Gandhi's faults

Original source: https://www.jeyamohan.in/2789/
29-May-2009

Dear Jeyamohan,

I am sharing you the link for an article written by a person named Aravindan Neelakandan. He has highlighted some things as Gandhi's faults. Koenraad Elst, a popular researcher of Indian Politics has categorically explained them. What is your views on those points?

https://hikari1965.blogspot.com/2008/02/blog-post_1431.html

Bheeshma
Chennai

The interest of the nation or that of the Hindus have never figured in  the lust for power and self-promotion of the Hindu leadership either  before independence or afterwards. All through the 20th century, ever  since Gandhi came on the scene, Hindu leaders have treated India as  their personal fiefdom and Hindus as slaves. Gandhi did not mind even  the slaughter of the Hindus provided it kept the Muslims happy.


Jeyamohan,

I read your reply to Semmani Arunachalam. I cannot accept it entirely. In today's world, what is your response for the difficulties that Hindus are subjected to? Needless to say. Not even as second class citizens, they are not even being treated as third class citizens. I can understand that disunity among Hindus is the main reason. No such leader exists that can bring the unity. Nethaji could've been such a leader. Vallabhai Patel could've been the one or even Morarji Desai. But nothing was realized. Who do you think is the reason?

Nowhere else in the world except India would one find that a minority  has been given a separate homeland and yet allowed to stay on in the  same country. India is the sole example where a majority has been  reduced to the status of a second-class citizenary. lt is testified by  the fact that the most sacred places of the Hindus are still under  occupation of the Muslims even after six decades of independence. Is it  not the same minority, which plundered the Hindu civilisation for six  hundred years?

Importantly, if he could've handled the stubbornness of Nehru, couldn't he have prevented the country's partition? Just for the sake of impressing foreign countries, who committed the mistake of taking up the Kashmir issue with UN? The problem which should've been solved eons ago, is continuing till today after sixty years. Who's responsible for that? How was our neighbor Nepal doing till the time it was a Hindu country. Now after becoming secular, what is its state? We know well that the people of Nepal are not in complete agreement with this. Does our nation deserve such fake secularism?

Killing Britishers is a great sin in his views. According to him, Britishers are counterparts in a political battle. He loved them too. He could identify himself with the poor people within those Britishers. Therefore, they too identified themselves with him.

I agree to this completely. In fact, the Congress party which was started as moderate party that supported the principles of British government clandestinely operated and is still operating in similar vein.

Gandhi was quite certain that the movement that pits Dalits against the others would split the Indian society and would ultimately kindle hatred against them.

I need not say about the current state of affairs. The 'divide and rule' policy is being carried on by Congress and other regional parties.

Geetha Sambasivam


Dear Bhishma, Geetha,

Hindutva's two voices. First voice has properly read the foundational and reference books. The other voice has known only the generic cacophony. There has never been any significance for the first voice within the Hindutva politics. But the second voice has become louder in recent times. The Modi wave within the party might make it more significant.

On the second voice: Every point mentioned there is purely hatred propaganda. I dont think Hindus are second class citizens in India. I have never felt like a second class citizen. If India has not become a Hindu nation because of Gandhi, then it is the greatest gift he has given to India. The India ruled by the voices like this letter's author can only be a violent place. It is quite a hypocritical argument that Congress is alienating Dalits from mainstream in India. Congress is the only force that is bringing them closer to mainstream - even till today.

The fact that every citizen gets equal opportunities is one of the foundational quality of democratic India. Minorities and downtrodden people getting incentives and allowances with support from majority is another such quality. The third quality is that this nation is still continuing as a pluralistic society with constant communication across communities. Calling all these qualities as harmful and blaming Gandhi as dangerous for bringing in such qualities is in reality the best appreciation for him. Thanks!

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I would like to express my views on Aravindan's Neelakandan's presentation of the views of Koenraad Elst. I am not a researcher. Therefore, the views of mine are not a review of the research. But as someone who has analyzed and written about this subject and has also had the opportunity to discuss with important intellectuals, I am jotting down these points.

First of all, I am not saying that Gandhi is a flawless diamond. There isn't a single political thinker who has not committed mistakes about the history. There isn't anyone who has understood all of history. History has such complex undercurrents that one cannot understand and indulge in it unless he/she commits mistakes regarding history. It is a contradictory dialectic function shaped by hundreds of forces. This is what I have been saying.

Therefore, those who boast claiming to have understood the whole of history and try to search for an ultimate solution can only bring complete destruction. If one is to contribute to history, then he/she needs to become one of the factors in the colossal dialectic plane that is history. Hence, it is more prudent to study history with great caution, with the mindset to backtrack in the face of mistakes and also in a way so as to minimize consequences. That is the Gandhian way. This is my argument.

