I am glad to associate myself with this biography of an esteemed friend-Yusuf Meherally.
Meherally's biography should have appeared twenty years earlier. The context of the social and political situation has changed radically during these two decades; so the present generation is not able to see the subject of this biography in its own framework of social circumstances. It would perhaps be useful to briefly sketch this background in which Meherally sought to achieve the objectives which we are striving for in our own changed perspective-the freedom of man and the creation of a social order which is not constantly thwarted by exploitation and injustice. The active years of Meherally's life were from 1927 to 1947 or broadly the years between the two world wars.
The end of the First World War brought far-reaching changes in international relations. For one thing, the emergence of Soviet Russia as a state that challenged the moral validity of the vic-tors of the First World War, created inner contradictions in the Western world. In the second place, the USA emerged as a world power in this post-war world. The establishment of the League of Nations as a step to avoid yet another world war created a plat-form where the legitimacy of many policies of these dominant powers was called into question. More particularly, the fact that the Great Powers, who proclaimed the principles of self-determination and a Rule of Law in the relationship between small states and the Great Powers were themselves flagrantly violating their own code by the manner in which they ruled over their empires, was exposed and their pretensions were seen as a mere screen of polite phrases. Lenin's book on imperialism laid bare the economic basis of 20th century colonialism-that it was motivated by the urge to secure monopolist control over the resources of underdeveloped regions of Asia and Africa which, however, were rich in natural resources, though they did not have the technological skills and enterprise.
Lenin outlined the step-by-step growth of capitalism starting with the end of feudalism. He pointed out how monopoly capitalism was the final phase of imperialism and how it must lead to yet another world conflagration. For all intellectuals struggling for national freedom in the colonial regions of the British, French or Dutch imperialism, this economic interpretation of current history was an eye-opener. From a romantic vision of our past we were led to a more realistic understanding of the co-relation-ship of social forces in a semi-industrial society. Meherally be-longs to a generation that loved India's past heritage, but there was no trace of revivalism in his appeal to India's youth to take up the task of creating a modern India capable of meeting the challenges posed by imperial domination.
Yet another feature of the twenties was the quickening pace of national consciousness. Ever since the First World War, there were capable young persons who knew that they had proved their mettle on the battlefields of Mesopotamia, that the Indian was equal to any white man in the arts of war as well as peace. Dr. Jagdish Chandra Bose, C.V. Raman and Meghnad Saha had won the front rank in the fields of biological research and in the world of physics. India was not only a land with a glamorous past but its manpower resources were a gold mine of talent for the resur-gence not of India alone but of the entire third world. This vis-ion of potential strength was a factor of self-confidence and faith. Gandhiji's satyagraha placed a new strategy of social action for people striving to throw away the yoke of alien domination. Gandhiji's great merit lay in creating in India a moral fervour and a conviction that we were struggling for a cent per cent moral cause and our enemy was cent per cent morally in the wrong. Gandhiji even succeeded in putting our rulers on the defensive for the first time in 1931 the Viceroy recognised, however grudgingly that the Indian National Congress was a powerful forum of Indian freedom. Meherally, along with leaders like Lala Lajpat Rai, had prepared the ground for the Salt Satyagraha by a nation-wide demonstration against the Simon Commission.
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