I
The year 1946 opened with general elections to the Provincial Legislatures all over India. Congressmen used the same old tactics and reiterated the pledge of a United India. On January 14, 1946, Sardar Patel thundered at Ahmedabad : ‘‘ Granting of Pakistan is not in the hands of the British Gov- ernment. If Pakistan is to be achieved, Hindus and Muslims will have to fight. There will be a civil war. The Congress is no longer going to knock at the doors of the League. The Congress has tried to settle with the League many times. But it has been kicked every time.’’ Such masterpieces of the Sardar, the steam-roller of the power and prestige of the party that had ruled, and the press, purse and propaganda let loose by the greatest political organization in India, overran the Hindu Mahasabha candidates in elections. And the Hindu Mahasabha was entirely thrown into the shade. The League emerged as the authoritative mouthpiece of the Muslims and the Congress of the Hindus alone.
In the meanwhile, anti-British feelings reached a climax. A burst-up became inevitable. The I.N.A. trial gave rise to it ; the Royal Indian Naval Ratings and the Royal Indian Air Force raised the banner of revolt in Bombay, Calcutta and Karachi. The backbone of the Imperial structure thus seemed to break down. The army, too, was feeling and experiencing the pangs of freedom.
The British Labour Party after coming into power sent a delegation of ten members of the British Parliament to India. The delegation had a four-week survey and talks with various leaders of all parties. They had invited Savarkar to meet them, but Savarkar was not then in Bombay. He was convalescing at Walchandnagar, The Delegation returned to England on February 10. On February 19 Lord Pethick Lawrence, the Secretary of State for India, announced the
FROM PARITY TO PAKISTAN 343
intention of His Majesty’s Government to send out a delegation of three Cabinet Members, Sir Stafford Cripps, Mr. A. V Alexander and himself, to discuss with the Indian i>arty leaders on the spot the question of solving the political dead- lock in the country. On March 15 the British Prime Minister, Mr. Attlee, declared India’s right to attain full independence within or even without the British Commonwealth, if she so desired and in respect of the minority problem of India he said : “We cannot allow a minority to place their veto on the advance of the majoriiy.” The British Cabinet Mission subsequently arrived in ] >eihi on March 24. Numerous inter- views, discussions and deliberations took place in the Viceregal Lodge. On April 5 Pandit Nehru thundered : “ The Congress is not going to agree to the Muslim League demand for Pakistan under any circumstances whatever, even if the Britiwsh Government agrees to it.” What history records is quite the reverse ! Only a few days after this warUkc speech, a whole nation witnessed that Nehru pathetically enough ate his words in the end !
Another outstanding feature on the political scene was that Mr. Jinnah represented the Muslims, Maulana Azad represented the Hindus and the Nawab of Bhopal, the princely India. Thus the whole of India was represented by Muslim leaders ! Mr. Jinnah was re-affirming his anti-Indian role, and refused to call himself an Indian even.
Jinnah’s lieutenants were not lagging behind. Before ihe League Legislators’ Convention held in Delhi, Gandhiji’s Shahid Sahib, Mr. H. S. Suhrawardy, declared on April 9, in Hitleric vein that Pakistan was Muslims’ latest, but not the last demand and if the Britishers entrusted the destiny of India to Congress Junta, the Muslim League would not allow the Central Government to function even for a day. Another Muslim League leader, Sir Firoz Khan Noon, warned the British Government that the destruction and havoc that the Muslims would do in the country would put into the shade what Chengizkhan had done.^
While the discussions and deliberations with the Cabinet Mission were going on at Delhi, Savarkar returned to Poona
1 A Noted Journalist, Hopes and Fears (with a foreword by Dr. Pattabhai Sitaramayya) , pp. 21-22.
344 SAVARKAR AND HIS TIMES
on April 3, from Walchandnagar slightly recovered from the nervous exhaustion, and was convalescing at the Poona Hotel. On January 20 he had a severe heart attack at Walchandnagar. Sri Bhopatkar saw Savarkar in Poona before he put a memorandum on the 15th of April before the Mission along with Dr. Mookerjee on behalf of the Hindu Mahasabha. The memorandum stated “ that geographically, politically and culturally India was one whole and indivisible. This integrity and indivisibility must be maintained whatever the cost and sacrifice be.” The memorandum further warned the Mission that partition of India into two or more sovereign States under any guise or disguise would be economically unsound and disastrous, politically unwise and suicidal.
Political scenes were changing with rapidity. A Tripartite Conference consisting of the British ministers, the Viceroy, representatives of the Congress and the League, was held at Simla, on May 12, 1946, but it failed to arrive at any decision. The Mission then came out with a new proposal now known as the State Paper of May 16. Tliis document repudiated Mr. Jinnah’s claim for division of India, contemplated a Central Union although with powers restricted only to matters of external affairs, defence and communications, gave full autonomy to the provinces, and provided facihties for the provinces to form themselves into three groups two of which, B and C, were mischievously and evidently conceived as a concession to the League Lord. A Constituent Assembly was to be elected by the Provincial Legislatures for framing a constitution for the Indian State ; an Interim Government comprising representatives of the major communities and important minorities was planned ; and the States, freed from the crown paramountcy, were to join the Constituent Assembly for hammering out a Union of the provinces and the States. The electorate was divided into the General, Muslims and Sikhs. Thus in the land of the Hindus, there was no electorate named after them in the administration of India.
The League accepted the State Paper on May 22, hoping to work out Pakistan through the proposed groups, and Mr. Jinnah proposed to hold out his hand of co-operation to the Congress. The Congress, too, accepted the Plan of May 16 as it stood, and declared its willingness to join the
FROM PARITY TO PAKISTAN 345
Constituent Assembly with a view to framing the constitution of a free, united and democratic India.
Towards the end of June 1946, the Cabinet Mission returned to London leaving it to Lord Wavell to work out the procedure and form an Interim Government. On July 10 Pandit Nehru told a press conference at Bombay that there would be finally no grouping as the Congress held that the provinces should be considered free at the initial stage to opt out of the section or group in which they were placed. This unstatesmanly statement of Pandit Nehi t, gave a handle to Mr. Jinnah to push his demands, and ou J’Jy 27, 1946, the League Council resolved at its meeting in Bombay to resort to Direct Action, rejecting the Cabinet Mission proposal which it had previously accepted ! Mr. Jinnah refused to discuss the ethics of violence and non-violence and the League Secretary declared their determination to employ every means in their power to achieve their object. The Sind minister preached destruction and extermination of every one who opposed them.^ There- upon the Congress nervously ran to patch up this gulf, and reasserted acceptance of the State Paper fully ! On August 24 the Viceroy declared his resolve to form an Interim Government of sixteen Members out of which six were to be the nominees of the Congress, five of the League and five representatives of the minorities. The Congress took office on September 2, 1946, gave one out of its six seats to the Depres.sed Classes and one more to a Muslim thus reducing mercilessly the national majority to a minority in the Cabinet, and all this when the Muslim League did not even co-operate in the formation of the Interim Government.
