THE logical successors to the revolutionary terrorists were the Ghadr revolutionaries. In fact, there were close links between them. By World War I, a large community of Indian (largely Sikh) labourers and shopkeepers had come up in Canada. They came from a background of peasant hardship and oppression, and suffered acute racial discrimination at their new place of work. From 1907, various developments in India's freedom struggle had their impact on this community. As early as in 1907, an Indian exile started a paper, Circular-e-azadi; another started a militant paper called Free Hindustan; and another a Gurmukhi paper Swadeshi Sevak. A Washington-based group, consisting largely of radical nationalist students settled in Washington, spent a large part of 1913 touring Lahore, Ferozepur, Ambala, Jalandhar and Simla holding well-attended public meetings. In 1913, a radical Sikh priest, Bhagwan Singh, visited Vancouver and openly propagated the violent overthrow of British rule. (He was, however, soon externed from Canada.) The activities of Ajit Singh, the "extremist" peasant leader in Punjab, had also become famous among the Indian community, and Indians settled in the U.S. thought of inviting him there to lead them.
However, by 1913, a leadership emerged from a San Francisco-based group led by Sohan Singh Bhakhna (later a Communist leader) and Lala Har Dayal. On November 1, 1913, they began a weekly paper, Ghadr, whose simplicity of message and language must have been a remarkable change for the people from the woolly ambiguities of Congress speeches.
"Ghadr" meant "revolution". Underneath the title of the paper was the phrase: "Angrezi Raj ka Dushman". The front page of each issue contained a list called "Angrezi Raj ka kaccha chittha". This list enumerated the harmful effects of British rule. They included the drain of wealth, the low per capita income of Indians, the high land tax, the contrast between the low expenditure on health and the high expenditure on the military, the destruction of Indian arts and industries, the recurrence of famine and plague which killed millions of Indians, the use of Indian tax payers' money to commit aggression on Afghanistan, Burma, Egypt, Persia and China, the effort to foment discord between Hindus and Muslims. Here was, in fact, a clear, bold and direct summary of a number of points that the Congress and the "drain economists" had mentioned over and over in helpless, pleading, ambiguous language.
But what was most strikingly different from the Congress was the course of action it charted out. The 13th and 14th points in the list were: that the Indian population measures 310 million, while there are only 79,614 officers and soldiers and 38,948 volunteers who are Englishmen; and that it was 56 years since the 1857 Revolt, and time for another. The first issue of the Ghadr began: "What is our name? The Ghadr (revolution). In what does our work consist? In bringing about a rising.... Where will this rising break out? In India. When will it break out? In a few years...."
What was especially striking about the Ghadr group, and what marked a major advance from the Swadeshi-era revolutionaries, was its total absence of communal feeling. The first issue of Ghadr was brought out in Urdu; the Gurmukhi edition followed a month later; and this was followed later by several other Indian languages. The anti-communal attitude of the group was reflected, for instance, in the following poem published in Ghadr:
"No pundits or mullahs do we need
No prayers or litanies need we recite
These will only scuttle our boat
Draw the sword; It is time to fight!"
The leaders of the Ghadr group included men such as Mohamed Barkatullah, Ram Chandra, Santokh Singh Bhakhna, Lala Har Dayal, and Bhagwan Singh. Nor were the leaders of this group sectarian or, as far as one can guess, personally ambitious. It is worth noting that, for the 1915 Ghadr revolt, they sought the leadership of the Bengali revolutionaries Rash Behari Bose and Sachin Sanyal.
The paper Ghadr evoked a powerful response, and managed to reach Indians not only in India but in their settlements around the globe. The "Komagata Maru" incidents of March 1914, in which a shipload of would-be immigrants from Punjab were turned back from Vancouver port despite extensive agitation on their behalf by the Ghadrites, raised nationalist feeling to fever pitch. The First World War broke out during the ship's return journey, and not a single passenger was allowed to disembark at any port along the way. At each port where the ship stopped, it evoked protest among the Indian immigrants settled there. By the time it returned to Calcutta, the passengers, further harassed by the authorities, resisted the police. Of a total of 376 passengers, 18 were killed and 202 sent to jail; a few managed to run away.
