Prologue continues....

Gandhi was a phenomenon unfathomable and inscrutable to ordinary

men. He was intensely spiritual and at the same time very political. He was an idealist and his concerns were about the moral and spiritual well being of humanity. But he was also a hardcore pragmatist who fashioned political strategies to deal with the most hard-headed British rulers. There

is an interesting chapter in Nehru’s autobiography titled ‘Paradoxes’ in which

Pandit Nehru analyzes the paradoxical traits in Gandhi. He writes:

“He is an extraordinary paradox. I suppose all outstanding men

are so to some extent. For years I have puzzled over this problem:

why with all his love and solicitude for the underdog he yet supports

a system which inevitably produces it and crushes it; why with all

his passion for non-violence he is in favour of a political and social

structure which is wholly based on violence and coercion? Perhaps

it is not correct to say that he is in favour of such a system; he is more or less a philosophical anarchist.”

The greatest paradox is that this ‘philosophical anarchist’ led history’s

biggest mass movement against colonialism by strictly adhering to ‘ahimsa’ or non-violence. He disapproved of individual acts of violence by young

revolutionaries like Bhagat Singh, Rajguru, Chandrasekhar Azad, Ram

Prasad Bismil and others. There was no place for any kind of violence in

his plan of action. Nevertheless, the impatient youth resorted to violence

resulting in the killings of some Britishers.

The people hailed them as heroes. Bhagat Singh threw a bomb in the Central Legislative Assembly which is the present Lok Sabha, to ‘wake up the deaf rulers’. After throwing the bomb he did not try to run away, but let the police arrest him. Bhagat Singh was the symbol of unparalleled courage who was considered a grave threat to the empire. He was charged with sedition and hanged along with his associates on 23 March 1931.

To be continued...