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As we all know there were various elements that made up the Indian national movement. Among
these were the revolutionaries, the INC and of course Mahatma Gandhi. It is obvious that the
ideologies of the revolutionaries and Gandhi were mostly incompatible and so were the methods
used by them. Further, in the later stages of the movement, the revolutionaries came the closest to
the INC and Gandhi in terms of popular appeal and thus the question becomes politically relevant.
The relationship between these elements is according to me one of the factors that shaped the Indian
national movement and the way in which the movement is perceived today.
Research Methodology
Aim
To study the relationship between the revolutionaries, the INC and Gandhi.
Hypothesis
Gandhi's rejection of the revolutionaries and their actions was not purely ideological but was
motivated by political factors as well.
Research Questions
What were the events that took place at that time?
What were the ideologies of the three parties?
Did Gandhi not support the revolutionary activities solely on the basis of ideology?
What would have happened if Gandhi had supported these activities?
Chapterisation
Chapter I: Events of the Time
This chapter will examine the events of the time period between 1920 and 1935. The important
events include the Kakori robbery, the killing of Saunders, bombing of the Central Legislative
Assembly, Bhagat's trial and execution and also the Chittagong raids. Simultaneously the inactivity
of the Congress and the failure of the Non Co-operation movement will be studied.
Chapter I
Events of the Time
Prior to the suspension of the Movement, the young Revolutionaries had held high hopes of the
Movement and were pleased with the awakening of the masses brought about by the Movement.
However the suspension of the Movement put an end to these hopes and a mood of disillusionment
set in. The basic strategy of non violence came into heavy questioning by many of the young
revolutionaries and this further widened the ideological gap between Gandhi and the
Revolutionaries that had existed before the brief period of cooperation between these two elements
1 B. Chandra, India's Struggle for Independence, (Penguin Books India, 1989: New Dehli ), p.237.
of the National Movement.2
This disillusionment not only took the people who had been following revolutionary methods back
on to that path but also drove a large number of youth towards these activities. A lack of efficacious
alternatives also played a part in this. Ultimately, this resulted in a rejuvenation of the revolutionary
element. The fact that a number of the new revolutionary leaders such as Jogesh Chandra
Chatterjea, Surya Sen, Jatin Das, Chandrashekhar Azad, Bhagat Singh, Sukhdev, Shiv Varma,
Bhagwati Charan Vohra and Jaidev Kapur, had been enthusiastic participants in the Non
Cooperation Movement is in itself testament of the fact that the failure of the Non Cooperation
Movement played a major role in the growth of revolutionary terrorism in the 1920s.3
Two Strands
With the emergence of new leaders, two separate strands of revolutionary terrorism developed. One
strand and the strand that would develop more in terms of its ideology was the one in Punjab, U.P.
and Bihar. The other strand, which would make significant strides in terms of the organisation of the
revolutionary activities was the strand that developed in Bengal.
Kakori
The activities of the HRA including propaganda and the acquisition of arms would need money. The
Revolutionaries hatched a plan to fund their activities by robbing the official Railway cash on the 8-
Down train at a village outside lucknow called Kakori on the 9 th of August, 1925. The reaction of
the British was quick and brutal. Ashfaqulla Khan, Ramprasad Bismil, Ràshan Singh and Rajendra
Lahiri were hanged, four others were sent to the Andamans for life and seventeen others were
2 C. Lal , “Revolutionary Legacy of Bhagat Singh”, Economic and Political Weekly, Vol. 42, No. 37 (Sep. 15 - 21,
2007), pp. 3714.
3 Supra note 1 at p.238.
4 S.N. Sen, History Of Freedom Movement In India (1857-1947), (New Age International, 1997:New Dehli) p. 247.
sentenced to long terms of imprisonment. Chandrashekhar Azad was the only one who escaped the
hands of the British.5
On 17 December 1928, Bhagat Singh, Azad and Rajguru assassinated, at Lahore, Saunders, a police
official involved in the lathi charge of Lab Lajpat Rai, though the intention had been to kill Scott,
the officer actually responsible for Lajpath Rais death. In a poster, put up by the HSRA after the
assassination, the assassination was justified as follows: “The murder of a leader respected by
millions of people at the unworthy hands of an ordinary police official . . . was an insult to the
nation. it was the bounden duty of young men of India to efface it. . . We regret to have had to kill a
person but he was part and parcel of that inhuman and unjust order which has to be destroyed.” 7
5 Id.
6 A.K. Gupta, “Defying Death: Nationalist Revolutionism in India, 1897-1938”, Social Scientist, Vol. 25, No. 9/10
(Sep. - Oct., 1997), p. 20.
