, should they consider them of any practical
use in advancing the object of my appeal. (New Delhi, July 2,
1940 Harij an, 6-7-1940, CWMG Vol. 78, pp 386-88)
*****

II Excerpts from Gandhis speech at Madura, Tuticorin and
Nagapatnam

Gandhi cites Prahlad as an exemplar of non-violence but is
silent about the method employed to kill his father
Hiranyakashipu
When the national conscience is hurt, people whose conscience is
hurt either seek redress through methods of violence or through
methods which I have described as Satyagraha. I consider that
methods of violence prove in the end to be of absolute failure.

True paurusha, true bravery, consists in driving out the brute in
us and then only can you give freest play to your conscience. The
other force which I have in various places described as
Satyagraha, soul-force or love-force, is best illustrated in the
story of Prahlad. Prahlad, as you know, offered respectful
disobedience to the laws and orders of his own father. He did not
resort to violence; but he had unquenchable belief in what he was
doing. He obeyed a higher call in disobeying the orders of his
father. And in applying Satyagraha to this movement, we shall be
only copying the brilliant and eternal insistence of Prahlad. But we
are living today in a world of unbelief. We are skeptical about our
past records and many of you may be inclined to consider the
story of Prahlad to be a mere fable. I therefore propose to give to
you this evening two instances that have happened practically
before your eyes.
Speech on Satyagraha movement, Madura, The Hindu, 29-
3-1919, March 26, 1919, CWMG Vol. 17, page 355

Gandhi seeks refuge in religion to persuade ordinary
people to die for his Satyagraha
It is the doctrine of self-suffering in which there is therefore no
defeat. Our countrymen in South Africa, where they were
labouring, copied these examples with the results you probably
know. In that movement all joined hands but the majority were
the common people. There were two beautiful boys and one
beautiful girl in South Africa who lost their lives for the cause of
national honour. You should know their sacred names, which will
be remembered from day to day so long as this struggle lasts and
even after. The girls name is Valliamma, the boys names are
Nagappan and Narayansami. They were all about 15 years old
and they were drawn from the labouring classes. They did not
receive liberal education nor had they read of the deeds of the
Ramayana and the MahabharataIndian blood flowed through
their veins. The law of suffering was engraved upon their hearts
and I ask everyone present here to copy the example of these
two heroes and heroine. If you and I are in suffering, if our
properties are taken away from us, no matter, for we preserve
our dignity and national honour.

More than any other part of India, you have preserved the
national traditions in a superior manner. You have preserved most
decidedly the outward form. You have also great faith in divinity.
When I look at you, my mind reminds me of our great rishis1. I
am sure they could not have lived simpler lives, but one thing is
simple [sic]. You have to infuse into the form, that you have so
beautifully preserved, the spirit of the rishis. Then you will be a
power in the land and you will preserve the dignity of the nation
and realize
her future destiny. I hope that God will give you sufficient
strength for this. (Excerpts from Speech on Capital and
Labour and Rowlatt Bills, Nagapatnam, March 29, 1919 The
Hindu, 3-4-1919, CWMG Vol. 17 pp 362-64)


*****

III Gandhi disapproved of Satyagrahis seeking release
from prison
Excerpts from Gandhis Letter to the Press on the Delhi
Tragedy
TO
The Editor
THE BOMBAY CHRONICLE
Bombay
Sir,
I venture to seek the hospitality of your columns to make a few
remarks on the Delhi tragedy.
My purpose in writing this letter is merely to issue a note of
warning to all satyagrahis

The movement being essentially one to secure the greatest
freedom for all, satyagrahis cannot forcibly demand the release of
those who might be arrested, whether justly or unjustly. The
essence of the Pledge is to invite imprisonment and until the
committee decides upon the breach of the Riot Act, it is the duty
of satyagrahis to obey, without making the slightest ado,
magisterial order to disperse, etc., and thus to demonstrate their
law-abiding nature
Yours, etc.,
M. K. Gandhi
(The Bombay Chronicle, 4-4-1919, CWMG Vol. 17, pp 373-
74
*****

IV Satyagraha Leaflet No. 3

Mahatma Gandhis Warning to Satyagrahis and
Sympathizers
On Friday evening the 12th day2 of April, 1919, on the Chawpati
sea beach, Mahatma Gandhi sounded the following note of
warning to satyagrahis and sympathizers assembled in a mass
meeting:
Brothers And Sisters,
As you see I have been set free by the Government. The two
days detention was no detention for me. It was like heavenly
bliss. The officials in charge of me were all attention and all
kindness to me. Whatever I needed was supplied to me, and I
was afforded greater comforts than I am used to when free. I
have not been able to understand so much excitement and
disturbance that followed my detention. It is not Satyagraha. It is
worse than duragraha. Those who join Satyagraha demonstration
are bound at all hazards to refrain from violence, not to throw
stones or in any way whatsoever to injure anybody. But in
Bombay, we have been throwing stones. We have obstructed
tram-cars by putting obstacles in the way. This is not Satyagraha.
We have demanded the release of about 50 men who have been
arrested for committing deeds of violence. Our duty is quietly to
submit to being arrested. I t is a breach of religion or duty to
endeavour to secure the release of those who have
committed deeds of violence. We are not therefore justified on
any grounds whatsoever for demanding the release of those who
have been arrested.

The time may come for me to offer satyagraha against
ourselves. I would not deem it a disgrace that we die. I shall be
pained to hear of the death of a satyagrahi. But I shall consider it
to be a proper sacrifice given for the sake of the struggle.

I have even just heard that some Englishmen have been injured.
Some may have died from such injuries. If so, it would be a great
blot upon Satyagraha. For me Englishmen too are our brethren.
We can have nothing against them. And for me sins such as I
have described are simply unbearable. But I know how to offer
Satyagraha against ourselves as against the rulers. What kind of
Satyagraha can I offer against ourselves on such occasions? What
penance can I do for such sins? The Satyagraha and the penance
I can conceive can only be one and that is for me to fast and if
need be by so doing to give up this body and thus to prove the
truth of Satyagraha. (Excerpts from the printed original
preserved in Gandhi Smarak Sangrahalaya, Delhi.
Courtesy: H. S. L. Polak, CWMG Vol.17, pp 411-12)
*****

V Gandhis speech at Amritsar Congress, January 1, 1919

Mr. Gandhi, speaking in Hindi, said that he was pained to speak
against the resolution moved by Mr. Das and seconded by Mr.
Tilak. He agreed with the resolution to a great extent but he was
not prepared to characterize the Reform as disappointing. By
disappointing it was meant that one was unable to do any work
in that connection. But those who called the Reforms
disappointing had said that they would fill the Council with their
own candidates. Mr. Gandhi asked the Congress to consider that.
If they wanted to utilize the Reforms Act, why should they call it
disappointing?

He then moved his amendment which was different from the one
printed in the agenda paper yesterday. Mr. Gandhis altered
amendment omitted the word disappointing at the end and ran:
Pending such introduction [of Responsible Government] this
Congress begs loyally to respond to the sentiments expressed
in the Royal Proclamation, namely, Let it (the new era) begin
with a common determination among my people and my officers
to work together for a common purpose and trusts that both the
authorities and the people will co-operate so to work the Reforms
as to secure an early establishment of full responsible government
and this Congress offers its warmest thanks to the Right Honble
E.S. Montagu for his labours in connection with them.

My Dear Friends,
You have heard those who spoke in English. I do not need to read
my amendment to them. You have seen the amendment that
stands in my name. I want to give you the fullest assurance that
nothing could have pleased me more than not to have appeared
before you in order to divide this House, but when I found that
duty demanded of me that I should say a word, even against
revered countrymen of mine, even against those who have
sacrificed themselves for the sake of the country, when I found
that they did not make sufficient appeal to my head or to my
heart, and when I felt that an acceptance of the position that
underlay their proposition would mean something not good for the
country, I felt I at least should have my own say and make my
own position clear to the country.

It is not a matter of removing a word here and a word there. If I
could have managed to have the word disappointing, believe
me, I would not have risen before this audience, wasted your time
and my nations valuable time in higgling over a word. I say to
you it is not right to have the word disappointing.

I do believe with Tilak Maharaj, Mr. Das and all the other friends,
that we are fit for responsible government fully to-day. (Hear,
hear). I do believe that what we are getting falls far short of the
Congress ideal. (Hear, hear). I do believe that at the earliest
possible moment we should have responsible government. I am in
accord with them. What then?

Their position again was, why should we thank a servant of ours?
After all, who is Mr. Montagu? He is our servant. If he has done a
little bit of his duty, why do you want to thank him? It is an
attitude you may sympathize with sometimes, but I say to this
great audience that that is not an attitude which is worthy of
yourselves. My amendment also means that we may not say
these reforms are disappointing in the sense in which that word is
used there.

We should stare the situation in the face as it exists before the
country today, and if, as I say, Tilak Maharaj tells you that we are
going to make use of the Reforms Act, as he must, and as he has
already told Mr. Montagu, as he has told the country, that we are
going to take the fullest advantage of the Reforms, then I say be
true to yourselves, be true to the country and tell the country you
are going to do it. But if you want to say, after having gone there,
you shall put any obstruction, say that also. But on the question
of the propriety of obstruction, I say, that the Indian culture
demands that we shall trust the man who extends the hand of
fellowship. The King-Emperor has extended the hand of
fellowship. (Hear, hear.) I suggest to you that Mr. Montagu has
extended the hand of fellowship, and if he has extended the hand
of fellowship, do not reject his advances. Indian culture demands
trust, and full trust, and if we are sufficiently manly, we shall not
be afraid of the future, but face the future in manly manner and
say, All right, Mr. Montagu, all right, all officials of the
bureaucracy, we are going to trust you; we shall put you in a
corner, and when you resist us, when you resist the advance of
the country, you shall do so at your peril. That is the manly
attitude that I suggest to you.

I again appeal to Tilak Maharaj, and I appeal to Mr. Das and to
every one of you, not on the strength of my service - it counts for
nothing, not on the strength of my experience - but on the
strength of inexorable logic. If you accept your own civilization, I
ask the author of the commentaries on Bhagavad Gita1, if he
accepts the teachings of Bhagavad Gita, then let him extend the
hand of fellowship to Mr. Montagu (Here, hear, and applause.)
(Report of the Thirty-fourth Session of the Indian National
Congress, CWMG Vol. 19, pp 200-204)
*****
VI Nehru Report and Jinnahs Counter-proposals
Motilal Nehru Report [1928] Jinnahs Fourteen Points
1. An all party conference was
held in 1927-28 in Delhi to
prepare a draft constitutional
reform as a challenge to British
after the Simon Commission, in
which the British had declared
that the Indian were so divided
that they could not reach an
unanimous decision on
constitutional reforms
2. Committee was appointed
under Motilal Nehru to frame the
future constitution for India.
Members:
1. Sir Tej Bahadur Sapru
2. G.R. Pardhan.
3. N.A. Joshi
Muslim Members
1. Sir Ali Imam
2. Shoaib Qureshi

3. Salient features:
Unlike the Government of India
Act 1935, which would soon be
in place, the Nehru report had a
Bill of Rights
Jinnah issued his 14
points in reply to the
Nehru Report
1. Any future
constitution should be
federal, with power
resting with the
provinces.
2. All provinces should
have the same
amount f autonomy.
3. All legislatures and
local bodies should be
constituted with
adequate
representation of
minorities.
4. Muslims should have
one-third of the sears
in the Central
Assembly.
5. Election should be by
separate electorates.
6. Any territorial changes
should not affect the
Muslim majority in
Bengal, the Punjab
and the NWFP.
7. Full liberty of belief
and worship shall be
granted to all
communities.
8. No bill shall be passed
in any elected body if
of any community
A. All power of government and
all authority - legislative,
executive and judicial - are
derived from the people and the
same shall be exercised through
organisations established by, or
under, and in accord with, this
Constitution
B. There shall be no state
religion; men and women shall
have equal rights as citizens.
C. Hindi should be made the
official language (Both Devnagari
and Urdu to be accorded official
script status).
D. Unitary form of Government
established in the center with
residuary powers vesting with
the central government
E. It included a description of the
machinery of government
including a proposal for the
creation of a Supreme Court and
a suggestion that the provinces
should be linguistically
determined
F. Hindi would be the national
language and the official script
would be both Devnagari and
Urdu
G. Full provincial status given to
N.W.F.P and Baluchistan.
H. Sindh should separate from
Bombay, if it were capable of
independent financial existence.
I. Foreign affairs, Army and
Defense should be placed under
the direct control of the
is that body opposed
it.
9. Sindh shall be
separated from
Bombay.
10. There should be
reforms in the NWFP
and Baluchistan to put
them on the same
footing as other
provinces.
11. Muslims should have
an adequate share in
the services of the
state.
12. Muslim culture,
education, language,
religion and charities
should be protected
by the constitution.
13. All Cabinets [at
central or local level]
should have at least
1/3 Muslim
representation.
14. The federation of
India must not change
laws without the
consent of the
provinces.
Key to Jinnahs 14 points
1. Points 1, 2 and 14
should be supported
as features of a
federal system
2. Points 3, 4, 5 and 13
should be supported
as guarantees to
Muslim representation
in any legislature.
3. Points 6 and 8 should
be supported as
response to Muslim
fears.
4. Point 10 and 11
parliament and Viceroy.
J. Separate electorates to
replace joint electorates with
reservation of seats for the
minorities in proportion to their
population. [Separate Muslim
electorates to be abolished]
K. Full responsible government
on the model of self governing
dominions like South Africa and
Canada.
4. Jinnah at the Calcutta
Congress in December 1928,
proposed 3 amendments to the
Nehru Report.
1. 1/3 Muslim representation
in the central legislature.
2. Muslim representation in
Punjab and Bengal on the
basis of population.
3. Residuary powers should
rest with the provinces
instead of the Central
Government.
5. The amendments were
rejected by the Congress. The
Nehru Report was rejected by
the Muslim League.
.

should be discussed
as reforms.
5. Point 7 and 12 -
religious and cultural
rights should be
protected.

*****

VII Excerpts from Gandhis speech on the Nehru Report at
the Congress meeting in Calcutta, December 1928

It is an open secret that we have in our camp sharp differences of
opinion as to the lead Congressmen should receive in connection
with the epoch-making Report.

You cannot take this Report piecemeal or chop it up, for it is an
organic whole.

As Dr. Ansari has pointed out if you attack the central theme of
the Report you stab the heart itself and the centre is what is
known as Dominion Status.

I suggest to you that it will be a grievous blunder to (?)
98

Independence against Dominion Status or compare the two and
suggest that Dominion Status carries humiliation with it and that
Independence is something that is triumphant.

Dont run to the hasty conclusion that the distinguished authors of
the Report had the interest of the country less at their heart than
any of us, or most of us. Do not run away with the hasty
conclusion that they want anything else than Complete
Independence for the country. The word independence is much
abused and is an equally misunderstood word. The contents of
that word would vary with the strength that the nation can call to
its aid from time to time.

You might have easily slept over the goal you set before
yourselves in Madras. But here by this resolution you dare not
sleep over your goal; for at the end of two years you will have to
work out your independence and practically you will have to
declare independence. Some of us, and I include myself among
them if I survive two years, may have to die in order to give a
good account of ourselves for the sake of achieving independence
and it may be till it is achieved, you will have to see our carcases.

The fire of independence is burning within me as much as in the
most fiery breast of anyone in the country but the ways and
methods may differ and it may be that when I am nearing my
destiny on this earth you may say, For independence we may
wait for fifty years. If it is so, you will tell me and point out that I
am weakened and you will then not listen to me but hiss me out
of the Congress platform.

You may say, Doctors have ordered rest for you, you can take
well-deserved rest, we shall run and if you march side by side
with us we may have to crawl. I say crawling we have buried in
that wretched lane at Amritsar. We shall never crawl.
99


98
Omission as in source
99
Speech on resolution on Nehru Report, Calcutta Congress I, December 26, 1928,
Amrita Bazar Patrika, 27-12-1928, CWMG Vol. 43, pp 439-445

*****
VIII Gandhi on Nehru and Bose at the Calcutta Congress,
December 1928, the sharp difference in tone and content
when he speaks about them
Mr. Sambamurthi was surprised why Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru was
not here today.
He was, as he said at the outset, not in sympathy with much that
was going on in our midst. He has become impatient to throw off
the yoke. Every twenty-four hours of his life he simply
broods upon the grievances of his countrymen. He is
impatient to remove the grinding pauperism of the masses. He is
impatient against capitalists who are in the country exploiting the
masses as he is against the capitalists who rule over this country
and exploit and bleed this country in the words of late Lord
Salisbury. I may tell you frankly that he is not in sympathy even
with this resolution which I seek to substitute for the resolution
which will be withdrawn if you give permission. He thinks this
resolution itself falls far short of what he wants but, a high-
souled man as he is, he does not want to create
unnecessary bitterness. Bitterness and worse he is prepared to
face if face them he must. He sees deliverance out of it by
seeking to impose silence upon himself and remaining absent.
Hence you find that even though he is a Secretary, and a
faithful and diligent Secretary of the Congress, he feels
that it is better for him this morning to absent himself than
be a helpless witness to proceedings with which he is not
in sympathy. I am sorry because I do not share his discontent
over this resolution, while I share all his grief, the intensity of
grief over the pauperism of our country and the slavery which is
grinding us down. I do not share his belief that what we are doing
at the present moment is not sufficient for the present needs of
the country. But how can he help feeling dissatisfied? He would
not be Jawaharlal if he did not strike out for himself an
absolutely unique and original line in pursuance of his
path. He considers nobody, not even his father, nor wife,
nor child. His own country and his duty to his own country
he considers and nothing else. Now you understand why he is
absent and now perhaps you will also understand why I have to
perform the painful duty of withdrawing the resolution which I
moved.
Gandhi on Subhash Boses Objections to the Resolution on
Nehru Report
There are in our midst today those who would stop at
nothing, who in their impatience do not mind if they rush
headlong even to perdition. What are we to do? What am I to
doa man approaching his end? What am I to say to those
flowers of the country who prize its liberty just as much as I do, if
not perhaps much more? What am I to say to it? Am I to say I
shall no longer come with you because I consider that my
principle is better, my method is better, therefore you shall work
out your own destiny; you shall work out that without my
services? I assure you, it is not without a considerable pain, that I
have taken up this position. I could have defied them just as they
could have defied me, but they say: We do not do it, because we
want your services also, if we get them; but not altogether at
your price. We want you to pay the same price to us also. We
want you to meet us also. I could not possibly resist it without
stultifying myself and without degrading myself. (Speech on
resolution on Nehru report, Calcutta Congress-II,
December 28, 1928, Amrita Bazar Patrika, 29-12-1928 and
Forward, 29-12-1928, CWMG Vol. 43, page 457)

Gandhis response to the objections
Mahatmaji in the course of his speech said that after due
consideration and carefully judging the whole situation he was
going to move the resolution before the house. The younger
group in the house were eager for Complete Independence.
If you all wish India to become free you should stop all this
controversy about Dominion Status and Independence. You
should remember swaraj is what we have outlined here [in this
Report]. I have come all the way from Sabarmati Ashram to
support the Nehru Committees recommendation. And that also
because the Report is the tangible fruit of the directive given by
the Madras Congress. Today we may accept this as swaraj in a
way. I dont know what shape it will take tomorrow.

You must honour the compromise I have worked out in the
Subjects Committee. If you think I am lowering the ideal of
Congress, you may repudiate me and not listen to me. I do not
want you to accept the resolution simply because I have moved
it. You must accept it only if you are prepared to work the
specified programme. If you reject this then you will have to
find yourself another President, as your present President
is the moving spirit behind this resolution. I do not believe
in resorting to dirty manoeuvring to obtain a majority vote.
It will only delay swaraj. If you want swaraj you must cleanse
your mind of all such ideas by voting for this Resolution.

Replying to the debate, Mahatma Gandhi said that his
remarks were principally addressed to young Bengal and if
they considered for one moment that a mere Gujarati could not
understand young Bengal, then young Bengal would commit a
most serious blunder.

I will ask you not to interrupt me when I am endeavouring to
address a few words to you, as a fellow-worker of yours. If
however you want to interrupt me, I shall certainly retire and not
address you. If on the other hand you want to listen to me, then
listen to me in perfect silence. I want to make it absolutely clear
that if you are wise, you will dismiss from your mind the bogey of
Independence v. Dominion Status. There is no opposition between
Dominion Status and Independence. I do not want a Dominion
Status that will interfere with my fullest growth, with my
independence. These words, I suggest, are misleading.

That resolution was not framed by me only; there were many
heads behind that. There was an attempt to placate as many
parties as it was possible to placate. That resolution was
discussed by various men, men who were supposed to represent
different parties. I do not want to suggest that you are bound by
that resolution but I do want to say that those who were
supposed to be behind that resolution were honour-bound to
support it. If anybody runs away with the idea that I am here
appealing to sentiment, he is in the wrong. You can appeal to
ones sense of honour and I am proud of having made my appeal
to that sense of honour.

You may take the name of Independence on your lips just as the
Muslims utter the name of Allah or a pious Hindu utters the name
of Krishna or Rama, but all that muttering will be an utterly empty
formula if there is no honour behind it. If you are not prepared to
stand by your own words, where will Independence be?
Independence is after all a thing made of sterner stuff. It is not
made by wriggling of words. I suggest that if you want to
vindicate the honour of this nation, because the Viceroy insults us
or president of a European Chamber of Commerce insults us, we
say, we want our independence because we want to vindicate our
honour, then you are dragging independence into the mire.

If you think it is not a matter of honour, if you think that the
independence of the country will be lost if you accept my
resolution, I invite you to throw out my resolution by an
overwhelming majority. But if you accept my resolution by an
overwhelming majority or even by any majority whatsoever, then
those who vote for this resolution should understand that it would
be a matter of honour for them to work for it because they pledge
themselves for it. (Excerpts from Speech on resolution on
Nehru report, Calcutta Congress- I I I , Amrita Bazar Patrika,
1-1-1929 and Aaj , 2-1-1929, CWMG Vol. 43, pp 476-79)
*****



IX Dissent at Lahore Congress, December 1929-January
1930

Letter to Subhash Chandra Bose, Sabarmati, January 3,
1930
You are becoming more and more an enigma to me. I want you to
live up to the certificate that Deshbandhu once gave me for you.
He pictured you to me as a young man of brilliant parts,
singleness of purpose, great determination and above pettiness.
Your conduct in Calcutta1 therefore grieved me, but I reconciled
myself to its strangeness. But in Lahore you became
inscrutable and I smelt petty jealousy. I do not mind
stubborn opposition. I personally thrive on it and learn more from
opponents than from friends. I therefore always welcome sincere
and intelligent opposition. But in Lahore you became an
obstructionist. In connection with the Bengal dispute, in your
writings to the Press you were offensive and the discourteous,
impatient walk-out nearly broke my heart. You should have
bravely recognized the necessity and the propriety of your
and other friends exclusion (from being appointed to the
newly- constituted Congress Working Committee) It was not
aimed at you, Prakasam or Srinivasa Iyengar. It was meant
merely to strengthen the hands of the young President by
providing him with a cabinet that would be helpful in carrying
forward the national work. There was no question surely of
distributing patronage, of placating personal interest,
however high they may be. The question was one of devising
measures for achieving independence in the shortest possible
time. How could you, having no faith in the programme, or
Prakasam, with philosophic contempt for the present programme,
or Srinivasa Iyengar, with his unfathomable unbelief in Jawaharlal
and Pandit Motilalji, forward the nations work? But all the three
could help by becoming sympathetic critics offering sound
suggestions along their own lines. There was certainly no
undemocratic procedure. If the putting of the names en bloc did
not commend itself to the Committee, the Committee could have
so expressed its opinion and that would have been also a fair
measure of the strength of your party.1 But I do not want to
continue the argument. I simply write this to ask you to retrace
your steps and otherwise also prove to me and those whose co-
operation you would seek, the truth of the certificate issued by
Deshbandhu. I do not want to change your view about anything,
but I do want you to change your conduct in enforcing those
views. (From a copy: Kusumbehn Desais Diary. S. N.
32579/37, CWMG Vol. 48, pp 189-90)


Letter to S Srinivasa Iyengar, Sabarmati, January 3, 1930
I was deeply distressed over your walk-out and the whole of your
uncertain behaviour. Uncertainty there always has been behind
your acts, but I had not detected before any unworthiness about
them. When we first met your sincerity and high aspiration
attracted me towards you. That attraction was increasing with
closer contact. How is it that it has been decreasing of late and
reached almost the ebbing point? I do not mind difference of
opinion, but it would cut me if my regard for you were to be
diminished. Please correct me if I have erred. If I have not, I
would have you retrace your steps and be what you were when I
first knew you. Political life need not debase us. (From a
photostat: C.W. 10754. Courtesy: Nehru Memorial Museum
and Library, CWMG Vol. 48, page 190)

Letter to S Satyamurti, Sabarmati, January 3, 1930
It would be wrong of me to conceal from you the grief which I
have expressed to others over your highly ungentlemanly,
unpatriotic and uncalled-for conduct on the 1st instant at the
A.I.C.C. meeting. I do not mind opposition even though it may be
merely destructive, but I do mind want of manners, which I am
afraid you were betrayed into on the very day when you would be
expected to be restrained and helpful, even though you did not
believe in the programme or even the procedure. (From a copy:
Kusumbehn Desais Diary. S.N. 32579/39, CWMG Vol. 48,
page 191)

Letter to V S Srinivasa Sastry, Sabarmati, January 12, 1930
I do hope you are not over-angry with me for my doings in
Lahore. I have but followed the inner voice. I saw no other
honourable way out. Russells speech (where at a Labour Party
meeting in Cambridge he is supposed to have said that none
knew better than Indians themselves that complete independence
was impossible) has justified the decision, i.e., in my opinion of
course. But I know that we can love one another in spite of sharp
differences of opinion. (Letters of Srinivasa Sastri, p. 189,
CWMG Vol. 48, page 223)

Letter to S Srinivasa Iyengar, Sabarmati, January 17, 1930
I can no longer delay acknowledging your angry letter. Though I
have an answer to every one of the statements you have made I
must restrain myself. I can only give you my assurance that my
affection for you is no more diminished because of political
differences than for Malaviyaji for the same cause. But this I
cannot prove by words. Future conduct alone can prove the truth
of my assurance. I did not write my letter to hurt your feelings. I
wrote in order to be true to you, a friend and associate, and to
myself. We shall know each other better when the mists have
rolled away. Meanwhile I anticipate your forgiveness for offence
given utterly unconsciously. (From a photostat: S.Srinivasa
Iyengar Papers. Courtesy: Nehru Memorial Museum and
Library, CWMG, Vol. 48, page 238)
*****

X Gandhis statement to the Press on Subhash Boses re-
election as Congress President
Shri Subhas Bose has achieved a decisive victory over his
opponent, Dr. Pattabhi Sitaramayya. I must confess that from the
very beginning I was decidedly against his re-election for reasons
into which I need not go. I do not subscribe to his facts or the
arguments in his manifestos. I think that his references to his
colleagues were unjustified and unworthy. Nevertheless, I am
glad of his victory. And since I was instrumental in inducing Dr.
Pattabhi not to withdraw his name as a candidate when Maulana
Saheb withdrew, the defeat is more mine than his. I am nothing if
I do not represent definite principles and policy. Therefore, it is
plain to me that the delegates do not approve of the principles
and policy for which I stand. I rejoice in this defeat. It gives me
an opportunity of putting into practice what I preached in my
article1 on the walk-out of the minority at the last A. I. C. C.
meeting in Delhi. Subhas Babu, instead of being President on the
sufferance of those whom he calls rightists, is now President
elected in a contested election. This enables him to choose a
homogeneous cabinet and enforce his programme without let or
hindrance.

There is one thing common between majority and minority, viz.,
insistence on internal purity of the Congress organization. My
writings in the Harijan have shown that the Congress is fast
becoming a corrupt organization in the sense that its registers
contain a very large number of bogus members.2 I have been
suggesting for the past many months the overhauling of these
registers. I have no doubt that many of the delegates who have
been elected on the strength of these bogus voters would be
unseated on scrutiny. But I suggest no such drastic step. It will be
enough if the registers are purged of all bogus voters and are
made fool-proof for the future.

The minority has no cause for being disheartened. If they believe
in the current programme of the Congress, they will find that it
can be worked, whether they are in a minority or a majority and
even whether they are in the Congress or outside it. The only
thing that may possibly be affected by the changes is the
parliamentary programme. The ministers have been chosen and
the programme shaped by the erstwhile majority. But
parliamentary work is but a minor item of the Congress
programme. Congress ministers have after all to live from day to
day. It matters little to them whether they are recalled on an
issue in which they are in agreement with the Congress policy or
whether they resign because they are in disagreement with the
Congress.

After all Subhas Babu is not an enemy of his country. He has
suffered for it. In his opinion his is the most forward and boldest
policy and programme. The minority can only wish it all success.
If they cannot keep pace with it, they must come out of the
Congress. If they can, they will add strength to the majority. The
minority may not obstruct on any account. They must abstain
when they cannot co-operate. I must remind all Congressmen
that those who, being Congress-minded, remain outside it by
design, represent it most. Those, therefore, who feel
uncomfortable in being in the Congress may come out, not in a
spirit of ill will, but with the deliberate purpose of rendering more
effective service. (Statement to the Press, Bardoli, January
31, 1939, Harij an, 4-2-1939, CWMG Vol. 75, pp 13-15)


Gandhis statement to the Press on removing Subhash
Bose as President of the Bengal Provincial Congress
Committee

I continue to receive letters, mostly abusive, about what may be
called the Subhas Babu resolution of the Working Committee. I
also saw a letter addressed to Rajendra Babu, which can hardly
be surpassed in the use of filthy language. I have seen some
criticisms about the war resolution. I owe it to the public to make
my position clear about both these resolutions. I must confess
that the Subhas Babu resolution was drafted by me. I can say
that the members of the Working Committee would have shirked
the duty of taking action if they could have. They knew that there
would be a storm of opposition against their action. It was easier
for them to have a colourless resolution than to have one which
was no respecter of persons. Not to take some action would have
amounted to abdication of their primary function of preserving
discipline among Congressmen. Subhas Babu had invited action.
He had gallantly suggested that if any action was to be taken it
should be taken against him as the prime mover. In my opinion
the action taken by the Working Committee was the mildest
possible. There was no desire to be vindictive. Surely the word
vindictiveness loses all force and meaning when the position of
Subhas Babu is considered. He knew that he could not be hurt by
the Working Committee. His popularity had put him above being
affected by any action that the Working Committee might take.
He had pitted himself against the Working Committee, if not the
Congress organization. The members of the Working Committee,
therefore, had to perform their duty and leave the Congressmen
and the public to judge between themselves and Subhas Babu. It
has been suggested that Subhas Babu has done what I would
have done under similar circumstances. I cannot recall a single
instance in my life of having done what Subhas Babu has done,
i.e., defied an organization to which I owed allegiance. I could
understand rebellion after secession from such an organization.
That was the meaning and secret of the non- violent non-co-
operation of 1920. But I am not penning these lines so much to
justify the action of the Working Committee as to appeal to
Subhas Babu and his supporters to take the decision of the
Working Committee in the right spirit an submit to it while it lasts.
He has every right to appeal to the A.I.C.C. against the decision.
If he fails there, he can take the matter before the annual session
of the Congress. All this can be done with-out bitterness and
without imputing motives of the worst type to the members of the
Working Committee. Why not be satisfied with the belief that the
members have committed an error of judgment? I fancy that if a
majority of the A.I.C.C. members signify in writing their
disapproval of the action of the Working Committee, the latter will
gladly resign. By imputing motives whenever there are differences
of opinion, Congressmen pull down the structure that has been
built up by the patient labour of half a century. Indeed, even if a
bad motive is suspected, it is better to refrain from imputing it,
unless it can be proved beyond doubt. It is necessary for the sake
of healthy public education that leaders of public opinion should
judge events and decisions on their merits. (Statement to the
Press, Segaon, August 23, 1939, Harij an, 26-8-1939,
CWMG Vol. 76, pp 258-59)

Subhash Boses Letter to the Congress Working Committee
on Why He Opposed the Bombay Resolution

I am exceedingly sorry for the delay in replying to your letter of
the 18th July, from Ranchi. You have asked me for an
explanation of my action in protesting against certain
resolutions of the All-India Congress Committee passed at
Bombay. In the first place, one has to distinguish between
protesting against a certain resolution and actually defying it or
violating it. What has so far happened is that I have only
protested against two resolutions of the A.I.C C. It is my
constitutional right to give expression to my opinion
regarding any resolution passed by the A.I.C.C. You will
perhaps admit that it is customary with a large number of
Congressman to express their views on resolutions passed by the
A.I.C.C. when a particular session of that body comes to a close.
If you grant Congressmen the right to express their views
on resolutions passed by the A.I.C.C, you cannot draw a
line and say that only favourable opinions will be allowed
expression and unfavourable opinions will be banned. If we
have the constitutional right to express our views then it does not
matter if those views are favourable or unfavourable. Your letter
seems to suggest that only expression of unfavourable
views is to be banned.

We have so long been fighting the British Government among
other things for our civil liberty. Civil liberty, I take it, includes
freedom of speech. According to your point of view we are
not to claim freedom of speech when we do not see eye to
eye with the majority in the A.I.C.C. or in the Congress. It
would be a strange situation if we are to have the right of
freedom of speech as against the British Government but
not as against the Congress or any body subordinate to it.
If we are denied the right to adversely criticize resolutions
of the A.I.C.C. which in our view are harmful to the
countrys cause then it would amount to denial of a
democratic right. May I ask you in all seriousness if
democratic rights are to be exercised only outside the
Congress but not inside it? I hope you will agree that when a
resolution is once passed by the A.I.C.C., it is open to us to have
it reviewed or amended or altered or rescinded at a subsequent
meeting of that body. I hope you will also agree that it is open to
us to appeal against the A.I.C.C. to the higher court of appeal,
namely, the open session of the Congress. You will agree further,
I hope, that it is open to a minority to carry on a propaganda with
a view to converting the majority to its point of view. Now how
can we do this except by appealing to Congressmen through
public meetings and through writings in the Press? The Congress
today is not an organization of a handful of men. Its membership
has, I believe, reached the neighbourhood of 45 lakhs. We can
hope to appeal to the rank and file of the Congress and to convert
them to our point of view only if we are allowed to write in the
Press and also to hold meetings. If you maintain that once a
resolution is passed in the A.I.C.C. it is sacrosanct and must hold
good for ever, then you may have some justification for banning
criticism of it. But if you grant us the right to review or
amend or alter or rescind a particular resolution of the
A.I.C.C. either through that body or through the open
session of the Congress, then I do not see how you can gag
criticism, as you have been trying to do. I am afraid you
are giving an interpretation to the word discipline which I
cannot accept. I consider myself to be a stern
disciplinarian and I am afraid that in the name of discipline
you are trying to check healthy criticism. Discipline does
not mean denying a person his constitutional and
democratic right. Apart from the fact that it is our constitutional
and democratic right to protest against resolutions which in our
view are harmful to the countrys cause, a consideration of the
merits of the two resolutions will show that such protests were
really called for.

In this connection I cannot help drawing your attention to certain
incidents at the time of the Gaya Congress in 1922 and after.
Please do not forget what the Swaraj Party did in those days.
Please do not forget either that when the A.I.C.C. amended the
resolution of the Gaya Congress, the Gujarat P.C.C. resolved to
defy it. Lastly, please do not forget that Mahatma Gandhi wrote in
Young India, if my recollection is correct, that the minority has
the right to rebel. We have not gone so far yet as to actually rebel
against the decision of the majority. We have simply taken the
liberty of criticizing certain resolutions passed by the majority in
the teeth of our opposition. I am really surprised that you
have made so much of what we regard as our inherent
right. I hope you will accept my explanation as
satisfactory. But if you do not do so, and if you decide to
resort to disciplinary action, I shall gladly face it for the
sake of what I regard as a just cause. In conclusion, I have to
request that if any Congressman is penalized in connection with
the events of the 9th July, then you will also take action against
me. If the observance of an All-India Day of the 9th is a crime
then I confess, I am the arch-criminal.
With kindest regards,
(Letter from Subhash Chandra Bose to the Congress
President, The I ndian Annual Register, 1939, Vol. II, pp.
219-20, CWMG Vol. 76, Appendix VIII, pp 426-28)
*****



XI CR Formula for Partition
Basis for terms of settlement between the Indian National
Congress and the AII-India Muslim League to which Gandhiji and
Mr. Jinnah agree and which they will endeavour respectively to
get the Congress and the League to approve:

(1) Subject to the terms set out below as regards the Constitution
for free India, the Muslim League endorses the Indian demand for
independence and will co-operate with the Congress in the
formation of a provisional interim government for the transitional
period.
(2) After the termination of the War, a commission shall be
appointed for demarcating contiguous districts in the north-west
and east of India, wherein the Muslim population is in absolute
majority. In the areas thus demarcated, a plebiscite of all the
inhabitants held on the basis of adult suffrage or other practicable
franchise shall ultimately decide the issue of separation from
Hindustan. If the majority decide in favour of forming a sovereign
State separate from Hindustan, such decision shall be given effect
to, without prejudice to the right of districts on the border to
choose to join either State.
(3) It will be open to all parties to advocate their points of view
before the plebiscite is held.
(4) In the event of separation, mutual agreements shall be
entered into for safeguarding defence, and commerce and
communications and for other essential purposes.
(5) Any transfer of population shall only be on an absolutely
voluntary basis.
(6) These terms shall be binding only in case of transfer by Britain
of full power and responsibility for the governance of India.
(CWMG Vol. 83, Appendix III, C Rajagopalacharis Formula,
pp 449-50)

*****

XII Gandhis Speech at the AICC Meeting on the Quit
India campaign
I have taken such an inordinately long time over pouring out what
was agitating my soul to those whom I had just now the privilege
of serving. I have been called their leader or, in military language,
their commander. But I do not look at my position in that light. I
have no weapon but love to wield my authority over anyone. I do
sport a stick which you can break into bits without the slightest
exertion. It is simply my staff with the help of which I walk. Such
a cripple is not elated, when he is called upon to bear the greatest
burden. You can share that burden only when I appear before you
not as your commander but as a humble servant. And he who
serves best is the chief among equals.

I have yet to go through much ceremonial as I always do. The
burden is almost unbearable and I have got to continue to reason
in those circles with whom I have lost my credit for the time
being. I know that in the course of the last few weeks I have
forfeited my credit with a large number of friends, so much so
that some of them have now begun to doubt not only my wisdom
but even my honesty. Now, I hold that my wisdom is not such a
treasure which I cannot afford to lose; but my honesty is a
precious treasure to me and I can ill afford to lose it.

I have been a humble servant of humanity and have rendered
on more than one occasion such service as I could to the
Empire; and here let me say without fear of challenge that
throughout my career never have I asked for any personal favour.
I have enjoyed the privilege of friendship, as I enjoy it today, with
Lord Linlithgow. It is a friendship which has outgrown official
relationship. Whether Lord Linlithgow will bear me out I do not
know; but there has sprung up a personal bond between him and
myself.

And yet let me declare here that no personal bond will ever
interfere with the stubborn struggle which, if it falls to my lot, I
may have to launch against Lord Linlithgow, as the representative
of the Empire. It seems to me that I will have to resist the might
of that Empire with the might of the dumb millions, with no limit
but non-violence as policy confined to this struggle. It is a terrible
job to have to offer resistance to a Viceroy with whom I enjoy
such relations. He has more than once trusted my word, often
about my people. I mention this with great pride and pleasure. I
mention it as an earnest of my desire to be true to the
British nation, to be true to the Empire. I mention it to testify
that when that Empire forfeited my trust, the Englishman who
was its Viceroy came to know it.

Then there is the sacred memory of Charlie Andrews which wells
up within me at this moment.

Years ago he came to South Africa1 with a note of introduction
from the late Gokhale. He is unfortunately gone. He was a fine
Englishman. I know that the spirit of Andrews is listening to me.
Then I have received a warm telegram from the Metropolitan (Dr.
Westcote) of Calcutta, conveying his blessings, though, I know,
he is opposed to my move today. I hold him to be a man of God. I
can understand the language of his heart, and I know that his
heart is with me.

With this background, I want to declare to the world that,
whatever may be said to the contrary, and although I might have
forfeited the regard and even the trust of many friends in the
West, and I bow my head low, but even for their friendship or
their love, I must not suppress the voice within, call it
conscience, call it the prompting of my inner basic nature.

That something in me which never deceives me tells me now:
You have to stand against the whole world although you may
have to stand alone. You have to stare the world in the face
although the world may look at you with bloodshot eyes. Do not
fear. Trust that little thing which resides in the heart. It says,
Forsake friends, wife, and all; but testify to that for which you
have lived, and for which you have to die. Believe me, friends, I
am not anxious to die. I want to live my full span of life.
According to me, it is 120 years at least. By that time India will be
free, the world will be free.

It is the fundamental truth with which India has been
experimenting for 22 years. Unconsciously, from its very
foundations, long ago, the Congress has departed though non-
violently from what is known as the constitutional method.
Dadabhai and Pherozshah who held the Congress India in the
palm of their hands had held on to the latter. They were lovers of
the Congress. They were its masters. But above all they were real
servants. They never countenanced murder and secrecy and the
like. I confess there are many black sheep amongst us
Congressmen. But I trust the whole of India to launch upon a
non-violent struggle on the widest scale. I trust the innate
goodness of human nature which perceives the truth and prevails
during a crisis as if by instinct. But even if I am deceived in this, I
shall not swerve. From its very inception the Congress based its
policy on peaceful methods, and the subsequent generations
added non-co-operation.

It is with all these things as the background that I want
Englishmen, Europeans and all the United Nations to examine in
their heart of hearts what crime India has committed in
demanding independence today. I ask: Is it right for you to
distrust us? Is it right to distrust such an organization with all its
background, tradition and record of over half a century and
misrepresent its endeavours before all the world by every means
at your command? Is it right, I ask, that by hook or crook, aided
by the Foreign Press, aided, I hope not, by the President of the
U.S.A. or even by the Generalissimo of China, who has yet to win
his laurels, you should present Indias stand in shocking lights?

Even if the whole of the world forsakes me, I will say: You are
wrong. India will wrench with non-violence her liberty from
unwilling hands. Even if my eyes close and there is no
freedom for India, non-violence will not end. They will be
dealing a mortal blow to China and to Russia if they oppose the
freedom of non-violent India which today is pleading with bended
knees for the fulfilment of a debt long overdue. Does a creditor
ever go to the debtor like that? And even when India is met with
such angry opposition, she says: We wont hit below the belt. We
have learnt sufficient gentlemanliness. We are pledged to non-
violence.

There are representatives of the Foreign Press assembled here
today. Through them I wish to say to the world that United
Nations, who say that they have need for India, have the
opportunity now to declare India free and prove their bona fides.
If they miss it, they will be missing opportunity of their lifetime,
and history will record that they did not discharge their
obligations to India in time and lost the battle. I want the blessing
of the whole world, so that I may succeed with them. I do not
want the United Powers to go beyond their obvious limitations. I
do not want them to accept non-violence and disarm today. There
is a fundamental difference between Fascism and even this
imperialism which I am fighting. If India feels that freedom, she
will command that freedom for China. The road for running to
Russias help will be opened. Englishmen did not die in Malaya or
on the soil of Burma. What shall enable us to retrieve this
situation? Where shall I go and where shall I take the forty crores
of India? How is this vast mass of humanity to be aflame in the
cause of world-deliverance, unless and until it has touched and
felt freedom? Today they have no touch of life left. It has been
crushed out of them. If lustre is to be put into their eyes, freedom
has to come not tomorrow but today. I have, therefore, pledged
the Congress and the Congress has pledged herself that she will
do or die. (Speech at AICC meeting, Bombay, August 8,
1942, From a typed office copy. Courtesy: Nehru Memorial
Museum and Library, CWMG Vol 83 pp 201-206)

*****



XIII Gandhis Daily Routine as Prisoner in the Aga Khan
Palace

THE INSPECTOR-GENERAL OF PRISONS
POONA
SIR,
With reference to your confidential D.O. No. 6247 dated
December 14 1943, I
have the honour to give below the required information.
1. Mr. Gandhi discusses political questions with other inmates,
especially with Mr. Pyarelal and Miss Slade; Miss Nayyar is always
there. Very rarely with Dr. Gilder. This takes place generally when
they are reading newspapers.
2. The daily routine of life of Mr. Gandhi:

He gets up about 6.30 a.m. and, after finishing morning ablution
and
breakfast, he reads books or newspapers.

From 8.15 to 9.0 a.m. morning walk in the garden with Pyarelal
and Misses
Slade, Nayyar and Manu. While walking, they talk on political and
other subjects.

Doctors Gilder and Nayyar give him massage for about 45
minutes and then
bath up to 11.15.

From 11.15 to 12 noon he takes his food, and Miss Slade talks or
reads books
to him.

From 12 noon to 1.0 p.m. teaching Sanskrit to Miss Nayyar.

1.0 to 2.0 p.m. rest.

From 2.0 to 3.0 p.m. Mr. Pyarelal reads papers to him and
discusses on several points arising from the papers, while he is
either spinning or filing cuttings from the papers.

From 3.0 to 4.0 p.m. teaching Miss Manu.

From 4.0 to 5.30 p.m. indexing of newspaper cuttings on various
subjects. He is assisted in this work by Pyarelal, Drs. Gilder and
Nayyar. They remove the selected and marked portions from the
papers, paste them on slips of paper and give them to Mr. Gandhi
for indexing and filing.

From 5.30 to 6.30 p.m. Miss Slade reads papers to him and
discusses on
various political and other subjects.

From 6.30 to 7.15 p.m. evening walk with other inmates in the
garden.

From 7.30 p.m. to 8.15 p.m. spinning, while Pyarelal reads to him
some books.

From 8.15 to 9.0 p.m. prayer.

From 9.0 to 10.0 p.m. reading and talking with Mr. Pyarelal and
Miss Nayyar.

He goes to bed at 10 p.m.

He changes his time according to climatic conditions.

3. Mr. Pyarelal does the typing work of Mr. Gandhi.

When the big letter was sent to the Government of India
regarding the reply to the Congress Responsibility, Dr. Gilder
typed the major part of the letter.

