The Road To Revolution

By JD

The Road to Revolution is written in three parts- The Past is an Odyssey through over 100 years of Indian Political History- without the cloud of official propaganda, it reveals how Gandhiji, Pandit Nehru and Md. Ali Jinnah led the country to the Partition and became beneficiaries to it, the vision of Netaji Subhas and the real reason for Independence of not only India but a host of other countries in the region, the possibility of KGB hand in the foundation of Dynastic rule in N. Delhi, etc. The Present studies the state of the nation and traces the origin of the evils of our political system such as corruption & criminalization, militant unionism, vote-banks, etc. The Future attempts solutions to our national problems with policy on land & poverty alleviation and suggests Constitutional changes and simultaneous reforms in electoral, judicial, police systems, etc.- The last chapter spells out the doctrine of a Revolution (with a resurrected INA at its core) which may be waiting to happen...

• Language: English
• Publisher: JD
• Release date: Nov 29, 2013
• ISBN: 9781311391803

Book preview

PREFACE

The author firmly believes that one should endeavor to study the past, live in the present and mould the future. This book is an attempt to achieve these objectives and is a result of years of rigorous research with newspapers, books and articles and the Internet, along with a lifetime of observation and travel in India and abroad and in the course of discussions, debates and interactions with a large number of people. Also, considering the declining reading habits, the book has deliberately been written in a précis form. The author is a common man who has remained equidistant from all political parties and communal organizations. The advantage of being a ‘nobody’ is that one can write as he perceives the truth without bias or inhibitions.

The Past: The general motif of historians in addition to the quest for knowledge is for their books to be recognized and prescribed in educational institutions – so it is their compulsion to toe the official line and, in doing so, they become both victims and perpetrators of propaganda by the powers that be. The author has no such predicaments. The first part is an odyssey through over 100 years of Indian political history which throws light on how our great leaders Mahatma Gandhi, Pandit Nehru and Md. Ali Jinnah facilitated and became the beneficiaries of the Partition, from which was born the soft state of India. It points to the significance of the Indian National Army and the real reasons for the Independence of not only India but also of a host of other countries in the region and hints at the possibility that Stalin may have wielded the spectre of Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose’s return to ensure that Pandit Nehru turned independent India into a de facto clone of the Soviet Union. Also, the mysteries surrounding the death of Netaji, Shyama Prasad Mukherjee and Lal Bahadur Shastri seem to reinforce the idea that the KGB may have facilitated the dynastic rule in New Delhi in exchange for Soviet monopoly on Indian defence contracts for decades. It reveals how our largest national party made repeated policy blunders and then systematically used deceit, cover-ups and propaganda through decades to stay in power while the Opposition and smaller regional, casteist and communal parties copied the formula and the stark realities of coalition politics which plunged the nation into an abyss of corruption & criminality.

The Present: People see different things in the same event or object (the classical example is a half empty/ half full glass of water). Also, different persons have different exposures, values and environments as they go through their own journey of life, so it is not enough to base universal opinions on personal experiences. One has to study each problem from different perspectives to get the bigger picture. The second part of the book deals with the state of the nation and the lack of governance that all of us encounter while interacting with the high and the mighty. Be it the politicians with criminal background bent on dividing the country into fragmented vote banks to stay in power or the greedy bureaucrats whose narrow corrupt interests rob the people of their hard earned money/ constitutional rights or be it the thriving business of organized crime with connivance of politicians and the police or the blatant misuse of power practiced by political parties and their cadres who undermine the very institutions of democracy on which they thrive. It also diagnoses the origin of political corruption, which has reached new heights, with progressively alarming financial scams, and the security threats facing our nation originating from terrorists with all kinds of distorted ideologies.

The Future: One of the most important lessons that can be learned from the Mahabharata is that when an ideology or society becomes too rigid in relation to time, it is bound to perish. Also, the quest to the unraveling of the origin of the universe (the Big Bang theory) has begun at Cern which would lead us to the contention that the only constant in the universe is change. So the readers are advised to be flexible in their acceptance of the suggestions and modify or replace the variable elements with their own, because no one can predict the events that may take place between the time of writing this book and reading it by them. The third part attempts to propose solutions to our national problems with overall policies on land and poverty alleviation and simultaneous measures in many direction such as reforms of electoral, judicial, police and the criminal justice systems, structural changes and autonomy for all the institutions of democracy to enhance accountability and transparency

which will require modifications or even rewriting of the Constitution to address issues which were not conceived at its inception. Inspired by Jiddu Krishnamurty’s dialectic logic, the author has taken the liberty of using the ‘question- answer’ method in the last chapter, to outline the doctrine of a hypothetical Revolution for the sole purpose of bringing back the nation to its original path of becoming a strong, corruption free, anti-criminal democracy, where the rule of law will prevail based on equity and equality– ‘where the mind is without fear and the head is held high….’ - Jai Hind

