Many people say that the violent method of freedom struggle in India against the British, as advocated and practised by Bhagat Singh, Surya Sen ( Masterda ), Chandrashekhar Azad, Ashfaqulla, Rajguru, Khudiram Bose, Ram Prasad Bismil, etc was wrong. They assert that it would have led to enormous bloodshed and was bound to have failed. Hence, they allege, the non violent method of Gandhi was correct.
I totally disagree. Firstly,do imperialists give up their huge Empire because someone resorts to hunger strike or does salt march or sings ' Raghupati Raghav Raja Ram ' ? Did the American colonies get freedom from England by non violent methods ? Did George Washington fight the British with his Continental army, or by offering them flowers and satyagrah ? Did Bolivar free the Latin American countries with his battalions. or by presenting the Spaniards lollipops ? Did Ho Chi Minh fight the French by speeches, or with guns ?
India got independence not because of Gandhi but because in the Second World War Germany attacked and weakened England, and because of American pressure on the British. Had that not happened, and had Gandhi had his way, India would never have had independence ( see my blog ' Gandhi--a British agent ).
A freedom struggle is necessarily an armed struggle. No doubt the Indian people would have suffered enormous casualities in such a struggle against the British,, but what of that ? As Thomas Jefferson said " The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of tyrants. It is its natural manure. "
I remember I was with a Frenchman in Paris some time back. I told him " Why did you French surrender to the Nazis in 1940 ? You should have fought on. Why did you surrender Paris to the Germans ? "
He replied that the French army had been defeated, and if France had not surrendered there would have been enormous French casualities, and a lot of property, including priceless French cultural treasures would have been destroyed.
I said that even if that had happened Paris should never have been surrendered, but instead should have been burnt down by Frenchmen themselves, as the Russians did to Moscow in September, 1812, instead of surrendering it to Napoleon's army.
When the German attack on England was about to commence, the British Prime Minister, Winston Churchill, in a historic speech in the House of Commons on 19th May, 1940 said ( quoting the Bible ) :
" Arm yourselves, and be ye men of valour, and be in readiness for the conflict, for it is better for us to perish in battle, than to look upon the outrage of our nation, and of our altar "
Then again on 4th June he said " We shall go on to the end. We shall fight in France, we shall fight on the seas and the oceans, -- we shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills, we shall never surrender. "
Some people may ask : with what weapons could we have fought the British ? We did not have any ?
The answer is ; in guerilla war one fights with the weapons of the enemy, by snatching them from him. And after all, Bhagat singh, Surya Sen, etc got weapons from somewhere.
Our ancestors chose the easy way out offered by that British agent Gandhi, and we are still suffering for that, even 68 years after independence
Great Article !!!
ReplyDeleteBhagat Singh and his fellows fought with British for our land and on our land. Even after lits of formal requests and reminders the British did not leave India. Instead they started exploiting us , our human resource and our natural resource which was wrong from all the point if view. Gandhi's actions and attitude was against the patriots and India. In view of the above Bhagat Singh' s and others acts were justified reaction and there was nothing wrong in their actions. Their attempts for the freedom if our country should be ackniwledged and appreciated by all if us.
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