While Shyamji was aware and appreciative of Gandhi’s work, he was deeply critical of the latter’s role in the Anglo-Boer War. The war broke out in 1899 between the British Empire and the Boers of the Transvaal and Orange Free State. The Boers, or Afrikaners, were the descendants of original Dutch settlers of southern Africa. Following skirmishes with the British, they moved away to form their own independent republics of the Transvaal and Orange Free State. They lived peacefully with the British colonizers in their neighbourhood, till the discovery of diamonds and gold in the region aroused British avarice. The Boers offered a rigorous resistance to the British colonists in Natal and Cape Colony. Indians too were called upon to take sides. While Gandhi mentions that his ‘personal sympathies were all with the Boers’, his ‘loyalty to the British rule’ drove him ‘to participation with the British in that war’. His argument was:
I felt that, if I demanded rights as a British citizen, it was also my duty as such, to participate in the defence of the British Empire. I held then that India could achieve her complete emancipation only within and through the British Empire. So I collected to gather as many comrades as possible, and with very great difficulty got their services accepted as an ambulance corps. 49
More than 500 Indians had signed up for the Indian Ambulance Corps and attended the wounded British soldiers at Spioenkop in Natal. Gandhi and others received war medals for their chivalry and loyalty to the Queen. In June 1903, Gandhi began a weekly called Indian Opinion —originating in four languages (English, Hindi, Gujarati and Tamil)—as a mouthpiece for the Indian community.
Despite his own non-confrontationist attitude with the British, Shyamji was critical of the support that Gandhi and the Indians gave to the British against the native Boers. Some of Gandhi’s critical and racist comments against the ‘blacks’ of Africa too drew the ire of the Indian Sociologist . Addressing the native Africans by a derogatory term ‘Kaffir ’, Gandhi had demanded separate entrances for whites and blacks at the Durban post office and had objected to Indians being classed with the South African black natives. In Gandhi’s own words:
Ours is one continual struggle against a degradation sought to be inflicted upon us by the Europeans, who desire to degrade us to the level of the raw Kaffir whose occupation is hunting, and whose sole ambition is to collect a certain number of cattle to buy a wife with and, then, pass his life in indolence and nakedness 50 . . . Kaffirs are as a rule uncivilized . . . they are troublesome, very dirty, and live almost like animals. 51
Just before Gandhi’s visit to India House in 1906, the Bambatha Rebellion was spearheaded by the Zulus protesting against unjust British taxes after the Boer War. Thousands of Zulus were ruthlessly massacred and several injured. Here too Gandhi supported the British and requested them to recruit Indians in the British army fighting against the Zulus. In the July 1906 issue of the Indian Sociologist, Gandhi was bitterly criticized for his role in aiding the suppression and massacre of the Zulu rebels.
It was against this strained background with Shyamji on political ideology that Gandhi visited India House on 20 October 1906. Writing about Shyamji, Gandhi says:
He has founded India House at his own cost. Any Indian student is allowed to stay there against a very small weekly payment. All Indians, whether Hindus, Muslims or others can and do stay there. There is full freedom for everyone in the matter of food and drink. Being situated in fine surroundings, the place has a very good atmosphere. On the first day of our arrival, both Mr Ally and I went to stay at India House, and we were very well looked after. But as our work requires our getting in touch with important people and as India House is rather remote, we have been obliged to come and live at his Hotel at great expense. 52
While no record is extant of an exclusive meeting or the experiences that Vinayak and Gandhi had at the latter’s short stay at India House, Harindra Srivastava quotes an anecdote narrated to him by an eyewitness, Pandit Parmanandaji of Jhansi, a veteran freedom fighter. Vinayak was busy cooking his meal when Gandhi joined him to engage in a political discussion. Cutting him short, Vinayak asked him to first eat a meal with them. Gandhi was horrified to see the Chitpawan Brahmin cooking prawns, and being a staunch vegetarian refused to partake. Vinayak had apparently mocked him and retorted: ‘Well, if you cannot eat with us, how on earth are you going to work with us? Moreover . . . this is just boiled fish . . . while we want people who are ready to eat the British alive.’ 53 This was obviously not a great first meeting and their differences only widened with time.
