The Gandhian Confusion

The Way to Freedom

When, about a year and a half, Mahatmaji announced that, renouncingpolitics, he would devote himself to the constructive programme of Khadi, everypatriot - fed-up with his crazy and wasteful politics and disappointed at the losscaused by that politics in the past six years and at the misdirection our countrysuffered due to the confusion- had indeed felt a bit relieved. It was believed that,at least now onwards, Gandhiji would cease to meddle unduly in politics that isbeyond the ken of his knowledge, intelligence and power; stay away from theantinational agenda of dampening the spirit of our youth with the uselessquibbling over 'ahimsa', 'asahakarita', 'vidhayak karyakram' etc. and just stick tohis Charkha. But you see him attending the National Congress, upholding that oldcrazy programme and dispatching utterly trash letters with reference to the NagpurSatyagraha and thus continuing to dabble in politics in spite of his declaration – 'Iwon't be in active politics.'

This is because he had said-'I won't be in active politics.' only out ofcompulsion. When the members of the Swaraj Party walked out of the meeting ofthe working committee of the AICC, Gandhiji had said with pretty conceit, "Noproblem, what is the use of a useless crowd? Just two followers are enough." Buthis legs teetered when he found it hard to enlist even the two followers with thehelp of whom he could turn the Congress into a Khadi Propagating Party andthereby enable the opposition party in the legislature to rule as it pleased. Thosewho remember the hue and cry of Gandhiji and Mohammad Ali in that meeting,the tears of exasperated disappointment and the final surrender will realize thatGandhiji announced his resolve not to be in active politics only when he foundhimself uprooted from politics. With full government backing, this noble soul setout to Bengal with a mighty vow to crush the revolutionaries there. But even withthe best of efforts for three months, the underground movements for subvertingthe government in Bengal could not be throttled. On the other hand, the legislaturewas overwhelmed by the non-cooperationists. The rise of huge Hinduorganizations led to the liquidation of the ominous Khilafat movement. Hence,with no sympathizers left- whether in legislature or the revolutionaries, in Hindusor Muslims - Gandhiji had to fake a voluntary renunciation of politics which,anyway, was inevitable.

 But Gandhiji faced the fate of all those forced into retirement. It wasobvious on past so many occasions that, though he seemed outwardly preoccupied with the Khadi movement, mentally he was eager to dabble in politics at theslightest possible chance. But when expressly he said that he won't be active inpolitics for some time to come, I was indeed happy for not having to criticize hispolitics detrimental to national interests, although it was my duty howsoeverpainful. Hence, I kept on ignoring Gandhiji's sporadic epileptic attacks at the verymention of words like non-cooperation, non-violent Satyagraha. But some utterlyrepugnant statements that he has recently made in the letters and articles of"Young India" make it imperative that their due cognizance must be taken lest thispoisoning philosophy raises its hood again. 

But what kind of philosophy is it? Is it philosophy at all? The only thingthat distinguishes it is gross ignorance of principles. Commenting on"Satyagraha", this monk of Sabarmati says, "Why would a Satyagrahi wield aweapon at all? He will prefer to be a martyr without offering any resistance in thecause of Truth. Only such a satyagraha can be called non-violent satyagraha." Oh,is it so? But recently, your honourable self has given a definition of 'nonviolence' that is so fresh that, even though you have mastered the art of forgettingconveniently what you have said or of admitting your folly of committing ablunder, you can't disown it. In reply to a query -as to whether one should killrabid dogs or maintain them, feed them, thereby letting them bite more passers byand thus earn 'merit' by observing non-violence- you had said that some minorviolence that is inevitable to avoid major violence is justified. As a result, manyrabid dogs were shot dead. Thousands of Jains held a congregation to condemnyou and even refused to call you a 'Mahatma'. Yet you neither withdrew thatdefinition nor condemned the act of shooting down the rabid dogs.