Could India have gained independence earlier? Part 1

At the end of the First World War, India for the first time in its history had an Army which could alter the Global balance of Power. Over a million Indian soldiers had served overseas in diverse theaters of war. With increased power comes increased responsibility. India needed to become independent so as to build relations of a commercial, cultural and intellectual type with its neighbors. This prospect united all the religions of India. The Muslims in particular were anxious to cultivate close ties with the MENA region as well as Turkish or other Central Asian areas. This was bound to boost trade from which non-Muslims would benefit. However, for Muslims there was also a spiritual and moral pay off. Social evils within Indian Islam would be purged thanks to contact with Arabs and other Muslims. Moreover, these Muslims would be all the more welcoming to Indian Muslims because they also represented some two hundred million Hindus. Muslims, similarly, would benefit if Hindus and Buddhists and so forth forged strong relationships with China and Japan and so forth. Thus 'Khilafat'- i.e. support for Turkey against Britain and France-  should have been conceived as an anti-Imperialist, not a Religious, venture from which all Indians would benefit.


There is a theory, based on a misunderstanding, that Viceroy Reading (Rufus Isaacs) was prepared to concede Dominion Status in 1921 in return for an end to the Non Cooperation Movement and the threat of boycott regarding the visit of the Prince of Wales.

In actuality, the Secretary of State, Montague was inclined to negotiation but this was opposed by the Provincial Governors, whose powers had increased during the War.
Gallagher writes-

Of course, there is a wide difference between a Round Table Conference and the granting of Dominion status. Still, it is a fact that this was the moment when India stood most united, and thus was strongest. Thus, according to this theory, Gandhi failed to grasp a golden opportunity to strike a deal and thus retarded India's progress to Independence. Furthermore, this resulted in Partition.

However, it was not Gandhi but those who supported him who bear the blame. It was already clear that Gandhi was not a good negotiator.  He had called off the Rowlatt Satyagraha once Brigadier Dyer showed that the British were prepared to massacre Indians who defied them.  He would do so again after some Indian policemen were killed at Chauri Chaura- because the British were bound to avenge the deaths of their servants. Thus, Gandhi's agitation posed no real threat to the administration. Indeed, his condoning of Muslim violence against Hindus in Malabar and Barabanki and so forth (in connection with the Khilafat 'tax') was splitting the Hindus. If he once again showed cowardice, his power would slip away and with it any early prospect of Self-Rule for India.

Gandhi, it must be said, was already laying the foundations of a parting of the ways with his Khilafat allies. On the 19th of January 1922 he wrote  

"Swaraj means, in the event of the foregoing demands (Khilafat and Justice for Punjab) being granted, full Dominion Status. The scheme of such swaraj should be framed by representatives duly elected in terms of the Congress constitution. That means four-anna franchise. Every Indian adult, male or female, paying four annas and signing the Congress Creed, will be entitled to be placed on the electoral roll. These electors would elect delegates who would frame the swaraj constitution. This shall be given effect to without any change by the British Parliament.

In other words, Swaraj meant Congress Raj. The Muslims would never swallow any such thing. Soon other non-Congress entities- the Justice Party in the South, Peasant and Workers parties in the North and Bengal, 'Unionist' parties in Punjab and Sindh representing agricultural interests, as well as the new Communist and Socialist parties- would have no truck with Congress domination. Thus Gandhi, at the peak of his power, was already ensuring that this power would be evanescent. With hindsight, he was obliged to surrender unconditionally because he knew the rioters in Chauri Chaura would all be discovered to be '4 anna members' of Congress who thought this entitled them to run amok killing policemen.

In any case, Lord Reading was a smart lawyer who would not commit himself to a course of action condemned by the Cabinet back home. On the other hand, he was known to be a very good negotiator and it is likely that any deal he thought necessary would have been accepted sooner or later by senior British politicians. It should also be remembered that, though Reading was opposed to racial discrimination, he was not an idealist who held that every nation has a right to self-determination.

