The British never took chances with the revolutionaries. Once they had them in their custody for seditious activity, they either hanged them or deported them to the Andamans for incarceration in the dreaded Cellualr Jail where conditions were inhuman, barbaric, just as one might expect from the semi-civilised British who meted out such animal treatment to its subjects throughout the hell they had manufactured in the name of British civilisation across the globe.
The British were careful with the revolutionaries and saw to it that they never came out into the open again to become dangerous propositions for the Raj. With Gandhi, on the other hand, they were very lenient and played him up in the eyes of the world to hoodwink the Indian masses into believing in his magic power to liberate India and, in the process, they kept the freedom movement largely within the bounds of the easily manageable passive resistance of the votary of non-violence which they at will crushed with the might of their modern army manned largely by loyal Indian troops.
What had begun in 1885 as the British laid safety-valve organisation in the form of the Indian National Congress to let off the steam of simmering revolt of Indians had found in Gandhi the perfect foil for the dangerous revolutionaries, the one who would unwittingly and, often, knowingly provide the imperialists their best protection against the ire of the people and would, in the process, prolong the reign of the Crown in this, the cherished land of despoliation and transference of wealth back home to England.
So far as the revolutionaries were concerned, Gandhi's sympathies were limited for them, for, after all, they were supposedly his countrymen and how could he have any love left for them when he was busy showering it on his alien adversaries in trying to win them over to a reformed sense of humanity?
So, while Gandhi became the Mahatma by appellation, the revolutionaries bled away to win freedom for the motherland, only to sacrifice their all for Nehru and his dynasty to reign for the next seven decades and for politicians and businessmen to make the country their private domain of exploitation just as their predecessors in the white masters had done.
Shame on the sufferance of debilitated India and an exhortation to all to arise and redress the situation!
Bande Mataram!
Written by Sugata Bose
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