Gandhi, An Impossible Possibility [2 ed.] 9780367146832, 9780367854942

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GANDHI

Gandhi was perhaps the most influential yet misunderstood figure of the twentieth century. Drawing close attention to his last years, this book explores the marked change in his understanding of the acceptance of non-violence by Indians. It points to a startling discovery Gandhi made in the years preceding India’s Independence and Partition: the struggle for freedom which he had all along believed to be non-violent was in fact not so. He realised that there was a causal relationship between the path of illusory ahimsa, which had held sway during the freedom struggle, and the violence that erupted thereafter during Partition. In the second edition of this much-acclaimed volume, Chandra revisits Gandhi’s philosophy to explain how and why the phenomenon of the Mahatma has been understood and misunderstood through the years. Calling for a rethink of the very nature and foundation of modern India, this book throws new light on Gandhian philosophy and its far-reaching implications for the world today. It will interest not only scholars and researchers of modern Indian history, politics and philosophy, but also lay readers. Sudhir Chandra is a historian based in Delhi, India. He has been associated with several universities and centres of advanced learning, such as Nantes Institute for Advanced Study; Indian Institute of Advanced Study, Shimla; Institute for Advanced Studies in the Humanities, Edinburgh; Banaras Hindu University; Aligarh Muslim University; Jamia Millia Islamia; Maison des Sciences de l’Homme, Paris; Melbourne University; Bellagio Study and Conference Center; University of Chicago; Cornell University; Tokyo University of Foreign Studies; Indian Council of Historical Research and Indian Council for Social Science Research, New Delhi. Among his publications are The Oppressive Present: Literature and Social Consciousness in Colonial India (2014/1992) and Enslaved Daughters: Colonialism, Law and Women’s Rights (1998). Chitra Padmanabhan is an independent journalist and writer based in New Delhi, India. In her 30-year career, she has worked in an editorial capacity with The Economic Times, Hindustan Times, The Pioneer, Tehelka, the Women’s Feature Service and Katha. As a freelance journalist, her articles have appeared on the edit pages and as feature essays in The Hindu, Times of India, Economic & Political Weekly, the New York Times’ India Ink and The Wire. Her interests have focused on art and culture, social change and political behaviour, and the economic and environmental costs of development.

GANDHI An Impossible Possibility SECOND EDITION

Sudhir Chandra Translated by Chitra Padmanabhan

Second edition published 2020 by Routledge 2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon, OX14 4RN and by Routledge 52 Vanderbilt Avenue, New York, NY 10017 Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business © 2020 Sudhir Chandra (Author) © 2020 Chitra Padmanabhan (Translator) The right of Sudhir Chandra to be identified as author and of Chitra Padmanabhan to be identified as translator for the English language edition of this work has been asserted by them in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. Originally published in Hindi as Gandhi Ek Asambhav Sambhavna (2011) by Rajkamal Prakashan All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe. First edition published by Routledge 2017 British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data A catalog record for this book has been requested ISBN: 978-0-367-14683-2 (hbk) ISBN: 978-0-367-85494-2 (ebk) Typeset in Sabon by Apex CoVantage, LLC

CONTENTS

Forewordvi Author’s prefaceix Translator’s notexii

Introduction to the second edition: seeking to understand Gandhi

1

1 Facing Gandhi: facing oneself

18

2 Gandhi’s swaraj

25

3 Gandhi’s sorrows

44

4 The possibility of ahimsa?

84

5 An impossible possibility?

153

Index158

v

FOREWORD

The last months of Gandhi’s life remind us of the ‘Swargarohana Parva’1 in the Mahabharata. Even as Dharmaraj Yudhisthira climbs one peak after another, his companions drop dead one after another. Different commentators have, naturally enough, seen the parva from their own individual point of view. A trained historian with a feel for the pain of others and the nuances of language, Sudhir Chandra is an exceptional commentator. The scope of his book expands like Gandhi’s oceanic circles. He turns the examination of Gandhi’s last days into an examination of his own self. Moving beyond the individual ‘I’, this self seeks to form a ‘we’ so as to embrace the whole of Indian society. If Gandhi saw in his own pain the pain of the entire country, Sudhir Chandra’s self-enquiry becomes an enquiry into all the sensitive minds of the country. Being a student of history, Sudhir Chandra keeps asking: ‘What was I and what have I become?’ He has a poet’s heart, which helps him identify with the Gandhi who had freshly returned from South Africa and also can enter the heart of the Gandhi of 1946–1947. He is as concerned with understanding the mind of the Indian people 30 years before independence and after. In the very first chapter he says that although faith in Gandhi has inspired this book, that faith is not uncritical. To be uncritical would be for him a violation of Gandhi’s insistence upon truth. This insistence on critique operates with equal sharpness in relation to Gandhi, the writer’s self and the larger collective self the book seeks to create. Its objective, for that reason, is not only to examine but also agitate the people of Gandhi’s India. With each step of the book, the reader, along with the author, experiences the truth of Gandhi’s words. The book’s principal formulation, perhaps, is that if Gandhi could demonstrate his potential to lead this country within five years of his return from South Africa, the credit was due as much to his personality as to the support people accorded him. Similarly, his failure during his last days was also on account of people turning away from him. Analysing this discordant development, Sudhir Chandra shows that what was Gandhi’s success was the failure of his ahimsa. His argument, counterposing Gandhi and his ahimsa, shakes vi

F oreword

up the reader. The author is ever conscious that Gandhi never regarded ahimsa as futile. He sought to discover his own shortcomings. And yet, the author endeavours to prove that Gandhi himself did succeed. Providing two fine illustrations, he offers a subtle narrative of Gandhi’s last two fasts. The historian also sees that while Gandhi managed to effect communal amity in Calcutta and Delhi, he could not arrest the communal violence that had engulfed almost the whole of northern India. Gandhi had hoped that peace in one place would produce peace everywhere else. But that did not happen. Violence occurred in many parts. The country was divided, and there was violence on both sides as a consequence of mutual enmity. The author, it appears, regards the peace of Calcutta and Delhi as Gandhi’s success and the violence in the rest of the country as the failure of ahimsa. This certainly is a debatable issue. It is possible to argue both sides. But this much is clear: with his graphic description of what transpired, and by illustrating in Gandhi’s own words various aspects of his mind, the author has in an exemplary manner achieved one of his objectives. He has unsettled himself, the larger ‘we’, and all thinking people. It is true that India’s freedom was not achieved purely through ahimsa. Also that, despite his opposition until the very last, Gandhi could not prevent the country’s partition. If one had to reckon, it could be called Gandhi’s failure or the partial success of ahimsa. In characterising this episode as the success of Gandhi and the failure of ahimsa, Sudhir Chandra displays more the anguish of his heart than his historian’s training. It is a fact that nowhere in the world has pure non-violence been entirely successful. But then nor has violence. In fact, violence does not resolve problems; it further complicates them. Also, technology today is advancing at such speed that if the weapons of destruction produced by it were used, humankind would not survive, and nature, too, would be severely harmed. Now, as Martin Luther King Junior said, ‘The choice is not between violence and non-violence but between non-violence and non-existence.’ Brave experimenters in non-violence have been working to make it, under such conditions, progressively potent. Gandhi was one, perhaps the most important of such experimenters. We adopted his ahimsa merely as an instrument and were ready to jettison it the moment it seemed to have served our purpose. Non-violence, then, has been but partly successful in the world today. The effort to take it further towards success has to come from scholars who, after all these years, continue to concern themselves with the success and failure of Gandhi’s ahimsa and from those among us who have become victims of violence and its structures. I hear the book say this and hope that the author at least would not disagree. People can evaluate Gandhi’s ‘Swargarohana Parva’ in different ways. One can see a half-full glass as half-empty. History, and life, can be viewed both positively and negatively. For example, Pyarelal and other scholars regard the Calcutta fast as a miracle, but its failure to immediately restore peace in Bihar is, for Sudhir Chandra, evidence of the failure of ahimsa. The vii

F oreword

failure lay in the inability of Gandhi’s ahimsa – belying his own hope and expectation – to transcend time and space. These are two different ways of seeing the same reality. Gandhi’s need to measure ahimsa against the highest ideal and make known his own shortcomings and desire to sacrifice his life – all these carried elements of latent coercion. One could characterise them as non-violent blackmail. And for Gandhi this would be his own failure, never the failure of ahimsa. Sudhir Chandra’s expectations in relation to ahimsa are as large as Gandhi’s, maybe even larger. Nor does he find in post-independence developments anything like the beginning of a change of heart among the people. But he does note that as a consequence of Gandhi’s last two fasts a very large section of Muslim society, which had till then considered him its enemy, began to look upon him as its saviour. Even the most bigoted of communal leaders of Pakistan realised that communal violence was due to excesses on both sides. The reader must remember that even Mohammed Ali Jinnah had welcomed Gandhi’s proposal to visit Karachi and work for communal unity. But for the fact that Gandhi’s life journey was cut short, both he and Jinnah had planned to work together in Karachi on 8–9 November 1948. Also that for 13 years following Gandhi’s assassination not a single major communal conflagration occurred in the country. Such facts, perhaps, underscore the failure not of ahimsa but of those of us who survived Gandhi. Ahimsa entails a continuing upward journey. Its path is treacherous, involving steep climbs and climbdowns. Eventually, though, it leads upwards. Humanity, it is evident, has not yet scaled the peak of ahimsa, but that is its biggest challenge. Its failure heretofore can, perhaps, become an inspiration now. I hear in the seemingly impossible life of Gandhi that mantra of ahimsa which will protect humanity. It is for demonstrating that ahimsa is the sole alternative for humanity that the author distinguishes between Gandhi’s life and his ahimsa and points to the peaks that ahimsa has yet to scale. His apparent cynicism notwithstanding, I find the author’s logic resonating with hope. This book is an exemplary effort to fathom the last phase of Gandhi’s life. Discerning readers will find every page of it recount, without exaggerating, the horror of the 1946–1947 period. They will wonder as to what, after three decades of grand sacrifices, possessed us and our leaders at the first sight of swaraj. Scarcely ever employing a single harsh word, the author unsettles us as he unfolds this bitter truth. Narayan Desai (Translated by Tridip Suhrud)

Note 1 The Mahabharata comprises 18 parvas or sections, the last of which is the ‘Swargarohana Parva’ (Ascent to Heaven).

viii

AUTHOR’S PREFACE

‘I make bold to say that, in this age of the atomic bomb, unadulterated nonviolence is the only force that can confound all the tricks put together of violence.’ Gandhi, soon to fall to the violence of those opposed to him, wrote this to his political heir, Jawaharlal Nehru, the prime minister of newly independent India. Much has happened in the intervening 70 years. Retaining his ritual status as the Father of the Nation, Gandhi’s own India has chosen to be a nuclear power, predictably prompting neighbouring Pakistan to follow suit. In various other respects, too, the Indian polity has turned increasingly violent. The rest of the world has behaved no differently. What realistic chance does Gandhi have of being heard in the midst of this violence? Was he heard even when he was leading what is still believed to have been a unique non-violent struggle? He was not, received wisdom and massive recorded evidence to the contrary notwithstanding.1 He was followed but spasmodically and selectively. Indeed, an entire dimension of his ideas and practice was consistently ignored and, in the event, summarily rejected. During the 30 years of his supposedly supreme leadership of the Indian independence struggle, Gandhi was out of the Indian National Congress as much as he was in it. Admired though he was for his work in South Africa, when he returned home in 1915 and made known his intention to try the same ‘successful’ experiment against the British in India, he was greeted with unconcealed derision. India was no South Africa, he was told off. Yet, within five years, he was at the helm of the first all-India agitation against the British. Called the Non-cooperation Movement, it rested on the simple idea that the cooperation extended out of fear by the Indians constituted the core of British rule in India; once they shed their fear and withheld their cooperation, the British would feel obliged to quit. But when, two years later, Gandhi withdrew the movement because its non-violent character had been compromised by localised violence, he was severely criticised and the Indian National Congress was back to cooperating with the alien government. Similar alternation between acceptance and rejection marked the rest of Gandhi’s association with the struggle for independence. His final rejection ix

A uthor ’ s preface

came when independence looked assured. That was the most comprehensive of all his rejections. Not insignificantly, it figures little in received scholarship and even less in popular memory. This book seeks to capture something of that end, and to indicate how tragic it has been for humankind. That end, in much of its sadness, has been portrayed by Pyarelal, N.K. Bose, Brij Krishna Chandiwala – all of them were close to Gandhi during those last days – and by D.G. Tendulkar, whom generations will gratefully remember for his monumental Mahatma. There is nothing by way of new facts that this little book adds to what these four extraordinary chroniclers have provided. Its inspiration is very different. It comes from direct communion with that forlorn Gandhi. Almost every day, during those last days, the tale of his sorrows would pour forth in his prarthana pravachans (prayer discourses) and he would add that his was also the tale of the country’s sorrows and of the whole dukhi jagat (sad world). The world has since been multiplying its sorrows. From these sorrows has emerged this book’s eye, an eye that sees – and rues – the inseparability of Gandhi’s tragedy and the tragedy of the world. Gandhi’s prarthana pravachans were delivered in Hindi. Their power was such that this book, having been necessitated by them, could only have been written in Hindi. Hindi was not Gandhi’s mother tongue. He had, in fact, very little of it during the initial years of his entry into Indian politics. But then he made it his own, managing in it the kind of transparency of expression he needed as a votary of truth. Hindi is my mother tongue. I had no reason to risk either my rapport with Gandhi or the truth of his words by introducing the mediation of translation. That, obviously, is not an argument against translation. Indeed, Gujarati and Kannada versions of this book have already come out. The wider it reaches, the greater the chance of its purpose being served. So, naturally, I am happy that it is now coming out in English. What usually figures in a preface is discussed in the opening pages of the book. What has happened in the course of the translation from Hindi to English, the translator has discussed in her note. All I am now left with is the pleasant function of expressing my gratitude for various individual and institutional debts. First and foremost, I am grateful to Chitra Padmanabhan. Though, like Gandhi, not a native Hindi speaker, she undertook this translation purely as a labour of love and did it with infinite care, patience and good cheer. I can never adequately thank Tridip Suhrud who, as always, has been generous in helping with his encyclopaedic knowledge of Gandhi and his times. Further, despite being then immersed in preparing an annotated edition of Gandhi’s Autobiography, Tridip readily agreed to translate Narayan Desai’s foreword. This foreword was written for the Gujarati translation of the book. Son of Mahadev Desai, Gandhi’s ‘fifth’ son, Narayanbhai was foremost among x

A uthor ’ s preface

independent India’s Gandhians. He had taught himself to be an accomplished historian and written extensively about the freedom struggle in which he had taken part as a young man. That he, who grew up in Gandhi’s lap and knew the great man and his times so well, chose to have this book translated into Gujarati and graced it with his foreword is for me truly gratifying. I recall him with gratitude. The Hindi original was written during a fellowship at the Nantes Institute for Advanced Studies. The debt I then incurred has been doubled by the fact that my part of the work on the translation, including writing these few words, has yet again been done at the institute. I am happy to be able to say once again how indebted I feel to the ever-courteous and helpful staff who make the institute a paradise for the visiting scholars. And, without being insidious, a very special thank you to Samuel Jube, the director. Routledge, in this age of anonymity, is a very special kind of publishing house. Besides perfect professional proficiency, care and efficiency, their staff offer their authors a courtesy that makes publishing with them a joy. Heartfelt thanks to them. There is one there, Dr Shashank Sinha, who has inspired in me a new vigour and enthusiasm to bring to fruition projects I have fondly been working on without caring to bring them to some sort of an end. Aabhaar, Shashank! And, finally, Gandhi. His tragedy lay in the very state of humankind that he altruistically sought to alter. Can individual human beings be sufficiently selfish to try and do for themselves what Gandhi tried to do for them? Sudhir Chandra

Note 1 Aided by the tragic vision that his disenchantment with Communism – the God that failed – had given him, Louis Fischer was, however, able to see: ‘They [the people] paid him homage and rejected his teachings. They held his person holy and desecrated his personality. They glorified the shell and trampled the essence. They believed in him but not in his principles’ (Mahatma Gandhi: His Life and Times, p. 346).

xi

TRANSLATOR’S NOTE

Three years ago as I was entering the reception area of the India International Centre Annexe in Delhi, I ran into Sudhir Chandra, who was on his way out. In that moment created by the swinging of the door, I introduced myself to him with all the confidence of one who expects a friend’s friend to be a friend, telling him that his latest book on Gandhi had been described to me as a little gem by our common friend Sadanand Menon, at which a broad smile broke through his luxuriant beard and settled in his eyes. He noted my address and a few days later I received a slim package in the mail – a hardcover edition of Gandhi Ek Asambhav Sambhavna (Gandhi: An Impossibile Possibility). On the flyleaf was a simple message: ‘To a friend’s friend, an invitation to friendship.’ The book was unputdownable; I had not read anything like this before. A historian’s eye combined with a literary flair and passion for a direct engagement with the subject had created such a compelling narrative – call it the epical flow of a modern-day katha (saga), ballad or passion play – that I felt I was seeing Gandhi clearly for the very first time. I was hearing him speak to me and my times, his words fresh as ever, cautioning us against the very future that we have made our conflicted present. The book had a unique perch: although self-professedly inspired by faith, it was loath to put Gandhi on a pedestal. The author’s premise was striking: while assessing the success or failure of Gandhi it had to be borne in mind that his ‘successes’ were also the successes of the people who stood by him, recognising the possibilities he placed before them and the possibilities that they recognised in themselves; by the same token his failures reflected the failure of the people who backed away from him and from what they could possibly have become. This meant that the book was a giant mirror in which the reader, while seeing Gandhi, would perforce have to look at herself and all preconceived notions about Gandhi too. Such was the passion of Sudhir’s direct, intense personal engagement with the clear stream of Gandhi’s words during his last days; such was the unsparing mirror held up to the self; and such was the author’s tentative hope of the book agitating the minds of readers enough to hold up their xii

T ranslator ’ s note

notions to the light of Gandhi’s words – and deeds – that one felt impelled to translate the book in the language one knew best as a personal reaffirmation of that hope and be part of that growing community. This impulse was followed by the realisation that an English translation would be able to reach people who were not conversant with Hindi and hence increase the circle of connectedness. Around the same time I ran into publisher Ritu Menon and told her about my unilateral decision to translate the book. Being sensitive to the slightest arching of her finely shaped brows, I defiantly told her that I loved Hindi. And with the clinical precision that she is known for, Ritu said, ‘It is English that you must love, my dear!’ (In hindsight I can say that love for both languages and an ear for the music of their distinct nuances works even better.) The trick was to ‘flatten’ the topography of both languages in a way that it created a space for the translation to anchor itself. Some days later I informed Sudhir – I don’t remember asking him – that I was going to translate his book. Without missing a beat he said, ‘Cannibalise, my dear.’ Easier said than done. Having moved between the worlds of Tamil, Hindi and English throughout my life, translation has been part of my lived experience, as it is for most Indians. I figured that the passion with which I was approaching the book would make a path for me, from Hindi to English. But as I got down to the task, I realised that the strength of the book posed the biggest challenge for a translator. The work’s energy and intimacy emanated from the author’s direct communion with Gandhi through his prayer discourses (from April 1947 to January 1948), knowing there is no better authority on Gandhi than Gandhi himself. Not only did Sudhir choose to write in Hindi, his mother tongue and Gandhi’s learnt and preferred language, by employing the idiomatic style of Gandhi, he created a richly textured universe of Hindustani with Gujarati inflections. In the process Sudhir amplified the force and luminosity of Gandhi’s transparent use of words, now in an everyday mode, and now in an epigrammatic and aphoristic way – with a distinctly personal style that refused to get corralled in formulaic expressions and strongly rooted in its culture. How did one even begin to re-create in English that unmistakable rapport the author shared with Gandhi in Hindustani? In fact, words that had seemed familiar for the most part of one’s life suddenly became strangers, unwilling to reveal their true self in English. It was always understood that words like sthitapragya would be difficult to translate – take your pick from steadfast intellect, being equanimous or centred – but one never imagined that sadhu words like vivek or buddhi would turn out to be so layered. The biggest learning was in coping with the vastly differing syntax, rhythm and nuances of both languages. On one side was Hindi’s heady immediacy and on the other a more considered – sometimes conditioned – tone of English that one needed to avoid. There were times when a Hindi xiii

T ranslator ’ s note

sentence found a snug fit in English. Equally, there were occasions when one chose not to disturb the cadence of the original sentence. How close a translation came to re-creating the direct, personal character of the original was the yardstick. Calibration and context provided the key to this exercise. Embellishment and hiding behind words, an occupational hazard in journalism, did not stand a chance before the author’s direct and transparent use of words, in Gandhi’s style. The creative interaction between the author and the translator was intense. It was interesting to see how the compact original lent itself to accommodating more formal demands such as citations. There was a brief moment when one wondered if the intimate feel of the original would get lost in the academic process of providing citations, only to realise that the quality of translation was key to preserving the personal tone of the book. The suppleness of the original has also ensured that the translation has been able to accommodate an additional section in the second chapter which reflects the author’s instinct for re-visioning, in tune with Gandhi’s practice of revisioning keeping intact the essential core. One of the most exciting aspects of this translation effort has been the creation of a community of phone a ‘Gandhi friend’. As hours, days and months became testimony to experiencing the crystal clarity of Gandhi’s communication and the author’s forceful expression, they gave rise to a new geography of generous friends on call all the time to provide a word meaning, explanation of a concept or a simple way of eschewing the pitfalls of literalism and euphemism that instant. Thank you, Dr Vidyanidhi, Sadanand, Kanwal Sachdev, Antony Thomas and Arti Jaiman. And Venu for constantly reminding me that the concept of infinity of time did not apply to projects like these. Of course, none of this would have been possible without Sudhir’s unimpaired courage in putting a work so close to his heart in the hands of the friend of a friend without a moment’s hesitation. Had I not come in contact with the integrity and ease of Gandhi’s words, I would perhaps not have recognised the magnitude of word pollution that surrounds us today, distorting meanings and preventing us from voicing new meanings with new possibilities. Chitra Padmanabhan

xiv

INTRODUCTION TO THE SECOND EDITION Seeking to understand Gandhi

I The Hindi original, of which Gandhi: An Impossible Possibility is a translation, appeared eight years ago. The book is the product of an overpowering state of mind into which Gandhi’s utterances and actions during his last days had transported me. In this state of mind were inextricably fused faith and suspicion, hope and despair. Faith and hope in the phenomenal power that Gandhi came to embody; suspicion and despair that ordinary mortals must soon reduce even that phenomenal power to nothing. Only a personal and intimate book could have come out of that state of mind. A historian, I was ever happy to doubt and question. And here, to make a confession that does not belong to academic discourse, the selfless transparency of Gandhi’s utterances was moving me to tears. A suspicion, however, still lurked because some of his utterances did not square with what he had been saying during the preceding years. But the suspicion dissolved before the man’s readiness to back his word with his very life. The book continued so long as the state of mind that had prompted it needed to speak. Having told the tale of Gandhi’s sorrows, which are also the sorrows of humankind though it knows that not, the state of mind withdrew into silence with the tale’s sad denouement that humankind today needs Gandhi urgently, but is not ready to receive him. In that silence was the intimation that there was more to tell, but it needed to be told differently. Research for that different telling has in the intervening eight years brought me back to the historian’s normal business. It has revived some questions, which the awe-inspiring Gandhi of An Impossible Possibility – the fruit of a hermeneutics of faith – had made appear inconsequential. Older suspicions have resurfaced, even threatening to make the sequel to the book a radical revision of Gandhi. I say ‘threaten’ because, for all my renewed suspicion of the man, the phenomenon called Gandhi seems humankind’s best hope in the midst of darkening despair. That, though, cannot be a reason to tamper with the revision, if revision is what the ongoing research for the sequel eventually produces. 1

I ntroduction to the second edition

This mix of suspicion and faith vis-à-vis Gandhi is what this ‘Introduction’ to the second edition of the book explores. What it says will, however, make sense only after the main text has been read. The ‘Introduction’ may, therefore, be read as an ‘Afterword’, which is what it really is.

II The book shows how Gandhi’s own people tormented him even as he brought them to the threshold of freedom. The worst of those torments was the failure of non-violence. Shocked by the outbreak of communal violence on the eve of independence, Gandhi set about reflecting on how 30 years of a non-violent struggle could have produced such violence. The answer he came up with was that the struggle had never been non-violent. It had been passive resistance, which is non-violence of the weak. As non-violence of the weak, passive resistance is always a preparation for violence. Afraid of British reprisal, Indians had kept repressed within them the violence they had felt all along. That long-repressed violence is what had erupted the moment the fear of the British was gone. This, in turn, led Gandhi to ask how he had failed to see that. His answer was that a person whom God chooses for something specific is blindfolded by Him. That is what God had done to him. Those inclined to fret over Gandhi’s recourse to God to settle the matter may follow his famous exchange with Tagore on the Bihar earthquake of 1934. To this I shall return later in the context of the unique originality and complexity of Gandhi’s mind. For the moment, I wish to mention a simpler, but critical, difficulty with Gandhi. When, in 1947, violence broke out during the freedom struggle under Gandhi’s helmsmanship it was not the first time this had happened. Intermittent violence had erupted earlier also, and Gandhi had even undertaken expiatory fasts on some of those occasions, the longest being the 21-day Hindu-Muslim unity fast of 1924. Moreover, except during a brief phase when the Indian National Congress had equivocated on the question of non-violence, he had known that neither the Congress nor the people were wedded to non-violence. That was the period when, at its 1920 Nagpur session, the Congress rather shrewdly adopted as its creed ‘the attainment of Swaraj by peaceful and legitimate means’.1 It made moral capital out of the common assumption that non-violence was inherent in ‘peaceful’ means, and encouraged the impression that the Congress was a non-violent organisation. It was only when pressed by Gandhi to adopt non-violence as its creed that the Congress clarified that its acceptance of non-violence was pragmatic, not principled. Chapter and verse can be cited from the pre-1947 years to illustrate the regularity with which Gandhi lamented his people’s opportunistic use of non-violence and admonished them that the violence of the brave was 2

I ntroduction to the second edition

superior to the non-violence of the coward. Here is an illustration from the 1920s:2 Though non-violence is the creed of the Congress, nobody now refers to the creed for being or remaining non-violent. Every Congressman who is non-violent, is so because he cannot be otherwise. . . . I have often noticed that weak people have taken shelter under the Congress creed or under my advice, when they have simply by reason of their cowardice been unable to defend their own honour or that of those who were entrusted to their care. . . . I publicly denounced their conduct and said that my non-violence fully accommodated violence offered by those who did not feel non-violence and who had in their keeping the honour of their womenfolk and little children. Nonviolence is not a cover for cowardice, but it is the supreme virtue of the brave. . . . Non-violence . . . is a conscious deliberate restraint put upon one’s desire for vengeance. But vengeance is any day superior to passive, effeminate and helpless submission. . . . When Non-co-operation was the fashion . . . the law of non-violence was broken. . . . Let there be no cant about non-violence. It is not like a garment to be put on and off at will. Its seat is in the heart and it must be an inseparable part of our very being. For the Congress, too, Gandhi soon realised, non-violence was a mere garment. What in 1947, then, was he doing, holding God accountable for his failure to see what he had never lost sight of? The evidence, on its own, would suggest mendacity, something the larger historical context will not sustain. A more plausible explanation, if it can be called that, would appear to lie in the complex, enigmatic working of Gandhi’s mind. This can be variously shown. To begin with, Gandhi’s ideas with regard to non-violence were constantly evolving. But the understanding that the nonviolence of the weak was no non-violence, that he would rather have the violence of the brave than the non-violence of the coward, had been a constant from very early on. Yet, referring to the Muslims, he wrote on 2 June 1920:3 I do not know that I have a right to arrogate greater purity for myself than for my Mussalman brethren. But I do admit that they do not believe in the doctrine of my non-violence to the full extent. For them it is a weapon of the weak, an expedient. . . . I know that if some of them could offer successful violence, they would do to-day. But they are convinced that humanly speaking it is an impossibility. . . . I do not hesitate to associate with them and invite them to give my method a trial, for I believe that the use of a pure weapon even from a mistaken motive does not fail to produce some 3

