True it is, and it is a travesty of historical justice to these patriots that their role in the freedom struggle is much neglected of mention in history books. So are generations of students being deprived of fact, perspective and direction when dealing with their immediate historical past, and this is a serious delinking between successive phases of our historical movement whose pernicious influence we are witnessing in every sphere of our national life. A nation that is kept in the dark about its true history does not in fruition rise to its fullest stature, for the perfidies of the past, that obstruct the vision, do not allow the free flow of national life, blocking access to avenues that lead to diverse discourses on development and, in effect, stagnating the mass of miscarried mantras in the minds of a million indoctrinates
The British were occupying our country and we were pleading for and, later, making hesitant demands for the introduction of certain reforms in the administration to improve the lot of the Indians but we were not fighting for complete independence which ought to have been the objective from the very beginning, such, it seems, were the imperatives of the times. Notable exceptions to this were Aurobindo Ghosh who was, perhaps, the first to voice the demand for Purna Swaraj (total independence) and, decades later, Subhas Chandra Bose and Bhagat Singh who followed suit. Prayers, pleas and petitions of the Moderates within the Congress was followed for a short while by Aurobindo's radical programme demanding Purna Swaraj, but that failed when the leader fled to Pondicherry to pursue his spiritual quest. Then came the demand for Home Rule and Dominion Status but not total independence yet. It passes one's imagination to think how immoderate has been our moderation throughout the course of this cringing before the British, despite pretensions galore of passive revolutionary intent, that we could not muster manhood enough before 1930 to make total independence the declared goal of the Congress.
Partition was a disaster and the direct consequence of British perfidious politics of 'Divide and Rule' which they introduced to keep revolutionaries at bay ever since the bitter lessons they learnt during the great Indian Revolt of 1857. Hindus and Muslims had fought side by side to almost end British rule in India. The Crown quaked in fear and, assuming direct control of governance in their brightest colony, set about sowing the seeds of disunity among the Indians using Machiavellian methods. Since the end of the 18th century the English East India Company, which was the commercial face of the British Crown in India, had set about to studying the socio-spiritual culture of India. European Indologists were appointed to work in alliance with Indian Brahman pundits to work at the Vedas. Likewise, other scholars were given the charge to study Middle-Eastern Islamic culture. A momentous discovery arrived at from these studies was that the Hindus were a very resilient race so far as their religious culture was concerned and that intolerant monotheistic non-idolatrous Islamic culture was theoretically as well as much in practice in direct collision with the universally tolerant culture of the Hindus which was polytheistic and, in Islamic terms, blasphemously idolatrous too. It baffled the British to fathom how such contrasting cultures could syncretically co-exist when their theological roots were so antithetical to each other. From confusion came clarity and the British understood that this unity was there purely because the Muslims had for centuries been the rulers in India and would, therefore, necessarily break if the Hindus ever came to be dominant in the native national scene. The mild Hindu had patiently borne the injustice and intolerance of Islamic rule in India but, when the roles were reversed, the militant Mussalman would not tolerate the dominance of the erstwhile subject Hindu. Thus, could be created the fissure in Indian society to sufficiently weaken it for continued colonial rule of the Crown.
The Partition claimed the Mahatma as its final victim.
Sardar saved the nation from Balkanisation. The fraternal bonds had broken and fragmentation of the motherland beyond the rupture of Partition was imminent. Hyderabad, Junagadh, Kashmir, Saurashtra, were all at stake. Nehru's indecision at vital moments and capitulation to situational pressure proved disastrous for the nation and it was Patel's iron will, resoluteness and inflexibility in matters of national integration coupled with his insight into the political complexities of the times, which baffled his leader, that led to the emerging solidarity of the geographical residuum that yet lay beyond the clutches of the perfidious Jinnah, the worst villain in Indian history, and made India the nation that she is today. Sardar's political acumen outmatched Jinnah's and it is a tragedy that Panditiji did not sufficiently subscribe to good advice given him by the lion-soul whose decisiveness of action in the teeth of opposition, often by the hesitant Prime Minister himself, saved many a day when India's fate could have been sealed for good. When matters came to a head and Patel contemplated resignation from office, the Mahatma's demise prevented such an ordeal for the nation and this, in death, perhaps, was Bapu's final benediction on our benighted nation.