One can list several things as faults of Gandhi's. They fall under 2 categories. One of the categories was created due to his incorrect reading of history. The other category was due to completely unforeseen developments that changed the direction of history. In my view, in both these cases, Gandhi had tread with great caution, with utmost humility towards history resulting in very minimal damages.

Gandhi's faults are predominantly based on idealism. He is a strange mixture. Basically he is also quite practical. He approached any idea with practicality in mind. His approach is to experiment in a small scale, examine and understand the consequences and then to expand it, while always being mindful of the consequences. The significant reason for his success is his clear practicality.

Still Gandhi is the greatest idealist of our era. It is this dream of idealism that drove him. His idealism is based on two aspects. First is based on his idea that history has always driven humans towards betterment and reform. Gandhi should've obtained this idea when he went to London for his studies. Europe, at those times, was a fertile ground for the idea of Human betterment. Personally, I too have the same belief.

Second is the idea that the human soul is full of goodness and that love and compassion are the natural make-up of a human mind. Gandhi didn't think of human as a sinner. Instead he believed that human is just a god in the form of a mortal. He obtained this idea from the Pushtimarg Vaishnavism. It was Ramanuja who established this vision as a philosophical axiom within Vaishnavism.

There hasn't been a good deal of research about the contribution of Ramanuja's philosophies in Gandhi's idealism. This is due to the fact that almost all of our research here in India are based on those of foreigners. It was Ramanuja who made "Kainkaryam" as the central tenet of religious worship. He mentioned that man was created to reach his Lord.

Several of Gandhi's basic vocabulary were taken from Vaishanvism. Ramanuja referred to Dalits as "Thirukkulathaar". Harijan is derivative of that word. "Nara Narayanan" was a concept (Human is the God) that Gandhi obtained as a vision from Ramanuja.

In this aspect, Jainism was a pioneer to Vaishnavism. Service to humanity was considered a worship in Jainism. When Vaishnavism went North after inculcating various aspects of Jainism, it pulled in a large number of Jains within it. North Indian Vaishanavite traditions like PushtiMarg are actually Vaishnavite forms of Jainism. The aspects of Gandhi's Jainism were formed likewise.

Gandhi was thus shaped by two idealistic foundations. He was someone who could provide a practical guideline to his idealistic dreams. These two aspects have combined in a complex way in his politics. In some instances, there has been significant differences between his goals and his practicalities. In a similar vein, where there was a necessity to practical predictions, he had made idealistic assumptions. It is my view that his faults were formed in such manners.

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The list of faults that Koenraad attributes to Gandhi:

1. Gandhi enlisted people to fight in First World War on the side of British. His idea was that Britishers would be pleased with this act and would therefore provide a 'dominion' status to India. This was against his principles of 'Ahimsa'.

2. He supported the Khilafat movement. He sacrificed even the Independence movement in support of Khilafat movement.

3. In 1931, he called off the rising Independence movement, went into negotiation with the Britishers and formed the Gandhi-Irwin pact. He rolled back the Independence Movement with this.

4. He hesitated to support the second world war. Muslim League proclaimed their support for British and acquired distinct advantage.

5. He allowed the partition to happen. He didn't undertake his fast against Jinnah.

6. Even after the reality of Pakistan becoming an enemy state, he undertook fast and forced India to provide the contribution of funds to Pakistan from Indian treasury.

Gandhi supporting the British in First World War and enlisting people in that is based on Gandhi's then understanding of the world affairs. It was a stage where Gandhi believed that the British Government was a progressive force in history. He Saw the British Government as quite advanced in comparison to all the feudal lords and the dictators in the world. He also thought that the British Government is providing a stable administration to India, which was marred by many conflicts and is moving it towards progress. It was his historical perspective then. I think it was perfectly agreeable for the time.

Gandhi had firm belief in Britain's civilian administration and its judiciary. It was as a responsible citizen that he had appeared always at British Courts. Even when he was professing Civil Disobedience, he did with the assertion of a World citizen before British laws. He had never spoken ill of the Courts. He was voicing his support for more rights and better responsibilities within the British Government. Therefore there do not seem to be anything wrong with Gandhi supporting what he thought was 'his' government. It was his view that an Indian must perform his responsibilities as a British citizen and the claim for his rights.

While Gandhi said that the struggle for rights must be a proper Civilian movement, he didn't say that Nations mustn't have army nor that people mustn't support their nation or army. He dreamt of a world without borders and armies. But he was also pragmatic to understand that the time wasn't ripe for that dream to be fructified.

