Category Archives: Gandhi Facts: Gandhi Revealed

Gandhi: The Noncooperation Movement Hocus-Pocus

Posted on by
Download PDF


Hi, Everyone! Gandhi’s famous year-long Noncooperation Movement was scheduled to begin from August 1, 1920. Contrary to popular misconception, the agenda for this movement was not Swaraj (self-rule). The main agenda was the Khilafat Movement and the Punjab Atrocities was tacked on as a subsidiary clause.

“On August 18, 1920, he [Gandhi] made a daring speech in Calicut: ‘I am here to declare for the tenth time that by shaping and by becoming a predominant partner in the peace terms imposed on the helpless Turkey, the Imperial Government have intentionally flouted the cherished sentiments of the Muslim subjects of the Empire. What the Government did in the Punjab mercilessly was its double wrong. The people of India must, therefore, have a remedy to redress the double wrongs—the remedy of non-cooperation which I consider it perfectly harmless, absolutely constitutional and yet perfectly efficacious.’”[1]

Absolutely nomention of Swaraj. In fact, as yet, the Congress had not passed a resolution in favor of the Noncooperation Movement.

August 1, 1920, India was in mourning; her beloved national leader Bal Gangadhar Tilak had passed away that morning. Did Gandhi give Tilak his due on this day of his passing? No.

“Then came the first of August, 1920, and also the news of the sudden death of Tilak, the Hercules of Indian Nationalism. The nation bowed in mourning. ‘Never before in the history of India was such nation-wide grief witnessed.’ Gandhi felt a great personal loss; however, he did not postpone the programme of noncooperation. The movement was formally inaugurated on the 1st of August, 1920, by Gandhi with the return of the Kaiser-e-Hind gold medal and the Zulu war medal granted by the British Government to him for his humanitarian works in South Africa,”[2]

(On an aside, I wish to mention that the author Sinha is putting a misleading euphemism upon Gandhi’s medals. These medal were actually bestowed upon “Sergeant” Gandhi and are specially given to people who rendered distinguished service in the advancement of the interests of the British Raj. It is more proof of Gandhi’s loyalty to the British Raj.)

To continue, there is something so shabby about inaugurating a national movement—especially one which only purported to be for the cause of India’s freedom—on the very day of the death of India’s great and beloved national leader, Bal Gangadhar Tilak.

On September 4, 1920, a special session of the Congress met to pass a resolution on the Noncooperation Movement.

“The session started hot with discussions. In Gandhi’s opinion non-cooperation was postulated only with a view to obtaining redressal of the wrongs done to the Turkish and Punjab. He did not like to include any more items in his programme of agitation. It, however, did not appeal to Sjt. Vijaya Raghavachari, supported by many others, who argued that if non-cooperation was to be declared, why should it be with reference to particular wrongs? The absence of Swaraj was the biggest wrong that the country was laboring under non-cooperation. How could an unfree India help a wronged Turkey?”[3]

This was the Congress position. But when the resolution for the Noncooperation Movement was passed it was unchanged in its essence and the word Swaraj tacked on as a sop to the conscience.

“The Congress is of the opinion that there can be no contentment in India without redress of the two aforementioned [Khilafat cause and Punjab atrocities] wrongs and that the only effectual means to vindicate national honor and to prevent repetition of similar wrongs in future is the establishment of Swarjya. This Congress is further of opinion that there is no course left open for the people of India but to approve of and adopt the policy of progressive non-violent Non-cooperation inaugurated by Mr. Gandhi until the said wrongs are righted and Swarajya is established ;”[4]

It is utterlyshameful that Swaraj should be added in this dismal way as an adjunct to the Khilafat cause in the Noncooperation Movement.

·        Were the Indians aware what their Mahatma’s real agenda was?

·        Are they aware even today?

·        No.

The Indians threw up their jobs, students gave up their schools, heart and soul they participated in the Noncooperation Movement with the one thought held close: their Mahatma will get them freedom in one year.

·        How did the Mahatma—who couldn’t bring himself to make an outright demand for Swaraj in his agenda—make an outright demand for freedom to the Viceroy?

He didn’t!

One needs to look deeper into the nitty-gritty of the Noncooperation Movement to learn the truth behind the myth.
More on it tomorrow . . .

Anurupa
Mahatma Gandhi Facts: Gandhi Revealed

[1] The Turkish Question: Mustafa Kemal and Mahatma Gandhi, by R. K. Sinha; Adam publishers & Distributors, Delhi, 1994. The speech is in the Collected Works of Mahatma Gandhi, Vol XVIII, pp 177-79.

[2] Ibid, page 91.

[3] Ibid, page 95

[4] History of Freedom movement in India, Volume III, by R. C. Majumdar, Firma K. L. Mukhopadhyay, 1963; page 86.

“Non”Violent Gandhi: Recruiting Agent-in-Chief in WWI . . . ! Part II

Posted on by
Download PDF

Hi, Everyone! The Government did not give Gandhi much in the way of concessions, but Gandhi was obliged—to uphold his oft-declared loyalty to the British Empire—to indeed begin the job of recruiting Indians for the WWI!

