TOWARDS FREEDOM — Documents on the Movement for Independence in India, 1939 — Part 2: Edited by Mushirul Hasan; Oxford University Press, YMCA Building, Jai Singh Road, New Delh-110001. Rs. 3950.
This book, which is the second part of Mushirul Hasan-edited Towards Freedom 1939 volume, revolves round two basic themes: intensifying anti-colonial and protest politics, and the rising communalism. With a discerning editorial acumen, Hasan collects engaging material from official and non-official sources to provide new openings for researching a year so crucial for India’s march to freedom.
Labour turbulence
The first part, also reviewed by me in these columns, had four chapters, and this part opens with the fifth. It presents 79 crucial documents on rising working class militancy, the leadership to which primarily came from the communists and the socialists. Labour strikes encountered police brutalities, the worst instances being the ones witnessed at Chittivalsa Jute Mills, Bombay Cotton Mills, the Digboi Oil fields, and Assam Tea gardens. By including Indian government’s Statistics on Industrial Disputes and Weekly Reviews of Labour Situation, the volume has enriched our understanding of labour turbulence.
Hasan’s documentation questions the popular wisdom that Left politics essentially countered Gandhian nationalism. Instead, the Communist Party of India found the Congress the only common national platform. It only sought isolation of the Rightists within the Congress and develop, what A.K. Gopalan called, the ‘United Front’ to bring the working class into mainstream nationalism. But the Linlithgow Papers reveal colonial officials’ attempts to drive a wedge between the Congress and the Left trade unionists. The unsympathetic attitude of the provincial Congress ministries to labour politics was evident from the Bombay Industrial Disputes Act and ministers’ comments such as : “the slogans of labour and socialist parties sounded as empty shibboleths.” C. Rajagopalachariar warned: “you cannot trifle with these strikes and take them as a tamasha.”
The sixth chapter deals with the much-discussed Tripuri Congress, which saw Subhas’s election as the Congress president, despite Gandhiji’s opposition. Subhas, however, took the result in a “sporting spirit” and pleaded with the Bapu to lead the “struggle”, assuring him of his “help.” But Gandhiji’s ideological rift with Subhas was strikingly revealed when he wrote to him: “The views you express seem to me to be so diametrically opposed to those of … my own that I do not see any possibility of bridging them.” Many like Jawaharlal reportedly opposed Subhas strategically, to avoid “organisational consequences.”
Subhas’ forced resignation from presidency indicated the inevitability of Gandhiji’s domination over Indian politics and the triumph of, what the British observer Haig called, Gandhiji’s strategy “to let the Left wing have plenty of rope and if possible hang themselves.” The Tripuri incident witnessed intra-Congress bickering, making Gandhiji see “anarchy and red ruin” and raise the issues of “corruption” among Congressmen and tampering in the election process.
The volume testifies to the growing political assertion of women. Women organised satyagraha in Bihar when police opposed forcible cultivation of bakasht land by tenants. Issues of dissolution of marriage by women under Muslim Law, Hindu women’s right to divorce and property, and spread of women’s education attracted public attention. Women organisations became active in promoting communal peace, where Rajkumari Amrit Kaur claimed, men “failed miserably.”
Conscience
Hasan effectively documents Muslim nationalist conscience. The Jamiyat al-Ulema dubbed the Pakistan scheme “cultural ghettoisation” of Indian Muslims; the Ahrar conferences considered the Muslim League detrimental to “both Islam and the motherland”; the All India Momin Conference, claiming to represent the 45 million low class Muslims, opposed Muslim separatism. Muslim personalities like M.C. Chagla and many leaders of the League criticised Jinnah’s call to celebrate the day of resignation of Congress ministries as the “day of deliverance.” Hasrat Mohani attempted formation of a Left wing within the League. Mushirul Hasan thus calls for a “critical interpretation” of the interplay between the “forces of Islamic reaction and nationalist radicalism.”
The seventh chapter deals with Left-oriented nationalist politics. The roles of the All-India Students’ Federation and other youth organisations in fighting imperialism and communalism and advocating progressive education, and of the All-India Progressive Writers’ Association in bringing literature and art into “closest touch with the people and actualities of life” find due space. This was, however, the time when the Congress leadership became intolerant of communist sympathisers within the party. Rejection of Sundarayya’s nomination to the Tripuri Congress for being a communist, and Gandhiji’s refusal to endorse the delegate status of those “who believe in the use of violence exemplified by Lenin” typified the party high command’s rigidity. The two separate notes of the Home Department and the Intelligence Bureau offer penetrating analyses of the CPI’s organisational structure, its programme of action, and its links with the Soviet and the British Communist parties.
Sectarianism
The last chapter collates papers on Muslim and Hindu sectarianism. The Muslim League and the Hindu Mahasabha championed exclusivist values — the former claiming the Indian Muslims as a separate nation with the right of self-determination, and the latter advocating a Dharma Yuddha for Hindu raj.
The League viewed Gandhiji’s Wardha Scheme on education, premised on inclusive education and democratic values, as threatening Muslim traditions. To promote Muslim separatism Jinnah even contended: “Democracy is unsuited to the genius of India.” The suspicion that the League played into British hands gains strength with such acknowledgments as the Viceroy’s gratitude to Jinnah for “valuable help by standing firm against Congress.” The period, however, witnessed the Shia-Sunni tensions, which Nehru found “something unbelievable.”
This volume is a punctilious documentation of, what Hasan calls, a divided nation’s move “into the next decade haltingly.” As with other volumes of the series, Sabyasachi Bhattacharya’s preface is thought-provoking. His suggestion to explore whether conceiving identity assertions in cultural terms alienated communities from mainstream nationalism, and his stress on distinguishing community from communal consciousness should be pointers to new areas of research.
http://www.hindu.com/br/2009/08/04/stories/2009080450371200.htm