I have the honour to be,
Sir,
Your most obedient servant,
(Signed)
OFFICER I/C, AGA KHANS PALACE
(Appendix XV Letter From Officer- - I n- Charge, Aga Khan
Palace To I nspector- General Of Prisons, Poona, Aga Khan
Palace, Yeravada, December 15, 1943, CWMG Vol 83 pp
473- 4)

*****










CHAPTER 6

The Indian National Congress' last hurrah

The Cabinet Mission May, 1946

The ultimate failure of the Cabinet Mission, despite protracted
discussions among the Cabinet Delegation, the INC and the
Muslim League, led to the vivisection of the Hindu bhumi and
marked the beginning of the process of political disempowerment
of the Hindu people, a process accelerated by the Lucknow Pact
and Gandhis ascendancy. Chapter 5 demonstrated
Gandhi made unqualified absolute non-violence his USP
Gandhi controlled the Congress Working Committee and
always ensured that only his loyalists or Nehrus loyalists
were appointed to the CWC; he was also the sole deciding
factor in selecting the Congress President
Gandhi controlled the Congress indirectly through direct
control of the CWC and the President
Gandhi was ambitious to play a huge political role with his
own pack of playing cards which comprised only of non-
violence as Gandhian USP and absolute control of the
Congress President and the Working Committee
Because his unreal and unqualified non-violence had no
precedent in Hindu tradition rooted in Hindu dharmic
values, Gandhis non-violence was rejected time and again
by the Hindus of the country
Gandhi mocked at, disparaged, marginalized and
ultimately evicted all the real kshatriyas, including the
intellectual kshatriyas in the Congress before him and in
his time
Gandhi, overriding general opinion in the Congress in
favour of Sardar Patel, adorned Nehru with the mantle of
political leader
Gandhis political career in India, for the first time since
Mahabharata, resulted in vivisection of territory, saw the
rise of irreligious and anti-Hindu Nehru and the
recrudescence of Islam in the sub-continent, unabashedly
exhibiting its nature political objectives through jihad.
The Hindu nation and the nations polity is paying the price
of towering Gandhian arrogance which led directly to
towering Nehruvian arrogance

The timing of the Cabinet Mission was a clear sign of surrender by
the British government to the inevitable: India could no longer be
held by force. Within a month of ending the siege of Imphal,
London sent the Cabinet Mission to India in March 1946. The
Cabinet Mission came to India ostensibly to devise a mechanism
for the smooth transfer of power. It comprised three members
Sir Pethick-Lawrence, Secretary of State for India, Sir Stafford
Cripps, President, Board of Trade and AV Alexander, First Lord of
the Admiralty. The Mission had twin objectives: to devise a
constitution for the independent Indian state, and the formation
of an interim government or Executive Council to assist the
Viceroy to administer the country until the making of the
constitution, with the rider that the Viceroy would continue to
enjoy overriding powers. The proposals were made public in what
has come to be known as the Statement of May 16 or State Paper
of May 16, 1946.
1
The paper broadly set out the basis and
mechanism of Constitution-making and the need for setting up an
interim government until the process of Constitution-making was

1
Statement of Cabinet Delegation and Viceroy, The Transfer of Power 1942-47, Vol.
VII, pp. 582-91, CWMG Vol. 90, Appendix XX, pp 438-47
complete. India would be a free country after the Constitution was
in place. The important features of the State Paper were
The British Government accepts the anxiety of Muslims to
protect their religion, culture and language
The British Government concedes fully the Muslim claim
that they fear Hindu domination and hence cannot accept
being ruled by Hindus
The Cabinet Mission therefore provides for grouping of
provinces into Groups A, B and C which permits grouping
of provinces with sizeable Muslim population into Groups B
and C allowing the Muslim League political control of
sizeable territory
The Cabinet Mission rules out a separate state of Pakistan
not only to get the INC on board for the negotiations but
also on the ground that the Pakistan of Jinnahs demand
would exist on two sides of partitioned India Group B on
Indias west and Group C on Indias east
The Union of India would have only three subjects under
its control Foreign Affairs, Defense and Communications.
All other subjects would vest with the provinces
If any province wished to opt out of the Group into which it
had been placed it could so at the time of the first general
elections in independent India
2

No clause of the State paper could be modified or changed
and nothing could be added or deleted without a majority
of the representatives of the two major political
formations, and a majority of the total representatives
present in the Constituent Assembly, agreeing to it

2
The State Paper is very clear on this and makes the point in simple language; yet
Gandhi, realizing that he alone was responsible for the march of the Muslim
League inexorably towards its goal of a separate Pakistan, latched on to this
provision in a feeble attempt to retrieve the already lost situation
Thus all subjects other than Foreign Affairs, Defense and
Communications would vest in the provinces, and the provinces
would be free to form larger groups, with their own executives
and legislatures, with powers to deal with such subjects as the
provinces within that group might assign to them.
3
In this
manner, the provinces that Jinnah claimed for Pakistan could form
groups or sub-federations and enjoy a large measure of autonomy
approximating to but not quite Pakistan. Notwithstanding Jinnah's
repeated insistence on carving out the Muslim state of Pakistan,
Viceroy Wavell's ultimatum that if Jinnah insisted on Pakistan he
would get only a truncated Pakistan
4
, ultimately persuaded Jinnah
to accept the Mission's proposal for a three-tier Constitution which
allowed maximum autonomy for all provinces within the Indian
Union, including the Princely states, which would be prevailed
upon to join the Union by sending their representatives into the
Constituent Assembly. The Cabinet Mission had provided for the
Princes and rulers of the Indian States to send 93 delegates to the
Constituent Assembly to participate in the making of the
constitution. Jinnahs, and subsequently the Muslim Leagues
acquiescence to accepting the Mission proposal for maximum
autonomy without partition was a well-planned tactical gesture
because Jinnah intended to water the seeds of Partition once the

3
Provinces should be free to form groups with Executives and Legislatures, and
each Group could determine the Provincial subjects to be taken in common.
(Clause 15 (5), Statement of Cabinet Delegation and Viceroy, May 16, 1946,
Appendix XX, CWMG, vol. 90, pp 438-47)
4
Truncated Pakistan was the CR Formula (C Rajagopalachari, Rajaji formula
for partition) which demanded the partition of the Punjab and Bengal without
ceding Assam while J innahs Pakistan envisaged the whole of the Punjab, Sindh,
the North-West Frontier province and the whole of Bengal and Assam. The CR
formula also envisaged a total transfer of population in Bengal, the Punjab and the
rest of India as the natural and desirable fallout of partition with the Gandhian, self-
defeating rider of all such transfer being wholly voluntary.
Muslim League came to power in these provinces and after the
British quit India.
5


The State Paper dealt even-handedly with the INC and the Muslim
League it effectively averted the looming threat of vivisection
and also gave enough to Jinnah and the Muslim League to force
them to accept the proposals. It also issued a direct warning to
both parties about the possible catastrophic consequences for the
people if because of the intransigence on the part of one or other
of the parties, the Mission were to fail in its objective.
6
The
Imperial Government had also sent the Cabinet delegation fully
prepared with a back-up plan in the following circumstances
The INC or the Muslim League or both could reject the
mechanism for the formation of the Interim Government
Either or both political parties could refuse to participate in
the making of the Constitution

5
.the Muslim League having regard to the grave issues involved, and prompted
by its earnest desire for a peaceful solution, if possible, of the Indian constitutional
problem, and in as much as the basis and the foundation of Pakistan are inherent in
the Missions plan by virtue of the compulsory grouping of the six Muslim
provinces, in sections B and C, is willing to co-operate the constitution-making
machinery proposed in the scheme outlined by the Mission, in the hope that it
would ultimately result in the establishment of complete sovereign Pakistan
(Resolution of Muslim League Council, J une 6, 1946, the Transfer of Power 1942-
47, Vol. VII, pp 836-8, CWMG, Vol. 91, Appendix V, page 439)
6
We ask you to consider the alternative to acceptance of these proposals. After all
the efforts which we and the Indian Parties have made together for agreement, we
must state that in our view there is a small hope for peaceful settlement by
agreement of the Indian Parties alone. The alternative therefore would be a grave
danger of violence, chaos and even civil war. The result and duration of such a
disturbance cannot be foreseen; but it is certain that it would be a terrible disaster
for many millions of men, women and children. This is a possibility which must be
regarded with equal abhorrence by the Indian people, our own countrymen and the
world as a whole.
We therefore lay these proposals before you in the profound hope that they will be
accepted and operated by you in the spirit of accommodation and good-will in
which they are offered. (Statement of Cabinet Delegation and Viceroy, May 16,
1946, The Transfer of Power, 1942-47, Vol. VII, pp 582-91, CWMG, Vol. 90,
Appendix XX, page 447)
Either or both could reject the Mission proposals in toto
The covert and undisclosed back-up plan, which manifested itself
with unfolding events in the subsequent weeks, and which we
now understand retrospectively, was as follows
If the INC and the Muslim League failed to come together
to jointly decide on the composition of the coalition Interim
Government, the Viceroy would nominate members from
the INC and the Muslim League or from other parties which
accepted the State Paper of May 16
If the Muslim League refused to join the Interim
Government, then the Viceroy would call upon the INC to
form the government
If however, the INC refused to form the government, the
Muslim League would not be invited to form the interim
government on its own, even if it accepted the State Paper
of May 16
If the Muslim League refused to enter the Constituent
Assembly, the INC would go ahead with the formation of
the Interim Government and proceed to constitute the
Assembly which would get down to the business of
Constitution-making for all groups and provinces
If the INC refused to agree to participate in the
Constituent Assembly then the six provinces assigned to
Group A would be immediately declared by the Viceroy to
be independent and the INC could then go ahead with
forming an Interim Government to administer these
provinces as it desired and set up its own Constituent
Assembly, while groups B and C would continue to remain
under the control of the Viceroy until such time each of the
Provinces in the two groups decided upon their own
mechanisms for governance and administration
The back-up plan was such that it would provoke the Muslim
League to violence if pushed that far. The acceptance resolution
of the Muslim League in fact declared unambiguously that the
League would do everything in its means and power to eventually
make Pakistan a reality.
7


The provisions of the covert back-up plan with the potential to
ignite the Muslim League into violent reaction were
The Viceroys prerogative to nominate League Muslims (as
distinct from Congress Muslims) to the Interim Government,
without seeking the opinion of the Muslim League, in the event
of the Muslim League and the INC not agreeing upon the
names for the members of the coalition Interim Government

The Viceroys prerogative not to call upon the Muslim League
to form the Interim Government if the INC refused to join the
Interim Government while the Viceroy may exercise his
authority to call upon the INC to form the Interim Government
if the Muslim League rejected the offer

To deny automatic independence to Muslim-majority Groups B
and C if the Muslim League or the INC were to refuse to join
the Constituent Assembly whereas the Viceroy was prepared
to declare Group A and all the provinces within Group A as
being a unified whole and as having become independent,
under similar circumstances

7
In order that there may be no manner of doubt in any quarter, the Council of the
All-India Muslim league reiterates that the attainment of the goal of a complete
sovereign Pakistan still remains the unalterable objective of the Muslims in India,
for the achievement of which they will, if necessary, employ every means in their
power and consider no sacrifice or suffering too great. (Resolution of Muslim
League Council, J une 6, 1946, the Transfer of Power 1942-47, Vol. VII, pp 836-8,
CWMG, Vol. 91, Appendix V, page 439)


To provide the individual provinces in Groups B and C the right
to decide individually, under the circumstance described
immediately above, about the arrangements they would like to
make for themselves, thus effectively scuttling the concept of
a consolidated Pakistan while at the same time the critically
important territory of these provinces, including Baluchistan
and the NWFP remained effectively partitioned from the Hindu
nation

Gandhi, who was not even a four-anna member of the INC, was
involved totally in the discussions in Delhi and Simla; and as had
become the convention in the Congress, Gandhis views were
binding upon the INC and by extension, the nation as a whole,
barring the Muslims. Gandhi realized that the State Paper was an
exquisitely crafted trap vivisection of the Hindu nation while the
possible scuttling of a complete and sovereign Pakistan was the
trap intended to snare both major political parties. The averment
that there would be no independent State of Pakistan was the bait
to inveigle the INC into the trap while the lure of the principle of
Pakistan contained in the Grouping clause was the bait for the
Muslim League. But in a move that defies logic and good sense,
Gandhi, within four days of the State Paper being made public, on
20
th
May, in New Delhi, endorses the Mission paper my
conviction abides that it is the best document the British
Government could have produced in the circumstances.
8
Having
endorsed the State Paper warmly, Gandhi then proceeds to
extricate the country from the trap into which he had led it, much
like a man removing his dhoti millimeter by careful millimeter
from a bush of thorns. Gandhi first questioned the rationale

8
For the text of Gandhis analysis of the Cabinet Missions Statement Paper, see
end of chapter
behind the State Paper assigning the groups to which the
provinces would belong. Specifically Gandhi took exception to the
Punjab being clubbed together with Baluchisthan, Sindh and the
North-West Frontier provinces into one group, and to Assam,
whose majority populace was non-Muslim as he put it delicately,
being placed within the same group as Bengal
9
. In the days
following his fulsome praise for the State Paper, Gandhi would
begin to question other provisions too. When Gandhi questioned
the rationale of the composition of provinces which went into the
making of these groups, it was an admission of failure on three
fronts
He realized that notwithstanding his pious advice to Hindus
to offer selfless service to their Muslim neighbors, Muslims
did not want to live with Hindus and the Muslim League
was adamant about partition if not immediately but
subsequent to watering the seeds of partition
He realized that the British were not impressed with his
fasts or non-violence and that they were going to sow the
seeds of separatism leading to partition with the Cabinet
Mission proposals which placed immense pressure only on
the INC and ultimately on the Hindus to avert vivisection
and not on the League or the Muslims who were
determined to achieve Pakistan one way or the other
He realized also that the British government was fully
behind the Muslim League on this score and considered the
grouping clause as final and binding with no provision for

9
But what about the units? Are the Sikhs for whom the Punjab is the only home in
India, to consider themselves, against their will, as part of the section which takes
in Sindh, Baluchisthan and the Frontier province? Or is the Frontier Province also
against its will to belong to the Punjab called B in the Statement, or Assam to C
although it is a predominantly non-Muslim province? (An Analysis, New Delhi,
May 20, 1946, Harijan, 26-5-1946, CWMG, vol. 91, pp 1-3)
immediate secession of provinces from any of the groups
into which they were placed.

The last was to ensure that a sizeable portion of the territory of
the Hindu nation was wrested from the control of Hindus and
permanently alienated. The truth that Rajaji saw in 1942 was
beginning to dawn on Gandhi post-facto in 1946 - that the Muslim
League was going to succeed in its objectives, wholly or in
substantial part, and also that the British government had the
same objective but for its own reasons. By objecting to the
Punjab being placed in the same group as Sindh and the NWFP,
and Assam with Bengal, Gandhi it was clear was now moving
towards accepting the idea of partition as had been proposed by
Rajaji in 1942 and was only hoping to retrieve the Punjab and
Assam from the clutches of the League and the Imperial British
Government. M R Jayakar in fact cautions Gandhi against
conceding any such thing in any form because he knew that
Gandhis concession would be binding upon the INC and
consequently upon the entire nation.
10
Gandhi who erroneously
declared that the Punjab was the only home for the Sikhs, could
however not bring himself to see that India was the only home for

10
Dear Mahatmaji, You will kindly excuse this letter, which is consequent on the
eventful news in todays press that H.H the Aga Khan is meeting you on the 20
th
at
Poona. This is an astute move, which he foreshadowed during his interview on
reaching India a few days ago. Why should he be bothering you with his attention
instead of meeting Mr. J innah, it is not difficult to understand. You have done your
best to meet Mr. J innahs point of view by offering a division of India, though on
the basis of a friendly transaction between two brothers. Mr. J innah
contemptuously spurned it wanting the division as between two separate nations.
With this background, the Aga Kahn should be busy in meeting Mr. J innah and not
you. But he wont do this because he knows that Mr. J innah will show him the door,
if he tried to interfere. So he turns in your direction. I need not say anything more.
I am aware, as you said in one of your replies to me that you will not be wanting in
caution, remembering that anything which you think of conceding, it will be
difficult for the country later to avoid. (Letter from MR J ayakar, Bombay, February
8, 1946, Gandhi-J ayakar Papers, File No. 826, pg 36a, Courtesy: National Archives
of India, CWMG Vol. 89, page 461)
the Hindus when he insisted that the territory belonged as much
to Muslims and Christians as it did to Hindus. Gandhi could not
even bring himself to pronounce Hindu when he referred to the
non-Muslim population of Assam, which besides Muslims had
only a small and insignificant Christian population. The nation is
now left with yet another of several unanswered critical questions
why did Gandhi endorse the Mission proposals in the first
instance?

The British back-up plan as became evident soon, was intended to
secure the strategic interests of the British Empire in the region
and was predicated upon one or the other of the two major
political parties rejecting the Mission proposals. An ascendant
communist Soviet Union posed, for Europe and America, the
biggest threat to the very basis of their nationhood - Christianity
and its derivative, western parliamentary democracy. The critical
relevance of the geography of what became West Pakistan for the
strategic objectives of western powers vis--vis communism and
the Soviet Union is better understood today. The Cabinet Mission
proposals were an overt not-to-be-implemented agenda, while the
back-up plan was the real but covert road-map of the British exit
from India.

The British were very clear about Indias place in the Empire - for
economic reasons until the early years of the twentieth century;
subsequently, after the emergence of the new Soviet Union in
1917, Indias territory became critically important for geo-political
reasons. Indians inspired by determined nationalists like
Aurobindo, Savarkar, Bhagat Singh and Bose seized every
opportunity to strike at British nationals and government officials.
The attacks against British government officials first by the
Chapekar brothers, then by Dhingra, subsequently by members of
Jugantar, of the Anusilan Samiti, by individuals like Bhagat Singh
and his friends, and then by Boses INA, and finally the rebellion
in the British Indian Army and the Royal Indian Navy taught the
British government two very important lessons one, that
ordinary Hindus outside the Congress would readily pick up arms
against the British government and British nationals; and two,
that the country could no longer be held by force of the military.
The British government therefore feared the all-too-real possibility
of a violent backlash from the majority populace more than
anything else at that critical juncture in history. To them Gandhi,
with his coercive pressure that Hindus abide by non-violence
under all circumstances, was the best bet to exit safely from
India. However, they intended to exit only after wresting territory
important for their strategic interests, from Hindu control.
Vivisection of the Hindu nation was the real objective of the
British and the Cabinet Missions hidden agenda was to achieve
their objective at no cost to themselves but by using Muslim
separateness and communal strife. The British plan to secure their
objectives rested on their ability to ignite Muslim violence and
ensure that Hindu anger turned, not against the British but in
reaction against the Muslims.

The Muslims were just as clear as the British about their
intentions for the Hindu bhumi return of Muslim rule over the
whole nation after the British withdrew from the territory; failing
which, at least a Muslim state in Muslim majority provinces from
out of the body of the Hindu nation. It is likely that Jinnah and the
Muslim League were as shocked as the British by the rise of
militant Hindu nationalism, from around the middle of the
nineteenth century, which was determined to protect the Hindu
people and Hindu territory, by use of force if necessary. They
would have realized too that organized Hindu resistance and
retaliation against Muslims had been contained only by protective
Muslim state power until the advent of colonial rule and that such
a protection was no longer available to them. For Jinnah and the
Muslim League therefore the best way to achieve a Muslim state,
with little or no loss of Muslim lives to the anger of the majority
populace, was through the British government. Jinnah was
prepared to go along with the Cabinet Mission and accept the
proposal of maximum autonomy short of partition because he
intended to use this autonomy after transfer of power, to carve
out the Muslim state of Pakistan.

The British were preparing to use the Muslims to wrest control of
important territory away from the Hindus while the Muslim League
was just as determined to use the British government to create a
Muslim state in the Hindu nation. It is doubtful if Gandhi grasped
the reality that the British and the Muslim mind were working in
tandem. While the British government was working towards
realizing its goal and the Muslim League was working towards
attaining its objective, Gandhi who spoke and acted on behalf of
the Congress in discussions with the Viceroy and the Cabinet
Mission, all the while insisting that the Congress did not represent
the Hindus but the whole nation, the Hindus of the Hindu bhumi,
tragically for them, had no one to protect them or their bhumi
from the triple threat posed by the British, the Muslims and
Gandhi. It is clear now and it ought to have been clear to Gandhi
and the INC then, that only a determined Hindu response to the
threat posed by the British government and the Muslims to the
Hindu bhumi could have protected the Hindu nation from
vivisection. The Hindu nation and the Hindus of this bhumi paid
the heavy price of the tragic absence of Hindu consciousness
among the leaders of the so-called freedom movement.

To the utter surprise of the British government perhaps tinged by
a measure of consternation, both Gandhi and Jinnah bit the bait;
Gandhi termed the Cabinet Mission proposals the best document
and route map the British could have prepared under the
circumstances for transfer of power, and contrary to all
expectations, Jinnah too accepted the proposals. Not stopping
with endorsing the Mission proposals Gandhi also certified to their
noble intentions; he exonerated the British from nurturing any
intention to vivisect the territory or ignite the flames of communal
strife.
11


Given the Muslim League's relentless demand for Pakistan, it
must have come as a blow to the British government when both
major parties accepted the proposals for a three-tier constitution
and the attendant proposal for interim government, thus making
it almost impossible for the Raj to realize its hidden agenda. If
Gandhi had had the political understanding to gauge the cunning
mind of the British Government and had he allowed the INC to
proceed according to the initial plan, he may well have thwarted
the hidden agenda of the British and India may have been spared
vivisection and its accompanying bloodbath. But as already
mentioned, Gandhi not only endorsed the proposals and
exonerated the British government of any malignant motives but
inexplicably he also simultaneously begins to extricate himself and
the INC from what he perceived was a well-laid trap.

11
The Congress and the Muslim League did not, could not agree. We would
grievously err if at this time we foolishly satisfy ourselves that the differences are a
British creation. The Mission have not come all the way from England to exploit
them. The authors of the document have endeavoured to say fully what they mean.
They have gathered from their talks the minimum they thought would bring the
parties together for framing Indias charter of freedom. Their one purpose is to end
British rule as early as may be. They would do so, if they could, by their effort
leave united India not torn asunder by internecine quarrel bordering on civil war.
(An Analysis, New Delhi, May 20, 1946, Vol. 91, CWMG, page 1)

The British government moved fast and the following timeline of
events subsequent to the State Paper leading to the Muslim
League rejecting the Mission proposals and announcing Direct
Action points to Gandhis hubris and his ultimate failure.

Gandhi welcomes State Paper New Delhi, May 20,
1946

Simultaneously Gandhi begins the process of
extrication New Delhi, May 20, 1946
Gandhi wrote to the Secretary of State Pethick-Lawrence making
several stipulations and raising a series of objections:
1. European members of the provincial assemblies in
Bengal and Assam should not vote to elect
delegates to the constituent assembly nor should
they be elected.
12
Gandhi realized too late the
potential of the European vote to tilt the balance in
favour of the Muslims of Assam and Bengal to serve
British strategic interests.
2. Gandhi stipulated that election of the 93 delegates
from among Indian rulers of the princely states to
the Constituent Assembly will be determined by the
Nawab of Bhopal and Nehru. If the princely states,
a majority of whom were Hindus, failed to come to
an agreeable solution there will be no delegates to
represent them and their issue must be transferred
to the Advisory Committee referred to in Clause 20
of the State Paper. Gandhi usurped to himself the

12
The Government of India Act of 1935 gave a number of seats in the Legislatures
to the Europeans. For instance, in Bengal alone there was a solid block of 25
Europeans. In Assam there were 9.
right to decide not only who would be the delegates
to the Constituent Assembly on behalf of the
princely states but also arrogated to himself the
right to deny them agency to decide their future.
3. Gandhi stipulated that Paramountcy, the agreement
between the British Government and the princely
states must be withdrawn immediately. Gandhi
makes the utterly preposterous generalization that
Indian rulers were the creation of the British
government and the rulers, secure under
Paramountcy oppressed their people.
13

4. Gandhi expresses his strong reservation over the
grouping clause
5. Gandhi stipulates that British troops must leave
India immediately. The Constituent Assembly
cannot function naturally with the looming presence
of British troops challenging their autonomy.
6. Gandhi objects to beginning the process of electing
members to the Constituent Assembly before the
formation of the Interim Government. He stipulated
that the Interim Government should be responsible,
not to the Viceroy but to the Central Legislative
Assembly and therefore the Interim Government
should be in place before the process of electing the
members to the Constituent Assembly begins.

13
I ventured to suggest that Paramountcy should cease even while independence is
at work in fact, though not in law, till the Constituent Assembly has finished its
labours and devised a constitutionAcceptance of my proposal would vivify the
people of the States as if by a stroke of the penBut if this Indian feeling did not
find an echo in your hearts, I personally would be satisfied with Sir Staffords view
that Paramountcy which had admittedly been used to protect the princes against
their people in the shape of suppressing their liberty and progress, should for the
time continue for the protection and progress of the people. (Letter to Lord Pethick-
Lawrence, New Delhi, May 20, 1946, Gandhijis correspondence with the
Government, 1944-47, pp 193-5, Vol. 91, CWMG, pp 4-6)

We are left with the question - if Gandhi had so many objections
and stipulations to make with regard to the Cabinet Mission
proposals, why did he endorse it in the first place and call it the
best document that could have been prepared under the
circumstances. Why did Gandhi not reject the Mission proposals at
once? The Sapru Committee Proposals was a well-thought out and
comprehensive blueprint for the Constitution of independent
India. The Sapru report, like the Motilal Nehru report earlier was
an all-Indian exercise and it is quite possible that given Sir Tej
Bhadur Saprus credentials as a non-Congress statesman, and
also given the excellent credentials of Saprus colleague MR
Jayakar in public life, Jinnah may have been persuaded to step
back from his maximalist position and give the Sapru Committee
Proposals a fair chance to prove itself. The Sapru Committee
Proposals was a more practicable alternative to the Cabinet
Mission Proposals and was attuned to the concerns and anxieties
of all sections of people without the distinct minority slant that
was evident in both the Nehru Report and the GOI Act 1935; but
Gandhi did not accord Sir Sapru and his committees proposals
the same respect and legitimacy that he had accorded to Motilal
Nehru and his report. Gandhi inexplicably endorsed the all-British
Cabinet Mission Proposals and despite all misgivings about the
inherent mischief in the proposals, went along with it, alienating
in the process not only the Muslim League but also eminent
leaders of the Congress.
14


Gandhi adds momentum to the process of extrication
with his public statement titled Vital Defects New
Delhi, May 26, 1946

14
For the complete text of the Sapru Committee Proposals, see end of chapter
Gandhi publicly expresses the objections and stipulations he made
privately to Pethick-Lawrence on May 20

Gandhi, for the first time at his routine prayer
meetings indicates the possibility that there may be
a breakdown in the talks New Delhi, June 11,
1946
15


A day later, notwithstanding Gandhis brave
face at the prayer meeting, he confesses to a
nameless fear - Before June 12, 1946
A nameless fear has seized me that all is not well.
As a result, I feel paralysed. But I will not corrupt
your mind by communicating my unsupported
suspicions to you.
16


Gandhis process of extrication was proceeding gradually and
surely.

Jinnah insists on parity in the number of portfolios
allotted to the INC and the Muslim League in the
interim government, Gandhi opposes, the Viceroy
plays a double game June 12, 1946

15
Besides, the prestige of the Cabinet Mission is at stake. They cannot afford a
breakdown. If the aim of all the parties, the Congress, the Muslim League and the
Mission is the same, viz., the independence of India, the present dialogue should
not end in failure. The fact that the Congress Working Committee even at this stage
is giving it the most serious consideration shows how anxious it is to avoid a
breakdown, if it is humanly possible without sacrificing the honour or the interests
of Indias dumb millionsIf however in spite of our efforts to avoid it, the talks in
the end do break down, we should not despair. Those who have faith in God will
leave the result to Him. (Speech at a prayer meeting, New Delhi, J une 11, 1946,
Vol.91, CWMG, page 146)
16
Letter to a friend, before J une 12, 1946, Reproduced from Pyarelals Weekly
Letter Vol.91, CWMG, page 147)
In his letter to Lord Wavell dated June 8, M A
Jinnah claimed that the Viceroy had given him the
assurance that there would be only 12 portfolios,
five on behalf of the League, five Congress, one
Sikh, and one Christian or Anglo-Indian. During
the meeting with the Cabinet Delegation on June 8,
the Viceroy said that he had given no assurance to
Mr. Jinnah but that he thought that the 5:5:2
ratio as the most hopeful basis of settlement and
that he was working on that basis. He told them
that M A Jinnah had taken a very strong line about
the Interim Government and had said that the
Muslim League would not be prepared to come in
except on the basis of 5:5:2 distribution of
portfolios between the Muslim League, the
Congress and the minorities. This parity between
the Congress and the Muslim League was wholly
unacceptable to the Congress.
17
The INC came up
with its formula of 12 portfolios 5 Congress, 4
Muslim League, 1 non-Indian Christian, 1 Sikh and
1 Congress woman.

Startling as it may seem, from this letter it is evident that Gandhi
may have had some knowledge of the back-up plan because he is
pushing the Viceroy to take an extreme step, which in turn was
sure to goad Jinnah to threaten violence. Gandhi writes to Lord
Wavell that in the event of the two parties not being able to come
to an agreement on the Interim Government, the Viceroy must
choose the list prepared by the Muslim League or the Congress

17
Foot-note 1 in Gandhis Letter to Lord Wavell, New Delhi, J une 12, 1946,
Gandhis correspondence with the Government, 1944-47, pp 204-5, Also The
Transfer of Power, 1942-47, Vol. VII, pp 877-8, Vol. 91, CWMG, pp 148-9)
and not thrust upon the INC an amalgam of the Viceroys choice!
In effect, Gandhi was pushing the Viceroy into inviting either the
Muslim League or the INC to form the Interim Government.
18
In
the letter Gandhi also begins to exert pressure on Jinnah and the
Viceroy that henceforth Maulana Abul Kalam Azad would be a
party to any joint consultation with the League; Gandhi,
notwithstanding the fact that he had actually asked for the
removal of Azad from President-ship of the INC in 1942, now
begins to promote him enthusiastically because he was beginning
to promote the incendiary idea of Congress Muslim versus
League Muslim.

After pushing the Viceroy, Gandhi, on the same day,
brings pressure to bear on Pethick-Lawrence,
member of the Cabinet Mission, to act fast in
choosing between the League or the Congress to
form the interim government New Delhi June 12,
1946
I suppose the Statesmans leading article today
represents the general British attitude in India. The
article is headed Slow Motion. Deliberation,
wariness, sobriety in an approach to great
discussions are proper; but not swither and
loquacity or delays due to mere tactical
maneuvering. All this is a letter to what I consider
an unwarranted attack on the Congress. If you, of
the Mission, and the Viceroy share the view you
should really have no dealings with the Congress,
however powerful or representative it may be. For
my part, as a detached observer, as I hold myself

18
For complete details on the issue of parity, see end of chapter for Gandhis letter
to the Viceroy and the Viceroys record of his meeting with Gandhi.
to be, I think that the Congress has not been
procrastinating. It has been extraordinarily prompt
in its dealings in connection with the work of the
high mission which you are shouldering. But my
purpose in writing this letter is to tell you that it will
be wrong on my part if I advise the Congress to
wait indefinitely until the Viceroy has formed the
Interim Government or throws up the sponge in
despair. Despair he must, if he hopes to bring into
being a coalition government between two
incompatibles. The safest, bravest and straightest
course is to invite that party to form the
government, which in the Viceroys estimation,
inspires greater confidence.
19


This was a shrewd and cunning statement by Gandhi because if
after this, the Viceroy, under duress from Gandhis threat to
instruct the Congress to withdraw from the talks, invited not the
Muslim League but the INC, then it was bound to incense Jinnah
because the Viceroy would be sending the signal that he did not
repose any confidence in the Muslim League.

Gandhi continues to maintain in public, with ordinary
Indians that the Cabinet Mission proposals are good
New Delhi June 12, 1946
Referring to the political situation he said he was
still not ready to say anything. There was however,
one thing to which he was free to draw their
attention. He had called the Cabinet plan good and

19
Letter to Lord Pethick-Lawrence, New Delhi, J une 12, 1946, Gandhis
correspondence with the Government, 1944-7, pp 209-10, Vol. 91, CWMG pp 151-
52
he still held to this opinion with the interpretation
he put on it. (Emphasis added)
20


The penchant for dissimulation and misinformation which was so
obvious in 1918!

Gandhi pushes the Viceroy yet again to settle the
issue promptly by choosing the Congress or the
League June 13, 1946
You are a great soldier a daring soldier. Dare to
do the right. You must make your choice of one
horse or the other. So far as I can see, you will
never succeed in riding two at the same time.
Choose the names submitted either by the
Congress or the League. For Gods sake do not
make an incompatible mixture and in trying to do
so produce a fearful explosion. Anyway, fix your
time limit and tell us all to leave when the limit is
over.
21


From threatening the Viceroy that he would instruct the Congress
not to wait indefinitely, Gandhi does a marginal climb-down and
asks the Viceroy to fix the time limit. Gandhi never explained to
the country, and Hindu intellectuals have until now never raised
the question in the public domain how, if he thought a
combination of the League and the Congress would produce a
fearful explosion, did he maintain that this bhumi belonged in
equal measure to the Muslims as much as to the Hindus and how
did he expect Hindus to live in peace with Muslims who are by the

20
Speech at prayer meeting, The Hindustan Times report has been collated with
Pyarelals version in his Weekly Letter in Harijan, Vol. 91, CWMG, page 152
21
Letter to Lord Wavell, New Delhi, J une 13, 1946, Vol. 91, CWMG, page 156
very nature of their religious beliefs, separatist in their objective
with jihad as the ultimate weapon of separatism.

Gandhi now writes to another member of the Cabinet
Mission, Sir Stafford Cripps, asking the Mission to
leave New Delhi, June 13, 1946
Every day you pass here coquetting now with the
Congress, now with the League, and again with the
Congress, wearing yourself away, will not do. Either
you swear by what is right or by what the
exigencies of British policy may dictate. In either
case bravery is required. Only stick to the
programme. Stick to the dates even though the
heavens may fall. Leave by the 16
th
whether you
allow the Congress to form a coalition or the
LeagueA word to the wise.
22


Gandhi probably did not realize that the British were not going to
risk causing the perception that the Cabinet Mission failed
because of their impatience or arrogance. The British government
was craftily manipulating the process of causing the overt Mission
proposals to fail seemingly because of the intransigence of the
Congress, the League or both. A wily politician of long years
standing, Cripps sends his reply to Gandhi the same day, oozing
friendliness
I am afraid, you, like some others of us, are feeling
somewhat impatient! But I always remember you
advised me to show infinite patience in dealing
with these difficult matters. Certainly I shall never

22
Letter to Sir Stafford Cripps, New Delhi, J une 13, 1946, Gandhis
correspondence with the government, 1942-47, page 207, Vol. 91, CWMG, page
158
put my desire to return home and rest, before my
determination to leave nothing undone which may
help a solution of the difficult problems here. I can
assure you, neither I nor my colleagues lack
courage to act but we want to temper that courage
with prudence. I still have great hopes that before
we leave India, we may have helped towards a
settlement of the problem.
23


Congress President writes to Viceroy rejecting
proposals for formation of Interim Government
June 13, 1946

In the face of Congress rejection, Viceroy Wavell
does not invite the Muslim League to form the
government but announces his own list of members
of the Interim Government June 16, 1946
24


Having failed to get the INC to agree to the original formula for
the formation of the Interim Government, Wavell announces his
own list which is an amalgam of the Muslim League, the INC and
representatives of minorities; only, he increased the number of
portfolios from 12 to 14, continuing to maintain however, parity in
the number of portfolios between the INC and the Muslim League.

The June 16 statement by the Cabinet Delegation and the Viceroy
announcing the formation of the Interim Government was the
second most significant stage in the process. Clause 8 of the June

23
Foot-note 2, Letter to Sir Stafford Cripps, New Delhi, J une 13, 1946, CWMG
Vol. 91, page 158
24
Lord Wavells Statement, New Delhi, J une 16, 1946, The Transfer of Power 1942-
47, Vol. VII, pp. 954-5, CWMG Vol. 91, Appendix VIII, pp 441-42
16 statement which would soon be used by Gandhi to obstruct the
discussion stated
In the event of two major parties or either of them
proving unwilling to join in the setting up of a
Coalition Government on the above lines, it is the
intention of the Viceroy to proceed with the
formation of the Interim Government which will be
as representative as possible of those willing to
accept the statement of May 16.

Gandhi at the prayer meeting on the same day
exhorts people to look at the bright side of the
Viceroys decision New Delhi, June 16, 1946
25


Gandhis address to the ordinary people at the prayer meeting on
that day establishes the following
Gandhis was the only voice that the people of India heard
representing the INC, during the course of the entire
process of discussions and deliberations on the Cabinet
Mission proposals
The people therefore knew only what Gandhi chose to tell
them
Gandhi continued to maintain, despite his obstructionist
role in the discussions, that the proposals were good and

25
What is surprising is that instead of following the democratic process of inviting
the one or the other party to form the national government, the Viceroy and the
Cabinet Mission have decided to impose a government of their choice on the
country. The result may well be an incompatible and explosive mixture. There are
however, two ways of looking at a picture. You can look upon it from the bright
side or you can look upon it from the dark.
Gandhiji declared that he believes in looking at the bright side and has invited the
others to do likewise. (Speech at Prayer Meeting, New Delhi, J une 16, 1946, The
Bombay Chronicle, 17-6-1946, and Harijan, 23-6-1946, CWMG Vol. 91, pp 167-68)
that the British government was doing its very best under
difficult circumstances
Gandhi made sure that the people were given a positive
image of the INC and the British government to prevent
any backlash against them
He also never gave them any inkling of the dominant role
he was playing in the negotiations

Gandhis draft letter to the Viceroy insisting on a
Congress Muslim in the Interim Government New
Delhi June 17, 1946

Realizing, that by announcing his own expanded list without
giving up the principle of parity, the Viceroy had skillfully
deflected Gandhis pressure tactics to choose between the INC or
the League and in fact out-maneuvered him in that round, Gandhi
conjures up another spanner in the works from out of the blue
he insists that the Viceroy, over and above the Muslims in the
Muslim League must now appoint a Congress Muslim in the
Interim Government! Gandhi also began to realize the danger that
an Interim Government chosen not by the two political parties but
by the Viceroy himself would be answerable and accountable only
to the Viceroy and the imperial government in London and not to
the Central Legislative Assembly
The League being avowedly a Muslim organization
could not include any non-Muslim representative in
its list; (2) the Congress as a nationalist
organization must have the right to include a
Congress Muslim in its list; (3) the League could not
have any say in the selection of any names outside
those belonging to its quota of five Muslims. This
would mean that, in the event of a vacancy
occurring among the seats allotted to the
minorities, the Congress alone would have the right
to select names to fill up the vacancies as it claimed
to represent all sections by right of service; and (4)
in action, the Interim Government should be
regarded as being responsible to the elected
representatives in the Assembly.
26

After reporting the prayer speech of June 16, Pyarelal introduces
this as follows: At night Gandhiji woke up at half past one and
dictated for the Working Committee the draft of a letter to the
Viceroy. The Congress Working Committee, however, in its
afternoon session next day put Gandhijis draft practically into
cold storage. On June 18, a tentative decision accepting the
scheme of the Interim Government was taken by the Congress
Working Committee but it was not communicated to the
Viceroy.
27


It is obvious that the patience of the Congress Working
Committee was wearing thin and serious disagreements between
the Working Committee and Gandhi were beginning to emerge;
not that alone, members of the Congress Working Committee
were gearing up to dissociate themselves from Gandhis
obstructionist ways.

Gandhi addresses Congress Working Committee
New Delhi, June 18, 1946

Gandhi insists at the CWC meeting on June 18 that the Congress
must refuse parity and also insist on a Congress Muslim and

26
Draft letter to Lord Wavell, J une 17, 1946, which the CWC did not send to the
Viceroy, Vol.91, CWMG, pp 168-9
27
Comments by Pyarelal as foot-note to the above draft letter
Congress woman member in the Interim Government. In
conclusion I can only say that the Congress will lose prestige if it
ceases to have a national character. Typically of Gandhi, he
thinks the national character of the Congress is exemplified in
having a Congress Muslim in the interim government and not a
member from the scheduled castes. If Gandhi had insisted on a
scheduled caste member, the governments balance would have
tilted in favour of the Hindus whereas in his formula, the Congress
Muslim would have tilted in favour of the Muslims already
overwhelmingly represented in the list of League members.

Gandhi coerces the Congress Working Committee to
accept his conditions for consent New Delhi, June
19, 1946
Bapu gave a final notice to the Working Committee
today that if they agreed to the non-inclusion of a
nationalist Muslim, and the inclusion of the name of
N P Engineer, which the Viceroy had foisted upon
them, he would have nothing to do with the whole
business and leave Delhi.
28


Speech at prayer meeting June 19, 1946
Newspapers, probably because of leaks from within, had
accurately reported the turmoil within the CWC, the serious
differences of opinion within the Committee and Gandhis own
intransigencies. Joining issue with the media Gandhi declares that
if he were to become Viceroy for a day, he would ban all
newspapers. He then advises people not to pay any attention to
newspaper reports because, he said, I f the people were to

28
Speech at Congress Working Committee Meeting, New Delhi J une 19, 1946,
Mahatma Gandhi The last phase, Vol. 1, Book 1, page 222, CWMG, Vol. 91,
page 174
believe what had been appearing in the Press about his
part in the deliberations of the Working Committee, Hindus
would be right to execrate him as the enemy of their
interests. It was further being made to appear, he observed,
that his was the only intransigent voice in the Working
CommitteeThe Congress had constituted itself, into a trustee,
not of any particular community, but of India as a whole. In an
organization like that it always became the duty of the majority to
make sacrifices for the minorities and the backward sections, not
in a spirit of patronizing favour, but in a dignified manner and as
a duty.
29


Gandhi meets Stafford Cripps New Delhi, June 20,
1946
Gandhis meeting with Stafford Cripps on June 20 marks the
decisive turning point in the deliberations on the Cabinet Mission.
Gandhi pre-empts any other contrary move that the CWC may be
intending to make and tells Cripps that he will no longer co-
operate with the Cabinet Mission.
Bapu again urged upon him that the Cabinet
Mission must choose between the one or the other
party, not attempt an amalgam; the Cabinet
Mission were pursuing the wrong course. Cripps
was apologetic. It would be difficult to begin anew
after coming so far; Jinnah would not listen, and so
on. In the end Bapu told him in that case the
Cabinet Mission could go the way they liked; he
would have nothing to do with it.
30


29
Speech at a prayer meeting, New Delhi, J une 19, 1946, CWMG, Vol. 91, pp
174-5
30
Interview with Stafford Cripps, New Delhi, J une 20, 1946, CWMG, Vol. 91,
page 176

Meeting Stafford Cripps to announce his rejection of the Mission
proposals was a move of political one-upmanship by Gandhi, not
against the British Government and the Cabinet Mission which
were even otherwise going only the way they liked, but against
the INC which now could not publicly go against Gandhis wishes
without incurring the wrath of a majority of Indians who believed
that Gandhi was not only a Mahatma but also infallible on all
counts. Gandhis despotic control over the INC and peoples
readiness generally to allow him this overarching power rested on
the myth of his saintliness and perceived infallibility.

Gandhi addresses CWC and tells them it is
better for them to allow the Muslim League to
form the Interim Government New Delhi
June 21, 1946
Bapus draft was again discussed in the Working
Committee. Bapu warned the members that they
would not gain anything by entering on their new
venture on bended knees. He reiterated his opinion
that if the Cabinet Mission did not accept their
conditions, it would be better to let the Muslim
League form a nationalist government at the center
during the interim period.
31


Gandhi meets with Cabinet Delegation, tells
them not to be in a hurry to invite the Muslim
League to form government New Delhi, June
24, 1946

31
Speech at Congress Working Committee, Mahatma Gandhi the last phase, Vol.
1, Book 1, page 222, CWMG Vol. 91. page 180
In the course of this meeting the Cabinet Delegation made their
intentions clear to Gandhi that if the INC and the Muslim League
both accepted to form the Constituent Assembly and if the
Congress refused to join the Interim Government, then the
Cabinet Mission would be compelled to invite the Muslim League
to form the government because it had not only accepted the
state paper of May 16, but also the Viceroys formula of June 16
for the formation of the Interim Government. Gandhi made a
fetish out of his silence days and would not break his silence even
when he had scheduled important meetings. One such instance
was when Gandhi visited Sir Srinivasa Sastri on his death bed in
Chennai. Sastris heart and mind were overwhelmed at the sight
of Gandhi and he was eager to speak to him but Gandhi was
observing one of his routine silence days and when he refused to
break his silence even for Sastri whom he would not see again,
Sastris frustration took the edge away from his happiness. The
make or break meeting with the Cabinet Delegation on June 24 is
another case in point. Gandhi did not re-schedule the meeting nor
did he break his silence.
Gandhiji was observing his silenceI read out what
he wrote Then if you say that you will form the
government out of the acceptances, it wont work
as far as I can see. If you are not in desperate
hurry, and if you would discuss the thing with me, I
would gladly do so after I have opened my lips, i.e.,
after 8 p.m..
32


Gandhi had begun to realize that the situation was fast slipping
out of his despotic control; and after several days of almost
pushing the Viceroy and the members of the Cabinet Mission to

32
Interview with Cabinet Delegation, New Delhi, J une 24, 1946, Gandhis
Emissary, pp 171-3, CWMG, Vol. 91, pp 188-89
make a hasty decision choosing the INC or the Muslim League,
Gandhi is now almost pleading with them not to be in a hurry, and
not that alone, after advising the Congress just a day ago to allow
the Muslim League to form the government, when he realized that
the government was indeed going to do just that, he pleads with
the Cabinet Delegation not to be in a hurry to invite the Muslim
League.

Sardar Patel expresses his displeasure to
Gandhi about what he thinks are Gandhis
dilatory tactics June 24, 1946
After the meetingon the way Sardar asked Bapu:
There is a meeting of the Working Committee;
what am I to tell them? Bapu answered that he
was not satisfied with the talk with the Cabinet
Mission. The Sardar was irritated. You raised
doubts as regards para 19. They have given a clear
assurance on that. What more do you want?

Later, at the meeting of the Congress Working Committee Patel
tells Gandhi that the CWC is committed to giving their answer one
way or the other to the Cabinet Delegation by the afternoon.
Gandhi insists that the CWC should not give their answer that day
and that the Working Committee must wait until after he has met
the Cabinet Delegation again later in the evening, after he breaks
his silence. It would seem from the petulant tone of the message
that Gandhi scribbled in reply, that a majority of the CWC
disagreed with Gandhi. There is no question of my feelings being
hurt. I am against deciding this issue today but you are free to
decide as you like.
33


Congress sends letter to Lord Wavell rejecting
the Interim Government proposals New
Delhi, June 24, 1946
The decision was in fact taken yesterday but we felt
that it would be better if we wrote to you fully on all
aspects of the proposals made by you and the
Cabinet Delegation. The Working Committee have
been sitting almost continuously and will be
meeting at 2 p.m again today. After full
consideration and deliberation they have been
reluctantly obliged to decide against the acceptance
of the Interim Government proposals as framed by
you. A detailed and reasoned reply will follow
later.
34


The letter to the Viceroy sent in the name of the Congress
President was drafted by Gandhi who, let us reiterate was not
even a four-anna member of the INC. And the statement in the
letter that the decision to reject was taken yesterday was
untrue considering that it was Gandhi who alone was against
accepting the Interim Government proposals and it was to
preempt a rebellious CWC that Gandhi, claiming to speak on
behalf of the INC rejects the proposals in his meeting with
Stafford Cripps on June 20.


33
Talk with Vallabhbhai Patel I, Discussion at Congress Working Committee
I, Mahatma Gandhi, The last Phase, Vol. 1, Book 1, pp 225-6, CWMG Vol. 91, pp
189-190
34
Draft Letter to Lord Wavell, J une 24, 1946, The Indian Register, 1946, Vol. 1,
page 173, CWMG, Vol. 91, page 190
Gandhi first sends the rejection letter to the Viceroy and then
proceeds to meet him accompanied by Sardar Patel. At the
meeting with the Viceroy and the Cabinet Delegation, Gandhi
raised objections based on nothing more than his own
unsubstantiated suspicions (notwithstanding the fact that he
continued to tell ordinary Indians in his prayer meetings that they
must not doubt the motives or the intentions of the British
government); objections which were patiently and effectively
neutralized by the Viceroy and the Mission. Patel is convinced but
Gandhi continues to maintain that the CWC must reject the
Mission proposals.
On returning from there the Sardar again asked Bapu:
Were you satisfied? Bapu replied, On the contrary,
my suspicion has deepened. I suggest that hereafter
you should guide the Working Committee. The Sardar
replied, Nothing of the sort. I am not going to say a
word. You yourself tell them whatever you want.
35


Gandhi had only two ways of dealing with dissent and
opposition to threaten to distance himself from the issue or
belittle and even degrade the dissenter. The lesser known side
of Gandhi includes his biting tongue bordering on viciousness
which sought to annihilate his opponent through public
humiliation a tendency which we will examine closely in
chapter 7.

Gandhi sounds a new warning at a meeting of the
CWC about joining the Constituent Assembly
afternoon of June 24, 1946, at the meeting of the
CWC

35
Talk with Vallabhbhai Patel-II, J une 24, 1946, Mahatma Gandhi The Last
Phase, Vol. 1, Book 1, page 227, CWMG, Vol. 91, page 193
At the meeting, after sending the draft letter to Lord Wavell
rejecting the Interim Government proposals and before meeting
the Cabinet Delegation again later in the day, Gandhi addresses
the CWC again. At this meeting Gandhi comes up with a new
objection he now tells the Working Committee that it made no
sense to him for the Congress to enter the Constituent Assembly
when they had no control over the Interim Government. Gandhi
justifies his warning on the grounds that his mind is in a fog and
I see darkness where four days ago I saw light.
36


Gandhi writes to Stafford Cripps that joining the
Constituent Assembly is linked to the Interim
Government 10 p.m., June 24, 1946
In spite of the readiness, as it seems to me, of
the Working Committee to go in for the
Constituent Assembly, I would not be able to
advise the leap in the darkI therefore propose to
advise the Working Committee not to accept the
long-term proposition without its being connected
with the Interim Government. I must not act
against my instinct and shall advise them to be
guided solely by their own judgment. I shall
simply say that the conversation gave me no light
to dispel the darkness surrounding me. I shall
say I had nothing tangible to prove that
there were danger signals. (Emphasis mine)
37



36
Discussion at Congress Working Committee Meeting, J une 24, 1946, Mahatma
Gandhi The Last Phase, Vol. 1, Book 1, pp 226-7, CWMG, Vol. 91, pp 191-2
37
Letter to Stafford Cripps, Bhangi Colony, Reading Road, New Delhi, J une 24,
1946, Gandhijis Correspondence with the Government, 1944-47, page 212,
CWMG, Vol. 91, 193-4
Congress Working Committee writes to the Cabinet
Mission rejecting Interim Government proposals but
accepting long-term plan for Constituent Assembly
New Delhi, June 25, 1946

Viceroy and Cabinet Mission announce formation of
caretaker government - June 26, 1946

Gandhi leaves Delhi for Pune, attempt made to derail
the train en route June 28, 1946

Cabinet Mission leaves for England June 29, 1946

The nation is left with the question what game was Gandhi
playing and why. The timeline of the negotiations with the Cabinet
Mission proves that Gandhi deliberately and systematically
sabotaged the negotiations. Gandhi knew that
1. The mechanism of the Constituent Assembly provided for
putting in place a three tier constitution resting on the
State Paper provision for grouping of provinces, which
would have, at least then, averted the separate state of
Pakistan as was being demanded by Jinnah
2. The Viceroy would never call upon the Muslim League to
form the Interim Government without the Congress,
particularly after the Leagues acceptance resolution which
stated unambiguously that they would do everything in
their means to attain a sovereign Pakistan. Had the League
been invited to form the government on their own, they
would have used their power in the Constituent Assembly
to facilitate a constitution best suited to their political
objectives, or at the worst either unilaterally altered the
State Paper in line with their objectives, or discarded the
State Paper in its entirety.
3. If the Congress and the League jointly formed the Interim
Government they could keep a watch over each other as
the only possible way to deal with their mutual suspicion
that if the government was formed by one or the other
party on their own, then there was every likelihood of the
government being used to serve their respective objectives
in the Constituent Assembly and that is why Gandhi finally
links the Interim Government with the Constituent
Assembly
4. What Gandhi knew, Jinnah would have known that much
better and the British, as the mastermind behind the
unraveling plot, would have known best
5. By coercing the INC to reject Mission proposals he would
be pushing the Viceroy into threatening to invite the
League, which, were the League to accept, would have
jeopardized the entire constitution-making process
6. Or having invited them, if the Viceroy were to fail to
implement it, Jinnah would be sure to feel betrayed, and a
frustrated Jinnah could have goaded the Muslim League to
take recourse to violence.

