Shenanigans of Gandhi, Part VI

Posted on by Anurupa

“Double, double toil and trouble,

Fire burn and cauldron bubble.”

Hi, Everyone! This story will be the last in this series. Not only does it expose the back-stabbing that Gandhi apparently routinely indulges in to keep his power, but it also exposes the stab in the heart he gave to Mother India.

“Gandhi’s observance of a prolonged silence was partly due to his physical weakness and partly to his secret involvement in a serious plan. . . .

Gandhi made him [Dr. Syed Mahmud in October 1944] write a letter to Bhulabhai Desai requesting him to see Liaquat Ali, the leader of the Muslim League in the Central Assembly, and discuss with him the formation of a composite Government consisting of the Congress and the Muslim League. After waiting for a fortnight or so, Gandhi himself wrote a letter in Gujarati to Bhulabhai urging him to expedite the matter.

Bhulabhai met Liaquat Ali in Delhi and prepared a draft which was later known as the Bhulabhai-Liaquat Ali Pact. Liaquat Ali was to get Jinnah’s approval and Bhulabhai Gandhi’s. Bhulabhai met Gandhi with the draft and Gandhi made some changes in it, approved the draft secretly and asked Bhulabhai to meet Lord Wavell, the Viceroy. Bhulabhai met Wavell and handed over the draft to him for consideration and action.[1]

This secret Pact surpassed the Rajaji formula in the harm it did to the national majority. It agreed to a percentage of fifty-fifty in all representations for the Hindus and the Muslims.”

[It was not just an agreement of fifty-fifty Hindu-Muslim representation (which in itself was a colossal betrayal of the Hindu majority, going as it was—in leaps and bounds—ahead of weighted electorates.)

· It was an agreement of fifty-fifty representation of the Congress and the League.

· There would be no general elections either at the Centre or in the provinces.

· Democracy was given the go-by!

That wiped out the chance of either the Hindu Mahasabha (for Hindu seats) or any other Muslim party (for Muslim seats) representing the Indians and forming a Government in free India.]

“The demand for parity in the alliance of the Congress with the Muslim League in the Central Assembly had ripened to a reality. . . .

Meanwhile, news of the secret Pact leaked out and the members of the Working Committee, who were interned at Ahmednagar, were indignant at it. They expressed their anger and displeasure in a resolution about the pact.

Dr. P. C. Ghosh, one of the members of the Working Committee, met Gandhi at Sevagram after his release from Ahmednagar and gave him a copy of the resolution of the Working Committee. Gandhi took the cue and sent a female messenger to Delhi to contact Bhulabhai Desai. She told him that Gandhi would not bless a Government formed by Bhulabhai and Liaquat because he did not like the agreement. In a fit of anger Bhulabhai shouted: ‘Let Bapu go to hell. I will stand by what I have done!’ . . .

Azad, Patel and Nehru called Bhulabhai Desai and censured him for having mooted the Bhulabhai Desai-Liaquat Ali Pact. According to them it amounted to treachery.”

[It was not the parity they objected to, per se, for they were agreeable with parity only a short time later in the Simla Conference proposals. It was the fact that Bhulabhai had approached the Viceroy going over the heads and intended to be in charge of the free Indian government that incensed them!]

“Bhulabhai told them that they were blaming him unnecessarily as he had done the bidding of the Mahatma. Upon this they furiously pounced upon him and said they would decide later what to do about the Mahatma, but he should not expect any important assignment in future from the Congress!

Humiliated, Bhulabhai met Gandhi and pleaded for removing the injustice done to him. Instead of protecting him from threats and attacks, Gandhi told Bhulabhai that he had wealth, reputation and position; he should not covet a post in the Viceroy’s Executive Council.

Not only that, Gandhi asked him as he had done in the case of Dr. Khare, to give him a statement in writing to this effect: ‘I, Bhulabhai Desai, consider myself incompetent to be a member of the Viceroy’s Executive Council and also declare that I will never accept such a job even now or at any time in the future.’

Bhulabhai was stunned! He said to Gandhi angrily, ‘You use a person as an instrument for your purpose and as soon as that purpose is served, you bury that individual. No one should expect justice at your hands.’”

Bhulabhai should certainly have known better than to have played Gandhi’s games! But schemes and power plays were the order of the day in the Congress Camp—quite commonplace!—and certainly the Mahatma was a master at that game.

Anurupa

Mahatma Gandhi Facts: Gandhi Revealed

[1] “There can hardly be any doubt that Desai had in fact reached an understanding with Liaquat Ali Khan on the formation of a national government at the centre . . . Gandhiji himself admitted later that the Desai-Liaquat pact had received his blessing.” Transfer of Power, V. P. Menon, page 178

Shenanigans of Gandhi, Part V

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“Double, double toil and trouble,

Fire burn and cauldron bubble.”

