A facsimile of a message printed on cloth and presented to Mr Saklatvala at a meeting held in Bombay, on 24.1.27.
TO SHAPURJI SAKLATVALA
Dear Brother,
Bombay, the City of your Birth, welcomes you with all her heart. It has been Bombay's pride and privilege, that all three Indians elected to the British Parliament, have been her own sons:- Dadabhai Naoroji, Mancherjee Bhownagree and Shapurji Saklatvala.
Brother, though you were born in wealthy surroundings, you have been from your very youth a true Friend of the Poor, the Suffering and the Sorrowing. Whether in India, or in Europe, you have felt and fought for the Suppressed and the Oppressed - often so singly ,and always nobly.
Brother, you are essentially a Citizen of the World. Castes and Creeds, Colour and Sex, Continents and Countries, do not affect you at all. To you, Humanity is One Great Family of the Divine Father; and you strive and struggle and suffer to bring mankind together, in loving links of Unity, Amity and Harmony.
To that noble goal, our great Gandhiji, Rabindranath Tagore, Jagdish Chander Bose and T.L.Vaswani are all labouring with such love and light; and may you keep that Torch always ablaze abroad.
Brother, as a Friend of the Poor; as a fearless fighter for the Oppressed,; as a Lover of Liberty and Freedom for all; and as an untiring Worker and Fighter for Fraternity, Equality and Peace in the World, dear brother, we greet you, we salute you, and we wish you a long and luminous life, dedicated to the service of our dear Country and of the suffering Humanity at large. Amen!
We remain,Dear Brother, Your Dear Friends and Admirers, Countrymen and Comrades. Bombay. 24 January 1927"
While he was still aboard "S.S.Razmak" sailing towards India, the Evening Star in London reported that "he was recently granted a Passport after considerable delay, which resulted in a written protest to the Prime Minister." On 15th January, 1927, the Bombay Chronicle, describing Saklatvala as 'one of the finest orators, one of the most magnetic personalities, and one of the most consistent of India's sons,' also reported the delay in the issuing of Saklatvala's passport for India, which had only been granted after consultation with the Government of India; "...it rendered impossible any pre-arrangement of meetings.....So Mr Saklatvala goes to India unheralded and without any suspicion of advance agent or stage manager."
The Bombay Chronicle of 15th January 1927 reported, under the eye-catching headline, "I COME TO SERVE."- "We publish below the following special message written by Mr Shapurji Saklatvala in response to a cable sent by us to him. It was handed over by him to our representative who was the first to see him on board. At the request of Mr Saklatvala, a copy of this message has been sent to all Indian papers.
"Yes, I have at last come to Bombay and to my mother, India, from the mother-country of my children." He said he was coming after a gap of 13 years. "That period of 13 years, first with the Great War and then with the Workers' Revolution in Russia, has made history for almost 130 years for mankind. ... The war had many aims, some declared ones and some concealed ones. However, it is the results that have to be reckoned with. Nations and even sections of nations are divided up, they are asked to live in water-tight compartments politically and commercially. They are all to develop nationalist patriotism based upon suspicion and dread of their neighbour. The doctrine of implicit obedience to a strong governing class being the only safety for the masses is being preached openly .... The powerful victor states are seeking more power and are extending their influence over the newly created smaller states and nationalities. ... On the other hand the Russian revolution has made and still perseveres in another call. It wants to break down old barriers of nationality and creed. It calls upon the masses to realise that they are never really safe unless they govern themselves and their state from the workshop, or the farmyard and field upwards. It proclaims for international unity based on mutual economic safety in place of influence and domination of one nationality over another. .......
"When I come to India in this condition of the world, I realise I shall meet with a changed atmosphere, changed mentalities, and even altered personalities. There will be much for me to see, to learn, and to ponder over, and there will be quite a lot for me to impart out of my political experiences and observations. .... I come to serve and to serve with devotion, but not merely with emotion; I want to make my service of as much practical value and usefulness to my homeland as one humanly can, but for that I want the help, the good will and the trust of everyone who is working in the cause of India. I shall need every ounce of guidance, of good temper, of comradeship in war or peace. Therefore I appeal to the Indian Press to broadcast my humble request. I desire to quarrel with, or to object to, nobody. ...I desire to work out a harmonious, pleasing and servicable design to the pattern of my daily experience of the struggle of man, the sorrows of woman, and the suffering of children. There has to be honest disagreement without disagreeableness, there must be severe and outright analytical criticisms of policies without malice .... Majorities do not overwhelm me, minorities, and small minorities, do not dishearten me or bring weariness on my brow. I face my issues calmly and I bear my Party's standard singly in the British Parliament of 615 members. So I am trained not to value opinions by counting noses. ... I am a believer in the human heart, and I have come directly to speak to it; I am a believer in the masses, in the poor, in the worker, in the peasant, and so, till I have met them, and till they have permitted me to speak to them, I shall say 'au revoir' to the pen and the printed word. I shall of course come back to you in my effort to bring about proletarian unity from Battersea to Bombay and beyond. And now, my greetings to you all, and my salutations to the memory of Shradhanand. Sh.Saklatvala."
It was reported in the press that hundeds of admirers assembled on Ballard Pier long before the boat was sighted. The article goes on to say:- " As soon as the steamer touched the wharf, representatives of the Press and various organisations rushed on board to take precedence in honouring the great man. Heaps of garlands and bouquets were showered on him ... Mr Saklatvala was all in smiles while the imposing ceremony of the reception was going on. The curious thing about the whole function was that Mr Saklatvala refused to be garlanded. He smilingly remarked that he, as only an unknown soldierin the field did not deserve the unique honour that was done to him. He collected all the garlands on his arms and intimated his desire of making an offering of them on the grave of the Late Lokmanya Tilak, the 'known soldier' as he said, who really deserved, even in his death, all the honour which India could accord to her patriot sons. ... On landing on the wharf, Mr Saklatvala was immediately surrounded by enthusiastic crowds ... it took almost half an hour for his car to bugle its way through the throng. ... Followed by many of his friends, Mr Saklatvala arrived at Chowpati and in profound reverence, he placed all the garlands and bouquets offered to him on the little stone memorial erected on the beach in memory of the Late Lokamanya. ...."
