He spoke at the conventions of the
Indian National Congress, but was primarily
introduced to Indian issues, politics and the Indian
people by
Gopal Krishna Gokhale, a respected leader of the
Congress Party at the time.
Champaran and Kheda
Gandhi's first major achievements came in 1918 with
the
Champaran agitation and Kheda Satyagraha,
although in the latter it was
indigo and other cash crops instead of the food
crops necessary for their survival. Suppressed by the
militias of the landlords (mostly British), they were
given measly compensation, leaving them mired in extreme
poverty. The villages were kept extremely dirty and
unhygienic; and alcoholism,
untouchability and
purdah were rampant. Now in the throes of a
devastating famine, the British levied an oppressive tax
which they insisted on increasing. The situation was
desperate. In
Kheda in
Gujarat, the problem was the same. Gandhi
established an
ashram there, organizing scores of his veteran
supporters and fresh volunteers from the region. He
organized a detailed study and survey of the villages,
accounting for the atrocities and terrible episodes of
suffering, including the general state of degenerate
living. Building on the confidence of villagers, he
began leading the clean-up of villages, building of
schools and hospitals and encouraging the village
leadership to undo and condemn many social evils, as
accounted above.
But his main impact came when he was arrested by
police on the charge of creating unrest and was ordered
to leave the province. Hundreds of thousands of people
protested and rallied outside the jail, police stations
and courts demanding his release, which the court
reluctantly granted. Gandhi led organized protests and
strikes against the landlords, who with the guidance of
the British government, signed an agreement granting the
poor farmers of the region more compensation and control
over farming, and cancellation of revenue hikes and its
collection until the famine ended. It was during this
agitation, that Gandhi was addressed by the people as
Bapu (Father) and Mahatma (Great Soul). In
Kheda,
Sardar Patel represented the farmers in negotiations
with the British, who suspended revenue collection and
released all the prisoners. As a result, Gandhi's fame
spread all over the nation.
Non-cooperation
Non-cooperation and peaceful resistance were Gandhi's
"weapons" in the fight against injustice. In
Punjab, the
Jallianwala Bagh massacre of civilians by British
troops caused deep trauma to the nation, leading to
increased public anger and acts of violence. Gandhi
criticized both the actions of the
British Raj and the retaliatory violence of Indians.
He authored the resolution offering condolences to
British civilian victims and condemning the riots, which
after initial opposition in the party, was accepted
following Gandhi's emotional speech advocating his
principle that all violence was evil and could not be
justified.[3]
But it was after the massacre and subsequent violence
that Gandhi's mind focused upon obtaining complete
self-government and control of all Indian government
institutions, maturing soon into
Swaraj or complete individual, spiritual,
political independence.
In December 1921, Gandhi was invested with executive
authority on behalf of the
Indian National Congress. Under his leadership, the
Congress was reorganized with a new constitution, with
the goal of Swaraj. Membership in the party was
opened to anyone prepared to pay a token fee. A
hierarchy of committees was set up to improve
discipline, transforming the party from an elite
organization to one of mass national appeal. Gandhi
expanded his non-violence platform to include the
swadeshi policy – the boycott of foreign-made
goods, especially British goods. Linked to this was his
advocacy that
khadi (homespun cloth) be worn by all Indians
instead of British-made textiles. Gandhi exhorted Indian
men and women, rich or poor, to spend time each day
spinning khadi in support of the independence
movement.This was a strategy to inculcate discipline and
dedication to weed out the unwilling and ambitious, and
to include women in the movement at a time when many
thought that such activities were not respectable
activities for women. In addition to boycotting British
products, Gandhi urged the people to boycott British
educational institutions and law courts, to resign from
government employment, and to forsake British titles and
honours.
"Non-cooperation" enjoyed wide-spread appeal and
success, increasing excitement and participation from
all strata of Indian society. Yet, just as the movement
reached its apex, it ended abruptly as a result of a
violent clash in the town of
Chauri Chaura,
Uttar Pradesh, in February 1922. Fearing that the
movement was about to take a turn towards violence, and
convinced that this would be the undoing of all his
work, Gandhi called off the campaign of mass civil
disobedience.[5]
Gandhi was arrested on
March 10,
1922, tried for sedition, and sentenced to six years
imprisonment. Beginning on
March 18,
1922, he only served about two years of the
sentence, being released in February 1924 after an
operation for
appendicitis.
Without Gandhi's uniting personality, the Indian
National Congress began to splinter during his years in
prison, splitting into two factions, one led by
Chitta Ranjan Das and
Motilal Nehru favouring party participation in the
legislatures, and the other led by
Chakravarti Rajagopalachari and
Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel, opposing this move.
