Sunday 5 June 2022

Was Mahatma Gandhi really a seditionist?

India is celebrating the 100th anniversary of Mahatma Gandhi's pleading guilty to sedition. The Government Prosecutor cited 2 articles Gandhi published during the Non Cooperation Movement. Are they in fact seditious? Do the genuinely cause hatred of the Government? Or are they merely the tantrum of a stupid child or crazy adolescent? Let us see.

His Excellency the Governor of Bombay had warned the public some time ago, that he 'meant business', that he was no longer going to tolerate the speeches that were being made.

Why were 'speeches' being made? The answer comes in two parts. Firstly the War had led some speculators to become cash rich. They wanted to turn that money into political power and the way to do it was through the November 1920 elections. Gandhi had taken over the Khilafat campaign, first financed by Memon speculators, because ulema like Abdul Bari thought he could bring in the Hindus and, in any case, they didn't trust the English speaking Bombay Ismaili barristers or Memon businessmen. What happened next was that Lala Lajpat Rai- discovering that urban Hindus would do poorly because of British jerrymandering- opted for a boycott of the elections. Gandhi acted quickly to join the Khilafat and Jallianwallah grievance together so as to get an all-India council boycott. This was his program from July 1920. Gandhi was gambling that popular support would force the moderate politicians to fall in line. However, it was Khilafat which had put power into Gandhi's hand. He had become its dictator- an odd position for a Hindu- and this is what gave him leverage over his Hindu competitors among the moderates. It was Muslim votes on the Subjects Committee which gave Gandhi a narrow victory. But that victory was enough for what looked like a big win in the open session. Interestingly, it was Motilal's defection to Gandhi's side which put him over the edge. This wasn't purely because of Motilal's pro-Muslim proclivities. The truth is Congress would not have won the election in UP. 

Essentially, Non-Cooperation on the supposed basis of Khilafat and Punjab's grievance was a speculative gamble which paid off for individuals but not for the Nation. The truth is the Brits were administering India and wanted to improve that administration by roping in smart politicians who would compete for votes. Congress needed to show it was better at administration than its rivals. That way, it would be in the interest of Governors and Viceroys to give them more and more power. But for that to happen, Congress needed to be businesslike.  

I suppose it could be argued that C.R Das deliberately forced Gandhi and Congress down a more extreme road, in terms of boycott, so as to profit by its inevitable failure. On the other hand, the Raj was extremely vulnerable because it was militarily overstretched. Frontloading the pain might have caused the Brits to withdraw from provincial government as they were to do in Egypt in 1922 with a unilateral declaration. Still, the Nagpur session enthused the masses. 'Swaraj within one year' seemed a realistic goal. At any rate, Gandhi would have lost control of Khilafat to the ulema if he could not show that the Hindus were making sacrifices in the common cause.

In his note on the Ali Brothers and others he has made clear his meaning. The Ali Brothers are to be charged with having tampered with the loyalty of the sepoy and with having uttered sedition.

The Brits knew that the Muslims were genuinely angry about what was happening in Iraq and Turkey. They also knew that the Hindus didn't care about this at all. Gandhi is saying that he and other Hindus stand with the Muslims. But they didn't really. The Hindus were prepared to do a bit of jail time to signal support. The Muslims were not interested in signals. They were concerned with their religion. However, once they saw that the Brits accepted Egyptian independence, it occurred to them that Western Imperialism would fall off its own accord within a decade or so. Even if the Arabs and Turks went down a secular nationalist path, Muslim India would have to establish itself as a separate Nationality or else risk coming under Hindu domination.

I must confess, that I was not prepared for the revelation of such hopeless ignorance on the part of the Governor of Bombay. It is evident that he has not followed the course of Indian history during the past twelve months. He evidently does not know, that the National Congress began to tamper with the loyalty of the sepoy in September last year, that the Central Khilafat Committee began it earlier and that I began it earlier still, for I must be permitted to take the credit or the odium of suggesting, that India had a right openly to tell the sepoy and everyone - who served the Government in any capacity whatsoever, that he participated in the wrongs done by the Government.

