M.K. GANDHI WAS NOT A MAHATMA–DR. AMBEDKAR
(Extract from Dr. B.R. Ambedkar’s Interview to BBC in 1955)
As a politician he was never a Mahatma. I refuse to call him Mahatma. I have never in my life called him Mahatma. He does not deserve that title, not even from the point of view of his morality. I always met Mr. Gandhi in the capacity of an opponent. I have a feeling that I know him better than most of the people because he had opened his real fangs to me. I could see the inside of the man when others who went there as devotees saw nothing of him except external appearance of him which he had put up of a Mahatma. I saw him in human capacity bare man in him.
Gandhi would vanish from the memory of the people of this country. His memory is kept alive because the Congress Party annually gives the holiday either on his birthday or some other day connected with some event in his life and has a celebration. Naturally, people’s memory is revived. But if these artificial respirations were not given I think Gandhi would have been long ago forgotten.
Of course, in fact, he was all the time doing double dealing. He conducted two papers – one in English – ‘Harijan’ before that ‘Young India’ and in Gujrati he conducted another paper called ‘Deenbandhu’. If you read the two papers you will see how Mr. Gandhi was deceiving the people. In English paper he posed himself as the opponent of Capitalism and advocate of democracy. If you read the Gujrati paper you will see him most orthodox man. He has been supporting the caste system, varnashram dharma and all the orthodox dogmas which kept India down all through ages and he had no dynamic thing in him.
All his talk of untouchability was just for the purpose of making the untouchables drawn into the Congress. This is one thing. Secondly, he wanted that the untouchables did not oppose his movement of Swaraj. I don’t think beyond that he had any real motive of uplift. He wasn’t like Garrison in the United States who fought for the Negros.
I do not know how suddenly Mr. Attlee agreed to give independence to India. That is a secret matter. Mr. Attlee, one day, I think, will disclose in his autobiography how he came to that decision. No body ever expected this sudden change of his mind. From the analysis I make there are two things which led to the independence of India – one is National Army that was raised by Subhash Chandra Bose. Secondly, the British had been ruling this country with firm belief that whatever may happern in this country, whatever the politicians may do, they will never be able to change the loyalty of the soldiers. When they found that even the soldiers were seduced they changed their plans and decided to leave.
Note – Mr. Clement Attlee, who was the Prime Minister of Britain from 1945 to 1951, had come to India in 1956 and stayed in Kolkata as a guest of the then governor Mr. P.B. Chakraborthy of West Bengal. During the stay Mr. Chakraborthy asked Mr. Attlee – why they had to leave India. Mr. Attlee in his reply, cited several reasons, the principal among those being the erosion of loyalty to the British Crown among the Indian army and Navy personnel as a result of the military activities of Netaji. Then Mr. Chakraborthy asked Mr. Attlee what was the extent of Gandhi’s influence upon the British decision to quit India. Hearing this question, Attlee’s lips become twisted in a sarcastic smile as he slowly chewed out the word – m-i-n-i-m-a-l.
Krishan C. Garg
0172 – 4010679
kcg831@yahoo.com
