Gandhi

by Ramachandra Guha

  The Prince of Wales was due to tour India that winter. Gandhi asked the public to boycott the visit, since it was a ‘crime’ to bring the prince over ‘for personal pleasure and sport when India is seething with discontent’. The ship carrying the prince landed in Bombay on 17 November; on Gandhi’s instructions, at the very hour the heir to the English throne was disembarking, a massive bonfire of foreign cloth was lit in central Bombay.44

  While Gandhi called for a boycott, Indians loyal to the Raj enthusiastically welcomed the visitor. This led to clashes in the streets, between the non-cooperators burning cloth and the Empire loyalists chanting slogans in praise of the prince. The conflict revealed and built upon cleavages of religion, class and political affiliation. Parsis and Christians (identified by their headgear or clothing) were singled out for attack by Hindus and Muslims, presumably because they were seen as pro-British (and were also relatively prosperous). Millworkers were prominent among the rioters, who from time to time raised the cry of ‘Mahatma Gandhi ki jai’.

  Gandhi was appalled by the violence. The day after the riot, he composed a long essay for Young India. He heard of the trouble at 1 p.m., and at once motored to the Two Tanks area, where he

  found a liquor shop smashed, two policemen badly wounded and lying unconscious on cots without anybody caring for them. I alighted. Immediately the crowd surrounded me and yelled Mahatma Gandhi ki jai. That sound usually grates on my ears, but it has grated never so much as it did yesterday when the crowd unmindful of the two sick brethren choked me with the shout at the top of their voices. I rebuked them and they were silent. Water was brought for the two wounded men. I requested two of my companions and some from the crowd to take the dying policemen to the hospital. I proceeded then to the scene a little further up where I saw a fire rising. They were two tram-cars which were burnt by the crowd. On returning I witnessed a burning motor car. I appealed to the crowd to disperse, told them that they had damaged the cause of the Khilafat, the Punjab and swaraj. I returned sick at heart and in a chastened mood.

  After the events in Bombay, wrote Gandhi, ‘the hope of reviving mass civil disobedience has once more in my opinion been dashed to pieces….If I can have nothing to do with the organized violence of the Government, I can have less to do with the unorganized violence of the people.’

  Gandhi went on a fast from 19 November, breaking it four days later when the violence had subsided. As he wrote in Young India, ‘for me fast was a necessity. I was the guilty party. I was the bankrupt.’45

  The violence in Bombay provoked a series of sombre articles by Gandhi in Young India. Non-cooperators, he said, must now ‘retrace our steps and scrupulously insure minorities against the least molestation’. For, if they could not tolerate Parsis and Christians, what was the guarantee that ‘Hindus…would not impose their will upon the Mussulman minority, or the Mussulmans, if they believed themselves to be capable of wielding superior brute strength, would not crush the weak Hindu in spite of his numerical superiority?’46

  X

  From November 1921, the government renewed its crackdown on the non-cooperators. Arrests were made of people picketing liquor shops, holding meetings, selling prohibited literature, etc. By the middle of December, 1500 protesters had been arrested in Bengal alone, and several hundred apiece in Madras, UP, Bombay and Sindh. Among those in jail was Harilal Gandhi, arrested in Calcutta.

  The police now began to target the senior leadership. In early December, C.R. Das, president-elect of the Congress to be held in Ahmedabad later that month, was arrested in Calcutta. A group of women, who included C.R. Das’s wife and sister, were also detained for selling khadi on the road (they were charged with blocking traffic, and thus became the first women arrested in the movement).

  On 6 December, Abul Kalam Azad wrote to Gandhi that ‘the repression in Calcutta is much more severe than what we heard while at Bombay. The Government is determined to strike at the very root and crush the movement.’ Azad himself was planning ‘to organise a successful “HARTAL” on the 24th and to maintain Peace and Order which the Government wishes otherwise’.47 A week in advance of the hartal he hoped to organize, Azad was taken into custody by the police. J.B. Kripalani was arrested in Banaras; Motilal Nehru and Mahadev Desai in Allahabad; and C. Rajagopalachari in Madras.

