Irfan Habib

(This is a abridged version of a lecture by Prof. Irfan Habib, delivered on December 28, 1994, organised by SAHMAT. It is as relevant today as it was then.)

I deem it an honour indeed that I should be asked to speak on Mahatma Gandhi and the National Movement. It is a very important theme, because it is my belief that in the cause of the National Movement Gandhi occupied a crucially important position. The theme is appropriate, but I’m not an expert on Gandhi. I have read some of his writings, and I have seen secondary material on Gandhi, and I have—as many of us have—met people who knew him, who were his followers or his critics. In any case anyone who is seriously interested in Indian history must be confronted in his own mind with the nature of the National Movement, which could be regarded as the greatest creation of the Indian people to date, and, within the nature of Gandhi’s legacy. I agreed to speak on it, despite my limitations, because I thought the time has arrived when certain questions with regard to Gandhiji’s role, and with regard to the National Movement and its nature, could be profitably raised. 

I should like to begin with the embarrassment of my own first encounter with the problem of assessment of Gandhiji in slightly personal terms. My difficulties are not exceptional. They might have been faced by many who came to the communist movement during the last phase of the National Movement. With my parents it was not usual to refer to him as Gandhiji, but only as Mahatmaji; even to refer to him as Gandhiji was thought of as taking a liberty. It did not mean that my father was not critical of certain positions taken by Gandhiji: but it meant that whatever the criticism it was within a framework in which Gandhiji’s total dominance of the National Movement was accepted as a fact, and although one might differ, one must defer to Gandhi’s views. 

With regard to the National Movement I think, some points need to be stressed. The National Movement had already begun, already established itself, when Gandhi entered the political field in South Africa. The founding fathers of the National Movement had a level of critique of imperialism which one can only admire today. Dadabhai Naoroji and R.C. Dutt wrote critiques of imperialism, which later Marxist writing largely followed without any major improvement during the British rule. 

They underscored the modem imperialist exploitation of India. But they underscored one other important point—that the National Movement can only create a modem India. There cannot be any going back to Ancient India and, therefore, India did not only need education, it needed a new ideology. This ideology they sought to create through various kinds of movements like the Brahma Samaj; and I would like to recall here that in 1830 Ram Mohun Roy said that India cannot be a nation because it is divided up among many castes. If India had to be a nation then the caste system had to be rejected. I think Keshavchandra Sen must be particularly respected because he extended this view also to the repression of women, and in 1870 propounded the idea that as India reformed itself it would become a nation. So India was not historically a nation. It was making itself into a nation by rejecting its past as a divided society, a society divided according to castes and religions. It was making itself into a nation by rejecting the traditional oppression of women, by absorbing modem thought and trying to develop a modem capitalist economy. The swadeshi or the development of the internal Indian economy in their minds was directed towards an industrial capitalist economy, the only kind of advanced economy they saw functioning around them. Dadabhai Naoroji may have been drawn towards the socialists because the socialists were anti-imperialists, and he might also have been drawn to labour legislation, but essentially his notion of the future of India, and of R.C. Dutt, was what can be called capitalism ‘with a human face’ but with more substance. 

The second important thing about Gandhi was his desire to unite the National Movement with economic struggles. The earlier thinkers among the Moderates had provided intellectual material. They had shown how India was being exploited by England, but in their actual politics they acted merely as spokesmen. They made demands on behalf of the Indian people but they were unable to spread these ideas among the masses whose cause they espoused. They spoke of banning exports of Indian foodgrains, but there were no demonstrations of hungry famine-stricken people supporting their demands. There was practically no popular mobilisation. 

With Gandhi one enters an important phase in the National Movement where mobilisation for economic demands became a part of the National Movement. It seems to me that this is an extremely important achievement, whose importance is not in any way diminished by the fact that the initial demands raised were extremely limited. 

