Hindu Cultural Heritage and Gandhian Creed of Nonviolence
Agnido garadaścaiva śastrapaņirdhanāpah І
Kşetradārāpaharī ca şadete hyātatāyinah ІІ
The above verse (lll/16) of Vaśiştha Samhitā says that six kinds of miscreants, namely the incendiary, the poisoner, the approaching assailant brandishing sharp weapons, forceful dispossessor of one’s tilling land, his spouse and plunderer of wealth, are to be reckoned as ātatāyins (aggressors). How should one deal with such an ātatāyī? In this regard the verse (VIII.350) of Manu Samhita says,
Gurum vā bālabŗddhauvā brāhmaņam vā
bahuśrutam І
Ātatāyinamāyāntam hanyādevābicarayam ІІ
such an atatyi is to be put instantly to death without giving a second thought, even if he is a teacher, a learned man, a Brahmin, an old men or a child. It should be pointed out here that the above instruction is to tackle those aggressors who intend to harm an individual only. So there is no doubt that the foreign aggressors who set out motherland of fire, plundered our national wealth, massacred our own people and dishonoured our mothers and sisters, were aggressors of most despicable type, and one can easily guess what should have been our attitude to those atatayins, according to the Hindu code of conduct. But unfortunately, we being misled by a man having little wisdom in Hindu Dharma and culture, remained nonviolent to those aggressors, following his quack doctrine of nonviolence.
The admirers of the said quack doctrine, on the other hand, opine that the said doctrine reflects the turn spirit of Hindu Dharma and the same has earned respect for us and immensely raised our prestige across the world. But there is no doubt that a nation which is incapable of protecting its sovereignty, incapable of protecting life and properties of their countrymen, and on the contrary, tolerate coercion and torture by the foreign aggressors like a lamb, in the name of nonviolence, can hardly earn any respect from others.
These ardent followers of nonviolence must have gone through our history, but
have they been able to find a single instance where our forefathers adopted
nonviolence as a weapon to combat foreign intruders? They resisted the barbarian
Alexander by application of force. Raja Vikramaditya drove the Sakas out of our
motherland with the power of sword. Our ancestors in western India repulsed the
barbaric Muslim invaders for a long period of nearly 500 years, by force alone.
Later on Rana Pratap,Maharana Sangram Singh, Vikramaditya Hemraj and Raja
Shivaji tried to drive the foreign Muslim ruler out of this holy land with the
power of sword. After arriving in Srilanka, Lord Ram did not opt for a
Satyagraha or for a fast unto death to recover Sita. Lord Krishna sided with the
Pandavas to suppress the lawless Kauravas, in the battle field of Kurukshetra,
with the application of force alone. So, the people, who are trying to project
and establish their creed of nonviolence as a great Hindu heritage, are either
ignorant of true heritage of the Hindus, or are motivated.
A real Hindu should nevercause slightest harm, not only to a man, but also to living plants and animals, but he is to deal with an aggressor or an evil doer severely. The real devotee of Lord Krishna is one who punishes the evildoers with strong hands, but ready to sacrifice his life to protect innocent, weak and virtuous ones. The real devotee of Lord Ram is one who is a skilled warrior and can mercilessly kill out utmost stupidity, we are mistaking a man, who sings Ramdhun and preaches nonviolence, as a great devotee of Lord Ram. The Sanatan Hindu dharma is not a Dharma for the cowards. The Fundamental teaching of the Vedas is “abhih”, or be fearless. Furthermore, every Hindu god or goddess carry weapons for killing or annihilating miscreants en masse.
It is said that, Hindu Dharma and Hindu Culture rests on four pillars, namely Ganga, Gayatri, Gita and Govinda and every Hindu admits that Gita or more specifically. Srimadghavadgita contains the nectar of Hindu Dharma. In Gita, Lord Sri Krishna says that He incarnates Himself to protect the good and law abiding people and destroy the evildoers and miscreants enmasse as and when it becomes necessary. In the battle field of Kurnkshetea, when Arjun expressed his unwillingness to fight with his own people, Loed Krishna did not admire his attitude and advise him to remain nonviolent. On the contrary, He rebuked Arjun and said, “Play not the eunuch, O Partha, it dose not befit you, give up this vile faintheartedness and arise, O destroyer of the foe”. (II.3). So it becomes evident that the said creed of nonviolence is contrary to the teachings of Gita, and hence contrary to Hindu Dharma.