The acceptance of office by the Congress put Jinnah in a trap. Jinnah rightly believed that the Congress under its historic leadership of Gandhiji and Nehru would be nervous about the formation of an All-India Government without the co-operation of the Muslims ! Two Muslims were appointed temporarily and one of them was almost stabbed to death at Simla, and he ultimately succumbed. To make the functioning
^ The Times of India, Bombay, dated 29-7-1946.
346 SAVARKAR AND HIS TIMES
of the Interim Government led by the Congress impossible, the Muslim League started its Direct Action on August 16, which led to an unprecedented holocaust in Calcutta, well- known now as the great killing, spreading the virus and holocaust over the Noakhali District in Eastern Bengal and followed by looting, kidnapping, forced mass conversions, forced marriages, arson and mass murders of the Hindus in villages and towns in the Eastern Districts of Bengal. Acharya J, B. Kripalani, the then President-elect of the Meerut Session of the Congress, toured those affected parts of Bengal, saw those places of inhuman atrocities and mass murders, and declared in a shuddering voice that they were planned and pre-organ- ized by the Muslims. “ War was not like this,” wrote a military officer in the Statesman, Calcutta. The Congress leaders in power proved utterly unequal to the task of putting down the organized fanaticism of the Muslims. British imperialism had physically disarmed the Hindus, Gandhism had enfeebled them mentally, and the curfew Raj had done the rest for them. Amidst such a confusion and chaos Jinnah shrewdly pushed his lieutenants into the Interim Government without even raising liis usual objection to the inclusion of the Congress Muslim in the Interim Government and the fight for Pakistan thus began with renewed force and fire to sabotage the Mission Plan which aimed at setting up an All-India centre, which the Muslim League detested. With a view to dealing a fatal blow at the Plan, the Muslim League leaders including those in the Interim Government spoke and wrote in fire and all this under the very eyes of Pandit Nehru and the Home Member, Sardar Patel ! Mr. Ghaznafar Ali Khan, the Health Minister in the Viceroy’s Interim Government, speaking at Lahore, said, “ If Mohammad Bin Kasim and Muhammad of Ghazni could invade India with armies composed of a few thousands, and yet were able to overpower lakhs of Hindus, God willing, a few lakhs of Muslims will yet overwhelm crores of Hindus.” ^ On another occasion he asked the Hindus to embrace Islam and to save themselves from the holocaust. And yet this communalist upstart was allowed to continue in the Interim Government. Echoes of the terrific tragedies in Bengal were on the lips of even the dying Pandit Madan
I The Free Press Journal, Bombay.
PROM PARITY TO PAKISTAN 347
Mohan Maiaviya at Benares. Moved by the multitudes of Hindu refugees, deprived of their homes, wives, children and everythiiig i)i Bengal, the feelings of the Hindus ran high in every province. In Bihar, the Land of the Guptas, furious riots followed on a terrific scale, so much so that Mr. Jinnah bewailed that retaliation for Bihar would be a catastrophe. Dr. Moonje warned the Hindus at a meeting in Kurukshetra that the Hindus were facing a civil war.
Lord Wavel], the Commander-in-Chief and Pandit Nehru flew to the scene in Biha Sardar Patel resorted to drastic action, Nehru threatened .he Bihar Hindus with bullets and aerial bombardment, the poh se opened fire on several occasions and all the Government forces suppressed ruthlessly the uprising in Bihar. Gandhiji went one stop further. He tlireatened the Bihar Hindus with a fast. Nehru said that if the Bihar Hindus wanted to kill the Muslims, they should first kill him. There was wide discontent among the Hindus at the well-meant but incompatible attitude of the Congress leaders who helplessly witnessed and heard about the mas- sacres of the Hindus in Bengal. Even Congress-minded papers resented this attitude. The Yashoda in its weekly issue (Vol. VI, No. 4, 78 Gandhian era) observed in its editorial: “If Nehru’s body must fall, it must fall at Noakhali. If Gandhiji is to fast, he should fast in Noakhali. The dark figures of the great tragedy enacted at Noakhali must be brought to justice.” The paper further observed in its News and Notes that Noakhali bled, and nobody went near the place till there was no more to bleed. And then the Viceroy and other dignitaries conducted post-mortem exami- nations and gave their verdicts so obviously devoid of truth that they could deceive nobody. The Weekly added in its last article : “ But the role of Gandhiji throughout is as untenable as it is incredulous. Till the communal flare in Bihar, he was passive. Only to Bihar he issues his clarion call for repentance and good behaviour on penalty of his penance to slow death.” The Weekly concludes : “ No other explanation can be offered for his guilty inactivity over the East Bengal affair.”
All this account is narrated only as a matter of history. The author is not out to justify, nor is it needed to do so, the
348 SAVARKAR AND HIS TIMES
attacks made by the Hindus in Bihar on other religionists. However, he cannot but feel the unbelievable passive attitude on the part of the Congress leaders in power towards the atrocities committed by the Muslims elsewhere for the same reason ; for violence, whenever, wherever and howsoever it occurs, must be condemned. That violence which provokes the subsequent violence must be curbed and condemned first. And without doubt Congress leaders lamentably failed in this sacred duty. If the forces of justice and humanity are real and potent in your breast, you cannot remain a passive spectator at one time and an active defender at another.
Savarkar returned to Bombay on August 5, 1946. By now Hindu-Muslim riots had become a common affair in Bombay. The Hindu Sanghatanists were still valiantly defending the hearths and homes from the organized mass fury of the un- declared civil war by the Muslims in Bengal, Bihar, Bombay and the Punjab. Sri Rajendra Roy Chaudhari, President of the Noakhali District Hindu Sabha, died heroically in defence of Hindu homes and Hindu honour. Hindu Sabhas all over India arranged for the relief of the Noakhali Hindu sufferers with the active aid of the perennial, patriotic and pan-Hindu sympathies of the Hindu leaders like Raja Narayanlal Bansilal, Bombay.