Knowing fully all the possible consequences of sabotaging the
Mission, Gandhi nevertheless keeps to his path and does just that.
When tested on the crucible of the reality of British intentions to
withdraw from India, Gandhi failed to implement his famous,
brave prescription of 1942 when he asked the British to Quit
India now and immediately. Then, in 1942, when he spoke to
domestic and foreign journalists spanning several days about the
Quit India civil disobedience campaign, very pointed questions
were posed to him about the consequences and desirability of the
British withdrawing immediately and about the kind of
government that Indians would put in place if they had to deal
with the anarchy and the chaos that was likely to follow.
Q. How will free India function?
G. Leave India to God or anarchy. But in practice
what will happen is thisPeople would have to
come to their own without disturbance. Wise
people from among the responsible sections will
come together and will evolve a provisional
government. There will be no anarchy, no
interruption, and a crowning glory.

It is not clear to which wise people and which responsible sections
Gandhi was referring to there were only 2 major political
formations and one of them had declared already that the
sovereign state of Pakistan was their only political objective. But
typical of Gandhian despotism, his personal views, his individual
misconceptions, his fantasies became Congress policy. 1942 was
no different.
Q. Can you visualize the composition of the provisional
government?
G. I do not need to do so. But I am clear that it wont be a
party government. All parties including the Congress
will automatically dissolve. They may function later and
when they do, they may function complementary to one
another, each looking to the other in order to grow. Then,
as I have said, all unreality disappears like mist before the
morning sun we dont know how though we witness the
phenomenon everyday.

This was Gandhi at his fantasising best. He was actually scripting the
fairy-tale that the Muslim League would dissolve itself, would look to the
Congress for its growth and would be complementary to the Congress in
every way!
Q. Can you give me an idea who would take the lead in
forming a provisional government you, Congress or the
Muslim League?
G. The Muslim League certainly can; the Congress can. If
everything went right, it would be a combined leadership.
No one party would take the lead.

The question to Gandhi is significant the questioner wants to know who
will take the lead Gandhi or the Congress, implying that as far as
decision making was concerned Gandhi was seen routinely to take the
lead separately from, but on behalf of the Congress. Gandhis reply is
equally significant for his reference to if everything went right. Given
Jinnahs volatile temperament and the Muslim Leagues proclaimed
separatist goal, the if was a certainty. Gandhi, it was apparent, was not
averse to chaos.
Q. But what does free India mean if, as Mr. Jinnah said,
Muslims will not accept Hindu rule?
G. I have not asked the British to hand over India to the
Congress or to the Hindus. Let them entrust India to God,
or in modern parlance, to anarchy. Then all the parties will
fight one another like dogs, or will, when real responsibility
faces them, come to a reasonable agreement.
In a similar vein to another group of correspondents, Gandhi says

Hindusthan belongs to all those who are born and bred
here and who have no other country to look to. Therefore
it belongs to Parsis, Beni-Israels, to Indian Christians,
Muslims, and other non-Hindus as much as to Hindus. Free
India will be no Hindu-raj, it will be Indian raj based not on
the majority of any religious sect or community but on the
representatives of the whole people without distinction of
religion. I can conceive a mixed maj ority putting the
Hindus in a minority. Religion is a personal matter
which should have no place in politics.

This was the core and essence of Gandhis political ideology which has
come to define Indian polity in the name of Nehruvian secularism.
Nehruvian secularism is an improvement on Gandhi in that while Gandhi
only sought to marginalize Hindus and Hindu nationalism by rendering
the Hindus into a political minority through a contrived non-Hindu
majority, Nehru and Nehruvian secularism facilitated the political coming
together of all non-Hindu forces. These forces are today encouraged by
politics as defined by Gandhi and Nehru, by Nehruvian secular academic
discourse and the Christian-western print and electronic media in their
anti-Hindu political orientation. It is this Gandhian legacy which has
crafted the winning combination of Marxists, Dravidians, Muslims and
Christians which calls itself an anti-communal, secular coalition. This
coalition, living up faithfully to Gandhis perversion of nation and
nationhood, violently insists on claiming the territory of this nation for
their separatist, anti-Hindu and de-Hinduising political objectives, without
however subscribing to the nationhood deriving from its majority
populace.

To get back to the aborted mission of the Cabinet Delegation in 1946,
Gandhi who sabotaged the proposals in 1946 conveniently chose to
forget Gandhi of 1942 and all pious pronouncements about wise men in
both parties, about the League forming the government on its own, and
about combined leadership. When Gandhi was severely criticized for
inviting chaos upon the ordinary Indian people, by not just the British but
even by farsighted and shrewd Indians like Aurobindo and Rajaji, Gandhi
declared even more piously
I do not mind honest, strong, healthy criticism. All the
manufactured criticism that I find being made today is
sheer tomfoolery, meant to overawe me and demoralize
the Congress ranks. It is foul game. They do not know the
fire that is raging in my breast. I have no false notions of
prestige; no personal considerations would make me take
a step that I know is sure to plunge the country into a
conflagration.

The country was plunged into a conflagration almost immediately and the
fires raged well into 1948.

Communal riots break out in Ahmedabad July 1,
1946
Riots broke out in Ahmedabad on July 1 on the occasion of ashad
sud 2 or the rath-yatra day. The rioting by Muslims on this
auspicious day for Hindus was a grim warning of things to come
and cannot be seen de-linked from the results of the Congress
deliberations with the Cabinet Mission and Gandhis systematic
moves to marginalize and humiliate the League. A study of
Gandhis reaction to the riots in Ahmedabad is instructive for
many reasons.

Gandhi conveys the unmistakable signal that he considered
himself as some kind of legitimate extra-constitutional authority
who instructed and issued orders to democratically elected
representatives of the INC. As mentioned earlier, Gandhis psy-
war tactics included degrading individuals and institutions to place
himself and his opinions on moral high-ground. His letter to
Morarji Desai, who was then the Minister of Home and Revenue in
the Government of Bombay and his talk at a prayer meeting in
Poona on the riots in Ahmedabad drive home the point forcefully.
I was somewhat alarmed on hearing about the
incidents at Ahmedabad. I was aware of the Rath-
yatra day. They must have anticipated a skirmish.
Why did the police not take precautionary
measures? Does not the police now belong to the
people? Why did they not seek the peoples co-
operation before hand? Our real defense force
ought to be the people. Why call the military for
such tasks? The people ought to have been
forewarned that they would not get the help of the
military. The State too may not rule with the help of
the military. This could not be. Now realize your
mistake and start afresh. Withdraw the military if
you can. If you find it risky to withdraw the military
immediately let them do policing. They may not
carry rifles, and if they carry bayonets these should
be used sparingly. Dont mind if a few have to
die. They have been trained to act like
monkeys. Under your administration they
should cease to be monkeys and become
human beings. Think about all this. Dont do
anything only because I am saying it. Do what you
are convinced about. Remember one thing, viz., the
[British] Governments rule will take deeper root
the more use you make of the military. Till now it
has only been shaken, it may soon entrench itself-
securely. Well, a word is enough for the wise.
38


Mathatma Gandhi said that the outbreak of
communal riots in Ahemedabad had pained him

38
Letter to Morarji Desai, Poona J uly 1, 1946 CWMG, Vol. 91, pp 222-3
deeply and he had told Mr. Morarji Desai, Bombays
Home Minister, who had come to see him before his
departure for Ahmedabad, that he, (Mr. Desai)
must go to meet the flames under the sole
protection of God, not that of the police and
military. If need be, he must perish in the flames in
the attempt to quell them as the late Mr. Ganesh
Shankar Vidyarthi had done.[1]

[1] In March, 1931. Vide Speech on Kanpur Riots,
Subjects Committee
Meeting, Karachi, 27-3-1931, Telegram to
Balkrishna Sharma, 1-4-1931 and Notes, 9-4-
1931.
39


Gandhi adds details to his degradation of the police and the
military and instructs the Government of Bombay to use them as
sanitary workers. Gandhi instructed Morarji Desai to withdraw the
military and instead quell the riots by throwing himself into the
flames; but to a very pointed question from a correspondent on
why Gandhi did not set an example by going to Ahmedabad
himself and offering himself to the flames, Gandhi neatly
sidesteps the core of the question and hums and haws on non-
violence. Gandhi knew well enough and so did the ordinary
Indians listening to him that no White British soldier in the
military was going to undertake sanitation work on Gandhis
recommendation nor till the fields to produce food for their
slaves; but Gandhi nevertheless makes this laughable comment
and we can only infer that he was typically degrading high
institutions publicly and with impunity only to promote the notion
that he had the stature and the authority to do so. Gandhi also

39
Speech at Prayer Meeting, Poona, J uly 2, 1946, CWMG Vol.91, pp 228-29
chose to consciously ignore the fact that it was the Indian
component of the military which, through the mutiny in the army
and the navy had taught the British government their most
salutary lesson that the British could no longer use Indians in
their army and navy to keep India enslaved a lesson which four
decades of Gandhis satyagraha and ahimsa could not teach.
There are ways even of fighting. If we must fight,
why should we seek the help of the police and the
military? The Government too should clearly
say that the military, whilst it is in I ndia, will
only be used for the work of sanitation, for
cultivating unused land and the like. And the
police similarly will be used for catching thieves and
dacoits, but never to put down communal riots. Let
the people of Ahmedabad be brave enough to say
that they will not seek the help of the police and the
military, and they will not flee in panic. Rioters are
mostly goondas. Even the white-collared goondas
murder by stealth. I am told that nearly all the
stabbings have been in the back, none or very few
in the chest or the face. Why should one be
frightened of such people? One should either die at
their hands in the hope that they will in the end
give up their madness and goondaism, or if one
does not have that much courage one should fight
to defend oneself.
40


C. J ust as you have taught us how to fight
against the British Government non- violently,
you should go to some place of riot and show

40
Bloodshed in Ahmedabad, Harijan, 28-7-1946, CWMG, Vol. 91, pp 334-5
us the way of quelling riots in a non- violent
manner by personal example. Supposing you
were in Ahmedabad today and went out to quell the
riots, any number of volunteers will join you. Two of
our Congress workers, Shri Vasantrao and Shri
Rajabali, went out in such a quest and fell a prey to
the goondas knife. They laid down their lives in the
pursuit of an ideal and they deserve all praise. But
no one else had the courage to follow in their
footsteps. They have not the same self-confidence.
If they had it, there would be no riots and, even if
riots broke out, they would never assume the
proportions and the form that the present day riots
do. But the fact remains that such a state is merely
an imaginary thing today. Your guidance and
example can inspire many like me with courage and
self-confidence. Once you have shown the way, the
local workers will be able to follow it whenever
occasion demands it. I feel that unless you set an
example in action, your writings and utterances will
not be of any use to the ordinary people, and even
Congressmen, in organizing non-violent protection
of society.
G. I like the suggestion mentioned above. People
followed my advice and took to non-violent
resistance against the British Government because
they wanted to offer some sort of resistance. But
their non-violence, I must confess, was born of
their helplessness. Therefore, it was the weapon of
the weak. That is why today we worship Netaji
Subhas Chandra Bose and his Azad Hind Fauj. We
forget that Netaji himself had told his soldiers that
on going to India, they must follow the way of non-
violence. This I have from the leaders of the I.N.A.
But we have lost all sense of discrimination. To
restore it, the I.N.A. men will have to live up to the
ideal placed before them by Netaji. The work of
those who believe in non-violence is very difficult in
this atmosphere which is full of violence. But the
path of true nonviolence requires much more
courage than violence. We have not been able to
give proof of such non-violence. We might look
upon the action of Shri Ganesh Shankar Vidyarthi,
Shri Vasantrao and Shri Rajabali as examples of the
non-violence of the brave. But when communal
feelings run high, we are unable to demonstrate
any effect of the sacrifices mentioned above. For
that, many like Shri Ganesh Shankar Vidyarthi will
have to lay down their lives. The fact that no one
else in Ahmedabad has followed the example set by
Shri Vasantrao and Shri Rajabali shows that we
have not yet developed the spirit of sacrifice to the
extent of laying down our lives in non-violent
action. The correspondent has rightly said that
under these circumstances, I should act myself
whether others join me or not. It will be disgraceful
on my part to sit at home and tell others to go and
lay down their lives. Such a thing cannot be an
indication of nonviolence. I have never had the
chance to test my non-violence in the face of
communal riots. It might be argued that it was my
cowardice which prevented me from seeking such a
chance. Be that as it may, God willing, the chance
will still come to me, and by throwing me in the
fire, He will purify me and make the path of non-
violence clear. No one should take it to mean that
sacrifice of my life will arrest all violence. Several
lives like mine will have to be given if the terrible
violence that has spread all over, is to stop and
non-violence is to reign supreme in its place. The
poet has sung: The path of Truth is for the brave,
never for the coward. The path of Truth is the path
of non-violence.
41


But he didnt go! Gandhi didnt go to Ahmedabad to offer himself
in sacrifice and perish in the flames as he asked Morarji Desai
and the ordinary people of Ahmedabad to do. He fobbed off the
correspondent with the excuse that his death would not stop the
riots. Maybe not; but Gandhi had no qualms about exhorting
others to die in large numbers so that the rioters may be
shamed into stopping!

This interchange has been reproduced almost completely for
readers to experience the same sense of seething disbelief that
grips us when we read the prescriptive Hind Swaraj. There are
strong grounds to suspect that for Gandhi the riots in Ahmedabad
were a forerunner to what may eventually happen if the Muslim
League triggered nation-wide violence were the Cabinet Mission to
fail ultimately. For Gandhis hubris Ahmedabad was a small
theater; as he put it revealingly, God willing, the chance will still
come to me, and by throwing me in the fire, He will purify me and
make the path of non-violence clear. God-willing, not God forbid!

41
Panchgani, J uly 25, 1946, Harijan, 4-8-1946, CWMG, Vol.91, 348-49
Gandhi wished for a nation-wide canvas of violent communal
strife as a fitting theater for his last Christ-like martyrdom.
42


Muslim League rejects Cabinet Mission proposals in
toto July 29, 1946.
Incensed over what they considered was a gross betrayal by the
Viceroy of Clause 8 of the June 16 statement, the Muslim League
convened in Bombay on 29
th
July and passed two resolutions
the first withdrawing the previous acceptance of the Mission
proposals and the second announcing direct action to achieve
Pakistan
And whereas it has become abundantly clear that
the Muslims of India would not rest content with
anything else than the immediate establishment of
an independent and full sovereign State of Pakistan
and would resist any attempt to impose any

42
In the course of the talk, one of them asked Gandhiji whether he would
recommend fasting to check the orgy of communal madness that was spreading in
Bengal. Gandhijis reply was in the negative. He narrated how a valuable colleague
from Ahmedabad had invited him to immolate himself. We believe in the
nonviolent way but lack the strength. Your example would steady our wavering
faith and fortify us. The logic was perfect and the temptation great. But I resisted
it and said no. There is no inner call. When it comes, nothing will keep me back. I
have reasoned with myself too about it. But I need not set forth my reasons. Let
people call me a coward if they please. I have faith that when the hour arrives God
will give me the strength to face it and I wont be found unready. Fasting cannot be
undertaken mechanically. It is a powerful thing but a dangerous thing if handled
amateurishly. It requires complete self-purification, much more than is required in
facing death without a thought of retaliation. One such act of perfect
sacrifice would suffice for the whole world. Such is held to be J esus example. The
idea is that you appropriate to yourself and assimilate the essence of His sacrifice
symbolically represented by the bread and wine of the Eucharist. A man who was
completely innocent offered himself as a sacrifice for the good of others, including
his enemies, and became the ransom of the world. It was a perfect act. It is
finished were the last words of J esus, and we have the testimony of his four
disciples as to its authenticity - death without a thought of retaliation. (Discussion
with Co-workers, On or before October 18, 1946, CWMG, Vol. 92, pp345-6)


constitution, long-term or short-term, or setting up
of any Interim Government at the centre without
the approval and consent of the Muslim League.
The Council of the All-India Muslim League is
convinced that now the time has come for the
Muslim nation to resort to Direct Action to achieve
Pakistan and to get rid of the present slavery under
the British and contemplated future caste Hindu
domination.
43


Viceroy invites Congress to form Interim
Government and the Congress accepts August 12,
1946

Muslim League declares Direct Action Day August
16, 1946

Communal riots in Bengal and Bihar

Communal riots in Bombay 1
st
September, 1946
The mind-games that Gandhi thought he was playing brilliantly
with Jinnah and the British eventually boomeranged on the
nation. Jinnah felt betrayed by Gandhi and the Viceroy when the
League was not invited to form the interim government on its own
as per Clause 8 of the statement of June 16 and the Muslim
League rejected the Cabinet Mission proposals in toto making the
threat of a violent eruption by the League very real. But contrary
to what the British government wanted, the Muslim League did
not unleash violence on the 29
th
of June even though they did

43
Stern Reckoning, GD Khosla, Oxford University Press, Oxford India
Paperbacks, Second Impression, 1999, page 38
reject the State Paper and refuse to co-operate with the Cabinet
Mission.

Almost as if they wanted to ignite the tinder-box of seething
anger in the Muslim League, the Viceroy invites the Congress to
form the interim government on the 12
th
of August. The stage had
been set for the imperial governments back-up plan to be
unraveled with perfect timing. The Viceroy did not invite the
Muslim League to form the interim government after the Congress
rejected the interim government proposals but went ahead to
invite the Congress to form the interim government after the
League rejected the Mission proposals. An enraged Jinnah
declared direct action on the 16
th
of August, with the sole
objective of making the sovereign state of Pakistan a reality.
Partition, which had been averted by the groupings clause in the
State paper and the proposal to make a three-tier constitution,
was now imminent thanks to Gandhis megalomaniac insistence
on disregarding the general view of the Congress Working
Committee to accept the State Paper as a starting point for the
transfer of power, and on being the only person to negotiate on
behalf of the Congress and by extension, it is worth repeating, the
whole nation barring the Muslims. Whose agenda was Gandhi
really serving?

Gandhi lived to see the sand castle of his unnatural, un-Hindu
edifice of absolute non-violence disintegrate in the cataclysmic
Hindu-Muslim riots that engulfed Bengal, Bihar and Bombay
following Jinnahs call for direct action.
44
Jinnah and the Muslim

44
For chilling details of the jihad unleashed against the Hindus of Bengal, see end
of chapter for excerpts from the book Stern Reckoning, A Survey of the Events
Leading Up To and Following the Partition of India by GD Khosla, Oxford India
Paperbacks, Second Impression, 1999
League demanded Pakistan on the basis that Muslims were a
separate nation and that their religion mandated that they should
not live under Hindu or any non-Islamic rule. To this day the
countrys polity, faithfully inheriting the Gandhian mindset of
upholding and even endorsing the right of the Abrahamic
minorities to live true to every word of their book and prophets,
has never challenged the Muslims or the Christians on what they
claim are the basic tenets of their religion. The guiding ideology of
post-independence Indian polity which calls itself Nehruvian
secularism and which donned the mantle of Gandhian minority-
appeasement, therefore could not bring itself to see the truth of
the political objectives of these religions and so never summoned
the political will to tame them. The inassimilable sense of
separate nationhood of Muslims and Christians and their
inalienable right therefore to convert Hindus by force or
allurement to their respective faiths which alters the religious
demography leading ultimately to secession, has been the never-
ending experience of the Hindus of this Hindu bhumi.

In August 1946 after Jinnah blamed Gandhi squarely for aborting
the Cabinet Mission proposals for transfer of power, and to
emphasize the point that Muslims were not only a separate nation
but also hostile to all non-Islamic faiths, he called upon the
Muslims to launch direct action, not against the British
government, but going by the horrific numbers of Hindus killed in
Calcutta on August 16
th
alone, against the Hindus. Additionally it
also served to debunk Gandhis stubborn insistence that Muslims
can and will live peacefully with Hindus if only the Hindus would
serve them wholeheartedly and without political motives.
45


45
Hindu-Muslim unity can come only by selfless service of Muslims untainted by
political motives. They (Muslims) are just like us and we must be friends with

Habitual Muslim violence in the name of jihad, lasting for over a
thousand years had claimed Hindu victims disproportionate to
their actual numbers despite determined resistance from the
Hindu community, only because jihad was abetted by Muslim
state power. Loss of state power to European colonialists had
dealt a severe blow to jihad against the Hindus which however
received a fillip during the Gandhian years when Gandhi injected
the slow poison of non-violence into Hindu-Muslim relations. The
massacre of Hindus in the Malabar by the Mopla Muslims in 1921
saw jihad raising its head yet again only because Indian Muslims
scented state power through the Khilafat agitation supported by
Gandhi and Gandhis INC.

Having scented and tasted the blood of Hindus, Jinnahs call for
direct action to create the Islamic state of Pakistan enflamed the
glowing embers of jihad burning in the heart of every true Muslim
and Bengal witnessed the replay of the Mopla massacre which
was now carried out over a much larger expanse of territory with
little interference from the British government and administration
and the active support of the Muslim League which was ruling the
Bengal province. The Hindus of Bihar took note of the events in
Bengal and proceeded to demonstrate that they would seek
revenge for the massacre of Hindus in those regions and would
not be obstructed by Gandhian non-violence. The whole of North

them. (Speech to Congress workers, Rampurhat, December 20, 1945, Amrita Bazar
Patrika, 21-12-1945, CWMG vol. 89, pp 71-72)
Q. What could Congressmen do to draw Muslims to the Congress?
A. Gandhiji said that in the presence of the prevailing distrust there should be no
attempt to enlist the Muslims or any other group or individuals. What however
every Hindu could do was mutely to serve his Muslim or for that matter every non-
Hindu neighbour as his blood brother. Such selfless service was bound to tell in the
end. That was the way of non-violence, otherwise called love. (Discussion with
political workers, Sodepur, December 23, 1945, Amrita Bazar Patrika, 25-12-1945,
CWMG, vol.89, pp 89-91)
India was burning and the imperial government in London and the
British government in India could have asked for nothing better.
Vivisection of the nation was Britains exit policy and violent
communal upheaval leading to vivisection of the nation was
Britains exit strategy. The riots which engulfed the country,
particularly the riots in Bihar, following Jinnahs call for direct
action proved, if proof were indeed needed, two things to Gandhi;
that the Muslims would never give up jihad against the kaffirs in
their religious intent to establish Dar-ul-Islam and that Hindus
could deal effectively with jihad if Muslims were denied the
protection of Islamic or any other state power.

Gandhi was nothing if not a dramatist. He had a perfect sense of
timing as was proved when he wrote the Hind Swaraj and when
he returned to India permanently from South Africa. It bears
mention that Gandhi, seeking as he was, the perfect backdrop to
stage his magnificent exit from the world a-la-Christ, was not
going to enter the scene of the unfolding tragic drama until it was
not right for maximum effect. The riots broke in August and
Gandhi did not go to Bengal until the very end of October.
46
Just
as he fobbed off a correspondent who wanted to know why
Gandhi did not go to Ahmedabad and show the people how to
quell riots through non-violence, he fobbed off a pointed invitation
to come to Bengal and undertake a fast unto death to quell the
riots there. But at every available opportunity, he exhorted others
to go to the scene of riots and offer themselves as sacrifice. In a
discussion with co-workers from Bengal who came to seek
Gandhis permission to go to Bengal before he himself went there,
Gandhi gives them a comforting lecture on the virtues of his

46
Vide footnote 40
Champaran satyagraha in 1918 and then sends them off on their
mission in ponderous biblical English -
Go forth, therefore. I have done. I wont detain you
for a day longer. You have my blessings. And I tell
you there will be no tears but only joy if tomorrow I
get the news that all the three of you are killed.
It will be pure joy to be so killed, they echoed.
Go, but mark my words. Let there be no
foolhardiness about it. You should go because you
feel you must and not because I ask you to.
47

These may well have been the last words of the commander of a
bunch of extremists before sending them on a suicide mission for
their religion! Gandhi sends the young men into the cauldron of
riot-torn Bengal and exhorts them to die by painting a blatantly
false picture of the success of his satyagraha in Champaran and
Kheda; Gandhi had chosen to stage the climax of his political
career in India with a grand satyagraha against the backdrop of
Hindu-Muslim riots and during that time he utilized every
opportunity to promote his satyagraha, even if he presented
questionable versions of past events which did not quite
approximate to the truth.
Such strikes never do harm to anyone. It was such
a strike perhaps that brought General Smuts to his
knees. If you had hurt an Englishman, said Jan
Smuts, I would have shot you, even deported your
people. As it is, I have put you in prison and tried
to subdue you and your people in every way. But
how long can I go on like this when you do not
retaliate? And so he had to come to terms with a

47
Discussion with co-workers, on or before October 18, 1946, Harijan, 2-10-1946,
CWMG, Vol. 92, page 346
mere coolie on behalf of coolies as all Indians were
then called in South Africa.
48


A U. S. Army general came to visit me a little
before the prayer this evening. I was spinning at
the time. As you all know the charkha to me is an
inseparable companion. Whether I went to jail or
journeyed to England, the charkha went with me. I
laughingly told the American friend that since he
would soon be going back to the U. S. A. he should
tell his compatriots that Gandhi intended to defeat
them with his puny spindles. The general laughed
heartily at this but he understood the economic
necessity of everyone producing to satisfy his own
wants. This is what I meant by defeating the U. S.
A.
49

It must be remembered that Gandhi (unconvincingly) promoted
the charkha as the noblest symbol of Satyagraha or ahimsa and
he equated ahimsa with truth. The charkha was as cosmetic to
Gandhi as was the cigar to Churchill except that the ordinary
people of the country, who looked up to Gandhi as the Mahatma
sat glued to the charkha as if Indias independence hinged upon it
which is exactly what Gandhi had told them repeatedly although
he himself devoted exactly 45 minutes in a day to the charkha in
the Aga Khan Palace where he was imprisoned for more than

48
Talk with a Christian Missionary, Extracted from Pyarelals Weekly Letter,
16-9-1946, Harijan, 22-9-1946, CWMG, Vol.92, page 191
49
Speech at a prayer meeting, (From Hindi), Hindusthan, 19-9-1946, CWMG, Vol.
92, page 204
three years between 1942 and 45, and when he had nothing to
do the whole day except wait to be released from confinement.
50


Gandhis raging desire to be purified in the flames of communal
riots and to make the ultimate sacrifice had more to do with
events in his personal life and the non-co-operation undertaken
in protest against him by a small but powerful group of persons
close to Gandhi - by his friend of long-years standing, Kishorelal
Mashruwala, Gandhis son Devdas, Sardar Patel, his
stenographers Pyarelal and Parasuram, and workers at Sevagram,
Sabarmati Ashram, Navjivan Trust and Kasturba Memorial Trust.
51


50
A typical Gandhi fetish was always an admixture of facts on the ground, an
element of insightful understanding and a large dose of fiction with self-delusory
fantasy.
51
CHI. GHANSHYAMDAS, I sent you a letter through Sushila. But I have been
upset somewhat by Sardars letter. Devdass letter is still ringing in my ears. I do
not remember what I wrote to you, for I have not kept a copy of it. All I wish today
to write is that you should give up your attitude of neutrality. Sardar is quite clear
in his mind that what I look upon as my dharma is really adharma. Devdas of
course has written as much. I have great faith in Sardars judgment. I have faith in
Devdass judgment too, but then, though grown up, in my eyes he is still a child.
This cannot be said of Sardar. Kishorelal and Narahari too are grown-ups; but it is
not difficult for me to understand their opposition. The link between you and me is
your faith that my life is pure, spotless and wholly dedicated to the performance of
dharma. If that is not so, very little else remains. I would, therefore, like you to take
full part in this discussion, though not necessarily publiclyfor I certainly do not
want your business to suffer. But if I am conducting myself sinfully, it becomes the
duty of all friends to oppose me vehemently. A satyagrahi may end up as a
duragrahi if he comes to regard untruth as truththat being the only distinction
between the two. I believe that is not the case with me; but that means little, for
after all I am not God. I can commit mistakes; I have committed mistakes; this may
prove to be my biggest at the fag end of my life. If that be so, all my well-wishers
can open my eyes if they oppose me. If they do not I shall go from here even as I
am. Whatever I am doing here is as a part of my yajna. There is nothing I do
knowingly which is not a part and parcel of that yajna. Even the rest I take is as a
part of that yajna. (Letter to G D Birla, Raipura, Feb 15, 1947, From the Hindi
original: C. W. 8086. Courtesy: G. D. Birla, CWMG, Vol. 93, page 406
This is a very personal letter but not private. Manu Gandhi, my grand-daughter as
we consider blood relations, shares the bed with me, strictly as my very blood, not
to give me animal satisfaction but as part of what might be my last yajna. This has
cost me dearest associates, i.e., Vallabhbhai, Kishorelal, probably C.R. and others.
This includes Devdas. I have lost caste with them. You as one of the dearest and
GD Birla, Vinobha Bhave and Amritlal Thakker (Bapa) too were
greatly distressed and even angry with Gandhi. Gandhis perverse
experiments of sleeping unclothed with women, in complete
disregard for the effect it had on the women who perforce had to
become the victims of his experiments, and on those who worked
closely with him, was slowly beginning to be whispered about
among people who came into close contact with Gandhi in these
institutions. Patels barely concealed anger with Gandhi during the
negotiations on the Cabinet Mission proposals and the Congress
Working Committees rejection of Gandhis suggestion not to
enter the constituent assembly have to be seen as Gandhis
waning influence over this small but powerful group of people, in
the context of his fast eroding moral authority. As the whispers
gained credence and as events in Bengal and Bihar would soon
prove, the halo of mahatma was beginning to lose its shine
among the important leaders of the INC and also among those
eminent men who were hitherto Gandhis friends and co-travelers
on the path of nation-building.

Congress interim government takes office
September 2, 1946

INC comes to an agreement with the Muslim League
October 4, 1946

Muslim League joins interim government October
16, 1946

earliest comrades, certainly before Sardar and Kishorelal, should reconsider your
position in the light of what they have to say. Perhaps Sucheta will help you
somewhat. She knows something of this episode. (Letter to J B Kripalani, Feb 24,
1947, From a copy: Pyarelal Papers. Nehru Memorial Museum and Library.
Courtesy: Beladevi Nayyar and Dr. Sushila Nayyar, CWMG, Vol. 94, page 34)

Despite Gandhis ceaseless efforts to manipulate the Muslim
League out of the interim government and the constituent
assembly which the Congress Working Committee correctly
perceived to be self-destructive and catastrophic for the nation,
the Congress overrules Gandhi yet again and enters into an
agreement with the League which brings the League into the
interim government
52
- an agreement that bears Gandhis
signature! The parties to the agreement are the INC, the Muslim
League and the ubiquitous Nawab of Bhopal although why the
Nawab of Bhopal must be a party to this agreement that
concerned only the two major political formations of the country is
difficult to fathom; unless he represented (with no formal
endorsement to the effect from the Princes) all Indian states in
the issue because he was Gandhis choice to head the two-
member committee with Nehru to oversee the process of electing
the 93 representatives of the Indian states to the Constituent
Assembly.

Twice in two months the Congress Working Committee overruled
Gandhi on crucial issues arising from the Cabinet Mission
proposals. From the middle of June 1946, as demonstrated in the
timeline of the negotiations with the cabinet delegation, there was
general disagreement in the Working Committee with Gandhis

52
The Congress does not challenge and accepts that the Muslim League now is the
authoritative representative of an overwhelming majority of the Muslims of India. As such
and in accordance with democratic principles they alone have today an unquestionable right
to represent the Muslims of India. But the Congress cannot agree that any restriction or
limitation should be put upon the Congress to choose such representatives as they think
proper from amongst the members of the Congress as their representatives. It is understood
that all the Ministers of the Interim Government will work as a team for the good of the
whole of India and will never invoke the intervention of the Governor-General in any case. I
accept this formula.
M. K. Gandhi
Hamidullah [Nawab Of Bhopal]
Shoaib Qureshi (Agreement Between The Congress, The Muslim League And The
Nawab Of Bhopal, October 4, 1946, Sardar Patels Correspondence, Vol. III, p.
282, CWMG, Vol. 92, page 279)
suggestion to reject first the formula for the formation of the
interim government and then to refuse entering the constituent
assembly. In the first week of July immediately after the Working
Committee headed by the Congress President refused to join the
interim government but agreed to enter the Constituent
Assembly, Gandhi manipulated the INC to elect a new President;
Maulana Azad was replaced now by Gandhis blue-eyed boy Nehru
and a new Working Committee was also put in place. Gandhi did
not choose Patel, Rajaji or Rajendra Prasad, all of whom had
begun to distance themselves quietly from Gandhi, but Nehru,
whose relations with Gandhi was cordial and even filial.

Again, in August 1946, when Nehru (and not Patel or Rajendra
Prasad or Maulana Azad) was chosen to head the interim
government which was sworn in on September 2
nd
, 1946, the
Congress had to perforce elect a new President. Gandhi rejected
Nehrus suggestion to appoint Patel, Maulana Azad or Rajendra
Prasad and instead chose the pliant JB Kripalani to replace Nehru
as President.
53
JB Kripalani, an adoring acolyte of Gandhi not only
accepts submissively Gandhis explanation for his experiments
with women but even gives Gandhis halo an additional coat of
polish.
54
But Jinnah utilized the interim government to get back at

53
I have before me your letter of the 20th. It came to me yesterday via Wardha. It
dwells on the question of who should be the Congress President in view of the fact that you
will be the Prime Minister. You incline in favour of Maulana Saheb. This I do not
understand and cannot understand. In my view, Maulana Saheb should not accept
nomination. Maulana Saheb hesitates to accept ministership. The responsibilities of the
President, especially in the present juncture, are I feel arduous. But in my view it is not the
only reason why he should not be president. I cannot accept, too, that other than Maulana
Saheb, Sardar Patel and Rajendra Babu, no suitable person can be found.(Letter to
J awaharlal Nehru, August 29, 1946, From a copy of the Hindi: Pyarelal Papers. Nehru
Memorial Museum and Library. Courtesy: Beladevi Nayyar and Dr. Sushila Nayyar
CWMG, Vol. 92, page 84)


54
. . . These matters are, I find, beyond my depth. Moreover I have enough to do to keep
myself morally straight to sit in judgment on others and specially those who are morally and
Gandhis insistence on appointing a Congress Muslim in its quota
of six Congress members, by nominating a scheduled caste
member in his quota of five League members. Jinnah signaled to
Gandhi that if Gandhi thought he could speak for the Muslims
then Jinnah arrogated to himself the right to speak for Hindu
scheduled castes. Gandhi was playing these futile mind games
with Jinnah even as riots continued to rage in Bengal, Bombay
and Bihar.

Gandhis desire to die in the flames of the communal riots in
Bengal and Bihar was his last desperate gesture to try and regain
his moral authority which had allowed him unchallenged despotic
control of the INC so far, and to restore the myth of his
saintliness in public life. It is a different matter altogether that in
the end, he himself did not make the ultimate sacrifice by
perishing in the flames of Noakhali, Tippera or Patna as he
exhorted Morarji Desai and other co-workers to do earlier in
Ahmedabad.

Three months after communal riots engulfed Bengal and Bihar
following Jinnahs call for direct action to attain Pakistan, and
three months after wide-spread rape, plunder, loot and forced
conversions in Bengal, Gandhis inner voice asked him to go to
Bengal in the last week of October 1946. Even as Gandhi was

spiritually miles ahead of me. I can only say that I have the fullest faith in you. No sinful
man can go about his business the way you are doing. Even if I had a lurking suspicion, I
would rather distrust my eyes and ears than distrust you Sometimes I thought that .you may
be employing human beings as means rather than as ends in themselves. But then I take
consolation in the thought that that consideration cannot be absent from your mind and that
if you are sure of yourself, no harm can come to them. Then knowing you to be a great
student of the Gita I have wondered if you are not doing violence to the principle of
lokasangraha (conservation of social good), wisely propounded therein. But this
consideration, too, I am sure, must not be absent from your calculations, in this experiment
of yours. . . . I know your attitude to woman is the only right attitude as you are one of those
who consider her an end in herself and not merely as a means. You have never exploited her.
(Letter from J B Kripalani, March 1, 1947, Mahatma GandhiThe Last Phase, Vol. I, Bk. II,
p. 221, Appendix II, CWMG, Vol. 94, page 420)
walking from village to riot-torn village, he was still preoccupied
with his experiments in brahmacharya, which in his own mind
was now given the grand name of tapascharya and yagna. He
summons his grand-niece Manu Gandhi, young enough to be his
grand-daughter, to Bengal although he dissuades everyone else
from coming to him. Manu Gandhi, who had been made victim of
Gandhis experiments earlier in the Aga Khan palace
55
is afraid to
come to Bengal
56
but such was the fear in which his close
associates and relatives, whom Gandhi did not treat as equals,
held him that Manu Gandhi does indeed come to Bengal with her
father although Gandhi tells the father that he must leave Manu
with him and go back. His close associates of several years and
quite possibly victims of his experiments, Susheela Nayyar, Abha
Gandhi wife of Kanu Gandhi, and Amtussalam are deputed by
Gandhi to different villages and different parts of Bengal; Gandhi
permits no one to live with him after Manu joins him in Bengal.

55
God belongs to everyone. He will do as He wills. I am doing only that. I am
having her sleep close to me. She sleeps naked but sleeps soundly. She has to be
woken up whenever there is work, be it at 2 oclock or 3 oclock. I consider it a
very good sign that she is able to sleep like that. I have known it since the Aga
Khan Palace days that she is quite unself-conscious. The main thing was that she
should be with me, in my care and associate with you and learn. That has
happened. Now we must all wish that only what spontaneously occurs to her will
happen. Only then will she be completely free from fear.... For the present we
cannot all three of us hope to be together. What is possible is that when you come,
the three of us may occasionally sit together. It is not proper that I would keep you
with me right now. The present sadhana consists in our being apart. (Letter to
Pyarelal, December 30, 1946, From the Gujarati original: Pyarelal Papers. Nehru
Memorial Museum and Library. Courtesy: Beladevi Nayyar and Dr. Sushila
Nayyar, CWMG, Vol. 93, pp 213-4)
56 I am not calling you to me to make you unhappy. You are not afraid of me, are
you? It can never be that I would make you do anything against your wishes. I only
wish you well. I wish to see you healthy and well. (Letter to Manu Gandhi, October
14, 1946, From a copy of the Gujarati: Pyarelal Papers. Nehru Memorial Museum
and Library. Courtesy: Beladevi Nayyar and Dr. Sushila Nayyar, CWMG, Vol. 92,
page 322)




Even Pyarelal, Dr. Susheela Nayyars brother who wanted to
marry Manu Gandhi is expressly forbidden by Gandhi to even visit
him and is asked to serve in a different village.

It says much for the greatness and moral rectitude of these men
that, keeping national interests alone in view, they did not expose
Gandhi to the nation at large; and though Gandhi pretended in his
letter to Mashruwala on the 4
th
of November from Calcutta that
his stock remained high with the inmates of the ashram,
Mashruwala, the oldest inmate in the Sabarmati Ashram wrote to
Gandhi barely three months later, on 9
th
February, 1947, that he
was leaving the ashram.
Because you are the oldest person in the Ashram, I
am writing to you. Read this to all. Bihar has moved
me. Chiefly for the sake of the body, I am on a
semi-fast. Later on it may take the shape of a
gradual complete fast. Gradual because I still have
some work on hand. I have to go to Noakhali. You
can read further details in the newspapers. Nobody
should run up to me, nobody should fast in
sympathy, all should stick to their place and be
completely engrossed in their work. Each should try
to remove his own defects and should obtain purity
for hard tapas. Nobody should worry about me. Let
all pray for me that I may come out with flying
colours through this penance and that I should not
prove to be a coward
57


57. (Lettter to Kishorelal G Mashruwala, Calcutta November 4, 1946, CWMG,
Vol. 92, page 443)
SORRY YOUR DECISION. YOU ARE ENTITLED. REGARD IT HASTY. ANY
CASE YOU WILL RENDER NECESSARY HELP TILL NEW
ARRANGEMENT MADE. WIRED J IVANJ I BAPU (Telegram to Kishorelal G
Mashruwala, On or after February 9, 1947, CWMG, Vol. 93, page 390)

Had Gandhi been publicly discredited at that point in history by
even one of these great men, the INC would have suffered great
humiliation and consequent setback; and this would have further
strengthened Jinnah and the Muslim League. As things stood, few
people in Gandhis lifetime knew of his experiments with women
and fewer still had the courage to speak or write about his dark
side at that time and not even now, sixty years after
independence.

It would seem that the British government, for reasons best
known to it, also did not discredit Gandhi publicly even though
they did know of his experiments with women. As cited earlier,
Gandhi had used Manu Gandhi for these experiments even earlier
in the Aga Khan Palace where he was interned after his so-called
arrest in 1942. The British Government knew this well-kept secret
of Gandhis private life and would have accorded him political
importance and pre-eminence in all their interactions with the INC
for well-calculated reasons. We cannot help but wonder if
Gandhis insistence in laying all the blame for the failure of the
Cabinet Mission at the door of the Muslim League and completely
exonerating the British from evil motives and protecting them
from the wrath of ordinary Indians may not have had something
to do with this.


CHI. PYARELAL, Herewith is a copy of the letter to the Professor. You will learn
from it what is happening. My association with Harijan now seems to have ended.
I am not worried in the least. I am anxious about Manus state of mind. All this is
an ordeal for me. May truth alone triumph. Blessings from BAPU
[P.S.] Send the papers about me. (From the Gujarati original: Pyarelal Papers.
Nehru Memorial Museum and Library. Courtesy: Beladevi Nayyar and Dr. Sushila
Nayyar, CWMG, Vol. 94, page 35)


The British governments silence on Gandhis secret was possibly
because they could not afford to discredit Gandhi before the
nation on whose behalf Gandhi was negotiating with the British
government and with the Muslim League; the British government
needed Gandhi, not only to implement their covert agenda
through the instrument of the Cabinet Mission but to exit safely
from India; however, the Muslim League government in Bengal
and the Congress government in Bihar rendered Gandhi impotent
and ineffective when he toured the riot-torn provinces of Bengal
and Bihar between November 1946 and April 1947, with Manu
Gandhi in tow.

