Road To Freedom

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• For God and Country
• The Empire Builders
• Tribal Uprisings
• Sepoys on the Move
• British Authority Collapses
• The Empire Strikes Back
• Roll of Honour
• The Trial of the Last Emperor
• English Education
• The Blue Mutiny
• Perishing in Peace
• ‘Rani Ka Hookum’
• Barbarous Britannia
• Return to Swadeshi
• The Delhi Durbar
• Hunger Deaths
• The One-Man Army
• Mamool Raj
• The British Raj in Black and White
• Europeans Take To The Street!
• Pressing On !
• The Battle For A Free Press
• The Battle Lines are Drawn
• Women : Crossing the Threshold
• An Old Man's Dream
• Father of Indian Unrest
• The Monk Who Shook The Nation
• The Battle is Taken to the Legislature!
• Partition of Bengal
• The Great Divide
• The New Spirit of India
• Swadeshi Enterprise
• From Swadeshi to Swaraj
• Gandhi in South Africa
• Heroes and Martyrs
• Revolutionaries Outside India
• Carrot and Stick
• Gandhi in Champaran
• The Gentle Satyagrahi
• Massacre at Jallianwala Bagh
• Jallianwala — The Aftermath
• A People Reject Their Rulers
• The Himalayan Blunder
• Gandhiji Withdraws from Political Activities
• Bardoli
• Saga of Indian Revolutionaries
• A Pinch of Salt!
• Gandhi and Ambedkar
• Leave India to God… or to Anarchy
• Quit India
• The Last War of Independence
• Apostle of Peace
• India Wins Freedom
• The Light Has Gone Out
• Under One Flag

The Himalayan Blunder

The Himalayan Blunder

Gandhi toured the length and breadth of the country urging people to be non-violent soldiers. He made it clear that there was no place for hatred, in his movement. He expected people to be polite and courteous to government officials even while refusing to co-operate with them. He would travel in the III class compartments of trains. At every stop, thousands of people would besiege the train and there would be a mad rush to get close to Gandhi or to at least get a glimpse of him. Once, inhabitants of a village desperate to see Gandhi but knowing the train carrying him was not scheduled to halt at their station, squatted on the tracks and brought the train to a stop. It was midnight. "When Gandhi, aroused from deep sleep appeared, the crowd, theretofore boisterous, sank to their knees on the railway platform and wept," records Louis Fischer, Gandhiji's biographer. By then microphones were available in the country. Gandhi would address mammoth meetings and people would hear him out in rapt silence. He touched the hearts of millions of his countrymen and made each one feel that "unless he co-operated he would delay Swaraj". The non-co-operation movement made a countrywide impact. The government reacted sharply. Congress and Khilafat volunteer organisations were declared unlawful and front line leaders like the Ali brothers, Chittaranjan Das, Motilal Nehru, Lala Lajpat Rai and Subhas Chandra Bose, were arrested. These harsh measures only served to further alienate the people from the government. In December 1921, Gandhiji decided to organise civil disobedience and chose the taluka of Bardoli in Gujarat as the starting-point. However before the movement could get underway there was an outbreak of mob violence at Chauri Chaura, a village in Uttar Pradesh on 5th February 1922. The mob set a police station on fire and when the policemen ran out they were butchered. Twenty-two policemen were killed. Gandhiji was stunned when he heard the news. "No provocation can possibly justify brutal murder of men who had been rendered defenceless and who had virtually thrown themselves on the mercy of the mob," said Gandhiji. He now described his call for non-co-operation as a Himalayan blunder. He called off the civil disobedience campaign in Bardoli and announced the withdrawal of the countrywide non-co-operation movement.

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Gandhiji's decision to call off the non-cooperation movement came as a great disappointment to the people. "No one could understand," wrote Subhas Chandra Bose, "why the Mahatma should have used the isolated incident at Chauri Chaura for strangling the movement all over the country. To sound the order of retreat just when public enthusiasm was reaching the boiling point was nothing short of a national calamity." Gandhiji had informed the Viceroy before launching the civil disobedience campaign so when he called it off the British were jubilant.
"Let the opponent glory in our humiliation or so called defeat", said Gandhiji with his characteristic calmness. "It is better to be charged with cowardice and weakness than to be guilty of denial of our oath and to sin against God. It is a million times better to appear untrue before the world than to be untrue to ourselves". Explaining Gandhiji's strange behaviour his biographer Louis Fischer wrote: "Gandhijis criteria were not the usual criteria of politics. His leadership did not depend on victories. He did not have to save face. He could admit blunders Himalayan or less, because he did not claim infallibility or superiority."
Viceroy Reading thought that Gandhi was finished as a politician. Gandhi, he wrote, "had pretty well run himself into the last ditch as a politician..."And the Viceroy chose that moment to strike. Gandhi was arrested on the charge of sedition.
Gandhiji told judge Bromfield. "I do not ask for mercy... I am here, therefore to invite and cheerfully submit to the highest penalty that can be inflicted upon me for what in law is a deliberate crime and what appears to me to be the highest duty of a citizen... In my opinion, non co-operation with evil is as much a duty as is co-operation with good."
The judge bowed to Gandhiji and before sentencing him to six years imprisonment said: "...It would be impossible to ignore the fact that, in the eyes of millions of your countrymen, you are a great patriot and a great leader. Even those who differ from you in politics look upon you as a man of high ideals…"
Writing in 'Young India' Gandhiji had said: "Rivers of blood shed by the Government cannot frighten me, but I should be deeply pained even if the people did so much as abuse the government for my sake or in my name. It would be disgracing me if the people lost their equilibrium on my arrest."
His countrymen fulfilled his expectations. There was no disorder. People waited patiently for the return of the Mahatma now languishing in jail.