It is true that. Ones upon a time this holy land rose to prominence in every sphere of life and attaned supreme wisdom in every branch of knowledge by following the path of Rajomaya Karma od Gita, and there is no doubt that it has turned into a land of cowardice and Tamasic people, or in other words, a land of slaves and clerks, by forgetting the said teachings of Gita. Blessed Lord also said, “(O Arjun), muse upon me always, and go to war as well” (VIII.7), and we fools are considering only the frist part of the Lord’s advice, i.e. “muse upon me always” as dharma and have dropped the other part, “go to war”. In this way, people of this great nation abandoned weapon and foreign invaders began to come like wave after wave, subjugated us and ruled over us for centuries after centuries.
In fact , it took several thousand years to the said downfall take place.
During the entire mediaeval period that lasted for nearly 4000years, we had
great religious teachers like Gautam Buddha. Sankaracharya, Ramanuja,
Madhvacharya and so on, but none of them did uphold the teachings of Gita. Out
of the four purusharthas or duties and aspirations of individual, i.e. Dharma.
Artha, Kama and Moksha, these teacher put emphasis only upon Moksha or the
spirituasl part and neglected Dharma. Artha and Kama or the worldly aspirations
of life.
There is no doubt that sankaracharya, believed to be an incarnation of Lord Shiva. Came to save Hindub Dharma ,with the help of his Advaitabad and Bhaktibad. But still he did not uphold the Niskama Karmayoga of Gita, but on the contrary, said “Though seifless work is capable of purifying one’s heart, it cannot raise one to the stage of ‘Realisation of the Self’. One can achieve that highest goal only through pursuit of knowledge, while performance of crores of actions (karma) can do nothing” (Vivekchudamani-11).
So, throughout the entire middle age, none of out religious teachers echoed the teachings Gita, upholding the superiority of karma or selfiess work, no one tried to inspire our people by the teachings of Gita, such as, “Do you the work that is prescribed for you, for to do work is better than to do no work at all” (III. 8.); or “you have the right in performing your duties alone, but not to claim their fruits” (II.47); or “you ought to engage yourself in action for the good of this world”(III.20) and so on. On the contrary, they listened from our leaders. “Karmana badhyate janturvidya ca vimucyate” or, one can overcome this world only through pursuit of knowledge, whereas, by duty and action (karma) he gets himself entangled to this phenomenal world; or, “Dandagrahanamatrena naro narayana bhavet”- an individual instantly become Narayana (God) by accepting asceticism.
It is to be pointed out here that, in Gita, Lord Krishna had cautioned wise people not to confuse common people. Who are engaged in action, even though for immediate personal gain, by bringing the wisdom of scriptures to them. Lode also cautioned people against renunciation of work and submission to asceticism and said, “There is hardly any necessity for me to engage myself into action, as I am the Lord of this universe. But still, I do not withdraw Myself from my duties. If I do so, common people, by following me would withdraw themselves from duty and action and hence the entire creation would perish” (III.24).
But, unfortunately, the apprehension of the Lord came true. By the
adverse teachings of our religious leaders, nothing but escapism could gain
popularity among the people and they started getting themselves detached from
duty and action (karma) and accepting asceticism in large numbers. As a result,
the great ideal of karma of Gita began to abolish and, in stead, number of
parasitic, lazy, utterly unfit and escapist sanyasins began to swell very
rapidly. In this way, “Tamas” took the place of and action, and gradually,
India turned into a land of unmanly, timid and coward people.
********
II
But it is interesting to note that the creedof nonviolence, that gained popularity during the British Raj, did not derive its inspiration from the above mentioned trend of renunciation of work and accepting asceticism, that became prevalent in India under the influence of mainly Buddhism. In this regard. Historian Dr. A. C. Roy writes, “In 1849, the American poet Henry David Thoreau made use of the word ‘Civil Didobedience’ for the first time in a public meeting. He also wrote some assays on the same subject. Mahatma Gandhi was very much influenced by the above mentioned idea and later on, he made a practical application of ‘Civil disobedience’ in South Africa, for the frist time in history”. He also writes, “Gandhiji got a new guideline from the writings of Ruskin and Tolstoy- especially from ‘Unto the Last’ by Ruskin and from ‘Kingdom of God’ by Tolstoy and accepted nonviolence as a political ideology as well as Strategy”.
