Busting some Myths about Gandhi

The inspiration to write this blog comes from several conversations I have had with people around me who are filled with apprehensions about role of Gandhi in the freedom movement.

In the year of his 150th birth anniversary let us  bust some common myths that we all may have come across about the ' father of our nation '

Myths Addressed

1. Non violence is a fallacy , it didn't serve any purpose and was a failed and cowardly strategy to seek independence.

2. Gandhi did not win us independence , it was Bhagat Singh , Subash Bose who won independence for India. Gandhi just took credit for it.

3. Gandhi could have saved Bhagat Singh and prevented his hanging.

4. Gandhi had a shady personal life with other women.

Analysis

Myth 1: The utility of Non Violence

Non Violent approach advocated by Gandhi is often termed as cowardly and begging British for mercy. It is often said that the better approach could have been picking up arms and forcefully evicting the British out of India.

Let us first consider the context in which this methodology of protest was used. The prevalent circumstances were -

- all the major military challenges to the British including Marathas , the Mysore , Nizams of Hyderabad etc. were militarily crushed.

- the revolt of 1857 , resulted in brutal killing of all those who rose in dissent.

- all the individual revolutionaries including Sarvarkar ( participation in conspiracy for instigating a military revolt against the British ) , Chapekar brothers ( assasinated commissioner of Pune ) , Lala Hardayal ( Assassination attempt on Viceroy Hardinge ) were either killed or sent to prison for life.

All this pointed towards one conclusion , British in India could not be defeated militarily.

Why non violence?

Whenever there is a dissent against the government in power , the government is looking for an excuse to use force. Any violent revolt against the British could have been easily crushed using the highly superior army and police.

 Also it can be easily justified globally and to the nuetral people that it was necessary in self defense.

However consider a scenario. A group of people just come over to a public place and sit peacefully raising banners expressing their dissent. Now if -

1. Force is used on them to evict forcefully , it will make the international opinion against the government and also increase the empathy of the general public towards the protestors. ( Consider the revolt the jalianwallah massacre instigated ).

2. Force is not used , it will attract further crowd to the protest who were earlier fearing for their life if they participated.

Also , this creates a spectacle and gets much more positive media coverage than a violent protest where the issue is forgotten and the only point of discussion remains the violence.

Thus , it gets the all mighty government into a position of ' damned if you do , damned if you don't '.

No violent protest can be successful unless its strength is superior to the state or the army sides with the protestors.

Hence it was the most effective way of expressing dissent against the British. This also allowed more number of people to participate and feel a part of the freedom movement than just seeing a revolutionary being arrested and punished.

Myth 2 : Gandhi is overrated.

To understand the role of Gandhi let us again examine the movements and other efforts towards independence which were taking place before the arrival of Gandhi -

- 1857 revolt , violent by nature hence crushed brutally by the British. It was largely limited to Eastern and Northern India.

- Moderates in Congress including Dadabhai Naroji and others , though they were able to explain to people how the British rule was not in their interest. They could not acheive anything substantive.

- Extremists under BG Tilak , L L Rai and B C Pal , they did organise the first mass based swadeshi movement against the British. But it suffered from lack of coordination among the leaders and hence failed. Also it was largely limited to Bengal.

Thus we see , attempts were made in all categories - from violent to intellectual to mass based, but none of them covered all of India , nor was anyone of these successful in their stated objectives.

Arrival of Gandhi

Gandhi had come from South Africa after leading 3 successful movements against the British using mass movements.

After coming to India he successfully forced British to accept his demands in Champaran , Kheda and Ahmedabad.

Thus he had success and experience of leading a movement with him. However it must be noted that none of these struggles yet were pan Indian.

When he took charge of the nationalist efforts in reaction to the jalianwallah bagh incident, he launched the Non Cooperation movement. 

This was the first pan India movement and involved participation of almost all sections of the society. Farmers participated in a movement for the first time.

Thus , all the erstwhile isolated movements taking place in different pockets of the country were combined into One Nationwide Movement.

Later in 1931 with the Civil Disobedience Movement the second pan India movement took place. This time he put forward 11 demands out of which most were accepted.

 This was the first successful movement in India to achieve something from the colonial powers.

Thus , he led the first successful pan Indian movement.

Finally the Quit India movement in 1942 , he gave the call of ' Do or die ' which ultimately resulted in independence.

Observations

Gandhi arrived in India in 1917 , and in 3 years he was leading the country's first pan India movement.

His movement for the first time pressurised the British to give in to his demands ( salt law abolished along with 8 other accepted demands including returning the lands of farmers which were confiscated ).

Thus we see that Gandhi brought coordination in various individual efforts taking place in different parts of the country to seek independence. He used the same methods of extremists ( boycott and law breaking ) but extracted better results.

People quote Churchill ( British PM ) who said that Indian political parties do not represent the people in India and played no role in India's independence ( targeting Congress ).