It is sadly interesting to note that Saklatvala was not invited to stay with his younger brother, Sorab, who, presumably would have found the public expression of his older sibling's political beliefs an embarrassment in the capitalist circles in which he worked and socialised; Saklatvala was made welcome and stayed with one of his cousins, Mr Jamsetji Saklatvala. This slight from his younger brother must have hurt my father deeply but, so far as I know, he never mentioned his disappointment to anyone, not even to my mother. This same brother made me most welcome in his home after my father's death and showed me great affection, generosity and kindness; I could not help silently remembering the hurt he had inflicted on Father; but the good manners required of a guest, and the deference due from a niece to an uncle forced me to conceal my latent anger.
While Saklatvala was still on the high seas, the Sunday Worker of 2nd January 1927 wrote:- "Unlike the tired Leader of the Labour Party, Shapurji Saklatvala is not going abroad merely to bask in the sun. He says he is going to work for the brotherhood of Indian and British workers. He will certainly have a very energetic try. His record here in England is warrant of that. I have his diary of engagements for the past year before me as I write, and would offer a bet that Sak's list of meetings addressed would beat that of any other propagandist in Britain." -(This in spite of the cancellation of meetings under the Emergency Powers and the time spent in prison!) - .- "Bad health, including a very 'dicky' heart, does not deter Sak for a moment. On one page of his diary you may see entries showing that on 2 successive days he spoke at four meetings in Northumberland and Durham and two in his own constituency of Battersea. That means that during the intervening night he travelled South by train, sleeping as he always does, wrapped in his overcoat, even on the floor of the corridor in a crowded train - certainly never in a 1st Class sleeper - but Sak did not say to the pressmen in Marseilles, 'I am tired and need a rest.'"
Saklatvala wrote to the Daily Herald from India saying: "I am not going on any idle holiday. I am going to make another great effort from the Indian end to pull the two working-class brotherhoods together. Every ounce of goodwill and encouragement from individuals and organisations of all types in the British Labour Movement is needed, and I appeal to you all to send me a word of support, a voice of encourageing good cheer for the poor, down-trodden Indian workers from every trade union and socialist branch to my address c/o All India Trade Union Congress, Sandhurst Rd, Bombay."
Such a crowded schedule was to be maintained and even increased during his three month tour of India. On the same day on which he arrived, Friday, 14th January, he addressed a meeting organised by the Trade Union Provincial Committee in the afternoon and in the evening addressed a crowded meeting of textile workers. The following day, Saturday, he addressed a huge meeting and public reception in the Sir Cawasji Jehangir Hall, where, according to press reports 'he spoke for an hour and a half and his whole speech was permeated with humour, sarcasm and wit, which kept the audience roaring with laughter all the time. At the end he was surrounded by a surging crowd that virtually smothered him with their congratulations and cheers."
After only a few days, the Bombay Chronicle wrote of Saklatvala, "Whether he is at a tea-party or a reception, a Labour meeting or a public demonstration of thousands, he avails himself of every opportunity to drill his fresh and dynamic views into the hearts of his audience with his magnificent oratory, of which, indeed, there is no parallel in India today. Wherever he goes he enlivens the atmosphere and electrifies his hearers." He addressed big Muslim rallies (over 6,000 attended a meeting addressed by him in Bombay) and, while he advised them that the Muslims of the world should be united and should call a world conference every year, he also stressed the need for all peoples in India, both Hindu and Muslim, to unite as Indians and to live harmoniously together. As a Parsee and being neither Hindu nor Muslim, he was in a strong position to call for such unity. He addressed meetings in Hindi, Gujerati and English and was equally eloquent in all three languages.
A few days after his arrival he visited Navsari, his birthplace, and the Freedom of the Municipality was conferred upon him in a moving ceremony. In expressing his thanks, Saklatvala said that a life of simplicity was with him a religion and it was not ordained for him to receive honours. He said he was proud to be a citizen of Navsari that had given to India a Dadabhai Naoroji and a Tata. After the ceremony he went to the Lunsieni Maidan and addressed a huge gathering of thousands there. On his arrival in Navsari he had once again been presented with garlands and bouquets; he went, before attending any public meetings, to call on his Aunt, Mrs Bamji (his Mother's sister) and presented her with all the garlands and flowers as a token of his respect and affection. This is but one instance of the profound family feeling that Father always had, even for those members of the family whose conduct in private or public affairs ran contrary to his own political or even moral convictions. He was, after all, the only socialist in a clan of highly successful capitalists, but he loved the clan nevertheless; he loved the Uncle who, in his eyes, had wronged his Father; while he deplored the concepts of the family business, he still loved the individual members of the family as his kin - these were bonds which nothing could sever.
About 3 miles from Navsari, in a small village named Eru, a patriotic young man, Mr Nathubhai was conducting a night school for children of the depressed classes. Saklatvala asked to see it and was taken there at 10.p.m. There he found 43 boys and 30 girls studying together. He learned from them that they earned from 1 to 2 annas a day and depended upon philanthropic citizens for slates and books. The Bombay Chron.report continues: _Full of that milk of human kindness which distinguishes him he chatted with the boys and advised them to become thoroughly educated. He specially exhorted the girls to study and learn to be worthy mothers and to bring up a race of patriots with a burning love for humanity. He told them all that in education lay their salvation - moral, material and mental. He then advised them to teach children when they grew up just as their teacher was teaching them without expectation of material reward but out of love of service to humanity." ?
