Chapter 7
British Clampdown on Congress
THE British had become so blinded by their narrow self-interest that
ethics and principles carried little weight. The elections held
under their own auspices had proved that the Muslim League at that
point lacked political following: even in the Muslim majority
provinces it could not acquire any representative status. Despite
that they were offering assurances to it that they considered it the
sole voice of one question of the country's population, of 10 crore
(100 Million) Muslims. One question that could be asked was if, Mr.
Jinnah wished to have his position recognised in the
non-Muslim-majority provinces and the British were prepared to
concede him this, would similar right be granted to the Congress
with regard to the Muslim majority provinces.
The truth was the British weren't really bothered about the Muslims
or the Hindus. They were simply concerned with their own Raj and
prepared to do whatever would fortify it. It was clear to them that
if the Congress and the Muslim League could be prevented from
reaching a mutual accord, power would continue to remain with them,
the British. Accordingly their concern was to coax or coerce Muslim
League into a position that would place its reconciliation with
Congress out of the realm of possibility. The irony is, even the
Muslim League had not planned to benefit from this the British would
be the sole gainers.
At the same time, Britain was doing every thing it could to block
the course of the Congress movement. There were no scruples about
whether the tactics were right or wrong, fair or unfair. The
Congress was firmly holding its ground and was not prepared to
compromise in its demands for self-determination and national
independence.
The British looked around for any political force, no matter how
otherwise desperate or distasteful, that they could use in their war
of attrition with the congress. It was in this context that the
Viceroy proposed lifting of ban from party of India. The bargain
struck was that the party's leader, M. N. Roy, would come out in
open opposition to the Congress. The Secretary of State for India,
Amery, writes on July 7, 1942:
"I believe there may be much to be said for giving much more
encouragement to Roy and to every kind of left wing communist,
students, peasants or trade union Organisations... It may be that
the elements we encourage may not be reliable in the future, but
they may be influenced in a better direction in the sunshine of
official favour."
The British tactics were understandable. But the surprise is that a
great leader like M. N. Roy, and organisations of students,
labourers and peasants, were willing to become their tool and use
all their strength on the side of the forces of colonialism and
imperialism. Consider also the white man's cunning -how he brought
the lion and the lamb to drink from the same pond, how he coaxed
such opposite and mutually hostile forces as Islam and communism to
work in concert in support of his imperialist and colonial
objectives.
The British were at that point self assured that they had rallied
behind them the state rulers, the scheduled caste, the Muslim
League, the Mahasabah, the Communist party, and all their subsidiary
organisations. Now the Congress seemed to stand isolated, and it was
time to settle their score with it.
The Cripps Mission had also created an illusion internationally, but
especially in the American mind, that the British were making an
honest effort to resolve the Indian issue, and that they had now
transferred the responsibility to the local leader ship, to the
Congress and Muslim League, to settle on an agreed course.
Pleased with the situation Amery, the Secretary of State, writes to
Viceroy (July 24, 1942):"The sooner you pounce on them the better".
Deport all these leaders to Uganda, he advises, Gandhi is not well,
wires the Viceroy. To Aden, then, urges Amery, but out of India at
any cost.
Viceroy also dept conveying the good news home that the nation was
becoming disillusioned with Gandhi, the Congress was in disgrace;
the Congress rule in the provinces had caused leaders of opinion to
become alienated; people had no will left to mount any movement; and
so on. The message in short was that the time was ripe to take on
the Congress.
When shortly in August 1942, the All-India Congress Committee help
its annual session in Bombay and issued the Quit-India call to the
British, the latter, all primed up, instantly reacted. All the
members of the Congress Working Committee were arrested, and a
coordinated scheme to crush the movement was set in motion.
Processions even in villages were bombarded from the air and jails
all over the country were filled with Congressmen. Satisfied with
the operation, the Viceroy writes on August 17, 1942:
"I am most grateful for your support over the use of air power
against saboteurs. I am certain that we ought not to shirk from
using any of the means at our disposal in dealing with a movement as
so dangerously revolutionary as the present one.
The viceroy himself had admitted that the Congress had no plan yet
to launch a movement. He calculated that the party might have been
waiting for the moment when British were in a tight spot in the war.
He decided to forestall that situation and strike first. As he
writes further on in that letter.
We have this different and far more important reason to be thankful
that we have brought on this business at a time when the war
position is not such as to offer any immediate threat to India,
whether from the East. I have not the least doubt that Gandhi's plan
was to wait for bad war news before raising the standard of revolt.
