One nation indivisible; India

The following program is produced under a grant and aid from the educational radio and television center and is distributed through the National Association of educational broadcasters and the University of Michigan proudly presents one nation indivisible on. Self-determination independence. Sovereignty. These are the catch words of one of the most powerful forces on march in the world today. Words which symbolize the desire of people everywhere. To be masters of their own political destiny. This is our story. The story of nationalism in the twentieth century. Told in a series of 13 radio

documents created by the broadcasting service of the University of Michigan. And now. One nation indivisible. South of the hill and the heartland of Asia lies India a massive peninsula of continental proportions. Mother India a vast and sprawling London contrasts scan the world over and you will find no place less likely to develop a cohesive spirit of nationalism. And yet from India in August of 1042 there came this ultimatum part of me part of me and part of the All India Congress Committee is of the opinion that the immediate ending of British rule in India is an urgent necessity.

The continuation of that rule is degrading. We therefore demand the withdrawal of the British from India. A committee therefore sanctions for the vindication of India's right to freedom and independence. So the starting of a mass struggle in the widest possible scale struggle must inevitably be under the leadership of Mahatma Gandhi and the committee requests him to take the lead and guide the nation. Are you. Guide the nation said the ultimatum but was there truly a nation to be guided by demand upon the British to put India kept a nationalistic struggle dating back over half a century. Yet even in that year of 1942 the great sub continent of India had none of the usual qualities a nation should have. For example we expect a nation to have a common language. Mother India speaks at least 40 languages and

more than a hundred distinct look in all the people of any particular region state or city and understand each other. Lacking a common language a true nation is certain to have some other powerful cohesive element. Religion perhaps has not run at least six major religions Islam citizen journalism and Christianity. Or lacking a common language and religion. We would expect perhaps a racial unity of 2000 years of invasions in modern India. Here are the descendants of the Russians. In the absence of a cohesive language race or religion one that must look for a firm political focus for a nation's loyalty at the time of the prudent resolution of 1942. India was comprised of five hundred and sixty

different principalities truly no land on earth could be so fragmented so diverse and so full of contrast and hope to survive as a single nation. The one exception that proves the rule is India. Where did it begin. This feeling of nationalism. How did it develop in such a splintered mixed up region as is India. We often think of America as being one of the youngest of the world's nations yet our expressions of nationalism go back some 200 years. By contrast India's statement of independence was adopted during our own lifetime. Listen to the resolution of 930. The official expression of the Congress party it is that the right people as any other people do have freedom to enjoy the fruits of their toil. We believe that if any government deprives the people of these rights and oppressed. The people have the further

right to alter or to abolish it. The British government in India has deprived the Indian people of their freedom and has ruined India economically politically culturally and spiritually. We believe therefore that India must sever the British connection and attain crudeness Rotch complete independence. At last the peoples of India had found a common goal. The spirit of national independence had finally flowered in the most unlikely garden in the world. Now that the expression for independence had erupted in India scholars hastily took a new look into history and certain events began to stand out in a new light. In 1833 the British East India Company with businesslike efficiency decided to administer its holdings in India under a single administrator. The Governor General Lord William Benton three of the things Lord William introduced into India had far reaching and remarkable consequences. First he began to reform the Indian way of life.

For example the ancient custom of suttee by which the widow of an Indian gentleman threw herself into the funeral pyre of a husband was outlawed. This was but one of the hundreds of similar reforms designed to bring Indian life closer to the standards set by England. Once the Indian people began to live by English standards they also began to adopt English ideas of personal liberty and independence. Secondly the Governor-General cast the die in favor of an English education for India. Here again the Indians gained an unexpected bonus. Hidden in the three Rs of the typical English education lies the fourth on the right of national liberty and India began to learn about the fourth along with the conventional three. The third result and probably the most important of all came from the simple but necessary fact that Lord William Bendix was

a good and efficient governmental administrator for twenty years after 1833 the British East India Company expanded its control over the sub continent they conquered and pensioned off the pitch was the Rogers and the nabobs. There stablished a strong centralized government for all of. As a matter of business convenience the company had created the one perfect requirement for the growth of nationalism here under the East India Company for the first time since the mogul conquest all of India came under a unified central government. The necessary ingredients for independence were finally present. Now the brew could ferment. Now it was only a matter of time. The first eruption came in 1857 the great Indian Mutiny. A flame of violence swept across the land fanned by the sea poisoned Indian soldiers in the service of the East India Company.