Soon after the Muslim League’s joining the Interim Govern- ment, a first class crisis developed. After their entry into the Interim Government, the Leaguers refused to join the Consti- tuent Assembly.
Sardar Patel got indignant and drove Pandit Nehru to the Viceroy. The Viceroy, who had, to quote the words of the Times of India, Bombay, made untiring efforts to get justice and ‘ even more than justice for the League,’ was charged with conspiring with the League. Patel had also thundered at the Meerut Session of the Congress that either the League must join the Constituent Assembly or get out of the Interim Government. There seemed no way out. So the British Government invited Mr. Jinnah and Nehru to London for a Conference for the solution of the legal points arisen out of the interpretations put by the contending parties. Accordingly Mr. Jinnah and Pandit Nehru flew to London. There with his le^al acumen Mr. Jinnah carried the day and the vociferous
FROM PARITY TO PAKISTAN 349
Pandit Nehru failed. This perturbed Sardar Patel and he thundered that the Congress would not accept the British Government’s statement of December 6. But the All-India Congress Committee in its Session on January 15, 1947, swal- lowed that bitter pill too when Sardar Patel remained absent. Now the decision given by the British Government threatened the legal existence of the Constituent Assembly. It meant that the constitution could not be valid unless it was approved by the Muslim League !
In the meantime, the hindu Mahasabha Session was held in the last week of December 1946, at Gorakhpur, under the presidentship of Sri L. B. Bhopatkar. The Hindu Mahasabha reiterated its demand for a Sovereign Independent State and its faith in the indivisibility and integrity of India. In December 1946, the Constituent Assembly opened its Session and Dr. Jayakar was heckled for his conciliatory attitude towards the League by those very Congressmen whose history was full of national surrenders and who within a few months of getting into power betrayed the nation’s integrity. No less a personality than Dr. Ambedkar vigorously castigated the Congress leaders in the Constituent Assembly ‘for killing a strong Centre themselves.’ The misunderstanding of the political issue, and the indecisive, short-sighted and vacillating policy on the part of the Congress leaders dismayed the political firmament.
In the midst of such a gloomy, grave and despairing situation came the realization of the correctness of the fear- less, far-sighted and unbending lead that had been given by Savarkar. Dr. S. P. Mookerjee in his letter of February 10, 1947, wrote to Savarkar : “ If the Hindus had only listened to your call, they would not have remained as slaves in the land of their birth.” The confusion and the prevailing chaos had begun to trouble the mind of Savarkar. He gave a sigh of relief at the Pan-Hindu consciousness as regards self- respect which the land of the Guptas had shown and he, there- fore, sent a donation to the Bihar Provincial Hindu Sabha ‘ for the relief of the heroic Hindu sufferers of Bihar.’
*1110 British Cabinet was now fast txirning the pages of history. In February 1947, the British Government announced their intention to take necessary steps to effect the transfer
350 SAVARKAR AND HIS TIMES
of Power to responsible Indian hands by a date not later than June 1948. The termination of Lord Wavell’s wartime appointment and the appointment of Viscount Mountbatten as his successor were also announced simultaneously. The defeated forces of Akhand Hindusthan were now striving valiantly to rally again. In the first week of the following month, Savarkar blessed the Hindu-Sikh unity sponsored by Master Tara Singh in his forlorn attempts for maintaining the integrity of India, and expressed the hope that “Guru Govindsingh would steel the hearts of the Hindu-Sikh brotherhood and strengthen the hands in fighting for the freedom and the integrity of India.”
The undeclared Muslim uncivil war that disgraced the Indian brotherhood, nationhood and motherhood was still raging on. The big guns of the Congress had lost control over the situation. The Home Member, Sardar Patel, true to his soldierly frankness described the grave situation when he said that almost every Muslim servant in the Govermnent was Pakistani. His advice in a helpless mood was that everybody should be a policeman and protect himself.
By this time the demand for a separate Province of West Bengal was being hotly discussed and debated in Bengal. The partition of Bengal, which was ruthlessly condemned forty years ago, was demanded now by the kith and kin of Khudiram Bose. What a queer fate ! On March 22, 1947, in a statement Savarkar “ supported the demand for a separate Hindu Majority Province in West Bengal owing loyal alle- giance to a consolidated, strong and sovereign Central Hindu- sthan State.”
As declared by the British Government, Lord Wavell made his exit from India towards the end of March 1947. The New Viceroy came in. Savarkar wired to the new Viceroy, Lord Mountbatten, urging him to consult the Mahasabha President and Master Tara Singh before any fundamental changes affecting the Hindus were effected. Savarkar knew that India was fast approaching a momentous decision. He, therefore, urged the Bengal Hindu Sabha and the Bengal Hindus on April 4, 1947, to demand a separate new Hindu Province in West Bengal and to expel the Muslim trespassers from Assam at any cost. He also demanded that the contiguous Hindu
FROM PARITY TO PAKISTAN 351
Majority Districts of Sind should be joined to the Bombay Province. Savarkar concluded his statement by saying that the Murlim minority would be given the same kind of treat- ment as would be meted out to the Hindu minorities in the Muslim majority provinces.^
Savarkar feared that Assam which was tagged on to the Eastern Group of Pakistan would fall a victim to Muslim aggression. Assam was threatened by the Muslim Direct Action on the one hand and the Muslim influx into the provin^‘e on the other. S . he again warned towards the end of April 1947, Sri BardoL u ihe Prime Minister of Assam, and Sri Vishnudas, the Revenue Minister, not to surrender an inch to the Muslims and asked the ministers to eject every Muslim trespasser old and new to a man. Both of them duly acknowledged the telegrams and with due assurance. In the same month Savarkar asked the Bengal Hindus ‘ to beware of Gandhiji’s scheming platitudes avowing open hostility to the demand for framing Hindu majority Provinces in the East and West of India.’ The new Viceroy interviewed the leaders of the Congress and the League and flew to London in May 1947. On the eve of liis departure Dr. Mookerjee had put his demand for a separate Hindu Province in the West of Bengal. The British Cabinet approved the blueprint of the Viceroy and the swift procedure for its execution.
