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“Non”Violent Gandhi: recruiting agent-in-chief in WWI Part I

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Hi, Everyone! By beating the drum of nonviolence Gandhi had stripped the Hindus of their virility, but even in that he had done a volte face!

On April 28, 1918, Gandhi gave Viceroy Chelmsford’s War Conference resolution his full support.

“DELHI,
April 28, 19I8

I consider myself honoured to find my name among the supporters of the resolution. I realize fully its meaning and I tender my support to it with all my heart.

(From a photostat of the original in Gandhiji’s hand: G. N. 2225)”

Gandhi further writes in his An Autobiography:

“Gandhiji has referred to his speech in the Man-Power Committee in his autobiography as follows: “So I attended the Conference. The Viceroy was very keen on my supporting the resolution about recruiting. . . . I had no speech to make. I spoke but one sentence to this effect, “With a full sense of my responsibility, I beg to support the resolution.” Vide An Autobiography, Part V; Ch. XXVII.”

On April 29, 1918, he goes much further and offers to become a recruiting-agent-in-chief himself . . . !

I shall give you a quote from my own novel Burning for Freedom, page 100—I have put the whole situation of Gandhi as a recruiting agent for the WWI in a nutshell:

“In early 1918, Gandhi had the people of the Kheda district stage a satyagraha[1]protesting the increase in their tax. The Government promptly began to confiscate and sell their property in lieu of the taxes. This made the peasants of Kheda very restive—the Satyagraha was in danger of coming apart at the seams …! Something needed to be done—and fast. On April 29, Gandhi, in a letter to the Viceroy Lord Chelmsford, suggested a bargain that if the Government were to relieve him of his Kheda trouble, he would “as a recruiting agent-in-chief, rain men on them” in the war. The Viceroy willingly accepted Gandhi’s recruiting services and granted just enough relief to the peasants for Gandhi to make a tall claim of a successful satyagraha and save face …! Then, swiftly discarding his principle of nonviolence, Gandhi began desperately recruiting Indians for the British army.”

Reference to an offer submitted to Viceroy Chelmsford in Gandhi’s letter of April 29, 1919:

“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.”

The offer is not mentioned in the letter itself, which is intended to be published (as so many of Gandhi’s letters were.) It is mentioned in the cover letter addressed to J. L. Smalley that accompanied the letter to the Viceroy. The actual letter is not available.

“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.”

What the offer is about is in Gandhi’s letter to J. L. Smaffey re his April 29 letter to the Viceroy:

“The other enclosure 3 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.”

 

This offer was kept secret and hidden from the Indians. When questioned about his two letters to the Viceroy, he said:

“‘I do not admit that, as a representative of the people, I am in duty bound to place before the public all the letters that I write to the Viceroy.

All through my life, there have been a good many, and to my mind important, actions of mine in my representative capacity which have remained, and will ever remain, unknown. My first letter to His Excellency the Viceroy was meant for him alone. I cannot give publicity to the views which I expressed to him as to a gentleman and a friend. . . . I have given publicity to such part of my conversation with him as would bear being made public.’

[From Gujarati] Mahadevbhaini Diary, Vol. IV”

Gandhi’s relevant letters (for the posts on this topic) are to be found on pages 1-54 on the link:

Anurupa
Mahatma Gandhi Facts: Gandhi Revealed

[1] Term coined by Gandhi; he gave it the misnomer “soul-force.” Literally the word means “insistence on truth.” By implication it has come to mean nonviolent civil disobedience.

“Non”Violent Gandhi and jihad . . .

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Hi, Everyone! To understand what the next couple of posts are about, it is first necessary to understand the background of the Khilafat Movement which sprouted in India in 1919.

An excerpt from my Burning for Freedom clarifies the Khilafat (non)cause:

 “The Treaty of Versailles was signed in June 1919. Much to the indignation of the Indian Muslims, the Turkish Empire was effectively cut up and distributed between the Allies. Even in his home territory, the Caliph had only nominal powers. The propagandist of the Turkish Caliphate in India decided to force Britain into changing her policy for Turkey. The Khilafat Movement was born.