The First World War offered the best opportunity for the revolutionaries to take advantage of this already simmering discontent. The Indian army was expanded to 1.2 million, and Indian soldiers who wrote letters or returned from the front told of horrifically bungled campaigns where the Indians served as cannon fodder. Over 355,000 had been recruited from Punjab, many forcibly, through lambardars (village chiefs). Large amounts of food and fodder were exported from India, moreover, for the British Army. Between 1913 and 1918 prices rose in the country by more than 55 per cent. Living standards of the masses fell sharply - consumption of cotton cloth, for instance, fell by around 45 per cent over the period of the war. The rise in prices was not compensated for by a proportionate rise in industrial wages or in prices of agricultural products (eg. jute) grown by the peasantry which were being exported.
But an even more advantageous factor for revolutionary activity was the obvious military weakness of the British, fighting a war in Europe. At one point, the number of white soldiers in India went as low as 15,000. Even the most cut-off tribal communities understood this. In Daspalla, Orissa, a Khond rebellion started in October 1914 on the rumour that a war had started and soon "there would be no sahebs left in the country" so that "the Khonds would live under their own rule". The British mercilessly burnt down entire villages to suppress the uprising. During the War, tribal revolts and British repression also occurred among the Oraons of Chhota Nagpur, the Santals of Mayurbhanj, and the Thadoe Kukis of Manipur. Rajasthan was a region of particular unrest. In late 1913 itself the Bhil tribals of Banswara, Sunth and Dungarpur states had staged an abortive attempt to set up an independent Bhil raj, which was crushed only after putting up significant resistance. Shortly after this were the struggle of peasants of Bijolia against landlord exploitation and the no-tax movement against the Udaipur Maharana. Meanwhile unrest and violent incidents brewed in what were to be the first staging grounds of Gandhian satyagraha in India: Champaran (Bihar), Kheda and Bardoli (both Gujarat).
By contrast, the Congress seized upon the First World War as yet another opportunity to demonstrate their loyalty. The First World War was one of the most senseless and horrifying sacrifices made of human life and effort in the inter-imperialist competition for colonies and spheres of influence, the rivalries of high finance, and the forcible readjustment of European borders and treaties. The British were particularly interested to protect their own rule in their colonies in this competition. No people's interest was involved in this war. The killed alone numbered more than eight million; the wounded even more; and the wholesale destruction wrought on the lives of common people was still greater. It was such a war that the Congress leapt to support in its 1914 Congress:
"IV. Resolved - (a) that this Congress desires to convey to His Majesty the King Emperor and the people of England its profound devotion to the Throne, its unswerving allegiance to the British Connection, and its firm resolve to stand by the Empire, at all hazards and at all costs. (b) That this Congress places on record the deep sense of gratitude and the enthusiasm which the Royal Message, addressed to the Princes and Peoples of India at the beginning of the War, has evoked throughout the length and breadth of the country, and which strikingly illustrates His Majesty's solicitude and sympathy for them, and strengthens the bond which unites the Princes and Peoples of India to His Royal House and the person of His Gracious Majesty."V. Resolved - that this Congress notes with gratitude and satisfaction the despatch of the Indian Expeditionary Force to the theatre of war, and begs to offer to H.E. the Viceroy its most heartfelt thanks for affording to the people of India an opportunity of showing that, as equal subjects of His Majesty, they are prepared to fight shoulder to shoulder with the people of other parts of the Empire in defence of right and justice, and the cause of the Empire."
The Congress continued to pledge its loyalty and support to the War at each of its annual sessions upto 1918, when it congratulated the King on the successful termination of the war. Hume in his grave must have been happy at the spectacle of the Congress at last receiving open official sanction: The 1914 Congress was attended by Lord Pentland, the Governor of Madras, the 1915 Congress by Lord Willingdon, Governor of Bombay, the 1916 Congress by Sir James Meston, Governor of U.P. - each being received with standing ovations.
Meanwhile the revolutionaries in Bengal (most of whom had united under Jatin Mukherjee, nicknamed "Bagha Jatin") were arming themselves to fight the British. They achieved a major success in August 1914 when they managed to capture 50 Mauser pistols and 46,000 rounds of ammunition. Revolutionary armed actions reached a new peak, with political "dacoities" and executions of British officials reaching, respectively, 12 and 7 in 1914-15, and 23 and 9 in 1915-16. Bagha Jatin's group planned disruption of rail communications and seizure of Fort William (soldiers of which were apparently sympathetic). But poor planning and bungling ruined the execution, and Bagha Jatin himself was tracked down and shot.