Now the final decision was reached. Savarkar knew that the last moment to be or not to be had come. On May 29, 1947, in a fervent and forlorn appeal to the Congressites Savarkar urged them not to betray the electorates and India by agreeing to a scheme involving vivisection of the Mother- land. He reminded them that they had not been elected to the legislatures on the issue of partition and their Constituent Assembly had also no right ah initio even to consider such a proposal. Hence he urged upon them to resign their seats and posts and to seek re-election on the clear-cut issue of Pakistan or Akhand Hindusthan, if they were for the parti- tion of India. Savarkar further suggested to the Congress leaders that they might demand a plebiscite to decide such a momentous issue involving the life and death of the nation and the destiny of future generations. But who was there
1 Free Hindusthan^ Bombay, dated 6-4-1947.
352 SAVARKAR AND HIS TIMES
in his senses in the Congress to consider such a proposal in a democratic way when the wordy Congress democrats were reeling in the drunken joy of party and personal power ? What other country has witnessed such a betrayal ?
Th e Congress leaders were now in a mood of speedy sur- rendering. Speaking at the U. P. Political Conference, Pandit Nehru declared on April 29, 1947 : “ The Muslim League can have Pakistan if they wish to have it.” Sardar Patel said on April 14, 1947, in Bombay ; “ If India should be partitioned, it could only be done after mutual discussion amongst our- selves and in a peaceful manner.” Dr. Rajendra Prasad showed anxiety for the division of the defence forces. The Congress leaders spoke and acted as if the integrity and indivisibility of Hindusthan was a matter of the past with them ! So now Unity and Integrity of India was the concern of Savarkar alone !
The Viceroy soon returned with the sanction of the British Cabinet for his proposal and on June 3, 1947, the Prime Minister of Britain from London and the Viceroy from Delhi announced simultaneously their new plan known as the June 3rd Plan. The New Plan contemplated the creation of one or two Dominions by August 15, 1947, provision for separate Constituent Assemblies, partition of the Punjab a nd Bengal provinces, referendum for Baluchistan, the North- West Frontier Province and the Sylhet district of Assam to decide what dominion they would join.
Savarkar was now fighting a lost cause. But as he was the truest son of India, he tried to tap every corner, every source, every means to avert the political matricide. The Working Committee of the Hindu Mahasabha met at Delhi on the 7th and 8th June 1947. Savarkar sent a message to President Bhopatkar on June 8, saying that the Hindu Sabhaites and the Sanghatanists could never willingly sign the death-warrant of the integrity of Hindusthan and urged Bhopatkar to continue the struggle for re-annexing the revolting Moslem provinces and for creating Hindu majority provinces in any case — ^Pakistan or no Pakistan — ^in Bengal and the Punjab, and for rejoining the contiguous Hindu majority Districts of Sind to the Bombay Province. In the interests of Akhand Hindu- sthan the Congressites, he said, should be called upon to resign
FROM PARITY TO PAKISTAN 353
their mini %tries and posts and seek re-elections forthwith on the issue of Pakistan, but they should not be allowed to concede Pakistan and to betray the electorates. He also urged the Sind Hindus and other minority communities in Sind to press on with all possible means for the separation of Hindu majority Districts in Sind and for the re-annexation of those districts to the Hindusthan Union.^
The Working Committee of the Hindu Mahasabha also reiterated its belief : “ India is one and indivisible and there will nearer be peace unles>; and until the separated areas are brought back into the Inuiau Union and made integral parts thereof.” The Mahasabha Working Committee further demanded a referendum in the Hindu majority areas in Sind and in the Chittagong Hill tribes area in East Bengal like the one in the Sylhet District in Assam to allow the territories, if the majority in those respective areas desired, to accede to the Indian Union.
The Congress leaders were now well prepared for their final consent to the onslaught on the unity of India. In a written message read oui> after the usual daily prayer-meeting in Delhi, Gandhiji declared on June 9, 1947, that he was not opposing the Congress acceptance of the new British Plan. Nobody wondered at this news. This was a foregone conclu- sion ! And the All-India Congress Committee in its Delhi Session on June 14, 1947, accepted the 3rd June Plan by a resolution supported by Pandit Nehru, the idol of the nation, who had unequivocally professed and declared in the vein of Lincoln to defend the integrity of India. This resolution was upheld by the nationalist Muslim, Maulana Azad, now sup- porting with divine satisfaction the creation of a Communalist State out of India. Azad described the Plan as the only way to settle India’s problem as the Congress was committed, he recalled, to the principle of self-determination and was against coercing any unwilling areas to join the Union ! But who got the Congress committed to that resolution ? History would record that all these Congress brand nationalist leaders were at one in coercing other people in accepting Pakistan.
The Socialists in the All-India Congress Committee remained neutral. They had no opinion to offer on such a
^ Free Hindusthan, Bombay, dated 8-6-1947.
23
354 SAVARKAR AND HIS TIMES
vital issue in the life of the nation ! The lonely opponent in the All-India Congress Committee opposing this nefarious black decision and deed was Babu Purushottamdas Tandon who appealed to the All-India Congress Committee that though the Congress Working Committee had failed them, yet the A.I.C.C. had the strength of millions behind them and they must reject the resolution the acceptance of which would be, he said, an abject surrender to the British and to the Muslim League. Sardar Patel’s support to the partition of India was a complete transfer scene from sword to surrender.
Gandhiji put an ultimatum before the A.I.C.C. He threatened them either to accept the resolution conceding Pakistan or to replace the old tried Congress leaders. He advised them to accept the Plan and added that it was their duty to stand by their leaders. To the Congress leaders their prestige was more important than the destinies of the nation and the fate of the millions ! That has been an unfortunate characteristic of the Congress leadership. Savarkar repeatedly exposed this fact and warned the people to remember that the Congress party and their leaders were not greater than the nation. Equally forcibly Dr. Ambedkar told the Congress bosses in the Constituent Assembly that in deciding the destinies of a people, the dignity of the leaders or men or parties ought to count for nothing.
But Gandhiji threw his whole weight and the A.I.C.C. accepted the resolution which accepted the creation of Pakistan ! ^ And lo ! Gandhiji practised what he preached. Did he not tell the nation ten years ago “ Needless to say, the Congress can never seek the assistance of British forces to resist the vivisection. It is the Muslims who will impose their will by force, singly or with British assistance, on an unresist- ing India. If I can carry the Congress with me, I would not put the Muslims to the trouble of using force. I would be ruled by them, for it would be still Indian rule.”
