HISTORY-2 PROJECT

“ANALYSE GANDHI’S ROLE AS A MASS LEADER IN THE

INDIA’S NATIONALISM MOVEMENT”

Submitted By:-

Ritu Kumari

NLS ID: 2499

9th Trimester, III Year, B.A. L.L.B.(Hons.)

Date of submission: 15.05.2021

 GANDHI, ALMOST A MASS LEADER
“Caste has nothing to do with religion”

- M. K. Gandhi1

Gandhi remains the sole Father of our nation till today. Nationalist historians have continued
to depict him as the victor against westernisation who retrieved the core of Indian ethos. And
India has accepted him as the ‘Mahatma’ who led unprecedented mass movements
representing unity of all castes and classes. He is glorified as a crusader battling for a secular
India, and ultimately characterised as a peace lover who embraced non-violence and
satyagraha like no one before. India’s democracy has been argued to have sourced from his
leadership because of how wide and accommodative the Indian National Movement was
where diverse ideological and political currents co-existed with a common aim.

Most popularised writings . go unquestioned in context to his reality. However, I attempt to

question it in this paper. In his fight against the British, Gandhi endeavoured the
philosophical goal of swaraj, meaning to self-rule, and satyagraha, the means of attaining
swaraj by searching the truth.2 Therein he weaponised glorification of an authentic, real India
to fume passion of patriotism and mobilize masses. He proclaimed his inexorable hostility to
western civilisation in Hind Swaraj.3 But what actually struck a chord with the majority of
the mass was his unmoved advocacy of Hinduism, for he believed that politics and religion
were inseparable. Hence, in this paper I argue that even though Gandhi deserves credit for
leading a huge number of people, he cannot be idolized as a mass leader of Indian
nationalism in its truest essence.

Gandhi’s methodology had a firm belief in chaturvarna and the caste system (hereinafter
“the system”), which he justified in theory as tools of societal-stability, but perversely
interpreted to be unrelated to religion. Throughout his participation in nationalism, he
remained unresponsive to the social issues of this hierarchical system which by then had
become an armament of exploitation and degradation. In his purpose of maintaining mass-
unity and preventing modernisation of social-structure, he was oblivious to the ‘real India’
issues of caste-discrimination, of equality, dignity, freedom and life that thrived in the roots
of Hinduism. With respect to this, I argue that the reason why Gandhi was not the perfect

1
McDermott, 2014: p 428.
2
McDermott, 2014: p 350.
3
McDermott, 2014: p 347; Most of such writings were between 1909-1919.
mass leader was because; firstly, his ideological and philosophical preaches were so
individualistic that it neutralised the lower-castes’ sufferings around him; and secondly,
because of the socio-political consequences of the first reasoning, combined with Gandhi’s
resistance towards lower-castes exercising agency, he could never be a true ally to the
Bahujan community. Therefore despite the minimal half-hearted attempts Gandhi made, his
targeted mass covered caste-Hindus only.

SATYAGRAHA WITH THE HALF-SATYA

Gandhi’s ideas for mass movements stemmed from non-political sources which were
extremely individualistic and experiential. In his words, satyagraha was “purely an inward
and purifying movement”4 with “vindication of truth, not by infliction of suffering on the
opponent, but on one’s self.”5 However this became a political strategy that appealed to
people, inciting in them passivity to secure independence by personal sufferings. Swaraj, was
therefore something that could only be taken by people for and by themselves. Similarly,
civilisation for Gandhi happened through codes of conduct that directed men towards their
duty, something that Hindu culture imbibed in its structure according to him. He therefore
manifested Hinduism in this ‘civilisation by self-ruling’ in a spiritual form, thereby
discoursing religion into politics and nationalism.

In pursuance of this, Gandhi’s ethical reading of politics aspired to remove untouchability by

bringing a change in heart, in the morality, spirituality, individual truth of Hindus. His praxis
was answerability to an inner conscience, rather than the actual masses. So in this path, by
preaching to direct one’s responsibilities inwards, he desired to equalise the moral burden on
all humans irrespective of their castes, thereby neutralising existing social hierarchies and
inequalities. He never viewed untouchability as a social problem and assumed a top-down
approach to treat a historically rooted social practice, let alone the entire system. Hence, I
believe with this cloak of morality against the material reality, Gandhi’s satyagraha
practically unfolded to reveal both his, and the caste-Hindu mass’s ignorance to the truth of
casteism.