The Brits had previously jailed the Ali brothers. They hesitated to jail Gandhi because some influential British Christians felt he was engaged in a moral, not a seditious critique. He was condemning all vice, all venality, all violence, not that of the Government alone. This is not sedition.

 When Gandhi called off the Non Cooperation Movement, the Ali brothers felt betrayed. Henceforth there would be no Hindu Muslim Unity unless, perhaps, Gandhi himself went to jail. The trouble was that such a move might look like the last desperate gamble of a speculator who had bankrupted himself and wished to appear a martyr to some higher cause. 

The Conference at Karachi merely repeated the Congress declaration in terms of Islam. Only a Musalman divine can speak for Islam, but speaking for Hinduism and speaking for nationalism, I have no hesitation in saying, that it is sinful for any one, either as soldier or civilian, to serve this Government which has proved treacherous to the Musalmans of India and which has been guilty of the inhumanities of the Punjab.

Indians did not agree. They were queuing up to work for the Government. The question is why Gandhi & Co were so utterly useless at getting Indian soldiers and policemen to switch sides. The odd thing is some Irish soldiers in India mutinied while many Mesopotamian veterans who had 'voluntarily' extended their service were refusing to parade or were otherwise showing their discontent. Westminster M.Ps were worried because these men were their own constituents. They had votes.  The War Office was worried that existing man-power was stretched too thin and 'the Geddes axe' had cut budgets to the bone. In other words, the Brits faced pressure from their own exhausted, war weary and (in the case of Irish soldiers) disaffected and rebellious troops. By contrast, Indian troops remained loyal. They suppressed the Mesopotamian revolt of 1920. 

Why was this so? I suppose the answer is that the First World war had taught Indian soldiers that their country was very backward. It was living a fantasy world of Caliphs and Maharajas and Mahatmas and Snake-charmers. Armies and Navies and Civil Services needed trained and disciplined personnel. Also, those jobs were pensionable. 

I have said this from many a platform in the presence of sepoys.

Who preferred to earn their pay rather than get court martialed.  

And if I have not asked individual sepoys to come out, it has not been due to want of will but of ability to support them. I have not hesitated to tell the sepoy, that if he could leave the service and support himself without the Congress or the Khilafat aid, he should leave at once.

So, it was a question of getting paid. I suppose the reason Gandhi didn't want the Sepoys to mutiny was because he didn't want power to pass to military men. That was perfectly sensible. Gandhi was a King Log. Indians didn't want a King Stork.  

And I promise, that as soon as the spinning wheel finds an abiding place in every home and Indians begin to feel that weaving gives anybody any day an honourable livelihood,

So everybody will be able to make a living selling each other shirts. Why not just take in each other's laundry? Indian soldiers had seen that wars were decided by which side had the bigger and better munitions factories and air-craft factories and the ability to build big big ships. Gandhi was pretending that even quite skilled Indian weavers weren't emaciated and next door to starving.  

I shall not hesitate, at the peril of being shot, to ask the Indian sepoy individually to leave his service and become a weaver. For, has not the sepoy been used to hold India under subjection, has he not been used to murder innocent people at Jallianwala Bagh, has he not been used to drive away innocent men, women and children during that dreadful night at Chandpur, has he not been used to subjugate the proud Arab of Mesopotamia, has he not been utilised to crush the Egyptian?

Yes- because he got paid. But then Gandhi too was getting paid to advance the economic agenda of Indian textile mill owners.  

How can any Indian having a spark of humanity in him and any Musalman having any pride in his religion feel otherwise than as the Ali Brothers have done?

If they get paid to feel otherwise they should do so.

The sepoy has been used more often as a hired assassin than as a soldier defending the liberty or the honour of the weak and the helpless.

