Recapitulating Gandhi’s tryst with Assam

- By Rajdeep Mahanta*

Mahatma Gandhi ceremonially opening the doors of the ‘GosainGhar’ (Private Temple) of Krishna nath Sarma’s family for the Harijans, 1934 |
Image credit: brahmaputraheritage.org

Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi or as we call him the Mahatma was without doubt the most influential and interesting Indian figure of the Twentieth century. In many ways, he seems to be the most famous Indian since Buddha. One thing that endeared him to such diverse people across the globe was probably his openness. He was no doubt rooted in his own culture but was always open to the world. This made him one of those rare Indians of recent times, whose name is not intricately linked with any particular region. He belonged to the whole of India, not just in an abstract sense, but he physically visited most parts of it.

Gandhi visited the then-province of Assam four times in all. His first visit came in the year 1921, in the wake of the Non-Cooperation Movement. Gandhi was left mesmerized by his visit to this part of the country, ‘beautiful Assam’ a land often talked off with awe and a sense of mystery in what can be called the mainland of the Indian subcontinent. He was particularly impressed, besides its’ beauty by the Assamese people and their love for Khadi. This first visit of Gandhi, then already the pre-eminent nationalist leader in some ways at least helped in demystifying the land whose people he ignorantly called uncivilized in his Autobiography. His fourth and last visit occurred two and a half decades later in 1946, when he visited it in connection with the cabinet mission’s proposal to put Assam in Group C along with East Bengal. Both these visits were crucial in terms of its’ impact and have been somewhat covered in Gandhian studies and also is more or less part of the common conscience of any history-conscious person.

The two other tours of 1926 and 1934 that are often omitted or rather awarded a passing by reference are equally significant, particularly in linking Assam with the happenings of the rest of India. The visit in 1926 in many ways facilitated the deepening of Assam’s place in the wider national imagination by holding a session of the Indian National Congress in the then obscure Pandu in the vicinities of Guwahati. This may be seen as symbolic and without much empirical value. But in the world of Politics symbolism indeed plays a very important role. And for symbol’s sake, the holding of a Congress session and the arrival for the first time along with Gandhi the host of the first and second rung leaders of the Congress as in Motilal Nehru, Vallabhbhai Patel, Madan Mohan Malviya marks the final amalgamation of Assam in the political imagination of the Indian nation. This visit of Gandhi and the cohort of nationalist leaders thereby should not be dismissed as merely an official endeavor.

The third and perhaps one of the most significant visits of Gandhi took place in April 1934. Its importance is added not least by the wider context of the time. This visit was part of Gandhi’s Pan India Harijan tour, a novel method adopted by an upper-caste reformer to the viciously wicked practice of Untouchability. Gandhi, for most Indians, is necessarily and even exclusively the messianic leader who led the country to freedom from the British Raj. This is chiefly the version that the study of most history textbooks seems to bestow. Somewhat popular is also the image of Gandhi the preacher of Khadi and ashramite life. A very important part of his career, his struggle for internal social reform is mostly forgotten, not just by the masses but even by some of his ‘ardent’ followers. Very few Gandhians, self-professed or otherwise to be sure did anything over the last seven decades of his passing for social reform. But recent research, most particularly by Ramachandra Guha shows, social reform among the Hindus as in the abolition of Untouchability remained a lifelong quest for Gandhi. While Ambedkar’s role is no doubt unprecedented in the struggle for reclaiming the rights of the ‘Dalits’, their dignity, Gandhi played his own part by trying to make the Upper caste men realize their folly, in addition to other constructive work via the Harijan Sevak Sangh and temple entry programs. For any movement against historic discrimination, making the exploited realize that they are being exploited and thereby mobilizing them is quintessential, but just secondary to it is making at least a large majority of the exploiter class alert to the indignities committed. It is this very important latter role that Gandhi the Social reformer played. It is in this context that Gandhi’s Harijan tour and his resultant visit to Assam must be seen.

Gandhi’s 1934 visit was marked by the almost spectacular act of opening of the Namghar of Krishna Nath Sharma to the Dalits in the highly conservative region of Jorhat on the 18th of April, 1934. However, this wasn’t a stray or out-of-the-blue event. There were few other player halls that were flung open but equally significant were his interaction with the Harijans as also the upper caste and his visits to multiple Harijan colonies in Guwahati, Dibrugarh and Tezpur. Gandhi in his characteristic style not just addressed the issue at hand but also broadened the meaning of the removal of Untouchability as the removal of all feelings of high and low. This was in particular Gandhi’s response to the usual deterrent that Untouchability did not exist in Assam.

The four visits by Gandhi, the most pre-eminent leader of the Indian nationalist movement to a province, largely divorced from the hitherto modern imaginations of the ‘nation in the making’ are significant in themselves. But when placed in the wider context of the national situation, it offers a tantalizing glimpse into the thought as also the working of the Mahatma. While Gandhi the politician has been rigorously studied over last so many decades, perhaps even over-studied, it is suitable time to now turn our focus to Gandhi the organizer, Gandhi the constructive worker and above all Gandhi the Social reformer; glimpses of all of which can be discerned in his four visits.

* A student of history, Cotton University, Assam. Email: rjliberal127@gmail.com