Gandhiji and his colleagues did not think through the results of their action. They knew that their chances of driving out the British by launching such an agitation were minimal. Would not their action push Britain further into Jinnah’s arms; that it may actually help bring about the very situation – partition – they wished to avoid the most? The Mahatma’s policy was in total contrast to Jinnah’s tactics, who, from a far weaker position, used the bait of cooperation with Britain on the one hand and the threat of the use of force, i.e., direct communal action, on the other, to successfully achieve his ends.
Robert Payne, Gandhi’s biographer, has attributed the Mahatma’s excursion into bellicosity (and unreality) in 1942 to nerves brought on by the shock of a world conflagration and his own impotence to do anything about it. Here was the greatest challenge ever offered to the efficacy of non-violent non-cooperation, and he had been consigned to redundancy. Payne has referred to two letters that Gandhiji wrote to Hitler to prove his contention. In the first letter, dated 23 July 1939, Gandhiji pleaded: ‘Will you listen to the appeal of one who had deliberately shunned the method of war not without success?’ And in the second, much longer letter, dated 24 December 1941, after roundly condemning Hitler’s policies, he wrote: ‘We have no doubt about your bravery or devotion to your fatherland, nor we believe that you are the monster described by opponents. In the non-violent technique there is no such thing as defeat. It is do or die without killing or hurting.… I had intended to address a joint appeal both to you and Signor Mussolini.’27
Of course, he was equidistant with his advice to all the belligerents, for, had he not, in June 1940, as noted in an earlier chapter, advised the viceroy that Britain should oppose Hitler with non-violent non-cooperation even at the risk of self-annihilation, which had left Linlithgow stunned and speechless? It was while he was in such a frame of mind that he expressed the view that he ‘expected the Jews to pray for Hitler, who was not beyond redemption’, on which Payne has made the following comment: ‘In the quiet of the ashram the greater quiet of the gas chambers was inconceivable; he did not have and could not have any imaginative conception of their plight, nor had he much conception of dictatorships.’28
Was Gandhiji so anaesthetized by the longing to test his theory of satyagraha during the great war that he indulged in flights of fancy as Payne has concluded? Or was he so worried about losing his hold on the Congress Party to militants such as Subhash Chandra Bose that he had taken this desperate plunge? Or was it simply panic induced by the Cripps proposals that Britain was out to partition India and frustrate his life’s work?
Anyway, Gandhiji’s militant mood did not last for long. By the end of the year, he was corresponding, from his place of confinement, with the viceroy, each holding the other responsible for the events that had taken place. Gandhiji accused Linlithgow of imprisoning him without giving him a hearing and the viceroy blamed the Mahatma for the violence that his actions had unleashed and which he (Gandhiji) even then was unwilling to condemn. Alongside these somewhat grim exchanges, we find Gandhiji congratulating the viceroy on the marriage of his daughter and requesting that his condolences be conveyed to Lord Halifax in Washington on the loss of his son in the war.
It was, however, the fast that he undertook for twenty-one days, from 9 February 1943 onwards, to ‘crucify the flesh’ as he put it, and the nationwide wave of anguish and anxiety for his well-being on the possibility of his death that was generated, which finally helped him regain his equilibrium. People all over India waited with bated breath for the daily bulletins issued on his health, thereby affirming not only the mystical hold he still exercised on the masses but also his indispensability to the Indian freedom movement, despite his failing judgement. Indeed, Linlithgow was more worried about the consequences of the anti-British emotion that could have swept the country if Gandhiji died in British custody than he had been at the prospect of the turmoil that could have erupted from the Quit India movement in August 1942.