Gandhi, rather than fight for the much bigger and national issue of Indian freedom or even protest against the horrific behavior of the British military and police against the helpless Indians, at this point decided to make the Turkish cause his own—and willy-nilly dragged the Indian freedom movement behind him!

Was Britain’s treatment of Turkey a greater horror, a greater degradation, to the Indians than her treatment of India?”[1]

At this very time—when Gandhi was fighting in India for the Caliphate—there was a revolution in Turkey itself to get rid of it . . . !

“The Caliph was the ruler and religious head of Turkey which was in the throes of a revolution. A nationalist revolution had captured Young Turks and they wanted to end the Caliphate and his Sultanate, the rotten structure of a dead institution. Their revolutionary leader, Gazi Mustafa Kemal Pasha, had declared that ‘Islam, this theology of an immortal Arab, is a dead thing’. He wanted to tear out religion from the body politic of Turkey.”[2]

While in India Gandhi pushed and promoted the Khilafat Movement, “Kemal Pasha described the Indian supporters of the Khilafat as foreign busybodies in league with the British Government.”[3]  

On November 24, 1919, Gandhi presided over a Khilafat Committee meeting. In his Young India, March 20, 1920, he writes of a Khilafat Committee resolution:

“The resolution is a joint transaction between Hindus, Muslims and others to whom this great land is their mother country or adopted homes and it also commits a joint movement to a policy on non-violence in the course of the struggle. But Muslims have special Koranic obligations in which Hindus may or may not join. They, therefore, reserve to themselves the right, in the failure of non-cooperation in order to enforce justice to resort to all such methods as may be enjoined by Islamic sculptures.”

Don’t be misled by the mildness of the words—this is nothing less than a sanction for jihad by the Mahatma, the Apostle of Nonviolence . . . !

A jihad that would be, per force, unleashed upon the hapless Hindus.

In Gandhi’s creed, to fight as revolutionaries for the freedom of their motherland, India, was a no-no, but jihad to maintain the supremacy of the Sultan of Turkey was a ‘right’ of the Indian Muslims . . . !

Anurupa
Mahatma Gandhi Facts: Gandhi Revealed

 

[1] Burning for Freedom; page 107

[2]Mahatma Gandhi, Political Saint and Unarmed Prophet, Keer; page 302.

[3]Ibid, page 439.

“Non”Violent Gandhi . . . ?

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Hi, Everyone! The words Gandhi and nonviolence are practically synonymous in the world today. And yet very early on in my research I came across some lesser known veryilluminating facts.

Since 1908-9 Gandhi was vociferous in denouncing the revolutionaries for their ‘violence’ and much more. But only a short time before, Gandhi’s own deeds reveal what was sauce for the goose was, indeed, not sauce for the gander.

Before going any further, I shall give one of Gandhi’s own quotes from his autobiography which highlight his avowed precept of nonviolence.

“I make no distinction, from the point of view of ahimsa(nonviolence) between combatants and non-combatants. He who volunteers to serve a band of dacoits, by working as their carrier, or their watchman while they are about their business, or their nurse when they are wounded, is as much guilty of dacoity as the dacoit themselves. In the same way those who confine themselves to attending to the wounded in battle cannot be absolved from the guilt of war.”

This would lead one to believe that nonviolent Gandhi would stay far away indeed from war or any connection to it. One would be wrong!

To quote from Gandhi: Behind the Mask of Divinity, by G. B. Singh (page 63):

“The Life and Death of Mahatma Gandhi, by Robert Payne (1969)

‘In his article in Indian Opinion Gandhi called upon the Indians to fight on the side of the British. He pointed out that the Europeans had always distrusted the fighting prowess of the Indians in Natal; at the first sign of danger they would desert their posts and make their way back to India. “We cannot meet this charge with a written rejoinder,” he wrote. “There is but one way to disproving it —the way of action.” He asked the Indians to join the Volunteer Corps. They should not be afraid of war. Wars are relatively harmless.’”