He travelled all over India and was rapturously received by audiences numbering thousands wherever he went. The Indian newspapers reported all his speeches and triumphs. His relationship with the Indian National Congress was a complicated one. He fully upheld their objective of freedom for India but did not agree with their methods of obtaining it. And, of course, he disagreed profoundly with Gandhiji on many issues. The two men met during Saklatvala's visit. They also exchanged letters which were published by the Communist Party in December, 1927, extracts of which are reproduced below:-
Saklatvala fired the first salvo on March 8th, writing from Bombay. "Dear Comrade Gandhi," he began, "We are both erratic enough to permit each other to be rude in order to freely express oneself correctly, instead of getting lost in artificiality of phraseology... Let us understand , openly, whether the 'Charka' movement is or is not an attack upon machinery, upon physical sciences, upon material progress. If it is so, then it is a most damaging disservice to our country and must be stopped. If it is not so, then your ardent followers ought not to be allowed to believe that it is so. ...The methods adopted in other countries of organising labour and peasantry and guiding and leading the workers in factories or farms to obtain their rights, have produced far more benevolent and efficient results in human life than the two-annas-a-day charka movement will ever do. .... Now, where do we stand with regard to the primary object of the charka movement and its position today? Are you shifting your limit of 2 years to 4 or to 20 or to 200 years? Do you suggest that a rise of 2 annas a day say of the whole population is a process which is going to drive the British out of this country? ... why do you persevere in hand-spinning with such superstitious adherence, and why not introduce alongside of it other more profitable handicrafts ...? You are not teaching people to wear more clothes than before, your own example would rather lead them to wear less. At the same time you are teaching more people to produce clothes .....
....The acuteness with which the class war operates upon the wage-earners of India is more than in most of the advanced European countries, where, thanks to the organisation of labour, several of the cruelties of class war are being moved. Just look at the palatial houses of any mill-owner of Bombay, Ahmedabad, Nagpur or Calcutta and look at the disgraceful and diabolical one-room tenements of the workers, devoid of all furniture, appointments ar any embellishments. Such acute difference between dwelling conditions of the rich and the poor does not exist in Great Britain, America or any part of Europe where labour is organised. .... That is not all. The class war in India is murderous and more cruelly murderous because it is infanticidal. .... You will find that the mortality of infants under 12 months of age among the rich would be about 90 per 1000, whereas the infantile mortality in the municipal wards where the factory workers live would be from 600 to even 800 per 1000. Such a damnable attack upon human life is unknown in those countries where the working classes are organised. To defend such a position is criminal, but for anybody to go even further and to throw dust in the eyes of the world that class war is not operating acutely in India is inhuman and monstrous, and I have always felt that through your misguided sentimentality, you have preferred to be one of them. Class war is there and will continue to be there until any successful scheme of Communism abolishes it. But in the meantime, not to struggle against its evil effects from day to day is a doctrine which cannot appeal to any genuine humanitarian.
....you emphatically argued that the charka movement was making organisation. I emphatically deny it. ... Then we come to the psychological value of the movement. This WAS great. It BEGAN well .... but why create a psychology if you do not intend to mobilise the spirit so created ...?
Whatever may be the feelings of some of your admirers, I hope you and I are both agreed that we are both very common and ordinary persons. ...If your purpose is to give your share in the national and political work, your approach to the people should be on terms of absolute equality and your task must be to inspire confidence in them. From this point of view you must stop allowing people to address you as a Mahatma. I have heard from your many friends that you have never wished the word to be used ... You can easily refuse to receive letters so addressed, and you can easily refuse to attend functions where you are advertised with this appellation. You have only to express your wish publicly instead of whispering about it to a few friends and the thing would be done. ... You should rigorously stop crowds and processions of human beings, specially poor women and little children, passing you with folded hands and downcast eyes. Once you create this abject submission of man to man, no wonder that you should yourself despair of obtaining civil disobedience from your followers. ...
Then there is one thing that I witnessed at Yeotmal which has hurt me greatly, ... Your work regarding the removal of untouchability is grand in its aspiration, and is not bad in its success as it is generally carried on. However, I strongly object to your permitting my countrymen and countrywomen to touch your feet and put their fingers in their eyes. Such touchability appears to be more damnable than untouchability, and I would sooner wish that two persons did not touch each other than that any one human being should be touched by another in the way in which you were touched. The depressed classes were subject to a sort of general disability, but this new phase of a man of the depressed class worshipping the feet of his deliverer is a more real individual depression and degradation of life, and however much you misunderstand me, I must call upon you to stop this nonsense. ... You are ruining the mentality and the psychology of these villagers for another generation or two. ... Politically this career of yours is ruinous, and from a humanitarian point of view its degenerating influence appears to me to be a moral plague. ...
...I have put down my candid thoughts in the above paragraphs not with a view to disburden my soul of personal grievance; ... What I am really attempting to do is to disburden your mind of a lot of confusion and contradiction and to demand from you, in the name of all sufferers not merely that you stop adding to their sufferings but that you come forward and live with us as a brother with brothers, and work with us in a manner and form in which we all consider your service to be most valuable. and you to be. most fitted. ... What I want of you is that you be a good old Gandhi, put on an ordinary pair of khaddar trousers and coat and come out and work with us in the ordinary way. Come and organise with us, ... our workers, our peasants, our youths, not with a metaphysical sentimentality but with a set purpose, a clear-cut and well-defined object and by methods such as by experience are making success for all human beings. Instead of developing the vanity of making under-clothing or over-clothing as a primary object of administration, as an ordinary rough-and-tumble man, making your food and clothing secondary and unimportant items that should not require any special thought, you would still be able to undo great mistakes of the past, to make up for the damage done to India and other Asiatic countries, and be one of the successful workers for India as other successful leaders have actually worked for their country. ... Therefore, before I go, I should like you to get up one morning as from a dream and to say, 'Yes,' and many of us can soon be put together in a good team, and set about putting an end to so many deplorable conditions of life in India, about which none of us has any doubt. I remain, Yours fraternally, Shapurji Saklatvala"
Gandhi's reply was published as an open letter in the Bombay Daily Mail of March 17th (he explained in a later letter that he did not at the time have an address to which he could send a personal reply. Though I would have thought that a man of reasonable resourcefulness would have been able to find one.) Not surprisingly, he did not get up one morning as from a dream and say 'Yes'. He wrote:- "'Comrade' Saklatvala," (I think the fact that he puts this form of address in inverted commas suggests that he prefers his normal title of Mahatma to the unaccustomed one of Comrade, used by Saklatvala.) "- is dreadfully in ernest. His sincerity is transparent. His sacrifices are great. His passion for the poor is unquestioned. I have therefore given his fervent, open appeal to me that close attention which that of a sincere patriot and humanitarian must command. But in spite of all my desire to say 'yes' to his appeal, I must say 'no' if I am to return sincerity for sincerity..."