Gandhiji was a truth-seeker. Who is a truth-seeker ? One who clings to truth and right even if the very heavens fall. But Gandhiji, the voice of truth and the voice of non-violence, who considered even coercing or forcing one’s views on others
1 Full report of the A.I.C.C. meeting in The Times of India, Bombay, dated 16-6-1947.
FROM PARITY TO PAKISTAN 355
a sin, hit the last nail on the coffin of Akhand Hindusthan and the resolution was passed. According to Gandhiji, Pakistan was an untruth and the truth-seeker became a party to un- truth in broad daylight. To Gandhiji Pakistan was a denial of God, but he deserted and denied God. The fundamental rights of the people, the demand for a nation-wide plebiscite, the call and voice of democracy were stifled to death by the unrelenting divine dictatorship. And describing this event next day, the Free Press Journal^ Bombay, one of the chief spokesiiien of the Congres s, flashed in a full banner line the news ‘ Nation’s Leaders Betray Country’s Cause ! ’ This was the return gift of the Indian National Congress to the Mother- land which had suckled it at her breast !
There were two men in India who could have smashed the proposed scheme of the vivisection of India. They were Gandhiji and Savarkar. But because of shattered health, a cruel misfortune, the perfidy and levity of those countrymen who regarded party above country, Savarkar failed despite his superhuman efforts for a period of ten years. With the greatest party at his beck and call, Gandhiji could have blown up the scheme of Pakistan had he meant it from the bottom of his heart. Gandhiji believed that nothing was impossible for a Satyagrahi. He, therefore, could have easily declared wdth Luther that ‘ peace if possible, but truth at any rate.’ But the unfortunate politician in Gandhiji, who always failed and failed, got the upper hand and stifled the truth-seeker in Gandhiji, and Gandhiji too failed. On the one hand Gandhiji proved the maxim of Voltaire who said ‘ he who seeks truth should be of no country ’ and on the other, he fulfilled the prophecy of his Guru, Gokhale, who foretold that Gandhiji would exercise enormous influence on the common man, but when the history of political parleys would be written dis- interestedly, he would go down in history as a great failure.^ Yet the shriek of Akhand Hindusthan was not extinct. At the behest of the Working Committee of the Hindu Maha- sabha an All-India anti-Pakistan Day was observed on July 3. 1947, to register a protest against the vivisection of the Motherland. There was a considerable response throughout India. Big cities like Bombay, Poona, Delhi and others almost
1 Satyagrahi, Graha and Tare, p. 60.
SAVARKAR AND HIS TIMES
suspended all market and business activities. Prabhat ferries were taken out, protest meetings were held condemning fhe vivisection of India, black Hags were hoisted denouncing the partition as a betrayal of the aspirations of the great patriots and great martyrs who had laid their lives at the altar of a great cause. On August 2, 1947, Savarkar made a very pathetic and appealing speech before a mammoth meeting at Poona. He told the vast multitude of audience that in a way they were also partly responsible for the vivisection of their Motherland along with the Congress leaders ; because they did not repudiate their leadership at the proper time, and added that appeasement would never stop and satisfy the aggressor. He recalled how the Congress lead sacrificed democracy and nationalism for communalism. He began this appealing speech in a very touching tone and said ; “ Since you have gathered in thousands to hear a leader like me who has attained ill-fame owing to my deathless resistance to the creation of Pakistan, I believe, there is yet hope, for the survival of this Hindu nation.”
Savarkar now accepted the defeat of the forces of Akhand Hindusthan. The battle was lost, but the war for United India was still to continue and Savarkar stood up for it ! He thought it proper to record once again his protest against the vivisection of India. So a Hindu Convention was held on Augu.st 8, 1947, at Delhi. Savarkar went to Delhi by air. This was his first air flight. Dr. N. B. Khare, the then Premier of Alwar, was to preside over it and the Maharaja of Alwar, a staunch Hindu and self-respecting ruler was to inaugurate it. But owing to the treacherous revolt of the Meos in the Alwar State for a Meostan, both of them could not come to Delhi and so Savarkar presided over the Convention.
In his Presidential Address to the Convention Savarkar exhorted the Hindus never to accept Pakistan just as they never accepted the British Raj and asked them to continue their struggle for Akhand Hindusthan. Savarkar warned the Hindus that if they did not rise and awake to the real danger ahead, there would be many more Pakistans hereafter. Indeed he must have had before his mind’s eye some four crores of Muslims still remaining in Hindusthan who rioted, agitated and were responsible for the demand for vivisection of Hindu-
FROM PARITY TO PAKISTAN 357
sthan in no small measure ! Savarkar further declared that there sh mid be no rejoicings on the 15th of August 1947, since the Motherland would be actually torn asunder on that day and the results of the disintegration were likely to lead to bitter feelings and ill-will.
The Working Committee of the Hindu Mahasabha thereafter exhorted the Hindus not to celebrate the 15th of August 1947, as Independence Day, in view of the untold sufferings that had been inflicted on mi’^‘ons of people in different parts of the country by the orgy blunder, murder and conversion, and the indiscreet arrests and detention of leaders and workers amongst the Hindus in all parts of the country.
One point respecting the Herculean opposition Savarkar sponsored to the creation of Pakistan needs to be noted. It was the Hindu Mahasabha led by Savarkar that alone strove to avert the vivisection of Hindusthan. Let it be recorded that the Socialist party which then functioned in the Congress kept a culpable silence at the time of such a historical, momen- tous issue in the life of the nation and remained neutral in the A.I.C.C. when the Congress passed the resolution conced- ing the vivisection of India. The Ary a Samajists and the R.S.S. remained mere passive spectatoi-s and refused co- operation, official or otherwise, even in peaceful demon- strations against the vivisection of the Motherland, as if nothing had happened in the life of the nation to which they pledged their blood, brains and bones morning, noon and night !
Ill
The 15th of August 1947 came, and was celebrated by the Congress! tes as a day of national rejoicing. And no doubt it was a great day in the history of the world as it saw the birth of the biggest Muslim Slate under the sun and as a great force was released in Asia in the form of Indian Independence. The Mahasabhaites hoisted only the Mahasabha Geruwa flag with the Kripan and Kundalini to display the asserting will of the Hindus. Savarkar hoisted the new tricolour flag of Free India with the Dharma Chakra of Buddhism as well as the Geruwa
358 SAVARKAR AND HIS TIMES
flag with Kripan and Kundalini ; one State Flag and iho nfher a Symbol of Akhand Hindusthan.
