Dt: 19/9/2018
Dr T.H.Chowdary*
“The good is often interred with the dead………” said Mark Antony at the funeral of Julius Caesar who was stabbed to death in a public square. In India, it is more usual to inter the bad with the dead and deify the dead. Mahatma Gandhi is now praised more in his death than when he was alive. There are large number of people in India, those who rioted for the partition and those who were Anglo-files and loyal to His Majesty, the King of United Kingdom and the Emperor of India who denounced Mahatma Gandhi as a rabble - rouser and even as a communal Hindu. Some said that he was Hinduising the Indian National Congress but after his death all these adverse critiques also have begun to hail him as the Mahatma reminding us ,
Where the living Homer begged for his bread.
2. Just as Buddhism is revered extensively in countries out -side India, so now many nations pay tribute to Mahatma Gandhi as the apostle of non-violence, of love even towards adversaries and for the non-violent movement he led for the freedom of India from British rule. Here in India, his Jayanti (birth day) is observed and glorious tributes are paid to the Mahatma and his non-violence. In truth, whatever Gandhiji wanted
independent India to be is entirely given up. Gram Swaraj, Cottage Industries, Handlooms, least government, morality and rectitude among politicians, leaders and public servants had all been forgotten. His perspective of a true leader namely,
“Those who claim to lead the masses must resolutely refuse to be led by them, if we want to avoid mob law and desire ordered progress for the country. I believe that mere protestation of one’s opinion and surrender to the mass opinion is not only not enough, but in matters of vital importance, leaders must act contrary to the mass of opinions if it does not commend itself to their reason.
Is just ignored by those leaders who flock to his Rajghat Samadhi in Delhi and address rallies in other cities.
3. It is of course not even known to many in the last two generations that his name has been appropriated by a particular family although it is in no way related to Mahatma Gandhi, not even to his espousal of truth, honesty and non-amassing of wealth.
4. The most important contribution that Mahatma Gandhi made to India was to take the Indian National Congress of lawyers, doctors and scholars from Town Halls to villages, to the masses, in the entire country. As a leader ought to, he educated the masses about the evils of foreign rule and the virtues and the imperative of independence and self - rule. From an organization submitting petitions and passing resolutions, the Congress was converted into a vibrant movement of millions of people. Gandhiji taught people to give up fear and to follow dharma. He did not promise to the freedom - fighters that when independence came, they would get pensions; he did not promise that they would become MLAs, MPS, Ministers and Governors . He said that freedom for India from foreign rule must mean the alleviation of poverty and the restoration of dignity to the human person.
5. Inspired by the education that he imparted, millions of even “illiterate” men and women”, peasants and propertied people faced lathis, full-throatedly shouted Vande Mataram and went to jails and gallows. They did not mind the loss of their incomes, the attachment of their properties by the alien British rule as punishment for violation of “laws”. Gandhiji thus demonstrated to the people that they could be heroes.
Notwithstanding these great deeds, Gandhiji had monumental failures in the conduct of the political movement, the results of which are still tormenting India to no little extent. Some of these are only mentioned in this essay.
6.Gandhiji was dictatorial though very soft and sweet in words. Subhas Chandra Bose was elected as President of the Indian National Congress in the year 1939. Gandhiji did not like him as President of Congress. He got Dr. Pattabhi Sitaramiah to oppose Subhas Chandrabose. Despite Gandhiji’s endorsements and support, Pattabhi was defeated. Gandhiji did not take to Bose’s election kindly. He unabashedly said that Pattabhi’s defeat was his own defeat. Those who were without demur obedient to Gandhiji took this as a clue to make the presidency of Subhas Chandra Bose impossible. Gandhiji’s men non-cooperted with Subhas Chandra Bose to such an extent that Bose had to resign the Presidentship. Gandhiji resorted fast unto death many times to coerce not always the British but even enlightened and patriotic Indians to bend to his will . His fast unto death against the British government’s award of separate electorates to Harijans was one such instance. It made Dr. Ambedkar, the life-long fighter for justice and equity and fair play to the “untouchable”, Harijans say, to the effect that Gandhiji was prepared to approve separate electorates for Muslims who were claiming that they are not part of the Indian nation but he (Gandhi) opposed the grant of separate electorates to untouchable Hindus, whom he elevated as the people of Lord Hari himself by calling them Harijans; Mr. Gandhi would not give to his unfortunate co-religionists what he would give to Musalmans who were repudiating the Indian nation-hood.
7. Gandhiji swore by Hindu -Muslim unity and brother-hood. Over the fierce opposition of the then nationalistic Md. Ali Jinnah and Dr. Annie Besant and others, he committed the secular Indian National Congress to the purely and totally communal movement of the Muslim residents of India, demanding that the British should restore to the Turkish Caliph cum Sultan jurisdiction over the land where Mecca and Madina were located. This was called Khilafat movement during which the Muslims even thought of inviting the Amir of Afghanistan to invade India. The Khilafat Muslims demanded that the Indian Army which has Muslims in it, should not be used against any Muslim country. (Later, the Muslim League made the same demand). Just imagine India which has Muslims in its armed forces not using the Indian army against Pakistan trying to grab Kashmir. Gandhiji’s idea was that since Muslims are brothers of Hindus, to demonstrate their brother-hood, Hindus must join the communal movement of the brothers who were in distress and in sorrow.
