Mahatma Gandhi's True Legacy | the Rediscovery of India

Total Page:16

File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb

Mahatma Gandhi's True Legacy | the Rediscovery of India Mahatma Gandhi’s True Legacy | The Rediscovery of India http://www.sandeepweb.com/2012/10/04/mahatma-gandhis-true-legacy/... Type in The Rediscovery of India Home Commentary Indian Philosophy Indian Politics Islam Watch Media Watch Mahatma Gandhi’s True Legacy October 4, 2012 By Sandeep Exactly one refrain emanating from the 1970s generation encapsulates the significance of Mahatma Gandhi’s birthday: a complaint that October 2nd is a Dry Day. That’s what Gandhi has been reduced to after 65 years: a symbol of Prohibition that middle class India must vocally protest against. Of course, not with malice because somewhere deep down, Gandhi still commands respect. I picked the 1970s generation because this generation has benefitted the most from liberalization and the reforms that followed during the NDA regime. Among other things, these benefits have included exposure to various cultures across the globe, which has shaped and changed its worldview. One of the most significant of these changes is the casting away of the irrational taboo—rooted in fear—against alcohol, a taboo to which Gandhi contributed in great measure. Contrary to what Bapu claimed, middle class India has discovered the immensely liberating effects of alcohol. Put another way, today’s middle class India has definitively discarded Mahatma Gandhi. Quite long ago. And most certainly not under influence. However, while it lasted, Gandhi’s influence was enormous and almost all-pervasive. So much so that even a fine mind like Sita Ram Goel’s developed temporary opaqueness when it came to the subject of Mahatma Gandhi. The harshest criticism Goel reserves for Gandhi is a mild rebuke on the subject of the latter’s inordinate Muslim appeasement. Now, don’t believe anybody who talks about how “complex” it is to write about Gandhi’s legacy. They’re either ignorant or hypocritical. There’s no third explanation. If not for any reason but for the simple fact that Gandhi happens to be perhaps the earliest and the most successful PR exercise—an exercise that still endures in the West. It’s as if there was no other contemporary leader in India who could effectively fight the British. It’s as if India had to await the Mahatma who came from South Africa, and in a few years, take over the Congress party and deliver freedom to the nation. Not characteristically very different from say, Jesus Christ and Mohammad. But let’s cut the PR props. Consider this: a sample of Gandhi’s “legacy” occurred in his own lifetime when the actual worth of the force of his “moral” and whatever other purity and force that supposedly made the mighty British tremble in their knees was put to test. The same throngs of Congress stalwarts who slaved for years at Gandhi’s feet simply bypassed him when the British announced that they wanted to finally quit. And then we have the well-known story of how the claim of “Partition over my dead body” was violently shattered. In both cases, he was left alone. Fasting. Only this time, nobody cared whether he lived or died at the end of the fast. Bereft of all frills, Gandhi’s actual legacy is just twofold. One, he killed the spirit of free, fearless and robust intellectual discourse, which was thriving until the time of Balagangadhar Tilak and later, briefly, Aurobindo Ghosh. It is worth recalling what D.V. Gundappa wrote (which I’ve translated earlier) in this connection as early as 1928. Newspapers prior to Gandhi’s time freely carried writings and debates on a broad range of diverse topics. It was commonly accepted by all readers that every question or issue had two, three, or even four alternative or differing perspectives. It was also equally accepted that it was essential to objectively examine each of these perspectives. Thus, Gokhale had his own path carved out, Tilak had his, Lala Lajpat Rai had his, and Surendranath Banerjee had his. Public discourse freely and gladly welcomed and allowed space for everybody. People examined the merits and deficiencies of disparate opinions. After Gandhi entered the scene, people lost this practice of critically examining any topic or issue and approaching it from multiple perspectives. The emphasis suddenly shifted in favour of a unilateral political voice which therefore meant that no obstacle should 1 of 21You created this PDF from an application that is not licensed to print to novaPDF printer (http://www.novapdf.com) 11/17/2012 5:33 PM Mahatma Gandhi’s True Legacy | The Rediscovery of India http://www.sandeepweb.com/2012/10/04/mahatma-gandhis-true-legacy/... hinder the Mahatma’s leadership. The impression sought to be conveyed to the British as Type in well as the international community was that India had