  Many Congress leaders were now in jail. It was now more than twelve months since Gandhi had promised ‘swaraj in one year’. Despite the struggle and the sacrifice, political freedom seemed as distant as ever. Gandhi wrote that he was ‘being implored, on the one hand, not to carry out my threat to retire to the Himalayas if we do not get swaraj by the end of this year. On the other hand, I am asked what face I shall show to the people if we fail to get swaraj.’

  Gandhi now provided himself with an escape route, writing that ‘swaraj means self-reliance. To hope that I shall get swaraj for them is the opposite of self-reliance.’ The Hindu/Muslim vs Parsi/Christian riots had ‘put an obstacle in our path. We ourselves had planned to start a fight and invite suffering upon ourselves; Bombay made this impossible.’48

  The next Congress was to be held in Ahmedabad in December 1921. On the eve of the Congress, Gandhi reminded the readers of Young India of the four key elements of the nationalist credo: unity between Hindus and Muslims and all other faiths; manufacture and use of handmade cloth; abolition of untouchability; and a strict adherence to non-violence. ‘These are like the four posts of a bedstead,’ he wrote. ‘Remove one of them and it cannot stand.’49

  Some 4700 delegates attended the Congress, coming from all the provinces of British India. There were vigorous debates, the most important of which was between the prominent cleric Maulana Hasrat Mohani and Gandhi. Mohani claimed that the Muslims had contributed disproportionately to the struggle—according to one (probably embroidered) report, he said that while Hindus outnumbered Muslims four to one among the general population, 95 per cent of those who went to jail were Muslim. Gandhi disputed these figures, saying the Hindus had courted arrest in large numbers too.50

  Maulana Mohani asked for the removal, in the Congress’s main resolution, of all clauses making non-violence mandatory. He also wanted a complete severance of the British connection. Gandhi, speaking for the resolution (which eventually passed with a large majority), said that while within the Congress there could be differences on whether swaraj should come within the British Empire or outside it, ‘there could be no room for those who wanted to resort to violence’.

  In his home town, Gandhi was in command. As a news report on the Congress commented, when he reached ‘the rostrum in his usual loin-cloth, there was an enthusiastically devotional and deafening applause’.51

  XI

  A year had come and gone, and the swaraj that Gandhi had promised in this time was as distant as ever. So he now began preparing for a fresh round of civil disobedience. This would begin in the taluks of Bardoli and Anand, in his native Gujarat, and where his lieutenant of peasant background, Vallabhbhai Patel, had great influence. Peasants were to be asked to stop paying taxes and refuse all cooperation with the government. Gandhi hoped that if the experiment in Gujarat succeeded, it could be replicated elsewhere in India.52

  The Bombay government was now very keen to arrest Gandhi. The governor wrote to the viceroy that since Gandhi was preparing to ‘completely throw off [his] disguise’ and launch ‘a general attack on Government’, it was dangerous to wait any longer. He submitted a list of articles written by Gandhi in Young India which clearly counted as ‘seditious’. The viceroy consulted his senior officials, who counselled caution. Action against Gandhi would alienate even the Moderates. As the home secretary of the Government of India put it,

  In the fight for position the tactical advantage has already to a very undesirable extent passed to Gandhi and his arrest and prosecution at the present juncture would seriously increase that advantage…[T]he arrest of Gandhi at the present m
oment so far from lessening our difficulties, would add to them considerably.53

  On 26 January Gandhi left his ashram at Ahmedabad, telling the inmates that he was going to Bardoli for the preparation of civil disobedience and the non-payment of taxes. He added: ‘I shall be back here in a week, maybe a month, or a year, or perhaps I may not return here at all.’54

  Gandhi was then called away to Bombay, where the Moderates, led by Jinnah, urged him to abandon his planned satyagraha in Bardoli and wait for the government to convene a round table conference. Gandhi was unpersuaded, and carried on to Bardoli, reaching there on 29 January. He toured the villages, giving speeches urging Hindu–Muslim unity and the abolition of untouchability, and asking peasants to stop paying land revenue and other government taxes.55