It was Gandhi's view that Britain was the greatest democratic country out of all those that waged the first world war. He wasn't ignorant of contemporary world politics. He was part of the mainstream discussions of London. He supported Britain's international capitalism against Kaiser Wilhelm's dream of a mega empire only with the assured understanding of the world politics.

He had his own self-assured reasons for supporting Khilafat movement. He didn't view the Independence movement as a mutiny. He viewed it as a struggle of a society that had already arisen. He thought of the Independence movement as a gradual creation of Indian civil society. One can see that he was echoing this same thought in his first speech in Congress summit.

Therefore Gandhi attempted to bring crores of Indian population into the political activities. The Indian society which was oppressed under the monarchy and feudal system didn't have any exposure towards politics. People getting involved in politics was totally unthought of. People did not think themselves as the citizens of a government. They didn't have the thought process of raising for their rights and justice.

Leading those people towards politics, paving a way for various communities to converse within the political sphere, facilitating the gradual creation of a civil society by means of various administrative compromises were the goals of Gandhi's movements. Those were met with huge success.

He thought of Khilafat movement as a way to politicize Muslims. He led Congress' involvement in the movement on the idea that this will lead to constructive conversations between such Muslims and Hindus. And its true that this was a huge success. There were hundreds of reasons for the partition. To construe Khilafat movement as negative based on partition is a historical mistake.

My belief is that it was because of the Khilafat movement that a significant portion of nationalistic Muslim populace was formed. The Muslims who were till then identifying themselves with the Islamic ruler and being a close-knit group entered the arena of national politics. They formed constructive relationship with other communities only due to that movement. I have seen in Kerala that great nationalists like C.H.Ahmad Moulavi, Vaikom Moulavi, Vaikom Muhammad Basheer were created by the Khilafat movement.

In fact, it was on the Caliphate dream of those multitude of Muslims who did not participate in the political conversations surrounding the Khilafat movement and who locked themselves within their narrow spaces sans any conversations with other communities that the Partition movement was created in later years. The argument that Khilafat movement led to partition is a far-fetched guess. If not for this movement, the entire community of secluded Muslims would've been led towards Islamic nationhood in entirety.

Moreover, it wasn't Gandhi who started the Khilafat movement, rather it was the Ali siblings that launched and furthered it. Gandhi paved the way for this people's movement to become a political movement, which leads to closer Hindu-Muslim ties, rather than it veering towards a religious movement. If not for Gandhi, this would've become a religious movement of Shia Muslims and would have attained other forms.

Did the Khilafat movement lead to negative consequences. I think it probably did. But any historic movement cannot be planned and executed like in a theater. It is akin to redirecting a river. Only when it changes direction, do we really know its force and consequences. He pulled the Muslim community towards the political sphere and towards greater understanding with Hindus. If that opportunity wasn't utilized well, it wasn't Gandhi's fault.

We have been conversing time and time again about the reasons for Gandhi withdrawing the Civil Disobedience Movement. He was afraid of leading a vast nation like India, with its internal conflicts, towards an uncontrollable battle. He knew pretty well that the path of violence can be easily started but cannot be stopped with ease. It is my view that if Gandhi wouldn't have withdrawn the movement, it would've led only to an uncontrollable riot and would've converted into a religion-caste war, rather than enabling Indian Independence.

If one can realize that Gandhi's endeavor was not to subjugate the British government through rebellion, rather to let people reform themselves, then this can be easily explained. He wished that through rebellion, Indian tribal societies can evolve themselves into a modern civil society. Once he withdrew the movement, his subsequent plans were all made to bring the downtrodden people into politics and to form a broader civil society. These included Harijan Seva, prohibition of alcohol, rural education and rural reforms.

Gandhi's approach to second world war happened in a totally different world order. Now, he didn't view himself as a British-Indian citizen claiming for greater rights within the British government. He realized that through constant rebellion, a strong civil society had been formed here. A strong political society had also been formed by claiming the right to form provincial governments, by contesting elections and by administering governments. That is, a nation has been born and the Britishers were foreigners ruling this nation.

Therefore, he viewed himself as a nation's leader conversing with other nation's leader. He introduced conditions to provide support for the world war. He insisted on a detailed discussion. He accomplished on those conditions too. Just because Muslim league and Justice Party supported British unconditionally, Gandhi needn't have done the same.

To ask whether Gandhi could've prevented the Partition is not a way to research history. Gandhi is not a history chef nor is Satyagraha a menu recipe. Partition is an historic event. Forces that originated it are numerous. I don't think that Satyagraha can be employed to stop a historic flow nor to change its course as we wish. It can be employed only to will our moral force on that flow.

Gandhi had tried to prevent the partition umpteen times and had negotiated with all stakeholders again and again. But after a point, he understood clearly that it was an historic happening. Being a pragmatic person, he gave way to it with angst.

