[Gandhi as a lawyer in South Afr After…]

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Gandhi as a lawyer in South Afr After the October Revolution of 1917, reforms were hastily proposed by a British government that was haunted by historic parallels.

These reforms were never realised and, by the end of the war, Congress had grown enormously, with its power massively boosted by close association with the Moslem League.

It was at this time that Gandhi rose to prominence. His meteoric course was assisted by the political confusion that reigned within the party, and by organisational turmoi in which the most open advocates of collaboration with the British were driven out into isolation.

Towards the end of 1918 a strike movement broke out on 'a completely unprecedented scale- 125,000 workers participated in the Bombay mill-strike alone.

As a flu épidemic raged across the country to kill 14 million people, mutinies erupted throughout the army and peasant risings followed each other almost ceaselessly:

British repression The British responded with the Rowlatt Acts, which continued wartime repression in all its viciousness, and Gandhi then formed the Satyagraha League in February 1919.

Satyagraha literally means 'persistence in truth' , but Gandhi also called it the 'truth-force', 'love-force' and 'soul-force' The essence of this method was non-violent non-cooperation with an evil system, and Gandhi insisted on distinguishing this from passive resistance.

Where passive resistance was the only weapon available to the weak, Satyagraha (he claimed) was born of strength-the moral strength of the ideally pure who never sought to embarrass or humiliate their enemies, only to transform them by example:

Partial Non-cooperation was not only to be non-violent. It was also partial, since Gandhi extended critical support to the illusory reform projects of the British;

"I would cooperate a thousand times with the government to wean it from its career of crime, but I will not for a single moment cooperate with it to continue that career"

The hearts of the colonial rulers may have been moved, but they reached for their weapons all the faster as a result.

In Amritsar, an unarmed crowa was trapped in an enclosed space with no exit and then machine-gunned. Three hundred and seventy• The Round Table Conference, January 1931

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A few days later, angry peasants stormed and burned the village police station in Chauri Chaura; 22 police were killed.

The Viceroy reported to London in alarm:

«The lower classes in the towns have been seriously affected by the non-cooperation movement ... In certain areas the peasantry have been affected ... agitation has penetrated to the rural Sikhs.

"A large proportion of the Mohammedan population throughout the country are embittered and sullen ... The government of India are prepared for disorder of a more formidable nature than has in the past occurred, and do not seek to minimise in any way the fact that great anxiety is caused by the situation."

Condemned

Congress Working Committee met on February 12, 1922. Far from working to extend the action, they condemned the 'inhuman conduct at Chauri Chaura, and called off the entire Satyagraha campaign.

In its place, they substituted a 'constructive' programme of spinning, temperance reform and educational activities. Their statement was not the product of pacifist beliefs.

Criticism was directed almost exclusively at the rent strikes, which had brought Indian peasants into conflict with Indian landlords. It was a priority for the bourgeois leaders of Congress to stifle such precedents of class struggle, which cut across the . 'united' national ingred movement.

Throughout the country militants were stunned, but reluctantly followed these central directives. Consternation gave way to apathy and cynicism-no protests were made when Gandhi was arrested the next month.

Released

Sentenced to six years imprisonment, . he was released after two; the crisis had passed.

Although the national movement was disorientated and disorganised for several years, the labour movement grew powerfully.

As its organisation and militancy matured politically, a left-wing emerged within the Congress led by youth leader Subhas Bose and Jawaharlal Nehru (later prime minister).

The right wing sought out Sandhi as their saviour, and ›y the end of 1928 he was pack in full swing.

Although the strike movenent had reached a new peak nearly 32 million working lays were lost by strikes hat year), and demands for complete independence were widespread, the 'Great Soul' narrowly carried a vote for Congress to restrain action for a year.

The British colonial rulers showed no such scruples. Almost every working class leader was rounded up in March 1929 and removed to Meerut.

Remote

At this remote court no jury was needed and the detainees were held in prison for four years before sentence was even passed.

But pressure continued to mount until Congress was forced to declare its commitment to Purma Swaraj (complete independence).

