Mohandas Karam Chand Gandhi had a strange relationship with the Raj. His ritualistic act of seeking prior permission from the British India government prior to each movement and assuring that his intention would cause least harm to the authority, cast serious doubt on his anti-imperialist credentials. He demonstrated time and again his unshakable loyalty to the British.
It is time we should examine dispassionately his attitude towards the Raj. Gandhi wrote in his letter to Sir Reginald Maxwell, Home Member of Viceroy’s Executive Council on 2nd December 1940, “…My desire is to cause the least embarrassment to the Govt. consistently with the prosecution of my mission…’’ Later in 1947, he wrote to his private secretary Pyarelal, “you have referred to my attitude in regard to the British Empire. Let me tell you I derive no little strength from my implicit loyalty to the British Empire in thought, word and deed….” This implicit loyalty to the British Empire he harboured even when he was in the thick of Satyagraha movements in South Africa.
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To cite an example, in 1907, reacting to the Lala Lajpat Rai led anti-British agitations in Punjab he wrote, “… we stand to lose by ending British rule and that, if we wanted to, India is not in a position to end it.” He then clarified his stand by stating further, “…Let us aspire to be as able and spirited as the colonists are, and demand and secure the rights we want.” [Collected Works of Gandhi Vol.7pp6-7]
At the close of this piece he made a more shocking statement: “…The fault, in fact, lies with us. If we remove the fault, British rule, which is a cause of misery today, can become a source of happiness…” His subservience to the British Empire was so great that he unabashedly said in his Satyagraha in South Africa that if in South Africa he had faith in the British Empire and cherished the hope of achieving freedom under its aegis, he would like to advance the same arguments, in similar circumstances in India.’
Such an attitude prompted him to go for recruitment of Indians in the British Army in the First World War. He proudly mentioned his recruitment campaign in his autobiography. On 21 June 1918 he addres – sed a public meeting at Nadiad inaugurating the programme for recruitment. One of the arguments he put forward to justify such a campaign was that if people wanted the Arms Act to be repealed they should ‘render voluntary help to the government in the hour of its trial’ so that a bond of trust between them and the government would be built. The ban on possessing arms, then, would be withdrawn.
Fortunately, there was hardly any taker for his recruitment proposal. In the meetings organized for his recruitment campaign, he was asked, ‘You are a votary of Ahimsa, how can you ask us to take up arms?’ and ‘What good has the Government done for India to deserve our cooperation?’ [Source: Gandhi’s Autobiography]. The logic of building trust between the colonial ruler and the people for empowerment of the people was too weak to be found convincing. One year after, in 1919, Gandhi’s announcement and recall of civil disobedience would clearly expose his surrender to the brow-beating of the Raj. On 24 June, he sent a cable to the Secretary of State for India that he would re – sume civil disobedience in July unless the Rowlatt legislation was withdrawn.
On July 5, the Secretary of State cabled the Governor of Bombay advising an interview with Gandhi to dissuade him from resuming the Satyagraha. On July 21, Gandhi issued a letter to the Press announcing postponement of civil disobedience in deference to the warning of the Viceroy. [Source: Mahatma Gandhi: a chronology: Publication Division, Ministry of Information and Broadcasting, Govt. of India] Behind all the fanfare of Gandhi’s non-violent protest movements, unmistakably there was a hidden purpose of facilitating the British administrative process in India.
He broke rules, but with the permission of the ruler, and the ruler let him launch his movement and after a certain point honourably arrested him. People could not see through this game of non-adversarial opposition and remained overawed by his sacrifice when he was arrested.
The man remained in absolute control of people’s emotions. No wonder, he would write to an English correspondent, Esther Faering, in April 1918, “I am the one man who can today preserve the peace in India as no other man can.” The British capitalized on this to channelize the anti-colonial spirit in the non-revolutionary path. Before the Dandi March, in January 1930, he made an interesting comment In Young India, “…I know that the non-violent revolutionary like me impedes the progress of the violent revolutionary. I wish the latter should realise that he impedes my progress more than I do his and that I, being a Mahatma, if left unhampered by him, am likely to make greater progress than he can…” [Collected Works of Gandhi, Vol.42].
By presenting himself as a Mahatma he thought he would be able to persuade all revolutionaries to support his non-violent movements. It sounds quite intriguing. The man was so enamoured of the Raj that he was willing to retain the Union Jack in our national flag after transfer of power. On 19 July 1947, in his prayer speech he referred to a letter in which the author said that he would tear apart the national flag if he would find the Union Jack in it. Gandhi said that ‘he saw no harm whatsoever in the Union Jack occupying a corner in their national flag so long as India remained a dominion….’ [Mahatma: by D.G. Tendulkar Vol.8]
But, why did he go for an all-out battle against the Raj launching the ‘Quit India’ movement? Apparently, this does not go with his great faith in the benevolence of the British Empire. So, the factors leading to his Quit India movement will have to be examined carefully.
(The writer is former Head of the Department of Political Science, Presidency College, Kolkata)
