The spiritual foundation of nazism is the superiority of the Aryan race, as is also that of the Hindu caste system. Both these evil systems have the same pedigree.
While in South Africa, M.K. Gandhi accepted racial segregation not only because it was politically expedient as his imperial masters had already drawn such a blueprint; it also conformed with his own attitude to the caste system.
In his own mind he fitted apartheid into the caste system: whites in the position of Brahmins, Indian merchants and professionals as touchable sudras, and all other Blacks as Untouchables.
Gandhi, commenting on the agitation of the White League, a nazi organisation, wrote in his Indian Opinion of Sept. 24 1903:
“We believe as much in the purity of race as we think they do, only we believe that they would best serve these interests, which are as dear to us as to them, by advocating the purity of all the races, and not one alone. We believe also that the white race in South Africa should be the predominating race….”
Again on Dec. 24 on 1902, he wrote:
“The petition dwells upon the commingling of the coloured and white races. May we inform the members of the Conference that, so far as British Indians are concerned, such a thing is practically unknown. If there is one thing which the Indian cherishes, more than any other, it is the purity of type.”
Hitler believed in the purity of race. South African nazis like Krugar, Smith, Botha, Voster, Verwood, Malan, believed in the purity of race. And so did Gandhi.
Dictator: Before Gandhi’s advent into Indian politics, there were at least one dozen outstanding politicians who dominated the Indian scene. Every one of them was a giant in his own right. After Gandhi appeared some of them died, some left Congress, some pushed out, and some were relegated to oblivion. And there emerged Gandhi, the absolute dictator.
In spite of all its faults, Congress was growing as a democratic institution. But Gandhi reduced it to a Fascist organisation which obeyed the slightest nod of his head. He ruthlessly and tactfully eliminated all those who would not agree with him; in fact he went further. Sometimes his victim did not know why and how he had incurred the displeasure of his fuhrer and why the axe had fallen on him. It was never ideological differences, it was the difference in method of elimination. Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel, the great bully, always acted as the executioner for Gandhi
“God has chosen me as his instrument, Gandhi said this on a number of occasions. So did Hiller and Mussolini. Hitler commanded the same respect and allegiance in Germany as Gandhi did in India Anybody in India would invite trouble if he had not said “Mahathma Gandhi or Gandhi ji, as in Germany if one failed to say Hell Hitler or Fuhrer
JINNAH SHOUTED DOWN
Before the advent of Gandhi in Indian politics, Jinnah was one of the three topmost leaders, the other two being Tilak and C.R. Das. In one Congress sesson, Jinnah was shouted down because he said Mr. Gandhi, instead of ‘Mahatma Gandhi. And after this Jinnah virtually withdrew from the Congress.
M.N. Roy, one of the intellectual giants India could produce, made the following comments on Gandhism:
“Gandhism was created by the ignorance, the blind faith, and hero-worship of the backward Indian masses. Gandhism is the expression of the worst in our people, of its ignorance, its cowardice, its defeatism, its backwardness.”
Nehru was fascist: And this is what he wrote of Jawaharlal Nehru, Gandhi’s successor: “Theoretically anti-Fascist, Nehru has been acting as the leader of Indian Fascism, and temperamentally none is better suited for the role. He is a classical National Socialist, being neither a nationalist nor a socialist. His nationalism is cancelled by his loudly professed internationalism, and his socialism is belied by nationalist fanaticism. If Gandhi is the spiritual guide of Congress, Nehru in its effective leader, and as such, he is the leader of Indian Fascism.”
Marwari funds: Congress Presidents were in theory elected by the members of the All-India Congress Committee; in practice they had been chosen by Gandhi since 1920. In Dec. 1929 at the Lahore Congress, when the time came to elect the Working Committee for the coming year, the Fuhrer came forward with a list of 15 names, from which the name of Srinivas lyenger, Subhas Bose and other left-wingers had been deliberately omitted. There was a strong feeling in the All-India Congress Comm Committee that at least the names of Srinivas lyenger and Subhas Bose should be retained, but Gandhi would not listen, He said openly that he wanted his list to be passed in its entirety. Once again it became a question of the same blackmail; if Gandhi were repudiated, the flow of Marwari funds would cease and the Congress would die.
Subhas Bose commented on this episode:
“After the Lahore Congress, Mr. Srinivas lyengar had retired from public activity. Along with other left wing leaders, he had been treated shabbily by the President of the Lahore Congress (Jawaharlal Nehru) and by the Mahatma, who was instrumental in excluding him from the Working Committee, though he was the most outstanding leader from Madras and was an ex President of the Congress. This insult he had taken to heart so much that he had vowed he would have nothing to do with the Congress so long as Mahatma Gandhi remained the leader”.
