Gandhi arrived in Lahore on Christmas Eve. The same day, there was a conference of ulemas in Kanpur, where the main speech was by his now estranged comrade, Maulana Mohammad Ali, ‘who referred to the past glories of the Islamic world and deplored the present decline’. Later in his talk, the Maulana said that ‘though he was an ex-colleague of Mahatma Gandhi he could not accept Hindu Raj as contemplated by the Nehru Report’.31
Jawaharlal Nehru arrived in Lahore on Christmas Day. As a journalist on the spot reported, ‘the crowd on the platform became mad, and surged and swayed making it impossible for Panditji to alight’. It took the younger Nehru more than half an hour to emerge from his compartment and get out of the station. There,
countless human heads were visible. And this sea of human heads was fed by streams of visitors from the mufassil. It is stated that in Amritsar [35 miles away] people closed their shops and pulled down the shutters just to take part in the Presidential Procession. People were perched on the tops of the trees and the roofs of the railway buildings.
Nehru was taken on horseback through the city, flanked by 100 Punjabi youths, shouting slogans in his praise.32
The Congress was formally inaugurated on the 29th, in a pandal decorated with banners proclaiming ‘Country First, Religion Next’, ‘Only wear Khaddar and no Other’, ‘World Peace Depends on India’s Freedom’ and ‘Remove Curse of Untouchability’. An estimated 50,000 people attended the opening ceremony. There was ‘a whole host’ of photographers ‘seen cudgeling their brains to find out the best position. Lenses were adjusted, cameras clicked, and Pandit Jawaharlal’s movements at the flag staff were faithfully recorded on plates after plates.’
In his presidential address, Jawaharlal Nehru announced that the ‘day of European domination is already approaching its end’. The ‘future is with America and Asia’, he added. In its struggle for freedom, India placed itself on the side of China, Turkey, Persia and Egypt. Nehru highlighted three major problems that the Congress had to tackle—the place of minorities, the position of the princely states, and the rights of peasants and labourers. His socialist inclinations were manifest in his declaring the problems of peasants and workers ‘the biggest of all’, and in his ending with the slogan, ‘Inquilab Zindabad’.33
On 31 December, Gandhi moved a resolution proposing ‘Purna Swaraj’, or complete independence, as the goal of the Congress. He had also drafted the resolution, which began: ‘The Congress deplores the bomb outrage perpetrated on the Viceregal train, and reiterates its own conviction that such action is not only contrary to the creed of the Congress but results in harm being done to the national cause.’34
Since a year had passed since the Nehru Report was submitted, the Congress now declared its commitment to complete independence. Congress members were asked to boycott councils and legislatures, and engage in constructive work. Meanwhile, the AICC was authorized ‘wherever it deems fit, to launch upon a programme of Civil Disobedience, including non-payment of taxes, whether in selected areas or otherwise and under such safeguards as it may consider necessary’.
The mention of the AICC was a mere formality. For the AICC would, in turn, ‘authorize’ Gandhi to choose where, when, and in what manner to launch a fresh campaign of civil disobedience. For the moment, the Mahatma held his cards close to his chest. He told no one in Lahore, not even the Nehrus, of what was brewing in his mind. They, and India itself, would have to wait until the New Year.35
In December 1929, Saraladevi Chaudhurani still lived in Lahore, although her husband had died some years previously. It is likely that Saraladevi attended the Congress, although the sources don’t tell us whether she and Gandhi met and spoke. If a week is a long time in politics, a decade was clearly an eternity when it came to personal relationships. The 1920s began with the couple intensely involved with one another; it ended with them barely in touch, with Gandhi having resolutely channelled his passion and his energy into winning freedom for India.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
The March to the Sea
I
Lahore, where the 1929 Congress was held, was where Lajpat Rai died as a result of police violence, where the British policeman Saunders was murdered in revenge, where Bhagat Singh, who carried out the bomb attack on the Central Assembly, was born and raised. Addressing a public meeting in Lahore just before the Congress began, Gandhi declared: ‘Freedom can never be attained by exploding bombs on innocent men.’1
On the train back from Lahore, Gandhi drafted a major essay restating the case for non-violence. This was published in Young India’s first issue for 1930. The essay began: ‘There is so much violence in the atmosphere immediately surrounding us, politically minded part of India, that a bomb thrown here and a bomb thrown there causes little perturbation and probably there is even joy over such an event in the hearts of some.’ But, said Gandhi, in his travels around India he observed that the ‘vast masses who have become conscious of the fact that they must have freedom are untouched by the spirit of violence’. He now proposed ‘to reason with those who may not be so much saturated with violence as to be beyond the pale of reason’.