Nevertheless, it is true that Gandhi squandered the political capital which had been concentrated in his hands by Hindu Muslim unity under the rubric of the Khilafat campaign. The view of jailed Congressmen, like Nehru, was that Gandhi was wrong to call off the Non Cooperation Movement after the Chauri Chura incident. By doing so, Gandhi signaled to Reading that India was not united and was far from ready to govern itself. Indeed, on returning to British politics, Reading championed a much more gradualist approach. Dominion status should come only after a long process of tutelage and cooperative effort. Unlike Ireland, which Britain could only hold down with military force, India was actively cooperating in being held down by a rule which it itself recognized to be alien and exploitative. Why? Because Home Rule would be worse. In other words, Indian politicians were actually to the Right of the British Liberal Party as represented by Reading. The 'no-changers' headed by Gandhi were saying that Congress could do nothing till India was ready but it didn't know how to make India ready. So all it could do was sulk.

Yet the tide of History had shifted such that India would have no choice but to be independent sooner or later. Reading represented a vanishing breed of British politician. His party- the Liberal Party- would never again form a Government. In 1924, it helped Labor to take power. Thus if only the Indians had held out for another couple of years the chances are that they would have moved much more rapidly to Dominion status. Consider Ramsay MacDonald's position on taking office. If British soldiers were having to shoot Indians, he would have appointed Col. Wedgwood, the most pro-Indian politician of the time, as Secretary of State for India because this would have had an immediate effect on Indian public opinion. But India was peaceful. The 1923 elections had not been boycotted. Instead the 'Congress-Khilafat Swaraj' party and the Indian Liberal Party had won most seats. But this suggested that gradualism had prevailed in India. So MacDonald appointed a Fabian, ex Colonial Civil Service, man- Sir Sydney Olivier- who took the view that India was far from ready for self-government. Gandhi's early release from prison tended to undermine the Swaraj party. Meanwhile, by the end of 1924 communal riots resurfaced and would increase in intensity as the decade wore on.
This vindicated Olivier who on taking office said 'The programme of Constitutional Democracy . . . . was not native to India . . . . It was impossible for the Indian people or Indian politicians to leap at once into the saddle and administer an ideal constitution with all those disastrous religious and other dissensions. The right of British statesmen, public servants, merchants and industrialists to be in India to-day was the fact that they had made the India of to-day, and that no Home Rule or national movement could have been possible in India had it not been for their work.” What Olivier did not mention was that the 'right' of Britishers to live secure and well remunerated lives in India was dependent on the maintenance of Law & Order. If the Indians were prepared to imperil this, the British would have to do a deal or risk losing their Capital. But, the Indians were not prepared to run any such risk. Why? 'Disastrous religious and other dissensions'. Yet, there was a moment- in February 1922- when these dissensions did not exist. The tide of History was turning in favor of Turkey and Egypt and Afghanistan and India. The Indians just needed to keep their nerve for a few more months. But Gandhi as the chief of the Congress-Khilafat combine, didn't keep his nerve. This delayed Indian independence by at least a decade.

Could Reading, as Viceroy, really have been pressured by the Indian nationalists to accelerate the transfer of power? I believe so. Reading, after all, was a lawyer- not a soldier, or an ideologue. What mattered was whether the Indians could ratchet up the pressure they were putting on the Raj. This is where Gandhi failed. First he adopted a 'manly' position- viz. refusing to negotiate and asserting that Reading was seeking to emasculate the Indians. Then he simply gave up and went off to jail for a couple of years like a good little eunuch. The man who had persuaded the Hindus to join the Khilafat movement left both Hindus and Muslims in the lurch because, for no good reason, he blamed himself for a riot about high meat prices which had ended in the killing of some policemen.

It should be remembered that Gandhi had asserted that a key demand for all Indians- not just Muslims- was the restoration of the Caliphate and the removal of all foreign troops from the Islamic heartland.

As Gandhi's disciple, Rajaji, put it- 'The Jazirat-ul-Arab is the area bounded by the Red Sea, the Arabian Sea, the Persian Gulf, and the waters of the Tigris and the Euphrates. It is the sacred Home of Islam and the centre towards which Islam throughout the world turns in prayer. According to the religious injunctions of the Mussalmans, this entire area should always be under Muslim control, its scientific border being believed to be a protection for the integrity of Islamic life and faith. Every Mussalman throughout the world is enjoined to sacrifice his all, if necessary, for preserving the Jazirat-ul-Arab under complete Muslim control... 'Hinduism will realise its fullest beauty when... its followers offer themselves as sacrifice for the protection of the faith of their brothers, the Mussalmans.' If Rajaji was right in his weird interpretation of the Gita, Hindus should be joining ISIL to fight Israel and America and NATO and so forth.

