Smash Pacifism - Warrior Publications

when they treated him as a [national] leader they confirmed
him in that position, and when they refused to do so they
tended to erode his standing.”
(Gandhi and Civil Disobedience, p. 12)
Gandhi's role as a collaborator
was part of a long-established colonial
strategy of the British. The INC itself was
established in 1885 to perform the very
role Gandhi played some thirty years later.
A.O. Hume, the former British
government official who established the
INC and remained its general secretary for
22 years, stated his goals in establishing
the Congress, in 1888:
“Do you not realize that by getting
hold of the great lower middle classes
before the development of the reckless
demagogues [leaders who appeal to mob
instincts], to which the next century must
otherwise give birth, and carefully
inoculating them with a mild and harmless
form of the political fever, we are adopting
the only precautionary method against the
otherwise inevitable ravages of a violent
and epidemic... disorder.”
(quoted in India and the Raj, p. 21)
India's Independence in 1947, when the INC
became the new government, was itself the fulfilment of a
British strategy articulated 30 years earlier. On August 20,
1917, the British moved to counter the growing
rebelliousness that had emerged in India as a result of
economic decline arising from WW1, as well as the effects
of the Russian Revolution that year. The Secretary of State
for India articulated the overall British strategy regarding
India:
“'The policy of His Majesty's Government... is that
of the increasing association of Indians in every branch of
the administration and the gradual development of selfgoverning
institutions with a view to the progressive
realization of responsible government in India as an integral
part of the British Empire.'”
(quoted in India and the Raj, p. 106)
Over a decade later, the Viceroy of the day
continued to ponder the same basic question regarding the
Independence movement:
“In 1929, Viceroy Lord Irwin also felt that the 'real
question' was 'whether all this Indian nationalism that is
growing and bound to grow, can be guided along imperial
[lines] or will more and more get deflected into separatist
lines.'”
(quoted in India and the Raj, p. 107)
For his part, Gandhi served a vital role to the
AO Hume, the former colonial official
who first proposed the INC and was
its general secretary for 22 years.
22
British by helping to combat militant resistance and
diverting struggles back into legal constitutional methods,
using civil disobedience as a 'safety valve' to blunt growing
rebelliousness among the people:
“The primary aim of the Rowlatt
Satyagraha of 1919, the Noncooperation
Movement of 1920-22
and the Civil Disobedience
movement of 1930-31, as Gandhi
planned them, was to forestall or
divert mass anti-imperialist...
struggles which he apprehended. As
he repeatedly stated, by initiating
such a movement he sought to
'sterilize the forces of violence' that
might prove a threat to the raj and its
domestic allies. The secondary aim
was to secure some concessions for
the domestic exploiting classes by
demonstrating the leadership's ability
to control the masses and to protect
the vital imperialist interests.”
(India and the Raj, p. 111)
Gandhi, in a letter to the Times of
India, April 3, 1920, stated:
“The country requires some definite action. And
nothing can be better for the country than noncooperation
as some definite action. The forces of violence cannot be
checked otherwise” (quoted in India & the Raj, p. 204).
Gandhi himself admitted his intentions of
countering the revolutionary forces. In a 1930 letter to the
British Viceroy, Lord Irwin, Gandhi explained his efforts to
counter the militants prior to his Salt March:
“It is common cause that, however disorganized...
the party of violence is gaining ground and making itself
felt. Its end is the same as mine. But I am convinced that it
cannot bring the desired relief to the dumb millions. And
the conviction is growing deeper and deeper in me that
nothing but unadulterated nonviolence can check the
organized violence of the British government... as well as
against the unorganized violent force of the growing party
of violence... Having an unquestionable and immovable
faith in the efficacy of non-violence as I know it, it would
be sinful on my part to wait any longer.”
(Gandhi in India, p. 117)
“Gandhi's primary purpose was to forestall, divert
and contain revolutionary struggles; the secondary one was
to win some concessions for the big bourgeoisie [capitalist
class].”
(India & the Raj, p. 344)