For Global Peace with Social Justice in a Sustainable Environment

Deshabhakta Konda Venktappayya and Mahatma Gandhi

Prof. Dr. Yogendra Yadav

Senior Gandhian Scholar

Gandhi Research Foundation, Jalgaon, Maharashtra, India

Contact No. – 09404955338, 09415777229

E-mail- dr.yadav.yogendra@gandhifoundation.net;

dr.yogendragandhi@gmail.com

Mailing Address- C- 29, Swaraj Nagar, Panki, Kanpur- 208020, Uttar Pradesh, India

Deshabhakta Konda Venktappayya and Mahatma Gandhi

Deshabhakta Konda Venkatappayya was a close associate of Mahatma Gandhi. He was from Andhra Pradesh. He played an important role in freedom movement with Mahatma Gandhi. Mahatma Gandhi was communicating with him many times on the issues of Satyagraha. Your first question is whether the requisite non-violent atmosphere can at all be attained and if so when. This is really a question as old as non-co-operation. It puzzles me to find some of the closest and most esteemed of co-workers putting the question as if the requirement was a new thing. I have not the shadow of a doubt that, if we can secure workers with an abiding faith in non-violence and in themselves, we can ensure the non-violent atmosphere required for the working of civil disobedience. The discovery I have made during these few days is that very few understand the nature of non-violence. The meaning of the adjective “civil” before “disobedience” is of course “non-violent”. Why should the people not be trained to refrain from participating in activities which are likely to throw them off their balance?

I agree that it will be difficult to get 30 crores of people to be non-violent, but I refuse to believe that it is difficult, if we can get intelligent and honest workers, to make people who are not actively participating in the movement remain indoors. Now, at Chauri Chaura the procession was deliberately formed by volunteers. It was wickedly taken in the direction of the Thana. In my opinion, the forming of the procession itself was easily avoidable. Having been formed, it was the easiest thing to avoid passing the Thana. Two or three hundred volunteers are reported to have been in the procession. I hold that it was equally easy for this large number of volunteers to have effectively prevented the atrocious murder of the constables or at least for every one of them to have perished in the flames lit by the mob which they were leading. I must not also omit to tell you that these men knew that trouble was brewing, knew that the Sub-Inspector was there, and knew that there was collision between him and the people on two former occasions. Was not the Chauri Chaura tragedy absolutely capable of being avoided? I admit that nobody plotted the murder, but the volunteers should have foreseen the consequence of what they were doing. Of the Bombay tragedy I was myself a witness.

The workers neglected the duty of telling the people, whilst they were preparing them about boycott, to remain tolerant, as also of posting volunteers in areas visited by the labouring population. I myself neglected the duty of putting down every insolent lying of hands upon other people’s turbans and caps. Finally take Madras. Not one single incident which happened in Madras was unavoidable. I hold the Congress Committee responsible for all that happened in Madras. With the experience of Bombay fresh in their minds they could, even if they were not fully confident, have avoided hartal. The fact is in every case all the workers did not understand the full purpose of nonviolence nor its implications. They liked and loved excitement, and underneath these vast demonstrations was an idea unconsciously lurking in the breast that it was a kind of demonstration of force, the very negation of non-violence. To follow out non-violence as a policy surely does not require saints for its working, but it does require honest workers who understand what is expected of them.

You say that the people work under the spell of one year’s limit. There is much truth in what you say, but there again, if the people worked slowly under that spell; they were certainly not working for swaraj. I can understand some temporary excitement, but excitement must not be the whole thing, or the main part of a great national activity. Swaraj after all is not a mango trick; it is a steady evolution, steady growing into strength such that a period must arrive when our strength has assumed such proportions as to tell upon the usurpers, but every moment of our activity we are gaining swaraj. Certainly a peaceful Tehsil at the foot of the Himalayas will be affected by a violent hamlet situated near the Cape Comorin if there is a vital connection between the two, as there must be if they are both integral parts of India and your swaraj flag is to dominate both. At the same time, for mass civil disobedience in Bardoli, I would certainly have thought nothing of anything happening in an out-of-the-way Tehsil which had not come under the influence of the Congress and which had not resorted to violence in connection with any Congress activity.

