The crisis was accentuated by the world crisis of 1929-33. Many old centres of industry wore a deserted look. In 1931 British sterling went off the gold standard. The British imperialists were a worried lot. Victorian confidence and complacency were a thing long lost: those halcyon days were never to return. The Great Depression, as Tomlinson observes, "conspired to strike at the heart of the established relationship that still existed between the British, imperial and world economies".(102) The fall in the prices of agricultural produce led to much reduced demand for Britain's export staples in a country like India.
India had long been a milch-cow to the British colonialists. Besides the profits of unequal trade and of capital invested in industry and commerce in India, they obtained from India in 1913-14 L2,03,12,000 (when the Government of India's gross expenditure amounted to L6,34,40,000) as interest payments of Government sterling `debt' and `Home Charges'. This annual tribute increased to L3,18,88,776 in 1924-25 and amounted to L2,85,03,796 in 1934-5.(103) Though commerce declined, India's importance to the British imperialists grew both as a source of vast unearned income to salvage the crisis-ridden British economy and as a strategic linchpin of the empire, a large base of imperial power in the east and a never-failing source of huge manpower and materials. As noted before, the massive drain of gold from India in the early thirties helped Britain to overcome its financial crisis. At the same time imperial preference, Ottawa, the Bombay-Lancashire Pact and so on served as instruments for salvaging British commerce. That is why "reservations and safeguards", the levers of control over Indian finance and administration were deemed essential to the preservation of imperial interests when inter-imperialist contradictions assumed menacing proportions and when a second world war cast its shadow before.
From about 1928 vast strike-struggles of the workers and anti-feudal struggles of the peasants swept large parts of India. Sholapur, Peshawar and Chittagong seemed ominous. The mantra of satyagraha, the `world-regenerating creed of non-violence', could hinder but could not contain all anti-imperialist, anti-feudal struggles. In the inflammable situation in the early thirties, even non-violent civil disobedience, though designed to disarm the people ideologically and divert them from the path of genuine anti-imperialist, democratic struggle, ran the risk of achieving the opposite. Despite the mahatma's sermons, it might turn into vast no-rent, no-revenue struggles of the peasantry and industrial strikes and other struggles of the working class and the urban petty bourgeoisie. Even the innocent spark of satyagraha might kindle a wild, uncontrollable fire. As the times were out of joint, British imperialism was not prepared to face any risk in India, when hectic war-preparations were being made by all the imperialist powers in anticipation of a war greater and more devastating than the First Great War. At such a time the British imperialists wanted the Congress leaders to stick strictly to the constitutional path, to forswear mass action, however non-violent, limited and well-intentioned. Irwin had said: "The real question [is] whether all this Indian nationalism that is growing and bound to grow can be guided along imperial or will more and more get deflected into separatist lines."(104) It was the policy of the British imperialists to use the services of the Congress leaders to guide `Indian nationalism' along the imperial channel. The Congress leaders like Nehru would be free to pour out their anti-imperialist ardour in words, but in practice they would have to adhere strictly to the constitutional path -- the plan as mapped out by the raj. It would be playing with fire to allow the Gandhis and Nehrus to deviate from it. It was to coerce them to conform to the British strategy that the Congress leaders were dragged into a conflict which they intensely disliked and of which the Indian big bourgeoisie strongly disapproved.
British imperialism felt confident that the Indian bourgeoisie would play the game and remain `a loyal opposition'; it considered only the `masses' and `revolutionary Communism' as its irreconcilable enemies.(105) But revolutionary communism was weak and the masses were disorganized and awaited revolutionary leadership which was absent. Besides the Government of India's Despatch on Proposals for Constitutional Reforms 1930, other official documents, too, exuded the same faith in the bourgeoisie and so-called nationalist politicians(106) -- a confidence which was far from misplaced as we have seen and as we shall see more of it later.
1. CWG, XLV, 305-6 -- emphasis added.
2. Ibid, 196,205,245 -- emphasis added.
3. Ibid, 251,255-6,260; XLVI, 10,99,151,152 -- emphasis added.
4. Ibid, XLV, 253.
5. Ibid, 260 -- emphasis added.
6. Ibid, 285.
7. Ibid, 273 -- emphasis added.
8. Ibid, 185,233,234,242; for MacDonald's declaration, see ibid, 424-6 and for the Gandhi-Irwin agreement, see ibid, 432-6; see also Vol.I of this book, 359-61,364-5.
9. Moore, Endgames, 48.
10. CWG, XV, 105-6,107,121-2,171-6; XVII, 151,304,502,503,504; XVIII, 77; XLII,421,423,425-6; passim, See also Vol.I of this book, 188-201,204-8,339-41,343-4.
11. Quoted in Ravinder Kumar, "From Swaraj to Purna Swaraj", in D.A. Low (ed.), Congress and the Raj, 102.
12. G.D. Birla, In the Shadow of the Mahatma, 176 -- emphasis in the original.
13. See Ravinder Kumar, op cit, 102-3.
14. David Hardiman, "The Crisis of the Lesser Patidars", in D.A. Low (ed.), op cit, 68; Peasant Nationalists of Gujarat, 234.
