Gandhi

by Ramachandra Guha

  Second, Gandhi pointed to the sharp inequalities between different groups in India. He contrasted the luxuriant lifestyles of the maharajas with the desperate poverty of the majority of Indians. That is why he asked the princes to cast off their jewels, and told the students that they must acquaint themselves with the living conditions of peasants, artisans and labourers;

  Third, he asked that officials of the state identify more closely with those they governed over. He deplored the arrogance of the elite Indian Civil Service (ICS), whose officers saw themselves as members of a ruling caste rather than as servants of the people;

  Finally, Gandhi asked for a more critical attitude towards religious orthodoxy. The Kashi Vishwanath was the most famous temple in all of Banaras. Why then was it so filthy? If Indians were incapable of maintaining even their places of worship, how then could they justify their claims for self-rule?

  Gandhi’s speech was an act of courage. In February 1916, he was altogether without any influence or power in British India. And yet, he made direct and telling criticisms of wealthy princes, important officials and the guardians of religious orthodoxy. In India’s holiest city, at a function inaugurated by the viceroy and patronized by his leading collaborators, a lawyer lately returned from many years abroad had served notice of his intention to transform his faith and his country.

  IV

  In the third week of February 1916, Gandhi travelled to Poona to mark the first anniversary of Gokhale’s death. Addressing a 2000-strong audience at the Kirloskar Theatre, Gandhi spoke of how he had found ‘that the country was vibrating with a passionate spirit of patriotism, but the bugbear of “fear” loomed large on the horizon….The spiritual liberty of the people was usurped by the priests; in politics they were afraid to give expression to their views.’16

  From Poona, Gandhi travelled north-west to Sindh. He spent several days in the port city of Karachi, where there was a large community of Gujarati traders. In a speech in the inland town of Hyderabad, he said ‘swaraj and swadeshi must go together’. Political freedom, or swaraj, was being coupled with economic self-reliance, or swadeshi.17

  In July, Gandhi published a pamphlet in Gujarati on the problems of railway passengers. This was based on his own extensive travels over the past year and a half. He told stationmasters that by ‘using courtesy in your dealings with poor passengers you can set an example to your subordinates’. Booking clerks were asked to issue tickets promptly, and policemen not to accept bribes. As for his fellow passengers, Gandhi urged them not to rush to board the train or carry excessive luggage, not to smoke if others in the coach objected, and to use lavatories with care. Finally, they were asked to disregard differences of caste and language while they travelled: ‘If you think of all [passengers] as children of India who have for the nonce assembled under one roof, and cherish a brotherly feeling for all, you will be happy this very moment and bring glory to India.’18

  Some months later, Gandhi published, in both Gujarati and Marathi, a long essay on the caste system. This fourfold division of Hindu society had, he argued, ‘struck such deep roots in India that I think it will be far more advisable to try to improve it, rather than uproot it’. He thought that prohibitions on different castes intermarrying and eating together were conducive to self-control. ‘With an arrangement of this kind, there is a good chance that loose conduct will be kept down.’ At the same time, he said, the system should allow exceptions so that ‘if I eat in the company of a Bhangi [from the “untouchable” sweeper caste] there being, from my point of view, greater self-control in doing so, the community should have nothing to do with the matter’.19

  While condemning untouchability outright, Gandhi was not prepared to criticize the caste system itself. He thought that by restricting oneself to a bride of one’s own caste, the predatory instincts of young men would be checked. But, for those who had already achieved a greater degree of ‘self-control’ (such as himself), mixing and mingling with other castes was permissible. The system, he seemed to be saying, would not be brought down; but heretics should not be persecuted either.