It has been mentioned earlier that Hindu Dharma never prescribed nonviolence as a strategy to combat a brute force or foreign aggressors and in this matter, the voice of Gita is ‘very clear. So, to establish his new creed of nonviolence, borrowed from the foreigners, Gandhiji had no other alternative but to misinterpret Gita and other Hindu scriptures. And hence he, in the introduction of his ‘ Anashaktiyoge’, a commentary (or his commentary) on Gita, writes, “As a matter of fact, Fita describes the internal wer, which is going on in every human heart (between good and evil), in the allegory of a physical war, to make it easily understandable”.
It should be pointed out here that Gita is not an isolated work, but only a tiny part of the epic Mahabharata. So if anyone says that Gita is mythical, at the next moment he will have to say that, Mahabharata is nothing but poet’s fancy. So in the introduction of his ‘Gita Bodh’.Gandgiji writes, “Generally Mahabharata is taken to be a historical work. but in my opinion, it is not so. I cannot say that the Ramayana and the Mahabharata are historical works. Simple, they are religious works. If you are still inclined to treat them as historical work, then I should say that, they are nothing but the history of the self (Atma). They do not contain what actually happened thousands and thousands of years ago. On the contrary, they are the reflections of what is happening today in every soul”.
One should not get frightened by the above utterings as it is true that,
one has to import ten bad arguments in order to establish a bad idea. So in the
next paragraph, Gandhiji writes, “Krishna of Gita is the embodiment of pure
and divine knowledge, but without having any physical existence. By this, the
Avatar Krishna is not denied at all, but only it is said that, He is
mythical-the concept of a perfect incarnate was attributed to him later on”.
But according to Hindu theology, an Avatar or an Incarmation of God means the
appearance of the Absolute Being, Brahma, in human flesh and blood. So accepting
Lord Krishna as an Avatar or Incarnation of god and at the same time declaring
Him Mythical is contradictory, and reflects the profound ignorance of Gandhi
about Hindu Dharma and its basic concepts.
There is no doubt that most of the Hindus would refuse to accept the above view of Gandhi regarding the Ramayana and the Mahabharata and it would be highly amusing to every Hindu that, throughout Gita, Lord Krishna was inspiring Arjun to fight a mental war.
It has been mentioned earlier that Gandhi derived his first inspiration for nonviolence from the works of some foreign writers and it reflects that he, perhaps,did not know that from time immemorial, Hindus held very high esteem for nonviolence or ahimsa. He was perhaps ignorant of the fact that ahimsa is the first lesson for those who aspire to attain highest spiritual state or Moksha.
What is the true nature of this ahimsa of the Hindus? To find a reply to
this question, one may open ‘Yogakarika’ that says.
Kayena manasa baca pranipidanvarjanam.І
Mulam yat sarvvadharmanam sa ahmsa yogibhirmata.ІІ
or abstaining from hurting any living being by means of body, mind and speech is known as ahimsa, which is the fundamental basis of all spiritualism and is fit for the yogis. When a yogi, even at the risk of his life, or at the risk of incurable diseases, is seen to by firm of observance of ahimsa, it can be said that the yogi has been successful in observing the rite. What then happens? ‘Yogakarika’ says,
Ahimsayah oratustgatan yoginash sannidhau tada І
Jantavash sasvatam variam tyajeyustatprabhavat ІІ
Or, being overwhelmed by influence of the yogi, even ferocious animals in the forest abandon their cruelty”.
According 'Advaita Vedanla’ "Sarvam khalvidam Brahma”, or 'everything in this universe, visible or invisible, is the same cosmic self, Brahma, appearing in different forms”; and "Aham Brahmasmi”. or “myself is. also that cosmic self, Brahma.’By these two proposition's, all differences, not only human beings, but also between any two objects of universe, instantly vanishes. So.hurting anybody means nothing but hurting himself, and hence one. who has attained realisation, cannot posses? in his heart slightest amount of himsa or (violence, cruelty, envy, jealousy etc.)
Like Chnstianity or Islam, Sanatana Hindu Dharma does not prescribe same religious ritual for all section or the people This Dharma has not been preached by a single individual but evolved from the society and hence it is more nearer to a tradition of culture than a religion as such. Here Dharma for Brahmana is not the same that has been prescribed for a Kshatriya, and Dharma for a Kshatriya is not the same that for a Vaisya and so on. Here, carrying out one’s duty, assigned to him according to his assigned position in the society, is one's Dharma. Here, ahimsa or nonviolence has been assigned as a Dharma for the hermits and yogis; while to protect the virtuous and to protect the sovereignty of the country has been assigned as the Dharma for the Kshatrya. So, according to Hindu Dharma, it would be an adharma for a Kshatriya. if he observes nonviolence with a foreign intruder, nay, it would not only be an Adharma (immoral) for a Kshatriya. but a criminal offence Such a cowardice act of a Kshairiya has always been repudiated in Hindu tradition.
