LEFTISTS – RIGHTISTS – IMPERIALISTS - OPPORTUNISTS – and the people
Indian
freedom struggle is no doubt, considered as one of the greatest revolutions of
20th century. It affected the people of India and world over in
numerous ways. Several political leaders of the world adopted the principles of
Indian freedom struggle, especially Gandhian. Indian subcontinent itself
adhered to the guiding principles of our freedom struggle in construction of
Indian socio-political structure after independence. Leaders of the civil
rights movement in the United States, including Martin Luther King and James
Lawson, drew from the writings of Gandhi in the development of their own
theories about non-violence. King said "Christ gave us the goals and Mahatma
Gandhi the tactics." Anti-apartheid activist and former President of South
Africa, Nelson Mandela, was inspired by Gandhi; others include Khan Abdul
Ghaffar Khan, Steve Biko, and Aung San Suu Kyi. At the same time, foundation of
independent India was laid on the basis of democracy, civil liberty,
secularism, self reliance, egalitarian order and independent foreign policy,
which find their roots in the ideologies of India freedom struggle. The Indian
freedom struggle was not just a struggle against British order, but also a
political and ideological struggle by Indians to gain an egalitarian order and
overthrow the hegemony of an imperialist state. Ever since the days of Raja
Rammohan Roy and Jyotiba Phule, we have adopted an international perspective.
Along with the struggle against colonial rule, opposition to imperialism and
social divisions was considered equally important.
When
we analyze the history of our freedom struggle, several schools of thoughts emerge.
Different scholars have their own interpretation about how the leaders of our
freedom struggle emerged and their relation with common people. The structure
of British monarchy and governance also has been viewed differently by
different people. Altogether, these have given rise to substantial difference
in the opinion of different historians. These schools of thought can be viewed
as mutually exclusive episteme of Indian freedom movement. Though there is a
lot of difference in the opinion of different schools, none of them can be
called totally wrong or absolutely right. Every person sees past in his own way,
affected by circumstances. ``Man makes his own history but not in the
circumstances of his own choice. Circumstances make men just as much as men
make circumstances''. To understand the real essence of our freedom struggle
without any prejudice (which is impossible, what most we can do is minimize our
bias) we have to amalgamate different opinions, understand the society of that
time and then form a structured thinking which can encompass all the ideologies
that existed in that time.
In
this work I will briefly discuss the different schools of thoughts. Popularly,
there are four schools of thought regarding our freedom struggle viz. Marxist
or socialist, imperialist (Cambridge), new people’s or subaltern and nationalist
or Romantic. I will discuss all these in brief and in addition, I will discuss a
fifth school which is the ‘modern school of thought’ that we all study in our
high-school textbooks. It is an outcome of writings meant for encouraging the
people of the country to respect the values of freedom struggle enshrined in
our constitution. It constitutes the work by authors like Bipin Chandra,
Mridula Mukherjee working for government agencies.
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Imperialist school- The
imperialist school of historians popularly known as the Cambridge School is a
continuation of initial British historians who were the first to land in India.
The legacy starts with the writings of Christian missionaries and people like James Mill (“The history of British India’’) Continued by viceroys, lords Dufferin,
Courzon and Minto. It was first cogently put forward by V. Chiron, The Rolatt Committee
report, Verner Lovett and the Mintagu-Chelmsford report. It was theorized for
the first time, by Bruce T. Mc Cully, an American scholar in 1940. Its liberal version
was adopted by Reginald Coupland and after 1947, by Valentine Chirol and Percival
spear, while its conservative version was refurbished and developed at length
by Anil Seal and J. A. Gallaghar and their students and followers after 1968.