Not surprisingly the Muslim League-run provincial government in
Bengal did not like Gandhi touring the villages of riot-torn Bengal
and on more than one occasion asked him to leave Bengal and
proceed to Bihar where the Hindus of Bihar were extracting their
revenge for the events in Bengal.
58
Despite Gandhis prolonged
stay in Bengal lasting four months until the beginning of March,
Gandhi could not douse the flames of the riots in Bengal, could
not succeed in getting the Muslim League government to stop its
support for the jihadis and only aggravated Hindu anger against
him for what the Hindus of Bengal saw as his Muslim
appeasement ways. An honest rendition of the history of the time,
based only on Gandhis own writings reveals that Hindu anger
against Gandhi was pervasive and intense. Not just the Hindus of
Bengal but even earlier, in Delhi, Hindus who had gathered at one

58
Your letter . is . . .hysterical. . . I would like you to tell me how I can serve the
Muslims better by going to Bihar. Whilst I do not endorse your remark that the
atrocities committed by the Hindus in Bihar have no parallel in history, I am free to
admit that they were in magnitude much greater than in Noakhali. . .I would urge
you, as President of the Monghyr District Muslim League, to confine yourself to
proven facts which, I am sorry to say, you have not done.
Letter to President Monghyr District Muslim League, January 25, 1947, Mahatma
GandhiThe Last Phase, Vol. I, Book II, p. 247, CWMG, Vol 93, page 321
of his prayer meetings accused him of emasculating Hindu
society.
59


Gandhis famous prescription of ahimsa had failed and he was
forced to confront the unpalatable truth that outside of a section
of the INC, ordinary Hindus had rejected him and his unrealistic
formulae for Hindu-Muslim relations. But more importantly,
Gandhi was beginning to re-examine himself; his manic conviction
about his infallibility and the indestructibility of his saintliness,
which were being brought home to him painfully and
humiliatingly.
Have been awake since 2 a. m. Gods grace alone is
sustaining me. I can see there is some grave defect
in me somewhere which is the cause of all this. All
around me is utter darkness. When will God take
me out of this darkness into His light?
Pyarelal explains: On the day of his departure from
Srirampur, Gandhiji woke up at 2 a.m. once more
to ask himself the question: Why does it not work?
He woke up Manu, too, and told her to remain alert
and wide awake all the time in view of the ordeal
that lay ahead of them. Referring to the
atmosphere around him, he muttered to himself:
There must be some serious flaw deep down in me
which I am unable to discover. Where could I have
missed my way? There must be something terribly

59
Gandhiji added that he was daily receiving letters of abuse saying that his
doctrine of non violence was emasculating Hindus, that he was no Mahatma, that
he was injuring them and leading them astray. He had never laid claim to being a
Mahatma. He was an ordinary mortal as anyone of them. He hoped he had never
injured anyone. What he told them he told them for their own and universal good.
(Speech at a prayer meeting, New Delhi, October 3, 1946, The Hindustan Times, 4-
10-1946, CWMG, Vol 92, pp 277-80
lacking in my ahimsa and faith which is responsible
for all this.
60


Frantically seeking to find the right word and the right move to
regain his lost authority with the ordinary people of Bengal,
Gandhi turned his attention to Bihar. Gandhi was failing and
failing badly to make any impact not only on the people of Bengal
but even on his close associates in the INC. The stalwarts of the
Congress Party, who were against Gandhi fishing in the troubled
waters of Bengal to make a personal point, communicated their
displeasure to GD Birla because except for Nehru, all of them had
distanced themselves from Gandhi and wanted Birla to make
Gandhi see reason.
I have come here determined to emerge
successful from this ordeal. If you are
anxious to see me, then you can come over
here. I personally do not see any necessity
for it. If you wish to send a messenger to
know something or carry letters by hand,
you can do so... Friends will also do well to
bear in mind that what I am doing here is
not in the name of the Congress. Nor is
there any thought of associating it with this
work. What I am doing is only from my
personal view of non-violence. Anybody, if
he so desires, can publicly oppose my work.
That in fact is his right; it may even be his
duty. Therefore, whosoever wishes to do

60
(Extract from Diary, J anuary 2, 1947, Mahatma GandhiThe Last Phase, Vol.
I, Book II, p. 115, CWMG, Vol. 93, page 227)


anything or say anything, let him do so
fearlessly. If anybody wants to warn me of
anything, let him do that too. Please send a
copy of this to Sardar so that he may tell the
others named above. Or you can get copies
made and send them to the five friends
(Sardar, Maulana, Rajendra Babu, Rajaji and
Nehru) yourself. Do express whatever you
wish to. Write to me direct so that I may
reply.
61

Gandhi had repeatedly assured the Muslims of Bengal that
there was no need for him to go to Bihar to end the
revenge killings of Muslims and that because it was a
Congress government in Bihar, he could control the events
in that province sitting in Bengal! For all his brave words
about being able to control the Congress government in
Bihar, the Hindus of Bihar proved unrelenting and finally in
a weak move intended to appease the Muslim League
government in Bengal, Gandhi asks Srikrishna Sinha,
Prime Minister of the Bihar province to send him official
reports from Bihar. Notwithstanding the fact that Nehru
and Rajendra Prasad, Govind Vallabh Pant and Rafi Ahmed
Kidwai were camping in Bihar in efforts to quell the riots
and notwithstanding the fact that Bihar was administered
by Congress government, Gandhis repeated demands to
be kept informed are ignored as are his suggestions,
opinions and objections.
I wrote a letter to you but have not received
a reply. Possibly it was lost. It does happen

61 Letter to GD Birla, From the Hindi original: C. W. 8081. Courtesy: G. D. Birla.
also G. N. 2212, CWMG Vol.93, page 70


to some of my letters. I have received a
copy of the Bihar Provincial Muslim Leagues
report. You too must have received a copy. I
am therefore not sending it to you. It is a
terrible thing if even half of what is stated
were true. It even mentions that I should
ask the Bihar Ministry for a full clarification
of the massacre for which they were
responsible. And if one has been already
issued, I may be sent a copy. I should like to
take you even further than that. I read in
some newspaper that the Bihar Ministry
does not propose to hold any inquiry. I was
sorry to note it. I want the ministries of both
the provinces to hold an impartial inquiry by
a joint committee to probe the incidents in
both the provinces. Even if Bengal does not
co-operate, it is the Bihar Ministrys duty to
hold such an enquiry. It will be good if you
can also let me know the true condition at
present. What is the truth in the report that
many Muslims have left Bihar and many are
still leaving? There is also a complaint that
representatives of the Muslim League are
not even allowed to visit the Muslim refugee
camps set up by the Bihar Government. I
am sending a copy of this to Rajendra Babu.
(Letter to Srikrishna Sinha, Srirampur,
December 21, 1946)
62


62
Letter to Srikrishna Sinha, J anuary 12, 1947 From a copy of the Hindi: Pyarelal
Papers. Courtesy: Pyarelal, CWMG, Vol. 93, page 170


It is bad that the enquiry commission has
not yet been appointed. I think that it should
be appointed immediately. Many letters of
complaint are coming in. Only the
commission can answer these letters.
63


I was to get a note on Bihar. I have not
received it, nor has a single well-informed
person from Bihar come to me. It does not
matter if someone cannot come but the note
must come. What happened about the
Commission? (Letter to Srikrishna Sinha,
January 13, 1947)
64

It was some gentleman from Bihar who gave
me the information. I did not note down his
name. Is it not a fact that you, the Governor
and the Viceroy are against the appointment
of a Commission and that this is sufficient to
stop the Chief Minister from appointing one?
In spite of all this, I am strongly of opinion
that if no commission is appointed, the
Leagues report will be accepted as true. I
alone know what pressure is being put on
me. (Letter to Vallabhbhai Patel, January 14,
1947)
65



63
From a copy of the Hindi: Pyarelal Papers. Courtesy: Pyarelal, CWMG, Vol. 93,
page 270
64
From a copy of the Hindi: Pyarelal Papers. Courtesy: Pyarelal, CWMG, Vol. 93,
page 275
65
Bapuna Patro: Sardar Vallabhbhaine, pp. 344-5, CWMG, Vol. 93, pp 276-7
Extremely angry at being so slighted, Gandhi turns his ire on JB
Kripalani and in a replay of his petulance in 1942 and again in
July 1946, he asks Kripalani to resign as Congress President!
66

Nobody of consequence from the INC visits him in Bengal to
report to him about the events in Bihar, and his demand for a
Commission of Inquiry to go into the causes and the course of the
riots in Bihar are politely but firmly rejected by Patel and Sinha.
67

The Bihar government with its hands full in dealing with the riots,
did not want Gandhi to visit Bihar (a move which was sure to
enrage the Hindus), and therefore agrees to constitute the inquiry
commission if that could stop Gandhi from coming to Bihar.
On February 13, Shrikrishna Sinha, Chief
Minister of Bihar, while replying to the
debate in the Assembly on the no-confidence
motion against his Ministry, announced the
Governments decision to appoint a
Commission of Inquiry to report on the

66 Your letter and enclosure. You cannot sit still if you find that even justice is not
done. You have to discuss things with Pantji, Kidwai and finally with J awaharlal
and Sardar. If nobody listens to you, you should resign. If these steps are not taken
and if what you say is true, the Congress will collapse. You can show this to the
parties I have named. (LETTER TO J . B. KRIPALANI, Confidential J anuary 28,
1947, From a photostat: C. W. 10871. Courtesy: J . B. Kripalani, CWMG, Vol. 93,
page 335


67
I hear that your opposition is reported to be the reason why the Bihar Ministry
does not appoint an inquiry commission. I do not believe the story, but I bring it to
your notice. If a commission is not appointed, it will do great harm. The Ministry
will be regarded as guilty. If their work has been above board, what harm can the
Commission do to them? Considerable pressure is being exerted on me, but I do not
go because I have reposed confidence in the Ministers. But if a Commission is not
appointed after all, I shall have no choice but to go to Bihar.
In his reply dated February 10, the addressee (Patel) wrote : Who told you I have a
hand in the non-appointment of a Commission of Inquiry in Bihar? I do hold the
opinion that there is no gain but only harm if the Commission is appointed. If in
spite of it a Commission is appointed, how can I prevent it? . . .The Bihar Governor
is behind the non-appointment of the Commission. The Viceroy, too, does not want
it. (Letter to Vallabhbhai Patel, Srinagar (Bengal), February 5, 1947, Bapuna
Patrao 2, Sardar Vallabhbhaine, pp 348-9, CWMG, Vol. 93, page 369)
communal disturbances in Bihar. Justice
Reuben of Patna High Court was to be the
one-man Commission. Ultimately however,
on 30th October, 1947, the Bihar Cabinet
decided to drop the idea of appointing the
Commission.
68


Gandhis carefully nurtured image and the motivated propaganda
about the infallibility of his Satyagraha had been shattered
mercilessly and even as Gandhi was confronting his failure and
powerlessness, he embarks cynically on another misadventure,
this time in the Punjab and Assam. The following points need to
be kept in view to understand the extent of Gandhis cynical
manipulation of people to serve his agenda or prove his point.

The Muslim League and the British government had
planned to use each other to realise their respective
converging interest to vivisect the Hindu nation
Gandhi knew that the Cabinet Mission proposals,
particularly the grouping clause, was the best possible
way to avert vivisection
The Muslim League had nothing to lose but everything to
gain by unleashing violence against the Hindus
The Muslim psyche is never afraid of violence and Muslims
are as prepared to suffer death as inflict death on their
enemies
Gandhi knew well enough that ordinary Hindus, far from
being dumb or weak or helpless as he repeatedly told
them they were, were ready to confront all forces which

68
Note on terms of reference for Inquiry Commission, Before February 13, 1947,
Mahatma GandhiThe Last Phase, Vol. II, p. 28, CWMG, Vol. 93, page 399
they perceived as threatening their dharma and their way
of life Christians, Muslims, the British and even Gandhi
Gandhi knew all this and yet, he kept harping on the grouping
clause when all other ruse to abort the mission proposals failed;
and he therefore finally goaded the Muslim League to launch
direct action thus setting in motion a chain of events which
inevitably culminated in vivisection. Even after violent riots broke
out in Bengal, Bombay and Bihar, and Gandhi was forced to come
to terms with the truth that he was failing on all fronts in Bengal
to bring about Hindu-Muslim unity, to quell the riots, and to avert
vivisection, he instigates Assam Congressmen and the Sikhs of
the Punjab in December 1946, to revolt against the central
Congress leadership for accepting to enter the constituent
assembly and advises them to secede from the Congress and to
resist the grouping clause with all their might. Gandhi, by sowing
the seeds of the idea of secession in Assam and the Punjab in
1946, was responsible for fanning the flames of Muslim violence
in the immediate, and fanning the flames of separatism in the
Punjab and in Assam decades later in post-independence India.
If Assam keeps quiet, it is finished. No one
can force Assam to do what it does not want
to do. It is autonomous to a large extent
today. It must become fully independent and
autonomous. Whether you have that
courage, grit and the gumption, I do not
know. You alone can say that. But if you can
make that declaration, it will be a fine thing.
As soon as the time comes for the
Constituent Assembly to go into Sections
you will say, Gentlemen, Assam retires.
For the independence of India it is the only
condition. Each unit must be able to decide
and act for itself. I am hoping that in this
Assam will lead the way. I have the same
advice for the Sikhs. But your position is
much happier than that of the Sikhs. You are
a whole Province. They are a community
inside a Province. But I feel every individual
has the right to act for himself, just as I
have.
69


Gandhiji in a letter to the Sikhs has advised
them to demand an unequivocal declaration
from the Congress that it shall never agree
to Grouping in any shape or form. He has
further advised them to walk out if no such
undertaking was forthcoming. Revolt
against the Congress. I have revolted
several times myself.
70

Instead of welding the provinces together in the common
objective of averting vivisection, as the overarching need of the
times, Gandhi encouraged them to fragment themselves to evade
the grasp of the Muslim League but eventually left the embers of
separatism glowing and dormant in their polity. Gandhi did not
have an intelligent or effective response to Muslim separatism;
and rather than go along with the Cabinet Mission proposals to
avert vivisection and thus buy the much-needed time to deal with
the Muslim League after transfer of power, he continued to dabble
inexpertly in politics, to torture the course of events in a direction

69
Interview to Assam Congressmen, December 15, 1946, CWMG Vol. 93, pp 142-
145
70
Fragment of letter to Sikhs, On or before December 19, 1946, The Bombay
Chronicle, 20-12-1946, CWMG, Vol. 93, page 160

that led only to bloodbath in the vain and foolish hope that the
violence would halt the Muslim League in its tracks. As pointed
out earlier only two things could have averted vivisection
permanently
Denying jihadi Muslims state protection and patronage,
and
A violent nationalist uprising by the Hindus in defense of
the Hindu nation
Gandhi, by provoking the riots before transfer of power gave the
British government the lollipop that they wanted the opportunity
to meddle both covertly and overtly to direct the resulting
violence towards vivisection.

Reputed historians and other eminent academicians have not
undertaken so far any honest study of Gandhis character. Just as
little is known of his perverse experiments with women, as little is
known of his vicious anger and lacerating speech that he routinely
spewed at people who opposed him or rejected him. While Gandhi
was careful to treat such opponents as GD Birla and Kisorelal
Mashruwala and Vinobha Bhave with respect, he treated those
whom he considered inferior to him in status with contempt and
in wounding language. His stenographers Pyarelal, Parasuram,
the husband of one of his women victims, Munnalal Shah and
Sardar Patel have all been victims of Gandhis arrogance and
pride. The following letter that Gandhi wrote to Patel is a case in
point.

Patel had unsparingly and unambiguously conveyed to Gandhi his
strong disapproval of Gandhis terrible experiments with women.
That relations were extremely strained between them became
obvious in the course of the INCs negotiations with the Cabinet
Mission. But as riots broke out in Bengal and Bihar, Gandhis
insistence on Muslim appeasement exacerbated the already
strained relations and all cordial communication between Gandhi
and the Sardar broke down completely. Gandhi had to send
letters to Patel only through other Congress workers and even on
those few occasions that Patel replied to him it was in terse and
curt language. Gandhis venom is utterly exposed in the following
letter that he wrote to Patel where he accuses Sardar Patel of
everything from financial impropriety to lust for power.
CHI. VALLABHBHAI,
I have your letter. Jawahar and others will be able to
tell you about what happened here. I hold strong
views about. . . . The work being done here cannot
be carried on with the Congress funds or funds
collected by you. He should collect the money publicly
both from Hindus and Muslims. I am also getting
more convinced from experience that all activities
which are carried on with the help of money alone are
sure to fail. You also should give up any idea of
getting things done with money. It is essential
that...should not deviate even an inch from what is
agreed to between him and me. I am resolved that I
will get out of it as soon as I see even the slightest
impurity. This mission is most delicate and the
biggest that has fallen to my lot. God has sustained
me so far. I wake up and start work at 1.30 a. m.,
standard time, and there has been no difficulty yet.
About tomorrow, God alone knows.
I have heard many complaints against you. If there is
any exaggeration in many, it is unintended. Your
speeches tend to be inflammatory and play to the
gallery. You have lost sight of all distinction between
violence and non-violence. You are teaching the
people to meet violence with violence. You miss no
opportunity to insult the Muslim League in season
and out of season. If all this is true, it is very
harmful. They say you talk about holding on to office.
That also is disturbing, if true. Whatever I heard I
have passed on to you for you to think over. The
times are very critical. If we stray from the straight
and narrow path by ever so little, we are done for.
The Working Committee does not function
harmoniously as it should. Root out corruption; you
know how to do it. If you feel like it, send some
sensible and reliable person to explain things to me
and understand my point of view. There is no need
whatever for you to rush down here. You are no
longer fit to run about. It is not good that you do not
take care of your health. I will stop here. It is now
5.35, Calcutta time, and there are heaps of arrears to
be disposed of.
Blessings from BAPU
71

Now contrast this with the letter that Gandhi wrote to Nehru on
the same day; Nehru who knew that his towering political
ambitions could be realized only by staying on the right side of
Gandhi, did not publicly or privately express objections to Gandhi
over his experiments. Nehru was doing what Patel and others
refused to do applying salve on Gandhis bruised ego by running
to him frequently seeking his advice and opinions. On this
occasion, Nehru was running to Gandhi carrying tales about Patel
and as expected, Gandhi bends obligingly on Nehrus side.
Your affection is extraordinary and so natural!
Come again, when you wish, or send someone who

71
Letter to Vallabhbhai Patel, , Srirampur, December 30, 1946, Bapuna Patro-2: Sardar
Vallabhbhaine, pp. 341-3, CWMG, Vol 93, pp 211-12)
understands you and will faithfully interpret my
reactions . . . when, in your opinion, consultation is
necessary and you cannot come. Nor is it seemly
that you should often run to me even though I
claim to be like a wise father to you, having no less
love towards you than Motilalji.... So, I suggest
frequent consultations with an old, tried servant of
the nation.
72

Far from rushing down here as Gandhi imagined Patel would do,
Patel replies in characteristic style
The complaints are false of course but some of
them do not make sense. The charge that I want
to stick to office is a pure concoction. I was
opposed to Jawaharlals hurling idle threats of
resigning from the Interim Government. They
damage the prestige of the Congress and have a
demoralizing effect on the services. . . . Not even
any Leaguer has said that I insult the League time
and again. . . . It is my habit to tell people the
bitterest truths. . . The remark about meeting the
sword by the sword has been torn out of a long
passage and presented out of context. .If any of
my colleagues has complained to you about me, I
should like to know. None of them has said
anything to me.
73


Gandhi visits Nandigram December 23, 1946
Hindu refugees of Nandigram had threatened to go on a fast unto
death, protesting government inaction and the total lack of

72
Mahatma GandhiThe Last Phase, Vol. I, Book II, p. 127, CWMG, Vol 93, 210-11
73
Foot-note to Gandhis Letter to Vallabhbhai Patel from Srirampur dated 30
December, 1946, CWMG Vol. 93, page 211
protection and security from the marauding jihadis but Gandhi
dissuaded them against it. This, and later as we shall see, the
resentment of Hindu refugees in Delhi reveals that the barely
repressed anger of the Hindus against Gandhi was not confined to
the Hindus in the Hindu Mahasabha but was pervasive among the
Hindu samaj who perceived Gandhis fasts for communal harmony
as being only a coercive measure against the Hindus to not
retaliate or seek revenge against the Muslims. This Nandigram
that Gandhi visited in December 1946 is not the Nandigram of
recent infamy in West Bengal, the scene of conflict between the
Communist government and illegal Bangladeshi Muslims who
comprise in the main the population of Nandigram, but is located
in the Lakshmipur (pronounced Lokkhipur) zilla of Bangladesh,
under the jurisdiction of the then Ramgonj police station. It was a
part of the areas that bore the brunt of the terrible anti-Hindu
pogrom that covered Noakhali and parts of Tipperah district in
erstwhile undivided Bengal, beginning October 1946. This well-
suppressed fact of history is however well documented in a path
breaking book by Tatagatha Roy.
74


First sitting of Constituent Assembly December,
1946

Mountbatten, incumbent Viceroy, arrives in Delhi
January 30, 1947

Mountbatten as Viceroy March 1947
After the Cabinet Mission, the decision to send Lord Louis
Mountbatten as Viceroy of India when political independence
seemed increasingly imminent was the second masterstroke by

74
A Suppressed Chapter in History: The Exodus of Hindus from East Pakistan and
Bangladesh By Tathagata Roy, Bookwell Publications, 2006
the British government in London. Gandhi's public statement on
the eve of the Quit India movement in 1942 made it clear that he
was well aware of events in the nations of East and South-East
Asia, in Malaya, Indonesia and Burma during World War II, when
Japan was gaining ground and the Allied forces were engaged in
fierce battles to keep their colonial empires in the region intact.

We know from the fact that Gandhi met Indonesian soldiers in
Madras in January 1946
75
, that he was aware of Mountbatten's
role in Britains decision to sabotage Indonesia's fledgling
independence; and after the defeat of Japan, it was Mountbatten
as head of Southeast Asia Command, who directed the liberation
of Burma and Singapore. Mountbattens role entailed a stint in
Indonesia too and during those critical months he enabled the
return of Indonesia to her colonial masters. As the British
withdrew from Indonesia, Mountbatten successfully broke the
country into several parts, leaving each part simmering in political
chaos. After re-taking Singapore, Mountbattens first act was to
order the demolition of the war memorial honouring slain INA
heroes. The INA War Memorial at Singapore to commemorate the
"Unknown Warrior" was started on 8 July 1945 at Esplanade Park.
It was razed to the ground by Mountbatten's allied troops when
they re-occupied the city.

Gandhi knew all this. Yet Gandhi, whose repudiation of the
Cabinet Mission proposals facilitated Jinnahs obduracy leading to
partition, allowed Mountbatten to enter India as Viceroy without a
murmur of protest. This allowed Mountbatten to implement the
imperial plan to vivisect the Hindu bhoomi, and gave him the rare
opportunity to fulfill Britain's second most important strategic

75
CWMG, vol.89, page 280
intent after partition, namely, the West's control of the critically
important territory of Jammu & Kashmir, through the agency of
the United Nations.

Vivisection of Hindu bhumi/Indian Independence
with Dominion Status 15 August 1947

As a natural culmination of Gandhis insistence during the
discussion on the Motilal Nehru Report that Dominion Status was
the same as Independence, on 15
th
August 1947, India became a
self-governing entity while continuing to remain a part of the
British Empire. The King of England would continue to remain
Head of State until January, 1950.

Against the wishes of Nehru and Patel, Gandhi expressed strong
objection to the idea of total transfer of populations from India.
Thus Muslims unwilling to migrate to Pakistan continued to reside
in India. Pakistan, however, expelled most Hindus from its
territory; those who remained behind were far too few to pose
any threat to Muslims there. By asking Muslims to continue to
reside in India after they had wrenched away a large part of the
territory to form a Muslim state, Gandhi fanned seething rage
among Hindus.

Pakistan's aggression in Jammu and Kashmir
September 1947
On Mountbattens advice, Nehru halted the triumphant march of
the Indian army into Jammu & Kashmir to seize all occupied
territory, and without consulting Home Minister Patel or the
Cabinet, rushed to the United Nations to plead with it to deal with
Pakistan and restore all occupied territories to India (30
December 1947). Mountbatten thus successfully implemented the
colonial agenda of denying Indias legitimate claim to J&K, which
to this day remains 'disputed'.

It remains inexplicable to this day why Gandhi and Nehru, who
supposedly struggled against a colonial regime for freedom,
placed such extraordinary faith in post-Second World War
institutions created by failing colonial powers. While India was not
free at the time of World War I, it is inexplicable that she joined
both the British Commonwealth and the United Nations. It is
pertinent that in 1947, probably only The Philippines (1946) and
India were free among the colonies, so India willfully became
party to a post-colonial order being set up by European powers
who realized that their hegemony was sooner or later coming to
an end. Yet the early decades of the UN saw intense struggles of
each colony to be free, and European colonial powers probably
relinquished the last of their possessions only in the mid-1970s!
Certainly the UN played a poor role in facilitating a free world!
And South Africa, despite the fraud of sanctions, did not relinquish
Apartheid until the 1990s, and mysteriously destroyed its nuclear
arsenal before submitting to a form of Black African rule. In this
context, the generous Western invitation to the newly freed India
to join the Security Council deserves deeper scrutiny.

Gandhi's last fast-unto-death January 12, 1948
Official history has blurred the truth about many of Gandhi's
Muslim-appeasing, anti-Hindu actions. Such fudging is evident
regarding Gandhi's last fast-unto-death in Delhi. The official
version is that he fasted for communal harmony; the known truth
is that Gandhi wanted to coerce Patel to release Rs. 550 million to
Pakistan as part of the agreed-upon division of treasury funds as
of 15 August 1947. Home Minister Patel was disinclined to giving
Pakistan such a colossal sum when it had invaded Jammu and
Kashmir barely two months ago, and would probably use the
money for more acts of aggression against India.

Fortunately for Gandhi, doctors declared his life had entered the
danger zone on 15 January, barely three days after
commencement of the fast. A cornered Patel reluctantly agreed to
release the money to Pakistan.

January 18 1948 Gandhi breaks his fast
In a typically wily manoeuvre, just so Hindus did not construe his
fast as aimed at releasing treasury money to Pakistan, Gandhi
continued to fast for another three days after Patel agreed to
release the money, giving it the colour of a fast-for-communal-
harmony.

Bomb explodes at prayer meeting January 20,
1948

Angry Hindu and Sikh refugees from Pakistan ask
Gandhi to retire to the Himalayas January 28, 1948

Assassination of Gandhi 30 January, 1948
Regarding the trial of Nathuram Godse, one of the High Court
judges observed:
The audience was visibly and audibly moved. There was a deep
silence when he ceased speaking. Many women were in tears and
men were coughing and searching for their handkerchiefs.. I
have, however, no doubt that had the audience on that day been
constituted into a jury and entrusted with the task of deciding
Godse's appeal, they would have brought in a verdict of not
guilty by an overwhelming majority.
76


*****

76
GD Khosla, The murder of the Mahatma and other cases from a J udges
Notebook, New Delhi, J aico, 1977, pp 305-306 as reproduced in Koenraad Elst,
Gandhi and Godse, New Delhi, Voice of India, page 6.
Appendix

I Excerpts from Gandhis analysis of the Cabinet Mission
Statement Paper
After four days of searching examination of the State Paper issued
by the Cabinet Mission and the Viceroy on behalf of the British
Government, my conviction abides that it is the best document
the British Government could have produced in the
circumstances. It reflects our weakness, if we would be good
enough to see it. The Congress and the Muslim League did not,
could not agree. We would grievously err if at this time we
foolishly satisfy ourselves that the differences are a British
creation. The Mission have not come all the way from England to
exploit them. They have come to devise the easiest and quickest
method of ending British rule.

The authors of the document have endeavoured to say fully what
they mean.

Their one purpose is to end British rule as early as may be. They
would do so, if they could, by their effort, leave united India not
torn asunder by internecine quarrel bordering on civil war. They
would leave in any case. Since in Simla the two parties, though
the Mission succeeded in bringing them together at the
Conference table (with what patience and skill they could do so,
they alone could tell), could not come to an agreement, nothing
daunted, they descended to the plains of India, and devised a
worthy document for the purpose of setting up the Constituent
Assembly which should frame Indias charter of independence,
free of any British control or influence. It is an appeal and an
advice. It has no compulsion in it.

Thus the Provincial Assemblies may or may not elect the
delegates. The delegates, having been elected, may or may not
join the Constituent Assembly. The Assembly having met, may lay
down a procedure different from the one laid down in the
Statement. Whatever is binding on any person or party arises out
of the necessity of the situation. The separate voting is binding on
both the major parties, only because it is necessary for the
existence of the Assembly and in no otherwise. At the time of
writing. I took up the Statement, reread it clause by clause,
and came to the conclusion that there was nothing in it
binding in law. Honour and necessity alone are the two binding
forces. What is binding is that part of it which commits the British
Government. Hence, I suppose, the four members of the British
mission took the precaution of receiving full approval of the
British Government and the two Houses of Parliament.

Therefore, when Lord Pethick-Lawrence said to a Press
correspondent1, If they do come together on that basis, it will
mean that they will have accepted that basis, but they can still
change it, if a majortiy of each party they desire to do so, he was
right in the sense that those who became delegates, well knowing
the contents of the Statement, were expected by the authors to
abide by the basis, unless it was duly altered by the major
parties. When two or more rival parties meet together, they do so
under some understanding. A self-chosen umpire (in the absence
of the one chosen by the parties, the authors constitute
themselves one) fancies that the parties will come together only if
he presents them with a proposal containing a certain minimum,
and he makes his proposal, leaving them free to add to, subtract
from or altogether change it by joint agreement.

This is perfect so far. But what about the units? Are the Sikhs, for
whom the Punjab is the only home in India, to consider
themselves against their will, as part of the section which takes in
Sindh, Baluchistan and the Frontier Province? Or is the Frontier
Province also against its will to belong to the Punjab, called B in
the Statement, or Assam to C although it is a predominantly
non-Muslim province? In my opinion, the voluntary character of
the Statement demands that the liberty of the individual unit
should be unimpaired. Any member of the sections is free to join
it. The freedom to opt out is an additional safeguard. It can never
be a substitute for the freedom retained in paragraph 15(5) which
reads:
Provinces should be free to form groups with executives and
legislatures and each group could determine the Provincial subject
to be taken in common.
It is clear that this freedom was taken away by the authors by
section 19 which proposes (does not order) what should be
done. It presupposes that the Chairman of the Constituent
Assembly at its first meeting will ask the delegates of the
Provinces whether they would accept the group principle and if
they do, whether they [would] accept the assignment given to
their Province. This freedom inherent in every Province and that
given by 15(5) will remain intact. There appears to me to be no
other way of avoiding the apparent conflict between the two
paragraphs as also charge of compulsion which would
immediately alter the noble character of the document. I would,
therefore, ask all those who are perturbed by the group
proposal and the arbitrary assignment, that, if my
interpretation is valid there is not the slightest cause for
perturbation.

There are other things in the document which would puzzle any
hasty reader who forgets that it is simply an appeal and an advice
to the nation showing how to achieve independence in the
shortest time possible. The reason is clear. In the new world that
is to emerge out of the present chaos, India in bondage will cease
to be the brightest jewel in the British crown it will become the
blackest spot in that crown, so black that it will be fit only for the
dustbin. Let me ask the reader to hope and pray with me that the
British crown has a better use for Britain and the world. The
brightest jewel is an arrogation. When the promissory note is
fully honoured, the British crown will have a unique jewel as of
right flowing from due performance of duty. There are other
matters outside the Statement which are required to back the
promissory note. But I must defer that examination to the next
issue of Harijan. (An Analysis, NEW DELHI, May 20, 1946,
Harij an, 26-5-1946, CWMG Vol. 91, pp 1-3)

*****

II Gandhis letter to Viceroy Wavell and the Viceroys own
record of his meeting with Gandhi

DEAR FRIEND,
From you, almost straight away, I went to the Working
Committee which, owing to his illness, was held at Maulana
Sahebs quarters. I gave them the gist of our conversation, told
them that I gladly endorsed your suggestion about the parties
meeting to fix up names subject to the provision that no party
should talk of parity, you should invite them simply to submit to
you a joint list of the Cabinet of the Provisional Interim
Government which you would approve or, if you did not, you
would invite them to submit a revised list bearing in mind your
amendments, that the list should represent a coalition
Government composed of persons of proved ability and
incorruptibility. I suggested too that in the place of parity there
should be active enforcement of the long-term provision in your
joint Statement2 that in all major communal issues there should
be communal voting to decide them. I suggested also that in the
event of absence of agreement between the parties in spite of all
effort, you should examine the merits of the respective lists of the
two parties and accept either the one or the other (not an
amalgam) and announce the names of the Interim Government
but that before that final step was taken you should closet
yourselves until a joint list was prepared. I told the Working
Committee that you had seemed to endorse my suggestions.

I told them further that, so far as I knew, it was a point of honour
with Congressmen that there could be no joint consultation in
which Maulana Saheb was not associated with the talks. You said
it was a sore point with Quaid-e-Azam Jinnah and I replied that
the soreness was wholly unwarranted and that the Congress could
not be expected to sacrifice its faithful servant of twenty-five
years standing whose self-sacrifice and devotion to the national
cause had never been in question. But I told you that your great
experience and ability to handle delicate matters would show you
the way out of the difficulty. Finally, I told the Committee that I
drew your attention to the fact that the European vote which was
being talked of was unthinkable, in connection with the
Constituent Assembly and nothing but a public declaration by the
European residents of India or one by you on their behalf could
make possible the formation of the Constituent Assembly. I
gathered from you that the question was already engaging your
attention and that it should be satisfactorily solved. Probably you
have already moved in the matter of the joint talk. Nevertheless,
I thought that I owed it to you and the Working Committee to put
on record what I had reported about our talks. If I have in any
way misunderstood you, will you please correct me? I may say
that the Working Committee had its draft letter ready but at my
suggestion it postponed consideration of it pending the final result
of your effort adumbrated in this letter. The draft letter takes the
same view that I placed before you yesterday on parity and the
European vote and their election as members of the contemplated
Constituent Assembly. I close with the hope that your effort will
bear the fruit to which all are looking forward.
Yours sincerely,
M. K. GANDHI

Foot-note to Letter, as in source
In his letter to Lord Wavell dated June 8, M. A. Jinnah had
claimed that the Viceroy had given him the assurance that there
will be only twelve portfolios, five on behalf of the League, five
Congress, one Sikh and one Christian or Anglo-Indian. During
the meeting with the Cabinet Delegation on June 8, the Viceroy
said that he had given no assurance to Mr. Jinnah but he
thought that the 5 : 5 : 2 ratio as the most hopeful basis of
settlement and that he was working on that basis. He told them
that M. A. Jinnah had taken a very strong line about the Interim
Government and had said that the Muslim League would not be
prepared to come in except on the basis of 5 : 5 : 2 distribution of
portfolios, between the Muslim League, the Congress, and the
minorities. This parity between the Congress and the Muslim
League was wholly unacceptable to the Congress.

(Letter to Lord Wavell, Valmiki Mandir, Reading Road, New
Delhi, June 12, 1946, Gandhij is Correspondence with the
Government, 1944- 47, pp. 204-5. Also The Transfer of
Power, 1942- 47, Vol. VII, pp. 877-8, CWMG Vol. 91 pp 148-
49)
*

III Viceroy Wavells Record of his Meeting With Gandhi

1. I told Mr. Gandhi that I had asked him to come to see me
because there appeared to be a deadlock over the last stage of
the Cabinet Missions work, the formation of an Interim
Government. It would be very great pity if after all the hard and
successful work of the Mission there was a breakdown at this
point; and we must avoid it in the interests of India. The deadlock
seemed likely to occur over the issue of parity between the
Congress and the Muslim League in the Interim Government. It
was quite clear that this Government must be a coalition of the
two main parties; and the trouble threatened to arise because Mr.
Jinnah would not commit the Muslim League to participation in
the Interim Government unless he had parity with Congress, and
it seemed that Congress would not come in on these terms. I said
parity between the Congress and the Muslim League, in view of
the respective number of voters whom they represented, was
obviously illogical; but what we were concerned with was an
expedient, which would not form a precedent, to get over the
difficult interim period. I said that if both parties were determined
to work for the common good of India in the interim period, parity
had no real meaning; and that if one party was out to dominate
the Government and order everything to its own advantage then
obviously the Government would do no good. I said that I was
personally convinced that Mr. Jinnah, if he came into the
Government, would work for good administration and not merely
politically; and that I was sure that the same would be true of the
Congress.
2. I stressed the need for good administration in the forthcoming
period, both to tide India over her present difficulties, the
threatened famine and the railway strike, and also to lay the
foundations of Indias future prosperity and independence. I said
that I thought it was the opportunity for the Congress to make a
generous gesture and to agree to Mr. Jinnahs condition, even if
they thought it illogical and unreasonable, and that I hoped they
would be able to do so. The alternative to obtaining a stable
Government in this interim period was likely to be chaos and
disorder, and might ruin the last opportunity for a really united
India.
3. I suggested that perhaps the best way out of this difficulty
would be for me to see Jinnah and Nehru together and to
endeavour to arrive at an agreed composition for the Interim
Government with them.
4. Mr. Gandhi said that he was thoroughly anxious for a
settlement, and that he agreed that a coalition was necessary.
What was required was a homogeneous team which would work
together. It should not lean too much upon the Viceroy, who was,
he said, only a bird of passage, but to work together as a team by
themselves. I said that this was undoubtedly the ideal but that it
was the first step which was necessary and that a mediator
between the two parties would undoubtedly be essential. Mr.
Gandhi then went off into a rather long digression about the
poverty of India and the necessity for more food and cloth; but at
the end of it came back to my suggestion and agreed that the
best thing would be for me to see the leaders of the Congress and
the Muslim League together; and that since he realized the
difficulty of Azad meeting Jinnah, the meeting should be between
Jinnah and Nehru; he would advise me to pin them down to make
a Government and not to allow them to leave the room until they
had done so; that parity was of no account, nor whether the
members belonged to the Congress or the League or anyone,
provided they were the best men available. He said I should be
prepared to go out of the room and leave them to themselves if
necessary.

5. He then turned on to the matter of the Europeans vote and
said that it was a most important issue, and that the Europeans
should make a declaration if they did not intend to vote. I said
that it was a matter which must be left to the commonsense of
the Europeans.

6. The conversation lasted for about forty minutes and Mr. Gandhi
was quite friendly throughout. It is always difficult to fathom how
his mind is working, but he gave the impression that he would
advise the Congress to come to terms and not to allow a
breakdown on the parity issue.

(Interview With Lord Wavell, June 11, 1946, The Transfer
of Power 1942- 47, Vol. VII, pp. 864-5, CWMG Vol. 91 pp
436-37)

*****
IV The Sapru Committee Proposals, Bombay, December 27,
1945

The Committee stands for a single Union of India, including the
whole of British India and all the Indian States, the claim for
secession or non-accession, by which individual Provinces or
States can keep out of the Union is not accepted, says the Sapru
Committee in its final report on constitutional proposals. This
report, which was compiled by the Rt. Hon. Sir Tej Bahadur
Sapru, the Rt. Hon. Mr. M. R. Jayakar, the Hon. Sir N.
Gopalaswami Iyengar and Kunwar Sir Jagadish Prasad, was
released to the Press on December 27, 1945.
Embodying this principle in its proposals, the Committee
recommends that the constitution-making body to be appointed
after the elections should proceed on the basis of framing a
constitution for a single State, and urges that the right of
secession or non-accession given to individual States or Provinces
in the Cripps proposals should be withdrawn.
The Committee maintains that throughout it has endeavoured to
make a constructive approach to the many knotty problems that
confront the country, to investigate them from every angle, to
appraise as dispassionately as they could every fact, circumstance
or conceivable argument and to reach conclusions which in their
estimation were calculated to promote the lasting interests of
India and were likely to elicit the approbation of thinking Indians.
The report says : It is the Committees firm conviction that the
future of India lies in adopting a democratic constitution. The
ultimate sovereign in a democracy is the electorate, which
chooses those who are to represent it in the Legislature and
Executive. Adult franchise is therefore recommended. Under
existing conditions, it is excusable to give religious communities
the right to a fair and adequate share of opportunities for service
in the Legislature and Executive, but the aspirants for these
opportunities should realize that they hold them in trust for the
nation as a whole and should for that reason seek the support of
all communities.
JOINT GENERAL ELECTORATES
The Committee has recommended that separate communal
electorates should disappear and should be replaced by joint
general electorates with reservations of seats. In the opinion of
the Committee, Parliamentary Government is not unsuited to
India and can be worked even with communally composed
Legislature and Executive. One of the cardinal features of the
constitutional proposals made by the Committee is the provision
of ample and effective safeguards for the minorities. Emphasizing
the importance of joint electorates, the Committee says : No
Government, which is not merely in power but accepts active
responsibility for its decisions, can legitimately flinch from the
task of righting a manifestly wrong decision (taken forty years
ago, accepting separate electorate for Muslims), which has been
so mischievous in its effects. We hope the present Labour
Government in Britain, with its high democratic ideals and the
enormous voting strength behind it, will not lack the courage to
get this decision reversed with the support of Parliament. We
have no doubt that such reversal would be to the lasting benefit
of the Muslims themselves.
PARITY AT THE CENTRE
It is because the Committee attaches great importance to the
abolition of separate electorates that it considers parity of
representation in the Central Legislative Assembly between
Muslims and Hindus, other than Scheduled Castes, not too great a
price to pay. Hindu objections to this proposal are strong, because
it means on a population basis one Muslim will be regarded as
equal to two Hindus, other than Scheduled Castes, also the fear
that the British Government may accept the parity concession
without implementing the important provision that joint
electorates must be introduced, is not unfounded in the light of
past history. Each special concession has, in the past, been made
the starting-point for fresh demands. But in the interests of
communal harmony, which abolition of separate electorates will
bring about, the Committee has ventured on this proposal, but it
insists that in its recommendation on parity, the conditions and
limitations it has laid down are equally important. Parity,
however, is confined to the Lower House of the Union Legislature
and Union Executive, which are the final organs for determining
all-India policy; and it is important that such policy should have
the substantial backing of the bulk of Hindus and Muslims. The
same considerations do not apply to the Provincial Legislatures or
Executives, or to the Services, or to other fields of administration.
Joint electorates, with reservation of seats, are admittedly a far
cry from democracy, but they are a necessary halfway house
between separate electorates and general electorates without any
limitation even as to candidature.
CONCESSION SHOULD NOT EXTEND TO THE SERVICES
The Committee considers that it will be unjust and improper to
extend the concession of parity to the Services, civil or military.
Government Services, like any other service, must be based upon
individual merit and fitness. Neither does the Committee think
that the Muslims are educationally backward, as they were thirty
or forty years back. As regards other communities, the present
proportions are considered fair, but they may be revised by future
Governments, so as to provide adequate representation for
backward communities. The Committee also expresses the view
that it will be dangerous to extend the principle of parity to the
Defence Services. Maintaining that the Muslims are not a separate
nation, the Committee in the chapter on Pakistan or partition of
India says that the separate nationhood of Muslims cannot be
established on grounds of race, language or culture. If religion
alone will have to be the basis of division, then many other
communities can also claim separate nationhood. Declaring that
self-determination is not an absolute right and can only be applied
with due regard to circumstances, the Committee examines the
practicabilities of Pakistan in the context of Indian conditions and
in the light of Indian opinion. It says : The position is that the
scheme of Pakistan put forward by Mr. Jinnah is not acceptable
either to the Hindus of the Punjab and Bengal or to the Sikhs or to
the Congress or to the Hindu Mahasabha. The C. R. Formula has
been totally rejected by Mr. Jinnah and has been opposed by the
Hindus and Sikhs of the Punjab and Hindus of Bengal.
PAKISTAN NOT A PRACTICABLE PROPOSITION
It is thus clear that Pakistan, whether whole, according to Mr.
Jinnahs ideals, or truncated, according to the C. R. Formula,
cannot be established without the consent of parties and will meet
with the strongest opposition. Arbitration has been ruled out and
is out of place when the fate of the entire country is to be
decided. The only alternatives for enforcing Pakistan are either
British enforcement of it or civil war. After considering the
problems of Defence of the sub-Continent and the position of
minorities after division, the report states the Committees
conclusion that Pakistan solves no communal problems and only
raises fresh ones : that on grounds of Defence, leaving apart
other major considerations, the division of the country into two
independent States will endanger the safety of both, and that
there is no justification for the British Government to support
such a revolutionary scheme if they have genuine faith in the
unity of India which they themselves have built up and fostered.
The report characterizes Prof. Couplands regional scheme as
fantastic, unreal and academic. Rejecting all schemes of
partition and division, the Committee concludes :
We are convinced that the partition of India would be an outrage
justified neither by history nor by political expediency. It is
incompatible with the greatness, safety and economic
development of the country and will lead either to constant
internecine war or perpetual foreign domination. It multiplies and
complicates the problem of
minorities without solving it and threatens to plunge India back
into the dark and dismal days of the 18th century. The
Committee feels certain that political unity can be maintained and
Hindus and Muslims can live together amicably as they have done
for a thousand years. The report proceeds to consider the
arrangements to be made by which India will remain united and
at the same time, afford the communities sufficient scope for self-
development. One of the Committees fundamental
recommendations in this regard is the provision by which in the
Union Assembly, excluding the seats given to special interests,
Muslim representation from British India will be on a par with the
representation given to Hindus excluding the Scheduled Castes.
The offer of parity is subject to the condition that joint electorates
with reservation of seats are introduced throughout, i. e., for all
elective bodies in the country and the Committee adds that,
should the Muslims not agree to this condition and insist on
separate electorates, not only should the offer stand withdrawn,
but the Hindus should be free to ask for a revision of the
Communal Award.
PROVISION FOR ADULT FRANCHISE
Another important recommendation is the provision for adult
franchise. If political power is to be transferred to an Indian
Democracy, so as to prevent its concentration in the hands of a
few, the risk of enfranchising the entire adult population should
be taken. Political consciousness among the masses has
awakened to a great extent and the last elections in 1937 were in
themselves a great educative force. The average man thinks more
and more in terms of politics and, if his judgment is faulty, he is
no better or no worse than the average voter in Europe, where
franchise has been in existence for some time. Before Pakistan
came to occupy the field, Muslim opinion generally seemed to
demand that the residuary powers should be lodged with the
Provinces, in order that the latter might have the fullest freedom
to legislate in matters which were not covered expressly by the
provisions enumerating the distribution of powers. Though the
case for a strong Centre is strong, the Committee, as a matter of
compromise and for the sake of peace and amity, recommended
the vesting of the residuary powers in the Provinces, in
accordance with the Muslim view. Mr. P. R. Das and some other
members disagree with this recommendation. While the subjects
allotted to the Centre are reduced to a minimum, it is provided
that the Centre shall have powers to co-ordinate legislation and
administration of different units when necessary as well as to
ensure the maintenance of the political integrity and economic
unity of India as a whole.
REPRESENTATION FOR COMMUNITIES
The Committee recommends that the constitution should provide
for representation of different communities in the Central
Executive on the basis of their strength in the Legislature. The
Cabinet will be a composite one only in the sense that
communities will be represented on it, but in the interests of
harmonious working the Prime Ministers choice of his colleagues
is not to be fettered. The Committee looks forward to the choice
of members to whatever community they may belong on the basis
of their political affiliations. The substitution of joint for separate
electorate should, by compelling candidates to seek support from
all communities, help the emergence of political parties each of
which will contain members of different communities. It is on
these considerations that composite instead of coalition
Governments have been envisaged. It is also provided that there
should be collective responsibility to the Legislature. The
Committee prefers the British model, namely that the Prime
Minister should choose his colleagues though a suggestion had
been made that the Swiss model, under which the Central
Legislature in joint session by single transferable vote elects the
Cabinet and the Ministers hold office for the duration of the life of
the Legislature, was made.
INDIAN STATES AND FEDERATION
Dealing with the Indian States, the Committee says that provision
should be made in the constitution for the accession from time to
time of Indian States as units of a Federation on such terms as
may be agreed upon but the establishment of the Indian Union
should not be contingent on the accession to the Federation of
any Indian State or of any minimum number of Indian States. The
Committee, therefore, contemplates that the Union need not be
identical with Federation and it may include States which have not
formally federated. The Committee say: Our recommendation is
that the new constitution should continue at least the unity that
now binds the States and British India, though the bond may not
be federal. Federation, we recognize, is a closer and a more
intimate and efficient bond and we earnestly hope that in due
course and after the fullest consultation and investigation, all the
Statesa few individually but the great majority organized in
groups and sub-federationswill have acceded as federated units
of the Union. The inherent difficulties of bringing about such a
happy consummation and the experience of negotiations which
Lord Linlithgow inaugurated and conducted between 1936 and
1939 do not encourage the hope that these consultations and
investigations can be successfully concluded, except with the
exercise of infinite patience and after lapse of several years. To
hang up the Federal Union of such units as are willing to federate
until some States, or a minimum number of States, or the last
hesitant State has agreed to accede, would be a policy which is
calculated to postpone indefinitely the elimination of foreign rule
and the achievement of full self-government. The Committee,
therefore, insists that the Union of India should be established
without any such waiting and that, while individual States might
take their own time to make up their minds as to whether they
would accede as federated units, all of them should, from the
outset, be treated as in the Union, united with each other and
with the rest of India through paramountcy at the Union Centre.
As regards paramountcy, the report says, British suzerainty,
which is the
mainspring of paramountcy jurisdiction today, will have to cease
to exist and the new
Union Centre, that is, the Federal Cabinet will come to exercise
that jurisdiction over the unfederated States. The Committee
hopes that the Rulers of States will not object to this inevitable
development. The Committee is also of the view that the Crown
Representative as a separate office should disappear and the
paramountcy jurisdiction now exercised by him should be
transferred to the Union Cabinet. It is suggested that the Minister
of the Union Cabinet should be in charge of the States affairs,
assisted by a reformed Political Department. The Minister should
also have a body of Indian Advisers to help him in administering
paramountcy jurisdiction over the unfederated States.
HEAD OF STATE
On the question of Head of the State, the Committee says : All
parties are agreed that the constitution should be based on Indian
independence and, therefore, in law and in fact the indefeasible
sovereignty of the people of India from whom alone all powers of
legislation and administration should be derive, should be
recognized. No foreign power should be allowed to exercise any
jurisdiction over the Indian Union and therefore the existing
practice by which all residuary powers are exercised by the United
Kingdom Parliament on the theory of the indestructible
sovereignty of the King in Parliament over the land through-out
the Kings dominions will not be acceptable to any school of
Indian political opinion. The Head of the State under the new
constitution should replace the present chief Executive with his
dual role as Viceroy and Crowns Representative. He will have
such powers as are given to him under the constitution as also
such other powers as are now vested in his Majesty the King,
including powers connected with the exercise of the functions of
the Crown in relation to Indian States. The Head of the State
cannot act arbitrarily but only on the advice of the Ministry. His
term of office may be for five years and ordinarily one person may
not hold if for more than one term.
MINORITY RIGHTS
Dealing with the rights of the Scheduled Castes and other
minorities, the Committee has provided that these communities
will in future be accorded by statute a place on the Executive and
will share in the responsibilities of administration. They will have
adequate voice in framing the constitution with safeguards
against hasty changes. They will have likewise the benefit of the
fundamental rights with power to have more important ones
enforced by the highest tribunal in the country. The Minorities
Commission will keep a jealous watch over their welfare and will
obtain relief when they are injured. The Committee hopes that
with their rights ensured and protected, the minorities will not
lose sight of their obligations to the sub-sections which exist in
their midst. As regards the Scheduled Castes, the Committee
recommends the continuation of the method of election
prescribed in the Poona Pact.
INDIANIZATION OF ARMED FORCES
Dealing with the question of Indianization of armed forces the
Committee says : Under any system of real self-government,
these must be in the charge of a member of a responsible
ministry. The disciplinary head of the armed forces, the
Commander-in-Chief, has to work under the orders of the Ministry
and, on the Dominion analogy, the supreme command of the
armed forces has to be vested in the Head of the State; Indian
statute law will make provision for the government of the armed
forces, the application of the British Army Act and any other
enactment of a similar nature to the Indian Army being done
away with. The Committee lays great stress on the creation and
rapid development of a National Army.
SECESSION
Dealing with the question of secession, the Committee takes
strong exception to the provision contained in the Cripps offer in
regard to secession. In the opinion of the Committee such a
provision amounts to the recognition of revolt from and
repudiates the constitution. It is, in essence, an extra-
constitutional act and common sense is against the constitution
recognizing it as a legal right to be unilaterally exercised at the
option of the unit. In the opinion of the Committee, the
constitution-making body should proceed on the basis of framing
the constitution for a single State as a safe- guard for minorities,
it is provided that no decision of the constitution- making body
will be valid unless it is supported by three-fourths of the
members present and voting. Valid decisions of the Constituent
Assembly must be binding on the British Government. The
Committee says that a stage has been reached when the British
Government can no longer evade responsibility. Therefore they
should not allow things to drift and the situation to deteriorate.
INTERIM GOVERNMENT
In conclusion the Committee makes an earnest appeal to all
communities and parties in the country to accept the principles
underlying its recommendation. In the event of there being no
agreement, the Committee calls upon His Majestys Government
to set up an interim Government at the Centre and proceed to
establish a suitable machinery for framing a new constitution,
substantially on the principles enuciated by it and to have it put
into operation at the earliest possible date by handing over all the
power now vested in them to the authorities establised
thereunder.
(CWMG Vol.89, Appendix I, pp 450-57, The Indian Annual
Register, 1945, Vol. II, pp. 176-8)

*****

V Excerpts from Stern Reckoning, A Survey of the Events
Leading Up To and Following the Partition of I ndia by GD
Khosla, Oxford Indian Paperbacks, Second Impression,
1999

The meaning and purport of Direct Action: were not left in
doubt. It meant good-bye to constitutional methods, the
forging of a pistol and using it. Mr. Jinnah declared, What we
have done today is the most historic act in our history. Never
have we in the whole history of the League done anything except
by constitutional methods and by constitutionalism. But now we
are obliged and forced into this position. This day we bid good-
bye to constitutional methods. (Chapter Two, Direct Action Day
and after, page 4)

Mr. Liaquat Ali Khan told the Associated Press of America that
Direct Action meant resorting to non-constitutional methods, and
that can take any form and whatever form may suit the conditions
under which we live. He added, We cannot eliminate any
method. Direct Action means any action against the law. Sardar
Abdul Rab Nishtar was reported to have said that Pakistan could
only be achieved by shedding blood and if opportunity arose, the
blood of non-Muslims must be shed, for Muslims are no believers
in ahimsa. Khwaja Nazimuddin (Home Minister in the Muslim
League Bengal Provincial Government) declared that Leaguers
were not pledged to non-violence. (Chapter Two, page 43)

A great deal of thought and argument went to shape the decision
of the League leaders. It was finally decided that Calcutta should
be the venue of the opening scene of the dark drama which the
whole of India was to witness during the course of the next
sixteen months and for this decision there were very good
reasons.

