Anil Nauriya - INTOLERANCE THROUGH THE YEARS: 1934 to 1975 to 2015 // Mahatma Gandhi's Statement on Bomb Incident June 25, 1934
INTOLERANCE THROUGH THE YEARS: 1934 to 1975 to 2015
By Anil Nauriya
Day Against Intolerance - 25 June 2015
The 25th and 26th of June mark
not only the declaration of the internal Emergency at the behest of
the Indira Gandhi regime in 1975. June 25 is also the day in
1934 when a lethal bomb was aimed at Mahatma Gandhi and his cavalcade by
Hindu conservative and orthodox elements in Pune when he was on his
anti-Untouchability tour.
For some years, especially from 1977 onwards, the
anniversary has been observed as a day of protest against the
Emergency of 1975-77. This is sometimes formulated as a constitutional
transgression which it certainly was. Yet it was more than that. It reflected a
tendency towards authoritarianism and political intolerance. When a former
Deputy Prime Minister now asks the question whether an emergency could recur
and registers his apprehensions regarding the possibility, he refers to
the constitutional phenomenon. If he were to see the issue in its wider
generic terms, he might see the connection between the emergency and such
events as the anti-Sikh pogrom of 1984, the Meerut-Maliana-Hashimpura massacre
of 1987, the demolition of the Babari Masjid in 1992, the Gujarat massacres of
2002, the Muzaffarnagar events of 2014 and the Ballabhgarh events of 2015.
Constitutional excesses, political intolerance and social
fascism mutate seamlessly from one to the other. The connection
between the bombs aimed at Gandhi during his anti-untouchability tour of 1934
and many of the phenomena listed above becomes clearer when we move from
considering political intolerance to social intolerance, from the political
fascist tendency to the social fascist tendency.
Some political parties are brazenly laying down the law for
who may reside where, making nonsense of the Constitutional right to reside and
settle in any part of the territory of India as we have known it over the
years. Feeding into the support base of many of these political parties
are rural cabals like khap panchayats and urban mafiosi on which
the electoral machine of several political parties, both national and regional,
now appears to run. The same cabals and mafiosi, emboldened by
political patronage, then lay down the law for their rural
and urban communities, intruding into the individual and social rights of
the common people.
It is this persistent and growing tendency towards
intolerance, of which the emergency was only a constitutionally crystallized
form, that needs to combated. As against press censorship in the
emergency of 1975-77, there is now the increasingly frequent targeted
killing of journalists, especially in the smaller towns, to say nothing of the
widespread harassment of those exercising their right of
expression. Such killings are as sure an indicator of a creeping fascism as the
advance notice of a coming plague that is given by the fauna that it
devours. Such killings of members of the intelligentsia had
become common in the Italy of the 1920s which witnessed the rise of classic
fascism.
With intolerance directed at vulnerable groups in the
country, it is of importance that the 25/26 June
observance include both its political and social significance. It ought to be observed nation-wide as a Day against
Intolerance. Indeed as a Day against Political and Social fascism.
Role of Capital: The growth of Financial and Industrial Capital
was ordinarily expected to have a modernizing role. It should have been
expected to be in the forefront of the dissemination of liberal ideas, and the
elimination of such endemic features as child labour. Post-independence Indian
Capital, and more particularly Indian Capital after the rise of non-entrepreneurial
capital from the 1980s, is a distinct animal. It has
tended, in its short-sightedness, to support the growth of the
forces that have bred intolerance. Non-entrepreneurial capital
depends not on Research and Development but on State concessions, especially of
natural resources, purchase of going concerns, including public sector
assets, at nominal rates, and the appropriate bending of rules
when desired.
In the early years when the public sector was being built
up, the constant refrain of Indian Capital was that it wished to be free of
state restraints such as licensing. It favoured the opening up of the economy.
However, when this started happening from the 1980s onwards, it was non-entrepreneurial
capital that took centre stage.
It had a peculiar concept of freedom. It claimed to stand
for a free economy but was not prepared for an extension of this concept to
land. Here it wanted the state to continue the Colonial system of the state
acquiring land and handing it over to it at nominal rates. With some
modifications, it wanted essentially the same colonial concessionaire
system to continue in respect of mining leases, whether these be
for coal, iron ore, zinc or any other precious natural resource. The idea
that these resources belonged to the entire people, including the poor, was
anathema to it.
Indian Capital developed a similar notion with respect to
finance capital. It developed the belief that it had the first charge on more
or less the entire financial resources of the country available in the
banking system. It was loath to generate and plough back financial
resources in its own enterprises, such as these were. When, therefore, a
national level statutory rural employment generation scheme in the form of MGNREGA
came up as a competing charge on financial resources, neither Indian
Capital nor the media owned by it took kindly to it.
It had to wrest back control over India’s land and finance
and seek to reverse or dilute recent legal changes which it considered adverse
to its interests. With this being its primary concern, it is myopic enough to
believe that the growth of intolerance and social fascism is of
little consequence to it. Eighty one years separate 25 June 1934 and 25
June 2015. But social fascism has remained; though weakened in certain
respects, it has tended to reappear and often assume new and virulent
forms.
Learning from Experience : There is yet another aspect of the June observance that
requires attention. The internal emergency of 1975-77 was preceded
by various significant events, including the Navnirman movement in Gujarat in
1973 and thereafter the JP-led movement against corruption. After
that there have been two other movements which have have focused on
corruption in the polity, the VP Singh-led Jan Morcha in the late 1980s and the
recent Anna Hazare movement in the years immediately preceding the General
Elections of 2015.
