Monday, January 13, 2020

Origin of a story: The Afridis and the leader Inquilab

The call for Purna Swaraj  in 1929 led to enthusiastic participation in the subsequent Non-Cooperation movement.  One story in modern histories that emerges from the North-West Frontier Province from that time is as follows (I learned of it on twitter from @LotusTile):

Though Ghaffar Khan's own movement was confined to the settled districts of Peshawar, Kohat, Bannu, Dera Ismail Khan and Hazara, there were also a series of tribal incursions in the latter part of 1930 against which aerial bombardment was freely used.  The tribal raiders this time significantly refrained from looting villages, and with moving simplicity raised demands for the release of Badshah Khan, 'Malang Baba' (the 'naked fakir', Gandhi) and 'Inquilab' (they had heard the slogan Inquilab Zindabad, and had assumed 'Inquilab' to be another great leader in prison).
This above is from "Modern India 1885-1947" by Sumit Sarkar,  1989.  The source of this charming story is not given.

A search for an earlier source, leads one to "Pilgrimage for Peace - Gandhi & Frontier Gandhi among N.W.F. Pathans", by Pyarelal (1950).

There he writes, quoting a few phrases from Collin Davies, The Problem of the North-West Frontier, 1890-1908:
Round the Khyber and to the south live the much maligned Afridis whom circumstances have forced to become "distrustful of all mankind".  Once, however, this distrust is removed, the Afridi is said to be capable of the greatest devotion, and "may turn out to be your staunchest friend".  In appearance lean and wiry, "his eagle eye, proud bearing and light step" bespeak a freedom born of his wind-swept mountain glens.  The Afridis played a very important part during the two Afghan Wars and during the Civil Disobedience days of 1930, when the brutalities perpetrated on the Khudai Khidmatgars in Peshawar and the other parts of the Settled Districts caused a deep stir among them.
Pyarelal ends the paragraph with a footnote:
There was a delectable story told about them at the time of the Gandhi-Irwin Truce, illustrating their simple faith.  In the conference with the Political authorities their 'terms of peace' were stated to be release of:

            (i) Badshah Khan (Abdul Ghaffar Khan)
            (ii) Malang Baba (Naked Fakir, i.e., Gandhiji), and
            (iii) Inquilab (Revolution)....(Inquilab Zindabad — Long Live the Revolution —being a universal, popular slogan those days, they equated it with some patriotic individual whom the British Government had imprisoned! )
Pyarelal was much closer to these events, but still, this is written in 1950.  Is there anything closer to contemporary?  Further search leads one to "The White Sahibs in India", by Reginald Reynolds (1937).  Reynolds writes:
Mr. Brailsford has written of the "virtual unanimity" of the Indian people in the Civil Disobedience campaign of 1930-31..........

Mr. Brailsford also refers to the omnipresence of Gandhi's photograph (though frequently made illegal).  He found it even "in the wattled hut of an aboriginal tribesman, so poor that he owned nothing else, save his tools and his earthen pots".  Mr. Verrier Elwin, who had long sought for a man who had never heard of Gandhi, found one eventually who proved to have been stone deaf for twenty years.[43]   The present author's experiences in 1930 were similar, and Mr. Horace Alexander, returning to India after two and a half years, was startled at the change.  "Nationalism," he said, "is manifest everywhere."

The endnote [43] reads:
Lessons from the Jungle, p. 132.  Mr. Elwin did, however, eventually find some aboriginals who thought that Gandhi was something to eat.  In an unpublished letter he has recorded an encounter with an Afridi on the frontier.   This man knew of Gandhi, whom he called the Malang (Saint) but thought there was also another great leader in India called Inquilab (Revolution!).
Verrier Elwin was certainly in a position to narrate this story to Gandhi and his entourage.  Had he found the Inquilab misapprehension to be common among Afridis, he would have certainly noted it.  My current guess is that Verrier Elwin lies at the root of the story, which has been embroidered with the telling.  Of course, one could perhaps find official British reports which talk of the Afridis' demands, but those are, at present, beyond my reach.

Friday, August 24, 2018

The End of the Indian National Congress

This below via gandhi-manibhavan.org
Also found in Volume 98 of"The Collected Works of Mahatma Gandhi (Electronic Book), New Delhi, Publications Division Government of India, 1999, 98 volumes".
Footnotes from the Electronic Book appear at the bottom of this post.


Articles By Gandhi
His Last Will And Testament
January 29, 1948
This constitution was drafted by Gandhiji for the Congress on the eve of his assassination. His intention was to show how the Congress which was till now mainly concerned with achieving political independence might convert itself into an association for the Service of the People (Lok Sevak Sangh), and work for the establishment of a nonviolent society.