·        Note that Gandhi claims wars are harmless . . . !

·        Note that despite his above mentioned precept, he is clamoring that he and the Indians be enrolled in the British army.

·        The British can certainly be considered more ‘dacoits’ than ‘soldiers’ in the manner in which they ruthlessly crushed the Zulu rebellion, victimizing women, children, and the elderly.

In case anyone is willing to give Gandhi latitude for what he means by ‘Volunteer Corps,’ read the excerpts from his article “Indians volunteers” published in his Indian Opinion, June 23, 1906 (ibid; page 100).

“The Stretcher-Bearer Corps is to last only a few days. Its work will be only to carry the wounded, and it will be disbanded when such work is no longer necessary. These men are not allowed to bear arms. The move for a Volunteer Corps is quite different and much more important. That Corps will be a permanent body; its members will be issued weapons, and they will receive military training every year at stated times.”

·        Gandhi is actively advocating the bearing of weapons and military training over belonging to the Stretcher-Bearer Corps . . . !

·        By his above mentioned precept, even belonging to a Stretcher-Bearer Corps ought to be a no-no for his precept of nonviolence.

Unfortunately for Gandhi, the Stretcher-Bears Corps is where he and his troop were finally enrolled despite his seven months of appeals to bear arms.

This isn’t the only instance of Gandhi’s approval—no, actual promotion—of violence. He did it again and yet again!

Follow my next Gandhi Facts post for more.

Anurupa
Mahatma Gandhi Facts: Gandhi Revealed

Reactions to my "Gandhi Facts: Gandhi Revealed" posts

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 Hi, Everyone! As I consider birthdays sacrosanct, and today is Gandhi’s birth anniversary, I have taken a break from my posts on Gandhi Facts: Gandhi Revealed for today.

I have had two set of reactions to my posts, one representative of ‘Gandhians’ and the other of ‘Savarkarites.’

I was under the impression that I have made myself very clear about my motives and the driving force behind why I became an author and why I consider it necessary to reveal the truth re Gandhi, but maybe I have not. I am going to give a recap here. More is revealed in my interview @

But before I go any further, I do want to let everyone know (for I have received insulting, ranting emails from a Gandhian, whom I shall refrain from naming at this time) that any insults to be made to me, must be made as comments on my blog, boldly and openly. Hence forth, I shall certainly consider myself free to publish them there, anyway.

I shall reiterate some points re myself:

·        My goal:     Worldwide recognition and justice for Savarkar.

·        My stand:   Truth cannot—and shall not—be hidden!

·        My way:     Doing what I see is right, even if society in general will oppose it.

Questions I have been asked re my Gandhi posts:

Why am I painting Gandhi black?

·        I am not painting Gandhi black. I am presenting documented facts. Whether people see Gandhi as black or white or grey, or indeed any other color, after reading them is entirely up to them.

What do I have to gain by writing so of Gandhi, “the greatest man born on Earth”?

·        I don’t consider Gandhi “the greatest man born on Earth,” and I never have.

·        I don’t do anything just for “gain.” I am stating unambiguously and frankly what is my driving force and purpose in my first post September 28, my interviews, my website and anywhere else I have a chance to speak.

Is this a disservice to Savarkar (“painting Gandhi black” to “elevate” Savarkar’s image)? “Savarkar does not need this kind of support.”

·        Savarkar himself did his very best to let the Indians know the truth about Gandhi—so, no, I don’t see it as a disservice to Savarkar to reveal the truth re Gandhi.

In fact, I see it as a disservice notto do so.

·        I am not interested in “elevating” Savarkar’s image—I want the world to know who and what Savarkar is. I want them to look beyond “images.”

·        For sixty-five years plus Savarkar has suffered maligning of his name, annihilation of his work and many gross injustices. It is still going on today. Savarkar needs justice and recognition—worldwide.

This is my way of doing it, even if I walk alone on the path.

And I want to state here categorically that I am doing it in my individual capacity—not as a representative of “Savarkarites” or any other group/party/organization nor indeed as a team member of www.savarkar.org.