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good, even as the telling of truth, if only because for the time being it is the best policy, is at least so much to the good. This may be sound reasoning. But it does not square with the no less sound reasoning behind Gandhi’s chastisement of the non-co-operationists for their kind of non-violence. What, then, is his position on non-violence? The question gets mired into deeper confusion by his declaration – which he would reiterate while launching the Quit India movement – on the eve of the Civil Disobedience Movement:4 We are so very much fear-stricken that a severance of the British connection means to us violence and chaos. . . . Votary as I am of non-violence, if I was given a choice between being a helpless witness to chaos and perpetual slavery, I shall unhesitatingly say that I would far rather be witness to chaos in India. I would far rather be witness to Hindus and Musalmans doing one another to death than that I should daily witness our gilded slavery. These ideas sat in perfect harmony in Gandhi’s mind. He discerned in them no inconsistency, of which in any case he was never afraid. All too often his mind manifested itself in such frustratingly unfamiliar and unpredictable ways of thinking and acting as to provoke, at least in the first instance, ridicule, bewilderment and puzzlement. Only when – which was not always – people got some sense of Gandhi’s reasoning or found – contrary to their own confident predictions – it confirmed by subsequent events, did their initial adverse response yield to acceptance, reluctant or enthusiastic. For example, non-co-operation and civil disobedience have long been recognised as the masterstrokes of a political genius. Here is the genius’s own description of the initial scorn that greeted his non-co-operation:5 Much laughter has been indulged in at my expense for having told the Congress audience in Calcutta that if there was sufficient response to my programme of non-co-operation, Swaraj would be attained in one year. Some have ignored my condition and laughed because of the impossibility of getting Swaraj anyhow within one year. Others have spelt the ‘if’ in capitals and suggested that if ‘ifs’ were permissible in argument, any absurdity could be proved to be a possibility. He had to endeavour, in plain and piquant terms, to reveal to the laughing unbelievers and ‘anxiety mongers’ the design behind what they had laughed off as quixotic:6 It is as amazing as it is humiliating that less than one hundredthousand white men should be able to rule three hundred and fifteen 4

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million Indians. They do so somewhat undoubtedly by force but more by securing our co-operation in a thousand ways and making us more and more helpless and dependent on them as time goes forward. Let us not mistake reformed councils, more law-courts and even governorships for real freedom or power. They are but subtler methods of emasculation. The British cannot rule us by mere force. And so they resort to all means, honourable and dishonourable, in order to retain their hold on India. They want India’s billions and they want India’s man power for their imperialistic greed. If we refuse to supply them with men and money, we achieve our goal, namely, Swaraj, equality, manliness. Even after being reasonably inured to Gandhi’s ways of thinking and acting during the years between Champaran and the shock withdrawal of the Nonco-operation Movement following Chauri Chaura, people never ceased being surprised, exasperated and shocked by things he said or did. Indeed, there has never been an end to something or the other cherished by Gandhi being dismissed as absurd, superstitious, bizarre, even immoral. For instance, during the very last days of his humanly truncated life, as detailed in An Impossible Possibility, he refused to be hustled into a fast which a large number of people expected, indeed urged, him to undertake. Then he surprised everyone by undertaking two fasts unto death to achieve through his moral authority that which governments and the people can think no better than to routinely turn to the coercive intervention of the police and the army. Even perceptive political analysts, including those who adored Gandhi as a great man and a master strategist, were often nonplussed by what he did and said. William L. Shirer was one such analyst. One of the quintet of distinguished American journalists who felt irresistibly drawn to Gandhi – Louis Fischer, Edgar Snow, Vincent Sheean and Margaret Bourke-White being the other four – Shirer wrote a very perceptive and moving account of Gandhi, which the fame of his Rise and Fall of the Third Reich has eclipsed. Having come close to this ‘Christlike figure’ during the historic months from the Gandhi-Irwin Pact to the Second Round Table Conference, Shirer wrote of him:7 To observe at first hand that mighty effort, to rub up against, if ever so briefly, the towering greatness, the goodness, the high spirits and humour, the humility, the subtlety of mind, the integrity and purity of purpose, and that indefinable thing, the genius, of this man was the greatest stroke of fortune that ever befell me. The mark it left on me has lasted till this day, through the subsequent half century of my life and work, and helping me to bear the ups and downs of existence, to survive the strain of all the brutal 5

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man-made upheavals and the barbarism and the hypocrisy we have lived through in our time, and providing a certain light that helped to guide me towards an understanding, however incomplete, of the meaning of our brief sojourn on this perplexing planet. Yet, for all his understanding of Gandhi’s genius in relation to contemporary geo-political developments, Shirer could not believe Gandhi’s insistent prediction that India would become independent in his lifetime. Let us hear the story first-hand:8 The last stretch of the road to India’s independence began that first week of March in Delhi in 1931 [with the signing of the GandhiIrwin Pact on 5 March]. Gandhi tried to tell me this in one talk after another that week and in ensuing weeks. But I was too skeptical, too ignorant, too much impressed by British power to fully believe him. . . . At the beginning of 1931 the British government had no intention of giving up in any foreseeable future this gem and cornerstone of the Empire, which was India. . . . “You will see, my dear Mr Shirer!” he would say, “We shall gain our freedom in my lifetime!” “Well, the British still have guns,” I would retort. “Yes, but we have something more important than guns. We have truth and justice – and time – on our side.” And then more seriously: “You cannot hold down much longer three hundred and fifteen million people who are determined to be free. You will see!” And finally, at the end of a walk once in Delhi, he started to chuckle after he had repeated to me for the dozenth time his confident prediction. “If I were a betting man,” he said laughing, “I would make you a bet.” “I would take you up on it, if you did,” I said, “though it’s a bet I’d like to lose.” “Just remember this, my friend,” he concluded, “Just remember what I’ve harped on so often, even though you don’t believe me: I shall see India free before I die.” Going into the minutiae of political economy, Gandhi tried to demonstrate to Shirer that the Great War of 1914–18 had so corroded Great Britain as to render her incapable of holding on to India. The hard-nosed journalist was not convinced. In the event, non-betting Gandhi did take the bet, and Shirer had the satisfaction of losing it. However, Shirer could not honour his part of the bet. He was, as the loser, required to be in India for her independence. 6

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But pressing engagements held him back in Germany. Shirer was spared the agony of seeing the sorrowing Gandhi of 1947. Further, this intelligent admirer of Gandhi, like most of his other intelligent admirers, felt uneasy about ‘his inexplicable practices with beautiful young Hindu women’,9 and wrote off the Hind Swaraj. In a way that made plain his disapproval to Gandhi, Shirer asked: ‘Now, in the third decade of the twentieth century, have you changed your mind about these things?’ He was not the first, nor would be the last, to be shocked by Gandhi’s endlessly repeated reply: ‘Not a bit. My ideas about the evils of modern Western civilization still stand. If I republished my book tomorrow, I would scarcely change a word, except for a few changes in the setting.’ Still labouring under the shock, Shirer continues:10 I couldn’t believe it. I didn’t question Gandhi’s sincerity, but I couldn’t believe he meant what he was saying. Young Nehru, neither, when I told him about it a few days later. “Gandhiji says a lot of things like that,” Nehru said. “Perhaps he thinks they are necessary to arouse the people. But I can’t believe he really means them. He is much too intelligent and experienced not to know that if a free India lapsed back to the simpler times, it couldn’t survive in the modern world. I try to tell him that we will have to adopt Western technology to make India function in the twentieth century. Gandhiji listens – and then he tells you stuff like that!” More so for coming from an exceptionally intelligent admirer, and for being typical, Shirer’s passing remark about Gandhi’s ‘inexplicable practices’, along with his gratuitous description of the concerned women as ‘beautiful’ and ‘Hindu’, his incredulity regarding Gandhi’s conviction that he would die a free man and his summary dismissal of the Hind Swaraj – all these should alert us to the difficulty of understanding Gandhi. The difficulty is particularly acute because it is not seen as a difficulty. There is little awareness that the aspects of Gandhi, which have been rejected, have not been understood. Their rejection is prima facie and ex parte. It is axiomatic. There is, consequently, little chance of any realisation that what has with supreme confidence been discarded may well deserve a serious look. Note the following:11 A society of a third of a billion people based on the solid rock of non-violence and truth seemed a fine ideal, much to be desired, but dreadfully unrealistic to me. This excerpt, again from Shirer, can reasonably be seen as a typical universal response to Gandhi’s ideas and vision. Typical when Gandhi was 7

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alive, the response has since lost none of its typicality. What makes this response universal is the large spread of certain implicit assumptions. It is these assumptions that helped Shirer and Nehru become, instinctively, close confidants vis-à-vis Gandhi on the question of the Hind Swara. The same shared assumptions elicited ready assent from their contemporaries, as they do from us now. Brought into wide circulation by shared assumptions, the response is sustained by a certain lack of self-reflexivity. That explains the ease and the unselfconsciousness with which the ideal of a society resting on nonviolence and truth can, as if it were a self-evident truth, be described as ‘dreadfully unrealistic’. If Gandhi’s ideal is, indeed, ‘dreadfully unrealistic’, it is even more unrealistic than Shirer had thought. For Gandhi envisaged the solid rock of nonviolence and truth not only for Indians but for the entire humanity. Is that unrealistic? Taking non-violence in its elemental sense, core values like compassion, love, forgiveness – all commanding avoidance of violence – have been constitutive of human culture. That apart, over the centuries, organised human life has evolved with the progressive diminution of explicit violence from more and more realms of human existence. The same holds true for truth. No normal human transaction is conceivable without mutual trust and truth. Every society may have its peculiar modes of coping with falsehood, deception, fraud and the like. But these are expected to be deviations, not the norm. No viable collective existence can be imagined in the absence of intrinsic truth, trust and co-operation. In any case, whatever the degree of a society’s actual reliance on external sanctions, no society has falsehood – or violence – as its professed bedrock. Given that the common reaction to Gandhi, including that of his exceptionally intelligent and sensitive admirers, is to consider him unrealistic – even dreadfully so – it is not enough to show that there is reason to modify that perception. There is also reason to ask why, even where there are grounds for seeing Gandhi differently, he was, and still is, believed to be unrealistic. This is more than a mere academic question. If Gandhi can steer humankind out of its destructive course, as seems likely, then humankind owes it to itself to try and understand that his ideas can be actualised, they are not unrealistic. By way of moving towards an answer to the critical question as to whether Gandhi is dreadfully unrealistic or reasonably viable, it will help to re-consider what is believed to be an open-and-shut case, i.e., Gandhi’s statement on the 1934 Bihar earthquake and its continuing peremptory dismissal. No matter how little or how much one knows about Gandhi, everyone knows, and knew then, what he said about that earthquake. Everyone knows that Gandhi described the Bihar earthquake as God’s retribution for 8

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the sin of untouchability. As Tagore, another of Gandhi’s great admirers, eloquently argued, attributing a natural disaster to God’s punishment for human sin is ipso facto plain superstition and unreason. Let us see what exactly it was that Gandhi said, and whether the charge of superstition and unreason really holds. The first public statement he made on the earthquake, which he stood by and sought repeatedly to explain, was on 21 January 1934. Speaking at a public meeting organised as part of his anti-untouchability tour, he said:12 Before I refer to the proceedings of this morning, I must take the very first opportunity that has occurred to me of making a reference to a great calamity that has descended upon India. . . . You may call me superstitious if you like; but a man like me cannot but believe that this earthquake is a divine chastisement sent by God for our sins. Even to avowed scoffers it must be clear that nothing but divine will can explain such a calamity. It is my unmistakable belief that not a blade of grass moves but by the divine will. Again, two days later he said at another public meeting:13 Our forefathers have taught us to think that whenever a calamity descends upon a people, that calamity comes because of our personal sins. . . . You are free to believe it or to reject it. If you believe with me, then you will be quick and think there is no such thing as untouchability as we practise it today in the Hindu Shastras. This brought about a flood of hostile reactions, ranging from uninformed ridicule to thoughtful criticism. Responding to this ‘campaign of vilification’ as Gandhi saw it, he issued a comprehensive statement on the earthquake. Beginning with the relatively innocuous part of the vilification, which consisted of jibes that he was busy touring the country to eradicate untouchability instead of being in quake-ravaged Bihar, he wrote:14 A friendly wire says, “Will you not lay aside untouchability and go to Bihar?” An angry wire says, “Must Mahatma fiddle while Bihar is burning?” Both the wires pay me an undeserved compliment and exaggerate my capacity for service, as they assume that I can do more than my comrades. I have no such hallucination about my capacity. All the world is directing her attention to the catastrophe. It would be presumption on my part to rush to Bihar when all are ready to assist her. Those also help who know how and when to wait. 9

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Warning against being unnerved in the face of the great calamity, and calling for unstinted generosity and the setting aside of all socio-political divisions for concerted relief operations, he continued: Not all the riches of the world would restore Bihar to her original condition. Time must elapse before reconstruction takes place and things become normal. What is necessary is that those who have anything to give are induced to give the most, not the least, they can. But I make bold to suggest that, in reconstructing life in Bihar, if the wisest use is to be made of the help that is being sent, the organizers would have resolutely to set their faces against reproducing evil customs and habits. They may not encourage untouchability or caste divisions unperceivably based on untouchability. Nature has been impartial in her destruction. Shall we retain our partiality – caste against caste, Hindu, Muslim, Christian, Parsi, Jew, against one another – in reconstruction, or shall we learn from her the lesson that there is no such thing as untouchability as we practise it today? Gandhi, the architect of civil disobedience, further exhorted: Tremendous responsibility rests both upon the Government and the unofficial agency as to how reconstruction is to be undertaken. And as both are working in co-operation for this purpose, it ought not to be difficult to rebuild Bihar on human and sanitary lines. Here Gandhi turned to the sensitive and fractious aspect of the vilification and wrote: I share the belief with the whole world – civilized and uncivilized – that calamities such as the Bihar one come to mankind as chastisement for their sins. When that conviction comes from the heart, people pray, repent and purify themselves. I regard untouchability as such a grave sin as to warrant divine chastisement. I am not affected by posers such as ‘why punishment for an age-old sin’ or ‘why punishment to Bihar and not to the South’ or ‘why an earthquake and not some other form of punishment’. My answer is: I am not God. Therefore I have but a limited knowledge of His purpose. Addressing the misconception that his statement on the earthquake meant the rejection of immutable physical laws, he explained and, in the process, made a very subtle point about the lazy use of terms like ‘calamity’ and ‘disturbance’: Such calamities are not a mere caprice of the Deity or Nature. They obey fixed laws as surely as the planets move in obedience to laws 10

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governing their movement. Only we do not know the laws governing these events and, therefore, call them calamities or disturbances. Whatever, therefore, may be said about them must be regarded as guess work. Guessing, he stressed, ‘has its definite place in man’s life’. Investing guessing with an unsuspected ethical efficacy, but without compromising reason or scientific laws, he added: It is an ennobling thing for me to guess that the Bihar disturbance is due to the sin of untouchability. It makes me humble, it spurs me to greater effort towards its removal, it encourages me to purify myself, it brings me nearer to my Maker. The beauty of Gandhi’s ethically inspired guessing was that its efficacy remained unimpaired even if it – guessing – could be shown to be wrong: That my guess may be wrong does not affect the results named by me. For what is guess to the critic or the sceptic is a living belief with me, and I base my future actions on that belief. Such guesses become superstitions when they lead to no purification and may even lead to feuds. But such misuse of divine events cannot deter men of faith from interpreting them as a call to them for repentance for their sins. In sharp contrast to the dogmatic belief of his critics that he was plain wrong, Gandhi was the very picture of humility. Persuading people of the practical ethicality of his argument, and claiming no monopoly of knowing, he acknowledged: I do not interpret this chastisement as an exclusive punishment for the sin of untouchability. It is open to others to read in it divine wrath against many other sins. Let anti-untouchability reformers regard the earthquake as a Nemesis for the sin of untouchability. They cannot go wrong, if they have the faith that I have. They will help Bihar more and not less for that faith. And they will try to create an atmosphere against reproduction of untouchability in any scheme of reconstruction. At no point in his numerous pronouncements on the Bihar earthquake did Gandhi question the laws of Nature. Nor did he insist that what he said be accepted. His was the cry of a man of faith. It was meant for those who could hear it and were moved by its humanity. Two months after issuing the above explanation, he further explained his position:15 11

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Imperfect man can never finally determine what is right and what is wrong in such matters. My job is over if I could convince the reader that the earthquake is the result of our sins. Then the people who regard untouchability as a great sin are bound to connect it with the earthquake and endeavour to expiate and wipe out the blot as soon as possible. Take it or reject it, he said. Indeed, he went even further, saying on another occasion: ‘I have never tried to convince those who do not consider untouchability a sin that the earthquake is a result of it. They may well believe it is the result of my sin.’ Following the logic of the humility and expiation that were integral to his argument, he proposed:16 It can never be known for which sins of ours such calamities overtake us. The golden rule is for each one of us to regard them as punishment for one’s individual and social sins. It is pride and ignorance if one says, “This happened because of your sins”; but it is humility, it is wisdom, if one says, “It happened because of my sins.” Reminding those who assailed him in the name of science that science could not comprehend everything, he said that they had no right to disbelieve that which lay beyond the comprehension of science.17 Disowning neither, he proposed that ‘where reason cannot function, it is faith that works’.18 Leading the charge against Gandhi, in the name of science and reason, was Tagore. He said:19 It has caused me painful surprise to find Mahatma Gandhi accusing those who blindly follow their own social custom of untouchability of having brought down God’s vengeance upon certain parts of Bihar, evidently specially selected for His desolating displeasure. It is all the more unfortunate because this kind of unscientific view of things is too readily accepted by a large section of our countrymen. Tagore felt compelled, it is important to note, to protest against Gandhi’s ‘unscientific view of things’ after reading the following skeletal reporting in the press: ‘I want you to be superstitious enough to believe with me that the earthquake is a divine chastisement for the great sin we have committed against those whom we describe as Harijans.’20 Guarding against the risk of criticising Gandhi on ‘unreal acts’, he sent his impassioned protest to Gandhi for confirmation that he had, indeed, said what had been reported in the press. Even as Gandhi sensed ‘a fundamental difference’ between them, he sent Tagore a copy of his Harijan article of 2 February in which he had fully explained his position.21 12

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Even that did not impress Tagore. He stood by his statement in which the charge that Gandhi’s was an unscientific view of things was followed by the poignant remark: ‘I keenly feel the indignity of it when I am compelled to utter a truism in asserting that physical catastrophes have their inevitable and exclusive origin in certain combination of physical facts.’ And further: ‘As for us, we feel perfectly secure in the faith that our own sins and errors, however enormous, have not enough force to drag down the structure of creation to ruins. We can depend upon it, sinners and saints, bigots and breakers of conventions.’22 Tagore had not, in 1934, the clarity that cumulative human ‘sins and errors’ of the intervening decades have forced upon us today. But there were even then enough signs for one like Tagore to be suspicious of the scientific ‘truism’ instead of feeling the indignity of having to utter it. Be that as it may, the real mystery – and irony – is that even after ‘our own sins and errors’ have dragged ‘the structure of creation’ to the verge of ruin, we continue to see Tagore as scientific and rational, and Gandhi as his opposite. This seeing is not affected even as, in the very moment of invoking physical laws to assail Gandhi’s unscientific view of things – and in the same paragraph – Tagore moves into metaphysics to fault Gandhi. Bringing in theodicy, as if it were scientific evidence, he continues:23 Unless we believe in the inexorableness of the universal law in the working of which God Himself never interferes, we find it impossible to justify His ways on occasions like the one which has sorely stricken us in an overwhelming manner and scale. Unmindful that his own argument had itself taken an ethical turn, he developed his supposedly rational scientific critique thus:24 If we associate ethical principles with cosmic phenomena, we shall have to admit that human nature is morally superior to Providence that preaches its lessons in good behaviour in orgies of the worst behaviour possible. For we can never imagine any civilized ruler of men making indiscriminate examples of casual victims, including children and members of the untouchable community, in order to impress others dwelling at a safe distance who possibly deserve severer condemnation. Though we cannot point out any period of human history that is free from iniquities of the darkest kind, we still find citadels of malevolence yet remain unshaken, that the factories, that cruelly thrive upon abject poverty and the ignorance of the famished cultivators, or prison-houses in all parts of the world where a penal system is pursued which, most often, is a special form of licensed criminality, still stand firm. It only shows that the law of gravitation does not in the least respond to the stupendous 13

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load of callousness that accumulates till the moral foundation of our society begins to show dangerous cracks and civilizations are undermined. It is hard to understand what Tagore could have seen in Gandhi’s statements on the earthquake, with their total surrender before God, to allege that he – Gandhi – was suggesting the superiority of human nature over Providence. This is actually an index of the strange incomprehension that Gandhi seemed to invite – still does – with his statements. But for that incomprehension, it would be difficult to make sense of Tagore’s lament:25 We, who are immensely grateful to Mahatmaji for inducing, by his wonder-working inspiration, freedom from fear and feebleness in the minds of his countrymen, feel profoundly hurt when any words from his mouth may emphasize the elements of unreason in those very minds—unreason, which is a fundamental source of all the blind powers that drive us against freedom and self-respect.

III We have had seven decades of hindsight since Gandhi’s assassination, enough to provide a degree of clarity and detachment with regard to him. But it has done little to mend matters. Gandhi remains posthumously as enigmatic as he was while alive. In a scathing review of Gandhi: An Impossible Possibility, Irfan Habib, one of our foremost historians, writes:26 He [Sudhir Chandra] takes Gandhiji’s vision for India as set out in his Hind Swaraj, 1909, as the major objective Gandhiji should have sought to achieve around Independence, but in fact failed to do so, partly, it seems to him, owing to Jawaharlal Nehru’s indifference. It is, however, fair to point out that Gandhiji’s proposal for ideal “villages” made in his letter to Nehru (5 October 1945) was so nebulous that one can hardly blame Nehru, as Sudhir Chandra does, for not taking it seriously enough. Chandra should surely have noted that it was Gandhiji himself who had moved the Fundamental Rights resolution at the Karachi session of the Congress in 1931, which visualised an India much different from that projected in Hind Swaraj; and the Congress’s first duty on gaining independence should, in all conscience, have been to ensure the fulfilment of the economic, social and political programme that its own resolution had promised to the Indian people. And this resolution had clearly premised a modern industrialised welfare state, not the Village India, devoid of railways, lawyers and doctors, envisioned in Hind Swaraj. 14

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This returns us to the historian’s basic questions that we began with, and makes self-reflexivity pivotal to their discussion. It should not be difficult to show that at no point does Gandhi: An Impossible Possibility suggest that the Hind Swaraj was ‘the major objective’, which Gandhi ‘should have sought to achieve around Independence’. Gandhi himself, having patiently waited since 1909, had sought on the eve of independence to have his seed-text adopted as the blueprint for independent India. Nor does the book attribute Gandhi’s failure to Nehru’s indifference. Rather, it shows that Nehru’s rejection of – not indifference towards – the Hind Swaraj symbolised a larger national consensus about the country’s future, a consensus that has gained ground since. Indeed, the self-critique specially added to the second chapter of the book’s English translation discusses precisely this question at length. Showing that Irfan Habib has misread the book would at best be marginally relevant to the question of understanding Gandhi. For, the point is not to demonstrate that Irfan Habib is wrong, as were his illustrious forebears, Tagore and Nehru, earlier. The really troubling and critical question is how evidence that should be staring people in their faces mysteriously disappears from their view. Gandhi, as we have already seen, could take positions and make statements that were mutually irreconcilable. Rather than move definitively from one to another – rejecting one and embracing another – he tended to hold them all together in an ever-fluid constellation. He himself did not know the exact nature of the constellation, of the relative strength of its various constituents, at a particular moment. Hence, the frequent unpredictability of his actions and statements. Nehru, as reported by Shirer in 1930, did not believe that Gandhi ‘really’ meant what he had said in the Hind Swaraj. Fifteen years later, in 1945, Nehru tried to say that to Gandhi himself. Now, Irfan Habib, second to none in his admiration for both Gandhi and Nehru, says that Gandhi had by the time of the Karachi Congress (1931) turned his back upon the Hind Swaraj. We know from his letter of 5 October to Nehru that, far from renouncing it, Gandhi would not mind being the sole believer in his Hind Swaraj. Even that heroic assertion of faith is being taken away from him. Prankster though he was, Gandhi could not have gone so far as to send Nehru that long letter of 5 October 1945 just to tease the latter and test his political will. Nor, merely for teasing and testing, would he have summoned Nehru to Poona for discussion on this question, and sent him an aide memoir the following day. Gandhi, if these proceedings constitute any evidence, took all that trouble because of his conviction that the Hind Swaraj alone could save India, and through India the world, from collective self-destruction. Gandhi: An Impossible Possibility was written as an exercise in selfreflection. As stated in the opening chapter, ‘Facing Gandhi: Facing Oneself’, the book’s ‘I’ constantly looks at itself while looking at Gandhi. The spirit underlying that self-reflection was primarily moral, following Gandhi’s mantra: ‘Let everyone see themselves.’ The spirit underlying this ‘Introduction’ 15

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to the book’s second edition is, rather, in keeping with the academic sequel promised at the end of the book. It is significant that this ‘Introduction’, too, should foreground self-reflexivity. And, consequently, humility. Self-reflexivity and humility, because the foregoing cases, having at their centre exceptionally intelligent believers in Gandhi’s greatness, reveal a telling pattern. They reveal at play a certain mental predilection, which, axiomatically assumed to be right, considers an opposite predilection ipso facto wrong, and permits not the slightest doubt about itself. Tagore, selfassuredly holding on to a – the reigning – view of science and reason, could only see superstition and unreason in Gandhi’s appeal to people to have the humanity to be superstitious like him. Having once seen it that way, he could not see Gandhi’s elaborate explanation of his position for what it was. Besides, the professed scientificity of his ‘truism’ apart, he was blissfully unaware that he was doing precisely what he was assailing Gandhi for, namely connecting ethics with matters cosmic. Similarly, even though their disbelief moves in slightly different directions, both Nehru and Irfan Habib, uncannily enough, fail to realise that they are not even reading what Gandhi is saying. They have, both of them, their own fixed image of what the Hind Swaraj is. Neither realises that to Gandhi the Hind Swaraj is what he is writing in his letter of 5 October 1945 to Nehru. This inability to read what is there in black and white represents their incomprehension of Gandhi. Nehru discards Gandhi’s blueprint for new India without fully grasping Gandhi’s position. Irfan Habib is certain that Gandhi had himself discarded that position; that one so intelligent could not have done otherwise. Self-reflexivity has its limits; so also humility. Faced with the enigmatic greatness of a Gandhi, the only safeguard we, historians and others, can have is to refrain from feeling certain even when he appears to us to be egregiously wrong. To me, I must confess, it is a relief that the scepticism regarding Gandhi, which my post-2011 return to the historian’s normal business had rekindled, is being diminished by some startling recent discoveries made in the course of pursuing that very business. The most startling of these relates to the limitless daring of Gandhi’s mind. Asked by Margaret Bourke-White as to how he ‘would meet the atom bomb’, Gandhi told the American photojournalist: ‘I would meet it by prayerful action.’ Baffled by the calm cryptic reply, she asked what form his ‘prayerful action’ would take. Gandhi elaborated: ‘I will not go underground. I will not go into shelters. I will come out in the open and let the pilot see I have not the face of evil against him.’ Here he paused, resumed for a moment his spinning, and continued:27 The pilot will not see our faces from his great height, I know. But that longing in our hearts that he will not come to harm would reach up to him and his eyes would be opened. Of those thousands 16

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who were done to death in Hiroshima, if they had died with that prayerful action – died openly with that prayer in their hearts – then the war would not have ended so disgracefully as it has. It is a question now whether the victors are really victors or victims of our own lust . . . and omissions. Because the world is not in peace it is still more dreadful. When reason tells us that Gandhi is dreadfully unrealistic, it is time to turn to faith. To the faith Gandhi had in human goodness.

Notes   1 B. Pattabhi Sitaramayya, History of the Congress. Madras: Working Committee of the Congress. 1935, p. 352.  2 Young India, 12 August 1926.   3 Ibid., 2 June 1920.   4 Ibid., 16 January 1930.   5 Ibid., 22 September 1920.  6 Ibid.   7 William L. Shirer, Gandhi: A Memoir. Calcutta: Rupa & Co. 1993 (first published 1981), p. xi.   8 Ibid., pp. 51, 58, 60.   9 Ibid., p. x. 10 Ibid., p. 31. 11 Ibid., p. 32. 12 Complete Works of Mahatma Gandhi. Ahmedabad: Publications Division. 1974, Vol. 57, p. 44. Hereafter CWMG. 13 Ibid., p. 51. 14 Harijan, 2 February 1934. 15 CWMG, Vol. 57, p. 392. 16 Ibid., p. 392. 17 Ibid., p. 391. 18 Ibid., p. 392. 19 Ibid., p. 504; also Harijan, 16 February 1934. 20 S. Bhattacharya, ed., The Mahatma and the Poet: Letters and Debates between Gandhi and Tagore, 1915–1941. New Delhi: National Book Trust. 1977, p. 156. 21 CWMG, Vol. 57, p. 95. 22 Ibid., p. 504; also Harijan, 16 February 1934. 23 Ibid. 24 Ibid. 25 I bid. 26 Studies in People’s History, Vol. 4, No. 2, Dec. 2017, p. 258. 27 Margaret Bourke-White, Half-Way to Freedom. New York: Simon and Schuster. 1949, p. 232.