Bagha Jatin's action was only one part of an all-India plan. The Ghadr leaders welcomed the news of the war as an opportunity to strike for freedom. They managed to mobilise thousands to return to India, particularly to Punjab, to propagate revolution. They issued an Ailan-e-Jung (Proclamation of War) which was widely circulated, and men like Kartar Singh Sarabha and Raghbir Dayal Gupta left for India to organise the revolt. Rash Behari Bose and Sachin Sanyal were asked to coordinate the revolt. The British, of course, took fierce repressive measures. Out of about 8,000 returned Punjabis, by 1916 the British had interned about 2,500 and jailed 400. British spies foiled the plan for rebellions on February 21, 1915, by the Ferozepur, Lahore, and Rawalpindi garrisons.
The Punjabi Muslim 5th Light Infantry and the 36th Sikh battallion under Jamadar Chisti Khan, Jamadar Abdul Ghani and Subedar Daud Khan revolted at Singapore on February 15, 1915. In suppressing the revolt, the British executed 37 and transported 41 for life. Sachin Sanyal was transported for life for having tried to subvert garrisons at Benares and Damapore. Scattered rebellions took place elsewhere.
At Ambala, where a group of rebel sepoys were caught, the words of one Abdulla - the solitary Muslim among them - remain. In refusing to betray his comrades, he uttered his last words: "It is with these men alone that the gates of heaven shall open to me." The group was executed. The 19-year-old Kartar Singh Sarabha said before being hanged: "If I had more lives than one, I would sacrifice each one of them for my country's sake."
The Ghadr revolutionaries continued to carry out some sorts of propaganda and action. In several cases of political execution in the countryside, the target was a moneylender, and they burnt his debt bonds before leaving with his cash.
The decision to target Indian collaborators marks a significant further step away from Congress ideology. The rural activities of the Ghadr revolutionaries - melas, village tours, public meetings - marked a yet further step. They attracted the attention of the Chief Khalsa Diwan, who, proclaiming his loyalty to the King, declared them to be "fallen" Sikhs and criminals. He gave full assistance to the Government in tracking them down.
British repression was severe, particularly through the Defence of India Act passed in March 1915 to smash the Ghadr movement. Large numbers of suspects in Bengal and Punjab were held without trial for years. The cases, tried in Special Courts, resulted in the execution of 46 and long prison sentences for 200 (out of which 64 were life sentences).
The Ghadr movement was an advance over the action of Swadeshi-era terrorists in two ways. First, it perceived the need for mass involvement, and it relied on the labouring masses' support. Secondly, it realised that an effective challenge to British rule - not to mention a free society -- required communal solidarity.
While the Congress had welcomed the War, it was rapidly becoming evident that the burdens on the people, and the people's realisation of British weakness, were factors that could precipitate a much broader revolt, not a localised rising which the British were experienced at smashing. The British, too, were extremely aware of the same factors. The situations toward the second half of the War and in the immediately post-war period were those in which innumerable mass struggles, among peasants (including tribals) and most of all among workers, were looking for an all-India leadership. In particular, the victory of the Bolsheviks in Russia alarmed the British. If any such leadership were to be provided to the Indian people, what would be their answer?