spoken if Gandhi had spoken and that he had no opposition. Gradually, a situation arose where people began to believe that unless this impression was convincingly made, we wouldn’t achieve Independence. No public gathering or speech was complete without the slogan of Gandhiji ki Jai! Slowly, this escalated to the level of thought—nobody could even think about Gandhi without the mandatory Mahatma prefix. Our newspapers and opinion-makers quickly followed suit. Their stance was that perchance somebody found something to disagree with even one thing that Gandhi said, he or she had to compulsorily suppress its expression. Thus the national atmosphere of discourse quickly became one where nobody could ever think of something different from what Gandhi thought. The minds of the general public—both literate and otherwise—soon became habituated to conformity, which then turned to blind loyalty towards a partisan idea. In this light, is it any wonder that a sub-standard mind like Nehru so easily became the first Prime Minister? And is it any surprise that people with original thought and spotless conduct were shunted out of the Indian National Congress barely years after we achieved Independence? Two, Gandhi castrated India—I use that word with caution. Historically, the one thing that enabled India to withstand and successfully repulse the Islamic and other alien onslaughts for nearly a thousand years was the Kshatra or the warrior spirit. The native kingdoms were badly beaten and subdued but they were never fully conquered. They rebounded with double the vigour and reclaimed their ancestral homeland. In fact, as long as the Marathas and Ranjit Singh were around, the British found it really tough to take control of the entire country. And to their credit, praise is due to the British strategy: they spotted that this spirit of Kshatra was one of the biggest obstacles they had to overcome. Which they did. Indeed, from the 1857 revolt till the founding of the INA, there was not a single instance of a nationwide armed uprising against the British. Of these 85 years, Gandhi hogged the freedom struggle for a precious, ruinous 27 years (I’m counting from 1920 when he took over the Congress party’s leadership) and injected liberal doses of toxic non-violence into an already-oppressed nation. Christopher Hitchens, in a damning but highly accurate assessment, observes that Gandhi’s was not a “struggle for India, but with it.” (Italics in the original) And because he is painted as the man who got us freedom, the logical question arises: did he really get us freedom? Put another way, did India really fight to obtain freedom? If we had really fought for freedom—if we had shed the blood of our own people and that of the British, there’s no way—and this has to be said again—we would have allowed a clueless person like Nehru to become Prime Minister. The maximum hardship that the leading non-violent lights of the freedom struggle had known were a few beatings and spells in jail—our first Prime Minister was fashionable even as a prisoner. Those who actually shed blood were few in number and mostly disorganized and fought in individual capacity and were therefore easily vanquished. Worse, they were chastised by that Apostle of non-violence who had patented the definitions of freedom struggle and patriotism. India didn’t really fight—with sweat and blood—for freedom. India blindly followed the personal prescriptions of right and wrong, good and bad, moral and immoral of one man. Barring the Dandi March, everything Gandhi touched turned to ashes. Pick any major failed epoch of the freedom struggle and you will see the Mahatma’s non-violent imprint of doom on it. Gandhi’s heady potions of ahimsa and satyagraha robbed Indians of the incentive to put up a fierce resistance, the kind that actually made the British tremble in their knees, the kind that Subash Bose inspired. The idea of a violent freedom struggle is not the fact of using violence as an end in itself. Violent freedom struggle is effective when it is used as a brutal, fatal, and the ultimate weapon aimed at making it prohibitively expensive for the colonizer to remain for a minute longer in his ill-gotten empire. Indeed, the British couldn’t have asked for a better boon than Gandhi whose idea of a non-violent resistance must have amused them to no end. While they were merely beating up thousands of Gandhi’s minions, they meted out a different sort of treatment to the hapless millions in their other empires in various parts of Africa (it’d be instructive to find out if Gandhi had read Conrad’s heart-rending Heart of Darkness). An even uglier facet of Gandhi’s legacy is hypocrisy. For a Mahatma who waxed eloquent about leading a moral and virtuous life, it boggles the mind how and why he was unable to instil these values into the heart and head of his blue-eyed boy.
