Chapter 903 Rebellion Is a Courage

On August 10, 1943, in Mumbai, the most developed commercial city in the British Indian Empire, at No. 19, Labram Road, where high-end residential buildings are scattered, there is already a sea of ​​people around a beige three-story Western-style building surrounded by green trees and flowers.

Those who gathered here in the scorching sun of August in India were all Indians wearing ugly homespun clothes and slippers. In this era of India, those who dressed like this were not necessarily poor Indians. There were many special Brahmins who were very rich and had been rich for thousands of years, and now they dressed like this, because homespun slippers symbolize non-violent non-cooperation!

These Indians wearing Indian homespun clothes gathered around No. 19, Labram Road today are of course all advocates of non-violent non-cooperation. And the reason they gathered here is to go to jail! To accompany their great leader Mahatma Gandhi to jail!

Mahatma Gandhi was released by the Indian Governor-General Mountbatten in May, when Gandhi agreed to discuss the issue of "Indian autonomy" with Britain.

That is to say, he recognized Queen Elizabeth as the Queen of India and stopped shouting the slogan "Get out of Britain" - he didn't dare to shout it anymore, because German Field Marshal Halder led a German expeditionary force of more than 100,000 people to India.

That was the legendary Nazi who killed people without blinking an eye! Mahatma Gandhi's tactics were fine against the soft-hearted British, but wouldn't he be courting death against the Nazis?

Moreover... Mahatma Gandhi heard in prison that the newly-elected British queen was very fierce, nicknamed the "Bloody Queen", and brutally suppressed the British Bolsheviks in London, killing people and causing rivers of blood. The captured British Bolsheviks were dragged to Buckingham Palace Square and executed by cannon!

Therefore, Gandhi, Nehru and other Congress Party leaders decided to retreat temporarily, seek autonomy first, and then find a way to independence.

However, in August, the situation changed again.

First, the Congress Party found out the truth about the "London Riots". Queen Elizabeth was not that fierce. The Buckingham Palace Square shooting incident was completely fictitious, and the suppression of the British Bolshevik Party was not cruel.

Secondly, the Congress Party found that there were not many German troops entering India, estimated to be less than 100,000. Half of them have not entered the subcontinent, but have stationed in Ceylon, the Andaman Islands, the Maldives Islands and other places. The remaining German troops that actually entered the South Asian subcontinent did not look very fierce. They had strict military discipline and did not offend the Indian locals. They seemed to be more reasonable than the original British army.

However, what really prompted Mahatma Gandhi and Nehru to raise the banner of struggle again was the emergence of the People's Republic of India!

The so-called People's Republic of India is actually an Indian country supported by the Soviet Union, with the Indian Bolshevik Party as the main ruling party.

This country is nominally independent and is the country of the Indian people!

Its emergence seems to have realized the ideal of the Indian people to be masters of their own country! Therefore, it has put great pressure on the National Congress Party, a party that has always been fighting for independence and freedom in India.

If the Indian National Congress still pursues cooperation with Britain, it will lose the politically correct banner of Indian independence.

Without this banner, Gandhi and others are just old men who can only protest by hunger strike.

So Gandhi and Nehru had to raise the banner of Indian independence again in July 1943 and announced the implementation of non-violent non-cooperation throughout India.

This move immediately aroused strong opposition from the British Indian authorities. Starting from August 1, Sikh police loyal to Britain appeared around No. 19 Labram Road - in the political rules of the game in India, this was a precursor to the arrest of Mahatma Gandhi.

The Indian National Congress also immediately launched a resistance with Indian characteristics, not launching an armed uprising, nor arranging Mahatma Gandhi to flee, but calling on supporters to accompany Gandhi in jail! Probably wanting to mobilize tens of thousands or more supporters to eat the prison food of the British Indian authorities together and eat the British into bankruptcy.

So starting from August 2, tens of thousands of Congress supporters gathered around No. 19 Labram Road, carrying their prison luggage, ready to accompany Gandhi to prison at any time.

At the same time, major Indian cities such as Mumbai, Delhi, and Kolkata were also paralyzed, with workers, merchants, and students on strike. Even the Hindu officers and soldiers in the British Indian Army were in turmoil, and the situation in the "British-controlled area" of India suddenly became tense again.

"Ludwig, the situation in India is very bad now, like a big gunpowder barrel that can be detonated at any time."

The commander of the Indian front, Field Marshal Franz Halder, who was reporting the situation in India to Hersmann, was ordered to return to Berlin to report on his work. He left Delhi on August 3, visited the crowded Labram Road in Mumbai on the 4th, and arrived in Zossen on the outskirts of Berlin on August 5.

