GANDHI AND HIS CRITICS By the same author Gandhi: Pan-Islamism, Imperialism and Nationalism in India In Gandhi's Footsteps: The Life and Times of Jamnalal Bajaj Jawaharlal Nehru: Rebel and Statesman Mahatma Gandhi: A Biography The Nehrus Gokhale: The Indian Moderates and the British Raj The Moderate Era in Indian Politics Socialism in India (editor) GANDHI AND HIS CRITICS B. R. NANDA O X JO R D UNIVERSITY PRESS OXPORD UNIVERSITY PRESS YMCA Library Building, Jai Singh Road, New Delhi 110 001 Oxford University Press is a department of the University of Oxford. It furthers the University’s objective of excellence in research, scholarship, and education by publishing worldwide in Oxford New York Athens Auckland Bangkok Bogota Buenos Aires Calcutta Cape Town Chennai Dar es Salaam Delhi Florence Hong Kong Istanbul Karachi Kuala Lumpur Madrid Melbourne Mexico City Mumbai Nairobi Paris Sao Paolo Shanghai Singapore Taipei Tokyo Toronto Warsaw with associated companies in Berlin Ibadan Oxford is a registered trade mark of Oxford University Press in the UK and in certain other countries Published in India By Oxford University Press, New Delhi © Oxford University Press 1985 The moral rights of the author have been asserted Database right Oxford University Press (maker) First published 1985 Oxford India Paperbacks 1993 Fifth impression 2001 All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior permission in writing of Oxford University Press, or as expressly permitted by law, or under terms agreed with the appropriate reprographics rights organization. Enquiries concerning reproduction outside the scope of the above should be sent to the Rights Department, Oxford University Press, at the address above You must not circulate this book in any other binding or cover and you must impose this same condition on any acquiror ISBN 019 563363 6 Printed in India by Ram Printograph, New Delhi 110020 Published by Manzar Khan, Oxford University Press YMCA Library Building, Jai Singh Road, New Delhi 110 001 Contents Preface vii 1 The Gandhi Film 1 2 ‘A Hindu of Hindus’ 4 3 The Making of the Mahatma 8 4 Gandhi and the Caste System 18 5 The Fight Against Racialism 27 6 Amritsar, 1919 34 7 The Two Faces of Imperialism 42 8 The 1917 Declaration 49 9 Gandhi and the Raj 57 10 Religion and Politics 72 11 Gandhi and the Partition of India 77 12 The Partition Massacres 98 13 Gandhi and Non-Violence 115 14 M^n versus Machine 123 15 A Reactionary? 131 16 The Man 142 Epilogue: The Message 153 Notes 161 Index 173 To Baba Preface ‘The man who became one with the Universal Being’— this was the sub-title of Romain Rolland’s book, Mahatma Gandhi, published in 1924. ‘One thing is certain’, Rolland wrote, ‘either Gandhi’s spirit will triumph, or it will manifest itself again, as were manifested centuries before, the Messiah and the Buddha.’ Twenty years later Albert Einstein could write of Gandhi: ‘Generations to come, it may be, will scarcely believe that such a one as this ever in flesh and blood walked upon this earth.’ Magnificent as such tributes were, they would be misleading if they created the impression that Gandhi’s career was a triumphal procession. Indeed from the day he plunged into the vortex of the racial politics of Natal until his assassination fifty-four years later, he was continually in the centre of one storm or other. In South Africa he was flayed in the European press and jailed by the colonial government; in 1897 he was nearly lynched by a white mob in the streets of Durban. After his return to India he incurred the inveterate suspicion and hatred of the British authorities. ‘It is very necessary throughout’, Lord Willingdon, the Viceroy, wrote in 1933, ‘to view Gandhi as he is and not what he poses to be.’ Asjate as 1946 Lord Wavell confided to his journal that Gandhi was an ‘exceedingly shrewd, obstinate, double-tongued, single-minded-politician.’ The British rulers of India tended to see in him an irreconciliable enemy of the Raj, to suspect a trap in every word he uttered and a trick in his every action. Gandhi had to contend not only with the guardians of the British empire. He never lacked opponents in his own country and indeed in his own party. He was the bete noire of orthodox Hindus who were infuriated by his denunciation of caste exclu­ siveness and untouchability and by his advocacy of secular politics. In the course of his Harijan tour he narrowly escaped a bomb attack in Poona in 1934; fourteen years later he fell a Rrejace Vlll victim to the bullets of a Poona Brahmin who charged him with betrayal of the Hindu cause. Curiously enough, for years Gandhi had been branded by protagonists of Pakistan as ‘the Enemy Number One of Islam’. Within the Congress Party Gandhi had continually to cope with rumblings of discontent. He was repu­ diated by the older leadership of the Congress in 1919. In the nineteen-twenties and thirties young radicals in the Congress such as Jawaharlal Nehru, Subhas Bose and Jayaprakash Narayan were straining at the leash: they fretted at the patient and peaceful methods of the Mahatma. The Indian communists dubbed him a charismatic but calculating leader who knew how to rOuse the masses but deliberately contained and diverted their revolutionary ardour so as not to hurt the interests of British imperialists and Indian capitalists. Gandhi was patient with his critics. Through his weekly journals and innumerable letters to his correspondents (ninety volumes of his writings have already been published) he kept up a continual dialogue with them. In November 1929 when Jawaharlal Nehru regretted his signatures to the manifesto issued by Indian leaders on Lord Irwin’s declaration on dominion status, Gandhi wrote to him: ‘Let this incident be a lesson. Resist me always when my suggestion does not appeal to your head or heart. I shall not love you the less for that resistance.’ Gandhi encouraged his critics to come out in opposition so that he could attempt to carry conviction to them or, alternatively, change his own stand. In the first chapter I have referred to certain comments on Gandhi made in the wake of the Attenborough film, but in this book I am not responding only to these comments. Indeed much of the criticism is a repetition of what was said earlier about Gandhi, even in his lifetime. Nearly four decades after his death it should be possible to see Gandhi and his times in better perspective. I have posed in this work some major issues which have been brought up and tried to examine them in the bio­ graphical and historical contexts. Though my approach is broadly thematic I have not been oblivious of chronology. I shall feel amply rewarded if this book helps those who wish to delve a little deeper into Gandhi’s life and thought, and at the same time want to steer clear of deification as well as denigration. They are likely to discover in him a degree of rationality, Preface ix radicalism and relevance to our times which they may not have suspected. I would like to thank Dr S. R. Mehrotra and my son, Naren, for taking the trouble of going through the whole manuscript and making useful suggestions. Professor T. N. Madan was kind enough to read two chapters. I am indebted to my wife for reading and commenting helpfully on every chapter as it was being written; without her encouragement and support I could hardly have started much less completed this book. B. R. Nanda