In the Mahabharata.
Bhisma explains Dharma to Yudhisthira like this “Yasmin
yatha varate you manusyastasminstatha vartitaaavyam sa dharma”, or
“You should behave with anyone according to his behaviour to you and
that is dharma". Prahlad,. the most esteemed devotee of Lord Visnu, is
advising hi grandson, "Na sreyam
saiatam tejo na motua, sreuasi ksama" or "It is not always wuse to
show vigour and similarly forgiveness is also not always good. Wise men say that
one should act according to the demand
of the situation”. Valorous queen Vidula rebukes her son. who is afraid of facing an army of aggressors and says,
-
or. "O unmanly coward. don't sleep anymore and arise.Those who do not
become wrath. even being trampled by the enemy and do not try to upon, are
neither men nor women”.
So, it becomes
evident from the above discussions that. according to the Hindu scriptures,
ahimsa or nonviolence is the
first step of spiritual
pursuits and hence has been kept aside ofr sages and yogis, who have renounced
domestic life for highest spiritual attainment Whereas. for common people, the
path of selfless work and bakit (devotion) has been kept opn. It has been
mentioned above that the observable rituals that come under the prescription of
yama contains brahmacharya (celibacy), which cannot be a compulsory ritual for
common people And at the same time, vyadhas, kiratas and nisadas, who earn their
living by hunting animals and selling their
flesh, nonviolence cannot be and observable rite for them.
These
Jainas have divided violence (himsa) into four categories, (i) accidental. (2)
for earning a livelihood (3) for saving one's life and (4) intentional. No one
has any control over accidental violence, as he may crush an insect in the dark
by trampling Committing intentional violence is one of the gravest sins in
Jainaa theology. Even such nonviolent Jainas have declared violance of second
and third category to be lawful. So, these nonviolent Jainas have to act
violently against aggressor and foreign invaders. And perhaps, due to this
reason. Gandhi could not accept nonviolence, neither of the Hindus nor of the
Jains, and had to borrw it from the foreigners.
***********
In the early days of human civilization, people earned their living either by
food gathering or by hunting and later on. they raised themselves to the
pastoral stage through domestication of anmals Up to this stage, killing of
animals was a daily routine matter and meal was the principle food item, and
hence nonviolence and vegetarianism was totally unknown. Then, with advent
agriculture,. men become leas and less dependent or animal flesh and in this
regard, me position of India was unique There are sufficient evidences that
India went agricultural even before the age Rigvda and hence. Indian community
was the first in the world to raise themselves from pastoral to
the agricultural stage of human civilisation and there are sufficient
reasons to believe that when India was adopted to agriculture, in most of the
other parts of the model, people were nomadic as they were in the food gathering
or pastoral stage. This could happen as d had abundant fertile land and
sufficient monsoon rain.
In this context, one may look to Arabia Dire to semi-desert nature of land and paucity or rain. Arabian society, still today is leading a pastoral life. This is the reason, nonviolence vegetarianism is unknown in Arabia, (or in the world Muslims of other parts of the world, through Islam, have stapled the lifestyle of Arabia) That n the reason, people of Arabia are counting their days and months following a lunar Calendar Hijri. Whereas, for an agricultural society, adoption of a solar calendar is a must, as farming is intimately connected with the annual movement of sun and The subsequent changes of seasons.
While in India, due lo progress of agriculture, people became less dependent on
animal meal and. as a consequence. sacrificial slaughter of animals. as a Vedic
rite,. became less and less popular People began to realise that killing animal,
as a religious offering was a mere wastage, whereas their protection as beasts
of burden was beneficial for agricultural.
During the time of Buddha and Mahavir. a movement in this direction gamed much momentum, especially in eastern India where slaughter of animals was .almost slopped as a process or observance of nonviolence. But the said movement could not gain much popularity in western India, animal sacrifice continued, and notions like, “Vaidiki himsahikmsa na bhavati (violence id observing Vedic rites is not valence al all), or "Tasmin yajne vadhah avadhah" (killing animals for Vedic offering is not killing at all) were continued.