First, I shall give a sample of Gandhi’s many declarations of loyalty:

“If I could make my countrymen retrace their steps, I would make them withdraw all the Congress resolutions, and not whisper ‘Home Rule’ or ‘Responsible Government’ during the pendency of the war. I would make India offer all her able-bodied sons as a sacrifice to the Empire at its critical moment . . .

I write this, because I love the English Nation, and I wish to evoke in every Indian the loyalty of the Englishman.

I remain,

Your Excellency’s faithful servant,

M. K. GANDHI”
(Viceroy’s April 29, 1918, letter)

 
“Another matter that he wished to speak to them about was the idea that self-government meant the dismissal of the British from India—this was impossible. All they wanted was to become a great partner in the British Empire.”
(speech at Patna, May 25, 1918)”

Here are some of Gandhi’s “recruitment” speeches:
“‘The time had arrived for Indians to make their choice. . . . India had been called on for another army; already some seven or eight lakhs were serving outside India and another five lakhs were to be recruited this year. . . . The self-government that the people were clamouring for was not the self-government that he had in mind. They must have a self-government army, and for this it was incumbent on them to supply the five lakhs that Government wanted without waiting for Government to recruit them.’

The advise he gave them was to raise a republican army, and he called on the people ‘to go along with him and go wherever the Government directed’. (At this stage a fairly large number of people quietly slipped away from the meeting).

Two essentials are necessary in self-government—power over the army and power over the purse, and that is why he repeatedly said that India’s ambition to obtain self-government would be blasted if they missed this opportunity of obtaining military training and assisting the Empire, and thereby obtaining self-government. This opportunity would never come again.

Bombay Secret Abstracts, 1918”

“‘Recruits whom we would raise would be Home Rulers. They would go to fight for the Empire; but they would so fight because they aspire to become partners in it.’

The Bombay Chronicle, 17-6-1918”

 
“67. APPEAL FOR ENLISTMENT

NADIAD,
June 22, 1918
LEAFLET NO. 11
SISTERS AND BROTHERS OF KHEDA DISTRICT:

You have just emerged successful from a glorious satyagraha campaign. You have, in the course of this struggle, given such evidence of fearlessness, tact and other virtues that I venture to advise

and urge you to undertake a still greater campaign. . . .

One meaning of Home Rule is that we should become partners in the Empire. . . .

To bring about such a state of things we should have the ability to defend ourselves, that is, the ability to bear arms and to use them. As long as we have to look to Englishmen for our defence, as long as we are not free from the fear of the military, so long we cannot be regarded as equal partners with Englishmen. It behoves us, therefore, to learn the use of arms and to acquire the ability to defend ourselves. If we want to learn the use of arms with the greatest possible despatch, it is our duty to enlist ourselves in the army. . . .

Partnership in the Empire is our definite goal. We should suffer to the utmost of our ability and even lay down our lives to defend the Empire. If the Empire perishes, with it perish our cherished aspirations. Hence the easiest and the straightest way to win swaraj is to participate in the defence of the Empire.”
 

 

There are several more where these came from! Keer sums it up like this:
“On August 1 Gandhi declared that ‘Indians were not entitled to Swaraj till they came forward to enlist in the Army!’

          Gandhi made strenuous efforts to supply the Government with military recruits and spent his energy, time and goodwill in the propagation of army recruitment.”[1]

To those who questioned his about-face, Gandhi had this answer:

“‘My aim is not to be consistent with my previous statement but to be consistent with the truth as it may present itself to me at a given moment.’”[2]

Such were the “staunch” principles of the Apostle of Nonviolence . . . !

 
Anurupa
Mahatma Gandhi Facts: Gandhi Revealed

[1] Mahatma Gandhi, Political Saint and Unarmed Prophet, by Dhananjay Keer; page 277

[2] Ibid, page 275

 

Gandhi: The Kheda Debacle

Posted on by
Download PDF

Hi, Everyone! Gandhi reconfirmed his offer to be a recruiter in a follow up letter (written before he announced any of the concessions given by the British Government, as will be seen below.)

“LETTER T0 J. L. MAFFEY
ON THE TRAIN,
May 18, 1918

In full confidence that the request contained in my letter of the 29th will be accepted, I am busy making recruiting preparations. But I shall not commence work before I have your reply.

(From the manuscript of Mahadev Desai’s Diary. Courtesy: Narayan Desai)”

The follow-up letter of Gandhi’s given below is written after he announced the Government concessions.

“SABARMATI,
May 30, 1918
DEAR MR. CRERAR,

I have just received Mr. Maffey’s letter in which he refers me to His Excellency the Governor regarding the offer of my services which I made immediately after the Conference at Delhi. . . .  Will you kindly let me know His Excellency’s wishes regarding my offer and the suggestions made in my letter to Mr. Maffey in so far as they refer to Kaira?