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1 FACING GANDHI Facing oneself

I will be gone saying what I am saying, but one day people will remember that what this poor man said, that alone was right. Gandhi, 16 October 19471

Just when Gandhi was beginning to become Gandhi in South Africa, a book on him had come out. In the century and more since, countless books on him have been written: some deify him, some attempt a balanced assessment, still others consider him anathema. This process is unlikely to end soon. Whatever else it may mean, the continuity and diversity of engagement with Gandhi certainly shows that however much the world may have changed during these 100 years and more, there is something about this man that makes us want to remember and understand him. What is that ‘something’? There can be no definitive objective answer to the question. More than on Gandhi, the answer would depend on the one seeking to comprehend that ‘something’. How capable is one of seeing oneself in the act of ‘seeing’ Gandhi? How self-reflexive is the ‘seeing’ eye? Why am I intent on adding to the crowded shelves of Gandhiana? What persuades me that in the midst of this immense and varied literature on Gandhi, there still remains something for me to say about this extraordinary personality? It is not as if I have read everything on Gandhi and know for sure that what I am going to say has not been said before. Nevertheless, having seen a good deal of literature on Gandhi, I do feel that there is a niche for my little book not only because what I have to say has at least not been said in this manner but also because it carries a very different kind of stress. There is a niche for this book also because in the act of looking at Gandhi I wish to look at myself too. What does it mean to look at ‘oneself’ by way of looking at Gandhi? What comprises oneself? To me it means examining one’s own self at two levels at the very least: one, at the level of a profoundly individual self – ‘I’; 18

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and, two, at a level where the individual self is also part of a larger unstable collective self – ‘we’ – that is constantly forming and dissolving. Wherever, and to whatever extent, a reader’s perception converges with mine, a collective self will emerge. This book may bring a ‘we’ into being. For years this book has been brewing within me. One day, about 15 years ago, while researching on upper-caste converts to Christianity in the 19th century at the Nehru Memorial Museum and Library, I chanced upon a reference to a statement by Gandhi. Struck by the statement, I immediately requisitioned the book in question, namely the Prarthana Pravachan,2 a twovolume collection of Gandhi’s evening prayer discourses from 1 April 1947 to 29 January 1948. As I went through the discourse containing the statement that had prompted me to requisition the book, I felt I had never read anything like it before. For the first time, I was sensing such sheer transparency of language, such inconceivable convergence of thought and speech, feeling and expression, indeed of word and meaning. Later on, in another discourse, I found Gandhi saying, ‘I utter each word in fear of God.’3 The power of that one discourse made it difficult for me to return to the Christian converts. I started reading the Prarthana Pravachan from the beginning. As I read on, received notions regarding Gandhi’s personality, ideas and contribution to history started seeming suspect to me. In a poignant work written just nine years after Gandhi’s assassination, Pyarelal had raised the question: ‘Where is Gandhi in [the] India of today?’4 Reading the Prarthana Pravachan I felt that the question has, meanwhile, gone beyond Pyarelal’s ‘is’. The question now is: Where can Gandhi be today? Not just in India but anywhere. True, Gandhi’s need is being increasingly felt all over the world. In a world threatened with unprecedented destruction, unrest and insecurity, it is only natural that people should remember him. But his remembrance, the realisation that he is needed, is in itself not enough to create a space for Gandhi. That space can be created only through deep reflection and by changing our narrow modes of thinking – modes that are incapable of freeing our conceptions of what ‘is’ possible and practicable from the constricting hold of what ‘seems’ possible and practicable here and now. So strong is that hold that, forget imagining something new for the future, it even obscures the very real possibilities that existed till yesterday. In 1915, when he returned to India from South Africa, Gandhi was famously advised by his political guru, Gopal Krishna Gokhale, to travel the length and breadth of the country for a year and get acquainted with its realities up close. This was because Gokhale felt that Gandhi’s unique South African experiment would not work in India. He was confident that this point would be brought home to Gandhi in the course of his travels across the country. Gokhale was not alone in thinking thus. Most nationalist leaders and politically aware Indians believed that Gandhi’s satyagraha – force born 19

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of truth – would not work in India. Some even made fun of him, saying that India was not South Africa. These were people who otherwise admired Gandhi and considered his work in South Africa to be unprecedented. Just that their idea of what was possible in India had little to do with the demonstrated or intrinsic possibilities of Gandhi’s satyagraha; it stemmed from what they had till then experienced of the reality of public life and national politics in India. Within just two years that general scepticism started waning, and within four years of his entry into Indian politics, Gandhi was successful in launching a nationwide satyagraha like the Non-cooperation Movement (1920–1922). In no time public perception of what was possible and workable was transformed. This was Gandhi’s success. Much has been written about that success, analysing it from a variety of viewpoints. Then, yet again, and even more swiftly, public perception of the possible and the workable underwent another radical shift during Gandhi’s last days. The pendulum swung the other way this time. Widespread distrust in the Gandhian politics of ahimsa (non-violence) was back. It was akin, but not identical, to the public scepticism that had greeted Gandhi in 1915–1916. Yet again, during his last days, Gandhi was engaged in dispelling people’s deepening distrust. Alone and isolated, he sought to put across the same message again and again even as he realised, helplessly, that his was a cry in the wilderness. His words – his reasoning and entreaties – failing to move people, he felt compelled to undertake fasts unto death in quick succession. This was Gandhi’s failure. Was this Gandhi’s failure? While assessing Gandhi’s ‘success’ and ‘failure’, without denying his extraordinariness, one must keep in mind that if and when he succeeded, it was also the success of those who stood behind him. By the same logic, if and when Gandhi failed, it was because people turned away from him. For this reason also we have to look at ourselves even as we look at Gandhi. After his death, compared to when he was alive, Gandhi’s success and failure will hinge much more on people, on us.

II This book seeks to understand Gandhi’s ‘end’. A simple meaning of ‘end’ is to depart from the world, to die. In that simple sense, this book explores the circumstances in which Gandhi’s mortal end came and the state of mind he was in at that time. But that departure did not spell Gandhi’s end. It rarely does for anybody. Everybody lives on posthumously, more or less. Gandhi spoke not just of living on after his death but of constantly evolving thereafter. He was 64 when he wrote: ‘Old as I am in age, I have no feeling that I have ceased to grow inwardly or that my growth will stop at the dissolution of the flesh.’5 He would reiterate this thought in different ways by saying that even after 20

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his death, changing circumstances would continue to invest his speech, and action, with ever new meanings in the future. This book is, indeed, directly about that end – say, the last two or twoand-a-quarter years of Gandhi’s life – when he saw his three-decade-long work come to naught. This was a tragic end. He started narrating in public the tale of his sorrows, knowing that this was also his country’s tale. At the end of his discourse about three-and-a-half months after independence, as if wringing out the last ounce of his deepening anguish, he said: ‘One who is human and intelligent can just not remain whole in such an atmosphere. This is the tale of my sorrows or you could say the whole of India’s sorrows that I have presented before you.’6 Gandhi’s desire to live till 125 and serve people is well known. What is less known is that towards the end he not only lost that desire but even started praying for an early death. It is telling that independent India could safeguard the Father of the Nation for just five-and-a-half months – 169 days. One of those days happened to be his birthday: 2 October 1947. That day he said: Indeed today is my birth-day. . . . This is for me a day of mourning. I am still lying around alive. I am surprised at this, even ashamed that I am the same person who once had crores of people hanging on to every word of his. But today no one heeds me at all. If I say, do this, people say, no, we will not. . . . Where in this situation is there any place for me in Hindustan, and what will I do by remaining alive in it? Today the desire to live up to 125 years has left me, even 100 years or 90 years. I have entered my 79th year today but even that hurts.7 A despairing Gandhi began praying to God to cut short his life. One day he even asked the people gathered for the discourse to join him in that prayer. This end of Gandhi – this unexpected denouement – is what this book seeks to see. It is difficult, while seeing such an end, not to be struck by its larger meaning, a meaning that makes one wonder if at all any space is left for Gandhi in our times. Could it be that his end during those last two years or so signals the beginning of his historical end as well? Knowing that little can be said about the future with certainty – and hoping that the despair expressed here turns out to be unfounded – this book, at various places, also attempts conjectures about this particular end. When I started exploring this theme, a question about the limits of collective non-violent struggle had crossed my mind. As the work progressed, I was overcome with doubt about the very possibility of ahimsa. This doubt would not have arisen if Gandhi’s end had not compelled me to examine the Indian nationalist struggle in a new perspective. This doubt has arisen, and persisted, in spite of knowing that Gandhi himself never lost faith in ahimsa. Despite the pain of the realisation of his own failure, he would insist that it was he who had become bankrupt, not the principle of ahimsa. 21

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III I am a historian by vocation. Trained to doubt, I have learnt to begin with suspicion to be able to reach towards the truth. It is important to find out what has been said or done. But it helps little to know just that without knowing why, when and by whom it was said or done. No less important, as a significant absence, is that which is left unsaid or undone. Even without the common tools of psychoanalysis at hand, a historian takes into account, as far as possible, the unconscious and the subconscious to understand the conscious. Yet, after whatever I have understood of the later Gandhi, I am unable to view with suspicion what he said and did then. This does not render me incapable of being critical towards him. In the pages ahead, especially in the discussion of his last two fasts, there will be plenty of criticism too. Still, the moving spirit of this book is faith. Some readers may find this book mired in sentimentalism. I have no idea of how many people are struck and moved by such questions, but I do often wonder what it was that led Gandhi, at the dawn of freedom after that untiring 32-year-long struggle, to take the road to Noakhali, disregarding his deteriorating health and the hardships of travel. Before he could reach his destination, he was stopped in Calcutta, aflame with communal violence, to nurse it back to calm. When discussions and appeals failed, he gambled on his very life. He had to do or die. If to wonder at a phenomenon such as this, and to bow in reverence for the man who did this, is sentimentalism, one may – indeed must – also wonder about the reasoning, or whatever name describes that quality, which cannot see such extraordinariness and takes it for something else entirely. At the same time, to be unreflective in one’s devotion to Gandhi is to insult this seeker of truth. Let me share with you an interesting anecdote about how Gandhi wished to be remembered. A foreign journalist was staying at Sewagram. Returning to her room one evening and finding that it was getting dark, she decided to take a shortcut through Gandhi’s hut. Barely had she crossed the threshold when she felt that Gandhi was already asleep. So she started tiptoeing. Bemused, for he was still awake, Gandhi asked the lady what she was doing. Hearing her explanation he puckishly remarked that while this was fine, she should ‘never tiptoe to my memory’. It was many years ago when I had read this journalist’s book. I had no intention then of writing on Gandhi. In the meantime I have forgotten everything about the journalist and the book except this incident. Or else I would have remembered her in gratitude. Like Gandhi uttered every word in fear of God, this incident is always there in some corner of my memory each time I remember him. Before moving on to Gandhi’s end, I would like to make one final point about the shifts in my long relationship with him. And this not only because to face Gandhi would mean facing myself, but also to let the reader have some idea of the person for whom writing this book has become imperative. 22

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Like most people from a generation that was in its infancy at the time of India’s independence, my bond with Gandhi is older than I can recall. My first memory of him – hazy and also vivid – relates to an evening in our sprawling ancestral house in Mainpuri (Uttar Pradesh). Someone rushed in and screamed that Gandhiji was no more. I started crying. No food was cooked that evening. Without eating – to say we went hungry would be wrong – everyone went to sleep,8 whenever sleep came. It was biting cold. Pulling the quilt over my head, I lay down and sobbed on. I was quite small when Mohammad Rafi’s epic heart-rending song Suno suno ae duniya walo, Bapu ki yeh amar kahani (Hear, O world, the immortal story of Bapu’s life) came out. The tasks required for hearing the song, be it winding the gramophone again and again by turning the handle or lowering the needle into the groove or reversing the record, were beyond me. A doting uncle took care of all that so that I could hear Bapu ki yehamar kahani day after day. I still remember some lines from the song as well as its tune: Bachpan khel-kood mein beeta, London ja kar shiksha paayi, Africa mein barrister ban apni dhaak jamaayi (He spent his childhood in play, went to London for education, became a barrister in Africa and what a name he earned). What I remember most are the last lines when 30 January arrives and Rafi’s voice chokes with emotion, turning the song into a plaintive dirge. The attachment to Gandhi, which came unbeknown to me, continued till my school days. I was in class XI or XII – 15 or 16 years old – when the film Jagriti was released and I broke into tears on hearing the song De di hamein azaadi bina khadga bina dhaal, Sabarmati ke sant tune kar diya kamaal (You got us independence without sword or shield, O saint of Sabarmati, what a feat you achieved). Then in my college and university years I started experiencing vis-à-vis Gandhi a feeling akin to aversion. The influence of new intellectual ideas must have had a role in it. From what I can remember, this feeling was not part of any well-thought-out response. Neither the initial attachment nor the aversion that followed was of my own doing. My first intellectual engagement with Gandhi began during my early years of research in modern Indian history. With it came, slowly, an awareness of his significance and, following that, of his greatness. He began compelling me to rethink just about everything I had read and imbibed. It has been a long process. This book is indicative of the present state of that process.

Notes 1 Brij Krishna Chandiwala, Gandhiji ki Dilli Diary, Gandhi Smarak Nidhi and Gyandeep, New Delhi, 1970, part iii, p. 349. All translations from Gandhiji ki Dilli Diary are by the book’s translator.

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2 M.K. Gandhi, Prarthana Pravachan, Sasta Sahitya Mandal, New Delhi, 1948 and 1954, vols. i and ii. All translations from the Prarthana Pravachan (hereafter PP) are by the book’s translator. 3 27 May 1947, PP, vol. i, p. 86. 4 Pyarelal, Mahatma Gandhi: The Last Phase, Navajivan Publishing House, Ahmedabad, 1997, vol. ix, book one, p. xxiv. 5 Harijan, 29 April 1933, Collected Works of Mahatma Gandhi (hereafter CWMG), vol. 55, p. 61. All references from CWMG were accessed online at the Gandhi Heritage Portal, https://www.gandhiheritageportal.org/the-collected-works-ofmahatma-gandhi (last accessed on 15 May 2016). 6 27 November 1947, PP, vol. ii, p. 131. 7 Ibid., vol. i, pp. 378–379. 8 Verrier Elwin records in his autobiography: The deep impression that Gandhi made on my mother is revealed in a letter which she wrote to me many years later after receiving the news of his assassination. . . . My mother described how she had just gone into lunch when someone, who had heard the news on the radio, announced the tragedy and she came away weeping, for it was impossible for her to eat. (The Tribal World of Verrier Elwin: An Autobiography, Oxford University Press, London, 1964, pp. 38–39) I was a child from a family that was, like Verrier Elwin and his mother, actively supporting Gandhi. Here is a different kind of testimony from a part of the world where it was breakfast time when the news of Gandhi’s assassination was received: In New York, a twelve-year-old girl had gone into the kitchen for breakfast. The radio was on and it brought the news of the shooting of Gandhi. There, in the kitchen the girl, the maid and the gardener held a prayer meeting and prayed and wept. (Louis Fischer, Mahatma Gandhi: His Life and Times, p. 10) Moving towards those who had, for their own reasons, been hostile to Gandhi while he was alive, sociologist T.N. Madan has this to say about his father who, having attended an Anglican missionary school and worked with English colleagues and bosses in the Jammu and Kashmir Public Works Department, was angry with Gandhi for spreading disorder and disobedience and not appreciating the positive aspects of British rule: As Nehru had asked, at 5 p.m. on 31 January, Father called out to my elder brother and me: ‘Let us go to the ghat.’ It was winter, cloudy, very dark, and very cold. The roads were covered with snow and ice. We had to walk carefully, and descending the steps to the Jhelum Ghat at Third Bridge was risky, calling for extra caution. No words were exchanged between us, Father walking ahead, and my brother and I a couple of steps behind him. At the ghat, he asked us to bring out our holy threads and do as he did. We followed his instructions. As he recited the tarpan mantras, his voice broke, he had a lump in his throat. Madan adds: That moment two things dawned on me. First, one should never be an uncritical admirer or hater. Two, Gandhi had indeed a mysterious hold over people. Years later, I learned from Max Weber the word for this power: charisma, a God-given gift! (Personal communication, 21 May 2016)

24

2 GANDHI’S SWARAJ

Let our seven lakh villages be seven lakh self-governing units. Gandhi, 14 January 19481

In a prayer meeting four-and-a-half months prior to independence, Gandhi rued the way things were going: What is going to happen! Nothing will happen according to what I say. Whatever the Congress decides to do is all that will be done. I do not matter in the scheme of things today. If I did, [the insanity in] Punjab would not have happened, nor Bihar, nor Noakhali. No one listens to me today. I am a very small man. Yes, I was once a big man in Hindustan. Everybody listened to me then. Today the Congress does not heed me, nor do the Hindus, and nor the Muslims. . . . Mine is a cry in the wilderness. Everybody can abandon me today. God will not.2 This was not the first time that the Congress had turned a deaf ear to Gandhi. His relationship with the party had always been marked by comings and goings. During the 30 odd years of that relationship, he had been as much out of the Congress as he had been in it. Since October 1934 he had ceased to be, formally, even a member of the party. Time and again the party had fretted and fumed against him. In fact, the very first major movement spearheaded by him – the Non-cooperation Movement – had ended in sharp disillusionment with him. When Gandhi, acknowledging the horrific violence perpetrated by the agitators in Chauri Chaura as a Himalayan blunder, called off the movement, he was subjected to severe criticism from within the party. Yet, soon thereafter, in a turnaround squaring neither with its criticism nor with the self-righteous fanfare that had preceded its boycott of the councils in the name of non-cooperation, the Congress decided to fight elections to the councils, including the Central Legislative Assembly. In 1923, via the 25

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face-saver of the Swaraj Party and the hollow claim that it would now carry on non-cooperation from within so as to wreck the councils, the Congress took full advantage of the Montagu–Chelmsford Reforms. Starting thus within the first years of his association with the Congress, this fluctuating pattern continued till the very end. Yet, the anguish with which Gandhi spoke in 1947 of not being heard and heeded was markedly different from how he had felt during the earlier spells of opting out or being disregarded. Whatever the pique during those days, there would invariably be some kind of mutual understanding about the parting of ways. Gandhi would then leave the Congress; he was never asked to leave. This time it was different. Without being asked to leave – in any case he was no longer formally a member of the Congress – he was pointedly sidelined through the proverbial cold shoulder treatment. To better comprehend the sidelining of Gandhi on the eve of independence, we may recall two telling instances relating to his proclaimed heir, Jawaharlal Nehru. In the first instance, Nehru candidly remarks: As for Gandhiji himself, he was a very difficult person to understand; sometimes his language was almost incomprehensible to an average modern. But we felt that we knew him quite well enough to realise that he was a great and unique man and a glorious leader, and having put our faith in him we gave him an almost blank cheque, for the time being at least. Often we discussed his fads and peculiarities among ourselves and said, half-humorously, that when swaraj [self-rule] came these fads must not be encouraged.3 A year later he notes: I thought of Bapu – so obvious and yet the man of mystery. . . . What a big man he is in spite of everything, and whatever the future may hold, it has been a rare privilege to work with him.4 The future looms large in this statement, a future signifying the attainment of swaraj, which in 1942–1943 no longer seemed a distant prospect. In the ongoing struggle for this future, Gandhi had been a singular presence – not in spite of his idiosyncrasies and fads, but very much because of them. As Nehru himself, and others, often realised, where the average modern’s rational comprehension ended, Gandhi’s intuitive understanding began. But this was a realisation that could have come only with the benefit of hindsight, when a decision of Gandhi, initially dismissed by the moderns, had shown itself to have been epochal. That is when it would dawn on the likes of Nehru that Gandhi, not they, had foreseen things wisely. Despite their awed appreciation of Gandhi’s leadership during the struggle for freedom, Nehru and his colleagues were convinced that independent 26

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India’s political and administrative demands would be completely different in nature. Meeting those demands would necessitate skills and leadership very different from Gandhi’s. A fair indication of what they believed would be required is to be found, again, in Nehru’s prison jottings. Twenty days after recording his presentiment about the coming troubles with Gandhi, Nehru wrote: ‘Are we politicians? I suppose so. But not very pliable or opportunist enough to be successful as such. The real politician type is Jinnah, or the honourable members of the Viceroy’s Council!’5 The viceroy’s council would be replaced by a central council of ministers, and the honourable members of the viceroy’s council would make way for Congress ministers. Jinnah would be ranged against them. There was no doubt in their minds that, to be able to grapple successfully with Jinnah and the immense task of running the country, they would need to become ‘real’ politicians. Consequently, as different from Gandhi, they would try and be like the very people he was opposing. On his part, Gandhi had, for four decades, nursed a vision, hoping that it would be actualised in independent India, and then would initiate the process of ushering in a new world. He had recorded that vision in his seed-text, the Hind Swaraj (Indian Home Rule, 1909). For years before writing the Hind Swaraj – since at least 1894, as a mere 25-year-old in South Africa – Gandhi was getting increasingly convinced that modern industrial civilisation was, inevitably, a destructive curse for humanity. Gaining depth and subtlety with time and experience, this conviction strengthened his belief that it was necessary to extricate independent India, and through it the rest of the world, from the self-destructive cycle of modern industrial civilisation and, thereby, from certain annihilation. Even as he wrote that text in a state of inspired frenzy – during a sea voyage over a mere 10 days, using the left hand when the right hand tired – he had had the sense to admit: ‘I do not expect my views to be accepted all of a sudden.’6 At the time of writing the Hind Swaraj, Gandhi was busy leading his compatriots against the white racist regime in South Africa. He returned to India six years later. During the following 32 years when the country marched towards independence, he continued to swear by the Hind Swaraj. In 1938, for example, when the Aryan Path brought out a special number on his little book, Gandhi wrote that ‘after the stormy 30 years through which I have since passed, I have seen nothing to make me alter the views expounded in it’.7 Yet, never once during the struggle for independence, not even during his periodic assumption of its supreme command, did he press explicitly for the adoption of the vision envisaged in the Hind Swaraj. However, once freedom was round the corner and he had, in the intervening 30 years, done enough to assume sufficient acceptance for his ideas, he decided to present his long-cherished vision for adoption by those entrusted with the task of shaping a new, independent India. In any case, it had generally been agreed during the heyday of the national movement that the 27

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mere departure of the British – the substitution of white with brown rulers – would not mean swaraj, and no one was clearer and more insistent about it than Gandhi. Therefore, it seemed to him an opportune time to broach the question of the foundational principles and framework of India after independence. Because Nehru was Gandhi’s political heir and prime minister designate of free India and had a vastly different way of thinking, Gandhi decided to settle the issue of India’s future course along with Nehru and, if need be, with the Congress Working Committee. On 5 October 1945, he sent a long letter communicating his thoughts to Nehru. This letter is of immense historic significance, in that it is Gandhi’s last, defeated testament. It is of far greater significance than the Hind Swaraj itself for it clearly demonstrates that a literal adherence to his seed-text was not important to Gandhi. What mattered to him was the idea contained in the Hind Swaraj. And believing as he did that an idea does not lie frozen in a text but evolves with time, the idea of the Hind Swaraj lay for him in a dynamic reading of the text. What he was explicating in his letter of 5 October was that idea as it had evolved in his mind since 1909. This is a claim that many would have difficulty accepting. They would rather insist that Gandhi is, in this letter, actually turning away from the Hind Swaraj, not developing what he had proposed therein. From that perspective, too, the letter is of cardinal importance for it demonstrates Gandhi’s continuing practice of re-visioning – a constant, open-minded re-reading that was sensitive to changing contexts. It would serve well to reproduce Gandhi’s letter in one go and almost in its entirety, without any authorial mediation, retaining even his error in putting down 1908 – not 1909 – as the year of his writing the Hind Swaraj. Going through the letter carefully, readers will also be able to make out the extent to which ‘we’ – you and I – agree or differ in our reading of Gandhi. The letter goes thus: Dear Jawahar, Although I have been meaning to write to you for several days, I have only been able to do so today. Also, the question before me was whether I should write in English or Hindustani. Eventually, I chose to write in Hindustani. First, about the big difference of opinion that has come up between us. If that difference is a reality then people should know about it, for concealing it from them will hamper the work of swaraj. I have stated that I remain committed to the political system of governance that I have written about in the Hind Swaraj. Not for the sake of saying, but through my experiences to this day, I continue to discover the truth of what I wrote in 1908. In the end if I remain its only believer, it would not sadden me one bit. 28

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For I can only bear witness to the truth as I see it. I do not have the Hind Swaraj before me. Just as well, for I can redraw that picture in my words today. Whether that picture corresponds to the one drawn in 1908 does not concern me, nor should it concern you. For, the aim here is not to validate what I said in 1908; what is important is to know what I say today. I believe that if India, and through India the rest of the world as well, is to attain real freedom, then sooner or later we would have to live in villages – in humble dwellings, not in palatial mansions. It is simply not possible for millions of city dwellers to live in mansions happily and peacefully, nor by killing one another, that is, by violence and untruth. There is no doubt whatsoever that but for these twin principles (namely, truth and ahimsa) the human race faces inevitable destruction. Truth and ahimsa can be seen only in the simplicity of villages. This simplicity rests in the spinning wheel, in the essence which underlies the spinning wheel. It does not bother me that the world seems to be moving in the opposite direction. In fact when a moth flies towards its destruction it circles in the utmost frenzy and gets burnt in the process. It is possible that India may fail to extricate itself from the self-destructive whirl of the moth. It is my duty, until my last breath, to try and rescue India and through it the world from that eventuality. In essence I mean that humans must exercise personal control over their essential needs – there is no saving them otherwise. The world, after all, is made up of individuals. Without the drop there can be no ocean. These are all generalities; I have not said anything new here. But what I am about to say now I have not said even in the Hind Swaraj. When I look at the old through the eyes of modern knowledge, I find the old very pleasing in this new guise. If you think that I am referring to the village of today you will not be able to comprehend what I am saying. The village of my conception exists in my imagination as of now. After all, people live in a world of their imagination. In the village of my imagination, the villager will not be inert – he will exemplify consciousness. He will not lead his life like an animal, in squalid darkness. Men and women will live freely and have the confidence to face the entire world. There will be no cholera, plague, or smallpox. Life will neither be slothful nor luxurious for anybody. Physical labour will be a must for everybody. Along with all this I can conceive of many things that would be built on a large scale: maybe railways as well as post and telegraph offices. What there will or will not be I can’t say, nor do I care. If I am able to establish the essential idea, the things for our future well-being will follow from it. But if I forsake the essential idea, I forsake everything. 29

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The other day at its last session the Working Committee made a decision that seemed to suggest that it would deliberate for two or three days to clear the air on this matter. It would please me if it does. But even if it doesn’t I still want both of us to understand each other well. I want that for two reasons. Our relationship goes far beyond politics. That bond cannot break. That is why I want us to understand each other clearly in politics as well. The second reason is that neither of us considers himself to be useless. We both live for the day India attains independence and for that we are even ready to sacrifice our lives. We do not go looking for praise – bouquets or brickbats, it’s all the same. There is no place for these in service. Although I wish to serve until the age of 125 years, I am after all an old man while you are young in comparison. That is why I have pronounced you my heir. It is only fitting that I should understand my heir at the very least and he too should understand me. It will set my mind at rest.8 With this Gandhi concludes the matter about the India and the world of his imagination. That done, he mentions the Kasturba Trust and the Hindustani Sabha to ask Nehru if he can help with their work in any way. Gandhi also remarks that he has been pained by the spat between Nehru and Sarat Chandra Bose and wants to know the root of the problem. The letter ends thus: If it is important to meet regarding this matter then we should make time for it. You are working hard; I hope you are keeping good health and that Indu too is well. Bapu’s blessings.9 In response to Gandhi’s letter in Hindi, Nehru replied in English on 9 October. He mentioned that he had returned home to Allahabad for just two days and was tied up. Expressing his happiness at the fact that Gandhi had written so extensively about his concerns, Nehru wrote that he was sending a provisional reply owing to a pressing schedule but would write at length later. He agreed that they should meet but, citing prior engagements, warned that he was not sure when that could be. To this note of caution, he also added a line of assurance: ‘I shall try.’10 After this preamble, Nehru responded to the substantive issues one by one: Briefly put my view is that the question before us is not one of truth versus untruth or non-violence versus violence. One assumes as one must that true cooperation and peaceful methods must be aimed at and a society which encourages these must be our objective. The 30

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whole question is how to achieve this society and what its content should be. I do not understand why a village should necessarily embody truth and non-violence. A village, normally speaking, is backward intellectually and culturally and no progress can be made from a backward environment. Narrow-minded people are much more likely to be untruthful and violent.11 This is an ominous beginning. It betrays impatience with Gandhi even as it struggles to hold back that impatience. The beginning is intended to demolish. But it does not promise a well-thought-out demolition. The cavalier dismissal of non-violence, though not of truth in the same way, is resonant with a long-standing difficulty that Nehru had entertained about axiomatically privileging non-violence over violence.12 That difficulty had been particularly aggravated by the experience of the just concluded war of 1939–1945. Even while the devastating war was on, Nehru had noted feelingly: ‘Violence-non-violence become academical questions. Who are we to blame those who indulge in violence today, not knowing what horror they have to face?’13 Nehru’s dilemma was real. Still, in proposing his own pair of ‘true cooperation and peaceful methods’ as a counter to Gandhi’s pairing of truth and ahimsa, he did not succeed, although he thought he had, in providing a feasible alternative to Gandhi’s twin principles. If anything, ‘true cooperation and peaceful methods’ provide not alternatives to but variations on the Gandhian theme of truth and ahimsa. At any rate, there is scope for a debate on this issue. Still, the manner in which Nehru ripped through Gandhi’s views about villages is baffling. Gandhi had categorically stated that his vision of future India was based on the village of his imagination, not on the actual villages of the country. Nehru completely overlooked this cautionary note while replying to Gandhi. Expressing surprise at Gandhi’s emphasis on the Hind Swaraj in his letter, Nehru wrote: It is many years ago since I read Hind Swaraj and I have only a vague picture in my mind. But even when I read it 20 or more years ago it seemed to me completely unreal. In your writings and speeches since then I have found much that seemed to me an advance on that old position and an appreciation of modern trends. I was therefore surprised when you told us that the old picture still remains intact in your mind. As you know, the Congress has never considered that picture, much less adopted it. You yourself have never asked it to adopt it except for certain relatively minor aspects of it. How far it is desirable for the Congress to consider these fundamental questions, involving varying philosophies of life, it is for you to judge. I would imagine that a body like the Congress should not lose itself in arguments over such matters which can only produce great confusion in 31

