History Of Freedom Fighters

[Bharatvarsh2]

I accept that the above description does not apply to every Indian student but to a particular class. I would have considered it inappropriate to mention the above behaviour, if only a few Indian students were behaving that way. But there was a class who were devoid of self-respect and acted frivolously. Their behaviour was based on accepting slavery and therefore despicable. They were ashamed of our culture, civilisation, customs and traditions and considered them useless. They were brought up that way by their parents. When they came to England, they were further mesmerised. They were impressed by English language, literature and English way of life. They considered the English as divine. Let us consider a specific case. The person is not a modern Hindu but a Muslim. His name is Sayyad Ahmad. He founded the Aligad Movement and asked Muslims to be slaves of the English forever. When he lived in England in late nineteenth century he wrote a letter to his friends describing life in England at that time. In a letter of 1869 he wrote –

“The English have reasons to believe that we in India are imbecile brutes. What I have seen and daily seeing is utterly beyond imagination of a native in India. All good things, spiritual and worldly which should be found in man have been bestowed by the Almighty on Europe and especially on the English.”

(Ref -Nehru’s Autobiography page 461).

Above letter of Sayyad Ahmad would suffice to show how mentally degenerated and devoid of any self-respect, Indians had become. I have already illustrated this point by quoting experiences of Indians from the early days of Dadabhai Naoroji till I reached London in 1906.

Gandhi came to London to study Law in 1888. His behaviour was no different to that described above. He too tried to use Top Hat, Tail Coat and expensive ties. Many other Indians have described their experiences in a similar manner.

Motilal Nehru, like father of Arvind Ghosh too, was impressed by the British Raj. He sent his son Jawaharlal to England in his young age, who stayed in English hostels and so anglicised he had become that after studying in Cambridge University and becoming a Barrister in 1912 he paid no attention to Indian Politics which was taking shape in Europe.

Anyone can verify my statements by referring to autobiographies of Gandhi, Nehru, Charudatta, and others.

When the British called Indians as Brutes, instead of becoming furious, Indians would react – “Oh yes sir. We are indeed so and that is why, by divine dispensation, the British Raj has been established over us.“ I was trying to sow seeds of armed

revolution to overthrow the British rule in India. The readers can imagine how difficult, well nigh impossible was my task.

I was determined.

I had not despaired. Our youth were not useless. They were after all our kith and kin. Their blood had not been boiling at the though of slavery, but we could not say that they had no blood. Many were brilliant scholars. Their personal (if not national) ambitions were high. They achieved excellent academic results in British Universities, much higher than British students. Some were even selected to ICS or IMS services. It is true that because of their upbringing they had developed slavish mentality. But the other reason was that no one had set them higher values - those of our society, our nation. No one had challenged them. No one had told them that the fight for freedom was far more satisfying and

challenging. Nobody had taught them that it is a sin to live under slavery and it is our moral duty to overthrow the British Raj. Nobody had shown them the light.

One must remember that even persons like Dadabhai, Surendranath Banerjee, Bipinchandra Pal, Shyamji and Lala Lajpat Rai had not shown any interest in politics till late thirties of their life. Even then, they too believed that the British Raj was a ‘divine dispensation’. But in the course of time they changed. So, if we tried who knows that at least some of the Indian students, who are at present self- centred, and disinterested in politics, will turn to be revolutionaries!

Moreover these youth came from middle and rich classes and had the necessary resources. The whole of India looked to them for inspiration. If some of them could be persuaded to join our side, that was as good as hundred youth from poor families joining us. This was experience in practice. A Prince, a Collector could become our sympathetic member and help in many ways. For example, by providing finances, by providing ‘safe refuges’, by turning a blind eye to revolutionary activities, and in some cases, by even providing arms.

I have described the mental attitude of majority of Indian students in London. But I had to propagate my views among them too. We lacked revolvers and bombs – which could be purchased, but how could we buy young men to do our work? It was therefore necessary to try to persuade Indian youth to join our side.

Thirdly, just as the Indian students were devoid of self respect, I had met many priests and Gurus who were even more coward, more devoid of self respect, more selfish, and regarded the British King as reincarnation of Lord Vishnu!!

I had met many of them in India. If I could change their minds by arguing with them, why would I not succeed in London with a similar mission? As a doctor I knew the physical handicaps and also the remedies. I knew the arguments of those who were lethargic and also the answers to be given to them. I was therefore determined to try my persuasion in London.



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In short

So far I have reviewed how Indian politics developed since 1857. It is clear that before I reached London in July 1906, there were three main associations working. First two emphasised loyalty to the British Crown – namely British Committee of the Indian National Congress and Dadabhai’s London Indian Society. The third one was Shyamji’s Indian Home Rule Society. The aim of the last and that of Dadabhai was self rule under the British Empire (it was called by different names, self government, autonomy or home rule). Though there were some differences between them they did not advocate armed revolution to achieve their aims.

But they were not fanatical supporters of non-violence

It is true that neither Dadabhai nor Shyamji supported an armed revolution. Moderates thought that impracticable, while Shyamji thought it un-necessary. They all believed that Colonial Self Government could be achieved without resorting to an armed struggle. But they never said that independence achieved with armed struggle was sinful. They never accepted the argument that it was immoral to raise arms against the British and that we should never resort to it, even if it meant that we would be slaves forever. No ‘Loyal’ or anti-British Indian leader ever took such a stand. One may refer to thoughts of Moderate leaders like Phirozshah Mehta or Dinsha Wacha. Not only that, in the annual sessions of the Congress, the Moderates had unanimously demanded that the Arms Act by which Indians were disarmed, should be repealed. This included all the Moderate leaders from Dadabhai, Sudendranath, Mehta to Gokhale. It had been their unanimous demand. Then what can be said of Militant leaders like Tilak and Shyamji who worshipped Lord Rama and Shivaji and revered freedom fighters like Mazzini!!

Militants did not support an armed revolution because they thought that our position was helpless, as we had no arms and therefore armed revolution was not feasible, not because it was immoral. Congress became fanatically obsessed with non-violence only some fifteen years later, in the days of Gandhi.* Before that they were not unduly concerned with non-violence.

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* One should remember that the same followers of Gandhi however, supported armed struggle of Africans in Rhodesia, which started in the late 1960s. Not one of the followers preached non-violence to the Africans.



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