Furthermore, cooperation among Hindus and Muslims, which
had been strong at the height of the non-violence
campaign, was breaking down. Gandhi attempted to bridge
these differences through many means, including a
three-week fast in the autumn of 1924, but with limited
success.
Swaraj and the Salt
Satyagraha
Gandhi stayed out of the limelight for most of the
1920s, preferring to resolve the wedge between the
Swaraj Party and the Indian National Congress, and
expanding initiatives against untouchability,
alcoholism, ignorance and poverty. He returned to the
fore in 1928. The year before, the British government
had appointed a new constitutional reform commission
under Sir John Simon, with not a single Indian in its
ranks. The result was a boycott of the commission by
Indian political parties. Gandhi pushed through a
resolution at the Calcutta Congress in December 1928
calling on the British government to grant India
dominion status or face a new campaign of non-violence
with complete independence for the country as its goal.
Gandhi had not only moderated the views of younger men
like
Subhas Chandra Bose and
Jawaharlal Nehru, who sought a demand for immediate
independence, but also modified his own call to a one
year wait, instead of two.
The British did not respond. On
December 31,
1929, the flag of India was unfurled in Lahore.
January 26,
1930 was celebrated by the Indian National Congress,
meeting in Lahore, as India's Independence Day. This day
was commemorated by almost every other Indian
organization. Making good on his word, he launched a new
satyagraha against the tax on salt in March 1930,
highlighted by the famous Salt March to Dandi from
March 12 to
April 6, marching 400 kilometres (248 miles) from
Ahmedabad to Dandi, Gujarat to make salt himself.
Thousands of Indians joined him on this march to the
sea. This campaign was one of his most successful at
upsetting British rule; Britain responded by imprisoning
over 60,000 people.
The government, represented by
Lord Edward Irwin, decided to negotiate with Gandhi.
The
Gandhi-Irwin Pact was signed in March 1931. The
British Government agreed to set all political prisoners
free in return for the suspension of the civil
disobedience movement. Furthermore, Gandhi was invited
to attend the Round Table Conference in London as the
sole representative of the Indian National Congress. The
conference was a disappointment to Gandhi and the
nationalists, as it focused on the Indian princes and
Indian minorities rather than the transfer of power.
Furthermore, Lord Irwin's successor,
Lord Willingdon, embarked on a new campaign of
repression against the nationalists. Gandhi was again
arrested, and the government attempted to destroy his
influence by completely isolating him from his
followers. This tactic was not successful. In 1932,
through the campaigning of the Dalit leader
B. R. Ambedkar, the government granted untouchables
separate electorates under the new constitution. In
protest, Gandhi embarked on a six-day fast in September
1932, successfully forcing the government to adopt a
more equitable arrangement via negotiations mediated by
the Dalit cricketer turned political leader Palwankar
Baloo. This was the start of a new campaign by Gandhi to
improve the lives of the untouchables, whom he named
Harijans, the children of God. On
May 8,
1933 Gandhi began a 21-day fast of self-purification
to help the Harijan movement.[8]
In the summer of 1934, three unsuccessful attempts
were made on his life.
When the Congress Party chose to contest elections
and accept power under the Federation scheme, Gandhi
decided to resign from party membership. He did not
disagree with the party's move, but felt that if he
resigned, his popularity with Indians would cease to
stifle the party's membership, that actually varied from
communists, socialists, trade unionists, students,
religious conservatives, to those with pro-business
convictions. Gandhi also did not want to prove a target
for Raj propaganda by leading a party that had
temporarily accepted political accommodation with the
Raj.[9]
Gandhi returned to the head in 1936, with the Nehru
presidency and the Lucknow session of the Congress.
Although Gandhi desired a total focus on the task of
winning independence and not speculation about India's
future, he did not restrain the Congress from adopting
socialism as its goal. Gandhi had a clash with Subhas
Bose, who had been elected to the presidency in 1938.
Gandhi's main points of contention with Bose were his
lack of commitment to democracy, and lack of faith in
non-violence. Bose won his second term despite Gandhi's
criticism, but left the Congress when the All-India
leaders resigned en masse in protest against his
abandonment of the principles introduced by Gandhi.
World War II and Quit
India
World War II broke out in 1939 when
Nazi Germany invaded
Poland. Initially, Gandhi had favored offering
"non-violent moral support" to the British effort, but
other Congressional leaders were offended by the
unilateral inclusion of India into the war, without
consultation of the people's representatives. All
Congressmen elected to resign from office en masse.After lengthy deliberations, Gandhi declared that India
could not be party to a war ostensibly being fought for
democratic freedom, while that freedom was denied to
India itself. As the war progressed, Gandhi intensified
his demand for independence, drafting a resolution
calling for the British to
Quit India. This was Gandhi's and the Congress
Party's most definitive revolt aimed at securing the
British exit from Indian shores.