Linlithgow, by early 1943, had started to call himself ‘Churchill of the East’. And according to a report dated 18 February sent by the US president’s special representative to India, Ambassador William Phillips (who had replaced Colonel Johnson and had reached India in January 1943), Linlithgow told him in the middle of Gandhiji’s fast, when he appeared to be dying: ‘Should he die there will be a certain amount of trouble to cope with but at the end of six months this would pass and the atmosphere will become clear and progress made easier…Gandhi had always sabotaged all efforts made by the British Government.’29 Phillips, while writing to Roosevelt on 23 February, said of Linlithgow: ‘Perhaps he is [a] chip off the old block that the Americans knew something about in 1772 [during their war of independence].’30 Churchill remained inflexible as ever. While Gandhiji’s life hung in the balance, he wired to Linlithgow: ‘Have heard that Gandhi usually has glucose in his water when doing his various fasting antics. Would it be possible to verify this?’31 And was heard to remark: ‘I do not think Gandhi has the slightest intention of dying and I imagine he has been eating better meals than I have for the last week.’32
Mahatma Gandhi was the most influential Indian leader of the twentieth century. As soon as he returned from South Africa, he reached out to the masses finding a formula satyagraha or non-violent non-cooperation not only to bring them into the battle against the Raj but also to revive the self-confidence of a downtrodden race. By laying emphasis on tolerance and pluralism, he sought to knit together the multitudes on basically indigenous values, which were also fundamental to democracy. At the same time, he tried to weed out the most obnoxious features of Hindu society such as a general lack of social responsibility, of which untouchability and unconcern for people beyond one’s kith and kin were offshoots. And his spinning wheel (charkha) was a symbol of self-reliance and self-determination. The more he adopted the simple life and dress of the villager, the more he appeared different – superior, a Mahatma to them. And a formidable mystique developed around his personality.
Mahatma Gandhi’s message that the powerless were not necessarily without power spread around the globe, igniting three of the century’s great revolutions – against imperialism, racism and economic exploitation – and inspired leaders in diverse countries. One of them, South Africa’s Nelson Mandela, has stated: ‘At a time when Freud was liberating sex, Gandhi was reining it in, when Marx was pitting workers against capitalists, Gandhi was reconciling them; when the dominant European thought had dropped God and soul out of the social reckoning he was centralizing society in God and soul; and when the ideologies of the colonized had virtually disappeared, he revived them and empowered them with a potency that liberated and redeemed.’
At the core of the great man’s confusion at this stage of his life was whether or not or how far to continue to adhere to the policy of non-violence in a situation that was changing from a purely colonial struggle to something different, more akin to one faced by independent states in their dealings with other states. The true power of satyagraha lay in provoking deep moral stirrings in the oppressor by the willingness of the oppressed to withstand all atrocities, even to the extent of calmly facing self-annihilation. It is a tenet for action by individuals who thereby risk only their own or their nearest and dearest ones’ lives; it cannot serve as a gospel for leaders of sovereign states to fight aggression by another country. No leader of a country can afford ‘to turn the other cheek’ to an invading army and risk defeat for his country and the annihilation of perhaps millions. Non-violence could be used to fight racialism (as in South Africa) or colonialism (as in India) practised by people who are capable of doubting the morality of their own policies and actions. It cannot be a policy to fight pressures exerted by people with totally different ethical values or by fundamentalists or jihadis. Nor can it be a policy for free nations to defend their integrity from aggression or diplomatic blackmail.
In an article in Harijan (24 May 1942), Gandhiji wrote that the ‘Indian army will be disb
anded with the withdrawal of the British Power’. We also have on record that he expressed different views on this matter at different times. ‘My belief is’, observed Vincent Sheean, his biographer, ‘that Gandhiji himself in the course of his long pilgrimage learnt a great deal about the obstinacy of facts; and that his burning enthusiasm for the Tolstoy doctrine was somewhat modified. He said to me two days before he died: “Mind you no ordinary government can get along without the use of force.”’33 On 29 October 1947, Gandhiji told Mountbatten and Lieutenant General L.P. Sen (who was directing military operations in Kashmir) that Indian troops would have ‘to do or die in Kashmir’.34
It was unfortunate for the country that he could not sort out this confusion in his mind or draw a clear line between tolerance and appeasement as India became independent.