I particularly want to stress that my opinions and actions are not a reflection of www.savarkar.org. My role there is purely that of a researcher and writer on Savarkar.

Anurupa

Gandhi’s Modus Operandi: “I preach, you practice” Part II

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Hi, Everyone! From Gandhi’s “Love the Harijans” mantra one would assume that he believed in equality of all human-beings. One would be wrong.

Dhananjay Keer writes in his biography (page 619):
“The fate of Gandhi’s Harijan uplift movement was no better than its theory or blue-print. M. C. Rajah moved a temple entry Bill [to allow untouchables entry into temples] in 1938, and Rajagopalachari [Rajaji] as Premier of Madras compelled 28 out of 30 Harijan members to vote against it. When Rajah appealed to Gandhi, he replied that Rajah’s community had no better friends than Rajagopalachari. The Bill had been introduced with the consent of the Congress Party. . . . And when Dr. Khare, Prime Minister of the Central Provinces, later included a Harijan in the Cabinet, Gandhi expressed disapproval of thus ‘raising absurd ambitions in the minds of the Harijans’! No wonder then that after twenty years of the Gandhian Harijan Movement, S. Ramanathan, a Congress Minister of Madras, said in 1943: ‘Gandhism has given rise to a worse evil than the Hindu-Muslim conflict. It has justified the caste system and has given it a fresh lease of life.’”
Gandhi strongly supported the birth-based caste system of the Hindus. He even proclaimed that inter-marriage and inter-dining between different castes was promiscuous.
What he said about the Kafirs in South Africa has to be read in his own words to be believed:

“Indian Opinion, March 7, 1908,

“Classification of Asiatics with Natives”

The cell was situated in the native quarters and we were housed in one that was labeled “For Coloured Debtors”. It was this experience for which we were perhaps all unprepared. We had fondly imagined that we would have suitable quarters apart from the natives. . . .

Degradation underlay the classing of Indians with Natives. . . .

Many of the Native prisoners are only one degree removed from the animal and often created rows and fought among themselves in the cells.”[1]

Gandhi also bombarded the Government in South Africa for months fighting for a separate entrance to the post office for the Indians. It was a degradation for the Indians to share one with the “Natives,” he writes.

I shall end my post here offering just one more point to think upon. It is so easy to be conned by a slick tongue and a charming personality . . . ! And so, I have a very simple litmus test to weed out the worthy from the unworthy.

My litmus test:compare a person’s words very carefully with their actions. If they match, the person passes and is certainly of genuine, solid character. If not—watch out!

Needless to say Gandhi fails this litmus test time and again. The blinkers around the eyes have to be made of cast iron to not accept this fact.

Anurupa
Mahatma Gandhi Facts: Gandhi Revealed

 

[1]Gandhi, G. B. Singh, page 160-61

Gandhi’s Modus Operandi: “I preach, you practice” Part I

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Hi, Everyone! Gandhi has spouted his “lofty” principles often and often, but only a cursory glance is sufficient to drive home the fact that rarely did he hold himself accountable to them. I shall only point out a few, but telling, instances.

·        The Vow of Poverty was certainly an ideal Gandhi upheld.
How did he follow it?
He collected thousands of Rupees from his benefactors, encouraged industrialists to keep making a fortune and make donations, lived in palatial homes, traveled first class, ate an expensive special diet, and he even accepted gifts and sold them for money.
This is what his biographer Keer writes in Mahatma Gandhi: Political saint and unarmed Prophet:
Page 464
“Answering the query about his expenses, he [Gandhi] said: ‘I do make the claim that I attempt to act as I preach. But I must confess that I am not as inexpensive in my wants as I would like to be.’ . . .

Yet Gandhi had at his disposal the biggest fund ever collected in the world by a political party, and he spent millions on political propaganda. His was an expensive leadership. Just to humor him, first class railway saloons were sometimes called second class. Just to satisfy his love of simplicity, palaces were called huts. It is no exaggeration to say that Gandhi’s menu and living were undoubtedly expensive.”