Yes, @Satyendra Singhji, I will start on this project as urged by you. I also feel that Ambedkar is being increasingly politicised in the wake of the Dalits forming such a high percentage of the electorate which is clouding vision about the seminal mover of the Constitution behind the cover of electoral gains and so denying us perspective on his actual contribution to the freedom movement. In fact, his sharp distinction with Gandhiji regarding the Dalit issue is so contentious that one loses sight of his actual contribution towards the independence of India, whatever be it in quantum, relative to the stalwarts of the freedom movement. Thus, a historical analysis of his role in achieving independence of the entire nation from the British is shadowed by his obvious and vociferous concern for his untouchable brethren whose integration with the Hindus, which Gandhiji espoused, he was at sharp variance with and relented but grudgingly in the ensuing political adjustment in the teeth of what he termed 'the Mahatma's blackmailing tactics of fast unto death' to sign the Poona Pact. Ambedkar was an open opponent of Gandhiji and has left behind a severe indictment of the Mahatma in his supposed double-dealing with the Dalits while professing false fraternal love for them. The Dalit leader, courtesy British patronage, carried the mandate of about 35% of the then population of India, at least on paper, for it cannot be vouched that he actually could move so many against the Mahatma, for if he could, he would have played a parallel role of equal importance as the Mahatma in the politics of freedom on stage then. But it never happened and that is ample proof that representation on paper of a people is one and real representation of the same as Gandhiji did was another. However, these are reflex ruminations which are not in answer to the question raised by you and I will get back to discussion of the contentious issue of Ambedkar's real contribution to the freedom movement after doing relevant research regarding the same. Thank you, Satyendra Singhji, for yet again focusing our attention on a highly neglected aspect of our immediate historical past which, considering the calamity of the cancerous growth of corruption in public life, needs a fresh treatment and a deft delivery thereof before the nation at large, for illusions, if any, are to be dispelled about personalities, however great by achievement or by appellation, for truth to prevail in the larger interests of the nation and for the setting right of the historical narrative.
The British were occupying our country and we were pleading for and, later, making hesitant demands for the introduction of certain reforms in the administration to improve the lot of the Indians but we were not fighting for complete independence which ought to have been the objective from the very beginning, such, it seems, were the imperatives of the times. Notable exceptions to this were Aurobindo Ghosh who was, perhaps, the first to voice the demand for Purna Swaraj (total independence) and, decades later, Subhas Chandra Bose and Bhagat Singh who followed suit. Prayers, pleas and petitions of the Moderates within the Congress was followed for a short while by Aurobindo's radical programme demanding Purna Swaraj, but that failed when the leader fled to Pondicherry to pursue his spiritual quest. Then came the demand for Home Rule and Dominion Status but not total independence yet. It passes one's imagination to think how immoderate has been our moderation throughout the course of this cringing before the British, despite pretensions galore of passive revolutionary intent, that we could not muster manhood enough before 1930 to make total independence the declared goal of the Congress.