Recommended publications
  • Pakistan-U.S. Relations
    Order Code RL33498 CRS Report for Congress Received through the CRS Web Pakistan-U.S. Relations Updated October 26, 2006 K. Alan Kronstadt Specialist in Asian Affairs Foreign Affairs, Defense, and Trade Division Congressional Research Service ˜ The Library of Congress Pakistan-U.S. Relations Summary A stable, democratic, economically thriving Pakistan is considered vital to U.S. interests. U.S. concerns regarding Pakistan include regional terrorism; Pakistan- Afghanistan relations; weapons proliferation; the ongoing Kashmir problem and Pakistan-India tensions; human rights protection; and economic development. A U.S.-Pakistan relationship marked by periods of both cooperation and discord was transformed by the September 2001 terrorist attacks on the United States and the ensuing enlistment of Pakistan as a key ally in U.S.-led counterterrorism efforts. Top U.S. officials regularly praise Islamabad for its ongoing cooperation, although doubts exist about Islamabad’s commitment to some core U.S. interests. Pakistan is identified as a base for terrorist groups and their supporters operating in Kashmir, India, and Afghanistan. Since late 2003, Pakistan’s army has been conducting unprecedented counterterrorism operations in the country’s western tribal areas. Separatist violence in India’s Muslim-majority Jammu and Kashmir state has continued unabated since 1989, with some notable relative decline in recent years. India has blamed Pakistan for the infiltration of Islamic militants into Indian Kashmir, a charge Islamabad denies. The United States reportedly has received pledges from Islamabad that all “cross-border terrorism” would cease and that any terrorist facilities in Pakistani-controlled areas would be closed. Similar pledges have been made to India.
    [Show full text]
  • Contribution of Bengal in Freedom Struggle by CDT Nikita Maity Reg No
    Contribution of Bengal in freedom struggle By CDT Nikita Maity Reg No: WB19SWN136584 No 1 Bengal Naval NCC Unit Kol-C, WB&Sikkim Directorate Freedom is something which given to every organism who has born on this Earth. It is that right which is given to everyone irrespective of anything. India (Bharat) was one of prosperous country of the world and people from different parts of world had come to rule over her, want to take her culture and heritage but she had always been brave and protected herself from various invaders. The last and the worst invader was British East India Company. BEIC not only drained India‟s wealth but also had destroyed our rich culture and knowledge. They had tried to completely destroy India in every aspect. But we Indian were not going to let them be successful in their dirty plan. Every section of Indian society had revolved in their own way. One of the major and consistent revolved was going in then Bengal province. In Bengal, from writer to fighter and from men to women everyone had given everything for freedom. One of the prominent forefront freedom fighter was Netaji Shubhas Chandra Bose. Netaji was born on 23rd January, 1897 in Cuttack. He had studied in Presidency College. In 1920 he passed the civil service examination, but in April 1921, after hearing of the nationalist turmoil in India, he resigned his candidacy and hurried back to India. He started the newspaper 'Swaraj'. He was founder of Indian National Army(INA) or Azad Hind Fauj. There was also an all-women regiment named after Rani of Jhanshi, Lakshmibai.
