Maia Ramnath - Decolonizing Anarchism.pdf - Libcom

Echoes and Intersections I 137
authority." The two became close friends and allies. At Patel's
request, Lotvala traveled again to London on a mission to
build popular support for the INC in England, attempting
to counteract ignorance and prejudice by appealing directly
to the people rather than to the government.27
When he returned in late 1919, he and Patel were
disgusted by new turns in the national movement. They
disagreed with the call to boycott all law courts and legislative
bodies, suggesting that these very courts could be used
"to harass the Government and defend the rights of the
people;' though they had no objection to the boycott of
taxes. And they deplored Gandhi's "fatuous" obsession with
the spinning wheel, which they feared would "distract the
people from their rightful path of political agitation;' and
that for Lotvala, symbolized the worst of Gandhi's "irrational,
superstitious and suicidal traits."2H The pair particularly
opposed his support for the Khilafat movement, which
they viewed as theocratic folly.
But was this the antireligious sentiment of a rationalist
or the anti-Muslim sentiment ofa Hindu? Although
Yajnik's account is a bit inconsistent on this point, the distinction
is a significant one, with troubling implications.
Lotvala had earlier identified progress, reform, and rationalism
with the Arya Samaj program-that is, as the purified
heart of true Hindu thought-only to clothe them in a
socialist reading later. Given the idiosyncrasies and inconsistencies
of his own mode of thought-which Yaj nik sometimes
chalks up to Lotvala's anarchistic freethinking, sans
content-no conclusions can be drawn from this that anarchism
had any inherent link to later Hindu Right politics.