In my opinion, Gandhi's act of Satyagraha in support of providing for Pakistan's treasuries is quite righteous. Elst views only the militaristic possibilities of this act. But I view its moral possibilities. A nation carrying out treachery and war deceits, when it is just being born is a dreadful symbol. The mentality it originates is not a healthy one. It was Gandhi's dream that India should be a country with strong moral foundations. Perhaps, Elst wants it become an Israel.

During his sunset period, Gandhi became quite fatigued spiritually. He attained all the skepticism, loneliness and bitterness of an ascetic, who indulges in exaggerated worldly pleasures. He was forsaken completely during his last period. We see Gandhi's voice saying "Why did you forsake me?" in his writings and speeches again and again during this period. All he wanted at last was a cross. Giving it to him, Godse freed him.

Gandhi's failures occurred mostly during that period. He knew very well that Nehru doesn't subscribe to his visions. Nehru didn't get involved with Gandhi's ideas of rural upliftment and decentralization of authority. His dreams were quite different. He believed that Gandhi was ignorant of world affairs and that Stalin was the modern world's protagonist. Yet, Gandhi established Nehru as his political heir.

The reason for that was Gandhi's misgivings towards Patel. Gandhi knew that Patel was quite talented. Patel had firm beliefs in Gandhian principles. He later proved it via his 'Amul' program, a mega organization with Gandhian underpinnings, it is a living example of the possibilities of Gandhian administration. But Gandhi had his doubts over Patel's democratic and secular credentials.

Contemporary Indian situation unnerved Gandhi. What he sought was a great compromising and unifying force and not an iron hand. Therefore he made Nehru, who had impeccable democratic and secular credentials, more prominent. He thus buried his own economic and social principles. He knew it. That is his greatest failure. History had led him to that point.

Secondly, being fatigued mentally, he withdrew completely during the independence. When Mountbatten tabled a draft independence process that sought the welfare of the British, he didn't attempt to consider the consequences of it. He didn't seek to employ his intuition nor his wisdom on it.

Mountbatten's Partition plan was drafted in a haste. A momentous event which decided the fate and life of crores of people was drafted in just a few months with an arrogance akin to that of an military expert. Once the Partition between India and Pakistan was accepted in principle, an interim government should've been formed that would foresee the gradual execution of the Partition. Both Nehru and Jinnah should've participated in that government with equal administrative rights.

Subsequently, the partition should've allowed to happen via negotiation. The relevant borders should've come under the complete control of army. Otherwise, they could've also sought the supervision of a third country. When the draft map of the partition has been acknowledged in principle, then the partition could've been carried out gradually. Under this process, the catastrophe of partition wouldn't have occurred. Several military experts prescribed this process at that time. In India, there was only one voice which suggested this - Rajaji. But his views didn't have the necessary importance.

The nation was divided akin to to cutting with knife. There wasn't any proper army protection along the border. In fact, there wasn't even a proper map with the army for many places. Moreover, army was itself split-up in two. When this absurd plan was tabled, everyone was thirsty of authority. Nobody was ready to yield an inch. Gandhi could've asserted his moral fortitude there and forced them to debate on that plan. Gandhi could've done it the same way Nelson Mandela faced the Zulu group during his country's independence. He didn't. He stepped aside wearily. That was his greatest fault.

Gandhi entered politics again after seeing the riots. As a normal man, with folded arms, he walked through the places burnt by riots. History has documented the fact that what couldn't be achieved by army was accomplished gradually by an individual's moral strength. The intensity of that event can be read in the book 'Freed at Midnight' written by Larry Collins and Dominique Lapierre.

But Gandhi is not a failed human being and nor is Gandhism a principle past its prime. It has been proved time and time again that in the hands of those with truth and moral strength it becomes the greatest weapon of crusade. Gandhi's visionary reach was rediscovered in great detail by environmentalists, management experts and political researchers quarter of a century after his death.

Several of the philosophers who were spoken about in the 20th century were locked up in the book shelves. But to see that Gandhism as a still relevant philosophy, viewing contemporary history should suffice.

References:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Koenraad_Elst

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pushtimarg
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ramanuja
https://ramanuja.org/sri/BhaktiListArchives/Article?p=mar96%2F0035.html

https://ta.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E0%AE%AE%E0%AF%87%E0%AE%B2%E0%AF%8D%E0%AE%95%E0%AF%8B%E0%AE%9F%E0%AF%8D%E0%AE%9F%E0%AF%88

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Khilafat_Movement

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wilhelm_II,_German_Emperor

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vaikom_Muhammad_Basheer

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freedom_at_Midnight