SIMULTANEOUSLY, on March 18, 1919, the Government passed the so-called "Rowlatt Act". It was based on the recommendations of the Sedition Committee under Justice Rowlatt, which had studied all the recent conspiracies to overthrow British rule.
Its major provisions included special courts for sedition offences, trials in camera and without a chance for the defence to see or cross-examine the witnesses, and detention without trial for upto two years even for mere possession of tracts declared to be seditious. (Indeed, it contained many of the provisions later to be embodied in the Terrorist and Disruptive Activities [Prevention] Act, 1985 - though the latter was even more stringent.) The Act, combined with continuing post-war conditions of misery for the people and a major labour upsurge, was sure to evoke a storm of protest. The question was how this protest could be channelled.
Gandhi saw that an Act aimed against the revolutionaries and, as Montagu himself admitted, provoking universal protest, would propel the revolutionaries once again into the limelight. Gandhi explained to Dinshaw Wacha that "the growing generation will not be satisfied with petitions, etc.... Satyagraha is the only way, is the only way to stop terrorism". His letter to the press on March 1, 1919, makes this public:
"It will be easy now to see why I consider the Bills to be the unmistakable symptom of the deep-seated disease in the governing body. It needs, therefore, to be drastically treated. Subterranean violence will be the remedy by the impetuous, hot-headed youths, who will have grown impatient of the spirit underlying the bills and circumstances attending their introduction. The bills must intensify hatred and ill-will against the State, of which deeds of violence are undoubtedly an evidence. The Indian Covenanters (ie, those taking the Satyagraha vow) by their determination to undergo every form of suffering, make an irresistible appeal to the Government, towards which they bear no ill-will, and provide to the believers in efficiency of violence a means of seeking redress of grievance with the infallible remedy and with a remedy that blesses those who use it...."
It is very clear from the above quotation that Gandhi, like earlier Congress leaders, was aiming not at pressurising the Government so much as he was aiming at weaning away those influenced by the revolutionaries. The Satyagraha, as is evident from the reference to "determination to undergo every form of suffering", was to be a non-violent affair to the point of not offering any real resistance.
The plan for an all-India hartal was fixed for a Sunday, and Gandhi explicitly declared that employees who are required to work even on Sunday may only suspend work after obtaining previous leave from their employers. (Clearly he wanted to avoid the possibility of workers utilising the Satyagraha to carry out strikes.) He also rejected suggestions for a no revenue call ("Bhai Saheb!", he told one leader, "you will acknowledge that I am an expert in Satyagraha business!")
Two of the factors which contributed to the unexpected nationwide upsurge in answer to the Satyagraha call were: the spontaneously growing labour movement (fuelled by the fact that an 80-100 per cent increase in the price of foodgrains had been hardly offset by wage rises of, say, 15 per cent) and remarkable Hindu-Muslim unity. The former phenomenon included the formation of the first regularly functioning trade unions, and the great, largely spontaneous, Bombay textile strike of January 1919. Hindu-Muslim unity had been facilitated partly by the 1916 Lucknow Pact between the Congress and the leaders of the Muslim League, whereby the Congress accepted separate electorates and a bargain was struck over distribution of seats. Muslim politicians were agitated over the Khilafat issue: The Sultan of Turkey, which was accepted as the major Muslim power, was being subjected to humiliating terms by the British after World War I, and Muslim leaders worldwide sympathized.
The anxieties of Muslim politicians coincided in 1919 with the agitational plans of the Congress. And so, for the first time, the major politicians of both communities jointly gave a call for struggle.
To view the Hindu-Muslim unity of the period in the light of only the pact between the leaders is, however, to look at things from the wrong end. For most Muslims, the Khilafat issue meant nothing except an occasion to vent their discontent against British rule. What actually happened was that the enormous potential for remarkable communal solidarity in the struggle against British rule stood revealed following the joint call. This unity was never again fully recovered after 1921. The subsequent machinations of the major political parties and their refusal to organise a full-fledged struggle against British rule and foreign and feudal exploitation were responsible for this loss. The official report for 1919 describes a unity so remarkable that, had the struggle lasted, it could have permanently forged communal unity:
"One noticeable feature of the general excitement was the unprecedented fraternisation between the Hindus and the Muslims. Their union, between the leaders, had now for long been a fixed plank of the nationalist platform. In this time of public excitement, even the lower classes agreed for once to forget the differences. Extraordinary scenes of fraternisation occurred. Hindus publicly accepted water from the hands of Moslems and vice-versa. Hindu-Moslem unity was the watchword of processions, indicated both by cries and by banners. Hindu leaders had actually been allowed to preach from the pulpit of a mosque."
It was in this period that the poet Iqbal wrote the secular, patriotic anthem "Hindustan Hamara". Even Punjab, a province marked later for its Hindu-Muslim divisions, was displaying remarkable Hindu-Muslim-Sikh unity. The April 9 Ram Navami procession was, according to the later Hunter Commission, "very largely participated in by the Muhammedans.... a striking demonstration in furtherance of Hindu-Muslim unity - people of the different creeds drinking out of the same cups publicly."