NATIONALIST WITHOUT A NATION

Gandhi’s justification for retention of a hereditary caste system was utilitarian, which
probably came from his criticism of industrialisation. 6 He viewed it as an occupational
4
McDermott, 2014: p 352.
5
McDermott, 2014: p 351.
6
Ambedkar, 1945.
structure which predetermined a man’s societal role leading to stability. In response to
Ambedkar’s questions, he answered that there is nothing in the varna system obstructing a
particular varna from acquiring learning, studying military or serving, it just does not have to
become their source of living as every man must attend to their ancestral calling. 7 As opposed
to industrialisation which creates private property, pursuits of personal benefits, greed, and
ultimately violence. It was questionable how himsa was the only immorality he recognized
due to its emphasized use by Englishmen contrary to an entire system that founded on
immoral values of inequality, suppression and undignified servitude; an inalterable
organisation that did not contain any benefit, like industries, accruable to all. Moreover, its
ironic how Gandhi himself had the agency to not attend his ancestral calling of a Vaishya
Bania, coming from a family of traders. His was a privileged perspective coming from a man
who never possessed any lived experience to share and empathize with lower-castes and
Dalits. However, it did win him following.

GANDHI’S INGENUINE MENDING OF CASTE-RELATIONSHIPS

The spirit of nationalism Gandhi wished to hook Indians with centralized around the idea of
villages as it represented India’s traditional social order. It helped delegitimize westerners,
reinstall people’s cultural confidence and demarcate India’s sovereign identity. But like
Ambedkar said, villages were the core where Hindu caste system operated in full swing 8, and
their empowerment defeated any efforts made towards caste modification. It was
irresponsible for Gandhi to forego this factual reality.

Gandhi never intended to address caste discrimination, but just the practice of untouchability.
The Congress Working Sub-Committee under Madan Malviya and Jamnalal Bajaj also made
general appeals against untouchability and temple access.9 In 1921, at the Ahmedabad
Supressed Class Conference, Gandhi said that when Yudhishthira could not enter heaven
without his dog, how can his descendants obtain Swaraj without the Untouchables. The caste-
Hindus easily accepted his narrative of Karma, of self-salvation. He advocated prohibiting
untouchability as a self-purification exercise to grow closer to god among the upper-castes
which was nowhere close to the democratic paradigm of equality. Parallelly, he conditioned
upper-caste practices on untouchables for the purpose of their salvation, like vegetarianism,
community-sanitation and temple access.10 He patronised a mass of social, physical, mental

7
McDermott, 2014: p 424.
8
McDermott, 2014: p 425.
9
Ambedkar, 1945.
10
Ibid.
caste-abuse victims to impersonate their oppressors. This control and discipline by imposing
upper-caste value system on them was apathetic and goaded them farther from the
nationalists.

The village community that followed Gandhi apart from the educated, elite bourgeoise, were
peasants, zamindars, landlords and more from occupations and residential areas that were
forbidden for Dalits. The mass gatherings, be it in Uttar Pradesh or Gujarat, barely included
lower and out-castes.11 These were people who could grow docile to the Hindu Karma theory,
just to observe caste etiquette requirements for wanting to be reborn into a higher caste. A
reverse analogy would imply that lower-castes were to assume upper-caste etiquettes to be
rewarded with a higher caste in their next life; equality. Irrespective of whatever Gandhi’s
intentions could have been, he failed to grasp the socially embedded ideological seeds
beneath untouchability. And because of this combination message people received of
Gandhi’s faith in caste, infused with how they already propounded it, their understanding of it
automatically became religious.

Shahid Amin intricately narrates the communication gap between Gandhi and his followers
which made it uncontrollable for real meanings behind his movements to reach its
proponents.12 It did not matter what Gandhi’s reasoning to support caste was. His support got
accepted on face value causing a strong reinforcement of blind religiosity, even more with
their new God on earth now reclaiming it.13 For example, Gandhi promoted shastras for
becoming close to god, but admitted that they did not enjoin untouchability. 14 However, the
masses, especially non-Brahmins, followed what reached them i.e. interpolations. Non-
brahmins were forbidden access to religious texts to be able to identify the authentic and
distorted. Saints and pandits were their authority who established caste related practices as
inherent to Hinduism. Hence, Gandhi’s scheme of retaining indigenous village’s judicial and
administrative autonomy was a nightmare for lower and outcastes because they were outside
the village republic, outside the Hindu. It would have systemically legitimised the already
pervasive upper caste and class administration that blocked their access. Khap panchayats
today are a relevant example of it.