    [Show full text]
  • As Israel's Political Parties Fight for Role of Kingmaker, Religious
    Selected articles concerning Israel, published weekly by Suburban Orthodox Toras Chaim’s (Baltimore) Israel Action Committee Edited by Jerry Appelbaum ( [email protected] ) | Founding editor: Sheldon J. Berman Z”L Issue 8 8 1 Volume 2 1 , Number 1 2 Parshas Vayikra March 20 , 20 2 1 As Israel’s Political Parties Fight for Role of Kingmaker, Religious - Secular Divide Comes to the Fore By Haviv Rettig Gur timesofisrael.com March 15, 2021 Two very different parties have found in each other lawmakers and some Haredi party activists sharing p hotos the perfect enemies. of emaciated bodies being carried on wheelbarrows during Eight days to election day, the race between the pro - the Holocaust. and anti - Netanyahu camps is close. So close, in fact, that The video clip of that line went viral on Hebrew - neither side can hope to piece together an effective language social media. Few noticed the exchange that government. followed, in which Liberman went on to explain If Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu manages to something important about his campaign strategy — he eke out a slim majority, it will likely b e so slim that he will needs to boost support by driving secular voters to the find himself forced to cater to the whims of the most polls. right - wing lawmakers on the ballot. Netanyahu’s Challenged again by Asayag that he cannot push both opponents, meanwhile, theoretically led by Yair Lapid of Netanyahu and the Haredi parties out of government Yesh Atid, may well be too divided and diverse to produce simultaneously and will end up “hugging [Shas leader a manageable coa lition.
    [Show full text]
  • President Obama's Indiana Legacy
    V22, N21 Thursday, Jan. 19, 2017 President Obama’s Indiana legacy night, praying their kids Auto industry saved and don’t get sick. We’re revived, but Hoosiers talking about families who’ve lost the home loathe Obamacare, and that was the corner, their foundation for Democrats decimated their American Dream. “Those are the By BRIAN A. HOWEY stories I heard when INDIANAPOLIS – On Feb. 9, 2009, I came to Elkhart six President Barack Obama came to Elkhart, months ago, and those a city where he had campaigned several are the stories that I times during his 2008 campaign. While he carried with me to the didn’t carry Elkhart County, losing 55-44%, White House. I have he won Indiana’s 11 Electoral College not forgotten them,” votes. The jobless rate in Elkhart had gone Obama said. “And I from 4.7% in 2008 to 15% as the Great promised you back Recession took aim at the recreational then that if elected I’d vehicle and domestic auto industries. do everything I could Noting the 3.6 million jobs lost to help this community since September 2008, and 600,000 during Candidate Barack Obama at the American Legion Mall in recover, and that’s why the month he was sworn in, Obama said at Indianapolis in May 2008. (HPI Photo by A. Walker Shaw) I came back today, be- Concord High School, “We’re talking about cause I intend to keep people in the audience here today. We’re my promise. But you know, the work is going to be hard.
    [Show full text]
  • Contributions of Lala Har Dayal As an Intellectual and Revolutionary
    CONTRIBUTIONS OF LALA HAR DAYAL AS AN INTELLECTUAL AND REVOLUTIONARY ABSTRACT THESIS SUBMITTED FOR THE AWARD OF THE DEGREE OF ^ntiat ai pijtl000pi{g IN }^ ^ HISTORY By MATT GAOR CENTRE OF ADVANCED STUDY DEPARTMENT OF HISTORY ALIGARH MUSLIM UNIVERSITY ALIGARH (INDIA) 2007 ,,» '*^d<*'/. ' ABSTRACT India owes to Lala Har Dayal a great debt of gratitude. What he did intotality to his mother country is yet to be acknowledged properly. The paradox ridden Har Dayal - a moody idealist, intellectual, who felt an almost mystical empathy with the masses in India and America. He kept the National Independence flame burning not only in India but outside too. In 1905 he went to England for Academic pursuits. But after few years he had leave England for his revolutionary activities. He stayed in America and other European countries for 25 years and finally returned to England where he wrote three books. Har Dayal's stature was so great that its very difficult to put him under one mould. He was visionary who all through his life devoted to Boddhi sattava doctrine, rational interpretation of religions and sharing his erudite knowledge for the development of self culture. The proposed thesis seeks to examine the purpose of his returning to intellectual pursuits in England. Simultaneously the thesis also analyses the contemporary relevance of his works which had a common thread of humanism, rationalism and scientific temper. Relevance for his ideas is still alive as it was 50 years ago. He was true a patriotic who dreamed independence for his country. He was pioneer for developing science in laymen and scientific temper among youths.
