Leela Samson, in her book Rukmini Devi writes:
‘Mrs Besant disagreed with Gandhi on the issue of non-cooperation. Her opinion was that mass civil disobedience was fraught with dangerous possibilities. She was apprehensive of the nation’s integrity being weakened as a result. She repeatedly warned that if and when India attained swaraj, it should be careful not to ‘find itself in a condition of anarchy, resistant of all discipline, defiant of all authority, where everyone was a law unto himself, enforcing his will by mobs, or trampled on by superior force’. The wisdom of the statement she made then rings frighteningly true today.’
Later, India forgot its resentment against Mrs Besant and embraced her as one of those who worked for its independence. I wonder, could things have worked differently?
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