Hi, Everyone! In 1939 Gandhi was not a member of the Congress. As we shall see in the passage from Keer’s biography given below, that did not prevent him from drawing resolutions for the A.I.C.C. and throwing tantrums if they were not passed as is!

“Dr. Rammanohar Lohia had a tussle with the Mahatma on the South Africa resolution at the All-India Congress Committee in Bombay in June 1939. Dr. Lohia suggested two amendments to Gandhi’s draft resolution. One described Indians in South Africa not as “British Indians” but as “Indians” and the other recommended that Indians had better make a common front with the oppressed communities like the Negroes, the Zulus, and the Arabs and even the poor whites.

This enraged Gandhi and he said he would have the All-India Congress Committee pass his resolution without amendments or not at all. Nehru who had supported Dr. Lohia’s amendments faltered at this stage. He persuaded Dr. Lohia to respect the opinion of Gandhi and withdraw his amendments which had been duly passed! . . .

Gandhi vetoed a resolution of the Congress which it had passed four hours earlier!

When it suited his views Gandhi upheld democratic ideals and when the democratic vote of the Congress went against him he flew into a fury!”[1]

Gandhi’s issues in South Africa were all about getting the Indians there recognized as citizens of the British Empire. Apparently, so many years later in 1939, that had remained unchanged!

Anurupa

Mahatma Gandhi Facts: Gandhi Revealed

[1]Mahatma Gandhi, Political Saint and Unarmed Prophet, by Dhananjay Keer; page 667.

Shenanigans of Gandhi, Part IV

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“Double, double toil and trouble,

Fire burn and cauldron bubble.”

The Ousting of Netaji Subhas Bose, Part II

Hi, Everyone! Subhas Bose was put in a very precarious position now that the Working Committee had shown their true colors. The Tripuri Congress session was coming up. Though seriously ill, Bose would have to attend or be a pushover for the Gandhian Congress members so determined to oust him.

At this time, Gandhi began a two-pronged fast on March 3, 1939, just days before the Tripuri Congress session. One goal of the fast was to compel the Thakore of Rajkot to buckle under and redeem his pledge made to the people, and the other was to divert the attention from the Congress session and keep it riveted on his health.

He had used his “poor” health and fasts countless times before to get his way!

Keer writes in Mahatma Gandhi, Political Saint and Unarmed Prophet (page 661-663):

The Tripuri Congress was held from March 10 to 12, 1939, under the presidency of Subhas Bose who was seriously ill. . . . On the eve of the session, Gandhi had sent a message asking Subhas not to defy the medical advice and desiring him to regulate the proceedings from Calcutta!

By his fast unto death, Gandhi had riveted the Congress workers’ attention on him, created consternation among his opponents and anguish in his sympathizers and followers.

In his presidential address, Bose desired the Congress to give an ultimatum to the British Government. Although seriously ill, Bose tried in vain to control the Congress, but at the eleventh hour the socialists, Royist and other leftists did not support him.”

[All the Congress members knew very well what was the fate of one who opposed the will of the Mahatma. We have seen it too, in the last so many posts. And so no one wanted to reveal their identity while voting.]

“A large number of All-India Congress Committee members said that if they openly voted against the wishes of Ministers [most of whom were Gandhist] they would get into trouble. So they wanted a secret ballot.

The suggestion was turned down. The result was that the Congress expressed its confidence in the members of the Working Committee who had resigned.

It [Working Committee] stifled Subhas Bose and resolved, overruling its constitution, that Subhas Bose, the President, must form his Working Committee in accordance with the wishes of the Mahatma. . . .

Subhas Bose returned to Calcutta with body and hopes shattered.

Bose thereafter wrote to Gandhi and tried to win his support in forming the Working Committee, but Gandhi did not respond to his appeals. Nehru tried half-heartedly to bring about a compromise between Gandhi and Bose. He wrote to Gandhi: ‘You should accept Subhas as President. To try push him out seems to me to be an exceedingly wrong step.’

Yet the Mahatma was ruthless. It was Gandhi’s dictum that however you repair it, a rift is a rift. Another of his dictums was that to forgive is not to forget. . .

Bose had to resign. He was the first Congress President to do so.”

There are many more tales to tell of Gandhi and Congress machinations, the most relevant being the ruthless way—discarding all principle of nonviolence and truth—the Congress annihilated any chance the Hindu Mahasabha had of winning the 1945 elections. That saga is given in detail in my novel Burning for Freedom. I shall not be posting on it just yet.

Tomorrow we shall see how Gandhi overturned the decisions of the Working Committee of the Congress that did not suit him!

Anurupa

Mahatma Gandhi Facts: Gandhi Revealed

Shenanigans of Gandhi, Part III

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“Double, double toil and trouble,

Fire burn and cauldron bubble.”