You cannot predicate any such want of connection about Gorakhpur, Bombay or Madras. Violence broke out in connection with a national activity. You have the forcible illustration of Malabar. There it was organized and sustained violence offered by the Moplahs, and yet I did not allow Malabar to affect any of our plans, nor have I altered my views during all these months. I can still distinguish between Malabar and Gorakhpur. The Moplahs themselves had not been touched by the non-co-operation spirit. They are neither like the other Indians nor even like the other Mussulmans. I am prepared to admit that the movement had an indirect effect upon them. The Moplahs revolt was so different in kind that it did not affect the other parts of India, whereas Gorakhpur was typical, and therefore, if we had not taken energetic steps, the infection might easily have spread to the other parts of India. You say that, individual civil disobedience being withdrawn; there will be no opportunity to test the temper of the people.

We do not want to test the temper. On the contrary we want the people to become immersed in industries and constructive activities so that their temper is not exposed to the constant danger of being ruffled. A man wishing to gain self-control instead of exposing himself to temptations avoids them, though, at the same time, he is ready for them if they come to him unsought and in spite of his wanting to avoid them. We certainly have not suspended any item of non-co-operation. This you will see clearly brought out in Young India. I am satisfied that our success depends upon our cultivating exemplary self-restraint and not disobeying even unseen orders of prohibition of meetings. We must learn to conduct our campaign in spite of prohibitions and without civil disobedience. If the people want excitement, we must refuse to give it to them even though we have to risk unpopularity and find ourselves in a hopeless minority.

Even a few hundred chosen workers, scattered throughout the length and breadth of the country, stolidly following the programme will create a far more lasting impression than a haphazard mass movement undertaken in order to truckle to the multitude. I would like you therefore to become introspective and to find out for yourself the truth. If you still consider that there is a flaw in the reasoning I have put before you, I would like you to combat the position I have taken. I want us all to think originally and to arrive at independent conclusions. A drastic overhauling of ourselves and of the movement is absolutely necessary. I do not mind having finally to find out that non-violence is an impracticable dream. If such is our belief, it will be at least an honest belief. For me there is but one thing. I would love to contemplate the dreamland of non-violence in preference to the practicable reality of violence. I have burnt my boats, but that has nothing to do with any of my co-workers. The majority of them have come into the movement as a purely political movement. They do not share my religious beliefs, and I do not seek to thrust them upon them. 1

I like your determination to keep as healthy as it is possible for you to do. My own position is clear. The Congress has appointed the Swarajists Party its agents for conducting the political campaign; therefore, every individual Congressman can say that the Swarajists Party is its agent for the political work. When he finds that he cannot endorse the sum total of the Swarajists activity, he can secede from the Congress or he can resist in the Congress. My own individual position is neither the one nor the other. If I must have any political representative on behalf of the Congress in the Councils, I can only appoint the Swarajists Party because of its fighting capacity and this I can say in spite of my being against Council-entry on principle. As an Indian I have to make a choice between thieves and the police, and though both are alike unacceptable to me as a believer in ahimsa, I cannot divest myself of responsibility as a social being and, therefore, must continually make my choice. It is because of this difficulty that our sages have made room for the cave-dwellers who do not want to share the responsibility for the actions of their fellow-men.

They not only shun the haunts of men, but refuse to eat the corn grown by human labour. They only eat the fruits and root[s] which grows without human agency. I do not consider myself fit for that state. I remain in human society and, therefore, consistently with my individual views make myself responsible, where it is inevitable, for many acts which I cannot otherwise approve. Similarly, I have not yet bee[n] brought to the pitch of saying I do not want to be in the Congress. The agency of the Swarajists Party is strictly limited in its scope. I recognize its agency so far as the general political work is concerned. I do not make myself responsible for the character or the conduct of individual Swarajists. I wonder if I have made myself intelligible. You know the further step I have taken in view of Lord Birkenhead’s speech and, of course, Deshbandhu’s death. I must no longer prevent the Congress from becoming a predominantly political body by the force of my person; hence the letter to Panditji. But my decision need not affect that of a single Congressman unless it commends itself to his reason. I have simply stated my own personal opinion and, as I do not consider it to be binding on anybody in any shape or form and as I though[t] that an announcement of that character at the present moment would strengthen the Swarajists Party, I wrote the letter without any hesitation. For yourself, you know the local circumstances, and if you find that your indirect endorsement of the Swarajists Party will be to me your endorsement of the views and character of individual Swarajists, you will not hesitate to sever your connection with the Congress, while still retaining the resolute determination not to say anything against the Swarajists Party. r the last three days I am falling back upon shorthand assistance. 2