But, Gandhi says, the weak and the helpless can always defend themselves with Satyagraha and Ahimsa and God turning up to punish the wrongdoers.  

The Governor has pandered to the basest in us by telling us what would have happened in Malabar but for the British soldier or sepoy. I venture to inform His Excellency, that Malabar Hindus would have fared better without the British bayonet,

because they would be dead or else have been forcibly converted 

that Hindus and Musalmans would have jointly appeased the Moplahs, that possibly there being no Khilafat question there would have been no Moplah riot at all,

but there was a Khilafat movement supported by Gandhi and then there were Moplah riots were Hindus were slaughtered. Interestingly, Gandhi changed his tune once it was fellow North Indians- not distant Malabaris- who stood in danger of the knife or the axe.  

that at the worst supposing that Musalmans had made common cause with the Moplahs,

the Moplahs were Muslim 

Hinduism would have relied upon its creed of non-violence and turned every Musalman into a friend, or Hindu valour would have been tested and tried.

We can now see why the Non Cooperation Movement was running out of steam. If the Brits left, the nutter Gandhi would soon cause the country to fall apart.  

The Governor of Bombay has done a disservice to himself and his cause (whatever it might be), by fomenting Hindu-Muslim disunion, and has insulted the Hindus, by letting them infer from his note, that Hindus are helpless creatures unable to die for or defend their hearth, home or religion.

But that certainly was the case in a part of Malabar. 

If however the Governor is right in his assumptions, the sooner the Hindus die out, the better for humanity.

Gandhi was a great humanitarian- even if this meant that Hindus should be slaughtered for the sake of the species.  

But let me remind His Excellency, that he has pronounced the greatest condemnation upon British rule,

which only commenced because Indians couldn't rule themselves 

in that it finds Indians today devoid of enough manliness to defend themselves against looters, whether they are Moplah Musalmans or infuriated Hindus of Arrah.

But nobody was killing Whitey. Why? Because Dyer had machine gunned lots of peeps before going on to command Indian troops against the Afghans.  


His Excellency's reference to the sedition of the Ali Brothers is only less unpardonable than his reference to the tampering. For he must know, that sedition has become the creed of the Congress.

The problem was that Congress was so useless that it made the Government look good. That's the problem with sedition as done by retards.  

Every non-co- operator is pledged to preach disaffection towards the Government established by law. Non-co-operation, though a religious and strictly moral movement, deliberately aims at the overthrow of the Government, and is therefore legally seditious in terms of the Indian Penal Code.

A thing may be against the law without this entailing prosecution because it is 'de minimis'- i.e. inconsequential.  

But this is no new discovery. Lord Chelmsford knew it. Lord Reading knows it. It is unthinkable that the Governor of Bombay does not know it. It was common cause that so long as the movement remained non-violent, nothing would be done to interfere with it.

So Gandhi had to call off the Non Cooperation movement otherwise he and his people would be charged not merely with 'attempting' to incite disaffection but actually waging war against the Government. There is a sort of logic here but it is the logic of the die hard Tory. If the Government is 'Liberal' then shit on it. If it is nasty, then be sweet and docile. 

But it may be urged, that the Government has a right to change its policy when it finds, that the movement is really threatening its very existence as a system. I do not deny its right. I object to the Governor's note, because it is so worded as to let the unknowing public think, that tampering with the loyalty of the sepoy and sedition were fresh crimes committed by the Ali Brothers and brought for the first time to His Excellency's notice.

The public, in so far as it was interested in such matters, would have been aware that the real issue was the visit of the Prince of Wales which was pretty much an unmitigated disaster. Then Gandhi unilaterally surrendered and was sent off to jai. The Prince left India the next day. It was understood that Gandhi & Co had overplayed their hand. They should have struck a deal while it was still in their power to let the Prince's visit end on a hopeful note. As things were, the administration escaped censure for the Prince's bad reception. All was the fault of Gandhi and his merry crew. Now they were safely in jail, the Administration could conciliate the Muslims and repeal the draconian Rowlatt act.  