  V

  From June to November 1916, Gandhi was mostly in Ahmedabad, where he was building a cadre of devoted co-workers. A young lecturer of English named Valji Govind Desai resigned his job and joined Gandhi. So did a precocious scholar named Vinoba Bhave, who had studied Sanskrit in Banaras, where he had attended and been moved by Gandhi’s famous/notorious talk at the university’s inauguration. This new recruit practised an extreme physical austerity. ‘Your son,’ wrote Gandhi admiringly to Bhave’s father, ‘has acquired at so tender an age such high-spiritedness and asceticism as took me years of patient labour to do.’20

  Gandhi was also garnering devotees elsewhere in India. An idealistic merchant named Jamnalal Bajaj—based in Wardha in the Central Provinces—visited the ashram several times and started funding it. Also keenly following Gandhi’s work was C. Rajagopalachari, a young lawyer based in Salem. In February 1916, Rajagopalachari wrote a long essay outlining, for a southern audience, Gandhi’s ‘Message to India’, namely an emphasis on Hindu–Muslim harmony, non-violence, and the promotion of handicrafts to foster self-reliance.21

  In late October, a conference of political workers in the Bombay Presidency was held in Ahmedabad. M.A. Jinnah was elected president of the conference, his name proposed by Gandhi, who described him as a ‘learned Muslim gentleman’, ‘a person who holds [a] respected position in the eyes of both parties’. Gandhi went on to say that ‘the feeling we should outwardly show, that moderates or extremists, Surtis or Kathiawaris or Ahmedabadis, Hindus or Muslims, all are our brethren, should be there in our hearts’.22

  In November, his South African comrade Henry Polak came visiting. To their mutual friend Hermann Kallenbach, Polak wrote that ‘G. looks better than I have seen him looking in years. Evidently India, with its many disappointments, has offered him a more congenial atmosphere. Mrs G., too, looks much better and fuller than I have seen her for a long time.’23

  VI

  In 1916, as Gandhi was clearing a space for himself, two more famous names in Indian politics founded ‘Home Rule Leagues’. Bal Gangadhar Tilak and Annie Besant were both enormously charismatic individuals. Tilak was a fiery orator who had recently served a long jail term on charges of ‘sedition’. He was popular in western India, especially in his native Maharashtra, where he had promoted a cult of the medieval warrior-king Shivaji. Besant’s appeal was more to the English-speaking middle classes, who were flattered by this Western woman’s romance with Hinduism, and genuinely admired her work on education.

  Tilak started his Home Rule League in April 1916; Besant started hers in September of the same year. Both experiments were inspired by the struggle for independence in Ireland. They aimed at nudging—or pushing—the British rulers towards granting self-government to Indians.24

  Tilak and Besant both had their eye on the annual meeting of the Congress, held that year at the same time, and in the same town, Lucknow, as the annual meeting of the Muslim League. This was by choice; through 1916, the two organizations had tried to establish a working relationship. In recent times, Muslims had stayed away from the Congress, weakening its credibility. Now an attempt was being made to heal the breach. The prime movers were Tilak, from the side of the Congress, and Jinnah, on behalf of the League. The two men were friends; Jinnah had even served as Tilak’s lawyer in a case brought against him by the government.

  The last time Tilak had attended a Congress meeting was at Surat in 1907, when the party split into Extremist and Moderate factions. Now the factions had come together on the same platform once more. For his journey to the Lucknow Congress in December, Tilak had arranged for a special train to carry his supporters. As the ‘Home Rule Special’ pulled into Lucknow station, it was met by a large crowd, ‘showering roses on [Tilak] and offering countless bouquets and garlands’. Tilak was conveyed through the city’s streets in
an open carriage drawn by young men shouting the slogan he had made famous: ‘Swaraj is my birthright and I shall have it.’25

  If Tilak was the star of the Congress, the leading light of the Muslim League was Jinnah. He had been elected president for the session. The League was dominated by large landlords and nawabs who were abjectly loyal to the British. Jinnah, however, recognized the growing force of nationalist sentiment, and his election signalled a shift in the League’s orientation.