Bengal, on the other hand, had a powerful League Ministry with
Mr. Suhrawardy at its head, and in him the Qaid-i-Azam saw a
most efficient instrument for executing his design.

The position of Bengal and more particularly of Calcutta was
extremely important from the League point of view. Bengal was a
Muslim-majority province with a Muslim population of 54.3
percent (1941).

In Calcutta Hindus predominate in numbers, commercial and
professional wealth and experience, and resources and
organization; but in the course of events since the re-union of
Bengal has made Calcutta the richest prize in what is now a
Muslim majority province. (Note on the Causes of the Calcutta
Disturbances, August 1946, published by the Government of
Bengal, Home Department in 1946)

Mr. Suhrawardy undertook to shape the course of events in
Calcutta in a manner calculated to inspire awe in the minds of the
non-Muslims and to demonstrate to the world at large the
strength and solidarity of the protagonists of Pakistan. As minister
in charge of the portfolio of Law and Order, he made
arrangements for the transfer of Hindu police officers from all key
posts. On August 16, twenty-two police stations out of a total of
twenty-four were in charge of Muslim officials and the remaining
two were controlled by Anglo-Indians. The programme for the
fateful day was taken up with feverish activity.

A programme was drawn up and this was later elaborated and
given the widest publicity in the Muslim Press.

The published programme called for total hartal and complete
cessation of business on August 16. To this end Mr. Suhrawardys
government declared August 16 a public holiday throughout the
province.

The hartal contemplated was to be complete. It was to take the
form of a general strike in all spheres of civic, commercial and
industrial life.

Non-Muslims were also exhorted to join the hartal
and make common cause with the League in its
fight. A mass rally and meeting were to be held at
the foot of the Ochterlony Monument from 3 p.m.
onwards and Mr. Suhrawardy was to preside over
it. The Mayor of Calcutta wanted a million Muslims
to congregate in the maidan and give evidence of
their united strength. The programme reminded the
Muslims of what stuff they were made:
Muslims must remember that it was in Ramzan that
the Quran was revealed. It was in Ramzan that the
permission for Jehad was granted by Allah. It was
in Ramzan that the battle of Badr, the first open
conflict between Islam and heathenism was fought
and won by 313 Muslims; and again it was in
Ramzan that 10,00 under the Holy Prophet
conquered Mecca and established the kingdom of
Heaven and the commonwealth of Islam in Arabia.
The Muslim League is fortunate that it is starting its
action in this holy month.

Another leaflet containing a special prayer for the crusade is
worth quoting in full
Munajat For The Jehad
(To be said at every mosque after the Jumma
prayer)
It was in the month of Ramzan that the Holy Quran
was revealed. It was in this month of Ramzan that
313 Muslims were victorious through the grace of
God over many kaffirs in the battle of Badr and the
Jehad of Muslims commenced! It was in this month
that ten thousand Muslims marched to Mecca and
were conquerors and thus was the establishment of
the Kingdom of Islam.

By the grace of God, we are ten crores in India but
through bad luck we have become slaves of the
Hindus and the British. We are starting Jehad in
Your Name in this very month of Ramzan. We
promise before You that we entirely depend on You.
Pray make us strong in body and mind give Your
helping hand in all our actions make us victorious
over the kaffirs enable us to establish the
Kingdom of Islam in India and make proper
sacrifices for this jehad by the grace of God may
we build up in India the greatest Islamic kingdom in
the world. The Muslims in China, Manchuria,
Mongolia, Malaya, java and Sumatra are all fighting
for their freedom pray be Your grace they may
succeed.

A Bengali pamphlet Mugur (Club) concluded with a passionate
appeal:
The call to revolt comes from the Qaid-i-Azam of
the Muslim leaders. Braves, this is what we want.
This is the policy for the nation of heroes. For so
long we have been acting like beggars. We are glad
from the core of our hearts to hear this magnificent
news. This is what we have been eagerly waiting
for. God has granted to the Muslims in the month of
Ramzan what they have been clamouring for. The
day for an open fight which is the greatest desire of
the Muslim nation has arrived. Come, those who
want to rise to Heaven. Come, those who are
simple, wanting in peace of mind and who are in
distress. Those who are thieves, goondas, those
without strength of character and those who do not
say their prayers all come. The shining gates of
heaven have been opened for you. Let us enter in
thousands. Let us all cry out Victory to Pakistan,
Victory to the Muslim nation and Victory to the
army which has declared a jehad.

A leaflet bearing a picture of Mr. Jinnah with a sword in hand said:
The sword of Islam must be shining on the heavens
and will subdue all evil designs. We Muslims have
had the Crown and have ruled. Do not lose heart.
Be ready and take your swords. Think, you
Muslims, why we are under the kaffirs today. The
result of loving the kaffirs is not good. Oh kaffir, do
not be proud and happy. Your doom is not far and
the general massacre will come. We shall show our
glory with swords in hands and will have a special
victory.

Another leaflet asked Muslims to come into the arena with their
swords and change their tactics. We shall then see who will paly
with us, for rivers of blood will flow. We shall have the swords in
our hands and the noise of takbir. Tomorrow will be dooms day.
The following table gives the number of dead bodies collected and
disposed (of those that were killed on that one day alone, on 16
th

August, the Great Calcutta Killing, as it came to be called)
By government organizations 1182
By Anjuman Modiful Islam 761
By Hindu Satkar Samiti 1230
Total 3173

Comparative figures of persons wounded or killed in the course of
the riots are not available. The report of the Surgeon-General
based on the admissions to the various hospitals is to the
following effect:
Hindus admissions 2322, brought in dead 11, deaths 151
Muslims - admissions 1832, brought in dead 12, deaths 138
Others admissions 222, brought in dead 11, deaths 62
Unclassified brought in dead 174, deaths 11
(Excerpts from Chapter two, pp 44-66)

*****







Chapter 7

Unraveling the Mahatma

7.1 Why Gandhi failed
The circumstance under which Gandhi was killed is a sad
commentary on the ultimate failure of both Gandhis
mahatmahood and his political philosophy which
stubbornly refused to acknowledge ground reality.
Gandhis ultimate failure vivisection of the Hindu bhumi
and the pervasive anger of the Hindu community which
held him solely responsible for the vivisection, was the
inevitable climax caused by three factors first, his
monumental self-delusion till the very end about his brand
of non-violence, about the Muslim psyche and about the
inherent noble intentions of the imperial government;
second, Gandhis insistence on not just simultaneously
undertaking, but leading the two most urgent and equally
taxing missions of nation building through social
transformation and political independence; and third,
Gandhis insistence on continuing with his questionable
experiments in brahmacharya and outright refusal to
separate and keep apart his personal, inner quest from his
public, political career.
You are mistaken, Bapa; it is not an
experiment but an integral part of my yajna.
One may forgo an experiment; one cannot
forgo ones duty. Now if I regard a thing as a
part of my yajna a sacred duty I may
not give it up even if public opinion is wholly
against me. I am engaged in achieving self-
purification. The five cardinal observances
are the five props of my spiritual striving.
Brahmacharya is one of them. But all the
five constitute an indivisible whole. They are
inter-related and inter-dependent. If one of
them is broken, all are broken. That being
so, if in practice I resile in regard to
brahmacharya to please Mrs. Grundy
1
, I
jettison not only brahmacharya but truth,
ahimsa and all the rest. I do not allow
myself any divergence between theory and
practice in respect of the rest. If then I
temporize in the matter of brahmacharya,

1
Mrs. Grundy is the feminine equivalent to Tom, Dick
and Harry
would it not blunt the edge of my
brahmacharya and vitiate my practice of
truth?
2


Vivisection of the Indian nation was the inevitable result of
not merely Gandhis incapacity to handle politics as
practiced by Islam and Christian colonialism but also his
insistence that the INC be bound by his personal
preferences on all issues. What Gandhi liked or disliked
became the Congress creed in his lifetime
3
and the
Congress ideology after his death in spite of the fact that
he was not even a four-anna
4
member of the INC as he
kept pointing out repeatedly in his writings and speeches.
Gandhi even drafted all major and minor resolutions
including the one reproduced above on behalf of the
Congress Working Committee, insisting that his non-
violence was the only defining characteristic of the INC.

Vivisection of the Hindu bhumi became inevitable because
of Gandhis persistent obduracy in misreading the Muslim
psyche and his refusal to organize the nation to resist

2
Discussion with AV Thakkar, February 24, 1947, Mahatma Gandhi
The Last Phase, Vol. I, Bk. II, pp. 224-6, CWMG Vol. 94, page 41
3
After the arrest of the principal Congressmen in the August of 1942, the
unguided masses took the reins in their own hands and acted almost
spontaneously. If many acts of heroism and sacrifice are to their credit,
there were acts done which could not be included in non-violence. It is
therefore necessary for the Working Committee to affirm, for the guidance
of all concerned, that the policy of non-violence adopted in 1920 by the
Congress, continues unabated and that such non-violence does not include
burning of public property, cutting of telegraph wires, derailing of trains
and intimidation. The Working Committee is of opinion that the policy of
non-violence as detailed in the Congress resolution of 1920, since
expanded and explained from time to time, and action in accordance with
it, has raised India to a height never attained before. The Working
Committee is further of opinion that the constructive activities of the
Congress, beginning with the spinning-wheel and khadi as the centre, are
emblematic of the policy of non-violence and every other Congress
activity including what is known as the parliamentary programme, is
subservient to and designed to promote the constructive activities as
explained by Mahatma Gandhi. (Congress Working Committee resolution,
on or before December 11, 1945, The Hindu 12-12-1945. The resolution
drafted by Gandhiji was passed by the Congress Working Committee on
December 11, the concluding day of its five day session in Calcutta.
CWMG, vol. 89, page 25)
4
Indian currency denomination now not in use; six paise
made one anna.
vivisection by all and every means. Even at the height of
jihad in Bengal after August 1946, Gandhi maintained that
Islam meant only peace and that all heinous acts
perpetrated against the Hindus in the name of jihad was a
disgrace to the noble religion of Islam. In so far as
misreading the Muslim psyche, Time, in Gandhis mind
stood still between 1922 and 1946. Like in 1946, in 1922
too, after the Moplah jihad, Gandhi exculpated Islam on
the ground that some Muslims had condemned the
barbarity of the attacks against Hindus. To add insult to
grievous injury, Gandhi with towering arrogance believed
that his very gesture of writing about the massacre in
Young India must be as salve for the Malabar Hindu
victims. For the rest, Gandhis exposition has the usual
suggestio falsi arguments descending to reductio ad
absurdum.

Though the letters on the Moplah trouble
and the Mussulman attitude by Messrs
Keshav Menon and others have already
appeared in the Press, contrary to my wont I
publish the two communications for the
importance that attaches to them. Possibly
the fact of their publication in the pages of
Young India will be some balm for the
wounds that the Moplah madness has
inflicted on the Hindu heart. The writers
were entitled to give vent to their pent up
feelings. Maulana Hasrat Mohani is one of
our most courageous men. He is strong and
unbending. He is frank to a fault. In his
insensate hatred of the English Government
and possibly even of Englishmen in general,
he has seen nothing wrong in anything that
the Moplahs have done. Everything is fair in
love and war with the Maulana. He has made
up his mind that the Moplahs have fought for
their religion. And that fact (in his
estimation) practically absolves the Moplahs
from all blame. That is no doubt a travesty
of religion and morality. But to do irreligion
for the sake of religion is the religious creed
of Maulana Hasrat Mohani. I know it has no
warrant in Islam. I have talked to several
learned Mussulmans. They do not defend
Hasrat Mohanis attitude. I advise my
Malabar friends not to mind the Maulana. In
spite of his amazingly crude views about
religion, there is no greater nationalist or a
greater lover of Hindu-Muslim unity than the
Maulana. His heart is sound and superior to
his intellect, which, in my humble opinion,
has suffered aberration. The Malabar friends
are wrong in thinking that the Mussulmans
in general have not condemned or have in
any way approved of the various crimes
committed by the Moplahs. Islam protects
even in war women, children and old men
from molestation. Islam does not justify
jehad except under well-defined conditions.
So far as I know the law of Islam, the
Moplahs could not, on their own initiative,
declare jehad. Maulana Abdul Bari has
certainly condemned the Moplah excesses.

But what though the Mussulmans did not
condemn them? Hindu-Muslim friendship is
not a bargain. The very word friendship
excludes any such idea. If we have acquired
the national habit, the Moplah is every whit
a countryman as a Hindu. Hindus may not
attach greater weight to Moplah fanaticism
than to Hindu fanaticism. If instead of the
Moplahs, Hindus had violated Hindu homes
in Malabar, against whom would the
complaint be lodged? Hindus have to find
out a remedy against such occurrences, as
much as the Mussulmans. When a Hindu or
a Mussulman does evil, it is evil done by an
Indian to an Indian, and each one of us
must personally share the blame and try to
remove the evil. There is no other meaning
to unity than this. Nationalism is nothing, if
it is not at least this. Nationalism is greater
than sectarianism. And in that sense we are
Indians first and Hindus, Mussulmans,
Parsis, Christians after. Whilst, therefore, we
may regret Maulana Hasrat Mohanis attitude
on the Moplah question, we must not blame
the Mussulmans as a whole, nor must we
blame the Maulana as a Mussulman. We
should deplore the fact that one Indian does
not see the obvious wrong that our other
brethren have done. There is no unity, if we
must continuously look at things
communally. Critics may say, All this is
sheer nonsense, because it is so inconsistent
with facts. It is visionary. But my
contention is that we shall never achieve
solidarity unless new facts are made
(emphasis as in source) to suit the principle,
instead of performing the impossible feat of
changing the principle to suit existing facts. I
see nothing impossible in Hindus, as
Indians, trying to wean the Moplahs, as
Indians, from their error. I see nothing
impossible in asking the Hindus to develop
courage and strength to die before accepting
forced conversion. I was delighted to be told
that there were Hindus who did prefer the
Moplah hatchet to forced conversion. If
these have died without anger or malice,
they have died as truest Hindus because
they were truest among Indians and men.
And thus would these men have died even if
their persecutors had been Hindus instead of
Mussulmans. Hindu-Muslim unity will be a
very cheap and tawdry affair, if it has to
depend upon mere reciprocation. Is a
husbands loyalty dependent upon the wifes,
or may a wife be faithless because the
husband is a rake? Marriage will be a sordid
thing when the partners treat their conduct
as a matter of exchange, pure and simple.
Unity is like marriage. It is more necessary
for a husband to draw closer to his wife
when she is about to fall. Then is the time
for a double outpouring of love. Even so is it
more necessary for a Hindu to love the
Moplah and the Mussulman more, when the
latter is likely to injure him or has already
injured him. Unity to be real must stand the
severest strain without breaking. It must be
an indissoluble tie. And I hold that what I
have put before the country in the foregoing
lines is a simple selfish idea. Does a Hindu
love his religion and country more than
himself? If he does, it follows that he must
not quarrel with an ignorant Mussulman who
neither knows country nor religion. The
process is like that of the world-famed
woman who professed to give up her child to
her rival instead of dividing it with the
lattera performance that would have
suited the latter admirably.

Let us assume (which is not the fact) that
the Mussulmans really approve of all that
the Moplahs have done. Is the compact,
then, to be dissolved? And when it is
dissolved, will the Hindus be any better off
for the dissolution? Will they revenge
themselves upon the Moplahs by getting
foreign assistance to destroy them and their
fellow Mussulmans, and be content to be for
ever slaves? Non-co-operation is a universal
doctrine, because it is as applicable to family
relations as to any other. It is a process of
evolving strength and self-reliance. Both the
Hindus and Mussulmans must learn to stand
alone and against the whole world, before
they become really united. This unity is not
to be between weak parties, but between
men who are conscious of their strength. It
will be an evil day for Mussulmans if, where
they are in a minority, they have to depend
for the observance of their religion upon
Hindu goodwill and vice-versa. Non-co-
operation is a process of self-realization. But
this self-realization is impossible; if the
strong become brutes and tread upon the
weak. Then, they must be trodden under by
the stronger. Hence, if Hindus and
Mussulmans really wish to live as men of
religion, they must develop strength from
within. They must be both strong and
humble. Hindus must find out the causes of
Moplah fanaticism. They will find that they
are not without blame. They have hitherto
not cared for the Moplah. They have either
treated him as a serf or dreaded him. They
have not treated him as a friend and
neighbour, to be reformed and respected. It
is no use now becoming angry with the
Moplahs or the Mussulmans in general.
Whilst Hindus have a right to expect
Mussulman aid and sympathy, the problem
is essentially one of self-help, i.e.,
development of strength from within. It
would be a sad day for Islam if the defence
of the Khilafat was to depend upon Hindu
help. Hindu help is at the disposal of the
Mussulmans, because it is the duty of the
Hindus, as neighbours, to give it. And whilst
Mussulmans accept help so ungrudgingly
given, their final reliance is and must be
upon God. He is the never-failing and sole
Help of the helpless. And so let it be with the
Hindus of Malabar.
5




7.2 Embers of Hindu disaffection
As events of 1946-47 turned out, Gandhis passive
resistance proved tragic only for the Hindus in August
1946 and again in August 1947, and did not impress the
Muslims or the colonial government which therefore never
felt coerced or pressured to give in to Gandhis demands;
and for whose politics moreover, conquest of territory of
other nations and the subjugation of people practicing
other religions and faiths constituted the primary
objective. Both the Muslim community and the British
government ultimately demonstrated that their respective
political objectives with regard to the Hindu bhumi were
not open to compromise or negotiation because of
Gandhis passive resistance or perceived sainthood.

The Muslim League, like the Khilafat Committee in 1922,
faithfully represented Muslim interests and was the vehicle
for Islams political objectives to carve out a Muslim state
from the body of the Hindu nation, but Gandhis Indian
National Congress never consciously represented Hindu
interests, as Gandhis last and most important political
decision, to abort the Cabinet Mission proposals, proves
conclusively. This book aims to stoke the embers of the
myth of Gandhis infallibility and aims also to open the
wounds of the Hindu nation as the first step towards
dealing with the core issues of nation and nationhood.

Gandhis political hubris, which wanted to handle not just
domestic politics but international politics too (he met with
Mussolini in Italy, he addressed an open letter to the
British people during the Second World War, he wrote
twice to Hitler, he offered to mediate between the Allies

5
Gandhis exposition in Young India on the Moplah Massacre, Young
India, 26-1-1922, CWMG Vol. 26 pp 24-27

and Hitler, and he wrote a letter to Franklin Roosevelt
when he announced the Quit India mass Civil
Disobedience campaign), wasted his immense capacity to
bring about social transformation and change. In the end,
he merely dabbled in both and incurred the wrath of both
the leaders of the INC and also the entire non-Congress
Hindu community. His political activism ended in
vivisection leaving behind a legacy of Hindu-Muslim,
Hindu-Christian communal tensions, even as successive
Congress governments genuflected to political opportunism
and trashed his spinning wheel, gave prohibition the go-
by, neglected agriculture and village industry, and
consigned our villages to the margins of political planning
and responsibility. There was significant anger and
displeasure against Gandhi -
for exposing ordinary Hindus to the repressive
might of British state power with his satyagraha
for weakening the INC which could not halt the
triumphant growth and march of the Muslim League
for occupying all the political space like a Banyan
tree without allowing the emergence or growth of
alternate leadership within the INC and outside
for promoting and finally anointing, in 1942, the
explicitly anti-Hindu and ideologically clueless
Nehru as his political heir,
for antagonizing and alienating all Hindu rulers,
Maharajas and Princes
for his insensitive experiments with women till the
very end of his life and
For the most heinous crime of all the bloody
vivisection of the Hindu nation.

The disaffection of very large sections of Hindus with
Gandhi must be seen in the context of his persistent anti-
Hindu coercive policies and methods which were perceived
initially, in the early years of his political career in India
after his return from South Africa
as pandering to Muslim religious sensibilities when
he flirted with the Ali brothers and compelled the
INC to take up the cause of the distant caliphate to
please them;
as having caused the unchallenged growth of the
Muslim League when he failed to neutralize Jinnah
as effectively as he neutralized our own leaders
Ambedkar and Bose;
And in the very end as appeasement of the Islamic
state of Pakistan when he coerced Patel to release
treasury funds to Pakistan in spite of the fact that
Pakistan had invaded the state of Jammu and
Kashmir and had illegally occupied nearly one-third
of Indian territory

Indeed, consistent with Gandhis fads becoming the
Congress creed, serving the Muslims has
metamorphosed into a hard-core Muslim appeasement
political ideology that goes by the name of Nehruvian
secularism today. Hinduisms venerable religious leaders,
sanyasis and great acharyas, for as long as Islam occupied
this nation, in stark contrast to Gandhi, never sought
Hindu-Muslim unity; in fact, from the total absence of any
reference to the Muslims and Christians in their speech and
writing it is evident that these faiths and their adherents
existed only on their civilizational horizon; and in their
infinite wisdom they left it to Hindu society to deal with
them through social institutions and through the
instruments of their polity.

The most serious charge that this book seeks to place at
Gandhis door, besides politically de-Hinduising and un-
manning the Congress is that he failed to carry along with
him significant sections of the Hindu samaj; he did not
even try. Gandhis adamant refusal to forge partnerships
with different social groups and power centers in the Hindu
community may be attributed in turn to Gandhis failure to
define and therefore distinguish between us and them, a
necessary exercise to define the basis of our nation and
nationhood, and his failure to grasp the centrality of
territory to the health and very survival of a nation. For a
man consumed by the towering ambition to handle politics
and decide the destiny of a nation, Gandhi failed or refused
to understand the core politico-religious objective of Islam
or the underlying cause for White Christian colonialism
claiming territory without subscribing to the nationhood.
Gandhi insisted that he had read the Koran and understood
it better than most Indian converts to Islam and that he
could state confidently that Islam meant only peace; this
causes grave misgivings about Gandhis understanding
because even a cursory reading of the Koran would have
revealed that it leads inexorably only towards two ends
control of state power over the whole of the territory of
non-Muslims, failing which breaking up a nation and
seizing its territory to carve out an Islamic state. Gandhi
ought to have learnt this lesson from the history of this
bhumi or at least after the Moplah jihad but that he did not
do so indicates that he did not have a sense of us and
them and therefore did not have a sense of Hindu nation
and nationhood.

7.3 Gandhis anti-Hindu coercion and its legacy
Till the very end, until his death, only the INC felt the
pressure of Gandhis coercive methods and only Hindus of
this nation paid the price. The nation has to confront and
acknowledge the truth that coercion of the kind Gandhi
practiced is also violence. Gandhis passive resistance and
penitential fasts undertaken to emphasize a moral
principle or for what Gandhi termed were moral lapses of
others, or the fasts that he undertook to attain political
objectives (like the fast he undertook against the ruler of
Rajkot, or the one he threatened to undertake in Bihar in
1946- 47 if the Hindus of Bihar did not stop the retaliatory
violence against the Muslims or the last fast before his
death against Patels decision not to release treasury funds
to Pakistan), were acts of covert violence in the guise of
self-suffering akin to self-flagellation, aimed however only
at disarming the Hindu community.
And since I claim to have better appreciation
than you seem to have shown of what Bihari
Hindus should do, I cannot rest till I have
done some measure of penance.
Predominantly for reasons of health, I had
put myself on the lowest diet possible soon
after my reaching Calcutta. That diet now
continues as a penance after the knowledge
of the Bihar tragedy. The low diet will
become a fast unto death, if the erring
Biharis have not turned over a new leaf.
There is no danger of Bihar mistaking my act
for anything other than pure penance as a
matter of sacred duty.
6


Not surprisingly, his threatened fast did not go down well
either with Patel, Rajendra Prasad and Rajaji or with the
Hindus of Bihar who saw his threat as being coercive of the
Hindu community. No friend should run to me for
assistance or to show sympathy. I am surrounded by
loving friends. It would be wholly wrong and irrelevant for
any other person to copy me. No sympathetic fast or semi-
fast is called for, declared Gandhi in the same letter. But
far from rushing to his assistance or undertaking even a

6
To Bihar, Sodepur, November 6, 1946, Harijan, 10-11-1946, CWMG,
Vol. 92, page 452
semi-fast, the stalwarts who constituted the core group in
the INC, had been opposed even to Gandhis tour of
Bengal. They did not want to run the risk of Gandhis tour
of riot-torn Bengal being perceived by the Muslim League
government as Congress pressure tactics for fear that the
League government (which unlike the Congress
government in Bihar was actively encouraging Muslim
violence, rape and forced conversions), would most likely
re-double its support for even greater violence against the
Bengal Hindus. Muslims constituted 14% then of Bihars
total population and that was no very small minority as
Gandhi opined, and his fear that the retaliatory violence by
Bihar Hindus against the Muslims of the province would
sour the Muslims in the rest of India has been Indian
politys intellectual refrain till today to exert pressure on
Hindus and stopping them by use of state force if
necessary, from responding effectively to continuing
Muslim violence and separatism.
Two telegrams from Patna reprove me on
my threatened fast. Threatened is the
word used in one of the wires. My proposed
fast is not meant to coerce anyone; it is
meant to quicken the dead conscience into
life. Those who act from fear harm
themselves and the cause they profess to
serve. Surely, it is as plain as A. B. C. that
the action of the Biharis in injuring the very
small minority of Muslims in Bihar must
postpone the day of Indias independence
and ultimately sour Muslims all over India
unless Bihar repents her folly of senseless
and cowardly violence. Rashtrapati Acharya
Kripalani, whom every Bihari knows for his
sterling services, Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru,
Dr. Rajendra Prasad and now Maulana Abul
Kalam Azad and Shri Jayaprakash Narayan
are now in Bihar and expect to show fair
Bihar that their terrible ill-treatment of the
Muslims is communalism of the worst type
and is calculated to defeat the growing
nationalism of Bihar. I, therefore, warn
everyone from abusing my contemplated
fast which is in no way intended to deflect
anyone from what he believes is the course
of duty for him.
7


The grouping clause in the Cabinet Missions Statement of
May16 alone could have averted, at that point in our
history, the Muslim Leagues unchallenged march towards
carving out an Islamic state from the body of the Hindu
nation; going along with the Cabinet Mission would not
only have made it difficult for the British government to
implement its covert agenda but would have
simultaneously prevented the blood-letting in Bengal,
Bihar and the Punjab. And yet, Gandhi inexplicably,
remained adamant about rejecting the grouping clause and
his refusal to allow the Congress to go ahead with the
formation of the Interim Government and subsequently
advising them to reject the Constituent Assembly too on
the basis of the original Statement, as described in the
earlier chapter, led inexorably to Direct Action and finally
to bloody vivisection.

Had Gandhi not de-Hinduised and un-manned the
Congress, the Congress would have gone along with the
grouping clause with the determination to neutralize it with
violence if need be, after transfer of power. But Gandhi
was no Kautilya and with no sense of vairajya, Gandhi
prescribed Islamic rule over the Hindu nation rather than
stopping the Muslim League from vivisecting the nation.
The greatest coercion is British coercion. And
the Congress is impatient to get out of that
coercion. My hope in desiring a Constituent
Assembly is that whether the Muslims are
represented by the Muslim League mentality
or any other, the representatives when they
are face to face with the reality will not think
of cutting up India according to religions but
will regard India as an indivisible whole and
discover a national, i.e. Indian solution of
even specially Muslim questions. But if the
hope is frustrated, the Congress cannot
forcibly resist the express will of the Muslims
of India. Needless to say the Congress can
never seek the assistance of British forces to
resist the vivisection. It is the Muslims who
will impose their will by force singly or with

7
Statement to the press, Chaumuhani, November 9, 1946, The Hindu 11-
11-1946, CWMG, Vol. 93, page 16
British assistance on an unresisting India. If
I can carry the Congress with me, I would
not put the Muslims to the trouble of using
force. I would be ruled by them for it would
still be Indian rule. In other words, the
Congress will have only a non-violent
approach to every question and difficulty
arising.
8


However, given the utter weakness of the Congress vis a
vis the Muslim Leagues avowal of violence to attain its
political objectives, Gandhi depicted the grouping clause as
a threat for greater concern than the de-Hinduising and
un-manning of the Congress. He therefore used the
grouping clause to abort the Cabinet Mission, a move that
led to Jinnahs call for Direct Action.

7.4 How Gandhi dealt with j ihad; And its victims
The manner in which Gandhi, the INC and the ordinary
people dealt with the consequences of the Leagues call for
Direct Action has salutary lessons for Hindus today. When
Gandhi aborted the Cabinet Mission and Jinnah saw the
prospects of achieving Pakistan without blood-letting
through the agency of the Cabinet Mission proposals fading
away, he called for Direct Action on August 16, 1946. The
call for Direct Action by the Muslim League was nothing
less than open incitement to Muslims to let loose violence
against the Hindus. It is estimated that around five
thousand Hindus were killed in Calcutta alone on that
single day. What followed was organized jihad in the cause
of setting up an Islamic state in the land of the kaffirs and
the 1946 jihad by Indian Muslims against the Hindus of
India included abduction and rape of Hindu women,
forcible conversion to Islam, terrorizing Hindu victims to
eat beef, destruction of temples, vandalizing Hindu homes,
and driving away Hindus from their villages.

This was jihad, the Muslim League announced it was jihad
and Gandhi knew it was jihad. Yet, Gandhi did not rush to
Bengal. He remained in Delhi like a mill-stone around the
Congress neck, obstructing, at every step, the Working
Committee, in its negotiations with the Viceroy and the
Muslim League. So strong was his desire to play politics in

8
Question Box, Ramgarh, MARCH 17, 1940 Harijan, 23-3-1940,
CWMG Vol. 78 page 66

Delhi that Gandhi brushed aside pointed questions about
why he was not going to Bengal with the answer that
much as he wanted to, he could not do so until he heard
the inner voice.

In the course of the talk, one of them asked
Gandhiji whether he would recommend
fasting to check the orgy of communal
madness that was spreading in Bengal.
Gandhijis reply was in the negative. He
narrated how a valuable colleague from
Ahmedabad had invited him to immolate
himself. We believe in the nonviolent way
but lack the strength. Your example would
steady our wavering faith and fortify us.
The logic was perfect and the temptation
great. But I resisted it and said no. There is
no inner call. When it comes, nothing will
keep me back. I have reasoned with myself
too about it. But I need not set forth my
reasons. Let people call me a coward if they
please. I have faith that when the hour
arrives God will give me the strength to face
it and I wont be found unready. Fasting
cannot be undertaken mechanically. It is a
powerful thing but a dangerous thing if
handled amateurishly. It requires complete
self-purification, much more than is required
in facing death without a thought of
retaliation.
9

Gandhi stayed on in Delhi and confined himself to offering
unrealistic prescriptions
I can never subscribe to the view that
because certain members of a particular
community have indulged in inhuman acts,
therefore the whole community may be
condemned outright and put beyond the
pale. The Muslim League may call Hindus
names and declare India to be Dar-ul-Harb,
where the law of jehad operates and all
Muslims who co-operate with the Congress
are Quislings fit only to be exterminated. But
we must not cease to aspire, in spite of this
wild talk, to befriend all Mussalmans and

9
Discussion with co-workers, On or before October 18, 1946, Harijan, 2-
10-1946, CWMG, Vol. 92, page 345
hold them fast as prisoners of our love. It
would be a present possibility if Hindus in
their lakhs offered themselves to be cut to
pieces without retaliation or anger in their
hearts.

The Muslim Leaguers have today raised the
slogan that ten crores of Indian Muslims are
in danger of being submerged and swept out
of existence unless they constitute
themselves into a separate State. I call that
slogan scare-mongering pure and simple. It
is nonsense to say that any people can
permanently crush or swamp out of
existence one fourth of its population, which
the Mussalmans are in India. But I would
have no hesitation in conceding the demand
of Pakistan if I could be convinced of its
righteousness or that it is good for Islam.
But I am firmly convinced that the Pakistan
demand as put forth by the Muslim League
is un-Islamic and I have not hesitated to call
it sinful. Islam stands for the unity and
brotherhood of mankind, not for disrupting
the oneness of the human family. Therefore,
those who want to divide India into possibly
warring groups are enemies alike of India
and Islam.
10


Gandhi was fiddling with politics even as Bengal burned
and even as the Muslim League government in Bengal
presided benignly over the raging jihad against the Hindus.
Gandhi left for Bengal only at the very end of October. A
full two and a half months had elapsed since the fateful
day in August; and the destruction of Hindu lives
implemented with the total support of Bengals Muslim
League government, was complete and irreversible.

When Gandhi arrived in Bengal, the fire of jihad had
burned itself out completely and Gandhi tested the
infallibility of his non-violence only on its dying embers.
Between November 1946 and March 1947, Gandhi visited

10
Answers to questions, New Delhi, On or after September 23, 1946, Harijan, 10-
11-1946, Extracted from Pyarelals report under the title Some Posers. The
questions were asked by the Presidents and Secretaries of various Provincial
Congress Committees who had assembled in Delhi for the A. I. C. C. session held
on September 23 and 24. CWMG Vol. 92 pp 226-230
forty villages in Noakhali and seven in Tipperah, covering a
distance of 116 miles, sometimes on foot. He put himself
on a low diet because he knew that not only would the
Muslim League government and the Muslims of Bengal be
unimpressed with a fast-unto-death, but also that his fast
would not reverse anything that had happened to the
Hindus. Gandhis fast could not have turned the clock back
those that had been killed would not return, victims of
rape remained victims of rape, abducted women were not
released, those forcibly converted to Islam were not
allowed to re-convert, and the terror-struck Hindus who
fled for their lives from East Bengal - from Noakhali and
Tipperah, never returned to their homes and villages
again. Acts of jihad are irreversible and when Muslims
undertake jihad against Hindus, they do a thorough job of
it. Gandhi therefore did not even try peddling non-violence
to them and needless to say, he did not undertake one of
his penitential fasts to atone for the moral lapse of the
Muslims.

So why did Gandhi go to Bengal? But today he was not
going to East Bengal as a Congressman. He was going
there as a servant of God. If he could wipe away the tears
of outraged women, he would be more than satisfied.
11

After wiping away their tears, he berated the Hindus for
their cowardice, and advised the women to commit
suicide rather than submit to rape and forcible
conversions.
Gandhiji advised the women in East Bengal
to commit suicide by poison or some other
means to avoid dishonour. Yesterday he told
the women to suffocate themselves or to
bite their tongues to end their lives. But two
doctors, B. C. Roy of Calcutta and Sushila
Nayyar, had informed him that such means
of suicide were impossible. The only way
known to medicine for instant self-
immolation was a strong dose of poison. If
this was so, he, the speaker, would advise
everyone running the risk of dishonour to
take poison before submission to dishonour.
He had, however, heard from those given to
yogic practices that it was possible by some
yogic practice to end life. He would try to

11
Speech at Kushtia, November 6, 1946, The Bombay Chronicle, 7-11-
1946, CWMG, Vol. 92, page 455
inquire. His was not an idle idea. He meant
all he had said.
12

The tragedy is not that so many Muslims
have gone mad, but that so many Hindus in
East Bengal have been witnesses to these
things. If every Hindu in East Bengal had
been done to death, I would not have
minded it. Do you know what the Rajputs
did? They killed their womenfolk when they
issued forth to sacrifice themselves on the
battlefield. The surviving ones immolated
themselves by mounting the funeral pyre
before the fortress fell rather than allow
themselves to be captured and dishonoured.
There is nothing courageous in thousands of
Mussalmans killing out a handful of Hindus
in their midst, but that the Hindus should
have degraded themselves by such
cowardice, i.e., being witness to abduction
and rape, forcible conversion and forcible
marriage of their womenfolk, is
heartrending.
13


Notwithstanding the fact that what Gandhi was seeing in
Bengal was naked jihad, he told the Hindus of Bengal not
to retaliate by picking up arms against the Muslims
because the Muslims had assured Gandhi that they wanted
peace and also that Islam did not permit abduction of
women or forcible conversion; the inference being that if
some Muslim League politician told Gandhi something to
get him out of Bengal, Gandhi expected the Hindus of
Bengal to trust the Muslim League or else trust Gandhis
faith in the Muslim League and his interpretation of Islam.
The Hindus, said Gandhiji, might say: did
not the Muslims start the troubles? He
wanted them not to succumb to the
temptation for retort but to think of their
own duty and say firmly that whatever
happened they would not fight. He wanted
to tell them that the Muslims who were with

12
Speech at a prayer meeting, New Delhi October 18, 1946, The Hindusthan
Times, 19-10-1946, CWMG Vol. 92, page 355
13
Talk to relief workers, Harijan, 8-12-1946; and Mahatma GandhiThe Last
Phase, Vol. I, Book II, pp. 20-1, CWMG, Vol. 93, page 11



him in the course of the day had assured
him that they wanted peace.
14

I have heard nothing but condemnation of
these acts from Shaheed Suhrawardy
downwards since I have come here. Words
of condemnation may tickle your ears, but
they are no consolation to the unfortunate
women whose houses have been laid
desolate or who have been abducted,
forcibly converted and forcibly married.
What a shame for Hindus, what a disgrace
for Islam!
15

He had heard of forcible conversions, forcible
feeding of beef, abductions and forcible
marriages, not to talk about murders, arson
and loot. They had broken idols. The
Muslims did not worship them nor did he.
But why should they interfere with those
who wished to worship them? These
incidents are a blot on the name of Islam.
He said: I have studied the Koran. The very
word Islam means peace. The Muslim
greeting Salam Alaikum is the same for all,
whether Hindus or Muslims or any other.
Nowhere does Islam allow such things as
had happened in Noakhali and Tippera.
Shaheed Saheb and all the Ministers and
League leaders who met me in Calcutta have
condemned such acts unequivocally.
16


Nowhere does Islam allow such things as had happened in
Noakhali and Tippera, said Gandhi and yet, in the same breath
he cites the example of the Rajputs and their women who
preferred death to dishonour. But Gandhi ought to have known
that the Rajputs and their women opted for death only as a last
resort after fighting the jihadis till the very end; they opted for
death only as helpless and defeated victims of jihad, not because
they refused to pick up arms and not because they were cowards.
The history of the expansion of Islam and Christianity across the

14
Speech at prayer meeting, Sodepur, November 5, 1946, harijan, 17-11-1946,
CWMG, Vol. 92, page 450
15
Talk to relief workers, Chandpur, November 7, 1946, Harijan, 1-12-1946,
CWMG Vol. 93, page 1
16
Speech at prayer meeting, Chaumuhani, November 7, 1946, Harijan 24-
11-1946, CWMG, Vol. 93, page 10. Idea by idea Gandhis exposition in
1946 is identical to his exposition in 1942 as shown earlier in the chapter.
globe is the story only about the annihilation of entire cultures,
civilizations and religions and yet Gandhi asks the Hindus of
Bengal to trust his faith in the nobility of Islam and the sincerity
of the Muslim League government and not to pick up arms!

On the one hand Gandhi asked Hindus to commit suicide and on
the other he pleaded with the Muslims to protect the Hindus, but
he pleaded in vain; he walked for communal harmony, to get
Hindus and Muslims of Bengal to live as blood brothers as he
put it, but he walked in vain. For dramatic effect, he repeatedly
kept the possibility of his death as the ultimate sacrifice in the
public domain but if truth be told, no sacrifice of the kind he
talked about was made; he did not choose to die. Instead Hindus
died as victims of relentless jihad while Gandhi preferred death of
Hindus by the thousands rather than that they should seek
revenge by use of arms. He had nothing but empty prescriptions
to give the Hindus of Bengal
I know the women of Bengal better than
probably the Bengalis do. Today they feel
crushed and helpless. The sacrifice of myself
and my companions would at least teach
them the art of dying with self-respect. It
might open, too, the eyes of the oppressors
and melt their hearts. I do not say that the
moment my eyes are closed theirs will open.
But that will be the ultimate result I have
not the slightest doubt. If ahimsa
disappears, Hindu Dharma disappears.
17

Question: How can we create a sense of
security and self-confidence?
Gandhiji: By learning to die bravely. Let us
turn our wrath against ourselves. I am not
interested in getting the police substituted
by the military or the Muslim police by the
Hindu police. They are broken reeds.
Q: To whom should we appealthe
Congress, the League or the British
Government?
Gandhiji: To none of these. Appeal to
yourselves, therefore to God.
We are menmade of flesh and blood. We
need some material support.
Gandhiji: Then appeal to your own
flesh and blood. Purify it of all dross.

17
Discussion with co-workers, Dattapara, November 13, 1946, Harijan,
24-11-1946, CWMG Vol. 93, page 25
A woman worker: What is your idea of
rehabilitation?
Gandhiji: Not to send them to Assam
and West Bengal but to
infuse courage in them so that they are
not afraid to stay in their original
homes.
Q: How is that possible?
Gandhiji: You must stay in their midst
and say to them: We shall die to the
last person before a hair of your head
is injured. Then you will produce
heroines in East Bengal.
That was once our idea too.
Gandhiji: I do not mind if each and
every one of the 500 families in your
area is done to death. Here you are 20
per cent of the population. In Bihar,
the Muslims constitute only 14 per
cent.
18


As Gandhi walked from village to village, wiping tears, he
came upon a family that had lost nine of its members.
Gandhi had only more empty words of fatalism to offer to
the grief-stricken family.
My heart weeps not to man but to God.
I have not come here to make people
weep. Gandhiji said that man could do
nothing but surrender himself
completely to the will of God, as
everything happens by His will. Great
empires had crumbled down. Hitler had
desired to conquer the world. What had
become of him? People here, as
elsewhere, sometimes went mad, but
on that account there should be no ill-
will between Hindus and Muslims,
because they were brothers.
Gandhiji visited a ruined house during
his walk from Amishapara to Satgharia.
The inmates of the house told him that
they had nothing to offer him except

18
Talk to relief workers, Chaumuhani, On or after November 7, 1946, Harijan, 8-
12-1946; and Mahatma GandhiThe Last Phase, Vol. I, Book II, pp. 20-1,
CWMG, Vol. 93, pp 11-12
ashes, for they had lost nine members
of the family in the riots.
19


Gandhi was forced to defend his non-violence when he
realized that contrary to his decades-long propaganda that
non-violence could be practiced by all even under the most
trying circumstances, it was being proved in Bengal that
his non-violence was only for individuals, not for groups,
much less for an entire community or a nation.
20
Gandhi
also was forced to acknowledge that he was failing
personally, his ahimsa was not working in Bengal, was not
working in a situation of communal riots triggered,
instigated and fanned by jihad. For as long as Gandhi had
preached non-violence to the Hindus of India, he had
never tested it on the crucible of jihad and the Hindu
response to it.
Truth and ahimsa by which I swear,
and which have, to my knowledge,
sustained me for sixty years, seem to
fail to show the attributes I have
ascribed to them. To test them, or
better, to test myself, I am going to a
village called Srirampur
21

Gandhiji was next asked regarding the
report that he found himself in
darkness, and why and when the
darkness came over him and whether
he saw any release from it. Gandhiji
said: I am afraid the report is
substantial. Outside circumstances
have never overwhelmed me. The
reason for the present darkness lies
within me. I find that my ahimsa does
not seem to answer in the matter of

19
Talk with riot victims, February 2, 1946, The Hindu, 3-
2-1947, Vol. 93, page 358
20
Non-violence is not meant to be practiced by the individual only. It can be and
has to be practiced by society as a whole. I have come to test that for myself in
Noakhali. Has my ahimsa become bankrupt? If I fail here, it wont be any proof
that the theory is wrong. It will simply mean that my sadhana has been imperfect,
that there is some fault somewhere in my technique. (Discussion with SC Bose and
others, Srirampur, November 24, 1946, Harijan, 12-1-1947; and Mahatma
GandhiThe Last Phase, Vol. I, Book II, pp. 48-50, CWMG, Vol. 93, page 63.

21
Statement to the press, November 20, 1946, Harijan, 1-12-1946, CWMG, Vol.
93, page 47

Hindu-Muslim relations. This struck me
forcibly when I came to learn of the
events in Noakhali. The reported
forcible conversions and the distress of
the Bengali sisters touched me deeply.
I could do nothing through pen or
speech. I argued to myself that I must
be on the scene of action and test the
soundness of the doctrine which has
sustained me and made life worth
living. Was it the weapon of the weak
as it was often held by my critics or
was it truly the weapon of the strong?
The question arose in me when I had
no ready-made solution for the
distemper of which Noakhali was such
a glaring symptom. And so setting
aside all my activities, I hastened to
Noakhali to find out where I stood. I
know positively that ahimsa is a perfect
instrument. If it did not answer in my
hands, the imperfection was in me. My
technique was at fault. I could not
discover the error from a distance.
Hence I came here trying to make the
discovery. I must, therefore, own
myself in darkness till I see light. God
only knows when it will come.
22

Gandhiji lastly said that today he was
seeking for a non-violent solution for
his own sake alone. For the time being,
he had given up searching for a non-
violent remedy applicable to the
masses. He had yet to see if non-
violence would prove successful in the
present crisis or not.
23



7.5 Gandhis preoccupation with brahmacharya
eroded his moral authority
Gandhi was in the throes of a deep, personal crisis; he was
compelled to confront the bitter truth that his moral

22
Interview to the press, Srirampur, December 2, 1946, Harijan, 19-1-
1947, CWMG Vol. 93, page 92
23
Interview to Deobhankar, December 9, 1946, My Days with Gandhi, pp.
102-4, CWMG, Vol. 93, page 125
authority was eroding within the INC and with a very large
segment of the Hindu community. Gandhi privately
agonized that he was failing, that his ahimsa was failing at
the time of crisis and also that he could not emerge from
the darkness that had engulfed him. But Gandhis agony
and despair that he was failing was not known to the
outside world; no one except his close associates knew
that Gandhi was going through the worst crisis of his life.
Certainly the world media which kept close to his heels did
not suspect it.

And so setting aside all my activities, I hastened to
Noakhali said Gandhi to the press but we know that
Gandhi was taking habitual liberties with the truth. He had
not hastened to Noakhali as we know and he had not set
aside all activities. When for the first time since Gandhis
writ had come to be accepted as final in the INC, the
Working Committee overruled his objections to first
consent to entering the Constituent Assembly and then
forming the Interim Government too, Gandhi realized his
authority was beginning to wear thin. His friends of several
years standing had begun to distance themselves from
him; he decided to go to Bengal nearly three months after
the riots started only because he had to do something to
regain the moral high ground which alone gave him
overriding powers in politics. Gandhi termed his activities
in Bengal a yagna and in a letter to GD Birla he says his
yagna rested on five pillars, three of which were satya,
ahimsa and brahmacharya. Considering Gandhi chose to
give his words and actions the fig-leaf of dharmic
principles, Gandhis yagna and its ultimate failure will be
judged only from the Hindu perspective.

The objective of this book is to analyze the causes for the
political disempowerment of Hindus; one important cause
is the failure to link the countrys freedom movement after
the advent of Gandhi to the basis of its nationhood. Since
Gandhi sought cover in profound Hindu concepts, we will
go on to show a little later in this chapter how Gandhi had
a peculiar understanding even of Hinduism. Therefore we
cannot avoid touching upon Gandhis experiments with
women to test his brahmacharya because, as he himself
confessed to AV Thakkar, all the five pillars of his yagna
were closely interlinked and he could not give up or even
modify any of the pillars. We will touch upon his
experiments only to the extent of demonstrating the effect
his experiments in brahmacharya had on the women he
chose for his experiments, on the other inmates of his
ashram, on his close associates and colleagues, and on the
important leaders of the INC, which affected his own mind,
which in turn affected not only the yagna itself but also its
end result.
24
The yagna failed, the Hindu bhumi lost
territory and Hindus were politically disempowered.