    [Show full text]
  • Nationalism in India Lesson
    DC-1 SEM-2 Paper: Nationalism in India Lesson: Beginning of constitutionalism in India Lesson Developer: Anushka Singh Research scholar, Political Science, University of Delhi 1 Institute of Lifelog learning, University of Delhi Content: Introducing the chapter What is the idea of constitutionalism A brief history of the idea in the West and its introduction in the colony The early nationalists and Indian Councils Act of 1861 and 1892 More promises and fewer deliveries: Government of India Acts, 1909 and 1919 Post 1919 developments and India’s first attempt at constitution writing Government of India Act 1935 and the building blocks to a future constitution The road leading to the transfer of power The theory of constitutionalism at work Conclusion 2 Institute of Lifelog learning, University of Delhi Introduction: The idea of constitutionalism is part of the basic idea of liberalism based on the notion of individual’s right to liberty. Along with other liberal notions,constitutionalism also travelled to India through British colonialism. However, on the one hand, the ideology of liberalism guaranteed the liberal rightsbut one the other hand it denied the same basic right to the colony. The justification to why an advanced liberal nation like England must colonize the ‘not yet’ liberal nation like India was also found within the ideology of liberalism itself. The rationale was that British colonialism in India was like a ‘civilization mission’ to train the colony how to tread the path of liberty.1 However, soon the English educated Indian intellectual class realised the gap between the claim that British Rule made and the oppressive and exploitative reality of colonialism.Consequently,there started the movement towards autonomy and self-governance by Indians.
    [Show full text]
  • Rule Section
    Rule Section CO 827/2015 Shyamal Middya vs Dhirendra Nath Middya CO 542/1988 Jayadratha Adak vs Kadan Bala Adak CO 1403/2015 Sankar Narayan das vs A.K.Banerjee CO 1945/2007 Pradip kr Roy vs Jali Devi & Ors CO 2775/2012 Haripada Patra vs Jayanta Kr Patra CO 3346/1989 + CO 3408/1992 R.B.Mondal vs Syed Ali Mondal CO 1312/2007 Niranjan Sen vs Sachidra lal Saha CO 3770/2011 lily Ghose vs Paritosh Karmakar & ors CO 4244/2006 Provat kumar singha vs Afgal sk CO 2023/2006 Piar Ali Molla vs Saralabala Nath CO 2666/2005 Purnalal seal vs M/S Monindra land Building corporation ltd CO 1971/2006 Baidyanath Garain& ors vs Hafizul Fikker Ali CO 3331/2004 Gouridevi Paswan vs Rajendra Paswan CR 3596 S/1990 Bakul Rani das &ors vs Suchitra Balal Pal CO 901/1995 Jeewanlal (1929) ltd& ors vs Bank of india CO 995/2002 Susan Mantosh vs Amanda Lazaro CO 3902/2012 SK Abdul latik vs Firojuddin Mollick & ors CR 165 S/1990 State of west Bengal vs Halema Bibi & ors CO 3282/2006 Md kashim vs Sunil kr Mondal CO 3062/2011 Ajit kumar samanta vs Ranjit kumar samanta LIST OF PENDING BENCH LAWAZIMA : (F.A. SECTION) Sl. No. Case No. Cause Title Advocate’s Name 1. FA 114/2016 Union Bank of India Mr. Ranojit Chowdhury Vs Empire Pratisthan & Trading 2. FA 380/2008 Bijon Biswas Smt. Mita Bag Vs Jayanti Biswas & Anr. 3. FA 116/2016 Sarat Tewari Ms. Nibadita Karmakar Vs Swapan Kr. Tewari 4.
