Pakistan is a paradigm example of a failed state that has undergone an extremely dangerous form of radical Islamisation.
Lord Irwin
On the 1st of April 1926 Lord Irwin succeeded Lord Reading as Viceroy. Lord
Irwin had hereditary connections with India. Lord Irwin's grandfather, the first
Viscount Halifax had served in India and had been secretary of State for India.
Lord Irwin was also a very religious man. It may have been felt by those who
appointed him that he was ideal to deal with the religious Mahatma. However, for
nineteen months Lord Irwin chose to ignore Gandhi.
During this period Lord Birkenhead was the secretary of State for India. He
believed that Indians would not be fit for self-government even in a hundred
years. A general election was imminent in Britain and Birkenhead was
apprehensive that his Conservative Party might lose the elections to the Labor
party, as indeed it did.
The Labor Party was known to be more sensitive to Indian Aspirations. Under
the Government of India Act of 1919 a Commission was due to review the
constitution of India within about two years. Birkenhead feared that a future
Labor government might concede too much power to Indians. He pre-empted any such
move by deciding to appoint the Commission prematurely. Sir John Simon was
appointed to lead the Commission.
The appointment of the Simon Commission caused widespread resentment. All
political parties and factions were unanimous in their opposition to the Simon
Commission and they decided to boycott it.
Gandhi emerging from his year of silence and rest was seeking a propitious
time to launch another civil disobedience campaign. The resentment caused by the
appointment of the Simon Commission provided him the necessary conditions. He
decided to act. He revived the plan to conduct civil disobedience in Bardoli,
which he suspended earlier in 1922 due to the violence in Chauri Chaura.
The campaign at Bardoli was inspired and orchestrated by Gandhi, from his
Ashram. He asked Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel to actually move into Bardoli and
organize and lead the campaign. Patel was Mayor of Ahmedabad at the time and had
to resign his post in order to do so.
Patel a brilliant lawyer proved to be an excellent organizer. He instructed
the peasants not to pay a twenty-two percent increase in taxes levied by the
British Government.
The British Government confiscated movable property in retaliation. Pots,
pans, livestock, carts and horses were taken away from the peasants. The
peasants remained non-violent.
Patel asked the peasants to dismantle the carts in order to increase the
difficulty of government officials. Accordingly, wheels were removed and the
shafts were hidden. The officials were not impeded in any other way.
All of India keenly observed the events taking place in Bardoli. Contribution
of funds poured in to help maintain the struggle. Some wanted Gandhi to expand
the movement to other provinces. Gandhi resisted any such move. The civil
resistors in Bardoli were well organized by Patel and were well disciplined. The
population of Bardoli, which was under one hundred thousand, was also
manageable. Gandhi did not want to risk degeneration into violence by expanding
the struggle to other places with larger populations who were less organized and
disciplined.
The British government of India came under pressure from London to crush the
movement. In an effort to do so the Government stated that they had auctioned
some seized lands and threatened to sell the remainder if taxes were not paid.
However it had no effect. The peasants would not submit.
Finally, in a desperate move the Government arrested Patel. Gandhi replaced
him as the leader and moved into Bardoli. A few days later the Government
capitulated.
In an agreement with Patel the Government promised to cancel the increase in
taxes and return all the confiscated property. Patel on behalf of the peasants
agreed to pay taxes at the old rates.
In Bardoli Gandhi demonstrated to the British Government and to the Indian
people that the method of non-violent civil disobedience was effective. He
proved that the British Government could be successfully defied. The British
Government would have realized that from henceforth it would be difficult to
govern India without the consent of the people. They could no longer act with
impunity.
The success at Bardoli quickened the temper of the Congress Party. At the
annual Congress session, which met in Calcutta in December 1928, the younger
leaders such as Jawaharlal Nehru and Subhas Chandra Bose demanded immediate
independence. Gandhi suggested that the British be given two years' notice but
compromised on one year. It was then agreed that if India had not achieved
freedom under Dominion Status by 31 December 1929, there would be a struggle for
independence.
In May 1929 the Labor Party won the most number of seats at the General
Elections in Britain. They did not have an overall majority but formed a
minority Government. Ramsay Macdonald became Prime Minister and Wedgewood Benn
the Secretary of State for India.
Lord Irwin visited London to consult the new Government. It was known that
the Labor Party was more sympathetic to Indian aspirations.
Soon after his return, the Viceroy Lord Irwin with the consent of the
Secretary of State for India, Wedgewood Benn made a momentous announcement. He
stated that a Round Table Conference would be held in which the British
Government would sit with delegates from British India, and the native states to
discuss India's constitutional progress. He envisaged that the natural issue of
the conference to be Dominion Status for India.
Gandhi and the elder statesman of the Congress Party welcomed the statement.
However, Lord Irwin was soon to retract the statement. His promise of
Dominion Status raised a howl of protest in London. Led by his predecessor Lord
Reading, the Conservatives and Liberals combined to condemn the Viceroy.
Although Wedgewood Benn defended the Viceroy the minority Government had to
defer to the majority pressure exerted by the Conservatives and Liberals in
combination.
As a consequence the Viceroy Lord Irwin was non-committal when Gandhi met him
to seek clarification. Lord Irwin merely said that he could not prejudge the
final outcome of the Round Table Conference. In other words there was not going
to be any Dominion Status for India.
The change in the attitude of the British Government did not leave the
Congress Party with much choice. At the annual party convention held in December
1929 under the presidency of Jawaharlal Nehru it was decided to launch a
campaign of civil disobedience in the pursuit of complete independence.
Trade Union Split
From the mid-twenties of the present century onwards the communists launched
a major offensive to capture the AITUC. A part of their strategy was to start
rival unions in opposition to those dominated by the nationalists. By 1928 they
had become powerful enough to sponsor their own candidate for election to the
office of the President of the AITUC in opposition to the nationalist candidate
Nehru. Nehru managed to win the election by a narrow margin. In the 1929 session
of the AITUC chaired by Nehru the communists mustered enough support to carry a
resolution affiliating the federation to international communist forum. This
resolution sparked the first split in the labor movement. The moderates, who
were deeply opposed to the affiliation of the AITUC with the League against
Imperialism and the Pan - Pacific Secretariat, walked out of the federation and
eventually formed the National Trade Union Federation (NTUF). Within two years
of this event the movement suffered a further split. On finding themselves a
minority in the AITUC, the communists walked out of it in 1931 to form the Red
Trade Union Congress. The dissociation of the communists from the AITUC was,
however, short-lived. They returned to the AITUC the moment the British banned
the Red Trade Union Congress. The British were the most favorably disposed
toward the moderate NTUF. N.M. Joshi, the moderate leader, was appointed a
member of the Royal Commission.