Anil
Seal, Gallaghar and their students agreed with the British historian, Lewis
Namier, that the ``national movement'' was only a fallout of a conflict between
the elite - Hindu- Muslim, Brahmin-non-Brahmin, Aryan-non-Aryan, all of them
part of the emerging Bhadralok (cultured people) formed in the course of the
British rule on the basis of a patron-client relationship, striving for a space
in the new reality. The Indian national movement didn't express the interests
of the Indian people but that of elites. Thus, the elite groups and their needs
and interests, provide the origin as well as driving force behind freedom
struggle. These groups had narrow and selfish interests and were formed based on
religion, cast, politics etc. rather than around the concept of Indian nation. They
struggled with one another for British favors which helped British to gain
control over India. The leaders were mainly elites and act as broker between
British government and the local potentates. Emerging class of contractors simply made use of the
``existential grievances'' of the masses, particularly after 1918 (and these
grievances had nothing to do with colonialism), pushing them into the factional
struggle of the potentates. In other words, Anil Seal calls Gandhi, Nehru and
Patel chief brokers of this process: ``What from a distance appear as their
political striving were often, on close examination, their efforts to conserve
or improve the position of their own prescriptive groups.'' Thus the freedom
struggle was also a struggle for power between various Indian section thus not
a legitimate movement against British imperialism.
Common
people (workers, peasants, women, lower middle class etc.) are treated as dumb
people and they have no role in the Indian freedom struggle. They deny the
existence as colonialism as an economic, political, social and cultural
structure in India and consider it as foreign rule. This is the fundamental
reason of the conflict between imperialist and all other school of thoughts,
which, view Indian national movement as a fight against British imperialism in
India.
It is to be noted, the
British historians use the term of ‘transfer of power’, which denies any resistance
or struggle against the colonial power. It indicates that the transfer was made
peacefully by negotiations.
The
views of Cambridge school are in clear opposition with all Indian historians
but no serious efforts have been made by scholars of Indian history to dismiss
their views. Based on the insights provided by the grand old man of Indian
nationalism, Dadabhai Naoroji, in his ``Un-British Rule of the British in
India'', there appeared a whole lot of historical writings, classified as
nationalist historiography and, as is the case with all modernist responses to
the colonial regime the world over, the Indian National Congress too engaged
Pattabhi Sitaramayya to document the struggle in two volumes. This however was
only the beginning of Indian writings. Imperial school being the first on to
systematically document the history of India and Indian freedom struggle was
accepted globally, mainly in Europe. With the beginning of Indian writings a
new world view of freedom struggle emerged and gave the world a more unbiased
and clearer picture on Indian national movement.
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Subaltern Approach – In the early 1980s, a small group of
Marxist scholars influenced by Antonio Gramsci’s Prison Notebooks introduced
“subaltern” as a new analytic category within modern Indian historiography. Ranajit
Guha founded the Subaltern Studies project in collaboration with Shahid Amin,
David Arnold, Partha Chatterjee, David Hardiman, and Gyanendra Pandey with the
specific aim of providing a corrective to the historiography by “combating
elitism” in academic research and writings. Guha argued that the vast
historiography of the Freedom Movement of the nineteenth and twentieth century
was “un-historical”, “blinkered”, and “one-sided” because it primarily focused
on the domain of elite politics while silencing and refusing to interpret
subaltern pasts. While the early writings of the Subalternists primarily
focused on political mobilization in the countryside, analyses of the
working-class politics also figured within Subaltern Studies and that’s how
Guha and other scholars have combined the ideas of Gramsci and Marx. Historians from the Subaltern school of thought
see the whole freedom struggle as a conflict between local and foreign elite
classes against the subaltern or subordinate sections of society. To them, it
was not the struggle between the Indian people and the colonial power. There
was no unity of Indian people against imperialism. They assert that the freedom
struggle was divided into two parts; one was that of real anti-imperialist
group or subalterns and second that of bogus elite group under the official
leadership of congress. We find disturbing similarity between subaltern and
imperial school but the basic difference lies in the acceptance of the
existence of subaltern group who were actually fighting against imperialist
powers as well as social problems existing in the country. They make Sharp
criticism of elites and glorify all forms of militancy and consciousness. Exploring
and emphasizing the people’s struggle, they point out that instead getting any
fruit of their struggle; the elite classes used it for their advantage and
successfully seized power depriving them from all benefits of independence, they
call the nationalist leaders or the elites as brokers and agents who negotiated
with the colonial government to transfer power to them on behalf of people.