Great must have been his exultation at the disappau^inre of the Union Jack and the discomfiture of the Khadi with its Charkha and the coming up of the nationnl Jiatr, Through Savarkar, the Prince of the Indian revolutionaries, thousands of martyrs must have saluted the Flag of Indian Independence for which they had laid their Jives. In saluting and flying the State Flag Savarkar showed his sense of and love for democracy. To his perturbed followers he said tha.t they should hoist the Bhagwa flag with the Kripan and Kundalini as the State flag only after they could get it approved by the whole nation in a democratic way. Till then this new State Flag represented the Divided India and the Geruwa flag with the Kripan and Kundalini the Akhand Hindusthan and so he had hoisted both.
It may be remembered that Gandhiji did not approve the State Flag of Free India adopted by the Constituent Assem- bly ; for the Dharma-Chakra had replaced his pet Charkha and the silk had replaced the rough Khadi. Gandhiji expressed this in an article in the Harijan dated the 3rd August 1947 and lamented that the Congress flag, i.e. the tri- colour Khaddar flag with the Charkha on it had not become the national flag and added that if the new flag of the Union did not represent the Charkha and Khadi, it was valueless in his opinion ! What a love for democracy ! Savarkar’s efforts to replace the Charkha by a Chakra were not fruitless. In a telegram to Dr. Rajendra Prasad, the Chairman of the Consti- tuent Assembly, who happened to be the chairman of the Flag Committee of the Constituent Assembly, Savarkar had requested them to have at least a strip of the saffron colour and a wheel-Chakra instead of the Charkha on the State Flag.
He did not expect the Constituent Assembly dominated by the Congressites, to adopt the Geruwa flag with Kripan and Kundalini on it as the State Flag. It may be recalled here that Madame Cama of the Abhinava Bharat had unfurled a tricolour flag as the flag of Indian Independence as early as 1907 at the Socialist Conference in Germany !
Yet another of Savarkarb warning that breakers were ahead came true with a vengeance. Simultaneously with the
FROM PARITY TO PAKISTAN 359
national rejoicings, a terrible wave of wholesale massacre and brutality spread over the Punjab and Sind. Unprecedented violence was let loose. Pakistan had not been established without any gruesome immediate effect. The tidings that came from the Punjab were grim and blood-curdling. The massarre of men, women and children went on unabated.
Millions were uprooted from their native soil, their hearths, their homes, torn from their dear ones and robbed of all their possessions. Nobody was sure of the morrow. Burnt houses, looted shop.s, broken skuils, smoking ruins, blood-smeared corpses, and mutilated i.tdies scattered all over towns and villages, spoke of the blood bath and barbarity unsurpassed in other times and climes. The country rang with horror.
The visionary in Nehru was rudely shaken. He admitted in his broadcast on August 19, 1947, that ‘ nearly the whole of India celebrated the coming of Independence, but not so the unhappy land of the five rivers in the Punjab.’ He also said that ‘ there was sufficient disa.ster and sorrow, arson and murder, looting and crime of all descriptions.’ Short-sighted Congressites were fiddling while the West Punjab was burn- ing and bleeding. Nehru appealed to the Hindus and Sikhs of the West Punjab not to make mass migration, and he asked the people to desist from individual retaliation. He also de- clared that if it should be retaliation, it should be Government retaliation, which meant war. Pandit Nehru was not far away from the truth because in the upper half of India there was terrific retaliation as a result of insufferable repercussions and emotions evoked by the holocaust in the East and in the West. During this crisis Pandit Nehru condemned with burning hatred everything that had the appearance of Hindu Sangha- tan. In a Delhi speech he declared that he would even resign and fight out the Hindu Fascists who clamoured for a Hindu State and he further said that he was sure that those Fascists would go down the way the Hitlers and Mussolinis went.
Replying to Nehru on all these points, Savarkar said : ‘ “ What were the thousands of Hindu-Sikhs to do when faced by an imminent danger of being massacred in cold blood, looted, burnt alive, forcibly converted, in short, of being exterminated as a racial and national being by the most
1 Free Hindusthan, Bombay, pp. 16-18 ; 69-71.
360 SAVARKAR AND HIS TIMES
barbarous attacks of an organized, dangerousl3»^ armed and fanatically hostile foe and especially when the State as such was nowhere in evidence so effectively as to render any the least protection to them ? While in the West Punjab the dangerously armed Muslims in their thousands were parading in the streets, in towns and cities and raising terror-striking slogans ‘ Haske liya Pakistan, Marke lenge Hindusthan,’ and were planning to capture the East Punjab and Delhi, the Congressiies, observed Savarkar, were celebrating their bloodless revolution brought about by the vivisection of India, although the Hindu Sanghatanists kept shouting that danger was ahead and that this was no time to rejoice when they were stranded on the top of a volcano already in eruption. He added : “ Under these circumstances what wonder is there that millions of Hindu-Sikhs prompted by instinct of self- preservation and animated by the spirit of Pan-Hindu con- solidation rose in arms in the East Punjab, in Bharatpur, in Alwar, in Patiala and in Delhi itself and responded to the best of their might and means so furiously and effectively as to checkmate the Muslim hoards from attempting an invasion of the East Punjab, threw them on their defensive and saved Delhi itself from being captured by the Muslims concentrated there. If Panditji and his Congressite comrades are still safe and secure in their seats, they owe it to this brave fight which the Hindu Sanghatanist and Sikh forces gave in the nick of time. And still it is he who unblushingly comes forward to deliver to them a sermon on the exclusive right of the State to retaliate. Had a Shivaji or a Ranjit Singh been at the helm of the State, he could have demanded with propriety that the people should leave the right of retaliation in his hands alone. But when the puny Pandit tries to demand it in the accent of Shivaji, it strikes as funny as it would do if a pigmy standing on his tiptoes tried to rival a giant in height.”
And as to the threats of resignation by Nehru, Savarkar said that if the Government was handed over to the Sikh- Hindu Sanghatanist coalition, a cabinet could be formed which would be not only more efficient than the present
FROM PARITY TO PAKISTAN 361
one, but also will prove to be absolutely indispensable to face the stark realities as noted above.