  Leading up to the meeting, Jinnah had appealed to his ‘Hindu friends to be generous and liberal and welcome and encourage other activities of Muslims even if it involves some sacrifice in the matter of separate electorates’. Back in 1909, the British had granted separate electorates to Muslims on the grounds that otherwise they would be swamped by the Hindus. The move was bitterly opposed by the Congress. Jinnah now offered a quid pro quo: in exchange for the retention of this special provision, the Muslim League would join hands with the Congress in demanding self-government for India.26

  In Lucknow, the Congress and the Muslim League committed themselves to a common programme. Through this ‘Lucknow Pact’, they jointly demanded that ‘India should be lifted from the position of a dependency to that of an equal partner in the Empire’. The Congress and the League asked for four-fifths of the central and provincial legislatures to be composed of elected (rather than nominated) members, and for provinces to have autonomy in designing their laws and running their administrations; for, in sum, India to be placed on par with self-governing dominions such as Australia and Canada.27

  Attending the Congress and League meetings in Lucknow was a brilliant and beautiful girl named Ruttie Petit. Her father, a massively wealthy Bombay Parsi, was a long-time client of Jinnah’s. In the summer of 1916, Jinnah had taken a holiday at the Petits’ bungalow in the hill station of Darjeeling. He and Ruttie had taken walks and rides together; and had fallen in love. It was, for the times, an unorthodox, controversial romance, for the courting couple were of different religions, and also many years apart in age.28

  Ruttie came to Lucknow with her parents, attending the Congress sessions with keen interest. Later, she wrote to a friend about how Lucknow, ‘the City of Mosques’, had

  welcomed the worshippers of the Lords Krishna and Buddha. It has heard the carefully measured words of the Moderates and also the reckless indictments of the Extremists against an alien Government. It has thrilled to the passionate appeal of the Nationalists who have sacrificed all at the feet of the Motherland.29

  Like Ruttie Petit, Mohandas Gandhi was in attendance in Lucknow during that week of political meetings. He played a modest part in the proceedings; chairing a session of the Congress devoted to a common language policy, and addressing the Muslim League about the conditions of Indians in South Africa. In between, he loaned his blanket to Srinivasa Sastri—late December was icily cold in North India, and the scholarly Madrasi needed protection more—much more—than the ascetic Gujarati.30

  CHAPTER THREE

  Three Experiments in Satyagraha

  I

  One of the resolutions passed at the Lucknow Congress related to the conditions of peasants in Bihar’s indigo plantations. Speaking on the resolution, a peasant from Champaran named Raj Kumar Shukla said the European planters ‘have become so powerful that they decide civil and criminal cases themselves and punish the poor ryots [peasants] as they choose’. Shukla continued: ‘I do not know what I shall have to suffer when I go back to Champaran for my coming here and relating the story to you all.’1

  Shukla had spent much of the past decade mobilizing the peasants of Champaran against the forcible exaction of indigo. He and another peasant activist named Shaikh Gulab sent petitions to the collector, and organized peaceful marches, and even a strike, which ended with the striking peasants being beaten up by the planters and the police.

  Shukla was at the 1916 Congress, where he spoke to Bal Gangadhar Tilak about the indigo question; but Tilak was not inclined to take it up, seeing it as a diversion from the larger struggle for independence from British rule. Then Shukla approached Gandhi, and seizing Gandhi’s legs, said (in Hindi): ‘Please come to Champaran and save us peasants from the exactions of the indigo planters!’2

  Gandhi refused, politely, and proceeded from Lucknow to his next stop, Kanpur. Shukla followed him there: ‘Champaran is very near here. Please give a day,’ he pleaded. Gandhi now said—perhaps out of courtesy rather than intention—that he would come when he was free.

  Gandhi returned to his ashram at Ahmedabad, to find ‘the ubiquitous Rajkumar was there too’. He demanded that a date be fixed for the promised visit. Gandhi, forced to commit himself, said he would be in Calcutta in April, and could come to Bihar then.3

  Why did Shukla seek out Gandhi? Tilak and Malaviya had rebuffed him; perhaps, as a second-rung Congress leader, Gandhi was more likely to find the time to visit a remote rural district. Shukla also knew that there were plantation workers from Bihar in South Africa, some of whom had been Gandhi’s clients.