Gandhi was criticized by some Congress party members
and other Indian political groups, both pro-British and
anti-British. Some felt that opposing Britain in its
life or death struggle was immoral, and others felt that
Gandhi wasn't doing enough. Quit India became the
most forceful movement in the history of the struggle,
with mass arrests and violence on an unprecedented
scale.Thousands of freedom fighters were killed or injured by
police gunfire, and hundreds of thousands were arrested.
Gandhi and his supporters made it clear they would not
support the war effort unless India were granted
immediate independence. He even clarified that this time
the movement would not be stopped if individual acts of
violence were committed, saying that the "ordered
anarchy" around him was "worse than real
anarchy." He called on all Congressmen and Indians
to maintain discipline via
ahimsa, and Karo Ya Maro ("Do or Die") in the
cause of ultimate freedom.
Gandhi and the entire Congress Working Committee were
arrested in
Bombay by the British on
August 9,
1942. Gandhi was held for two years in the
Aga Khan Palace in
Pune. It was here that Gandhi suffered two terrible
blows in his personal life. His 42-year old secretary
Mahadev Desai died of a heart attack 6 days later
and his wife Kasturba died after 18 months imprisonment
in February 1944; six weeks later Gandhi suffered a
severe malaria attack. He was released before the end of
the war on
May 6,
1944 because of his failing health and necessary
surgery; the Raj did not want him to die in prison and
enrage the nation. Although the Quit India movement had
moderate success in its objective, the ruthless
suppression of the movement brought order to India by
the end of 1943. At the end of the war, the British gave
clear indications that power would be transferred to
Indian hands. At this point Gandhi called off the
struggle, and around 100,000 political prisoners were
released, including the Congress's leadership.
Freedom and partition of
India
Gandhi advised the Congress to reject the proposals
the
British Cabinet Mission offered in 1946, as he was
deeply suspicious of the grouping proposed for
Muslim-majority states — Gandhi viewed this as a
precursor to partition. However, this became one of the
few times the Congress broke from Gandhi's advice
(though not his leadership), as Nehru and Patel knew
that if the Congress did not approve the plan, the
control of government would pass to the
Muslim League. Between 1946 and 1948 , over 5,000
people were killed in violence. Gandhi was vehemently
opposed to any plan that partitioned India into two
separate countries. An overwhelming majority of Muslims
living in India, side by side with Hindus and Sikhs,
were in favour of Partition. Additionally
Muhammad Ali Jinnah, the leader of the Muslim
League, commanded widespread support in
West Punjab,
Sindh,
NWFP and
East Bengal. The partition plan was approved by the
Congress leadership as the only way to prevent a
wide-scale Hindu-Muslim civil war. Congress leaders knew
that Gandhi would viscerally oppose partition, and it
was impossible for the Congress to go ahead without his
agreement, for Gandhi's support in the party and
throughout India was strong. Gandhi's closest colleagues
had accepted partition as the best way out, and
Sardar Patel endeavoured to convince Gandhi that it
was the only way to avoid civil war. A devastated Gandhi
gave his assent.
On the day of the transfer of power, Gandhi did not
celebrate independence with the rest of India, but was
alone in
Calcutta, mourning the partition and working to end
the violence. After India's independence, Gandhi focused
on Hindu-Muslim peace and unity. He conducted extensive
dialogue with Muslim and Hindu community leaders,
working to cool passions in northern India, as well as
in
Bengal. Despite the
Indo-Pakistani War of 1947, he was troubled when the
Government decided to deny Pakistan the
Rs. 55
crores due as per agreements made by the Partition
Council. Leaders like
Sardar Patel feared that Pakistan would use the
money to bankroll the war against India. Gandhi was also
devastated when demands resurged for all Muslims to be
deported to Pakistan, and when Muslim and Hindu leaders
expressed frustration and an inability to come to terms
with one another.
He launched his last fast-unto-death in
Delhi, asking that all communal violence be ended
once and for all, and that the payment of Rs.
55 crores be made to Pakistan. Gandhi feared that
instability and insecurity in Pakistan would increase
their anger against India, and violence would spread
across the borders. He further feared that Hindus and
Muslims would renew their enmity and precipitate into an
open civil war. After emotional debates with his
life-long colleagues, Gandhi refused to budge, and the
Government rescinded its policy and made the payment to
Pakistan. Hindu, Muslim and Sikh community leaders,
including the
Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh and
Hindu Mahasabha assured him that they would renounce
violence and call for peace. Gandhi thus broke his fast
by sipping orange juice.
