“Lack of Collective Leadership” I do not agree with the persons who feel that India never had good leadership. India always had very able and intelligent leaders. In ancient India, we had Lord Rama, Lord Shree Krishna. In the historic time, we had King Puru, King Dahir, King Prithiraj Chouhan, , many other able Hindu Kings, Rana Sangha, Rana Pratap, Shivaji Maharaj to name a few. If not for these fearless and able patriots, India would have reduced into an Islamic country like what we see today around us. (Afghanistan for example). The problem with most of these Indian leaders were that they all were the ‘Individual leaders,’ who could not put a ‘collective resistance’ against the onslaught of the Arabic/Turkish Imperialism. The British imperialists took over a ravaged India from the Arab/Turkish ‘Imperialists of 900 years’. Like it or not, the majority of Indians got a respite from the oppression and ‘Psychic destruction’ of the majority of Indian population. We decided to get rid of last imperialistic rule over India and our ‘struggle for freedom’ started organized by the brightest sons and daughters of India. We had many able and patriots involved in that struggle. Initially, Surndra Nath Banerjee, Deshbandhu Chitta Ranjan Das, Bal Gangadhar Tilok, Motilal Nehru to name a few took the mantle of this struggle and later on joined by M.K.Gandhi, Jawhar lal Nehru, Mohammed Ali Jinnah, Moulana Abul Kalam Azad, Sarder Ballav Bhai Patel, Subhas Chandra Bose; they all were under a banner of a movement called Indian National Congress. Alongside, some groups of patriots, who had the same goal but a different way of achieving the freedom, were fighting against the British. Masterda Surya Sen, Rishi Aurovindo, many leaders of Gaddar party, Anusilan samity, Sheed Bhakat Singh, Vir Savarkar and scores of other brave sons and daughters of Mother India fought against British without caring about their own life and families. Both groups initially had a very good understanding and co-operation with each other as all of them had the same goal. In the Congress there was a ‘collective leadership’ where every one of them was an able leaders by their own merit but took decision and action collectively. The turning point in the ‘collective leadership’ in Indian politics was the entry of M.K.Gandhi in freedom struggle just before First World War. He was a non-entity in political arena in India who was busy making money, with his law practice in South Africa, far away from India. I, all my life, wondered, how in those days when there was no faster way of communication, how his movement, whatever he did, fighting for the indentured Indian laborers in South Africa was reaching India and making him famous! I never got a clue to this puzzle in my mind. He arrived in India in 1915 and started going around with the then leaders of the Indian National Congress. The senior leaders of Congress like C R Das and others, who fought a successful battle to cancel the division of Bengal ordered by Lord Carzon in 1905, initially had no problem with him and were giving a good respect and co-operation to Gandhi. Gandhi was able to convince the leadership to call for the nationwide “Civil Disobedience Movement” in 1919. In these context we should look into the fact that, M. K. Gandhi was not the first and only leader who adopted “Non-Violence and Satyagraha” as a political weapon against the British. He borrowed this concept from another Indian, named Ram Singh. Ram Singh was a religious teacher and social reformer in Punjab. He lived from 3rd February 1816 to 29th November 1885. His followers called him ‘Satguru’ and belong to the ‘Namdhari’(Kuku) sect of Sikhism. On 12th April 1857, Ram Singh launched a revolt against the British by hoisting a white ‘flag of Freedom’ and used ‘Non-co-operation’ with the British by boycotting British merchandise. This revolt had a far reaching repercussion. He called for boycotting British academic institutions, law courts, boycott foreign made goods and defy British law. He was the originator of Non-co-operation, Non-violent Satyagraha, civil dis-obedience movement in Punjab, which M.K .Gandhi adopted later. Ram Singh’s ideology played a key role in securing India’s freedom in the guise of Gandhi’s philosophy. Non co-operation with the British actually started with the agitation against the British ensued after the division of Bengal; sphere headed by the Nationalist leaders of the Congress and the revolutionary freedom fighters in Bengal, Punjab and other parts of India. Gandhi very shrewdly manipulated that agitation and national arousing to make his presence in the center place of Indian freedom struggle. The “civil disobedience’’ movement called in 1919 galvanized the whole nation to the extent that the British were very jittery. Gandhi, already an icon in the national level, younger than other contemporary able leaders, suddenly called for a stop of the movement in a time when the last days of the British was already knocking at the door. Already in a mess with the First world war, the British found a much needed respite and actually had a laugh among themselves. The national leaders like C R Das, Motilal Nehru resigned from the Congress and formed ‘Sawraj party”. Subhas Chandra Bose called it a ‘National suicide’. Before that time, Mohammed Ali Jinnah, being disgusted with M.K.Gandhi, left Congress and went to London for his law practice under Mr.Radcliffe. It was Mr.Radcliffe, who actually drew the line of partition on Indian map much later. In one fine stroke Gandhi became the undisputed leader of Indian national Congress which had no other able leader left in that party on national lavel. Gandhi built an Ashram by the bank of Sabarmati and started his ‘individual leadership’ ( killing the collective leadership) on Indian masses and a group of leaders with much lesser ability and experience started making a ‘bee-line’ in his Ashram and junior Nehru (Jawharlal) was the most prominent one.-(to be continued).
Posted on: Tue, 27 Aug 2013 22:17:00 +0000
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