Gandhi hastened to tell the world that "the independence resolution need frighten nobody".

Soon after the gigantic demonstrations to celebrate the first 'Independence Day' on January 26, 1930, he was once more given complete control of the Congress' nonviolent, non-cooperation campaign, with the agreement that his own followers should operate as the totally unelected organisers.

No plan No plan of action was made public, but in a letter Gandhi confided his intentions to no less a person than the British Viceroy:

"The party of violence is gaining ground and making itself felt... It is my purpose to set in motion that force [non-violence] as well against the organised violent force of the British rule as the unorganised violent force of the growing party of violence.

"To sit still would be to give rein to both the forces above mentioned."

The Great Soul stood up, and walked out of the arena of struggle, confident that many combatants would follow him into a new diversion.

Yet again Gandhi's attempts to divert the mass movement into placic channels were frustrated by the violent militancy of the masses themselves.

The independence campaign was not to be contained within the restrictions sought by the native bourgeoisie.

Armoured cars

In April 1930, angry mass demonstrations broke out in Peshawar to protest against the arrest of the local nationalist leaders. Armoured cars were sent in and wholesale firing from British troops resulted in hundreds of deaths and casualties.

The crowds were composed of Moslems, but in the confrontation two Hindu infantry platoons refused to fire, broke ranks to fraternise and some handed over their arms to the demonstrators.

After this alarming development, both military and police were immediately withdrawn. For ten days the city was completely in the hands of the nationalists. After the re-imposition of imperialist control a vicious court-martial was held.

All news of the events was suppressed by Congress.

Gandhi did not equivocate on this issue The advocate of brotherly love between Hindu and Moslem, the apostle of non-violent non-cooperation, he two years later utterly condemned the solidarity action of the troops : 'A soldier who disobeys an order to fire breaks the oath which he has taken and renders himself guilty of criminal disobedience. 1 cannot ask officials . and soldiers to disobey; for when I am in power, I shall in all likelihood make use of the same officials and those same soldiers. If I taught them to disobey I should be afraid that they might do the same when I am in power"

This was declaring his class interest with vengeance.

When it had become clear that Gandhi could no longer control the accumulating struggles, the colonial administration moved to arrest him on May 5, 1930.

An even greater wave of hartals and mass strikes developed in response to what was seen as an attack on the nationalist movement. This centred in Bombay, where the disturbances were continLous.

At the height of this movement, industrial workers held Sholapur for a week and established their own administration. The government hired thugs to carry out its most vicious repression to date.

British commercial interests were severely hit and the capitalists began attempts to negotiate. The Labour government, which operated the British state apparatus under Ramsay McDonald, was driven to convene the Round Table Conference in January and Gandhi was released to attend. In March, the Irwin-Gandhi Agreement was signed.

Limited gain This agreement did MacDonald represent a very limited gain in the sense that the British government had been forced to recognise the power of the independence movement. But the actual terms of the agreement were a complete sell-out and included an assurance on behalf of Congress that all struggles would be suspended.

While imperialism rejoiced at a gain beyond all expectations. Gandhi exolained that the real meaning of Swaraj was 'disciplined self rule from within', excluded "association with England'.

Left Congress met at Karachi. The workers and yc uth were extremely critical of the settlement, but the left wing in the leadership collapsed entirely and dismally supported Gandhi's capitulation.

Gandhi found time on his return, pilgrimage from London to visit Mussolini, and also to Cable the India Office from Port Said to say he hoped there would be no need to renew the struggle, and that he would do all in his power for peace.

But the British imperialists now judged the time right to crack down viciously on the nationalist movement which had been prostrated by its leadership. One month after the return of the 'Great Soul'. , they began a 29 month battie to arrest and activist.

The Great reacted with a ally sublime New fast In May of the next year, 1933, he began a new fastnot against the government this time, but "to change the hearts of his countrymen'. . He was immediately released from detention, unconditionally-the colonial rulers jumped at this new opportunity.

