Gustakhi Maaf Haryana-Pawan Kumar Bansal.
Yonger generations and even some educated people has foggy idea about the freedom movement as the history was virtually distorted.By our enlightened reader R.N,Malik.Thought for the Day
In India, even educated people, with some exceptions, have foggy ideas about Freedom Movement. Present generation does not has even that. This is because, Indian historians have not written good books that give clear picture of the Movement. Only books by Raj Mohan Gandhi and Ram Chander Guha on Mahatma Gandhi give 75 percent clear picture of the Freedom Movement. War is fought by the entire army and supported by the entire nation but credit is always given to the Commander and the Head of the nation. After the 1857 Revolt, our Freedom Movement was primarily in two phases namely, 1905 t0 1918 and 1919 to 1947.. Triggering factor was bifurcation of Bengal by Lord Curzon in 1905. The foundations for the Freedom Movement were laid by Lokmanya Tilak , Annie Besant, Lala Lajpat Rai , Surrender Pal Bannerjee, Madan Mohan Malviya et all. In parallel was Gopal Krishan Gokhale.
Mahatma Gandhi arrived on 9th January 1915 after attaining glorious victory of his nonviolent Movement in South Africa. His first victory in India at Champaran made him a house hold celebrate. Large number of young zealots including Sardar Patel joined him and his tribe went on expanding. Thereafter , every day became a one page event of history. Nationalism went sky-high and turned into a crescendo. The sole bread earners of families joined his Movement and went to jails. Their families had to bear extreme financial problems. Conditions in jails were horrible. Finally, Quit India Movement of 1942 cl8nched the issue. Credit must be given to Prime Minister Baldwin for the passage of 1935 Act that gave 30 percent Independence to India. But that Independence was short lived because of 2nd World War in September 1939.
Congress had to fight against 3 opponents namely, Britishers, Musl8m League and Princes. At that moment the fight was limited in the Provincial India. Nobody had any clue how to conjoin Provincial India with Princely India. It was Lord Wavell who prompted and made hard-core Churchill to believe that time had come to leave India. But Churchill wanted to convert India into Hindustan, Pakistan and Princistans.
Now God Almighty smiled on India because God helps those who help themselves. Labour Party came to power in 1945 Lord Attlee, who had been a long supporter of Indian cause, became the Prime Minister. He did the rest. But on 15th August, India was granted Dominion Status only for Provincial India, and Pakistan . Princely India was still intact. Again fortunately, Attlee had sent Lord Mountbatten as the new Viceroy of India to replace Lord Wavell. Sardar Patel, the most pragmatic Leader India had, saw to it that Mountbatten remained the Governor General of India after 15th August 1947. This masterstroke and gesture of great Sardar made Mountbatten to promise him to give “A basket full of Apples”. Basket of apples was nothing but 562 Princely states. He called a meeting of Princes in Delhi and presided over it with full royal regalia. He made Sardar Patel to sit besides him and to keep a grim face. Then he declared,” Look, the responsibility of British government to give protection to Princely states is over and from this day, this man (Sardar Patel) will take care.” After this announcement, glasses of whisky slipped from the fingers of many Princes. Thereafter, the Triumvirate of Mountbatten, great Sardar and V.P.Menon did the rest and India became Akhand Bharat sometime in March 1949. However Goa was taken in December 1961. But credit goes to Nehru for complete merger of the states into contiguous provinces in November1956.
Partition was unavoidable. It was actually done in December 1928 when All Party Conference failed to pass the unity resolution Only way to keep India intact was to adopt the UK model of keeping Scotland, Ireland and England together. Cripps Mission gave this idea but nobody picked it up.
So it is foolish to aportion the credit of winning freedom to different factors. Everybody played a part but Gandhi Ji was the Commander-in-Chief of freedom Moment during the second phase. He united the people of India into one body monolith during his 1920 Noncompliance Movement. He travelled two journeys simultaneously namely spiritual journey and political journey. Looking at his spiritual journey, I feel he was a messenger of God. The three great things he did was to fight against untouchability , unity of humanity and importance of Truth in life. He combined in himself the traits and teachings of Yudhister, Mahatma Budh and Guru Nanak Dev. He can be faulted on few counts during his political journey.
R.N.Malik.