File spoon-archives/marxism-international.archive/marxism-international_1997/marxism-international.9711, message 25


From: "Siddharth Chatterjee" <siddhart-AT-mailbox.syr.edu>
Date: Sat, 1 Nov 1997 20:45:02 +0000
Subject: M-I: Gandhi and His Charisma: 2



>From the book "India and the Raj, 1919-1947, Glory, Shame and
Bondage", Volume 2 by Suniti Kumar Ghosh [published by Research
Unit for Political Economy, Bombay, India (1995).]

(Continued from Part 1)
----------------------------------------------------------------------
APPENDIX: Gandhi and His Charisma: A Brief Note
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Part 2

BRITISH IMPERIALISM CONFIRMS GANDHI AS THE 
NATIONAL LEADER

One was that, appreciating his worth, British imperialism recognized
him as the national leader. Like General Smuts, many Viceroys
including Willingdon regarded him as an asset. In combating tile
militant forces of anti-colonial and anti-feudal struggle, the British
ruling classes counted on his help and he never failed them. As Judith
Brown wrote, "Gandhi was impelled into or at least confirmed in a
national leadership role by the Government's attitude, its needs and
fears, as much as those of his followers or the compulsions of his own
personality.... They [the British officials] angled for his help in
the struggle against violence and terrorism." [29]

>From his days in South Africa, Gandhi ''regularly maintained personal
contact with the highest levels of Government, even when no specific
issue was at hand". [30] Jacques Pouchepadass has referred to
'fantastic rumours' that circulated about Gandhi in Champaran in 1917
- rumours that Gandhi had been sent to Champaran by the Viceroy, or
even the King, to redress the grievances of the peasants; that the
administration of Champaran was going to be handed over to the Indians
and so on. According to Pouchepadass. "*many of these rumours were
very consciously spread by the local leaders*".[31] The Indian elite,
the rich peasants and others looked upon him as their guide and placed
implicit faith in him, for his easy accessibility to the highest
representatives of the raj fed their opportunist hopes. Men like
Prasad, Patel and many others gathered around him thinking that while
risks were small, gains would be enormous.

BIG BOURGEOIS SUPPORT

The other prop - a more important one - on which Gandhi's charisma
rested was the lavish support extended to him by the Indian big
bourgeoisie. With his home-coming, besides the Tatas and Thakurdases,
the Sarabhais, Birlas and others rallied to his support. The Indian
business elite hailed him: his message of non-violence, his
satyagraha, his faith in the raj, his political aspirations, his
abhorrence of class struggle, his 'change of heart' and 'trusteeship'
theories, his determination to preserve the social status quo, his
'constructive programme' intended to thwart revolutionary action - all
these and more convinced them that in the troubled times ahead he was
their best friend. His outlook on industrialization never frightened
them. Rather, they expected that Gandhi's 'moral' outpourings on
industry and modern civilization would weave a spell on the masses,
victims of cruel exploitation who were yearning to escape from it. His
ashram, all other organizations of his, and all his political, social
and moral campaigns were financed by them. Modifying somewhat Sarojini
Naidu's quip, one might say that it cost the big bourgeoisie, the
Birlas in particular, quite a big amount to keep him in poverty. And
he too attended to their interests to the very end of his life. During
the war when the "prices of cloth reached levels more than five times
the pre-war level", the government intervened, cloth prices were put
under control and fixed at levels which "industrialists themselves
were not reluctant to accept". The profits of the cotton mill
industry, in which capital to the tune of Rs 50 crore was "primarily
invested", soared from Rs 7 crore in 1940 to Rs 109 crore in 1943. But
the declared profits were only 'peanuts' compared to the actual
profits made when hoarding and blackmarketing were the rule. [32] G.D.
Birla's biographer, Ram Niwas Jaju, writes that "the boom in the
speculation market and then the war gave a boost to their activities,
and they [the Birlas] acquired twenty-two big factories" in addition
to what they had before. On 24 March 1947 G.D. Birla "wrote a
seven-page letter" to Rajagopalachari, a member of the Interim
Government, asking for removal of control on cloth. [33] Gandhi
started inveighing against rationing and control on prices of food and
cloth. He pitied the millionaires. "We do have millionaires in our
country", he said, "and they make millions too, but even they are left
with little money because of heavy taxation." He condemned 'control'
''as a vicious thing" and "continuing the controls as criminal". [34]
And control on cloth was lifted and cloth prices shot up immediately
to the satisfaction of the poor millionaires and to the immense
distress of the common people.

Edgar Snow was not wrong when he said: ''Nobody else in India could
play this 'dual role of saint for the masses and champion of big
business, which was the secret of Gandhi's power' [35] - the secret of
Gandhi's charisma. A negative factor that sustained Gandhi's charisma
was the weakness of the working class and the Communist Party of
India.


