Mayhem at Chauri Chaura Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

Mayhem at Chauri Chaura - Essay Example Such an immense effort involved the coalescing of a range of ideologies and ethos, some of which blatantly crossed the limits of the much cherished Gandhian principles of non-violence and non-cooperation. Indian freedom struggle stands to be unique in the sense that it achieved its objectives not through one single onslaught or revolution, but did so through a series intermixed and interspersed active and passive movements and incidents that are prominently or blurredly scattered across the landscape of the Indian national movement. The so called mayhem at Chauri Chaura that took place on 4 February, 1922 has always been a dilemma for the modern historians. On that ominous day, the peasant volunteers affiliated to the Gandhi's non-cooperation movement ran amuck on being provoked by the cops and burned to ground the police station at Chauri Chaura. The unsuspecting and ill prepared policemen who tried to escape were hacked to death. On hearing about this incident, Gandhi immediately decided to withdraw the nascent civil disobedience movement, despite the contrary opinion of a number of prominent Congress leaders. He also successfully managed to persuade the Congress Working Committee to ratify his decision. Thus on 12 February, 19222, the non-cooperation movement that had attracted the hopes and aspirations of the entire nation, abruptly came to an end. According to Shahid Amin, "this dramatic occurrence simply had to be quickly forgotten as a stain upon the clean sheets of Gandhian non-violence (14)". However, the ghost of Chauri Chaura refused to die on that ill fated day and still off and on pops out from the dark nooks and recesses of the Indian history. The meaning and interpretation of the incidents at Chauri Chaura have many a times, changed and altered and are even today being redefined and reanalyzed by the contemporary historians and the students of history.The very fact that Gandhi vociferously disassociated himself from the violence at Chauri Chaura and openly criticized and denounced the incident under consideration as "The Crime of Gorakhpur" set the pace for the imperialist and the nationalist historians. For a long time the imperialist and the nationalist historians managed to maintain their hegemony, so far as the task of assigning meaning to the events at Chaura Chauri were concerned. In the words of Theodore Piggott, the judge who presided over the hearings of the Chaura Chauri accused, "If we treated the mob of deluded peasants as rebels we may possibly dignify the riot as waging war against the King. The only alternative was to deal with the offenders as ordinary criminals (Amin 111). Thus the imperialist historians left no stone unturned in dubbing the violence at Chauri Chaura as a regular breach of law and order and succeeded in diluting the significance of this epoch making incident. The nationalist interpretation also hovers around the imperialist

U.S. Role Against Somalian Pirates Research Paper

U.S. Role Against Somalian Pirates - Research Paper Example Somalia’s eastern coastal areas and Gulf of Aden are the major areas in which Somali pirates base their operations. Multinational naval force including warships from America, Britain, India and Australia are currently patrolling in Somali coastal areas in order to avoid further mishaps. However, the threats from the pirates are increasing day by day even though UN Security Council and other countries did everything possible to counter the threats from the pirates. Being the sole super power in the world at present, America has definitely a major role to play in Somali pirate issue. It should be noted that America is currently conducting war on terror in Iraq and Afghanistan. Many people have the belief that Somali pirates definitely have some close connections with Islamic terrorists even though it is not proved yet. Under such circumstances, America should give more emphasize to the Somali pirate issue so that its counter terrorism efforts would be more meaningful. This paper analyses the role of America against Somali pirate issue. Warner pointed out that â€Å"Given Somalia’s proximity to one of the world’s main sea lines of communications through the Gulf of Aden, Somali fishermen, unrestrained by a functioning coast guard or navy, seized the opportunity to engage in maritime piracy starting in the 1990s†.... In fact, it is difficult for Somali government to establish law and order in the country when people are suffering a lot from poverty and unemployment. Terrorists know this fact very well and they can easily establish links with Somali pirates. In other words, America cannot stay away from the Somali piracy issue if they like to end war on terror successfully. Terrorists are now establishing their bases in Somali like poorly governed countries. America should realize this fact and respond properly to this issue. Operation Enduring Freedom, a military mission by the US and coalition partners in response to the attacks of September 11, 2001, contained a naval component. As their mission was essentially a counter-terrorism mission, it initially had no intention to take action against pirates. The area of operations of Task Force 150 however included the area off the coast of Somalia (Fink & Galvin, 2009, p.382) Terrorism in any form cannot be justified even if it may have some credible reasons. For example, Somali pirates are looting or attacking the ships passing through its coastal lines because of poverty in their country. Same way, Islamic terrorists attack innocent people in order to save their belief or religion; as proclaimed by them. In any case, it should be noted that taking the life and property of another person is illegal and unethical. Terrorists and pirates cite many reasons to justify their activities. In short, Somali piracy should be dealt as a form of terrorism and United States should interfere more meaningfully in this issue. â€Å"Some nations act as part of an international organization, such as NATO and EU, and others act individually, such as China, Russia, India and Pakistan, while others take part in multinational coalition operations,