The Road To Revolution

by JD

Dedicated to the Poorest of the Poor Indians

Smashwords Edition

©Copyright Reserved by JD

ISBN 9781311391803

Chapter 1

Gandhiji’s Satyagraha

After being thrown out of a first-class compartment of a train in South Africa in spite of having a valid ticket and only because he was an Indian, Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, a lawyer from Gujarat visiting that country, awakened to the social injustice and discrimination meted out to Indians by the British apartheid regime of South Africa and started his political career by helping to form the Natal India Congress in 1884 and uniting the Indian community there. By 1904, he started publishing the ‘Indian Opinion’ and had begun his experiment on communal living by creating the Phoenix settlement just outside Durban. In 1906, he took the vow of ‘Brahmacharya’ (abstinence from sex) and in March 1907, to protest against the Asiatic Registration Act (known as the Black Act) which made it mandatory for ethnic Indians to be registered and finger printed, Gandhiji organized a non-violent civil resistance movement Satyagraha (to follow the truth). The movement ended almost as soon as it began when he was lodged in jail.

While in jail, Gandhiji referred to the native African population as ‘uncivilized kafirs’-this and other racial overtones¹ in the Indian Opinion had kept the mainstream African masses out of his movements in South Africa. There is no evidence to suggest that Gandhiji was against ‘apartheid’ per se, on the contrary, he actively solicited and participated as Ambulance Corps for the British side in the 1899 Boer War and in the 1907 Bambatha Rebellion (actually, the slaughter of Zulus) presumably to appease the colonial masters in the hope that after the war, the Indians in South Africa would be given full citizenship.

Gandhiji’s persistent tactics of appeasement and non-violent resistance was only partly rewarded in 1913 when the apartheid regime agreed to abolish the crippling poll tax, recognised Indian marriages and promised to phase out indentured labour imports from India. In the same year, he was conferred with the title of ‘Mahatma’ (the great soul) by the poet Rabindra Nath Tagore.

The term ‘Satyagraha’ exists in ancient Hindu and Buddhist texts but Gandhiji was the first to use this as a political tool-- his over twenty years of struggle in South Africa served more as an experimentation with this idea and would be practiced on a much larger scale in the near future. He finally travelled back to India via London, soon after World War I broke out in August 1914.

On Gandhiji’s return to India in January 1915, he was introduced by Gopal Krishna Gokhale to the leaders of the Indian National Congress (a party registered at Calcutta in 1885). He initially took up the cause of farmers in the Champaran district of Bihar and organized a peasant movement in the Kheda district of Gujarat and soon became the ideological leader of the Indian National Congress. In 1918, once again to appease the same colonial masters, Gandhiji urged Indians to join the British war efforts as soldiers. Gandhiji had hoped that in return, the British would at least give self rule to Indians once they overcame the Axis powers-- the reward came in 1919 with the passing of the draconian Rowlatt Act and was followed by the Jallianwalah Bagh massacre where British Indian Army troops under Brigadier General R.E.H. Dyer slaughtered over 1000² unarmed men, women and children (official figures showed 379 dead and 1137 injured).

Non–Cooperation Movement

In August 1920, Gandhiji, after realizing that the British were not to give in to his demand for swaraj (self rule) even after the victory of the Allied powers in World War I, and to protest against the Jallianwalah Bagh Massacre, launched the Non-Cooperation movement with the call to boycott all foreign-made goods. The boycott call received country-wide response causing major concern for British business in India. In retaliation, thousands of non-violent protesters were shot, injured or jailed along with most leaders of the Indian National Congress. The movement also encompassed the Khilafat cause with considerable participation of Muslims.

The Khilafat Movement in India

In early 1920s a worldwide phenomenon hit India– the Khilafat movement, a Pan Islamic concept of the rule of the Caliph (successor/ representative of the Prophet) by Islamic laws. The movement originated in Turkey in the wake of the division of the Ottoman Empire by the allied victors of World War I, whereby pro-west countries such as Egypt, Syria, Iraq and Palestine, were severed from the Ottoman Empire, leaving Turkey to Islamic rule under Mehmed VI, who was rendered powerless when a secretive and secular nationalist organization called the Young Turks led by Mustafa Kemal Ataturk staged a revolution and took over the country with the help of the West. The Khilafat movement was the first of its kind which pronounced the Universal Brotherhood of Islam and is perceived as the ideological predecessor to both the Taliban and the Al Qaida.