However, there was surprise in store for him. Although the country
had not been prepared for any movement, it responded massively to
the sudden reign of terror. When the police, the militia and the
army could not succeed in taming the people, the air force and the
bombing and shelling were resorted to. Even whipping was prescribed
for political prisoners. The directive from whitehall was, 'use any
mean' only make sure that the more repressive measures like flogging
don't get publicised. The British colonialists were mindful of
reaction in their own parliament, in the U.S. and of international
public opinion.
But that availed them nothing. The young and the old and even the
women among the people rose up with such courage that the oppressor
stood aghast. He had been fed on the belief that the nation was sick
of the Congress.
The Viceroy writes on July 24, 1942:
"I continue to be rather puzzled that our intelligence should not
have been able to give us rather more warning that it has of the way
things were likely to go".
About the Governor of Bihar he says, a gain with the usual
understatement: "He and his government were taken by surprise".
The Viceroy had apparently still to learn that official
functionaries and other hangers - on report matters only in ways
that they know would please their superiors. It was on such
intelligence that he had drawn up his scheme of surprising the
Congress and putting it out of combat. The illusions however, either
deliberately or to deceive the rest of the world, continued to be
nursed at even the highest levels, as we shall see.
When the wave of terror did not succeed in quelling the nationalists
and the latter's sacrifices kept mounting the chances of British
success kept windling, Chiang Kaishek once again expressed his
anxiety to the U.S president, M.Franklin Rosevelt. He urged the
latter to impress upon the British that such high-handedness was
against the allied interests. President Roosevelt passed on this
letter to Mr. Winston Churchill, the British prime Minister, who
replied:
"The congress party in no way represents India and is strongly
opposed by over 90 million Mohammadans, 40 million untouchables and
the Indian states comprising 90 million.....the military classes on
whom everything depends are thoroughly loyal - in fact over a
million have volunteered for the army."
When it came to their own interests, the British became blind. The
prime Minister declares the Congress unrepresentative when it had
won elections held by the British themselves out of the eleven
provinces. And he lumps the entire Muslim population in Mr. Jinnah's
camp.
However, the Congress resistance of the time caused discomfiture in
the British ranks. They started scrambling for ways to create more
rifts among the Indians. Muslims they believed to be secure in their
pocket. The Scheduled Caste too they thought had been broken into
through Ambedkar. Now their eyes fell on the Sikhs. The Secretary of
State for India, Amery, wrote to the Viceroy to put someone on to
probing the possibilities of a demand for a separate Sikh State on
the line of Muslim League's Pakistan. He calculated that if that
demand could be fed and pushed to the fore it would further divide
and weaken the Congress.
That was Amery's rosy view from a distance. But the Viceroy who was
sitting on the spot knew that propping up such a movement would
affect Punjab, and that would pose twofold problems for the British.
First, Punjab was not a Congress stronghold. The power there was
with the Muslims, and their Unionist organisation, led by Sir
Sikandar Hayat, was loyal to the British. Besides, pitching the
Sikhs against the Unionist would cause no hurt to the Congress,
which was Britain's main design. The Congress would remain wholly
unaffected.
Secondly, Punjab was the main recruiting area for the British.
Creating a major rift among the population there would thus injure
the British themselves on a sensitive point.
According, by the Viceroy opposed the whole scheme. He writes on
September 7, 1942:
I am certain that if we did show the very slightest sign of taking
'Sikhistan' seriously in the least degree, not only shall we
aggravate communal tension gravely in the Punjab, but we should
never hear the end of it.
There was one yet another proposal - to induce separatism among the
Scheduled Caste. But the problem was that they were scattered all
over the country. As Amery noted: "Protection of scheduled castes
is, of course, impossible on any geographical basis, such as the
right of non-accession given to the predominantly Muslim provinces".
There was only one way, he went on: which was, if they converted
either to Islam or Christianity. Then their rights could be
safeguarded.
The 'Sikhistan' plan of the Secretary of State was thus shot down by
the Viceroy himself. But some other way had to be found to deflate
the Chinese and American pressure. The only alternative seemed to be
to further fan communal sentiment. All categories of the Congress
leadership were at that time locked up in jails. Mr. Jinnah's
statements were creating no impact since there was no one to reply
to them. Besides, amidst the spectacle of endless sacrifices no one
had the courage to do anything that would seem to strengthen the
hands of the British.
