Truth About India

Can We Get It?

Verrier Elwin

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2017
• ISBN:
  9781351859912
• Edition: 1
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: World History
• Index: History

Verrier Elwin wrote this book to show the people of Britain the situation in India as it appeared in the early 1930s. His book, first published in 1932 and full of valuable insights into India at the time as well as the British public's ignorance of the facts on the ground, is a powerful presentation of events of the time and an appeal to the people of Britain to face their responsibilities.

Appendix I
The Willingdon-Gandhi Correspondence

1. GANDHI’S FIRST TELEGRAM TO THE VICEROY

I was unprepared on landing yesterday to find Frontier and United Provinces Ordinances, shootings in Frontier and arrests of valued comrades in both on top of Bengal Ordinance awaiting me. I do not know whether I am to regard these as an indication that friendly relations between us are closed or whether you expect me still to see you and receive guidance from you as to the course I am to pursue in advising Congress. I would esteem wire in reply.

2. VICEROY’S REPLY

His Excellency desires me to thank you for your telegram of the 29th instant, in which you refer to Bengal and United Provinces and North-West Frontier Province Ordinances. In regard to Bengal it has been and is necessary for Government to take all possible measures to prevent dastardly assassination of their officers and of private citizens.

His Excellency wishes me to say that he and his Government desire to have friendly relations with all political parties and with all sections of the public, and in particular to securing cooperation of all in great work of constitutional reforms which they are determined to push forward with minimum delay. Cooperation, however, must be mutual and His Excellency and his Government cannot reconcile activities of Congress in United Provinces and North-West Frontier Province with the spirit of frank cooperation which the good of India demands.

As regards the United Provinces, you are doubtless aware that while the local Government were engaged in devising means to give all possible relief in the existing situation the Provincial Congress Committee authorized a no-rent campaign which is now being vigorously pursued by the Congress organizations in that province. This action on the part of the Congress bodies has compelled Government to take measures to prevent a general state of disorder and spreading of class and communal hatred which the campaign, if continued unchecked, would inevitably involve.

In the North-West Frontier Province, Abdul Ghaffar Khan and bodies he controlled have continuously engaged in activities against Government and in fomenting racial hatred. He and his friends have persistently refused all overtures by the Chief Commissioner to secure their cooperation and, rejecting declaration of the Prime Minister, have declared in favour of complete independence. Abdul Ghaffar Khan has delivered numerous speeches open to no other construction than as incitement to revolution and his adherents have attempted to stir trouble in the tribal areas. The Chief Commissioner, with the approval of His Excellency’s Government, has shown utmost forbearance and to the last moment continued his efforts to secure assistance of Abdul Ghaffar in carrying into effect, with the least possible delay, intentions of His Majesty’s Government regarding constitutional reforms in the province. Government refrained from taking special measures until the activities of Abdul Ghaffar Khan and his associates and, in particular, the open and intensive preparation for an early conflict with Government, created a situation of such grave menace to peace of the province and of the tribal areas as to make it impossible further to delay action. His Excellency understands that Abdul Ghaffar Khan was in August last made responsible for leading Congress movement in the province and that the volunteer organizations he controlled were specifically recognized by All-India Congress Committee as Congress organizations. His Excellency desires me to make it clear that his responsibilities for peace and order make it impossible for him to have any dealing with persons or organizations upon whom rest the responsibility for activities above outlined. You have yourself been absent from India on business of the Round Table Conference and in the light of the attitude which you have observed there His Excellency is unwilling to believe that you have personally any share in the responsibility for or that you approve of the recent activities of Congress in the United Provinces and the North-West Frontier Province. If this is so, he is willing to see you and to give you his views as to way in which you can best exert your influence to maintain the spirit of cooperation which animated the proceedings of the Round Table Conference. But His Excellency feels bound to emphasize that he will not be prepared to discuss with you measures which Government of India, with the full approval of His Majesty’s Government, have found it necessary to adopt in Bengal, the United Provinces, and the North-West Frontier Province. These measures must in any case be kept in force until they have served the purpose for which they were imposed, namely, preservation of law and order essential to good government. On receipt of your reply His Excellency proposes to publish this correspondence.