7 Reproduced in K. Nayar, The Martyr: Bhagat Singh Experiments in Revolution, (Har-Anand Publications, 2000:
New Dehli), p.40.
bomb in the Central Legislative Assembly on 8 April 1929. The more immediate causes for the
bombing was to protest against the passage of the Public Safety Bill and the Trade Disputes Bill
which would reduce the civil liberties of citizens in general and workers in particular. The bombs
were themselves harmless. The purpose was not to kill but as the leaflet they threw into the
Assembly proclaimed, “to make the deaf hear”. The objective was to get arrested and to use the trial
court as a forum for propaganda so that people would become familiar with their movement and
ideology.8
Earlier, the hunger strike undertaken by the Revolutionaries in jail to force the British to recognize
them as political prisoners instead of treating them as normal criminals, had stirred the imagination
of the counrty. On 13 September, Jatin Das, one of the participants of the hunger strike, died on
what was the 64th day of the fast. Thousands came to pay him homage at every station passed by the
train carrying his body from Lahore to Calcutta. Subhash Chandra Bose paid for the body to be
transported and at Calcutta, a two mile long procession of more than six lakh people carried his
coffin to the cremation ground. It is important to keep the impact of the Revolutionaries in mind
while discussing the succeeding parts of the paper.
Among the significant acts of the Bengal Group was Gopinath Saha's attempt to assassinate Charles
Tegart, the Police Commissioner of Calcutta. Unfortunately, another Englishman named Day was
killed. The British promptly went on a program of suppression against anyone with affiliations with
8 Ibid at p.61
9
the revolutionaries. These included Subhas Chandra Bose and many other Congressmen. Saha was
hanged despite widespread popular protest. 10
Surya Sen hoisted the National Flag outside the Police Armoury where all the revolutionaries had
gathered. Realizing that it was not possible to put up a fight in the town against the army, the
Revolutionaries took refuge in the Chittagong hill ranges. They were surrounded on the Jalalabad
Hill and decided to disperse into the surrounding villages. Despite oppression by the British the
villagers gave food and shelter to the revolutionaries and helped them to survive for three years.
Surya Sen was finally arrested on 16 February 1933, tried and hanged on 12 January 1934.13
The Government armed itself with twenty repressive Acts and let loose the police on all nationalists.
In Chittagong, it burnt several villages, imposed punitive fine on many others, and in general
established a reign of terror. In 1933, it arrested and sentenced Jawaharlal Nehru to a two year term
in jail for sedition for making a speech in Calcutta condemning imperialism and praising the
heroism of the Revolutionaries.
Chapter II
A Clash of Ideology
In the second chapter the paper will try and make a comparison between the ideological aspects of
the Revolutionary Movement and the ideology espoused by Gandhi. Some of the important
ideological aspects are as follows.
The Bengal revolutionaries had shed some of their earlier Hindu religiosity in as far as they no
longer took religious oaths and vows. Some of the groups also no longer excluded Muslims. The
Chittagong IRA cadre included many Muslims like Sattar, Mir Ahmad, Fakir Ahmad Mian, Tunu
Mian and got massive support from Muslim villagers around Chittagong. However they still
retained elements of social conservatism, nor did they evolve broader socio economic goals.16
Speaking of the North Indian revolutionaries, Bismil had asked the people to establish Hindu-
Muslim unity and unite all political groups under the leadership of the Congress. Later secularism
found its strongest advocate in Bhagat Singh. Bhagat Singh revered Lajpat Rai even Lajpat Rai was
criticised by him for turning to communal politics. Bhagat Singh understood the danger that
communalism posed to the nation and the national movement. This is very evident from the
organisation of the Naujawan Bharat Sabha. Bhagat Singh and very tellingly his comrades were
insistent that membership would not be opened to members of religious or communal organisations.