The British saw an opportunity in a new direction - that of the
Mahasabha. They thought that if the Mahasabhites put new fire into
the demand for Pakistan by generating massive opposition to it that
would help drive a further wedge between the Hindus and the Muslims.
That would also convey to the Americans that the matter was not all
that simple. There wasn't just the Congress, but also other forces
involved. The new confrontation would also create a new stir, since
with the Congress in jails there was no one to counter Mr. Jinnah's
arguments.
With this in view the Viceroy writes on December 15, 1942:
I have endeavoured to encourage Mahasabaha etc. by reverting to the
topic of the unity of India, though, I trust, in terms sufficiently
guarded so far as the Muslims are concerned to avoid giving Jinnah a
legitimate grievance. But I have also thought it well, for the point
is a most important one and the centre of our position, to bring out
that the difficulties of this country are not due to our reluctance
to transfer power, but to the fact that we have offered to transfer
power.
Consider the Englishmen's cunning. How he is using mutually hostile
forces to advance his own interests. He joins hands with the
Mahasabah in the cause of the country's unity, and links up with the
Muslim League to further its division. Thus these two forces are
primed to pitch themselves against each other. Mr. Jinnah himself
had been carried to a stage where, in the Viceroy's words, "the
Muslims will do no business except on their own terms."
And their terms are the division of India and the establishment of
Pakistan. The Mahasabah leaders on the other hand declare that any
division is like carving up a holy cow. Both these community-based
organisations are determined on their opposite stands. All their
exertions end up in enabling the British to show an innocent face to
the world and say that they were ready to transfer power that very
instant but, look, the Indians were locked up among themselves. The
Viceroy himself announces that Mr. Jinnah has started making such
demands "that it is almost inconceivable that Hindu majority could
accept them."
By the time of 1943, New Year, the Viceroy had pushed Mr. Jinnah to
a position that he was able to give the Secretary of State the good
news of an "attitude which might be summed up by saying that if the
Congress accepts his terms in full he would treat them kindly"
(January 26, 1943). The sneer in the message is transparent. The
Viceroy seeks credit for all his efforts that have brought Mr.
Jinnah to such position of self-confidence.
Gandhi and all the Congress leaders were at the time in jail. Gandhi
was on a fast. As a campaign was mounted to have him released Gandhi
wrote a letter to the British Government saying that Congress would
have no objection if all powers were transferred to Mr. Jinnah and
he formed a national government. The suggestion for a moment caused
deep worry among the British. But presently (February 16, 1943) the
Viceroy was able to assure London that Mr. Jinnah had refused to
attend a meeting called by the Congress for the purpose, and both he
and Mr. Liaquat Ali Khan had refused to join such a government.
…..And his statement and that of Nawabzada Liaquat Ali Khan in the
Assembly have dealt pretty effectively with the suggestion that the
Muslim League are willing parties to either Gandhi's fast or to his
suggestion that a National Government can be formed by them with his
goodwill in a day.
What else could the Congress do for the sake of a grand
reconciliation? It tells the British, O.K. We have won the election;
it is our right to form the government! But never mind, hand over
power to Mr. Jinnah, hand it over back to India. But look at the
irony: the British are silent; it is Mr. Jinnah and Mr. Liaquat Ali
who oppose the idea of a national government. The British were thus
able to smoothly pass on the responsibility of all their own
cunning, dishonesty, deceit, injustice, and high-handedness on to
the Muslim League and the Muslim League leaders were happy and proud
in wearing and owning this crown of British infamy.
May I suggest that this attitude doesn't even measure up to the
demands of decency and humanitarianism, not to mention the sublime
principles of Islam. If Muslim League was indeed honest in its
concern for the rights of the Muslims, here it was being offered the
government of entire India, and it wasn't prepared to accept it! The
refusal was not because it wanted to snatch that power from the
British; its quarrel was with the Congress not with the British.
What if, the Congress was at that time in jail for its struggle for
the independence of India. The League could wait to fight another
day.
The British too were a candid breed. They had no hesitation in
exposing people - even sometimes themselves. Even the simpleminded
Amery knew the score, as he writes to the Viceroy on Feb. 8, 1943.
"I don't believe that you will ever get Indian politicians settling
down to a reasonable discussion of their own internal problems, so
long as they can shirk them by putting the blame on an alien
government. To that extent there is really something in Gandhi's
plea that Indians can only agree once we are out of their way." |
