Daily Times

Irfan Habib’s book on the great freedom fighter Bhagat Singh ‘To Make the Deaf Hear’ was released recently in Delhi.

It raises the question whose path was right, Gandhi’s or Bhagat Singh’s? The path of the former was non-violent ‘satyagrah’ that of the latter armed struggle against the British rulers.

I have no doubt that Bhagat Singh’s path of armed struggle was right, and if we had followed that path, today India would have become a prosperous country, with its people enjoying a high standard of living, whereas the path shown by that British agent Gandhi has led us to disaster.

When Neville Chamberlain, the then Prime Minister of England, came back to London from Germany in 1938 after the shameful Munich Pact (which surrendered Sudetenland, a part of Czechoslovakia, to the Nazis), Winston Churchill, who was then in the Opposition, said in the House of Commons:

“You were given a choice between war and dishonour. You chose dishonour, and you will have war”.

So Indians, you were given a choice between that fake ‘ Mahatma ‘  on the one hand, and the genuine freedom fighters Bhagat Singh, and others like him eg Surya Sen, Chandrashekhar Azad, Surya Sen, Bismil, Ashfaqulla, Rajguru, Sukhdev, Khudiram Bose, etc, on the other.

You were given a choice between a genuine freedom struggle, which is always an armed struggle (because no one gives up his Empire without an armed fight), in which no doubt millions of our countrymen would have perished (as happened to the Chinese when they fought against the Japanese in the 1930s and 1940s) but which would have led to real freedom for India and creation of a prosperous country in which its people were leading decent lives, or a fake freedom struggle, in which the bloodshed was avoided, but which has led to massive poverty, massive unemployment, massive child malnourishment,  almost non-existent healthcare and good education for our masses, etc.

You chose the dishonourable path of Gandhi, thinking that thereby you can avoid bloodshed, instead of the honourable path of Bhagat Singh and Surya Sen, but you will now have massive bloodshed in the coming years, perhaps ten times more than what you would have had to shed had you followed the path of Bhagat Singh, Surya Sen, etc.

Many people say that the violent method of freedom struggle in India against the British, as advocated and practised by Bhagat Singh, Surya Sen (Masterda), Chandrashekhar Azad, Ashfaqulla, Rajguru, Khudiram Bose, Ram Prasad Bismil, etc was wrong. They assert that it would have led to enormous bloodshed and was bound to have failed. Hence, they allege, the non-violent method of Gandhi was correct.

I totally disagree. Firstly, do imperialists give up their huge Empire because someone resorts to hunger strike or does a salt march or sings Raghupati Raghu Raja Ram? Did the American colonies get freedom from England by non-violent methods? Did Americans fight for freedom from the British by raising a Continental army under George Washington or by offering them flowers and satyagrah? Did the ‘Great Liberator’ Simon Bolivar free the Latin American countries from Spanish rule with his battalions. Or by presenting the Spaniards lollipops and bouquets? Did Ho Chi Minh fight the French and later the Americans by ‘ presenting the other cheek’ and salt marches, or with guns?

India got independence not because of Gandhi but because in the Second World War Germany attacked and weakened England, which made the British appeal to the Americans for help. In return, the Americans put pressure on the British to open up India to American investments too, (as they did not want a British monopoly in India). So the ‘Independence’ of 1947 was really opening up the Indian economy to U.S. investments too. This had nothing to do with Gandhi. In fact had Gandhi had his way, India would never have got independence.

I have no doubt that Bhagat Singh’s path of armed struggle was right, and if we had followed that path, today India would have become a prosperous country, with its people enjoying a high standard of living, whereas the path shown by that British agent Gandhi has led us to disaster

A freedom struggle is necessarily an armed struggle, because no ruler gives up his Empire without an armed fight. No doubt the Indian people would have suffered enormous causalities in such a struggle against the British, but what of that? As Thomas Jefferson said “The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of tyrants. It is its natural manure.”

I remember I was with a Frenchman in Paris some years back. I told him “Why did you French surrender to the Nazis in 1940? You should have fought on. Why did you surrender Paris to the Germans?”

He replied that the French army had been defeated, and if France had not surrendered, there would have been enormous French causalities, and a lot of property, including priceless French cultural treasures, would have been destroyed.

I said that even if that had happened Paris should never have been surrendered, but instead should have been burnt down by Frenchmen themselves, as the Russians did to Moscow in September, 1812, instead of surrendering it to Napoleon’s army (see Tolstoy’s ‘War and Peace’).

When the German attack on England was about to commence in 1940, the British Prime Minister, Winston Churchill, in a historic speech in the House of Commons on 19th May, 1940 said (quoting the Bible):

“Arm yourselves, and be ye men of valour, and be in readiness for the conflict, for it is better for us to perish in battle, than to look upon the outrage of our nation, and of our altar”

Then again on 4th June he said “We shall go on to the end. We shall fight in France, we shall fight on the seas and the oceans, we shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills, we shall never surrender.”

Some people may ask: with what weapons could we have fought the British? We did not have any?

The answer is: in guerrilla war one fights with the weapons of the enemy, by snatching them from him. And after all, Bhagat Singh, Surya Sen, etc got weapons from somewhere.

The writer is a former Judge, Supreme Court of India

Published in Daily Times, November 27^th 2018.