Sugata Bose IN CONFERENCE WITH SUMIT CHANDRA (Sumit Chandra)
Gandhi's contribution to the cause of freedom is undeniable for his was the mass movement that galvanised the whole country into motion against the British. His philosophy was flawed, I agree, but his role in awakening the sleeping consciousness of the masses into revolutionary activity was seminal and crucial to the cause of freedom. Gandhi did dampen the extreme revolutionary cause, for sure, and there can be no two opinions about it, but his towering figure loomed large over a nation in subjugation and brought it self-respect and dignity before it could be readied for mass action for freedom.
I find no substantial historical evidence to come to the conclusion that Gandhi was a British agent, although, I do agree with you on the count that the Mahatma's political philosophy being vastly different from the revolutionary philosophy of armed action to evict the enemy was principally responsible for India not adopting largely the revolutionary path for freedom. This does not mean that the revolutionary movement was sporadic and sparse but it implies that armed revolution was never a nation-wide movement in the scale the Gandhian non-violent movement was. This was because the titanic leaders like Aurobindo Ghosh (who went into spiritual retirement after the Alipore Bomb Case), Bagha Jatin (who lost his life battling at Balasore in 1915) and Rash Behari Bose (who escaped to Japan post the failure of the North Indian armed insurrection planned by him) were not available for providing revolutionary leadership at the national level.
The political vacuum left by the absence of these leaders was filled up by Gandhi who had an alternative view of life and, accordingly, an alternative political philosophy. This was so on account of his vastly different temperament which was much milder than what revolutionaries are made up of. Gandhi's earlier experience in South Africa shaped his political philosophy which he carried on to his homeland where the odds of its success were minimal which Gandhi also had anticipated and feared. But the overwhelming response he received from the masses in India came a welcome surprise to him and this he utilised to his advantage to galvanise mass action for freedom.
Your observation that it was Vivekananda's gift to the nation in mass awakening that aided Gandhi is apt and this is a rarely understood phenomenon for Vivekananda had worked at the subliminal levels of human consciousness which are not discerned by the eye but are visible only to the yogic vision. I commend you for this excellent, nay, I dare say, revolutionary discovery of the Swami's role in lending freedom to the motherland. What is commonly conceded to the cyclonic monk is his role in creating the consciousness of freedom among the leaders of the freedom struggle who then lent in their weights to bring it home to the masses. But it is absolutely true that Swamiji's wanderjahre through the length and breadth of India between 1890 and 1893 followed by his lectures from Colombo to Almora in 1897 on return from the West did leave leave a deep impress on mass consciousness readying it for future revolutionary action for freedom.
Gandhi publicly acknowledged his debt to Vivekananda when he said that his love for his motherland had been multiplied a thousandfold after having gone through the works of Vivekananda. So have the other leaders of the freedom movement unhesitatingly acknowledged. Vivekananda has been accorded in the freedom movement a la Voltaire-Rousseau place as in the French Revolution and more, for while the latter were mere social and political thinkers, the former was a spiritual thinker and a sage whose vision extended beyond human horizons.
Yes, it is true that Gandhi received a well-ploughed field for future cultivation from the earlier work of Vivekananda and the revolutionaries predating Gandhi in India but it is crucial to comprehend that, nonetheless, the act of cultivation has to be successfully carried out by someone. Gandhi seems to have been the choice of history and he did it in his own unique way. That the method was flawed at its fundamental level as a comprehensive tool for evicting a powerful enemy armed to the teeth with modern armament is a matter well-agreed upon by military thinkers and unbiased serious political thinkers too. It had to fail in the eventual analysis and it did so as India gained a partitioned freedom which the revolutionaries had never fought for and neither had Gandhi struggled to achieve for the motherland. That things did eventually turn out the way they did was easy understanding for the likes of Subhas Chandra Bose and Rash Behari Bose who, therefore, had called for mass armed action against the British.
I am disinclined to brand Gandhi as a British agent for I find no historical evidence, documentary or otherwise, to convince me that he was so, but I do admit that Gandhi's consistent opposition to armed resistance for freedom, especially the rough deal he dealt Subhas Chandra Bose at and post-Tripuri (1939) and his refusal to launch mass movement, setting a six month ultimatum to the British to leave India on the eve of World War II, as suggested by Bose, did cost India dear in the end.
Gandhi's entire political life in India was flawed and fractured, unplanned and whimsical, and was never suited scientifically to tackle the might of the British Raj. His intentions were noble but method erroneous, his philosophy humane but programmes adopted in implementation not pragmatic enough to win freedom in a world ruled by realpolitik, his sense of political understanding severely circumscribed by superficial moral impositions entirely his own and unsanctioned by the Hindu scriptures he was wont to selectively quoting from.
The British did not fail to quickly see that in Gandhi they had their easy defence against the ire of the colony they brutalised to rule. They had an unfailing memory of the Revolt of 1857 and were ever scared of a recurrence of it. Accordingly, they had made amendments to their military recruitment policy in India with massive induction of loyal Gurkha and Sikh troops. Bengal was excluded from this list of recruitment for they ever feared insurrection among their armed ranks caused by the volatile Bengali. And they were right, for in the coming decades it was Bengal that played the seminal role in quickening the army into rebellion against their British masters. At about this time descended Gandhi, fresh from his South African political experiment-adventure, into the heartland of India. Here was a boon from the colonial goddess to the colonists which they could never fail to capitalise on.