Page 489

“He [Gandhi] left Manglore on October 28 and reached Bombay on the morning of October 29 by the S.S. Vegavati. As usual, Gandhi did a little ‘business’ on the launch taking him to the steamer, by selling one of the gifts of the previous evening for Rs. 125.”

But the very worst of all is the fact that he made a profit from his speeches on spirituality in England in 1931 . . . !

“Meanwhile Gandhi attended a journalists’ party, visited India Office and gave a spiritual message for a gramophone company, drawing a profit of £5,000.”[1]

·        Gandhi considered surgery, injections etc. to be against his “staunch” principles of nonviolence.

His wife died in dire straits, but he did not allow the doctor to give her the newly discovered penicillin shot.

And yet there are at least two operations that Gandhi himself underwent: one for hemorrhoids in January 1919, and another for appendicitis in January of 1924. He also took fifteen shots prior to the operations, in the hope that they would give him relief from his ailment.[2]

Eighteen months after the death of his wife, Gandhi developed what Keer calls “malignant malaria.” His blood pressure was high at the time, too. This is how Gandhi’s health at the time is described by the Gandhiserve Manibhavan website:

 “Gandhi was released from Aga Khan Palace on 6th May, 1944. During his detention, he had developed hook worm and amoebic infection in addition to malaria. All this led to acute anemia.”

I have been unable to find even one reference in his biographies or the Gandhi websites as to howGandhi was able to recover from this severesickness—especially without the aid of modern medicines which he had just a little while before deprived his dying wife of.

I did find online an excerpt from one book, 100 Things You’re Not Supposed to Know by Russ Kirk (pp. 167-169), which claims:

“A mere six weeks after Kasturba died, Gandhi was flattened by malaria. He stuck to an all-liquid diet as his doctors tried to convince him to take quinine. But Gandhi completely refused and died of the disease, right? No, actually, after three weeks of deterioration, he took the diabolical drug and quickly recovered. The stuff about trusting God’s will and testing faith only applied when his wife’s life hung in the balance. When he needed a drug to stave off the Grim Reaper, down the hatch it went.”

I haven’t found corroboration—yet. Hopefully, the book itself will give a reference where this information came from.

·        In his Hind Swaraj (reprinted with Gandhi’s full backing over and over for many years) Gandhi advocates that true nonviolence lies in making it easy for a thief to steal one’s home. And yet, what did he do when his ashram was being robbed? Here it is:[3]

 

“Nor could he [Gandhi] follow his principle in respect of thieving. When thieves attempted to steal things from the Asharam, Gandhi instead of asking, as he did in Hind Swaraj, ‘to keep your things in a manner most accessible to him’ instructed Maganlal to ask someone to sleep in the verandah and send others also to do so.”
More tomorrow . . .

Anurupa
Mahatma Gandhi Facts: Gandhi Revealed

[1]Keer’s biography on Gandhi, page 560

[3] Ibid page 268

Gandhi: A British Mole . . . !

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Hi, Everyone! Dhananjay Keer was a very reputable biographer. Indeed, his biography of Gandhi—of some 800 plus pages—was invaluable for my research.

Out of the forest of words therein, out jumped these words given below and smote me a deadly blow between the eyes. The timing of this incident is 1919, after the Noncooperation Day (and the resultant Jallianwala Bagh tragedy) declared by Gandhi.

“He [Gandhi] gave interviews freely to the police at his place, visited their offices to give information about his tours and visits, and discussed with them the behavior of his lieutenants. He told police that ‘Horniman was an advocate of violence’ who believed that a revolution might be justifiable if justifiable ends could be achieved by no other means. He promised the British Police that if Umar Sobani revealed his mind to him he would tell them about it.”[1]

I read this passage once, did a double-take and read it again—and again. I couldn’t believe my eyes![2]

·        The Mahatma of the Indians, the “Father of the Nation” was passing on to the British the confidences made to him by the freedom fighters of India . . . !
·        And that was his conscious, deliberate act.
Thatis the action of a spy, a mole.
Anurupa
Mahatma Gandhi Facts: Gandhi Revealed

[1] Mahatma Gandhi: Political Saint and Unarmed Prophet, by Dhananjay Keer; Popular Prakashan, Bombay, 1973; page 288.