The two men had further correspondence dealing mainly with Gandiji's organisation of the workers of Ahmedabad which he kept outside the All India Trade Union Congress. Needless to say, neither of them ever came any closer to agreement on their disparate methods of bettering the lot of the Indian people.
Saklatvala knew that for him openly to criticise a man revered by millions as a Mahatma was inviting his own unpopularity; but, on the whole, he was admired for his candour even by Gandhi's ardent followers and earned the approbation of many who, like himself, abhorred the 'holy Man's' approach to matters mundane. Neither their exchange of letters nor their personal meeting brought them any nearer to agreement. Saklatvala continued to believe that Gandhi's concept of the struggle for freedom was, in fact, helping to maintain the British grip of the country - he felt he was playing into the hands of the British.
When the two men met and discussed their differences face to face in Yeotmal, there was no rapprochement, and although before their talks there had been much speculation and interest shown by the Press, neither of them said much about their meeting. Saklatvala was, no doubt, extremely disappointed, because he seems always to have hoped that Gandhi would put his undoubted powers of leadership into a united effort and that he would promote a movement more practical than the promotion of spinning . It was unrealistically optimistic ever to envisage being able to persuade Gandhi to his way of approaching the problem of imperialism.
How distressed he would have been to see that the policies of the Indian National Congress, combined with those of the British Raj and the Muslim League, ended in the disintegration of the Indian nation, which has been so disastrously fragmented both physically and emotionally. (Indeed, it sometimes seems as if every man would like to set up a national frontier around his own back-yard.) How despairing he would have been to see, more than 40 years after the departure of the British, the persistence of poverty and illiteracy and an ever-widening gulf between the various religious factions, still savagely spilling each other's blood in their so-called service of God.
We will never know if the communist creed as recommended by Saklatvala would have brought greater or lesser happiness but certainly the policies which he deplored have not brought the prosperity and peace that national liberation should have bestowed upon the people. But the wealthy are born with their hands in the pockets of the poor and will never allow them to prosper and man's greed will outlast any man's creed. Though I suppose it is better that the plunderers are now at least Indian plunderers - there might be some consolation in that for the down-trodden drudges of free India. Experience has taught us, too,that so-called Communist states provide all too fertile a soil in which tyranny and torture can flourish - so there is certainly no real grounds for believing that the introduction of a distorted communism into India would have produced anything better. Surely, Christ did not envisage that his advocacy of brotherly love would result in the Inquisition and the burning at the stake of one human being by another; and neither did Marx envisage the possibility of a Stalin rising in a society following HIS version of brotherly love; but man's cruelty is not so easily conquered- it is, like a weed, an indomitable survivor.
While Saklatvala was in India the 7th Annual session of the All India Trade Union Congress took place in Delhi on March 12-13th. Saklatvala had, of course, been closely associated with the movement even before its inception and he was, as a visitor, invited to address the Congress. There were already deep divisions and dissentions within the trade union movement and it was reported in the Press that the meeting was attended largely by the right wing of the movement. The Bombay Chronicle reported that the only fighting speech was made by Comrade Saklatvala.
In a letter to the Editor of the Bombay Chronicle, Saklatvala put forward his proposals for the education of the peasants and agricultural workers in the villages in India. He wrote: - "Thousands of students responded to the call of the Congress in 1921 ... with determination and devotion to become life-long servants of our dear Motherland. This call of the Congress was, indeed, the call of Comrade Gandhi endorsed and accepted by Congress. I was at that time yearning to come to India to take my share of the work, but my financial and other circumstances did not permit. I felt that the call was a good one, and the inspiration underlying it was a noble one, but the programme ahead of it was a vacant one. The great need of our country is to organise the peasants as well as the industrial workers, to inspire them with a confidence and a belief in themselves, and to arouse a political and class consciousness within them, so that they may be able to free themselves from their burdens instead of being victims to them under mis-belief of religious or civic virtues. This task cannot be performed by book education, or by thumping oratory of a travelling agitator, .... I wanted all our educated and devoted nationalist students to be mobilised into an organisation, galvanised by a nationalist fervour, and at the same time tempered with a personal humility. I want them even now in a methodical and in an organised manner to enter agricultural villages, factories, mines, dockyards, railway yards, and every place of human activity, as bona fide workers within those activies. I do not want them to go as external and superior preachers or welfare workers or advisers, but I want them to take their place with our oppressed classes as one of them on terms of equality, doing the same hard and unpleasant work, eking out the same precarious existence, and suffering the same indignities and degradation of human life and human rights. Then they should under the guidance of a central organisation for all India, lead the peasants and the ignorant workers onto a path of self-assertion, and of defence against the might of the privileged class, and then of demands for the ultimate rights of their own class. India has about 6 lacs of villages, and about 20,000 places of modern industrial organisations. A band of 70,000 young educated men and 30,000 young educated women, whom Comrade Gandhi's inspiring call makes available, could launch out on a gigantic programme of an Indian revival and produce results within 12 months. ...