NEW DELHIJanuary 29, 1948
Though split into two, India having attained political independence through means devised by the Indian National Congress, the Congress in its present shape and form, i.e., as a propaganda vehicle and parliamentary machine, has outlived its use. India has still to' attain social, moral and economic independence in terms of its seven hundred thousand villages as distinguished from its cities and towns. The struggle for the ascendency of 'civil over military power is bound to take place in India's progress towards its democratic goat It must be kept out of unhealthy competition with political parties and communal bodies. For these and other similar reasons, the A. I. C. C. resolves to disband the existing Congress organization and flower into a Lok Sevak Sangh under the following rules with power to alter them as occasion may demand.

Every panchayat of five adult men or women being villagers or village-minded shall form a unit.

Two such contiguous panchayats shall form a working party under a leader elected from among themselves.

When there are one hundred such panchayats, the fifty first grade leaders shall elect from among themselves a second 'grade leader and so on, the first grade leaders meanwhile working under the second grade leader. 

Parallel groups of two hundred panchayats shall continue to be formed till they ,cover. the whole of India, each succeeding group of panchayats electing a second grade leader after the manner of the first. All second grade leaders shall serve jointly for the whole of India and severally for their respective areas. The second grade leader may elect, whenever they deem necessary, from among them- selves a chief who will, during pleasure, regulate and command all the groups.

(As the final formation of provinces or districts is still in state of flux, no attempt has been made to divide this group of servants into provincial or District Councils, and jurisdiction over the whole of India has been vested in the group or groups that may have been formed at any time. It should be noted that this body of servants derive their authority or power from service ungrudgingly and wisely done to their master, the whole of India).

1. Every worker shall be a habitual wearer of khadi made from self-spun yarn or certified by the A.l.S.A. and must be a teetotaller. If a Hindu, he must have abjured untouchability in any shape or form in his own person or in his family and must be a believer in the ideal of inter-communal unity, equal respect and regard for all religions and equality of opportunity and status for all irrespective of race, creed or sex.

2. He shall come in personal contact with every villager, within his jurisdiction.

3. He shall enroll and train workers from amongst the villagers and keep a register of all these.

4. He shall keep a record of his work from day to day.

5. He shall organize the villages so as to make them self-contained and self-supporting through their agriculture and handicrafts.'

6. He shall educate the village folk in sanitation and hygiene. and take all measures for prevention of ill-health and disease among them.

7. He shall organize the education of the village folk from birth to death along the lines of Nai Talim, in accordance with the policy laid down by the Hindustani Talimi Sangh.

8. He shall see that those whose names are missing on the statutory voters rolls are duly entered therein.

9. He shall encourage those who have not yet acquired the legal qualification, to acquire it for getting the right of franchise.'

10. For the above purposes and others to be added from time to time, he shall train and fit himself in accordance with the rules laid down by the Sangh for the due performance of duty.

The Sangh shall affiliate the. following autonomous bodies:

1. A.I.S.A. (All-India Spinners Association)
2. A.I.V.I.A. (All-India Village Industries Association)
3. Hindustani Talimi Sangh (Society for Basic Education)
4. Harijan Sevak Sangh (Society for service' of "untouchables")
5. Goseva Sangh (Society for Cow-protection and Improvement)

FINANCE

The Sangh shall raise finances for the fulfillment of its mission, from among the villagers and others, special stress being laid on collection of the poor man's pice.

Harijan, 15-2.1948

Footnotes from the Electronic Version:
Acharya Jugal Kishore, General Secretary of A. I. C. C., released this draft to the Press on February 7, with the note: “As something has already appeared in the Press . . . regarding the proposals which Mahatmaji had made concerning changes in the Congress constitution I am releasing the full draft as was handed to me on the fateful forenoon of 30th January. . . .”

This appeared in Harijan under the title “His Last Will and Testament”.

In his article “The Fateful Friday”, in Harijan, Pyarelal writes: “The whole of the 29th had been so cram-full with work that at the end of the day Gandhiji felt utterly fagged out. “My head is reeling. And yet I must finish this,” he remarked to Abha, pointing to the draft constitution for the Congress which he had undertaken to prepare, and then, “I am afraid I shall have to keep late hours.”

The next morning Gandhiji revised the draft and gave it to Pyarelal to “go through it carefully”. He added: “Fill in any gaps in thought that there might be. I wrote it under a heavy strain.” When Pyarelal took the revised draft to him he “went through the additions and alterations point by point with his characteristic thoroughness and removed an error in calculation that had crept in in regard to the number of panchayats.”

Monday, June 11, 2018

More on Jinnah's retirement plans

Jinnah Papers, First Series, Volume IV, No 77 (pages 136-137) record that on August 1, 1947,  Jinnah received a Rs 10,000 earnest money payment from Jaydayal Dalmia and executed an agreement with him for the sale of  Jinnah's property of No. 10 Aurangzeb Road, New Delhi.  The total sum was for Rs 300,000 to be paid on or before January 10, 1948.  Jinnah planned to transfer possession on or before August 31, 1947.

