He is one such figure in our recent past which affected all of us in one way or the other. For some he is one who achieved freedom for us, for some he is the "hari" (God), for some he is the father of nation, for some he is the mahatma ("mahan"+"atama", great soul), for some he is symbol of non-violence (ahimsa paramo dharam, Non-violence is the ultimate duty), for some he means striving for Swarajya or Swatantrata or Swadeshi .... and the reasons are endless for those who swear by his name and treat him as their ideal.
However, at the same time, there are those who have questioned his style of working and his approach towards realizing Hindu-Muslim unity. They believe that it is he who started the muslim appeasement and alienation of muslims from Hindustani/Bharatiya mainstream. He is alleged to have given birth to "pseudo secularism", a charge which even some of the staunch Gandhians, fail to defend.
While it is all nice to appreciate the ideas of Swadeshi, Swarajya, etc. which though not originally his own (in fact, imports from fellow freedom fighters like Tilak and Sri Aurobindo), it is important that we start contemplating some of the Gandhianisms and how it has affected the Bharatiya psyche so badly that his mis-adventurisms has been inflicting us even today, thereby making us a weaker nation.
Why is Gandhi .. father of muslim appeasement ?
1. Calling a muslim assasin his brother after he has killed Swami Shraddhananda
On 23rd December 1926, a Muslim assassin called Abdul Rashid stabbed Swami Shraddhananda to death, when the swami was ill and lying on his bed. The reader may recall that Swami Shraddhananda was a pracharak (whole time worker) of Arya Samaj and he started a Suddhai Yajna to bring the converted Muslims of this country back to Hinduism. But his activity was detested by the Muslims. A couple of months earlier a Muslim woman came to the Swami and expressed her desire to return to Hinduism with her children. However her husband brought an allegation of abduction in the court of law against the Swami. But the court quashed the allegation and set the Swami free. The incident turned the Muslims extremely furious and within a few days Abdul Rashid assassinated him.
After a few days of this incident, Gandhi went to Gauhati to deliver his speech at the national conference of Indian National Congress. The atmosphere was depressed and gloomy due to unusual death of Shraddhananda. But Gandhi made everyone dumbfounded and began his speech by addressing the assassin Abdul Rashid as “Bhai Abdul Rashid”. Without caring for the reaction of the listeners, he continued, “Now you will perhaps understand why I have called Abdul Rashid a brother, and I repeat it. I do not even regard him as guilty of Swami’s murder. Guilty indeed are those who excited feeling of hatred against one another.” Thus he indirectly held Swami Shraddhananda responsible for his murder, as he was propagating hatred through his Suddhi Yajna. Moreover, he wrote in the obituary note, “He (the Swami) lived a hero. He died a hero.” In other words, if a Hindu falls victim to the knife of a Muslim’s assassin, Hindus should consider it a heroic death.
2. Inciting the muslims to separate from India.
“Like other group of people in this country, Muslims also have the right of self determination. We are living here as a joint family and hence any member has the right to get separated.” (Harijan, April 6, 1940). A couple of years later, he also wrote, “If majority of the Muslims of this country maintain that they are a different nation and there is nothing common with the Hindus and other communities, there is no force on the earth that can alter their view. And if on that basis, they demand partition that must be carried out. If Hindus dislike it, they may oppose it”, (Harijan, April 18, 1942).
3. Crucial role in accepting the partition of the country when issue was put to debate in AICC.
In the beginning of the debate, veteran Congress leaders like Purusottamdas Tandon, Govindaballav Panth, Chaitram Gidwani and Dr S Kichlu etc. placed their very convincing speeches against the motiom. Then Gandhi, setting aside all other speakers, spoke for 45 minutes supporting partition. The main theme of his deliberation was that, if Congress did not accept partition (1) other group of people or leaders would avail the opportunity and throw the Congress out of power and (2) a chaotic situation would prevail throughout the country. Many believe that, in the name of ‘chaotic condition’, he tacitly asked the Muslims to begin countrywide communal riot, if the Congress did not accept the partition. Till then, Sardar Ballavbhat Patel was on the fence regarding the partition. But Gandhi’s speech turned him into a firm supporter of partition and he influenced other confused members to support the issue. In this way, Congress approved the partition issue (History of Freedom Movement in India, R C Majumdar, Vol-III, p-670).
The most appropriate step after partition was to carry out population transfer, or send the entire Muslim population of the divided India to Pakistan and bring all Hindus from Pakistan to India. This population transfer was included in the proposal for Pakistan by the Muslim League and after communal riot in Bihar, M A Jinnah requested the Government of India to carry out population transfer as early as possible. Mount Batten, the then Governor General of India, was a staunch supporter of the said population exchange and advised Jawaharlal Nehru to do the same without delay. But Nehru submitted to the will of Gandhi and refrained from doing so.
5. Advocating non-violence to only Hindus
A few months before the partition, when Hindu and Sikh refugees started to come from West Punjab in droves and crowding the refugee camps of Delhi, one day Gandhi visited a refugee camp and said, “Hindus should never be angry against the Muslims even if the latter might make up their minds to undo their (Hindus’) existence. If they put all of us to the sword, we should court death bravely. … We are destined to be born and die, then why need we feel gloomy over it?” (speech delivered on April 6, 1947).
6. Keeping muslims appeasement a pre-condition to Swaraj
One of the basic preconditions of his Swaraj was the amity between the Hindus and the Muslims. It has been pointed out earlier that his idea of Hindu-Muslim amity was extremely biased and prejudiced – Hindus were supposed to make every sacrifice and silently endure all the oppressions and crimes of the Muslims for the sake of this unity. It is well known that, for the sake of this Hindu-Muslim unity, Gandhi supported the KHILAFAT MOVEMENT, and extremely communal agitation launched by the fanatic and orthodox Muslim leaders, the Ali brothers.
As a consequence, in the words of Sri Aurobindo for Gandhi, it could be said
"India will be free to the extent it succeeds in shaking off the spell of Gandhism."
Its an open challenge to all those Gandhi lovers, who discuss Gandhi and relate him to each and every goodness around, to refute any of these allegations against your beloved ideal ....... let the dust be all cleared and we all know that "Truth alone will triumph" !
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