Guha is shading the truth. The fact is, the Indian Constituent Assembly and the Parliaments which succeeded it gave Hinduism a normative power as the 'majority' religion. This meant that the previous concessions made to Muslims were taken back. They lost reserved seats in the Legislature and Urdu ceased to be an official language thus causing the lower ranks of the bureaucracy to be monopolized by Hindus. Gandhi himself had sponsored 'Hindustani'- this was one of the reasons his assassin gave for killing the Saint- but India chose 'shuddh' (Sanskritized) Hindi as the official language. This language was not actually understood by most people. This gave rise to the joke that the National News Broadcast in Hindi should be introduced by the statement 'Now please listen to some Hindi in the News'. In other words, ordinary people could only understand one or two words of 'shuddh' Hindi! It was a foreign language to them!



It is true that the Hindus pretended that they were not asserting hegemony. Thus they said that the Directive Principle in the Constitution re. Cow Protection was 'scientific' not religious in nature. At this time, Hindu revivalists were claiming that the ancient seers of India had invented everything from atom bombs to Televisions and rocket ships! Thus, Hinduism wasn't a religion- it was actually purely Scientific!



As Guha points out, Gandhi was an outsider who understood little about the rural, Hindi speaking, 'cow-belt'. The fact is, he was hoodwinked by local politicians. In 1916-17, the Hindus of Bihar launched a well coordinated series of attacks on Muslims in the name of 'cow protection'. Thus cow slaughter ceased. However, thanks to Jinnah, in 1916 an all-India alliance between Muslims and Hindus targeting the British had been forged. Thus local Hindu leaders needed Gandhi to come to Bihar and lead an agitation against European (mainly Scottish) indigo factors in Champaran. A wealthy moneylender named Rajkumar Shukla importuned Gandhi till he agreed to preside over this campaign in which, previously, both Muslims and wealthy Hindus had participated. Gandhi says that Shukla was a poor peasant. However, by his own account, he was earning 2000 Rs a month (at a time when most civil servants earned less than a hundred Rupees) and owned a lot of property.



This was not the only time Gandhi was fooled by wealthy Hindus. His passion for khaddar (homespun) was financed by Textile manufacturers who wanted to monopolize the Indian market and pay less to the Indian cotton farmer. Meanwhile, the Muslims were discovering that his support for Khilafat (Caliphate) was purely tactical. Jinnah saw with his own eyes that Gandhi would do a deal with Ambedkar re. the 'untouchable' Hindus but would not force Congress, or his heir, Nehru, to do a power-sharing deal with the Muslim League. That is why Jinnah from being the 'Ambassador of Hindu-Muslim unity' felt he had to shift to the 'two nation theory' which led to the establishment of Pakistan.



Gandhi was a traditional, conservative, Hindu who genuinely believed that 'untouchables' had no more brains than 'a cow'. He thought women were inferior to men. He considered meat eating to be an abomination. He had a great veneration for the holy cow. It is no wonder that educated Muslims came to mistrust him. The fact of the matter is, Gandhi did not prevent the ethnic cleansing of Muslims in Jammu and East Punjab. Elsewhere, he could have some influence but Muslims saw that this was because wealthy Hindus wanted the labor power of poor Muslims. After Independence, Muslims lost jobs in the administration, the army, as well as representation in the Legislature. Yet, they were constantly forced to 'prove their loyalty'. It is no wonder that there was a steady stream of emigration to Pakistan. The father in Rushdie's 'Midnight's children'- just like Rushdie's own father- felt he had to give up his prosperous existence in India because of harassment by the Custodian of Enemy Property. Thus he emigrated to Pakistan in the Sixties. However, as Pakistan's own problems worsened, even this avenue of escape was closed. During the Eighties, Indira and her son Rajiv, were going down a Hindu nationalist path. Muslims were massacred by police and paramilitary forces. Thus the Muslim vote went to the caste based 'Socialist' parties. They felt they had to elect gangsters because gangsters could frighten the police- who were solidly Hindu chauvinists. The BJP offered better governance but was painted as Islamophobic and Fascist. Yet, the fact is, Indian Muslims are very valuable to the country because they are sober, hard working, and will accept lower salaries. Thus, even those who profess to hate them don't want to expel them because their own profits will go down. Moreover, India's Muslims have the lowest proportion of radicalized militants of any country in the world. I would not be surprised if they also have the lowest rates for addiction and other anti-social behavior. These are the plain facts of the matter. There is nothing wrong with Modi punishing Pakistani aggression, or putting an end to funding for insurgency in the Kashmir valley. Indian Muslims have no objection to that. Nor do they object to genuine refugees being given citizenship. What they are upset about is the threat that they themselves will be stripped of citizenship or harassed by officials. The Opposition parties insist that this will happen. The fact is, if they come to power, they will certainly use the National Register to squeeze money out of Muslims. Everyone knows these dynasts are corrupt. The BJP itself may not misuse this machinery, but its successors are certain to do so. That is why States with a bad track-record on Governance are saying 'we won't implement the Register'. Nitish Kumar is not himself corrupt. But the knows his successors are likely to be scoundrels. They will enrich their supporters by extorting money in return for providing legal documentation.



Gandhi's vision of pluralism involved an India which had room for Princes as well as small self governing village republics. Sadly, this vision was completely impractical. Congress paid lip service to it but the 'Gandhi topi' (i.e. cap which Gandhi made popular) and the homespun 'khaddar' kurta became symbols of greed and corruption. Nehru's own vision was of Scientific and Technological progress. But Bureaucratic Socialism delivered only stagnation and a Malthusian crisis such that the Americans were forced to keep from famine the citizens of an almost wholly agricultural land.



It is important to understand that Gandhi was the figurehead of a powerful Hindu-Muslim alliance for only a very short period. The reason he was the figurehead was because he promised to deliver 'Swaraj' (Home Rule) within 18 months. Nothing of the sort occurred. Gandhi took fright and called off the Non Cooperation Movement. To be frank, he delayed the hand over of power by about a decade. His vision of 'inter-faith' harmony evaporated by the mid Twenties. By the Thirties, there was considerable evidence that Hindus close to him were orchestrating violence against Muslims. He himself admitted this to Cornelia Sorabjee. Still, Gandhi didn't really believe the British would leave. Surely, the British Navy would always come to the rescue? Thus Indian politics was essentially gestural. It wasn't till the Japanese were knocking at the gate that Gandhi told the Brits to 'Quit India'. Thankfully, they didn't listen to Gandhi. Neither did millions of Indian men who gladly joined the Army and helped defend the country. Whatever you say about the British, they were angels compared to the Japanese or the Communists.



Guha has an old fashioned 'Great Man' theory of History- just as Gandhi himself did. Strangely, Guha has come to identify himself with the subject of his study. In the process, Guha has damaged his own reputation as a historian- Vide https://socioproctology.blogspot.com/search/label/Guha