  On 1 February, Gandhi wrote to the viceroy, informing him that Bardoli, a taluk in the Surat district with a population of 87,000, had been made ‘the first unit for mass civil disobedience in order to mark the national revolt against the Government for its consistently criminal refusal to appreciate India’s resolve regarding the [restoration of the] Khilafat, [justice for the victims of] the Punjab [atrocities] and [the attainment of] swaraj’. Characteristically, he left a window open, ‘respectfully’ asking the viceroy to set free all political prisoners, declare ‘a policy of absolute non-interference with all non-violent activities in the country’ with regard to Khilafat, swaraj, etc., and ‘free the Press from all administrative control’. If the viceroy could make a declaration assuring this within the next week, said Gandhi, then the ‘aggressive civil disobedience’ planned for Bardoli and elsewhere would be suspended.56

  On 6 February, the government issued a ‘communiqué’ in response to Gandhi’s letter. As a consequence of the non-cooperation movement, said the government, ‘the issue is no longer between this or that programme of political advance but between lawlessness with all its dangerous consequences on the one hand, and on the other, the maintenance of those principles which lie at the root of all civilized governments. Mass civil disobedience is fraught with such dangers to the State that it must be met with sternness and severity.’57

  The next day Gandhi replied to the communiqué, accusing the government of ‘official lawlessness and barbarism’, through the repression of peaceful protests and the victimization of innocent individuals. The letter ended with this sharp sentence: ‘I hold that it is impossible for any body of self-respecting men, for fear of unknown dangers, to sit still and do nothing effective while looting of property and assaulting of innocent men are going on all over the country in the name of law and order.’58

  Two days earlier, a police station in an obscure hamlet in the Gorakhpur district of the United Provinces had been burnt by nationalist protesters. The hamlet was named Chauri Chaura. On 4 February, a large crowd of volunteers marched through the streets, shouting slogans in praise of Gandhi and the Khilafat. They clashed with the police—sticks and stones versus bullets. The constables had the advantage of modern arms, but were massively outnumbered. When the crowd grew larger and the hail of rocks grew fiercer, they retreated into the police station. The protesters doused the building with kerosene and set it on fire. Twenty-three policemen perished in the conflagration.59

  News of the arson at Chauri Chaura took two days to travel from rural North India to rural Gujarat. Gandhi got the news after he had sent his second letter to the viceroy on the 7th. On the next day, the 8th, he wrote to the members of the CWC. This was the third time he had ‘received a rude shock’ on the eve of embarking on mass civil disobedience. The first occasion was in April 1919, when his fellow Ahmedabadis rioted after he had been stopped from entering the Punjab. The second was in November 1921, the violence in Bombay ensuing from the boycott of the Prince of Wales’s visit. Now again, he had been ‘violently agitated’ by the events in Chauri Chaura. He had convened a CWC meeting at Bardoli on the 11th, to discuss whether mass civil disobedience should be suspended for the time being.60

  On 10 February—the day before the CWC met—Gandhi spoke with a group of Congress workers in Bardoli. He asked whether civil disobedience should be suspended in view of ‘the terrible happening at Chauri Chaura’. All but three said the movement should go on, for after Gandhi’s challenge to the viceroy if he (and they) now retreated, ‘the whole country would be disgraced before the world’. Gandhi was dismayed by the response, which showed that even the ‘best workers’ of the Congress had ‘failed to understand the message of non-violence’. He was now resolved to ‘immediately stop the movement for civil disobedience’.61

  The CWC, meeting the next day, passed a series of resolutions drafted by Gandhi. In view of ‘the tragic and terrible events at Chauri Chaura’, the Congress had decided to suspend civil disobedience, advise cultivators to pay land revenue, and not hold processions or public meetings. The working committee outlined a new programme for the Congress, focusing on the promotion of spinning and of temperance, the abolition of untouchability, and the organization of village and town panchayats to settle disputes peaceably.62

  To atone for the violence at Chauri Chaura, Gandhi went on a five-day fast. ‘Surely I could not have done less, could I?’ he wrote to his son Devadas. For, ‘to start civil disobedience in an atmosphere of incivility is like putting one’s hand in a snake-pit’.63

  Gandhi’s decision to call off the struggle divided the Congress leadership. While older Congressmen such as M.A. Ansari supported him, younger radicals like Jawaharlal Nehru were ‘terribly cut up’.64 Why should the leader allow one isolated episode to derail a vigorous mass upsurge that had otherwise eschewed violence? Tens of thousands had already courted arrest. Tens of thousands more were ready to follow them. The whole country was afire with the spirit of swaraj. The British Raj was nervous—as its policies of repression showed. Why, when energy and enthusiasm ran so high, did the leader abandon the movement?

