In India, MK Gandhi is called both a ‘Mahatma’ and the ‘Father of the Nation’. One title is spiritual, the other political. Thus, Gandhi is a saint as well as a politician who single-handedly moved the British Empire!
But both these titles were primarily propagated and sustained by the force and resources of the state power of independent India. Just as during the Soviet regime the image of Vladimir Ilyich Lenin was propagated and maintained. No sooner was the power of the Soviet state withdrawn from behind it than that image vanished.
Similar is the condition of Gandhi’s image in India. With state power, some or the other ritual of Gandhi-worship goes on throughout the year. Consequently, genuine evaluation of Gandhi’s political or spiritual contribution is discouraged. Even proposals to make criticism of Gandhi a punishable offence have come up several times. In 2011, after Joseph Lelyveld’s book Great Soul, the central government itself considered it publicly. Thus, Gandhi’s unimpeachable image has been created mainly through state power.
In this way, both of Gandhi’s images are kept beyond scrutiny. If someone points out that Gandhi’s words and deeds were improper for a saint, it is said that Gandhi was also a leader, and leaders have to do all sorts of right and wrong things. In the same way, when Gandhi’s bizarre and harmful political actions or ideas are criticised, then it is said that Gandhi was a saint who cannot be judged like ordinary leaders. In all, both of Gandhi’s images have been kept free from the test of scrutiny.
Thus, only devotion toward Gandhi has been cultivated. Since in Hindu tradition devotion of gods, goddesses, and incarnations has been established, Gandhi too has been made to appear like an incarnate man. To buttress it, 2 October has been made a public holiday; statues of the spinning wheel, Gandhi’s spectacles, etc have been set up everywhere; countless state institutions have been named after him; and various state and political rituals are conducted at his memorial, the Rajghat. All these varied means and religious ostentation have given him the kind of position the erstwhile Soviet power had given to Lenin.
But on applying any real test, both images of Gandhi begin to collapse at once. Let us take here only the political Gandhi.
Also Read: Indian intellectuals have a problem. They don’t care about facts
Raj-bhakta to Caliph protector
Gandhi’s career as a leader in India began in 1915. But even until 1920 he was a supporter of British rule, in his own word, a ‘Raj-bhakta’ (loyalist). The British power had also rewarded him with state medals twice (1901, 1915). Gandhi had written in his book Hind Swaraj (1909) that there was no need to remove the English as rulers of India. Besides, during the First World War Gandhi had run a campaign to recruit Indians into the British army. This was not only direct service to British imperialism, but also against his own declared code of ‘non-violence’. So much for his principles!
Gandhi’s fundamental loyalty to the British Raj lasted until his mature age of 52 years. That was the average full lifespan of a man in those times. Thus, Gandhi was still a loyalist of the British Raj when the aspiration of self-rule had already spread across India a full fifteen years earlier.
Then, when Gandhi began anti-British movements, all his major political decisions and campaigns proved harmful or failures.
His first big political campaign was jumping into the Caliphate Movement and forcing the Congress into it, despite the opposition of almost all senior leaders. This lasted from 1919 to 1921.
That very first big movement of Gandhi proved so disastrous that it was covered up and falsely propagated merely as the ‘Non-cooperation Movement’. The ugly truth of it can be seen, for example, in Dr BR Ambedkar’s book Pakistan or Partition of India (1940). The Caliphate movement was a purely pan-Islamic agitation to help the power of the Islamic Caliph in Turkey. Gandhi jumped into it with his own peculiar ideas and expectations, and pushed the Indian Hindus into it, though not without misleading them.
This was by spreading the word ‘khilaf’ (against) only, and concealing the real genesis — the ‘Caliph’. KM Munshi has written that Congress workers used to explain to ordinary Hindus that the movement was “against” British rule, concealing the real point of support to the Islamic Caliph.
During that movement, and after its failure, Islamic mobs carried out massacres of Hindus at various places across the country. The Moplah massacre of Hindus became the most infamous of these. All these facts are recorded not only in Dr Ambedkar’s book but in all standard historical accounts. Yet, Indian leaders have forcibly kept them buried to save the image of Gandhi who was singly responsible for forcing Congress into that reactionary movement. Which even all liberal Muslims, such as Jinnah, considered not worthy of support.
This was the political beginning of Gandhi in India. Going by his own whimsical imaginations about political outcomes, and imposing his dictatorship upon the Congress. This continued till the end. Gandhi always conducted politics through his own whims. He always remained hopeful of impressing everyone with his generosity, greatness, and of obtaining miraculous results.
Unbroken chain of failures, harms
Gandhi claimed to win over the demonic forces active in politics with what he called ‘love’ and ‘truth’. Whatever only he meant by it. Such claims of Gandhi kept being shattered again and again. Yet he never carried out any sincere review, nor ever changed his ideas or methods. Nor, despite repeated failures, did he allow leadership to pass to anyone else.
All these are inexcusable mistakes in politics. But in Gandhi’s case, history has been falsified and, with the added weight of the title ‘Mahatma’, everything was covered up. It becomes apparent even on basic scrutiny.
In India, the deeds cited to call Gandhi great were also done by numerous other great Indians — many of whom proved much greater than him. This was written by Dr Lohia in his thoughtful essay ‘Gandhiji ke Dosh’ (The faults of Gandhi).