Gandhiji’s attempts, in the later part of his life, to mediate between the viceroy and the Congress Party carried an air of unreality and were misunderstood by the British side. And, after partition (in August 1947), his endeavours to woo Pakistan through appeasement became controversial in his own country, justifying Sir V. S. Naipaul’s remark: ‘It was India’s luck Gandhi was never responsible for the running of the country.’ His most controversial act was his fast in January 1948, at the height of the war with Pakistan to force independent India’s Government not to delay, as it had decided to do, the payment of a sum of Rs 55 crore (equivalent to about US $500 million, in today’s terms), which India owed to Pakistan as part of latter’s assets, agreed to at the time of partition. The Indian leaders’ reason was that this money was likely to be straightaway used to buy arms by Pakistan to shoot down Indian soldiers.
Sir Richard Attenborough’s universally acclaimed 1982 film did not adequately portray the later Gandhi. His dedication, discipline, courage and humour never deserted him, but he was beginning to retreat into areas of action requiring renunciation and moral fortitude rather than analysis and strategic foresight. After 1946 he flung himself into the riot-torn areas at the risk of his life in order to stop the killings and to alleviate human suffering, irrespective of political considerations. Perhaps such humane endeavours of individuals were the noblest of all, but it was the earlier Gandhi of the 1920s and 1930s sharp, clear-sighted, practical and original who had, by his ability to find solutions to seemingly intractable problems, mesmerized the Indian masses.
Probably the last great service Gandhiji rendered to the country was as far back as in 1932. Then, from his place of confinement in Poona, he successfully combated the British proposal to accord separate electorates to the depressed classes, i.e., the lowest castes. According to this proposal, the depressed classes were to be given reserved seats in future elected bodies for which the candidates and voters could belong only to the depressed classes. Separate electorates for Muslims, introduced in 1909, had gradually contributed to Muslim separatism in India. The new British proposal now threatened to politically split the caste-ridden Hindu society. Gandhiji fought back by announcing that if the proposal were carried through, he would fast unto death. At the same time, he tried to negotiate with Dr B.R. Ambedkar, the leader of the lowest castes, whether or not he would be satisfied if the Congress Party gave the depressed classes seats from amongst its own quota; in fact, more in number than the British had envisaged for them. This negotiation turned out to be successful and the so-called ‘Poona Pact’ that emerged left the British with no option but to retreat.
The lowest castes today constitute about 20 per cent (about 200 million) of the total Indian population, whereas, half a century ago, they constituted only about 6 per cent (about 24 million) of the total population. No politician who wishes to get elected these days can possibly ignore them. The election process in India, more than any other factor, is helping to purge the caste system. However, if separate electorates for the lowest castes, like those earlier for the Muslims, had been institutionalized, the elective process, instead of knitting together the upper and the lower castes by making them politically interdependent, would have torn them further apart with each election.
‘His preaching against the evils of caste, and the advantage of village sanitation, gives a truer impression of the deepest in Gandhi than political campaigns or negotiations with those in power which generated the bulk of the written historical record of his life’, points out another one of his biographers, Judith Brown.35
Notes and References
1. MSS EUR 125/9, Vol. V, viceroy to secretary of state, dated 21 July 1942.
2. US FR 1942, Vol. I, p. 693, Merrell to secretary of state, dated 21 July 1942.
3. TOP II, S. No. 90, from Intelligence Bureau’s report of 26 May 1942, p. 131.
4. Ibid., p. 35.
5. Ibid.
6. TOP II, S. No. 113 (also MSS EUR F 125/105) dated 31 May 1942, enclosure to No. 113 gives the entire proceedings of the Congress Working Committee meeting held at Allahabad at the end of April 1942.
7. TOP II, S. No. 132 (L/P&J/8/596 F 207–87), p. 189, 7 June 1942. Note by Home Department, Government of India, to secretary of state.
8. Ibid., pp. 187–88.
9. US FR 1942, Vol. I, p. 639. Madame Chiang Kai-shek to President Roosevelt, dated 23 April 1942.
10. Ibid., p. 635. Nehru’s message to Roosevelt (via Colonel Johnson), dated 13 April 1942.
11. Ibid., p 637.
12. Winston Churchill, Memories of the Second World War, Vol. 7, The Onslaught on Japan (Cassel & Co., London, 1950, p. 199).
13. Most secret memorandum by Sir Edward Villiers, 5 July 1942, on talks with Jawaharlal Nehru at Wardha, CAS 127–43, Public Records Office, London.