A yagna is performed by an individual, a family, a
community, a village, a desha or the king as a high
religious act to seek the blessings of the Gods before
embarking on a mission or to achieve something in the
larger interest. A yagna is therefore the first step in
undertaking a great social and national responsibility. The
yagna is performed on behalf of the individual or the group
only by vaidikas who not only have the requisite rigorous
training and perfect discipline of the mind and body to
perform this taxing vedic ritual but also purity of mind and
purpose. It cannot be stressed enough that not only must
the vaidika be pure of mind but the purpose for which the
yagna is being performed must be rooted in dharma. If the
objective of the yagna is not dharmic or if there is no
purity of the mind, needless to say, the Gods will not bless
the endeavour and the yagna is destined to fail. Hindu
ithihasa is replete with examples of such failed yagnas.

From around May 1946, Gandhi was physically and
mentally preoccupied at least with three extremely
important missions to steer the freedom movement in its
last phase through the Cabinet Mission proposals towards
political freedom; to bring together Hindus and Muslims to
live together as blood brothers after the orgy of jihadi
terror in Bengal and retaliatory attacks in Bihar; and his
own personal inner quest to attain brahmacharya. Gandhi
was the unchallenged leader of the INC and because he
kept insisting his work was yagna, we have to conclude he
was the vaidika performing the yagna for the people of this
country, for the greater good of this country. Gandhi in
1946-47 was one man with three missions; of these only
two may be termed to be in the larger interest while the
third mission was a personal journey - his inner quest to
attain brahmacharya.


24
Gandhis correspondence with several persons on the issue of his
experiments is not reproduced in the text of the book to avoid needless
distraction from the main theme. But some of his letters on brahmacharya
have been reproduced as foot-notes and end of chapter appendix
Even one of these missions would have been the work of
an entire lifetime; but Gandhi had undertaken three
missions simultaneously. The fact that even towards the
end of his long life, in 1946, Gandhi was sleeping
unclothed with women young enough to be his daughters
and grand-daughters, who were also forced to participate
in the experiment unclothed, can only mean that although
Gandhi announced with much fanfare in South Africa that
he had taken the vow of continence for life, he was not
sure he had transcended his impulses or that he had
brought his senses under control.

Gandhi admitted that he had been experimenting with his
brahmacharya for several years, even decades. Had
Gandhi been just a private person, he would have been
held immediately accountable to his family, his community
and to the society in which he lived. But being a public
person with an iconic status, very few people outside the
immediate circle of the closed commune which he ruled
with an iron fist, knew of his peccadilloes. We have to bear
in mind that this was just the beginning of the twentieth
century; women were confined to their homes and to the
kitchen even in their homes. Adherence to social norms
was strict and mandatory even for men; demands on the
woman to conform would have been that much more
exacting. It was in such extremely conservative times that
Gandhi was using women for his experiments. Needless to
say, had the country known of his experiments and the
names of women who had been forced to participate in
these experiments, the ordinary people of India, whom
Gandhi mobilized in the thousands and lakhs for his prayer
meetings, would have steered clear of him; the women of
course would have been destroyed completely.

The first warning signs of the grave disquiet in Gandhis
communes and ashrams, had people read the signs
correctly, was the death of both Mahadev Desai and
Kasturba in the Aga Khan Palace in 1942. Mahadev Desai
died within 10 days of Gandhis arrest and incarceration in
the Aga Khan palace in August 1942 while Ba seems to
have simply wasted away. Neither of them had suffered
from any terminal illness. Desai, a man of great learning
and refinement, it is obvious sought relief from his great
unhappiness in working himself to exhaustion leading
ultimately to death while the same intense unhappiness
seems to have eaten into Ba until she became bedridden
and finally died in 1944.

We gather from Gandhis own writings that Kanchan Shah,
one of the inmates of the ashram and a married woman,
suffered a complete mental and physical breakdown and
had to be nursed back to a semblance of health by Dr.
Sushila Nayyar. Despite Gandhis strenuous efforts to
separate Kanchan Shah from her husband Munnalal Shah,
with diabolic arguments separately to both about how the
other has no desire for conjugal life, they do get back
together and even have a child within a year of living
together as man and wife. Terribly disappointed with them
both for deciding to live ordinary and normal married lives,
Gandhi was not above taunting them both for their fall.
Dr. Sushila Nayyar, Amtussalam and Manu Gandhi are the
other women Gandhi used in his experiments in 1946 and
1947. When Gandhi decided to go to Bengal under the
pretext of using his ahimsa to quell the riots, Sushila
Nayyar, her brother Pyarelal who was also Gandhis private
secretary and stenographer, and Amtussalam, all go to
Bengal with him. Gandhi had already summoned his
grand-niece Manu Gandhi to Bengal to continue with his
experiments and with foresight he dispatched Pyarelal
(who wanted to marry Manu Gandhi) and the desperately
unhappy Sushila Nayyar and Amtussalam to different
villages.

When Amritlal Thakkar (Bapa), GD Birla and Acharya
Vinobha Bhave confront Gandhi over his questionable
experiments and ask him to stop the practice, Gandhi
declares grandly that his satya, ahimsa and brahmacharya
are linked to each other and he could not be expected to
stop practicing one while practicing the others. One
perverse dimension of Gandhis satya was to confess in
his writings or through his speeches, to his experiments
with women and the names of the women who consented
to sleep with him! Incensed over Gandhis insensitivity in
exposing the women to public opprobrium, Pyarelal
demanded of Gandhi that he henceforth stop speaking or
writing about his sister Dr. Sushila Nayyar and Manu
Gandhi. On two earlier occasions Gandhi had similarly
publicly humiliated Kasturba; once accusing her of stealing
money (Ba had kept back with her four rupees from some
money that had been handed over to her at the ashram);
Gandhi levels the utterly abnormal and disproportionate
accusation of stealing because Bas action violated
Gandhis adherence to non-possession and such was
Gandhis paranoiac observance of what he considered was
truth that he termed Kasturba keeping four rupees with
her as stealing. On the second instance Gandhi publicly
upbraided her for entering the Puri Jagannath mandir for
worship. Gandhi humiliates Ba in a speech to the Gandhi
Seva Sangh meeting in the presence of Jamnalal Bajaj,
Kishorelal Mashruwala, JB Kriplani and other workers; and
in typical Gandhi ploy to win support for his manic
insistence on total obedience to his fetishes, Gandhi
dramatizes his pain at Bas fall from grace feigning fragile
health.
Yesterday I had decided to remain silent on
what I am now going to say. But I changed
my mind this morning. I am glad that
Mahadev has told you something about what
has happened, and now that he has said
something I feel like speaking out all that is
in me. The various items of constructive
activity that you are doing are only outward
expressions of truth and ahimsa. They only
reveal how far they can carry you on the
road of ahimsa and truth, and ultimately to
freedom. The removal of untouchability is
one of the highest expressions of ahimsa. It
is my daily prayer, as it should be the prayer
of you all that if untouchability does not
perish it were far better that Hinduism
perished. This prayer found its most
poignant expression during my Harijan tour
of which the principal objective was the
opening of the temples to Harijans. They tell
me that the untouchables do not wish to
enter the temples. Even if this is true, the
reason behind this is that we have made
such monsters of them that they no longer
have any need for temples. Even if they do
not care to go into the temples it should be
our concern to permit their entry. And I
have declared day in and day out that
whoever believed in the removal of
untouchability should shun temples which
were not open to Harijans. Now, how could I
bear the thought of my wife or my
daughters having gone to such temples? I
would plead with them, would go on bended
knees to dissuade them from going to these
temples, and might have to deny myself
personal ties with them if my entreaties
failed. I have tried to live up to this
principle all these years, and I felt humbled
and humiliated when I knew that my wife
and two ashram inmates whom I regard as
my daughters had gone into the Puri temple.
The agony was enough to precipitate a
collapse. The machine recorded an
alarmingly high blood-pressure, but I knew
better than the machine. I was in a worse
condition than the machine could show.
The Gita teaches us the lesson of
detachment, but that detachment does not
mean indifference to shocks of this kind
failure in duty on the part of ones dearest
ones. The three who went were the least to
blame. They went in ignorance. But I was to
blame, and Mahadev was more to blame in
that he did not tell them what their dharma
was and how any breach would shake me.
He ought to have thought also of its social
repercussions. We should understand our
individual as well as our social dharma. How
did it affect me? I turned pale. My grandson
says that the Amrita Bazar Patrika reports
that Kasturba did not go in but waited
outside. If that was so I would have leapt
high. But how could she at all go there after
having lived with me for fifty years? And
why did the two other women go? Are they
not my daughters? That too is my fault. This
act of theirs has depleted our soul force. We
ought to be more vigilant. By looking upon
women as [mere] women we overlook such
matters. That is not the way of non-violence.
This is a matter of awakening. It was
Mahadevs task to have reasoned with them.
And, if they were not convinced, he should
have brought them to me. I would have told
them that I was their spiritual father and not
opposed to their religion. I could be their
spiritual father only if they and I belonged to
one faith. If their faith could be identified
with mine I could reason also with the
people: What is the use of such temples?
They were ignorant, I know, but we are
responsible for their ignorance, and it is the
reverse of ahimsa not to dispel their
ignorance. I sent them to Puri not to go into
the temple, but to stand just where the
Harijans were allowed to go and refuse in
protest to go beyond that limit. That would
have been the right kind of propaganda, and
they would that way have done Harijan
service. To do scavenging work or to eat
with Harijans or to feed them is not enough,
if we do not deny ourselves the going to
temples and the like so long as our kith and
kin, the Harijans, are denied their use. If we
do not go even to the temples which have
been regarded as sacred for hundreds and
thousands of years, where such great men
as Chaitanya have gone in to offer worship,
where we long to go, simply because our
Harijan brothers are not allowed, it would be
a great act of dharma and, if God really is in
the temples, as we believe, it will certainly
have its effect. The pandas had come there
and said that the Harijans could go along
with us. Quite correct. For a panda the silver
coin is God. I therefore prevented Rajendra
Babus sister from going in. Some may say
that I exercised undue pressure. I would say
I saved her from adharma. If I intruded it
was in the name of religion. Like these three
women many others must have gone and
must be intending to go. I have expressed
my feelings for the sake of these people.
What can I say to those who cannot restrain
themselves even after this?
25


Gandhi dressed his despotism in casuistry. This was not
the reaction of a normal man to an ordinary act of
worshipping in a temple. This extreme reaction borders on
fascism if we bear in mind that he was inflicting public
humiliation on his wife and sahadharmini. This incident
serves to explain why several of Gandhis close
associates, sooner or later distanced themselves
from him and those who couldnt, suffered immense
physical and mental trauma.

Burning with rage and humiliation over Gandhi continuing
with his experiments choosing Manu Gandhi for his
partner, Amtussalam picks on a trivial event in her village

25
Speech at Gandhi Seva Sangh Meeting, Delang, March 30, 1938,Gandhi Seva
Sangh ke Chaturth Varshik Adhiveshan(Delang-Orissa)ka Vivaran, pp. 65-7,
CWMG Vol. 73 pp 68-71
in Bengal and goes on a fast-unto-death.
26
Pyarelal and
Gandhi know the truth behind Amtussalams fast; and
during these months, Gandhis dark side rule all his
actions. Pyarelal pleads with Gandhi to intervene and
persuade Amtussalam to end her fast but she holds firm to
her resolve and asks Gandhi to send Manu Gandhi to her
village to take care of her; Gandhi who understood the
reason behind this demand, ruthlessly rejected
Amtussalams desperate plea and remains impervious to
her continuing fast. Gandhis bogus commitment to satya
is exposed when on the one hand he contemptuously and
heartlessly tells the superintendent of police of Ramgunj to
simply allow Amtussalam to die if that was what she
wanted
27
while just a few days prior to the heartless
pronouncement, he writes to her asking her why she wants
to die with her head in his lap.
28


Gandhis satya was not above poisoning Manu Gandhis
father Jaisukhlal Gandhis mind against Pyarelal and while
on the one hand he keeps assuring Pyarelal that he
summoned Manu Gandhi to Bengal for Pyarelals peace of
mind and that he had absolutely no objections to Pyarelal
wanting to marry her, Gandhi tells Manu Gandhi that he
wants her to remain a virgin all her life.
Further, I shall be happy if you come over
and have a talk with me. I do not wish to
put any pressure on you. It is my earnest
desire that you should remain a pure virgin
till the end of your life and spend your life in
service.
29


7.6 Gandhi and Mirabehn
There were two categories of women in Gandhis personal
life the highly educated, English-speaking women like
Rajkumari Amrit Kaur, Mirabehn, Sarladevi, Sushila Nayyar
and Mridula Sarabhai and the illiterate or poorly-educated

26
At Sirandi, Amtussalam had decided to go on a fast from December 26 in
protest against some local Muslims who had stolen three khadags (sacrificial
swords) belonging to Hindus. (CWMG Vol. 93, page 158)
27
Note to MA Abdullah, Shahpur, J anuary 13, 1947,
CWMG Vol. 93, page 272
28
Letter to Amtussalam, J anuary 6, 1947, Vol. 93, page
243
28 (Letter to Manu Gandhi, New Delhi, October 11, 1946, From a microfilm of the
Gujarati: M.M.U./XXIV, CWMG, Vol. 92, page 310


women from villages and small towns like Kasturba,
Amtussalam, Kanchan Shah, Manu Gandhi and Abha.
Gandhi used both categories only to serve him, literally as
the much-despised word, servants; while Gandhi
surrounded himself with the former possibly to raise
himself in his own estimation, he used these English-
educated women to handle his English correspondence
with government officials and other foreigners and micro-
manage and organize his extensive travel around the
country while the poorly educated women were used by
Gandhi to clean toilets, work in his kitchen and also as
frightened subjects of his questionable experiments in
brahmacharya. Gandhi therefore vehemently opposed an
elder in his ashram, Atmaram (Acharya) Bhagawat,
arranging for the women in his ashram to get married
because, as he himself tells one of his women friends
Prema Kantak, Acharya Bhagawat was wrong to get them
married because he preferred the women in his ashrams to
remain unmarried.
30
Gandhi also chose to keep only such
women around him who did not know the English
language!
I rarely have English-knowing women
around me. This one knows absolutely no
English. She can read and write Gujarati.
Please let me have an early reply to this if
possible.

Remember that Ramanama is the unfailing
remedy for eradicating malaria. Having
become a trustee of a nature-cure institution
you have got to appreciate this thing. And
Ramanama is the same as Ahurmazda.
31



30
And now your particular question. I should like the girls to remain unmarried,
but they cannot be forced to do so. We must, therefore, help those who wish to get
married. It was, and is, Acharya Bhagawats duty to plead with you and other co-
workers and carry them with him in whatever he did. He made a mistake in doing
what he did without consulting you. You also should not tolerate his improper
conduct through your desire for gaining something from him. Acharya Bhagawat
had persuaded women workers of the Kasturba Trust to get married and even
arranged their marriages. (Letter to Prema Kantak, New Delhi, October 16, 1946,
From a photostat of the Gujarati: G. N. 10449. Also C. W. 6888. Courtesy: Prema
Kantak, CWMG, Vol. 92, page 333


31
Letter to Jehangir Patel, Sevagram, August 8, 1946, From a copy of the
Gujarati: Pyarelal Papers. Courtesy: Pyarelal, CWMG Vol. 91, page 430
There were innumerable English-knowing women around
Gandhi Mirabehn, Rajkumari Amrit Kaur, Sushila Nayyar,
Prema Kantak to name just a few besides women in his
own family who were living abroad and others who were
very highly educated. While Kasturba exemplified what
Gandhi sought in the women he chose to serve him
personally and in his ashram poorly educated, simple
women from our villages and small towns who were
grateful to be chosen to live in such close proximity to a
saint to serve him with unquestioning obedience, Gandhis
fear of English-knowing women may be attributed to the
fact that these women were sometimes less amenable to
being controlled by him; and in no mean measure to
Mirabehns adoration for him turning to complete
disenchantment possibly because of his experiments with
brahmacharya even in the Aga Khan Palace but certainly
due to sharp differences with Gandhi over his approach or
lack of it towards Kasturbas medical treatment.
CHI. MIRA,
This is after much debating for 48 hours
within myself and sleepless night over my
duty towards you on our differences and
towards doctors regarding treatment. It hurt
me yesterday when Ammajan told me that
you had doubt about my willingness to part
with the money that you gave me from time
to time. The fact is that you [having] parted
with the money, even resented it standing in
your name in the Ashram books and insisted
on the money being made part of the
Ashram funds and the expenses on your
account being treated as from the Ashram
funds. I felt a delicacy in mentioning that it
could be retransferred to you without any
deduction. I, therefore, allowed
Ghanshyamdas to tell you that you could
have the money back whether the condition
of the Ashram funds permitted the return or
not. So when you told me that you would be
glad to have the money, the measure of
esteem in which I held you went down. It is
due to you that I should not withhold this
fact from you. But this is not written to
affect your decision. The return of the
money is irrevocable.
32


Mirabehn believed that Gandhi had not done enough to
ask for eminent doctors to provide Kasturba with the best
of medical attention which could have probably saved her
life; it is also widely believed that Gandhi refused to allow
the Doctors attending on Ba to administer Penicillin to
treat Bas pneumonia. But knowing Gandhis readiness to
ask for and allow others to die if it suited his agenda, one
cannot help but think that Ba had probably outlived her
utility for Gandhi. To his credit, as it became increasingly
evident that Bas end was near Gandhi made angry
demands for a naturopath known to him to attend to Ba
and when even that, not surprisingly, failed to save her, he
wrote blistering letters to British government officials after
Bas death, condemning their general laxity. Unconfirmed
stories abound (corroborated to me personally by the
daughter of one of the then Prime Ministers of Congress
Provincial Governments) about how Gandhi wept copious
tears at Bas death, even seeking her death-bed pardon for
all the grievous injuries he had inflicted on her.

Mirabehn, whose disenchantment with Gandhi became
more pronounced after Bas death in the Aga Khan palace
because of what she suspected was Gandhis indifference
to Bas health, sought her release from the palace prison
ahead of Gandhis own release (uncharacteristic from a
Gandhi acolyte) and turned away from him. She made new
friends and formed new relationships; one such friend was
Sardar Prithvi Singh, one of the founder members of the
Ghadar Party.
33
Enraged over Mirabehns desertion, Gandhi
resorts to his favorite stratagem he accuses Prithvi Singh

32
Letter to Mirabehn, Sundar Bun, J une 11, 1944, From a copy: Pyarelal Papers.
Nehru Memorial Museum and Library. Courtesy: Beladevi Nayyar and Dr. Sushila
Nayyar, Vol 84, pp 100-1
33
Sardar Prithvi Singh was sentenced to death in the First Lahore Conspiracy Case
1915. The trial of Bhagat Singh was the Second Lahore Conspiracy Case. His
death sentence was commuted to life imprisonment and Prithvi Singh was deported
to the Andamans. While on transit to Nagpur Central J ail after being moved to the
mainland again, Prithvi Singh escaped from police custody from a running mail
train on 29-11-1922 and went underground for sixteen years. In 1938, he
voluntarily surrendered to Mahatma Gandhi. He was again arrested by the British
Government but was released with the outbreak of the Second World War (1939).
Founded Ahimsak Vyayam Sangh and worked under the leadership of Gandhi as
strategy to avoid government persecution. Just so would the Bengal revolutionaries
of the J ugantar Party merge with the Congress in September 1938

of extortion and indecent advances to two women in the
ashram!
The second thing I want to tell you is the
things I have been hearing from reliable
sources about Prithvi Singh. They are
terribly disturbing. He has been using
questionable means to extort money. He
made, without success, indecent approaches
to two girls of Kathiawar. The girl whom he
has married was engaged to a person who
was her benefactor.
34


In a fitting act of what he considered with great self-
importance was a measure of extreme punishment, Gandhi
tells Mirabehn, in a petulant letter to her that he was
stripping her of her Indian name which he gave her out of
love and will henceforth address her only as Margaret.
Gandhi punishes her further when she becomes Dear
Miss Slade in his communications to her, but still with
love and the greatest goodwill.
Dear Miss Slade,
There is nothing wrong about being formal.
Familiarity breeds contempt. The letters
will not be destroyed. I have nothing to be
ashamed of. I wrote after intense prayer. My
language failed to transmit the love and the
greatest goodwill that prompted it. The only
regret is that I dared to be familiar. My love
would have been as true as now if I had
refused to call you by any other name than
Miss Slade. I like the English coldness and
correctness. But my regret is superficial. The
change is good and substantial. I have given
the warning. You have no reason to change
your course because of any opinion I
express. What I did was to suggest your
waiting. But you need not since it does not
commend itself to you. Yes, time and action
will show what we are and what we meant. I
have patience.
35



34
Same as 25
35
Letter to Mirabehn, June 12, 1944, From a copy : Pyarelal Papers. Nehru
Memorial Museum and Library.Courtesy : Beladevi Nayyar and Dr. Sushila
Nayyar, Vol. 84, pp 102-3
Popular rendering of Gandhis life, Richard Attenboroughs
film is a case in point, painted him in broad strokes of
motivated imagination, never venturing into the details.
This big-brush picture came with the halo of his
mahatmahood around his head. Mirabehn was one among
the very few, besides Sardar Patel who dared to voice her
criticism of Gandhi unsparingly to his face. The strong-
willed among those who lived with Gandhi and had seen
him from very close quarters sooner or later were
completely disillusioned with him and realizing that his
saintliness was not what they thought it was, quietly but
speedily distanced themselves from him.

7.7 Gandhi manipulated people close to him
Bengal was burning and Gandhi, who was allegedly in
Bengal to bring back peace to the province and communal
harmony, was juggling with human emotions and moving
his dependants as so many pawns on a chess board.
Gandhi kept the Damocles Sword of infamy and possible
exposure of misappropriating funds hanging over
Jaisukhlal Gandhis head to coerce him to hand over Manu
Gandhi into his charge for his experiments in 1946 after
Gandhi reached Bengal. Gandhi kept the sword hanging
over Jaisukhlals head for over two years, since 1944,
doing little to exonerate Jaisukhlal or to bring the scandal
to an end.
I should like to tell you the thoughts
which occurred to me about you. You
seem to have such a lot of money that
you have taught Manu to spend money
as if she was more than even a multi-
millionaire. I very much appreciate
your love for your daughters. But the
question is from where you got all this
money. You could not have saved it
from khadi work. Did you, then, save it
from your job there? Is it possible to
save so much money in this way? If
you have kept accounts, I should
certainly like to see them. How can I
hide from you the suspicion that has
arisen in my mind? When I got angry,
Shantikumar was present. When I
asked him, he told me that you could
not have saved so much from the
Scindia job. He had no reason to
suspect you, as strict care was taken to
see that there was no scope for
corruption among their employees.
Now let me have your reply.
36


But before the arrival of Manu Gandhi, an incident
involving Dr. Sushila Nayyar and Gandhi was witnessed by
Nirmal Kumar Bose, a professor at the Calcutta University
who had taken over from Pyarelal as Gandhis general
factotum while Parasuram served as Gandhis new
stenographer.

Dr. Sushila Nayyar maintained stoic silence about the
incident not only to protect her own dignity but also to
protect Gandhi from gossip and resulting infamy; but
Gandhi had no such moral qualms. NK Bose was not one of
the usual indigent dependants who were forced into
service with Gandhi but a professor in the Calcutta
University who came to serve Gandhi, considering it a
great privilege. Gandhi could not afford to have Bose
entertain negative opinions of him and so in typical
Gandhian style he insinuates to Bose that it was Dr.
Sushila Nayyar who had made advances to him that
fateful night but since it was done with a good intention
Bose must not hold Dr. Nayyar in contempt.
37


But Bose was no fool and by March 1947, within months of
having resigned his position at the university to serve
Gandhi, Bose departs thoroughly disillusioned and so does
Parasuram. But Parasuram departed only after expressing

36
Letter to J aisukhlal Gandhi, J une 12, 1944, From a microfilm of the
Gujarati: M.M.U./XXIV, CWMG, Vol. 84, pp 10-11

37
In the morning, while I was administering his daily bath, Gandhiji
spoke to me of his own accord about the happenings of the 17th. Ever
since that day, no word had passed on this subject between him and me.
He wished to learn from me as well as from Parasuram if Sushila Nayyar
had fallen in our estimation (Tumhari nazar me gir gai hai?) on account
of that days incident. I said I could speak for myself, not for Parasuram.
She had undoubtedly fallen, and the reason was this. No person however
great had the right to disturb him as Sushila had apparently done. Gandhiji
then said, Supposing she did so with a good intention, perhaps to help me
in my own work? She may have been suggesting certain steps even for my
sake, not for her own; even then, would you say she was wrong? (Talk
with NK Bose, Srirampur, December 19, 1946, My Days with Gandhi, pp.
114-5, CWMG Vol. 93, Appendix IV page 415) For Gandhis letter to NK
Bose, see end of chapter
his great anger over Gandhis experiments with his
brahmacharya in a letter to Gandhi and proceeded to work
for Harijan. Parasuram chose to work for the Harijan only
because the Navjivan Trust, which published Harijan and
which was managed among others by Kishorelal
Mashruwala and Sardar Patel, had politely asked Gandhi to
disassociate himself from the Trust and to stop writing in
the Harijan as a part of their determined boycott of
Gandhi. They also refused to publish Gandhis confessions
about his experiments in the Harijan.

Gandhi had made everyone who was close to him and
those who worked closely with him totally unhappy, angry
and disillusioned. By the end of 1946, Gandhis isolation
was complete. The vaidika was unfit to perform the yagna
because he had made self-interest an integral part of the
yagna. Gandhi caused too much unhappiness, bitterness
and anger in the people who had served him selflessly and
yet refused to abandon his ways. Not only was Gandhis
yagna tainted by self-interest but more to the point, there
was no purity of the mind or purpose. Gandhi packaged
the three missions into one yagna and calling his missions
a total yagna was not only motivated but also calculating
because Gandhi wanted to give his self-interest a dharmic
cover. Gandhi refused to discontinue his experiments with
the excuse that the world would benefit ultimately from his
yagna
38
and also because he had to perfect his
brahmacharya so that if ever he had to share a bed with
some woman his brahmacharya would find him ready for
the test.
39
That Gandhi could actually profess such
indefensible reasons is testimony to his iconic status that
no one dared to ask him why he thought the success of his
personal quest to perfect his brahmacharya would enrich
the world or why there should ever rise such an occasion

38
If I am successful, the world will be enriched by my venture. If on the other
hand I am found to be a fraud or a misled fool, the world will reject me and I shall
be debunked. In either case the world will be the gainer. This is as clear to me as
two and two make four. (A Letter, February 22, 1947, Mahatma Gandhi The
Last Phase, Vol. I, Bk. II, p. 223, CWMG, Vol. 94 page 28

39
Thousands of Hindu and Muslim women come to me. They are to me like my
own mother, sisters and daughters. But if an occasion should arise requiring me to
share the bed with any of them I must not hesitate, if I am the brahmachari that I
claim to be. If I shrink from the test, I write myself down as a coward and a fraud.
(Discussion with AV Thakkar, February 24, 1947, Mahatma Gandhi The Last
Phase, Vol. I, Bk. II, pp. 224-6, CWMG, Vol. 94, pp 36-37


when any woman would be compelled to share a bed with
him.

7.8 Gandhi insisted his word was law
Motivated misnomers were typical of Gandhis stock-in-
trade. Just as he uprooted the terms Swaraj, Swadeshi
and later Young India from their original moorings and
gave them his own taint, he did the same with the
traditional dharmic concepts of brahmacharya and yagna.
Gandhi rejected the accepted and traditional Hindu
understanding and practice of brahmacharya.
My meaning of brahmacharya is this: One
who never has any lustful intention, who by
constant attendance upon God has become
proof against conscious or unconscious
emissions, who is capable of lying naked
with naked women, however beautiful they
may be, without being in any manner
whatsoever sexually excited. Such a person
should be incapable of lying, incapable of
intending or doing harm to a single man or
woman in the whole world, is free from
anger and malice and detached in the sense
of the Bhagavadgita. Such a person is a full
brahmachari. Brahmachari literally means a
person who is making daily and steady
progress towards God and whose every act
is done in pursuance of that end and no
other.
40


Hindu tradition has attributed these qualities as being
mandatory not for the brahmachari but for the sanyasi. He
similarly degraded the practice of yagna by not only
labeling it as more or less a fraud, he labeled it sacrifice
(which is more a monotheist idea and practice than Hindu)
and even patronizingly advised a sanyasi to give up his
saffron robes and become a better sanyasi without them.
Bhai Bhagwadacharya,
I have your letter after many days. I
must admit that I dont like it. Firstly,
why should you involve yourself in the
ritual sacrifice which is more or less a
fraud? I can understand those who are
ignorant of the true nature of dharma

40
Letter to Amrit Kaur, Patna, March 18, 1947, From the original: C. W.
3702. Courtesy: Amrit Kaur. Also G. N. 6511, CWMG Vol. 94, page 137
or are downright hypocrites busying
themselves with it, but why a man like
you should concern himself with it is
something beyond my comprehension,
especially because I dont want to look
upon you as a hypocrite and because I
am not prepared to believe that you
are so sunk in abysmal ignorance. And
if there was a sacrifice, wherefore all
the discrimination? Those who do not
want to come may not; those who
want may come. Hence, in no way can
my heart accept either your act or your
justification of it. I would wish you to
devote yourself single-heartedly to
what is straightforward and truthful,
rather than indulge in mere casuistry. I
am strongly opposed to sacrifice as it is
currently interpreted. I consider it a sin
to throw ghee into the sacrificial [fire]
in our age. Sacrifice really means an
act of service. I had therefore hoped
hat you would follow only that which is
truthful even by giving up your position
as a swami.
41


This diatribe sounds eerily like routine contemporary
dravidian anti-Hindu ranting. Dravidian politicians too have
publicly condemned as criminal waste the Hindu religious
practice of abhisheka
42
of the temple murtis
43
with milk,
honey, curd, tender-water of the coconut and
panchaamritam
44
. Gandhi describes the ahuti
45
as
throwing ghee into the fire and labels it a sin. Hindus do
not throw ghee into the fire, they offer ghee to agni; not
only did he label the ahuti as sin, what strikes one is

41
Letter to Swami Bhagwadacharya, Delhi, April 24, 1946, From a copy of the
Gujarati : Pyarelal Papers. Courtesy : Pyarelal CWMG Vol. 90, page 307

42
Hindu ritual of anointing the presiding and other deities of a temple
with all uncooked, natural cooling substances like those listed above
43
Presiding and other deities in a temple or in the home
44
This is made by mixing together banana, jackfruit,
honey, jaggery and ghee
45
The act of making offerings to Agni the sacred fire of the yagna who
carries the offering to the god who is being propitiated in the yagna.
Gandhis deliberate refusal to address the venerable
Swami as swami. Dharmic Hindus - great kings and
chakravartis
46
not exempted - have always held all
sanyasis, without distinction of caste, sect or sub-sect,
particularly their gurus and acharyas in the highest
esteem. Their position and status in Hindu society was
considered to be first among equals. By addressing him as
Bhai Bhagwadacharya Gandhi did not elevate himself or
other ordinary Hindus to the status of sanyasis, he merely
lowered the revered swamis status and equalized him with
non-sanyasis and perfunctorily made him his brother.

Gandhi believed that he had the right to pronounce
judgment on traditional practices which Hindus have
inherited as their civilisational and religious legacy. Not
only did he consider the ahuti (offering) of ghee to agni
(altar fire) a sin, he also discouraged people from
performing the customary religious rites for the dead.
Bhai Uddhav, on the death of your brother
you performed only the yarn sacrifice and no
religious rites. I liked it very much. It will
bring great benefit if all do so.
47

Notwithstanding the fact that India was a timeless
civilisation, where sanatana dharma made it the punya
bhumi and karma bhumi for all adherents of dharma, there
were pressing political reasons for independent Indias
academe to propagate the idea that post-independent
India was an ideological contrast to Pakistan. Nehru and
Nehruvian secularism, which percolated even into the
portals of academic work, propagated the idea that this
contrast derived from, and rested securely, only on the
contrast that Gandhi and his mahatmahood provided in
comparison to all that Jinnah stood for and represented.
The contrast was not that of Hindu dharma to Islam but
that of Gandhi to Jinnah. This was unparalleled academic
whitewash because notwithstanding Gandhis glib
utterances on Hindu practices on the one hand and his
Hindu fig-leaf on the other, the fact remained that Gandhi
failed to, in fact he strenuously rejected the idea of

46
Emperor and nuanced from raja or king
47
Letter to Udhav, Sodepur, December 8, 1945, From a copy of the Hindi
Pyarelal Papers. Courtesy Pyarelal, CWMG, Vol. 89, page 14

mobilizing all sections of the Hindu community not only as
a unified front to fight for freedom but as a bulwark
against Muslim separatism.
7.9 Gandhis failure to reach out to Hindu leaders
Had Gandhi made half the effort to reach out to Aurobindo
and Savarkar, Ambedkar and Subhash Bose, to the
Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh and the Hindu Mahasabha
as he made to the British and to Muslims, Khilafat
Committee and the Muslim League, had Gandhi
consistently sought the advice and blessings of Hindu
religious leaders in his political and social mission instead
of allowing Christian missionaries and foreigners to
influence his personal and political philosophy, had Gandhi
approached Hindu maharajas and princes and made
common cause with them, as much as he went out of his
way to make common cause with Muslims ignoring in the
process, the political interests of the scheduled castes,
perhaps all sections of the Hindu community could have
been organized in a powerful show of strength and
solidarity which would not only have checked the
unchallenged growth of the Muslim League but would also
have made the British government exceedingly nervous
and cautious about implementing their diabolic agenda at
the time of transfer of power. Tilak, Aurobindo and
Savarkar represented the intellectual might of the Hindus,
as Madanlal Dhingra, Bhagat Singh and Bose represented
the spirit and dharma of the kshatriya while Babasaheb
Ambedkar represented the political and social aspirations
of the culturally deprived and politically disempowered
sections of Hindu society.

Our religious leaders, sanyasis and mathathipathis are
embodiments not only of our dharma but also of the
strength of our civilisational continuum while our
maharajas and princes ruling over territories which
seemingly remained outside the direct administrative pale
of the Raj, were an important segment constituting Hindu
state power as well as our civilisational continuum in their
role as the traditional guardians and ultimate protectors of
dharma. Had Gandhis intent been to forge alliances with
different segments of Hindu society, he would have seen
the wisdom of talking to Hindu rulers whose support could
have been harnessed effectively to give shape to the
nature of polity that would have come into place after the
Raj retreated. Instead, as we shall see, both Gandhi and
Nehru failed to understand that which Aurobindo saw very
clearly, that these Hindu rulers were as much victims of
Islamic conquest and imperial Britain as were all sections
of this nation. Gandhi therefore rejected with towering
arrogance the overtures of the Deccan Princes, the
Maharajas of Kapurtala and Rewa, antagonised the
Maharajas of Rajkot, Travancore, Mysore and Jammu and
Kashmir so much so that in 1947, when the country was
teetering on the brink of total anarchy, the Indian states
refused to enter the Constituent Assembly and in the
ensuing uncertain state of the nascent nation, Hindu rulers
were in no position to offer a buffer to the country against
the machinations of the Muslim Nawabs and Nizams.
Gandhi, for his part had the matchless ability to mobilize
ordinary people to participate in his passive resistance
campaigns; we can only rue Gandhis colossal failure as a
leader to take along with him all these leaders and their
vast following with their diverse strengths and abilities.

Jinnah had to project the INC and Gandhi as being Hindu
to justify his separatist Muslim agenda but the truth
remains that Gandhi advocated a sanitised Hinduism which
was far removed from the common understanding and
common practices of dharma. Gandhi called himself a
sanatani Hindu
48
and in typical Gandhian vein he insisted
on coercing others into his mould; and herein was the
inner contradiction in Gandhis political ideology. For a man
who insisted (correctly) that India lives in her villages, he
refused to concede that the villages lived and breathed
their religion, warts and all, with a routine naturalness
which was far removed from Gandhis aseptic intellectual
and therefore monotheist approach to Hinduism. Needless
to say, Gandhis intellectual approach to understanding
Hinduism was half-baked at best because this knowledge
too was not acquired from his family or at the feet of any
of our traditional acharyas of the time.

Gandhi moved to London during his most impressionable
years and thereafter, as indicated earlier, he sought and
was sought in turn, mostly by Christian missionaries
(Joseph Doke, Charlie Andrews, Dr. Stanley Jones, Agatha
Harrison and Horace Alexander, to name only a few) and
Christian thinkers (Tolstoy, Emerson, Thoreau, Mirabehn or

48
A Sanatani Hindu could choose not to worship murtis of Gods.
Gandhi rejected idol worship and could therefore not call himself a
Vaishnava, Saiva, Shaakta or a bhakta of any one of the six primary
streams of the Hindu religion.
Margaret Slade and Madame Blavatsky). While Joseph
Doke wrote Gandhis biography during Gandhis South
African days, Stanley Jones, an American missionary was
author of The Christ of the Indian Road, a tribute to
Gandhi. To make matters more complicated he also came
under the influence of several Muslims - another important
constituent of the monotheist, Abrahamic trio. There was
no sustained, traditional Hindu influence on Gandhi in his
adolescence, youth or anytime thereafter. This has to be
borne in mind to understand his distaste for and therefore
failure to reach out to important traditional Hindu
constituencies. Uniting the Hindu samaj for a common
objective was never core to Gandhis freedom movement
because his thinking suffered from the fatal flaw that this
bhumi did not belong to the Hindus alone.
49
Hindu dharma
was born on this bhumi and for Hindus or dharmis this
nation alone is their homeland, their janmabhumi and
pitrubhumi. And because he rejected the truth of the Hindu
nation, for all he wore the fig-leaf of high Hindu concepts,
Gandhi not only attributed the qualities of the Abrahamic
God to Srirama and Srikrishna,
50
but his ramarajya too
was given Christian and Islamic hues.
Gandhiji gave to his ideal society the name
Ramarajya. Let no one commit the mistake
of thinking that Ramarajya means a rule of
the Hindus. My Rama is another name for
Khuda or God. I want Khudai raj, which is
the same thing as the Kingdom of God on
earth. The rule of the first four Caliphs was
somewhat comparable to it. The
establishment of such a rajya would not only

49
What we had to do was to prevent the Congress from turning into a Hindu
communal organization. Anyone who had made India his home should be
protected by the Congress. Hindus should never think that Hindustan belonged
exclusively to them. The Parsis had come centuries ago, and the Syrian Christians
were Christians ever since the time of St. Thomas. Every one of them had to be
treated as an Indian enjoying the same rights as any other Indian. (Interview to
Deobhankar, My Days with Gandhi, pp. 102-4, CWMG, Vol. 93, page 124)

50
But for me as a believer in non-violence out-and-out they cannot be
my guides in life in so far as their faith in war is concerned, I believe in
Krishna perhaps more than the writer. But my Krishna is the Lord of the
Universe, the creator, preserver and destroyer of us all. He may destroy
because He creates. (Guru Govind Singh, Sevagram, J uly 4, 1942 Harijan,
12-7-1942 Vol. 93 pp 72 75

mean welfare of the whole of the Indian
people but of the whole world.
51


Not only did Gandhi deliberately avoid Hindu religious
leaders but he also distanced himself from the beliefs,
practices, customs and rituals that were central to the way
ordinary Hindus practiced their dharma. So strong was the
influence of people professing Islam and Christianity on
Gandhi that he told a group of Muslims that he was not an
idolater but an iconoclast!
52
Gandhi subscribed to the same
fallacious argument first proffered by foreign Christian
missionaries in South India that caste was the root cause
for untouchability. One of the pillars of Gandhis
mahatmahood was the work his devotees undertook in
cities and villages to remove untouchability. This work
entitled Gandhi to arrogate to himself the right to make
major pronouncements on caste which continues even now
to hold sway in significant aspects of governance and
administration.
53
Had Gandhi approached the sin of

51
Speech at prayer meeting, Haimchar, February 26, 1947,
Harijan, 23-3-1947, and Mahatma GandhiThe Last Phase, Vol. I, Bk. II, pp.,
CWMG Vol.94, page 76

52
It was ignorance to say that he coupled Rama, a mere man, with God.
He had repeatedly made it clear that his Rama was the same as God. His
Rama was before, is present now and would be for all time. He was
Unborn and Uncreated. Therefore, let them tolerate and respect the
different faiths. He was himself an iconoclast but he had equal regard for
the so-called idolaters. Those who worshipped idols also worshipped the
same God who was everywhere, even in a clod of earth, even in a nail that
was pared off. (Speech at Prayer Meeting, Harijan 23-2-1947, CWMG
Vol. 93, page 365)
When I was in detention in the Aga Khan Palace, I once sat down to write a thesis
on India as a protagonist of non-violence. But as I proceeded with my writing, I
could not go on. I had to stop. There are two aspects of Hinduism. There is, on the
one hand, the historical Hinduism with its untouchability, superstitious worship of
sticks and stones, animal sacrifice and so on. On the other, we have the Hinduism
of the Gita, the Upanishads and Patanjalis Yoga Sutra which is the acme of
ahimsa and oneness of all creation, pure worship of one immanent, formless
imperishable God. (A Talk, Harijan 8-12-1946, CWMG, Vol.93, page 43)
53
Gandhiji said that all that he wanted to say on this was that if Hinduism was to
survive, it would have to be casteless. He had long since forgotten that he belonged
to any caste. Therefore, he delighted in calling himself a Bhangi and acting like
one. He did not believe in any artificial divisions. If caste Hindus meant
Brahmin, Kshatriya and Vaishya, these three were a hopeless minority
which, when the British had wholly withdrawn and independence was
truly established would, as the three superior castes, be wholly extinct.
Gandhiji hoped that all inequalities would be a thing of the past. Then the
so-called downtrodden would come into their own. Gandhiji said that,
untouchability in the Hindu way, he would have strived to
end the practice without insisting on destroying the
structure. Caste, which derives from the Portuguese
casta, is a misnomer that includes varna, jaati and kula,
and is used interchangeably, was an organic social
ordering principle which gave to Hindu dharma its famed
diversity in all aspects of its manifestation in the lives of
ordinary Hindus; untouchability was the ossification of a
social practice which rendered societys temporary punitive
measure against an individual and/or his family for some
social or religious transgression, into a permanent liability
and stigma. Gandhi judged these principles from their
degeneration and condemned them to extinction,
disregarding the possibility of an unhealthy vacuum in the
self-identity of both the individual and society. This
vacuum was filled with great alacrity by Christian
missionaries; Gandhi, like several other leaders of the time
whose mind was formed by English education, failed to
discern the ploy behind degrading varna, jaati and kula
and fell into the diabolic Macaulay trap. This
notwithstanding the fact that in the early years after his
return to India from South Africa, Gandhis views on
varnadharma were close to Hindu understanding of this
traditional institution. But within a decade, his views about
traditional Hindu practices became increasingly
Christianised and un-Hindu.

7.10 Gandhis despotism and desire for control
One of the core objectives behind the book is to expose
how Gandhis personal views and fetishes became not just
Congress creed but also aspects of our nations guiding
philosophy. Some of the fetishes which proved disastrous
for the Hindus and the Hindu nation were
Gandhis un-nuanced non-violence
Gandhis total lack of understanding of the content
of our nationhood
Gandhis intellectual and monotheist approach to
Hinduism
Gandhis contempt and derision for Hindu
maharajas and princes which cost this nation dearly
in 1946-47

when untouchability was really gone, there would be no caste. (Speech at
Prayer meeting, The Hindu, 13-2-1947, and 15-2-1947, CWMG, Vol. 94,
page 398)


Gandhis propensity for despotic control of
individuals and organizations

The last was in fact the single most important factor
leading to vivisection of the Hindu nation in 1947.
Protected by the shield of his mahatmahood, and secure in
the knowledge that few would dare to challenge it, Gandhi
pursued his personal fetishes and exerted total control
over everything and everyone he touched. His own
writings testify to this unhealthy characteristic on
innumerable occasions but some of the more mind-
boggling instances were -
No individual working in his ashrams or other
organizations could learn English without his
permission
54

No individual in the Congress party and none of his
associates and friends could undertake a fast
without his permission
55

Gandhi gives his grand-niece Manu Gandhi a severe
dressing-down for buying gifts for his stenographer
Pyarelals sisters child without consulting him; he
gives Manu Gandhi and her father Jaisukhlal Gandhi
a tongue-lashing and returns the gifts to Manu
Gandhi
56


54
Today I am dictating this letter in Gujarati.
Those who feel themselves poor without the knowledge of English may be
taught the language. The general policy should be understood that nobody
should be taught English, and that, when it is found necessary to teach
anybody, my permission should be obtained. (Letter to Krishnachandra,
Sevagram, February 9, 1946, From a Photostat of Gujarati, G.N. 4545)

55
Chi. Dhiru, I cannot quite understand why you had to undertake the
fast. Who made the complaint? And have I not said that no one may
undertake a fast without asking me? This is the best course. Blessings from
Bapu (Letter to Dhrubhai Dikshit, Sevagram, August 20, 1946, From a
copy of the Gujarati: Pyarelal Papers. Courtesy: Pyarelal, CWMG Vol. 92, page
47)


56
Instead of calling you Manu I should call you Mridulabehn. Even
before leaving Bombay you have disobeyed me. At this rate, how much of
my advice are you going to follow? You have not earned a single pie
yourself. You have a generous father, and so are wasting his money. Do
you wish to spoil the baby? But I will not let you do so while I am alive. If
you think the silver rattle and cups are all right for you, you may keep
them yourself. If you do not want them, give them to someone like you. I
Gandhi berated ashram inmates for taking the
initiative to serve food without his permission to
harijans, who had gathered to celebrate his
birthday and in complete violation of Hindu
tradition, stopped food from being served to them
Gandhi ordered VA Sundaram, personal assistant to
the late MM Malaviya to listen to his own views on
how the temple in the Benares Hindu University
must be built and in fact orders Sundaram to
disregard Malaviyas explicit written instructions on
the issue.

Gandhis proclivity for despotism was expressed in two
distinct ways:
either as benign advise (as long as he was sure his orders
would be followed by those who submitted to his control)
on everything from the mundane to the significant - the
food to eat, clothes to wear, applying eye-packs, mud-
packs, taking hot water baths, hip baths and friction baths,
administering enema, planning the daily routine, attention
to handwriting, personal habits, to marry or not to marry,
the purpose of marriage, whom to marry, conduct towards
spouses after marriage, and even on whether to have
children or not; or as peremptory orders when he was not
sure of compliance.

Whenever Gandhi was not sure of compliance or on those
occasions when he was challenged or simply overruled,
Gandhi both privately and publicly degraded those who
thus challenged him. In 1938, Gandhi forced the Congress
Working Committee to expel NB Khare, the Prime Minister
of the Central Provinces on the pretext that Khare had
dared to deal directly with the Governor of the province
without consulting the Working Committee or the
Parliamentary Board; what it actually meant was that
Khare did not allow Gandhi to play remote control.
57
After
his expulsion from the Congress, NB Khare rose to become
a prominent leader of the Hindu Mahasabha, giving rise to
the suspicion that Gandhi may have exerted pressure on

myself want that you should keep them as a reminder of your foolishness.
I am returning the cup and rattle along with this letter.
Rama Rama from your unhappy
BAPU (Letter to Manu Gandhi, June 8, 1944, CWMG Vol. 84, page 91)

57
For Gandhis statement on why he advised the CWC to ask for Khares
resignation, see end of chapter
the CWC to expel Khare possibly because of Khares latent
Hindu nationalism

Gandhis orders to Malaviyas Secretary VA Sundaram on
the kind of temple to be built inside the campus of the
Benares Hindu University is striking for two reasons that
he had no qualms whatever in ordering Sundaram to
disregard Pandit Malaviyas wish on the issue and also for
the fact that when, from the early years of the 1940s
decade Gandhis mahatmahood started to come under a
cloud, people so ordered quietly and simply ignored
Gandhis orders and did what they thought was the correct
thing to do in the circumstances.