Nowhere in the world does a trade union start with the most radical demands. We always start with the demand, say, that temporary employees be made regular employees; it is only later that we gain in confidence and begin to make further demands about pay and promotion. Certainly any trade union which, according to the wishes of the subalterns and other such radicals, has a strike everyday would have a very short life in the working class movement. Clearly, the necessarily limited nature of day-to-day demands and the ability to compromise are an inalienable part of any serious peasant and working class movement. When we say that Gandhi in the Champaran Satyagraha in 1917 was merely leading rich peasants, first of all, we ought to recall that Gandhi did not lead them because he thought they were rich peasants. Second, it was clear that the demands had to be narrow because without any partial success the Satyagraha would have had a totally demoralising effect. So also in the Kheda Satyagraha and the Ahmedabad working class strike. Criticisms that the demands were limited, that compromises were entered into, are not very serious criticisms. Even the greatest Marxists would have done the same. They may perhaps have not gone on hunger strike, but at some stage they would have compromised. You cannot in one agitation overthrow the landlord system in India, or the capitalist system in Ahmedabad or the British rule in Champaran or in Kheda district. 

Another important achievement, as I see, in Gandhi is his immediate identification with the peasantry. He might use religious language for it, which one may deplore, but the essential point remains that to him peasants were those with whom he identified himself most. I was amused to read in Subaltern Studies, Volume I, an analysis of a document in which Gandhi is supposed to have abandoned the peasants and made a compromise with the zamindars. 

Although the subalterns did not quote R.P. Dutt, the approach here is identical: Gandhi had made a compromise with zamindars, he had surrendered to zamindars in 1922, forced the peasant to retreat and so on. But in interpreting this ‘discourse’—and these are interpreters who look very closely at each word, the subalterns forget that when Gandhi used the word ‘we’ in this document he meant peasants and when he used ‘they’ he meant the zamindars, thus indicating essentially an element of differentiation from the zamindars and solidarity with the peasant masses of the country. 

Now you can argue that this was false identification, that he was not in fact representing the peasants’ long term interests. (Let us forget about the temporary compromise, because as far as compromises are concerned, I have argued that they are essential in any movement.) Compromises will always be subject to criticism, but in the long term even when Gandhi was talking about zamindars as trustees, as custodians of peasants who should be paid rent so that they open schools and hospitals, he was still raising a fresh issue. First of all, rent could be reduced, a matter about which Ram Mohun Roy had also written, but very cautiously. For Gandhi rents could be reduced by peaceful methods, by negotiation, but it was justified only if it was spent on health and education. Why should a zamindar collect rent if he was not able to enjoy it? This meant that even the idea of trusteeship brought into question rights of the zamindars in an indirect manner. And one should also remember that in the 1920s, while peasants might rise here and there, the general situation was not of unrestrained revolt. One cannot read into the peasant movement of 1919–22, what was the creation of the Left in the 1930s. It would be absurd and it would be belittling the contribution of the Left and of Gandhi’s own ‘constructive’ programme in the 1920s and 1930s to consider peasant consciousness in the 1920s at level with peasant consciousness in the 1930s. Given that position, obviously a totally hostile attitude to the zamindars would have made the situation for the National Movement even more complex in the early 1920s. But peasants did come into the Civil Disobedience Movement in 1930. They came to the Civil Disobedience Movement in far larger numbers than during non-cooperation where their participation was relatively scattered and fragmentary. Perhaps class analysis would show that most of them were rich peasants and small zamindars. But one of the important facts doesn’t come out well even in Sumit Sarkar’s book. This is that when we are talking of imprisonment in the civil disobedience of 1930 and are sneering about the fact that the number of prisoners did not exceed 100,000 even by Congress estimates, we are again reading into 1930 what the position is in 1994. Imprisonment in 1930 was not like ‘political’ imprisonment today when going to prison hardly matters. But in 1930, prison meant one could never get employment and could well lose one’s property also; and therefore, I am surprised that even 100,000 went into civil disobedience under such circumstances. Consider losing your land, being thrown out of your family, and if you look at this, certainly, the peasant participation in the civil disobedience movement all over India was sizeable. 