Thus India lost the services of a brilliant person, and this was only one instance, among many, of Gandhi’s political extermination of opposition.
Since his days in South Africa, Gandhi had developed a technique.. He would start a mass civil disobedience movement, and when it was in full swing, he suspended it and left everything in a mess. The sudden suspension of mass civil disobedience on May 8 1933 was, even to many of Gandhi’s followers, a surprising step to take. Vithalbhai Patel and Subhas Bose, who were abroad, Issued a statement condemning the decision and pointing out that it meant not only a setback, but the undoing of the labour of the Congress for the past 13 years in the cause of independence. The view of Jawaharlal Nehru was that “it was impossible to judge him by the usual standards or even to apply the ordinary canons of logic to him”.
Nariman’s criticism: Nariman, a prominent Congress leader of Bombay, bitterly attacked Gandhi, suggesting that the remedy lay “in securing for Gandhi, in place of the late Pandit Motilal Nehru, another political taskmaster a plain- speaking outspoken giant and not lip-sealed mummies who always shake their heads like spring dolls, perpendicularly or horizontally. according as the Mahatma pulls the strings straight or sideways”.
Patel, Gandhi’s executioner, acted and ousted Nariman from the leadership of the Bombay Congress. The election of B.G. Kher as Chief Minister of Bombay in preference to Nariman clearly indicated that no opposition to the Fuhrer would be tolerated.
Maulana Azad wrote:
“Sardar Patel and his colleagues did not like Nariman and the result was that Shri B.G. Kher became the Chief Minister of Bombay. Since Nariman was a Parsi and Kher was a Hindu, this led 10 wild speculation that Nariman had been bypassed on communal grounds”.
FAKE LOVE FOR DALITS
Another casuality of Gandhi’s dictatorship was Dr. Khare, whose only crime was that he misunderstood the nature of Gandhi’s love for Harijans.
Dr. Ambedkar wrote: “
Dr. Khare was the Prime Minister in the Congress Ministry in Central Province. He took the perfectly normal course of submitting his resignation to the Governor with a view to forming a new cabinet. The Governor in full conformity with constitutional practice recalled Dr. Khare to form a Cabinet, Dr. Khare’s new Cabinet was different from the old one in one important respect, namely, that it included Mr. Agnibhoj, an Untouchable, who was a member of the Legislative Assembly of the Congress party, who belonged to the Congress party and who by his education was well qualified to be a minister. On the 26th July 1938, the Congress Working Committee met in Wardha and passed a resolution condemning Dr. Khare on the ground that in tendering the resignation of his old colleagues in the old Ministry he was guilty of a grave error of judgment, and that in forming a new Ministry he was guilty of indiscipline. In explaining what was behind this charge of indiscipline in forming a new Ministry, Dr. Khare openly said that according to Mr. Gandhi, the act of indiscipline consisted in the inclusion of an untouchable in the Ministry. Dr. Khare also said that Mr. Gandhi told him that it was wrong on his part to have raised such aspirations and ambitions in the untouchables and it was such an act bad judgment that he would never forgive him. This statement was repeatedly made by Dr. Khare from platforms. Mr. Gandhi has never contradicted it.”
Stooge of British: In 1930, Subhas Bose sought re-election as the Congress President. At this time people were aware that the Second World War was imminent. Subhas Bose saw in its an opportunity to press India’s demand for Independence. His plan was to place before the country a militant programme and walt, and when the war broke out, serve an ultimatum to the British to accept India’s demand. This naturally alarmed the British. Without Indian manpower and resources they could not even contemplate sustaining a war, let alone winning it. So they let loose Gandhi
Gandhi did not openly oppose Bose’s re-election, but at his secret instigation some members of the Working Committee headed by Gandhi’s executioner, Sardar Patel, issued a statement disapproving of the re-election, though Bose made Il clear that, as in other countries, the contest should provide people with the opportunity to debate the policies and programmes of the contestants. According to Bose, the two important issues involved were democracy and the anti-Imperialist struggle.
Dirty trick: Dr. Pattabhai Sitarammayya was the candidate of the Gandhi wing, who lost heavily. to Subhas Bose. When his executioner could not kill the giant, Gandhi himself took the field. He issued his statement:
“I must confess that from the very beginning I was decidedly against his re-election for reasons into which I need not go and since I was instrumental in inducing Dr. Pattabhi not to withdraw his name as a candidate when Maulana Sahib withdrew, his defeat is more mine than his
It was a declaration of war in which Gandhi played all his dirty tricks. Subhas Bose protested that it was not a contest between himself and Gandhi. At his instigation the Working Committee resigned on very flimsy grounds.