And now my last word. Can we not give up the garlands and the bouquets which in their nature and by traditional usage are an offering? How I wish that before I go, we offer to our guests little red flags to be worn as button-holes to serve as an emblem of equality and service. Let the red flag as a ground work of international brotherhood bear upon it different emblems like the Charka, or the Hindu Trident (Trishul) or the Moslem Crescent, or even the royal crown when the Liberals and moderates organise their meetings, but let us fall in a march with the world that is seeking for justice, equality, and national and international unity, or all put in one "Bolshevism".
During his visit, the British Governmet was sending Indian troops to fight their battles in China and opposition to this was another point of common agreement between Saklatvala and Indian Congress leaders. When Saklatvala went earlier than had been expected to Delhi, it was largely to discuss this issue with Indian leaders. On 28th January, a mass meeting of over 5000 was convened in the Queens Gardens in Delhi to protest against the use of Indian troops in China. Pandit Motilal Nehru was in the chair and introduced Saklatvala to the assembly, and when Saklatvala rose to speak he was given an enthusiastic ovation. He said the meeting was called in order to tell the people of China that Indian forces were sent to China against the will of the Indian people and despite the strong disapproval of the Indian nation which was, however, powerless to prevent it. In moving a resolution expressing the sympathy of the citizens of Delhi with the Chinese people, Mr Iyengar asked why should the blood of Indians be shed for depriving the freedom of China who was not an enemy of India. He said:- "It is not because India is neaer to China that Indian troops are being sent but because India is a subject country. In other countries, the opinion of the people was taken before sending their troops out. In India they were debarred from even expressing their opinion. Maulana Mahomed Ali in winding up the debate said he would lay himself on the rails to stop a train laden with Indian troops for China and he advised others to do the same.
Early in February, after his visit to Nagpur, Saklatvala went to Karachi where a ceremonial welcome awaited him and a procession formed at the railway station and accompanied him through beflagged streets. A public meeting, attended by several thousand people was packed to such an extent that some doors and windows were damaged. The following morning he went to the Labour Headquarters; in the afternoon he held a Press conference; at 5 p.m. he gave a talk to a gathering of political leaders of varying shades of opinion; then at 6.15.p.m., under the auspices of the Railway Union, he gave another lecture; later on the same evening he addressed a vast crowd on the Idgah Maidan where, during his speech he said the lives of Indian labourers were no better than the lives of beasts.
Thus he worked every day during this exhausting, though no doubt exhilarating, tour of his country with a vigour undiminished by the heat and the size of the meetings he was constantly addressing.
A mass meeting was held in Congress House,primarily to protest against sending Indian troops to fight the Chinese, with whom, it was stressed, the people of India had no quarrel and certainly no casus belli. As always, Saklatvala was greeted with a hearty ovation. It was reported that "his speech was full of wit which threw his audience into roars of laughter while his cogent arguments transposed them into serious and thoughtful mood." He said events had moved so swiftly in China that they could not hold too many meetings to protest strongly against what was going on. "Chinamen do not demand Chinese judges and magistrates in Great Britain to protect Chinamens' interests. China does not send battalions to Liverpool where Chinamen abound to protect them, or to London where Chinamen sell their goods. [Laughter].... India should therefore show to the world the unconstitutional method adopted by Britain in sending Indian troops to China against the wishes of the Indian people ... it was a great abuse of power, and showed that Britain was a danger to the world. .... " It had been claimed that the intentions of the British were essentially peaceful and that they only wanted the right to trade in China. Saklatvala contended:- "America sold goods in India but they did not want to send their Viceroy to India. Japan sold more goods in India than India wanted, but they did not send their Commander-in-Chief. Chinamen were sending goods to England but they did not send Chinese battalions. But to send troops to sell goods was characteristic of the British Government - he did not mean the British NATION but the British GOVERNMENT. The methods of selling goods by the British were so unrighteous that they needed gunboats to sell their goods." [laughter] He asked "Is not Great Britain selling goods in France, or Italy or America? Why does she not send her troops to those countries also to protect her merchants?" [Laughter] ....He continued and said India must demand most emphatically the return of Indian troops from China. India, he claimed, had been trading with China long before the British knew how to trade with that country; the Chinese would treat Indian merchants as brothers, while the British would not allow Indian merchants into their white mens' clubs and gymkhanas.
Having dealt with the question of Indian troops in China he addressed the meeting on more general social and political problems and explained, as he explained at all his meetings, the principles of Communism.
Similar meetings were held in all the major cities and Saklatvala was received wherever he went with great affection and acclaim; it was, I think, probably the most emotionally demanding and rewarding period of his whole political life. As always he travelled extensively and tirelessly, giving meetings that sometimes did not start until after ten at night because he was speaking in so many different places. The tour went on until April 9th. On the eve of his departure, at a farewell meeting in Bombay, Dr Deshmukh in the Chair said, "The other day, the Parsi community of Bombay honoured him as their representative [cheers]. I say we citizens of Bombay look upon him as the pride of the city. [Applause] All India will be proud to claim him as their best son and even the whole world will do him honour as an international hero. [continued applause]. I hope it will not be long before Comrade Saklatvala again sets his foot on Indian soil." [Loud applause]. Amid deafening applause Saklatvala rose to reply and allowed himself a rare expression of personal feeling. He said: "There are certain moments in a man's life, which are more difficult than the normal ones. These are the moments when emotion is more overpowering than reason. At this moment, I also do feel a little overwhelmed, not with the thought that you have met with rejoicings that at last I am going back - " [in spite of the hurt of his impending departure, he could not resist a joke] - "but with the thought that you have met to encourage and assure me that I am of you, I am one of you and I shall ever remain inseparably with you......I feel confidence, not the confidence of a blustering politician but the confidence of a hopeful brother. ..." In answer to a question about the murder of Swami Shradhandji, he said he had written to Professor Indra, the late Swami's son, asking him to send a petition to the High Court asking pardon for the murderer of Swamiji. He said, "India should be the first country in the world where we should abolish that savage system of capital punishment. I don't believe in hanging and execution. The system of execution is, according to me, responsible for the system of murder. I don't believe that execution is either sensible, scientific, nor a deterrent." Concluding, Saklatvala said, "Though I am leaving you, I do not feel like leaving." He was then garlanded amidst what the papers described as 'sky-rending applause'.