Why did Rajaji say anything so stupid? He makes a queer argument 'Not internal strength and unity alone has the Khilafat brought to India. The great block in the way of Indian aspiration for full freedom was the problem of external defence. How is India, left to herself, to defend her frontiers against her Mussalman neighbours? 
This is crazy. India, at that time, had a far bigger army and military industrial infrastructure than either Afghanistan or Iran. Indeed, Indian troops were stationed in Persia. Afghanistan had fought a war in 1919 which affirmed its independence. But its military force was minuscule in comparison with that of India. Brigadier Dyer, a month after Jallianwallah Bagh, had easily defeated their Army. Witnessing the shambles, the warlike Frontier tribes chose to loot the retreating Afghans rather than mess with the Indian Army.

It is true that Afghanistan was a potential land route for military assistance from the Bolsheviks to the Indian Revolutionaries. But this was merely nuisance value which actually strengthened the hands of the Congress-Khilafat combine. Still, the fact is, the Afghans had proved miserable fighters - easily routed by Sikhs, Dogras, Gurkhas and poor quality British territorials under the command of the 'butcher of Amritsar'.

Rajaji took a different view. He presents a picture of Hindus cowering with fear because Afghanistan might invade!

None but emasculated nations would accept such difficulties and responsibilities as an answer to the demand for freedom. It is only a people whose mentality has been perverted that can soothe itself with the domination by one race from a distant country, as a preventive against the aggression of another, a permanent and natural neighbour. Instead of developing strength to protect ourselves against those near whom we are permanently placed, a feeling of incurable impotence has been generated. Two strong and brave nations can live side by side, strengthening each other through enforcing constant vigilance, and maintain in full vigour each its own national strength, unity, patriotism, and resources. If a nation wishes to be respected by its neighbours it has to develop and enter into honourable treaties. These are the only natural conditions of national liberty; but not a surrender to distant military powers to save oneself from one's neighbours.

Ottoman Turkey was not a neighbor of India's. It was a 'distant military power'. Nor was the Jazirat-ul-Arab contiguous to the subcontinent. Why on earth were the Indians demanding that it remain under the suzerainty of Turkey?

 Indians well knew that Aden and Trucial States were protectorates. Moreover, the Hashemites, as leaders of the Arab Revolt, were British clients. However, this entire area was more vital to Britain both commercially and militarily than ever before. This meant India had a bargaining chip. If the Brits did a deal with the Indians, then the Govt. of India would continue to play a valuable role in keeping the area under British influence. If the Indian population turned hostile, this would influence the people of the region in an adverse manner. At this stage, Britain needed to consider the 'soft power' it enjoyed thanks to the fact that the King Emperor had more Muslim subjects- including very wealthy Princes like the Nizam- than any other Head of State. Even in terms of 'hard power', India could not be ignored. 100,000 Indian troops were in the MENA theater. Thus, if the Indian leaders really wanted Independence, this was the time for them to stand united and play every card they possessed. Why? There was neither an external nor an internal threat. India had come out of the War with a much larger corps of men with military experience. Administrative capacity could be speedily ramped up- indeed, this was the official policy of the Government. Moreover, the Bolshevik Revolution as well as the seeming success of Wilsonian policies in Europe had changed the Weltgeist. If India gave up it struggle, it could only mean Indians were racially unfit for self-rule. Indeed, this was the problem with the Khilafat movement. It was defeatist. It didn't understand that the Turks would prevail in combat and re-write their own history. It was not the case that some Indians getting jailed or released from jail could alter their destiny. Indeed, France & its Armenian auxiliaries had been militarily defeated by the Turks and had withdrawn by the beginning of 1922. This left Britain, under Lloyd George, isolated in its 'Pan-Hellenism'. However, by September of that year, the Brits found that their Dominions would not support them in their Turkish policy. This was one of the factors that led to George losing office.
 