Professor C-h Philips an unusually able English scholar described the chaos Thus this outbreak was much more than a mutiny of sea pies. But somehow less than a national rebellion it was quelled within a year. But its consequences for India dominated the quarter century that followed the mutiny caused the final abolition of the East India Company and the subsequent transfer of sovereignty and government direct to the English crown. Then the British began to lace India with a network of railroads I guess. This had. A remarkable effect. It dissolved the Titan's relation of thousands of English towns cities and villages. It provoked the travel not only of goods and people but of the gleaming rails linked India's countryside and local economy. The vast wild marketplace before rail travel each minute segment of India had been virtually self-sufficient. Now with transportation there was cheap rapid and dependable various parts of India

began to specialize until the country discovered that it had somehow become interdependent economic interdependence. In turn led to the next stage of development. Certain visionaries began to conceive of political interdependence and that meant national unity. In 1885 the visionaries formed a loose self-appointed Association for the development of their vague and shifting ideas. They called it the National Congress. These men of the Indian National Congress set for themselves. They wanted a rise in the government. They wanted posts in government service for themselves and for their kind. They did not want self-government. Not at first. That would come later. They did want to progress towards representative government and they desired to influence government by this sophisticated expression of Indian opinion. But what could be done by a few intellectuals acting alone. Not very much independence is the most expensive thing on earth. It would come only when the great mass of

the people wanted it so much that they would be willing to die for it. At Not per 1891 the direction for future action by the National Congress was sketched by President Charlotte. It is imperative on us to penetrate to the masses and imbued with this product of the Congress. What is only another name for national sentiment as yet labels in this direction have been. Let us now approach the problem with all the energy and power would that be help it becomes our bounden duty to go amid the high seas and to saturate the mind with the aspirations of a united a nationality and under Charlotte who had sketched the need in a dispassionate intellectual manner. But it would take more than that to arouse India from its slumber of centuries. It would take someone who could play upon popular emotions that man already lived it was a Brahmin newspaper editor from Poona are the last great Hindu kingdom. His name was Bob Ganga hard to look in his newspaper articles and fiery public speeches

about Teluk expounded a favorite doctrine Swara self-rule self-rule for India and the Indians. So what is my birthright and I will have it. We want freedom we must have in our hands the right of carrying on what all of us. I said it is our right to have Home Rule but that is our European way of putting it. I go farther and say that it is our dharma of a duty. You cannot separate it home from us as you cannot separate the quality of heat from fire. Boat inseparably bound up. They then president of the Congress that are by a narrow to a grand old man of Indian nationalism threw his weight behind this thrilling concept of self-government. The British government as many first in India as a barbarous desperate is unworthy of British instincts principles and civilization. With that observation I can do no less than do something as the most vital goal of this Congress

at the height of the movement for self-government. India was abruptly shaken by events happening in far off Europe. The First World War exploded in England began fighting for her life. What happened is to the everlasting credit of India over the length and breadth of the subcontinent. People put aside their national fight for independence and pitched in to help with the Kaiser Indian regiment sailed for France and fought valiantly but then it was over and India looked hopefully to the future. In the year 1999 the British parliament passed a new government of India Act. This gave a degree of responsible government to elected Indian ministers in the provinces in the provinces yes but not in the overall government of India. The Act of 1990 better disappointment to many Indian leaders for it preserved the ultimate authority of the British Viceroy. Far from satisfying the forces of Independence. It stimulated unrest in opposition but worse was yet to come. Jittery over post-war unrest along India's borders the British next introduced the road

acts to provide the government of India with special powers against Ed.. The relative act suspended ordinary legal procedures they authorised imprisonment without trial. They provided the cases of sedition should be tried without judges and in effect suspended habeas corpus. If Indians were disappointed with the meager authority granted them by the act of 1019 they were stunned by the road attacks. National indignation rose to a white heat. An Indian leader named Gandhi declared he could not accept such reactionary legislation and organized a passive resistance movement which quickly got out of hand as the Indian people responded with unusual vigor. And in April the British nervously proclaimed martial law in the Punjab. Two nationalist leaders were arrested in the town of Amritsar and new rioting broke out. Managers of two British banks in Amritsar were killed. The railway station was attacked. Stores were sacked while the Bobs ranged through the city. The British sent General Dyer to restore order with tragic consequences. History sometimes shows strange parallels. What was going to happen in Amritsar that Sunday morning April