  Once Shukla had settled on Gandhi as the leader he wanted, he was remarkably persistent. After he returned to Champaran, he wrote to Gandhi that ‘nineteen lakh oppressed subjects of Champaran are awaiting eagerly to have a “darsan” of your lotus feet and they have not hope but full belief that they shall be emancipated as soon as your honour will set foot in Champaran…’4

  Notably, Raj Kumar Shukla was not the only person from Champaran seeking Gandhi’s intervention. Equally active in this regard was Pir Muhammad Munis, a correspondent with Pratap, the Hindi daily edited from Kanpur by the nationalist Ganesh Shankar Vidyarthi. Munis wrote often of the travails of the indigo farmers, and hoped that Gandhi, with his experience in South Africa, would come and fight for them.5

  II

  Indigo had been cultivated in the subcontinent since ancient times. In the late eighteenth century, the East India Company seized on indigo as likely to command a market in Europe. Settlers came to Bengal and Bihar, establishing plantations to make the highly prized dye that the crop produced.

  The British planters in eastern India were sons of lawyers, clergymen and army officers. While distinctly lower in status than men of the Indian Civil Service, they often enjoyed a higher standard of living. In addition to his salary, the manager of an indigo plantation got a share of the factory’s profits. He was provided oil and other fuel free, and sometimes grain and vegetables too. The countryside teemed with wildlife, with leopards and tigers to be had for trophies, and deer and partridges for the pot.

  In the second half of the nineteenth century, close to 100,000 acres of indigo were cultivated in Champaran alone. In 1897, synthetic indigo was invented in Germany. This led to a steep fall in the price of natural indigo, and soon, a fall in production as well. In 1896, there were 112 plantations in Bihar producing an average of 2.6 million kilograms each. By 1914, there were only fifty-nine plantations producing a mere 300,000 kilograms apiece.

  The First World War, and the stoppage of trade with Germany, renewed the demand for indigo from Bihar. Its price tripled; and production began to expand once more. Keen to take advantage of the shortfall, the planters began to press hard on the peasantry. The acreage under indigo, which had reduced to 8100 acres in 1914, had expanded to 21,900 acres two years later.

  Indigo was cultivated both on land owned by factories and by peasants on their own plots. Under a harsh colonial law (known as tinkathia), peasants were obliged to put a proportion of their land (once 3/20, then 1/10) under indigo, or else pay an enhanced rent (known as sharabeshi) to the factory. Those who refused to meet this obligation had their land confiscated. Peasants had long been unhappy with the demand to grow indigo. They wanted the freedom to grow the crops they wished. The European planters were resented for their brash, often brutal, manner. Using their influence with the state, the planters appropriated communal pastures and cultivated indigo on them.6<
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  From the early twentieth century the peasants protested their condition, sending petitions to the government and holding meetings. In 1907–08, some villages took a collective vow not to grow indigo. Raj Kumar Shukla joined the movement. In 1914, Shukla was briefly sent to jail for quarrelling with a European manager. Two years later, he took the issue to the Lucknow Congress, after which he persuaded Gandhi to visit Champaran.7

  III

  Gandhi reached Muzaffarpur, north Bihar’s largest town, on 11 April 1917. The next morning he wrote to the commissioner saying he had come to study the indigo plantations, with, he hoped, ‘the cognizance and even co-operation…of the local administration’.

  In Muzaffarpur, Gandhi’s host was a lanky scholar from Sindh named J.B. Kripalani. The two had first met in Santiniketan in 1915. Now Kripalani was teaching history at a local college. He received Gandhi at Muzaffarpur station and brought him home in a carriage hauled by enthusiastic students. The boys wanted the visitor to be honoured in the traditional manner, with an aarti. This ritual required a couple of coconuts, which the agile Kripalani, rather than the students, obtained from a tree in the college compound.8

  On 13 April, Gandhi called on the commissioner, L.F. Morshead. After their meeting, Morshead wrote to the district magistrate (DM) of Champaran warning him that Gandhi was coming his way. Since (in the commissioner’s view) ‘his object is probably agitation rather than a genuine search for knowledge’, and ‘there is a danger of disturbance to the public tranquility should he visit your district’, the DM was advised to deport Gandhi from Champaran under Section 144 of the Criminal Procedure Code.9