Author’s Views: The author in these pages wants to drive a point that Gandhi’s so called approach to Hindu-Muslim unity by supporting the Khilafat Movement, his opposition to forcible occupation of Palestine with British Support were more for obtaining support from local Muslims to forsake the slaying of cows. He further states that even when Gandhi believed in their (Muslims) wrongs (read Khilafat Movement), it was a perfect deal.
The author quotes parts of Gandhi’s own statement in Young India of 20 October 1921, “in laying down my life for the Khilafat, I ensure the safety of the cow from the Musalman knife, that is my religion.” to substantiate his conclusion. ( Page 124)
The author states that Gandhi’s written statement of principle for a settlement in Palestine can be found in the Central Zionist Archives. He ridicules Gandhi that by publishing a newspaper article titled ”The Jews” he damaged his own credentials and his capacity to intervene further.
The author states that Gandhi’s written statement of principle for a settlement in Palestine can be found in the Central Zionist Archives. He ridicules Gandhi that by publishing a newspaper article titled ”The Jews” he damaged his own credentials and his capacity to intervene further.
Comments: The reader is invited to the contents of the article in Young India of May 29, 1924, which was devoted to Hindu-Muslim question. This was later published as a pamphlet with a long introduction from Gandhi. Excerpts from the article “ had I been a prophet and foreseen all (ie abolition of Kaliph in Turkey) that has happened, I should still have thrown myself into Khilafat agitation. The awakening of the masses was a necessary part of the training. It is a tremendous gain. I would do nothing to put the people to sleep again”. It can therefore be seen that the association with Khilafat agitation was purely political to promote Hindu-Muslim unity (and not Muslim support ) of which the British were squeamish. He was very clear in his aim.
The author fails to elucidate in what all other wrongs of Muslims, Gandhi believed in and still took them as perfectly straight deals to promote himself.
On cow slaughter Gandhi chides the Hindus and Hindu organizations “ What is it but compulsion, if Hindus will kill a Musalman for saving a cow? It is like wanting to convert a Musalman to Hinduism by force. …... I have never been able to understand the antipathy towards the Musalmans on that score. We say nothing about the slaughter that daily takes place on behalf of the Englishmen. Our anger becomes red hot when a Musalman slaughters a cow…All the riots that have taken place in the name of cow have been an insane waste of effort. They have not saved a single cow but they have on the contrary stiffened the back of the Musalmans and resulted in more slaughter... In no part of the world, perhaps, are cattle worse treated than in India. …The half starved condition of the majority of our cattle is a disgrace to us. The only effective and honourable way is to befriend the Musalmans and leave it to their honour to save the cow. They (Hindus) commit no sin, if they cannot prevent cow slaughter at the hands of the Musalmans, and they do sin grievously when in order to save the cow, they quarrel with the Musalmans.”
Again later (on Bakr-Id_day) in Harijan dated February 27, 1937 he wrote “Though I hold the cow in veneration as any Hindu, I have never sympathized with the Hindu grief and implied anger against the Musalmans on Bakr-Id. … Hindu ignorance is responsible for many more deaths of cows than the death caused by the Musalman’s slaughter of the cow for one day of the year. Be it noted Hindus are apparently reconciled to cow slaughter on days other than Bakr-Id.” This was more than two decades later than his support for Khilafat movement. Was Gandhi promoting Hindu- Muslim Unity more or Muslim support more? Was Gandhi bartering cow protection?
Regarding his Stand on the Israel-Palestine settlement: His stand on the question of Jews is well documented in the papers published by him in India itself and therefore there is no need to verify its authenticity from the Central Zionist Archives as the author’s implied proof. More importantly Gandhi never clamoured for credentials or capacity to intervene and his views when sought were honest and true to his belief. So there is no question of any self-inflicted damage to his credentials or to his capacity to intervene.
The first editorial after his return from the tour of Frontier Provinces in 1938 was on the plight of Jews in Europe calling them “the untouchables of Christianity”:
“My sympathies are with Jews. I have known them intimately in South Africa. …. They have been the untouchables of Christianity. The parallel between their treatment by Christians and the treatment of untouchables by Hindus is very close. Religious sanction has been invoked in both cases for the justification of the inhuman treatment meted out to them. There is the more common universal reason for my sympathy for the Jews. But my sympathy does not bind me to the requirement of justice. The cry for the national home for the Jews does not much appeal to me. …Why should they not, like other peoples of the earth make that country their home where they are born and where they earn their livelihood? Palestine belongs to Arabs in the same sense that England belongs to the English or France to the French. What is going on in Palestine to day cannot be justified by any moral code of conduct. The mandates have no sanction but that of the last war ….The nobler course would be to insist on a just treatment of the Jews wherever they are born and bred….This cry for the national home affords a colourable justification for the German expulsion of the Jews. But the German persecution of the Jews seems to have no parallel in history…. If there ever could be a justifiable war in the name of and for humanity, a war against Germany to prevent the wanton persecution of a whole race would be completely justified”. (Please note this is coming from the pen of the person who abhorred war and swore by non-violence. … by then not even America had joined the war. Nor were they anxious to join the war to put an end to the German atrocities.)
“And now a word to the Jews in Palestine. I have no doubt that they are going in the wrong way. The Palestine of the Biblical conception is not a geographical tract. It is in their hearts. But if they must look to the Palestine geography as their national home, it is wrong to enter it under the shadow of the British gun. A religious act cannot be performed with the aid of the bayonet or the bomb. ( This is what is happening in to days world , that every terror act being sanctified as religious and rightly condemned by all right thinking people.) They can settle in Palestine only by the goodwill of the Arabs. They should strive to convert the Arab heart. They can offer satayagraha… there are hundreds of ways of reasoning with Arabs, if they will only discard the British bayonet. I am not defending the Arab excesses. I wish they had chosen non-violence in resisting what they rightly regarded as unwarrantable encroachment. Let the Jews who claim to be the chosen race, prove their title by choosing the way of non-violence for vindicating their position on earth.”
On a larger issue have Israelites or for that matter the Palestinians ever lived in peace or will they ever live in peace? Has not Gandhi’s views vindicated? Why decry Gandhi? Why only quote parts of his writing to decry him?
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