Rebels against the Raj: Western Fighters for India’s Freedom by Ramachandra Guha

Author:Ramachandra Guha
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9789354924446
Publisher: Penguin Group
Published: 2022-01-06T00:00:00+00:00

Now Gandhi and the Congress had no option but to resort to collective satyagraha and demand that the British ‘Quit India’. In the first week of August 1942, as the leaders of the Congress arrived in Bombay for a crucial meeting of the All India Congress Committee, Horniman still hoped for a last-minute reconciliation. In an editorial he asked: ‘If it is proper for European nations to resort to every measure to win back their freedom from Hitler and his Nazis, is it unreasonable for Indians to resort to Civil Disobedience in a non-violent manner, when it is blandly refused to them.’ He insisted that ‘the Congress is not at all anxious to seize power for itself’; its leaders had ‘stated publicly that, so far as the Congress is concerned, they would not have the least objection if the Government hands over power even to the Muslim League’. This, remarked Horniman, ‘proves the “bona fides” of those who are in the forefront of the demand for freedom. Can we hope that the British are equally anxious to prove their “bona fides” by divesting themselves of power over India, by exchanging it for a friendly alliance.’34

These words (and warnings) are unlikely to have been read by the Viceroy in Delhi, and even if they were he was in no mood to heed them. Gandhi and his colleagues were arrested and packed off to prison. Horniman was deeply upset, writing that when Gandhi had clearly indicated that he was writing to the Viceroy to explore ‘all avenues of peaceful settlement’, the Government ignored the offer and instead ‘chose to act and arrested the Mahatma and all the leaders’. The Englishman who had become an Indian now worried about the consequences of this ill-advised act. As he wrote:

The point is now – WHITHER?

People might become violent because their beloved apostle of non-violence has been taken away from them. People might become rowdy and uncontrollable because those who could have controlled them are taken away from them.

People might become panicky and panic might do anything. Students might forsake studies; presses might suspend publications; civil servants might sever their connections; the police might become peevish and irritable; the war effort might become worsened.

Is this what anyone wants? We do not think any patriotic Indian wants it.35

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