Gandhis conception of the temple in the BHU is also
indicative of Gandhis conviction that Hindusim had to be
rid of all its traditional customs and practices and thus
purified to resemble the intellectually vacuous monotheist
religions. So great was Gandhis discomfort with Malaviyas
hinduness that in classic Gandhi style he pays Malaviya a
back-handed compliment by calling him a great man with
great limitations, whose greatness lay in surmounting
those limitations!
58

Bhai Jugal Kishore,
Baba Raghavdas gave me a full account of
the passing away of Malaviyaji. He also
mentioned your pledge. You should
therefore certainly set apart Rs. 25 lacs for
the temple. However, I am afraid, it will not
be conducive to the progress of Hinduism if
Malaviyajis concept of the temple complex
is translated literally. If the spirit of his
concept is followed, it would raise Hinduism
to greater heights. Today Hinduism is being
compared with other religions. Under the
circumstances, if we followed [his words]
literally Hinduism would perish, while the

58
I have not really the time to spare from the work here before me, but Panditjis
memory is a sacred trust for me. He was much greater than he himself knew. But
his limitations were amazing. The wonder is that he surmounted them all. (Letter
to VA Sundaram, December 11, 1946, From a photostat: G. N. 3200, CWMG,
Vol. 93, pp 128-9)


spirit behind them will put new life into it.
Baba Raghavdas will tell you the rest.
59


I have already written to Sheth J. K. Birla
and sent the note by hand through Baba
Raghavdas. You will probably see that letter
and you will see too that I have spoken
about you to him. In my opinion, your
course is clear. If you can breathe the soul
of Hinduism into the Viswa Vidyalaya you
should stay, not otherwise. I have advised
that the stipulated sum should be collected
as was desired by Panditji. Therefore, an
appeal should go from the University to the
Princes. They can easily find the sum
expected of them and if it is properly
managed they will do so. Businessmen will
find their portion and the rest will come
easily. But all this can and should be done
only if a living, befitting temple is built. The
whole of the sum will not be spent in stone
and mortar. Some marble is necessary. It
should be a unique thing. It ought not to
contain any idol. An idol is not a necessity of
Hindu belief or a Hindu temple. Such a
model structure but very artistic has been
built in the Harijan Colony, Kingsway,
Delhi.
60


Thus spake the Sanatani Hindu. Gandhis peremptory
orders were overruled and a Shivalingam was installed
inside the temple. He was overruled in 1942 when he told
Jawaharlal Nehru that he wanted Maulana Azad to step
down as President of the INC, and he was similarly
overruled by the Working Committee when he expressed
himself strongly against the Congress entering the
Constituent Assembly during the Cabinet Mission
discussions just as he was simply ignored when he kept
insisting on constituting an enquiry commission in Bihar.
Gandhis authority was beginning to erode.

7.11 From leader to cult-figure

52 Letter to J ugal Kishore Birla, December 7, 1946, From a copy of the
Hindi: Pyarelal Papers. Courtesy:Pyarelal , CWMG, Vol. 93, page 116
60
Letter to VA Sundaram, December 11, 1946, From a photostat: G. N. 3200,
CWMG, Vol. 93, pp 128-9
Gandhis prayer meetings were described by Gandhi
himself as his covenant with God and attracted
sometimes thousands and even lakhs of people. At these
mammoth gatherings Gandhi spoke to the people about
the importance of spinning, about growing more food,
about maintaining silence and order in his presence, about
hygiene, about the evil of untouchability, about serving the
Muslims generously and without political motives and
about the power of Ramanaama as the panacea for all
physical and mental ills, including malaria and nervous
breakdown. While Gandhi ascribed miracle cure powers to
Ramanaama and made it sound like an incantation, Gandhi
gave Srirama himself a monotheist Christian father-who-
art-in-heaven connotation, cleverly sidestepping the
pointed question of whether his Rama was the historical
Rama who was the son of Dasaratha and the husband of
Sita.
61
Consistent with his discomfort of the Valmiki and
Tulsi Ramayana, Gandhi even advised the heads of
department in Santiniketan to accept the spirit of the
slokas of the Tulsi Ramayana but to reject what he called

61
Q. You have often said that when you talk of Rama you refer to the
Ruler of the Universe and not to Rama, the son of Dasaratha. But we find
that your Ramdhun calls on Sitarama, Rajarama, and it ends with
Victory to Rama, Lord of Sita. Who is this Rama if not the son of the
King Dasaratha?
A. I have answered such questions before.In Ramdhun Sitarama,
Rajarama are undoubtedly repeated. Is not this Rama the same as the son
of Dasaratha? Tulsidas has answered this question. But let me put down
my own view. More potent than Rama is the nameThousands of people
doubtless look upon Rama and Krishna as historical figures and literally
believe that God came down in person on earth in the form of Rama the
son of Dasaratha, and that by worshipping him one can attain
salvation.History, imagination and truth have got so inextricably mixed
up, it is next to impossible to disentangle them. I have accepted all the
names and forms attributed to God as symbols denoting one formless
omnipotent Rama. (Who is Rama, New Delhi, May 26, 1946, Harijan 2-6-
1946, vol. 91, CWMG, pp44-45)

Tyagaraja had sung that if all the attributes are put on one side and the
glory of Ramanama on the other, the latter would far outweigh the former.
Thinking of the historical Rama of Valmiki or Tulsidas, one was liable to
have many doubts as for instance why Rama banished Sita. And so on.
But when one thought of Ramanama in the abstract, forgetting who Rama
was and what he did, Rama at once became the omnipresent and
omnipotent God, above doubt and criticism. (Speech at prayer meeting,
Madras, J anuary 24, 1946, The Hindu, 26-1- 1946, CWMG, Vol.89,
pp298-99)
the orthodoxy contained in the same slokas!
62
Gandhis
evasion of the historicity of Srirama, even his distaste for
Hindu religious rituals, his conscious distancing from Hindu
religious leaders, his extreme but covert hostility towards
Hindu maharajas and princes attest to the abiding
influence that foreigners and Christian missionaries who
were closely associated with him, had had on his thinking,
notwithstanding the fact that he takes refuge
(unconvincingly) in the Ramayana, Srirama, Tyagaraga
and Tulsidas.

We have to pause awhile at this juncture to pursue this
line of thought. The most striking feature of Gandhis
prayer meetings was that he never spoke to these ordinary
people, to whom he repeatedly referred in his writings as
dumb masses or dumb millions, about the evil of colonial
administration, about the undesirability of continuing alien
rule or about their responsibilities to end it. He consciously
chose not to speak to them about the heroes of the
immediate past and past history who had courageously
resisted and fought threats to this civilization and its
religious and cultural values. He never spoke to them
about Shivaji, Maharana Pratap or Rani Jhansi; he did not
speak to them about the great lives of Aurobindo, Tilak,
Bhagat Singh or Bose unless it was to deprecate armed
resistance. Gandhi spoke to the people only about his
version of swaraj as being social transformation but
never about swaraj as political independence. This
omission is glaring. In the end, his undoubted matchless
ability to bring together thousands and even lakhs of
people for these prayer meetings yielded no tangible
benefits to the Hindu samaj or to the nation except
propagating his personal opinion in the name of the
Congress culture which supplanted this nations
civilisational ethos in post-independence India as the
public face of this nation while Gandhian fetishes
supplanted Hindu dharma as the governing principle of
Indian polity.

Reading these accounts of Gandhis prayer meetings gives
those familiar with similar large gatherings addressed by J

62
There is a remarkable string of verses in the Tulsi Ramayana to the
effect that what is not possible through other means becomes possible
through tapascharya.I commend these verses to you for your careful
perusal. Only you will have to strip them of their orthodoxy. (Discussion
with Heads of Department, Santiniketan, December 19, 1945, CWMG,
vol.89, page 65, Vishva-Bharati News, vol. XIV, No. 9)
Krishnamurti, a feeling of dj vu this intentional denial
of sanctity and authority to tradition and traditional Gurus,
and promoting instead a personality and intellectual cult. A
similar de-Hinduising cultural trend was perpetuated by
Tagore in Bengal. What few people realized was that these
gatherings provided Gandhi, like they provided his
contemporaries Krishnamurti and Tagore, the most
effective medium for collective mind-control and a platform
to promote their respective de-hinduised cults.

Gandhi reached out to ordinary people through his writings
in several journals and through prayer meetings which
were organized everyday even when he was on the move,
in cities and villages. He wrote and spoke on all issues
about which he had an opinion, which was just about
everything from why he disapproved of people feeding
dogs, ants and monkeys, about how his ahimsa did not
include non-injury to animals
63
, on the miracle cure powers
of Ramanaama, on nature cure, on hygiene and discipline,
the necessity to maintain absolute silence in his presence
(reminiscent yet again of the Krishnamurti gatherings), on
why his brand of ahimsa permitted killing of animals but
not people, to ensure that one partner in all marriages was
a harijan,
64
on armed resistance, on non-violence, on
satyagraha or civil-disobedience, on the Cripps and
Cabinet Mission proposals, on the nutritive value of mango
kernels - on every issue about which Gandhi had an
opinion.

When we read the Collected Works of Mahatma Gandhi
what strikes us at once is how these scraps of papers, his
letters to hundreds of people on all issues, had been saved
by him and by the recipients of these letters; these
included bits of paper carrying his notes and jottings on
days when he observed his ritual silence. Gandhis friends,
secretaries and stenographers, over the years spanning at

63
For more on Gandhis attitude to animals, see end of
chapter
64
As regards inter-dining and inter-caste marriages, Gandhiji said that so
far as he understood the mind of the Congress he knew there was no
difference of opinion about inter-dining but he thought that so long as one
could not think himself one of the Harijans, the poison of untouchability
could not be removed. If anybody was not prepared to marry a Harijan he
found no occasion of giving his blessings to that marriage. The question of
marrying a Harijan was not so difficult but the difficulty was only mental.
(Discussion with Congress workers, J anuary 1, 1946, CWMG, vol. 89,
page 150, Amrita Bazar Patrika, 3-1-1946)
least five decades, diligently maintained at his bidding, not
only news paper reports but also first-hand reports of his
meetings with Indians and foreigners, with individuals and
groups, with high and low government officials, with social
service groups, with media persons and missionaries, and
with several members of his vast and extended family,
including nephews, nieces and grand-children. Gandhi was
so obsessed with written communication that he wrote
small notes even to people who lived with him and about
the most trivial and mundane every-day issues. Such was
the iconic status of the man that people who received
letters from him kept them devotedly; while such was his
own sense of self-importance and the immortality of his
writings that his assistants followed his orders that copies
of these letters, notes and jottings be made and preserved
for future reference. For Gandhians, The Collected Works
of Mahatma Gandhi may indeed be considered the Gandhi
Hadith. It was this aspect of Gandhis leadership that his
writ should prevail as policy, his complete stranglehold on
the Congress Working Committee which alienated
Ambedkar and the scheduled castes from him and kept
them away from the Congress and the political movement
led by Gandhi.

7.11 Gandhi, Ambedkar and the Scheduled Castes
The nineteenth and twentieth century was a period of
great turbulence and upheaval for the Hindus of the
nation. Not only were they confronting the external
adversaries, ascendant Islam and the Christian-colonial
British government but internally too, Hindu society was
being churned by the incipient movement to end
untouchability. One of the most positive fallout of the
political movement to end colonial rule was the increasing
awareness of the intrinsic injustice and criminality of the
practice of untouchability in Hindu society. Untouchability
and the consequent cultural deprivation and social infirmity
that it had caused to its victims, was beginning to rise to
the surface of the collective Hindu consciousness, not the
least because the harijans, as Gandhi insisted on calling
the scheduled castes, were taking to English education and
were becoming increasingly articulate and assertive in
public life. Babasaheb Ambedkar was both the embodiment
and symbol of this cataclysmic phenomenon and his
inspirational life bestowed upon him iconic status among
the scheduled castes; Ambedkar, in the last phase of the
freedom movement was as powerful and influential as
Gandhi and Jinnah, with a vast following of his own, not
confined to his own community

Gandhi knew that his clout with the British government
was proportional to the size of his following and his
capacity to bend his followers to his will; and that his
power and influence over the people of this nation in his
role as the tallest leader of the Congress was proportional
to his clout with the British government and his capacity to
deliver on the political front. Gandhis towering ambition to
be the sole leader of all sections of the Indian populace
flowed from the astute understanding of this critically
important political factor. Gandhi already had the INC
under his thumb and he therefore sought to make the INC
the only legitimate and all-representative political vehicle.
The reasoning was simple and sound control of the INC
effectively meant control of all sections of people
Muslims, Hindus, scheduled castes and the people of the
Indian states.

But Gandhi failed to get all sections of the people behind
him because he sought exclusive leadership; he wanted
people to follow him but on his terms and without their
leaders, unless their leaders were willing to subordinate
themselves to his leadership. Gandhi wanted the Hindus
without their rituals and daily observances, without their
religious leaders and their caste and community leaders,
he wanted the Muslims without Jinnah and the Muslim
League, the scheduled castes without Ambedkar and the
people of the Indian states without their Hindu maharajas
and princes.

Gandhi wanted to publicly de-link these segments from its
leadership and so he dealt with the practice of
untouchability in one way and with Ambedkar and others
like him who had emerged as the new generation leaders -
the educated, assertive and politically conscious scheduled
castes - in a radically different way. It is too much of a
coincidence that Gandhis attention turned to the sinful
practice of untouchability with the meteoric rise of
Ambedkar in Indian politics. With deliberate political intent,
in startling contrast to Ambedkar and the aspirations of the
new, articulate sections of the scheduled castes who
wanted to end the isolation of their community and discard
every insulting epithet used to describe and define them,
Gandhi who had arrogated to himself the right to give
them the name harijan now replaced it and began to call
them bhangi.
65
As if to legitimize the pejorative (now
outlawed) appellation and seek acceptance for the name in
popular discourse Gandhi began to call himself a bhangi-
by-choice. He usually preferred to stay in what he termed
were bhangi colonies, not in the heart of these colonies
but on the outskirts and his official residence in Delhi
where he stayed whenever he was dabbling in politics was
called Bhangi Niwas. Gandhi, it was clear, was making a
point against Ambedkar. While Ambedkar was striving by
personal example to raise his people above their infirmity,
Gandhi was positioning himself politically as a contrast to
Ambedkar by conferring high status to a word Ambedkar
abhorred. Gandhi endowed this new name with the
appellation ideal scavengers. It cannot be emphasized
enough that Gandhi relied on his mahatmahood to sell the
proposition that he was wiping off the stigma from the
despised word by making every Hindu a bhangi in the
Utopia of his conception.

We know that all real constructive work in society,
including the mentally stressful, challenging task to end
untouchability, the real yagna, was undertaken not just by
Gandhi but by his devoted followers who carried on the
work for years at a stretch, sometimes their entire lives.
Gandhi offered himself merely as the symbol of this work
and his work itself, whether growing food for the hungry,
scavenging, spinning the charkha to clothe the naked or
ending untouchability, was more symbolic than
substantive. But such was the power of his mahatmahood,
that his devoted followers, Thakkar Bapa, Acharya Vinobha
Bhave and countless nameless others made it their lifes
mission to live in villages and work ceaselessly to bring
different communities together to end untouchability.
Theirs was the first extraordinarily noble, organized
movement to end this terrible practice in Hindu society;
with little success it may be true, but a great beginning
had been made. Some measure of success was achieved
to improve the living conditions, particularly the hygiene of
the scheduled caste habitations in their segregated
localities, but bringing about a change in the attitude of
the caste Hindus to end the practice of untouchability

65
Because the words bhangi and pariah are considered highly
derogatory, using these words intentionally as terms of abuse is a
cognizable offence and the law deals sternly with offenders. Successive
Indian governments have put in place admirable measures to protect the
dignity of the scheduled castes and the Hindi equivalent for scavenger has
been used in the book only when Gandhi has been quoted on the issue.
continued to remain a long and uphill task. The inspiring
force behind the movement for making our villages the
focus of attention of the educated among us was
undoubtedly Gandhi; his unerring instinct to restore the
inter-dependence of communities for the social and
economic well-being of the villages was also making some
headway; but it was becoming clear that uprooting
untouchability merely through social transformation or a
voluntary change of heart, while not impossible, was going
to be an arduous mission perhaps stretching beyond one
generation. One such gesture that Gandhi exhorted
Congress workers and members of the Harijan Sevak
Sangh to make was to ask each one of them to marry or
get their sons or daughters to marry a harijan.
As regards inter-dining and inter-caste
marriage, Gandhiji said that so far as he
understood the mind of the Congress he
knew there was no difference of opinion
about inter-dining but he thought that so
long as one could not think himself one of
the Harijans the poison of untouchability
could not be removed. If anybody was not
prepared to marry a Harijan he found no
occasion of giving his blessings to that
marriage. The question of marrying a
Harijan was not so difficult but the difficulty
was only mental.
66


But can the members of the Harijan Sevak
Sangh truthfully claim to have eradicated
the last trace of untouchability from their
own hearts? Are their professions altogether
on a par with their practice? A member
asked as to what his criterion was in that
respect.
Are you married?
The Member: I happen to be.
G. Then have you an unmarried daughter? If
you have, get for her a Harijan bridegroom,
not to satisfy her lust but in a purely
religious spirit and I shall send you a wire of
congratulations at my expense.
You will now realize why the Harijan sevaks
are unable to move the hearts of the

66
Discussion with Congress Workers, J anuary 1, 1946, Amrita Bazar Patrika, 3-
1-1946, CWMG Vol. 89, page 150
savarna Hindus. The reason is that they
have not that fire of faith in their hearts,
that impatient hunger for service which is
the first essential for an effective appeal. Let
but a handful of savarna Hindus go forth in
that true missionary spirit and they will
leaven the entire Hindu mass.
67


Gandhis sons, Manilal and Devdas, married the daughters
of two of Gandhis most illustrious colleagues; Manilal
married Sushila Mashruwalla, daughter of Kishorelal
Mashruwalla while Devdas fell in love with and married
Lakshmi, daughter of C. Rajagopalachari or Rajaji.
Needless to say neither Rajaji nor Kishorelal Mashruwalla
was a harijan. While Gandhis ideas for integrating all
communities for a harmonious village life with common
social and economic objectives worked in the villages,
Gandhi had not accounted for the scheduled castes moving
out of villages and into cities, even traveling abroad,
acquiring English education and developing a mind of their
own about what they wanted to achieve, and how they
expected to be treated. Gandhi failed to come to terms
with the reality that English education, for better or for
worse, had become the instrument of political power under
colonial dispensation and being elected to provincial
legislatures, the viceroys council, being ministers in the
provincial government or the interim government was
perceived then as the only means to power and privilege.
The educated scheduled castes were no different; in fact
their passionate desire for political power had much to do
with their impatience and even lack of faith for achieving
equality through the slow and painstaking process of
change of attitude and also because they understood the
new reality that politics was a great equalizer. The new
generation of scheduled castes wanted political power and
position to break the social glass ceiling. And it was this
yearning for social respectability that made for the vital
difference between why the Muslims and the scheduled
castes aspired for political power. For the former, it was
vivisection of the Hindu bhumi to set up an Islamic state
while for the latter it was an empowering instrument to
end social ostracism.


67
Talk with members of Harijan Sevak Sangh, Panchgani, J uly 20, 1946, Harijan,
28-7-1946, CWMG Vol. 91, pp 320-21
Gandhi undertook a fast-unto-death against separate
electorates for the scheduled castes on the pretext that
the scheduled castes were Hindus and if they sought
political power through separate electorates it would sever
them permanently from the Hindu samaj. Gandhi therefore
insisted on joint electorates with the concession of
reserved constituencies for the scheduled castes. So far so
good; but given that the Congress was the only powerful
political alternative to the Muslim League, no Hindu was
going to vote for the Muslim League. Hindus generally
voted for the Congress even though the Congress under
Gandhis leadership, while depending on the vote of the
Hindu majority, refused to represent Hindu interests.
68

Therefore if the scheduled castes had to win elections to
provincial and central legislatures which would give them
the opening to become ministers in government, they had
to become a part of, or be supported by either the Muslim
League or the Congress.

Gandhi did not like the idea of the scheduled castes
demanding representation in politics on merit as their right
and as a matter of sense of right. Gandhi wanted to be the
source from which all things flowed and he wanted all
things to flow with my consent.
69
Gandhi wanted the

68
There were some who described the Congress as a Hindu organization.
They only betrayed their ignorance of the political history of India. At one
time the Hindu Mahasabha was in the hands of the Congress and so was
the Muslim League and others. Congress was not a Hindu organization. It
did not serve Hindu interests to the exclusion of the other communities. It
was hinted that the Congress leaders had come to consult him with regard
to the interests of the Hindus. Had they done so they would have lowered
the stature of the Indian National Congress in the eyes of the world. They
had come to consult him, as an expert on the Hindu-Muslim question, as
to how best to serve the national cause in the present crisis. (Speech at a
prayer meeting, Srirampur, December 28, 1946, The Hindu, 2-1-1947; and
Harijan, 26-1-1947, CWMG Vol 93, page 207)


69
I have asked you to pay me a brief visit. You might be of some use in
the work that is being done here. That means your sparing a fortnight at
the most. But I do not want you to neglect the duty you have undertaken,
of course with my full consent. (Letter to Amrit Kaur, Patna March 18,
1947, CWMG Vol 94, page 136)
Mahadev I suppose did not have the same malady that you seem to have.
In any case unless I know more fully I cant guide you. Moreover,
Mahadev had put himself under an Ayurvedic physician at that time,
staying in bed. Of course he did so with my consent. (Letter to J ag Parvesh
Chander, Patna March 18, 1947, CWMG Vol 94, page 139)
scheduled castes to accept what Gandhi, and through
Gandhi the INC bestowed upon them in what they
considered was in the fitness of things. Gandhi even took
exception to feeding, without his prior consent, harijans
who had been gathered for a public flag-hoisting ceremony
to celebrate Gandhis birthday. Gandhi stopped
refreshments from being served to them on the ground
that he did not want to make beggars and idlers of them!
Hindu civilization has accorded sharing food and feeding
the highest place in dharma. In fact, annadaanam or
feeding the hungry is considered to be paramodharmah or
the primary dharma of every Hindu. On every important
occasion in a Hindus life beginning with the birth of a
Hindu and until his death, his or her family undertakes
feeding the community and sharing food with the hungry,
an integral part of their duty towards society.
Yet his nearest comrades were about to
make the mistake of serving refreshments,
after the Jhanda-vandan by Dr. Rajendra
Prasad, to volunteers and Harijans who were
not in need of such. Was it not criminal to
fritter away food-stuff that would serve to
keep alive twenty men, to provide titbits to
Harijans and volunteers who were certainly
not suffering pangs of hunger? They were
deceiving themselves if they thought that
thereby they served the Harijans. The real
hunger of the Harijans which needed to be
satisfied was not for morsels of food but for
decent living as self-respecting equal
citizens, for a square deal as human beings,
for freedom from fear, inculcation of clean
and sanitary habits, thrift, industry,
education. That required perseverance, self-
sacrifice and patient intelligent labour on our
part. If they gave him money to feed
Harijans he would refuse to accept it. For he
did not want to
make beggars and idlers of them. He
pointedly referred to the fact that Dr.
Rajendra Prasad was their Food Member who
wanted to save for the famishing every
morsel of food. In the circumstances he very
much questioned whether the oversight of

I have gone through your papers. You should not have undertaken the fast
without my consent. It is good that you have broken it.(Letter to
Prabhakar, April 11, 1947, CWMG Vol 94, page 285)
his comrades was not due to his being lax
with himself. Was he not allowing himself to
partake rather too freely of the fruits that
were placed before him? The lesson of
yesterday, he remarked, was a grave
warning for all, if we are to learn truly the
lesson of the charkha.
70


But Gandhi accepted with great equanimity the
unprecedented gesture of having people celebrate not just
his birthday but also celebrate his birthday for an entire
week as Gandhi-jayanthi week; we have to infer that this
too was done with his consent.
Though I have noticed it in the Gujarati
columns of the Harijanbandhu from a
different source, at the risk of repetition in
another form, I must quote from a touching
letter from Shri Parikshitlal Majumdar
addressed to Shyamlalji, a copy of which has
been sent by the latter.
I am writing this from Bardoli. This year,
during the Gandhi Jayanti week, nearly 40
public wells have been freely opened for the
Harijans. People have taken to this
programme of their own will. Local people
have invited Harijans and taken them to the
public wells. I myself have attended some
functions and personally have become a
witness to the marvelous change. No doubt,
it is Gandhijis efforts and the recent writings
that have brought this change. Numerous
inter-communal dinners have been held.
There was one such big dinner at Nadiad,
the real capital of the Kaira District. One
prominent well has been opened in Kadi, a
citadel of orthodoxy and 150 people dined
with Harijans at Padra in Baroda. There are
numerous such incidents but I cannot
enumerate them at present.
Of course, compared to what we want to
achieve, this progress is a miserable show.
But seeing that Gujarat has been so far
behind-hand in this matter of removal of

70
Harijan, 29-9-1946, Extracted from Pyarelals Weekly Letter. The
Hindustan Times, 25-9-1946, also reports the speech, CWMG Vol. 92, page 225.
Foot-note 2 in the above entry in CWMG says, This was to be in celebration of
Gandhijis birthday according to the Vikram calendar.
untouchability, the little progress of which
Shri Parikshitlal takes note with pardonable
satisfaction is pleasant, if it is permanent
and is a precursor of better things to come.
Every nail driven into the coffin of
untouchability is a step in the right direction
towards the purification of Hinduism.
71


While Gandhi reserved the right to handle politics for
himself and for his favored ones in the INC, he apportioned
social work or constructive programme to lesser mortals
called Congress workers. Until the 1940s decade there
were few who dared to question Gandhi on any issue but
by the turn of the decade he was beginning to confront
very sharp, pointed questions on several issues not only
through the question box in Harijan but also during his
prayer meetings. Gandhi received one such pointed letter
in flawless English from a member of the scheduled castes,
from the Mehtar community, on the eve of elections to the
Constituent Assembly. Gandhi ridiculed the harijans
impertinence in writing to him in bookish English, which
Gandhi says patronizingly, the Mehtar harijan probably
only half understood, and savagely mocked the aspiration
of his community to enter the privileged portals of the
Constituent Assembly. Instead, Gandhi advised the harijan
condescendingly to use his English education to become a
better bhangi and to come forward to help Gandhi clean
up the bhangi colony in Mumbai! The letter by the
educated scheduled caste person to Gandhi and Gandhis
response to him is reproduced below in its entirety only to
throw light on this little known side to Gandhis character.
It was this vicious and even megalomaniac streak in
Gandhi which kept critically important sections of Hindu
community away from the INC at a time when forging a
common front alone could have tamed the Muslim League
and staved off impending vivisection.
I am writing this letter with a hope of
getting proper and immediate response
from you. Along with the whole of India
I am well aware of your sweet will and
affinity towards the Mehtar
Community. Your Harijan has obliged
us to a great extent by enabling us to
see through your heart. Especially the
recent Harijan have emphatically

71
A Sign of Progress, SRIRAMPUR, November 30, 1946, Harijan, 15-12-1946,
CWMG Vol. 93, pp 80-81
revealed your thoughts about the
Mehtar Community. I now wish to
reveal my interrogatory heart in order
to be well nigh to your feelings towards
us and to be definite about our position
in the muddled and complicated Indian
political field.

By the time you will receive this letter
it will be the last date of filling in
nomination forms for the
candidateships for the Constituent
Assembly, which has, it is learnt, to be
completed by the end of this month.
Congress is proposing particular M. L.
As and non-M. L. As for the same. It is
believed that Scheduled Castes are also
to be represented (adequately?). But is
there any proposal from you or from
Congress to elect adequate or at least
some members from the Mehtar
Community who, I am sure, will
discharge their duty of citizenship and
pick up their legitimate share in the
future constituion of Free India?
2. Generous as you are towards us,
may I assure myself and my
community that Mehtar seats in the
Constituent Assembly will not escape
your notice?
3. Who will be the components of the
Advisory Board? Caste Hindus or
Minorities including the Scheduled
Castes?
4. Will the advice or proposals of the
Advisory Board be binding to the
Constituent Assembly? I think they will
not. If so, what sense is there in
appointing such a Board, which will be
nonentity if the Constituent Assembly
were not to pay heed to its advice? Is it
not merely for the appeasement of the
weak minorities? You might say you
have been [doing] and will do
everything for us, but I wish to say let
us be with you when everything for us
is to be done. Let us be represented
democratically. I strongly hope that
my questions will be fully and
satisfactorily answered by you with an
obligation of immediate reply to me. I
further humbly request you to be good
enough to publish your answers in your
weekly Harijan.
Hope to be excused for troubles.
Gandhi: I have reproduced the
foregoing in order to show what havoc
dangerous knowledge of English has
produced in our society. This is a
specimen not of English nor yet of
Indian English. It is bookish English
which the writer probably half
understands. I suggest to him that if
he had written to me in the national
language Hindustani or in his provincial
language, it would not have evoked an
unfavourable response from me. The
writer has paid me a left-handed
compliment and that perhaps in order
to teach me how to express my love for
the Bhangi, otherwise known as
Mehtar. The writer is a discontented
graduate, setting no example or a bad
example to Bhangis. He has isolated
himself from them, though he
professes to represent them. He will
certainly become my teacher if he will
be a graduate in the art of being a
good Bhangi. I very much fear that he
does no scavenging himself; he does
not know what scientific scavenging is.
If he became an expert in the art, his
services would be wanted by all the
cities of India. When Bhangis really rise
from the slumber of ages, they will
successfully sweep the Augean stables
everywhere and India will be a pattern
of cleanliness and there will be in India
no plague and other diseases which are
the descendants of filth and dirt.

In the place where I am living in
Bombay, my room and the adjoining
lavatory are fairly clean, but I am in
the midst of suffocating dirt. I have
had no time to examine the tenements
in front of me. They are as crowded
and as dirty as the ones in the quarters
where I was living in New Delhi. Had
my graduate fellow Bhangi been an
expert in the art, I would, without
doubt, have requisitioned his services
as my guide and helper. As it is, not
only have I no use for him, I have to
risk his displeasure by telling him that
he should not think of the Constituent
Assembly or other assemblies. Let
those go to them who are wanted
there. Instead of getting rid of the
wretched caste mentality, he argues
that any Harijan is not good enough for
the purpose but preference should be
given to the Mehtar caste. I suggest to
him that it is a harmful method, doing
no good to anybody.

Anyway, he has expected the
impossible from me. I am not made for
these big institutions. I have never
interested myself in the periodical
assembly elections. I have not
attended Working Committee meetings
where they make these selections.
What I know of the present selections
is from the newspapers. I have become
a Bhangi because I think that that is
the vocation of every Hindu, that the
hoary institution of untouchability as
we know it today in its ugly shape will
die a decent death only when the
Hindus will be casteless by becoming
Bhangis from the bottom of their
hearts. That cannot be done by
aspiring after the membership my
correspondent has in view.
72


Gandhi may not have dared to give Ambedkar a similar
tongue-lashing in public but made sure Ambedkar realized
that he was not welcome in the INC. Gandhis antipathy for
Ambedkar did not escape notice however

72
Left-handed Compliment, Bombay, J uly 6, 1946, Harijan 14-7-1946, CWMG
Vol. 91, pp 241-43
I understand and appreciate your
remarks about Dr. Ambedkar. I
suppose you are aware that I know
him very well and that I have met
him often enough. He represents a
good cause but he is a bad advocate
for the simple reason that his passion
has made him bitter and made him
depart from the straight and narrow
path. As I know to my cost, he is a
believer in questionable means so
long as the end is considered to be
good. With him and with men like
him the end justifies the means.
Have you read his book? It is packed
with untruths almost from beginning
to end. I am sorry to have to say this
of a countryman who has himself
been obliged to put up with insults
which have embittered men mightier
than Dr. Ambedkar. You need not
take all I say as gospel truth. I have
written this to you in order to give
you my . . . that if I do not go out of
my way to seek contact with Dr.
Ambedkar it is not for want of will or
want of regard for you and friends
like you but because I know that such
seeking will, in my view, harm the
cause [rather] than help it. No
question of prestige will deter me
from walking to him. I can say that
the question of prestige has never
interfered with my doing what I
believed was a duty. I have laboured
to show that in this case duty points
the other way.
73


With little thought to the immense hurt he was causing not
only to the scheduled castes but to the entire Hindu samaj
by marginalizing Ambedkar and ridiculing the aspirations
of the newly educated in the community, Gandhi
compounded the vexatious issue by encouraging the

73
Letter to Carl Heath, December 2, 1946, From a copy: Pyarelal Papers. Nehru
Memorial Museum and Library. Courtesy: Beladevi Nayyar and Dr. Sushila
Nayyar, CWMG Vol. 93, pp 86-87

Congress to put up its own scheduled caste candidates
against those owning allegiance to the Scheduled Castes
Federation, formed by Ambedkar in 1942. Gandhi
promoted the idea of Congress Muslim versus the League
Muslim, understandably as a Muslim who did not subscribe
to the idea of Pakistan and vivisection; less understandable
is Gandhis move to promote the idea of Congress harijan
versus Ambedkars scheduled castes. Not surprisingly,
Ambedkar and the entire community viewed Gandhis
moves as hostile to their self-assertion and political
aspirations. Gandhi was totally right to insist that the
scheduled castes were an integral part of the Hindu samaj;
and that the separation implied by separate electorates
would be suicidal not only for the scheduled castes but also
for the caste Hindus.
74
But the remedy laid not in
promoting Congress harijans against Ambedkars
scheduled castes, but in the Congress refraining from
entering the electoral fray in the reserved constituencies
and allowing Ambedkars scheduled castes to occupy all
the space with the full backing of the Congress. Politics, as
it was being proved by the day from 1942 onwards, was
not Gandhis karmabhumi, social transformation definitely
was. Had Gandhi handled Ambedkar with greater tact and
understanding, Ambedkar would have stood staunchly
alongside the Congress and as a brilliant lawyer he would
have added considerable weight to the Congress team
against the Muslim League and the British government
during the negotiations on the Cabinet Mission proposals
and during the tragedy that followed thereafter.

On the one hand Gandhi was insisting that the scheduled
castes should not ask for separate electorates because
they were an integral part of the Hindu samaj; on the
other hand, Gandhi refused to accommodate any of
Ambedkars demands on behalf of his community and
refused also to make space within the INC for the
politically-ambitious Ambedkarite scheduled castes. In
fact, Gandhi was using the Hindu card to play politics with
Ambedkar; he was denying the scheduled castes what
they thought was the best means for being elected in large

74
It is perfectly true that more is common between Hindus and Sikhs than
between caste Hindus and untouchables. That is a blot upon caste Hindus and
Hinduism. But the remedy is not to add evil to evil but to reform Hinduism, so that
the demand for separation on the part of untouchables dies a natural death.
Meantime Hindus cannot be expected to commit suicide which separation of
Harijans from caste Hindus must mean. (Scheduled castes, Panchgani J uly 19,
1946, Harijan 28-7-1946, CWMG Vol 91, page 312)
numbers but doing little to make the INC responsive to
their needs. While Gandhi repeatedly insisted that the
Congress was not a Hindu organization, he used the
argument of survival of Hinduism as the fig-leaf to
thwart Ambedkars demand for separate electorates.
Gandhi was effectively doing everything to push Ambedkar
and his followers inexorably out of the Hindu fold if that
was the only way they could realize their political
aspirations, just as he was doing everything to scuttle the
Cabinet Mission.
I have not been able to answer your
letter fully. The main problem is about
Ambedkar. I see a risk in coming to
any sort of understanding with him, for
he has told me in so many words that
for him there is no distinction between
truth and untruth or between violence
and non-violence. He follows one single
principle, viz., to adopt any means
which will serve his purpose. One has
to be very careful indeed when dealing
with a man who would become a
Christian, Muslim or Sikh and then be
reconverted according to his
convenience. There is much more I
could write in the same strain. To my
mind it is all a snare. It is a catch.
Besides, it is not necessary for him at
present to insist on 20 p. c....... I
therefore feel that at present we should
not insist on an agreement such as you
suggest. However, we should stress the
capacity of the Congress to do justice.
Mine may be a voice in the wilderness.
Even so I prefer it that way. Therefore,
if we negotiate with Ambedkar out of
fear of the League we are likely to lose
on both the fronts.
75


Of course we have no way of knowing if Ambedkar did
indeed say what Gandhi is accusing him of saying; but
Patel, with a better understanding of politics, of
Ambedkars position in the emerging polity and with an
unerring sense of impending danger were Ambedkar to

75
Letter to Vallabhbhai Patel, August 1, 1946, Bapuna Patro2: Sardar
Vallabhbhaine, pp. 319-20, Vol. 91, pp 393-94
publicly repudiate Gandhi and the Congress, keeps the
doors open to Ambedkar and keeps the dialogue with
Ambedkar going. As a forerunner of things to come when
Patel would successfully integrate the Indian states
within the Indian Union after August 1947, Patel does
indeed come to an amicable agreement with Ambedkar.
76

The Muslim League just a couple of days earlier had
rejected the Cabinet Mission proposals and held Gandhi
solely responsible for their decision. Patel knew that if
Ambedkar were to be alienated at that point in time,
because of Congress refusal under Gandhis pressure to
arrive at some kind of agreement with him, Ambedkars
alienation could cause incalculable damage to the INC if
he too were to publicly repudiate Gandhi. Failure to
accommodate Ambedkar then would certainly have
weakened the INC vis a vis the growing militancy of the
Muslim League. It was a measure of Patels political
astuteness and his quiet influence within the INC that
Ambedkar was not only elected to the Constituent
Assembly but also made Chairman of the Drafting
Committee for the Constitution of India. It was probably
Patels wisdom which reached out to the wounded
Ambedkar on time which averted the real danger of
Ambedkar and his followers from converting to either
Islam or Christianity. Ambedkar, towards the end of his
life chose to convert to Buddhism, which was
civilizationally related by the umbilical cord to Hindu
dharma.

7.12 How Gandhi alienated the Hindu Indian Kings
and princes
Gandhis treatment of Ambedkar, the manner in which he
dealt with the Cabinet Mission leading to vivisection of
the nation, and his total ineffectiveness in dealing with
the worsening Hindu-Muslim relations in 1946-47
accurately reflected Gandhis rapidly diminishing capacity
to handle people and events. Gandhis foray into nation
building through social transformation and his foray into
politics can be briefly summed up as follows
He succeeded in politics to the extent he could
control the top leadership in the Congress

76
I have your letter. If you see no risk in it, what is there for me to say? Do by all
means settle with Bhimarao. I have nothing further to say in the matter. (Letter to
Vallabhbhai Patel, August 3, 1946, Bapuna Patro2: Sardar Vallabhbhaine, p.
323, CWMG Vol. 91, page 412)
He succeeded in politics to the extent the British
government treated him as an influential leader in
the Congress
By the 1940s decade when individuals close to
Gandhi in the INC and outside it began to
distance themselves from him, Gandhis control
over the INC and consequently his hitherto
unchallenged power in politics began to diminish
Gandhi had a readymade audience in the Indian
people desperately seeking a leader after the
retreat of Aurobindo and after the death of Tilak
because the readymade halo of Mahatmahood
crafted in advance both by the imperial British
government in London and by the British political
establishment in South Africa and India, was
pinned to his head when he landed in Mumbai in
January 1915
Gandhi realized his growing unpopularity in
quarters that mattered and his diminishing power
and control over people and events; his desperate
attempts in 1946-47 to regain his moral authority
and power, accentuated his anger, frustration and
obdurate refusal to heed both public opinion and
the sentiments of his formerly close colleagues

In a striking rebuttal of the empirical truth that skills and
results get better over the years in any profession and
moral authority becomes total as the person evolves to
near perfection, Gandhis ultimate failure in politics and
his personal life was the result of his eroding authority
and power. Gandhis obsession with his brahmacharya
impacted upon his public life in politics and this towering
obsession was his final undoing.

We have established so far that neither Gandhi nor
Gandhis INC had set political independence as the
objective of their movement which is erroneously
referred to as the freedom movement. They had set for
themselves and for the nation, until 1942, only the goal
of increased participation in governance in some form, as
a deserving and faithful jewel in the British crown. We
have to remind ourselves yet again of Aurobindos
scathing indictment of the so called leaders of the INC
that they had arrogated to themselves the right to speak
for all Indians. In these circumstances neither Gandhi
nor the INC had made any conscious effort to work out
the modalities and the nitty-gritty of who would rule
India after the British and how. As early as 1909 when
Gandhi wrote the Hind Swaraj, Gandhi spoke and wrote
bitterly against the Nationalists and Indian rulers and
indicated that he was not in favour of the British quitting
India if this meant that rulership would revert to
maharajas and princes or if it meant that the Nationalists
who were votaries of armed resistance would rule over
India. Gandhi instead expressed his preference for
anarchy and chaos, which he equated with God.

Lest we forget, Gandhis intense animosity for the
nationalists and for the Indian maharajas and princes
was his subjective preference and yet he hogtied the
entire nation with his personal opinions which were in
some part unjustified and which for the greater part
bordered on the fetish. We are forced to come to the
conclusion that it was probably Gandhis English liberal
education in London and the pervasive presence of
foreigners in his life which influenced his attitude towards
Hindu kings and rulers. Western liberal education of the
nineteenth and twentieth centuries was greatly
influenced by the political trends in republicanism,
charter of rights and democracy and the concurrent
waning power of European monarchies and the power of
the Church. It was fashionable in those times in Europe
to be anti-monarchy and anti-orthodoxy and Gandhi
subscribed to the fashion. The INC, instigated by Gandhi
triggered unrest in 1938 in Mysore, Rajkot, Jaipur and
Travancore; there was unrest in Talcher and Dhenkanal
too. In all these small kingdoms Gandhi precipitated a
crisis either in the name of civil liberties or temple entry
for harijans. Needless to say the Congress meddled only
in those states ruled by Hindu princes and kings. The
Congress passed the Haripura resolution in 1938 with the
clause of self-imposed restriction on direct interference in
the Indian States; much like Pakistans moral support
for jihadis in Jammu and Kashmir, the Congress limited
itself to moral support for the people in Indian States
aspiring for civil liberties.

In the days just preceding August 8, in 1942, when
Gandhi issued the Quit India call, Gandhi roused the
country to feverish pitch in eager expectation of
immediate political independence. From Gandhis talks
and writings people believed that Gandhi had only to
demand that the British quit India and independence
would be handed to Indians the next instant. In one such
dramatic letter which Gandhi wrote to an unnamed
Muslim, Gandhi told him that he would be quite happy to
have the British government hand over full power and
the reins of the government to the Muslim League, and
all territories including the territories of the Indian States
ruled by kings and princes!
With reference to your letter giving me
the purport of your conversation today
with the Quaid-e-Azam, I wish to say in
as clear language as possible that when
in a Harijan article I reproduced
Maulana Azads published offer to the
Muslim League I meant it to be a
serious offer in every sense of the
term. Let me explain it again for your
edification. Provided the Muslim League
co-operated fully with the Congress
demand for immediate independence
without the slightest reservation,
subject, of course, to the proviso that
independent India will permit the
operations of the Allied armies in order
to check Axis aggression and thus to
help both China and Russia, the
Congress will have no objection to the
British Government transferring all the
powers it today exercises to the Muslim
League on behalf of the whole of India,
including the so-called Indian India.
77

And the Congress will not only not
obstruct any Government that the
Muslim League may form on behalf of
the people, but will even join the
Government in running the machinery
of the free State. This is meant in all
seriousness and sincerity. Naturally I
cannot give all the implications of the
offer and its far-reaching consequences
in a hurried reply to your note. You are
at liberty to show this to Quaid-e-Azam
and to any person who is interested in
the question of immediate
independence for India and of a free
India.

77
Indian India as distinct from British India referred to territories
ruled by Indian Hindu Maharajas and Princes and Muslim Nawabs and
Nizams.
Gandhijis offer in the letter was taken
serious exception to by C. P.
Ramaswami Aiyar who called it a very
astute and menacing move and used it
as an occasion for taking his gloves off
and definitely and publicly to arouse
the States to a sense of impending
danger ((The Transfer of Power, p.
759). He resigned from the Viceroys
Executive Council ostensibly on this
issue.
78


During the extremely turbulent years 1946-47 when
everything was in a state of flux and no one could predict
accurately how and when transfer of power would happen
if indeed it would happen at all, several Hindu rulers and
maharajas met Gandhi to probe his mind about what
would be the fate of their kingdoms and provinces in the
new dispensation. Among those who met Gandhi were the
Deccan Princes and the Maharaja of Kapurthala. To them,
like to all other princes and kings who met him, Gandhi
had only one thing to say become servants of your
people. Etymologically the word may derive from serve
but the noun had acquired pejorative connotations and
Gandhi, just as he had advised Morarji Desai to use the
military to do only sanitation work, was now exhorting
Kings to become servants. It is a Gandhian legacy that we
still retain civil servant and government servant in our
vocabulary.
Only a few years ago the Princes felt that
they could not be safe except under the
Paramountcy of the British Crown. It seemed
to have dawned on most of them that that
was not the correct attitude. This was but
natural, for they were after all sons of the
soil. He had said openly on another occasion
that the people of the States were slaves of
slaves which the Princes were. They
exercised their authority within their own
principalities, so long as they were in the
good books of the British Government. They
were made or unmade at the pleasure of the
British Crown. The Princes who had eyes
opened to that vital fact were desirous of

78
Letter to a Muslim, August 8, 1942, The Hindu, 20-8-1942, CWMG Vol. 83, pp
186-187

Indias independence equally with the people
of India. If then they felt that need, they did
not want a union of the States but each
State had first to form a union with its own
people. Their people were the real power on
whom they were to depend for their status.
It became trusteeship if they became
servants of their own people. If they took
that attitude, they needed no terms with the
Congress or with any other organization. The
immediate need was an understanding with
their own people. He made bold to take up
that attitude, though his might be a lonely
voice. In his opinion, the Princes, as
servants and trustees of their people, were
worthy of their hire.
79


The Deccan Princes may have been slaves of the British
government but they were not lacking in political acumen.
Predicting correctly that there would be no relief to them
even in independent India, and realizing the benefits of
collective strength, the Deccan Princes, like the Princes of
the Malabar had begun to think of constituting themselves
into unions and federations. While the Sapru Committee
Proposals welcomed the move and considered it
sympathetically, Gandhi had the Nehruvian approach to
the rulers and after telling them bluntly that he suspected
the British governments role in the idea, he advised them
to hasten slowly and first achieve union with their own
people. While the Muslim League and the Muslim Nawabs
and Nizams were united in a common objective, Gandhi
and Nehru (read the Congress) continued to alienate the
Hindu rulers and Gandhis speech at the AICC on August 8,
1942, only served to heighten their suspicion and distrust
of Gandhi, Nehru and the INC.
From the Princes I ask with all respect
due to them a very small thing. I am a
well-wisher of the Princes. I was born

79
Speech at Meeting of Deccan Princes, Poona, J uly 28, 1946, Harijan,
4-8-1946, and The Hindu, 1-8-1946, CWMG Vol. 91, pp 369-70;
Extracted from Pyarelals Deccan Chiefs in Conference. The meeting
was held in the Servants of India Societys Library Hall. Among those
present were the Rajas of Aundh, Phaltan, Bhor, Miraj (Senior),
J amkhandi and Kurundwad (Senior), Appasaheb Pant and Satawalekar
from Aundh, Kore, Sathe and Thomre from Sangli, the Dewan of Bhor
and representatives from Budhgaon and Ramdrug. N. C. Kelkar and
Shankerrao Deo were also present on the occasion by special invitation.
in a State. My grandfather refused to
salute with his right hand any Prince
other than his own. But he did not say
to the Prince, as I feel he ought to
have said, that even his own master
could not compel him, his minister, to
act against his conscience. I have
eaten the Princes salt and I would not
be false to it. As a faithful servant, it is
my duty to warn the Princes that if
they will act while I am still alive, the
Princes may come to occupy an
honourable place in free India. In
Jawaharlals scheme of free India, no
privileges or the privileged classes have
a place. Jawaharlal considers all
property to be State-owned. He wants
planned economy. He wants to
reconstruct India according to plan. He
likes to fly; I do not. I have kept a
place for the Princes and the zamindars
in India that I envisage. I would ask
the Princes in all humility to enjoy
through renunciation. The Princes may
renounce ownership over their
properties and become their trustees in
the true sense of the term. I visualize
God in the assemblage of people. The
Princes may say to their people: You
are the owners and masters of the
State and we are your servants. I
would ask the Princes to become
servants of the people and render to
them an account of their own services.
The Empire too bestows power on the
Princes, but they should prefer to
derive power from their own people;
and if they want to indulge in some
innocent pleasures, they may seek to
do so as servants of the people. I do
not want the Princes to live as paupers.
But I would ask them: Do you want to
remain slaves for all time? Why should
you, instead of paying homage to a
foreign power, not accept the
sovereignty of your own people?
80


There was no longer even a polite pretence that the
Congress was a democratic organization. It was either
Gandhi or Nehru who unilaterally decided all policies.
Gandhi may have used the phrases While I am still alive,
In Jawaharlals scheme of free India, Jawaharlal
considers very naturally but it was an ominous portent of
more dangerous things to come.

