Gandhi in Jaffna

RAMACHANDRA GUHA

No politics for the Mahatma.

BY the standards of an incident-filled life, 1927 was not an especially exciting year for Gandhi. He was not in jail, nor was he planning a satyagraha. He spun and he prayed, but these could not completely fill up the days. So much time did he have on his hands that Gandhi was compelled to work on his autobiography, a luxury generally afforded to a politician only in retirement. My Experiments with Truth appeared, a chapter at a time, in the weekly Young India all through 1927.

It was at the end of what — for him — had been a rather somnolent year that Gandhi made his first and last trip to an island then known as Ceylon. Gandhi arrived in Colombo on November 12, 1927, accompanied by his wife Kasturba, his friend, follower, and critic, C. Rajagopalachari, and the latter’s daughter, Lakshmi. Also in the party were his secretaries, Mahadev Desai and Pyarelal.

In his three weeks in Ceylon, Gandhi covered the island from top to toe. He delivered dozens of speeches, to organisations connected with Buddhists, Chettiars, Christians, and Depressed Classes. He spoke in to girls’ schools and in men’s colleges. Gandhi’s schedule was hectic indeed. Consider thus his programme for Sunday, November 27, 1927:

9 to 10 a.m. Visits Jaffna Hindu, Parameshwara and Manipay Hindu Colleges.

3 to 5 p.m. Visits Puttur, Achveli, Velvettiturai, Tondaimannar, Point Pedro, Chavakacheri and Chiviateru.

6 to 6.15 p.m. Ladies meeting at Ridgeway Hall.

6.15 to 6.30 p.m. Cigar Factory Worker’s Meeting.

6.30 to 7 p.m. Message to Hindus.

A first-hand account of this visit is contained in Mahadev Desai’s With Gandhiji in Ceylon, printed in 1928 by that sturdy nationalist publisher of Triplicane, S. Ganesan. This is a scarce book, not available even in the best of libraries. However, Desai’s narrative has been extensively drawn upon by Gopalkrishna Gandhi in his recent edited book, Gandhi and Sri Lanka, 1905-1947. While using Desai’s volume this collection goes beyond it, by including a selection of letters written to Gandhi by his Sri Lankan friends, as well as newspaper reports of the trip.

Mahadev Desai and Gopalkrishna Gandhi both cover the Mahatma’s trip as a whole. Here, however, let me focus only on the days he spent in the Tamil-dominated Jaffna Peninsula. Gandhi arrived in Jaffna town to a tumultuous reception. The Jaffna railway station on the morning of November 27, wrote the Ceylon Independent, was “the scene of a seething mass of humanity… , expecting the arrival of Mahatma Gandhi by the Colombo train. From six in the morning, crowds began to steam in and by 6.30 the avenues to the station were impassable”. When at seven sharp the train arrived at the station, “there was a general struggle among the crowd (with) people raising their heads to have a glimpse of the Mahatma… There was promiscuous charging in the crowd and even the reserved path could not be kept clear. A narrow path was made and the Mahatma who returned the greetings of the crowd in oriental fashion — namaskaram — was … led to the car that was specially decorated with flags bearing the spinning wheel”.

In his speeches in Jaffna, as elsewhere in the island, Gandhi stayed scrupulously clear of politics. There were no polemics against colonial rule, no demands for constitutional reform or democratic representation. The avatar the Mahatma had chosen for the tour was that of the social reformer and theologian. Thus, he was especially pleased to find that the town of Jaffna was more-or-less dry. He told a large public meeting that this “closing of the pestilential taverns and liquour dens is a great step in the right direction”.

Gandhi was less impressed by other aspects of social life in northern Sri Lanka. He was depressed on hearing that the practice of untouchability was apparently as widespread as in India. As he complained to his Jaffna audience: “Living in a country over which the spirit of the Buddha is brooding, I had felt you would be free from this spirit of untouchability. … Let us realise that it is a sin to consider a single human being as inferior to ourselves or (as) untouchable. If you believe in an all-wise and all-loving God, as you must believe, you will immediately fling the doors of your temples open to receive the suppressed brethren”.

Gandhi also confessed to having received a “painful shock” at being told about the “differences that have arisen between Christians and Hindus” in the Jaffna Peninsula. In a speech to a group of influential Hindus he urged them to take the lead in promoting the constructive dialogue of faiths. “And seeing that you (Hindus) are in a vast majority,” said Gandhi, “it is up to you to make advances and settle all your disputes”. Some days later, he told the Hindu students of the Central College to study the teachings of Jesus Christ. For “those who, no matter to what faith they belong, reverently study the teaching of other faiths broaden their own, instead of slackening their hearts”.

Non-violence, the eradication of untouchability, inter-religious harmony: these perhaps were, and are, the central tenets of the Gandhian message. It is tempting to judge how far they are honoured in contemporary Sri Lanka. The verdict on non-violence is pretty clear — as idea or practice it has been comprehensively rejected by both sides in the civil war. As for caste, anthropological evidence suggests that, as in India, its influence is probably on the wane. The processes of modernisation and low caste assertion have combined to make untouchability a less pervasive influence than was previously the case.

Which brings us, finally, to inter-religious harmony. Here, perhaps, is the real failure and fault-line, the single most important reason for the absence of peace in Sri Lanka. Sinhala Buddhist chauvinism was a prime contributory factor to the rise of Tamil radicalism. But the Tamil revolutionaries, in turn, have not shown themselves to be religious pluralists either. In particular, clashes between Hindus and Muslims have seriously damaged the case for Tamil self-rule.

One must hope that in the Sri Lanka of the future, as indeed in the India of the present, the Buddhist comes to live peaceably with the Hindu, and the Hindu peaceably with the Muslim, the Christian, and the Sikh. Relevant here is a cable reproduced in the Gopalkrishna Gandhi volume. The cable is eccentrically charming, in that it advertises — as apparently did all telegrams under the British Raj — commercial products, in this case Lipton’s tea and Imperial Specials cigarettes. But it is also socially inclusive. For its sender was the Anagarika Dharmapala, its recipient, Mahatma Gandhi. Dated February 7, 1924, the cable read: “Ceylon Buddhists delighted your release (from Yeravada jail). Invite you and family to Colombo. Quiet seaside residence ready”. The hand of friendship extended by a great Buddhist reformer — accepted, three years later, by a great Hindu reformer. Except that, this being Gandhi, his time in Ceylon was spent not in a “quiet seaside residence” but among the seething mass of humanity.

Ramachandra Guha is a historian and writer based in Bangalore. Email him at ramguha@vsnl.com

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