Mass civil disobedience was to be replaced by individual civil disobedience. Gandhi accounted for this shift in his 'analysis' of the failure of non-violent non-cooperation:

"I feel that the masses have not yet received the Do as ad Stratiana wine its the process of transmission. It has become clear to me that spiritual instruments suffer in their potency when their use is taught through nonspiritual media ... The indifferent civil resistance of many has not touched the hearts of the rulers"

But even individual civil resistance had its dangers; such a campaign still left the masses uncontrolled by the bourgeois leaders, and it was not necessary to go further:

"Satyagraha needs to be confined to one qualified person at a time ... In the present circumstances, only one, and that myself, should for the time being bear the responsibility of civil disobedience."

The All-India • Congress Committee met a Patra in May 1934 and resolved to end civil disobedience unconditionally-except for Gandhi's example of splendid isolation.

It must have been difficult to see how much further the nationalist leaders could go along the road of a complete betrayal of the liberation struggles. But Gandhi himself was not satisfied with even these abject declarations of bourgeois identity. In opposition to the growing weight of the leftwing within the Congress, he resigned in the autumn of 1934 This marathon career of political betrayal was not closed with this.

Only three years later he was back as the acknowledged leader of the rightwing, and threatened a complete split of the party when Bose was elected President in 1938.

The end finally came when he was shot by a Hindu fanatic, incensed at Gandhi's verbal opposition to both Hindu-Moslem rivalries and the partition into the Pakistani and Indian states.

Stw.h Gandhi with the Aga Khan Soul' himself characteristicindifference, The assassination in itself suggests the image of a man martyred for his political ideals. But the false prophet had laid down a more faithful summary of his own character: "I am not a visionary. I claim to be a practical idealist"

The machinations of this idealist within the leadership of the nationalist movement were but a pale reflection of the real substance of his life's work.

Actions

But the reality of history concerns itself very little with good faith. Marxists do not analyse political characters from their moral fibre, but from their actions. Gandhi's actions tell their own tale of a sordid and all too frequent variety.

His ideological commitment to Indian independence was over-ridden at every critical moment by his class allegiance to the bourgeoisie. Far from identifying the struggle for national liberation with the class struggle within the perspective of permanent Gandhi clearly counterposed the two. Although at times he was reluctantly drawn into direct conflict with British imperialism, he was always prompt to prevent any extension of these enforced hostilities towards the native bourgeoisie.

"The Indian bourgeoisie is incapable of leading a revolutionary struggle. They are closely bound up with and dependent upon British capitalism. They tremble for their own property. They stand in fear of the masses. They seek compromises with British imperialism no matter what the price, and lull the Indian masses with hopes of reforms from above. The leader and prophet of this bourgeoisie is Gandhi. A fake leader and a false prophet!"

Leon Trotsky, July 25, 1939 The politics of Gandhi stand as a model of the role played by the democratic bourgeoisie in the epoch of imperialist decay. They conform in every respect to the Marxist analysis developed by the international communist movement through revolutionary struggles.

But the central problems remain of how the leadership of this persistent traitor could be accepted by the Indian workers and peasants.

Firstly, it must be said that the image of Gandhi as a figure universally followed in trusting loyalty, is a mythical distortion of Nonetheless it obviously cannot be denied that Gandhi regained great popular power. A full analysis of this phenomenon can only be undertaken within a comprehensive history of modern India and its revolutionary struggles for liberation.

Crucially, • Gandhi's political dominance was assured by the absence of a revolutionary socialist party to mobilise the peasantry behind the independent leadership of the proletariat.

The Indian Communist Party was fraught with problems even before its founding, and later became almost fanatically subservient to the dictates of the Stalinist Inflated 'soul' In these conditions, the 'Great Soul' was inflated to fill a critical vacuum which history could not tolerate for long.

The slaughter of sacred cows is necessary to the vital material interests of the Indian masses. The herds of bourgeois politicians are no exception, and in the process of demolishing the reputation and prestige of Mohandas Gandhi, Indian workers will be freed to develop necessary lessons for: their future struggles.

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MANSION DEMO age 8 A guest review of Look After Yourself, a Health Education Council booklet.