    [Show full text]
  • The Great Calcutta Killings Noakhali Genocide
    1946 : THE GREAT CALCUTTA KILLINGS AND NOAKHALI GENOCIDE 1946 : THE GREAT CALCUTTA KILLINGS AND NOAKHALI GENOCIDE A HISTORICAL STUDY DINESH CHANDRA SINHA : ASHOK DASGUPTA No part of this publication can be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise without the prior permission of the author and the publisher. Published by Sri Himansu Maity 3B, Dinabandhu Lane Kolkata-700006 Edition First, 2011 Price ` 500.00 (Rupees Five Hundred Only) US $25 (US Dollars Twenty Five Only) © Reserved Printed at Mahamaya Press & Binding, Kolkata Available at Tuhina Prakashani 12/C, Bankim Chatterjee Street Kolkata-700073 Dedication In memory of those insatiate souls who had fallen victims to the swords and bullets of the protagonist of partition and Pakistan; and also those who had to undergo unparalleled brutality and humility and then forcibly uprooted from ancestral hearth and home. PREFACE What prompted us in writing this Book. As the saying goes, truth is the first casualty of war; so is true history, the first casualty of India’s struggle for independence. We, the Hindus of Bengal happen to be one of the worst victims of Islamic intolerance in the world. Bengal, which had been under Islamic attack for centuries, beginning with the invasion of the Turkish marauder Bakhtiyar Khilji eight hundred years back. We had a respite from Islamic rule for about two hundred years after the English East India Company defeated the Muslim ruler of Bengal. Siraj-ud-daulah in 1757. But gradually, Bengal had been turned into a Muslim majority province.
    [Show full text]
  • Dictionary of Martyrs: India's Freedom Struggle
    DICTIONARY OF MARTYRS INDIA’S FREEDOM STRUGGLE (1857-1947) Vol. 5 Andhra Pradesh, Telangana, Karnataka, Tamil Nadu & Kerala ii Dictionary of Martyrs: India’s Freedom Struggle (1857-1947) Vol. 5 DICTIONARY OF MARTYRSMARTYRS INDIA’S FREEDOM STRUGGLE (1857-1947) Vol. 5 Andhra Pradesh, Telangana, Karnataka, Tamil Nadu & Kerala General Editor Arvind P. Jamkhedkar Chairman, ICHR Executive Editor Rajaneesh Kumar Shukla Member Secretary, ICHR Research Consultant Amit Kumar Gupta Research and Editorial Team Ashfaque Ali Md. Naushad Ali Md. Shakeeb Athar Muhammad Niyas A. Published by MINISTRY OF CULTURE, GOVERNMENT OF IDNIA AND INDIAN COUNCIL OF HISTORICAL RESEARCH iv Dictionary of Martyrs: India’s Freedom Struggle (1857-1947) Vol. 5 MINISTRY OF CULTURE, GOVERNMENT OF INDIA and INDIAN COUNCIL OF HISTORICAL RESEARCH First Edition 2018 Published by MINISTRY OF CULTURE Government of India and INDIAN COUNCIL OF HISTORICAL RESEARCH 35, Ferozeshah Road, New Delhi - 110 001 © ICHR & Ministry of Culture, GoI No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher. ISBN 978-81-938176-1-2 Printed in India by MANAK PUBLICATIONS PVT. LTD B-7, Saraswati Complex, Subhash Chowk, Laxmi Nagar, New Delhi 110092 INDIA Phone: 22453894, 22042529 [email protected] State Co-ordinators and their Researchers Andhra Pradesh & Telangana Karnataka (Co-ordinator) (Co-ordinator) V. Ramakrishna B. Surendra Rao S.K. Aruni Research Assistants Research Assistants V. Ramakrishna Reddy A.B. Vaggar I. Sudarshan Rao Ravindranath B.Venkataiah Tamil Nadu Kerala (Co-ordinator) (Co-ordinator) N.