Intelligence reports show that the British had begun to find Bolshevism everywhere, although there were as yet virtually no communist activists in the country. It is true, however, that Bolshevik Russia immediately inspired enormous sympathy among all the Indian revolutionaries. In fact several of these either made visits to Russia or began to be influenced by Communist thought. British attempts to stop the "infiltration" of "Soviet agents" seem ridiculous today, but it needs to be noted that the British had located the broader and more long-term danger. A secret note prepared by the Government (Foreign Department, Secret-Internal, August 1920) candidly assessed the situation as follows:
"Now there is no doubt that at present the lower classes in India, both in the towns and in the rural areas, are going through a very hard time. The high prices resulting from the war have induced a feeling of restlessness making them discontented with conditions which previously they bore patiently. Accordingly in the country districts the peasants are grumbling that there is no reason why they should be forced to pay rent to the Zamindar or land revenue to the Sarkar, in the towns the labourers are complaining, that while the rich man lives of comfort and ease, they are condemned to toil, early and late, to live in miserable hovels, to go clad in rags. And unfortunately there is no sign that the economic stress which has brought this about will pass away in the near future. This growing atmosphere of social unrest opens the door to Bolshevik propaganda.... No man who has eyes to see the changed temper of the lower classes in India can deny [that] within a short time, unless remedies be applied, they will be ripe for Bolshevism." (Arindam Sen and Partha Ghosh, eds., Communist Movement in India: Historical Perspective and Important Documents, Patna, 1991)
The answer to this brewing situation of mass revolt was a mass organisation of non-revolutionary (or, effectively, counter-revolutionary) politics, combined with a Government programme of further widening the circle of collaborators and giving them scope to divert the emerging struggles. This, in fact, was the course chosen. The Congress could not, of course, be considered a mass organisation as yet; indeed, such mass leaders as it had had been expelled in 1907.
It was with this in mind that Tilak, tamed and frightened by his long and harsh prison sentence, was allowed back into the Congress in 1915. Tilak had to declare that he was "trying in India... for a reform of the system of administration and not for an overthrow of the Government", and that "acts of violence which have been committed in different parts of India are not only repugnant to me, but have, in my opinion, retarded to a great extent the pace of our political progress".
Tilak and Annie Besant (an English theosophist) set up Home Rule Leagues - agitating for, not independence, but limited self-government within the British Empire. What exactly Besant conceived of as Home Rule was revealed when, with the "Montford" reforms of 1919, she opposed further reform and became a fierce loyalist to the Crown.
However, the unrest in India was going much further than this. Take the example of one district in Bihar - Champaran. The ryots of Champaran laboured under the zamindari system. The zamindars sub-let their leases to English planters who forced the ryots to grow indigo on three-twentieths of their land (the notorious tinkathia system) and `bought' it from them forcibly at absurdly low prices.
In the 1860s, this practice had already led to the massive indigo riots in which most indigo-growing districts in Bengal and Bihar participated, and the memory of that uprising remained among the ryots.
From the turn of the century, as demand for indigo in Europe declined in the face of competition from synthetic dyes, the planters passed the burden onto the peasants by charging sharahbeshi (rent-enhancement) or tawan (lumpsum compensation), not to mention over 40 other types of fines, cesses, rents, and so on, arbitrarily invented and collected. The result was an explosive situation.
In the Motihari-Bettiah region of Champaran, widespread resistance developed during 1905-8, over an area of 400 square miles. Violence was involved, including the murder of Bloomfield, an indigo factory manager; 57 criminal cases were launched, and 277 peasants were sentenced.
By 1917, nevertheless, the situation had become even more explosive. The first World War led to an even sharper drop in indigo exports, and the planters made up their losses with such vicious enhancements that another major riot was in the offing. It was in such a context that Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi was to make his entrance into Indian politics.
Gandhi, the son of the former dewan of the princely state of Rajkot, and of the bania caste, had begun political activity while in South Africa against the racial discrimination there. Several interesting features of his agitations there are worth keeping in mind.
First, he specifically took up the cause of only Indians in South Africa, never the blacks who formed the overwhelming majority. In fact, during the heroic rebellion waged by the Zulus in 1906 (during which the British carried out unparalleled massacres of the Zulus), he offered his services to the British as the leader of a stretcher-bearer company.
Secondly, he kept the agitation in careful check through training of all cadres in what he termed "non-violence", and by taking up peaceful violations of only very specific laws.
Thirdly, he was remarkably open to amazing compromises: for instance, he called off the first satyagraha (January 1908) on the basis of a mere verbal promise from Governor-General Jan Smuts that if Indians registered, they would not be made to carry permits. Indians registered, and Smuts promptly broke his promise. A militant Pathan beat up Gandhi for his betrayal, and it was after this that Gandhi revived the satyagraha.
It is worth taking note of several basic features of Gandhian ideology, and what they meant in the concrete conditions of India at the time.
First, he preached the practice of only non-violence in political agitation. Violent means by the agitating side, according to him, would pollute the agitationists. Non-violence, by contrast, would render the agitationists morally superior to the authorities. What did this mean in practice?
