द इण्डियन स्ट्रगल / भारतीय स्वाधीनता संग्राम (नेताजी सुभाष चन्द्र बोस - ऐतिहासिक विश्लेषण)

THE SLUMP 135
the writer was in prison, Indian warders in the service of the
Prisons' Department would refuse to believe that the Mahatma
had been cast in prison by the British Government. They
would say in all seriousness that since Gandhiji was a Mahatma,
he could assume the shape of a bird and escape from prison
any moment he liked. To make matters worse, political
issues would no longer be considered in the cold light of
reason, but would be unnecessarily mixed up with ethical
issues. The Mahatma and his followers, for instance, would
not countenance the boycott of British goods because that
would engender hatred towards the British. Even so intel-
lectual a personality as the celebrated poetess, Mrs. Sarojini
Naidu, in her speech at the Gaya Congress in December, 1922,
condemned the Swarajist policy on the ground that councils
were places of ‘Maya’¹, where Congressmen would be tempted
by bureaucratic overtures. And worst of all was the tendency
on the part of the orthodox followers of the Mahatma to regard
everything that he said as gospel truth without reasoning
or arguing and to accept his paper Young India as their Bible.
For a people so prone to mysticism and supernaturalism,
the only hope of political salvation lies in the growth of a sane
rationalism and in the modernisation of the material aspect of
life. It was therefore distressing to many sober Nationalists
to find that through the conscious or unconscious influence
of the Mahatma, some of the above weak traits in the Indian
character were again becoming prominent. Thus there arose
a rationalist revolt against the Mahatma and his Philosophy.
As the Swaraj Party headed this revolt, elements from the
Right and from the Left that were tired of the irrationalism
of the Mahatma—were drawn towards it. Among the Right
elements were those who preferred constitutional action to
civil disobedience and the Deshbandhu by virtue of his social
position and his vocation as an advocate, was able to com-
mand their confidence. Among the Left elements was the
younger generation of Congressmen who did not find the
ideology and method of the Mahatma to be sufficiently radical
for the modern world and who looked upon the Deshbandhu
as a more radical (or revolutionary) force in Indian Politics.
¹ ‘Maya’ means an illusion or something false that charms and tempts.