Jawed Naqvi, in The Dawn, November 7, 2017, "Two daughters and sons-in-law", borrows from Sheela Reddy, "Mr and Mrs Jinnah: the Marriage that Shook India":
When Jinnah was rumoured to be considering selling his Bombay home in 1941, Dina [Wadia] broke her long silence to pen a letter to ‘My darling Papa’.

Dated April 28, 1941, the letter is reproduced in Reddy’s book. It reads: “First of all I must congratulate you — on having got Pakistan, that is to say, the principle has been accepted. I am so proud and happy for you — how hard you have worked for it.”

Dina then comes to the subject of her primary interest. “I hear you have sold ‘South Court’ to Dalmia for 20 lakhs. It’s a very good price and you must be very pleased,” she writes. “If you have sold [it], I wanted to make one suggestion of you — if you are not moving your books, could I please have a few of Ruttie’s old poetry books — Byron, Shelley and a few others and the Oscar Wilde series?”
Jinnah’s reply was to summarily dismiss the purported house sale as a “wild rumour”.
So what to make of Dina Wadia's letter to her father on 2/5 June 1947, as reproduced in the Jinnah Papers, Volume I, Part II,  No. 525, pages 984-985?  Dina Wadia started the letter on June 2nd and continued it on June 5th.  Intervening was June 3rd, when the Mountbatten Partition plan was announced.  For now, just quoting the relevant sentences:
I am sorry that you didn't sell South Court [2] as I know you want to—I believed you had because I read about it in the Forum Magazine and didn't think they would print a complete falsehood.  As you say, people do indulge in wild rumours.  F.E. Dinshaw's house I believe has been sold to Mullaji for 19 lakhs fifty thousand.  I am not sure if this is certain.
[2] South Court was the name of Jinnah's residence at Mount Pleasant Road, Malabar Hill, Bombay.
We are told "On 9 August 1943, the first anniversary of Quit India Day, Joachim and Violet Alva founded FORUM, a weekly news magazine which became known for its championing of the cause of independence. " I wonder if this is the magazine mentioned above.

Regarding the meeting with the Muslim members of the Constituent Assembly of India, Choudhry Khaliquzzaman, in "Pathway to Pakistan" recounts:
Mr. Jinnah himself realized the grave dangers to Muslims who after the partition were to be left in India.  I remember that in 1 August 1947, a few days before his final departure for Karachi, Mr. Jinnah called the Muslim members of the Constituent Assembly of India to his house at 10 Aurangzeb Road to bid farewell to them.  Mr. Rizwanullah put some awkward questions concerning the position of Muslims who would be left over in India, their status and their future.
[My question: Mr. Rizwanullah = Maulvi Rizwanullah, Muslim Leaguer from Gorakhpur?]
I had never before found Mr. Jinnah so disconcerted as on that occasion, probably because he was realizing then quite vividly what was immediately in store for the Muslims.   Finding the situation awkward, I asked my friends and colleagues to end the discussion.  I believe as a result of our farewell meeting Mr. Jinnah took the earliest opportunity to bid goodbye to his two-nation theory in his speech on 11 September 1947 as the Governor-General designate of Pakistan and President of the Constituent Assembly of Pakistan:
Now, if we want to make this great State of Pakistan happy and prosperous, we should wholly and solely concentrate on the well-being of the people, and especially of the masses and the poor. If you will work in co-operation, forgetting the past, burying the hatchet, you are bound to succeed. If you change your past and work together in a spirit that everyone of you, no matter to what community he belongs, no matter what relations he had with you in the past, no matter what is his colour, caste or creed, is first, second and last a citizen of this State with equal rights, privileges, and obligations, there will be on end to the progress you will make....I cannot emphasize it too much. We should begin to work in that spirit and in course of time all these angularities of the majority and minority communities, the Hindu community and the Muslim community— because even as regards Muslims you have Pathans, Punjabis, Shias, Sunnis and so on, and among the Hindus you have Brahmins, Vaishyas, Khatris, also Bengalis, Madrasis and so on—will vanish. Indeed if you ask me, this has been the biggest hindrance in the way of India to attain the freedom and independence and but for this we would have been free people long ago. ..You may belong to any religion or caste or creed that has nothing to do with the business of the State.

The last meeting of the All-India Muslim League Council was held in Karachi on December 14-15, 1947. (I'm relying on "Encyclopedia of Political Parties Series, All India Muslim League, Volume 2" Editor-in-Chief O.P. Ralhan for this). Quote, emphasis added:
"A member interrupted and asked the Quaid-i-Azam if he would once again be prepared to take over the leadership of the Muslims of India in the present hour of trial.  The Quaid-i-Azam replied that he was quite willing to do so if the Council gave its verdict in favour of such proposal.  He recalled his statement at the time of the achievement of Pakistan that his job had been done, and with the achievement of Pakistan, the cherished goal of the Muslim nation, he wanted to lead a retired life.  But if called upon, he was quite ready to leave Pakistan and share the difficulties of the Muslim in the Indian Union and so lead them."
It would seem that Jinnah saw his retired life to be in Pakistan, not in Bombay, if this account is relied upon. (My problem with it is that O.P. Ralhan does not adequately identify the sources.)