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people’s minds resulting in inability to act in the present. This may also result in creating barriers between the Congress and others in the country. Ultimately of course this and other questions will have to be decided by representatives of free India. . . . It is 38 years since Hind Swaraj was written. The world has completely changed since then, possibly in a wrong direction. . . . You are right in saying that the world, or a large part of it, appears to be bent on committing suicide. That may be an inevitable development of an evil seed in civilisation that has grown. I think it is so. How to get rid of this evil, and yet how to keep the good in the present as in the past is our problem. Obviously there is good, too, in the present.14 In a similar vein of disagreeing with Gandhi and proving him wrong, Nehru had this to say as well: [W]e have to put down certain objectives like a sufficiency of food, clothing, housing, education, sanitation etc., which should be the minimum requirement for the country and for everyone. It is with these objectives in view that we must find out specifically how to attain them speedily. Again it seems to me inevitable that modern means of transport as well as many other modern developments must continue and be developed. There is no way out of it except to have them. If that is so inevitably a measure of heavy industry exists. How far will that fit in with a purely village society? Personally I hope that heavy or light industries should all be decentralised as far as possible and this is feasible now because of the development of electric power. If two types of economy exist in the country either there should be conflict between the two or one will overwhelm the other.15 Depending on their particular intellectual, emotional and political inclination, people will read Nehru’s reply in different ways. How do I see it? In his letter Gandhi had pointed out, rightly, that neither he nor Nehru considered themselves to be useless. Both were engaged in serving the country and, following long reflection in their characteristic ways, had arrived at their own basic premises regarding the country’s problems and their resolution. As to the extent to which their thinking in this regard converged and diverged, it is noteworthy that Gandhi wished to believe that there was considerable convergence between him and his heir, whereas the heir, as a confirmed ‘modern’, had all along been suspicious of his mentor’s fads. Even though he had begun his letter with a categorical reference to ‘the big difference of opinion that has come up between us’, Gandhi had, rather intriguingly, followed this up with the remark ‘[i]f that difference is a reality’.16 He, it would appear (and we will soon have a glimpse of it again in his second 32

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letter to Nehru), really desired – if possible – a broad consensus of views with his heir. In other respects, too, Gandhi’s letter was full of hope, and it did not omit to reiterate his well-known wish to serve the country till the age of 125. He was, it seems, dreaming of creating, in association with his heir, a new India and, hopefully, also a new world. Nehru’s reply betrayed an altogether contrasting state of mind, one of impatience, irritation and anxiety. He was irritated because, as he saw it, swaraj was still to come and there were pressing problems all around. There was, for example, no knowing what the Muslim League might do or what recalcitrance the princely states might display. And here was Gandhi needlessly raising these big questions. Nehru was worried that this fad of Gandhi might create serious trouble. Evidently, while maintaining propriety, he was determined to nip Gandhi’s quixotism in the bud. Nehru’s letter also reveals that he was, in actual fact, not replying to what Gandhi had written in his letter. Rather, on the basis of his hazy memories of the Hind Swaraj, he was replying to what he believed Gandhi must have written. Since Gandhi had begun his letter by saying that it contained all that he had already said in the Hind Swaraj – even though he did not care to have the book before him for corroboration – Nehru read into the letter the Hind Swaraj that he remembered as an anachronism in a modern-day context. The picture of Gandhi’s seed-text may well have become blurred in Nehru’s mind, but the danger he had first sensed in it still loomed large. Consequently, no matter how assured Nehru was that his reply was apt, logical and irrefutable, the truth is that he was not responding to Gandhi’s letter. Valid as Nehru’s criticism of the existing Indian villages was, it in no way negated Gandhi’s proposition. Instead of dwelling on the seamy actuality of Indian villages, had he addressed himself to the villages of Gandhi’s imagining and shown that the latter were undesirable or even that they were impossible to realise, that could have been an answer. He attempted nothing of the kind and yet thought that he had successfully refuted Gandhi. The entire reasoning of Nehru’s reply continues in this vein, unrelated to its objective. At times he says the same thing as Gandhi, but in a manner that is reproving. For instance, he agrees with Gandhi that the world, or a large part of it, is intent upon self-destruction and that this suicidal tendency is inherent in modern civilisation. What Nehru says after this is interesting. The problem, he says, is to so combine the best of the past and the present as to halt this destruction. At this point he stresses that the present, too, has much to commend itself. He does not, it’s worth noting, feel the need to separately emphasise the admirable features of the past. He obviously assumes that, given Gandhi’s partiality to the past, it was the merits of the present that needed to be brought home to him. Here, too, Nehru trusted his hazy recall of the Hind Swaraj, regardless of the text – Gandhi’s letter – he had set out to demolish. He could not, otherwise, have missed Gandhi’s pointed insistence that this time he was also saying 33

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something that he had not said in the Hind Swaraj: ‘When I look at the old through the eyes of modern knowledge, I find the old very pleasing in this new guise.’ After this, even if the good that Gandhi saw in the new guise was not entirely the good that Nehru saw in it – which in any case was not Nehru’s argument – there could be no justification for his bland reminder that ‘there is good too in the present’. Similarly, what Nehru says about modern means of transport and selfreliance in basic necessities, such as food, clothing, shelter, education and health, and the need for heavy industries and decentralisation is what Gandhi has already said in his letter. What disagreement, then, is Nehru articulating? For, Gandhi himself had categorically stated: ‘I can conceive of many things that would be built on a large scale.’ And further: ‘What there will or will not be I can’t say, nor do I care.’ There is one fact in Nehru’s letter which is particularly worth noticing. He employs a variety of arguments to tell Gandhi that the issue he has raised will harm the country by causing needless confusion, unwarranted division and, consequently, inaction. Besides, neither he – Gandhi – nor anyone else had a right to take a decision on this issue. It could be decided only after independence by the country’s representatives. To somehow or other silence Gandhi, it would appear that Nehru was not above resorting to the sophistry of legalistic logic. Gandhi was simply suggesting that he and his heir become familiar with their respective conceptions of independent India, with the Congress Working Committee also deliberating on it if necessary. There was nothing inappropriate about this move from a legal, moral, pragmatic or any other viewpoint. The charge that Gandhi had never placed before the Congress any proposal about making the Hind Swaraj model the basis for rebuilding independent India in no way implied that he had forfeited the right to do so now. Nor was it logical to say that only independent India’s representatives would have the right to decide on such a significant matter. For years the Congress had been claiming to be the sole representative of the entire country. For 20 years Nehru had been trying his utmost to get the Congress to formally accept socialistic ideology as the basis for rebuilding independent India. Now he was denying Gandhi the right to suggest the adoption of his dream of a new India and a new world. What legitimacy, in Nehru’s mind, could this argument possibly have had? Had Nehru been even a little sympathetic towards Gandhi on this subject, he would not have complained that Gandhi was creating a problem for the country and the Congress by needlessly forcing the issue of the Hind Swaraj. During the course of the freedom movement, Gandhi had explained to Nehru not once but several times that until independence was gained, the Congress should stay clear of policies and programmes which might exacerbate the conflict of vested interests inherent in Indian society. In 1928, for instance, under the newfound influence of socialism, Nehru had written an 34

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emotion-laden letter to Gandhi saying that a war should be waged on behalf of the poor. In a brief but decisive reply Gandhi had then said: ‘I am quite of your opinion that some day we shall have to start an intensive movement without the rich people and without the vocal educated class. But that time is not yet.’17 Now that independence was round the corner, it seemed to Gandhi that it was the right moment to determine that a new independent India would be built on principles promoting the interests and happiness not of those inhabiting palaces but of the millions living in huts. But to Nehru, now, this fairly socialistic idea seemed fraught with danger. Nor was Nehru right in maintaining that Gandhi, during his years in the freedom struggle, had appeared to be moving away from the ideas expressed in the Hind Swaraj. The truth is that at every suitable opportunity Gandhi had confirmed his deepening faith in the philosophy of the Hind Swaraj. It is difficult to believe that these frequent reiterations always managed to elude Nehru. But little can be said with any degree of certainty in this regard. What can be said with certainty is that the comprehensive reply Nehru had promised Gandhi was never written. Also, that he needed a whole month – 33 days – before he could take time out to meet Gandhi and discuss this matter. The two finally met in Pune on 12 November. There is not much one can say with confidence about the spirit and atmosphere in which their discussion took place or even the contours of their discussion. Some inkling of it, though, can be had from a letter Gandhi sent to Nehru the day after their meeting. Composed as an aide-memoire, the letter was again in Hindi. It is reproduced here in its English translation: Chiranjeev Jawaharlal, Our talk yesterday brought me much joy. More than this we could not have discussed yesterday and I do not think that we will be able to accomplish everything in one meeting. It is essential that we meet from time to time. The way I am made, if only I had the strength to go places, I would find you and come immediately. Such is not my condition today, but you know that I have done so. I want that we understand each other. Eventually, our paths may turn out to be separate. So be it. Our hearts will remain one because they are one. After our talk yesterday I have realised that there is no great difference between us with regard to our modes of thinking and understanding of things. I want to tell you how I have understood you so that if there is any discrepancy, you will tell me. 1 In your view the real question is how to augment the intellectual, economic, political and moral strength of each individual. It is so in mine as well. 35

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2

And each person should have a similar right and opportunity to rise. 3 From this perspective, the condition of the village and the city should be similar with respect to food and water, accommodation, clothing and recreation. To bring this about today, one should produce one’s own cloth and food and build one’s own house. Even one’s water and electricity should be self-generated. 4 Man was not born to live in jungles but to live in society. To ensure that one individual does not ride roughshod over another, the basic unit must be an imagined village or group that is capable of being self-reliant, with the members of that group being mutually dependent. Thinking like this creates a map of connectedness among human beings of the entire world. If I have understood correctly up to this point, then I will start the second part. I had got my earlier letter to you translated by Rajkumari (Amrit Kaur) and it is with me now. I will get this one translated as well. For one, if I am able to explain myself to you better in English, then I must, and, secondly, I will also get to know better if I have understood you. Blessings to Indu. Bapu’s blessings.18 In the event, the need for the second part of the aide-memoire did not arise. Gandhi’s heir did not, even for form’s sake, think it necessary to communicate whether Gandhi had understood the previous day’s proceedings correctly. ‘A word to the wise’ was an aphorism Gandhi often recalled. This time he did not require even a word to realise that the ‘joy’ he had conveyed in his aide-memoire did not quite match his heir’s summation of the issue. Gandhi could also see that on this issue the Congress, and very likely the entire country, was with his heir, not with him. However much of an idealist or dreamer Gandhi may have been, he possessed an uncanny sense of what was practicable at a particular juncture. Whereas others shared the prevailing understanding of practicability and fashioned their plans and strategies accordingly, Gandhi could detect possibilities so novel as to evoke, in the moment of their proclamation, plain disbelief, even ridicule. To this was combined a singular moral selfconfidence which, happily accepting of being considered a fool, enabled him to translate those novel – in popular perception impossible – possibilities into action. Recalling just one moment in 1920 – when Gandhi promised swaraj within a year of launching the Non-cooperation Movement – should help 36

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us comprehend something of the audacity of his conception of the possible and the practicable, as also of his ability to enthuse people about it. No one believed Gandhi’s promise when he made it. History, too, belied it, bringing Indians freedom a whole 27 years later. Nonetheless, there was a big truth in the unbelievable promise – the truth underlying the Gandhian scheme for freedom – which the selfsame disbelievers began to grasp as the year unfolded. They saw that the basis of British rule came not from its might but from the cooperation of Indians. Whether given out of fear or self-interest, once that cooperation was withdrawn – within a year or whenever – the British would be gone. Gandhi also understood that the circumstances within which he had discerned a new possibility, and within which it had to be realised, were invariably fluid. Now propitious, they could quickly turn adverse. Consequently, following his changing assessment of a changing situation, he could mount an offensive, or try and enter into negotiations with the adversary, or altogether withdraw. If or when the situation seemed hopeless to him, he would rather bide his time than waste it. After sending the letter of 13 November to Nehru, it did not take him long to size up the prevailing situation. Anyway, it was not as if the previous day’s conversation had given Gandhi only joy and nothing else. The very need he felt to clearly spell things out and seek confirmation that there had been no misunderstanding reveals a certain lack of assurance. He also realised that even after their fairly exhaustive discussions, a good deal still remained to be talked about. It would appear that for all his optimism and ‘joy’, he had all along been prepared for the possibility that, after all the clarifications were made, the big difference of opinion he had mentioned might turn out to be real. Nehru’s silence over the 13 November letter settled the matter for Gandhi. He never wrote to Nehru about it again. Nor did he seek a discussion on it within the Congress Working Committee. He did resolve, though, to quietly wait and act in this regard whenever an opportune moment arose. In a prayer discourse about two months before independence he said: A very big task is awaiting my attention. It is being said that India is about to be industrialised now. My industrialisation will take place in the villages, which means that the spinning wheel will move in every household and every village will produce cloth.19 But communal violence assumed such monstrous proportions that Gandhi had to direct his energies to restoring sanity among the warring communities. Even so, he planned for a major, week-long deliberation in Wardha in the beginning of February 1948 on the future of the country. Except that he was consigned to the next world on 30 January. 37

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The deliberation about the shape of independent India that Gandhi believed to be critical, the one he sought to initiate in his letter of 5 October 1945 to the country’s future prime minister, never took place at all. The country seemed resolved not to follow Gandhi’s path. That resolve has deepened over the years. Twenty years prior to that decisive defeat of 1945, Gandhi had written: ‘I have endeavoured to show a way out that is peaceful, humane and, therefore, noble. It may be rejected[;] if it is, the alternative is a tug of war, in which each will try to pull down the other.’20 From so much of what has since happened in India and the rest of the world, it is evident that the ferocity of the tug of war that Gandhi apprehended has increased ominously.

II The foregoing is how the Gandhi–Nehru exchange is chronicled in the Hindi original. The chronicle is tinged with regret that Gandhi’s India dismissed his radical alternative to a civilisation on rampage. It is also an indictment of those who quashed Gandhi’s effort to turn India in a very different direction. But now I sense in it something amnesic, if not also hypocritical. Nehru’s was not an isolated instance of non-comprehension and rejection of the Hind Swaraj. In this he was representative of an entire class. Continuing well into our time, that class has learnt to accept modernity as the acme of civilised life. Since its emergence under the colonial dispensation, the class has progressively internalised the totalitarian claim of the dominant Western intellectual discourse of being the sole valid mode of knowing. A pervasive and imperceptible intellectual–psychological resistance to the Hind Swaraj model of total rejection of modernity has crystallised within that class. I am also a product and representative of the same class. In fact, till not long ago, my response to the Hind Swaraj was similar to Nehru’s. Even when I began to see sense in Gandhi’s impugned text, I felt disconcerted by what seemed to me its strident tone. It is only in the past few years that I have begun to value the text in its entirety. That makes my indictment of Nehru and his generation also a self-indictment. I should be able to understand that, given their cognitive constraints, those so indicted could only have thought the way they did. Indeed, but for the accident of having lived long enough to witness that history has trumped the rational moderns’ faith in progress and vindicated Gandhi’s ‘obscurantism’, I could not have chronicled the Gandhi–Nehru exchange the way I have in the preceding section. This is a necessary admission. But it does not go far enough. Something more (self-)critical is required to bring out the complexity of that exchange. The shift in recent decades, from dismissive incomprehension to recognition of the value of the Hind Swaraj, has affected a growing number of people all over the world. Pointing to the opening of a new cognitive space, this shift is particularly striking because it pertains generally to the 1909 38

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text, where modern civilisation is squarely condemned as ‘satanic’. Gandhi’s 1945 re-vision of the Hind Swaraj,21 revealing his acceptance of ‘necessary’ heavy industries – which thankfully he left to be decided by future generations according to their changing circumstances – is mostly known only to those who have cared to study in depth this aspect of Gandhiana. Otherwise, much of the writing on the Hind Swaraj, both critical and adulatory, still relates to the 1909 text, unmediated by Gandhi’s subsequent re-vision of it. This acceptance of the Hind Swaraj of 1909 owes much to the actualisation, at the turn of the new millennium, of Gandhi’s worst pronouncements about the ‘satanic’ civilisation. Having looked like lurid exaggerations for long – or even, in Gandhi’s words, ‘the production of a fool’22 – those pronouncements, and worse, are making their presence felt in everyday life in today’s globalised world. Such is the prevailing anxiety that a telling neologism like ‘collapsology’ has just come into contemporary academic discourse, showing how dismal the future of humankind is beginning to appear.23 This may seem a strained explanation, for objectively it would appear that even Nehru’s generation had known enough of the modern world by way of Western imperialism, the two world wars and the ruthless destruction of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, to be able to sense the truth of Gandhi’s critique. This obviously was not how that generation felt about the world around them. Nehru may have admitted that having changed completely since 1909, ‘possibly in a wrong direction’, the world, ‘or a large part of it, appears to be bent on committing suicide’, but this was little more than a rhetorical concession. It conceded nothing to Gandhi. Nor did it shake Nehru’s confidence that independent India would be able to steer clear of the wrong direction and progress emphatically along modern lines. Even subsequent generations, for all the enormities of modern civilisation, retained faith in the West’s discourse of progress. So much so that, the very idea of progress became inseparable from the West. That is how, in the moment of their freedom, all the erstwhile colonised societies chose to emulate – to be – the West. Evidently, very much more than what Nehru’s and succeeding generations saw of the evils of modern civilisation was needed for a favourable shift in the reception of the Hind Swaraj. Persistent incomprehension of his text had constrained Gandhi to plead: ‘[R]ead Hind Swaraj with my eyes.’24 His pathetic plea did not help the Hind Swaraj find acceptance – nor did his periodic assurances that he was ready to wait for that acceptance. Even in the frenzy of writing his text, as we have seen, he had clearly stated that he did not expect his views ‘to be accepted all of a sudden’. In 1921, while maintaining that the intervening 12 years had vindicated his ‘severe condemnation of “modern civilisation” ’,25 he stated his position even more clearly: I am not aiming at destroying railways or hospitals. . . . Nor am I aiming at a permanent destruction of law courts. . . . Still less am 39

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I trying to destroy all machinery and mills. It requires a higher simplicity and renunciation than the people are today prepared for.26 Five years later, asked if it was true that he objected ‘to railways, steamships and other means of speedy locomotion’, he replied ruefully: ‘It is and it is not! . . . It is true in the sense that under ideal conditions we should not need these things. It is not true in the sense that in these days it is not easy to sever ourselves from those things.’27 Although the Hind Swaraj provided a ‘whole theory of life’, he had decided to confine its practice, for the time being, only to his personal life. His corporate activity was, instead, directed towards ‘the attainment of Parliamentary swaraj in accordance with the wishes of the people of India’. Only that part of the Hind Swaraj’s theory that related to ahimsa was sought to be practised at the corporate level.28 Even his closest associates, negligible exceptions apart, failed to read the Hind Swaraj with Gandhi’s eyes. Does, then, the present-day appreciation of the text mean that what Gandhi’s pleas and assurances failed to do, the contemporary predicament of modern civilisation has done? It does and it does not. It does because the insight informing the 1909 text is no longer alien and inaccessible. It does not because sensing the truth of that insight does not, by that very fact, imply a readiness to renounce the unsustainable conveniences of modern life. The utmost that people can be expected to accept are modifications in their wants, not adoption of austerity as against indulgence. This is in keeping with Gandhi’s discovery that ‘modern tyranny is a trap of temptation’.29 Recall the youth who occupied Wall Street in their thousands to protest against the 1 per cent in the name of the 99 per cent; or the people rising in ineffectual revolts in Italy, Spain, Portugal, Greece and Ireland; or the millions of angry human souls stirred by Stephane Hessel’s 2010 cry, Indignez-vous! (Time for Outrage!). Their protest was – is – against the monstrous maldistribution of wealth within their societies, not for an alternative world with a sustainable lifestyle. The Greek, the Irish, the Italians, the Spaniards and the Portuguese wish to be like their betteroff cousins in Germany and France. The 99 per cent everywhere dream of being like the 1 per cent. The little chance of acceptance that the Gandhian alternative today has is in its 1945 avatar. However seamless – for Gandhi – may have been the passage from the purity of the 1909 text to its liberal 1945 re-vision, it is difficult to reconcile the two versions. One unaware of their common authorship may with reason suspect, as we have noted earlier, that the 1945 version is a negation, not interpretation, of the urtext, and one aware of the fact may wonder if the person who accepted the need for large-scale production had retained the same ‘eye’ with which he had produced the Hind Swaraj.30 Whatever the validity of such doubts, their relevance to understanding Gandhi’s basic ideas is considerably neutralised by his insistence in the letter to Nehru that what he was writing then represented what he believed. 40

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This statement may seem to be at variance with his claim of consistency with the Hind Swaraj. In this context we may recall that, believing inconsistency to be a sign of growing, he had prescribed a simple rule of thumb. In the event of inconsistency between any two of his statements on the same subject, he famously said, the later statement should be accepted as valid (provided that one retained faith in Gandhi’s sanity at the time of making his subsequent statement).31 Accepting that he was sane at the time, we must recognise his 1945 re-vision of the Hind Swaraj as the authoritative version. Further, keeping in mind how much the world has changed since Gandhi’s own last revision, we must try and understand him in the same organic manner in which he had moved from his 1909 text to his 1945 dream and had hoped to move further even after his death.32 One great challenge in reading the Hind Swaraj is to avoid the temptation of constantly stretching the scope and scale of permissible production and consumption of things. More so because the kind of liberty Gandhi himself took can act as an incentive to interpret the text to suit our convenience. But even though there can be no clear-cut criteria for prescribing just how far one can take this liberty, every interpretation must necessarily be regulated by certain limits which must be assumed to inhere in the Hind Swaraj. To transgress those limits would be to violate the very essence – ‘essential idea’33 as Gandhi called it – of the Hind Swaraj. One way to have a sense of those limits is to remember Gandhi’s warning: ‘Earth provides enough to satisfy every man’s need but not for every man’s greed.’34 This, though, can also act as a trap, given the way the distinction between need and luxury is getting progressively blurred, converting our desires into needs. It will, perhaps, help to recall another of Gandhi’s simple prescriptions: ‘Machinery has its place; it has come to stay. But it must not be allowed to displace the necessary human labour.’35 We – each one of us – may also privately ask ourselves as to which of our wants we are ready to do without, and quietly act accordingly, no matter what others do.

Notes 1 PP, vol. ii, p. 303. 2 1 April 1947, ibid., vol. i, p. 7. 3 Jawaharlal Nehru, An Autobiography: With Musings on Recent Events in India, The Bodley Head, London, 1942, p. 73. 4 Jawaharlal Nehru, ‘Independence Day’, Jail Diary, 26 January 1943, in S. Gopal, ed., Selected Works of Jawaharlal Nehru (henceforth referred to as Selected Works), a project of the Jawaharlal Nehru Memorial Fund, Orient Longman Ltd., New Delhi, 1980, vol. xiii, p. 48. 5 17 February 1943, ibid., p. 68. 6 M.K. Gandhi, Indian Home Rule, The International Printing Press, Phoenix, Natal, 1910, p. 59. 7 M.K. Gandhi, ‘A Message’, Hind Swaraj or Indian Home Rule, Navajivan Publishing House, Ahmedabad, 2006, p. 14.

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8 From the Hindi original in the Jawaharlal Nehru Papers, part i, vol. xxvi, at the Nehru Memorial Museum & Library, New Delhi, translated into English by the book’s translator. 9 Ibid. 10 Selected Works, vol. xiv, p. 554. 11 Ibid. 12 Gandhi himself suspected this around 1928 when, on 4 January, he wrote to Nehru: ‘I do not know whether you still believe in unadulterated non-violence’ (CWMG, vol. 35, p. 433). 13 Jail Diary, 15 February 1943, Selected Works, vol. xiii, p. 63. 14 Ibid., vol. xiv, p. 556. 15 Ibid., p. 555. 16 It becomes even more intriguing when seen against the long history of sharp differences – and exchanges – between the two men. Though it was only in 1928 when Gandhi first seriously broached the matter with Nehru, he knew that differences between them had been brewing for years. Though I was beginning to detect some differences in viewpoint between you and me, I had no notion whatsoever of the terrible extent of these differences. Whilst you were heroically suppressing yourself for the sake of the nation and in the belief that by working with and under me in spite of yourself, you would serve the nation and come out scatheless, you were chafing under the burden of this unnatural self-suppression. . . . The differences between you and me appear to me to be so vast and radical that there seems to be no meeting-ground between us. (Letter to Nehru, 17 January 1928, CWMG, vol. 35, pp. 469–470) Within two years of this, Gandhi would be at the helm of the Civil Disobedience Movement. To offer yet another illustration, on 26 October 1939 Gandhi wrote to Nehru: Perhaps this is the most critical period in our history. I hold very strong views on the most important questions which occupy our attention. I know you too hold strong views on them but different from mine. . . . [I]f you all thought that I should observe complete silence, I should, I hope, find no difficulty in complying. If you think it worthwhile, you should come and discuss the whole thing. (Ibid., vol. 70, p. 297) In less than three years, again, Gandhi was leading the Quit India Movement. 7 Letter to Jawaharlal Nehru, 1 April 1928, CWMG, vol. 36, p. 174. 1 18 From the Hindi original in the Jawaharlal Nehru Papers, part i, vol. xxvi, at the Nehru Memorial Museum & Library, New Delhi, translated into English by the book’s translator. 19 5 June 1947, PP, vol. i, p. 126. 20 Young India, 5 November 1925, CWMG, vol. 28, p. 428. 21 Gandhi had from time to time been reformulating what may broadly be called his Hind Swaraj vision. The one articulated in the 5 October 1945 letter to Nehru is by far the most ‘liberal’ and categorically stated. 22 Gandhi’s ‘Message’ for the Aryan Path Special Hind Swaraj Number, September 1938. 23 See Pablo Servigne and Raphaël Stevens, Comment tout peuts’effondrer: Petit manuel de collapsologie à l’usage des generations présentes [How everything can collapse: Short guide to collapsology for present generations], Antropocène, 2015.

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24 CWMG, vol. 70, p. 296. 25 Young India, 26 January 1921, CWMG, vol. 19, p. 277. 26 Ibid., p. 278. 27 Interview with Mrs Langeloth and Mrs Kelly, ‘Young India’, 21 January 1926, in Raghavan Iyer, ed., The Moral and Political Writings of Mahatma Gandhi, Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1986, vol. i, p. 281. 28 ‘A Word of Explanation’, Hind Swaraj, p. 16. 29 Letter to Maganlal Gandhi, 2 April 1910, CWMG, vol. 10, p. 204. 30 For a most sensitive and balanced assessment of what he calls the ‘necessary evolution’ of the Hind Swaraj in Gandhi’s mind, see Mahadev Desai’s ‘Preface’ and introduction titled ‘An Important Publication’, in the 1938 Aryan Path Special Hind Swaraj Number. The other essays in the volume may also be read for a critical appreciation of Gandhi’s seed-text. 31 Harijan, 29 April 1933, CWMG, vol. 55, p. 61. 32 Ibid. ‘Old as I am in age,’ he said, ‘I have no feeling that I have ceased to grow inwardly or that my growth will stop at the dissolution of the flesh.’ 33 The amorphous term used by Gandhi in the Hindustani original – asali baat (the real thing) – is even more telling. 34 Pyarelal, Mahatma Gandhi: The Last Phase, vol. x, part ii, p. 552. Tridip Suhrud, who knows much more about Gandhi than I do, tells me that Gandhi, in making this statement, is actually quoting Franklin Nathaniel Daniel Buchman (1878–1961), who said: ‘There is enough in the world for everyone’s need, but not enough for everyone’s greed.’ Source: Oxford Dictionary of Quotations and Proverbs (Fourth Impression, 2006). That may well be so. But in the absence of evidence to show that Gandhi was, indeed, quoting Buchman, nothing conclusive can be said. It is possible that Pyarelal was inadvertently guilty of misattribution. At the same time, given the similarity only of the idea and not of the words, it is equally possible that both Gandhi and Buchman hit upon it separately. For our discussion, however, the idea is important, not its copyright. 35 Young India, 5 November 1925, CWMG, vol. 28, p. 428.