However the duty of the Congress and Khilafat workers is clear. We ask for no quarter; we expect none from the Government. We did not solicit the promise of immunity from prison so long as we remained non­violent. We may not now complain, if we are imprisoned for sedition. Therefore our self-respect and our pledge require us to remain calm, unperturbed and non-violent. We have our appointed course to follow. We must reiterate from a thousand platforms the formula of the Ali Brothers regarding the sepoys, and we must spread disaffection openly and systematically till it please the Government to arrest us.

At which point, Gandhi & Co lose the match. Why? The agitation would collapse once they were in jail and their financiers too risked expropriation.  

And this we do, not by way of angry retaliation, but because it is our Dharma. We must wear Khadi even as the brothers have worn it, and spread the Gospel of Swadeshi. The Musalmans must collect for Smyrna relief and the Angora Government. We must spread like the Ali Brothers the Gospel of Hindu-Muslim unity and of non-violence for the purpose of attaining Swaraj and the redress of the Khilafat and the Punjab wrongs.

None of this was achieved. Gandhi went to jail and remained quiet. Ireland and Egypt and Afghanistan got Independence. India got nothing. 

We have almost reached the crisis. It is well with a patient who survives a crisis. If on the one hand we remain firm as a rock in the presence of danger, and on the other observe the greatest self-restraint, we shall certainly attain our end this very year.

Young India, 29-9-1921, pp. 309-10

It appears a deal could have been struck in December but Gandhi passed on it and then unilaterally surrendered a couple of months later. 

2. A PUZZLE AND ITS SOLUTION

Lord Reading is puzzled and perplexed. Speaking in reply to the addresses from the British Indian Association and the Bengal National Chamber of Commerce at Calcutta, His Excellency said, "I confess that when I contemplate the activities of a section of the : community, I find myself still, notwithstanding persistent study ever since I have been in India, puzzled and perplexed. I ask myself what purpose is served by flagrant breaches of the law for the purpose of challenging the Government and in order to compel arrest?"

The answer, it turned out, was that the purpose was to prove  that Gandhi was as stupid as shit.  

The answer was partly given by Pandit Motilal Nehru when he said on being arrested that he was being taken to the house of freedom.

But he would break with Gandhi and enter the Legislative Council in 1923.  

We seek arrest because the so-called freedom is slavery. We are challenging the might of this Government because we consider its activity to be wholly evil. We want to overthrow the Government. We want to compel its submission to the people's will.

Congress submitted to the Viceroy's will. 

We desire to show that the Government exists to serve the people, not the people the Government. Free life under the Government has become intolerable, for the price exacted for the retention of freedom is unconscionably great. Whether we are one or many, we must refuse to purchase freedom at the cost of our self-respect or our cherished convictions. I have known even little children become unbending when an attempt has been made to cross their declared purpose, be it ever so flimsy in the estimation of their parents.

The problem here is that parents love their little kiddies. The Brits had no great love for the antics of a bunch of seditious barristers.  

Lord Reading must clearly understand that the non-co-operators are at war with the Government.

It was a war they lost because their weapon was sulking.  

They have declared rebellion against it in as much as it has committed a breach of faith with the Musalmans,

The Muslims decided that it was Gandhi who had led them up the garden path. By contrast, the Viceroy had urged the British Government to show consideration to Muslim sentiments with regard to the Caliphate.  

it has humiliated the Punjab and it insists upon imposing its will upon the people and refuses to repair the breach and repent of the wrong done in the Punjab.

The odd thing is that, soon enough, elected leaders in the Punjab would plead for 'the smack of firm government'- i.e. soldiers shooting mobs to scare the shit out of the troublemakers.  

There were two ways open to the people, the way of armed rebellion and the way of peaceful revolt. Non-co-operators have chosen, some out of weakness, some out of strength, the way of peace, i.e. voluntary suffering.