In the July 30th 1947 story that Jinnah contradicted, we had this (emphasis added)
It is said that a large number of Muslim members felt sore and asked a series of questions as to their position and fate and the help that they should expect from the Pakistan Government.  Mr. Jinnah is reported to have said that they should not expect any help from the Pakistan State and must rely on themselves and fit in with the new conditions.
In the December 14-15th meeting, (emphasis added)
The Quaid-i-Azam recalled the charges that were being levelled against Pakistan and its leaders about the betrayal of the Muslim masses in the Indian Union.  He said, he was full of feelings for the Muslim masses in the Indian Union, who were, unfortunately, facing bad days. He advised the Indian Muslims to organize themselves so as to become powerful enough to safeguard their political rights.  A well-organized minority should be powerful enough to protect its own rights—political, cultural, economic and social.  On his part, he assured them of his full realization that the achievement of Pakistan was the outcome of the labour and toil of the Muslim in India as well as of those who were now enjoying its fruits.  Pakistan would help them in every possible way.
 

Jinnah's retirement plans

It is claimed, e.g.,
After becoming Governor General of Pakistan Jinnah maintained his citizenship of India. Just FYI. He was planning on going home and retiring in Bombay.
The evidence for this claim is supposed to be Jinnah Papers, Volume IV, page 142.

Let us systematically examine the two parts of this claim.

1. Citizenship.
2. What is in the Jinnah Papers.

 Jinnah may have at some occasion expressed a wish to retire to Bombay,  but evidence cited above does not say anything about it.   And "maintained his citizenship of India" has no meaning.  It also contradicts what he said on March 30, 1946 in his interview in Delhi by Norman Cliff, Foreign Editor, News Chronicle (of London).

Monday, February 19, 2018

Gandhi on exemplars of simplicity

{original post here}

In Harijan of July 17, 1937, Mahatma Gandhi wrote about what he hoped for from the Congress ministries that were assuming office in the various provincial governments.  Excerpt {highlights added}

Then the personal behaviour of Ministers. How will Congress Ministers discharge themselves? Their Chief, the Presidentt of the Congress, travels third class. Will they travel first? The President is satisfied with a coarse khadi dhoti, Kurta and waistcoat. Will the Ministers require the Western style and expenditure on Western scale? Congressmen have for the past seventeen years disciplined themselves in rigorous simplicity. The nation will expect the Ministers to introduce simplicity in the administration of their Provinces. They will not be ashamed of it, they will be proud of it. We are the poorest nation on earth, many millions living in semi-starvation. Its representatives dare not live in a style and manner out of all correspondence with their electors. The Englishmen coming as conquerors and rulers set up a standard of living which took no account whatsoever of the helpless conquered. If the Ministers will simply refrain from copying the Governors and the secured Civil Service, they will have shown the marked contrast that exists between the Congress mentality and theirs. Truly there can be no partnership between them and us even as there can be none between a giant and a dwarf.

Lest Congressmen should think that they have a monopoly of simplicity and that they erred in 1920 in doing away with the trousers and the chair, let me cite the examples of Aboobaker and Omar. Rama and Krishna are prehistoric names. I may not use these names as examples. History tells us of Pratap and Shivaji living in uttermost simplicity. But opinion may be divided as to what they did when they had power. There is no division of opinion about the Prophet, Aboobaker and Omar. They had the riches of the world at their feet. It will be difficult to find a historical parallel to match their rigorous life. Omar would not brook the idea of his lieutenants in distant provinces using anything but coarse cloth and coarse flour. The Congress Ministers, if they will retain the simplicity and economy they have inherited since 1920, will save thousands of rupees, will give hope to the poor and probably change the tone of the Services. It is hardly necessary for me to point out that simplicity does not mean shoddiness. There is a beauty and an art in simplicity which he who runs may see. It does not require money to be neat, clean and dignified. Pomp and pageantry are often synonymous with vulgarity.

Monday, October 23, 2017

Mahatma Gandhi on the use of Indian Armed Forces - 2

This is an excerpt from a speech by Sardar Patel given on October 1, 1948.
You can read the whole speech here.

