GANDHIJI'S POLITICS X-RAYED
( Section I )
48. The back-ground to the
event of the 30th January, 1948 was wholly and exclusively
political and I would like to explain it at some length. The fact
that Gandhiji honoured the religious books of Hindus. Muslims and
others or that he used to recite during his prayers verses from
the Geeta, the Quoran and Bible never provoked any ill will in me
towards him. To my mind it is not at all objectionable to study
comparative religion. Indeed it is a merit.
49. The territory bounded by the North Western Frontier in North
and Cape Comorin in the South and the areas between Karachi and
Assam that is the whole of pre- partition India has always been to
me my mother-land. In this vast area live people of various faiths
and I hold that these creeds should have full and equal freedom
for following their ideals and beliefs. In this area the Hindus
are the most numerous. They have no place which they can call
their own beyond or outside this. country. Hindusthan is thus both
motherland and the holy land for the Hindus from times immemorial.
To the Hindus largely this country owes its fame and glory, its
culture and art, knowledge, science and philosophy. Next to the
Hindus the Muslims are numerically predominant. They made
systematic inroads into this country since the 10th century and
gradually succeeded in establishing Muslim rule over the greater
part of India.
50. Before the advent of the British both Hindus and Muslims as a
result of centuries of experience had come to realise that the
Muslims could not remain as masters in India; nor could they be
driven away. Both had clearly understood that both had come to
stay. Owing to the rise of the Maharattas, the revolt of the
Rajputs and the uprise of the Sikhs, the Muslim hold on the
country had become very feeble and although some of them continued
to aspire for supremacy in India, practical people could see
clearly that such hopes were futile. On the other hand the British
had proved more powerful in battle and in intrigue than either the
Hindus or Musalmans, and by their adoption of improved methods of
administration and the assurance of the security of the life and
property without any discrimination both the Hindus and the
Muslims accepted them as inevitable. Differences between the
Hindus and the Muslims did exist even before the British came.
Nevertheless it is a fact that the British made the most
unscrupulous use of these differences and created more differences
in order to maintain their power and authority. The Indian
National Congress which was started with the object of winning
power for the people in the governance of the country had from the
beginning kept before it the ideal of complete nationalism which
implies that all Indians should enjoy equal rights and complete
equality on the basis of democracy. This ideal of removing the
foreign rule and replacing it by the democratic power and
authority of the people appealed to me most from the very start of
my public career.
51. In my writings and speeches I have always advocated that the
religious and communal consideration should be entirely eschewed
in the public affairs of the country, at elections, inside and,'
outside the legislatures and in the making and unmaking of
Cabinets. I have throughout stood for a secular State with joint
electorates and to my mind this is the only sensible thing to do.
(Here I read parts of the resolutions passed at the Bilaspur
Session of the Hindu Mahasabha held in December, 1944. Annexture
Pages 12 and 13), Under the influence of the Congress this ideal
was steadily making headway amongst the Hindus. But the Muslims as
a community first stood aloof and later on under the corroding
influence of the Divide and Rule Policy of the foreign masters
were encouraged to cherish the ambition of dominating the Hindus.
The first indication of this outlook was the demand for separate
electorates instigated by the then 'Viceroy lord M.into in 1906.
The British Government accepted this demand under the excuse of
minority protection. While the Congress party offered a verbal
-opposition, it progressively supported separatism by ultimately
adopting the notorious formula of neither accepting nor rejecting
in 1934.
52. Thus had originated and intensified the demand for the
disintegration of this country. What was the thin end of the wedge
in the beginning become Pakistan in the end. The mistake however
was begun with the laudable object of bringing out a united front
amongst all classes in India in order to drive out the foreigner
and it was hoped that separatism would eventually disappear.
53. In spite of my advocacy of joint electorates in principle I
reconciled myself with the temporary introduction of separate
electorates since the Muslims were keen on them. I however
insisted that representation should be granted in strict
proportion to the number of every community and no more. I have
,uniformly maintained this stand.
