01-27-2005, 10:16 PM
Sattva , Please feel free to express your views on Hind Swaraj. Let us know your thoughts- what is lacking in it and what could he have said.
Meanwhile in Pionee, 27 Jan., 2005
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->Paradox that was Gandhi
<b>Prafull Goradia </b>
On January 30, fifty-six years ago, Mahatma Gandhi fell to the ground with the words "He Ram". <b>If even while dying he could remember Ram three times, his attachment to God and Hinduism must be total.</b> Yet in the course of his political life he sacrificed much on behalf of the Hindus. Indeed Gandhi was a phenomenal paradox.
<b>Non-violence was his faith. In fact, he introduced the concept of satyagraha as a strategy as well as a weapon for political agitation. He showed vision by choosing non-violence in his struggle against the British rule. He was quick to realise early in his career that, if there was violence, neither women nor children nor older people could participate in the struggle for freedom.</b> Yet, the same gentleman was so uncaring for the feelings and aspirations of his wife Kasturba. He boasted about his abstinence from sex from the age of 46. What emotional cruelty upon a devoted spouse! The story of his eldest son Harilal, who became Abdullah, and who eventually died of syphilis in a public hospital, is legend.
Gandhi was a systems genius. He began by impressing people of his mahatmahood. He knew that Hindus had a special weakness for sanyasis and saints, whom they would obey implicitly. <b>He then introduced khadi and the charkha to convey to the simplest folk in the villages what freedom could mean for them, namely, economic emancipation. What a powerful symbol the charkha proved to be! It spread Gandhi's message across the country within five years since his return to India in 1915. </b>Indians owned few newspapers then. There were fewer highways and no long distance buses. There was no radio until 1927 whereafter also it was in British hands.<b> By espousing the cause of the dalits or harijans, he demonstrated how much he felt for the poorest. If he could feel for the most deprived, he would care for all</b>.
The Mahatma dressed frugally; he did not wear even a shirt during the later 31 years of his life in India. Yet when it came to living, he did not hesitate to stay in the palatial houses of Agha Khan and GD Birla. Although he travelled in a third class rail compartment, the whole bogey had to be booked for his entourage.
<b>There was no doubt that Gandhi was dead against the Partition. He had said that it would only take place "over my dead body". </b>Yet during September 1944 he visited Jinnah at his Bombay residence 14 times and had in principle conceded the division! The only reservation he had made was that the final decision should follow and not precede the departure of the British. Fasting came quite naturally to him. He had fasted many times on issues of disagreement. <b>But he did not fast against the Partition,</b> although he did so in order to coerce the Government to pay Pakistan Rs 55 crore within two months of August 15, 1947.
One explanation for this paradox was that Gandhi suffered from a pathological dread of Muslims whereby he could never confront them no matter what's the cause. In an editorial in The Harijan, he called every Muslim a bully and every Hindu a coward. Could he have, in this statement, unconsciously reflected his own complex? <b>Or was it that he loved India's freedom so much that, if necessary, he was prepared to barter Hindu interests for the sake of Muslim goodwill and support for the cause?</b>
This is what he wrote on the morrow of the Moplah riots. "The Moplahs are among the bravest in the land. Their bravery must be transformed into purest gold. They are God fearing." The massacre by the Moplahs is well known. In the words of Sir Sankaran Nair, a member of the Viceroy's Council, "For sheer brutality and venom, I do not remember anything in history to match the Malabar rebellion." The 1924 riots at Kohat in Baluchistan was another example of atrocities committed on the Hindus. Gandhi's advice was: "Even if the Mussalmans refuse to make approaches and even if the Hindus of Kohat may have to lose their all, I should still say that they must not think of returning to Kohat. I can only suggest solutions in terms of swaraj. <b>I would sacrifice the present individual gain for future national gain."</b>
On the murder of Swami Shraddhanand, he wrote "let every Mussalman also understand that the Swami was no enemy of Islam, that his was a pure and unsullied life." Yet he went on: "I have called Abdul Rashid a brother and I do not even regard him guilty of the Swami's murder." (All the references are taken directly from the Collected Work of Gandhi, published by the Government of India.)
<b>Nevertheless, there is no doubt that it was Gandhi who awakened the masses to the value of freedom. In the process, he brought many sections of the people, especially the rural folk, into the mainstream. </b>A great achievement indeed! But then <b>it was Netaji Subhas who drove home to the British that they could no longer rely on the loyalty of their Indian employees. That they would no longer rule India with the help of only a lakh expatriates. </b>For the sake of joining Netaji's Indian National Army, the soldiers, who had sworn loyalty to the Crown, violated their oath. The civilian employees of the Raj was not bound by any oath. However valuable might be Subhas Bose, Gandhi had no compunction in squeezing him out of the Congress presidentship and the party in 1939. Such was the paradox of Gandhi!
