To know the truth about Gandhi, one must listen to the eyewitness account of MK Pahwa, who was a refugee from Pakistan during Partition. He witnessed first hand the horrifying bestiality and savagery on Hindus and Sikhs by the Muslims during Partition.
Pahwa recounts the spectacle of the millions of Hindu and Sikh refugee caravans thus:
“We walked night and day. There were men and women of all ages and all conditions. Many could not stand the strain. They-mostly women and children-were left on the road.”
“I reached a place called Fazilka, in Indian territory, and discovered that another refugee column in which my father and other relatives had set out had fared much worse. They had been attacked by Muslim mobs on their way: Only 40 or 50 had survived out of 400 or 500.”
“My aunt had been killed, more than a hundred girls were abducted, and my father rescued from a heap of the dead.”
While in Fazilka, Pahwa saw other refugee columns coming in; one of them 40 miles long where marched 500 women who had been stripped naked.
“I saw women with their breasts, noses, ears and cheeks cut. One of them told me how her child was roasted and she was asked to partake of the same. Another was ravished in the presence of her husband who was kept tied to a tree.”
By January of 1948, over 7 million Hindu and Sikh refugees were forced to flee to Bharat, and more than 1 million were concentrated in Delhi. But instead of finding relief in land of their brothers, Hindus and Sikhs were subjected to a humiliating and dehumanizing experience.
They were herded like cattle in barbed-wire enclosures, and so overcrowded that those who came after had to live in street and under trees in cold winter. As they began to wander the streets of Delhi in search of food and shelter, the refugees were horrified.
They found that the Muslim citizens of Delhi were in contrast being provided with rations, funds, jobs and shelter. Depression from the abject starvation, freezing temperatures, lack of shelter and disease on the part of the refugees gave way to a black despair.
Then they realized that the Indian government was not going to raise a finger to aid them, at the special behest of “Bapuji” Driven by sheer desperation, the Hindus and Sikhs started occupying public places such as Mosques to escape the torturous weather.
And wonder of wonders, instead of assisting them, the Congress government deployed police violence, thrashing and beating down the refugees to bar them from “offending Muslim sensibilities” while Hindus and Sikhs by the millions suffered unprecedented genocide and slaughter.
They were forced at sword point to abandon their ancestral properties and flee, the Congress Government was busy ensuring that these same refugees were treated like garbage in contrast to the protection that Muslims in Bharat were enjoying. It was as though the floodgates of a dam broke open, and the desperate refugees fought the Muslims to salvage their own survival. Can one imagine a more shameful and outrageous situation than this?
And what was the “Father of the Nation”, the apostle of peace, the prophet of Ahimsa doing while millions of our Hindu and Sikh brothers, sisters and children bled to death in their own land? He was busy exhorting “Hindu culprits” to maintain “communal harmony”.
The genocide and massacre of Hindus and Sikhs at the hands of Muslims were to be forgotten. On January 12, 1948, the great Mahatma, announced an indefinite fast based on 7 conditions, which included a demand to pay 55 Crores to the very Pakistanis.
The very Pakistanis who had reduced millions of Hindus and Sikhs to a pile of bones and burning, stinking flesh. Not only did he want Bharat to “forget” about the 300 Crores that Pakistan owed us, but over and above that he wanted Bharat to pay 55 Crore Rupees to them.
Every condition laid down by Gandhi for giving up his fast was against the very nature of humanity. But this was not all, among other 6 conditions, yet another condition was that all the Muslims who had left Bharat, must be taken back.
And all the mosques occupied by the dying Hindu and Sikhs would be vacated by force. Not only this, each and every Muslim who would be brought back from Pakistan would be provided food, clothing and shelter, even if at the expense of evicting Hindus and Sikh residents.
Imagine the shock, grief and utter disbelief that gripped those dying refugees as they saw this insane version of “Bapuji’s justice” being perpetrated on their wounded and tattered beings. It is a testament to the supreme self-control and humanity of those people tThat they did not tear Gandhi to shreds, that very day.
The only protest they allowed themselves were angry shouts of “Gandhi-ko marne do. Ham ko makan do” (Let Gandhi die, just give us shelter.) Those refugees were not murderers, plunderers or “Hindu fanatics”, they were the ancestor of today’s Bharatiyas like you and me.
By January 16th, the Congress led by Nehru gave in to the Mahatma’s demands. The cabinet decided to transfer the money to Pakistan “as a gesture of goodwill”. An inter-communal peace committee was set up.
By the 18th it could convince the Mahatma that the necessary change of heart had taken place in Delhi to enable him to break his fast. By the 20th evening he was back on the lawns for “all-faith” prayer meetings.
If Mahatma Gandhi were alive today, we would ask this man, “Do you know what drove men steeped in the tolerance of Hindu Dharma to take on the mantle of fanaticism?” Why do the history textbooks which still guide the children of Bharat today, not ask this question?
Why do the newspapers that spill over with headlines denouncing “Hindutva fanatics” not ask this? And last but not least, why do we Bharatiyas who inherited the horror of knowing that millions of us were subjected to the most heinous form of injustice by his actions, still keep quiet when we hear that insufferable phrase “Father of the Nation”?
It is hard, so hard to give up our sacred icons, but it is truth alone which deserves to be enshrined as an ideal, not flawed mortals like Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi.