Consistent with his dislike for the rule of Hindu maharajas,
Gandhi forced himself and the INC into the Vaikkom
movement in 1924 and transformed a vibrant peoples
movement for temple entry into a Satyagraha campaign
against the ruler of Travancore. Gandhi set up a
Satyagraha ashram in Vaikkom and congressmen of all
religious hues descended there including CF Andrews. Not
surprisingly Pujya Narayana Guru was unhappy with
Gandhi for veering the temple entry movement away from
the Hindus and away from the course and control of the
Ezhava community and making it into a Congress Party
Satyagraha campaign. Pujya Narayana Guru, being the
wise religious person that he was with sound political
understanding, however did not make his displeasure with
Gandhi public, nor did he undermine Gandhis leadership
with his displeasure. Not only did Gandhi antagonize Pujya
Narayana Guru by forcing the INC into the movement, he
also antagonized the Travancore Maharaja who was the
first servant of the temple and whose inherited
responsibility it was to protect the customs and traditions
of the temple, even if the customs and traditions were
contrary to the times. In short, Gandhi put all major
sections of the Hindu community on the defensive with his
bulldozing social reform methods. Let us have no doubts
on the score, Gandhis intent to force social changes was
alien to Hindu tradition which had other ways of doing it
while Indians may be bamboozled into believing that his
methods which included fasting, self-suffering and non-
violence, were essentially Indian or Hindu in character.

Gandhi who was the declared leader of the INC which was
perceived as a political instrument, dabbled simultaneously
in the arenas of social reform and politics, and thus

80
Speech at the AICC Meeting, Bombay, August 8, 1942,
CWMG Vol. 83, page 198-199

simultaneously antagonized important social, political and
religious institutions with disastrous consequences. After
Gandhi-led INCs Satyagraha campaigns against them,
Hindu Indian rulers would have had little reason to trust
Gandhi or the INC. On the question of paramountcy after
transfer of power, Gandhi asked the princes and kings of
Indian States to talk to Jawaharlal Nehru and entrusted
the task of choosing 93 representatives of the Indian
states to the constituent assembly to the Muslim Nawab of
Bhopal and Jawaharlal Nehru. Even in this moment of
acute anxiety for the Hindu rulers, Gandhi did not have the
vision to see an opportunity to reach out to them in
solidarity and support; he saw in the meeting only a great
opportunity to deliver what he considered was a well-
deserved homily. It is striking that while he referred them
to Nehru, he did not think he had to consult Rajaji or Patel
who were more qualified intellectually to deal with this
extremely complex and sensitive issue or that instead of
the Muslim Nawab of Bhopal he could have requested a
Hindu ruler to undertake the task.

7.13 Gandhi and Nehru sow the seeds of separatism
in Kashmir
Gandhis penchant for entrusting Nehru with all major
political responsibilities had less to do with Nehrus political
ability and more to do with Nehrus sagacity in staying on
the right side of Gandhi. It was Gandhis moha for Nehru
which drove a stake into the heart of the Hindu nation in
1946, when Gandhi subordinated the nations interest to
Nehrus personal whim in Jammu and Kashmir. Even as
the INC was in the midst of the make or break negotiations
with the Cabinet Delegation, trouble erupted in Jammu and
Kashmir. Sheikh Abdullah, a commoner from the Valley
saw a great opportunity in the generally troubled times, to
realize his own towering Muslim ambitions in the turbulent
years preceding 1947. Playing out the drama for civil
liberties and freedom that the INC had staged in Rajkot,
Jaipur and other Hindu kingdoms, Sheikh Abdullah
launched in May 1946, the Quit Kashmir campaign.
Abdullah was promptly arrested and incarcerated. Nehru,
playing the Great Democrat to the hilt, attempted to enter
Kashmir and was also speedily detained by Ramachandra
Kak, the Prime Minister of Jammu and Kashmir. Gandhi
jumped into the fray and in a passionate letter to
Jawaharlal Nehru, pleaded with Nehru to return to Delhi
with the promise that the Congress would make Nehrus
cause in Kashmir, its own cause and Nehrus honour, its
honour.
81
The draft reply, drafted by Gandhi contained the
ill-concealed threat to the Maharaja of Jammu and Kashmir
that Nehru would return to retrieve his honour, a threat
which does not find mention in the official Congress
Resolution. True to his promise, Gandhi, drafted the
Congress resolution on Kashmir in the name of Maulana
Azad, the President of the INC -
Recent events in Kashmir have been
repeatedly considered by the Working
Committee and the Committee have been
greatly affected by them. They refrained,
however, from expressing any opinion as
they hoped that the situation could be
handled satisfactorily by friendly mediation.
Their approaches, however, to the State
authorities had an unfriendly response, and
the situation has progressively deteriorated,
involving repression of, and suffering for,
the people. Recently, the popular leader of
the people and the President of the Kashmir
National Conference, Sheikh Abdullah, was
sentenced to three years imprisonment.
This has added to the gravity of the situation
and distressed and angered large numbers
of people within and outside the State. When
Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru went to Kashmir
and was arrested there, Maulana Abul Kalam
Azad, the then President of the Congress,
asked him to come back in order to continue
the valuable work he was doing for the
Congress in connection with the negotiations
with the Cabinet Mission. Maulana Azad had
assured him then, with the consent of the
Working Committee, that the Congress

81
I and all are of opinion that your presence here is essential above
everything else. Remember that you are under an organization which you
have adorned so long. Its needs must be paramount for you and me.
Remember also that your honour is ours and your obedience to the
Congress call automatically transfers to it the duty of guarding your
honour. The Committee is also solicitous equally with you about Sheikh
Abdullahs case and the welfare of the Kashmir people. Therefore I expect
you to return in answer to this. You will tell Maharaja Saheb that as soon
as you are freed by the Congress you will return to Kashmir to retrieve
your honour and fulfill your mission.(Draft reply to Jawaharlal Nehru,
J une 21, 1946, Mahatma GandhiThe Last Phase, Vol. II, p. 346, CWMG Vol.
91 pp 180-81
would make his cause in Kashmir their own.
Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru willingly returned,
though not without misgivings. The Working
Committee regret to find that his misgivings
were justified. From all accounts received by
the Committee, repression of an open as
well as a subtle type is continuing, and the
people connected with the Kashmir
[National]
Conference are being harassed in many
ways. It is reported that while elections have
been announced for the State Assembly,
large numbers of names are being struck off
the electoral rolls, and many
prospective candidates for the election have
been disqualified. No attempt is being made
to liberalize the Constitution and to make it
more democratic and responsible. In view of
these reports, the Working Committee feel it
necessary to send a deputation, consisting of
persons of unquestioned ability and
impartiality, to inquire into the reports of
repression and suppression of civil liberties.
The Committee, therefore, earnestly
recommend to Kashmir State that they
should invite such a deputation. Recent
events in Kashmir have a large significance
affecting the rulers and
peoples of all the States in India and
Committee trust that the States will
welcome the step that they are taking in
regard to Kashmir. While noting with deep
regret the sentence passed on Sheikh
Abdullah, the Committee would consider his
incarceration as a worthy sacrifice if it
results in the achievement of the freedom
for which he was labouring. The Committee
express their sympathy for all those who
have suffered or are suffering for the cause
of freedom in Kashmir.
82


While Gandhi split hairs on every detail of the proposals
that the Deccan Princes had placed before him, Gandhis

82
Congress Working Committee Resolution on Kashmir, September 25,
1946, Sardar Patels Correspondence, 1945-50, Vol. I, pp. 23-4, Appendix IV,
CWMG Vol. 92, pp 464-65
moha for Nehru did not permit him to ask Abdullah or
Nehru more about the Quit Kashmir slogan: Who was
being asked to Quit Kashmir? Tragically for the Hindu
nation, the INC unquestioningly accepted Gandhis diktat
that the affairs of Jammu and Kashmir were Nehrus
personal cause and the events after August 1947 proved
how misplaced was Gandhis confidence in Abdullah and
Nehru. Gandhi died soon thereafter but Nehru had to
swallow the poison he had stirred and brought to the
surface in Jammu and Kashmir when he was forced to
arrest Abdullah and incarcerate him in Kodaikanal on
charges of sedition. Nehru and the country were forced to
face the truth that there was a lot more to the National
Conferences Quit Kashmir campaign than mere
sloganeering and more than had been evident in 1946.
Gandhis insistence that the territory of this bhumi
belonged in equal measure (in diminishing order of
equality) to Muslims, Christians, Parsis, Jews and Hindus,
in that order, was taken seriously by post-independence
Nehruvian secular India; Secular India stood by and
watched Sheikh Abdullahs son Farooq Abdullah implement
his fathers Quit Kashmir slogan faithfully in letter and
spirit from 1989 onwards. His son Omar Abdullah has now
signaled his intention to keep it that way.

7.14 Gandhis ultimate failure
That Gandhi failed to consolidate the different sections of
Hindu community as much as he wanted to forge an
illusory Hindu-Muslim unity constitutes one among
Gandhis several other inadequacies as a leader of the
people. This failure can be attributed to the fact that he did
not think he was fighting for a Hindu nation. Had he the
vision, then consolidating the diverse Hindu samaj to
achieve a well-defined political goal would have been
integral to his work; and the goal could only have been to
bring all territory comprising this Hindu nation under the
control of Hindus. But tragically, far from bringing all
territory under Hindu control, Gandhi did not even set
ending colonial rule as the political objective of the INC;
not until 1942. Even in 1946 when Gandhi wrote an
analysis of the governments state paper on the Cabinet
Mission proposals in the Harijan, he referred to India as
being the jewel in the British crown.

The British Crown symbolized the British Empire and India
was routinely referred to as being the jewel or the
brightest jewel in the crown; leaving no doubt that India
was the most prized possession of the British Empire in its
colonial kitty. While the head that wore this crown was
simply king or queen of England and the rest of the world
it ruled directly, when it came to India, the head acquired
a higher status - the head was Empress or Emperor of
India. The British were not going to cede control of India
easily it was obvious, from the hectic parleys in Delhi and
Shimla in 1946, between the INC and the British
government, including the Cabinet Mission. The British
government wanted assurances from Gandhi and the INC
that India would continue to remain tied to British apron-
strings in some manner and Gandhis comment about the
jewel in the crown in his analysis of the Mission proposals
which he compared to a promissory note pending
fulfillment, indicates that he was not averse to the idea of
India being tied to British apron-strings. British withdrawal
was therefore in Gandhis mind even in 1946 only as
complete transfer of power and not as total political
liberation from colonialism.

Not surprisingly, Gandhi and the INC agreed to continue
Dominion Status for India even as of 15 August 1947, with
the King of England continuing as head of state until
January 1950. What was cause for greater worry and
greater shame was that our armed forces Army, Navy
and Air Force, even after 15 August 1947 were headed by
British nationals which made it possible for Mountbatten
and the British government to manipulate the response to
Pakistans invasion of Jammu and Kashmir in September
1947. Conveniently for the British government the
Pakistani armed forces were also headed by British
nationals it was all thus well within the British family, so
to speak. The losers, as usual, were the Hindus and the
Hindu bhumi.

The Gandhi-Nehru political legacy has consistently kept
politics of minority-ism on the ascendance, the results of
which are evident in every sphere of national life in
politics, administration, in academe, in media and in the
idiom of public discourse. The only corrective to the
growing anti-Hindu trend in national character is to begin
by setting down the coffin of this joint legacy and begin
the process of implementing the strategic intent of Hindu
nationalism. The basis of nationhood on the bhumi which
comprises 83% Hindus, can only be Hindu dharma. Hindu
nationalism means approximating polity and administration
to serve the cause of Hindu dharma and the dharmi;
nothing less.

*****





Appendix

I Letter to Nirmal Kumar Bose

CHI. NIRMAL BABU,
Your letter is full of inaccuracies and unwarranted
assumptions. I had asked you to discuss the thing with
me. You could not do it. The result is bad. I do not mind
what opinion you hold, only it must be well fortified You
should have ascertained my views from me before
accepting second-hand evidence however honest it might
be.
I go beyond the orthodox view as we know it. My definition
does not admit of laxity. I do not call that brahmacharya
that means not to touch a woman. What I do today is
nothing new for me. So far as I known myself, I hold today
the same view I held when about 45 years ago I took the
vow. Without the vow in England as a student, I freely
mixed with women and yet I called myself a brahmachari
for the period of my residence there. For me,
brahmacharya is that thought and practice which puts you
in touch with the Infinite and takes you to His presence.
In that sense Dayanand Saraswati was not. Most certainly
I am not. But I am trying to reach that state and, in
accordance with my belief, I have made substantial
progress in that direction.
I have not become modern at all in the same sense you
seem to mean. I am as ancient as can be imagined and
hope to remain so to the end of my life. If this displeases
you, I cannot help it. Let me appear to you and others as
naked as I can. You have not done justice to A, B or C. You
do not know them fully. Have you any right to judge them
before you have taken the trouble of knowing them as fully
as possible? That you may not want to or that you have no
time, I would appreciate. But that very fact should prevent
you from passing judgment on them. I am amazed at your
assumption that my experiment implied any assumption of
womans inferiority. She would be, if I looked upon her
with lust with or without her consent. I have believed in
womans perfect equality with man. My wife was inferior
when she was the instrument of my lust. She ceased to be
that when she lay with me naked as my sister. If she and I
were not lustfully agitated in our minds and bodies, the
contact raised both of us. Should there be difference if it is
not my wife, as she once was, but some other sister? I do
hope you will acquit me of having any lustful designs upon
women or girls who have been naked with me. A or Bs
hysteria had nothing to do with my experiment, I hope.
They were before the experiment what they are today, if
they have not less of it. The distinction between Manu and
others is meaningless for our discussion. That she is my
grand-daughter may exempt me from criticism. But I do
not want that advantage. Experiment or prayog is an ill-
chosen word. I have used it. It differs from the present in
the sense that the one could be stopped by me, the other
being dharma could not be. Now comes the stop. That I
should take the public in my confidence before I do
anything new is [not] novel to me. In the present case
there is nothing new.
BAPU
(My Days with Gandhi, pp. 176-8, CWMG Vol. 94, pp
132-34)

*****
II Gandhis Exposition in the Harij an on NB Khares
resignation
Press cuttings on the ministerial crisis in C.P.1 make most
instructive reading. That the resolution of the Working
Committee condemning the action of veteran leader like
Dr. Khare would come in for some severe criticism was a
foregone conclusion.1 But I was not prepared for the
ignorance betrayed by the critics on the functions of the
Working Committee. Dr. Khare was not only guilty of gross
indiscipline in flouting the warnings of the Parliamentary
Board, but he betrayed incompetence as a leader by
allowing himself to be fooled by the Governor, or not
knowing that by his precipitate action he was
compromising the Congress. He heightened the measure
of indiscipline by refusing the advice of the Working
Committee to make a frank confession of his guilt and
withdraw from leadership. The Working committee would
have been guilty of gross neglect of duty if it had failed to
condemn Dr. Khares action and adjudge his
incompetence. I write these lines in sorrow. It was no
pleasure to me to advise the Working Committee to pass
the resolution it did. Dr. Khare is a friend. He has run to
my aid as a physician when quick medical assistance was
needed. He has often come to me for advice and guidance
and has expressed himself to be in need of my blessings. I
banked on this friendship when, on the 25th ultimo, I
appealed to him bravely to stand down and work as a
camp-follower. He himself seemed to be willing but he was
badly advised, and not only declined to accept the Working
Committees advice but sent a letter instead, questioning
the propriety of the whole of the action of the Working
Committee in connection with his ill-advised and hasty
resignation of office and equally hasty formation of a new
Cabinet. I hope that on mature reflection he would have
seen the error of his conduct and taken the action of the
Working Committee in a sportsmanlike spirit. There is no
moral turpitude involved in his action. He is a good fighter.
He is free with his purse in helping friends. These are
qualities of which anyone may be proud. But these
qualities need not make the possessor a good Prime
Minister or administrator. I would urge him as a friend to
work for the time being as a camp-follower and give the
Congress the benefit of the admitted qualities I have
recited. If Dr. Khare was impatient of his recalcitrant
colleagues he should have rushed, not to the Governor,
but to the Working Committee and tendered his
resignation. If he felt aggrieved by its decision, he could
have gone to the A. I. C. C. But in no case could any
Minister take internal quarrels to the Governor and seek
relief through him without the previous consent of the
Working Committee. If the Congress machinery is slow-
moving, it can be made to move faster. If the men at the
helm are self-seekers or worthless, the A. I. C. C. is there
to remove them. Dr. Khare erred grievously in ignoring or,
what is worse, not knowing this simple remedy and
rushing to the Governor on the eve of the meeting of the
Working Committee to end his agony. It is suggested that
the men who succeed him are self-seekers and incapable,
and can make no approach to Dr. Khare in character. If
they are as they have been portrayed by their critics, they
are bound to fail in the discharge of the onerous
responsibility they have undertaken. But here again the
Working Committee has to work within the limits
prescribed for it. It cannot impose ministers on a province.
After all they are elected members, and if the party that
has the power to elect them chooses to do so, the Working
Committee has no authority to interfere so long as they
remain under discipline and are not known to be persons
unworthy of public confidence. But the crisis should surely
put the Ministers on their mettle. It is up to them to show
by their conduct that the charges leveled against them are
baseless, and that they are capable of discharging their
trust ably and selflessly. It speaks well for the impartiality
of the Indian Press in that several journals found it
necessary to condemn the action of the Working
Committee in pronouncing the opinion it did on the part
H.E. the Governor of C. P. played during the unfortunate
crisis. I am not in the habit of hastily judging opponents.
The criticism of the resolution has left me unconvinced of
any injustice done to the Governor by it. In estimating his
action, time is of the essence. In accepting the
resignations of Dr. Khare and his two colleagues, in
demanding resignations from the other three Ministers, in
expecting an immediate answer, in summarily rejecting
their explanation and dismissing them, and for this
purpose keeping himself, his staff and the poor Ministers
awake almost the whole night, the Governor betrayed a
haste which I can only call indecent. Nothing would have
been lost if instead of accepting Dr. Khares resignation
there and then, he had awaited the meeting of the
Working Committee which was to meet two days after the
strange drama. In dealing with a similar crisis the Bengal
Governor acted differently from the C. P. Governor.
Of course, the Governors action conformed to the letter of
the law, but it killed the spirit of the tacit compact between
the British Government and the Congress. Let the critics of
the Working Committees action read the Viceroys
carefully prepared declaration which, among other
declarations, induced the Working Committee to try the
office experiment, and ask themselves whether the
Governor was not bound to take official notice of what was
going on between the Working Committee and Dr. Khare
and his colleagues. These indisputable facts lead one to
the irresistible conclusion that the Governor, in his
eagerness to discredit the Congress, kept a vigil and
brought about a situation which he knew was to be
uncomfortable for the Congress. The unwritten compact
between the British Government and the Congress is a
gentlemans agreement in which both are expected to play
the game. The resolution therefore gives English
administrators more credit than evidently the critics would
give. Englishmen are sportsmen. They have ample sense
of humour. They can hit hard and take a beating also in
good grace. I have no doubt that the Governor will take
the Congress resolution in good part. But whether he does
so or not, the Working Committee was bound to express
what it felt about the Governors action. It wishes to avoid
a fight if it can; it will take it up if it must. If the fight is to
be avoided, the Governors must recognize the Congress as
the one national organization that is bound some day or
other to replace the British Government. The U.P., the
Bihar and the Orissa Governors waited for the Congress
lead when a crisis faced them. No doubt, in the three
cases, it was obviously to their interest to do so. Is it to be
said that in C.P. it was obviously to the British interest to
precipitate the crisis in order to discomfit the Congress?
The Working Committee resolution is a friendly warning to
the British Government that if they wish to avoid an open
rupture with the Congress, the powers that be should not
allow a repetition of what happened at Nagpur on the night
of the 20th July. Let us understand the functions of the
Congress. For internal growth and administration, it is as
good a democratic organization as any to be found in the
world. But this democratic organization has been brought
into being to fight the greatest imperialist power living. For
this external work, therefore, it has to be likened to an
army. As such it ceases to be democratic. The central
authority possesses plenary powers enabling it to impose
and enforce discipline on the various units working under
it. Provincial organizations and Provincial Parliamentary
Boards are subject to the central authority.
It has been suggested that, whilst my thesis holds good
when there is active war in the shape of civil resistance
going on, it cannot whilst the latter remains under
suspension. But suspension of civil disobedience does not
mean suspension of war. The latter can only end when
India has a Constitution of her own making. Till then the
Congress must be in the nature of an army. Democratic
Britain has set up an ingenious system in India which,
when you look at it in its nakedness, is nothing but a
highly organized efficient military control. It is not less so
under the present Government of India Act. The Ministers
are mere puppets so far as the real control is concerned.
The collectors and the police, who sir them today, may at
a mere command from the Governors, their real masters,
unseat the Ministers, arrest them and put them in lock-up.
Hence it is that I have suggested that the Congress has
entered upon office not to work the Act in the manner
expected by the framers but in a manner so as to hasten
the day of substituting it by a genuine Act of Indias own
coining. Therefore the Congress conceived as a
fighting machine has to centralize control and guide
every department and every Congressman, however
highly placed, and expect unquestioned obedience.
The fight cannot be fought on any other terms. They
say this is fascism pure and simple. But they forget
that fascism is the naked sword. Under it Dr. Khare should
lose his head.
The Congress is the very antithesis of fascism, because it
is based on non-violence pure and undefiled. Its sanctions
are all moral. Its authority is not derived from the control
of panoplied black-shirts. Under the Congress regime Dr.
Khare can remain the hero of Nagpur, and the students
and citizens of Nagpur, and for that matter other places,
may execrate me or/and the Working Committee without a
hair of the demonstrators heads being touched so long as
they remain non-violent. That is the glory and strength of
the Congressnot its weakness. Its authority is derived
from that non-violent attitude. It is the only purely non-
violent political organization of importance, to my
knowledge, throughout the world. And let it continue to be
the boast of the Congress that it can command the willing
and hearty obedience from its followers, even veterans like
Dr. Khare, so long as they choose to belong to it.

The crisis in the C. P. Ministry had begun soon after the
assumption of office by the ministry headed by N. B.
Khare. First a minister had made recommendation direct to
the Governor concerning the release of certain convicts
(see footnote 1, p.178) and later there were differences
among ministers leading to tension. In April the Congress
Parliamentary Committee managed at a meeting at
Pachmarhi to resolve these differences and achieve a
settlement. But Khare did not keep the terms of the
settlement and continued to function without consulting
the Working Committee or the Parliamentary Committee.
In order to get rid of certain ministers he submitted his
resignation to the Governor and asked the ministers
concerned to resign. When they refused to oblige, the
Governor dismissed them and later invited Khare to form a
new ministry. The Working Committee condemning the
action of Khare held him to be unworthy of holding
positions of responsibility in the Congress organization.
(Functions of the Working Committee, August 6,
1938, Harij an, 6-8-1938, CWMG Vol. 73, pp 344-49)

*****
III Aurobindo on Indian Princes
But we cannot hold these Indian Princes responsible for
they do or say. Their so-called independence is nothing
more than a mere name. though Lord Curzon called them
his colleagues and partners in the task of Indian
administration, the truth was better expressed by Lord
Dufferin who characterised the independence enjoyed by
them as a regulated independence, regulated by whom
and to what extent it is superfluous to say. The incubus of
the British Resident is always there. And the results of his
intervention often disastrous to the Chiefs were thus
summed up by the Gaekwar of Baroda in the Nineteenth
Century in 1901. Uncertainty and want of confidence in
the indigenous government is promoted. The influence of
the Raja, which is indispensable fopr the individuality of
the State, is thereby impaired. The ruler, being
discouraged, slackens his interest in the continuity of his
own policy.

Then of course, there are the annual visitations to relieve
the States of their superfluous wealth and prove to the
people that their Chief is no better than a pigmy before the
viceregent of the King of England.

The attitude now taken by these Chiefs towards the spirit
of nationalism that is re-creating India, shows merely the
degree to which the bureaucracy is determined directly or
indirectly to stamp out the spirit. They have greater
advantages in the States than in their own territory, for
they can make the measures more thoroughgoing and
rigorous than in British India and they can at the same
time, through the Anglo-Indian Press, point to this rigour
as a proof of the superior liberalism of British bureaucracy
as compared with a native ruler. This is indeed killing two
birds with one stone.
(Bande Mataram, June 1907, page 395)

*****
IV LETTER TO THE NIZAM OF HYDERABAD
POST ANDHERI,
April 5, 1924
TO
HIS EXALTED HIGHNESS THE NIZAM OF
HYDERABAD
HYDERABAD
(DECCAN)
YOUR EXALTED HIGHNESS
I beg to acknowledge Your Exalted Highnesss
letter of the 1st
April.1 I received also the letter of the 1st
ultimo to which I replied on
the 5th ultimo.2 I am surprised that the reply
did not reach Your
Exalted Highness. I now enclose a copy
thereof.
I remain,
Your Exalted Highnesss faithful friend.
Encl.
From a photostat: S.N. 8428 CWMG Vol. 27 page 167

This in essence sums up how Gandhi dealt with Muslim
Nawabs and Nizams and with Hindu kings and princes.

*****
Closing Word

Gandhis political stranglehold over the nation was made possible
through his control of the Indian National Congress. Real power in
the Congress was vested, not in the delegates who were invited to
the annual Congress meetings or in the tens of thousands of
registered members on its rolls, not even in its President but only in
the Working Committee. A Gandhi-loyalist President acting upon
Gandhis diktat could invite criticism of despotism but a collective
decision-making body like the Working Committee, even when it
comprised only of unquestioning Gandhi loyalists could still wear the
fig-leaf of being a democratic body. The claim that the CWC
represented the entire nation is as true as the UN Security Councils
claim that it speaks and acts on behalf of the entire international
community. Gandhis assertion that the Congress represented the
entire nation remained unchallenged only because there was no
other equally powerful organization to take up the political cause of
the Hindus. The refusal by the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh to
evolve as a political alternative to the Congress vis a vis the Muslim
League, in the 1920s decade is inexplicable in the context of the
unambiguous non-Hindu slant given by Gandhi to the INC.

The degrading of Savarkar in political public discourse until the
present day by secular polity is also an anti-Hindu Gandhian legacy.
Savarkars degradation has remained unchallenged because of the
failure by Hindu nationalists so far to turn the tables against the
Congress on the very issues by which Indian polity perpetuates his
degradation. The most frequently cited issue against Savarkar is that
far from being a courageous Hindu nationalist he was only a coward
who pleaded for his release. We are forced to conclude that the
Congress, in faithful imitation of Gandhis untenable logic, even now
believes that Savarkar ought to have chosen to waste away his life in
the Andamans rather than choose to seek his release to serve a
larger cause. Savarkar devoted much of his time after his release
from the Andamans to the cause of eradicating untouchability with a
sincerity of purpose appreciated even by Babasaheb Ambedkar, who
allegedly compared Savarkar to the Buddha.. Savarkars ultimate
objective was achieving cohesion within Hindu samaj by purging it of
untouchability. As for their reference to the pleading tone of
Savarkars letter, it has to be pointed out that, even if true, the
Congress must weigh Savarkar writing one such letter to seek
release from life-long exile in the Andamans against the routinely
fawning letters that Gandhi wrote around the same time to the
British Royalty and high British Government officials as an
expression of his adoring admiration for and loyalty to the Empire.

Subhash Bose had serious differences with Gandhi on several issues;
two of them being Gandhis refusal in 1931, to raise the question of
Bhagat Singhs death sentence with Viceroy Irwin as a part of the
larger discussion in the course of the Gandhi-Irwin talks and in 1937-
38 on the issue of Gandhis culpable delay in obtaining the release of
all political prisoners in the Central Provinces (CP), Bihar, the Punjab
and Bengal. The issue of political prisoners began to attract the
attention of ordinary people from 1937 onwards after the INC was
voted to power in the provinces following the Government of India
Act 1935. The protests gathered momentum against the backdrop of
Gandhis expulsion of Bose and Khare from the Congress and also
because the Congress had made release of political prisoners an
electoral issue and promise. Anger against Congress governments
and particularly against Gandhi was mounting among the people as
the prisoners in the Punjab and Bengal went on a huger-strike
demanding immediate release; Gandhi was forced to act under
pressure of public opinion.

The Central Provinces and Bihar were ruled by the Congress while
Bengal was ruled by the Muslim League. The Bengal revolutionaries
who had been incarcerated in the Andamans were moved to the
Alipore jail in Bengal. Gandhi saw in the demand for release of
prisoners an excellent opportunity to gain new converts to his
monotheism. The Congress ministries in the CP and in Bihar,
plucking a leaf right out of the pages of history of the imperial British
governments release of Savarkar, insisted on placing the same
conditions on the freedom fighters imprisoned in their provinces!
Not to be left behind, the Muslim League placed similar conditions
on the Bengal revolutionaries. While the Congress ministries were
content with verbal assurances, the League ministry, like the British
government earlier, insisted on a written assurance.

The Governor-Generals interference with the
proposal of the Bihar Ministers seems to be most
unfortunate and uncalled for. I have read and re-read
Section 126 (5) of the Government of India Act. It
authorizes interference when there is a grave menace
to peace and tranquility in any part of India through
any action proposed by Ministers. Surely the
discharge of a few prisoners, even though they were
convicted of crimes involving violence, for what they
no doubt erringly believed to be the countrys cause,
so far as I could see, could not endanger peace and
tranquility. The Governor-Generals interference
would come properly if there was disorder
consequent upon such release. In the case which has
brought about the interference, I understand the
Bihar Prime Minister had been assured by the
prisoners that they had changed their mentality and
that they wanted to live, if they were discharged, as
peaceful citizens.
1


In the opinion of the Congress, the interference of the
Governor-General with the deliberate action of the
respective Prime Ministers is not merely a violation of
the assurance above referred to, but it is also a
misapplication of Section 126 (5) of the Government
of India Act. There was no question of grave menace
to peace and tranquility involved. The Prime Ministers
had, besides, in both cases satisfied themselves from
assurances from the prisoners concerned and
otherwise of their change of mentality and
acceptance of the Congress policy of non-violence.

The Congress Ministers have more than once
declared their determination to take adequate action
in the matter of violent crime, and the risk run in
releasing prisoners, especially when they have

1
Statement to the Press, Haripura, February 16, 1938, Harijan, 19-2-1938, CWMG Vol. 72, page
470

abjured the path of violence, is altogether imaginary.
The Congress has given during the past few months,
ample evidence of its desire to take severe notice of
indiscipline and breach of the code of non-violence
that the Congress has laid down for itself.
Nevertheless the Congress invites the attention of
Congressmen to the fact that indiscipline in speech
and action, calculated to promote or breed violence,
retards the progress of the country towards its
cherished goal. In pursuit of its programme of release
of political prisoners, the Congress has not hesitated
to sacrifice office and the opportunity of passing
ameliorative measures. But the Congress wishes to
make it clear that it strongly disapproves of hunger
strikes
2
for release. Hunger-strikes embarrass the
Congress in pursuit of its policy of securing release of
political prisoners.
3


I hope that the released detenus will be no party to
any public demonstration on their behalf and that the
public too will exercise necessary restraint. I would
urge the released men to quietly undertake some
public service. The great business houses will, I doubt
not, help those who may be in need of employment.
Most of the men I met in the jails of Calcutta told me
that their sole object in desiring release was to serve
the public cause in the manner indicated by the
Congress. They, one and all, warned me against
entering into any bargain with the Government for
securing their discharge. They would not give any
undertaking to the Government. The assurance given
by them to me should, they said, be regarded as
sufficient test of their bona fides.
4


2
Gandhi always undertook self-purificatory or penitential fasts while people
without the halo of mahatmahood undertook hunger-strikes.
3
Resolution on Ministerial Resignations, Before February 18, 1938, Harijan, 26-2-
1938, CWMG Vol. 72, pp 471-74

4
Statement on Bengal Governments Communiqu, November 21, 1937, The
Statesman, 22-11-1937, CWMG Vol. 72, pp 399-400

This was opportunistic manipulation by Gandhi and his INC of
advocates of armed resistance for speedy end to colonial rule; the
Congress took advantage of the helplessness of political prisoners to
compel them towards Gandhian non-violence. Wherein is the
difference between what the British government did to Savarkar and
Aurobindo and what Gandhi did to Bhagat Singh, Subhash Bose and
NB Khare and what Congress ministries did to political prisoners in
1937-38?

Gandhi actively intervened on behalf of the Bengal revolutionaries
(or Andamans prisoners as they were referred to) with Khwaja
Nazimuddin of the Home Department in the Bengal Muslim League
ministry in 37 but the League government had not released all
prisoners even in 1938. From the fact that the Jugantar Party,
started by Barin Ghose at the turn of the century, had decided on
September 9, 1938 to disband itself and merge with the Congress,
we may deduce that Jugantar made the tactical decision to accept
Gandhian non-violence as their creed to facilitate the release of
their colleagues who were still in prison.

The third factor is the Bengal Governments reference
to the existence of the two well-known parties
connected with terrorist methods. The reference
seems to suggest that these parties function for their
original purpose. I know, and I had given the Khwaja
Saheb the required assurance, that the organizations
no longer functioned in the old way. Comrades
belonging to groups do not change names of their
groups or loyalties because the methods which the
labels originally stood for have become obsolete. I
would, however, advise amalgamation and the use of
another name for the combination, if they must
preserve their separate status. Not only have the
Bengal Government failed to take any or adequate
notice of these three factors, they have failed to give
due weight to the positive assurances of non-violence



given by the prisoners, which those who have been
discharged seem to have carried out faithfully.
5


When the Khilafat Committee merged with the Muslim League, the
League was strengthened and better equipped in its mission to
create the Islamic State of Pakistan by any means. But when the
Bengal revolutionary group Jugantar merged with the Congress, the
converse became true; instead of the revolutionaries injecting the
much-needed kshatriya spirit into the Congress, Gandhis Congress
un-manned these kshatriyas and rendered them effete.

Mahatmaji,
We offer you our allegiance - to you personally for
your ideal and methods and to you as the leader of
the nation. We had liquidated the Jugantar Party and
joined the Congress without any party reservation.
We started working honestly and sincerely; and our
doubts and differences melted away particularly in
view of the ever-developing policy of the Congress
during the War. But we were arrested in May 1941.
Just after our arrest we had some correspondence
with you. You then wrote: I have no difficulty in
accepting your limitations of non-violence. If worked
honestly, it will automatically expand. Now we can
say, we have no difficulty in accepting your non-
violence - not only as the best means for achieving
Indian revolution but also for saving the common
man of the world as against the rising world Fascism
based on naked violence.

We have been working in and with the Congress since
1921 - of course retaining a second love sometimes
dormant and sometimes dominant. In 1938 we
outgrew that and made the Congress our only vehicle
for serving the cause of Indian independence. Now
we believe your method and programme is the only

5
Statement to the Press, October 4, 1938, Harijan, 8-10-1938, CWMG Vol. 74,
page 82

right way to be followed. . . .We hope, the moment of
the psychological break-away from the past world not
be allowed to slip away and, under your inspiration
and insistence, every effort would be directed to
organizing the masses on the basis of your 18-point
programme. After our release we shall be working
with the outlook stated above. We shall try to stay
with you for some time before we start work here. In
our future work we shall seek your guidance and
help. Before concluding we must say a few words
regarding our detention. The Government plea of
terrorism is wholly false. Even before our arrest, Sir
Nazimuddin, then Home Minister, personally told us
his police reports had confirmed his personal
information that we were doing nothing but Congress
work. This was barely two months before our arrest.
In 1943, as Premier, he made almost the same
statement in the Assembly. This bogey of terrorism is
simply a police trick - to serve a double purpose - to
misrepresent us to the public and thus to create
difficulties for work, and secondly to keep a broad
hint that terrorist groups are still active so that
guileless and sincere young men may be duped, and
an atmosphere of terrorism kept up to serve
imperialist purposes as against the Congress
programme. There has been no case of terrorism in
Bengal since 1934, and it is simply insulting our
intelligence as well as our patriotism to say that we
are thinking - or for that matter any other political
group is thinking of terrorism at this hour of the day.
Yours sincerely,
Arun Chandra Guha
Bhupendra Kumar Datta
And Friends
6



6
Letter from security Prisoners, Dum Dum Central J ail, J anuary 17, 1946,
Gandhijis Correspondence with the Government, 1944-47, pp. 311-3, CWMG Vol. 90,
Appendix IV, pp 421-22
The tragic result was there for all to see ten years later when the
Muslim League launched Direct Action day on August 12, 1946 and
massacred 5000 Hindus on one day alone with little cost to
themselves on that day or any time after that. Gandhi may be rightly
judged to be the root cause of Hindu impotence. It was left to Bihar
and the Punjab to wreak vengeance for the jihadi massacre of
August 1946.

Gandhi sought new converts to his paralyzing non-violence also
among the cadres of the INA who had returned to India after the
death of Subhash Bose. Gandhi advised them to give up violence,
to practice ahimsa and to become exemplary farmers on model
farms! Gandhi, Nehru and Mountbatten, were all against the idea of
soldiers of the INA being absorbed into the Indian armed forces after
independence on the ground that these men had served under
Subhash Bose who had made common cause with Japan in the
Second World War and hence their loyalties were not only
questionable but potentially unreliable! Gandhis prescription
therefore was that they should all become exemplary farmers.

Years ago I said at Nankan Sahib: Sikhs have given
proof of their martial valour. But the consummation
of Guru Govind Singhs idea will be reached only
when they will substitute for their kirpans the sword
of the spirit or non-violence. So long as one wants to
retain ones sword, one has not attained complete
fearlessness. No power on earth can subjugate you
when you are armed with the sword of ahimsa. It
ennobles both the victor and the vanquished. Netaji
has fired you with a new spirit. That spirit can now be
kept alive only through non-violence. Above all, you
must never beg or throw yourselves on anybodys
charity. Because you have risked your lives for
Indias sake and fought for her on the Imphal plain,
you must not expect to be pampered in return. If
you do that, you will lose all worth like salt that has
lost its savour. You should prefer to earn your bread
by the sweat of your brow, but refuse to beg or
accept charity. In short, you have to show the same
degree of bravery and courage of the non-violent
types as you have done in the use of arms hitherto.
India is a very poor country and we should all work
for our living. There is plenty of land available for all.
If you want land you will have it. You will clear it and
turn it into model farms. You have to overcome the
inertia of ages which weighs down our masses. That
you will be able to do only by setting an example of
industry and hand-work. You must be able to wield
the bucket and the broom with skill and diligence
and not consider the cleaning of latrines as dirty or
beneath your dignity. Graduation in this work is
more heroic than winning the Victoria Cross.

Q What would you have done if Subhash Babu had
returned victorious?
A - I would have asked him to make you put away
your weapons and stack them before me.
7


Gandhi would undoubtedly have asked Subhash Bose to disarm
himself and his cadre but knowing Bose it is extremely doubtful if he
would have followed orders that were not in national interest. But
Gandhis Q&A with the officers of the INA carries the Gandhian
trademark of suggestio falsi. For disciplined soldiers, cleaning
latrines and using weapons are not mutually exclusive. But tragically
again for the country while a large section of the Muslims who had
served in the INA under Subhash Bose opted to move over to the
Muslim League, those that remained with the Congress or outside
the Congress, just quietly faded away in independent India.
Several years later after Savarkar was exonerated on charges of
criminal conspiracy to kill Gandhi, one of the conditions during his
release was that he should not be given any public reception nor
should there be any public demonstration of rejoicing. This
condition was inspired by Gandhis exhortation in 1937-38 to the
political prisoners of Bengal not to be a party to any celebration, not
to hold meetings or make speeches or hold celebratory processions.

7
Address to INA Officers, May 22, 1946, The Bombay Chronicle, 23-5-1946, The
Hindustan Times, 23-5-1946, and Harijan, 9-6-1946, CWMG Vol. 91 pp 17-20
The political doctrine, that Hindu nationalists must be neither seen
nor heard, was beginning to gain ground. Savarkar was arrested
again on 5
th
April, 1950 in the wake of the extremely foolish Nehru-
Liaqat Pact, which like its infamous predecessor the Gandhi-Irwin
Pact gave more than it got in return. According to the Pact, the
governments of India and Pakistan agreed that each shall ensure, to
the minorities throughout its territories, complete equality of
citizenship, irrespective of religion; a full sense of security in respect
of life, culture, property and personal honor.
It also guaranteed fundamental human rights of the minorities, such
as freedom of movement, speech, occupation and worship. The pact
also provided for the minorities to participate in the public life of
their country, to hold political or other offices and to serve in their
country's civil and armed forces.
Savarkar opposed the Pact vehemently. He prophesized that while
the Indian Government would keep its promise, the Pakistani
Government would go back on the same; and the life, freedom and
dignity of the Hindus in Pakistan would continue to be in jeopardy.
Needless to say, Savarkar was proved right about the Muslim psyche
not only in Pakistan but also in Jammu and Kashmir. But Nehru
whose determination to incarcerate Savarkar for life had been
thwarted in 1948, was determined to either keep him in prison for
the rest of life or silence his fiercest political critic forever. Towards
this end when it was driven home to Nehru that Savarkar could not
be kept in prison endlessly without reason, his release on 13 July
1950 came with the debilitating condition that he would remain
confined to his home and would abjure politics completely. Nehru
continued where Gandhi had left off but with greater force because
Nehru, like the British government before1947, could back his intent
to decimate Hindu nationalists with ruthless use of state power.

Nehru was determined to clear the countrys political arena of Hindu
nationalists and he was enabled in his de-Hinduising mission by the
Indian Constitution which was drafted and approved by a
Constituent Assembly where the Congress was in the majority and
Congress members were hand-picked by Gandhi and Nehru. The
Indian Constitution, slanting decisively towards religious minorities,
owed much to the Motilal Nehru Report. The Motilal Nehru report
was also the harbinger of the potentially divisive linguistic states as
also the western liberal-Christian political tenet that the state shall
not have any religion; ominously for the Hindus of the country, not
one of these principles, which eventually went on to define the new
Indian state after 1947, was challenged successfully in the
Constituent Assembly. The Indian Constitution derived equally from
the Government of India Act 1935. Hindus and their interests were
thus trampled under the feet of the combined might of a de-
Hinduised Constituent Assembly, the Motilal Nehru Report and the
GOI Act, 1935. They remain trampled till today. Nehrus Congress in
his lifetime and Nehruvian secular polity after Nehru continued to
traverse the path of anti-Hindu politics of minority-ism; its results
are there for all to see: Hindus have lost territory to Islam and
Christianity in the North, North-East, East and West. The anti-Hindu
polity that prevails today has turned a Nelsons eye to the rapidly
changing religious demography in the countrys border and coastal
districts. In stark contrast to how Nehru dealt with Hindu
nationalists immediately after independence, the Muslim League,
the Jamait-e-ulema-e Hind and its members suffered no
persecution. They neither disbanded themselves nor were they
banned by Nehrus government. They lay low until such time that
Nehru and Nehruvian secularism had rendered the Hindus
completely impotent to reverse vivisection or even its consequences
and have now reared their heads again and this time the Hindus are
confronting not just one Khilafat Committee but innumerable jiahdi
outfits with roots across the country and across the countrys
borders, and with the same objectives as the Jinnah-led Muslim
League before independence. So far, both secular Indian polity and
Hindu organizations have proved incapable of handling the threat
and they continue their jihad against the Hindus and their bhumi
successfully and with little cost to them.

Gandhi and the Indian National Congress did to our revolutionaries
and warriors of armed resistance what the British Government did
to Aurobindo and Savarkar laid debilitating conditions for release.
Hindus must confront the ugly truth that while the British
Government and the Gandhi-Nehru Congress adopted the same
methods to disarm and decapitate Hindu nationalists, Hindu
nationalists of the 19
th
and 20 centuries have also lost strength and
spirit in the midst of war, leaving the battle-field unchallenged to
their tormentors. The kshatriya had indeed been effectively
disarmed and banished from public gaze.

Indian polity and the countrys public spaces have been de-
Hinduised by state power and Hindus have been politically
disempowered also by state power. Hindu interests and minority
interests have been made into a zero sum game also by use of state
power, as witnessed in the most recent turbulence in Jammu and
Kashmir over the issue of land allotment for Hindu pilgrims during
the Amarnath Yatra and the unchecked license permitted to
Christian missionaries who hide behind the constitutional provision
of freedom to practice and propagate ones religion. This book is
intended to demonstrate to Hindus the origins and path of their
disempowerment and to kindle in them a burning desire to capture
and put in place self-conscious Hindu state power or Hindu rajya to
protect and defend the Hindu rashtra. The Hindu nation must begin
by questioning the concepts of freedom of religion, minority-
protection and right to self-determination because the Hindu bhumi
historically and without an Indian Constitution had made all religions
and their adherents welcome to this land. This Hindu trait of not
looking upon any faith as being inimical to dharma and the failure by
Hindus to take note of the ultimate political objectives of all
Abrahamic faiths has cost the Hindus and the Hindu nation very
dear.

If the nation has to deal resolutely with forces and ideologies which
threaten the territory and people of the rashtra and this includes
jihad, the evangelical Church and anti-Hindu communism, then the
nation has to assert its nationhood; one aspect of such an assertion
will be the nature of the state or rajya which must necessarily be
Hindu in ethos. Separatism, demographic imbalance, and increasing
attacks against the state by Naxalism and other terrorist outfits
owning allegiance to Communism, have to be dealt with not as law
and order issues but only as ideological issues which confront the
core question of the basis of nationhood of this bhumi. Secularism,
for obvious reasons has failed to check and neutralize all threats to
the nations territory and people only because it is in a state of
denial and has therefore failed to put in place structures and laws
which will approach the threats rooted in the sense of Hindu
nationhood. National security is best ensured only when the sense
of nationhood is faultless and the threats to the nation or rashtra
are perceived as threats to nation, nationhood and nationalism.
Needless to say, the book seeks to demonstrate that there is no
other nationalism on this bhumi other than Hindu nationalism. The
superficial convergence of interests between Hindus and Muslims in
1857 interrupted the continuing Hindu civilisational resistance and
struggle against Islam while Gandhi-inspired Nehruvian secularism
has rendered all Hindu resistance to both Islam and the Church hors-
de-combat. Hindu nationalists understand that the civilisational
struggle against Islam and the Church has to be revived in order that
it may be resolved decisively.

The destruction that has been wreaked by state power can be
corrected without bloodshed only by return of state power to self-
conscious Hindus. Only self-conscious Hindu state power can
arrange the nations affairs to serve dharma and the dharmi. For
such a state of affairs we must begin to question political ideas and
concepts that originated in the West as a reaction to the predatory
Church, to slavery and to colonialisms invasion and forcible
occupation of foreign lands. Thus the concepts of religious freedom,
self-determination, human rights became necessary to protect the
disempowered victims of White Christianity the natives of lands
occupied by European colonizers whose numbers have been
reduced to negligible numbers, and for victims of slavery. With great
foresight European colonialist countries created the United Nations
with a charter which, if one were to read the fine print with sound
political sense, only serves to deter and punish any idea of revenge
or determined correction of the legacy of colonialism in post-
colonial independent nations. However, the truth is that neither the
countries forcefully advocating democracy and liberal political
values, nor Islam which has never subscribed to contemporary,
liberal Christian political ideology, nor the Jewish-majority Israel
have been hamstrung by these concepts when they perceived a
threat to their national identity and sense of nationhood. Till the
present day we still see wars between nations, fought by the full
might of state power, which are essentially Jewish Israel versus
Islam, Jews versus the evangelical Church, West versus the rest and
Islam versus the rest. It is only in India that a de-Hinduised and
virulently anti-Hindu political culture thwarts Hindus from resisting
and fighting the predatory intentions of Islam and Christianity
because as we pointed out in the Introduction, it is only in India that
we have a state which does not derive from the culture and ethos of
its majority populace and is therefore not obliged to protect Hindu
interests and Hindu sensibilities. This state of affairs must change if
the nation has to deal effectively with jihad and with disaffection
and separatism arising from the untrammeled license enjoyed by
the Church in India.

Concepts of minority-protection, self-determination and religious
freedom cannot apply to the adherents of Islam and Christianity on
Hindu bhumi under cover of democracy and constitutional rights.
These provisions have to be reviewed, given the ultimate goal that
these two minority religions have already achieved in Jammu and
Kashmir and in the North-east. That Pakistan and Bangladesh came
into being because the Indian National Congress never had a sense
of this nation, and because the continuing de-Hinduising trend in
Indian polity has resulted in the perverted polity of J&K and growing
separatism in the North-east must goad Hindu nationalists into first
reviewing and then correcting the course of anti-Hindu Nehruvian
secularism as the guiding spirit of Indian polity. Such a course
correction is mandated if there has to be real harmony among
communities in this nation and not false peace resting on the
artificial and un-natural idea of Nehruvian secularism which is the
Indian derivative of alien political ideas and trends which have little
to do with Hindu-civilisational tradition of statecraft and polity. The
time has come to set down the coffins of Gandhi and Nehru from
the unwilling shoulders of this nation.

SUBHAM