"Can it be suppressed?" Hersmann sat behind his desk, looking through the materials brought by Halder and asked. The information he was reading contained many chaotic scenes of protests and demonstrations, as well as some about the former Indian National Army.

The Indian National Army was fostered by the Germans themselves and was originally going to be sent to India to cause trouble for the British. However, they did not expect that plans could not keep up with changes, and India has now become a common problem for Germany and Britain. Although these national army troops have now been incorporated into the British Indian Army, they have retained their original structure below the regiment level and are not under the control of British officers, which is very dangerous.

"Who to suppress?" Halder did not seem to understand Hessman's question. "Is it the National Army?"

"Indian National Congress!" Hirschman said, "Can we arrest Gandhi and Nehru and execute them by cannon?"

Execution by cannon is a unique way of killing in India, which is to tie people to the muzzle of a cannon and then blow them up with a cannon! It was originally a method used by the Mughal dynasty, and later it was learned by the British colonists who were good at adapting to local customs. In the Indian uprising from 1857 to 1859, the British executed many Indian rebels by cannon. In the Punjab Rebellion from 1871 to 1872, another 66 Sikhs were executed by cannon.

However, after the Amritsar Massacre caused by non-violent activities, the British colonists gradually became weak and dared not use cannon execution as a means of killing. Moreover, after the Amritsar Massacre, the non-violent non-cooperation movement emerged, making the movement against British colonial rule gradually gain momentum in India. And the British rulers also became increasingly weak and dared not take decisive measures to suppress it.

And Hirschmann, who has the knowledge of later history, knows very well that it is impossible to maintain Britain's colonial rule in India or the European Community's colonial rule in Africa by compromise and concession!

Cruel means must be taken!

"Shoot Gandhi?" Halder looked at Hirschmann, "This may cause a bigger mess... This is the British opinion. Because Gandhi has countless supporters, he is the leader of the moderates in the Indian independence movement. The British believe that this Gandhi and the National Congress Party he represents may still cooperate. If we eliminate them, we will face hundreds of millions of angry Indians!"

Are hundreds of millions of angry Indians really terrible?

Hirschman smiled contemptuously and said, "There are not hundreds of millions of creatures that can be called human beings in India. There are only 20 million people at most, and the rest are untouchables who are not worthy of being human beings."

Hald, who had been in India for a few months, had already understood some of the strict hierarchy in India. He nodded and said, "Ludwig, you are right. The 20 million upper-class Indians did not regard the lower-class people there as human beings at all, but the lower-class people there were instigated by the upper-class people and became cannon fodder against us."

"This is the most powerful thing about Mahatma Gandhi!" Hirschman interrupted.

Hirschman had spent a lot of time studying Indian issues, and he himself was basically a "revolutionary expert", so he could discover some deep-seated things.

Before the rise of the non-violent non-cooperation movement, although there were a series of resistance incidents in India, the participating groups were not widespread, mainly the upper class of India. The main forces of the uprising from 1857 to 1859 were princes and high-caste soldiers (you also need to be a soldier), and the Punjab Rebellion in 1871 was mainly instigated by the remnants of the Sikh dynasty. Gandhi used the non-violent non-cooperation movement to turn resistance into a national movement.

Because "non-violent activities" greatly lowered the threshold for rebellion - the national conditions of Greater India determined that serious rebellion activities were not something that everyone could participate in.

In India, everything depends on the caste. If you are not a good soldier, you can only be oppressed and serve people with good castes for generations. How can you rebel? Moreover, a serious violent rebellion requires organizing an army, and to organize an army, someone must serve as a soldier. And serving as a soldier... that is a job that only Kshatriyas can do! According to the standards of Hinduism, the vast majority of untouchables are not allowed to join the Indian rebel army, and only those who meet the caste requirements can join the army. How many people are there? How can they beat imperialism?

In addition, you can't do revolution in vain if you don't put your head on your belt. There is no such reason! There must be rewards after the victory of the revolution. At least they must be given land and changed their castes! All those who participated in the revolution must be promoted to Kshatriya, right?

How many more Kshatriyas will India have after this revolution?

Moreover...if rebellion can create the Kshatriya caste, then can there be peace in Greater India?

Now Gandhi and Nehru can incite the untouchables to rebel against the British Empire. In the future, won't others be able to "call for Brahmins and Kshatriyas to be of the same caste"?

Therefore, the root of the non-violent non-cooperation movement is not Comrade Gandhi's noble character, nor is it that Mahatma Gandhi is too weak, but it is determined by the national conditions of Greater India. Only by using non-violent non-cooperation can people of all classes and castes in India unite to make trouble for the British colonists.

If Gandhi gave up non-violence and fought against imperialism, Indian society would inevitably be divided!