As regards the misrepresentation of Hindu Raj by Nehru and his hatred for everything that was Hindu, Savarkar said it was a stunt on the part of Gandhist ministers, leaders and pap>ers to cover their dismal and disastrous failure in protect- ing the life, property and honour of our nation. Savarkar proceeded: “The demand for the Hindu Raj, these pseudo- nationalists say, is communal, stupid, medieval, theocratical, a menace to the progres"^ of mankind itself ! But they con- veniently refuse to tell us w hat they precisely mean by Hindu Raj, before they characterize it in the above-mentioned vilify- ing terms. Nevertheless, assuming for the sake of argument that the demand for a Hindu State deserves this condemnation on all these counts, may we ask them : was not the demand for a Moslem State at least equally condemnable on these very counts ? Did not the Moslems base their claims to own the Pakistani Provinces on the ground that the Muslims consti- tuted the major community predominating there ? ’’
Savarkar further replied to Nehru with equal force and fire : “ But instead of fighting against that demand for a Moslem Raj you actually abetted the crime of cutting inte- grated India right into two halves directly on communal lines which the Anglo-Muslim conspirators perpetrated and handed over Pakistan to the Moslems so ceremoniously, with such ease and grace as you would hand over a cup of tea to a welcome guest ! With what face now can you vilify the demand for a Hindu Raj on this very count even if it could be said to possess all the above traits ? Savarkar goes on : “ A Pathani or Nizami Muslim Raj is to Gandhi ji a cent per cent Swaraj. But a Hindu Raj ! O no ! It would be com- munal, fascist, anti-national and an anathema ! Savarkar further observes : “You contend further that our country and our State cannot be called Hindusthan and Hindu State as some non-Hindu minorities too are citizens thereof. But how is that in spite of the presence of the Hindus, Christians, Parsees and other non-Muslim minorities in its territory all of you and Gandhi ji in particular keep salaming and saluting
362 SAVARKAR AND HIS TIMES
that newly carved out Muslim Rai as Pakistan which avowedly and literally means a Holy Muslim Land, a Muslim State ? Is it not a fact that almost all States and nations are called after the names of what the League of Nations termed ‘ National Majority ’ predominating in each ? Nor have you yourselves ever felt any qualm of conscience in recognizing Baluchistan, Waziristan, Afghanistan, Turkastan or the Tuxkish State as such in spite of the presence of non-Muslim minorities there ? How is it then that the very mention of the name of Hindusthan or the Hindu State alone takes your breath out as if you were smitten by a snake-bite ? ”
As for the threat of Nehru that he would fight out those who clamoured for Hindu Raj as Hindu Fascists, Savarkar retorted : “ The Hindu Sanghatanists cannot be terrorized by the threat of such carpet-knights as the Pandit and his clan.” He concluded his historic reply to Pandit Nehru : “ The choice therefore is not between two sets of personalities but between two ideologies, not between Indian Raj and Hindu Raj but between Muslim Raj and Hindu Raj, between Akhand Hindu- sthan and Akhand Pakistan. The Hindu Sanghatanist ideo- logy alone can, therefore, save our nation and re-establish an Akhand Hindusthan from the Indus to the Seas.”
The Congress leaders in their zeal to carve out a secular State, which is in fact a noble ideal, fell to de-Hinduising Hindusthan. They denounced Hindu Raj, but brought about a religious State, a theocratic State, Pakistan. They saluted and blessed Pakistan, but cursed with burning hatred the appellation Hindusthan. They started to speak of the people by calling them Muslims and non-Muslims of India. Their speeches, addresses, statements and official announcements described and referred to the Muslims as Muslims and to all others as the non-Muslims of India. So burning a hatred they had even for the word ‘ Hindu ’ and the appellation Hindu- sthan that they dropped out those appellations as if the Hindus in their Homeland were a dying, vanishing race like the twentieth century empires.
At a post-prayer meeting in Delhi on June 12, 1947, Gandhiji told his audience that Pandit Nehru refused to call the non-
FROM PARITY TO PAKISTAN 363
Pakistan areas as Hindusthan and Gandhiji further said : “ The Muslim majority areas might call themselves Pakistan, but the rest and the largest part of India need not call itself Hindusthan.” Could un-Hindu nationalism go further ? Savai’kar pitied this inferiority complex and the cowardly attitude on the part of the Congress leaders. Savarkar never said that he wanted to base the Hindu State on Plinduism. The concept of Hindu Raj was not based on Hinduism but on Hindutva. And Hindutva and Hinduism were two quite different things. Ration.ii.sts Avould never say that Savarkar would stand for a State m which a Shankaracharya would be authorized to make laws and deal with justice. Is there such a degraded man as will say that Savarkar ever said that he wanted to deal with the so-called Depressed Classes and measure the ideals governing man and woman with Manu’s rod ? According to Savarkarism, the word Hindu connotes nationality. You may be a Buddhist, a Jain, a Sikh or an Arya Samajist by faith, but by nationality you are a Hindu. The term Hindu State corresponds to the terms the German State, Japanese State, Afghan State, Turkish State. You gladly repeat the words Mu.slim State, Mogul rule, Pakistan, Turkish State. Where is the harm if you call the Bharatiya State as the Hindu State ? Moreover, Savarkar meant by the word Hindu Rashtra, a State grown out of the historic cultural background. The national majority after whom the State is named must follow their bent, must grow according to their nature and blood by reconciling their past with the present, shaping their future in the light of science. But Savarkar always insisted that none should hustle or terrorize the national majority into shaping their present or future.
Why should Pandit Nehru and his colleagues decry this kind of Hindu Ra.shtra in which every citizen will be equal in the eyes of law ? Pandit Nehru and Gandhiji especially who started their political careers with a Theocratic Movement, the Khilafat, and ended it in creating a Theocratic State, Pakistan, on the basis of religion should have any the least objection to it. And at last Pandit Nehru declared at Lucknow in October 1947 : “ Congress wanted to establish
a secular democratic State in the country. Naturally in such
364
SAVAPKAR AND HIS TIMES
a Slate the predominant culture and outlook vvoulrl b governed by the great majority of the Hindus in the popuC tion/^ But according to Savarkar the culture of the majority in India was the culture of Rama^ Krishna, Kalidas, Vikram, Bhavabhutu Pratap, Guru Govindsingh, Shivaji and Vivekananda, and not the culture of TaimurJang, Mohamad of Ghazni, Mohamad Ghori, Babar, Aurangzeb and Tipu !
