Groups with an advanced ideology functioned in the air as they did not fit in with

It should be remembered that the Nationalist Movement in India, like all nationalist movements, was essentially a bourgeois movement. It represented the natural historical stage of development, and to consider it or to criticize it as a working class movement is wrong. Gandhi represented that movement, and the Indian masses in relation to that movement, to a supreme degree, and he became the voice of the Indian people to that extent. The main contribution of Gandhi to India and the Indian masses has been through the powerful movements that he launched through the National Congress. Through nation-wide action, he sought to mould the millions and largely succeeded in doing so. He changed them from a demoralized, timid, and hopeless mass, bullied and crushed by every dominant interest and incapable of resistance, into people with self-respect and self-reliance, resisting tyranny and capable of united action and sacrifice for a larger cause. Gandhi made people think of political and economic issues, and every village and every bazaar hummed with arguments and debates on the new ideas and hopes that filled the people. That was an amazing psychological change. The time was ripe for it, and the circumstances and world conditions worked for this change. However, a great leader was necessary to take advantage of those circumstances, and Gandhi was that leader. Gandhi played a revolutionary role of the greatest importance in India because he knew how to make the most of the objective conditions and could reach the heart of the masses, whereas groups with a more advanced ideology functioned largely in the air because they did not fit in with those conditions and could therefore not evoke any substantial response from the masses. It is perfectly true that Gandhi, functioning on a nationalist plane, did not think in terms of the conflict of classes, and tried to compose their differences. Even so, the actions he taught the people inevitably raised mass consciousness and made social issues vital. To us, he represented the spirit and honour of India, and an insult to him by the British Government or others was an insult to India and her people.