15. Brian Stoddart, "The Structure of Congress Politics in Coastal Andhra, 1925-37", in Low (ed.), op cit., 111,121-2.
16. CWG, XLV, 278,301,306.
17. Irwin Collection, 27; cited in Moore, The Crisis of Indian Unity, 186. For the understanding that Gandhi gave to Home Secretary Emerson, see CWG, XLV, 445-6.
18. Ibid, 264.
19. The Congress Encyclopaedia, VIII, 262.
20. See Johannes H. Voight, "Co-operation or Confrontation? War and Congress Politics, 1939-42", in Low (ed.), op cit., 354-5.
21. See Vol. I of this book, 276-83.
22. The provinces where the Muslims formed the majority. Besides the federal character of the Indian constitution, Mohammed Ali and other Muslim leaders wanted statutory Muslim majority in the legislatures of the provinces -- Bengal and Punjab -- for a certain number of years, ten or twenty.
23. AICC Papers, File G-85/1931.
24. IAR, 1931, I, 284-8,291,294-5,295-301.
25. Azad, India Wins Freedom, 140.
26. See Vol. I of this book, 283-5.
27. CWG, XLVII, 141; B. Pattabhi Sitaramayya, The History of the Indian National Congress, I, 482. Emphasis added.
28. G.D. Birla to Gandhi, 15.2.1935, Birla, Bapu, II, 30; Azad, op cit., 40; TOP, IV, 260; Wavell the Viceroy's Journal (ed. by Penderel Moon), 314.
29. SWN, IV, 523,524; V, 43 and fn.5; see also V, 282-3,285.
30. CWG, XLV, 322; XLVI, 412.
31. Ibid, 10,25,64,87,275-6, passim.
32. Ibid, XLV, 250,256,272-3,405.
33. See "Provisional Settlement", ibid, 434-6; XLVI, 41.
34. Emerson's Note on Discussions with Gandhi, 15-16 July 1931, ibid, XLVII, 430; see also ibid, 400.
35. Patel to Nehru, 21 July 1931, AICC Papers, 1931, File G-60; quoted in Judith Brown, Gandhi and Civil Disobedience, 230.
36. Gandhi to Nehru, 20 June 1931, AICC Papers, File G.40, K.W. iii, 1931; CWG, XLVI, 201-2. Emphasis added.
37. J. Nehru, An Autobiography, 277-8; AICC Papers, 1931, File 4, Part 1, cited in Brown, op cit., 217.
38. Hailey to Emerson, 2 May 1931, H. Poll. 33/XI/31; cited in Judith Brown, "The Role of a National Leader: Gandhi, Congress and Civil Disobedience 1929-34", in Low (ed.), op cit., 155.
39. CWG, XLVI, 384 -- emphasis added; SWN, V, 69-70,90.
40. Panchayats set up by the militant peasants.
41. SWN, V, 104; VII, 167; V, 172.
42. G. Pandey, The Ascendancy of the Congress in Uttar Pradesh 1926-34, 192; see also 185.
43. Ibid, 180,184-6,188; also 223.
44. SWN, V, 107; Pandey, op cit., 185.
45. See Nehru to Chief Secretary, U.P., 15 Oct. and Nehru to the Private Secretary to the Viceroy, 16 Oct. 1931, SWN, V, 151 and 155.
46. Ibid, 155-8,155, fn.2; S. Gopal, Jawaharlal Nehru, I, 166.
47. SWN, V, 162,163,fn.3,182.
48. Ibid, 189.
49. G. Safarov, "The Congress Socialist Party and the New Manoeuvres of the National Congress in India", Communist International, 20 Nov. 1934; reprinted in Radical Periodicals in the United States, 1934, 788.
50. William Burton, India's North-West Frontier, London 1939, 167; quoted in Amit Bhattacharyya, "The Great Peshawar Uprising (1930)", Revolt Studies, Calcutta, June 1986, 108.
51. CWG, XLV, 259; XLVII, 179,223,300.
52. Ibid, XLVI, 397-9,29-31.
53. See Kali Charan Ghosh, The Roll of Honour, 508-9.
54. AICC Papers, File P-6/1927, Part I; cited in Gitasree Bandyopadhyay, Constraints in Bengal Politics 1921-41, Calcutta, 1984, 299-300. Obviously, the date of the file has been given wrongly.
55. See CWG, XLVII, 209,231-3,243-4,255-7; SWN, V, 291.
56. CWG, XLVI, 120; XLVII, 223,445; see also ibid, 39. Emphasis added.
57. Ibid, XLVII, 260-65,166-77.
58. SWN, V, 307,291,294.
58a. Birla, Bapu, IV, 30-1.
