Mahatma's political philosophy

IN THIS 100-page book, the author, a Fullbright scholar, who, for many years taught-abroad, analyses Gandhian political ideals and techniques and the nature of opposition to them from the constitutionalists. The constitutionalist opposition to Gandhian philosophy, the author says, was not based on any theoretical or moral grounds but solely on rational, secular and practical considerations. Or, to quote the pro-establishment Editor of The Leader (Allahabad) C. Y. Chintamani (1880-1941), "While he (Gandhiji) is the greatest man among all who have served India in the political sphere during the last hundred years, he certainly is not one of the wisest political leaders the country had'', and that "in politics he has committed grave blunders which have produced immense mischief.''

The infuriating innocence of the crude utopian ideas expressed by barrister-turned civil resister Gandhi in his first little book Hind Swaraj which he wrote in 10 days in November 1909 during his return journey from England to South Africa had since earned Gandhi the Mahatma many intellectual tormenters. Expectedly, the author of the book under review devotes a whole chapter to harp on these criticisms with a view to highlight Sir C. Sankaran Nair's pungent pronouncements in his Gandhi and Anarchy on the "emotional and ill-balanced mind'' of the Mahatma. But missing in this chapter in Gandhiji's own admission 30 years hence is that "the key to understand that incredibly simple (so simple as to be regarded foolish) booklet is to realise that it is not an attempt to go back to the so-called ignorant, dark ages. But it is an attempt to see beauty in voluntary simplicity, poverty and slowness. I have pictured that as my ideal. I shall never reach it myself and hence cannot expect the nation to do so'' (Harijan, 14-10-1939).

Another chapter projects the constitutionalists' view that Gandhiji misread the international situation and went out of the way to lend support to the Khilafat movement of the Muslim fundamentalists in 1919 and clubbed it with the agitation against martial law misdeed in the Punjab sequel to the Jallianwalabagh massacre, for "tactical purposes''. Against this, let me point out that Gandhiji was not the first Hindu leader to support the Khilafat movement. Earlier, Surendra Nath Bannerjee had entirely sympathised with that cause (A Nation in the Making, by S. N. Bannerjee, Calcutta). Bipin Chandra Pal "praised the spirit of pan-Islamism to rally Hindu support'' and so also Tilak (P. Sitaramayya in The History of the Indian National Congress, Vol. I). The presidential address of Fazlul Haque at the Muslim League session in 1918 contained only a few passing references to Turkey and the Khilafat and mainly confined to an account of the evil effects of the British rule in India. The role of Gandhiji was to share the sentiments of the Muslim brethren and win their hearts and to wean them away from the pro-British section of the Muslims into the national mainstream.

The Indian Muslim attempted a rapprochement with the Hindu which found expression in the Congress session of 1918. It is however a different matter that the Khilafat inspiration disintegrated when Kemal Pasha, the master of Turkey, created a secular Turkey and deposed the Caliph and allowed him to flee to the island of Malta in 1922. With it ended the Hindu-Muslim honeymooning.

The author seems to agree, though reluctantly, with the moderates' charge that "Satyagraha in its political aspect perpetuated a state of continued war by setting the people against the Government'' and that "it meant disruption of national life and the consequent delay in the realisation of national freedom.'' Gandhiji himself in a way had admitted the charge but qualified it in an article he wrote in 1939 thus: "I am afraid I must plead guilty to being over-confident and hasty in launching previous disobedience campaigns. No harm seems to have accrued to the country because I had always my hand on the pulse of the country and, thank God, had no hesitation in retracing the step taken if I scented danger or discovered an error of judgement or calculation'' (Harijan, 8-4-1939).

In conclusion, the author observes that "it is being increasingly recognised that the realism and democratic good sense of the British nation had much to do with the decision to leave India in a graceful manner. Contrast this with a recent American study Who Killed the British Empire? (by George Woodcock, New York) which observes: "Undoubtedly if one had to choose any individual as more responsible than others for the death of the Empire, it will be Gandhi.''

Gandhiji was awarded this accolade not only because of his mobilisation of the Indian people but also for his capacity to weaken the will of the British to continue as colonial rulers.

La. Su. RENGARAJAN

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