Questions on Mahatma Gandhi

A well-known figure in India, who was known to Mahatma Gandhi, is collecting questions on Gandhi at present.  He is going to arrange them, and as a part of his social work to give them his answer.  The following are my questions sent to him at his request.

Questions on Gandhi

H.Yamaguchi

                  

His sense of mission in life

Gandhi said, quite often, that he was trying to educate and train the Indians according to his ideas.  He already said at the time of the Kheda struggle in 1918 that his mission was ‘to train and prepare the country’.  Did he already have this sense of mission when he returned to India in 1915?  Was it the purpose of his return?  Was it his idea that he was the only person capable of doing so?  Otherwise what motivated him to return to India, largely unknown to him then, for good?

Gandhi, Jinnah and the Muslim League

Gandhi once said after the tension between the Congress and the League intensified that Jinnah ‘has hated me’ since he criticized Jinnah for not using the Gujarati language.  Was it so?  Can we say that the Congress-League tension was further deepened by the personal animosity between Gandhi and Jinnah?

On Gandhi-Jinnah talks of 1944, it is very questionable to me if Gandhi was right to back up the “Rajaji Formula”.  It was a plan for the partition of India.  Therefore it is difficult to say that Gandhi was against the partition.  Moreover the Gandhi-Jinnah talks, at which Gandhi based his idea on the “Formula”, made it known to Jinnah that the Congress was not dead against the partition.  It is debatable whether the League’s Pakistan Resolution was serious in intention or rather a bargaining counter, but even if it was a bargaining counter, the “Formula”, when backed by Gandhi, made it more than that.  Some first-rate intellectuals like Srinivasa Sastri expressed their apprehension, but of no use.

Communalism and the Constructive Programme

The All-India Spinners Association (AISA) took care of thousands of spinners and khadi weavers, and many of them were said to be Muslims.  Was it not enough to prevent the Muslim masses from going over to the League?

But later Gandhi had a long talk with Jajuji and told him that from then on khadi should be mainly for home consumption rather than for sale.  The sale of khadi then must have gone down and the income of the spinners/weavers also.  Why this change?

Gandhi’s brightest and darkest moments

Would it be possible to indicate the particular period(s) in Gandhi’s life when he was most high-spirited?  To me, one such period was the few years leading to the Salt March, including his return to politics, Sardar Patel’s Bardoli, Eleven Points sent to Lord Irwin, planning the March and picking up the fellow-travellers.  He even talked, ‘in confidence’, of his readiness to be the first President of the future Indian republic, saying ‘I should make a fair effort to shoulder it’ (Young India, 21 November 1929).  The several months leading to the Quit-India Resolution may have been another such period, but this time he was arrested much too soon.

On the other hand, it would appear that his lowest moment was when he said on the eve of Independence that ‘Sabarmati is far off, Noakhali is near’.  His greatness was, however, that he was not discouraged by the darkness around him.

Harijans

One of the subjects which Ambedkar put forward against Gandhi was that the Harijans were excluded from the management of the Harijan Sevak Sangh.  Gandhi had his own reasons for doing so.  He thought it was first and foremost the caste Hindus’ work.  He also said the Harijans were ‘so completely helpless’ and could not plan themselves.  Still, did it not unnecessarily antagonize Ambedkar?

Communists

Gandhi asked some Communists to come to Sevagram to ‘study me’.  He even offered to show his papers to them.  This was a very Gandhi-like behavior.  In your knowledge were there any Communists who did so, and published their observation?

The Partition

Was it correct for Gandhi to advise Ghaffar Khan to abstain from the crucial voting in deciding the fate of the NWFP in 1947?  He said that the choice should have been between Pakistan and Pakhutunistan.  That may have been ideal, but he must have known that it existed only in his mind and was not a realistic possibility.

What motivated the assassination of Gandhi

At the end of 1947, he wrote of the opening of the Pandharpur Temple in Maharashtra, and the visit by a large number of Harijans.  He also talked about the unhappiness on the part of many Brahman priests, who even went on fast.  Usually the assassins of Gandhi were said to be motivated by their hatred of Gandhi because of his allegedly pro-Muslim attitude.  Did his allegedly pro-Harijan attitude also motivate them?