While these controversies were going on, confusion, fanaticism and retaliation were reigning supreme. It is necessary to reveal here as briefly as possible the significance of this insurmountable crisis as this was indirectly responsible for Savarkar being involved in the most heinous trial. Gandliist leaders proved to be unequal to the occasion and historic necessities. People now realized that Gandhism was an illusion. Gandhiji himself realized too late that what the nation followed was not non-violence but passive resistance. He expressed this at a meeting in Delhi. Nehru said that the nation had to wade through ocean of blood and tears. Such was the crisis and such were the times that people showed a profound disbelief in and dislike of Gandhism which seemed till yesterday the ruling belief of the majority. The blood, tears, sighs and sorrow proved that Gandhism was a dreamland. The situation was utterly volcanic and it disclosed that the whole range of consequences was the outcome of those beliefs, opinions and actions. People seemed now unwilling to sacrifice their present ease or near convenience in the hope of securing higher advantages for others and honour of tomorrow. The magnitude of the issues and height of interests involved was such that there was a stirring shock in the realm of the national mind. Perturbed by the atrocities, imbecilities and the terrific holocaust that marked the course of the period, even the great Congress leaders were chilled in their political beliefs ! They now realized that mere height of aim and nobility of expression did not move the matter-of-fact world.
K. M. Munshi, who claimed to have followed the Mahatma, while reviewing the situation in the Freedom Special of his Social Welfare, observed : “ Last thirty-five years, we have
been brought up on a slogan : naturalness and inevitableness of Hindu-Muslim unity. That this was a wishful thinking has
FROM PARITY TO PAKISTAN 365
been prov<: d in Noakhali, Bihar, Rawalpindi — ^in a hundred villages, by tons of thousands of men, women and children fleeing for safety. The Muslim — a hard realist — ^knew and exploited the hollowness of the slogans ; the Hindu cherishes it still. Hindus love words and ideals.’’ What a melancholy epitaph on Gandhism by a Gandhist ! How fitting yet flagrant, how frank yet ferocious, how realistic though belated ! The terrific shock also evoked a spontaneous remark from Babu Purushottamdas Tandon. Tandon declared while speaking at a meeting in Bareilly that » landhiji’s doctrine of absolute non- violence had proved to be useless and was greatly responsible for the partiiion of India.
Even the Bharat Jyoii, a well-known English Weekly and a strong spokesman of the Congress in Bombay, bewailed in its editorial dated October 26, 1947, under the caption ‘ Barter not Truth ’ : “ Today, Gandhiji is a living witness to the
failure of his political mission. His failure is the measure of his departure from truth, in his implementation of truth.” The editorial concludes : ‘‘ Gandhiji resisted partition of India,
but like Yudhishthira, by a play of words, secured the nation s ratification of Partition ; he, like Yudhishthira, is witnessing hell’s torments. Power of truth is great ; lie’s punishment is greater. So, barter not, truth.”
In the meanwhile people who were filled with a sense and anxiety for security spoke in terms of strife and survival. One furious and reckless mob stoned Gandhiji’s residence at Calcutta twenty-four hours before the dawn of freedom ! The furious mob even shouted “ Gandhi, Go Back.” In Delhi, Pandit Nehru and other Congress leaders were stunned to hear later on at the time of Gandhiji’s last fast the slogans of the angry crowds shouting ‘ Let Gandhi die The principle of absolute non-violence had gone with the wind. People were puzzled over the words and deeds of the Congress leaders. India was fighting Pakistan in Kashmir not with the spinning wheel or with cotton balls, but with deadly bullets and des- tructive bombs. Gandhiji’s prayer-meetings were now-a-days abandoned, disturbed, heckled and routed. Pickets had to be posted at Gandhi’s residence in Delhi to protect Gandhiji, the symbol of non-violence. C.I.D. in plain dress guarded Gandhiji’s post-prayer meetings. Savarkar had nothing to
3S6 SAVARKAR AN0 HIS TIMES
do with these violent mob demonstrations nor with the newspapers’ smashing criticism of Gandhism. That was the growing opinion in the minds of the people and the colurrtns of the Congress press. Not that the people were in a mood to listen to Savarkar. There was confusion, indecision and misjudgment of the issues in the minds of the people and their leaders and their press.
And such a crisis was capped by Gandhiji’s famous fast which he started on January 13, 1948, for the reinstatement of the Muslims in their houses at Delhi, for the restoration of dese- crated mosques to their former use and for other five reasons, and as a sequel the Government of India led by Congressmen was forced to pay Pakistan rupees fifty-five crores which had been loudly decried and refused. The Modern Reinew a Calcutta monthly, famous for its balanced views all over the world, began its editorial notes in its issue of January 1948 with a pertinent question : “ The time has come when our trusted leaders, including the Father of the Nation, have to be asked for a clear reply to a plain question. Where does the Hindu of the Indian Union stand today and what does freedom mean for him ? Does he possess along with others the democratic birth-rights by which a State has to be ruled and administered for the greatest good for the majority, or is he there merely to serve as so much fuel for a burnt sacrifice — to be used for “ conscience-fodder,” so to say, by his leaders, just as the totalitarian Fuehrer used his people as cannon- fodder ? ” The Review proceeds : “ It is the Hindu who did
by far most of the fighting for liberty and offered by far the vastly greater part of the sacrifices. Then why should his interests be sacrificed at every emotional impulse of his elders and leaders ? ” The note puts a query : “ A state cannot be
run on the lines of a Passion-play, and what would avail the working of a miracle in the minds of the recalcitrant infinitesi- mal minority, if thereby the trust of the hundreds of millions of the majority be betrayed ? ” Referring to the fast of Gandhiji, the Modem Review concluded its note in a grave judgment : “ Mahatmaji’s fast will, we are sure, attain its
object for the time being but the results would be futile and disastrous in the long run, unless Pakistanis mend their ways. Indeed, this fast will enhance communal bitterness a
FROM PARITY TO PAKISTAN 367
thousandfold on this side when the people realize the futility of their sacrifices, and would make the ultimate and inevitable clash horrible and catastrophic beyond all measure, unless Mahatmaji can work his miracle in Pakistan as well.”
And in the midst of such an atmosphere of extreme gloom, confusion and disaster, Nathuram Vinayak Godse shot Gandhiji with a revolver while Gandhiji was going to the prayer ground in the compound of Birla House at Delhi in the evening at 5-30 on Friday, January 30, 1948.