3. GANDHI’S SECOND TELEGRAM

I thank His Excellency for the wire in reply to mine of 29th instant. It grieves me, for His Excellency has rejected in a manner hardly befitting his high position an advance made in the friendliest spirit. I had approached as a seeker wanting light on questions in which I desired to understand Government version of very serious and extraordinary measures to which I made reference. Instead of appreciating my advance His Excellency has rejected it by asking me to repudiate my valued colleagues in advance by telling me that even if I” became guilty of such dishonourable conduct and sought an interview I could not even discuss these matters of vital importance to the nation. In my opinion, the constitutional issue dwindles into insignificance in the face of Ordinances and acts which must, if not met with stubborn resistance, result in utter demoralization of nation. I hope no self-respecting Indian will run risk of killing national spirit for doubtful contingency of securing a constitution, to work which no nation with stamina may be left. Let me also point out that as to Frontier Province your telegram contains a narration of facts which on face of them furnish no warrant for arrests of popular leaders, passing of extra-legal Ordinance making life and property utterly insecure, and shooting unarmed peaceful crowds for daring to demonstrate against arrests of their trusted leaders. If Khan Saheb Abdul Ghaffar asserted right to complete independence it was a natural claim and a claim made with impunity by Congress at Lahore in 1929 and by me with energy put before British Government in London. Moreover, let me remind the Viceroy that despite the knowledge on the part of Government that Congress mandate contained such a claim, I was invited to attend London Conference as the Congress delegate. Nor am I able to detect in a mere refusal to attend the Durbar a crime warranting summary imprisonment. If Khan Saheb was fomenting racial hatred it was undoubtedly regrettable. I have his own declarations to the contrary made to me, but assuming that he did foment racial hatred he was entitled to an open trial where he could have defended himself against the accusation. Regarding the United Provinces, His Excellency is surely misinformed, because there was no no-rent campaign authorized by Congress, but whilst negotiations were proceeding between the Government and the Congress representatives the time for collecting of rents actually arrived and rents began to be demanded freely. Congressmen were, therefore, obliged to advise tenants to suspend payment pending the result of negotiations, and Mr. Sherwani had offered on behalf of the Congress to withdraw this advice if the authorities on their own initiative suspended collections pending negotiations. I venture to suggest that this is not a matter which can be so summarily dismissed as your wire has done. The controversy in the United Provinces is of long standing and involves the well-being of millions of a peasantry known to be economically ground down. Any Government jealous of the welfare of the masses in its charge would welcome voluntary cooperation of a body like the Congress, which admittedly exercises great influence over the masses and whose ambition is to serve them faithfully, and let me add that I regard the withholding of payment of taxes as an inalienable ancient and natural right of a people who have exhausted all other means of seeking freedom from an unbearable economic burden. I must repudiate the suggestion that the Congress has the slightest desire to promote disorder in any shape or form. As to Bengal, the Congress is at one with the Government in condemning assassinations and would heartily cooperate with Government in any measures that may be found necessary to stamp out such crimes, but whilst Congress would condemn in unmeasured terms methods of terrorism it can in no way associate itself with Government terrorism as is betrayed by the Bengal Ordinance and the acts done thereunder, but must resist within limits of its prescribed creed of non-violence such measures of legalized Government terrorism. I heartily assent to the proposition laid down in your telegram that cooperation must be mutual. But your telegram leads me irresistibly to the conclusion that His Excellency demands cooperation from the Congress without returning any on behalf of Government. I can read in no other way his peremptory refusal to discuss these matters which as I have endeavoured to show have at least two sides. The popular side I have put as I understand it, but before committing myself to a definite judgment I was anxious to understand the other—that is, the Government side—and then tender my advice to the Congress. With reference to the last paragraph of your telegram I may not repudiate moral liability for the actions of my colleagues whether in the Frontier Province or United Provinces, but I confess that I was ignorant of the detailed actions and activities of my colleagues whilst I was absent from India, and it was because it was necessary for me to advise and guide the Working Committee of the Congress and in order to complete my knowledge I sought with an open mind with the best of intentions an interview with His Excellency and deliberately asked for his guidance. I cannot conceal from His Excellency my opinion that the reply he has condescended to send was hardly a return for my friendly and well-meant approach. And, if it is not yet too late, I would ask His Excellency to reconsider his decision and see me as a friend without imposing any conditions whatsoever as to the scope or subject of discussion, and I, on my part, can promise that I will study with an open mind all the facts that he might put before me. I would unhesitatingly and willingly go to the respective Provinces and with the aid of the authorities study both sides of the question and if I come to the conclusion after such a study that the people were in the wrong and that the Working Committee, including myself, were misled as to the correct position and that the Government was right, I should have no hesitation whatsoever in making that open confession and guiding the Congress accordingly. Along with my desire and willingness to cooperate with the Government I must put my limitations before His Excellency. Non-violence is my absolute creed. I believe in civil disobedience as not only the natural right of a people, especially when they have no effective voice in their own government, I regard it also as an effective substitute for violence or armed rebellion. I can never therefore deny my creed. In pursuance thereof and on the strength of uncontradicted reports supported by recent activities of the Government of India to the effect that there may be no other opportunity for me to guide the public, the Working Committee has accepted my advice and passed a resolution tentatively sketching a plan of civil disobedience. I am sending herewith a text of the resolution. If His Excellency thinks it worth while to see me pending discussion, operation of the resolution will be suspended in the hope that discussions may result in the resolutions being finally given up. I admit that correspondence between His Excellency and myself is of such grave importance as not to brook delay in publication. I am, therefore, sending my telegram, your reply, this rejoinder, and the Working Committee’s resolution for publication.