The Indian people were labouring under a rule of utmost routine violence. Ryots who did not pay their revenue or rent could be tortured, even stripped naked and given electric shocks. If a ryot could not pay his revenue, his land would be seized.
When electrical lighting came to the mills, the millowners forced workers to put in a 15 to 16 hour working day. Millworkers would have to put even their wives and children to work in the mills for their combined earnings to amount to a living.
In the last 25 years of the 19th century, 15,000,000 Indians died of starvation. Sixteen million Indians were killed by influenza (in reality by hunger) during World War I. Upon the least agitation by either workers or peasants, there would be firings and court cases.
In a situation of such wholesale organised violence against people, when otherwise peaceful people rose up to resist, the British labelled their acts "coercion" and "violence". These acts were what Gandhi, too, meant by violence.
In each major instance of such "violence" during his period of active politics, Gandhi condemned the people's action far more strongly than he criticised the Government's or the exploiters' routine violence.
It was not primarily violence that Gandhi was against, but rather the justified resistance and counter-violence of the oppressed. Gandhi's argument for non-violence was that it gave its user moral superiority. He stressed that the benefit of such moral superiority is that one can win over one's opponent, and that only by winning over one's opponent could one win victory. What this spelled in concrete terms was not merely the social and economic subjugation of the Indian people, but their mental subjugation as well: people should only hope to win freedom if their masters could be persuaded to grant it through a change of heart.
It was an even more vicious form of the early Congress philosophy: the early Congress leaders hoped that they could win concessions by showing the English that they were respectable, educated Indians - not the disloyal "rabble"; Gandhi wanted to show the English that the rabble themselves were long-suffering, subservient, and worthy of pity.
To what lengths Gandhi would have been willing to take his philosophy is illustrated by his advice to Jews during the Nazi Holocaust: that they should willingly go to their deaths, knowing that their sacrifice would, at some point, melt Hitler's heart! (See Gandhi's Non-Violence in Peace and War, 1942.)
In his central work, Hind Swaraj (the title of the English translation is not "Indian Independence", but "Indian Home Rule"), Gandhi prescribes that all Indians, even the "upper class, have to learn to live consciously and religiously and deliberately the simple life of a peasant". But did that mean they should give up their property, or distribute it among other similarly simple-living peasants? No, on the contrary, they should hoard it and hold it "in trust" for the people, utilising it for "the common good".
Then in exactly what sense was their life to be like a peasant's? While having property, they should not be attached to property. Moreover, they would have to practise certain rituals of peasant life - eg, spinning, what was made by him a central qualification for Congress membership.
The theory of "trusteeship management" suited the rich perfectly, since they would not have to part with their accumulated fortunes. Of course, that did not make even the industrialists who were closest to Gandhi - Birla, Sarabhai, Bajaj - accept the observance of any of this "peasant" nonsense in their style of life or pattern of expenditure. Nor did Gandhi attempt to make them do so.
Clearly, the theory of "trusteeship" was not meant as an instruction to the expropriating classes but as an opiate to the expropriated.
Gandhi came to India in 1915. Earlier, in transit from South Africa, he raised a volunteer ambulance corps for the English (who were by then fighting the First World War). He repeated his offer of service to the Viceroy upon return. He also attended the Delhi War Conference in 1917, and in 1918 attempted recruiting the peasants of Kheda for the War. (He later wrote that in Kheda "My optimism received a rude shock. Whereas during the revenue campaign the people readily offered their carts free of charge, and two volunteers came forth when one was needed, it was difficult now to get a cart even on hire, to say nothing of volunteers.... People did attend [recruitment meetings], but hardly one or two would offer themselves as recruits. `You are a votary of Ahimsa, how can you ask us to take up arms?' `What good has the Government done for India to deserve our cooperation?' These and similar questions used to be put to us." - An Autobiography, or the Story of My Experiments with Truth, Ahmedabad, 1927) Clearly, non-violence took a back-seat to the needs of the Empire.
After Gandhi's arrival in India he remained politically inactive for some time, looking for the appropriate opportunity. Significantly, he chose as his "guru" in politics not Tilak but Gokhale. It was Gokhale who promoted him in Indian politics on his arrival in India. After Gokhale's death in 1915 Gandhi indeed observed a year of mourning. But while his allegiances were similar to those of Gokhale, Gandhi would pursue an entirely different style.