In addition two of the six rules of the Naujawan Bharat Sabha, drafted by Bhagat Singh, were: “To
have nothing to do with communal bodies or other parties which disseminate communal ideas” and
“to create the spirit of general toleration among the public considering religion as a matter of
personal belief of man and to act upon the same fully.”17
Bhagat Singh while condemning the communal killings in 1927 went on to say that religion was
one’s private concern and communalism was an enemy to be fought. He pointed out that communal
killers did not kill a person because he was guilty of any particular act but simply because that
person happened to be a Hindu, Muslim or Sikh. While the Revolutionaries were generally secular,
Bhagat Singh was an outright Atheist. In a pice of writing titled “Why I am an Atheist”, he outlined
his journey towards atheism by rejecting the mysticism of the Sikh faith. Critical thinking and the
ending of blind faith and superstition were emphasised to be essentials of the revolution and these
could be brought about only by being an atheist. In the article Bhagat Singh wrote that “Any man
who stands for progress,has to criticise, disbelieve and challenge every item of the old faith. Item by
More than the Bengal Strand, the HSRA made the step forward in terms of ideology. The process
had started with the HRA itself. The manifesto issued by the HRA read that it stood for the abolition
of all systems which make the exploitation of man by man possible. The founding council had
decided to preach social revolutionary and communistic principles. They proposed the
nationalization of the railways and other means of transport and large-scale industries such as steel
and ship building. The HRA had also decided to start labour and peasant organizations and to work
for an organized and armed revolution. The ideological revolution was not restricted to the younger
parts of the Revolutionaries. Ramprasad Bismil issued an appeal to the youth to give up on the cult
of the bomb and embrace the open movement.
In comparison, the INC was ruled by the Indian elite and even people within the party criticised
this. Yusuf Meherali speaking at the Karachi Session says, “....To our mind, imperialism has no
heart to change, it has only pockets to fill.” Yusuf Meherali attacked unequivocally “the politics of
compromise and of change of heart” and made sharp references to string-pullers of the Congress;
“the Birlas, the Purushottamdas Thakurdases, the Walchand Hirachands, the Husseinbhai Laljis;
who were then out and busy in making efforts to obtain the fruits of the suffering and sacrifices of
others”.19 Clearly socialism was not high on the agenda of the INC and even Nehru who had been a
Socialist in the 1920s drifted away from that goal.
In contrast there was no ideological education carried out by the Congress and Gandhi. The focus
was not on ideas but on the methods. Non violence was a creed to be followed absolutely. The
individual leaders were well read and had their own ideology but when it came to the masses, what
mattered was the charisma of the leaders and not of the ideas that they held. India is still reeling
from this ideological vacuum created then.
Non Violence
Gandhi's obsession with non violence is well known and many a time, he criticised the
revolutionaries and even blamed them for delaying independence. He even went to the etent of
moving and getting passed in a Congress Session, a resolution congratulating Lord Irwin for
escaping an attempt on his life. The leadership of the HSRA directed the sharp edge of its counter
criticism against Gandhi. Referring to the question of violence or non-violence it wrote: ...violence
is physical force applied for committing injustice, and that is certainly not what the revolutionaries
stand for...”. Further they stated that “the philosophy of non-violence as a philosophy arising out of
despair.” They accused the Mahatma of spreading philosophical cowardice by preaching non-
violence throughout the length and breadth of the country, and asked if he did not believe in
Mazzini's dictum that “ideas ripen quickly when nourished by the blood of martyrs”21
As will be seen in the next section, the clash between violence and non violence dominated the
relationship between these two elements of the Freedom Struggle. It came to characterize the debate
and wrongly so because the Revolutionaries soundly reasoned out their use of violence but Gandhi
completely ignored their definition of Revolution and revolution and terrorism, sadly, were used in
conjunction and often interchangeably to describe these acts of defiance against the British.
20 Ibid at p.27
21 Supra note 19 at p.24.
Chapter III
Victims of Gandhis Politics?
The projection of Gandhi as a spiritual philosopher rather than a political activist often leads to the
overlooking of Gandhi's political strategy. We have to desist from ignoring the centrality of politics
in Gandhi's life.22 Keeping this in mind some factors which could have contributed to Gandhi;s
animosity towards the Revolutionaries are discussed below.
Bhagat Singh and his comrades also gave expression to their understanding that revolution meant
the development and organization of a mass movement of the exploited and suppressed sections of
society by the revolutionary intelligentsia in the course of their statements from 1929 to 1931 in the
courts as well as outside. Just before his execution, Bhagat Singh declared that ‘the real
revolutionary armies are in the villages and in factories.’ Most importantly, in his behest to young
political workers, written on 2 February 1931, he declared: ‘Apparently, I have acted like a
terrorist. But I am not a terrorist. . . Let me announce with all the strength at my command, that I
am not a terrorist and I never was, except perhaps in the beginning of my revolutionary career. And
I am convinced that we cannot gain anything through those methods.’ 23
22 V.Rajan, “Gandhi: The Colonising Object”, Economic and Political Weekly, Vol. 41, No. 15 (Apr. 15-21, 2006), p.
1425.