~
The history of the Sikhs also intrigued Vinayak. He learnt the Gurumukhi script and read almost all Sikh religious books and original writings, including the Adi Granth , the Panth Prakash , the Surya Prakash , Vichitra Natak and other works by the revered gurus of the Sikh pantheon. He distilled these writings and issued several pamphlets including a famous ‘Khalsa’ series that created quite an impact on the Sikhs both within and outside India, arousing a sense of nationalism in them. He also issued a pamphlet under the series, with a clarion call to the Sikhs to abandon the British Indian Army, or at the very least assist the Indian freedom struggle. Sikhs made up an important 20 per cent of the Indian Army in the early part of the twentieth century. Appealing to their sentiments through the name of the army, the Khalsa, that their tenth guru, Guru Gobind Singh, had formed to fight the Mughals, was thus an important strategy. The British government sought an urgent interception and ban on the pamphlets under the India Post Act. 54
Scotland Yard wired messages to inform the Criminal Intelligence Department in India that a considerable number of pamphlets had been posted to India to be carried in native newspapers.
~
Soon after completing Mazzini’s biography, Vinayak was keen on writing about the Indian uprising of 1857. It was the first widespread revolutionary movement across most of British India that shook the foundations of the East India Company. The helpful India House manager, Mr Mukherjee, brought him a book, The History of the Indian Mutiny by Sir John William Kaye. Much to his disappointment, Vinayak found that there was hardly any detailed mention of the various tumultuous events of 1857 or its protagonists such as Mangal Pandey, Rani Lakshmi Bai of Jhansi, Nana Saheb, Tatya Tope, Maulvi Ahmed Shah or Mughal emperor Bahadur Shah Zafar. Later, he realized that like Mazzini’s writings this too was a six-volume epic that combined Kaye’s History of the Sepoy War in India with the writings of Colonel George Malleson to produce this elaborate treatise in 1890. The vindictive nature of the accounts documented from a British viewpoint was obviously offensive to Vinayak.
He decided to research the story himself and sought Mukherjee’s help. The latter took him to the India Office that controlled the affairs of India from London, which had a library with exhaustive resources, private papers and correspondences. 55 The library was located inside the office of the Secretary of State for India and needed special permission for entry and access. Through Mukherjee’s contacts, Vinayak managed to get a reader pass to the library. He humoured the librarian who loved to shower invectives against the treacherous Indian sepoys for their massacres of 1857 to gain his confidence and get as many secret files as possible. His research carried on for months. He read the works on 1857 of several British historians, army generals and scholars such as Sir Edwin Arnold, Dr Alexander Duff, Sir James Hope Grant, Meadows Taylor, Sir George Travelyan and others. 56 Vinayak noted that all the sources of his book were based on the works of English authors, for whom ‘it must have been impossible to paint the account of the other side as elaborately and as faithfully as they have done their own’. 57
Even as the research for this book was under way, a new development was taking place in London. The first day of May was commemorated in Britain as a day of thanksgiving for the sacrifices of the British soldiers and officers who were martyred in the 1857 ‘mutiny’. In 1907, this day held an added significance, as it was the Golden Jubilee year. Leading London newspapers carried prominent headlines to mark this occasion.
