Part 1: The Assassination
Part 2: The Beginning
Part 3: The Cult of Chakra
Gandhi returned to India in 2015. It was during the First World War when Gandhi became actively involved in Indian politics. The war had no relevance to India, but even then, she sent more than 1.1 million armies, whom the world forgot. Over 60,000 Indians died fighting someone else’s war. Not just men, India also sent horses and other animals and over 100 million pounds to support the British. Quite contrary to British feeling that Indians would take the opportunity to revolt, majority of Indians remained loyal to the Crown with a hope that the British Raj would be kinder to them and grant them their demand for home rule once the war was over. The reluctance of the British government to give India self-rule after the war, along with the worsening of her economic condition, led to frustration among the youths. Young Indians took to the path of violence to get rid of the Raj. Few members of Indian Army were disgruntled with the British for treating them like slaves and secretly supplied arms to the extremist groups in India. The occasional incidents of violence by nationalists in Bengal, Punjab, and Maharashtra led to the enactment of Rowlatt’s Act in March 1919. It gave British government the authority to arrest and imprison any person suspected of terrorism without warrant or trial. Gandhi criticized the act and on 6 April he began his first satyagrahya on Indian soil against what he called a ‘black act’. He was arrested immediately while proceeding to Delhi.
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| Gandhi ji in 1918. Source Wiki |
Immediately after Rowlatt’s Act was passed, Dr Satyapal and Dr Saifuddin Kitchlew were arrested in suspicion of spreading terrorism. Huge crowds gathered in front of police station, demanding their release. Panicked, police fired at the mob, killing several protesters. The angry mob went rampant, attacking British officers and killing three in the process. A European teacher was also attacked, saved only by few Indians who hid her under a table. Gandhi had to call off satyagrahya due to these incidents of violence. He called the Satyagraha as ‘premature’ and as a ‘Himalayan miscalculation’. Tagore wrote an open letter to Gandhi addressing him as ‘Mahatmaji’ for the first time. He wrote,
‘You have come to your motherland in the time of her need … to lead her in the true path of conquest… Freedom can never come to a people through charity…We must win it before we can own in…I pray most fervently that nothing that tends to weaken our spiritual freedom may intrude into your marching line…’.
For the first time Indian freedom movement got a face that attracted Indians from all spectrum of life. Both Hindus and Muslims, from scholars like Tagore to tribals, higher and lower casts, everyone respected Gandhi. The tribal group Tana Bhagats became followers of Gandhi and took active part in his satyagrahya. The modern Tana Bhagats still believe in Gandhi’s philosophy of ahimsa and wear khadi clothes, dhoti, and Gandhi cap with a tricolour flag on it. Similarly, when Gandhi stayed at the Firangi Mahal, all Muslim families abstained from cooking meat during his stay out of respect. Hindus and Muslims joined hands and chanted ‘Hindu-Muslim Bhai Bhai’. The frail man who was once scarred to speak infont of public, turned out to be the nemesis for the Great British Empire.
Gandhi often said that he is not a politician, but a man of religion and a social reformer. Politics divorced from religion had no use for him. Gandhi was a staunch Hindu. While he challenged superstition and did have a modern outlook, he was not able to break away completely from the orthodoxy in which he grew up. Gandhi saw in industrialization a hidden evil that tied men into a vicious web of the materialistic world. The promise of science, technology, and prosperity were illusions that threatened not just our nation but also the souls of our men. Running blindly after Westernization made our youth lose their identity.
Wearing English clothes, learning in English-medium school, working in industries controlled by British masked as modern and liberal and which Indians were proud of were only created for the profit of our oppressor. British advertised the so-called ‘modern’ attitude because it bred industries, like the Manchester clothes. These industries made a huge profit by selling costly products in India while the ‘out of fashion’ indigenous industries suffered. In this culture, both consumer and worker became a slave to the machines controlled by the big industries in Britain. It was a culture that promoted suspicion, hatred, racism, and exploitation. Such industries only ended up making us poorer. Gandhi called for the renunciation of everything Western. He wanted complete non-cooperation with the government. Gandhi advocated following a simple lifestyle and using indigenous products. Chakara, or the spinning wheel, was the symbol of such simplicity. Gandhi started the chakara agitation, inviting all Indians to spin the wheel and make India self-sufficient. Rabindranath Tagore, one of Gandhi’s greatest admirers, criticized this extreme view.