It is important to go beyond the June observance
and also try to derive some lessons from the JP and the later movements
and the political cycles which the country has undergone as a result.
Anti-corruption movements in India have suffered from an incomplete
understanding of the meaning and implications of corruption. In India the main internal issues that need to be
grappled with are:
[a] The need to eradicate corruption;
[b] The prevention of religion-based and caste-based
sectarianism, and
[c] The need to provide for the basic needs of the
people, ie, food security, health, education, and cultivable land
for those progressively or arbitrarily deprived of it.
We have seen movements develop around Issue [a] ; but when
those who ran or controlled these movements came into power they did
little about Issues [b] and [c]. Indeed, quite the contrary!! Those taking part
in such movements should therefore be required also to make some commitments
about Issues [b] and [c].
The Indian experience is that Issue [a] is used
primarily as a basis to come to power. These movements, whether led by JP
or by VP Singh, or as organized in more recent times, have been marked by
a narrow understanding of corruption. Even though JP personally may well
have had a wider understanding, he did not seek to build up an independent
cadre of volunteers or pay adequate attention to their ideological
training. He was not sufficiently cognizant of the dangers posed by the
sectarian forces like the RSS which played a major role in his movement. In
fact, he argued erroneously that these forces had changed character. That the
matter was not a straightforward one of totalitarianism on the one hand versus “democratic”
forces on the other subsequently became still clearer. For during
the emergency, and particularly after the Turkman Gate firing in April 1976,
the RSS and the then Prime Minister’s younger son even appeared to
arrive at a rapprochement. The shortcomings that characterised JP’s
movement were repeated in some or the other form by the later movements.
Corruption is simply a species of the wider issue of abuse
of political and social power and authority.
Recent Anti-Corruption movements have understood corruption primarily in
financial and monetary terms. But corruption is not limited to bribery-related
conduct. A studied and deliberate withdrawal on the part of
state-authorities and of dominant political parties from a performance of their
duty to protect the lives and property of citizens is also corruption. It is in
fact a grave form of malfeasance that seems to cut across many
political parties and regimes. In recent memory such malfeasance has been
reflected, for example, in the state role in the face of violence against
Sikhs in Delhi, Muslims in Ahmedabad, Christians in Orissa, non-Maharashtrians
in Maharashtra and Dalits in Haryana.
Anti-corruption movements that not only do not raise such
issues but appear instead to offer good conduct certificates to certain
delinquent forces and regimes cannot inspire as much confidence as they might
otherwise do. The ideological stance here cannot be concealed: such movements
would go after a police constable for, say, taking a traffic-challan-related
bribe (indeed in the last round of the Lok Pal movement its major focus was on
subordinate Government employees), but wink at a senior police official or a
minister for organizing a pogrom or looking away while human beings are
killed or beaten up as part of a concerted and in-built bias against a
community or a section of the people. \
Thus the struggle against
corruption and the struggle against intolerance cannot be separated. Constitutional excesses, political and social
intolerance, and corruption will be fought as part of national renewal
and of a re-affirmation of the highest values of our struggle for freedom and
of our Constitution. Though every movement
may have its specific and particular focus, these issues
cannot be dealt with by a method of pick and choose that
leaves the worst traits in our politics and society untouched and in fact
strengthened by opportunistic non-condemnation, direct certification or
affirmation by association.
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Appendix:
MAHATMA
GANDHI’s STATEMENT ON BOMB INCIDENT (1)
POONA, June 25, 1934
I have had so many narrow escapes in my life that this
newest one does not surprise me. God be thanked that no one was fatally injured
by the bomb, and I hope that those who were more or less seriously injured, will be soon discharged from
hospital. (2)
I cannot believe that any sane sanatanist could ever
encourage the insane act that was perpetrated this evening. But I would like sanatanist
friends to control the language that is being used by speakers and writers claiming to speak on their
behalf. The sorrowful incident has undoubtedly advanced the Harijan cause. It
is easy to see that causes prosper by the martyrdom of those who stand for
them. I am not aching for martyrdom, but if it comes in my way in the prosecution
of what I consider to be the supreme duty in defence of the faith I hold in
common with millions of Hindus, I shall have well earned it, and it will be
possible for the historian of the future to say that the vow I had taken before Harijans that I would,
if need be, die in the attempt to remove untouchability was literally
fulfilled.
Let those who grudge me what yet remains to me of this
earthly existence know that it is the easiest thing to do away with my body. Why
then put in jeopardy many innocent lives in order to take mine which they hold
to be sinful? What would the world have said of us if the bomb had dropped on
me and the party, which included my wife and three girls, who are as dear to me
as daughters and are entrusted to me by their parents? I am sure that no harm
to them could have been intended by the bomb-thrower. I have nothing but
deep pity for the unknown thrower of the bomb. If I had my way and if the bomb-thrower was
known, I should certainly ask for his discharge, even as I did in South Africa
in the case of those who successfully assaulted me. (3)
Let the reformers not be incensed against the
bomb-thrower or those who may be behind him. What I should like them to do is to redouble their
efforts to rid the country of the deadly evil of untouchability.
Harijan, 29-6-1934
______________________________________________________
1 A bomb was
thrown on what the assailant believed was the car carrying Gandhiji on his way
to the Municipal Building. Gandhiji arrived at 7.30 p.m. little knowing what
had occurred. When informed of the incident, he received the news calmly and
agreed to the suggestion that the programme should be carried out. Accordingly
the address was presented and Gandhiji left the hall at 8.30 p.m. This appeared
under the title “Providence Again”.
2 This paragraph has been reproduced from The Hindu, 26-6-1934.
3 Vide “My
Reward”.
.