11
Sarkar, 1989.
12
Shahid Amin, Gandhi as Mahatma: Gorakhpur District, Eastern UP, 1921-2’ (New Delhi: Oxford University
Press, 1984).
13
As S. Radhakrishnan termed him.
14
Ambedkar, 1945; McDermott, 2014: p 428.
 ABHORRING DEPICTION OF AN “ALLY”
To be a savarna ally to marginalised communities today concerns some conscious
behavioural and ideological pointers. To name a few, one must not; externalise the caste
problem, depoliticize it, formalise caste atrocities without lived experience or claim to pass
the mic which was never his to hold. But I believe Gandhi did it all, personally and
politically. One can begin to know of it from his statement describing himself as a bhangi,
asking to be socially boycotted by Hindus like the untouchables.15 What does his liberty to
‘choose’ and ‘ask’ for suffering say?

To live an experience is to be someone in the sense you cannot be anyone else. Equating this
to sharing lifestyles is ridiculing others’ lack of freedom in their experience. Experiential
conscience of casteist Hindus could not assume anti-caste moral dimensions because it was
not their lived experience. Gandhi explicitly depoliticized casteism and untouchability and
offered abstract solutions with no effect. How was untouchability going to vanish by touching
the untouchables? In Ambedkar’s words, Gandhi’s equality was mere upliftment of Ati-
Shudras to Shudras16 and people of course found it less-problematic.

The detailed observations laid out by Amin substantiates the intangibility in Gandhi’s appeal.
An ascetically dressed man, dissing everything foreigner with culturalism, associating with a
holy life of abstinence, fasts and ahimsa. More so with an adept use of religious forms of
communication absurdly absolving himself from the necessity of sharing any concrete plans,
and yet becoming an alternative authority against the British. This built persona massively
helped establish Gandhi’s notion of morality as unquestionable. After the 1932 Communal
Award was announced post the third Round-table Conference, allowing for separate
electorates to Depressed Classes, Gandhi cleverly pledged or rather threatened to fast until
death. Ambedkar had to accept the Poona-Pact for a joint-electorate with increased number of
Dalit seats, because to let Gandhi die was catastrophically unpatriotic. 17 The Pact was
Gandhi’s victory without solving anything for depressed castes and class. His holy aesthetics
and tactics, social rhetoric, instrumentalized for socialising, maintaining political hegemony
rather than internalising his own social-conscience.

It was only post-1932 he became vainly active about untouchability. He ran a 9-month
awareness programme for it, but under his paternalistic attitude, untouchables were never its

15
Ambedkar, 1945.
16
Ambedkar, 1945: p 259.
17
McDermott, 2014: p 302.
principal actors. This was also a general observation from his peasant movements where
masses were strayed into passive, harmless roles, and their occasional attempts at being their
authentic, active, militant-selves made Gandhi withdraw these campaigns. Like in the way
Gandhi dealt in U.P, explaining the public to fulfil their “paid services” towards zamindars,
abide by their customs and maintain friendly relations with them. It contrasted his
assumptions on western-violence. He clarified that removal of untouchability did not
necessarily mean inter-marriages or inter-dining. His newspaper Harijan suggested how
compliance to hereditary professions were to continue. Foundation of such unpaid services
deemed to be impure, and hence, deserving of forced slavery was immaterial. It mirrored the
pervasive blockage to a true allyship i.e. self-centredness.

Gandhi’s affiliation in 1920s with Congress, an upper-caste dominated party, brought them
out of mendicant and scattered politics. They along with the Hindu Mahasabha backed
Gandhi’s untouchability agenda apprehensively to prevent Hindu polarization since they were
already worried with Muslim League’s advent. Even Harijan Sevak Sangh or All India Anti-
Untouchability League started by Gandhi comprised of upper-castes intending to redress their
sins. Such organisations were targeted at bringing Dalits within mainstream Hindu-voters-
fold.18 But the outcome of Gandhi’s self-ran, self-understood moralistic strategy was hollow.
Many political leaders drifted to prioritise the anti-imperialist movement. 19 Few like Mr.
Ramasami Periyar stood out as special exceptions by disassociating with him and questioning
him. The inter-caste friendships formed were subtly theatrical. Many of the few temples
opened to lower and outcastes were ‘purified’ by Brahmins at night. But the way they were
all then exemplified as satyagrahis painted them as sole reformists to be historically
remembered as patriotic redressers, and lower and outcastes as their grateful recipients.