[2]B. G. Horniman, a “dhoti clad, bare-footed” British citizen, has been described as being “more Indian than Indians as a freedom fighter, and his forceful speeches ignited the Bombayites’ to urge for freedom. His main themes were complete freedom and parliamentary democracy for India.”
Umar Sobani was a Muslim Nationalist who joined Gandhi in the Noncooperation Movement of 1920.

Gandhi: a “Bapu” (father) or not a “Bapu” . . . ?

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Hi, Everyone! To showcase Savarkar in Burning for Freedom as he most certainly deserves to be, I also had to reveal the unsavory truth of Gandhi and his true role in the Freedom Movement of India.





The more I researched, the more shocking it was. The truth about Gandhi was horrifying in the extreme, indeed. The childhood dislike and suspicion which I held him in was a mere instinct; now I had concrete, documented proof to back it. I have put it before the readers of my novel at my emotional best. All through chapter fifteen to the end, I felt I was cutting my heart open and bleeding into the novel. The pain I felt for the Indians, for the Hindus, whose faith and trust in their Mahatma was so grossly abused is impossible to put in words.

Yetthere are several truths about Gandhi that I could not write about as the plot did not allow it. But revealed they must certainly be! Not in just my words, but the words of other writers.

You may well ask why I consider it so important to reveal this truth.

Besides the very important fact that revealing the truth of Gandhi is necessary to vindicate Savarkar and bring justice to his name and memory—when the President of United States quotes Gandhi as an ideal, as President Obama did, when the schools in the U.S. teach Gandhism, it is the outside of enough . . . !

The truth must be revealed!

I shall be presenting in a series of upcoming daily blog posts some of the Gandhi episodes that distressed me to the very core of my being. Some of the titles are:

·        Gandhi: A British Mole . . . !

·        Gandhi’s modus operandi: “I preach, you practice”

·        “Non”Violent Gandhi . . . ?

So stay riveted day after day! The first of it is given below:

A ‘Bapu’ or not a ‘Bapu’ . . . ?

“Bapu”—father—is how Gandhi was fondly referred to by all. He also had an honorary title bestowed upon him, “Father of the Nation.”

Joseph Lelyveld, a Pulitzer Prize winning author, has recorded an incident that happened during Gandhi’s Tour of Mercy in Noakhali, 1946, during the horrendous rioting when Hindus were mercilessly raped and slaughtered, their homes gutted, by the Muslims there.

“On reaching a village called Nayanpur in the third week of the walking tour, Gandhi couldn’t find a piece of pumice he used to scrape his feet before soaking them. He’d last used it at a weaver’s hut where he’d stopped to warm his chilled feet. Evidently, Manu had left the stone behind. This was a “major error,” Gandhi said sternly, ordering her to retrace their steps and find it, which meant following a path through thick jungle in an area where assaults on young women were not unknown. When she asked if she could take a couple of volunteers, Gandhi refused. She had to go alone. The weaver’s wife had tossed the stone out, not knowing that the Mahatma counted it as precious. When Manu finally recovered it and returned, Pyarelal tells us, she burst into tears, only to be met by Gandhi’s cackle. To him, her afternoon’s ordeal was part of their mutual “test.”

          “If some ruffian had carried you off and you had met your death courageously,” he told her, “my heart would have danced with joy. But I would have felt humiliated and unhappy if you had turned back or run away from danger.”[1]

 Perhaps because I have a young teenage daughter, perhaps because I had cried till I had no more tears for the plight of the wretched, duped Hindus of yore (and even today?), or perhaps because it is such an unnecessary, petty, cruel, inconsiderate, and inhuman act which no decenthuman-being should have done—leave alone a Mahatma—I have chosen this incident to be the first to be presented.

I ask you:

·        In the midst of rape, riot, and ravaging of the devastated Hindus, should the Mahatma have worried over a mere pumice stone? A missing stone, a “major error” . . . !