Which turned out to be wholly pointless.  

If the people are behind the sufferers, the Government must yield or be overthrown.

The Government didn't yield and it wasn't overthrown. The people were not behind the 'sufferers'. Why? They had been promised much but had got nothing. It was little consolation that some cretins were cooling their heels in jail.  

If the people are not with them they have at least the satisfaction of not having sold their freedom.

So- don't sell your freedom. Go to jail instead because it is the true 'house of freedom'. Why not eat shit in the belief that it is truly chocolate cake?  

In an armed conflict the more violent is generally the victor.

And in a peaceful contest it is the less crazy side which wins.  

The way of peace and suffering is the quickest method of cultivating public opinion,

sulking in jail is not 'suffering'. It is merely sulking. 

and therefore when victory is attained it is for what the world regards as Truth. Bred in the atmosphere of law courts,

Reading turned to the Law after 'being hammered on Change'- i.e. losing money as a stock jobber. 

Lord Reading finds it difficult to appreciate the peaceful resistance to authority.

Reading was a Liberal MP from 1904 onward. He knew all about the Passive Resistance Campaign (against the 1902 Education act which led to rate-payers having to support Anglican schools)By 1904 over 37,000 summonses for unpaid school taxes were issued, with thousands having their property seized and 80 protesters going to prison. There had also been even bigger and more consequential campaigns in Ireland and Egypt. India was a latecomer to this Civil Disobedience. It was the Suffragettes who had suffered most under that rubric. 

His Excellency will learn by the time the conflict is over that there is a higher court than courts of justice and that is the court of conscience. It supersedes all other courts.

No. The judgment of a court supersedes the judgment of the conscience. Why? Courts proceed on the basis of evidence and logic. The conscience does not.  Gandhi himself was constantly making 'Himalayan' miscalculations. 

Lord Reading is welcome to treat all the sufferers as lunatics, who do not know their own interest.

Gandhi, like Reading, was a barrister. What he is saying is 'I've no objection to being treated as a lunatic. You may think my conduct is mad. You may imprison me if you can't get me certified as fit only for a padded cell. Maybe I am mad. But you have driven me mad because of your insistence on ruling India just because it is incapable of ruling itself. Thus everything is your fault. Why can't you just leave India and let us slaughter each other in peace? 

He is entitled therefore to put them out of harm's way. It is an arrangement that entirely suits the lunatics and it is an ideal situation if it also suits the Government.

So- it suited Gandhi to go to jail- but later to get out of jail- and it suited the Government to send him to jai- but also to let him out later. Behind 'Non-Cooperation', there was cooperation between the Mahatma and the Viceroy. What was lacking was cooperation with the Muslims. They had been led down the garden path.  

He will have cause to complain if having courted imprisonment, non-co-operators fret and fume or 'whine for favours' as Lalaji puts it. The strength of a non-co- operator lies in his going to gaol uncomplainingly. He loses his case if having courted imprisonment he begins to grumble immediately his courtship is rewarded.

Gandhi, after his first arrest in South Africa, did a deal with Smuts to get released. Some Indians, believing Gandhi had taken a bribe, beat the fuck out of him. Gandhi learned his lesson. If you go to prison, stay there for a couple of years and get out on health grounds. Otherwise your own people will beat the fuck out of you. 


The threats used by His Excellency are unbecoming. This is a fight to the finish. It is a conflict between the reign of violence and of public opinion. Those who are fighting for the latter are determined to submit to any violence rather than surrender their opinion.

Young India, 15-12-1921, pp. 418

Gandhi called off the Non Cooperation Movement on 12/2/1922. Ten days later he published an article titled 'shaking the manes'. It was one of the articles the British cited as evidence of sedition. 

What did Gandhi  write? 


How can there be any compromise whilst the British Lion continues to shake his gory claws in our faces?

Unilateral surrender isn't 'compromise'. That's what Gandhi did.  