    [Show full text]
  • Conspiracy Rises Again Racial Sympathy and Radical Solidarity Across Empires
    Conspiracy Rises Again Racial Sympathy and Radical Solidarity across Empires poulomi saha When in 1925 members of the Jugantar, a secret revolutionary asso- ciation in colonial India, began to conceive of what they believed to be a more effective strategy of anticolonial revolt than that of non- violence promoted at the time by the mainstream Congress Party in Chittagong, they chose for themselves a new name: the Indian Re- publican Army (IRA). In so doing, they explicitly constructed a rev- olutionary genealogy from which their future actions were to draw inspiration, a direct link between the anticolonial revolt in East Ben- gal and the 1916 Easter Uprising in Ireland.1 The 1930 attack on the Chittagong Armory, the first in a series of revolutionary actions tak- en by the IRA, also marked the anniversary of the Irish rebellion. The very language of Irish revolt seeped into the practices of the Indian organization as they smuggled in illegal copies of the writings of Dan Breen and Éamon de Valera and began each meeting with a reading of the Proclamation of the Irish Provisional Government. The ideological and textual kinship between these two anticolo- nial communities and another former holding of the British empire, the United States, illuminates transcolonial circuits that formed a qui parle Vol. 28, No. 2, December 2019 doi 10.1215/10418385-7861837 © 2019 Editorial Board, Qui Parle Downloaded from https://read.dukeupress.edu/qui-parle/article-pdf/28/2/307/740477/307saha.pdf by UNIV CA BERKELEY PERIODICALS user on 05 February 2020 308 qui parle december 2019 vol.
    [Show full text]
  • Swap an Das' Gupta Local Politics
    SWAP AN DAS' GUPTA LOCAL POLITICS IN BENGAL; MIDNAPUR DISTRICT 1907-1934 Theses submitted in fulfillment of the Doctor of Philosophy degree, School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London, 1980, ProQuest Number: 11015890 All rights reserved INFORMATION TO ALL USERS The quality of this reproduction is dependent upon the quality of the copy submitted. In the unlikely event that the author did not send a com plete manuscript and there are missing pages, these will be noted. Also, if material had to be removed, a note will indicate the deletion. uest ProQuest 11015890 Published by ProQuest LLC(2018). Copyright of the Dissertation is held by the Author. All rights reserved. This work is protected against unauthorized copying under Title 17, United States C ode Microform Edition © ProQuest LLC. ProQuest LLC. 789 East Eisenhower Parkway P.O. Box 1346 Ann Arbor, Ml 48106- 1346 Abstract This thesis studies the development and social character of Indian nationalism in the Midnapur district of Bengal* It begins by showing the Government of Bengal in 1907 in a deepening political crisis. The structural imbalances caused by the policy of active intervention in the localities could not be offset by the ’paternalistic* and personalised district administration. In Midnapur, the situation was compounded by the inability of government to secure its traditional political base based on zamindars. Real power in the countryside lay in the hands of petty landlords and intermediaries who consolidated their hold in the economic environment of growing commercialisation in agriculture. This was reinforced by a caste movement of the Mahishyas which injected the district with its own version of 'peasant-pride'.
    [Show full text]
  • Khudiram Bose the Symbol of Valiance and Death Defying Youth
    Khudiram Bose The Symbol of Valiance and Death Defying Youth The silent night was approaching dawn. Footsteps of the guards in the jail corridor broke the silence. Slowly it stopped before the ‘condemned cell’. When the get was opened, a teenage boy with a smiling innocent face greeted them. He advanced in fearless strides to embrace death, with the guards merely following him. He stood upright on the execution platform, with the smile unfaded. His face was covered with green cloth, hands were tied behind, the rope encircled his neck. The boy stood unflinched. With the signal of the jailor Mr. Woodman, hangman pulled the lever. The rope swinging a little became still. It was 6 am. The day was 11th August 1908. The martyrdom of death defying Khudiram demarcated the onset of a new era in the course of Indian freedom movement. The martyrdom of Khudiram rocked the entire nation. The dormant youth of a subject nation, oblivious of its own strength, dignity and valor shook off its hibernation. Khudiram’s martyrom brought a new meaning of life, new concept of dignity to the youth of his day. In his wake, like wave after wave, hundreds and thousands of martyrs upheld the truth that the only way to lead a dignified life is by dedicating it for the noblest cause, freedom. They came one after another, incessantly, shed their bloods, faced terrible torture, but never bowed their heads down. 3rd December 1889. Khudiram was born at Habibpur village, adjacent to Midnapore town. His father was Troilokyanath and his mother was Laksmipriya Devi.
    [Show full text]