Some years ago, Arthur Herman wrote a book titled 'Gandhi & Churchill, the epic rivalry that destroyed an Empire and forged our age'. It was deeply silly. Both Gandhi and Churchill thought Indians were shit and unfit to rule themselves. Sadly, because the Americans refused to finance the Raj, not even Gandhi could prevent the departure of the Brits. As for the Labor Party, it had been committed to Indian independence sine 1918 after the Gaekwad of Baroda gave them 5000 quid. But Gandhi had been able to prevent two previous Labor administrations from doing very much for India. Sadly, Nehru had lost patience with him while Jinnah, who didn't have long to live, had always wanted complete independence and was determined to end his life as the head of a sovereign country.
Herman says-
“If Churchill had offered postwar independence in 1940 instead of in 1942, India might have had breathing space to work out a suitable framework for either a unified constitution or a peaceful India-Pakistan split.”
This is foolish. Churchill had opposed the 1935 Act which conferred Provincial Autonomy. Had the Indians agreed to form a Federal Government, they would have had de facto Dominion status. Anyway, if this was a gift Churchill could offer- so could Chamberlain. Atlee, too, could have made it a condition for Labor support. As a matter of fact, the Viceroy did make a statement in October 1939 that Dominion status was the objective.
The plain fact is that those Brits who followed Indian politics knew what Indians knew- viz. that Indian politicians were shit. Sadly, Gandhi came to believe that the Brits too were shit and so the Japs would win in which case the safest place for Congress was in jail. This is because Gandhi firmly believed that Indians could not feed or defend the country. That's why, at the Second Round Table Conference, Gandhi had demanded that the Brits hand the Army over to the INC before leaving. This scared everybody else- even non-Brahmin Tamils and Sikhs- and united them in opposition to Congress. In 1939, after War was declared, Gandhi clarified why he wanted the Brits to hand over the Army to him before leaving. Hindus, he explained, were non-violent (i.e. shit at fighting). If the Brits left the Muslims and the Punjabis (regardless of creed) and maybe also the Gurkhas would take over the country. The trouble was that non-Hindus knew the Marathas and Coorgis and Dogras and Jats and Bhumihars etc. were excellent soldiers. Gandhi was either stupid or he was telling lies. The truth, however, was that he was a stupid liar.
Herman is not blindly devoted to Gandhi. He writes ' for the sake of an unrealizable ideal [i.e., unity], he had undermined the last chance at a peaceful settlement to India’s freedom. . . . His decade-and-a-half of defiance of the law through civil disobedience had bred an atmosphere of contempt for social order, a celebration of recklessness and militance. . . . [B]y encouraging others . . . Gandhi helped to spread the dangerous fiction that all street action was soul force and vice-versa.''
This is foolish. There was widespread agitations, boycotts of foreign cloth, and terrorism before Gandhi returned to India. Moreover, Egypt got UDI in 1922 because of widespread civil unrest. Gandhi's contribution was to make participation in such agitations safer and more profitable. This is because he was always willing to surrender and get his followers to form an orderly queue to go sulk in jail. Furthermore, financing Gandhi tended to be profitable. You saw a good return on your money and the old coot would come to your aid if you had a family problem or got yourself into hot water. Thus, it was the Mahatma who broke up Nehru's sister's marriage to a Muslim. Similarly, when Sarabhai got in trouble for having some dogs shot (this is against the Zoroastrian, Muslim and Hindu religion) Gandhi wrote a couple of articles saying true non-Violence means running after bow-wows and beating them to death.
Gandhi claimed to have a monopoly on Ahimsa, Satyagraha and knowing what the Gita actually said (apparently you must join ISIS while killing woof-woofs). This meant that you could surrender and go to jail anytime it looked as though the Brits were losing patience with your antics.
As for Churchill, his enemy, when it came to India, was the Marquis of Zetland who, having served as Governor of Bengal, saw Gandhi as a moderating force. Like Gandhi, he opposed the 1932 Communal Award. His 1935 Act was actually very favorable to Congress though he may not have understood this himself. True, Zetland resigned when Churchill became PM but this did not really alter the subsequent trajectory of events.
One final question. Could Partition deaths have been avoided? Yes. But only if that is what the Indian political class wanted. They simply didn't give a shit about either starvation deaths or minorities getting massacred. Gandhi, it is true, would show up to collect money but then his Ashram was a money-pit and stealing money meant for Dalits or Refugees or whatever is what do-gooding is really all about.
No comments:
Post a Comment