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These two interpretations bring us to the question: Did majority of
Indians wanted freedom or there was a fear of independence in some sections of
society? The Muslim elite had the fear that if the British left India, they
would come under the domination of the Hindus. That was the fear that led the
separation of these two communities and finally culminated on the demand of
Pakistan. The lower castes were also afraid of the hegemony of the upper castes
in case of independence. The leader of the non-Brahman movement of Maharashtra,
Jyotiba Phule was afraid “that political freedom might mean a return to Peshwa
rule.” In 1917, a delegation of the untouchable (now they call themselves as
the Dalit) met Edwin Montague, Secretary of State of India, and expressed their
concern: “we should fight to the last drop of our blood against any attempt to
transfer the seat of authority in this country from British hands to the
so-called high caste Hindus.” Similarly, all those ethnic or religious
minorities that flourished under the British rule were loyalists and
pro-British, such as Parsis, Anglo-Indians, and the Christians. One can also
count the landlords against freedom struggle. They were collaborators to the
Raj and as such were protected and rewarded by the government.
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Now let us look at more schools
of thoughts that were more accommodating of nationalist feeling and view Indian
freedom struggle as a mass movement against imperial rule of Britain.
Nationalist histography – the
nationalist historians show strong reaction to exploitative nature of British
rule. The nationalist historians comprise of the first generation leaders like
Lajpat rai, A.C. Mazumadar, Pattabhi, Surendranath banerjea and more recent
historians like Bisheshwar Prasad and Amles tripathi. These people consider
Indian freedom movement as a mass movement, center of which was the spirit of
nationalism. They consider the autocratic and exploitative rule of the British
government as the most important factor in degradation of living of Indian
people unlike imperialist school who consider it as a result of pre-existing
socio-economic condition. The main drawback of this school is that, they tend
to ignore the internal conflict among the social classes of India. Even during
the freedom struggle people of this school of thought tend to ignore the
hegemony of elite class and the problems of oppressed class. Tilak openly said
that the most important problem is to remove the colonial power from our land;
the social problems can be addressed later. This kind of history doesn't encompass the entire nature of freedom struggle, it actually leaves the most
important part; how social reforms helped general mass to join in hands with
the national leaders in the struggle for independence. They also take the
position of right wing people as the central theme of freedom struggle and
equate it with the national movement as a whole.
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Marxist School – Marxist
historiography came into the Indian scenario later. It studies history in terms
of the socio-economic processes rather than just as mere tales of kings,
kingdoms, robbers and ghosts. The effect of Marxist historiography can be seen in
the writing of all the major historians of later period where, The focus of
history writing changed from being mere stories of kings, vassals and the poets
who eulogized the regime; and the conditions of the common man who lived a hard
life and toiled to contribute to the surplus began to be studied. In the Indian
case, this method was first applied by Rajne Palme Dutt, whose seminal work,
``India Today,'' first published in 1940, put in perspective the dynamics of
the freedom struggle and the colonial context. His work was just the beginning.
The method - to see the freedom movement not as a conspiracy by the localized
elite to find a space for itself in the new power structure - was adopted by a
whole lot of historians who focused on the material conditions and the response
to that by ``ordinary'' men and women. This triggered serious research on
society and its problems during the Mughal Empire, the Delhi Sultanate and the
ancient kingdoms.
They
established that the struggle for freedom, which led to the making of India as
a nation, represented a modernist response rather than an activity based on the
primordial forms of bondage such as religious identity, caste affiliations and
kinship. In short, looking at history from the standpoint of the poor and the
oppressed brought together by an exploitative and oppressive regime to fight
against the regime itself. They also see the movement as bourgeois movement and
tend to compare their motive with that of a capitalist class. They seem to
accept the existence of two streams of movement, one that of the working class
and the other of the elites but the problem is that they tend to ignore the
integration of the two classes at many fronts which happened during the course
of freedom struggle and eventually lead the creation of India as a nation.
