Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi. Growing up, history school books glorified him as the scrawny man from the coastal town of Porbandar in Gujarat who brought down the British empire singlehandedly with nothing but non-violence. He has been eulogised as the epitome of sacrifice and humility who wanted nothing but India’s independence. We were almost made to believe it was just him vs the mighty British empire.
Over time, one grows older, reads up more on Gandhi, his contemporaries and those who were part of freedom movement and struggle before him. One realises that maybe MK Gandhi wasn’t truly the ideal ‘mahatma’. That for all the ‘De di humein azaadi bina khadag bina dhaal‘ was the ‘kamaal‘ of ‘Sabarmati ke sant’ only in the song. That MK Gandhi wanted the Union Jack, the British national flag, included part of our own flag after Independence. Some freedom, right? With symbol of colonialism right on there on our symbol of immense pride of freedom. Of swarajya (full independence).
Then you learn about how MK Gandhi, instead of upholding an Indian’s right to free speech condemned ‘Rangeela Rasool’, a satirical book on Islamic religious figure. The book wasn’t written to prove some sort of bravado. In 1923, some Muslims had published highly offensive books, “Krishna teri Geeta jalani padegi” and “Uniseevi sadi ka Maharshi”. The first book used derogatory and offensive words against Lord Krishna and other Hindu deities while second book had derogatory remarks on Arya Samaj founder Swami Dayanand Saraswati.
In response to this provocation by Islamists, Pandit Chamupati Lal, a close friend of Mahashay Rajpal, wrote a short satirical piece on the Islamic Prophet, Mohammed. The book written under the name ‘Doodh ka doodh, paani ka paani’ enraged Muslims. The colonial government banned this book in 1924. The Muslim community, partly emboldened by MK Gandhi’s endorsement of their hurt sentiments and whitewashing of the provocation against Hindus, filed multiple cases against the book under 153A.
In May 1927, Mahashay Rajpal, who published the book, was acquitted of all charges with the court observing that commentary based on facts on historical figures, including the prophet of Islam, cannot be said to promote enmity between groups. As soon as the verdict was delivered, Muslim mobs went into a frenzy. They rioted and demanded the head of Mahashay Rajpal. They were chants about how the murder of Rajpal was acceptable because, under Sharia, the punishment for blasphemy is death.
With the Muslim mobs going on a rampage, 295A was passed to assuage the feelings of the mobs and in the same year, there were two unsuccessful attempts at Mahashay Rajpal’s life. On April 6th, 1929, a 19-year-old carpenter named Ilm ud din stabbed Mahashay Rajpal on his chest eight times while he was seated in the outer verandah of his shop.
Nearly 100 years later, Nupur Sharma, a former BJP spokesperson, is now living under constant fear for her life because she just repeated with the Islamic scriptures say about their religious figures. Not even satirically. But the radicals have been further radicalised and now even if they don’t like the ‘tone’ of how you said something written in their scriptures, they’d start baying for your blood. MK Gandhi was in a position to nip the radicalisation in the bud. If he was as influential as our school history books tell us, nonviolence would’ve prevailed over assassination of Mahashay Rajpal. After all, his life was his message, right? Maybe he could have asked rioting mob to choose nonviolence and maybe then Nupur Sharma might not be living her life with death constantly threatening from nearest loudspeaker.
And then there was the Moplah massacre of Hindus. Indian Muslims, especially in Malabar, coastal Kerala, supported the Caliphate in Turkey and wanted to establish similar Islamic rule (Caliphate, or Khilafat), in India. MK Gandhi extended his support for the ‘Khilafat movement’. He probably thought that Indian Muslims would join the nationalist movement en masse if he supported their demand for an Islamic caliphate. Except, Indian Muslims then had the two-nation theory and Pakistan was carved out of India without full population exchange, as suggested and recommended by Dr BR Ambedkar, and we know the fate of minorities in Pakistan now.
But coming back to the Khilafat movement and MK Gandhi’s explicit support, over 10,000 Hindus were killed by Moplah Muslims. Thousands of Hindu women were raped, temples desecrated. On 25th September 1921, 38 Hindus were beheaded and thrown in the well by Moplah Muslims. It has been documented by the district collector of Malabar at the time how even after 2-3 days, several Hindus who were beheaded and thrown in the well were crying out for help. Despite this, MK Gandhi extended support to them in hopes they would turn ‘nationalists’ and fight the British Empire along with Hindus.
The ‘Khilafat’ movement was so whitewashed in our school history books written by the Congress led governments that for the longest time we were being fed that the ‘khilafat’ meant ‘against’, like ‘khilaf’ and not caliphate, i.e. Islamic rule. And as Hindus were being butchered, MK Gandhi asked them to ‘cooperate’.
There is more. 16th August, 1946 – a year before Independence. A call to massacre Hindus was made in Bengal by Muhammad Ali Jinnah, MK Gandhi’s counterpart for Pakistan, who believed Hindus and Muslims could not coexist. It is called as the ‘Direct Action Day’ (also, this part has been mostly skipped from our school history books). Hindus were massacred, raped. Jinnah had chosen the 16th of August as Direction Action Day because it was the 18th day of Ramzan, the day when the Battle of Badr was fought and won by Prophet Muhammad himself, against the kaafirs. It is considered to be won by Allah’s divine intervention by Muslims and it led to the violent occupation of Mecca.
On the 16th of August, 1948, Calcutta was littered with posters lionising Jinnah and reminding Muslims that they had to follow the footsteps of the Prophet. It is reported that Syed Muhammad Usman, mayor of Calcutta, had issued a widely circulated leaflet that said: Kafer! Toder dhongsher aar deri nei! Sarbik hotyakando ghotbei! (Infidels! Your end is not far away! You will be massacred!). The aim was to make Bengal ‘land of the pure’ and rid it of the Kaafirs (non believers, that is, Hindus). This was their ‘Battle of Badr’.
Hindus were beheaded, limbs chopped off, women raped and taken away as sex slaves. MK Gandhi asked the Hindus to die with a smile on their face. On 17th August, 1946, Gopal Patha took up arms to protect the Hindus. Throughout the night, Gopal Patha, along with his young men from the Bharat Jayati Bahini worked on a plan on how they could defend Hindus from the Muslim barbarians. From the 18th to 20th, Gopal Patha and his men put up a brave fight, paying the Muslim League goons back in equal measure, if not more.
On 19th August, 3 days after unleashing violence upon Hindus to establish the ‘land of the pure’ and two days after a small set of Hindus retaliated instead of dying with a smile, Muslims were feeling ‘unsafe’ and ‘threatened’. And on 21st August 1946, Viceroy’s rule was brought in in Bengal.
That MK Gandhi chose to let Hindus or fellow Indians die because he did not want to ‘upset’ the Muslim League and Muslims in India, is a fact not too well documented because of that time’s political leadership’s love for whitewashing barbarity and watering down atrocities on Indians who were Hindus, specifically because they were Hindus.
But 75 years later, it is not wrong to criticise MK Gandhi or question his actions. He was a human and should not be made into a demi-god above criticism. Questioning him and his actions does not and should not make one a ‘Godse bhakt’. Nathuram Godse, who assassinated MK Gandhi, committed a crime. Murder is a crime and nothing, no anger would justify taking law into own hands. Criticising Gandhi is not justifying his assassination and no way condoning Godse’s actions. Having said that, criticising him should also not be considered blasphemy. He was a politician and like every other politician in India should have his actions scrutinised.