SUBHAS BOSE FORCED TO QUIT
In his presidential address at Tripuri on March 10 1939, he observed: “The time has come for us to raise the issue of Swaraj and submit our national demand to the British Government in the form of an ultimatum”. But Bose’s proposal was opposed by the Gandhi wing and Nehru, and was thrown out.
Then came the Pant Resolution asking the President to nominate the Working Committee in accordance with the wishes of Mahatma Gandhi. Bose’s hands were tied because of the Pant Resolution, as he could not nominate his Working Committee without Gandhi’s approval. Gandhi had him in a cleft stick. He refused to co-operate in drawing up the list of members of the Working Committee. When Bose drew his attention to the rumour spread by his followers when the Resolution was passed, as well as the press speculation, that he wanted the Pant Resolution passed in its entirety, Gandhi denied any knowledge of this. Anyway, Subhas Bose was forced to resign.
Nehru on Gandhi: Some years later, when interviewed by a reporter, Nehru observed:
“I had realised that, at that stage, whatever one’s view might be about the way India should develop, Gandhi was India. Anything that weakened Gandhi, weakened India. So I submitted myself to Gandhi, although I was in agreement with what Bose was trying to do”.
When asked by a reporter why he did not issue any statement at the time of the election of Subhas Bose, Gandhi replied: “But the statement issued by Sardar Vallabhbhai and others contained a small sentence which suggested that I too was connected with it”. He was at the same time denying that he had had any hand in the Pant Resolution.
This Fuhrer wanted people to tremble even if there was only indirect suggestion of his disapproval of any action.
Subhas Bose formed the Forward Bloc to work inside the Congress and mobilise anti-Imperialist forces. Bose criticised some of the Congress resolutions. Rajandra Prasad, Gandhi’s hand-picked President of the Congress, took issue that it was a breach of discipline. Subhas Bose explained:
“In the first place, one has to distinguish between protesting against a certain resolution and actually defying it or violating it. What has so far happened is that I have only protested against two resolutions of the All-India Congress Committee. It is my constitutional right to give expression to my opinion regarding any resolution passed by the All-India Congress Committee”.
The Congress expelled Subhas Bose, Gandhi openly admitted in an editorial in Harijan that he had drafted the expulsion resolution. He knew that there would be serious repercussions with which his cronies could not cope, so he put his own prestige on the line.
Rajagopalachari punished: Another casualty of Gandhi’s dictatorship was C. Rajagopalachari, who had for some time been deeply disturbed by the deteriorating communal situation in India. It was his view, shared by many, that the independence of India was delayed because of the differences between Congress and the League. He went a step further and, soon after the rejection of Cripps’ offer, began to say openly that if only the Congress would accept the League’s demands, the obstacle to Indian Freedom would be removed. Rajagopalachari was forced to resign from the Congress Working Committee in April 1942. In this respect, some observations made by Maulana Azad are revealing of Gandhi’s dictatorship:
“I have already said that after the failure of the Cripps Mission, Shri Rajagopalachari started a campaign that the Congress should accept the demands of the Muslim League. He even went to the extent of saying that partition of the country should be accepted in principle, This led to his dissociation from the Working Committee and he became unpopular with the rank and file of Congressmen. Gandhiji also did not approve of Rajaji’s activities. He did not therefore wish that Rajaji should meet the Cabinet Mission during our negotiations. He asked Rajaji to remain in Madras. Rajaji felt this bitterly but for some time kept quiet. When I went to Mussoori during the recess, I received a letter from him. and learnt for the first time that he had been prevented from coming to Delhi by Gandhiji. I felt that Gandhiji was not even now willing that Rajaji should even now come to Delhi. I did not therefore consult him but on my own responsibility wrote to Rajaji that if he wished, he could come. Rajaji took me at my word and arrived. Gandhiji was a little displeased but I told him that Rajaji had come only after receiving my letter. I also explained to Gandhiji that I did not consider it proper that Rajaji should be prevented from coming to Delhi in this way.”
BHULABHAI DESAI FATE
It is a pathetic story how Bhulabhai Desai met his “political extinction” at Gandhi’s hands. He was elected to the Central Assembly by the Gujarat constituency in 1935. Не was also elected in 1938 as the President of the Bombay Provincial Committee and at that time he was a member of the Congress Working Committee. He had rendered signal service as the leader of the Congress Party in the Central Assembly since 1935 and also in the Bardoli enquiry and the Indian National Army trial.
