Smash Pacifism - Warrior Publications

prominence of the legal fraternity in Congress politics in
these years. The study of British law, including
constitutional theory and history... and the opportunity to
travel to district towns and rural localities for professional
reasons, which could be utilized to build political links, had
all helped to galvanize the lawyers into the vanguard of
modern political movements...
“A second pillar of support for the early Congress
was the bourgeoisie. Industrialists, merchants, bankers,
moneylenders, petty shopkeepers, zamindars [landlords]
and landholders accounted for a sizable element of the
delegates who attended the annual convention of the
Congress... 32 percent of the delegates who attended the
conventions between 1892-1909 came from the landed
gentry and the commercial classes...”
(Indian Nationalism, pp. 126-27)
“Remaining outside the orbit of Congress influence
were elements of Indian society which had gained little
from the beneficial changes wrought by British imperialism
in India. The peasantry, the rural artisans, the working
class employed in factories, mines... minorities such
as Muslims, and depressed castes such as the
[Untouchables] had all experienced the disorientating
effects of British policies but without enjoying any of
its material benefits...”
(Indian Nationalism, p. 129)
“Gandhi, while appearing publicly as a
peasant leader and constantly repeating his opposition
to the salt tax as a struggle on behalf of India's
'starving millions', also remained in many respects
attached to, or influenced by, business interests. The
commercial middle classes while wanting to utilize
mass discontent to secure concessions from the British
were anxious at the same time to keep it within
measured bounds and secure 'an honourable
settlement'.”
(Gandhi, p. 155)
In 1921, Gandhi condemned the strikes of
railway and steam ship workers then occurring. Writing in
Young India, June 15, 1921, he stated:
“In India we want no political strikes... We must
gain control over all the unruly and disturbing elements or
isolate them... We seek not to destroy capital or capitalists,
but to regulate the relations between capital and labour.”
(India and the Raj, p. 219)
Gandhi also incorporated conciliation and
compromise into his satyagraha doctrine. Every use of
pacifist struggle was to be preceded by negotiation, and
always concluded with a mutually agreeable resolution to
all sides in the conflict.
Radicals and Moderates
The early struggle between the Radicals and
Moderates in the Indian National Congress helps
understand the strategic role Gandhi played for British
imperialism in countering the emerging revolutionary
forces in India. It is also good case study of how reformists
co-opt resistance movements and collaborate with the state
in general.
Moderates, as noted previously, came to be the
term used for factions of the INC that advocated strict legal
constitutionalism, and whose swaraj (home rule) consisted
of a Dominion status, similar to Canada and still firmly a
part of the British Empire. They were primarily middleclass
Indian professionals, a class whose interests they
represented and whose support they had. They did not seek
any form of open anti-colonial conflict and promoted class
conciliation (since class war was contrary to the interests of
their constituents and benefactors). The Moderates were the
Riot in Calcutta against British rule in India.
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original founders of the INC in 1885. Today, they would be
referred to as reformists.
The Radicals arose in the 1890s, comprised of
militants who accused the INC of being too complacent and
even collaborative. Aurobindo Ghose, a Bengali
revolutionary, accused the INC of being a “middle-class
organ” in 1893 (in a Bombay newspaper article entitled
“New Lamps for Old”). His writings became popular
among younger militants and influenced Bal Gangadhar
Tilak, who would later emerge as a leader of the Radicals.
The Radicals version of swaraj was total
independence, and they promoted more active measures to
achieve this, including boycotts and protests (though not
necessarily violent, and not because they were pacifists).
They accused the Moderate's tactics of being ineffective, of
having no mass base or actual strength, their goal of