Gandhi put forward two practical arguments against the use of violence by freedom fighters. First, violence led to increased repression by the rulers. Thus, ‘every time violence has occurred we have lost heavily, that is to say, military expenditure has risen’. Second, a culture or cult of violence ultimately turns on the society that breeds it. For, ‘from violence done to the foreign ruler, violence to our own people whom we may consider to be obstructing the country’s progress is an easy natural step’.
Seeking to drive out Englishmen through violence, would, in Gandhi’s view, ‘lead not to independence but to utter confusion. We can establish independence only by adjusting our differences through an appeal to the head and the heart, by evolving organic unity amongst ourselves, not by terrorizing or killing those who, we fancy, may impede our march, but by patient and gentle handling, by converting the opponent…’2
Gandhi’s essay was read by the young radicals of the Punjab. They drafted a combative reply, printed it as a pamphlet, and posted a copy to the Sabarmati Ashram. The pamphlet began with a stirring evocation of the revolutionary credo. Armed struggle, said these members of the HSRA, ‘instills fear in the hearts of the oppressors, it brings hopes of revenge and redemption to the oppressed masses, it gives courage and self confidence to the wavering, it shatters the spell of the superiority of the ruling class and raises the status of the subject race in the eyes of the world…’
The revolutionaries claimed that, unlike Gandhi, they knew how the masses lived and thought. And ‘the average human being’ understood ‘little of the fine theological niceties of “Ahimsa” and “loving one’s enemy”’. The pamphlet continued:
The way of the world is like this. You have a friend; you love him, sometimes so much that you even die for him. You have an enemy, you shun him, you fight against him, and, if possible, kill him. It is what it has been since the days of Adam and Eve and no man has any difficulty about understanding it.3
II
The HSRA pamphlet was one of several critiques of Gandhi by political opponents in the first weeks of 1930. A student of Sanskrit, writing from the temple town of Rishikesh, asked Gandhi to reflect why the ‘pandit samaj’, the community of Hindu priests and scholars, were so angry with him. Was it not because he supported the Sarda Bill raising the age of consent and of marriage? The young scholar, writing in chaste Sanskritized Hindi, told Gandhi that by violating the ancient code of dharma, the Sarda Bill had cut at the root of national unity. He argued that whether India was to prosper or to decay depended on its adherence to the Hindu faith. If faith went, then nothing could save the land.4
Gandhi was attacked by left-wing revolutionaries and right-wing reactionaries, and by centrist liberals too. Back in 1915, a Bengali Moderate named Satyananda Bose had criticized Gandhi’
s emphasis on celibacy. Fifteen years later, Bose now urged him not to launch a fresh struggle against the British. ‘Civil disobedience is possible,’ wrote Bose, ‘only in respect of a particular measure which has outraged popular sentiment. Civil disobedience for obtaining independence is psychologically impossible. It will not arouse public feeling.’5
Also critical of Gandhi’s plans was his erstwhile ‘blood-brother’ Shaukat Ali. The elder Ali noted that ‘we have certainly drifted apart’, for which he blamed Gandhi’s failure ‘to check the militant reactionaries’ in the Hindu fold. With regard to the Lahore Congress and its declaration of Purna Swaraj, Gandhi’s former comrade-in-arms commented: ‘Any declaration of war against the Government over the heads of the Moslem[s] and without consulting them would probably result in a civil war and bitter quarrels amongst ourselves, leading to the failure of all plans either made by you or us.’6
The Ali Brothers had stopped attending Congress meetings. They had publicly attacked the Nehru Report. However, Shaukat Ali’s advice was independently endorsed by that patriotic Muslim and loyal Congressman M.A. Ansari. In a long, intensely felt letter, Dr Ansari told Gandhi that ‘you are taking on a great responsibility on yourself by declaring war against the Government’, since ‘the situation today is quite the reverse of what it was in 1920, when you started the campaign of non-co-operation’.