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3 GANDHI’S SORROWS

Who listens to me when I speak? Gandhi, 28 December 19471

Remembering Gandhi’s statement – ‘This is the tale of my sorrows or you could say the whole of India’s sorrows’ – I wanted to title this chapter ‘Tale of the country’s sorrows’. But simply because someone says so, a sorrow does not become the country’s sorrow. Sorrow, to be sorrow, must be felt as such. If it is not, or is felt as pleasure, then there is no sorrow. So the chapter has to be about Gandhi’s sorrows, even though a stray innocent soul may, indeed, see in them the country’s sorrows, even perhaps the sorrows of all humanity. It would be hard to pinpoint exactly when Gandhi lost the desire to live for 125 years and started praying to be removed from the world. No single setback seems to have produced that state of mind in a profound optimist like Gandhi. He could detect a silver lining in the darkest cloud and, even when he could not, had his God to keep him in hope. Gandhi was talking about living for 125 years at least as late as midJune 1947. This was a full 10 days after a formal agreement for the country’s partition had been reached. In his prayer discourse that evening Gandhi said: If I can remain equanimous, I will live not a year less than 125 years. If we all become equanimous not one of us has a reason to live less than 125 years. To be sure, God may take me away today if He so desires, but I am not ready to leave, not just yet. I have to live for I still have work to do.2 Here the issue of living up to the age of 125 years is linked to equanimity. Living for 125 years does not relate to happiness or sorrow per se but to one’s state of mind in relation to happiness and sorrow; it has to do with remaining equanimous in the midst of happiness as well as misery. The confidence with which Gandhi speaks of living for 125 years does not indicate 44

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an absence of sorrows in his life. By 13 June not only had the country’s partition – a matter of grave concern to Gandhi – been decided; the dream he had quietly cherished for 40 years, the dream of a new world emerging in the wake of independence, had also been shattered. Besides, fierce communal violence had erupted in Bengal, Bihar and Punjab, and Gandhi had sensed in its ferocity the beginnings of the violence that for years had lain suppressed in people’s hearts. Accompanying these deepening sorrows was the tragic void in his personal life. Gandhi’s beloved secretary Mahadev Desai – his ‘fifth son’ – had died an untimely death. Kasturba, too, had departed. Jawahar was there and so was Sardar. They were his very own. But they had started pulling away. It was one thing to say that such close personal bonds could not ‘break’ but quite another to stop cracks from surfacing in those bonds. The mutual affection that had tended to make Gandhi’s political wilderness somewhat bearable was, whether they liked it or not, somewhat drying up. Gandhi was being severely tested. He could not retain his equanimity and started harbouring a death wish. That, however, did not mean that he was completely broken. Even to his constant prayers for death he would add a little rider that if God had no further use for him then He should call him. Trapped as Gandhi was in utter despondency, the insertion of this ‘then’ in his prayers for death is telling. Towards the end of 1946, when Gandhi reached Noakhali to rid it of its ‘insanity’, he could not see any way ahead or any ray of light. So much so that even his belief in truth and ahimsa, which had been the pivot of his existence for 60 years, had begun to waver. He had then admitted that he could no longer discern in truth and ahimsa, the virtues that had been evident to him for 60 years. He was surrounded by an impenetrable darkness. Still, he had not conceded defeat. He had told renowned anthropologist Nirmal Kumar Bose, his secretary, interpreter and Bangla tutor in Noakhali, ‘I don’t want to die a failure but as a successful man. But it may be that I may die a failure.’3 What were Gandhi’s sorrows? A short and simple answer is to be found in an anguished counter-question from Gandhi: ‘Is there anything happening in India today which can make me happy?’4 The diary of Brij Krishna Chandiwala, who was tending to Gandhi during his last days, gives us an idea of the ordeal the old man was undergoing. Chandiwala writes: Gandhiji heard everything and saw everything. These horrific incidents broke his heart completely. There were no tears in his eyes; who all could he cry for? . . . On the outside he was calm and composed, but a fierce wildfire blazed within, reducing him to ashes by the moment. On every street and lane in the country he had seen the humiliation and buffeting suffered by his life companion, 45

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the principle of ahimsa on whose strength he had brought about India’s independence. People had thrown away the very ladder that had taken them to their final destination. He was repeatedly saying, ‘I do not want to stay alive to see this degradation.’ The will to ‘do or die’ had firmly settled in his heart. Nobody had the strength to understand the anguish in his heart. He laughed and played but a terrible fire smouldered within him. True, the wounded alone can feel the pain of the wounded. But there wasn’t anyone who was wounded like him, so who could possibly understand? Who had the capacity to feel his pain? Either he himself had the power to fathom his pain or his Rama whose virtuous name he intermittently took in a voice full of suffering.5 Every now and then Gandhi would break off from his refrain of ‘Hey Ram’ and mumble to himself, ‘What should I do! What should I do!’6 Even in 1946, when he was making every effort to restore peace in Noakhali, he had confided to Bose and written in his diary that his ‘body just gives way’.7 He also mentioned, ‘My thinking fails me.’8 Never before had his mind been so unsteady or hazy, he had admitted. He was overcome with a weariness of body and spirit. But this was the weariness of a body that was, nonetheless, tirelessly on the move from one village to another, one city to another, one region to another, eager to go and work in that part of the country which had now become a new nation. No matter how weary, the body was unflagging in its effort to rescue people from the all-pervading frenzy. This was the weariness of a spirit that, for all the haziness surrounding it, had grasped the dire nature of the all-pervading crisis far more acutely than others. And, precisely because of this profound grasp, that spirit had plunged into the Herculean effort to pluck the very root of the crisis while others were engaged in defusing the crisis somehow or other for the moment.

I Gandhi’s question ‘Is there anything happening in India today which can make me happy?’ reveals his sadness. A real sense of his sorrows emerges only after they are recounted at some length and, as far as possible, in his own words. Although they become clearer as our narrative advances, it would help to mention at the outset two facts linked to Gandhi’s sorrows. First, the ‘today’ that began to fill Gandhi with despair started with independence. Whatever had been accomplished over 30 years of struggle – all the ideals and dreams – appeared to have been laid to waste. Second, Gandhi’s sorrows were very different from the sorrows of common people. It is not that he was immune to the sorrows that affect 46

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common people. But he would not let himself be overwhelmed by them. Once in Calcutta, in the course of a conversation he remarked that the sorrows he had had to suffer were sufficient to make him contemplate suicide by drowning in the Hooghly, but his faith in God had kept him safe. The passing away of Mahadev Desai and Kasturba and the continued distancing from his near and dear ones were all part of Gandhi’s major ‘personal’ sorrows. But he kept them suppressed within. What he could not similarly suppress was the distress caused by his public sorrows. For Gandhi, who had erased the difference between ‘we’ and ‘they’, the sorrows of millions of people in India and Pakistan were his own sorrows. But those millions themselves were split into various smaller units right down to individuals. They saw little beyond their personal sufferings or those of their community. That is precisely why the countless Hindu and Sikh refugees in India who had to flee the areas that became part of Pakistan could abuse Gandhi to his face. They sputtered with rage that Gandhi was busy placating the Muslims and turning a blind eye to the calamity that had befallen them. Their personal suffering defined their world and determined their understanding of the entire world. Gandhi understood the respective sorrows of individuals, families and communities. But he also understood the monumental sorrow that was then emerging as a monstrous historical problem following the conflict among those smaller sorrows, making him anxious about the independence and future of both India and Pakistan.

II Gandhi’s biggest sorrow, the source of all his sorrows on the eve of independence, was the failure of ahimsa. Precisely when their 30-year-long satyagraha movement based on truth and ahimsa was bringing them independence, people were descending to savagery. How could satyagraha have brought forth such a fruit? In what depths had lain repressed such cruelty and violence? Gandhi immersed himself in deep thought. The answer he finally came up with is startling. It belies academic wisdom, collective memory and prevailing beliefs. Neither the academic world nor the lay mind has taken his answer seriously. We in India, and in the rest of the world to a great extent, still believe that by demonstrating, for the first time in human history, the success of a collective non-violent struggle, India has established an altogether novel possibility. The answer Gandhi found following profound reflection was this: what had all along been believed – by everybody – to be satyagraha was not satyagraha at all. A month before independence, Gandhi said: The struggle we waged over the last 30 years was not based on the strength of ahimsa. It was merely passive resistance and such resistance 47

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is a weapon of the weak. It is employed by those who just do not know the use of ahimsa, not that they don’t want to apply it. Had we possessed the courage to wage a non-violent struggle, and that requires the courage of the brave, then we would have shown the world an entirely different picture of independent India. What we are presenting today, however, is an India severed into two, where brother is ranged against brother, each without an iota of trust in the other.9 Gandhi appears to have been in a particularly irritable and melancholy mood at the time. It is evident in the way he began his discourse: ‘It is being said that my utterances these days are such that they give rise to despair. Some people even say that I should not speak at all.’10 In the same context, asking if he should abandon all hope of people ever listening to him, he said: ‘Those who do not want to listen to me and carp at me without being affected themselves, why should they stop me from speaking?’11 Insisting that ‘I don’t speak just for the sake of it’, Gandhi stated, ‘I speak because I think I have a message worth giving to people.’12 It was imperative for him to speak out also for the reason that his message was becoming increasingly different from that of others. In the same discourse he admitted as much: It is true that I and my close friends have a difference of opinion on some things. I do not concur with the hawkish statements that they have made or continue to make. But to be in Delhi and not speak my mind on the prevailing state of affairs is impossible.13 Feeling not just alone but also unwanted, Gandhi was apparently battling against a bitterness within, which was contrary to his nature. From the time he had entered public life in South Africa, he had never given the impression or perhaps even felt that people were being dishonest with him or were using him for their ends. But this time something like a feeling that his own people had deceived him had started nagging him. Obviously, a feeling of this kind, especially since he was at pains not to encourage it, was not going to surface easily in his speeches or his writings. In spite of that, if he betrayed such an emotion in a public statement, one can sense something of the depth of his anguish. One such rare instance is to be found in a prayer discourse in June 1947. Always one for a straight and simple mode of communication, Gandhi spoke almost reproachfully that day: There was a time when everyone believed in Gandhi because Gandhi showed them the way to combat the British. How many Britishers at that? Just 75,000. But such was their wherewithal and power that, in the words of Annie Besant, they replied to brickbats with bullets. At that time the purpose seemed more achievable through 48

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ahimsa, so Gandhi was much in demand. However, today people say, Gandhi cannot show us the way anymore, so we should take up arms to protect ourselves. . . . No one had taught us how to make the atom bomb then. If we had possessed that knowledge then we would have seriously considered obliterating the British with it. But since no such option was available, I was accepted and my authority prevailed.14 A month later, Gandhi expressed the same sentiments with a great deal of moderation: Ahimsa is a creed for me; it has never been a creed for the Congress. The Congress accepted it merely in the form of a policy. A policy remains a creed only for such time as it is followed, not beyond that. The Congress has every right to alter its policy when it is no longer needed. But a creed is another matter altogether. It is eternal. It can never change.15 How hurt Gandhi felt at a personal level is not the significant issue here. What is significant is the human–historical process, of which Gandhi became aware through his realisation that the movement led by him was never the satyagraha he had believed it to be. It took him a while to comprehend this process. From the time of Noakhali in October–November 1946, he had been troubled by the question as to how ahimsa could have resulted in violence. Gradually he began to realise that what he had considered to be ahimsa did not conform to the meaning he had accorded to that term and to satyagraha. It took him a little longer to realise that there was a causal relationship between the illusory ahimsa which had held sway for 30 years and the violence that erupted simultaneously thereafter. It was a subject he repeatedly touched upon in the months of June and July 1947. He reiterated the idea with greater clarity on another occasion: I have accepted that our ahimsa was the ahimsa of the weak. In truth, there cannot ever be any connection between the weak and ahimsa. Hence we should call it passive resistance instead of ahimsa. However, the ahimsa I had initiated was not for the weak, whereas passive resistance is for the weak. . . . Besides, passive resistance is a preparation for active and armed resistance. As a result, the violence that had occupied people’s hearts poured out all of a sudden.16 To this Gandhi added another important insight: Even the violence that is being witnessed today is the violence of the impotent. There is also the violence of the brave. Assume that four 49

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or five men armed with swords die fighting to the end. Certainly, there is violence in that act, but it is the violence of the brave. When ten or twelve thousand armed men attack a village and cut down unarmed people, including women and children, that is the violence of the impotent. America’s atom bomb on the one hand and all of Japan on the other – that was the violence of the impotent.17 One day he managed to articulate the realisation with great clarity: But now, after 32 years, my eyes have been opened. I can see that what passed for ahimsa all these years was not ahimsa; rather, it was passive resistance. Passive resistance is employed by one who is without a weapon. We were non-violent on account of our helplessness, but our hearts were filled with violence. Now when the British are withdrawing, we are expending that violence by fighting amongst one another.18 Freud has spoken about the ‘revenge of the repressed’. Gandhi, without having read Freud, was filled with a sense of foreboding at the terrifying manner in which the violence repressed for long years in people’s hearts could boil over. The most important task in that moment of crisis, according to him, was to put a stop to that violence. For him, however, stopping the violence did not mean the use of force by the army and the police to compel people to maintain peace. For, then, violence would simply keep smouldering within people’s hearts and burst forth at the first opportunity. Gandhi knew of only one effective method to control violence. That was to change people’s way of thinking. To make them understand that violence in reality could not solve any of their problems. He said: Both Hindus and Muslims are intent on behaving like animals. Is there no way out of this? There is a way indeed. The only straight way to get out of this is that one of them stops being an animal.19 Gandhi was also aware that it was not possible to change people through mere talk. Going in their midst and demonstrating by personal example the truth of one’s words was equally necessary. This was why, as soon as he received news of the violence in Noakhali in October 1946, Gandhi made up his mind to go there to bring about peace between Hindus and Muslims. In Noakhali, located in East Bengal (now Bangladesh), Hindus comprised 18 per cent of the population at the time. Bengal was under a Muslim League government headed by Suhrawardy. Not even two months had passed since Direct Action Day on 16 August when there was a terrible outburst of communal violence in Calcutta. It was with the idea of forcing acceptance of its demand for Pakistan that the 50

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Muslim League had organised Direct Action Day and Suhrawardy’s government was determined to make a success of it. The Calcutta violence had been initiated by the Muslims, and seeing no protection forthcoming from the government, the Hindus too had, in a matter of hours, stepped out to retaliate. That violence was remorseless. Subsequently, on 10 October, the day of Lakshmi Puja, Muslims in Noakhali launched brutal attacks on the Hindus at several places. For days not a shred of information about this violence was allowed to reach the world. The moment Gandhi came to know about it (on 17 October), he decided to go to Noakhali. He was quick to grasp that if communal violence of this nature was not brought under control in time, the entire country would move towards destruction. How swiftly Gandhi applied himself to resolving this problem is evident from the fact that he reached Calcutta within 12 days of getting the news and started preparing for his campaign in Noakhali. Although the Hindus had lost all faith in Suhrawardy’s impartiality following the violence in Calcutta, Gandhi did not want to start his task on a note of mistrust. He believed that since Suhrawardy was the leader of a party elected by the people of Bengal and the prime minister of the region, he – Gandhi – was duty bound to try and take Suhrawardy along on his mission to start the work of restoring peace. Only when Suhrawardy was later found to be muddying the waters would Gandhi part ways with him and work on his own. How honest and transparent Gandhi’s method of working was can be ascertained from his conversation with the British governor of Bengal immediately upon his arrival in Calcutta. The governor especially sent for Gandhi and after the initial courtesies asked what he – the governor – could do to help establish peace in Bengal. Gandhi’s straight reply was ‘nothing’. Restoring peace, he reasoned, was the work of the government duly elected by the people. The only obligation the British had was to return to their country at the earliest. Even if the use of the army was necessary to establish peace, that decision was for Suhrawardy and his government to make, not the governor or any senior army official. During the eight days that Gandhi spent in Calcutta after reaching there on 29 October, one big task was to persuade Suhrawardy to issue a joint appeal asking people to maintain amity and fraternal relations. If nothing else, at least from a moral standpoint, and to some extent for its psychological impact, such an appeal was of significance. Whatever the perceptions about Suhrawardy on the part of the Hindus and Sikhs after the August violence, he was now joining Gandhi in appealing to everybody to end communal rancour and declaring that Gandhi would be given every possible help by the government to bring about peace in Noakhali. What Gandhi sought to accomplish by taking Suhrawardy along was not to be, not because Suhrawardy was untrustworthy and betrayed Gandhi. Rather, following the spread of violence elsewhere in the wake of Noakhali, 51

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for a partisan leader with narrow political ambitions – like Suhrawardy – it was virtually impossible to implicitly trust one like Gandhi and stand by him. As soon as Gandhi had received the news about Noakhali, he was seized with apprehension that insulating the rest of the country from the events in Noakhali and Bengal would be difficult. He was in Calcutta preparing for the journey to Noakhali when the virulent communal violence that he had feared broke out in Bihar. Muslims were killed to avenge the Hindus of Noakhali. Bihar was being administered by a Congress government, and it was being said among the Muslims that the government had a hand in the terrifying violence. Here the question is not of historical veracity. The question, if at all, has to do with the belief of many Muslims that the violence in Bihar – 50,000 Muslims were said to have been killed by the first week of November 1946 – was the handiwork of the Congress government. Today, after studying official documents, historians may set the record straight by pointing out that the number of people killed was less than 10,000. But that does not render ahistorical the popular belief that both Gandhi and Suhrawardy were confronted with. By rising above the communal divide, Gandhi wanted to halt the frenzy of the action–reaction cycle and the increasingly terrifying danger posed by the collision of mutually deepening mistrust. But in the circumstances prevailing in 1946, it was simply not possible for Suhrawardy and many more Muslims to see Hindus and Muslims in the same light and to understand that the purpose of Gandhi’s journey to Noakhali was not to save the Hindus alone. Hence the feeling among many Muslims that instead of carrying out his mission in Noakhali, Gandhi ought to go to Bihar and save the Muslims there. Even Suhrawardy could not rise above this reasoning. Initially with circumspection and soon openly, he started exhorting Gandhi to leave for Bihar. As soon as Gandhi reached Noakhali, it started becoming evident that the assistance expected from Suhrawardy and his government was not forthcoming. Regardless, Gandhi had to do his work because of his twin convictions that if he succeeded in Noakhali it would become easier to maintain calm in the country and that his influence over the Congress would work to save Muslims in Bihar. Therefore, he issued a public appeal to the people of Bihar: Though Bihar calls me, I must not interrupt my programme for Noakhali. And is counter-communalism any answer to the communalism of which Congressmen have accused the Muslim League? Is it Nationalism to seek barbarously to crush the 14 per cent of the Muslims in Bihar?20 Gandhi did not limit his appeal to people’s good sense alone – good sense as Indian nationalists. He attempted to awaken their humane emotions as 52

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well. Chiefly for reasons of health he had reduced his daily diet for a few days after reaching Calcutta. But then he announced that as a penance for the Bihar tragedy, his reduced diet would continue as a daily partial fast for an indefinite period. He also let it be known that if the people of Bihar did not come to their senses, his partial fast would get converted into a fast unto death. The Muslims, Gandhi knew and said with sorrow, did not trust him; they considered him their enemy. But the Hindus in large numbers still had faith in and affection for him. Surely they would at least feel a twinge of distress to see Gandhi get by on a half-empty stomach. Gandhi wandered the villages of Noakhali without any respite – on foot and absolutely alone. He made his way along the edges of fields and crossed narrow, rickety, wooden bridges. He walked barefoot on paths which those who considered him their enemy – the Muslims – covered with thorns and glass shards – never on a full stomach. There was no effect on his very people, whose conscience Gandhi’s partial fast had sought to awaken. We may never know how Gandhi felt about it, but we certainly can wonder what it is about human nature that so much can leave it untouched. This is not a question of mere sentimentalism. As will become clear later, the question is linked to human sagacity and, consequently, to human destiny. Foreseeing that ‘the future looks ominous to me; I tremble even to say it’,21 Gandhi was trying to save the country from that eventuality by awakening people’s sensibilities. He was trying to shake up their minds. Failing in that – as we shall see in the next chapter – he felt compelled, more than once, to put at stake the moral capital he had earned over the years – the Mahatma’s life. His stress all the time was on awakening people’s good sense. Even that, due to his or his country’s misfortune, would get reduced to a mere cry in the wilderness. For instance, when violence broke out in Bihar, he said: The Congress belongs to the people, the Muslim League belongs to our Muslim brothers and sisters. If Congressmen fail to protect the Mussalmans where the Congress is in power, then what is the use of a Congress Premier? Similarly, if in a League province the League Premier cannot afford protection to the Hindus, then why is the League Premier there at all? If either of them have to take the aid of the military in order to protect the Muslim or Hindu minorities in their respective provinces, then it only means that none of them actually exercises any control over the general population when a momentous crisis comes.22 Here Gandhi was pointing to the essence of democratic existence in general, not offering any exegesis of ahimsa. He was simply showing that if 53

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a government chosen by the people has to resort to armed force for maintaining peace, then that democracy is meaningless. There will be more on this topic in the next chapter. But alert readers will have already seen that compared with Gandhi’s idea of real democracy, which he could invoke even in the midst of virtual anarchy, we have, in the 70 years of our independent democratic existence, become inured to the use of physical force – the routine deployment of the police, the army and the ever-proliferating paramilitary forces – for maintaining peace and order. What kind of democracy have we learnt to take as normal? Gandhi stayed in Noakhali for four months. He persisted with his unique experiment there: he would go in the midst of people and reason with them and create such circumstances that would prompt Hindus and Muslims to begin living on good terms with each other once again. However, the situation in Bihar compelled him to leave Noakhali. Neither staying on in Noakhali nor observing the partial fast helped him bring Bihar back to normal. Even so, he had not lost all hope. But when a much-respected Congress leader like Dr. Syed Mahmud also pressed for his presence in Bihar, Gandhi set forth from Noakhali and reached Patna on 5 March 1947. However, he did not abandon Noakhali. He left behind a team of capable and trusted associates to continue the peace mission there. After five-and-a-half months, when the country was preparing to celebrate independence, once again Gandhi left Delhi for Noakhali. But he was held back in Calcutta. There was unrest in the city, and the Muslims were in danger. The same Suhrawardy, who, as Bengal’s prime minister, barely five months ago, had publicly taunted Gandhi that he was staying on in Noakhali because of his partiality for the Hindus as opposed to the Muslims, was now pleading with Gandhi to establish peace on a firm footing in Calcutta before resuming his journey to Noakhali. Gandhi did bring about peace in Calcutta and in the process even gambled on his life. Still, the journey ahead to Noakhali could not be accomplished. Going to Punjab assumed greater urgency. Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru had sent a telegram calling him back. Wherever the government failed in spite of the presence of its police and army, Gandhi’s presence was needed. Where all could he have gone and worked personally? Times and the people had so changed that the same Gandhi whose words had once worked like magic was reduced to running from one place to another. To be effective, he now needed to be physically present in a place. Towards the very end, even the effect of his physical presence began to wane. This was no small sorrow for Gandhi.

III Linked to this was the question of Pakistan. It was an issue on which Gandhi was neither understood nor followed at the time and about which people labour under a misconception to this day. It has been 70  years since 54

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the partition of the country. In the intervening period there has been one more partition – the creation of Bangladesh – and 40 years have passed since then too. Even now the situation cannot be described as stable. Somewhere or other, more partitions are being demanded with greater or lesser intensity. The question of national integrity or diversity, consequently, stirs up passions among people even today – whether in India, Pakistan or Bangladesh – rendering them virtually incapable of any impartial and serious reflection on this subject. Gandhi remained opposed to Partition till the last moment. Whatever else we may or may not know or remember about his stance on the issue of Partition, we cannot forget his statement that the country’s division would take place over his dead body. Moreover, our inability to forget that statement is accompanied by a certain feeling of betrayal. What worshipper of truth was Gandhi with his constant invocation of Rama – ‘you may give up your life but not your word’ – that he forgot his Herculean pledge? Had he sat on a fast unto death, couldn’t Partition have been averted? Even if it were not averted, at least a Herculean effort would have been made to save the country’s integrity. This feeling of betrayal becomes so overwhelming that Gandhi is held responsible for the country’s partition. Beyond this, there is nothing left to know. Why did he not undertake one last, do-or-die fast unto death? The question is lost in the unease created over a sacrifice that did not happen and becomes the answer as well. Gandhi himself raised this question and provided a lengthy explanation. Not only in words but also through so much that he did during whatever remained of his lifetime. On 3 June – two-and-a-half months before independence – the Congress formally accepted the Partition Plan knowing fully well that Gandhi was against it. The very next day, during his prayer discourse, Gandhi extended his support to the decision. In the same breath he added that he himself considered this decision to be wrong. Another important point he made was that if at some point everybody realised that this decision was wrong, then together they could change it. ‘I cannot say,’ he remarked about the creation of Pakistan, ‘that it has been well thought out.’23 But: We have no desire to force anybody. We made many attempts, tried to persuade them, but they just did not come to the Constituent Assembly; further the Leaguers kept saying, the fear of a Hindu majority holds us back. . . . I will say this, their demand for Pakistan was wrong; but they are unable to think of anything else. They say, we cannot live where the Hindus are in a majority. It is they who stand to lose and I pray to God to save them in good time from any damaging consequences.24 55

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Lest his statement be taken to mean that the fault lay only with the Muslims, Gandhi found it necessary to add the following: Let us understand that every human – Hindu, Sikh or Muslim – is full of faults. One can say that the Muslims have made a huge mistake but on what basis can we call ourselves blameless? It would be better if we left it to God to judge.25 He also stated that while the initial push for Partition may have come from the League and Muslims, Hindus and Sikhs could not absolve themselves of the responsibility for the creation of Pakistan: You demanded it and you have been granted it. The Congress did not ask for it. I wasn’t even here. But the Congress can read the minds of the people. It came to know that the Khalsa and the Hindus want it as well.26 Gandhi was not saying all this to prove the Congress right. The decision on the creation of Pakistan was still wrong in his eyes. But then, to think like Gandhi seemed increasingly impractical. As he explained his point of view that day: I had already said, you need not worry about anarchy. For, ultimately, I am a gambler. But who listens to me? You don’t listen to me; the Muslims have deserted me; what’s more, I cannot even get the Congress to fully agree with me.27 ‘But now that this decision has been made, should I issue a call for all of us to rebel against the Congress? Or should I tell the Viceroy to step in?’28 The only one alternative left now, according to Gandhi, was ‘let us accept what has come to pass. The beauty of it is that we can undo it whenever we want.’29 At the end of his prayer discourse, Gandhi said: I request Jinnah Sahib, entreat him, to talk to us directly at least now. What is done is done but from here on let us act in concert. Forget the Viceroy now and invite us for any settlement that needs to be made so that it is for the good of all.30 Not just of one side, ‘the good of all’ was what Gandhi desired. He had risen above the difference of ‘we’ and ‘they’ and the insularity it bred. He could see that ‘the good of all’, in the context of the approaching Partition, was essential not only from a moral perspective but also for each one’s selfinterest. Only by acting in unison and letting go of their mutual distrust and enmity could both countries guard their self-interest. 56

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What Gandhi said following the official acceptance of the Partition Plan was of a piece with all that he had been saying earlier on the subject. For instance, in early May, when the Congress had virtually made up its mind but was yet to formally announce it, Gandhi said: Jinnah Sahib wants Pakistan. The Congress too has decided to accept the demand for Pakistan. . . . But under no circumstances can I give my approval to Pakistan. The very idea of the country being cut up is unbearable. Many such things are happening around me that I simply cannot bear. Even so they do not stop. They continue to happen. But when I say that I cannot bear it I mean that I do not want to be involved in it; that is, on this issue I will not be swayed by them. . . . I cannot speak as the representative of any one side. I represent everybody. My attempt is to be a trustee of all the Hindus, Muslims, Sikhs, Parsis, Jains and Christians living in India. I want to be their trustee even if I have not become that as yet, or am not qualified for that. I can, therefore, have no hand whatsoever in the making of Pakistan.31 Having opposed Partition in such an unambiguous and forceful manner, saying that ‘[w]e will have to live together’, Gandhi added in the same statement: ‘Even for living together, you should not use force to compel anybody.’32 Because, as Gandhi had already said a month ago: If we do not maintain peace and try to keep the country united through force, then the idea of Pakistan will occupy our hearts. Further, when the idea of Pakistan occupies our hearts and we are not prepared to live with our brothers under any circumstances, be warned, India will not survive as an independent nation.33 What Gandhi said immediately after this is worthy of mention: ‘Yes, there is a way in which Pakistan can be life-affirming.’ And right after this sentence he asked, ‘But where is the need for pistols, spears and swords for that?’34 If brute force was used, ‘such a fire will spread in all four directions that we will all be reduced to ashes; no one will survive. Unbridled looting and arson will only spread more destruction in the country’.35 Reminding people of the Mahabharata, Gandhi warned that there would be no victors in this war between brothers: [T]he Pandavas emerged victorious only to taste defeat; scarcely a few survived to hear the tales of war exploits. Eventually, their lives became so grating that they were compelled to retire to the Himalayas in their heavenward quest. The same state of affairs prevails in our country today.36 57