So, it becomes evident that nonviolence in India had its origin m agriculture and particularly in abundance of agricultural produce due to fertile land and adequate rainfall. As a matter fad, agriculture was a milestone in the history of human civilisation. Firstly, it terminated the nomadic and pastoral lifestyle and provided man with permanent settlements, which in turn led to the formation of and governments with well-defined constitution and judiciaries Secondly. with the progress of farming. a section of people was able to detach themselves from hard day-to-day labour for earning a living and devote their time on pursuit of knowledge and other cultural activities. So, it can safely be said that, agriculture was womb of modern human civilization.
In India, tis process began quit a long ago and helped her to emerge as the
oldest as ell asd the richest civilization on theearth. In fact, this enabled
Hindu thinkers and seekers to spend so much time to devote themselves in very
intricateas well as subtle philosophical thoughts, while people in the rest of
the world used to eat raw meat and over themselves with hides. Their is no doubt
that the highest human virtue, nonviolence, could originate in the highly
civilised India, as smile is a unique faculty of highly developed mammal, or
human beings.
Meanwhile more than two thousand years passed. Foreign Muslim invades ruled tis country for nearly 700 year and then came the Europeans, especially the British. They mercilessly destroyed the age old cotton textile and other superb industries and reduced this country into a large as well as profitable market for the British finished goods. On the other had, they decided to get the complex and hazardous task of collecting land revenue by the local natives and hence created a new class of zamindars in the style of European feudalism. Local merchants or banias, being deprived of their traditional trade and industry, turned at once into zaminders andn thus took the responsibility of collecting land revenue for the British.
According to the Permanent Settlement, 1973, these Zamindars could retain 11
percent of the collected revenue and had to deposit 89 per cent to the British
Treasury. As there was no highest limit of revenue fixed by the authorities,
thes zamindars began to extgort money, by whatever means they could, from the
ppro peasants, to please their masters. British, on the other land, went on
rewarding these loyal zamindars with the title like Raja, Rai Bahadur and so on.
Historiansx agree that without moral as well as financial support from these
loyal zamindars, it would not have been possible for the British to suppress the
revolt of 1857.
Beside this loyal zamindars class, another class of people, both rich and loyal,
originated at that time and this was the new capitalist class. These new
capitalists accumulated wealth by serving the British as brokers, middlemen and
contractors.
Nuseranji Tata came to Bombay, just after the birth of the city, leaving his
ancestral home at Surat and started his life as a supplier for the British East
India Company. Later on, during the Abyssinian war, he could bag the contract of
supplying drinking water for the British army fighting in there, and thus earned
a good fortune. Then he secured the contract for supplying raw cotton to
England. Fortunately, the supply of American cotton was severely hampered due to
the civil war in Amrica and hence both demand and price of Indian cotton
increased enormously and this helped Nuseranji to earn a good fortune. Then he
purchase a second hand cotton spinning and weaving mill, the Empress Mill, at
Nagpur and thus he laid the foundation stone of today’s Tata group of
industries.
Nilmoni Tagore of the famous Tagore family of Calcutta came to the city, leaving
his ancestral home in East Bengal, to serve the British. Later on, his grandson
Dwarakanath Tagore amassed colossal wealth b y various business activities, in
partnership with the British, like coal mining, sugar milling publishing
newspaper and so on. As reward of his unquestionable loyalty to the British, he
was awarded the tile of Prince. There is no o doubt that Rabindranath Tagore
composed his entire lot of dance dramas and staged them to entertain the
European officials invited them to entertain the European officials invited to
their Jorasanko house on various occasions. The fame of the Tagore family rose
to such a height that Crown Price of Sweden, during his visit to the city in
early 20th century, preferred to put up with the Tagore family and
during his stay, he had the opportunity to go through the English translation of
Gitanjali which, later on, earned the Nobel Prize for the poet. Many apprehend
that the song ‘Jana gana mana’, which is now the National Anthem of free
India, was written by the poet to welcome the Prince of wales, during his visit
to India in 1921. It also seems perplexing to many, why the poet preferred to
use the corrupt word Tagore as his surname, in stead of the original word Thakur.
This explains why it was not possible for these two above mentioned classes to play anti-British even to the slightest extent and, as a matter of fact, they were strongly in favour of British rule in India for their own benefit. That is why, these people never supported any movement whatsoever, for gaining freedom from the British but, on the contrary, tried to sabotage all such efforts. This became evident when, on 17th November 1921, the entire country observed general strike on the advent of Prince of Wales in Bombay, the Parsees of Bombay tried to create disturbance to sabotage the strike.
But trouble started in other quarters. The common people, the victims of
vigorous explotation, especially the peasantry, became violently anti-British.