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| Gandhi ji spinning Chakra in late 1920s. Source Wiki |
Tagore started the reorganization of Indian villages long before Gandhi returned from Africa. He was educating the villagers and promoting agriculture, cotton, and village industries. Tagore himself wanted to get rid of the British Raj and was an adherent follower of nonviolence. When he found that the young patriotic minds were leaning towards violence, and especially after Khudiram and his friends killed innocent European women, he distanced himself from the movement. Some called him a betrayer. But that did not change his mind as he was against ‘blind nationalism’. According to Tagore, those who uphold the ideals of nationalism are the most conservative in their social practice. It becomes more problematic in a country like India where there is a physical repulsion between different castes. To Tagore, renunciation of everything Western, including science and technology, was stupid. Saying everything Western is bad is as ridiculous as saying everything Western is good. While to Gandhi poverty was a virtue, for Tagore, it was a problem that we needed to get rid of. Chakara, to Tagore, was not a symbol of progress but of poverty and everything that was wrong with India. According to the poet,
“Western science should merge with eastern spirituality to create a complete society that is without the self-created borders”.
Nationality, to Tagore, was the root cause of our problems, not industries. Nationalism threatens humanity as it ultimately promotes exploitation of one country by another. Colonization is rooted in the idea of nationalism. The two world wars were enough proof to support Tagore’s thought. Hitler was a product of extreme nationalism. Non-cooperation movement was doing exactly that by creating hatred for everything Western. The poor were forced to buy khadi clothes that were more expensive. Students were told to boycott English-medium schools, thus hampering their education. Tagore was against the idea of youths blindly following a cult and losing their ability of reasoning. In the eyes of Tagore, ‘what India most needed was constructive work coming from within herself’. In poet’s words, he wanted an India ‘where the mind is without fear, head is held high, knowledge is free and world was not broken into fragments’.
Indian customs, like caste system, bind a person to a specific duty chosen by one’s ancestor. It helps in gaining labor but kills the free mind by binding one to repeat the same job over and over for ages without question. Such mind always required a ruler or a saint to tell them what to do, and hence, such minds can never be free. Tagore saw the same ignorance in the blind followers of Gandhi who ‘follow him like rats’ without questioning. Gandhi himself became a cult. Sarojini Naidu once said that it cost a lot to keep Gandhi in poverty. The protection he required to continue with his simple way of life was a costly affair. It was symbolic and necessary, as the freedom struggle required the mass of India. The chakara was part of that cult that Tagore did not like. Tagore firmly said,
‘Lest I should be a party to the raising of the charkha to a higher place than is its due, thereby distracting attention from other more important factors in our task of all-round reconstruction.’
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| Gandhi ji and Tagore |
Gandhi replied to Tagore, assuring him that there was nothing to fear. Gandhi had a lot of respect for Tagore and often asked him for advice. He used to call Tagore Gurudev. Gandhi explained that he was not trying to build a China Wall between East and West. He was protesting against forceful cooperation rather than voluntary cooperation based on mutual trust and respect. Gandhi disagreed with Rabindranath about the students’ education. According to him,
“training by itself adds not an inch to one’s moral height and that character-building is independent of literary training. I [Gandhi] am firmly of opinion that the Government schools have unmanned us, rendered us helpless and Godless”.
Non-cooperation with the bad is as important as cooperation with the good. Gandhi went on to say, “I am certain that it does not require ages for Hindus to discard the error of untouchability, for Hindus and Mussulmans to shed enmity and accept friendship as an eternal factor of national life, for all to adopt the charkha as the only universal means of attaining India’s economic salvation and finally for all to believe that India’s freedom lies only through non-violence, and no other method.” Tagore was still not convinced, so when Gandhi said, “Everyone must spin. Let Tagore spin like the others. Let him burn his foreign clothes; that is his duty today. God will take care of the morrow” Tagore was quick to reply,
“The charka does not require anyone to think; one simply turns the wheel of the antiquated invention endlessly, using the minimum of judgment and stamina.”
Tagore wondered why a person with skill to do better things would waste his talent in spinning a chakara. Tagore did not want India to become isolated from the rest of the world. Instead, he believed in fluid borders of countries where every country learned from the other and grew together. Both Mahatma and Gurudev were right in their own way. Despite the differences, both continued to have immense respect towards each other.
Part 4: The Practical Man
Part 5: The Sex Maniac
Part 6: The Miracle
Part 7: Decoding Gandhi
Part 4: The Practical Man
Part 5: The Sex Maniac
Part 6: The Miracle
Part 7: Decoding Gandhi
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Written by Subhrashis Adhikari
"Engaging and entertaining, this page-turner is remarkable in its narration and will give you a new perspective on various aspects of life. Wellresearched and heartfelt, the encouraging tone throughout the book tries to motivate towards a happier life." - Times of India
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