The Ousting of Netaji Subhas Bose, Part I

Hi, Everyone! Gandhi’s scheming had no limits. He was the virtual dictator of the Congress and brooked no opposition. This is an interesting and illuminating account of his machinations to prevail despite an apparent “defeat.”

Subhas Chandra Bose, the President of Congress in 1938, had displeased the Mahatma on several counts by showing a tendency of strong leadership and taking decisive stands on several issues against the Mahatma’s wishes. He had a large following in the Congress. There was a real potential danger of the power slipping from the hands of the Mahatma into the hands of the dynamic Bose!

Keer writes in his biography of Gandhi (pages 658-661):

“The National Committee had been set up by Bose to draw up a comprehensive plan of industrialization and of national development. This meant a threat to Gandhi’s ideology and his ideas about village uplift. He discussed the question of the presidency with Sardar Patel . . . ‘I feel it would be better if we consider Pattabhi Sitaramayya.’ Gandhi and Patel always took the decision and the Gandhi group said ditto to it. . . .

Subhas Bose had already decided to contest the election a second time, and the Gandhi group knew it. Bose wanted to give an ultimatum to the British Government if he succeeded. . . . But on January 19, 1939, Gandhi wired from Bardoli requesting him to withdraw in favor of Dr. Pattabhi Sitaramayya. Bose refused . . . The next day seven Gandhi leaders . . . issued at the instance of Gandhi, a joint statement from Bardoli which declared that the Congress President’s position was analogous only to that of a chairman and the policies and programmes were determined by the Working Committee. . . .

Subhas Bose replied to the joint statement fearlessly and spiritedly but without counting the cost. . . . He then leveled charges against his Gandhian colleagues that ‘it is widely believed that there is a prospect of compromise on the federal scheme between the Right wing of the Congress and the British Government, during the coming year. Consequently the Right wing do not want a Leftist president who may be a thorn in the way of compromise.’ . . .

Subhas Bose would have done well to stop at this affront; but he added fuel to the flames. He added that it was also generally believed the prospective list of ministers for the Federal Cabinet had been already drawn up. This was a most damaging statement against the Gandhists. . .

The Gandhi wing through which Gandhi controlled the Congress organization began canvassing to secure votes for Dr. Pattabhi . . .”

Even so the Leftists and the progressive-minded voters enthusiastically voted for Bose on January 29. This was a shocking reversal for Gandhi and his power in the Congress. A defeat indeed!

Gandhi’s reaction to this defeat:

“He asked his followers to quit the Congress because he was defeated. This was how his mind, method and democracy worked!

‘Those, therefore, who feel uncomfortable in being in the Congress, may come out, not in spirit of ill-will, but with the deliberate purpose of rendering more effective service.’ . . .

Gandhi not only asked his men to come out of the Congress but also took a drastic step to corner Bose so that there would be a major crisis.

He wrote to Jawaharlal Nehru on February 3, 1939: ‘After the election and the manner in which it was fought, I feel I shall serve my country by absenting myself from the Congress at the forthcoming session. Moreover my health is none too good. . . .’”

[Gandhi’s health was as effective a blackmailing tool as were his fasts . . . ! We have seen how he used it in Nariman’s case already. Bose realized that he was now up against the wall. He had a very good idea of the Mahatma's capacity for intrigue.]

“Bose tried to patch up the differences with Gandhi at Wardha on February 15, but it worsened the situation. . . . Bose could not attend the meeting of the Working Committee on February 22 which was called to discuss the agenda for the Tripuri Congress. It was unfortunate that Bose was taken ill on his return journey to Calcutta from Wardha.

He later wrote in an article in Modern Review, ‘My strange illness,’[1]which added to the suspicion about the mystery of his illness.

He requested the members of the Working Committee to postpone the meeting, which they construed as lack of confidence in the Working Committtee. So twelve of them, on the advice of Gandhi, resigned . . . Only Subhas Bose with his brother Sarat Chandra Bose remained as members of the Working Committee.

So the battle was joined to depose Bose.”

The field was now set for the downfall of Subhas Bose.

Read in tomorrow’s post how the final axe-chop was delivered on Subhas Bose . . .

Anurupa

Mahatma Gandhi Facts: Gandhi Revealed

[1]There was a strong and recurring whisper that Bose had been deliberately made ill in Wardha, to orchestrate the coup that followed.

Shenanigans of Gandhi, Part II

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“Double, double toil and trouble,

Fire burn and cauldron bubble.”

Gandhi’s Democracy

Hi, Everyone! In 1938, Dr. Khare was the Premier of the Congress Ministry in the Central Provinces of India. He was a strong leader and had definite goals and acted upon them. He did not blindly follow the dictates of the Mahatma, for which, of course, he had to pay the price.