This was soon followed by the Karachi Resolution which provided a blue-print for industrial development of India—which was totally opposed to Gandhi’s views—the public sector, the government ownership of key industries, working class rights, and, in rather cautious terms, land to the tiller with some compensation to the zamindars, universal adult suffrage already promised in the Motilal Committee Report, equal rights for women, separation of religion from state—every modem political idea of a bourgeois welfare state is there in the Karachi Resolution. The basic idea of bourgeois welfare state happens to coincide fairly extensively with the concept that the communist movement developed of people’s democracy as a first stage after revolution. Therefore, clearly the Karachi Resolution is an important platform for the Left also. It united Gandhi with centrist radicals like Nehru and with the Left. And Gandhi’s acceptance of it, and his position that although the Karachi Resolution didn’t represent his views, it represented the Congress’ views and therefore he would not have any quarrel with the Congress governments which implemented it, must certainly be recognised. This was an important concession, the work of a person who could lay aside his own views, and accept contrary views, because the peasants had served the civil disobedience movement and had to have their reward. 

The working class had largely kept away and so workers had to be attracted back to the National Movement. Women had come out to participate, and they too had to have their share in the future of India. The Karachi Resolution was a kind of recognition of the requirements of a situation that Gandhi himself had helped to bring about. And so far as Gandhi allowed this to stand as part of the Congress programme, he must be credited with a very important share in giving to the Congress a leftward direction. 

Gandhi’s subsequent life, in which it became clear that free India would not be as he saw it, moved inexorably towards tragedy. He had unleashed forces the direction of whose movement was so different from what he wanted it to be. I think in this tragedy one also recognises his greatness, because Gandhi accepted, as I have said, in the Karachi Resolution and later, the promises that the Congress had made to the kisans and to the trade unions. Gandhi recognised the direction, while he criticised it. In one particular respect, in the communal divide which tended to intensify again from the late 1930s, Gandhi was constantly on the side of moderation. Gandhi had not taken the view which the Left adopted in the 1930s that if the National Movement was to be secular, then Hindu or Muslim communalism could have no place within it. It was an important position, a bold position. But it was not Gandhi’s position. Tilak before Gandhi had brought the Congress and Muslim League together, on that classic compromise, the communal electorate for Muslims in exchange for Muslim League’s acceptance of Home Rule. Yet, I think it was one of the notable landmarks in the development of the National Movement. Gandhi himself invoked Khilafat Committee—Abbas Tyabji was one of Gandhi’s very dose followers. But Gandhi felt the Khilafat Movement would extend the scope of the National Movement. On this there could always be discussion. Gandhi felt that he could ally with Muslim communalism or indeed with Hindu communalism also on particular issues to enlarge the National Movement. Given this argument, the Khilafat Movement was a logical development of Gandhian strategy. The criticism of separate electorates, and so on, came more vocally from the Left than from Gandhi who while standing up for a general electorate was willing to give concessions. 

Indeed, in 1931, on all the major points, Jinnah’s demands had been conceded, but unfortunately Jinnah and the Muslim League now looked to British imperialism to give them these concessions than to the National Movement. This is a very important point which some historians miss while they tend to blame the Congress and the League equally for the course that led ultimately to the partition. It seems to me again that in the UP Cabinet issue of 1937 it was Nehru and the Left who took a more rigid position, than Gandhi and Abul Kalam Azad, who were willing to induct the Muslim League ministers, perhaps in order to modify the anti-zamindar edge of Nehru’s supporters. Certainly the people who mismanaged the UP cabinet formation were not Gandhi’s supporters who were indeed urging a compromise. Subsequently in 1944, C. Rajagopalachari entered into negotiations with Jinnah and the Desai–Liaqat formula of 1945 conceded parity and accepted the very unfair position that Muslim League which was in a minority should have a parity in the central cabinet with the Congress. Gandhi went to extremes in giving these and other concessions, in order to preserve the unity of the country. Yet the question remains whether Gandhi, in identifying himself with Hindu social reform and with Hindus generally, antagonised Muslims. This is a question that is very difficult to answer because clearly if the National Movement was to be allied with social reform which was so deeply wedded to religion, it could not be separated entirely from religion. It is one thing to speak within the religious framework for social reform as Gandhi did, and it is another thing to reject religion altogether, which is what the Left did. 