  Gandhi was unmoved. He had been told that the policemen at Chauri Chaura had ‘given much provocation’. But ‘no provocation can possibly justify the brutal murder of men who had been rendered defenceless and who had virtually thrown themselves on the mercy of the mob’. After what had happened in Chauri Chaura, Gandhi ‘would think 50 times before embarking upon mass civil disobedience’.65

  XII

  By early February 1922, the viceroy could hold out no longer. On the 8th of the month, he passed an order asking ‘that action should be taken at once for the immediate arrest and prosecution of Gandhi’. But before the order could be acted upon, the CWC had called off civil disobedience. The home secretary now advised the viceroy to stay the arrest. On 15 February, Lord Reading issued a fresh order asking that ‘the prosecution of Gandhi be postponed for the moment’. Ten days later, the AICC met in Delhi and endorsed the CWC’s resolutions in Bardoli, adding a caveat that civil disobedience had been postponed temporarily, not indefinitely. This persuaded the government that there had been ‘no fundamental change in the policy of the non-co-operation party’. Fresh orders were now issued for Gandhi’s arrest.66

  The Bombay government had decided to arrest Gandhi on 9 March. The previous day, Gandhi left Ahmedabad for a meeting of nationalist ulemas in Ajmer. The authorities waited until he had returned. On the evening of 10 March, the deputy superintendent of police (DSP) of Ahmedabad drove in his car to the Sabarmati Ashram. On his way he saw Shankarlal Banker and Anasuya Sarabhai out on a postprandial walk. The DSP told Banker he had a warrant for his arrest and for Gandhi’s.

  Banker’s crime was that he was the publisher of Young India, and thus complicit in Gandhi’s ‘seditious’ articles. The DSP reported that on hearing the news, Banker ‘seemed very pleased and said he was expecting it’. Anasuya was told to ask Gandhi to get his things ready. When the police officer arrived, Gandhi congratulated him on coming without an escort. He asked the ashramites to sing his favourite Narasinha Mehta hymn, ‘Vaishnava Jana To’. His parting words were that they should ‘strain e
very nerve to propagate peace and goodwill all over India, among all communities’.67

  The DSP took Gandhi, Kasturba, Shankarlal and Anasuya to the jail in his car. He woke up the prison superintendent (it was now past 11 p.m.), and handed over the two men to him, before dropping the two ladies back at the ashram. He then went to the Navajivan Press to obtain documentary proof of Gandhi’s and Shankarlal’s connection with Young India.68

  The ashram at Sabarmati had been chosen in part because of its proximity to the Sabarmati jail. Gandhi and Shankarlal were lodged in a section of the prison which had a row of eight rooms facing a courtyard. Both were allotted single rooms, each furnished with an iron cot, a mattress, two sheets, a pillow and a blanket.

  The next morning the accused were presented to the court, held in the commissioner’s office. Gandhi, asked about his profession, said he was ‘a farmer and weaver’. The magistrate was startled, pausing before noting it down, to check whether Gandhi was being serious.

  Both Banker and Gandhi pleaded guilty, and the trial was set for 18 March. It was held at the Circuit House, and many leading Congressmen attended, sometimes travelling long distances. They included Jawaharlal Nehru, Sarojini Naidu and Madan Mohan Malaviya. Saraladevi Chaudhurani was also there, having come all the way from Lahore. She sat two seats away from Kasturba—the sources do not tell us whether they exchanged any words.

  After Gandhi and Banker had pleaded guilty, the advocate general, Sir J.T. Strangman, made his presentation. The articles published by Gandhi in Young India, he said, were part of an ‘organized campaign…to preach disaffection towards the existing Government’. Since the accused ‘was a man of high educational qualifications’ and ‘a recognised leader’, the ‘harm that was likely to be caused was considerable’. As for the second accused, Shankarlal Banker, ‘his offence was lesser. He did the publication and he did not write.’