Indian Critiques of Gandhi

I recently read Indian Critiques of Gandhi (State University of New York Press, 2003). I loved this book, especially the following chapters:

-Gandhi, Ambedkar, and Untouchability

-Sri Aurobindo’s Dismissal of Gandhi and His Nonviolence

-The Hindu Mahasabha and Gandhi

-Indian Muslim Critiques of Gandhi,

That said, here are some of my favorite quotes from the chapter- Indian Muslim Critiques of Gandhi by Roland E. Miller (Author of Mappila Muslims Of Kerala).

… Indian Muslim views of Gandhi were marked by a “stutter-step,” even a “flip-flop” quality, rather than by an even flow.

“I consider the satyagraha movement to be practically impossible and wholly unprofitable. . . . Except some isolated people, I consider Mussalmans generally absolutely unfit to act on the principles of satyagraha.” MukhtarAhmad Ansari

...P. C. Chaudhury summarizes Ansari’s influence in these words: “It was practically through Dr. Ansari and Hakim Ajmal Khan that Gandhiji could get into the inner enclave of the orthodox and cultured Muslims of Delhi, and through them of Northern India.

...Yet we know that Azad disagreed with Gandhi, most notably in the final acceptance of India’s division, a moment when Azad’s silence spoke louder than words.

....Azad did not accept Gandhi’s ahilsa as “an absolute value.” He held to the validity of defensive force and the idea of just war, and believed that the Prophet Muhammad provided the true example for the appropriate use of force.

…when I interviewed a revered leader of the Mappila intellectual renaissance and a former university vice chancellor he stated that there were three things that bothered Kerala Muslims about Gandhi: his stubbornness, his religious revivalism, and his virtual abandonment of the Mappilas.

Before coming to Calicut, in a speech at Shajahanpur on May 5, 1920, Shaukat Ali stated, “I tell you that to kill and to be killed in the way of God are both satyagraha. To lay down our lives in the way of God for righteousness and to destroy the life of the tyrant who stands in the way of righteousness, are both very great service to God. But we have promised to co-operate with Mr.Gandhi who is with us. . . . If this fails, the Mussalmans will decide what to do.”