Keer tells us:[1]

“A crisis had been brewing since May 1938 in the CP [Central Province]. Three Congress Ministers, Mishra, Shukla and Mehta submitted their resignations to Dr. N. B. Khare, leader and Prime Minister, as he had brought charges of nespotism and bribery against them. But the charges were found to be only errors of judgment, and Gandhi said in Harijan of June 4 that they were made recklessly and spitefully. There was a compromise and the crisis was averted.

As Dr Khare found it impossible to pull on with those three Ministers, he went to Gandhi at Segaon on June 29 and sought his advice in the matter as he had done on two previous occasions. But Sardar Patel had met Gandhi on June 21 and briefed him against Dr. Khare. So this time Gandhi reprimanded Dr. Khare for troubling him now and then and added that he was not even a four-anna member of the Congress. Dr. Khare, while taking leave of the Mahatma, said that he would act according to the message of his own inner voice.

This was indeed an affront to Gandhi.

[The only “inner voice” allowed to exist in the realm of Congress was that of the Mahatma!]

Dr Khare then demanded resignations from his rebel colleagues as he wanted to submit resignations of all the Ministers to the Working Committee. But the three members at the instance of Dr. Rajendra Prasad had stubbornly refused to do so. Dr. Khare, therefore, in a desperate mood, instead of referring the matter to the Parliamentary Sub-Committee, resigned on July 20 with two of his colleagues. . . .

According to parliamentary conventions, as soon as the Premier resigns the other Ministers automatically cease to be Ministers. Naturally, under article 51 of the 1935 Act the Governor had to dismiss the three rebel Ministers who refused to resign. In doing so the Governor observed parliamentary conventions and used no special right. . . .

[Dr. Khare had neatly out-maneuvered the ministers and Gandhi! Upon the Governors invitation, on July 21 Dr. Khare formed a new ministry which included an “untouchable” Minister. No way was Gandhi going to put up with this “insubordination.”]

On July 22 Dr. Khare was called by the Congress bosses to Wardha [in Gandhi’s ashram] to explain his position. There he was treated as a criminal and a conspirator, and his colleagues were reprimanded. The Parliamentary Subcommittee asked him to submit his resignation and also the resignation of his colleagues. In the resignation he was made to admit: “I have come to realize, in submitting my resignation and forming a new cabinet I acted hastily and committed an error of judgment.” He was marched to the phone in a building near-by and Subhas Bose made him read out the text of his resignation to the Governor. . . .”

There were more pressures applied to Dr. Khare to make him yield, but he did not buckle under.

“As he did not yield, he was taken to Segaon in a car to Gandhi who had left Wardha that evening before Khare reached that place.

Maulana Azad, Sardar Patel, Subhas Bose and Rajendra Prasad put pressure on Dr. Khare in the presence of Gandhi who reprimanded Dr. Khare for his betrayal of the Congress and the country by entering into a conspiracy with the Governor. He said that Dr. Khare was untrustworthy and unreliable and guilty of gross indiscipline.

Dr. Khare had evoked the Mahatma’s anger by issuing licenses for Rifle classes, an unforgivable sin from the viewpoint of the Mahatma. And Patel had previously a tussle with Khare over the selection candidate at the All-India Parliamentary Board in Faizpur. They whispered against him and dictated the content his resignation.

Dr. Khare admitted in the resignation that he had acted hastily, but Gandhi added to the draft nearly a page and a half containing humiliating and damaging admissions. As a result Dr. Khare refused to sign his death warrant. . . .

He was brought back from Segaon to Wardha and asked to inform the Congress leaders of his decision by 3 p.m. the next day. . . .

On July 26 Dr. Khare conveyed to the Congress leaders his firm refusal to sign the draft prepared by them. So the Congress Working Committee declared: ‘By all these acts, Dr. Khare has proved himself unworthy of holding positions of responsibility in the Congress organization. He should be so considered till by his services as a Congressman he has shown himself well-balanced and capable of observing discipline and discharging the duties that may be undertaken by him.’ . . .

In the statement Gandhi issued on July 30, 1938, he said that he simply made corrections and additions to the statement which Dr. Kharehad prepared. The suggestion that Dr. Khare was made to sign a prepared draft, Gandhi added, was baseless! When Dr. Khare published the photo-block of the draft, the people were dumbfounded!

A bitter attack was made in the press on Patel and Gandhi, characterizing their actions as fascist. Gandhi replied that his critics ‘forget that fascism is the naked sword. Under it Dr. Khare should ‘lose his head.” . . .

Dr. Khare was bitter and sometimes unbalanced, but he was a man of truth and of an unimpeachable character.”

And so ends another saga of Gandhi’s scheming . . . !

Subhas Bose, who played his part in this sordid business, was himself shortly maneuvered out of his Presidentship (and even the Congress) by Gandhi. Nor was Sardar Patel left untouched. In 1947, Gandhi usurped him from the seat of Prime Ministership and installed his favorite, Jawaharlal Nehru!