The scar of 1857 had not yet been totally healed and at that time rise of armed
totally healed and at that time rise of armed struggle against the colonialist
in Bengal, Maharastra and Punjab made British to spend sleepless nights. And at
the same time, the rise of la, Bal and pal, the three radical leaders of
Congress, and their demand for Purna Swaraj (total freedom) made the
situationmore complex.
At
this Juncture of history, the British and its loyals were badly in need of a new
kind of leadership guided by a new kind of philosophy for a smooth continuation
of their design. They were vigorously in search of anew ideology that would be
absolutely harmless for the British Crown – a kind of leadership, that would
be inwardly loyal but outwardly anti-British and would ultimately misguide the
entire freedom movement to wrong destination. And in Gandhi’s Creed of
Nonviolence, they found out one.
IV
In 1891, Gandhi returned from England as a barrister and in
the next year he sailed to South Africa to fight a case for an Indian business
firm Dada Abdulla & Co., against an immigrant Indian Muslim Tyabji Haji Khan
Muhammad. During his brief stay in India, he wrote a few essays and sent them to
Sri Gopal Krishna Gokhale and according to Sri Gokhale, those were hopelessly
rubbish. It should be mentioned here that Gandhi somehow managed to pass the
Matriculation Examination in 1887 in the third division, scoring 247 out of 625.
In
that time the black population of South Africa, including the immigrant Indians,
were denied some vital civic rights by the discriminatory and racist government
led by the British colonialists. In some occasions, Gandhi himself fell victim
of the said racist discriminations. Here in South Africa, he applied his version
of nonviolence as a political strategy and started a movement to earn some
special privileges for the Indian community and later on this peaceful civil
disobedience was named Satyagraha. Due
to this movement the government of South Africa ultimately passed the Indian
Relief Act-1914, granting some privileges to the Indians. The followers of
Gandhian nonviolence usually highlight this fact as a great victory of Gandhi
and his creed.
But
it ia really amazing that, though apartheid had been abolished from the rest of
the world quite a long ago, it continued in South Africa till May 1994, where
had fought it nearly hundred years ago. Furthermore, it is early astonishing
that up to the last hour the white rulers of South Africa used to advise the its
non-white population and their leaders to adopt Gandhian type nonviolent
movement. However, one thing Gandhi could conclusively prove through his
struggle and other activities in South Africa that his loyalty to the British
Crown was firm and unwavering, and he and his creed would never pose a threat to
the British empire. And hence the British imperialists had little difficulty to
gauge his profound respect for the British race, extraordinarily high esteem for
the British culture and extreme loyalty towards the throne of England.
While
commenting on this aspect, historian Dr. A. C. Roy writes, “Gandhi had enough
respect for the British cultural heritage. He strongly believed that the
intercourse between India and Britain would be beneficial for the Indians”.(1)
He further writes, “In the early part of his life, he (Gandhi) was not
anti-British. … It is true that, he was against the strong nationalist
movement that swept India in the wake of partition of Bengal in 1905. It is also
true that nationalist views of leaders like Sri Aurobinda Ghosh, Lala Lajpat Rai
etc. could hardly influence Gandhi”.(2)
And in fact, Gandhi supported the British decision of partitioning of
Bengal.(3) During his
stay in South Africa, Gandhi, to express his loyalty to the British Crown, used
to sing the British National Anthem at public functions. Later on, he could
discover violence in the lines of the British
Anthem:
“Scatter her enemies, and make them fall;
Confound
their politics; frustrate their knavish tricks”
“Despite
this, his loyalty to the British Empire was unsullied”, says Sri D. Keer, the
most renowned biographer of Gandhi.(4) In fact, while in South Africa
Gandhi never missed a single opportunity to
project himself as a loyal subject of the British empire. Queen Victoria died in
1901, and Gandhi, to express his loyalty to the British Crown, sent condolence
message to England, placed a wreath at Queen’s statue in Durban and
distributed souvenirs containing Queen’s pictures among the school children.(5)
On the occasion of coronation of the British King George-V, Gandhi
expressed his loyalty to the throne of England and said, “The Indian residents
of this country (i.e. South Africa) sent congratulatory cablegrams on the
occasion, thus declaring their loyalty.(6)
In
1899, a war between the Dutch settlers, called Boers, and the British in South
Africa broke out. Gandhi then organized, of his own accord, an ambulance corps
of immigrant Indians, 1100 strong, for the Red Cross and they served the British
soldiers whi were wounded in the war. The British government of South Africa, in
recognition of his sincere service to the British Empire, awarded a medal and a
certificate of excellence to Gandhi. Even in his declining years of his life,
Gandhi used to proudly recall how his loyalty had served the British during the
Boer War, and in some occasions risked his life as he strongly believed that the
British Empire existed for the welfare of the world.(7)
Again during the Zulu Rebellion in 1906, against the British government
in South Africa, Gandhi sided with the British and served the British army as a
stretcher-bearer. The Zulus, or the natives of Africa, were victims of barbaric
torture and inhuman exploitation by the British occupiers. They, as a result,
were seething discontent and ultimately rose in revolt. Gandhi, being a similar
victim, should have been sympathetic to the Zulus and sided with them. But it is
a shame that he served the colonialist British government of South Africa and to
justify his action he, in his autobiography, wrote, “But I then believed that
the British Empire existed for the welfare of the world. A genuine sense of
loyalty prevented me from even wishing ill to the Empire”.(8) This time as well, the British Government of South Africa
recognized his service by presenting him a gold medal and the title of Kaiser-i-Hind.