Had he known at that poignant moment that the British Government was never again to allow him to return to the land of his birth, his leave-taking would have been more heart rending still. But I will speak of that later.
On 9th April, 1927, surrounded by throngs of emotionally charged admirers, Saklatvala sailed from the shores of India for the last time, away from the land of his Fathers, from which he was to be forever exiled by the democratic Government of his childrens' Motherland.
Naturally during his many visits to Bombay he had spent as much time as his overcrowded schedule would allow with his sister. She had been very upset to learn that none of Shapurji's 5 children had been initiated into the Parsi faith. She, as all the rest of the family, were still ardent and strict followers of the Zoroastrian religion. She persuaded him that, whatever his personal beliefs, he did not have the right to withold from his children their participation in the religion of their forefathers. So that one of the first things he did on his return to London was to arrange for the Parsi ceremony of a navjote to be performed on all of us. (It was to be only the 3rd time this ceremony had been performed in England, the 1st time being only the year before on the son of one of Father's close friends). Fresh pomegranate leaves were required for some of the ritual and these were generously supplied by Kew Gardens to whom my Father, resourceful as ever, applied for help. He wrote down all the prayers in Roman script and proceeded to teach us every morning; we were not released to go to school until we had learnt the day's quota by heart - and there were therefore some very fraught and tearful mornings, for to be late for school was unthinkable; for my part, the fear of unpunctuality put me in such a panic that the learning of the unfamiliar words became a nightmare, but Father was relentless, stern and unyielding. We all lined up at the bottom of his bed and were only allowed to depart as each individual one of us recited the required portion of our devotions. Being the youngest (and, I fear, the most stupid), I was always the last to leave, and standing there in solitude watching a clock as relentless as Father, was enough to add to my natural nervousness. But eventually the task was done and we were all word perfect. Three priests were to officiate at the two ceremonies, (one for my sister and myself and one for my three brothers). But we were taken through the prayers and taught the significance and details of the ceremony by a most kindly and gentle priest who became a close friend to us all, one Mr R.R. Desai. It was during this period of preparation that Mr Desai and his house-keeper, Mrs Neal, were invited to dinner. Mother had the electric oven and all the burners going full blast, cooking an elaborate meal; Father, as usual when expecting guests, had put on all the lights in the house and switched on the electric radiators. This all proved too much for the immature electric system and the whole house was suddenly, while we were entertaining this apostle of light, plunged into darkness, the cooker and the radiators gave up the struggle and the evening was threatened with disaster. But in those days, help was quickly at hand and a telephone call to the electric company brought immediate succour and the service was restored in time to finish the cooking, a concave and soggy cake being the only lasting victim of the hiatus in supply.
Perhaps the disaster of the lights that evening should have warned Father of impending doom. Our ceremonies were to be held in Caxton Hall, Westminster, on 22nd July before a large audience and with many pressmen present. Father was to be hauled over the coals by the Communist Party for participating in a religious ceremony, contrary to the tenets of Communism. Why had he not asked their permission first, they demanded. He told them frankly that he knew they would refuse permission, that he had certain family obligations which had to be met and that he had therefore gone ahead with this private and family ceremony and only told them about it when it was too late to stop it. It had never been presented to us as a religious undertaking. Father made it plain that he believed neither in prayer nor in any barrier-building, religious ceremonial, but he said Ali Fui (his sister) would be very unhappy if we did not have it, that it did US no harm and made HER happy; it was in that spirit that the service was conducted. But I don't think the die-hards of the Communist Party ever forgave him.
At the time of the offending ceremony, Saklatvala was recuperating after an operation for a severe and persistent throat infection, no doubt due to the strain and over-exertion of the Indian tour; he was to endure failing health for much of the rest of the year. The operation was performed in a nursing home very close to our house by an eminent Hindu surgeon, Mr K.M.Pardhy. Father had been having treatment there for some time after his return from India. The Matron and nurses were all very fond of Father and were always most kind to him and to all of us. They treated both my sister and myself during our childhood. (And when Father had his fatal heart attack in 1936, it was Matron who was first on the scene.) Dr Fram Gotla, our family doctor and lifelong friend of Father, issued a statement to the press saying, "Indeed, you can tell him and his friends that he sacrificed his health for his work and that he must moderate his programme of toil, for only by reasonable care will he keep the health he as regained." Photographs of Father at the Navjote ceremony show him with his neck bandaged, and on photographs taken during the whole of this period, he appears thinner and very drawn and obviously ill. Indeed, he himself did not actually participate in the ceremony at all but remained seated in an armchair throughout, due to his convalescent state.
Nonetheless, he was to be as active as ever during this period. On May Day he and Harry Pollitt addressed a mass meeting in Hyde Park, followed by another in the Albert Hall in the evening; on 12th June he and Pollitt and other Communist leaders were at a rally in Trafalgar Square. On 19th June he addressed a crowd of 1200 people in Crumlin where he was accompanied by my Mother - (she did go with him from time to time but I think she went with him on this occasion because he was not at all well and was certainly not fit enough to make such a journey on his own.) But throughout his indisposition he only missed one week of House of Commons debates when he also had to cancel all his public engagements; this was announced in the press on 8th July.