Partition was a disaster and the direct consequence of British perfidious politics of 'Divide and Rule' which they introduced to keep revolutionaries at bay ever since the bitter lessons they learnt during the great Indian Revolt of 1857. Hindus and Muslims had fought side by side to almost end British rule in India. The Crown quaked in fear and, assuming direct control of governance in their brightest colony, set about sowing the seeds of disunity among the Indians using Machiavellian methods. Since the end of the 18th century the English East India Company, which was the commercial face of the British Crown in India, had set about to studying the socio-spiritual culture of India. European Indologists were appointed to work in alliance with Indian Brahman pundits to work at the Vedas. Likewise, other scholars were given the charge to study Middle-Eastern Islamic culture. A momentous discovery arrived at from these studies was that the Hindus were a very resilient race so far as their religious culture was concerned and that intolerant monotheistic non-idolatrous Islamic culture was theoretically as well as much in practice in direct collision with the universally tolerant culture of the Hindus which was polytheistic and, in Islamic terms, blasphemously idolatrous too. It baffled the British to fathom how such contrasting cultures could syncretically co-exist when their theological roots were so antithetical to each other. From confusion came clarity and the British understood that this unity was there purely because the Muslims had for centuries been the rulers in India and would, therefore, necessarily break if the Hindus ever came to be dominant in the native national scene. The mild Hindu had patiently borne the injustice and intolerance of Islamic rule in India but, when the roles were reversed, the militant Mussalman would not tolerate the dominance of the erstwhile subject Hindu. Thus, could be created the fissure in Indian society to sufficiently weaken it for continued colonial rule of the Crown.
The Partition claimed the Mahatma as its final victim.
Sardar saved the nation from Balkanisation. The fraternal bonds had broken and fragmentation of the motherland beyond the rupture of Partition was imminent. Hyderabad, Junagadh, Kashmir, Saurashtra, were all at stake. Nehru's indecision at vital moments and capitulation to situational pressure proved disastrous for the nation and it was Patel's iron will, resoluteness and inflexibility in matters of national integration coupled with his insight into the political complexities of the times, which baffled his leader, that led to the emerging solidarity of the geographical residuum that yet lay beyond the clutches of the perfidious Jinnah, the worst villain in Indian history, and made India the nation that she is today. Sardar's political acumen outmatched Jinnah's and it is a tragedy that Panditiji did not sufficiently subscribe to good advice given him by the lion-soul whose decisiveness of action in the teeth of opposition, often by the hesitant Prime Minister himself, saved many a day when India's fate could have been sealed for good. When matters came to a head and Patel contemplated resignation from office, the Mahatma's demise prevented such an ordeal for the nation and this, in death, perhaps, was Bapu's final benediction on our benighted nation.
Yes, @Satyendra Singhji, I will start on this project as urged by you. I also feel that Ambedkar is being increasingly politicised in the wake of the Dalits forming such a high percentage of the electorate which is clouding vision about the seminal mover of the Constitution behind the cover of electoral gains and so denying us perspective on his actual contribution to the freedom movement. In fact, his sharp distinction with Gandhiji regarding the Dalit issue is so contentious that one loses sight of his actual contribution towards the independence of India, whatever be it in quantum, relative to the stalwarts of the freedom movement. Thus, a historical analysis of his role in achieving independence of the entire nation from the British is shadowed by his obvious and vociferous concern for his untouchable brethren whose integration with the Hindus, which Gandhiji espoused, he was at sharp variance with and relented but grudgingly in the ensuing political adjustment in the teeth of what he termed 'the Mahatma's blackmailing tactics of fast unto death' to sign the Poona Pact. Ambedkar was an open opponent of Gandhiji and has left behind a severe indictment of the Mahatma in his supposed double-dealing with the Dalits while professing false fraternal love for them. The Dalit leader, courtesy British patronage, carried the mandate of about 35% of the then population of India, at least on paper, for it cannot be vouched that he actually could move so many against the Mahatma, for if he could, he would have played a parallel role of equal importance as the Mahatma in the politics of freedom on stage then. But it never happened and that is ample proof that representation on paper of a people is one and real representation of the same as Gandhiji did was another. However, these are reflex ruminations which are not in answer to the question raised by you and I will get back to discussion of the contentious issue of Ambedkar's real contribution to the freedom movement after doing relevant research regarding the same. Thank you, Satyendra Singhji, for yet again focusing our attention on a highly neglected aspect of our immediate historical past which, considering the calamity of the cancerous growth of corruption in public life, needs a fresh treatment and a deft delivery thereof before the nation at large, for illusions, if any, are to be dispelled about personalities, however great by achievement or by appellation, for truth to prevail in the larger interests of the nation and for the setting right of the historical narrative.
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