It
should be mentioned here that Gandhi used to maintain the view that India would
be benefited by its British connection and it would be a calamity to break the
connection between the British people and the people of India.(9)
And there is no doubt that due to this unwavering loyalty to the British
Crown, he was chosen by the British to bring him back to India to lead the
freedom movement, or to sabotage the freedom movement.(10)
Apart from
his unwavering loyalty to the British Empire, Gandhi was chosen by the British
as the new leader of freedom struggle due his newly invented doctrine of
nonviolence. It was not difficult for the British to understand that his
harmless and nonviolent Satyagraha
would pose no threat to the British Empire. It has been ponted out earlier that
British in India, at that time, were terribly afraid of violent freedom struggle
launched by the patriots of Bengal, Maharastra and Punjab.
But Gandhi,
through his speeches and writings, could have managed to expose that he was
against any sort of violence in Indian freedom movement.
When
Khudiram Bose and Prafulla Chaki threw bombs on Englishmen at Muzaffarpur in
Bihar on April 30, 1908, Gandhi immediately condemned the incident and said,
“They had no reason to rejoice at the introduction of Russian methods.
They
could neither achieve real Swaraj by following the path of evil, i.e. by killing
British, nor by establishing factories”.(11)
It
should be mentioned here that, to explain Satyagraha, he used to say, “A
Satyagrahi should expect to get killed by an aggressor and not to kill him”.(12)
One should recall here that instruction of Hindu scriptures is to kill an
aggressor without giving a second thought.(13)
On that occasion, Bal Gangadhar Tilak wrote 3 articles in the Kesari,
supporting the action of Khudiram, and was sentenced by the British for 6 years
in prison. On the contrary, Gandhi condemned Tilak and in his Indian
Opinion, wrote,
“He
(Tilak) aimed at inciting Indians against British rule. The rulers are
justified, from their point of view, in taking action against him. … We submit
that Mr. Tilak’s view should be rejected”.(14)
There is no doubt that Tilak was the first among the Indian leaders who
boldly stood up to terminate British rule in India, while “Gandhi devoted
years of his life to reform British imperialism”.(14)
It should be mentioned here that Gandhi used to write that his strategy
of passive resistance (Satyagraha) was always infinitely superior to physical
power (perhaps due to the simple reason that it was harmless for the British
rulers.)
Madan Lal Dhingra was a student at an engineering college in London. He
was a revolutionary, a follower of Veer Savarkar and killed Dr. Curzon Wyllies,
a tyrant, on July 1, 1909. He also shot and killed Dr. Cawas Lalcaca while he
tried to save Wyllie. Gandhi delored Dhingra for this violence and condemned
Savarkar for supporting Dhingra. Moreover, Gandhi
Asked
people like Dhingra to abandon
violence and adopt nonviolent Satyagraha as the means to fight British power and
earn freedom. There is no doubt that all such actions and utterances of Gandhi
encouraged British to bring Gandhi to India and put him at the helm of the
freedom movement, so that nonviolent Satyagraha could be the only mode of Indian
Freedom struggle. So they were in search of a dependable stooge who could be
taken into confidence to tell their plan and used as a messenger to communicate
the plan to Gandhi.
At that historic hour, people of this country saw Sri Gopal Krishna
Gokhale to sail to London and visit South Africa on his return journey. He
landed at Cape Town on October 22, 1912, and pressed Gandhi to return to India.