Undivided India had the maximum number of Muslims amongst all countries (post Partition, it ranks No.2 after Indonesia). Even as the Khilafat movement did not succeed elsewhere and was opposed in India by the Muslim League (a party registered at Dhaka in 1906), it had garnered considerable support amongst Muslim leaders in the Indian National Congress, the most prominent among them being Maulana Abul Kalam Azad, Dr Mukhtar Ahmed Ansari and Abdur Gaffar Khan. Gandhiji quickly endorsed the movement and asked his followers to support the non-violent strikes and demonstrations organized against the British empire by Khilafat leaders, like Maulana Mohammad Ali and his brother Maulana Shaukat Ali. Thus, the Khilafat movement merged with the Non-Cooperation movement. It ran out of steam as events in Turkey changed and in February 1922 Gandhiji distanced himself after violence broke out with the killing of 21 policemen in Chauri Chaura. Gandhiji was charged with ‘sedition’ in March 1922 and sentenced to six years in prison but he was released after two years.

Gandhiji’s support to the Khilafat movement infuriated Mohammad Ali Jinnah who saw himself as the representative of the Indian Muslims and perceived Gandhiji’s action as religious zealotry. Soon, he resigned from the Indian National Congress and became the President of the Muslim League-- the party he had joined in 1913 but had refused to preside over. Jinnah along with the Ali brothers expanded the League and eventually consolidated the Muslim masses.

This was the first turning point in the history of the Indian Freedom Struggle since it united the Indian Muslims and alienated Jinnah from the Congress thereby sowing the seed of Partition.

Salt Satyagraha/ Dandi March

After a brief political sanyas, Gandhiji returned to the Indian National Congress with new zeal and launched the Salt Satyagraha movement in March 1930 with the famous march to Dandi, about 390km from Sabarmati Ashram near Ahmedabad to protest against the salt tax. The British were predictable in their reaction to the movement-- Gandhiji marched with thousands of followers to the seashore and made ‘illegal’ salt and was eventually arrested, but leaders like Sarojini Naidu took charge and led non-violent supporters to the sea. They were brutally lathi-charged and Congress leaders were imprisoned. Responding to the worldwide adverse media reaction, the British Viceroy in India, Lord Irwin, met Gandhiji, who withdrew the movement in March 1931 following the signing of the Gandhi-Irwin pact. Cosmetic changes were made in the law and the Congress leaders and Gandhiji’s followers were released. Gandhiji was also invited to attend the second Round Table Conference scheduled for December that year, but this ended in total failure.

The Dalit Factor

Any other normal human being would by now be frustrated with his own ideology, but not the Mahatma. During the period that followed, he concentrated on the uplift of the downtrodden, with special emphasis on the Dalits, who he referred to as the ‘Harijans’. Gandhiji vowed to improve their lot but before he could achieve any meaningful breakthrough, he came into confrontation with and was opposed by the Dalit leader Dr B.R. Ambedkar, a born ‘untouchable’ who had converted to Buddhism. An accomplished scholar, reformer and the father of our Constitution, Dr Ambedkar viewed Gandhiji and the Congress party as representatives of upper caste Hindus. Gandhiji was also a believer of the ‘chaturvarna’-- the four basic castes³ and frequently quoted from the Holy Gita like ‘the person who endures wrong is as guilty as who perpetuates it’. This did not go down well with the Dalits since they were for centuries at the receiving end of the curse of the Hindu caste system. Gandhiji did not support Dr Ambedker’s movement in 1924 for the rights of the Dalits to worship in Hindu temples. In 1932, when the British agreed to Dr Ambedker’s demands for separate electorates for the Dalits, Gandhiji went on a six-day fast in protest. Thus, Gandhiji never enjoyed the mass support of the Dalits.

Alienation of Netaji Subhas

By 1938, Gandhiji’s repeated failures and lack of clarity in relation to the British had disillusioned many within the Indian National Congress and they found an alternative leader in Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose, who was elected as the President of Indian National Congress, a feat which he repeated in 1939 for the second time in spite of open opposition from Gandhiji, who had put