Gandhi and Anarchy

by Chettur Sankaran Nair

Sankaran Nair was knighted in 1912. In 1915 he joined the Viceroy's Council as member for education. In that office he frequently urged Indian constitutional reforms, and he supported the Montagu-Chelmsford plan (1918), according to which India would gradually achieve self-government within the British Empire. He resigned from the council in 1919 in protest against the protracted use of martial law to quell unrest in the Punjab. n his book Gandhi and Anarchy (1922), Sankaran Nair attacked Gandhi's nationalist noncooperation movement and British actions under martial law. A British court held that this work libelled Sir Michael Francis O'Dwyer, lieutenant governor of India during the Punjab rebellion of 1919.

Genres: Politics

226 pages, Paperback

First published July 1, 1922

About the author

Sir Chettur Sankaran Nair, CIE (11 July 1857 – 24 April 1934) was the President of the Indian National Congress in 1897 held at Amravati.

Source: Wikipedia

Reviews

[Lasic · Rating 4 out of 5]

Chettur Sankaran Nair noted both with alarm and anger how Gandhi systematically began to hoodwink the Congress and the gullible Indian masses with his loin-cloth trickery. The outcome was the classic book, "Gandhi and Anarchy."

[Anil Swarup · Rating 3 out of 5]

The book is a critique of the the Non-Cooperation Movement launched by Mahatma Gandhi after the the Great War when the British reneged on their promise of Home Rule to India. The author labors hard to discredit the movement as well as Gandhi without even attempting to understand the philosophy of the Mahatma behind the non-violent Civil Disobedience movement and this gets reflected in "How on earth is it possible to imagine that all activities would be non-violent when those who are carrying them proclaim themselves against constitutional authority and are bent upon destroying it; when they say that they must commit civil disobedience of a character that would compel the officials to shoot them!". Here in lies the problem. This is what the British and their lackeys failed to understand.

[Harikrishna · Rating 4 out of 5]

Explains Gandhi's civil disobedience and his way of handling the swaraj and khilafat movement and which lead to the 1920s during the period of Independence and how it led to the riots in different parts of the country in India.

[Justin Rose · Rating 3 out of 5]

Pretty dry read, but convincing.

[Piyush Sakorikar · Rating 3 out of 5]

An Eye opener

Rest you can judge by the name only

[Jay Mehta · Rating 4 out of 5]

A piercing critique from a former Congress insider, Gandhi and Anarchy dissects the contradictions in Gandhi’s ideology and the chaotic consequences of the Non-Cooperation Movement. Nair unpacks Gandhi’s disdain for modern institutions—railways, doctors, lawyers, English education, and parliamentary democracy—highlighting how his vision of Swarajya bordered on spiritual escapism and anti-modern regression. Particularly searing is the exposé of Gandhi’s political compromise on the Khilafat Movement, which, Nair argues, sacrificed Hindu interests at the altar of Muslim appeasement.

The appendices are a treasure trove—juxtaposing first-hand accounts of the horrific Moplah massacres with British hypocrisy in lamenting civil unrest. MacPherson’s legislative speech and Hazrat Mohani’s Muslim League address offer scathing insights into the growing communal fractures Gandhi chose to overlook.

Despite its invaluable content, the Kindle edition suffers from sloppy formatting and careless repetition. The substance, however, remains a sobering counter-narrative to the Gandhian mythos that shaped India's political discourse.