(This article has been compiled from the tweet thread of Savitri Mumukshu @MumukshuSavitri)
So here are the stark events as I see, and I have read it elsewhere too:
1. The refugees from Pakistan, famished, in bad shape, suffering biting cold, risking all kinds of physical attacks by hostile Mohammadans in their perilous journey, were arriving in Delhi but no place was arranged by Mahatma Gandhi and Pandit Nehru and their government, and they were forced to congregate in public places like open grounds, temples and mosques.
2. No food, or any material was provided to them. Muslim citizens of Delhi were in contrast were being provided with rations, funds, jobs and shelter. Not only this, each and every Muslim who would be brought back from Pakistan would be provided food, clothing and shelter, even if at the expense of evicting Hindus and Sikh residents. Obviously this was possible because majority local residents were Hindus and allowed such spectacle, even when Gandhi was was preemptively cruelly shaming all Hindus (successfully!) by urging them to maintain “communal harmony”.
3. What is most heart-rending is that if some desperate hungry refugees in bad shape tried to partake those Muslim rations being distributed, Gandhi-Nehru Congress government deployed police, thrashing and beating them to let those rations and shelter exclusively for Muslims only!
4. Muslims found the mosques too full of these starving Hindus in bad shape ( just like other public places including temples), without adequate means to protect themselves from biting cold, and they demanded that these poor refugees be expelled from their mosques as they were being inconvenienced doing their 5 times a day namaz!
5. To clear the mosques of starving, sick, dying, tortuous weather beaten Hindu refugees, Congress government of Gandhi and Nehru deployed police violence, thrashing and beating down the refugees to bar them from “offending Muslim sensibilities”!
6. Mahatma Gandhi consistently urged all the times, that Hindus should bear all the calamities related to Hindu-Muslim interaction with fortitude, non-violence, without any anger and without any malice, without blaming Muslims. And this is exactly the Hindu population did in Delhi too in these times, barring some black sheeps!
6. So, there were few cruel black sheeps among these famished, tortuous weather beaten Hindus who committed grave sin and violence by shouting “Gandhi-ko marne do. Ham ko makan do” (Let Gandhi die, just give us shelter).
[Such hate and intolerance against the apostle of non-violence! Gandhi, Nehru, Indian National Congress, “white” people, “devout” Muslims, “secular” Hindus, DMK Modeler, Stéphane Lemer the commenter here, New York Times, CNN, BBC, Washington Post, Albert Einstein all would totally disapprove such insolence!]
7. But barring these black sheeps, Hindus in general did not protest, remained passive. They approved of Gandhi and affectionately and reverentially continued to call him “Mahatma”.
[As a compensation, these Hindus are entitled to call themselves “tolerant”, “secular”, “humanitarian”, “rational”, “peace loving”, “broad minded”, “mahaan”.]
Do you get it? Mahatma Gandhi, Pandit Nehru are red herring, the real monsters are some other people! Guess who?
Mahoday, I’m surprised you are using ‘Mahatma’ for Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi
Hi Matri,
Appreciate your feedback to my comment.
Hindus started calling Mohandas Gandhi with the title of Mahatma decades before his death, and Jawaharlal Nehru was popularly called with the title of Pandit similarly. I respect these iconic public recognitions as their historically irreplaceable public cultural identity not as my view of their personal achievements, though personally to me Gandhi appears to me more like an almost perfect deceiver more aptly qualified to be referred to as a Paroksh Duratma (परोक्ष दुरात्मा). I would not normally refer to him as such though, to prevent digressing from the subject of argument and this reference itself becoming a judgemental milestone.
Extending this logic – we have Bhagwan Vishnu, Shankar, Krishna, Ram in Vedic darshans, which basically refers to them as glorious manifested entities of ultimate reality who can bless, curse or otherwise have the power to interfere in our lives. In Shraman dharms, Bhagwan is referred to as an exemplary human being whose soul is free of further cycles of life and death, also incapable of any direct involvement in human affairs. How do we reconcile that? This title becomes ambiguous. We all individually cannot possibly each start calling them by our judgemental personal titles of validations.
Hope, I am clear.
A well cultivated and fabricated image of Gandhi for consumption of the public at large to show him in good light as a saint was created which is at marked variance with his actual character. There is not a single instance where Gandhi had sided with or spoken for or on behalf of the Hindus. The Congress all these years built up on the larger than life image they had created.
It’s time all such incidents come to light and all written material suppressed all these years see the light of the day and Gandhi exposed to what he actually was in real life.
Vous n’avez que la haine dans votre cœur. Contrairement à Gandhi. Vous ne parlez quand votre nom. Vous donnez une image de l’inde nationaliste comme Modhi. Je vous plains. Les Hindous ne sont ni meilleur ni pire que les autres. A cette époque les musulmans et les hindous, n’étaient motivés que par la violence. La violence n’a jamais résolu aucun problème. Et ça Ghandi l’avait très bien compris.
Yes, you are right that Hindus are not better than others – as per Dharma, we all have to strive hard to cleanse our minds through right actions and speech to achieve moksha in this life or the next. At the same time, tolerating Adharma is not permissible for a Hindu, we can’t let injustice, bigotry and violence like that perpetrated by Abrahamic supremacists and White colonialists succeed.
It is understandable that those who are threatened by that unflinching defense of Dharma will term it ‘hate’, but the Hindu of today won’t fall for such psychological tricks. Gandhi was a flawed human with an imperfect understanding of Dharma, and many of his decisions exhibited sheer hypocrisy. For Hindus, the true role models are likes of Sri Krishna, Maa Durga, Sri Ram.
Such horrifying stories that we never knew. ????????????????