Time for a new security doctrine based on vision of Vir Savarkar-Subhash Chandra Bose and an honest admission that Gandhiji did greats things for India but his ideology of complete non-violence and Hindu-Muslim unity at Hindu cost did much damage to the nation and is bedeviling It even today.
By Uday Mahurkar
Need for honest debate on Gandhiji’s ideology of complete non-violence woven around often empty slogans on peace –
Not many know that Gandhiji had also once suggested that after getting independence India should dismantle the army and only rely on police. In 1925 he had shocked many when he said that Guru Gobind Singh, Maharana Pratap and Chattrapati Shivaji were misguided patriots. In WW-II when Germany was raining bombs on London Gandhi ji first said he felt like committing suicide and later advised England to rely on its moral force instead of defending itself with military power. His unthinkable suggestions had greatly incensed British Prime Minister Winston Churchill.
Clearly, Gandhi’s pacifism prevents us from seeing the evilness of an enemy like China. Except in rare cases like Balakot or surgical strike after Uri attack we have rarely followed tit-for-tat ideology, a direct result of Gandhian legacy. If China can capture our territory why can’t we do the same at some other point of the border. Significantly, Modi has set new paradigms in diplomacy and security engagement but in the end few can deny that the vision of a visionary like Modi too remains hamstrung by Gandhism when it comes to national security.
US extracted revenge for 9/11 and killed Osama 11,000 kms away but we are unable to liquidate Hafiz Sayeed and Masood Azhar located within 150 kms of our border –
When we are challenged we start with homilies like ‘India never commits aggression but doesn’t tolerate it when it is thrust on it”. Where is the need to say the first part. Clearly it is a sign of diffidence. The US relentlessly chased Osama Bin Laden 11,000 kms away 10 years after 9/11 and killed him to extract revenge for the 3,000-odd people who died in the twin tower tragedy.
In sharp contrast Hafiz Saiyad and Maulana Masood Azhar, who have killed thousands of Indians since 1995, lie within 150 kms of our border and yet we are unable to liquidate them. Is it not in sharp contrast to the US response against Osama?
So first there has to be an honest debate on Gandhiji’s ideology in the context of the damage it has done to our national security even while appreciating his contribution to the nation. And second, Veer Savarkar, who is in one sense the father of our national security vision, and Subhash chandra Bose, the hero of Azad Hind Fauz, should be adopted as India’s security icons.
One may ask as to why Savarkar and Bose as national security icons?
Let us examine Savarkar first. Savarkar is that unique person who had predicted many years before Pakistan was born that Congress’s Muslim appeasement policies would become Muslim League’s fodder, whet its appetite for special demands at the cost of Hindu rights and would ultimately result in partition. From 1937 onwards Savarkar repeatedly warned Congress against Minority appeasement but was dubbed as a communalist though he never demanded special treatment for Hindus at the cost of Muslim rights. Ten years later he was proved correct when Pakistan was born.
Savarkar was a great visionary of India’s security. He predicted Assam’s Muslim problem in 1940s (Assam’s Muslim population then was just over 10%.. Today it is 35% ) and the 1962 Indo-China war eight years in advance. In 1954 he warned Nehru that his principle of Pancheel would spur China’s evil designs and that he won’t be surprised if China attacks India and swallow it’s land in near future.
His warning on Pakistan was also unique. He said till a nation based on religious fanaticism was India’s neighbor she won’t be able to live n peace. This appears true to the last dot today.
Interestingly, Savarkar had advocated armed strategy for India’s independence during 1st as well as 2nd World Wars. He advocated militarization of Indians before and after independence. He advocated atom bomb for making India Superpower. But most of all he preferred national security over any ideology in sharp contrast to how he is painted by Pan-Islamists and Communists.
Savarkar’s contribution to India’s national security vision is endless and beyond the scope of this article. For example, he had advised the then Jawaharlal Nehru Government soon after independence that India should call Arabian Sea as ‘Sindhu Sagar’. But Nehru never agreed.
But more importantly, according to Savarkar’s biographer Dhananjay Keer, it was on Savarkar’s sound advice that on world stage our enemy’s enemy has to be seen as our friend that spurred SC Bose into leaving for Japan, Italy and Germany, striking a deal with Axis powers and forming the Azad Hind Fauz comprising the Indian soldiers captured by them and attacking India with the aim of freeing Hindustan from British rule. Although Bose’s AHF lost, it played a big role in pressing Britain to give independence to India. And in one sense Bose implemented Savarkar’s vision.
There is unimpeachable evidence on Bose’s contribution on this. Clement Atlee who gave India Independence in 1947 as British Prime Minister of made some startling revelations during his 1956 visit to India (when he was not the British PM) in his talk with the then acting West Bengal governor PB Chakraborty with whom he stayed in Kolkatta for two days. His comments warrant a complete change in the way India looks at independence struggle history.
Atlee told Chakraborty – “The pressure built up by the AHF episode, the unwillingness on the part of Indian soldiers returning from WW-II to accept British rule and finally the mutiny by Navy soldiers at Mumbai Dock in 1946 played a big role in pressing Britain to withdraw. To a specific question by Chakraborty Atlee said that influence of Congress and Mahatama Gandhi was ‘minimal’ in pressing Britain to give independence to India.
So, the time has come for India to adopt Savarkar and Bose as its national security icons firmly declaring that India will now walk on the Savarkar-Bose doctrine when it comes to national security thus making it amply clear that in security-related issues India won’t follow Gandhiji anymore. Significantly, there were some differences between Savarkar and Bose on attitude towards Muslim community but their views on most things to do with national security were one.
What will be the impact of such a move?
Such a move will at once stop blackmail of the nation by Pan-Islamists using Gandhiji’s name which they have done with unerring regularity by first challenging the majority with violence like in Godhra episode and on facing retaliation invoking ‘Gandhiji’s non-violence and his doctrine of ‘Hindu-Muslim unity at Hindu cost to accuse majority community of biases.
The blackmail by communists, the co-brothers of Pan-Islamists, would also end. This will also enable India to properly define that section of the Muslim community which is moderate and not wedded to Panislamism and wants to remain in the Indian mainstream. The numbers of inclusive Pan-Islamist Muslims is quite vast in India but India is unable to tap them due lack of a national security vision.
Delinking Gandhji from our national security plain will also immensely help India in sending the right signals to the world, especially the powerful nations besides of course its key rivals, Pakistan and China.
Entire world would know what to expect from India if it is challenged. But the greatest service it will render to the nation is in cleaning the confused national security vision of Indian citizens.
But the argument has defects. The need of the hour is to clear the vision of the countrymen on the security front and not of rulers alone. Plus, even the Modi Government has taken decisions under Gandhian impact in areas touching the nation’s security scenario like allowing the foreign missionaries of Tablighi Jamat to come to India for six years from May 2014 , when the Government came to power, to April, 2020, when it finally decided to stop these missionaries from coming but after paying a heavy price. The ban came only after the Tablighi Jamaat preachers became careers of Corona in large parts of India after March 30, 2020.
Clearly, the time for a vision shift on national security front has arrived. There is a hole in the Indian ship that needs to be immediately plugged to realize its future dreams or else the ship might sink.