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Even now it seems as if a similar situation prevails – within India and Pakistan and between them as well. Whereas, morality apart, it would still be in the interests of both countries to act upon Gandhi’s statement of early April: A life-affirming India would be one which is not of the Hindus alone; it would belong as much to the Muslims, Parsis, Christians, and Sikhs. Similarly, a life-affirming Pakistan would have a place for people of all communities, and there would be no rancour towards anybody.37 Even before accepting – on 4 June – the creation of Pakistan, in the course of forcefully opposing it, Gandhi had said enough in clear terms that it should not even have caused astonishment, let alone a feeling of betrayal, that he had accepted the decision of the Congress so easily. But there was astonishment. For that matter, Nehru and Patel too were anxious to know how, during his meeting with the viceroy, Gandhi would respond on the issue of Pakistan. Gandhi’s acceptance was a huge relief for those who had already made the decision on Pakistan’s creation. Reactions of betrayal were equally forthwith. From 4 June itself hostile messages started streaming in. Referring to one such telegram in his prayer discourse, Gandhi recounted the question he had been asked: For four or five days you made such tall statements that we do not wish to give even an inch of land to Pakistan under compulsion though they may take what they want by wisely appealing to our hearts. Now that Pakistan has become a reality why don’t you go on a fast against it?38 ‘And they ask’, continued Gandhi: why did you say such things then and why have you lost your nerve now? Why don’t you rebel against the Congress, why are you being its slave? How can you remain its servant? Why don’t you undertake a fast unto death and die?39 Obviously, Gandhi was not reading out the messages verbatim. But what he was saying expressed the stridency of people’s reactions accurately. No spice was added to this piece of reporting. Gandhi understood the anger that lay behind such tirades. He also tried to counsel: ‘To get angry is to become a little mad. As the English quote goes, “Anger is a short madness,” and it has been said in the Gita too that anger entices, and that leads to loss of memory.’40 Then he said: How can I undertake a fast at somebody’s insistence? I do believe there is one more fast written in my fate in this lifetime. From the 58

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time of my fast at the Aga Khan palace I have had a strong feeling that it was not my ultimate fast; that I shall have to undertake one more fast. But I will not do it at just anybody’s behest. I will do so when God commands.41 Gandhi did not know at the time of saying this how much longer he was ordained to live. Had he known that he was left with just nine more months, would he still have made such a confident claim about one more fast? We know what actually happened. In that short span of nine months he went on a fast unto death not once but twice. Let us not look that far now. For the moment, suffice it to say that if Gandhi did not undertake a fast against the creation of Pakistan, it was not out of an attachment to life. He had by that time perfectly understood the meaning of his own statement, ‘Learn how to die for only then will you live.’42 Gandhi’s next few words give a fairly good idea of his thought process and the way his God was speaking to him at the time: I have stated that I have become Jinnah Sahib’s witness. He wants peace in the country; so do I. Nonetheless, if riots continue unabated in place after place, creating upheavals across the country, and God, that is, my heart tells me that you must leave the world, then that is precisely what I shall do.43 That is, if the creation of Pakistan leads to peace and Pakistan, too, feels bound to follow the principles of justice and equality, then making a success of Partition is, for Gandhi, his bounden duty. He said: I am pleased with Jinnah Sahib’s statement that Pakistan will belong to the people, not to the rulers and that the minorities will also be treated as equals. To his statement I would like to add that he should also do as he says. Let him explain this to his supporters too and tell them to forget all talk of hostility now.44 Gandhi touched the heart of the matter when he said, ‘[F]orget all talk of hostility now.’ Lest this fundamental concern, like his principles that were considered too airy-fairy even during his lifetime, be cast to the wind, Gandhi added a simple question: ‘Has the partition been done to become friends or to become enemies?’45 What an irony that Gandhi, who still considered Partition to be wrong, was being harangued to go on a fast unto death by self-styled supporters of the country’s integrity and abused for not doing so, whereas he himself was now stressing the need to make a success of Partition. He was trying to explain that when, as a last ditch attempt to prevent internecine conflict, Partition had been accepted, there was only one thing left to do. Partition must be brought into force 59

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in such a way that it fully achieved its purpose. If this was not done, the battle lines would be drawn in a manner reminiscent of the Mahabharata. Everybody would be destroyed if the talk of enmity continued. There would be no victors. With regard to the propriety of his decision not to fast, Gandhi said further: If the Congress descends to madness should I also indulge in madness? Do I have to die to prove that my point of view alone is right? I want to shake up your minds as well as the minds of the Congress, the Muslims and my friend Jinnah Sahib, and win over their hearts.46 Gandhi, who considered himself an acharya (master) of ahimsa, had earlier stated that if ‘my heart tells me that you must leave the world, then that is precisely what I shall do’. Now he made his position even clearer: A fast can be satanic as well. May God keep me safe from such a satanic fast as well as from satanic acts, satanic utterances and satanic thoughts. Better that He summon me before I succumb. Any fast that I undertake will be pure and ordained, whenever that will be.47 Practice and principle had so come together as to impel Gandhi to drop his opposition to Partition. That opposition had been inspired by the belief that it would benefit nobody, not even the Muslims. He had also then believed that the people of the country too were opposed to Partition. His first belief remained intact but the other was shattered. One day in June, in his written message he said: These days I get a lot of letters attacking me. A friend writes, your statement that cutting up India would be like cutting up your body sounds so hollow today, and he urges me to oppose the country’s partition. I do not see how I am to be faulted for it. When I said that India should not be divided I was confident that public opinion was with me. But when public opinion is not with me, should I force my opinion down the throats of people? I have also said several times that one should never compromise with untruth and evil, and I can say this with complete confidence today that if all non-Muslims were with me, I would not allow India to be divided. However, today I must accept that public opinion is not with me and hence I should step back and remain in the background.48

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In connection with this Gandhi drew attention to an extremely significant distinction: Those who urge me to oppose the creation of Pakistan have nothing in common with me except that the country’s partition is unacceptable to both of us. However, there is a basic difference between their opposition and mine. How can love and enmity come together?49 How can love and enmity come together! This was not merely a moral question of synchronisation of ends and means. That is to say, does a good end – the goal of an undivided country as seen from a particular perspective – justify the use of wrong means such as enmity and brute force? It was also a plain practical question. Why would coercion – even if it were the moral coercion of a fast unto death – accomplish the end of keeping the country undivided? Would it not, in reality, prove suicidal? The basis for a fundamental distinction between love and hatred was clear. The one speaking of love would say: our territory has been torn into two but why break heads over it? He would want to save the hearts from getting divided. Those filled with enmity were obsessed with territorial integrity for which they were ready to sacrifice even Gandhi. People who still hold Gandhi responsible for Partition must consider this distinction. Gandhi’s acute grasp of the workable possibilities of his time was matched by few, if any. His was a genius that discovered, invented possibilities which in the moment of discovery seemed quixotic to most – a genius that also understood the limits of those possibilities even as others believed their potential to be limitless. This is best exemplified in Gandhi’s recognition of not just the futility but also the suicidal nature of a fast unto death against the country’s partition. Those who, presuming their historical conjectures to be infallible, continue to blame Gandhi for the country’s partition must, at the very least, reflect with an open mind on Gandhi’s words and deeds during that time. They must ponder whether Gandhi was wrong to believe, ‘We cannot escape Partition today, no matter how averse we are to it.’50 Are they right in their assumption that Gandhi could have averted Partition by sitting on a fast unto death or should have gone on a fast unto death even if Partition could not have been averted. Was Gandhi’s argument about brute force leading to adverse consequences wrong as well? The truth is that Gandhi submitted to Partition, but he did not accept it. As soon as he felt the creation of Pakistan was certain, his practical genius was quick to grasp that there was only one prudent alternative before them, namely get down to averting a division of hearts following the division of geography. Gandhi got down to preventing, or at least minimising, the other division – in word and deed.

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His deeds follow in the next chapter; the focus here is on his words. The purpose of averting a division of hearts was to virtually nullify the geographic-cum-political partition on a human and practical level. Just as Gandhi understood that the idea of Pakistan would remain lodged in people’s hearts if the country was forcibly kept undivided, he also sensed the possibility of ensuring unity through judicious handling even after Partition. Three days after agreeing to the Partition Plan Gandhi said: It is in our hands whether we destroy or build India and Pakistan, or whatever you may call them. . . . Now it is the duty of the Congress to leave the territory that comes under Pakistan and mould the part remaining with India into the finest, and the supporters of Pakistan should vie with the Congress to make their country even better. Then the two come together and we can live in peace.51 Expressing the same idea a little differently a couple of days later, he said: I now take it that India has been divided and the Congress has accepted it out of compulsion. But if the division of India is something about which we can’t be happy, why should we be sad either? We must not let our hearts be divided. We must save our hearts from being shattered. Or else Jinnah Sahib’s assertion that we are two nations will be proved right. . . . We will become truthful, we will become servants of God and if necessary, we will even give up our lives. Once this is accomplished, India and Pakistan will not remain separate entities any longer; the artificial division will be rendered meaningless. But if we fight, the accusation that we are two nations will be proved right. Hence let us pray to God that even though India and Pakistan have become separate countries, our hearts should not be separated.52 Further, a week after agreeing to the Partition Plan, he said: Our territory may have been divided, but if our hearts are not divided, we must not grieve; for as long as our hearts are not divided, it is alright. After that it doesn’t matter whether the country gets divided into Pakistan or India. We are going to be one. It is not that they will come towards us out of weariness or in distress. Our conduct will be such that even if they so desire, they will not be able to stay apart from us.53 Gandhi who had already spoken about a life-affirming Pakistan – in principle, Jinnah too had proclaimed the equality of all Pakistani citizens – said he wished for a Pakistan where the Bhagavad Gita could be regularly recited 62

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alongside the Koran; the temple and gurudwara (the Sikh place of worship) would be accorded the same respect as the mosque so that those who continued to be opposed to Pakistan would rue their mistake and have nothing but appreciation for Pakistan as a superior nation.54 Seeking to convey his message of averting Partition in spite of Partition, Gandhi also employed a reasoning that drew directly from their everyday experience. He said: ‘When division between brothers becomes a certainty, it cannot be accomplished by taking offence or getting irritated.’55 Hence, everybody should keep ‘faith in their hearts’ that ‘we may be separating but that separation is of brothers from the same family, and we will continue to be friends’.56 It is not as if with his emphasis on averting a division of hearts Gandhi had upturned the normal connection between cause and effect – that he was under the impression that the division of people’s hearts would begin after the territorial division. It was with a sharp eye on reality that Gandhi made his decisions and defined his views. As for how the hearts were connected with the country’s partition, Gandhi knew and could tell the people, ‘Our hearts have broken apart and that is why our territory too has been divided.’57 Their breaking or division comprised one aspect of the reality of hearts, not their entire reality. The very hearts that were divided were united as well. Within themselves the hearts were in a divided state: complex, unsettled and changeable. Through understanding, sympathy and patience, and by keeping a check on one’s angry heart, one could calm those frenzied hearts. Today it is not difficult for us to grasp that the hearts of even the most ardent supporters of Partition were divided within. The desire for Pakistan had its place, but the sharp pangs of separation from one’s home and land were not obliterated by that desire. Even during times of mutual conflict or boiling rancour caused by incidents of terrorism, common folk still feel – just as in the past – a bonding across borders. In today’s relatively restrained atmosphere we can see that even during that period of frenzy and barbarity, people’s hearts were not entirely swept away in just one direction. Emotions capable of steering them in the opposite direction also resided in the selfsame hearts. However, despite grasping this, reading Gandhi’s utterances of the time leaves us with a sense of the futility of his words. There is also a sense of bafflement. What effect could such utterances have had at a time like that? What did Gandhi think he could achieve by saying all this? This bafflement is natural. But would it be just as natural if this bafflement is not accompanied by a sense of wonderment as to ‘what was it about this man that he could transcend all social, religious and historical divides and preserve his humanity even during such a fearsome time’? Should the absence of such wonderment not cause alarm? 63

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Anyway, whatever we may think about our way of thinking, Gandhi was saying what he was shorn of any complacency. He knew he was utterly alone – that his way of thinking appeared foolish to people. Despite his growing helplessness, however, he couldn’t say or do something that was wrong in his eyes. He could put forth only what was right according to him. And while saying all that, he would add: ‘What is right for me is right for everybody.’58 Gandhi had a firm grip on reality. But even if he had harboured illusions about himself, there were people ready to disabuse him. For instance, one day he stated: I get so many letters throwing all kinds of barbs at me. Somebody writes, you have destroyed the Hindus. You constantly placate the Muslims, etc. I don’t take these abuses to heart. I do not placate anybody; if at all I placate anyone, it is God. Besides, what is the need to placate Him for we are his servants, we are His devotees. He is not swayed by anybody’s flattery because He is omnipotent. In any case, what is the use of my raging against these letters? After all, what is my fault? All I say is that no individual can save his religion by becoming a sinner, through deceit or by oppressing others. This applies to Hindus as well as Muslims.59 Here the manner in which Gandhi is emphasising religion should not be construed as an irrational construct of his mind but should be seen in the historical context of its time. Gandhi personally may have considered religion that transcended institutionalised religions as a way of life, but at this juncture his emphasis on religion was more in response to those who were playing politics in its guise. Seen in this context, a context which has become more widespread today, the meaning of Gandhi’s utterances emerges clearer. ‘Religion can only be saved through religion.’60 This is what Gandhi asked of the Hindus, Muslims and everybody. Since he felt that whatever possibility – or the greatest possibility – of his message being heard was in India and that despite the formation of Pakistan, the real onus for creating circumstances that would stop the division of hearts rested solely on the Hindus, Gandhi said: ‘People continue to make loud threats that they will teach Muslims a lesson. This way we ourselves end up justifying the case for Pakistan.’61 To this Gandhi also added a significant aphorism: ‘None but a Hindu can destroy Hindus.’62 Is this mere rhetoric or also true pragmatism? Granted, Gandhi was an exceptional man. He was not boasting but stating the bare truth when he said, ‘If there is Hindu-Muslim unity today, it is in my heart.’63 Only one with such a heart could ask with true anguish: ‘Because our territory has been partitioned should we also break apart?’64 He alone could have thought: I don’t think of Pakistan and India as separate countries. If I have to go to Punjab I will not seek a passport for it. I will go to Sindh the 64

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same way and I will go on foot. No one can stop me. They might say I am their enemy but when I go it will not be with the aim of becoming a member of some Assembly, but to serve. This wouldn’t be the first time in my life either. I did go to Noakhali, and let no one assume that I would not go there again because it will soon become a part of Islamistan. My heart lies there. I will go there and tell the Hindus: If you are true Hindus, fear no one, no matter how many killers roam around.65 What he could see and grasp, and the course of action he proposed, constituted the only way of really achieving the purpose for which the country’s partition had been agreed to. Whatever else it may have been, Gandhi’s was the voice of practical wisdom. Gandhi knew and could say ruefully à la Ghalib: ‘Ahimsa is not some turmeric or pepper that can be bought in the market.’66 In his last days, he had abandoned – except from himself – all expectations that people would abide by ahimsa. His sole expectation now was that an orderly civic existence be maintained. Even if people no longer had any use for his ahimsa, daily civic existence could not proceed without giving up violence and the cycle of retaliation: ‘I say this, kill a 100 instead of 10 to avenge one, still there will be no peace.’67 And without peace, how could there be normal life? This was no heavy-duty principle or unattainable ideal that Gandhi was foisting on the people. It had everything to do with instinctive knowledge and common sense. A month after the attainment of independence, he said: I can readily understand your anger and the impatience arising from it. But if you wish to become worthy of the independence you have gained, you will have to subdue your anger and trust your government to do its utmost to secure justice for you. I am not proposing the path of ahimsa, although I would very much like to. But I know that there are no takers for my message of ahimsa today. This is why I have urged that you adopt the path followed by all countries with democratic governments. . . . The state governs by the people, for the people. If every person were to take law into his hands, the very existence of the state would be endangered. There would be complete anarchy, which means the destruction of the social order and the very identity of the state. It is a sure way of destroying our freedom. . . . I am confident if you let the government do its work there is no doubt whatsoever that every Hindu and Sikh refugee would be able to return home with his dignity and honour intact. I accept that you have had to suffer terrible atrocities in Pakistan. . . . But you cannot hope for these things to happen if you want your Muslim brothers and sisters to be turned out of India. . . . You cannot get justice by being unjust to Muslims. That apart, if it is true that the minorities in 65

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Pakistan, i.e., Hindus and Sikhs, are treated very badly, it is equally true that the minorities, i.e., Muslims, in East Punjab have also been treated badly. . . . A common way for both states to arrive at a proper settlement is that both parties acknowledge their fault with all sincerity and conclude a mutual agreement. If they are unable to reach an agreement then as per universal practice they can take recourse to a settlement through arbitration. Other than this, there is the savage way of war; I find the very thought of war abhorrent.68 This was the counsel of one whose prescience had made him anxious about the future – one freed of the distinctions of ‘we’ and ‘they’ and working for the well-being of all, struggling to devise ways for stopping people from destroying themselves. What he could see ahead were the consequences that would follow if his message was ignored. So he cautioned: The object of our present-day methods seems to be to expand our armed forces. Both countries will feel bound to expand their armies. Any such increase on one side will prompt a similar action on the other side. The Pakistanis will say, we have to expand our army to defend ourselves against the Indians because we do not have their strength of numbers. The Indians too will talk in a similar vein. The end result will be war.69 And added the following: Will we spend our money on education or expend crores of rupees on matchstick and gunpowder and thereafter on cannons and guns? And then educate our youth accordingly?70 Gandhi, who stopped at guns and cannons while talking about India and Pakistan, had seen the atomic carnage that had razed Hiroshima and Nagasaki to the ground. He had grasped the meaning of the atom bomb for the destiny of humankind. Three weeks earlier he had said: ‘The science of the atom bomb . . . does not accept God; rather, it becomes God.’71 Prescient Gandhi had understood the causality between the logic of gun and cannon and the logic of an education that valorised aggression and militarism. Following its untrammelled advance since independence, this process has virtually become our hegemon – our god. It has equipped both countries with the atom bomb and given them an education system that leaves little room for redemption.

IV When satyagraha was not true satyagraha, the independence gained through the putative satyagraha could not have been true independence – not 66

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according to Gandhi. Satyagraha was not solely about achieving independence without violence; it was also a preparation for the self to become worthy of independence. The passive resistance that went by the name and in the garb of satyagraha could force the foreign regime to leave, especially when it had started weakening because of several historical compulsions. However, passive resistance was incapable of bringing about the kind of transformation – moral refinement – in people that could mould them into able and worthy citizens. For 32 long years, when Gandhi was under the impression that millions of people were getting trained in ahimsa, he had dreamt of a swaraj that would actually be lok rajya (people’s rule) – swaraj of a people who, as Gandhi had reiterated ever since the Hind Swaraj, knew how to ‘rule over themselves’. This swaraj could be sustained only by upright and vigilant citizens, not through the army and the civil service. That did not happen. As for what did happen, Gandhi felt compelled to say: The country lies in a terrible state today. In a country like India where for the past 32 years I have been educating people about truth and ahimsa, there would have been no need to ration cloth and grain if people had faith in each other. If we eat and clothe ourselves in a conscientious manner, there can never be any hard times in India. . . . If you learn to stand on your own feet and end your dependence on the bureaucracy, there would be no need for rationing or the present-day civil service.72 Let alone the people, even the Congress Party, which had sworn by lofty ideals, showed no moral refinement. Coming events had cast their shadows before. There were less than two months to go for independence. Under Nehru’s leadership an interim government had taken over the reins of administration. Around that time, referring to a letter received from ‘a respectable small trader’, Gandhi said: But why talk only about the British? Congressmen have become equally self-seeking. What does one say to them? If the ocean itself is ablaze, who will douse the fire? If salt loses its saltiness, where will the relish come from? The Congress has made so many sacrifices, waged so many struggles; where has its prestige vanished? Now they just want to become ministers and secretaries. In my opinion all this is alien to us.73 ‘There is a stench in the country,’74 said Gandhi – a stench from top to bottom. ‘The air is rife with falsehood, violence, hate, and mistrust.’75 He was compelled to add: ‘As independence draws closer it is our duty to ask ourselves if we are at all worthy of attaining and preserving it.’76 The fear 67

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lurking in the question was spilling over. As the days passed, Gandhi’s fears mounted. Less than a month before independence, he said: I would like to draw your attention to one more thing – the impatience, or call it foulness, that has surfaced among Congressmen today to push their way up somehow or other by using their connections in the party. Had the Congress comprised a mere handful of people harbouring such ambitions, it would still have been understandable. But the Congress numbers crores of people, and if all of them were to nurse such ambitions, the government will surely collapse.77 The following day, Gandhi let it be known that on the day of independence he would not be able to celebrate the occasion: ‘I do not wish to keep you in the dark which is why I am saying it openly.’78 Some days earlier he had already remarked: ‘The swaraj of our imagination is still very distant.’79 Now closer to independence, he said: The people in whose hands we have placed the reins of power are men of consequence. When they say there should be celebrations then you should celebrate. Do not wonder why Gandhi does not wish to celebrate the occasion. If somebody does not wish to celebrate, the Congress will certainly not force them to do so. It is my personal view, however, that the day is not for rejoicing. . . . In reality the freedom we have gained today simultaneously gives India and Pakistan the potential means for mutual conflict. Then why should we light lamps that day? To me the day of true independence will be the day the hearts of Hindus and Muslims are cleansed. . . . I know of only one struggle and that is the struggle of satyagraha. This struggle leads to self-purification. If that struggle were to go on forever in the world, it would be all the better. . . . The departure of the British from India in itself is not a sufficient enough reason for me to celebrate.80 Gandhi could say: ‘After all, not everything happens according to my wishes.’81 But he could not prevent his anxiety about the future of the country – India and Pakistan – from mounting. So troubled was he that he could not stop himself from reasoning with people constantly despite knowing how isolated he was and how people were disregarding him. He had resolved to ‘do or die’. And, going beyond the proverbial stage of ‘while there’s life there’s hope’, he would die convinced that his action would continue even after his death. Whatever doubt, despair, loneliness, weariness and even hurt might occasionally stray into his speech, there was nothing

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that could deflect him from his course of satyagraha. So for the third day in a row Gandhi dwelt on the same topic: I certainly believe that 15 August is not a day for celebration in any way; it is a day for prayer and introspection. . . . Either everybody celebrates together as brothers on 15 August or not at all. The day for celebrating independence will come only when we genuinely become friends. But this is just my view; there is no one who will concur with it.82 It is amazing how, to take care of the future, Gandhi could so swiftly and completely let bygones be bygones. More, he could even forget all that was still happening right under his nose. Only a month ago, in June, the partition of India had been formally accepted. There were still three weeks for that decision to come into effect. From the outset, Gandhi had maintained that the decision was wrong. But he also knew that it could not be put off. So he promptly accepted it, burying deep within his pain at the vivisection of his ‘Hind Mata’, to be able to follow the sole course open to stave off the deepening crisis. This, we have seen, was to accept Partition in all sincerity and walk the path of friendship. Independence would otherwise not be real. Even today, we are unable to do that. We cannot even think that the independence of both countries is still linked to our ability or failure to be friends. The reason is that we have considered ourselves really independent since 15 August 1947, unmindful of the ever-escalating cost of that independence on account of the two countries’ unceasing enmity. If at all we perceive anything, it is that Pakistan – and not we – is actually still far from real independence. Gandhi, even as he emphasised the need for prayer and introspection, knew that the signs were totally to the contrary; it was everybody for themselves. That only prompted him to redouble his efforts to persuade the people: Seeing the state of India today I am reminded of the fable of the hen that laid golden eggs. To take out all the golden eggs in one go the owner killed the hen. . . . The government that has passed into our hands is somewhat like that hen. If our hopes are pinned on extracting all the golden eggs today so that we may eat all of them today itself, the hen will surely die but so shall we.83 Since his sudden departure for Noakhali in October 1946 and from there to Bihar, this was the first occasion when Gandhi had stayed for over two months – from 25 May to 30 July 1947 – in Delhi. It was a strange phase, for his heart was still in Bihar and Noakhali. He still believed that if he

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could end the communal frenzy there and establish brotherhood and amity, there would be peace across the country and, in spite of Partition, everything would be alright. For instance, he said: Many people ask me, what do you think you will achieve in Noakhali? When the situation settles across India, it will get settled in Noakhali as well. But my experience has taught me the very opposite.84 Even before this stay of over two months, Gandhi had had to drop his work among people affected by communal violence to come to Delhi. He had stayed in Noakhali and Bihar for barely five months when once in April 1947 and twice in May 1947 he was called back to Delhi. His second visit in May had stretched into a longer stay. His old associates in Delhi – Nehru, Patel and Rajendra Prasad, among others – consulted him daily; Viceroy Mountbatten too often sent for him; people from diverse ideological streams, parties, organisations and institutions went to him to discuss various subjects and issues. However, whatever significant decisions were taken were contrary to Gandhi’s opinion. A feeling that it was futile to stay on in Delhi seized him. It wasn’t a new feeling. He had had the same feeling the first time he had been called back to Delhi. After staying for 10 days on that occasion he had ‘all of a sudden’85 decided on the 11th day to return to Bihar and, sure enough, left the following day. During that 11-day stay he had expressed himself thus in his last prayer discourse: It is my swadharma [my duty] to go to Bihar. I am a follower of the Gita. The Gita teaches you to perform your duty and remain centred in your swakshetra [one’s field of action]. The Gita clearly states that it is better to die performing one’s duty in one’s own field of action; attempting paradharma [another’s duty] is fraught with danger. Therefore, staying in Delhi, which is parakshetra [another’s field of action], is fraught with danger for me.86 Obviously, Gandhi was speaking figuratively, not literally. He was using the concepts of swadharma and swakshetra in the immediate context of bringing about true amity in Noakhali and Bihar through which he believed he could establish peace in the entire country and enable India and Pakistan to become friends. Except for this specific context, Bihar or Noakhali did not constitute an exclusive field of action for Gandhi; nor was his duty there separate from his duty for all. He came to Delhi repeatedly not by setting aside his call to duty but to follow it. Whenever he came to Delhi, he came not to another’s but to his field of action. He came with the hope that by staying there he would do his best to accomplish whatever it was that he 70

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had been called upon to do. But when he felt he was achieving nothing by staying on in Delhi, a frightening sense of futility, of doing another’s duty in another’s field of action, gripped him. It was in such a state of mind that Gandhi once again set off on 31 July from Delhi for Noakhali. In the next chapter we shall see in some detail that he was held back in Calcutta to deliver the city from communal violence. For now we limit ourselves to discussing just 15 August and Gandhi. Three days before leaving Delhi, Gandhi had announced: ‘As for me I will fast on that day (15 August) and especially pray to God that India has become independent but that independence should not be destroyed.’87 A day after he reached Calcutta – on 10 August – the Congress ministers of the Bengal government went to meet him and asked how 15 August should be observed. Gandhi’s reply was: ‘People are being burnt alive, dying of hunger, dying naked.’88 In such circumstances there could not be any celebration other than dedication to fasting, prayer and the spinning wheel.89 The day Gandhi reached Calcutta, an official of the Department of Information and Broadcasting of the Indian government went to him to get a message for publication on the occasion of 15 August. Gandhi remarked that he had dried up inside, and there was nothing for him to say. The Indian government was not prepared for such a catastrophe. Hence two more officials were dispatched to request Gandhi to give a message. Beseeching him they said – as anyone would have – that it would be unfortunate if such a historic occasion went unmarked by Gandhi’s ‘message’. Gandhi’s reply was: ‘There is no message; let that be unfortunate.’90 Two days after this incident, a representative of the British Broadcasting Corporation came looking for a brief message from Gandhi on the occasion of 15 August to be broadcast the world over. He too was told that Gandhi had nothing to say. He was also, naturally, not prepared to leave empty-handed. He pleaded that on the occasion of India’s independence the whole world would want to know what Gandhi had to say, and that is why the BBC had decided that his message would be translated for broadcast in numerous languages of the world. This time Gandhi scribbled two sentences in English on the back of a used scrap of paper and had it sent to the man from BBC. The sentences read: ‘I must not yield to the temptation. They must forget that I know English.’91 ‘Let that be unfortunate.’ What anguished stubbornness had come over Gandhi? Why was he so insistent that on 15 August he would give no official message? Silence would be his only message. Those who wished to understand could do so; for those who were incapable of understanding the significance of his silence on that day, what would he gain by saying anything? His departure from Delhi before the celebration of independence was itself, to those who cared to understand, enough of a disturbing message. That silence of Gandhi was very symbolic – and very saddening. Saddening in what way and for whom? Who across the world and in India felt 71

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bad about Gandhi’s silence on 15 August? What about today? Do we even remember his silence or his departure from Delhi? It was also in the nature of a great vow – that silence. He had tried his best to communicate through words. Repeatedly, in various ways, he had continued to voice his concerns with regard to independence. Nobody was ready to hear him. The only option left now was to do or die – die in the sense of actually putting his life at stake. The next chapter is about that doing or dying. ‘Let that be unfortunate.’ The shattered pride of a withered, ageing general rings clear in these words. This is only a conjecture, a very plausible conjecture. At any rate, the tragic end of the 32-year-long historic relationship between the South Africa–returned Gandhi and India is reflected in these words: a tragic end in which, beyond that historic relationship, can also be glimpsed a great deal of human nature and human destiny – our nature and our destiny. ‘Let that be unfortunate’ hides within it yet another possible destiny. Within nine days of agreeing to the country’s partition, Gandhi had remarked: ‘My destiny had struggle written in it from birth itself. I wish I didn’t have to struggle anymore.’92 From then on, the way his cry in the wilderness continued unabated, it seemed as if he had become exhausted, as if there was no fight left in him. In the statement ‘There is no message, let that be unfortunate,’ people may even have seen a weary old man’s pique. The next few days would reveal the real significance of these words: Gandhi had made a new resolve. That it was time to make people understand not through words but through action. His action this time, like his actions before, would show that human destiny can be freed from the supposed inevitability of history.