While in London,
Gokhale
pleaded to the Prime Minister Mr. Gladstone to repeal the so called Black Act of
South Africa, an unjust tax of £3 per Indian, for which Gandhi was then
fighting. Mr. Gladstone agreed just to glorify Gandhi. After reaching South
Africa, Gokhale, whom Gandhi revered as his political guru, communicated this
piece of news to Gandhi and said that he (Gandhi) would have to return to India
within a year (according to the plan of their British master).
So
after one year and nine months he had met Gokhale, Gandhi, after staying 21
years in South Africa, came to India, via London. He left Cape Town by S.S.
Kinfauns Castle on July 18, 1914, accompanied by his wife Smt. Kasturva and his
German friend Mr. Kalenbuch, and reached London on August 6. He again sailed
from London on December 19, 1914, for India and landed Bombay on January
9, 1915. Thus he stayed nearly 5 months in England on his way back to
India.
While
in London, he wrote in Satyagraha,
“I sailed for England to meet Gokhale on my way back to India, with mixed
feelings of pleasure and regret – pleasure because I was returning home after
many years and eagerly looked forward to serving the country under Gokhale’s
guidance, regret because it was a great wrench for me to leave South Africa,
where I have passed 21 years of my life sharing to the full in sweets and
bitters of human experience, and where I have realized my vocation in life”.(15)
Two days after Gandhi reached London, World War – I broke out. At that
time Gokhale was also proceeding towards London, bu got stranded in Paris. On
August 13, Gandhi issued a circular affirming his resolve to tender
his
unconditional service to the British Empire and sent it around to collect
signatures. As a follow up of the said circular, Gandhi offered to raise an
Indian Volunteer Corps for ambulance work. He also set up an Indian Volunteer
Committee with himself in the chair and Sri V.V. Giri and Jivraj Mehta and
others as members. But Sri Giri ultimately resigned from the committee as he
thought it to be sinful to help to British at the hour of its crisis. While
Gandhi, on the contrary, went a step
further
and attended classes to learn nursing and hence to nurse the wounded British
soldiers. Gandhi, in many other
ways, tried to project his terrible loyalty to the British, during his brief
stay in London and to comment on it his biographer Sri D. Keer Writes, “Gandhi
could not bear the idea that the British master’s difficulty was India’s
opportunity. A loyal subject should unselfishly cooperate with the master in the
hour of need. Non-violently violent towards the Indian revolutionaries, he was
violently loyal to the British Master”.(16)
Gandhi met Gokhale in London on September 18, 1914.
There arise a few questions from the above narrations. Firstly, why Sri
Gokhale visited South Africa, met Gandhi there and requested him to return to
India, in October 1912? Secondly, How could Gokhale predict that Gandhi was
going to be the supreme leader of India’s freedom movement? And thirdly, why
Gandhi went to London on his way back to India? It is well known that the Indian
National Congress was founded by the British in 1885, with some eminent and
pro-British loyal Indians like Feroze Shah Mehta, Surendra Nath Banerji,
Dadabhai Naoraji, Gopal Krishna Gokhale and others as its leaders. These people
were generally known as moderates. Later on, another group, consisting of
leaders Bal Gangadhar Tilak, Bepin
Chandra Pal, Lala Lajpat Rai and others, known as radicals or extremists, came
to prominence. Up to 1906, the moderates were the majority in the Congress by a
good margin, but the radicals could command more support from the common people
and the younger generation. And this development made the moderate leaders scary
of losing their grip over the Congress. When the trend matured, British took
Gokhale into confidence and disclosed to him their plan to bring Gandhi to
India, make him the supreme leader of Indian freedom movement and establish his
nonviolent Satyagraha as the sole doctrine of Indian freedom struggle.
Naturally, Gokhale at once saw a ray of hope in the conspiracy and accepted the
same to retain their hegemony in the Congress. Gokhale was confident that Gandhi
would respond positively to this proposal as he regarded Gokhale as his
political guru.
So
Gokhale went to England in 1912, to receive the final instructions from his
British master and then arrived South Africa in October to communicate the same
to Gandhi and asked him to return to India within a year. And that was the
reason that enabled gokhale to predict, well in advance, that Gandhi was going
to be the supreme leader of Indian freedom struggle.
Gandhi also, according to the instructions of his British master, went to England first to receive the final instructions or the letter of appointment from his employer, undoubtedly through the British stooge and his political guru Sri Gopal Krishna Gokhale, who also sailed to England to meet Gandhi on the plea of recovering health. Thus proceeded the plan to sabotage India’s freedom movement according to the design of the British aggressors.
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