Mahatma Gandhi Discussion with Subhash Chandra Bose

[Prof. Dr. Yogendra Yadav]

Prof. Dr. Yogendra Yadav

Senior Gandhian Scholar

Gandhi Research Foundation, Jalgaon, Maharashtra, India

Contact No. – 09404955338, 09415777229

E-mail- [e-mail];

[e-mail]

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

 

 

Mahatma Gandhi Discussion with Subhash Chandra Bose

 

 

Gandhiji agreed that the leaders had sunk to the lowest level, but not the common people. Their hearts were still sound. He added: Even in this village I have noticed some response. But, of course, I do not build upon it.

BOSE: We believe your attempt is to raise humanity from the lowest level. But we are skeptical as to whether you will succeed.

GANDHIJI: I myself am skeptical about it. I may succeed; I can perish in the attempt. Success or failure is not the final test. B. You are right.

GANDHIJI: And attempt up to the last is the only real test. Bose next asked Gandhiji if there was any change of mentality on the part of the authorities.

Gandhiji replied: There is a change in the Government policy for the better. But as for the change of heart, it is for you and me to make a contribution to that consummation. The interviewer remarked that it was painful to see how listless the Hindus had become.

GANDHIJI: It is no prerogative of the Hindus. Listlessness is common to us all. Even if I am the only one, I shall fight this listlessness that has come over the Hindus of East Bengal. I have not come here to do a good turn to this community or that. I have come to do a good turn to myself. Non-violence is not meant to be practiced by the individual only. It can be and has to be practiced by society as a whole. I have come to test that for myself in Noakhali. Has my ahimsa become bankrupt? If I fail here, it won’t be any proof that the theory is wrong. It will simply mean that my sadhana has been imperfect, that there is some fault somewhere in my technique.

BOSE: If the League leaders were to take the Noakhali situation as seriously as you and Jawaharlal took Bihar, order would be restored in a day. To make such comparisons is to degrade one. What are called for is introspection and more introspection. I have come here not only to speak to the Mussalmans but to the Hindus as well. Why are they such cowards? The Harijans, the Namashudras, have been relatively better so far as courage and physical prowess is concerned. They are brave. But the other Hindus must shed utterly the caste distinctions. If this calamity would open the eyes of the Hindus and result in eradicating untouchability root and branch, it will have served a good purpose. Narrating his earlier experiences in India he recalled how during the Champaran Satyagraha, in Rajendra Babu’s absence, he could only sit in the outhouse in Rajendra Babu’s house and how Rajendra Babu’s servant would not let the speaker bathe at the well. Things had improved, but much more remained to be done. The visitor agreed that Hinduism had still to go a long way to eradicate the evil. Talking of forced conversions in Noakhali, the interviewer remarked that unless those who had been converted were brought back to the Hindu fold quickly, the cleavage between the Hindus and the Muslims might become permanent.

GANDHIJI:  Many had returned. But all must. The question was put to him whether by taking up an unbending attitude on conversion; he was not identifying himself with one particular community. How could his stand in this respect be squared with his claim that he regarded all religions as equal?

GANDHIJI: I have, of course, always believed in the principle of religious tolerance. But I have even gone further. I have advanced from tolerance to equal respect for all religions. All religions are branches of the same mighty tree, but I must not change over from one branch to another for the sake of expediency. By doing so, I cut the branch on which I am sitting. Therefore, I always feel the changeover from one religion to another very keenly, unless it is a case of spontaneous urge, a result of inner growth. Such conversions by their very nature cannot be on a mass scale and never to save one’s life or property or for temporal gain. He narrated his meeting with a South Indian Bishop who was a Harijan converted to Christianity and retained all his original weakness in spite of the change of religion. He had told the late Charlie Andrews that to his mind he was no bishop at all.

BOSE: There is no end to the monstrosities that have been committed here and that too in the name of religion. It is enough to fill one with blank despair.

GANDHIJI: I have met human monsters from my early youth. I have found that even they are not beyond redemption if we know how to touch the right chord in their soul. And he cited two instances within his recent experience of the milk of human kindness welling up in hard-boiled, sun-baked functionaries at the sight of stark human misery and devastation.