In 1916-17, Gandhi was repeatedly approached by lawyers and politicians from Champaran asking him to solve the problems between the ryots and the planters. In July 1917, he arrived in Champaran.
The notion that Gandhi organised the struggle in Champaran is refuted by the fact that already at his arrival massive crowds were gathered at the railway stations. The ryots were already in enormous unrest. What they needed was honest leadership. Without undertaking a single action, Gandhi became known as the leader of the Champaran agitation. Upon his arrival itself the commissioner externed him from the district. Gandhi, in an act of boldness rare for any Congress leader, refused to obey the externment order, and asked that he receive the appropriate punishment. He explained that his purpose was to conduct an impartial inquiry into the complaints of the ryots, and, after hearing from both sides, put forward a scheme for reform.
By then Gandhi's externment and his bold speech had not only become national issues but had made the situation locally dangerous. The Central Government decided to let Gandhi enter, and ordered the local authorities to let him do so.
Once in Champaran, Gandhi did a remarkable thing. He did not call public meetings, or ask the peasants to boycott indigo cultivation, or advocate non-payment of rent (or non-payment of even the enhancements in rent), or chalk out any form of agitation whatsoever. He simply recorded statements of the ryots, one by one. He collected, in all, over 8,000 statements of ryots, and also attempted to collect some statements of planters (who, however, were not interested to give any statements). He checked the spontaneous militancy of the peasants wherever it broke out (there were some attacks on indigo factories and a few cases of arson).
The Government, meanwhile, appointed a commission of inquiry. It even made Gandhi one of its members. Gandhi placed his accumulated statements before the commission. The commission, including Gandhi, decided to abolish the tinkathia system and decided that planters should refund 25 per cent of the illegal enhancements in rents.
Neither of these decisions was a victory for the ryots. The first avoided the crux of the matter: since indigo demand was drying up anyway, planters were quite willing to reduce indigo-growing in exchange for higher rents. The second concession, the refund, was a drastic compromise of the peasants' own demand for a 100 per cent refund, and as such it effectively legalised part of the illegal rent-hikes.
Answering critics who asked why he had not insisted on a 100 per cent refund, Gandhi explained that the mere fact of the planters having agreed to some refund would be adequate damage to their prestige and position!
Evidently, the peasants cared little about such abstract philosophical points. By late 1917, the peasants were refusing to pay even the reduced sharahbeshi (rent-enhancement) agreed to by Gandhi's settlement.
Nor was Gandhi contemplating this compromise as a first step in a a struggle to end feudal exploitation, which was at the root of the ryot's condition. Indeed, it is a condition that has not changed for the better to the present day.
Gandhi left behind 15 volunteers to carry on "constructive work" (ie, social work) in Champaran; but even these volunteers disappeared over the next six months. Gandhi revealingly mentioned to Rajendra Prasad that the only real solution "was the education of ryots and a constant process of mediation between them and the planters" (emphasis added).
Gandhi's method of "agitation" was thus revealing. Collecting statements is not by itself a form of struggle: Without an ensuing struggle it becomes a method of petitioning, of presenting one's case to the rulers, and attempting to persuade them. Collecting such information, or presenting one's case before the rulers, as part of a struggle is, of course, legitimate and necessary; but Gandhi was advocating this course of action in place of struggle.
Gandhi's next "education and mediation" was between the Ahmedabad workers and millowners.
During the War, prices had risen by more than 60 per cent. In a particular period when, due to an epidemic, labour was in short supply, millowners had attracted more labour by paying a "plague bonus". After the epidemic had ended, they wished to withdraw it. The workers pointed out that it hardly compensated for the price rise, and demanded a 50 per cent wage-hike in its place - though even this wage-hike would not compensate fully for the price rise, nor for the lost bonus.
Gandhi persuaded them to ask for only a 35 per cent increase. The net effect would be to allow the millowners to lower the real wages. Following their initial hostility, the millowners, when they realised this, accepted Gandhi's intervention and settled. Gandhi had, among the millowners, a good friend in Ambalal Sarabhai, who had also saved the Sabarmati ashram by a generous donation. Gandhi wrote later: "The principal man at the back of the millowners' unbending attitude towards the strike was Sheth Ambalal. His resolute will and transparent sincerity were wonderful and captured my heart."