54. Under the inspiration of our British masters on the one hand
and the encouragement by the Congress under Gandhiji's leadership
on the other. the Muslim League went on increasing its demands on
Communal basis. The Muslim community continuously backed the
Muslim League; each successive election proved that the Muslim
League was able to bank on the fanaticism and ignorance of the
Muslim masses and the League was thus encouraged, in its policy of
separtism on an over increasing scale year after year.
55. As I have shown before despite their objection to the
principle of communal electorates the unreasonable demands of the
Muslim League were. conceded by the Congress- firstly by the
Lucknow Pact of 1916 and at each successive revision of the
constitution thereafter. This tapes from nationalism and democracy
on the part of the Congress has proved an expensive calamity as
the sequel has shown.
56. Since the year 1 920, that is to say after the dismiss of
Lokamanya Tilak, Gandhiji's influence in the Congress first
increased and then became supreme. His activities for public
awakening were phenomenal in their intensity and were reinforced
by the slogan of truth and non-violence which h&
ostentatiously paraded before the country. No sensible or
enlightened person could object to these. slogans; in fact there
is nothing new or original in them. They are implicit in every
constitutional public movement. To imagine that the bulk of
mankind is or. con ever become capable of scrupulous adherance to
these lofty principles in its normal life from day to day is a
more dream. In fact honour duty and love of one's own kith and kin
and country might often compel us to disregard non-violence. I
could never conceive that an armed resistance to the aggressor Is
unjust. I will consider it a religious and,moral duty to resist
and if possible to overpower such an enemy by the use of force.
Shree Ramchandra killed Ravan in a tumultuous fight and relieved
Sita. Shree Krishna killed Kansa to end his wickedness. In the
Mahabharat Arjun had to fight and slay, quite a number of his.
friends and relations including the revered Bhishma, because the
latter was on the side of the aggressor. It is my firm belief that
in dubbing Rama, Krishna and Arjuna as guilty of violence is to
betray a total ignorance of the springs of human action. It was
the heroic fight put up by the Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj that
first checked and eventually destroyed Muslim tyranny in India. It
was absolutely correct tactics for Shivaji to kill Afzal Khan as
the latter would otherwise have surely killed him. In condemning
Shivaji, Rana Pratap and Guru Govind as misguided patriots,
Gandhiji has merely exposed his self- conceit.
57. Each of the heroes in his time resisted aggression on our
country, protected the people against the atrocities and outrages
by alien fanatic& and wan back the motherland from the
invader. On the other hand during more than thirty years of the
undisputed leadership of the Mahatma there were more desecration
of temples, more forcible and fraudulent conversions, more
outrages on women and finally the loss of one third of the
country. It is therefore astounding that his followers cannot see
what is clear oven to the blind, viz. that the Mahatma was a mere
pigmy before Shivaji, Rana Pratap and Guru Govind. His
condemnation of these illustrious heroes was to say the least,
most presumptuous.
58. The clique which has got into power with the patronage of
British imperialism by a cowardly surrender to the Partition of
India at the point of Muslim violence is now trying to exploit
Gandhiji's death in hundred hectic ways for its own selfish aims.
But history will give to them their proper place in the niche of
fame. Gandhiji was, paradoxical as it may appear, a violent
pacifist who brought untold calamities on the country in the name
of truth and nonviolence, while Rana Pratap, Shivaji and the Guru
will remain enshrined in the hearts of their countrymen for ever
and for the freedom they brought to them.
59. As pointed out herein below Gandhiji's political activities
can be conveniently divided under three heads. He returned to
India from England some time about the end of 1914 and plunged
into the public life of the country almost immediately.
Unfortunately ,soon after his arrival Sir Pherozeshah Mahta and
Mr. G. K. Gokhale, the latter whom Gandhiji called his Guru, died
within a short span of time. Gandhiji began his work by starting
an Ashram in Ahmedabad on the banks of the Sabarmati river, and
made Truth and Nonviolence his slogans. He had often acted
contrary to his professed principles and if it was for appeasing
the Muslim he hardly had any scruple in doing so. Truth and
Non-violence are excellent as an ideal and admirable as guides in
action. They are, however, to be practised in actual day-to-day
life and not in the air. I am showing later on that Gandhiji
himself was guilty of glaring breaches of his much vaunted ideals.