Some people say that Gandhi changed the elite, drawing-room politics of the Congress into mass politics. But that very act was extremely harmful! It was strongly criticised not only by senior Congress leaders like Gopal Krishna Gokhale, Annie Besant, and Jinnah, but also by contemporary thinkers like Rabindranath Tagore and Sri Aurobindo. Gandhi transformed the constitutional democrat politics of the Congress theretofore into a mob politics. Crowds were gathered in pandals and made to give assent on political issues about which those people had no full knowledge. How accurate this criticism was can be seen from the disastrous results of Gandhi forcibly tying the Congress to the Caliphate movement.
If one examines Gandhi’s role in Indian politics from his entry to the end, most of his political campaigns turn out to have been unnecessary, harmful, or failures.
For example, after singing ample praises of ‘non-violence’, he recruited soldiers for the British army in World War I (1917-18). He ran, in the words of Annie Besant, the ‘Gandhi-Caliphate Express’ for a global Islamic issue (1919-21), which resulted in one-sided communal violence across the country. He offered Muslims a ‘blank cheque’. He signed the hollow Gandhi-Irwin Pact of 1931. He remained all through clueless before the Muslim League. He launched the ill-timed Quit India Movement of 1942, which was unwittingly bound to help Hitler’s fascism. He rejected the Cripps Mission of 1942 and the Cabinet Mission of 1946 — both of which the Muslim League had accepted to keep India united. He went back on his declaration that “India’s partition will be over my dead body,” leading to the killing of lakhs of unsuspecting Punjabi, Bengali Sikhs, and Hindus. He advised dissolving the Congress, with no avail. And he made statements such as “When I am gone, Jawahar will speak my language,” which were doubtful even at the time of speaking.
These are some major examples showing that Gandhi’s political career in India was an unbroken chain of harms done and failures obtained. Some failures resulted in the sacrifice of lakhs of innocent Indians. To find examples of such mistakes and disastrous decisions is difficult in any democratic leader in the world.
Politics of backseat driving
Gandhi’s organisational model made the Congress, and by extension all Indian political parties, permanently inapt and irresponsible. The style of ‘backseat driving’ was Gandhi’s gift to the Congress. The elected leadership of the Congress was one authority, but it had to submit to the undeclared authority of Gandhi.
By refusing to take direct leadership himself, Gandhi exercised indirect but dictatorial power from behind the scenes. This habit of Gandhi established a tradition in the Congress—a supreme leader controlling all posts without holding any post.
When Pattabhi Sitaramayya lost the Congress presidential election, Gandhi said, “the defeat is more mine than his,” and essentially forced the winner, Subhas Chandra Bose, to resign. Similarly, against the wishes of Congress committees across the country, by statements such as “Jawahar will be my successor,” Gandhi set aside popular choice and merit, imposing his personal favourite upon the country. By fostering such dual authority, irresponsibility, and nepotism, Gandhi’s model helped make the Congress thoughtless, hypocritical, and always dependent on one leader, unaccountable. The same model was happily adopted by all other parties, which had only Congress to learn from for the ways and means of politics.
Also Read: Nehru and Jinnah made Indian politics their personal quarrel. Partition was a consequence
A bad new tradition of leader-worship
Therefore, please consider: among Gandhi’s political ideas and deeds, what is there that is worth following?
Yet worship of the same Gandhi has been established here. It has been a state policy. In the democratic world, or in Hindu tradition too, there is no such thing as leader-worship. Not even great emperors were exceptions. From Bharat to Prithviraj Chauhan, no Indian king was commemorated with a memorial or statue. Then where did this Gandhi-worship arise in India? It is a petty political ritual. Through it, wrong ideas and methods were given sanctity.
In fact, Gandhi’s life shows how politics should not be done! In political Gandhi there is nothing worth emulating. In Gandhi’s own time most Indian thinkers and wise men did not consider his words or deeds appropriate. But by suppressing and hiding all inconvenient truths, Gandhi-devotion has been entrenched in independent India. Only party leaders have benefited from this, while the country and society have suffered. It continues even today.
Shankar Sharan is a columnist and professor of political science. Views are personal.
(Edited by Asavari Singh)
The hands of the extreme right wing are stained in blood because they were the root cause of partitition. The Muslims and the Hindus from these wings could not rise above religious differences and insecurities. This resulted in a huge number of people migrating between newly formed countries and people massacarring people from the other faith. These heinous acts were not carried out by the Congress but by frenzied mobs driven by religious hatred, instigated by extreme right wing organizations.
It is these organization that must be brought to account.
This article seems like an anti-hagiography and poor scholarship without nuance or an understanding of the time, place or people and riven by only one ideaology.
By all means, every leader is open to criticism. They are humans driven by their own evolving personalities and thoughts. This criticism therefore must be nuanced to be of value. And Gandhi can be criticized and praised for many of his initiatives and actions. However this has to be truthful.
Publishing this article on the birthday of the one who fought all his life to build bridges between communities is in bad taste.
M K Gandhi and J Nehru ruined India with socialism lock, stock, and barrel. Their hands are stained not only with blood of those killed because of partition, but also due to deaths on account of socialism.