Gandhi's conduct of the strike was significant. He refused to allow picketing of mills. He held daily meetings on the banks of the Sabarmati, preaching against force being used on blacklegs and employers.
The conventional picture given of the strike, based on Gandhi's own account, is that he managed to revive the "flagging spirit" of workers with his hunger strike, and persuaded them to continue the strike. Actually what flagged was their confidence in Gandhi and his tactics. The attendance at his daily meetings had begun to decline and the workers' attitude towards blacklegs had begun to harden.
The District Magistrate's report records that the workers "assailed him (Gandhi) bitterly for being a friend of the millowners, riding in their motor-cars and eating sumptuously with them, while the weavers were starving". According to the Magistrate, Gandhi began this fast "stung by these taunts".
With the hunger strike, the millowners felt it was time to accede to the 35 per cent demand, thus not only settling the issue satisfactorily for themselves but establishing in the process Gandhi's Majoor Mahajan as the dominant union among the Ahmedabad textile workers. "At the meeting held to celebrate the settlement", says Gandhi, "both the millowners and the Commissioner were present. The advice which the latter gave to the mill-hands on this occasion was: `You should always act as Mr. Gandhi advises you.'" In the following decades the Majoor Mahajan was to play the role of the lapdog of the millowners.
A similar compromise was arrived at in Gandhi's next struggle at Kheda in Gujarat. Here peasants were fighting for remission of land revenue collection on the grounds that their crops had failed.
The demand for a no-revenue campaign came not from Gandhi but from the peasants. Gandhi was reluctant to take it up, and by the time he finished hesitating (March 22, 1918), the poorer peasants had already been coerced into paying their revenue.
Moreover, by that time, a relatively better rabi crop weakened the chances for a remission of revenue. Gandhi claimed that he had come to know of secret orders issued by the Government instructing that revenue be collected only from those who could pay (in practice, of course, this meant those who could be made to pay). Gandhi felt that since a public declaration of this decision would mean a blow to government prestige, he would withdraw the struggle unilaterally.
Gandhi's remarkable rise was a sign of the desperate need that the emerging mass struggles had for an all-India leadership. It was also a sign of how the Congress and the British, perceiving this, allowed Gandhi to be projected as a "unique" figure, a superhuman, a Mahatma, who alone could lead these struggles. Thus we find, on the one hand, powerful and violent struggles of the peasantry breaking out spontaneously throughout this period, often using Gandhi's name without ever having seen his face, and often even carrying out uprisings in his name; on the other hand, wherever he was able to intervene, and to the extent he was able to do so, he pacified the struggles for some token concession.
British policy during this period followed a double track: On the one hand, a set of political reforms offering the Indian elite greater participation in British rule, and on the other, unstinted repression on mass movements.
The reforms, known as the Montagu-Chelmsford reforms, after the Secretary of State and Viceroy who introduced them, had been heralded by a declaration of August 20, 1917. The correspondence leading to the declaration reveals that among their major preoccupations was the February 1917 overthrow of autocracy in Russia.
With the Bolshevik revolution in Russia later the same year, the need to provide "representative government" in India, or at least some shadow of it, acquired a special urgency. The declaration specifically outlined a policy of "increasing the association of Indians in every branch of the administration and the gradual development of self-governing institutions with a view to the progressive realisation of responsible government in India".
Thus the British policy of cultivating Indian collaborators to administer India on their behalf became a stated policy of the Government.
The execution of this promise was the Government of India Act, 1919. Its main device was the curious one of "dyarchy". Thereby, no change was made in the structure of the Central Government, but in the provincial governments, some subjects such as health and education were transferred to Indian ministers. Items such as police and land revenue remained in the hands of the British. The majority of the seats in the provincial legislatures were to be elected by a franchise determined on the basis of property (ie, it extended to only the rich), and as such included less than three per cent of the population. The electorate for the majority of seats in the legislative assembly was even narrower, at one per cent of the population.
When we return to the question of acceptance of these reforms by the Congress, it is worth keeping these details in mind.
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