I am proud of the Air Force, for their doings in the short period, both in Kashmir and Hyderabad; for their work for the relief operations, for removing the refugees, for supply the necessities of the army in Kashmir.  While people talk of our failing to follow Gandhiji’s teachings, I wish to give you one example which I remember from his conversation.  When Srinagar was touch and go, when we wanted to put our Army in Srinagar and when the Air Force was asked that they had to carry the Army and all its requirements quickly, they did it with wonderful speed; and if we had been late by twenty-four hours the whole game would have been lost.   That is the work which you have done, which is written in letters of gold in the history of Freedom.  We are proud of you.   But what Gandhiji said to me was “I feel so proud when I hear the noise of these airplanes.   At one time, I was feeling very miserable and oppressed when I heard this.  But when this Kashmir  operation began, I began to feel proud of them and every airplane that goes with materials and arms and ammunition and requirements of the Army.  I feel proud.”  Because he felt injustice over Kashmir by the raiders.  And he said: “Any injustice on our land, any encroachment on our land should either be defended by violence, if not by non-violence.”  “If you can defend by non-violence, by all means do it; that is the first thing I should like.   If it is for me to do, I would not touch anything, either a pistol or revolver or anything.   But I would not see India degrading itself to be feeling helpless.   Therefore, when the Air Force has performed this miracle of saving Srinagar by its organized strength and the co-operation it gave to the Army, I feel proud of them and I feel happy.”  That is what he said.

Therefore, those who say that we do not follow the preachings or teachings of the Mahatma, we tell them: “Perhaps you from a distance know better about Mahatma’s teachings than we who have all our life with him know.  Thank you very much.  We will not take our lessons from you, but we will go our own way.  We must go our own way.   We have got small lights.  We must work according to our own lights.

Sardar Patel on Gandhi, India and the World

From:
The Collected Works of Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel, Volume XIII, (1st January 1948 - 31st December 1948)
Chief Editor: P. N. Chopra


(emphasis as in the book, footnotes inserted inline)

Sardar Patel on Gandhi, India and the World
In Tune with the Millions

1 October 1948

[In this marvellous and deeply touching speech before officers and men of the Royal Indian Air Force on 1 October 1948, Sardar in the context of world affairs, and in the context of Gandhiji’s teachings and India’s civilization, projects this true and objective picture of the demands of his time.]

Officers and Members of the Royal Indian Air Force, Ladies and Gentlemen:

The first thing that I inquired about was whether I can talk to you in our own language because we have won freedom after a hard struggle after many years of slavery and bondage; and if we do not begin to talk in our own language now, there is a danger of harboring the remnants of slavery which may grow again into a tree; and, therefore, at least the Armed Forces in India must learn to talk in our own national language.  But I am told that there are many South Indians here who will not be able to understand our national language.   I find the same difficulty in the Congress also; and our Assemblies occasionally, we have to talk, largely or, we have to talk in the foreign language because of the South Indian block in the Congress lagging behind in spite of their great efforts to learn the Hindi language. You must make up quickly because if you go to South India also, you will not be able to talk to the common man except in the provincial language or in the national language.  We have to make rapid progress in that direction.  For the present, I will abide by your desire and say a few words in the language which you say you can understand.

I have been a soldier all my life.  I am not a statesman nor am I a politician.   I have joined the armed forces of India which after a hard struggle—a prolonged struggle—got the country emancipated from bondage and although the Commander-in-Chief1
1Mahatma Gandhi
of our armed forces departed from the transitory world this year; and you and we all paid our homage to him when he left us as orphans.   It was he who had really started the real struggle for freedom.  Freedom’s struggle which we fought was a different kind of struggle and in that struggle there were rules of honor, rules of conduct and rules which governed the struggle in which we were all engaged and which has no parallel in the history of the world’s struggle for freedom.

Mahatma Gandhi came to India in 1915.   For one year, he kept himself secluded in his own temporary abode in Ahmedabad to see what is happening in the country.  According to the advice of his leader or guru2
2Preceptor, teacher, adviser
Gopal Krishna Gokhale3
3Gandhiji’s political guru, a most distinguished moderate leader, contemporary of Tilak, founder of the Servants of India Society, President, Indian National Congress, 1905.
who brought him here from South Africa and advised him to stay in India, one year, without doing or involving himself in any public life.   Unfortunately, his guru died during that year; but as soon as the first year was over, he started his experiments in different fields.

The first was in Champaran4,
4In 1917
in Bihar, where the indigo planters who had settled themselves in Bihar for several years were exploiting the poor peasants.   Their history of sufferings and sorrows are written in the history of that Struggle5.
5This story of distress and sorrow of the Champaran peasants and Gandhi’s unique work among them has been very graphically and objectively recorded in Satyagraha in Champaran by Dr. Rajendra Prasad, Pub. Navajivan, Ahmedabad.
That was the foundation of the struggle for freedom.  In a short period without any weapon in his hand—except the weapon of the soul-force—he made the planters surrender; he made the Bihar Government and the Government of India surrender; and since many years, you see no planters in Bihar; they have all disappeared. There was no slavery as bad as the slavery of the laborers in those plantations in Bihar. 

