Gandhi And Anarchy

An eminent jurist, Sir C. Sankaran Nair was a judge of the Madras High Court and a member of the Viceroy?s Council. In politics he was a conservative constitutionalist who believed that self-government could be achieved only through relentless contitutional pressure, backed by hard and unrelenting work. A stern opponent of all nationalist extremes, he was out of sympathy with Gandhi?s method of non-violent non-co-operation. After giving up his portfolio in the Government of India in the wake of the Punjab disturbances, he felt that it would be in the public interest to point out that the non-co-operation campaign carried on under Gandhian auspices could not lead to Home Rule, and that the doctrine of non-violence was certain to lead to frightful disorder and riots. In Gandhi and Anarchy he mounted a thoroughgoing attack on the Gandhi ideas and methods and argued with singular prescience that the non-co-operation movement would not be able to restrain the passions of man or retain its non-violent character, and that it was reasonably certain that lamentable consequences would follow. As a powerful and sustained critique of Gandhi?s doctrine and methods, Gandhi and Anarchy still remains a useful and valuable work.