It should be emphasized  that Viceroy Reading and Montague, the Secretary of State for India, were doing their best to get the British government to be more moderate in its punitive attitude to Turkey. Both gentlemen were Jewish and would have had little sympathy for the Archbishop of Canterbury's demand for a Crusade which had been very ill received in India. It was important that the Hindus stand beside the Muslims on the issue of 'Jazirat-ul-Arab'- which, in any case, was sound anti-Imperialist policy. Of course, Khilafat's most dangerous activists were Muslims. It was they who were being locked up and who were in danger of the hangman's noose. Hindus needed to suffer equally for 'Non-Cooperation' even if they disapproved of what some particular mob did in some particular village or township. You can't abandon a cause just because not everybody on your side is an angel. Yet, this is what Gandhi did. Worse yet, he conceded the British point that Indians were not ready for independence. Indeed, Gandhi went a step further saying that complete Hindu Muslim unity was a vital precondition for Home Rule. But such unity would take thousands of years to achieve! In other words, Gandhi unilaterally surrendered on all points just at the moment when the tide of History had turned in favor of early Indian independence. What had happened was this. Ataturk, with Bolshevik help, had checked the Greek advance in Sept. 1921. Within a year he had retaken Smyrna. Meanwhile, in February 1922, Gandhi had given up the struggle and was put in jail shortly thereafter. As if to rub salt in the wounds of Indian pride, the Rowlatt Act was withdrawn- India was so supine there was no 'rebellious' element in the country which needed repression!

Compare India's ignominy to what happened in Egypt at the end of February. Allenby, a tough soldier, threatened to resign unless the British Government accepted Egypt's unilateral declaration of Independence. Meanwhile, Reading- a wily lawyer- had turned the tables on the Indian nationalists without even having to resort to any Jallianwallah bagh type atrocities. Gandhi had pleaded guilty- reaffirmed his loyalty to the King Emperor- and gone meekly to jail. There was still some talk of Khilafat and Hindu-Muslim unity- but henceforth Indian Muslims would be increasingly suspicious of Congress. The plain fact of the matter was that Muslim anger and hostility to the British had reached a peak in early 1922. The popular mood had shifted away from non-violence.  The moderate Muslims could not deny that Britain was ramping up its hegemony in the Jazirat. They were helping the Greeks float a loan in the City of London. They were buying up the Hijaz railway. The Hashemite dynasty had much to complain off with regard to perfidious Albion.

Within India, agricultural discontent was mounting. The notion that Swaraj would mean much lower taxes had given villagers a cause they were prepared to shed their blood for. The situation in the towns was similar. A new urban proletariat was connecting to a new type of intelligentsia in a manner which radicalized them both. Gandhi himself accepted the necessity of abandoning moderation though, over the last two weeks of January, Gandhi signaled that he would accept a Round Table Conference with the Viceroy. But, Reading's hands were bound. He could offer no concessions.  Thus, Gandhi proposed to launch a Civil Disobedience Movement on February 12. It was not to be. On the fourth of February the Chauri Chaura incident occurred. Gandhi was receiving telegrams from people he trusted that there would be mass violence. Thus, Gandhi gave up the whole project. Henceforth, only 'constructive' programs- spinning, temperance etc- would be allowed. The Muslims realized that they had no choice but to go along with Gandhi's decision. Their community would pay a heavy price if took an independent line. Meanwhile, on March 8, Montague published Reading's telegram to London demanding changes to the Treaty of Sevres. 'With due provisions for safeguarding the neutrality of the Straits and the security of the non-Turkish population, Reading urged for the evacuation of Constantinople, the recognition of the Sultan's suzerainty over the Holy Places, and the restoration to Turkey of Smyrna and Thrace, including Adrianople. With this representation the Viceroy added a stern warning that 'the bitter and sullen resentment, which has already led to serious disorders and bloodshed, will be intensified by failure to allay Muslim feeling over the revision of the Treaty and will lead to dangerous results in India'. Montague was sacked for this but Reading's path was made easier. Important Muslims like Abdul Bari and M.H Kidwai felt Gandhi had led them down a garden path. He was a crank and his championing of the chakri was the nostrum of a crackpot.