After that, he started the struggle in Kaira and simultaneously with Kaira, he started the great labour organization in Ahmedabad when no Trade Union movement was born in India.   It was he who laid the foundations of labour movement in India and that Organization 6
6The Majdur Mahajan of Ahmedabad had its birth in the wake of Gandhiji’s fast in 1917 to secure a just wage for the Ahmedabad mill-hands and under his protecting care it soon blossomed into a mighty tree as the most formidable and disciplined labour organization in the country.
today is the best and the most well-organized organization in this country and yet the movement was of such a nature and the organization was built on such foundations that there has been the least friction between capital and labour in that city.  So the industry there has thrived to an extent that it is the most well-organized industry in India and the laborers the best-paid in the country.   That was because he avoided friction and laid the foundation of settlement by arbitration for any dispute that arose between labour and capital.

It is not so in Europe.  The movement of Trade Union in Europe or in the West is based on the principle of collective bargaining in which there is an element of coercion and force which always result in bitterness.   Now when he first started this movement he had to fast for several days in support of labour which could not stand the organized opposition of the industry.  And at the end of his fast there was a settlement which made industry and labour accept the principle of resolving all differences and disputes by independent arbitration.  

His one principle in all his movements was that we must not always claim to be in the right although we know that we are in the right.  We must not insist on our point of view being the final thing.  The opponent would also claim the same thing; and therefore, the best solution between the two warring elements was to refer the matter to an independent arbitration.  If that principle today is accepted in the world, there will be no trouble.

But you know what is happening in the United Nations’ Organization.  People assemble there; the big powers, who of all countries, have laid the foundations of world unity, are not able to resolve their own differences and they meddle with the other peoples’ differences.   Those who are not able to compose their own differences have no right to meddle with the differences of other people.

We have seen what price we have paid in Kashmir by going to that organization.  We went to the United Nations’ Organization in order to bring the dispute to an early end.  For six months, we were maligned all over the world by the representatives of Pakistan.  And people who had never seen this country and who did not understand what the problem of India and Pakistan or Kashmir was, — they began to hear our case from people who had no bone in their tongue.  They, therefore, went on talking anything that came to their mouth and for six months it went on like that.   After that, their delegation came here.  They visited Kashmir, they visited Pakistan, they visited India, and had long and prolonged conversations and discussions.  Eventually, they made proposals for a cease-fire.  We accepted the proposals for a cease-fire. The other party did not.   Yet we are where we were.  If we were to fight this out by armed forces and if the United Nations’ Organization is not able to do anything, then instead of calling it the Security Council, it must be termed the “insecurity council” which disturbs the security of the law.

You have seen what is happening in Hyderabad.  The Nizam says: “I do not want my case in the United Nations’ Security Council.”   But the Security Council says: “We are seized of it.”  It is so because they have no other thing to do.   Therefore, anything that comes before them they go on discussing it which disturbs the security here or which is likely to disturb the security here and thereby it disturbs the security of the world and thus it is a proper and fitting thing to call this organization an “insecurity council”.  How far it is advisable to be a member of that august organization is a question which has to be seriously considered.

You have seen that we have performed the operation in Hyderabad with the least amount of blood.  But has the above Security Council solved any problem which they have handled after its establishment?   Take Palestine, take Indonesia, take any question that has been referred to the Security Council.   It has not been able to dispose of them and bring about peace; and they are all problems which they are not able to settle.    So, in one way, the League of Nations was more or less a harmless organization.  This organization if it does not improve itself is going to land the world into a terrific slaughter and destruction.   In that context, if the Security Organization would have been based on the principles on which Gandhi led his struggle, the world would be happier and there would be no struggle at all.  There would be peace.  But we all pay our lip-sympathy and homage to that great leader which this country in its degraded state, in the state of slavery of several hundred years, produced.  Now it is a free country.   If a slave country produced such leaders, why should not India produce such  greater leaders who would raise its head amongst the nations of the world.

That is our ambition.  We do not want to have armed forces to have aggression on any country in the world.   That is not India’s history.  Its civilization is entirely different.   India has never made any encroachment on any country throughout its history by sword.  It has done so by its culture, by its civilization, by its force of the soul.   That is how it has spread its message in the past, right up to Japan, Afghanistan and other places.  When the world hardly knew what civilization was, our civilization, without any air force, without any fighting force, spread the message of peace, love and goodwill.

That was the message which Gandhiji gave to us, and wanted us to fight with that force— that weapon.  We started the struggle.  After a hard struggle for a prolonged period in which I had the honor to share his sorrows, his miseries, his joys, in every struggle, and pass prolonged periods of seclusion in jail with him, we got our liberty and the fruits of which we have now to enjoy.   Whether we are fit for it or not, the future history can tell.

