Gandhi on religion, cow and caste — I

I have mentioned in many articles that Gandhi was objectively a British agent, responsible for the partition of India in 1947 with all its horrors. The British policy was divide and rule. By constantly injecting religion into politics for over three decades, Gandhi furthered this policy. If we read The Collected Works of Mahatma Gandhi, which is a Government of India publication in several volumes, one will see that in almost every article Gandhi wrote and in almost every speech he delivered from about 1915, when he came to India from South Africa, till his death in 1948, he publicly propagated Hindu religious ideas like ramraj, cow protection, varnashram (caste system), brahmacharya, etc.
Now, if one were a sadhu or saint sitting in an ashram (hermitage), one can say anything. But when one enters politics and says such things in public political meetings, what effect will it have on a conservative Muslim mind? Will it not drive Muslims towards an organisation like the Muslim League? And did this not serve the British policy of divide and rule, therefore making Gandhi objectively a British agent?
India is a country with tremendous diversity. Even today, some 18 percent of its population is Muslim. Before 1947, the percentage of Muslims would have been about 25 percent. So, it is very dangerous to inject religion into politics in our subcontinent. However, our ‘Mahatma’ thought that was the only way to get mass support. This strategy did create mass support but mass support of only the Hindus, and it inevitably led to partition. Let me give some details. In his autobiography, Nehru writes:
“Gandhiji, indeed, was continually laying stress on the religious and spiritual side of the movement. His religion was not dogmatic, but it did mean a definitely religious outlook on life, and the whole movement was strongly influenced by this, and took on a revivalist character so far as the masses were concerned. I used to be troubled sometimes at the growth of this religious element in our politics, both on the Hindu and the Muslim side. I did not like it at all.
Even Gandhiji’s phrases sometimes jarred upon me — such as his frequent references to Rama Rajya as a golden age, which was to return. But I was powerless to intervene and I consoled myself with the thought that Gandhiji used the words because they were well known and understood by the masses. He had an amazing knack of reaching the heart of the people.
During my tour in the earthquake areas (in Bihar), or just before going there, I read with great shock Gandhiji’s statement to the effect that the earthquake had been a punishment for the sin of untouchability. This was a staggering remark. And if the earthquake was divine punishment for sin, how are we to discover for which sin we are being punished? For alas! We have many sins to atone for. The British government might call the calamity a divine punishment for civil obedience, for, as a matter of fact, North Bihar, which suffered most from the earthquake, took a leading part in the freedom movement.”
Now we may consider Gandhi’s view on cow protection. In his journal Young India, of 1921, Gandhi writes:
“The cow is a poem of pity. One reads pity in the gentle animal. She is the mother to millions of Indian mankind. Protection of the cow means protection of the whole dumb creation of God. The ancient seer, whoever he was, began with the cow. The appeal of the lower order of creation is all the more forcible because it is speechless.”
Does this make any sense? “The cow is the purest type of sub-human life. She pleads before us on behalf of the whole of the sub-human species for justice to it at the hands of man, the first among all that lives. She seems to speak to us through her eyes: ‘you are not appointed over us to kill us and eat our flesh or otherwise ill-treat us, but to be our friend and guardian’” (Young India, 1924).
“I worship it and I shall defend its worship against the whole world” (Young India, 1925).
“Mother cow is in many ways better than the mother who gave us birth. Our mother gives us milk for a couple of years and then expects us to serve her when we grow up. Mother cow expects from us nothing but grass and grain. Our mother often falls ill and expects service from us. Mother cow rarely falls ill. Here is an unbroken record of service, which does not end with her death. Our mother, when she dies, means expenses of burial or cremation. Mother cow is as useful dead as when she is alive. We can make use of every part of her body — her flesh, her bones, her intestines, her horns and her skin. Well, I say this not to disparage the mother who gives us birth, but in order to show you the substantial reasons for my worshipping the cow” (Harijan, 1940).
“The central fact of Hinduism is cow protection. Cow protection to me is one of the most wonderful phenomena in human evolution. It takes the human being beyond this species. The cow to me means the entire sub-human world. Man through the cow is enjoined to realise his identity with all that lives. Why the cow was selected for apotheosis is obvious to me. The cow was in India the best companion. She was the giver of plenty. Not only did she give milk, but she also made agriculture possible. Cow protection is the gift of Hinduism to the world. And Hinduism will live so long as there are Hindus to protect the cow. Hindus will be judged not by their tilaks not by the correct chanting of mantras, not by their pilgrimages, not by their most punctilious observances of caste rules, but their ability to protect the cow” (Young India, 1921).
“I would not kill a human being for protection of a cow, as I will not kill a cow for saving a human life, be it ever so precious” (Young India, 1921).
“My religion teaches me that I should by personal conduct instill into the minds of those who might hold different views, the conviction that cow killing is a sin and that, therefore, it ought to be abandoned” (Young India, 1925).
“Cow slaughter can never be stopped by law. Knowledge, education and the spirit of kindliness towards her alone can put an end to it. It will not be possible to save those animals that are a burden on the land or, perhaps, even man if he is a burden” (Harijan, 1946).
“My ambition is no less than to see the principle of cow protection established throughout the world. But that requires that I should set my own house thoroughly in order first” (Young India, 1925).
These are only some of the stupid, feudal ideas this ‘Mahatma’, this ‘father’ of our nation had. Now we may consider Gandhi’s views about caste.
Gandhi repeatedly said in the 1920s that “Hindus must follow their hereditary professions” and that “prohibition of intermarriage between people of different varnas was necessary for a rapid evolution of the soul”. In the 1930s, he changed his tune and started saying that he was opposed to caste but supported varna and hereditary professions, as if there is a difference between the two.
This hypocrisy was typical of Gandhi. Whenever he found his stupid feudal ideas unacceptable he tried to obfuscate.

(To be continued)

The writer is an ex-judge of the Supreme Court of India