Lord Birkenhead reminds us that Britain has lost none of her hard fibre. Mr. Montagu tells us in the plainest language that the British are the most determined nation in the world, who will brook no interference with their purpose. Let me quote the exact words telegraphed by Reuter:

If the existence of our Empire were challenged, the discharge of responsibilities of the British Government to India prevented and demands were made in the very mistaken belief that we contemplated retreat from India-then' India would not challenge with success the most determined people in the world, who would once again answer the challenge with all the vigour and determination at its command.

But Britain gave up in Ireland, Egypt and Afghanistan. It suffered defeat at the hands of Turkey and the Bolsheviks. India got nothing because Gandhi surrendered. 

Both Lord Birkenhead and Mr. Montagu little know that India is prepared for all "the hard fibre" that can be  transported across the seas

None were. Gandhi surrendered anyway.  

and that her challenge was issued in the September of 1920 at Calcutta that India would be satisfied with nothing less than Swaraj and full redress of the Khilafat and the Punjab wrongs.

None of which happened.  

This does involve the existence of the "Empire", and-if the present custodians of the British Empire are not satisfied with its quiet transformation into a true Commonwealth of free nations, each with equal rights and each having the power to secede at will from an honourable and friendly partnership, all the determination and vigour of "the most determined people in the world" and the "hard fibre" will have to be spent in India in a vain effort to crush the spirit that has risen and that will neither bend nor break.

But, since Gandhi surrendered, no 'hard fiber' was needed. Gandhi went meekly to jail. The Government withdrew the Rowlatt Act because India was at peace. 

It is true that we have no "hard fibre'. The rice-eating, puny millions of India seem to have resolved upon achieving their own destiny without any further tutelage and without arms.

And without actually achieving anything.  

In the Lokamanya's language it is their "birthright", and they will have it

unless it isn't given to them in which case they won't have it. 

in spite of the "hard fibre" and in spite of the vigour and determination with which it may be administered. India cannot and will not answer this insolence with insolence, but if she remains true to her pledge, her prayer to God to be delivered from such a scourge will certainly not go in vain.

So, either God will do it or it won't be done.  

No empire intoxicated with the red wine of power and plunder of weaker races has yet lived long in this world,

But weaker races have been exterminated in plenty.  

and this "British Empire", which is based upon organized exploitation of physically weaker races of the earth and upon a continuous exhibition of brute force, cannot live if there is a just God ruling the universe.

God has no problem with people defending themselves. He seems to have done well by the Brits.  

Little do these so- called representatives of the British nation realize that India has already given many of her best men to be dealt with by the British "hard fibre". Had Chauri Chaura not interrupted the even course of the national sacrifice, there would have been still greater and more delectable offerings placed before the Lion, but God had willed it otherwise.

Gandhi means lots of people had gone quietly to jail. More would do so- including Gandhi. Then the country quietened down. Britain dictated the pace and scope of reform.  

There is nothing, however, to prevent all those representatives in Downing Street and Whitehall from doing their worst. I am aware that I have written strongly about the insolent threat that has come from across the seas, but it is, high time that the British people were made to realize that the fight that was commenced in 1920 is a fight to the finish,

It was Hindu-Muslim unity which was finished. 

whether it lasts one month or one year or many months or many years and whether the representatives of Britain re-enact all the indescribable orgies of the Mutiny days with redoubled force or whether they do not.

You can't fight dudes who surrender and plead guilty and go meekly off to jail.  

I shall only hope and pray that God will give 'India sufficient humility and sufficient strength to remain non-violent to the end.

Which was what the Brits wanted. 

Submission to the insolent challenges that are cabled out on due occasions is now an utter impossibility.

But going meekly to jail was certainly possible. 

Was Gandhi really seditious? No. He was a nuisance of a type which made the Brits look like a strict Governess rather than oppressive despots. But then, I suppose, that was the truth of the matter- at least, in Gandhi's eyes. 

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