One would not know which device would have been more successful given the Indian situation. But certainly Gandhi adopted the first one; he sincerely adopted it—he was himself religious. It became clear that one position he had was that of a Hindu social reformer. Gandhi found it very difficult to speak of social reform to Muslims, to condemn bigamy, to demand share in inheritance for daughters among Muslims, and so on. If he had emphasised such reform the alienation of the Muslims from him would have been still greater. And therefore it is not easy to condemn him on this score. He did all that could be expected of him to assert that all religions were true, but that all religions had some errors. They should exist together. 

Moving away from his controversial terminology of the late 1930s, he argued by 1947 that Hindustani was the national language of India in both Devnagri and Urdu scripts. He was a promoter of equality of Hindi and Urdu as separate forms of that language. I don’t know how many know that he wrote Urdu also and that his spelling was fairly correct. He didn’t make mistakes in Urdu words, and to my aunt his letters always ended with ‘Bapu ki dua’. He promoted Hindustani, a language to which Hindus and Muslims could both respond. By this, and by emphasising monotheism, he was trying to bring together people of various faiths. He had recitations from different scriptures in his ‘prayer’ meetings. Nevertheless, it was clear that he was a Hindu; but if Muslims were not to accept a devout Hindu as their leader, then does it not mean that they had already in their minds become separatists? Why should a devout Hindu leader be rejected by Muslims—a Hindu who is saying that they are like brothers to him, who is saying that the Muslims’ religion is the Muslims’ business, who is saying that in the national wealth of India they would have an equal share? The real question is, why should Muslims feel that way? I am not ready to accept R.P. Dutt’s position that because Gandhi said that he was a devout Hindu it alienated the Muslims. When Badshan Khan said he was a devout Muslim, it did not alienate the Hindus of the North West Frontier. Muslim separatism did not arise, nor Hindu communalism, for the reason that Gandhi said that he was a devout Hindu. There are other reasons. There could be two paths to social reform, the Hindu language framework of Gandhi and the totally secular framework of the Left, but the point is we can’t judge between them today because it is the Gandhian language which succeeded; the Left was only marginally in competition in this area. 

My last point; I think Gandhi’s ‘finest hours’ were his last month’s—that when massacres broke out, Gandhi stood by his principles; and here he could forget the narrow national interests for the larger cause. If you remember he said in so many words: ‘I am not for the moment concerned with the massacres in Pakistan. I am basically concerned with the massacres in Delhi and its neighbourhood; therefore, I am going on hunger strike here. When I succeed here, I would go on hunger strike there in Pakistan, which is also my country.’ The second demand he made was that India must pay Rs 55 crore to Pakistan. 

For the Father of a Nation to take a direct position against his own nation, and in support of another country whose government was showering abuse on him and the entire Indian people, I think that was Gandhi’s finest act. It was an action for which he ultimately gave his life at the hands of one of the heroes and precursors of the present Sangh Parivar. It seems to me that there is a message in this particular action for all serious political movements—a message that there is a point at which to compromise with principle is fatal. Gandhi’s own success in stopping the massacres in India was achieved by frontally opposing the ‘mainstream’ communal perceptions. One must take a position which is right even if it is opposed to the national ‘consensus’. How many of us could remember it in 1962 or 1965? 

(Prof. Irfan Habib, Professor Emeritus, Centre for Advanced Study in History, Department of History, A.M.U. Aligarh, is a well known historian.)