·        Where women were still being raped, even in the presence of the Mahatma in Noakhali, should Manu have been forced by the Mahatma to venture alone on the lonely, treacherous path?

·        Would any “Bapu” put his daughter through that hell?

·        With whatface did the Mahatma—himself travelling (as always), violating his ‘stout’ principles of nonviolence, protected by an Armed Guard and a Sikh Volunteer Corps—dare to say that he would have been “humiliated and unhappy” if Manu had run from danger?

I leave you with that thought . . .

Anurupa
Mahatma Gandhi facts: Gandhi Revealed

[1]Great Soul: Mahatma and His Struggle with India by Joseph Lelyveld; Alfred A. Knopf, Newyork, 2011; pages 315-316.

The original story is to be found here: “There will be no tears,” Mahatma Gandhi: Last Phase, vol. I, by Pyarelal; pp 321.



I first heard of the pumice stone when Keer made a reference in his biography of Gandhi that Gandhi reached “Patna with the piece of pumice stone with which his feet were daily cleaned.”

How very odd! I thought to myself. Why did Keer make such a particular mention such an insignificant object? Months later the mystery was solved when I read “The Great Soul.”

Since then I have realized than when researching one must stay alert to this seemingly arbitrary references by authors—they generally indicate that there is something to sniff out!

Savarkar: “Let us use our donkey . . .!”

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Hi, Everyone! Savarkar had a very practical, rational approach to everything. He didn’t just talk and advice people in the abstract, he always had a concrete, viable workable option.

More from Mr. Joglekar’s “vignettes”:

“Savarkar was an ardent advocate of abolition of untouchability. It was an essential part of his movement for Hindu solidarity. The orthodox section approved of Savarkar’s Hindu solidarity movement, but not his campaign against untouchability. The late Mr. Davare, who was one of the leaders of the orthodox section, indicated his dissent about it.

Savarkar argued with him thus: “Our Hindu Sanghatan movement has just begun. We have to face three antagonists – the Congress, the Muslims, and the British. So why begin with differences amongst the Hindu Sanghatanists? First establish the area of agreement. It is quite vast. Let us work with one mind in that area. A lot of good will is achieved. We will go our separate ways when the real differences arise. Why waste our little organized strength in playing up the differences at the present moment?”

Once the late V. G. Deshpande remarked about a certain prominent worker from the state of Uttar Pradesh that he was a government man. To this Savarkar replied: ‘We are so few that our number could be counted on fingers. Why drive away people from our fold on mere suspicion? It is no use wailing that the Congress has a horse and we have a donkey. You will achieve nothing by it. We must use our donkey and try to get a horse. But so long as we do not have a horse, we should not foolishly drive away our donkey.’

There are lessons in these instances for a person who wants to be an administrator or an organizer.”

Anurupa


The Magic of Savarkar’s Oratory

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Hi, Everyone! This is how Mr. Joglekar describe’s Savarkar’s oratory:

I had heard many of his public speeches and at a time when his eloquence was at its zenith.

I have read the speeches of Cicero, Demosthenes, Fox, Burke, Churchill, Hitler, and others. At some point in the speeches, you feel the eloquence. And yet there is a feeling that something is missing. One feels that they are not instinct with liveliness. There is no rhythm, no stress on words. Printed speeches are like Greek statues. They look beautiful but are cold. The future generations will have this experience while reading Savarkar’s speeches.

We were fortunate. We heard some of his finest speeches.

The late Mr. D. V. Gokhale, former assistant editor of Maharashtra Times, wrote an article on Savarkar after his death. He wrote therein, ‘Next day he gave a lecture in Shivaji Akhada. The subject was Hindutva. I do not remember even a word of the historical and social arguments he then advanced. But I was caught in the cataract of his eloquence. It is said that the chariot of Dharmaraja used to run a few inches above the ground. I remember that I felt a little elevated from the ground while listening to Savarkar’s first speech. His personality and eloquence cast a permanent spell on me.’

Gokhale’s opinion, to a large extent, is a representative one.”

Anurupa