PYARELAL’S NOTE ON GANDHIJI’S VIEWS

[Prof. Dr. Yogendra Yadav]

Prof. Dr. Yogendra Yadav

Gandhian Scholar

Gandhi Research Foundation, Jalgaon, Maharashtra, India

Contact No. – 09415777229, 094055338

E-mail- [e-mail];[e-mail]

 

 

PYARELAL’S NOTE ON GANDHIJI’S VIEWS

 

 

 Pyarelal was secretary of Mahatma Gandhi. He wrote a note on Mahatma Gandhi on or after April 4, 1934. The present step is a logical corollary of the Poona decision. When mass civil disobedience was suspended in August last under the Poona resolution it was expected that all those who could should offer individual resistance. The idea was that they should keep the spark of Satyagraha alive till under favourable circumstances the movement could again develop white heat. It was assumed that those who took to it were capable of developing independent inspiration and could go on indefinitely without any outside direction or guidance and in such an ideal manner what was lost in numbers would be more than made up by gain in quality. Experience, however, has shown that the assumption made was unwarranted. Those who went in had not assimilated the spirit of Satyagraha fully. Almost to a man the individual civil resisters who were in the field were fighting because they felt that they ought to, not because they must. Those who came out showed no impatience to rush back. Instead they hesitated and faltered. Even the best ones instead of feeling spiritually exhilarated had experienced mental anguish in prison. No good can come out of sacrifice that is forced instead of being spontaneous and natural. Under the circumstances Bapu felt that the continuation of individual civil resistance would only result in internal decay. For coercive effect it was too insignificant; for spiritual effect too cumbersome and heterogeneous. Because it proved inadequate for producing immediate political results it failed to satisfy the patriotic instinct of the terrorist, and because its quality was indifferent it failed to touch the spirit of his idealism which craved for intense and intense forms of self-expression and self-sacrifice.

The present step is an essay on Bapu’s part, to purify and intensify the ideal of Satyagraha to the last degree. There was danger of indifferent numbers smothering the flame of his individual Satyagraha when it should burn the brightest and of diluting its potency. Unadulterated by numbers it should prove more efficacious. Even as it is, Bapu feels that it would be possible to put thousands of civil resisters in the field, if not today, in the very near future. Of that his experience of the present Harijan tour has left him in no doubt. But now he has discovered that for a successful fight the plan of civil disobedience as it has been practiced so far would have to be radically modified and extended. In what way he cannot say at present. We have not succeeded in harnessing the classes to our cause. They have uniformly failed to rise to the occasion and unsupported by the classes the masses have been overwhelmed. In other words Bapu has suddenly discovered that we were advancing into a blind alley.

It was absolutely essential to retrace the steps. Even if all had gone well with the mass movement this reorientation of the strategy should have been inevitable sooner or later. That being so, Bapu is anxious to save to the utmost the remnants of his disorganized force and give the country time to reorganize rest and recuperate. He remained the ideal satyagrahi. Because the next fight, as Bapu conceives, must be planned on a different pattern. Bapu would not like even a perfect satyagrahi today to go on. To do so would be wasteful. It would be, to use his own simile, like cashing a good cheque at the wrong bank, at the wrong time. As far back as August 1933 the feeling had come upon him that there was something internally wrong in the movement somewhere. But at that time, first owing to the quick succession of his fasts and then owing to the Harijan tour, he could not analyze that feeling further. “The step I have taken today ought to have been taken after the Poona Pact. That was the right time for it,” he remarked the other day. “The arrest of every worker since then has jarred upon me.

But I have ignorantly allowed things to drift like an improvident speculator who fails to pull him up when every fresh deal would make the chance of his ultimate solvency more and more remote.” On another occasion he said, “By allowing my best men to go now I would only be bargaining for the survival of the unfit test. The fittest would be reduced to utter wrecks for want of a proper grounding, leaving the field a barren waste after I am gone”. Instead, therefore, of making a holocaust of his old guard he has chosen to release the civil disobedience forces that were lying locked up owing to the present stalemate to combat in whatever ways it might be possible the fresh rivets that are being sought to be fastened upon the country. In the mean time he himself would be active in his laboratory making fresh researches in Satyagraha. And given time and God’s grace he expects to discover a weapon that would give us what we have lacked so far. Let it be noted here that what Gandhiji has said about the imperfection of satyagrahis in connection with individual civil resistance does not apply to all that has taken place before the Poona resolution.

Perfect Satyagraha was essential for individual resistance, not for mass resistance. The mistake lay in sanctioning individual civil resistance when perfect satyagrahis were not forthcoming. If the mass civil disobedience had to be started tomorrow we would not have to wait for perfect satyagrahis. There is therefore no cause to feel despondent about the future of mass Satyagraha; because perfection is not a sine qua non of mass civil disobedience. The freedom to offer civil resistance for specific purposes is there. But an early or extensive exercise of it is not envisaged. The country has to pass through a period of darkness, depression and reaction. But Bapu has faith that there is sufficient vitality in the nation to enable it to pull itself through the morass. The length of the period of recuperation can be curtailed by the civil resisters of today deporting themselves as ideal constructive workers and using all the energy set free from the civil resistance to free the country from the paralysis that has overtaken it, instead of allowing it to be dissipated by despondency or self-indulgence. Here I may add that just now Bapu’s mind is teeming with fresh constructive projects. He contemplates covering the country with new institutions and organizations that would be based not on ideals adulterated with heavy doses of compromise as was the case with our old institutions but would be erected on pure unaltered principles.

The old institutions were good enough for their time but institutions that we now need to carry us over the remaining stage of our journey need to be differently patterned. It is good therefore in a way that old institutions have disappeared leaving the ground clear for the rise of new ones. Lastly it should be remembered that the fight for independence has not been given up. Civil disobedience has not been suspended. It remains the official programme of the Congress. If the Government will not tolerate the sanction of civil disobedience by the Congress even when it was confined to Bapu alone and foreclosed to everyone else, it would be best for the Congress to remain under suspension. Dr. Ansari, Bhulabhai and Dr. Roy have agreed that the Congress must not repudiate Bapu’s civil resistance, come what may for to do so would spell death to the Congress. If, however, the Government recognizes civil disobedience as a legitimate political weapon by restoring the Congress unconditionally after Bapu’s latest statement, it would be open to the Congress to adopt the Council programme while recognizing civil disobedience as an alternative weapon. The conditions about the resumption of civil disobedience during Gandhiji’s lifetime for the attainment of swaraj should not worry an intelligent satyagrahi. It should be realized that owing to the self-imposed restrictions by Gandhiji during the year of grace several things had to be left unsaid in his statement. There is nothing whatever in that statement to prevent the nation from launching upon individual civil resistance of the direct and the most extensive type to secure Gandhiji’s release, for instance, if the authorities should choose to indefinitely incarcerates him. Even in 1930 mass fight had that for culminating point.