Follow the Ousting of Subhas Bose in tomorrow’s post . . .

Anurupa

Mahatma Gandhi Facts: Gandhi Revealed.

[1] Mahatma Gandhi, Political Saint and unarmed Prophet, Dhananjay Keer, pages 649-52.

A Note on Gandhi’s attitude to Harijans, ”untouchables”:

“Towards the end of August 1938 some Harijans did a strike at Gandhi’s Ashram at Segaon to compel him to instruct the CP. Ministry to take up a Harijan Minister. Gandhi replied that it was not in his power. It was Dr. Khare’s charge that Gandhi disapproved of the appointment of a Harijan Minister, as in the Mahatma’s opinion it raised absurd ambitions in the minds of Harijans! Gandhi had also opposed the appointment of any Harijan on the Harijan Sevak Sangh.” Ibid, page 652.

Mahatma Gandhi: The Man of Truth?

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Hi, Everyone! With Gandhi, inevitably, one discovers there is one face for the Indians and another behind the scenes, whether it be in the Congress or before the Viceroy.

We have already seen a large sample of it in during the time of his Kheda Satyagraha. The sentiments he avowed publicly then were:

“Champaran and Kaira affairs are my direct, definite, and special contribution to the war. Ask me to suspend my activities in that direction, and you ask me to suspend my life.”[1]

What he said to the Viceroy in a secret letter sent in the same envelope:

“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.”

Not only did he express a desire to be relieved from the “Kaira trouble,” he suggested a bargain that would that would, he hoped, induce the British to do so!

And when questioned by people re the content of his secret letter, he said:

“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.”

[From Gujarati]

Mahadevbhaini Diary, Vol. IV

We have seen again in the time of the Noncooperation Movement how Gandhi fired up the Indians into fighting for what they thought was their freedom, signified in the term “Swaraj.”

But we have seen that the Swaraj that Gandhi was fighting was not freedom and certainly could not have led there.

He strenuously opposed any definition of the word “Swaraj” that could mean freedom or democracy. He even made a statement, while his Noncooperation Movement was actually in progress:

“It will be unlawful for us to insist on independence. For it will be vindictive and petulant. It will be a denial of God.”[2]

Things didn’t change much as time went by. Viceroy Lord Linlithgow’s biography, The Viceroy at Bay, by John Glendevon, has very revealing sidelights on Gandhi.

Page 116:

“Linlithgow admired the ability with which Gandhi succeeded in ousting Bose although his methods were ‘of the most questionable constitutional validity,’ and getting his own nominee, Rajendra Prasad, elected in Bose’s place.

Yes, the Man of Truth, the Mahatma, was certainly never above scheming and plotting to get his way. There was Truth and then there was Gandhi’s “Truth.”

Ibid, page 116

“Meanwhile the Viceroy had conveyed to Birla and Mahadeo Desai his surprise at the contrast in tone between Gandhi’s personal letters to him and the kind of statement which the Mahatma was making in public. On being assured that he need not take the latter remarks too seriously, as they were meant to appeal to the public, he suggested that Mr. Gandhi might reserve his sharper arrows for his private correspondence and appear in his more human and gentle guise in the statements he released for public consumption.”

At the time these events and others in the freedom movement were taking place, there was no way for the duped Indians to know of the two faces of their Mahatma: the public one they saw, and the private one for carrying on the actual politics.

But today, when so much documentation is available, and what was private is also now public, there is no reason for Indians, or anyone else, to still be burying their heads in the sand.

Anurupa

Mahatma Gandhi Facts: Gandhi Revealed

[1] In his letter to the Viceroy on April 29, 1918, which was to be published in the papers.

[2]January 5, 1922, Young India.

The Hoax of Gandhi’s “Swaraj” in the Noncoperation Movement of 1921

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Hi, Everyone! In 1921, in the year of the Noncooperation Movement, a new Congress creed was passed.

“The new creed declared: ‘That the object of the Congress is the attainment of Swaraj by the people of India by all legitimate and peaceful means.”[1]

But what exactly did the word “Swaraj” mean? Its literal meaning is “self-rule.” But many Congress members felt the need to clearly define what was meant by “attaining Swaraj.”