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Modern School - This is a school
which I have introduced for the sake of completeness of ideological
representation. This mainly comprises of the works by modern liberal historians
who tend to present the freedom struggle as an ideal revolution where people of
the nation, flooded with nationalist feeling fought for the freedom of India
under the leadership of congress. This school finds its place in most of the
literature published on Indian freedom movement and is available to general
readers. It is basically, a work of Indian government to promote nationalist
feeling among the countrymen through the icons of freedom struggle like Gandhi,
Nehru, Patel, Bhagat Singh and Azad. The projects of Indian Council of
Historical Research (ICHR) for documenting India freedom struggle played a
central role in creating this school of histography. They project the heroism
of Congress and its leader in Indian freedom struggle and completely ignore the
views of other historians about the motives of elite class, who were the prime
constituents of congress. Though they consider the inner contradiction of
Indian society and accept the struggle of oppressed class but tend to stream
line it with freedom movement and give very little importance to their struggle
with Indian elite class. To sum it up, they also don’t treat the problems and
practices of the people during Indian national movement fairly. It is also a
romanticized version of history where instead of ignoring the condition of
working class they have shared the heroics of freedom struggle with them.
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The
obvious question that needs to be discussed at this stage is “Since, Pakistan
also fought for freedom alongside, how the people of Pakistan view Indian
freedom struggle?” The answer requires a detailed study of works by Pakistani
historians. Fortunate (or unfortunately) there is very little work done in this
field and most of them advocate similar views. The Pakistani historians write it with a sense
of pride that how the Muslims of India (believing as they were a monolith
community) fought on two fronts: the British and the Hindus, and finally
achieved their separate homeland on the basis of two nation theory. The
nationalist historians of India concentrate on the struggle against colonialism
rather than partition which is the last part of the whole drama. Negating the “two
Nation theory”, they emphasize on composite culture and the concept of one
nation and argue that the Muslims, dividing the nation into two, subverted the
struggle against the British and instead of joining national struggle, involved
in communal politics, which subsequently complicated and delayed the freedom of
India. In Pakistan, the historiography of partition has been completely
distorted when it is said that the demand for new homeland was to establish an
Islamic state. Hamza Alavi, analysing the movement, calls it an effort of the
‘Salariat Muslim class’ and the landlords of Sindh and Punjab who wanted to
have a separate Muslim homeland for the protection of their interests and
privileges. Some historians even doubt that Jinnah genuinely wanted a separate
homeland. To them it was just a card to get more concessions for the Muslims.
His acceptance to the Cabinet Mission Plan is the proof of his readiness to
remain within the united India. Partition is also interpreted as the clash of personalities. Gandhi and
Jinnah both came into conflict as a result of their political and personal
ambitions Jinnah, finding it difficult to respond the tactics of Gandhi,
decided to carve his own political role in the Muslim league which subsequently
struggled for separate homeland for the Muslims. Whatever be the case, the
thoughts of Pakistani historians are far from the world view of Indian struggle
for independence. The country itself is in internal conflict regarding the
purpose of its formation and fundamental ideologies to be followed for its
structure of democracy. Until these conflicts are cleared up, it is difficult
to take the views of Pakistani historians seriously!
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The
main drawback of all the schools is that, it is based on a stagnant social model,
which is not correct to assume. The structure of Indian freedom struggle has
evolved rapidly after the revolt of 1857 and there was an every developing international
outlook among Indian leaders as well as common citizen. The social structure
changed a lot during 19th century and a new middle class emerged.
The effects of social reforms carried out by people like, Phule, Raja Rammohan Roy,
Ambedkar etc was visible by the end of 19th century and its effects
can be seen on Indian freedom struggle. In my view we started as individuals,
began to group ourselves around regional hegemony lead by elites and eventually
grew into a nation in 1920’s and 30’s. though there were forces all along our
struggle, who demotivated the national movement but under the leadership of
some great leaders and more importantly by the active participation of common
public, Indian freedom struggle grew leaps and bounds in 30’s and 40’s. a
feeling of nation emerged in the country and this cannot be contradicted by
anyone. Even though the country was divided into …. Princely states but the
feeling of oneness had found its roots in the hearts of the peasants and
workers. The foundation of democratic republic was laid in Lahore in 1930; a
country was ready to make its mark once again on the world map. Because of the
continuous struggle by the millions of people bounded by no cast, creed or
religion, we got our freedom on 15th august 1947; unfortunately our
mother land was divided into two by cunning Britishers and greedy elites. But
after all the struggle and bloodshed India was born once again, and under the
able leadership of Dr Rajendra Prasad, Nehru, Patel, Ambedkar etc. we welcomed
the sunshine of independence and started our journey based on the foundation of
peace, democracy, secularism, equality, sovereignty and self reliance.
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