E-Book - Mahatma Gandhi

Mahatma Gandhi – His Life & Timescoloured nation defeated a white one), the 1905 Russian revolution and the riseof the Young Turks.In 1904 Lord Curzon, considered by some the greatest Viceroy of India, decreedthe partition of the province of Bengal. This act may have been the beginningof the end of British rule in India; Indians always mention it as a Britishatrocity. Curzon, despite his monumental ability and industry, was abureaucrat, autocrat and aristocrat. He lived close to his files and far from thepeople. Bengal had a population over seventy million and Curzon divided it thebetter to administer it. But the bisection was on religious lines: the oslem areawas separated from the more powerful Hindu area. Bitterness knew norestraint. Curzon was accused of anti-Hindu prejudice and of trying to put theMoslems under a debt which they would have to pay in the coin ofSubmissiveness.These and similar charges were directed at Curzon until eft India towards theend of 1904. Bengal answered the partition with assassinations. In the land ofthe Marathas Tilak whipped his followers into a frenzy. In both provinces Britishgoods were boycotted, in both, Gandhi always found his most stubbornenemies.Gandhi and Tilak were opposites. Gandhi was a quiet public speaker, Tilak theconsummate orator. Gandhi was wedded to non-violence; Tilak justifiedviolence. Gandhi fostered Hindu-Moslem amity; Tilak favoured Hindusupremacy. Gandhi respected means; Tilak pursued ends. Tilak's work borebitter fruit.The 1906 annual session of Congress met in Calcutta, then the capital of Indiaas well as of Bengal. It demanded a reversal of the partition, supported theanti-British boycott and resolved in favour of self-government for India.Lord Minto, Curzon's successor, let it become known in 1906 that he wascontemplating reforms which would give Indians a bigger voice in the provinciallegislatures and more jobs in government offices. But the Tilak extremists werenot mollified. Violence continued in Bengal and Maharashtra and spread to thePunjab. At the 1907 Congress session in Surat, moderates and extremists threwwww.mkgandhi.org Page 196