13 1919 had a deadly similarity to an event 150 years earlier and half a world away at the city of Boston Massachusetts General Dyer had prohibited all public meetings but this Sunday morning a mass meeting was called anyhow and General Dyer ordered up his troops. They marched through the city into the enclosed garden where the mob had gathered. There they halted and then opened fire. 1600 rounds of ammunition were fired into the unarmed crowd. The Boston Massacre had cost exactly five lives and had touched off a revolution. The massacre at armored ser in the pump job killed three hundred seventy nine persons and left more than a thousand wounded. And it too touched off a revolution in view of the fact that doomed events of April 1919 the Indian and imperial governments have grossly neglected and failed to put this is the rising Indian leader Mahatma Gandhi voicing the nation's indignant protest at the all Indian congress meeting at Banaras Gandhi has an

idea. He knows the coming political struggle demands active mass involvement. He knows too that the men of Amritsar and of Calcutta and Banaras do not have long rifles slung over the mantles as did the men of Lexington and Concord. They must find a different weapon. But one just as effective in the long run Indian dandy thinks he knows what that weapon is. We don't address of the F or mention for wrongs. And only effective means to vindicate national honor is to prevent a repetition of similar wrongs in the future. Isn't the star Michelin of Sooraj. There is no course left open for the people of India but to adopt a policy of progressive nonviolent non-cooperation until the said wrongs are righted. Thus began the first civil disobedience campaign led by Mahatma Gandhi and India for the people in the country of its origin civil disobedience was a brilliant inspiration to combine the ancient Hindu ideals of non-injury to living things and the spirit of satyagraha the belief that action firmly wedded to truth was the ultimate source of irresistible

power. Civil disobedience then became India's long rifle. Hard hitting accurate and most of all effective the power that an individual or a nation forswearing violence can generate is a power that is irresistible non-cooperation is the most effective when it is absolutely free from violence. It is a voluntary withdrawal. The test and the measure of popular feeling and popular dissatisfaction at the unjust deception of all rights by England. Moreover every step in withdrawing cooperation has to be taken with the greatest deliberation. We must proceed slowly so as to ensure our retention of self control under the fiercest heat proceed slowly. Gandhi sensed that his weapon was potent but no one could guess just how potent the Congress created national volunteer groups to activate the campaign. It got underway immediately the British government responded with heavy handed police repression and mass arrests

as a result. Whether planned or by accident is not known. The campaign got out of hand. Violence broke out the mobs rioted and Gunday decided to postpone launching his complete programme. He still wished to test his weapon by careful stages by January nine hundred twenty two however he decided the time would come for the next stage a complete non-cooperation programme limited to a single Indian district the district of Bardoli before triggering this campaign he sent his final ultimatum to the British Viceroy. The immediate adoption of mass civil disobedience is an imperative duty. The Congress has restricted it to certain areas to be selected by me from time to time. For the present it will be confined to Bardoli. But before the people of Bardoli actually commenced mass civil disobedience I respectfully urge you to revise your policy. To set free all prisoners taken for nonviolent activities to free the press from all administrative control. And to restore all the fines and forfeitures

recently imposed. In thus urging I'm asking your Excellency to do what is to be done in every country under civilized government. If you make the necessary declaration within seven days of disobedience the ultimatum was ignored. The campaign was launched and again to Gandhi's horror it flew out of control and committed mass violence arson and brutal killing. Until now Congress had simply been against the British government. They had waged a negative campaign of opposition. They had not given the people any positive program nothing constructive. What would happen if the British did leave. What were the goals for free India. The first major step in developing a positive program came in 1931 when the Congress adopted the karate declaration of fundamental rights. It is

political freedom must mean real economic freedom any future constitution. Every citizen has a right to free expression of the right and the right to assemble peacefully for purposes and. All citizens are equal in accordance with the French. Every citizen is free to move and

to follow any and all. With a national future so alluringly painted by this karate declaration the Congress party embarked on its second civil disobedience campaign. It was touched off by Gandhi's vivid march to the sea to manufacture salt. This was a direct flight at the government's salt monopoly. The new disobedience campaign flamed out across all India until the whole country was in a turmoil. More united than ever before in opposition to British rule. No real accomplishments resulted from the second disobedience campaign to change India's political status but a definite chemical change seems to have occurred under the surface. Among the people of India. Common suffering common sacrifice and the striving for a common goal had begun to awaken a national sentiment.