In spite of the little lapse from grace over our Navjote, the Communist Party of Great Britain at its annual conference (held in another Caxton Hall, in Salford, Lancashire) showed its appreciation of the great contribution Saklatvala had made to the work of the party during his Indian visit. " Comrade Saklatvala toured India on behalf of the Party during the first months of the year, getting a magnificent reception everywhere, and advocating in particular that the National Movement should adopt a programme of demands for the workers and peasants. His controversy with M.K.Gandhi over the question of the independent class organisation for the workers received wide publicity. His visit undoubtedly did much to stimulate the movement for an All India Workers' and Peasants' Party, a highly important field for Indian Communists. ..."
Alas, the Communists were not the only body politic to appreciate the importance of Saklatvala's impact on the jewel in the imperialist crown. On 5th September 1927 it was announced that the Government had cancelled the endorsement for India on Saklatvala's passport. Of course, permission for him to go to India in 1926 had been granted only after considerable delay and with great reluctance. The effects of his travels in India must have caused the Secretary of State for India to wish that his journey had never been sanctioned. It so happened that the Viceroy, accompanied by Earl Winterton went on a tour of Indian cities during the period of Saklatvala's visit; and the citizens of some of the most important centres turned out in their thousands to welcome Saklatvala while they frequently boycotted any civic welcome accorded to the Viceroy; this must indeed have caused those eminent personages not a little chagrin. One might even venture to think that a certain element of pique might have entered into their decision to prevent Saklatvala from repeating his triumph ever again. Of recent years we have heard a great deal of criticism of various Communist regimes, for their disregard of human rights in refusing to allow their countrymen to leave their homeland to journey to distant lands with which they had no natural links; it has always been implied that Communism was the only system to withhold human rights in this way. But the capitalist Governments of England, both Conservative and Labour, NEVER RESTORED MY FATHER'S HUMAN RIGHT TO RETURN TO THE LAND IN WHICH HE WAS BORN. Human rights are not safe under any political regime and no political system is blameless in this area. The fact that Father was primarily an internationalist did not in any way diminish the intense love he had for India; indeed, it was his desire to free his own people from imperialism which was the spur that led him to desire freedom for all other peoples also. To hold him as an enforced and permanent exile from his country and from his family who lived there was a cruel transgression against human rights and liberty and one that cannot be justified or forgiven. He was a 'refusenik' in this country under a capitalist, not a communist, regime. It was, without doubt, the greatest hurt that was ever inflicted upon him. It was a shameful act by shameless men.
(See report in The Times, of 5.9.27. page 7 para.C)
While Saklatvala was in India, the League Against Imperialism was founded on 7th April 1927 at a conference in Brussels with Fenner Brockway as its first international Chairman; but on Brockway's return to England, the I.L.P. disapproved of his close association with the League which they thought (probably correctly) was Communist inspired. So Fenner Brockway resigned the Chairmsanship and James Maxton replaced him as Chairman of the League Against Imperialism. Saklatvala was elected to its Executive Committee later in the same year and continued to be actively involved with that body. In August he participated in a conference of the League in Cologne.
In 1927, the Soviet Union celebrated the 10th anniversary of the October Revolution and several specially invited guests, Saklatvala among them, spent several days in the U.S.S.R. Saklatvala was favourably impressed with the progress that had been made since his earlier visit in 1923. During the celebratory programme, he and William Gallagher addressed vast crowds in Red Square. In his address, Saklatvala alluded to the hypocrisy of the so-called democratic system of capitalist Governments. "I sit in Westminster," he proclaimed, " making laws for India, and, as an Indian, I am the despised slave of that Parliament and under the orders of an autocratic and idiotic Minister like Chamberlain, I am now told not to go back to my own country. That is parliamentary democracy." Later in his speech, appealing to the visitors from all over the world, he said: "I ask you friends now to realise what we have witnessed in Leningrad, what we have witnessed in Moscow and other towns of the Soviet Republics, which probably our Russian comrades have not realised, - it is a new humanity, an altogether new character of freedom. ..... This is success conferred upon the world after our talking and singing about socialism for the last 2 generations. I appeal to you all, my Comrades, whether you go back to China, or Great Britain, or Africa or America, to carry with you that great image of the real and truly free men, the real and truly emancipated women and the truly cared for children here. ... In that spirit, Comrades, I beg you to go back to your countries, and wish, morning, noon and night for greater success for Sovietism in the Soviet Republic and let us not only wish and pass resolutions, but let us act and work in our countries in such a manner that within the next two or three years we will come back together again as free citizens of our Soviets to this, the first Soviet Republic."
The celebrations included what has now become a familiar feature of Russian life, a parade in Red Square, with cavalrymen from all over the Union riding past. A play lasting 2 days was performed showing all the achievements of the Soviets during the ten years they had been governing the country, and it was broadcast on all the networks throughout the Union. On his return to England, Saklatvala told a Sunday Worker correspondent, "Amazing results have been achieved since my last visit in 1923, but if I attempted to describe them, I should probably be charged with exaggeration."
It is interesting to note in passing that in Battersea Saklatvala enjoyed solid support from his catholic constituents, despite the fact that it was always said that the Soviet Union made it impossible for Christians to worship freely. Three members of the Irish Delegation to the Moscow celebrations wrote to Saklatvala on their return, proclaiming, "...I was surprised to find the churches open, because previously I had read the articles in the capitalist papers. I personally attended the Church of Sts Peter and Paul, for I had been told that the Red Army soldiers were keeping the people from going to church. I found the service going on and the church packed with people. We talked with the priests who told us that they had more freedom than under the Tsar." Similar views were expressed by other Catholic members of the Irish Delegation to the U.S.S.R.
Despite his travels and various activities, Saklatvala continued to play his usual active role in House of Commons Debates.