V That coming events cast their shadows before has already been mentioned. We shall now see what all Gandhi was fated to see and suffer during the mere five-and-a-half months that he lived in free India. ‘What all’ may give the impression that there is going to be an account of everything he saw and suffered. That is neither possible nor necessary. Just a conjecture of his sorrows should suffice. To see was to suffer for Gandhi during those five-and-a-half months. Whatever he saw, whichever way he turned, it was hard to believe that this independence was what they had been so sedulously struggling and preparing for. Of his 160-odd daily prayer discourses of the period, not one was without some lament, visible or disguised. At times the laments assumed distressing proportions. A few random samples are enough to illustrate what he was witnessing and experiencing: ‘[T]he kind of games that are going on in India today’;93 ‘[o]ur faith has perished, our sense of moral duty has perished and, similarly, our country, too, will perish’;94 ‘[i]n fact I would say 72

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that as compared to before, many more ills have crept in’;95 ‘[b]ut then is our fall certain?’;96 ‘how low we have fallen today’;97 ‘[j]ust contemplate the rot that has set in[,] in beloved India’;98 ‘[w]ill everybody only think about themselves, with no one sparing a thought for India’s welfare?’99 An idea of Gandhi’s sorrows and shame in independent India can be had from the following: The prime minister of Burma came to see me. He is a courteous gentleman. I told him, it is good that you have come to pay us a visit. Our country is vast, our civilisation ancient. But there is nothing for you to learn from what we are doing today.100 Gandhi’s countless, ever-increasing sorrows were made seemingly incurable by yet another big sorrow. That was his unerring realisation of his ineffectualness: ‘Who heeds me today?’101 After a tall sounding claim that ‘I have yet to have an idea which has not been successful’,102 Gandhi said just 23 days before he was killed: I am reduced to an abject state today. There was a time when anything I wanted done was sure to be done. That is no longer the case. . . . That time is past.103 Gandhi’s changing status in a changing world emerges poignantly in the discourse in which he equates his own sorrows with the sorrows of India. His helplessness, yet the transparency of his mind and speech, and his concern for everybody’s well-being, all come together here in a way that merits illustration through a long excerpt. As if letting out everything in one single breath, Gandhi said: I have just received the Dawn and Pakistan Times. Both are reputed newspapers of Pakistan. When something is published in the Dawn or Pakistan Times, we cannot brush them away saying that these are no newspapers. Otherwise the people of Pakistan, too, can question what appears in the Hindustan Times or even in the Bombay Chronicle. This kind of talk does not lead anywhere. I for one believe that the Dawn and Pakistan Times are also fine newspapers that are read by Muslims and managed by Muslims of stature. They write about the Muslims of Kathiawad. When Sardar [Vallabhbhai Patel] went to Junagadh I was pleased to see that even the Muslims there welcomed him. They said, it is good that you have come; we were so troubled, perhaps now we will be able to live restfully. When the princely rulers and the people of Kathiawad have come together, how long could Junagadh go its separate way? So I was pleased that the whole affair was sorted out without any violence. 73

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Although they did not remain steadfast on ahimsa, the violence they employed was resorted to after giving it much thought. I was glad to see that. But now I get to hear, and it has also appeared in the Dawn, that Muslims in Kathiawad are not being able to live in peace. I have also received a telegram timely sent by a Muslim. Kathiawad is a region where Muslims have always lived comfortably without anyone ever laying a finger on them. There were good and dependable Muslims as well as Muslims who caused disturbances. Their lawlessness was not directed at one another; rather it was only for earning a little livelihood. Today, in that very Kathiawad, Muslims are left wondering if there is any place for them there. In such circumstances, should all the Muslims leave Kathiawad or should the Hindus cut them down? The fact that they are all distraught is difficult for me to bear because I was born in Kathiawad; I know all the princely rulers there and am familiar with thousands of people. Samaldas Gandhi, who is like my son, is the highest authority in Junagadh. He has also set up a provisional government there. But if innocent Muslims are getting killed in spite of these people being at the helm in Kathiawad, what is the use of such a provisional government? When people take the law into their hands how can Muslims live there securely? I don’t dare imagine what would happen if this state of affairs were to spread all over. I do not even know whether all this has happened there or not, but I have read the report published in the Dawn and I also have received several telegrams. Subsequently, I asked some Hindus and they also said that there have been some cases of arson and even some looting but they couldn’t say if there had been any killing or cases of abduction of Muslim women. But the Dawn states that all these four things have happened, and happened on a fairly big scale. I have received very many telegrams, but I was informed of only one; the others, due to some slip-up, were not shown to me. There must have been around 50 such telegrams sent by Muslims from various places. And they have the right to tell me, it is your son who is the supreme authority there. But how can I be held responsible for whatever my son does? Then again, what do I explain to the world or to those Muslims? What they are writing to me is absolutely correct. Still, how could I have admonished my son when I have only read about it today? So, through you I want to say this not only to my son but also to all of Kathiawad that if the Hindus there have become so worthless . . . then Kathiawad will never be at peace or prosper. We have certainly gained Junagadh but this way we are all set to lose it exactly in the manner that we attained independence for the country but to lose it. I am reminded by the Muslims about what Sardar Patel said in Junagadh. He said 74

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nobody will lay a hand on even one Muslim boy provided he stays loyal to Kathiawad, that is, the Indian Union. Also that anyone who so much as lays a hand on even one young Muslim girl would have to reckon with him. He could say all this because, for one, he is Sardar and secondly, he is the home minister of India. He was well within his rights to say this. But what has become of those words, I ask. It pierces my heart to see that such things can happen in Kathiawad and the people there can become so insane with frenzy. . . . It was my duty to communicate all these happenings to you. Our newspapers don’t publish such things. However, all this information comes to me. It was my duty to make thorough enquiries but I do not have the time for it. Hence, I have communicated the information to you exactly as I received it. When I met Liaquat Ali Sahib [Gandhi had met him a little earlier] I sought his leave to ask him a question and he agreed. I asked him if he knew anything about the goings-on in Kathiawad. He said he was in the know of everything and such incidents had indeed happened – those very four instances – but on what scale he couldn’t say. He is the prime minister of Pakistan so he said all this forthrightly; I, however, was speaking in a muted way. That is when I thought I would communicate without fail this evening as to how hurt I am by all this.104 ‘Kathiawad is my home,’ remarked Gandhi in conclusion to that evening’s discourse. ‘When one’s home itself thus goes up in flames, one is left with no reason to admonish somebody else.’105 The story would not end that evening. Sardar Patel happened to be in Delhi. He was alerted to the fact that a reply had been demanded of him publicly by Gandhi. Samaldas was in Bombay and not in Junagadh at the time. There he came to know that the misdeeds that had transpired in Junagadh under his very nose had been openly criticised by Gandhi. One can imagine that whatever Patel and Samaldas may have had to say in this regard, both of them must have felt very humiliated. They must have seethed that before raising such a hue and cry Bapu had not seen it fit to speak to them directly. Not just Patel or Samaldas or all those who were doing their utmost to maintain peace and order at that difficult juncture, even we may wonder as to why, in the absence of any verification, it was necessary for Gandhi to say so much in public? He should have felt hurt only after confirming that Muslims in his home, Kathiawad, were really being persecuted. And even if he had felt hurt without verifying, what was the tearing hurry to display his wounded feelings that very evening? Had he lost even the sense to realise that his outburst – although accompanied by the rider ‘if it is so’106 – could have worsened the situation? It was on 27 November that Gandhi narrated the saga of Kathiawad. For the next eight days it continued in his prayer discourses. The very next 75

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day, and again on 30 November, Patel spoke to Gandhi on the subject. He claimed ‘not a single Muslim was killed and not even one Muslim house was set on fire and looted’ in Kathiawad. Patel admitted that prior to his Kathiawad visit ‘there was some looting and violence and perhaps a house or two had been set ablaze’, but even at that time ‘not a single person was killed nor was any girl abducted’. He said that Kathiawad’s Hindu Congressmen had ‘risked their lives to protect Muslims and their properties, etc.’ Patel had also given an order to the concerned officials that no disturbance of any kind should be tolerated. ‘No hooliganism will be allowed there,’107 Patel assured Gandhi. Gandhi communicated the entire conversation to the people. During the conversation, Patel told Gandhi that the reports which had reached him were ‘largely made up’.108 Also that, since these reports were not trustworthy, Gandhi should not broadcast them. It is obvious that Patel was confronting Gandhi head-on. But Gandhi’s way of thinking was completely different. So after announcing that Patel ‘told me that the reports which come from there are not worth conveying to you’,109 Gandhi said: [I]t won’t do if I keep wondering whether such an incident has occurred or not. Therefore, I did well to place before you whatever I had read in the newspapers and telegrams. I do not know whether all of it is true or not. If it is true then it is a matter of great shame for all of Kathiawad, and if it is not true then it is a matter of shame for those who write so in the newspapers. In any case it is a matter of shame for one or another.110 Justifying his decision to share with people – with the rider ‘if it is true’ – the information he received, instead of keeping quiet until satisfactory verification, Gandhi said: Had I not paid attention to the accusations carried in Pakistan’s prominent newspapers, especially when Pakistan’s prime minister also stated that in essence the accusations were correct, Muslims would have believed them to be the gospel truth. But now honest Muslims doubt their veracity.111 The way the ‘atmosphere’ had got vitiated, with ‘accusations and counteraccusations flying back and forth’, it was foolish to think that ‘we can never make a mistake’.112 What was needed was ‘discernment and deduction’, the ability to assess from the available information the probability of its veracity. Gandhi claimed: ‘I believe that from long-standing experience I have learnt a little about deducing.’113 Also, it was not a matter of mere accusations. Both countries were surpassing each other in barbarity. And neither was ready to own up to it. 76

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In Kathiawad too it was not clear who was persecuting the Muslims. The Hindu Mahasabha and the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh were under suspicion, but the charges against them had not been proved. Was one, then, to remain silent until the charges were verified? Wasn’t one to ask, ‘Then who has troubled them [the Muslims]?’114 Gandhi believed: Today this accusation must be levelled against all Hindus and Sikhs just as in Pakistan it must be levelled against all Muslims, as is only proper.115 Gandhi’s charge that the Hindus and Sikhs in India and the Muslims in Pakistan must bear collective responsibility was not based on any abstruse moral–philosophical principle. He was talking about actuality. Pointing out that everybody, from the supreme leadership to ordinary people, was to blame, Gandhi said: Such is the state of affairs today that the writ of the Pakistan government is not executed by its officials. Today the same situation exists in India as well. Jawaharlal and Sardar may declare, we will protect the Muslims; we do not want even a single Muslim to be compelled to go to Pakistan; but their writ doesn’t run. They lack the officials to act accordingly because their subordinates do not follow orders; as for the people, they don’t behave at all.116 If the intentions are honourable and the reality is contrary, accusations are inevitable. Suspicions will arise among the persecuted. Rumours will abound. Truth and falsehood will get horribly intertwined. It would not do in such a situation to vex and sulk. Gandhi’s view was: When I make accusations by adding the rider ‘if’, there is no need for anybody to fret, provided that those who have been accused are completely blameless.117 So ‘hurt’ was Samaldas by Gandhi’s reproach that he immediately returned to Junagadh to bring the situation under control in case it had really deteriorated. Gandhi had no trouble stating: ‘Samaldas was hurt by my statement; he should have felt hurt.’118 Samaldas’s findings, communicated by telegram to Gandhi, were almost the same as conveyed earlier by Patel, namely that the accounts reaching Gandhi were full of exaggeration. Samaldas said: I do not discriminate between Hindus and Muslims. I want to extend my fullest support to the Muslim brothers who write to me, but on the condition that they are true to their words. It displeases 77

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me when they send highly exaggerated reports that raise a hue and cry across the world. I somehow tolerate the telegrams I get from within India, but when the telegrams come from foreign countries, I feel it is a bit too much.119 As was his way, Gandhi recounted the full contents of the two telegrams received from Samaldas in his prayer discourses of early December. L’affaire Kathiawad is very relevant for this book’s purpose of probing one’s individual and collective mind. It is noteworthy that what Gandhi said about the real or imagined violence in Kathiawad irked not just Patel and Samaldas but also many others – Hindus and Sikhs – who resented Gandhi’s critical comments. We, too, feel that Gandhi should have exercised restraint in this matter. So natural is this response that we don’t even feel the need to reflect upon it. What explains such a response? The question here is not about it being right or wrong. The real question – rather problem – relates to the unselfconscious naturalness of the response. Once we become conscious of how spontaneously, unthinkingly, we respond in such a manner, we are likely to verify before accepting. For instance, while reading in Indian newspapers of those days, stories of the violence then going on in Pakistan, we will tend to ask ourselves whether those stories had been verified. We may also, then, notice with some discomfort how we look at the same deeds differently, depending on whether they have been done by ‘us’ or by ‘them’, without the slightest awareness of what we are doing. Gandhi had erased the difference between those who were his own and others. The feeling of Kathiawad being ‘home’ and Samaldas being ‘son’ might emerge under the pressure of painful circumstances. Like Delhi had, in a particular context, appeared as parakshetra even as the entire country – India and Pakistan – was his swakshetra. But, whatever the modes of its expression in specific contexts, his distress related to the entire undivided ‘home’. (It was not without reason that Gandhi repeatedly recalled the Mahabharata in those days of devastation.) Before independence, the distress that had pulled him to Noakhali had been no less than his distress over the communal violence in Bihar. In fact, he had soon realised, and had started saying so, that the violence in Noakhali was dwarfed by the brutality in Bihar, which was eclipsed by the frenzy in Punjab. No matter how difficult he found it in those days, Gandhi kept himself ‘intact’. He refused to be divided by the country’s partition. By its very nature – not under the influence of any external, intellectual ideal – his undivided self saw everybody’s grief alike. No shadow falling between his mind and heart, his thoughts and feelings, he had learnt from his experience of Noakhali and Bihar that be it Bengal’s Muslim League government or ‘one’s own’ Congress government in Bihar, official claims relating to communal violence could not be taken at face value. The claims of both required 78

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judicious verification. No one was to be spared. In the event of accusations, clarifications would be sought even from Patel and Samaldas. And whatever the clarification, it would be placed before the people. The vitiated atmosphere that Gandhi complained of was worsening so fast that his very own people began to feel more exasperated than moved by his suffering over the suffering all around. For one who believed in showing the way to others through truth, love and self-sacrifice, there couldn’t have been a greater irony – the ultimate helplessness – than being viewed by suspicion by the very people who had for years walked behind, and still hailed, him. Having stretched from the prayer discourse of 27 November down to our present-day reactions, the long-drawn-out l’affaire Kathiawad points to a continuing process which necessitates special attention. Gandhi had made a piercing remark in that discourse. Just one sentence – and he had left it at that. In the following eight days, when he was forced to say a great deal in self-defence, he did not revert to that remark. It was as if he wanted to see whether or not people had understood it. They did not because they did not want to understand. Today also they may not understand, may not want to understand. After all, the present-day situation is similar, if not identical, to the time when that remark had gone unheard. After talking elaborately about the reports in the Dawn and Pakistan Times on Kathiawad and the kind of information that he personally had been receiving from the local Muslims and Hindus, Gandhi had remarked, ‘Our newspapers don’t publish such things,’ and added rather meaningfully: ‘However, all this information comes to me.’ Why don’t our newspapers carry such reports? So deep runs this feeling of ‘we’ and ‘they’ – a communal divide which post-Partition nationalism has further accentuated – that our newspapers will not publish our own misdeeds even as they play up the devastation under way in Pakistan. If this one-sided reporting continues, we will never be able to make a dent in the feeling of ‘us’ and ‘them’ which makes possible this violence in the first place. We will continue to think of ourselves as innocent, harassed victims; so will they. Each will commit violence and blame the other. The question of communal violence raged on both sides during the time of Independence– Partition. Adopting the formula of nipping in the bud, Pakistan has in the meantime solved this issue almost completely. In India, to be sure, the issue lingers on. It continues to give Pakistan occasion to complain. Meanwhile, other issues and excuses have kept cropping up for both countries to keep accusing each other. Reporting in newspapers and other communication media in both countries remains as one-sided and is based on mistrust as it was during that mad frenzy. In mutual hostility lies mutual destruction – Gandhi’s epigrammatic warning has stubbornly remained unheard. His despairing remark – ‘Is there anything happening in India today which can make me happy’ – reveals a great deal about the final, sorrowful 79

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period of his life. This truth can be understood in another way as well. In those one-and-a-half sorrowful years, there were perhaps three days when Gandhi found a glimmer of happiness. However, as indicated in the next chapter, those moments did not last. For now one last incident before bidding adieu to this tale of sorrow. Nineteen days prior to his assassination, after the conclusion of the morning prayer at 3.45 a.m., Gandhi said to the handful of his companions: Our moral degeneration is of such a magnitude . . . today itself I can see the bad days of the Congress approaching. . . . Those possessing all manner of influence and even the sons of representatives at the Centre brawl over ways to make money. Ultimately, what does all this indicate? Indeed if we are like this, it must be said that we are only worthy of being slaves. . . . If we use the Congress organisation and a badge of khadi to merely accumulate wealth from all directions in an arbitrary and indiscriminate fashion, where will it end? I am stunned to know all this. At least now, as in the story of the elephant and the crocodile, if God in his own wisdom saves my honour, I will forever remain in his debt.120 ‘Something has just come in – it is distressing’121 was how Gandhi began his discourse that evening. He was referring publicly to the corruption that had set in within the Congress during the very first months of independence and was manifest in the working of the interim government. Highlighting this corruption, two letters had been sent to Gandhi from Andhra Pradesh. One of these was from a young man whom Gandhi did not know. The other was from a ‘venerable old man’122 whom Gandhi knew, freedom fighter Konda Venkatappayya Garu. Konda, who could barely walk on crutches inside his house, and had no personal axe to grind, had written that the degeneration he had witnessed within the Congress had compelled him to write to Gandhi. Gandhi was by no means blind to the state of the country or the Congress. However, the letters from Andhra Pradesh agitated him greatly. Referring to them during his discourse in the evening he said: After 15 August, people have started thinking they can do anything. The fear of the British is gone. There is no fear of punishment; there is no fear of anyone. Who acknowledges the fear of God? . . . The Congress too is in decline. All the Congressmen want to become assembly members. On becoming members they work not for the nation but for themselves. . . . take bribes. Not only that, they intimidate civil servants with the threat of dire consequences if they do not do as told. What can they do, they have no recourse; they have to work for a living. This way, things go wrong at both ends. Those who are in our offices as well as those who call 80

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themselves our representatives get corrupted. . . . And then there are those who were miles away from the Congress and the freedom struggle but are now trying to seize control of the Congress. There are many other concerns, too, such as the Communists, the Socialists. They boast among themselves that they have grown in stature and will establish a hold over all of India. But who will India have a hold over? Since the Congress and the Socialists manifest the same tendency, I would urge all of us to belong to India and not think that India should belong to us. If India represents merely the selfinterest of each one of us, where will India be?123 The very next day – at the prayer meeting of 12 January – Gandhi announced that the following day he would commence a fast unto death. Although its purpose was to bring about communal amity in Delhi, that profound sorrow, too, may have impelled him to undertake the fast. ‘Where will it all end?’124 Gandhi had asked with deep anguish. So do we. Without that anguish.

Notes 1 PP, vol. ii, p. 247. 2 13 June 1947, ibid., vol. i, p. 153. 3 N.K. Bose, My Days with Gandhi, Orient Longman Ltd, New Delhi, 1974, p. 85. 4 5 June 1947, PP, vol. i, p. 126. 5 Chandiwala, Gandhiji ki Dilli Diary, part ii, p. 367. 6 Bose, My Days with Gandhi, p. 87. 7 Ibid., p. 93, translated by the book’s translator. 8 Ibid., p. 87, translated by the book’s translator. 9 14 July 1947, PP, vol i, p. 248. 10 Ibid., pp. 246–247. 11 Ibid., p. 248. 12 Ibid., p. 247. 13 Ibid. 14 16 June 1947, ibid., p. 165. 15 14 July 1947, ibid., p. 247. 16 4 July 1947, ibid., pp. 218–219. 17 Ibid., p. 219. 18 22 July 1947, ibid., p. 270. 19 10 April 1947, ibid., p. 41. 20 6 November 1946, CWMG, vol. 86, p. 81. 21 6 July 1947, PP, vol. i, p. 226. 22 4 November 1946, CWMG, vol. 86, p. 75. 23 4 June 1947, PP, vol. i, p. 119. 24 Ibid., pp. 119–120. 25 Ibid., p. 119. 26 Ibid., p. 121. 27 Ibid. 28 Ibid., p. 120.

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9 Ibid., p. 121. 2 30 Ibid., p. 122. 31 7 May 1947, ibid., p. 77. 32 Ibid., p. 78. 33 5 April 1947, ibid., p. 25. 34 Ibid. 35 6 April 1947, ibid., p. 26. 36 Ibid., p. 27. 37 5 April 1947, ibid., p. 25. 38 5 June 1947, ibid., p. 124. 39 Ibid. 40 Ibid. 41 Ibid. 42 23 September 1947, ibid., p. 341. 43 5 June 1947, ibid., pp. 124–125. 44 10 June 1947, ibid., p. 143. 45 6 July 1947, ibid., p. 225. 46 5 June 1947, ibid., p. 126. 47 Ibid., p. 127. 48 9 June 1947, ibid., p. 139. 49 Ibid., p. 140. 50 23 June 1947, ibid., p. 188. 51 7 June 1947, ibid., pp. 133–135. 52 10 June 1947, ibid., pp. 142–144. 53 12 June 1947, ibid., p. 149. 54 Gandhi’s appeal to Jinnah at the end of his prayer discourse, 7 June 1947, ibid., p. 135. 55 17 June 1947, ibid., p. 170. 56 23 June 1947, ibid., p. 188. 57 6 July 1947, ibid., p. 224. 58 5 October 1947, ibid., p. 387. 59 24 June 1947, ibid., p. 190. 60 26 October 1947, ibid., p. 479. 61 17 June 1947, ibid., p. 170. 62 24 June 1947, ibid., p. 191. 63 5 April 1947, ibid., p. 24. 64 24 June 1947, ibid., p. 190. 65 16 June 1947, ibid., p. 166. 66 Ibid., p. 167. 67 1 May 1947, ibid., p. 55. 68 17 September 1947, ibid., pp. 320–321. 69 6 July 1947, ibid., p. 226. 70 Ibid. 71 17 June 1947, ibid., p. 169. 72 4 July 1947, ibid., p. 219. 73 20 June 1947, ibid., p. 184. 74 9 July 1947, ibid., p. 232. 75 Ibid. 76 6 April 1947, ibid., p. 29. 77 19 July 1947, ibid., p. 261. 78 20 July 1947, ibid., p. 263. 79 9 July 1947, ibid., p. 232.

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80 20 July 1947, ibid., pp. 264–265. 81 Ibid., p. 264. 82 21 July 1947, ibid., p. 267. 83 26 July 1947, ibid., p. 281. 84 11 July 1947, ibid., p. 238. 85 11 April 1947, ibid., p. 43. 86 Ibid., p. 45. 87 27 July 1947, ibid., p. 285. 88 Bose, My Days with Gandhi, p. 222. 89 Ibid. 90 Ibid., p. 220. 91 CWMG, vol. 89, p. 23. 92 13 June 1947, PP, vol. i, p. 157. 93 2 December 1947, ibid., vol. ii, p. 159. 94 27 November 1947, ibid., p. 130. 95 23 November 1947, ibid., p. 112. 96 24 November 1947, ibid., p. 117. 97 10 January 1948, ibid., p. 285. 98 12 January 1948, CWMG, vol. 90, p. 410. 99 15 December 1947, PP, vol. ii, p. 205. 100 4 December 1947, ibid., p. 167. 101 7 January 1948, ibid., p. 276. 102 Ibid., p. 275. 103 Ibid. 104 27 November 1947, ibid., pp. 128–131. 105 Ibid., p. 131. 106 1 December 1947, ibid., p. 151. 107 28 November 1947, ibid., p. 137. 108 30 November 1947, ibid., p. 145. 109 Ibid. 110 Ibid. 111 1 December 1947, ibid., pp. 151–152. 112 Ibid., p. 152. 113 Ibid. 114 30 November 1947, ibid., p. 148. 115 Ibid. 116 3 December 1947, ibid., p. 161. 117 1 December 1947, ibid., p. 151. 118 4 December 1947, ibid., p. 166. 119 Ibid. 120 Chandiwala, Gandhiji ki Dilli Diary, part iii, p. 503. In the story ‘Gajendra Moksha’ from the Bhagavata Purana, Gajendra, the king of elephants, exhausted from his protracted struggle to extricate his foot from the jaws of a crocodile, in his final moments prays to Vishnu for deliverance. His prayers are answered. 121 11 January 1948, PP, vol. ii, p. 288. 122 Ibid. 123 Ibid., pp. 288–289. 124 Chandiwala, Gandhiji ki Dilli Diary, part iii, p. 503.

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4 THE POSSIBILITY OF AHIMSA?