60. Gandhiji's political career will be divided as already stated
under three heads
(I) The period between 1915 to 1939-40.
(II) The period between 1939-40 to 3rd June, 1947, when the Indian
National Congress. surrendered to Mr. Jinnah and accepted,
Pakistan under the leadership of the Mahatma.
(III) The period between the date of partition to the day of his
last fast unto death resulting in the payment of Rs. 55 crores to
Pakistan and the Mahatma's death within a short period.
61. When Gandhiji finally returned to India at the end of 1914, he
brought with him a very high reputation for courageous leadership
of Indians in South Africa. He had placed himself at the head of
the struggle for the assertion and vindication of the national
self-respect of India and for our rights of citizenship against
white tyranny in that country. He was honoured and obeyed by
Hindus, Muslims and Parsis alike and was universally acclaimed as
the leader of all Indians in South Africa. His simplicity of life,
his unselfish devotion to the cause which. he had made his own,
his self-sacrifice and earnestness in fighting against the racial
arrogance of the Africanders had raised the prestige of Indians.
In India he, had endeared himself to all.
62. When he returned here to serve his countrymen in their
struggle for freedom, he had legitimately hoped that as in Africa
he would command the unchallenged confidence and respect of all
communities. But in this hope he soon found himself disappointed.
India was not South Africa. In South Africa, Indians had. claimed
nothing but elementary rights of citizenship which were denied to
them. They had ,nil a common and acute grievance. The Boer and the
British both had treated them like door mats. Hindus, Muslims and
Parsis therefore stood united like one man against the common
enemy. They had no other quarrel with the South African
Government. The Indian problem at home was quite different. We
ware fighting for home rule, self- Government and even for
Independence. We were intent on overthrowing an Imperial Power,
which was determined to continue its sway over us by all possible
means including the policy of 'Divide and Rule' which had
intensified the cleavage between the Hindus and Muslims. Gandhiji
was thus confronted at the very outset with a problem the like of
which he had never experienced in South Africa. Indeed in South
Africa he had smooth sailing throughout. The identity of interest
between the various communities there was complete and every
Indian had ranged himself behind him. But in India communal
franchise, separate electorates and the like had already
undermined the solidarity of the nation, more of such were in the
offing and the sinister policy of communal favouritism was being
pursued by the British with the utmost tenacity without any
scruple. Gandhiji therefore, found it most difficult to obtain the
unquestioned leadership of the Hindus and the Muslims in India as
in South Africa. But he had been accustomed to he the leader of
all Indians and quite frankly he could not understand the
leadership of a divided country. it was absurd for his honest mind
to think of accepting the generalship of an army divided against
itself.
63. For the first five years after his return to India there was
not much scope for the attainment by him of supreme leadership in
Indian politics. Dadabhai Naoroji, Sir Pherozeshah Mehta, Lokmanya
Tilak and Mr. G. K. Gokhale and others were still alive and
Gandhiji honoured as he was. popular as he was, was still a junior
compared to those veterans both in age and experience. But an
inexorable fate removed all of them in five years and with the
death of Lokmanya Tilak in August, 1920 Gandhiji was at once
thrown into the front fine.
64. He saw that the foreign rulers by the policy of 'Divide and
Rule' wore corrupting the patriotism of the Muslims and that there
was little chance of his leading a united host to the battle for
Freedom unless he was able to cement fellow feeling and common
devotion to the Motherland. He, therefore, made Hindu-Muslim Unity
the foundation of his politics. As a counterblast to the British
tactics he started making the most friendly approaches to the
Muslim community and reinforced them by making generous and
extravagant Promises to the Muslims. This, of Course, wag not
wrong in itself so long as it was done consistently with India's
struggle for democratic national freedom; but Gandhiji completely
forgot this, the most essential aspect of his campaign for unity,
with what results we all know by now.
