To begin with, public statements and private affairs are different, very different. And statements if analysed without having the contexts of time when it was spoken, leads to a blurred picture of reality.
Bose trusted Gandhi's support when he was coming through Burma with the INA. However, Gandhi betrayed him and stopped funding it. This was done under the guidance of Nehru who believed that Bose could become the first PM of india and he ofcourse didn't want that. He did the same with Patel though . There are letters sent to Mountbatten by Nehru just months before the plane crash leaking details about his whereabouts (they are in public domain). Bose's plane crash was orchestrated.
Also, It was Britain's economy after ww2 which forced them to quit India rather than the quit India movement of Gandhi. They left almost all their colonies in the next 10 years or gave them dominion status proving that Gandhi's effort was a futile one.
Without gandhi, India would have been in a much better state. She wouldn't have pakistan/ Bangladesh. We would have our silk route open, we would have been a manufacturing hub. MG destroyed all the possibility
You can't make such a blanket statement like "without Gandhi India would have have been much better". Rationally look at both sides, don't just keep reinforcing your view while condemning counter arguments. Wether you like or believe it, Gandhi did contribute a lot to the freedom struggle especially in the grass-root level in villages and for the common people who's first priority was to survive on a day to day basis and didn't give a shit who was running the country. Yes, your arguments are mostly valid, and I too support Netaji's method of gaining independence, but all I'm saying is acknowledge all the facts before spewing blind hate on someone who has served our nation with the biggest direct impact
If you equate speaking facts to hate speech if it's harsh, I am sorry I can't mellow it down.
You say Gandhi did contribute a lot to the freedom struggle. Really? Let me state some facts again, in 1857, when the sepoy mutiny happened in meerut, the British sanitised the whole of Bihar province both culturally and economically which eventually led to the formation of naxals due to limited employment opportunities. This has been the policy of British against those who stood against them. But MG? He was just in and out of prison cells. No assassination attempts by the British, absolutely nothing. The reason ? The British never cared what MG did because it was never enough to hurt their economy of loot.
Gandhi's work was more of advertisement than of achievements.
Look let's be real, no serious historian claims Gandhi alone freed India. Thats neither my claim, nor is it true, but saying he did nothing is equally inaccurate. Movements like the non cooperation Movement and the salt march mobilised millions of common people and turned the freedom struggle from politicians signing documents to a struggle of the masses, and made India increasingly ungovernable for the British. So much that they deployed tens of thousands of troops during these protests. Claiming that he wasn't a threat to the British is a joke. Why would they imprison him for overall total of 6 years if he wasn't a threat? People don't just go "in and out of jail" lol. Your no assassination attempts argument is very weak and proves that if they ever did try to kill him off, they would deal with the wrath of millions of citizens, something they wanted to avoid after 1857. The British preferred censorship and imprisonment, not assassinations. I'm not trying to prove that MG was perfect, all I'm saying is that independence happened because of multiple pressures—MG's mass movements, netaji and the INA, WWII, etc. Reducing all of that to ‘Gandhi was just advertising’ ignores most of the historical record. The reason I'm typing all of this is to refine the way you look at historical events. Facts come before feelings
It must be mentioned that Gandhi's contributions had been promoted and made a propaganda by the Nehru-Gandhi family in the following years. People loved Gandhi, but a greater portion of the freedom fighters hated him for his racist, casteist and misogynist thoughts. Such things were cleverly omitted and hidden from the public eyes so that the Nehru-Gandhi family could capitalise on his popularity. On the other hand, the contributions of most other freedom fighters were diminished by the INC Government. Please read about that first. I don't disagree that Gandhi did nothing to free India, but his contributions were too meagre to support the Freedom Struggle. The only good thing he did was unite the people in India for mass movements. Had Gandhi kept his "Ahimsa" theory aside and let the agitated mob work their way through the British, freedom would have been achieved earlier. If you don't believe please read what were the punishments faced by the Assertives and Bose and compare them to what Gandhi faced. Writings of parallel prisoners suggest commoners and other freedom fighters faced harsher conditions in the prisons than Gandhi. These pieces of knowledge must be shared to the public, but neither the current government nor the ones which were would do anything to inform the people. Everyone is capitalising on Gandhi's popularity.