8. Even while that movement was going on Maulana Mohammed Ali, the tall Muslim leader in the Khilafat movement speaking at Aligarh and Ajmer said:
“However pure Mr. Gandhi’s character may be, he must appear to be from the point of view of religion inferior to any Musalaman, even though he be without character”.
The Statement created a great stir. Many did not believe that Mr. Mohamed Ali, who testified to so much veneration for Mr. Gandhi was capable of entertaining such ungenerous and contemptuous sentiments about him. When Mr. Mohamed Ali was speaking in a meeting held at Aminabad Park in Lucknow, he was asked whether the sentiments attributed to him were true. Mr. Mohamed Ali without any hesitation or compunction replied.
“Yes! According to my religion and creed, I do hold an adulterous and a fallen gentleman to be better than Mr. Gandhi”
(Sentences in italics are from Dr.Ambedkar’s book, “Partition of India or Pakistan”)
9. And when the Khilafat movement had to be ended because the Turkish people themselves kicked out the Caliph and exiled him to France, the Muslims in Kerala called Moplahs took the revenge on their Hindu neighbours looting them, burging their homes and crops, molesting and raping their women and forcibly converting them to Islam and marrying them as second, third or fourth wife to Muslims. Gandhiji did not condemn the Moplah’s vandalism and demoniac acts against Hindus. He described the Moplahs as “god-fearing” people and declared that “they are fighting for what they consider as religion and in a manner they consider as religious” . The Hindu- Muslim unity which Gandhiji wanted to forge by involving Hindus in the Muslim movement in favour of a person who has nothing to do with India, did never materialize; not even now after partition. The Khilafat movement stoked Muslim separatism. The number of communal riots rose hugely thereafter. Muslim consciousness was so much aroused that they declared that they were not Indians but Muslims and that India should be partitioned to create a Muslim homeland, Pakistan. And to realise that, they took to Direct Action beginning in Calcutta on the 16 of Aug 1946; Direct Action not against the British who were not granting freedom to India, but against Hindus who were opposition partition. Ten thousand Hindus were killed on one day in Calcutta by Muslims. The government of Bengal was headed by a Muslim League leader, H.S.Suhrawardy. This was the first government- organized genocide in India. The Hindu- Muslim brotherhood he preached and pledged to achieve, was ( and continues to be) unrealized.
10. Gandhiji used to say that India could be partitioned only over his dead body. He even offered the Prime Ministership of India to Md. Ali Jinnah to see that India was not partitioned. Md. Ali Jinnah was not a fool, but was immensely clever. He cleverly foresaw that in unpartitioned democratic India, the majority acting as a community (like the minority who always act as one community) would rule over the Muslims. He declined the PM-ship and insisted upon partition. If Gandhiji demanded the British to “Quit India”, Md.Jinnah said to the British, “divide and quit”. India was divided on the 14 of Aug 1947and only then, the British quit India granting it independence on the 15th of Aug 1947.
11. Mahatma Gandhi went to the all -India Congress session in Delhi in June 1947 to plead with Congressmen who opposed partition to accept partition!. The same Mahatma who said that India would be divided only over his dead body, did have to plead with Congressmen to accept the partition! So he failed in keeping India un-partitioned.
12. Ganhdiji advocated non-violence ;he is called, “the apostle of non-violence” and it is for that he is being praised, extolled and deified abroad and in India. He even told the Hindu victims of Muslim violence and rape that they should not retaliate. Such was his commitment to non-violence but the immediate reasons for the partition of India were orgies of violence initiated by Muslims in Calcutta. Naokhali, (Bengal) and joined in by Hindus in defence and retaliation. A million Hindus, Muslims and Sikhs were slaughtered in mutual fights just before and a few days after partition. Non-violence might have worked against civilised people like the British but not against Muslims and of course, Stalinist, Communists, Hitlerite Nazist and Mussolinis, Fascist. Non-violence as taught by Buddha was also taught by Ganhdiji . Non-violence is in practice as much among Buddhists as with Gandhists. It was an ideal but it is a total failure in the context of a relentlessly violent communal, frenzied religion -inspired community. In India we had periodic violent communal riots during Gandhi’s life time and we still have them. Gandhiji was even wanting to establish that the message of the Gita ( and the essence of Hinduism) is non-violence . Fortunately, the hollowness and falsity of Gandhijis Gita-inspired non-violence was refuted by the late Lokamanya Bala Gangadhar Tilak in his monumental work, “Gita Rahasya”. There he established that dharmic conduct and defence of dharma was a righteous duty and while carrying out that duty, if violence was necessary, so be it and it is in the light of this message that Arjuna waged the battles in Kurukshethra dealing death to his grand –father, his Guru, his elders, his kith and kin. Living in dharma, practising and defence of dharma might involve violence and a blind faith in non-violence to the neglect of dharma was unbecoming; that is Lord Krishna’s message and Lokamanya Tilak’s exposition of it in contrast to Gandhiji who extolled non-violence to the point of one’s and the nation’s extinction.