“There were amendments suggesting that the word Swaraj be qualified by the word ‘democratic’ or replaced by the words ‘full responsible Government within the British Commonwealth’ or by asking for a debate on the clause ‘all legitimate and peaceful means.’ But the new creed was passed.”[2]

“So Gandhi purposely kept Swaraj undefined. Whether the pressure from the Muslim leaders, who were expecting an invasion of India by the Afghan ruler Amanullah, prevailed, is a point worth considering.”[3]

By the end of the Noncooperation Movement (supposedly to gain “Swaraj,” which the Indians assumed meant self-rule), Swaraj was still not defined. Keer writes:

“Some more light must be shed on Gandhi’s opposition to the resolution of independence. He had been shelving the fact of defining the meaning of independence for the previous twelve months. . . . The Khilafatist Muslim leaders preferred to keep the word Swaraj undefined as they were awaiting the overrunning of India by Afghan forces. At the Nagpur Congress, Gandhi and Mohamed Ali had opposed B. C. Pal’s amendment to Gandhi’s draft, adding the word ‘democratic’ to the word Swaraj. Pal wrote later in Mahomed Ali’s Comrade: ‘I learned that Swaraj was left without any definition because the moment we tried to do so, the unity in Congress would break up.’ Now that the treaty was signed between Afghanistan and India, the Muslim leaders became desperate and so Hazarat Mohani struggled hard to force the Congress to declare independence.”[4]

But Gandhi still did not allow it. He prevented Hazrat Mohani’s resolution of complete independence from being passed through Congress.

“‘Let us not,” he [Gandhi] added, “get into waters whose depth we do not know.’ The proposal, if passed, would take them to unfathomable depths. Creeds were not simple things which they could change as they did their clothes.”[5]

Mohani had claimed that Jawarharlal Nehru supported his resolution. Nehru issued a complete denial to this. Mohani got no support from Nehru.

“Pandit Nehru, who was in Lucknow jail at the time, expressed his entire dissent from Maulana Hazarat Mohani’s resolution. If he had the good fortune, he added, to attend the Congress, he would certainly have opposed the Maulana,”[6]

On January 5, 1922—before the Noncooperation movement supposedly aiming for freedom was called off!—Gandhi said in his magazine Young India:

“It will be unlawful for us to insist on independence. For it will be vindictive and petulant. It will be a denial of God.”

Whyhad he deluded the Indians that they were sacrificing their lives for freedom of India in his Noncooperation Movement, then?!!

“About two months later, M. Paul Richard, a French Author, declared in an interview in the Lokmanya, that Gandhi had said to him:

‘I do not work for freedom of India. I work for non-violence in the world.’”[7]

He dared say this after the tremendous violence that had taken place during his Noncooperation Movement!

He dared say this after so many Indians had made tremendous sacrifices (being unaware of his true agenda) to participate in his Noncooperation Movement, believing in his promise of Swaraj—self-rule—in one year!

Anurupa

Mahatma Gandhi Facts: Gandhi Revealed

[1] Mahatma Gandhi, Political Saint and Unarmed Prophet, by Dhananjay Keer; page 365.

[2] Ibid, page 365.

[3]For proof of the part Gandhi played in this scheme of the Afghan invasion—an utter betrayal of the Indian freedom cause—read Swami Shraddhanand’s article of 1926 (from a seried of 26 articles exposing the Congress) written shortly before he was murdered. (Neo Maulana, page 124 @ http://www.anurupacinar.com/pdf/Inside%20Congress,%20twenty-six%20articles%20exposing%20the%20Congress,%20by%20Swami%20Shraddhananda.pdf)

[4] Mahatma Gandhi, by Keer, page 415.

[5] Ibid, page 414.

[6] Ibid, page 416.

[7] Ibid, page 416

The truth behind the myth (Part III)

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Hi, Everyone! Why then did Gandhi wait until the end of the year of Noncooperation to call off the Movement using Chauri Chaura incident as an excuse . . . ?

The answer lies here:

The Noncooperation Movement was carrying on without any serious reprisals from the Government; the British watched the antics indulgently. The crunch came with the scheduled visit of the Prince of Wales to India. It was a matter of pride for the Indian Government that the Prince of Wales be warmly welcomed and be graciously received in India. The Congress disagreed. His visit was boycotted by the Congress.

Now the Government unsheathed their swords and declared “open war against the noncooperators.” The Congress was not cowed. The movement grew from strength to strength. At this point (December 1921), the Viceroy Reading approached C. R. Das with a proposition. Netaji Subhas Bose’s account of it is recorded in R. C. Majumdar’s H of F M of I, V III, pages 143-45:

“Bose writes that Pandit Madan Mohan Malviya, who had kept away from the 1921 movement, ‘came to interview Deshabandhu Das in the Presidency jail with a message from the Viceroy’, thus clearly implying that it was the Viceroy who took the initiative. . . .

‘The offer that he [Malaviya] brought was that if the Congress agreed to call off the civil disobedience movement immediately, so that the Prince’s visit would not be boycotted by the public, the Government would simultaneously withdraw the notification declaring Congress volunteers illegal and release all those who had been incarcerated thereunder. They would further summon a Round Table Conference of the Government to settle the future constitution of India. . . .

Rightly or wrongly, he [Deshbandhu Das] said, the Mahatma had promised Swarajwithin one year. That year was drawing to a close. Barely a fortnight was left and within this short period something had to be achieved in order to save the face of the Congress and fulfill the Mahatma’s promise regarding Swaraj. The offer of the Viceroy had come to him as a godsend. . . .