59. Brown, Gandhi and Civil Disobedience, 215.
60. CWG, XLVI, 416 -- emphasis added.
61. Ibid, 403; XLVII, 121,200,281,291.
62. Ibid, 286,287,fn.1,299 and fn.1,305, and fn.1,330 and fn.1,331,352 and fn.1.
63. Ibid, 365,371. Emphasis added.
64. Ibid, XLVI, 275; see also XLV, 458; XLVII, 384 -- emphasis added.
65. Templewood Papers, MSS, EUR. E. 240(5), India Office Library; quoted in Brown, Gandhi and Civil Disobedience, 239 -- emphasis added.
66. CWG, XLVII, 416,419. Emphasis added.
67. See SWN, V, 322-3 and 323,fn.2; AICC Papers, File 57/1931.
68. See D.G. Tendulkar, Mahatma, I, 151; Penderel Moon, Gandhi and Modern India, 54; Vol. I of this book, 152-3.
69. See Reginald Coupland, The Indian Problem 1833-1935, 126. For the main features of the Nehru Report, see Vol. I of this book, 279-85.
70. CWG, XLVIII, 18-9,20,310. Emphasis added.
71. Ibid, 362-5.
72. Ibid, 28-9, 363.
73. See Vol. I of this book, 107; G.D. Birla, The Path to Prosperity, 377,380-2,386-9,389-90 -- emphasis added.
74. Quoted in Frank Moraes, op cit., 143.
75. CWG, XLVIII, 147,177,246,306,309; also 256. Emphasis added.
76. Ibid, 16,34,242-3,245,247,257,277,296. Emphasis added.
77. Ibid, 313-4.
78. Ibid, 3,39,45,87 and fn.1,289,341,376.
79. Ibid, 14-5,117,277,357. See also XLV, 253.
80. Ibid, 116,160,205,207,257; B.R. Ambedkar, What Congress and Gandhi Have Done to the Untouchables, 65.
81. Ibid, XLVIII, 96 -- emphasis added.
82. Ibid, 357 -- emphasis added.
83. Frank Moraes, Sir Purshotamdas Thakurdas, 134 and Witness to an Era, 32; David Page, Prelude to Partition, 243; Kanji Dwarkadas, op cit., 404; Bipan Chandra, Nationalism and Colonialism in India, 268-9; C. Khaliquzzaman, Pathway to Pakistan, 113.
84. Birla to Thakurdas, 22 Aug. and 1 Sept. 1932, PT Papers, File 126, Part 2; Jinnah to Gandhi, 3 Mar. 1938, CWG, LXVI, 481.
85. See Kanji Dwarkadas, op cit., 383-4; M.A.H. Ispahani, "Factors Leading to the Partition of British India", in Philips and Wainwright (eds.) The Partition of India, 33q; Vol. I of this book, 276-83.
86. Uma Kaura, Muslims and Indian Nationalism, 76.
87. See Brown, Gandhi and Civil Disobedience, 250.
88. CWG, XLVIII, 300,302.
89. Ibid, 352,364-5,367.
90. See ibid, 371-2 -- emphasis added.
91. Ibid, 208,301,333,340,389,399,426-7, passim.
92. Ibid, 458. See also 44,447,449-50.
93. Subhas Bose, The Indian Struggle, 235.
94. See CWG, XLVIII, 470-2 -- emphasis added; The Congress Encyclopaedia, X, 219.
95. CWG, XLVIII, 474-6 -- emphasis added.
96. Ibid, 492-3; D.R. Mankekar, Homi Mody: A Many Splendoured Life, 101; GOI, Home Dept., Pol., Fortnightly Report on the Internal Political Situation, first half, January 1932, cited in Stanley Kochanek, Business and Politics in India, 142.
97. Brown, Gandhi and Civil Disobedience, 280; CWG, XLVIII, 487.
98. Gopal, op cit., 170.
99. Low, "`Civil Martial Law': The Government of India and the Civil Disobedience Movement, 1930-34", in Low (ed), op cit., 173.
100. Bose, op cit., 363; CWG, XLVI, 416; Palme Dutt, op cit, 310; see also Sitaramayya, op cit., II, 456; Nehru, An Autobiography, 327, 328; Rajendra Prasad, Autobiography, 343.
101. E.J. Hobsbawm, Industry and Empire, 191,207-8.
102. Tomlinson, The Political Economy of the Raj, 121.
103. Ibid, 17; Rajat K. Ray, op cit, 11-2.
104. See John Gallagher and Anil Seal, "Britain and India between the Wars", in Christopher Baker et al (eds.), 406.
105. GOI, Despatch on Proposals for Constitutional Reforms 1930, 9,56; cited in Communists Challenge Imperialism from the Dock (General Statement of the eighteen Communist prisoners before the Sessions Court at Meerut, 1931), 73.
106. See Moore, The Crisis of Indian Unity, 235-6; Brown, Gandhi and Civil Disobedience, 61.