23 See http://www.marxists.org/archive/bhagat-singh/1931/02/02.htm
defined revolution as independence, social, political and economic aimed at establishing a new
order of society in which political and economic exploitation will be an impossibility.24
Their terrorism was not terrorism as we understand it today. It was not aimed at striking fear in the
hearts of the British but rather was a means to the end of a socialist revolution. They were as
opposed to the Indian elite who oppressed the poor as they were against the oppressive British
regime. In a letter from jail, Bhagat Singh wrote: ‘The peasants have to liberate themselves not only
from foreign yoke but also from the yoke of landlords and capitalists.”25
Often when the question of the conflict between Gandhi and the Revolutionaries arises, the debate
centers around the question of the use of violent or non violent methods. This is a
mischaracterisation of the issue. The Revolutionaries were never terrorists. The violence perpetrated
was not violence for violence's sake. The goal they had in mind was the emergence of a socialist
nation. Gandhi's non violence, though, was a creed for him. It formed the basis, at least ostensibly
for all his actions. Though at a very broad level these two methods are fundamentally opposed to
each other, in this case, the contrast becomes a case of comparing apples with oranges. For Gandhi
non violence was an ideology whereas for the Revolutionaries, violence was just a method or a
means to a greater end.
The ideas of the Revolutionaries were well known at that point of time. These ideas were clearly
articulated in Bhagat Singh's trial and reported extensively. The letters written by Bhagat Singh
were also widely read. Then why did Gandhi still condemn these methods? Though we can only
speculate here, Gandhi's insistence on criticising the methods of the Revolutionaries seems to be a
reaction not based completely on ideological grounds. It is a paradox that Gandhi believed in
winning foes through the gospel of love while he indulged in bitter denunciation of those who
disagreed with him in his own country.
Probably, the staunchest supporter of Gandhi, Nehru's comments help shed some light with the
mood of dissatisfaction in the INC with Gandhi's response to the Revolutionaries. Normally, Nehru
was very hesitant to go against Gandhi's wishes. He had even apologised to Gandhi for visiting the
revolutionaries in jail. However the hunger strike and the subsequent executions inspired even
Nehru to overcome his reluctance in this matter.
Gandhi's Contradictions
“revolutionary activity is suicidal at this stage of the country's life at any rate. if not for all time in a
country so vast, so hopelessly divided and with the masses so deeply sunk in pauperism and so
fearfully terror struck”.27 The last remark of Gandhi implies that in different circumstances, he
might not have opposed revolutionary methods. In another case where Gandhi advocated violence
was when he upbraided some villagers for abandoning their families in the face of oppression and
then taking cover behind the doctrine of non violence. These contradictions lead us to question
Gandhi's belief in non violence itself. Was non violence the central tenet of his life or was it merely
a strategy adopted by a shrewd politician?
Conclusion
The beauty of any historical debate is that we can never be sure as to what really took place at any
given point in the past. One such debate, which has lasted for a while now, is the debate concerning
the relationship between Gandhi and the revolutionaries such as Bhagat Singh. The obvious answer
to the question is that the Revolutionaries were anathema to Gandhi and his beliefs. However
stopping there would be to oversimplify tremendously and ignore too many other factors. This
paper set out to study those factors and to determine whether the animosity that Gandhi harboured
was purely ideological or had political undertones to it. In order to do this the events of that time
were examined and the impact of the revolutionary activities shown. To give Gandhi's side of the
story a fair chance, the ideological clash between these two elements was examined . Finally,
however, those factors which lead us to believe that Gandhi's hatred was not just based on ideology
were examined. These included the moving away of the Revolutionaries from acts of violence, the
immense impact that they had on the masses and the British, leading to both the British and the INC
being threatened and lastly and most importantly, Gandhi's failure to save Bhagat Singh and his
comrades from the gallows. Gandhi was a great spiritual leader and his obsession with non violence
is well known, but we should never forget that Gandhi was a politician first and foremost and
should greet with cynicism any attempt to brush away the clash between Gandhi and the
Revolutionaries as purely ideological.
29 For the full version of these statements see D.P. Das, “Gandhi and Bhagat Singh”, Mainstream(Independence Day,
1970)
Bibliography
T. V. Sathyamurthy, “Revolutions and Revolutionaries”, Transition, No. 21 (1965), p. 24.
V.Rajan, “Gandhi: The Colonising Object”, Economic and Political Weekly, Vol. 41, No. 15 (Apr.
15-21, 2006), p. 1425.
D.Das, “A Tale of Two Incidents”, Economic and Political Weekly, Vol. 40, No. 24 (Jun. 11-17,
2005), p. 2372
C.P. Singh, What Mahatma Gandhi did to save Bhagat Singh available at www.mkgandhi.org