The above logic was irrefutable and I felt convinced. . . . a telegram was sent to Mahatma Gandhi recommending his acceptance of the proposed terms of settlement. A reply came to the effect that he insisted on the release of the Ali brothers and their associates as a part of the terms of settlement and also on an announcement regarding the date and composition of the Round Table Conference. Unfortunately, the Viceroy was not in a mood for any further parleying . . . Ultimately, the Mahatma did come round, but by then it was too late. The Government of India, tired of waiting, had changed their mind. The Deshabandhu was beside himself with anger and disgust. The chance of a lifetime, he said, had been lost. The feeling . . . was that the Mahatma had committed a serious blunder.’”

Through 1921, Gandhi had been reiterating his promise to the Indians of Swaraj in one year. He had even gone as far as to say “I should not like to remain alive next year if we have not won Swaraj by then. I am, in that event, likely to be pained so deeply that the body may perish—I would desire that it should.”[1]

It would be a disaster for the Congress and Gandhi, to say the least, to have nothing in hand—never mind Swaraj—to show the Indians at the end of the year.

· The Congress was clearly looking for an excuse to end the Noncooperation Movement.

In the backdrop of this atmosphere in 1922:

· February 1:Gandhi wrote a challenging letter to the Viceroy.

· February 5:The Chauri Chaura incident took place.

· February 6:The Viceroy came out with a press release—which was practically a Declaration of War—in reply to Gandhi’s letter.

· February 6:Gandhi wrote a letter which indicates the Congress displeasure re his actions. “I observe that my action in writing to the Viceroy has not pleased the Committee.” CWMG, V 22 page 343.

· February 9:Gandhi is strongly urged by prominent Congress members who had been endeavoring to bring about a Round Table Conference to suspend the Noncooperation Movement.^{^[2]}

· February 10: Gandhi, in a speech to Congress workers in Bardoli, now declares re the Chauri Chaura incident that the “country at large has not at all accepted the teaching of non-violence. I must, therefore, immediately stop the movement for civil disobedience.”^{^[3]}The Congress rank and file objected to this “Mahatma’s retreat.” They thought it would disgrace India in the eyes of the world.

· February 12:The Working Committee meets at Bardoli and passes the resolution to call off the Noncooperation Movement.

· February 25:The resolution was adopted by the A.I.C.C.

And the myth was born!

The Congress and Gandhi had extricated themselves very cleverly from their promise of swaraj in one year to the Indians.

What was the consequence of this?

· The Indian Independence Movement was brought to a screeching halt for many, many years to come.

· And the British Raj reigned supreme, unthreatened.

Anurupa

Mahatma Gandhi Facts: Gandhi Revealed

[1] Mahatma Gandhi, Keer, page 405.

[2] R. C. Majumdar’s H of F M, V III, page 156.

[3] CWMG, V 22, page 377

The truth behind the myth (Part II)

Posted on by Anurupa

Hi, Everyone! The Moplahs of the Malabar area rose in revolt, on August 20, 1921, and not only indiscriminately raped, killed, and converted the Hindus but also killed Europeans and damaged Government property. Their very worst act was ripping open the womb of pregnant Hindu women and pulling the unborn baby out, then killing both.

· Gandhi remained unmoved by these horrors . . . !

Here are some of his comments on the riots themselves as well as the Moplahs:

Gandhi-quote from his magazine, Young India, September 8, 1921: “The Moplahs are among the bravest in the land. They are god-fearing. Their bravery must be transformed into purest gold.”

Another Gandhi-quote: “Forcible conversions are horrible things but Moplah bravery must commend admiration.” Mahatma Gandhi: Political Saint and Unarmed Prophet, Dhananjay Keer; page 401.

“Gandhi did not feel much for the rapes and murders and forcible conversions. He had declared that he would sacrifice a million men for his principles! Three months earlier he had said: ‘I think that only god-fearing people can become true noncooperators.’ And now he hailed the murderous Moplahs as god-fearing men!” ibid; page 403.

Gandhi’s calm acceptance of the violent Moplah riots:“Hindus must find the causes of Moplah fanaticism. They will find that they are not without blame. They have hitherto not cared for the Moplah. It is no use now becoming angry with the Moplahs or Mussalmans in general.” The collected Works of Mahatma Gandhi, vol. 22, page 269; Navjivan Trust, Ahmedabad, 1966.

Gandhi-quote in his Young India of September 29, 1921: “The ending of the Moplah revolt is a matter not only of urgency, but of simple humanity. The Hindus must have the courage and the faith to feel that they can protect their religion in spite of such fanatical eruptions. … Be the Moplahs be ever so bad, they deserve to be treated as human beings.”