The situation was different with regard to Hindu–Muslim relations in particular. In 1920, they were united; now they were estranged. As proof of this, Ansari provided a rather telling table, reproduced below:
1920
1930
1. Great dissatisfaction against the Government, owing to war-time promises not having been kept. Dissatisfaction against Rowlatt Act, Martial Law, and Khilafat Wrongs
1. Large number of people believe in the goodwill of Labour Government and sincerity of the Viceroy, rightly or wrongly
2. Highest water-mark reached in Hindu–Muslim unity
2. Lowest water-mark reached in Hindu–Muslim unity
3. Sikhs entirely with the Congress
3. Sikhs almost entirely against the Congress
4. Complete unity inside the Congress. Great enthusiasm amongst the workers and rank and file
4. Disunity in the Congress, diversity of purpose, complete lack of enthusiasm amongst the workers. Lukewarmness among the rank and file
5. Complete non-violent atmosphere and yet breaking [out] of violence in Chauri Chaura
5. Obvious existence of violence, even large number of Congressmen believing in it and the certainty of violence breaking out7
Rather than take on the Raj, Ansari thought the Congress should first work harder to ‘wean the Muslims away from the influence of communalism and reactionary leaders and think and act in terms of “nationalism”’.8
Gandhi did not reply to the bomb thrower, the Hindu reactionary, the polite, pussyfooted Moderate, or the Islamic radical. He had answered them and their ilk many times in the past. They were irreconcilable. But he could not let his friend and fellow Congressman Dr Ansari go unanswered. He agreed ‘that the Hindu–Muslim problem is the problem of problems’. But, he pointed out, ‘meanwhile the third party—the evil British power—has got to be sterilized….Hence must civil disobedience be forged from day to day by those who believe that there is no escape from non-violence and that violence will never bring freedom to India.’
Gandhi told his sceptical colleague that ‘my personal line is cast. I fancy that I see my way clear now….If all this be hallucination I must perish in the flames of my own lighting.’9
M.A. Ansari had sent a copy of his letter to Gandhi to Motilal Nehru, perhaps hoping that, as a constitutionalist, he would second his reservations about beginning a mass movement without the Muslims. However, the older Nehru, pressed by his son Jawaharlal, was completely on Gandhi’s side. He thought that the time for petitions and representations had come and gone. Motilal was now almost seventy years old; he was in ill health too. But the passion of his son and of their common mentor had cast aside all his reservations. As he now told Ansari: ‘Nothing but a deep conviction that the time for the greatest effort and the greatest sacrifice has come would have induced me to expose myself at my age and with my physical disabilities and with my family obligations to the tremendous risks I am incurring [in courting arrest]. I hear the clarion call of the country and I obey.’10
III
Gandhi was keenly aware of the enchantment among the young with revolutionary violence. In the Punjab, he had witnessed at first-hand the cult-like status of Bhagat Singh and his comrades. Meanwhile, within the Congress itself, radicals such as Jawaharlal Nehru and Subhas Bose wanted to get rid of the British connection entirely. They demanded Purna Swaraj, complete independence, not mere Dominion Status, which to them meant a continuing tutelage to the Raj.