The Daily Telegraph flashed its headline on 6 May 1907: ‘Fifty Years ago, this week, an Empire saved by deeds of heroism.’ Plays, lectures, editorials and articles were organized and written by the British that portrayed the Indian mutineers as marauders and ruffians. Memoirs and reminiscences of some of the survivors or the kith and kin of those killed in India in 1857 were published. Services were held at various churches and public places. A big congregation at Christ Church on London’s Victoria Street recalled the ‘martyrdom’ of the founder of the Delhi Mission, Reverend Midgley John Jennings. Since it was presided over by the master of Trinity College of Cambridge, the Reverend Dr Butler, a resolution was passed that ‘Cambridge amid so many appeals to intellectual ambition, so many temptations to ignore the spiritual and unseen, might never forget what one owed to Jesus Christ, nor neglect his “other sheep” who were not of the Christian or European fold’. 58
There were also reassurances given on behalf of several British officials that the ‘mutiny’ was merely an aberration and such a disaster would never recur. None less than Sir Henry Cotton, one of the pioneering members of the INC and president of its 1904 Bombay Session said:
There is no real danger of any general outbreak consequent on the present unrest in India. The people of India are disarmed, and it is needless to add that there is no organization amongst them, which could lead to any such general uprising. The 1857 Mutiny was only a mutiny of Sepoys who were armed. We have now only a very small number of Sepoys and a very large number of British troops. There is thus not the smallest reason for any panic. But there is every reason for a wise and careful inquiry into all the circumstances, which have led to the unrest, and the mere fact of that inquiry being undertaken would have a most beneficial effect. 59
The youngsters at India House were witnessing all these happenings in and around London and were unwilling to take this lying down. Under Vinayak’s leadership they decided to put up a grand counter-celebration to honour the Indian martyrs of 1857. It is noteworthy that no political party or groups back in India organized any commemoration of such an important milestone of the nation’s past and the task was left to a few young students in distant London. India House was grandly decorated with festoons, bouquets, flowers and arches. Portraits of the heroes and heroines of 1857 were hung on stage. The invitation to the event is published in Mukund Sonpatki’s book Daryapar : ‘Under the auspices of the Free India League it is decided to commemorate the golden jubilee of the patriotic rising of 1857. The meeting is to be held on Saturday, 11th of May, the day of the declaration of Independence.’ 60
More than 200 people attended the event at India House, even as a parallel event was also held at Shyamji’s brother-in-law Nitin Sen Dwarkadas’s house (known as Tilak House) in Acton. In a stirring speech evocatively titled ‘O! Martyrs!’, Vinayak asserted that one should stop calling the 1857 episode a ‘mutiny’ or ‘uprising’, and instead use the nomenclature ‘First War of Indian Independence’. It was a rehearsal of sorts for a permanent war in India that would not rest till it witnessed a complete overthrow of the Empire. He roared:
Today is the 10th of May! It was on this day that, in the ever memorable year of 1857, the first campaign of the War of Independence was opened by you, Oh Martyrs, on the battlefield of India . . . all honour be to you, Oh Martyrs; for it was for the preservation of the honour of the race that you performed the fiery ordeal of a revolution . . . this day . . . we dedicate, Oh Martyrs, to your inspiring memory! It was on this day that you raised a new flag to be upheld, you uttered a mission to be fulfilled, you saw a mission to be realized . . . We take up your cry, we revere your flag, we are determined to continue that fiery mission of ‘away with the foreigner’, which you uttered, amidst the prophetic thunderings of the Revolutionary war. Revolutionary, yes, it was a Revolutionary war . . . No, a revolutionary war knows no truce, save liberty or death! Indians, these words must be fulfilled! Your blood, oh Martyrs, shall be avenged! . . . For the War of 1857 shall not cease till the revolution arrives, striking slavery into dust, elevating liberty to the throne. Whenever a people arises for its freedom, whenever that seed of liberty gets germinated in the blood of its fathers, whenever there remains at least one true son to avenge that blood of his fathers, there never can be an end to such a war as this. 61
Vinayak designed small medallions with the words ‘In Memory of the Martyrs of 1857’ and ‘Bande Mataram’ displayed prominently, which had to be worn by all the Indian students of India House. Harnam Singh and another student at Cirencester, Rafiq Mohamed of Nabha, wore these medallions to college. The horrified professors ordered them to remove them. This led to a confrontation between Harnam and the principal of the college—something that was picked up by the London newspapers and subsequently the India Office. Harnam was expelled from college but he was feted with a hero’s welcome when he came to London to visit his comrades at India House. Rafiq Mohamed too faced expulsion and several others lost their scholarships. Mohamed, however, apologized to the principal, was re-enrolled and struck off the surveillance list by the India Office. 62
As news of the India House celebrations and Vinayak’s speeches started appearing in newspapers, the intelligence agencies of Scotland Yard became extra cautious. A few pages of Vinayank’s manuscript on 1857 were smuggled out through a treacherous mole planted by the agencies at India House. Vinayak’s reader pass was cancelled and his entry into the library was subsequently debarred. But luckily for Vinayak most of the research for the book had already been completed by then. A few references to the quotations needed to be cross-verified. V.V.S. Aiyar was given the task and he managed to complete it successfully.
