Eternal India Encyclopedia

FREEDOMMOVEMENT

Eternal India

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EMERGENCE ON INDIAN SCENE

“And then Gandhi

came. He was like a

powerful current of

fresh air that made

us stretch ourselves

and

take

deep

breaths; like a beam

of light that pierced

the darkness and re-

moved

the

scales

from our eyes; like

whirlwind that upset

many things but most of all the working of

people's minds. He did not descend from

the top; he seemed to emerge from the

millions of India, speaking their appalling

condition. Get off the backs of these

peasants and workers, he told us, all you

who live by their exploitation; get rid of the

system that produces this poverty and

misery. Political freedom took new shape

then and acquired a new content. The es-

sence of his teaching was fearlessness

and truth, and action allied to these, al-

ways keeping the welfare of the masses

in view. The greatest gift for an individual

or a nation, so we had been told in our

ancient books, was abhaya (fearless-

ness), not merely bodily courage but the

absence of fear from the mind. ”

Jawaharlal Nehru,

Discovery of India.

1915 : Gandhi landed in Bombay on Jan. 9.

He set up an

ashram

in Ahmedabad on the

banks of the Sabarmati river. The chief ob-

ject of this

ashram

was to acquaint India

with the method of Satyagraha.

The main objects of the Ashram :

Education, with a view to serve our

motherland.

ii.

To speak Truth and follow the right

path.

iii.Take the vow of celibacy.

Control of the palate.

iv.Vow of non-possession.

v.Vow of Non-stealing.

vi.Must use home-made

“Swadeshi'.

vii.Must conquer fear.

viii.Make all efforts to eradicate un-

touchability.

"I recognise no God except the God

that is to be found in the hearts of the

dumb millions.... and I worship the God.

that is Truth.... through the service of

these millions'’.

1917

: Gandhi successfully used the

weapon of Satyagraha against the Euro-

pean indigo planters of Champaran who

were ruthlessly exploiting the peasants.

1918

: Gandhi tried to recruit Indian troops

for the British Army in World War I. In

Ahmedabad Gandhi went on his first public

fast over dispute between textile workers

and employers over payment of bonus. The

mill owners agreed to pay 35 per cent bo-

nus. At this time Gandhi had full faith in

the love of justice of the Englishman. How-

ever when the Rowlatt Act was passed in

1919, Gandhi was convinced that British

rule in India was satanic. In 1919 the Row-

latt Bill was passed. In protest against this

Gandhi called for a country-wide hartal on

April 6. He asked the people to observe it

as a day of fasting and prayer. Throughout

the country the

hartal

was a complete suc-

cess. However because of certain violent,

incidents in Ahmedabad Gandhi came to the

conclusion that the country was not ready

for Satyagraha which demanded non-vio-

lence. Realising that he had made a

'Hima-

layan miscalculation',

he called off the civil

disobedience movement.

On April 13, the Jallianwalla massacre

took place at Amritsar in Punjab, when Gen.

Dyer fired on a crowd which had gathered at

an enclosed place called Jallianwalla Bagh

for a public meeting, killing 379 and wound-

ing 1200. Gandhi returned the awards he

had received from the British Government

including the Zulu War memorial and the

Kaiser-I-Hind medal declaring “that co-

operation in any shape or form with this

satanic government is sinful”.

During this time Gandhi was drawn

into the

Khilafat movement.

He had been

interested in Hindu-Muslim unity since his

days in South Africa. In Nov. 1919 he was

elected President of the Khilafat confer-

ence. Gandhi issued a manifesto on March

10,1920 embodying his ideas on the future

course of action to be pursued by the Khi-

lafatists if their demands were not granted.

This manifesto is historically important as

it contains the first definite elaboration of

Gandhi's doctrine of non-violent non-co-

operation which was shortly to play a domi-

nant role in Indian politics. He ruled out the

violent method of warfare open or secret,

"if

only because it is impracticable”.

He then

proceeds:

"The power that an individual or a

nation forswearing violence can generate,

is a power that is irresistible.... Non-co-

operation is, therefore, the only remedy left

open to us. It is the clearest remedy, as it is

the most effective, when it is free from all

violence. It becomes a duty when co-opera-

tion means degradation or humiliation, or an

injury to one's cherished religious senti-

ment. England cannot expect a meek sub-

mission by us to an unjust usurpation of

rights which to Muslims means a matter of

life and death ".

BIRTH OF KHADI

Mahatma took the lead in arousing

members of the Ashram and the general

public to wear hand-woven cloth made from

Indian yarn only. Gradually the number of

people wearing

Khadi

started swelling.

Gandhi impressed upon men and women

the need to clothe themselves through their

own effort with a clear consciousness of

the ideals of Ahimsa and self-sufficiency.

Khadi work was suggested to be adopted

not as an isolated economic activity but as a

means for the regeneration of the entire

shattered economy of village life.

“The wheel could very well be a sym-

bol of violence as well as of non-violence.

Under the East India Company's regime,

the spinning-wheel had become the symbol

of the exploitation and slavery of the arti-

sans, and the arrogance of the rulers.

Gandhi on the other hand, had taken up the

wheel as the symbol of non-violence and

deliverance of the masses through it. The

same knife that took away life in the hands

of a butcher could become the means of

saving life in the hands of a surgeon.”

Charka

"God dwells neither in the temple nor in the

mosque, neither within nor without, if at all he is

anywhere, it is in hunger and thirst of the humble

folk. Let us spin daily in order to satisfy their hunger

and quench their thirst or with Ramnam on our lips,

engage ourselves in some such labour for their

sake".

M. K. Gandhi