Yes this last fever of mine has made me very weak. The climate at Sabarmati is at present quite cool and nice and I am giving myself ample rest. I do propose, if at all possible, when hot weather commences, to go out somewhere. Nothing is decided as to where I would go. But from all accounts I have of you; I fear that you are in no better condition, probably much worse. Are you yet troubled with domestic worries? I understood why you were unable to attend the Congress at Cawnpore. I remember Hanumanta Rao having written to me some months ago about a friend. I suppose it is the one whom you mention in your letter. I have not since heard any further about him. Do please tell me all about yourself and the activities in Andhra Desha. 3 Deshabhakta Konda Venkatappayya sends the following remarkable notes about the progress of khadi in the Nellore District of Andhra. There is much in the notes which can be copied by every municipality and other khadi associations. 4 I have your letter. Mahadev has not been able to place before me the papers you refer to as yet; for, he has found me too busy. The inks I shall test and let you know my impression. How is your daughter getting on both in health and studies? She must someday come to the Ashram. 5

I thought you wanted me not before the beginning of April. All my plans are therefore being made so as to come to Andhra in April. March 30th and 31st I am bound to give to Kathiawar. My present plan therefore is to go to Burma about the end of February, return to Kathiawar and then come to Andhra in the beginning of April. I hope to give one month to Andhra. Isn’t that enough for you? Isn’t that what was agreed upon? 6 You quite realize why I had to decide upon going to Burma. I am now making every preparation to fulfill the obligation about Andhra in April. If I had not the Kathiawar Political Conference demanding my presence, I should have come directly to Andhra from Burma. As it is I shall leave Gujarat for Andhra Desh during the first week of April. Please draw up a provisional programme and let me have it. I am wanted to be present at the All-India Congress Committee meeting in Allahabad on the 14th of May. You will therefore disengage me from Andhra so as to enable me to reach Allahabad on the 14th of May. Here is a typical letter from Nellore. I enclose also a copy of my reply. I am at the Ashram up to the 28th instant. I leave on the 1st March for Delhi, reaching there on the 2nd. I have to stop there before I can get the connecting train for Calcutta. The Delhi address is: Care Lakshmi Narayan Gadodia, Gadodia Stores, Chandni Chowk, and Delhi. I reach Calcutta on the night of the 3rd March. I am in Calcutta on the 4th which is Monday. My address at Calcutta will be: C/o Sjt. Satis Chandra Das Gupta, Khadi Pratishthan, Sodepur (E. B. Rly.). On the morning of the 5th March I leave for Rangoon. My address at Rangoon is: C/o Dr. P. J. Mehta, 14 Moghul Street, Rangoon. I am giving you these particulars so that you can establish communication with me at these different places if necessary. 7

I hope to leave Bombay on the 5th or 6th of April and you will please disengage me so as to be able to reach Allahabad on the 14th May for the All-India Congress Committee meeting. I wish I could have given you more time, but if I am to do all the work in front of me for the year, what I have given you is really more than enough. Please draw up a tentative programme and let me have it at Rangoon, 8 Pagoda Street. Do not draw up a whirlwind programme. Let it be a business programme, avoid separate functions. Let all addresses be presented at one place, i.e., at a public meeting. They should not be read, but copies should be furnished in advance. The originals should be in Telugu and should be duly passed by the organizations that may wish to present them. Copies of translations in Hindi should be supplied to me. It is unnecessary to print them. Save every pie that you can and save also my energy. Let me have plenty of time for my correspondence and editorial work and rest. I am sending you an advance copy of the note that I have written for Young India that really gives you much information. My food does not now include goat’s milk.

It consists of almonds, turned into paste, some fresh vegetable and lemons. No other food is required. Please instruct me where I should go first from Bombay. Let me repeat what my hours are: 4 to 7.30 a.m. : No work to be taken from me. 7.30 to 10 a.m.: You may have a programme. 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.: No programme. 5 p.m. to 8 p.m. : You may have a programme. My eating hours are 10.30 a.m. and 4.30 p.m. The usual hour is 5.30 p.m. In order to have time from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. uninterruptedly for my work and for my rest and for my meals, I am altering the evening meal hour. No other time is suitable because I don’t eat after sunset. 8

Immediately on my arrival I told Deshabhaktan Konda Venktappayya and other co-workers that the expenses in connection with the tour should be reduced to a minimum and that if they were to be deducted from the collections as I found during several previous tours they were, they should be subject to confirmation by me. The workers told me that the expenses had to be deducted from the collections as the local Congress Committee had no funds in their coffers and if they made special collections in respect of the reception, it would be so much taken from the collections. I therefore advised confirmation by me. The workers accepted my advice and it seems to be working satisfactorily. 9