65. Our British rulers were able, out of Indian resource
continuously, to make concessions to Muslims and to keep the
various communities divided. By 1919 Gandhiji had become desperate
in his endeavours to get the Muslims to trust him and went from
one absurd promise to another. He promised 'a blank cheque' to the
Muslims. He backed the Khilafat movement in this country and was
able to enlist the full support of the National Congress in that
policy. For a time, Gandhiji appeared to succeed and prominent
Muslim leaders in India became his followers; Mr. Jinnah was
nowhere in 1920-21, and the Ali Brothers became de facto Muslim
leaders. Gandhiji welcomed this as the coming promise of
leadership, of the Muslims. He made most of the Ali Brothers,
raised them to the skies by flattery and unending concessions; but
what he wanted never happened. The Muslims &an the Khilafat
Committee as a distinct political religious organisation and
throughout maintained it as a separate entity from the Congress;
and very soon the Moplah Rebellion showed that the Muslims had not
the slightest idea of national unity on which Gandhiji had set his
heart and had stakes so much. There followed as usual in such
cases, a huge slaughter of the Hindus, numerous forcible
conversions, rape and arson. The British Government entirely
unmoved by the rebellion suppressed it in a few months and left to
Gandhiji the joy of his Hindu-Muslim Unity. The Khilafat agitation
had failed and let down Gandhiji. British Imperialism emerged
stronger, the Muslims became more fanatical and the consequences
were visited on the Hindus. But undaunted by the tactics of the
British Rulers, Gandhiji became more stubborn in the pursuit of
his phantom of Hindu-Muslim Unity. By the Act of 1919 separate
electorates were enlarged and communal representation was
continued not merely in the legislature and the local, bodies but
even extended within the Cabinet. The services began to be
distributed on the communal basis and the Muslims obtained high
jobs from our British Masters not on merit but by remaining aloof
from the struggle for freedom and because of their being the
followers of Islam. Government patronage to Muslims in the name of
Minority protection penetrated throughout the body-politic of the
Indian State and the Mahatma's meaningless slogans were no match
against this wholesale corruption of the Muslim mind. But Gandhiji
did not relent. He still lived in the hope of being the common
leader both of the Hindus and Muslims and the more he was
defeated, the more he indulged in encouraging the Muslims by
extravagant methods. The position continued to deteriorate and by
1925 it became patent to all that the Government had won all along
the line; but like the proverbial gambler Gandhiji increased his
stake. He agreed to the separation of Sind and to the creation of
a separate province in the N. W. Frontier. He also went on
conceding one undemocratic demand after another to the Muslim
League in the vain hope of enlisting its support in the national
struggle. By this time the stock of the Ali Brothers had gone down
and Mr. Jinnah who had staged a come-back was having the best of
both the worlds. Whatever concessions the Government and the
Congress made, Mr. Jinnah accepted and asked for more. Separation
of Sind from Bombay and the creation of the N. W. Frontier were
followed by the Round Table Conference in which the minority
question loomed large. Mr. Jinnah stood out against the federation
until Gandhiji himself requested Mr. Mc Donald, the Labour
Premier, to give the Communal Award. Further seeds were thereby
sown for the disintegration of this country. The communal
principle became deeply impeded in the Reforms of 1935. Mr. Jinnah
took the fullest advantage of every situation.
The Federation of India which was to consolidate Indian Nationhood
was in fact, defeated, Mr. Jinnah had never taken kindly to it.
The Congress continued to support the Communal Award under the
very hypocritical words of neither supporting nor opposing, which
really meant its tacit acceptance. During the War 1939-44, Mr.