The path got dissuaded to a caste-Hindu centric Harijanisation from a Dalit-Centric

Hinduisation, very indicative of the loss of agency suffered by Dalits. The Gandhian aspects
to untouchables’ upliftment was superficially obscurantist; convince caste-Hindus to
persuade higher morals in treating untouchables to make them prosper within their own caste
occupations so as to make Hinduism tolerable yet fundamental. “A religion has to be judged
not by its worst specimens but by the best it might have produced.”20 His narrative, followed
everywhere, entirely focused on hegemonizing lower-castes against political awareness.
What followed was an absolute denouncement of the dispirited settlements offered post the
18
Sarkar, 1984.
19
Sarkar, 1984: p 329; including Nehru and Malviya.
20
McDermott, 2014: p 429.
Poona Pact by the Depressed sections, as well as the orthodox majority. Dalits were
unresponsive to this sudden upper-caste’s political desperation. They renounced the term
harijan wanting to be identified by indigenous names instead of being objectified for upper-
caste’s salvation. They were not a benighted group of people for Gandhi to nurse. At the 1929
All India Depressed-Class Conference, they expressed that the nationalists demanding
political rights from Englishmen are so unwilling to bequeath social rights to their own
countrymen.21 They observed under Gandhi’s initiative, rights were not something to be
demanded. Their past learnings from nationalism’s socio-political reality made Dalit
leadership wary to Congress, and thereby to Gandhi. Gandhi never used his satyagraha, fasts,
disobedience against caste-Hindus, political leaders, propertied classes which could have
probably given him a reality-check of whether they were willing to accept Dalit’s demands
for humanitarian reasons and rights.

CONCLUSION
Pioneers of the Dalit-Bahujan Community’s socio-political activism like Ambedkar and
Periyar recognised the traditionality and opposed the tyranny of social hierarchy. For them
the ideal was a democracy, free of all remnants of caste and untouchability. Its said Gandhi’s
thoughts changed in the later years wherein he wanted caste to go. But him claiming to
represent untouchables with a persistent defence of disassociation between varnashrama
dharma, caste and Hinduism was heavily uninformed and crude. His leadership did not
define India’s future redemption in terms of true democracy and representation. His divine
theories propagated equality of men before god, and not amongst themselves. It sustained all
his campaigns as richly ambiguous in motives and significance.

Mass-leadership cannot be comprehended through numbers and blind-worshipping, but

recognition of society’s real needs and the needy. However, the inevitability of numbers to
address our caste-system was justified when Ambedkar lost elections twice from his Labour
Party which superlatively prioritised reformatory-uplifting agendas. Having the quantitative
following that Gandhi did, his confinement of Harijan social-reform campaigns delinked
from socio-economic demands was disappointing. Gandhi’s solutions by virtue of not
sourcing from the correct origins of caste problems’ never revolved around principles of
equality and justice. They were sacrificed for consensus. Indian democracy, then and now,
cannot materialize without being tested in the context of caste and Brahminism. Hence, the

21
Ambedkar, 1945.
India Gandhi drew for the world was hierarchical, divided, duty-based, compliance centric,
none based on freewill, and it yet made him the biggest mass leader India could ever produce.
 BIBLIOGRAPHY
1. Ambedkar B, A Reply to the Mahatma by Dr. B. R. Ambedkar.
2. Ambedkar B, What Congress and Gandhi Have Done to Untouchables (1936).
3. Amin S, Gandhi as Mahatma: Gorakhpur District, Eastern UP, 1921-2’ (Selected
Subaltern Studies 1989).
4. Gandhi-Ambedkar Correspondence, Discussion with B.R. Ambedkar (1932).
5. McDermott R, Sources of Indian Traditions (Columbia University Press 2014).
6. Sarkar S, Modern India 1885-1947 (Palgrave Macmillan 1989).