Although most of 1926 had been taken up with the General Strike, the miners' strike and Saklatvala's battle against the Emergency Powers Act, he still had not neglected the affairs of India. It has always been asserted by those who fought for the liberation of India, that Great Britain pursued a policy of 'divide and rule'. In a debate on India on 20th July, 1926, Saklatvala said, "...I at once admit that, as the opening remarks of the Noble Lord indicated, (he was referring to Lord Winterton) I, as a native of India, am not standing in this House in a very happy position at the present juncture. I quite admit the different positions of the various political sections in India, especially the Swaraj Party, for which I have a greater partiality than for any other section; I do admit, as a native of the country, the most deplorable state of affairs with regard to these conflicts which are arising out of religion ... I myself saw the remark in the Viceroy's speech with regard to the very emphatic denial on the part of His Excellency as to any share in the exploitation of this religeous movement, either by the Viceroy or by the officials generally. That may be quite true and I do not take it as a hypothesis, but admit it as a fact, that the Viceroy, as he has gone out there with a fair and open mind, would certainly be absolutely innocent of any such desire or any such complicity. But it cannot be said throughout that there is no ground even for a reasonable suspicion in this direction. ... I was in Newcastle-on-Tyne in Easter week - doing my wild propaganda work, as the Home secretary might put it- and I went to the Independent Labour Party Conference. ...A morning paper with a notorious title had an editorial article which I passed on to the late Minister of Health at the Conference. It deliberately takes credit for the cleverness with which the British officials have separated the solidarity between Hindus and Mohammedans in India. It claims full credit for undoing, within a very short period, the work that was done by Gandhi and Das on sentimental grounds. Not only that, butthese are almost the sentences in the article in which they say thatthough it may seem bad news, an intelligent Englishman who knows the real situation in India will llok on it as the best news that has come to this country for the last three years. It deliberately puts it forward that peace between Hindus and Mohammedans would mean the end of the British rule in India, and they say that, not only is there no peace today, but they feel thankful that there is no hope of peace and that every Britisher rejoices in his heart. I commend that article to the Noble Lord. ...I do not take the view, as my Indian friends do, that Indians in association with this Empire will ever receive the treatment and the same rights as blood and flesh citizens of the Dominions associated with Great Britain, and while putting forward this false political title that you are all British citizens and you are a British Empire, three hundred million of those British citizens are to be treated in a manner in which not a man, woman, child or dog in this country would agree to be treated. I again press that point that if you call yourself an INDO-British Empire and candidly and frankly put forward a sort of British standard and a sort of Indian standard, which as long as it is in your power to impose on India you will insist on imposing,you will perhaps take away from the people many inconsistent and illogical acts of the Government.
...On a previous occasion I put to the House the position that the responsible British Government in India, in which the Indians themselves have no part, were the largest employersin the world of human labour, and I put it, and I repeat it, that the G. of I. are employing hundreds of thousands of human beings at less than £3 a month, ...and that the same Government had in front of it a report by a British official pointing out that the cost of living of the lowest type of labourer was neaer £4 ...My efforts have failed in asking the Under-Secretary of State for India to put forward the actual figures of these low wages. ...The Government have set the standard, and the industrialists have followed it. ...The association of India with Great Britain may be perpetuated as the greatest blight and the greatest curse to human society, and especially to the working classes of Great Britain; or the association between Great Britain and India, in a spirit of international labour co-operation, can be turned into a great advanced movcement for the civilisation of Europe itself and the salvation of Great Britain herself. ...India under British protection...is becoming a country that produces coal fields, jute and cotton mills and iron works in rivalry with this country. ...you will have to tell your citizens ... that their trade is in danger unless thre cost of production goes lower and lower. That is exactly what is happening in the coal trade ... the reality of life is that here in British India, under the protection of the British Army and Navy, with the full blessing of the British nation, there are miners employed at eight pence and nine pence a day underground (4p to 4�p) ...I am giving this as an illustration of how the relationship between India and Great Britain can be turned into a curse instead of a help. When they bring the cost of production down, they bring their standard down ... they are brought down in their capacity and intellect.They are human beings and they suffer. The conditions of this country will not be improved by lowering the standard of living of the workers. It is not a rotten country that wins the race but a united country. The real cure is for the British rulers of India to say, 'We are British. We shall remain British. We shall look at human good and human standards from a British point of view, and if we cannot afford to do it, we shall be honest and march out, bag and baggage.'....
I appeal to my Swarajist friends, to Hindus and Mohammedans, to this Committe and to the Government of India, to study the problem seriously and to clearly visualise that it was a mistaken policy to stop western Bolshevism, Socialism or Labour politics from entering theEastern countries. My Swarajist friends made that mistake. They neglected the policy of relying upon the strength of the working classes and upon the agricultural workers, and organising them and looking to them for support in their political struggles ... If they will forget their religious differences, as the people of Europe forget them, in the mass, and realise that the mass of the workers must form themselves more closely into a united family, and not look upon each other as Hindus or Mohammedans, ... it will be all to the good.. ...We say that Bolshevism, Labour programmes, Socialist programmes, following on the general activities in the west, is the only salvation of Indians.... It is on these grounds that I appeal to the Noble Lord to remember that we are living in an age after the great civilising revolution in Russia, and not before it, and to frame his policy accordingly. [Laughter] If I may be allowed to reply to the laughter of hon. Members opposite, I would say that for 150 years the Government of India has been struggling and have pretended to spread education in India, and today thare is only 7% of education in India; [Hon. Member: How much of it is there in Russia?] In the Tsarist time it amounted to 6%. In Russia the population is largely oriental, in habit and in mentality, and while the Government of India have only been able to spread 7% of education in India, ... the Russian Soviet Government has been able to increase education from 6% to 96%"
Thus, yet again, Saklatvala contrived to combine his cry for Communism and his cry for the freedom of the Indian people - the two main aims of his political life.