The title of Vinayak’s book, The Indian War of Independence of 1857 (the Marathi title was Atharashe Sattavanche Swatantra Samar ), was captivating because it gave status to the historical event hitherto despised as a ‘mutiny’. Vinayak says that he began his journey with the investigative mind of a historian, scanning all the documents of that era only to find to his utter surprise the brilliance of a war of independence shining in the mutiny of 1857. Quite dramatically, he states: ‘. . . the spirits of the dead seemed hallowed by martyrdom, and out of the heap of ashes sprung forth the sparks of a glorious inspiration.’ 63 In the introductory chapter, Vinayak focuses on the principles of great religious and political revolutions, such as in France or Holland. But to clarify the point with regard to the Indian context, he writes:
Every revolution must have a fundamental principle . . . A revolutionary movement cannot be based on a flimsy and momentary grievance. It is always due to some all-moving principle for which hundreds and thousands of men fight . . . The moving spirits of revolutions are deemed holy or unholy in proportion as the principle underlying them is beneficial or wicked . . . In history, the deeds of an individual or nation are judged by the character of the motive . . . To write a full history of a revolution means necessarily the tracing of all the events of that revolution back to their source—the motive. 64
Vinayak argued that the general historiography of 1857, largely written by Western scholars, failed to acknowledge or appreciate the true reason for its outbreak. Most historians had also adopted methodologies that neglected ‘native’ voices. According to Vinayak, the common attribution to the greased cartridges layered with the lard of beef and pork was too simplistic. To keep harping on these ‘temporary’ or ‘accidental’ causes of the war was to completely ignore the ‘real spirit’ of the revolution. He writes about the English historians:
Some of them have not made any attempt beyond merely describing the events, but most of them have written the history in a wicked and partial spirit. Their prejudiced eye could not or would not see the root principle of that Revolution. Is it possible, can any sane man maintain, that that all-embracing Revolution could have taken place without a principle to move it? Could that vast tidal wave from Peshawar to Calcutta have risen in flood without a fixed intention of drowning something by means of its force? Could it be possible t
hat the sieges of Delhi, the massacres of Cawnpore, the banner of the Empire, heroes dying for it, could it ever be possible that such noble and inspiring deeds have happened without a noble and inspiring end? Even a small village market does not take place without an end, a motive; how, then, can we believe that that great market opened and closed without any purpose—the great market whose shops were on every battle field from Peshawar to Calcutta, where kingdoms and empires were being exchanged, and where the only current coin was blood? 65
The two cornerstones for the war, he postulated, were swaraj and swadharma—love for one’s country and one’s religion. These were the guiding principles for all revolution, in India or elsewhere. He quotes the proclamations of the Mughal emperor Bahadur Shah Zafar exhorting fellow Hindus and Muslims alike to arise and fight to protect their lands and faith. Vinayak traces the same trajectory for revolutions elsewhere, including the one in Italy under Mazzini. His conceptualization of revolution and its causes is thus at variance with the general Marxist hypothesis.
Having thus laid out his thesis on the principles guiding a revolution, Vinayak forcefully argues that the histories of revolutionary wars need to be written as part of a nation’s strategy. His book was an attempt to do precisely that and present a correct analysis of the ‘war’, not a ‘mutiny’. He repeatedly mentions that the motive behind writing the book was to instil a burning desire among his countrymen to wage a well-planned armed struggle against foreign rule. He expected this historical account to also place before the revolutionaries an outline of a programme, plan of action and organization to achieve that end. There are delightful and dramatic pen pictures and anecdotes of Lakshmi Bai, Nana Saheb, Tatya Tope, Bahadur Shah Zafar, Mangal Pandey, Maulvi Ahmed Shah, Kumar Singh, Rana Amar Singh, Begum Hazrat Mahal and others. From Delhi, Ayodhya, Kanpur, Bihar and Jhansi to Benares, Rohilkhand, Allahabad, Meerut, Aligarh, Lucknow and Oudh, the narrative traverses the entire spread of the revolution. The book is rich in historical details, citation of sources and has a narrative flourish to it. He credits the last Mughal emperor Bahadur Shah Zafar for providing the movement a symbolic leadership and that it was in the Diwan-i-Khas (Hall of Private Audiences at the Red Fort) of Delhi that the seeds of revolution began to take root. Sympathizing with the Mughal plight, he writes:
Savarkar Page 18