But the world has progressed fast and it has changed.   Some people in the foreign countries criticize us saying, “These people are not following Gandhiji’s ways.”  As if they know more about Gandhiji’s ways that we who have passed our life with him.   Gandhiji knew that the world was not following him.  He knew very well that India was not following him.  And if India had followed him, the world would also have followed him.  Therefore, he knew India’s limitations and he knew and he appreciated the work of the armed forces also.  His ambition was that the world should have no armed forces and all countries should disarm themselves.

That is what the United Nations’ Commission7
7On Kashmir
also says.  When will it be fulfilled? If one country says: “I must have monopoly of the atom bomb or the atom energy,” the other country says: “I must find its antidote. . . .” How is the world going to disarm itself?   If it is not going to disarm itself, India would not do it also even though it accepts the principles of non-aggression.   We have never done it; we shall never do it in the future also.  But Gandhiji never advised us to be cowards.  He never advised us to forsake our country or not to protect the country’s honour and the country’s liberty.  Therefore, we shall not fail to arm ourselves with the requisite armed force whatever it may cost for the protection of this land.  We would be unworthy of the inheritor of liberty.  We would be unworthy of the great soul who released the country from bondage if we did not provide sufficient armed strength to protect its borders and not for its internal troubles.
My note: Sardar Patel means India has an adequate police force. See below where Sardar Patel says: You need not trouble yourselves any more with internal troubles.   I shall manage it with my Police because I do not want to degrade the profession of the Indian soldier to shoot down his own brothers.

The internal troubles are all solved now.  So far as India is concerned, in the Indian Union, nobody will raise his head again.  The last ghost8
8Hyderabad
has been buried recently.  We have pricked the bubble which created frightening shadows and pictures all over; there will be massacres of Hindus and Muslims; there will be a big invasion from Pakistan; oh! you do not know what war is; don’t do this; don’t do that.  But we said we shall see.  We shall perform this operation at the proper time when there will be least amount of bleeding; and, thanks to you all, we did it, and we are free.

We have now the only question of Kashmir; and God willing, if the Security Council releases us from that embarrassment, we shall perform that operation with the least amount of bleeding.  But we are involved in many cobwebs of that problem and I do not which to enter into it at present. 

We must remember that outside India there is no peace.  Take Burma.  When was its liberty won? Burma got its liberty simultaneously with us.  But if you go ten miles out of Rangoon, there is no Government.  In one year, the liberty that they won is very nearly going.   It is touch and go.   So take Indonesia, take Burma, take China where trouble is going on continuously and we have our friends— the neighbors in the North9.
9Pakistan 
They are not very friendly to us.  They talk of friendship; they look like friends.  We want to be friends.   We have so often told them: “You often talk of enemies; your enemies, whoever they are, they are within yourselves and not outside.”  We do not wish to be enemies of anybody.   We wish to be friends with everybody; that was the legacy that our leader has left us.   For years we have learnt at his feet not to harbour ill-will for anybody.  But at the same time he has taught us: “Do not be cowards.  Learn to fight bravely.  Defend every inch of your country.”  We shall not fail to preserve that legacy that has been given to us.

Only you, the Air Force, the Defence Force and the Navy— you have all to work together and see that day and night we keep a watch on our borders.   You need not trouble yourselves any more with internal troubles.   I shall manage it with my Police because I do not want to degrade the profession of the Indian soldier to shoot down his own brothers.   It is not good for us.

When people talk of aggression on Hyderabad, they either deliberate misrepresent the thing for whatever motives they may have or they do not understand what aggression is.   How can we have aggression on our people?  What is Hyderabad?  Is the Nizam Hyderabad?  If the people of Hyderabad is Hyderabad it is part of India.  The British people still think that Hyderabad is a British preserve.  It is one year10,
10Since achievement of Independence
yet they do not understand that they have no claim here.   And I trust that this will be the last debate in Parliament11
11British Parliament
in which reference is made about India’s business.   Otherwise, we do not want to be forced into friendship.   If friendship is not wanted, we have self-respect enough to stand aloof against the whole world.  Because if violence is the order of the world, and we have not got sufficient organized violence, we have enough non-violence by which we know how to die.  

But we know how to preserve our self-respect.  Therefore, I wish we have no more sermons from people who still believe that they are trustees here—the trustees of the world.   They must know that they had enough mismanagements in all parts of the world.  They must now leave us alone.

Therefore we, members of the Air Force, members of the Army, members of the Navy— we have learned these lessons of modern warfare from the West.   Let us not degrade it in any manner.   I am glad and I am proud of you that although the Air Force has been born recently and is a baby, yet it is a very healthy and very beautiful, good-looking baby of which India can be proud.  Do nothing to disfigure it.   Observe and concentrate on the rules of discipline and chivalry and do not forget that in the Armed Forces there can be no community— only one community.  Whether it is a Hindu, a Muslim, or a Sikh, we are all brothers.  It should be so in India, but at least in the Armed Forces, it should be the first.  You have to lay an example.  We politicians have inherited a very bad legacy.  We have, you had also, but we had particularly, communal representation.   Everything that we did, every action that we took, was weighed on communal scales.  You had also the Mahratta Regiment, the Jat Regiment, the Sikh Regiment, etc. But we wish to forget all that.  We must now rewrite our history because we are making a beginning and we have a clean slate now.

