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The truth about India's Independence

It is hoped that one day the history of India's Independence movement will be totally rewritten. For what is now taught, both in the West and in India, is often the history of the superficial, the apparent, the false even. And those who have least contributed to India's Independence, or worse who were partially responsible for its most terrible traumas, occupy a place of honour in those books, while those who had a deeper vision and worked with dedication for a true, wholesome independence, are in the shadow and have been waylaid by historians.

History wants us to believe that the Independence movement started with the Indian National Congress. But originally, the Congress was a tool fashioned by the British for their own use. Witness the fact that it all began in December 1885, with an Englishman, A O Hume, with the avowed aim to: "Allow all those who work for the national (read British) good to meet each other personally, to discuss and decide of the political operations to start during the year".

And certainly, till the end of the 19th century, the Congress, who regarded British rule in India as a "divine dispensation", was happy with criticising moderately the government, while reaffirming its loyalty to the Crown and its faith in "liberalism" and the British innate sense of justice"!

Thus for a long time, the Britishers considered favourably the Congress and sought to use it to justify their continuing occupation of India. But soon of course it changed into suspicion and downright hostility, as the Congress, realising is folly, turned towards constitutional agitation to obtain from the British parliament a few laws favourable to India. And the Englishmen did hand over a few crumbs here and there, such as giving Lord Sinha (Lord Sinha indeed!) the honour of becoming the first Indian to be part of the Governor's Executive Council.

What must be understood to grasp the whole history of the Congress, is that its pre-Independence leaders were anglicised, Western educated Indians, whose idealism was at best a dose of liberalism peppered with a bit of socialism "British Labour style". They were the outcrop of an old British policy of forming a small Westernised elite, cut off from its Indian roots, which will serve in the intermediary hierarchies of the British Raj and act as go-between the master and the slaves.

Thus, not only were these Congress leaders "moderate " (as they came to be called), partially cut-off from the reality of India, from the greatness that was India, the soul-glory of its simple people, but because their mind worked on the pattern of their masters, they turned to be the greatest Hindu-baiters and haters of them all -as verily their descendants, even until today, still are.

But these Westernised moderate Congress leaders, found it difficult to get identified by the vast mass of India which was deeply religious. Thus they encouraged the start of "reformed" Hindu movements, such as the Arya Samaj or the Brahma Samaj, through which they could attack the old Hindu system, under the guise of transforming it, which is perfectly acceptable to all Hindus, as Hinduism has always tolerated in its fold divergent movements.

It is these early Congress leaders who began the slow but insidious crushing of the Hindu society. For instance, the Congress governments, which were installed after July 1937 in most of the provinces, encouraged everywhere the development of education modelled on the British system. And comments French historian Alain Danielou, one of the few Indianists to give an unbiased account of India’s history: "The teaching of philosophy, arts, sciences, which constituted the prestigious Indian cultural tradition, became more and more ignored and could only survive thanks to the Brahmins, without any help whatsoever from the State."

When the first true cultural, social and political movements, which had at heart the defence of India's true heritage started taking shape, such as the much decried Hindu Mahashaba, which attempted to counterbalance the Muslim League's influence, or the even more maligned Rama Rajya Parishad, initiated by the remarkable Hindu monk Swamy Karpatri, they were ridiculed by the Congress, which used to amplify the problems of untouchability, castes, or cow worshipping, to belittle these movements, which after all, were only trying to change India from a greatness that was to a greatness to be.

"The Congress," writes Danielou, "utilised to the hilt its English speaking press to present these Hindu parties as barbaric, fanatical, ridiculous; and the British media in turn, took-up, as parrots, the cry of their Indian counterparts. To this day, nothing has changed in India: some of the English-speaking press, such as Outlook or Frontline (which should be rightly called "the Voice of the Communist Party of China"), still indulges in Hindu-bashing and it is faithfully copied by the Western corespondents, most of whom are totally ignorant of India and turn towards Indian intellectuals to fashion their opinions.

But this strategy was good enough to convince the British that when they left, they would have to hand over power to the "respectable" Congress (after all, we are all gentlemen), even though it constituted a tiny Westernised minority, whereas India's true Hindu majority would be deprived of their right.

The Congress did turn radical finally in 1942, when because of Mahatma Gandhi's rigorous non-violence policy, it adopted a non-co-operation attitude towards the war effort. Thus the British declared the Congress illegal, jailed most of its leaders and embarked on a policy of heavy repression. But the truth is that those of the Congress who were imprisoned and are deified today for that fact, went there not directly for India’s independence, but because Mahatma Gandhi refused to cooperate in the Second World War against the great Asura that was Hitler.

'Nationalism is not a mere political programme; nationalism is a religion'

Francois Gautier