Gandhi's contribution to the cause of freedom is undeniable for his was the mass movement that galvanised the whole country into motion against the British. His philosophy was flawed, I agree, but his role in awakening the sleeping consciousness of the masses into revolutionary activity was seminal and crucial to the cause of freedom. Gandhi did dampen the extreme revolutionary cause, for sure, and there can be no two opinions about it, but his towering figure loomed large over a nation in subjugation and brought it self-respect and dignity before it could be readied for mass action for freedom.
I find no substantial historical evidence to come to the conclusion that Gandhi was a British agent, although, I do agree with you on the count that the Mahatma's political philosophy being vastly different from the revolutionary philosophy of armed action to evict the enemy was principally responsible for India not adopting largely the revolutionary path for freedom. This does not mean that the revolutionary movement was sporadic and sparse but it implies that armed revolution was never a nation-wide movement in the scale the Gandhian non-violent movement was. This was because the titanic leaders like Aurobindo Ghosh (who went into spiritual retirement after the Alipore Bomb Case), Bagha Jatin (who lost his life battling at Balasore in 1915) and Rash Behari Bose (who escaped to Japan post the failure of the North Indian armed insurrection planned by him) were not available for providing revolutionary leadership at the national level.
The political vacuum left by the absence of these leaders was filled up by Gandhi who had an alternative view of life and, accordingly, an alternative political philosophy. This was so on account of his vastly different temperament which was much milder than what revolutionaries are made up of. Gandhi's earlier experience in South Africa shaped his political philosophy which he carried on to his homeland where the odds of its success were minimal which Gandhi also had anticipated and feared. But the overwhelming response he received from the masses in India came a welcome surprise to him and this he utilised to his advantage to galvanise mass action for freedom.
Your observation that it was Vivekananda's gift to the nation in mass awakening that aided Gandhi is apt and this is a rarely understood phenomenon for Vivekananda had worked at the subliminal levels of human consciousness which are not discerned by the eye but are visible only to the yogic vision. I commend you for this excellent, nay, I dare say, revolutionary discovery of the Swami's role in lending freedom to the motherland. What is commonly conceded to the cyclonic monk is his role in creating the consciousness of freedom among the leaders of the freedom struggle who then lent in their weights to bring it home to the masses. But it is absolutely true that Swamiji's wanderjahre through the length and breadth of India between 1890 and 1893 followed by his lectures from Colombo to Almora in 1897 on return from the West did leave leave a deep impress on mass consciousness readying it for future revolutionary action for freedom.
Gandhi publicly acknowledged his debt to Vivekananda when he said that his love for his motherland had been multiplied a thousandfold after having gone through the works of Vivekananda. So have the other leaders of the freedom movement unhesitatingly acknowledged. Vivekananda has been accorded in the freedom movement a la Voltaire-Rousseau place as in the French Revolution and more, for while the latter were mere social and political thinkers, the former was a spiritual thinker and a sage whose vision extended beyond human horizons.
Yes, it is true that Gandhi received a well-ploughed field for future cultivation from the earlier work of Vivekananda and the revolutionaries predating Gandhi in India but it is crucial to comprehend that, nonetheless, the act of cultivation has to be successfully carried out by someone. Gandhi seems to have been the choice of history and he did it in his own unique way. That the method was flawed at its fundamental level as a comprehensive tool for evicting a powerful enemy armed to the teeth with modern armament is a matter well-agreed upon by military thinkers and unbiased serious political thinkers too. It had to fail in the eventual analysis and it did so as India gained a partitioned freedom which the revolutionaries had never fought for and neither had Gandhi struggled to achieve for the motherland. That things did eventually turn out the way they did was easy understanding for the likes of Subhas Chandra Bose and Rash Behari Bose who, therefore, had called for mass armed action against the British.
I am disinclined to brand Gandhi as a British agent for I find no historical evidence, documentary or otherwise, to convince me that he was so, but I do admit that Gandhi's consistent opposition to armed resistance for freedom, especially the rough deal he dealt Subhas Chandra Bose at and post-Tripuri (1939) and his refusal to launch mass movement, setting a six month ultimatum to the British to leave India on the eve of World War II, as suggested by Bose, did cost India dear in the end.
Gandhi's entire political life in India was flawed and fractured, unplanned and whimsical, and was never suited scientifically to tackle the might of the British Raj. His intentions were noble but method erroneous, his philosophy humane but programmes adopted in implementation not pragmatic enough to win freedom in a world ruled by realpolitik, his sense of political understanding severely circumscribed by superficial moral impositions entirely his own and unsanctioned by the Hindu scriptures he was wont to selectively quoting from.
The British did not fail to quickly see that in Gandhi they had their easy defence against the ire of the colony they brutalised to rule. They had an unfailing memory of the Revolt of 1857 and were ever scared of a recurrence of it. Accordingly, they had made amendments to their military recruitment policy in India with massive induction of loyal Gurkha and Sikh troops. Bengal was excluded from this list of recruitment for they ever feared insurrection among their armed ranks caused by the volatile Bengali. And they were right, for in the coming decades it was Bengal that played the seminal role in quickening the army into rebellion against their British masters. At about this time descended Gandhi, fresh from his South African political experiment-adventure, into the heartland of India. Here was a boon from the colonial goddess to the colonists which they could never fail to capitalise on.
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