Get our Daily News Capsule Subscribe. Thank you for subscribing to our Daily News Capsule newsletter. Whatsapp Twitter Facebook Linkedin. Sign Up. Edit Profile. Subscribe Now. Your Subscription Plan Cancel Subscription. Home India News Entertainment. In complete contrast to this mentality, Gandhiji throughout his life remained an un-compromising advocate of oneness of God, respect for all religions, equality of all men and non-violence in thought, speech, and action.
His daily prayers comprised verses, devotional songs and readings from different scriptures. All people irrespective of their allegiance to different religions attended those meetings. Till his dying day Gandhiji held the view that the nationality of fellow citizens was not in any way affected by the fact of his subscribing to religious belief other than yours.
During his life, on more than one occasion he strove for the unity and equality among Hindus themselves as well as amity among Hindus and Muslims even risking his life. The idea of partition was anathema to him. He was given to saying that he would sooner die than subscribe to such a pernicious doctrine. His life was an open book and no substantiation is necessary on this score. Under Gandhiji's leadership, communal amity occupied the pride of place in the constructive programmes of the Congress.
Jinnah himself were in the Congress fold. It is but natural that the Congress opposed the proposal for the division of the country but as a result of the incitement on the part of the lumpen elements among the Hindus and Muslims a tidal wave of carnage and lawlessness engulfed the nation. Jinnah adopted an inflexible attitude. Lord Mountbatten being motivated by the time-limit given to him by the British Cabinet used all his powers of persuasion and charm to steer all the leaders to a quick solution and yet acceptable to all; but the adamantine attitude of Mr.
Jinnah made everything except partition unacceptable. Partition seemed to be the only solution. In the nationwide elections of the Muslim league secured 90 per cent seats.
Faced with such a scenario Congress found it difficult to keep up its morale. Gandhiji conveyed to Lord Mountbatten on 5th April that he would agree even if the British made Mr. Jinnah the Prime Minister and left the country as it was.
But on the other hand Lord Mountbatten succeeded in getting the Congress to agree to partition. Gandhiji was in the dark about it; he was shell-shocked when he learned about it. The only remedy available to him was fasting unto death to dissuade his followers from acquiescence to a ruinous course of action. After sustained soul searching he came to the conclusion that in the prevalent situation such a step on his part would further deteriorate the situation, demoralise the Congress and the whole country.
The factors that weighed with him were a Importunate demands of a rapidly changing national scenario, b Non-existence of alternate set or leaders of proved nationalist credentials. The most perplexing and yet a pertinent question was Mr.
Jinnah's most vocal propagation of the idea of Pakistan. With the intentional or otherwise efforts of Mountbatten, he succeeded in carving it out. Then, instead of making the two his targets why did Godse select one for murder who vehemently opposed the idea of partition till the resolution by the Congress accepting the partition of the country was passed on 3rd June and Pakistan became fate accompli? Or is it that, as Savarkar put it, he had no quarrel with Mr.
Jinnah and his two-nation theory but, can one surmise that he and his apologists had real quarrel with Gandhi and Gandhi alone? In view of this, Gandhiji acquiesced into the situation.
It is necessary to point out an aspect of Gandhiji's personality that made him a source of unabated distrust and dislike in the eyes of hard core Hindus.
Though he was a devout Hindu, he had the most amicable and warm relations with many who did not belong to the Hindu fold. As a result of this exposure he had developed an eclectic religious sense based on oneness of God and equality of all religious sense based on oneness of God and equality of all religions. Caste divisions and untouchability prevalent among the Hindu social organization distressed him immensely.
He advocated and actively encouraged inter-caste marriages. Lastly he blessed only those marriages wherein one of the partners belonged to the untouchable castes. Vested interests amongst high caste Hindus viewed this reformist and other religious programmes with bitter resentment. In course of time it developed into a phobia and thus he became anathema to them. The matter regarding the release of Rs.
Of the 75 crore to be paid the first instalment of Rs. Of course, the immediate provocation for killing the Mahatma was his principled unwillingness to give in to a hatred of Muslims in the wake of the post-Partition turmoil.
And these proponents found it infuriatingly unacceptable that the Mahatma should invoke his moral authority to want to call a halt to the butchery at work right in the capital of independent India. On January 12, , a day before he started his last fast to bring sanity and peace, a very sad Mahatma had observed at the evening prayer congregation:.
This is done while my own Vallabhbhai is the Home Minister of the Government of India and is responsible for maintaining law and order in the Capital.
Vallabhbhai has not only failed to give protection to the Muslims, he light-heartedly dismisses any complaint made on this count. I have no option but to use my last weapon, namely to fast until the situation changes. That fast and its moral rebuke were deeply provocative to the Hindu rashtra fringe. It was a time, remember, when Europe was passionately enamoured of fascism and its eager embrace of violence as the currency of political mobilisation.
On the other hand, the Hindu rashtra ideologues, as has been argued, were inspired and emboldened by the rampant success the fascists had achieved in Germany and Italy. It is this infatuation with violence that refuses to fade away, despite more than six decades of a constitutional order in independent India. The argument has been joined vigorously. The Nehruvian consensus is to be dismantled precisely because its preferred mode of political exchange is argument and persuasion.
Today we have a ruling clique that is in thrall of violence and its presumed curative influence in the society.
0コメント