Eternal India Encyclopedia

Eternal India encyclopedia

FREEDOM MOVEMENT

TRIBUTES unanimous wish for freedom is Mahatma Gandhi. A great man is like good sculpture, made of one piece. A great man lives a single-tracked life. Lincoln was great. He lived for the Union. Lenin was great, he lived in order to raise Russia out of the feudal mire. Churchill is great because all of his acts have been directed towards tke preservation of England as a first class power and in the same way Gandhi is great because every single act that he performs is calculated to promote the one great aim of his life - the liberation of India. His function ends when he frees India." Lord Halifax : “I suppose there can be few men in all history who by their personal character and example have been able deeply to influence the thought of their generation. ” Stafford Cripps There has been no greater spiritual leader in the world in our own times”. Dr. Rajendra Prasad : “.... he has given us

and the world a moral substitute for war. He has placed truth on its pedestal of glory even in politics, no matter how harmful its effect appears to be at the moment. ” Jawaharlal Nehru (at Gandhi’s death) : “The light that shone in this country was no or- dinary light; the light that has illumined this country for many years will illumine this country for many more years still, and a thousand years later that light will still be seen in this country, and the world will see it and it will give solace to innumerable hearts, for that light represented some- thing more than the immediate. ” Morarji Desai : “Mahatma Gandhi be- lieved in the divinity of Man and therefore his life and teachings are valid for all time and for all mankind. ” Indira Gandhi: “The Mahatma's great leg- acy is the secularism for which he gave his life. Secularism means neither irreligion nor indifference to religion, but equal re- spect for all religions- not mere tolerance, but positive respect. ” Later Nehru came increasingly to be regarded as Gandhi's heir-apparent. De- votion to the cause of Indian freedom, and compassion for the lot of the nation's poor, created between the two men an indissol- uble bond. In their attitudes toward other questions, however, Nehru and Gandhi were poles apart. Nehru's ideal India was a centralized modern state with a planned industrial economy. Despite their intellectual differ- ences, however, Nehru found in Gandhi a faithful friend and a wise counsellor. At one time he telegraphed him, “I feel lost in a strange country where you are the only familiar landmark...” And after Gandhi's assassination he mourned, “the light has gone out of our lives and there is darkness everywhere. ” India was fortunate in having Nehru as Prime Minister after independence in 1947, for he provided the dynamic leadership nec- essary to preserve national unity and ac- celerate economic progress. His sponsor- ship of a ‘third force’ of neutralist nations and his role as mediator between the Western democracies and the Communist powers enhanced India's position in world affairs. (Ref. Sec. K-Polity in VoUI, Nehru as Prime Minister 1947 - 64 )

Gandhi combined in himself the dual role of a saint and an active politician. He had been called by some 'the most saintly among politicians' and by others 'the most political saint.' According to Jawaharlal Nehru, “Gandhi was a unique personality and it was impos- sible to judge him by the usual standards, or even to apply the ordinary canons of logic to him According to Edward Thompson, " He is a superb judge of other men. His humanity is one of the profoundest things that history has seen. He has pity and love for every race, and most of all for the poor and op- pressed. " Romain Rolland : ''Mahatma Gandhi has raised up three hundred million of his fel- lowmen, shaken the British empire and inaugurated in human politics the most powerful movement that the whole world has seen for nearly two thousand years." Louis Fischer : "The symbol of India's He was bom on 14th November, 1889 in Allahabad. His father Motilal Nehru was a successful and wealthy lawyer. At seventeen he entered Cambridge Univer- sity; and at twenty he went down to London to take his law degree at the Inns of Court. He returned to India in 1912 to practice law. His father's position as leading Mod- erate in the Indian National Congress, brought Nehru to the freedom struggle. He joined the Congress and began to speak at its sessions, but it was not until 1920, when Gandhi launched his great Non Co-operation movement against British rule, that Jawaharlal found full expression for his energies. He made tours in remote village areas discovering the hard lot of the peas- antry, organized volunteer workers, and delivered speeches to large patriotic gath- erings. “I experienced (then) the thrill of mass feeling, the power of influencing the mass. ” Jawaharlal was disappointed by Gandhi's sudden suspension of the Non- Co-operation movement in 1922 after an outbreak of violence. A trip to Europe for his wife's (Kamala Nehru) health in 1926- 27 gave him a new perspective on the con- flict between Indian nationalism and British rule. Conversations with Socialists and Communists -in Europe - especially at the

JAWAHARLAL NEHRU (1889-1964)

Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru

Congress of the League of Oppressed People at Brussels-convinced him that the principal international conflict was between capitalist imperialism and anti-capitalist socialism. A week's visit to Russia im- pressed him with the achievements of the Soviet system, and with the common inter- est of Russia and India in opposing British imperialism. After his return to India Nehru threw himself with renewed vigour into the na- tional struggle. He demanded that the Congress declare its ultimate goal to be, not dominion status (as his father wished), but complete independence. Jawaharlal was supported- by Subhas Chandra Bose and others, and Gandhi wisely yielded to their demand in order to keep the nationalist movement from splitting into Moderate and Extremist wings, as it had in 1908.