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Meanwhile in Pionee, 27 Jan., 2005
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->Paradox that was Gandhi
<b>Prafull Goradia </b>
On January 30, fifty-six years ago, Mahatma Gandhi fell to the ground with the words "He Ram". <b>If even while dying he could remember Ram three times, his attachment to God and Hinduism must be total.</b> Yet in the course of his political life he sacrificed much on behalf of the Hindus. Indeed Gandhi was a phenomenal paradox.
<b>Non-violence was his faith. In fact, he introduced the concept of satyagraha as a strategy as well as a weapon for political agitation. He showed vision by choosing non-violence in his struggle against the British rule. He was quick to realise early in his career that, if there was violence, neither women nor children nor older people could participate in the struggle for freedom.</b> Yet, the same gentleman was so uncaring for the feelings and aspirations of his wife Kasturba. He boasted about his abstinence from sex from the age of 46. What emotional cruelty upon a devoted spouse! The story of his eldest son Harilal, who became Abdullah, and who eventually died of syphilis in a public hospital, is legend.
Gandhi was a systems genius. He began by impressing people of his mahatmahood. He knew that Hindus had a special weakness for sanyasis and saints, whom they would obey implicitly. <b>He then introduced khadi and the charkha to convey to the simplest folk in the villages what freedom could mean for them, namely, economic emancipation. What a powerful symbol the charkha proved to be! It spread Gandhi's message across the country within five years since his return to India in 1915. </b>Indians owned few newspapers then. There were fewer highways and no long distance buses. There was no radio until 1927 whereafter also it was in British hands.<b> By espousing the cause of the dalits or harijans, he demonstrated how much he felt for the poorest. If he could feel for the most deprived, he would care for all</b>.
The Mahatma dressed frugally; he did not wear even a shirt during the later 31 years of his life in India. Yet when it came to living, he did not hesitate to stay in the palatial houses of Agha Khan and GD Birla. Although he travelled in a third class rail compartment, the whole bogey had to be booked for his entourage.
<b>There was no doubt that Gandhi was dead against the Partition. He had said that it would only take place "over my dead body". </b>Yet during September 1944 he visited Jinnah at his Bombay residence 14 times and had in principle conceded the division! The only reservation he had made was that the final decision should follow and not precede the departure of the British. Fasting came quite naturally to him. He had fasted many times on issues of disagreement. <b>But he did not fast against the Partition,</b> although he did so in order to coerce the Government to pay Pakistan Rs 55 crore within two months of August 15, 1947.
One explanation for this paradox was that Gandhi suffered from a pathological dread of Muslims whereby he could never confront them no matter what's the cause. In an editorial in The Harijan, he called every Muslim a bully and every Hindu a coward. Could he have, in this statement, unconsciously reflected his own complex? <b>Or was it that he loved India's freedom so much that, if necessary, he was prepared to barter Hindu interests for the sake of Muslim goodwill and support for the cause?</b>
This is what he wrote on the morrow of the Moplah riots. "The Moplahs are among the bravest in the land. Their bravery must be transformed into purest gold. They are God fearing." The massacre by the Moplahs is well known. In the words of Sir Sankaran Nair, a member of the Viceroy's Council, "For sheer brutality and venom, I do not remember anything in history to match the Malabar rebellion." The 1924 riots at Kohat in Baluchistan was another example of atrocities committed on the Hindus. Gandhi's advice was: "Even if the Mussalmans refuse to make approaches and even if the Hindus of Kohat may have to lose their all, I should still say that they must not think of returning to Kohat. I can only suggest solutions in terms of swaraj. <b>I would sacrifice the present individual gain for future national gain."</b>
On the murder of Swami Shraddhanand, he wrote "let every Mussalman also understand that the Swami was no enemy of Islam, that his was a pure and unsullied life." Yet he went on: "I have called Abdul Rashid a brother and I do not even regard him guilty of the Swami's murder." (All the references are taken directly from the Collected Work of Gandhi, published by the Government of India.)
<b>Nevertheless, there is no doubt that it was Gandhi who awakened the masses to the value of freedom. In the process, he brought many sections of the people, especially the rural folk, into the mainstream. </b>A great achievement indeed! But then <b>it was Netaji Subhas who drove home to the British that they could no longer rely on the loyalty of their Indian employees. That they would no longer rule India with the help of only a lakh expatriates. </b>For the sake of joining Netaji's Indian National Army, the soldiers, who had sworn loyalty to the Crown, violated their oath. The civilian employees of the Raj was not bound by any oath. However valuable might be Subhas Bose, Gandhi had no compunction in squeezing him out of the Congress presidentship and the party in 1939. Such was the paradox of Gandhi!
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