After the Quit India Movement fizzled out and Gandhi was released from prison in 1944, his attitude towards the Muslim League and Jinnah radically changed. He rushed to meet Jinnah and they held a discussion to arrive at a rapproachement to solve the deadlock and achieve the release of the leading Congressmen. But it failed.
It is clear from the letter written by Syed Mahmud, a Congress leader, that Bhulabhai Desai, on Gandhi’s suggestion, started the negotiation with Liaquat Ali Khan for the formation of an interim government, and kept Gandhi informed of developments. This effort also ended in failure.
False propaganda: But after the release of the Congress leaders in 1945, the mood of Gandhi mysteriously changed. In the course of the conference at Simla, the Viceroy had asked the party leaders to furnish him with lists from which he might select the personnel of the new Executive Council. The list submitted by the Congress did not include the name of Bulabhai Desai
In September, the Congress decided to contest the election. The Congress, however, decided that the name of Bhulabhai Desai, who had represented the Congress as a leader of the Congress Party in the Central Assembly for a period of about ten years, should not be put forward as a candidate on behalf of the Congress. Gandhi and his cronies, by tactful manipulation, had given wide currency among the public and in the press that Bhulabhai Desai had bypassed the Working Committee and stabbed it in the back when its members were in detention.
Maulana’s version: Maulana Azad, who presided over the Working Committee and took an active part In its deliberations, stated:
“When we all came out of jail in 1945, these incidents were reported to us and led to a good deal of discussion among Congressmen. Unfortunately the discussions ignored the fact that whatever Bhulabhai did was with Gandhi’s knowledge and permission. Sardar Patel took a special interest in the matter and, somehow, the impression was created that Bhulabhai had tried to enter into the Executive Council behind the back of the Congress by reaching an understanding with Liaquat All. I have already said that many congressmen were jealous of Bhulabhai Desai’s rapid advance in the organisation and they were now enraged by what they thought was his lack of loyalty. Bhulabhai’s opponents were also successful in turning Gandhiji against him by making certain allegations against Bhulabhai’s private life. Many of these charges were false, but the propaganda was sustained for several months and did Bhulabhal permanent damage.
“I have already mentioned that it was upon Gandhiji’s day of silence that Bhulabhal sought his permission to netotiate with the Muslim League, so that Gandhiji had given his reply in writing. Bhulabhai had preserved this note and showed it to Sardar Patol and others. He pointed out that he had carried out the negotiations with Gandhiji’s knowledge and consent and could not therefore be blamed.
“There was in fact no reply to Bhulabhai’s defence. Unfortunately, his protests were not heeded and reports continued to circulate that he had entered into an intrigue with the League. Feeling against him became so strong that when the General Elections were held in the winter of 1945-46, he was not offered a Congress ticket”.
In spite of the ill-treatment from the Congress and his ill-health, Bhulabhai Desai undertook the defence of the Indian National Army prisoners and earned a great name., In early 1946, when Bhulabhai was lying gravely ill, the question arose about the Congress arranging for the defence of some Indian National Army personnel whom the Government still wished to place on trial, notwithstanding the outcome of the Red Fort trial in November and December 1945. So Patel approached Setalvad to undertake the defence. What Patel told him was that it was Gandhi who had insisted, in consequence of the numerous unfavourable reports which he had heard about Bhulabhai’s private life, on his exclusion from the Central Assembly as a representative of the Congress, and that the Sardar himself had pleaded hard for Bhulabhai and had tried his best to prevent his being treated in this unworthy manner.
Whereas Gandhi wrote to Bulabhai on Oct. 21 1945:
“Both Sardar and I keep on receiving telegrams regarding giving you a seat in the election of the Legislative Assambly. I myself take no interst in the elections. I am not even aware of the darbar that surrounds Sardar….
“Since you have accepted my advice I believe that you yourself have no ambition of remaining in the Legislative Assembly. Therefore the senders of telegrams cannot even be inspired by you. Some big people will naturally want your presence in the Legislative Assembly. If I wore not behind this decision even Sardar would submit to the pressure 4 myself am firm. Because I am merely acting as your well-wisher……
“With this introduction I am advising you that you yourself should make a dignified statement. In this statement you should thank those who are making this attempt for your benefit, but you should announce that at this moment you do not intend to remain in the Legislative Assembly and that you will be doing whatever service you can render outside the Assembly and will for the present continue to do service from outside….”
This letter shows that Gandhi had played a decisive part in excluding Bhulabhai’s name from the list of those who would represent the Congress in the Assembly. It also shows how tactfully he was exerting pressure to dissuade Bhulabhai from standing for the Assembly on his own.
But above all, it stinks.