In one year you have seen that India’s map has been considerably changed.   The proud princes have also realized the changed atmosphere; and, in one year, they have accommodated themselves in such a manner that without firing a shot, without any trouble, except in the two States, we rearranged the whole map of India.  It is an achievement of which we can all be proud; and therefore, I always congratulate our princes for showing wisdom and sense of patriotism.

Let us forget the past.  Let us see what they are doing now.  The were themselves not free; they are free today.  So you see the Maharaja of Bhavnagar12
12Shri Krishnakumar Sinhaji
being the Governor of Madras.  It is a great change; it is a great thing.  He is a common man.  He has abandoned his title of “His Highness” and became a protector and a trustee of the people of Madras.  Thus princes and people must learn to be equals and share the fates, sorrows, miseries and the pride and well-being of our nation.  In that, let us all put together in a common boat and begin sailing safe in the ocean of the world.

I still want to preserve the little energy that is left to me at this age to see that India takes its proper place not merely by winning the freedom but by raising the status and strength of India in such a manner that the people who are preaching sermons will begin to respect us and say that they have also something to learn from us.   That is my ambition.  For that, we must all put our heads together and go ahead.

I am proud of the Air Force, for their doings in the short period, both in Kashmir and Hyderabad; for their work for the relief operations, for removing the refugees, for supply the necessities of the army in Kashmir.  While people talk of our failing to follow Gandhiji’s teachings, I wish to give you one example which I remember from his conversation.  When Srinagar was touch and go, when we wanted to put our Army in Srinagar and when the Air Force was asked that they had to carry the Army and all its requirements quickly, they did it with wonderful speed; and if we had been late by twenty-four hours the whole game would have been lost.   That is the work which you have done, which is written in letters of gold in the history of Freedom.  We are proud of you.   But what Gandhiji said to me was “I feel so proud when I hear the noise of these airplanes.   At one time, I was feeling very miserable and oppressed when I heard this.  But when this Kashmir  operation began, I began to feel proud of them and every airplane that goes with materials and arms and ammunition and requirements of the Army.  I feel proud.”  Because he felt injustice over Kashmir by the raiders.  And he said: “Any injustice on our land, any encroachment on our land should either be defended by violence, if not by non-violence.”  “If you can defend by non-violence, by all means do it; that is the first thing I should like.   If it is for me to do, I would not touch anything, either a pistol or revolver or anything.   But I would not see India degrading itself to be feeling helpless.   Therefore, when the Air Force has performed this miracle of saving Srinagar by its organized strength and the co-operation it gave to the Army, I feel proud of them and I feel happy.”  That is what he said.

Therefore, those who say that we do not follow the preachings or teachings of the Mahatma, we tell them: “Perhaps you from a distance know better about Mahatma’s teachings than we who have all our life with him know.  Thank you very much.  We will not take our lessons from you, but we will go our own way.  We must go our own way.   We have got small lights.  We must work according to our own lights.

We have seen what is happening in Europe, what degradation, what destruction the world has faced from the Western civilization!  With all your pride and pomp, God forgive us from that civilization!  We want to be spared of it.  Let us go our own way.

That is what we want to tell them.  And for that purpose, we must not forget our foundations, our civilization, although we may copy the best from the West.   And, therefore, when we take lessons in the Army, in the Navy, or in the Air Force, in modern warfare, we must not degrade ourselves.

May God give us enough sense not to do anything which could bring dishonour to our country.   The departed soul13
13Mahatma Gandhi
takes account of our doings.   He watches us from the heavens.   Whether we deserved his leadership which he gave us for a prolonged period and freed the country— whether we deserved it or not — he takes account.   Let us not forget it.  Let us not do anything which would make him unhappy.   We have, when we cremated his last remnants of the frail body, paid our homage to him, but that is all worldly.   The real homage that we can pay to his memory is to try to follow his footsteps as far as we can.   His life is an open book.   We know his teachings.  We must try to follow that.

Never forget that unity is your strength.    If one of your colleagues gets a better job do not feel jealous of him rather be proud of him.  If one below you is promoted, try to obtain enough merit to get your proper place, but do not be disgruntled.  Do not feel unhappy because your colleague has been better off than you.  Feel happy because after all he is your comrade.

Therefore, learn more of discipline, comradeship and unity in your Force.  In thirty or thirty-five years of struggle, we have also learned the rules of struggle, of chivalry, of discipline, of comradeship and of unity which are more or less common in both the non-violent struggle as well as the violent struggle.   The rules of struggle or fight are all common because they are all based on a moral standard.  Therefore, do not do anything which would bring discredit to you.  I wish you success and godspeed in your career.