4. RESOLUTION OF THE WORKING COMMITTEE

The Working Committee has heard Mahatma Gandhi’s account of his visit to the West and considered the situation created by the extraordinary Ordinances promulgated in Bengal, United Provinces, and the Frontier Province, and by the actions of the authorities, including the numerous arrests made, among these of Khan Abdul Ghaffar Khan, Mr. Sherwani and Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru, and by the shooting in the Frontier Province of innocent men, resulting in many deaths and many more being injured. The Working Committee has also seen the telegram from His Excellency the Viceroy in reply to the telegram sent by Mahatma Gandhi to him.

Cooperation Made Impossible

The Working Committee is of opinion that these several acts, and others of lesser gravity that have taken place in some other Provinces, and the telegram from His Excellency seem to make further cooperation with the Government on the part of the Congress utterly impossible unless the Government policy is radically changed; these acts and the telegram betray no intention on the part of bureaucracy to hand power to the people and are calculated to demoralize the nation. They also betray want of faith in the Congress from which cooperation is expected by the Government.

The Working Committee yields to no one in its abhorrence of terrorism, on any account whatsoever, resorted to by individuals such as was recently witnessed in Bengal, but it condemns with equal force terrorism practised by Government as evidenced by its recent acts and ordinances.

The Working Committee marks the deep national humiliation over the assassination committed by two girls in Comilla, and is firmly convinced that such crime does great harm to the nation, especially when, through its greatest political mouthpiece of the Congress, it is pledged to non-violence for achieving Swaraj.

Bengal Ordinance Not Justified

But the Working Committee can see no justification whatsoever for the Bengal Ordinance which seeks to punish a whole people for the crime of a few. The real remedy lies in dealing with the known cause that prompts such crime.

If Bengal Ordinance has no justification for its existence, the Ordinances in the United Provinces and the Frontier Province have still less.

United Provinces Government Action Not Covered by Ordinance

The Working Committee is of opinion that the measures taken by the Congress in the United Provinces for obtaining agrarian relief are and can be shown to be justified. The Working Committee holds that it is the unquestionable right of all people suffering from grave economic distress, as the tenantry of the United Provinces is admittedly suffering, to withhold payment of rent if they fail, as in the United Provinces they have failed, to obtain redress by other constitutional methods. In the arrest and imprisonment of Mr. Sherwani, the President of the United Provinces Congress Committee, and Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru, the Working General Secretary of the Congress, who were proceeding to Bombay to confer with Mahatma Gandhi and to take part in the meeting of the Working Committee, the Government have even gone beyond the limits contemplated by their Ordinance in that there was no question whatsoever of these gentlemen taking part at Bombay in a no-tax campaign in the United Provinces.

Government’s Inhuman Acts in North-West Frontier Province

So far as the Frontier Province is concerned, on the Government’s own showing there appears to be no warrant for either the promulgation of the Ordinance or the arrest and imprisonment without trial of Khan Abdul Ghaffar Khan and his co-workers. The Working Committee regards the shootings in that province of innocent and unarmed men to be wanton and inhuman and congratulates the brave men of the Frontier upon their courage and endurance, and the Working’Committee has no doubt that, if the brave people of the Frontier retain their non-violent spirit in spite of the gravest provocations, their blood and their sufferings would advance the cause of India’s independence.

Impartial Public Inquiry Asked for

The Working Committee calls upon the Government of India to institute a public and impartial inquiry into the events that have led up to the passing of these Ordinances, the necessity of superseding the ordinary courts of law and legislative machinery, and the necessity of the several acts committed thereunder and thereafter. If a proper inquiry is set up and all facilities are given to the Working Committee for the production of evidence it will be prepared to assist the inquiry by leading evidence before it.

Prime Minister’s Declarations Unsatisfactory

The Working Committee has considered the declaration of the Prime Minister made before the Round Table Conference and the debate in the Houses of Parliament and regards it as wholly unsatisfactory and inadequate in terms of the Congress demand, and places on record its opinion that nothing short of complete Independence, carrying full control over defence and external affairs and finance, with such safeguards as may be demonstrably necessary in the interests of the nation, can be regarded by the Congress as satisfactory.

The Working Committee notes that the British Government was not prepared at the Round Table to regard the Congress as the only political organization representing and entitled to speak and act on behalf of the nation as a whole without distinction of caste, creed, or colour. At the same time the Committee recognizes with sorrow that the communal harmony could not be attained at the said conference.

An Invitation to the Nation

The Working Committee invites the nation, therefore, to make ceaseless effort to demonstrate the capacity of the Congress to represent the nation as a whole and promote atmosphere that would make a constitution framed on a purely national basis acceptable to the various communities composing the nation.

Meanwhile the Working Committee is prepared to tender cooperation to the Government provided His Excellency the Viceroy reconsiders his telegram, and adequate relief is granted in respec...