In 1893, a young, ambitious non-white person was thrown out of the train at Pietermaritzburg Railway Station, South Africa for travelling in a first class compartment. He was saddened over the deplorable conditions of coloured people in their own homeland. He sought help from the local ruling elite, but got none. He decided to return to India, where the masses and renowned politicians hailed him. What’s most intriguing however is the idealistic legacy his has left behind.
The maltreatment of leftist revolutionaries and nationalists at the hands of Gandhi is irreprehensible. He was a demagogue who used religion as a tool to attract the masses. His so-called ’Ahinsa’ doctrine was a web of contradictions. For instance, he was not doctrinally opposed to violence as he had enlisted soldiers for the British army during the First World War. His speech on 1 June, 1921 tries to justify this by saying that “he was morally bound to help the Brits in their hour of distress”.
On 13 April 1919, General Reginald Dyer ordered his group of 50 Gurkha riflemen to fire on an unarmed assembly at Jallianwala Bagh, killing approximately a 1,000 Indians and injuring 500 people. On 6 April 1921, Gandhi wrote in the Young India: “I would not punish or procure punishment even of General Dyer for his massacre.” Later on 12 March 1925, he went on to castigate the revolutionaries instead as guilty of having “the exciting and unquenchable thirst for the blood of English officials and those who were assisting them.”
Gandhi had disavowed and castigated all the revolutionaries of that time — Bhagat Singh, Raj Guru, Chander Shekhar Azaad and so forth. He unsympathetically despised and shunned these freedom fighters to the extent that he called them terrorists and enemies of the country. He preached tolerance and Ahinsabut had been intolerant in his criticism against these freedom fighters.
Gandhi had disavowed and castigated all the revolutionaries of his time — Bhagat Singh, Raj Guru, Chander Shekhar Azaad and so forth. He unsympathetically despised and shunned these freedom fighters to the extent that he called them terrorists and enemies of the country
Religious missionaries from the early twentieth century have also commented on how Gandhi aided the efforts of the government to crush the revolutionaries and side-lined them from mainstream Indian politics. In the words of a prominent apostle, Stanley Jones, “He saw clearly that there were two ways that India might gain her freedom. She might take the way of the sword and the bomb — the way Mohammed Ali and Shaukat Ali, the Mohammedan brother, untamed by Gandhi, would have taken; or the way that the Bengal anarchists actually took.”
It was highly counter-productive when Gandhi called off his non-cooperation movement to save the Ottoman Empire against the backdrop of the Chaura Chauri incident in 1922, when 22 police personnel were burnt alive by a furious mob. Gandhi abandoned the movement without consulting the Muslims. He left Muslims in the lurch and locked himself in the room. If Machiavelli were alive, he would have perhaps condemned his actions.
When revolutionaries attempted to blow up the Vice-Regal on 23 December 1929 in Delhi, Gandhi himself moved a resolution in the December 1929, Lahore session of Congress, congratulating the Viceroy on his escape and condemning the revolutionaries. In his speech after moving the resolution, he said, “The Congress Resolution also congratulates the Viceroy and Lady Irwin and their party including the poor servants.” It is interesting to note here that Gandhi called himself the trustee of British lives but angrily deplored the Indian revolutionaries. Moreover, he never condemned the brutalities of the British against Indians. He never moved a resolution in favour of the nationalists, making his double standards apparent.
Similarly Gandhi did not utter one word in support of Jatin Das, while Das observed a hunger strike protesting the treatment meted to under-trial political prisoners, due to which he eventually died on 13 September 1929. A surprising reaction from the man who used hunger strikes, as his main weapon during his regime of non-violent protests in India.
One then wonders regarding the glorified history of this esteemed sub-continental figure — whether or not his sympathies lay with other freedom fighters, and many question whether or not Gandhi’s fanatical ideas have done more harm than good to India.
The writer is a freelance journalist
Published in Daily Times, July 29th 2018.