THE END OF THE GANDHIAN ERA

Gandhi's political decline started when it was realized by his close
associates as well as by his big bourgeois supporters that his
calculations about the 'Quit India' movement had gone awry. The
British imperialists no longer frosted him, though in 1945-47 they
handled him carefully in order not to antagonize him because of his
influence on the Hindu masses. Nor did his associates, his former
'yes-men', and big bourgeois patrons repose in him the faith that they
had before.

Nehru noted in his prison diary on 7 April 1943 that Patel, Kripalani,
Prafulla Ghosh and Shankar Rao Deo "have been hit in their great faith
in Bapu's instinct for right action at the right time.... it is
obvious that they visualize an end of the so-called Gandhian era in
Indian politics and this prospect leads to unhappiness, for the future
is uncertain and dark." [36]

The Birlas too were disillusioned about his 'infallibility' after
'Quit India'. On 14 April 1934, Birla wrote to Gandhi:

"Somehow or other, I always agree with you and therefore please
don't think that I am lacking in reasoning powers. After all what am I
to say if you are ever correct?" [37]

The same Birla told Wavell in March 1944 that "political leaders had
missed a great opportunity during the war. [38] Until 1941 Gandhi was
their master-strategist and they wanted him to be the sole
plenipotentiary of the Congress. Gandhi's policies, aided by Nehru's
rhetoric, were superb in handling mass discontent, thwarting
anti-imperialist, anti-feudal struggles and in safeguarding and
promoting the interests of the colonial masters, the big compradors
the princes and the landlords. They had found in him a leader without
an equal, gave him whatever help they could and venerated him. But
their faith was shaken after Gandhi's 'Quit India' gamble. Birla
distanced himself from Gandhi and his place was taken by Patel. Nehru
too proved his usefulness to them: his work on the Planning Committee,
his enthusiastic reaction to the Bombay Plan and his role during the
postwar upsurge established his bona fides.

In mid-1944 G.D. Birla, J.R.D. Tata, Thakurdas and Ardeshir Dalal saw
Gandhi and sought his opinion about Dalal's appointment as the member
of the Viceroy's Executive Council for Planning and Reconstruction.
But they refused to abide by his advice. [39] Early in March 1944,
Birla proposed to Wavell the visit of an industrial delegation to the
U.K. and expressed his willingness to go. And the delegation led by
Birla and J.R.D. Tata actually left India for the U.K. in May next
year. It is somewhat significant that Birla, who would earlier keep
Gandhi informed of the minutest details of much of his work, withheld
this important information from Gandhi for more than a year. When
Gandhi came to know of it on the eve of the delegation's departure, he
issued a press statement accusing "big merchants, capitalists,
industrialists and others" of doing the will of the government and
profiting in the process, and suggesting that the delegation might
enter into "a shameful deal" with the government. When Birla protested
and Tata fumed, Gandhi blessed the delegation. [40]

Differences between Gandhi and his colleagues began to crop up and
during the talks with the Cabinet Mission they became serious.
Pyarelal wrote:

"In that hour of decision they had no use for Bapu. They decided to
drop the pilot.... At noon [on 25 June] the Cabinet Mission invited
the members of the Working Committee to meet them. Bapu not being a
member was not sent for and did not go. On their return nobody told
Bapu a word about what had happened at the meeting! The final phase of
negotiations with the Cabinet Mission marked the beginning of the
cleavage between Gandhiji and some of his closest colleagues which in
the final phase of the transfer of power left them facing different
ways."[41]

In a note to G.D. Birla in 1946, Gandhi wrote:

"My voice carries no weight in the Working Committee. If I leave the
scene, the soreness will go, I do not like the shape that things are
taking and, I cannot speak out.... Today I feel like Trishanku. Is it
really time for me to retire to the Himalayas? Many people have
started suggesting this."[42]  

Gandhi felt that he was not wanted in Delhi and thought of going to
Noakhali in Bengal. On 25 October 1946 he wrote to. his disciple D.B.
Kalelkar: "I have been reduced to the position of Trishanku. I am
hanging in mid-air. I do not know whether I shall go to Bengal or
continue here or go to Sevagram." The first person he consulted was
Nehru. "Without a moment's hesitation he [Nehru] replied: 'Yes, your
place is there Noakhali]...', I asked him, when?' As soon as you feel
like it', he replied."43 It seems it was good riddance for Nehru and
Patel. All momentous decisions - to dismember Punjab and Bengal and
partition India artificially - were adopted without any reference to
him. He was allowed to plough his lonely furrow. He came to Delhi at
the end of March 1947 at the invitation not of his colleagues but of
the new Viceroy Mountbatten. Nehru sarcastically told Mountbatten that
"Gandhi was going round with ointment trying to heal one sore spot
after another on the body of India, instead of diagnosing the cause of
this eruption of sores and participating in the treatment of the body
as a whole". [44]