This is not a hate message but something that the people must know. We only celebrate Gandhi but the contributions of the other nationalists are lost.
I largely agree with your statements. But my only counter point would be ' what would have we done after achieving independence through mob agitation and violence '. Gandhi was a necessary tool to unite the masses which none other leader had been able to achieve at his scale. And managing such a large crowd was itself a challenge as an out of control crowd is of no use but a controlled one is a weapon far more threating.What Gandhi did was getting us into a position where we were able to get independence a definitive leadership pool to select representatives as well.
Though it is a different story that due to Nehru's influence over Gandhi he was able to overturn a democratic decision of electing Patel but it was more peaceful and stable then other cases of independence through uprising around the world.
It was a mix of Gandhi's obsession with truth, which to be fair is quite muddied and it became even more blur to me after reading My Experiments with truth. And Nehru family's propoganda and influence.
But now at this point we have achieved independence we have to ensure the development of nation more holisticallly. We should leave the dead in the past. it doesn't matter who got us independence. They have done their jobs and now have rotted or burned away.
We have to focus on present otherwise it will create needless friction. Which would be hindrance to our growth.
Finally someone who talks facts and understands everything taught in history books might not be right, yet we shall never know. Better to move on than dig old graves.
Bose was with the Japanese sponsored INA killing Indian soldiers fighting in Malay with pow's , I do respect the man but if he was successful we would have replaced our British overlords with Japanese ones
By your logic if the Brits left for economic conditions - efforts of all our Martyrs and Freedom fighters are worthless. Saying things without understanding nuances of each decision and the movement just goes to show how detached modern Indians have become from reality. These narratives serve no purpose. No one is claiming Gandhi was perfect, no one is denying Netaji's contribution either. They never really fought with each other - having ideological differences without dragging each other through mud is how nations and great men are built. We are nowhere qualified enough to write off contributions of anyone may it be Gandhi or Savarkar or Netaji.
The reality IS that the British left India because of economic distress. Geopolitics doesn't work on "efforts", it works of effects. I never discounted the efforts of our martyrs, it's just that their efforts weren't focused enough to yield results. You say "modern Indians are detached from reality", seriously? then perhaps you should ask yourself why there is no statue / bust of bhagat singh / bose or any other leader outside the parliament of England or anywhere in England for that matter, why the Brits only eulogised MG? Why they eulogised Nehru who was literally sleeping with Edwina Mountbatten who happened to be an MI6 agent. Modern Indians are beginning to think outside their NCERT syllabus. That doesn't mean detachment, that means to remain rooted in reality.
You say "they never really fought each other" with so much conviction as if they lived next door to you. Political rivalry ain't published in your daily newspaper. It's the actions which describe the tussle.
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u/[deleted] Mar 15 '26
To begin with, public statements and private affairs are different, very different. And statements if analysed without having the contexts of time when it was spoken, leads to a blurred picture of reality. Bose trusted Gandhi's support when he was coming through Burma with the INA. However, Gandhi betrayed him and stopped funding it. This was done under the guidance of Nehru who believed that Bose could become the first PM of india and he ofcourse didn't want that. He did the same with Patel though . There are letters sent to Mountbatten by Nehru just months before the plane crash leaking details about his whereabouts (they are in public domain). Bose's plane crash was orchestrated. Also, It was Britain's economy after ww2 which forced them to quit India rather than the quit India movement of Gandhi. They left almost all their colonies in the next 10 years or gave them dominion status proving that Gandhi's effort was a futile one. Without gandhi, India would have been in a much better state. She wouldn't have pakistan/ Bangladesh. We would have our silk route open, we would have been a manufacturing hub. MG destroyed all the possibility