Jinnah took up openly one attitude-a sort of benevolent
neutrality-and promised to support the war as soon as the
Muslims rights were conceded; in April 1S40, within six months of
the War, Mr. Jinnah came out with the demand for Pakistan on the
basis of his two nation theory. Mr. Jinnah totally ignored the
fact that there were Hindus and Muslims in large numbers in every
part of India. There may be a majority of Hindus in some case and
a minority of Muslims in other Provinces and vice versa, but there
was no Province in India where either the Hindus or the Muslims
were negligible in numbers and that any division of India would
leave the minority question wholly unsolved.
66. The British Government liked the Pakistan idea as it kept the
Hindus and Muslims estranged during the war and thereby avoided
embarrassing the Government. The Muslims did not obstruct the war
efforts and the Congress sometimes remained neutral and sometimes
opposed. On the other hand the Hindu Sabha realised that this was
an opportunity for our young men to have a military training,
which is absolutely essential for our nation, and from which we
were rather kept far away intentionally by the British. But due to
this war the doors of Army, Navy and Air-force were opened to us,
and Mahasabha urged our countrymen to militarise Hindus. The
result was that nearly 1/2 millions of Hindus learnt the art of
war and mastered the mechanised aspect of modern warfare. The
Congress Governments are enjoying the fruits of the Mahasabha's
foresight because the troops they are using in Kashmir and had
employed in Hyderabad would not have been there ready made but for
the effort of men with such outlook. The Congress in 1942, started
the Quit India' movement in the name of Freedom; violent outrages
ware perpetrated by Congress men in every Province. In the
Province of North Bihar there was hardly a railway station which
was not burnt or destroyed by the, Congress non-co-operators; but
in spite of all the opposition of the Congress the Germans were
beaten in April, 1945 and the Japanese in August, 1945. The atomic
bomb brought the collapse of the Japanese resistance and the
British won against Japanese and Germans in spite of the
opposition of the Congress party. The `Quit India' campaign of
1942 had completely failed. Britishers had triumphed and the
Congress leaders decided to come to terms with them. Indeed in the
subsequent years the Congress policy can be quite correctly
described as 'Peace at any Price' and 'Congress in Office at all
costs.' The Congress compromised with the British who placed it in
office and in return the Congress surrendered to the violence of
Mr. Jinnah, carved out one-third of India to him an explicitly
racial and theological State and destroyed, two million human
beings in the process. Pandit Nehru now professes again and again
that the Congress stands for a secular State and violently
denounces those who reminded him that only last year he agreed to
a communal and theological State; his vociferous adherence to a
Secular Stale' is nothing but a case of 'my lady protests too
much.'
67. The 'Quit India' movement had to be abandoned, the Congress
support to the war against Japan had to be assured and the Viceroy
Lord Wavell had to be accepted as the head of the Government of
India before the Congress was to be called into the Conference
Chamber.
68. This section summarises the back-ground of the agony of
India's partition and the tragedy of Gandhiji's assassination.
Neither the one nor the other wives me any pleasure to record or
to remember, but the Indian people and the world at large ought to
Know the history of the last thirty years during which India has
been torn into pieces by the Imperialist policy of the British and
under a mistaken policy of communal unity. The Mahatma was
betrayed into action which has ultimately led not to the
Hindu-Muslim Unity but to the shattering of the whole basis of
that Five crores of Indian Muslims have ceased to be our
countrymen; virtually the non-Muslim minority in Western Pakistan
have been liquidated either by the most brutal murders or by a
forced tragic removal from their moorings of centuries; the same
process is furiously at work in Eastern Pakistan. One hundred and
ten millions of people have become torn from their homes of which
not less than four millions are Muslims and when I found that even
after such terrible results Gandhiji continued to pursue the same
policy of appeasement, my blood boiled, and I could not tolerate
him any longer. I do not mean to use hard words against Gandhiji
personally nor do I wish to conceal my utter dissent from and
disapproval of the very foundation of his policy and methods.
Gandhiji in fact succeeded in doing what the British always wanted
to do in pursuance of their policy of Divide and Rule'. He helped
them in dividing India and it is not yet certain whether their
rule has ceased.
http://www.hinduunity.org
|
