Ramsay MacDonald and Mahatma Gandhi

[Prof. Dr. Yogendra Yadav]

Prof. Dr. Yogendra Yadav

Senior Gandhian Scholar

Gandhi Research Foundation, Jalgaon, Maharashtra, India

Contact No. – 09404955338, 09415777229

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Ramsay MacDonald and Mahatma Gandhi

 

 

 

Ramsay Macdonald was a member of the Royal Commission on Public Services in India. Later he became Prime Minister. He believed divide and Rule. So he imposed a communal award on India. That is known as MacDonald Award. We would wish to give our own personal evidence in answer to Mr. Ramsay Macdonald’s suggestion that Mr. Gokhale would probably have signed the majority report of the Public Services Commission if he had lived. We have both of us distinct recollection of Mr. Gokhale himself saying that though he had not given up all hopes of bringing the other members of the Commission, or at least some of them, to his point of view, yet he was afraid that he would be obliged in the end to draw up a minority report in conjunction with Mr. Abdur Rahim. 1  I am not sure that the Amsterdam International, if it was placed in the same condition as the White Trades Union of Johannesburg, would not behave otherwise than the latter; nor would it have acted otherwise than Mr. Ramsay MacDonald or Mr. Lansbury if its members had found themselves in their position. 2

Mr. Sastri, Mr. Jayakar, and Sir Tej Bahadur Sapru have cabled to me to suspend judgment and I have the highest esteem for these patriots who love their country as intensely as I claim to do. They may be able to explain to me satisfactorily that Mr. Ramsay MacDonald’s declaration conveys something beyond what I have been able to make out on a cursory reading, and, if in the light of my eleven points, I see that a settlement is possible, I shall readily advise the calling off of the civil disobedience movement.  The Congress would be untrue to itself if it did not seek it, and I cannot bring myself to believe that Mr. Ramsay Mac-Donald would deny in his dealings in the matter all the teachings of a lifetime. 3

Gandhiji made the statement at the conclusion of his talk with Prime Minister Ramsay MacDonald which lasted from 10.15 a.m. to 11 a.m. Gandhi showed no sign of any intention to break up the Conference. What he complained of was that the Conference was futile because the other delegates were only the nominees of Government and he was the sole genuine representative of the people. He thought that he could represent the Muslims and the Depressed Classes better than those who purported to do so. He and the British Government could settle the whole question if he was treated as representing everybody. The Prime Minister said that the Conference had at any rate been successful in so far as it had got Gandhi to come to London and brought him into touch with the Government; and he countered by telling Gandhi that the civil disobedience movement was a mistake and only hindered the British Government from carrying out their intentions towards India. 4 

There can be no doubt that Sir Samuel Hoare has showed you and the Cabinet my letter to him of 11th March on the question of the representation of “depressed” classes. That letter should be treated as part of this letter and be read together with this. I have read the British Government’s decision on the representation of minorities and have slept over it. In pursuance of my letter to Sir Samuel Hoare and my declaration at the meeting of the Minorities Committee of the Round Table Conference on 13th November, 1931, at St. James’ Palace, I have to resist your decision with my life. The only way I can do so is by declaring a perpetual fast unto death from food of any kind save water with or without salt and soda. This fast will cease if during its progress the British Government, of its own motion or under pressure of public opinion, revise their decision and withdraw their scheme of communal electorates for the “depressed” classes, whose representatives should be elected by the general electorate under the common franchise no matter how wide it is.

The proposed fast will come into operation in the ordinary course from the noon of 20th September next, unless the said decision is meanwhile revised in the manner suggested above. I am asking the authorities here to cable the text of this letter to you so as to give you ample notice. But in any case, I am leaving announced a provisional scheme of minority representation, known as the Communal Award. The scheme fixed the number of seats in the provincial legislatures and retained separate electorates for the minority communities and for the Muslims both in Bengal and the Punjab, despite their numerical majority. Weight age was also conceded to the Muslims in the Provinces in which they were in a minority and to the Sikhs and Hindus in the Punjab. The Depressed Classes were recognized as a minority community entitled to separate electorate. While creating a number of especially reserved constituencies for the Depressed Classes, it gave them the additional right to contest seats in the general constituencies, with this provision that special electorates and reservation would lapse automatically after twenty years. 3 Gandhiji commenced writing this letter on the 17th and completed it on the sufficient time for this letter to reach you in time by the slowest route. I also ask that this letter and my letter to Sir Samuel Hoare, already referred to, be published at the earliest possible moment. On my part, I have scrupulously observed the rule of the jail and have communicated my desire or the contents of the two letters to no one, save my two companions, Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel and Sjt. Mahadev Desai. But I want, if you make it possible, public opinion to be affected by my letter hence, my request for their early publication. I regret the decision I have taken.

But as a man of religion that I hold myself to be, I have no other course left open to me. As I have said in my letter to Sir Samuel Hoare, even if His Majesty’s Government decided to release me in order to save themselves the embarrassment, my fast will have to continue For I cannot now hope to resist the decision by any other means. And I have no desire whatsoever to compass my release by any means other than honourable. It may be that my judgment is warped and that I am wholly in error in regarding separate electorates for the “depressed” classes as harmful to them or to Hinduism. If so, I am not likely to be in the right with reference to other parts of my philosophy of life. In that case my death by fasting will be at once a penance for my error and a lifting of a weight from off those numberless men and women who have childlike faith in my wisdom. Whereas if my judgment is right, as I have little doubt it is, the contemplated step is but the due fulfillment of the scheme of life, which I have tried for more than a quarter of a century, apparently not without considerable success. 5

I have to thank you for your frank and full letter telegraphed and received this day. I am sorry, however, that you put upon the contemplated step an interpretation that never crossed my mind. I have claimed to speak on behalf of the very class to sacrifice whose interests you impute to me a desire to fast myself to death. I had hoped that extreme step itself would effectively prevent any such selfish interpretation. Without arguing I affirm that for me this matter is one of pure religion. The mere fact of “Depressed” classes having double votes does not protect them or Hindu society in general from being disrupted. In establishment of a separate electorate at all for “Depressed” classes I sense the injection of a poison that is calculated to destroy Hinduism and do no good whatsoever to “Depress” classes. You will please permit me to say that no matter how sympathetic you may be you cannot come to a correct decision on a matter of such vital and religious importance to the parties concerned. I should not be against even over-representation of “Depressed” Classes. What I am against is their statutory separation, even in a limited form, from Hindu fold, so long as they choose to belong to it. Do you not realize that if your decision stands and constitution comes into being, you arrest the marvellous growth of work of Hindu reformers who have dedicated themselves to the uplift of their suppressed brethren in every walk of life? I have therefore been compelled reluctantly to adhere to the decision conveyed to you. As your letter may give rise to a misunderstanding, I wish to state that the fact of my having isolated for special treatment the “Depressed” Classes question from other parts of your decision does not in any way mean I approve of or am reconciled to other parts of decision. In my opinion many other parts are open to very grave objection. Only I do not consider them to be any warrant for calling from me such self-immolation as my conscience has prompted me to in the matter of “Depressed” Classes. 6

 

References:

 

1. The Modern Review, May, 1917
2. Young India, 29-3-1928
3. The Pioneer, 6-2-1931
4. Interview with Ramsay MacDonald, September 30, 1931
5. Letter to Ramsay MacDonald, August 18, 1932
6. Letter to Ramsay MacDonald, September 9, 1932