Yours sincerely,

M. K. GANDHI
(India Office Judicial and Public Records: 3412/18)

What was the Government answer to Gandhi’s oh-so-generous offer to be a “recruiting-agent-in-chief” and persistence in getting a reply?

James Crerar, Secretary to the Governor of Bombay, has this to say in his June 1 letter in acknowledgment of Gandhi’s letter:

“His Excellency will cordially welcome your co-operation, which he hopes will be directed more particularly to the encouragement of recruiting in the Northern Division . . . As suggested in your letter of April 30th to Mr. Maffey, he will be glad, when the organizations which will, it is hoped, result from the Conference, have been set on foot, to indicate in more detail the directions in which you services can be most profitably utilized.

As regards the revenue situation in Kaira, His Excellency considers that this, like all other questions of internal administration, must be dealt with separately on its merits, and that there should be no confusion of issues in regard to the great and urgent purposes of the Conference, but a whole-hearted and united effort without distinction of race, class or creed. He feels sure that you will concur in this view and by your example and influence support his endeavour to secure the most complete unanimity and co-operation which the present grave crisis requires.”

 

So the Government happily accepted Gandhi’s recruiting services, while declining to make any concessions for his Kheda satyagraha . . . !

This might have left Gandhi in a fix, but fortunately for him, he was able to resurrect the meager concessions the Government had granted on April 20, 1918—just days before his proposed bargain with the Viceroy!

That Gandhi was unaware of these concessions until many days later is clear from his speech below. This is what he says, on June 6, 1918, addressing the people of Kheda (after getting the Government response to his “recruitment” offer and their stand on Kheda):

“Orders were issued to all Mamlatdars on the 25th April that no pressure should be put on those unable to pay. Their attention was again drawn to these orders in a proper circular issued by me on the 22nd of May and to ensure that proper effect was given to them, the Mamlatdars were advised to divide the defaulters in each village into two classes, those who could pay and those who were unable to pay on account of poverty.

If this was so, why were these orders not published to the people? Had they known them on the 25th April what sufferings would they not have been saved from!”

There is a distinct note of aggrievement in these words!

How pathetic these concessions were is obvious in the “catch” therein. Who was to decide which defaulters were to be classified as “poor”—the Government! Also,

“The Mamlatdar’s order, to the effect that the rich agriculturists of the village should pay up their dues and the poor khatedars would be given a suspension of the assessment till the next year, was read out by the talati.”

There was a time limit to the relief granted to the “poor”!

But Gandhi grabbed avidly at the concessions and declared a successful satyagraha. As Keer says in his biography (page 270):

“On April 20 the Collector had given orders granting total remission to those who were poor. But it was left to the Government officers to determine who were poor, and the terms were repeated on May 22 to Mamlatdars in the district. Gandhi avidly clung to the offer and agreed to it.”

What was the actual result of this “successful” satyagraha?

“Only 8 percent of the land revenue was in arrears and most of it was subsequently recovered. Yet Gandhi thought he had won a victory! . . . 

Which satyagraha by Gandhi fulfilled the essentials of a complete triumph? His much-trumpeted victory did not bring any material remission of land revenue.”

Read excerpts from Gandhi’s letter to see what was actually taking place there:

“51. LETTER TO J. KER
NADIAD,
June 8, 1918

DEAR MR. KER,

I addressed a big meeting in Nadiad and explained the settlement. The speakers got up one after another and then said that executions and forfeiture orders still continued. . . . In Wadthal three writs have been recently issued for the collection of chothai to all intents and purposes. It is claimed that the first proceeds of a sale were credited in the chothai column. Surely this was wrong. If you restore this to the revenue column there is nothing due. Should these executions not be withdrawn? In three cases in Wadthal forfeiture notices have been issued.

Two men are ready to pay the assessment. Should not these orders be cancelled against payment? In the third case the holder is dead. The holder was in strained circumstances. The heir is still less able to pay. I trust that in this case forfeiture will be cancelled and suspension granted on the ground of poverty. I have approached the Mamlatdar regarding these cases. He says he cannot grant relief without your orders.

In Nadiad a holder owed only two annas on account of principal. He tendered the amount and asked for return of his pots which were distrained. The Mamlatdar refused to restore the pots unless chothai was paid. The holder has paid the chothai under protest and prevented the threatened sale of his pots. Should not chothai be refunded in this case?

Orders of forfeiture have been issued in Sinnaj also and payments offered after the date of settlement have not been accepted.

Yours sincerely,

M. K. GANDHI
From a copy: C.W. 10698. Courtesy: Chhaganlal Gandhi”

There are more of such letters written by Gandhi in the following days.

Follow my blog tomorrow to see how Gandhi starts a furious campaign of recruiting Indians for the WWI.

Anurupa

Mahatma Gandhi Facts: Gandhi Revealed.

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

Posted on by
Download PDF

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 . . .

Posted on by
Download PDF

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 . . . ?

Posted on by
Download PDF



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

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

Posted on by
Download PDF

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

Posted on by
Download PDF

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 . . . !

Posted on by
Download PDF

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” . . . ?

Posted on by
Download PDF

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!