Labour unrest; Hindu-Muslim unity; innumerable local grievances against the Raj; and powerful nationalist sentiment - all these combined to constitute the most serious uprising since 1857. As it emerged, the Indian people either knew nothing about, or entirely ignored, Gandhi's strictures against violence and strikes. In Amritsar, on April 10, police firing on a peaceful demonstration was followed by attacks on all symbols of British rule - banks, post offices, the railway station, and the town hall.
Martial law was clamped down on April 11. In Lahore, another city marked by communal unity, militant Muslim workers and artisans took the lead. On April 10, as news of Amritsar arrived, clashes with the police began. The next day the Mughalpura railway workshop, employing 12,000, and many factories were on strike. An enormous rally was held at Badshahi Mosque, a People's Committee was formed, and this committee virtually ruled the city till April 14. The British had to withdraw to their cantonment.
Spontaneously groups sprang up: a 40-member "Danda Fauj" paraded the streets with lathis and toy guns, putting up posters saying "O, Hindu, Muhammadan and Sikh brethren, enlist at once in the Danda army and fight with bravery against the English monkeys.... Leave off dealings with the Englishmen, close offices and workshops. Fight on. This is the command of Mahatma Gandhi." Little did Gandhi know what calls were being issued in his name.
Delhi experienced hartals on March 30. It saw on April 4 a rally at Jama Masjid where Muslims and Hindus alike kissed the feet of the Arya Samajist leader Swami Shraddhanand. There was a continuous hartal from April 10 to 18, and two strikes. Many of these occasions were accompanied by firings. Calcutta saw hartals on April 6 and 11, a joint Hindu-Muslim rally at Nakhoda mosque on April 11, and clashes with the army and police on the following day when the British used machine guns to kill nine people.
The most violent upsurge, however, happened in that supposed citadel of non-violence - Ahmedabad. On April 11, fully 51 Government buildings were burnt down, mainly by textile workers. The Government repression resulted in 28 dead and 123 injured. Only in Kheda was mass violence evidently averted by what the Government stated was "the teaching of one of Mr. Gandhi's followers who came from Ahmedabad on April 11 and exhorted the people to remain quiet."
Gandhi visited Ahmedabad, expressed his regret for the violence to the Commissioner, and asked for permission to hold a public meeting at Sabarmati Ashram grounds on April 13. Permission was granted. Gandhi later wrote in his autobiography:
"Addressing the meeting, I tried to bring home to the people the sense of their wrong, declared a penitential fast of three days for myself, appealed to the people to go on a similar fast for a day, and suggested to those who had been guilty of acts of violence to confess their guilt.... Just as I suggested to the people to confess their guilt, I suggested to the Government to condone the crimes. Neither accepted my suggestion."
As a region, Punjab was the most affected, with over 54 cases of disruption of telegraph lines in just two days and widespread attacks on Government buildings. It was also in the Punjab that British repression exceeded all previous bounds. Among the many instances of repression are 258 sentences of flogging and various special punishments such as rubbing of noses on the ground and making the population of an entire village stand in the sun for a whole day because a village boy of 11 was charged with "waging war against the king". Gujranwalla and surrounding villages were even bombed from the air.
In the whole of the Punjab only four whites were killed; but the Government in return killed at least 1,200 Indians and injured at least 3,200. The most spectacular instance was at Jallianwalla Bagh in Amritsar, on April 13, when a large unarmed crowd, that had gathered on Baisakhi in an enclosed ground, was fired upon - uninterruptedly and without warning - by troops under the command of General Dyer. Official records state that 379 were killed; the Congress Enquiry Committee put the figure at nearly 1,000.
Following this, while the entire nation reeled in horror and indignation at the acts of the British, Gandhi was horrified by the acts of Indians. On April 18, he declared that he had committed a "blunder of Himalayan dimensions which had enabled ill-disposed persons, not the passive resisters at all, to perpetrate disorders".
Resolution V of the 1919 Congress read:
"This Congress, while fully recognising the grave provocation that led to a sudden outburst of mob frenzy, deeply regrets and condemns the excesses committed in certain parts of the Punjab and Gujarat resulting in the loss of lives and injury to person and property during the month of April last."
The Report of the 1919 Congress goes on to add:
"In proposing the fifth resolution Mahatma Gandhi made a speech.... He said he was bound to condemn mob excesses. He admitted that these were committed under grave provocation by the Government, but he wanted that even in grave provocation they should not lose their heads. He wanted the Satyagraha of them. To restrain anger and to bear troubles was the real Satyagraha. They wanted India to be a land of Rishis. If so, they should enthusiastically support the resolution, admit their own excesses, and India was bound to progress even in a year."
Again, the apostle of non-violence had diverted attention from the obvious source of violence and turned his criticisms on acts of resistance by the people.
In the post-April period, Congress, apart from press statements, took up no mass campaign against the repression. It merely appointed a non-official enquiry committee - a convenient device for doing nothing. Already, by the 1919 Congress (held at Amritsar - the very city of the massacre), Gandhi ignored the 1918 Congress criticism of the Montford reforms, and gave his full support to a resolution thanking Montagu and promising co-operation in the Councils.
Thus, in 1919, Gandhi had demonstrated how he could give a seemingly militant call to ward off or deceive genuine militants, then surrender abjectly without any gains, and finally advocate active co-operation with the British - all within the brief space of nine months. The non-co-operation movement was to provide an even more dramatic instance of this politics.
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