Reading, more by luck than cunning, ended up conciliating the Muslims- more particularly after Khilafat collapsed. From his point of view, the Indian Muslim- precisely because of his ties to geopolitically vital parts of the world- had an importance disproportionate to their percentage of the Indian population. Henceforth, British leaders would eschew Lloyd George type anti Muslim jingoism and show a proper respect for Islam. By itself, this increased the stability of the Raj. Unlike Hinduism, Islam had repeatedly shown itself to be a powerful Political and Geopolitical force. It was not defined in opposition to anything but had its own cohesiveness and sense of self. By contrast, the enemy of the Hindu was, more often than not, some other type of Hindu. This was the reason India only gained independence after Britain ceased to desire to rule it. Yet, had the Indians kept their nerve and their unity in 1922, this would have happened at least a decade earlier. Gandhi can't take all the blame for the collapse of the Non Cooperation Movement if we consider that he was, after all, a deeply provincial Hindu with little understanding of Global Politics. He had attained pre-eminence thanks to the Khilafat issue. In June of 1920 he had thrown down the gauntlet- in a letter to the Viceroy, he wrote, 'At the same time I admit that non-co-operation practised by the mass of people is attended with grave risks. But, in a crisis such as has overtaken the Mussalmans of India, no step that is unattended with large risks, can possibly bring about the desired change. Not to run some risks now will be to court much greater risks if not virtual destruction of Law and Order.' Gandhi was saying India was prepared for 'large risks'. But not the risk of 'the virtual destruction of Law and Order'. Yet, the Raj was based on Law and Order. Without it, most Indians would survive but not a single Briton in India would be secure in any type of remunerative profession save by large subventions of wholly British blood and treasure. Thus, Gandhi was only prepared to take risks of a type he found congenial- including a risk of a moral sort. But he would not risk anything that would represent an existential threat to British rule in India. Thus he was bound to fail. Furthermore, his notion of Hindu-Muslim unity was founded on the notion that 'Hindus should join hands with the Mahomedans' because they had been injured in some purely spiritual sense. He wrote- 'It is expedient to suffer for my Mahomedan brother to the utmost in a just cause and I should therefore travel with him along the whole road so long as the means employed by him are as honourable as his end. I cannot regulate the Mahomedan feeling. I must accept his statement that the Khilafat is with him a religious question in the sense that it binds him to reach the goal even at the cost of his own life.' This is a strange statement for a lawyer to make. How can a 'just cause' be distinguished merely by the claim of a people, whose faith you do not share, that it is indeed a just cause? Is it not rather the case that expediency may lead you to declare that the cause of your ally is just so long as he says so but only so long as he remains tied to you?

Why did India not gain independence earlier? The answer is that though it was expensive to import public goods like Defense and law and Order from far-off Britain, it would have been wholly ruinous to rely on a homegrown product. No doubt, Indians could have worked together to create a type of political and social capital that was competitive with what the Brits supplied. To some extent this did actually happen in the political sphere. Political parties flourished and much time was spent in collecting money and organizing meetings and setting up Committees and so forth. The trouble was that no similar accumulation of utile 'Social Capital' occurred. Yes, there were a few 'Nationalist' Schools and Colleges. But they were imitative merely. Gandhi's 'constructive programs'- Khaddar, Basic Education etc- were misconceived and ended up wasting money. One reason for the failure of 'import substitution' was that those with money could buy the higher quality product from abroad. Those who couldn't lacked the power of 'Exit' and thus their 'Voice' and 'Loyalty' could not reshape things in a socially utile manner.

A similar point may be made as to whether India's economy could have taken off much earlier. In the Fifties and Sixties, it was easy to get not just US Aid, but also the top Western Economists and Social Scientists to come to India and spend a little time there. Thus, unlike in China, indigenous institutions failed to respond to indigenous conditions. They were oriented towards the affluent West. Even in Poverty, or 'Grievance' Studies, the aim was to gain enough purely mimetic credentials to emigrate either to Ivy League or some durbari Ivory Tower think-tank. In this connection, a credential of a 'Gandhian' sort is worth having. After all, being able to retard Indian progress must be worth something to some people in the West.