14. Ibid.
15. Ibid.
16. Ibid.
17. Harijan, 24 May 1942.
18. Ibid., 26 May 1942.
19. TOP II, S. No. 66–67 (OIC, British Library, London).
20. Ibid., S. No. 265, resolution of the Congress Working Committee, dated 14 July 1942, p. 387.
21. V. P. Menon, Transfer of Power in India (Longman Green, London, 1957, p. 153).
22. US FR 1942, Vol. I, p. 679, Merrell’s telegram to secretary of state, dated 14 July 1942.
23. Ibid., dated 17 July 1942, p. 683.
24. Patrick French, Liberty or Death: India’s Journey to Independence and Division (HarperCollins, London, 1995, p. 154).
25. Penderel Moon, The British Conquest and Dominion of India, Vol. 2 (India Research Press, Delhi, 1999, p. 1114).
26. Editorial in Daily Herald, London, cited in V.P. Menon, op. cit., p. 142.
27. Robert Payne, Life and Death of Gandhi (Rupa, Delhi, 1979, pp. 485–88).
28. Ibid., p. 486.
29. US FR 1943, Vol. IV, pp. 195–96. William Phillips, personal representative of President Roosevelt in India to the secretary of state, 18 February 1943.
30. Ibid., p. 203.
31. Winston Churchill, Road to Victory: 1941–45 (The Churchill Centre, London, 1986, p. 343).
32. TOP, Vol. IV, p. 738, Churchill to Field Marshal Jan Christian Smuts.
33. Vincent Sheean, Mahatma Gandhi (Publication Division, Government of India, New Delhi, year not available).
34. MB/E/193/2, University of Southampton, UK, and Lieutenant General L.P. Sen, Slender Was the Thread (Orient Longman, New Delhi, 1969, p. 56).
35. Judith Brown, cited in Patrick French, op. cit., p. 104.
* About two-and-a-half million men from the subcontinent (33 per cent of whom were Muslims) fought in the Allied armed forces.
* Bapu is an affectionate term for ‘father’ in India.
6
India, the UK and the USA
AS THE CRIPPS MISSION FLOUNDERED, CORDELL HULL, THE US secretary of state, summoned Lord Halifax (the British ambassador) and asked anxiously what was likely to happen next. ‘Nothing’, calmly answered the ambassador.1 Of course, something did happen, which had long-term consequences for India. But Gandhiji’s fury at the Cripps offer, let loose on 8 August 1942, neither debilitated the Allies’ supplies
of war material to China via India nor did it diminish British India’s preparedness against Japan, which was, after all, what the American secretary of state was primarily concerned about.
It was on 21 May 1942 that Cordell Hull got wind of Gandhiji’s plan. That day he received a message from George Merrell, in charge of the American Commissariat in Delhi, ‘that Gandhi is planning to launch massive civil disobedience in near future’. Merrell also reported that ‘when [Gandhiji was] warned that such a programme could…make India an easy prey for the Japanese, [he] is reliably reported to have been unmoved’.2 On 25 May the secretary of state received another report from Merrell that, when J.L. Berry, the US Mission’s secretary, met Nehru, he found him ‘unable or unwilling to state his position [which] leads me to suspect he is veering to his master’s [Gandhiji’s] point of view’.3 Meanwhile, the US State Department had received from its New Delhi office copies of Gandhiji’s articles in Harijan, which, from 10 May 1942 onwards, had taken a decidedly strident tone, as noted in the last chapter.
On 3 June 1942, Cordell Hull again sent for Halifax and enquired about the ‘disquieting reports’ that were emanating from Delhi, to which the ambassador replied impassively that he would find out and let him know.4 Faced with a taciturn Halifax, Hull, on 15 June, tackled Sir Girja Shanker Bajpai, the Indian agent general. Bajpai explained to his interlocutor that Gandhiji’s influence was not all that great and the US should concentrate on supplying India with tanks and airplanes, which ‘would take care of the situation against a possible Japanese attack’, which he added, he ‘did not anticipate within the next few months’.5
The Shadow of the Great Game Page 15