Here is how Keer records it in his biography of Gandhi:

“It was not only the Muslims in the Khilafat Conference and the Muslim League who ignored the criminality of the barbaric Moplah action in Malabar, but the Congress under the truth-seeker did so by declaring there were only three cases of forcible-conversions! It showed to what level the Gandhi-dominated Congress had fallen in placating the Muslims, Shraddhanand observes in his Liberator of August 26, 1926, that ‘that the original resolution condemned the Moplah’s wholesale for killing of Hindus and burning of Hindu homes and the forcible conversions to Islam.’ But in passing such a resolution the Gandhian Hindu leaders trained in the art of surrendering and placating the Muslims had done their job to the satisfaction of their master [Gandhi].”[1]

There was some attempt made by the Congress to deny the Khilafat roots of the Moplah riots. Among the 450 plus pages of the Government communications of The Mapilla Rebellion,^{^[2]}I found the banner of the Moplah riots, which clearly gives this the lie!

Khilafat. Allah is Great.

Old and weak, young and strong,

Those who walk, who are rich, poor,

Armed and unarmed, hale and hearty, halt^{^[3]} and infirm,

Let everyone, in godlike guise set forthwith to battle.

There were a spate of riots, especially in Mumbai and Bengal, during the visit of the Prince of Wales. Police were killed then too.

“When the Prince of Wales (Edward VIII) visited Bombay in November 1921, protests degenerated into mob violence with looting. Some policemen were beaten to death; in three days of riots 58 Bombay citizens were killed, and four hundred were injured.” World Peace Efforts since Gandhi, Sanderson Beck; World Peace Communications.

Any one of these (and more) should have shocked the nonviolent soul of the Mahatma, and moved him into putting an end to his Noncooperation Movement.

· Whythen did Gandhi wait until the end of the year of Noncooperation to call off the Movement using Chauri Chaura incident as an excuse . . . ?

Anurupa

Mahatma Gandhi Facts: Gandhi Revealed

[1] Mahatma Gandhi, by Dhananjay Keer; page 414-415

[2]The Mapilla Rebellion: http://archive.org/details/cu31924023929700

[3] Those having difficulty in walking.

The truth behind the myth of Chauri Chaura (Part I)

Posted on by Anurupa

Hi, Everyone! It is common knowledge that Gandhi was so pained by the Chauri Chaura incident^{^[1]}—this one single incident of violence—that he called off the Noncooperation movement.

This myth has been so much touted that almost no one doubts its veracity. Gandhi is firmly established as the Man of Principles.

This, naturally, would lead one to believe that the Noncooperation Movement was unassociated with any violence until the Chauri Chaura incident.

One would be very wrong!

· In justification of his stance on the Chauri Chaura incident Gandhi has said:

“I personally can never be party to a movement half violent and half non-violent, even though it may result in the attainment of so-called swaraj, for it will not be swaraj as I have conceived it.”^{^[2]}

(I shall be writing a special post on what Gandhi conceived by swaraj exactly—though the Gandhi quotes in my Kheda posts should have given readers an idea already! All through the year of the Noncooperation Movement, Gandhi had kept the Congress hanging by not defining this.)

· And yet, as is shown below, Gandhi swallowed many instances of violence throughout the Noncooperation Movement.

Some instances of violence of the Noncooperation Movement:

Gandhi could hardly have failed to know of the true character of the National Volunteers organization of the Noncooperation Movement. R. C. Majumdar records in his History of the Freedom movement of India (to be referred to as H of F M of I henceforth), Volume III:

Page 106:

“Though pledged to non-violence their [the National Volunteers] activities were described by the Government as subversive of order and discipline. ‘Attempts to usurp functions of police, intimidation and use violence to enforce hartalsand social and commercial boycott, or under guise of swadeshi or temperance movements in order to impair authority of Government and terrorize political opponents, have been prominent features of their recent activities’.”

The overall tone of the noncooperation movement was not nonviolent, either.

Ibid; page 121:

“The activity of the non-cooperation party redoubled. . . . Hostility to Government increased, encouraging the tendency towards general lawlessness. The volunteer movement became more formidable: intimidation was freely practiced and the police were molested in the exercise of their duty.”

However, the most horrendous case of violence in the Noncooperation Movement is the Moplah riots.

Follow tomorrow’s post.

Anurupa

Mahatma Gandhi Facts: Gandhi Revealed

[1] A sub-inspector in Chauri Chaura had assaulted protesters of the Nonviolent Movement at Mundera Bazar. On February 5, 1922, protesters assembled before the police station in Chauri Chaura demanding an explanation from the guilty official. The police opened fire on them …! When they had exhausted all their ammunition they locked themselves up inside the police station and refused to come out. The maddened protesters then set fire to the police station. The police remained inside the burning building and were burned to death.

[2] The collected works of Mahatma Gandhi, Volume 22; page 351.