GANDHIJI: The whole thing is so ghastly. You do not need to exaggerate it. I have told the authorities I do not care for numbers. Has a single case of abduction, rape, forcible marriage, or forcible conversion occurred? If so, it is enough for me. It is admitted that such things have happened.

BOSE: What about the rescue of abducted women? It was complained that as soon as information was received about such cases and the rescue party with the military police set out on their assignment, the miscreants received intimation and removed the victim to some other place.

GANDHIJI: I have told our people: ‘Do not depend on military and the police help.’ You have to uphold democracy, and democracy and dependence on the military and the police are incompatible. You cannot say it is good in one place and bad in another. Military help will degrade you. In a democracy, if you set up a hooligan as the head of the Government, you lie in the bed you have made. The only remedy is to educate and convert the electorate by Satyagraha, if necessary. We should be consistent all along. If democracy is good in Bihar, it ought to be good in Bengal, too. I must, therefore, go to the popular, elected Ministers, for they are my Ministers. If they fail, public opinion must be created to replace them. That is democracy. Whether it is Bihar or Bengal, the people have to be brave and stand on their legs. I want everyone to die at his post like a brave man and not to leave his home or his village.

Another interviewer asked Gandhiji why Pandit Jawaharlal went to Bihar and took such an active part in putting down disturbances there while he did nothing for Bengal. If the Interim Government could not interfere in one Province because of provincial autonomy, how could it do so in another?

Gandhiji replied that they must not forget that besides being the Vice-

President of the Interim Government, Jawaharlal was the first servant of the Congress. As the Vice-President of the Central Cabinet, he must act within the four corners of the constitution. It does not permit interference with provincial autonomy. But in Bihar, Pandit Nehru and Rajendra Babu have a standing and responsibility as Congressmen. One of the interviewers remarked that Bengal was being used as a pawn on the political chess-board.

GANDHIJI: No. Bengal is in the forefront today because Bengal is Bengal. It is Bengal that produced Tagore and Bankim Chandra. It was here that the heroes of the Chittagong Armory Raid were born, however misguided their action might have been in my eyes. No, you must understand it. If Bengal plays the game, it will solve all India’s problem. That is why I have made myself a Bengali. I have seen enough of ravages in Noakhali to make me weep my eyes out but I am not going to shed a tear for what has happened. We have a long way yet to go. Why should there be cowardice in the Bengal of such men?

BOSE: Yes, when I see these desecrated places of worship, I ask, why did not every man, woman and child of the house die there before those places were touched.

Q. If they had done that, you would not have required any other help. Today Noakhali is bereft of its leading men. They refused to take the risk and have left their hearths and homes. Poor Manoranjan Babu is in a fix. Whom is he to put on the Peace Committees? I have told him that the common man must rise to fill the vacuum. There is no such thing as a vacuum in nature. Nature abhors it. Let him write to them, I have told him If they come back, well and good. Otherwise, the common man must come forward. It is his day.

Q. Mahatmaji, tell us in one word, whether it is war or peace? Peace Committees or War Committees?

GANDHIJI: Peace Committees. War results when peace fails. Our effort must always be directed towards peace, but it must be peace with honour and fair security for life and property. On these two conditions alone will the refugees return? Of course, if they develop enough courage, they will return without any safeguards. Today I have suggested one Hindu and one Muslim standing surety for each village. If the people have the requisite courage, they would depend on none but God and their own strength of spirit for their defence. If they do that, all the goondas in Noakhali will feel the change in the atmosphere and behave decently. I know what I am saying. I come from Kathiawad, a Province notorious for its bandits. I know that they are not beyond redemption. Nor do I believe that goondas are responsible for all that had happened. A suggestion was next made as to why they should not have only Muslims in the Peace Committees as the Hindus had played no part in breaking the peace.

GANDHIJI: No. The Hindus must be there to play their part; else the Peace Committees will be a farce.

BOSE: was it not possible any control Bihar with non-violence? Why did the Congress Ministers resort to the free use of Military there?

GANDHIJI: Yes. But Bihar has been having a lesson in organized violence since 1942 and before. Our weakness for the goondas rose to the highest in 1942. I know the merits of 1942. The people were not cowed down. But all the same I cannot shut my eyes to our mistakes.

 

 

Reference:

 

Harijan, 12-1-1947