In the heyday of the 1942 movement, a would-be saboteur asked
me for moral support. He said it was the one thing needed for translation of
his patriotic resolves into actual action.
We had, I recollect, an interesting discussion that strayed
far beyond the confines of the topic that started it. Here is the substance of
it.
* * *
Myself : If you have a strong conviction about anything,
others’ support or lack of support would not affect the situation. In a case in
which all the consequences are endured by you, I should not tender advice.
Whether a thing is right or wrong, each man should decide for himself. If, by
any act of yours, innocent people are likely to suffer, then you should not proceed
with it, even if you feel that it is an act that ought to be done.
He : Innocent people are always suffering in the present
regime, irrespective of what I do or don’t do. How can I prevent it? All
political activity must come to a stop if the mind is allowed to go on this
track. Protection for innocent people will emerge eventually when we succeed in
replacing the present system of Government with a better one.
Myself : You are not responsible for all innocent people that
suffer. You are responsible only for such of them as are thrown into trouble by
your acts. Supposing, for something you do, another is hauled up before a Court
and is about to be punished, would you have the courage and fairness to go and
own that you are the real culprit and no one else should be punished for it?
He : You are a baby in politics. You do not know the police
of this country as I do. If I did what you suggest I should do, they would hang
both me and the innocent man.
Myself : That might be. But if they did like that, your
responsibility for injury suffered by another would cease. In each locality
people somehow know who is innocent. If the innocent are brought into trouble
by supposed patriots sneaking in the background while others paid the penalty
for what they did, the movement sought to be served would not advance, it would stand damaged and discredited.
Actually, the contemplated act did not come off. That did not
however prevent the man who at one stage contemplated it, from getting paid for
it. He must have made a small fortune. This man has been of late among the most
violent of the denouncers of C.R. He has been charging C.R. with having fled
from the battle of the country’s freedom on a most critical occasion.
* * *
In 1942 there were
instances of glorious courage and martyrdom. It was a period of appalling
tyranny on the part of many an official charged with responsible public duties.
From the atmosphere of persecution, the common people imbibed the quintessence
of the Gandhian preaching of over 20 years and in many cases rose spontaneously
to heights of heroic behavior. Some were hanged. Some were subjected to gross
maltreatment. Others, condemned to long periods of imprisonment, have just been
released in consequence of successful pressure on the authorities exerted by
the Mahatma. One or two were saved from the gallows by able organization of
legal defence resources by extremely competent brains, as for example, the
Kulasekharapatnam accused were saved as a result of the handling of their case
by C.R.
It is not possible to think of these sufferers without deep
emotion. Sympathy for them is converted into pride on account of the national
significance of the ordeals undergone by them. They command the love of the country.
The same however cannot be said of another class much in the limelight these
days.
* * *
In this c lass must be included those who from a safe
background urged others on to unsafe courses from which they themselves kept
very carefully away. Some of them even made money out of the opportunities of
the situation. When it became safe they emerged from the background to cash in
on the sufferings of others, assuming the role of heroes, which they were far
from deserving.
The Congress High Command blundered by failing to put this
class in its proper place. Not only that, they pampered it by giving it a very
generous representation in the list of Congress candidates for the legislature.
A huge stampede over irrelevant issues was permitted to
obscure the actual realities of the political situation. No clarification over
principles was attempted. In Madras province, all through the election period,
the key men of the provincial Congress organisations had no higher aim than
using their position for strengthening an anti-C.R. campaign.
* * *
This would not have mattered very much if C.R. had stood for
discarded doctrines. Churchill was rejected, notwithstanding his great war
service, because his inveterate anti-Socialism was out of harmony with the
general spirit of the times. His exit
therefore reflected an essential constitutional propriety which was further
illustrated in the fact that representatives of the acceptable outlook were
ready to take his place in the leadership and replace him in the Government.
C.R., unlike Churchill, happens to be the exponent of a victorious viewpoint
denied its proper due by a High Command not sufficiently imbued with a sense of
fairness.
There is to-day no nearness between C.R.’s opponents and the
Congress justifying his being treated to disparaging treatment on grounds of
policy. Assumptions to the contrary reveal no loyalty to any principle dear to
Congress tradition, but provide merely a cover for exploiting the name of
loyalty for attainment of personal power and position—(April 27, 1946) S A K A.
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