The struggle against British rule had started to dissolve. That is between the hundreds of states provinces and districts that comprise the great sub continent. At this time. Congress and Gandhi began stating that they had no quarrel with their British friends but only with British rule. They repeatedly assured the British that India was willing to work together with them and in a friendly fashion. After independence had been gained and then history repeated itself. Another world war erupted in Europe just as it had 25 years before. In India the National Congress again made it quite clear that they did not wish to benefit from Britains peril. Gandhi in 1939. I am anxious as a friend of my own by many personally that she should come out of this world victorious not because of superiority but because of her ability to be just. She will then have a true friendship and sympathy

of millions of people all over the world. The Congress itself passed a resolution condemning fascism and Nazism and then clearly defined her war aims. If cooperation is decided in a worthy cause. This cannot be obtained by compulsion. Operation must be between equals by mutual consent for a cause which is considered to be. I cannot associate for democratic freedom when that very freedom is denied. If this is to defend the status quo imperialist possessions vested interests and privilege then India can have nothing to do with it. However. The issue is democracy and a world order based on democracy. Then India is intensely interested in it.

Probably no one today could argue with the basic common sense of this resolution. But at the time it was given in BN was coming under the Blitz ranged over London and the British troops were forcibly hurled into the sea at Dunkirk. The British lifeline over the oceans was being smashed by a swift German torpedoes discussion of war aims was academic. Britain was fighting for her life. Back in India the Congress waited for a satisfactory answer and waited and waited. And in 1942 the Congress finally took the step that culminated there 57 years of nationalist development the Quit India resolution. Events have made it clear that the immediate ending of British rule in India is an urgent necessity both for the sake of India and for the sake of success of the cause of the United Nations continuation of British rule in India is degrading and making her

progressively less capable of defending herself and of contributing to the cause of freedom. The All India Congress party with all emphasis the demand of the medrol of the British. The Quit India spirit remained active throughout the years of World War Two when the war ended. Britain had lost the desire to keep India unwillingly insubordination and so in 1947 India won her complete independence. The culmination of nearly a century of growth and determination and the beginning of achievement for a new nation. To conclude this program on Indian nationalism we invited comment from the Indian ambassador to the United States is excellent. Here now is the ambassador speaking from the embassy in Washington and a special recording for this broadcast. At the outset I vish to Congress to let the University of Michigan on having this program on India. The program has been devised with imagination

and insight and has been presented for an underdeveloped country like India. It has been a hard road to travel since independence. India is economically backward. Our military power is negligible and yet she has attained an international status and exercise is a measure of influence in the world which is significant in the social sphere untouchability has been abolished and its practice made a criminal offense. I don't there have been occasional outbursts of bigoted autocracy. There is no organized resistance to this social reform and it is only a question of time before this iniquitous practice will disappear. The Hindu code has been devised and women have been given equality with men in respect of marital rights and inheritance. In the economic realm landlordism has been abolished and lent to New York is being reformed. The villages are weakening

from generation so stupid and let AIG and people in rural areas are voluntarily and actively contributing to development schemes in their own sphere. Basic industries such as steel are being developed both in the private and public sectors. Small scale and rural industries are being Nitish to multi purpose projects as well as small irrigation schemes are proceeding at best and bodies being made increasingly available to towns big and small. Much has been done yet far more remains to be done in this democratic enterprise of national development. We seek understanding friendship and assistance of all those who are developing off mankind at heart. And who believe in liberty and social justice. The. Will.

One nation indivisible. One of a series of 13 radio documents on nationalism in the twentieth century. Resource advisor for this program was assistant professor Robert Crane of the Department of History at the University of Michigan. The program was written by William Bender Jr. and narrated by Lou Hamers. Included in the cast were Indian students attending the University of Michigan as excellence AGL matter was heard in a special recording. The program was directed by Williams Decker and was produced and transcribed by the broadcasting service of the University of Michigan. One nation indivisible is produced underground in aid from the educational radio and television center and is distributed through the National Association of educational broadcasters.

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