Challenged by the revolutionary critics of the Congress, pressed by the younger members of his own party, Gandhi knew that he had to leave the ashram and enter, or re-enter, active politics once more. He had thus made up his mind to launch a fresh round of civil disobedience. But what form would it take? Writing to Jawaharlal Nehru on 10 January, he said that ‘ever since we have separated at Lahore, I have been evolving schemes of civil disobedience. I have not seen my way clear as yet.’11
In Lahore, the Congress had decided to mark the last Sunday of January as ‘Independence Day’. All over India, meetings were to be held where the national tricolour would be raised, patriotic songs sung, and vows to work for freedom made. Through the columns of his newspaper, Gandhi urged everyone to maintain ‘complete discipline, restraint, reserve, dignity and real strength’. Volunteers could ‘pass the day in doing some constructive work, whether it is spinning, or service of “untouchables”, or reunion of Hindus and Mussalmans, or prohibition work, or even all these together…’12
In the event, the first ‘Independence Day’ was a spectacular success. As a government intelligence report admitted, in cities and towns across India the celebrations ‘were attended by considerable crowds and their effect was serious and impressive’.13
The province of the Punjab, where the last Congress had been held, was representative of the popular mood. Amritsar, a colleague wired Gandhi, ‘observed independence day flag hoisting procession meeting and illumination most successfully surpassing previous occasions thousands fixed and hoisted flags whole district giving proof of readiness to fight under national movement’. In Lahore, wrote another Congressman, ‘thousands of men, women and children, students, businessmen, clerks, of all castes, communities and creeds were vying with each other to get the best possible accommodation in the meeting’—in a ‘unique demonstration’ of how ‘the hearts of the people are throbbing with the impulse of becoming independent of all foreign yoke’.14
Gandhi received similar reports from across the country. They greatly encouraged him. To be sure, an overwhelming majority of those who had celebrated ‘Independence Day’ on 26 January were Hindus. Muslims and even Christians had largely stayed away. However, the reports that Congressmen were sending Gandhi from across the country only stressed the numbers who attended these ceremonies, not their social composition. This convinced Gandhi that the country was ready for a new round of civil disobedience.
IV
In Young India’s last issue for January 1930, Gandhi began revealing his hand. He outlined eleven demands for the government to meet; these included prohibition, the reduction of land revenue, abolition of the salt tax, the reduction of military expenditure and of official salaries, and the imposition of a protective tariff on foreign cloth. If the viceroy satisfied ‘these very simple but vital needs of India’, wrote Gandhi, ‘he will then hear no talk of civil disobedience, and the Congress
will heartily participate in any conference where there is perfect freedom of expression and demand’.15
Four weeks later, in another article for Young India, Gandhi focused on one of these demands: the state’s monopoly over the production and sale of salt. The price of this essential commodity in the open market was greatly enhanced by a tax that the state levied on it, of about three rupees per maund. Gandhi termed this a ‘nefarious monopoly’, since next only to air and water, salt was ‘perhaps the greatest necessity of life’. It was vital for the poor, and for cattle too.
A retired salt officer had told Gandhi that the whole west coast from Cambay to Ratnagiri was a ‘huge natural salt-work’, from which ‘salt can be easily prepared in every creek’. The officer (who chose to be anonymous) continued: ‘If a band of volunteers begin the work all along the coast, it will be impossible for the whole strength of the police and customs staff to prevent them from collecting natural salt and salt earth, turning them into salt…and retaining it.’
After quoting this telling letter, Gandhi remarked: ‘When therefore the time comes, civil resisters will have an ample opportunity of their ability to conduct their campaign regarding the tax in a most effective manner. The illegality is in a Government that steals the people’s salt and makes them pay heavily for the stolen article. The people, when they become conscious of their power, will have every right to take possession of what belongs to them.’16
In 1919, when Gandhi was operated on in Bombay, Mahadev Desai had heard Gandhi say that ‘it passes my understanding how such a cruel tax as this on salt was meekly accepted by the people. The whole country could have been inflamed to revolt against the Government at the time the law was passed. How could there be a tax on salt so indispensable to human life?’
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