13. Dr. Rafiq Zakaria, a great scholar and a nationalist Muslim had, in a number of his books, brought out how Gandhiji’s main objectives were totally unrealised and so he was a great failure in the achievement of his very much extolled intentions. Dr.B.R.Ambedkar who, like Md. Ali Jinnah never called Gandhiji as Mahama but only as Mr. Gandhi, made a profound observation after visiting the dead body of the assassinated Mr.Gandhi. He wrote to: Sharada alias Laxmi Kabir who later became his wife, following Gandhiji’s assassination. In that letter, dated 8 February 1948, Dr B R Ambedkar wrote that “Gandhiji should have not met his death at the hand of a Maharashtrian”. Then he went on: “Mr. Gandhi had become a positive danger to his country. He had choked all thoughts. He was holding together the Congress which is a combination of all the bad and self-seeking elements in society who agreed on no social or moral principle governing the life of society except the one of praising and flattering Mr Gandhi. Such a body is unfit to govern the country. And the Bible says that something good comes out of evil, so also I think that good will come out of the death of Mr. Gandhi. He will release people from bondage to superman. It will make them think for themselves and it will compel them to stand on their own merits”. And to that, he added: “My real enemy has gone, thank goodness, the eclipse is over. (Source: A Reporter At Large ( page 238/239) by M V Kamat)
14. Mahatma Gandhi undertook fasts unto death on many occasions to the total disadvantage of India and Hindus and to please Muslims. For eg: He did not fast unto death when the Muslim League unleashed the slaughter of Hindus in Calcutta on the Direct Action Day but when once Hindus gained upper hand and were slaughtering Muslims, he went on a fast unto death to get the Hindu leaders to stop the revenge. When the Sikh and Hindu refugees who had fled Pakistan in great distress with loss of kith property and loss and took shelter in the houses and abandoned Muslims properties in Delhi, Gandhiji undertook a fast unto death to get Hindus and Sikhs vacate the Muslim properties . He even succeeded in getting the damaged mosques repaired with the secular government’s money . At the same time, he opposed the restoration of the Hindu Somnath temple by government money and insisted that the money should come through donations.
Gandhiji took another fast unto death and compelled the Government of India to give Rs. 56cr. to Pakistan ( Pakistan’s share of Sterling balances) even as its armies were invading Kashmir . Gandhiji undertook another fast unto death to see that Hindus of Delhi would not undertake any actions that will make the Muslim residents of India leave for Pakistan and this, even while millions of Hindus and Sikhs were being forced out of Pakistan .
15. Gandhiji did much good to the nation (see paras 4 & 5) . But we must not uncritically adore and deify him. Veneration of national heroes is alright but worship is unbecoming. Undoubtedly but unintentionally or innocently, he has done injustice to Hindus through his uncritical and unrequited/unreciprocated, indeed overzealous fraternity with Moslems, the tallest among whom did not hesitate to publicly hold him (Gandhiji) inferior to an “adulterous and fallen” Mussalman. Regrettably, Gandhiji allowed his name, Gandhi to be appended to Indira ( Nehru) although her husband , Feroze was Ghandi (Parsi- oil presser by tradition). Indira, Rajiv, Sonia, Rahul, Priyanka have no relationship with Mahatma Gandhi . But by appending that name, large number of uninformed Indians are misled into support to that clan which by now is only half-unIndian (Euro-Indian like Anglo-Indian to be precise).
16. I know that many would accuse me of denigrating Mahatma Gandhi. I am too small to have to effect any denigration or subtract from the Mahatma’s greatness. But it is impermissible for anyone to blindly extol a person without ever referring to his monumental failures. For eg: the Hindu- Muslim brother –hood was never there. Despite Mahatma Gandhi, socialist Jawaharlal Nehru and nationalist Maulana Abul Kalam Azad, the Muslims of India rejected Congress and Gandhiji - 98.35% of them voted against the Congress (which swore by undivided India), in the 1945-46 general elections to provincial and central legislatures and voted for the Muslim League which asserted that Muslims are not part of the Indian nation and therefore demanded the partition of India and succeeded to create the Islamic state of Pakistan. Gandhiji preached non-violence; there is un-paralleled violence by jihadis and Maoists and even Congress-men ( eg: 1984 slaughter of Sikhs in and around Delhi) and extremists. The objective namely Hindu-Muslim brotherhood; non-division of India and non-violence which Gandhiji strove to achieve have remained totally unrealized. The magnificent effort is a failure but venerable.
17. It is only in dictatorships like that of the communists and religious fundamentalists that inconvenient truths are glossed over and only hagiographic accounts of the men in power are written and revised according to the interest of the rulers. But in a country in which democracy is not yet extinguished and freedom of expression is still upheld by the judiciary, it is not unreasonable and discourteous if one points out the failures of so great a person as the Mahatma, failures which hurt India and Hindus. (Initially written in 2006; revised in Sept 2018). (2,917 words) –END-