 But it must be noted that Churchill was a right wing nationalist who often advocated shooting the Congress leaders and other nationalists to death. It is impractical to expect him to accept that he lost India to a non violent struggle. He could have never accepted it hence any validation from him is irrelevant.

Edit : it has been pointed out in the comments that Clement Atlee ( erstwhile PM of Britain ) later in 1956 claimed in an interview that the role of Gandhi in Indian freedom was 'minimal'.

It must be noted that the prime minister of a country obsessed with racism and feeling of cultural superiority would have never accepted that he lost the ' crown jewel India ' to an old man who didn't even pick up a gun.

Myth 3 : He could have saved Bhagat Singh from being hanged.

To understand this , one must look at the facts rationally and objectively without being emotional.

Theoretically yes , Gandhi could have saved Bhagat from execution. But it wasn't a very practical choice. Let's understand how.

Context : year 1930s

The British had started preparations to bring reforms to the Indian constitution and grant some more powers to Indians. For this purpose initially a Simon commission was setup which was opposed by the Indians.

Finally the British decided to hold round table conferences with all major stakeholders in India to decide upon the Indian constitution. However the Congress was opposing these meetings and said the British had already decided the new constitution and this conference is an attempt to show that this new constitution came from Indians.

Any constitution related meeting without the representation of Congress ( the single largest party then ) was worthless. Hence the first round table conference failed with all participants urging British to bring Congress.

Meanwhile Congress started the Civil Disobedience Movement ( Dandi March ) under Gandhi and he made 11 demands including -

• Reduce expenditure on Army and civil services by 50 per cent.
• Introduce total prohibition.
• Carry out reforms in Criminal Investigation Department (CID).
• Change Arms Act allowing popular control of issue of firearms licence
• Release political prisoners including commutation of death sentence to Bhagat Singh and others.
• Accept Postal Reservation Bill.
• Reduce rupee-sterling exchange ratio
• Introduce textile protection.
• Reserve coastal shipping for Indians.
• Reduce land revenue by 50 per cent.
• Abolish salt tax and government’s salt monopoly.

Lord Irwin wanted Congress representation in the second Round table conference. Also , he was under pressure due to the ongoing Civil Disobedience Movement.

 Thus he offered the following to Gandhi and Congress in return for Congress participation in RTC.

• Immediate release of all political prisoners not convicted of violence;
• Remission of all fines not yet collected;
• Return of all lands not yet sold to third parties;
• Lenient treatment to those government servants who had resigned;
• Right to make salt in coastal villages for personal consumption (not for sale);
• Right to peaceful and non-aggressive picketing;
• Withdrawal of emergency ordinances.

 

The viceroy, however, turned down two of Gandhi’s demands—

• Public inquiry into police excesses, and
• Commutation of Bhagat Singh and his comrades death sentence to life sentence

Congress accepted this agreement because -

- it was for the first time the British were offering to agree to the demands of a movement.

- it had already been an year into the movement and people were losing patience. They were finding it difficult to make more sacrifices.

- most of the rational demands were accepted , the farmers were getting their land back , right to picketing ( dharna ) was being provided , and the central point of CDM i.e salt tax was being withdrawn.

- from the British perspective it was suicidal to accept mercy to those convicted for killing British officials ( John Saunders by Bhagat Singh and others ) or release those prisoners involved in violence. It would have demoralized the British officials in India. Hence those 2 specific demands could not be fulfilled.

- even Bhagat Singh knew the consequences when he courted his arrest after bombing the Central Legislative Assembly. Also , he would have not expected Congress to place him over several other farmers who were getting their land back.

Thus , it was impractical to expect the British to suspend the execution of Bhagat Singh.

Even though we lost Bhagat Singh , it was this sacrifice which made him immortal. It allowed several generations of people to be inspired by his ideas. Hence he lived even after being dead.

Thus it can be observed that Gandhi has been a victim of propaganda to belittle his contributions. We must always keep in mind that it was this man who united the country and brought together landlords with peasants , capitalists with workers and upper castes with dalits to make India as a nation that we know of today. It is an irony that he is revered more in other countries for his novel way of protest while being disregarded at home.

Some people even comment on his experiments with celibacy in his personal life. I would not like to talk about that because it was his personal life and as long as the people involved didn't complain we must not interfere in that. It was his public life which got independence for our country for which India will always be indebted.

It must be noted that Gandhi resigned from the Congress in 1934. He even advocated disbanding the Congress after independence. This could have saved our independence struggle from being politicized. This politicisation is what has resulted in attack on our beloved freedom fighters.

Also , there have been concerns raise regarding how he preferred J. Nehru over others and he allowed partition because he wanted Nehru to be first PM. This shall be addressed in the next blog of the series where we bust myths about Jawaharlal Nehru.

Amit Chauhan!!

As I always say , there may be points to which you may not agree and find a good rebuttal. The objective of this blog is to moderate your views and not to change them overnight. Hence think objectively and rationally not emotionally.

Happy brainstorming!!