Gandhi's complaint to Nirmal Kumar Bose, his secretary in Noakhali,

seemed an acknowledgement of his tragic defeat. Gandhi said:

"Mountbatten had the cheek to tell me 'Mr Gandhi, today the Congress
is with me and not with you."[45]

On 15 August 1947, when Abul Hashim saw Gandhi at Sodepur (near 
Calcutta), Gandhi complained:

"The world knows Sardar Patel is my 'yes-man' but these days he says
'no' to everything I say; Babu Rajendra Prasad goes out with me in my
morning walk but when I come back to my Ashram I feel as though we
shall never meet again..."[46]

The winter of the mahatma's life was a winter of despair. His charisma
did no longer work on those he had groomed so long. When Pyarelal
rejoined Gandhi in the middle of December 1947, he found him "the
saddest man that one could picture... spiritually isolated from his
surroundings and from almost every one of his colleagues, who now held
positions of power and prestige in the Government." [47] His hold on
"the pillars of various constructive work organizations" was also
slipping away. He had to loyally abide by the decisions made by them
who had previously abided loyally by his decisions. Those who had
joined his bandwagon in the past and whom he had placed in positions
of power now ignored him. When Gandhi undertook a fast to save Muslims
in Delhi from massacre, Patel did not hesitate to insult him. Even
Patel's secretary refused to see Gandhi when requested by Gandhi's
secretary to do so in connection with some grievances of refugees.
[48] Gandhi went on lamenting: "today I have become a sort of burden.
There was a time when my word was law. But it is no longer so." He
said at a prayer meeting on 5 November 1947: ''Today I have become
bankrupt. I have no say with my people today." [49] In one of his
letters written probably in January 1948, Gandhi wrote: "I still do
not know what the next step is going to be.... I am groping for
light." In another letter he said: "Regard me as bankrupt". Nearly
ninety-five per cent of the post received by Gandhi in the months
before 15 August 1947 was full of abuse. [50].

Who conspired to kill him is shrouded in mystery. It seems that the
centre of the "terrible and widespread conspiracy", as Gandhi called
it days before his assassination, was not Pune or some other distant
place but quite close to him, and he had apprehensions about it. [51]

To quote Khaliquzzaman,

"From a statement of Mr K.M. Munshi, it is borne out that months
before his assassination such talk had been taking place amongst big
Hindu leaders, which encouraged Mr Munshi to tell Gandhiji that if he
suffered violence at anybody's hands it would be a Muslim, to which
Gandhiji replied 'No, it would be a Hindu'."[52]

Significantly, early in the morning of the day he was assassinated,
Gandhi "had said to Biswan, his personal attendant: 'Bring me all my
important letters. I must reply to them today, for tomorrow I may
never be'. "[53]

Information about the conspiracy, some of the conspirators, and some
details were conveyed to Bombay's chief minister B.G. Kher by one
professor personally after the bomb explosion at Birla House on 20
January 1948, and the information was passed on to Union Home Minister
Patel and to Gandhi. Pyarelal writes:

"What, however, surprises one is that in spite of the definite and
concrete information of which the authorities were in possession, they
should have failed to trace and arrest the conspirators and frustrate
their plan.... " [54]

There is a contradiction between what G.D. Birla broadcast 
immediately after Gandhi's assassination and Patel's statement in
Parliament on 6 February 1948 on the one hand and what Gandhi actually
said on the other. On the morning of 21 January Gandhi did say to
Birla that he was prepared to allow police guards to be posted for his
protection, which is contrary to the story spread by Birla and Patel.
[55]

Gandhi's funeral procession was organized as a military operation by
the British Commander-in-Chief of 'free' India's army. His body went
on its last journey in an army vehicle after the last five months'
stay in the Birla House. As Pethick-Lawrence wrote, ''The funeral
carriage was drawn by units of India's army, navy and air force....
Dakotas of the Royal Indian Air Force, dipping in salute, showered
flowers on the bier." This seemed incongruous to a Gandhiite who
observed: "perhaps it was the height of tragedy when his erstwhile
companions so arranged that his mortal remains should be carried in a
gun-carriage over which military bombers hovered and dipped low in
ostentatious salute.''[56] This was indeed a somewhat ironic tribute
to the prophet of non-violence from his erstwhile disciples. Perhaps
the mahatma, whose love of non-violence manifested itself in his
refusal, even when approached, to comment on the USA's dropping of
atom bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August 1945, [57] apart from
his other actions and pronouncements, deserved this tribute.

Gandhi had served his purpose. His big bourgeois patrons, his Congress
colleagues and British imperialism had no more any use for him. In his
seventy-ninth year he passed away as a martyr with a halo around him
and with all criticism of both his political and personal life. [58]
hushed.




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