Thread by @sheshapatangi1

While the nation is celebrating
#AzadiKaAmritMahotsav , we hardly know who died for our Azadi.

#NotMyMahatma - 2

M K Gandhi tried to divide the entire nation into two..
1)Who follows him & his gospels.
2)Who wants to fight the British.

It was On 19/1/1922, Gandhi sought to

exclude Indian citizens who were not members of Congress from franchise in the Swaraj that he promised: `Swaraj means, in the event of the foregoing demands (Khilafat & Justice for Punjab) being granted, full Dominion Status.
The scheme of such swaraj should be framed by

reps duly elected in terms of the Congress constitution. That means every Indian adult, paying four annas, signing the Congress Creed, will be entitled to be placed on the electoral roll. These electors would elect delegates who would frame the swaraj constitution. This shall

be given effect to without any change by the British Parliament.'
(https:www. mkgandhi. org/bahurupi/chap14.htm)

MKG saw no scope for anyone outside the Cong to be a stakeholder in framing of the new constitution for India. Rule of India would be a Congress-only enterprise.

Criticizing  it, Sir Sankaran Nair wrote, “ A more preposterous demand cannot be imagined.  He [Gandhi] excludes all those who do not belong to his Congress.  Those who cannot pay form the majority of the population. 

Even at this very early stage, Gandhi had already disavowed

all other non-Congress freedom fighters,
As Shachindranath Sanyal had pointed out on 12/2/1925: You [Gandhi] have criticized the revolutionaries most unsympathetically, went so far to describe them as enemies of the country, simply because they differ from your views & methods

You preach tolerance but you have been violently intolerant in your criticisms of the revolutionaries. The revolutionaries have risked their everything to serve their motherland, and if you cannot help them, at least be not intolerant towards them.

Gandhi revealed the extent to

which he detested the revolutionaries, when he wrote, Let those who are not past reason then cease either secretly or openly to endorse activities such as this latest bomb outrage. Rather let them openly and heartily condemn these outrages, so that our deluded patriots may for

want of nourishment to their violent spirit realize the futility of violence and the great harm that violent activity has every time done.

(Ref mk gandhi .org)

Why Gandhi despised revolutionaries? (https:digital.library. txstate. Edu)

One probable answer is that the war

against the revolutionaries was more rationally grounded than a misplaced generosity, perhaps. Big industrialists who sponsored Gandhi and influenced his policies were vehemently opposed to armed insurrections against the British.

For example, a prominent sponsor of Gandhi

and a key member of his coterie, GD Birla has written that he urged Viceroy Linlithgow to arrive at a common position with Gandhi on "terrorists" and get rid of "terrorism" altogether.

(@authorAneesh - Here is the double game played by G D Birla).

He had commended the

Irwin-Gandhi pact for striking " at the roots of the method of securing political advance by means of disorder, " & substituting it by "the method of mutual discussion and confidence"'
(Please note that Gandhi - Irwin pact signed the deal for hanging Bhagath, Sukhdev & Rajguru).

Birla also defended the repressive Rowlatt Act introduced to contain the revolutionaries as "For the Rowlatt Act was merely the taking of emergency reserve powers in case. ". On 30-06-1935, he told Sir Henry Craik that if the British did not arrive at a settlement with Gandhi,

"a revolution of the bloody type may become an inevitable factor. And this would be the greatest calamity not only to India but also to England. Tories may say this would be India's funeral. I say it would be a funeral for both. " Thus, Gandhi's war on the revolutionaries

was the industrialists' too.

Suit Boot Ki Sarkar, Eh?

As Ellen Wilkinson, the British MP and Member of Cabinet 1945-'47 said
Gandhi was the best policeman the British had in India.

Part - 3 Tomorrow.
#KnowYourHistory
#NotMyMahatma
#VANDEMATARAM