I endorse the arrangements you have made for the Pallepadu Ashram. I shall see to it that you get the sum of Rs. 1,000 somehow or other. And of course you have the absolute right to remove anybody and to employ any other person. What I would love to see is that you or Sitaram Sastri should occasionally stay at the Ashram. It will hearten the young men whom you have placed in charge and it will draw the sympathy of local people and you might be able to influence the villagers near the Ashram. I should like it to become a living centre of activity. With reference to Tenali please let me know what grant is actually required by the Tenali institution and give me also a somewhat accurate idea of how the amount is expected to be laid out. What qualifications should the technical instructor have? Will he have to know Telugu or English, a requirement that it would be difficult to fulfil? Where is Punnayya working now? Cannot he or someone be sent to the Ashram to complete the training required? Most of the instructors are otherwise engaged but I do want to meet your wishes if it is at all possible. You have said nothing about your wife’s health or your daughter’s. How are they both getting on? You must prepare to attend the meeting of the Council at Wardha in December. 10 Please read the enclosed. Tell me all you know about Needu or enquire and let me know. Is he responsible for all this misfortune himself? I am anxious to help him if only for the memory of Annapurna. 11

I am glad you have given me an exhaustive letter about Bapi Needu. I have offered to take him in the Ashram and pay the sum mentioned by him, i.e., Rs. 33 per month, for his dependents. But if you can guide him there and he will accept your guidance do please give it to him. How is your wife? I was sorry to hear about your daughter, but really she ought to go to the hills every summer. 12

I fear that your suggestion is fatal, especially at the present moment. To set up new temples would be to set up a new religion and accept defeat. If it is to be defeat, I should take it and resign myself to it, but I will not set up a new religion. If our contention is right and the public reject it, we should know that untouchability is not to be destroyed or even shaken during our time. Whether the contemplated legislation should be there or not is a matter that should be examined on its own merits. I have come to the conclusion that both from the point of view of interference in matters religious and seeking Viceregal sanction, it is free from reproach. Any time we would want legislation in order to correct errors and, in the hottest non-co-operation days, I should not hesitate to promote legislation backed by public will. No law or rule can be cited to defeat its own end. You may then be sure that there is flaw in your reasoning. The cry of religious interference is perfectly thoughtless where it is not obviously hypocritical. Of course, there is a third objection to the proposed Bill, namely, that the question who should or should not enter a temple should not be decided by those who are temple-goers’ but by some extraneous authority, in this instance, learned men. I totally deny the validity of that proposition. No religion could grow under such a chilling rule. Hindu religion, so far as I know it, has never followed any such rule. Mind, I do not insist that all old temples should be opened to Harijans, but I do insist that all old temples should be opened where the majority of present worshippers are willing. It is the acid test of the sincerity or the reality of the Bombay Resolution. I suppose we must resign ourselves to the prospect of your wife leaving this stage any moment. Perhaps it would be a welcome deliverance from a lingering death. 13

The oranges sent by Mr. Jangiah have already arrived. Please give him many thanks for the parcel. I shall gladly receive fruit from his garden whenever he feels inclined to send it. As you know, we are here a big family and we can do justice to fruit whenever it comes our way. Yes, the Assembly elections have been a perfect revelation. The South has easily topped the list with its 100 per cent victories and overwhelming majorities. It is a further demonstration of the unfailing victory of Truth and sacrifice. I hope you and yours are keeping well. Since dictating this, I have learnt that. What you call oranges are not oranges but sour limes. These are not of so much value as sweet oranges. 14 Your decision is correct. I think you should withdraw from all organizations and devote yourself to such service as you can render from your seat. May God keep you for many years? 15

I do not appreciate your appeal. There is no hurry. It should be revised. Give the assets of the ashram am, the liabilities, yearly donations, the concrete activities, the income there from. Then give the prospective expenditure in detail. Has the ashram am enough workers for the different tasks? Who is the doctor for general work, who is the veterinary surgeon, who is the matron? Are all these experts to be brought in? The thing reads visionary. It must be businesslike. If the burden cannot be borne, the appeal should wait. You will get the funds. Let them not be a curse. Money won’t produce men. The latter will produce as much as you need. 16 Is it not time I wrote to you in Hindustani? We are both old. If the younger ones will not spare us, let us spare each other. Do not drag me here, there and everywhere. Hope you are well. 17

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