We lack the heart, perhaps. Gandhi, 11 December 19471

One of Gandhi’s deepest sorrows during his final days was the stark realisation that his ahimsa had failed. That the cause of his enduring sorrow should be visible to the world was natural. As was the question whether, in the face of the spreading violence in India, he would continue to give the world the message of ahimsa. Letters asking this very question were coming to him from all over the world. Referring to these letters in his written message that was read out after the prayer on 15 June 1947, Gandhi said: I may have become bankrupt but ahimsa can never suffer bankruptcy. [T]he ahimsa we have practised for 30 years has been nothing but the ahimsa of the weak. [I]n today’s changed situation there is no place for the ahimsa of the weak. In truth, to this day India has not had an opportunity to practise the ahimsa of the brave. Nothing will come of my constant refrain that there is no power in the world equal to the ahimsa of the brave. The only way to prove this truth is by making it apparent in our lives through constant and extensive practice. I have done my utmost to make it evident in my life. But perhaps I lack the capability or maybe I am quixotic, a Sheikh Chilli; then why should I ask people to follow me when nothing comes of it? . . . I don’t ask anyone to follow me. Each individual should heed his inner voice. My method may have been wrong. In the face of difficulty or dilemma, old models and experiences come in handy, but humans should not behave mechanically. Hence I request all those who seek to give me counsel to bear with me and, more importantly, share my faith that, difficult though it be, there is no honest and straight way other than ahimsa to remove the pain of this suffering world. Lakhs of people, like me, 84

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may not be able to validate this truth in life, but that would be their weakness and failure, not of ahimsa.2 Gandhi’s restlessness is clearly apparent in this message. His faith in ahimsa is unwavering despite the realisation of his own colossal failure; it is the only straight and clear path. There is no other hope for humanity. But how does one communicate this essential truth to others? The basis that he had thought was being created to make the world believe in the practicability of ahimsa had turned out to be an illusion. Besides, the credibility of Gandhi’s message was rapidly wearing thin. There seemed to be just one alternative. That was to get down to proving the truth of ahimsa and its effectiveness in real life all over again, putting the past squarely behind. That process would be indefinite and long drawn. Therefore, regardless of the erosion of his credibility, Gandhi had to, for now, make a desperate appeal to people to share his faith and put their trust in ahimsa. His was an appeal for partnership in faith. But partnership in faith can come only through faith. Where logic dominates, faith recedes – except in circumstances where our reasoning tells us that the man beseeching us to share his faith is so extraordinary that his faith can see far ahead of our reasoning. Gandhi in the course of the freedom struggle had, on numerous occasions, managed to produce just that kind of faith. On not a single occasion did he have to resort to entreaties. Experience had taught Nehru and others, who set much store by a scientific and rational temper, that whenever they felt that Gandhi was making an irrational decision with which they were in complete disagreement, events would unfold in a way as to make them realise that he had been right all along. Unlike Gandhi, whose perceptive vision had the ability to see possibilities far ahead, they were constrained by their ordinary logic. But now faith in Gandhi’s miraculous vision was waning. In its place, the conviction that it was now time for ‘real’ politics, not Gandhi’s morality, was gaining ground. Whatever its reasons, this rapid waning of confidence in Gandhi is an undeniable historical truth of his last days. It is striking that just hours before he made his pathos-filled appeal to people to retain faith in ahimsa, Congress president Acharya Kripalani should have, in Gandhi’s presence, told the All India Congress Committee: I have been with Gandhiji for the last 30 years. I joined him in Champaran. I have never swayed in my loyalty to him. It is not a personal but a political loyalty. Even when I have differed from him I have considered his political instinct to be more correct than my elaborately reasoned attitude. Today also I feel that he, with his supreme fearlessness, is correct and my stand is defective. 85

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Why then am I not with him? It is because I feel that he has as yet found no way of tackling the problem on a mass basis. When he taught us non-violent non-cooperation he showed us a definite method which we had at least mechanically followed. Today he is himself groping in the dark. He was in Noakhali. His efforts eased the situation. Now he is in Bihar. The situation is again eased. But this does not solve in any way the flare-up in the Punjab. He says he is solving the problem of Hindu-Muslim unity for the whole of India in Bihar. Maybe. But it is difficult to see how that is being done. There are no definite steps as in non-violent non-cooperation that lead to the desired goal.3 Kripalani’s statement could be debated at length. For instance, intermittently in 1920, during the Non-cooperation Movement, and even later, did people not have doubts about the effectiveness of Gandhi’s ahimsa? So many times, confronted with dire crises during those 30 years, Gandhi had come up with appropriate strategies, but only after passing through long phases of uncertainty and self-doubt. Exactly in the same way as now, when, despite the realisation that their reasoning could eventually be trumped by a floundering Gandhi’s insight, Kripalani, the Congress and the country were determined to cast him aside. Yet, a certain honesty shines through Kripalani’s statement, an integrity which holds him back from denying the abandoned leader’s pre-eminence even in the moment of desertion. Kripalani may even be seen as embodying a Congress and a country which lacked the moral courage to stay with a leader who was far ahead of them. That leader, too, had no recourse except to make appeals that he knew would go unheard, and to persist in his attempt to somehow stop the madness from spreading in all directions. Gandhi, in all his 50 years of public life – including South Africa – had never been reduced to such a pathetic state as in those last days when he was driven to piteously imploring his associates to retain faith in ahimsa. He could tolerate his loneliness, helplessness too. Being on the sidelines, or being driven there, was for him no cause for personal humiliation; nor so others’ thanklessness. What was gnawing at him was the thought that the world appeared so unready for ahimsa precisely when its successful application was about to be established. His distress was not on account of being considered quixotic. It sprang from his inability to save humanity from madness. In 1925, Gandhi had written: ‘Moral authority is never retained by any attempt to hold on to it. It comes without seeking and is retained without effort.’4 Gandhi’s life exemplified this truth during the next 20 years. Whether or not in 1947 he remembered his statement of 1925 is not known. What is known is that his life had, by 1947, demonstrated an altogether different aspect of the working of moral authority: it can fade as effortlessly too. 86

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While Gandhi’s moral authority might not have faded in the literal sense, it had become a burden – a debt – that seemed increasingly heavy even to his closest associates by 1947. And, for the first time, Gandhi wanted his moral authority to be preserved. He could not see that the more he wanted to hold on to it, the more it slipped away. The more it slipped, the more he tried to hold on to it, for the sake of a suffering world. Gandhi considered himself to be a ‘gambler’. He had taken many a great gamble in his public life. In the final tally, he undoubtedly emerged a winner in the gamble against the British government. But now he was gambling against his own people. And each time the throw of dice seemed to be going against him. Like a gambler on a losing streak, the more he lost, the more he raised the stakes, gambling on his life twice within a mere five months. Ranged against him were his own people. How could they win such a terrible wager? They conceded to him, not willingly but out of sheer compulsion. Once earlier, 14 years ago, Gandhi had similarly gambled against his people. Then, too, people had conceded defeat, out of sheer compulsion. Did Gandhi’s ahimsa win even once on those occasions? We shall explore in this chapter.

I In the previous chapter we saw that as soon as Gandhi received news about Noakhali (in October 1946), he decided to go there and, by winning the hearts of the people, establish peace. He had not yet reached Noakhali and had just made it to Calcutta when Hindus started killing Muslims in Bihar in a tit-for-tat move. Every effort was made to influence Gandhi to go to Bihar and establish peace there. But Gandhi did not change his plan and reached Noakhali in the first week of November. He was confident that he would be able to control Bihar from Noakhali itself. In any case he was certain that if he succeeded in Noakhali, the problem of communalism would be reined in across the country. Neither Bihar nor Noakhali calmed down; on the contrary, the fearsome violence intensified, sweeping across the North-West Frontier Province and Punjab. It was during this period of violence, and largely as a consequence of it, that the Congress acceded to Partition. A deadline was set for the end of British rule. Gandhi, however, left Delhi before independence and set out for Noakhali once again with the intention of completing his unfinished task there. He could not proceed further than Calcutta where he was held back to restore calm in the city. Gandhi reached Calcutta on the morning of 9 August 1947 and planned to leave for Noakhali on 11 August. He left Calcutta after 30 days, on 7 September, but not for Noakhali. These 30 days are critical for an understanding of the practical possibility of a new politics of truth and ahimsa. A politics that not only considers the 87

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gap between ideal and practice – conventionally deemed unbridgeable – as unnecessary but also as essentially harmful. The miracle which transpired in those 30 days has been described extensively by Pyarelal, N.K. Bose and D. G. Tendulkar; it emerges clearly in Richard Attenborough’s film Gandhi as well. Even so, it is necessary to carefully examine those days keeping this new politics at the centre. When Gandhi reached Calcutta, the city was rife with communal tension and violent incidents. In fact, since the carnage unleashed by Direct Action of the Muslim League a year ago on 16 August 1946, the city had been more or less on the communal boil. Now with only six days remaining for independence and almost all the Muslim officers and constabulary of the city police having elected to cross over to East Pakistan, there was a heightened fear that past scores against the city’s Muslims would be freely settled. In the midst of that mistrust and terror, Gandhi was the only one the Muslims could trust. So Mohammad Usman, the former mayor of Calcutta, promptly presented himself before Gandhi within hours of his arrival in the city. Giving a detailed account of the dire spectre hovering over the Muslims, the former mayor implored Gandhi to halt in Calcutta for at least four days so that he could create an environment in which no misfortune would befall the Muslims. That evening Gandhi devoted his entire prayer discourse to this issue. Throughout the day, he said, he had heard nothing but accounts of the danger confronting the Muslims. He had been apprised by the Muslims – not that they had become very prudent – and also the Hindus that the city’s Hindus had gone mad. The Hindus believed they were free to now do unto the Muslims what, according to them, had been done to them by the Muslims. It was a blot on West Bengal’s Congress government, Gandhi said, if the Muslims were really living in terror. How the Muslim League government had earlier acquitted itself was not germane to the issue. What the government of Dr. Prafulla Chandra Ghosh, the chief minister, was doing was the only relevant issue. Gandhi was not willing to accept that goondas were to blame for all the rioting. The open goondaism of the goondas was but a symptom of the concealed goondaism in people’s hearts. In any case, the onus was on the government to tackle acts of criminality. What Gandhi thought of the possibility of the government discharging its responsibility is not known. What we do know is that he thought it necessary to remark that if necessary, he would gladly sacrifice his life to calm the frenzy of the people. Gandhi was visited by Mohammad Usman the following day too, this time accompanied by a big Muslim delegation. He appealed to Gandhi to stay on in Calcutta for at least two more days to restore peace in the city declaring that Muslims had as much of a right over Gandhi as the Hindus. Gandhi said he was ready to stay back on the condition that the Muslims present agreed to be responsible for the safety of Noakhali’s Hindus. They 88

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should do so knowing full well that he – Gandhi – would go on a fast unto death if any violence was committed against Noakhali’s Hindus. The delegation – after much deliberation – gave him the assurance both personally and on behalf of the Muslim League. One of his significant accomplishments in this regard was to persuade the main organisers of the Noakhali violence in 1946, namely Mian Ghulam Sarwar and his right hand man Qasim Ali, to ensure communal peace. Gandhi agreed to leave for Noakhali on 13 August instead of 11 August. He had been in Calcutta for barely a day-and-a-half when he discerned in the city and, through its prism, in the whole of India–Pakistan, a disturbing aspect of the grave conditions brought upon by Partition. He could see that those holding the reins of government were, on their own strength, unequal to the task of bringing the situation under control. Had it been a case of just Calcutta’s fearful Muslims feeling that no one except Gandhi could save them, there was some scope for thinking that the conditions were actually not all that grave – that political workers would not allow the situation to go out of hand. That wasn’t so. Gandhi had just reached Calcutta when Chief Minister Prafulla Ghosh came to meet him. He spoke for one full hour explaining the entire situation at length. Being a devotee of Gandhi, he had a fine understanding of and faith in his ideals. (His Mahatma Gandhi: As I saw him reveals the immense sympathy with which Ghosh perceived the increasing suffering and helplessness of Gandhi in those final days.) The governor, Frederick Burrows, too, sent for him in the afternoon the same day. He told Gandhi straight that Calcutta needed his presence. Gandhi had no assurances forthcoming from any quarter that he could proceed to Noakhali with an easy mind; that there would not be any more disturbances in Calcutta. Calcutta mirrored the state of the country. Political power alone was not enough to come to grips with the grim situation; moral authority was equally necessary. But there wasn’t another in India or Pakistan who possessed that kind of moral courage. On the second day of his stay in Calcutta also Gandhi spoke on this subject in his prayer discourse. The prayer discourses were, for him, the most effective means of communicating with people in the midst of that frenzy. As on the previous day, he again tried to make people realise the inhumanity that marked the communal mentality and the resultant violence. He took special care to avoid seeming partial towards any one community. Beginning with the declaration that he had postponed his departure to Noakhali, Gandhi said he would do everything in his power to calm the frenzy sweeping across Calcutta. Saying that he had not forgotten the Hindus of Noakhali, he disclosed that by pledging his life he had obtained from the Muslims who had held him back in Calcutta, their solemn pledge that there would be no violence in Noakhali. Explaining his modus operandi, he said he would move around the city to survey the areas where Muslims 89

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had been driven out of their homes by Hindus as also those from where Hindus had been chased out of their homes by Muslims. He would prevail upon people of both the communities to welcome their neighbours back with love and respect. He stressed the importance of the government and its employees being completely free of any communal feeling. Bearing in mind the significant role of the police in an atmosphere of pervasive communal insecurity and mutual distrust, he warned that if communalism made inroads in the police force, the future would be dark indeed. The government would have to ensure that the minorities were not persecuted in any way. When Gandhi was being pressed repeatedly on 9–10 August by Calcutta’s eminent Muslims to stay back for just two more days, Suhrawardy was away in Karachi. He had planned to halt in Delhi for a few days on his way back to Calcutta. But as soon as he learnt about Gandhi being in Calcutta, he cut short his Delhi visit and immediately returned to Calcutta (on 11 August). Rushing to meet Gandhi that very night, he insisted that the real issue was not about Gandhi extending his stay in Calcutta by two more days. Since restoration of peace in the city was the objective of holding him back, it was not possible to be specific about how much longer he needed to stay on. He must stay as long as there wasn’t complete confidence that peace had really returned to the city. This was the same Suhrawardy who, just the previous year, had issued, along with Gandhi, a joint appeal urging people to maintain communal harmony; in his capacity as the West Bengal prime minister he had vowed to extend all possible help to Gandhi and his associates in Noakhali. But thereafter, on account of the violence against the Muslims in Bihar, he had kept up a public rant against Gandhi, accusing him of indifference towards the Muslims so long as he did not leave Noakhali for Bihar. Gandhi, without any trace of a grudge, told Suhrawardy that he was ready to stay on for an indefinite period in Calcutta subject to certain conditions. These conditions reveal the way Gandhi conducted his politics. Gandhi said he was ready to stay on provided Suhrawardy agreed to work with him in all sincerity. They would take up residence together in a house located in a riot-affected area. Whoever they met and wherever they went, the two would always be together. Neither would express any views behind the other’s back. This meant that the people coming to meet them would need to have the courage to say before both – Gandhi and Suhrawardy – even things that were critical of one of them. Similarly, Gandhi and Suhrawardy themselves would require the courage to say or do whatever they wanted before each other. Both leaders needed to drive home to people the fundamental point that there was no reason to stoke mutual conflict now that Partition had been agreed upon. Gandhi also wanted the two to stay without any police or army protection. However, this was unacceptable to the administration. 90

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Having stated his conditions, Gandhi said to Suhrawardy: I do not want you to come to a decision immediately. You should go back home and consult your daughter; for the implication of what I mean is that the old Suhrawardy will have to die and accept the garb of a mendicant (fakir)5. By the time Suhrawardy took leave of Gandhi, it was almost 11 p.m. It took him until the following afternoon to reach a decision. He sent word to Gandhi conveying his acceptance of all the conditions. It may be noted in this context that Gandhi had made a similar proposal just three months ago with regard to another matter. Suhrawardy had then dismissed it as ‘a mad offer’.6 The same evening Gandhi gave a step-by-step account in his prayer discourse, from the arrival of Suhrawardy the previous night to his unequivocal acceptance of Gandhi’s proposal a few hours earlier. Both ‘friends’, said Gandhi, were now looking for an appropriate residence in a riot-hit locality so that they could live there and start working. Gandhi then came to the subject that he knew would be agitating all those Hindus who considered Suhrawardy the ‘leader of goondas’.7 Stating that he had been cautioned about Suhrawardy’s untrustworthiness, Gandhi drew attention to the fact that he himself had, for a long time, been similarly viewed by the Muslims. They had thought of him as crafty and the biggest enemy of Islam. If he nonetheless wished to be trusted, he ought to trust others. As for what lay hidden in people’s hearts, only God knew for certain. Gandhi was being trusted. However, that did not mean that he was unmindful of the possible dangers involved in such an initiative. He wrote to Patel on 13 August: ‘I have got stuck here and am now going to undertake a grave risk. . . . The future will reveal itself. Keep close watch.’ In his reply Patel described Gandhi’s move as a ‘terrible risk’ and masked his worry with habitual sarcasm: ‘So you have got detained in Calcutta and that too in a quarter which is a . . . notorious den of gangsters and hooligans. And in what choice company [Suhrawardy] too!’8 Patel’s message tells a good deal about the neighbourhood in which Gandhi and Suhrawardy took up residence from the evening of 13 August. Located in Beliaghat, it was a large, decrepit house going by the grandiose title of Hydari Mansion. In reality it was old, filthy and going to pieces. The search for an appropriate house had started on 12 August and by the following day the selected house had been occupied. There was a limit to what could be achieved within 24 hours even with the administrative machinery going all out to make the house liveable. There were bound to be physical discomforts. Gandhi wanted that. It was important to live like common people in order to be effective among them. Gandhi had been in Calcutta for a total of four days before he moved into Hydari Mansion. In his prayer discourse every evening save the third, 91

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he explained to people that communal frenzy did not benefit anybody. The impact of Gandhi’s discourses on the thousands who thronged to hear him and on those who read and heard his statements in newspapers and on the radio would be hard to measure. However, no sooner had he reached Hydari Mansion than it was evident that a great deal of work still remained to be done. He was met by an angry group of Hindu youths. ‘Why have you come here,’ they clamoured. ‘You did not come when we were in trouble. Now that the Muslims have complained, all this fuss is being made over it. Why did you not go to places from where the Hindus have fled?’9 Gandhi and his entourage managed to enter the house with great difficulty. The real commotion began after some time when Suhrawardy’s vehicle arrived. The youths started pelting stones. They were somehow persuaded to stop the ruckus and send in a few representatives to meet Gandhi. The foundation of Gandhi’s politics rested on the principle of maintaining selfcomposure and awakening the opponent’s good sense even in the face of unrestrained frenzy. He possessed an extraordinary ability to steer the opponent towards dialogue. As soon as the youth representatives entered his room, one of them said heatedly: Last year when Direct Action was launched on the Hindus on the 16th August, you did not come to our rescue. Now that there has been just a little trouble in the Muslim quarters, you have come running to their succour. We don’t want you here.10 Gandhi’s reply was: Much water has flown under the bridge since August, 1946. What the Muslims did then was utterly wrong. But what is the use of avenging the year 1946 on 1947? I was on my way to Noakhali where your own kith and kin desired my presence. But I now see that I shall have to serve Noakhali only from here. You must understand that I have come here to serve not only Muslims but Hindus, Muslims and all alike. Those who are indulging in brutalities are bringing disgrace upon themselves and the religion they represent. I am going to put myself under your protection. You are welcome to turn against me and play the opposite role if you so choose. I have nearly reached the end of my life’s journey. I have not much farther to go. But let me tell you that if you again go mad, I will not be a living witness to it. I have given the same ultimatum to the Muslims of Noakhali also; I have earned the right. Before there is another outbreak of Muslim madness in Noakhali, they will find me dead. Why cannot you see that by taking this step I have put the burden of the peace of Noakhali on the shoulders of Shaheed Suhrawardy and his friends – including men like Mian Ghulam Sarwar and the rest? This is no small gain.11 92

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The conversation gathered steam; the agitated youths were not so easily calmed. It took Gandhi several hours of engagement with them to find an opening. He confronted them with a question to which their hearts’ reply could not have gone against him: ‘I put it to you, young men, how can I, who am a Hindu by birth, a Hindu by creed and a Hindu of Hindus in my way of living, be an “enemy” of Hindus?’12 The young hearts touched, the conversation had reached a point where it could be paused – the clock showed 8 p.m. – for the threads to be picked up the following day. It was certain now that the youngsters, in the conversations ahead, would not display the anger and mistrust that just a few hours ago had set off this chain of events. That is exactly what happened when the youths returned the following day, 14 August. Gandhi was able to persuade them that if the Hindus of the neighbourhood lovingly welcomed back the Muslims they had driven away, then he would go, along with Suhrawardy, to the city’s Muslim majority areas and persuade the people there to similarly welcome back the Hindus who had been driven out. It took two days of engagement but most of the youths understood Gandhi’s intent and threw themselves into the effort for communal peace. When the armed guards were removed after 15 August – Gandhi had been against official protection from the beginning – some of those youths took it upon themselves to guard Hydari Mansion. The house that Gandhi was being prevented from entering on 13 August was milling with a 10,000 strong audience in the compound for the evening prayers the following day. But the anger against Suhrawardy was still unabated. Gandhi was asking the audience as to how he could even imagine going to Noakhali at a time when two million Hindus and Muslims in Calcutta had become sworn enemies, when there was a sudden uproar and an outcry: ‘Where is Suhrawardy?’13 Gandhi explained that their inflamed feelings had prompted Suhrawardy to remain inside the house; but since people were becoming more restrained, he would be present at the following day’s prayer. At the very moment when Gandhi was praising the people for their restraint, some of them left the prayer venue and made a run for the house to teach Suhrawardy a lesson. Hurling abuses at him they began pelting stones at the house. A helpless Suhrawardy cowered on the floor and the doors and windows were promptly bolted from inside. When Gandhi returned from the prayer, he was informed about the latest disturbance. Throwing open the windows he began to address the agitated crowd outside. As the people quietened down on seeing him, Gandhi said: When people agreed to work with him it followed that they had to work with Suhrawardy as well. In response, there was a fresh clamour: ‘Where is Suhrawardy?’14 People were adamant that they would not stir without seeing Suhrawardy. Finally, Gandhi told them that Suhrawardy was concluding his Ramzan fast and would come shortly. In the meantime, someone in the 93

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crowd shouted that Suhrawardy was not worthy of trust. To which Gandhi replied, ‘He will not be able to stick to me if he is not sincere; he will drop off before long.’15 When Gandhi felt that he had managed to bring the people around somewhat, he gestured to Suhrawardy to appear at the window. Now Gandhi was in the middle, flanked by Suhrawardy and Manu Gandhi, his hand resting on their shoulders. Any attack on Suhrawardy would cause harm to Gandhi too. Suhrawardy, having gained protection, started speaking: ‘It is Bengal’s great good luck that Mahatmaji is in our midst at this hour. Will Bengal realise its high privilege and stop the fratricide?’16 Suhrawardy had barely said this when a man spoke up from the crowd: ‘Are you not responsible for the Great Calcutta Killing?’ Suhrawardy replied, ‘Yes, we all are.’ Escape was not that easy. Hearts were brimming with grief and acrimony. ‘Will you answer my question, please,’17 the man persisted. The question was not his alone. Everyone needed a straight, unambiguous answer from Suhrawardy. Gandhi’s reasoning that working with him also meant working with Suhrawardy was not going to work in that charged atmosphere. One can imagine Gandhi in that dramatic and decisive moment, shielding Suhrawardy from the irate crowd outside the window, hoping that this man, whom he had implicitly trusted, would have the courage to speak the truth. One can also imagine how Suhrawardy’s heart and mind would have reeled in that agonising moment. ‘Yes, it was my responsibility,’18 Suhrawardy replied. That one sentence transformed the atmosphere completely. Rather than having to evade people and needing the protection of Gandhi, Suhrawardy drove Gandhi around the following day to show how, in place after place, the city’s Hindus and Muslims were fraternising, fervently celebrating independence. This was the same Calcutta which, until the previous night, had been gripped by the fear that the Muslims might observe 15 August as a day of mourning. Also that, if it so happened, there was no knowing what vengeance the Hindus would wreak. Instead, as if there had never been any disturbance, people everywhere were stopping the vehicle in which Suhrawardy was driving Gandhi, heartily felicitating both the leaders, shouting slogans of ‘Mahatma Gandhi zindabad’ and getting the two leaders to say ‘Jai Hind’19 along with them. Seeing this unexpected transformation Gandhi wrote an editorial for his Harijan the following day titling it ‘Miracle or accident?’ In a detailed account he wrote that whatever had happened – miracle or accident – was God’s doing. He and Suhrawardy were merely His instruments. If this is all that one can say about the incident then the miracle that Calcutta experienced in the blink of an eye would create a very simplistic, sentimental and misleading portrayal of Gandhi’s politics. If this is all that one can perceive, it would seem as if some apostle of truth has only to emerge on 94

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the scene for everything to fall into place by virtue of his moral brilliance. If that were so, this book would not have been written, and even if it had, the tragedy of Gandhi – and of humanity – would not have been its leitmotif. Following the nine days’ wonder of the Khilafat movement, Gandhi had persisted for 25 years to make the Muslims trust him as their well-wisher. His ceaseless efforts had met with little success. Now the same Gandhi was being asked by the Muslims of Calcutta to save them for the simple reason that other than him they could think of no other source of strength or refuge. Likewise, Suhrawardy’s abject helplessness was there for the world to see. Whatever assistance he may have provided as Bengal’s prime minister to ensure the success of the Muslim League’s Direct Action, he found himself pushed to the margins now that a Muslim League government was about to be formed in Pakistan’s East Bengal region, with the reins of power in the hands of Khwaja Nazimuddin. Not only was Suhrawardy free of the compulsions of real politics; any chance now for him to have a political future lay in saving the Muslims in this moment of danger. He, too, had no one to turn to other than Gandhi. The possibility of the success of Gandhi’s distinctive brand of politics was very much dependent on the moral capital that he had accumulated over the years. That capital, however, was inadequate to succeed by itself. What contributed greatly to its success was the helplessness of Suhrawardy and the Muslims in this instance. At the same time, the limits of Gandhi’s politics were also demonstrated by an aspect of the inconceivable miracle of Calcutta. Having been held back in Calcutta, he could extract from the city’s Muslims a guarantee of safety for Noakhali’s Hindus. But he himself was in no position to offer a similar guarantee, other than his physical presence, to Calcutta’s Muslims. He could not tell them that they should live without fear and let him proceed to Noakhali, for he would, before leaving, pledge his life and tell the Hindus that no one could lay a finger on the Muslims. Whether or not Gandhi had thought this through, by staying on in Calcutta on the condition that Muslims guaranteed the safety of Noakhali’s Hindus, he accomplished what, by going to Noakhali, he might not have achieved in Noakhali and certainly not been able to prevent in Calcutta. After having established peace in Calcutta, Gandhi was all set to start for Noakhali on 1 September20 when, on the night of 31 August, his residence was attacked. Reports of violence against Muslims in the city started coming in the following morning. Gandhi began a fast unto death the same day. Gandhi’s residence was attacked by Hindus at 10 p.m. Gandhi commenced his fast in less than 23 hours – 22-and-a-quarter hours to be exact. For Gandhi, these hours were linked to that spiralling communal violence which he saw as the most severe problem afflicting the country – a problem that, despite his best efforts, was eluding his grasp. And time was running out. He realised that if something did not work out soon, it would be too 95

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late. The thought of a fast unto death had occurred to him during the preceding 11 months – in both Noakhali and Bihar – but for some reason or other, did not stick in his mind. These 22-and-a-quarter hours showed Gandhi clearly that the moment to stake his life was upon him. What happened in those decisive hours to give Gandhi that clarity? Gandhi was asleep when Hindu rioters broke into the house and started vandalising it. Awakened by the noise he could not make out what the commotion was all about. Sensing danger, the two girls who lay on either side of him went up to the rioters and bravely asked them to calm down. Seeing the girls gone Gandhi felt that something was amiss. His weekly vow of silence was in force at the time. But faced with approaching danger, he broke his vow temporarily and with folded hands appealed to the rioters to calm down. The appeal had no effect. On the contrary, the rioters tried to strike him too. However, the lathi aimed at him missed its mark, and the stone directed at him struck a Muslim standing beside him. Meanwhile, Bengal Chief Minister Prafulla Chandra Ghosh and Calcutta’s police superintendent arrived on the scene. Sending Gandhi inside they managed to remove the rioters somehow. Gandhi had, for some time, been witnessing the ineffectuality of his ahimsa in the face of communal violence. But the experience of his helplessness that night was particularly grave. The sense of helplessness increased all the more when the violence that had started at night began spreading across the city. The arrangements that he made for the safe passage of Muslims from the neighbouring Miabagan to a secure destination did not work out too well either. A truck carrying Muslims had barely left Miabagan when a bomb was hurled at it, resulting in two deaths. Nothing more was left to happen. Was there anything left for Gandhi to do? Gandhi wrote to Patel at 6 p.m. apprising him of the spreading conflagration in Calcutta: ‘I am pondering what my duty is in the circumstances.’ Then, conveying that he had received a telegram from ‘Jawahar’ asking him to go to Punjab because of the deteriorating situation there, he expressed his dilemma: ‘How can I go now? I am searching deep within myself. In that silence helps.’21 Gandhi had not made any mention of a fast until 6 p.m., though he did state in his letter to Patel that he would later add a postscript since the letter would be sent only the following day. Gandhi’s deep self-introspection was doubtless urging him towards a fast unto death. But, at the time of writing to Patel he had not arrived at any firm decision. This conjecture gains credence due to one more reason. Gandhi, through the day, had delegations of people coming to him and asking what they could do to douse the fire. He had just one piece of advice for everybody: Go in the midst of the rioters and prevent them from indulging in madness or get killed in the attempt. But do not come back alive to report failure. The situation calls for sacrifice on the part of 96

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top-rankers. So far the unknown, nameless rank and file alone have been the victims of the holocaust with the one exception of the late Ganesh Shankar Vidyarthi. That is not enough.22 What Gandhi had learnt from the previous night’s experience was that his physical presence and his constant entreaties to the rioters – appeals to reason – were not necessarily effective. It was possible, however, that his fast could accomplish what his words couldn’t. There was something about the chemistry of his moral authority that even if his physical presence became ineffective in some situations, the prospect of that presence being removed from their midst was a risk that the people were simply not prepared for. To say this about Gandhi’s moral authority, notwithstanding his assassination, is possible today. But at that moment of self-introspection, when the decision of a fast unto death was about to be made after having been abandoned several times earlier, he must have wondered if even this gamble was going to fail. This fast unto death, after all, was being undertaken by one crying in the wilderness, incessantly despairing: ‘Who listens to me when I speak?’23 This despair over his setting influence must have deepened more by the events set in motion the previous night. The decision of a fast unto death, prompted by a pessimistic evaluation of subjective and objective realities, was the ‘last throw’ of a defeated gambler. Except that this final gamble would be repeated in four months’ time. It was perhaps the ‘weakness’ induced by a fear that this great gamble might fail that prompted Gandhi to consider adding lemon along with salt in his drinking water during the fast. Maybe he wanted as much time as he could get through his fast to reach out to people’s hearts. The ‘weakness’ was detected by Rajaji, who was otherwise totally opposed to this fast. Gandhi, once he was made aware of this concession to weakness, decided to have water without lemon during the fast. Whatever Gandhi’s dilemmas till then, he achieved perfect clarity once the decision to fast was made. He wanted to go to each and every resident of Calcutta to persuade them that this frenzy should end. To say that Hindus and Sikhs must not forget what they have done in East Punjab recently; that now when the Muslims of West Punjab too have embarked on a similar frenzy, it is being said that the Hindus and Sikhs are inflamed by it. That he – Gandhi – wants to go to Punjab to be able to do something; but now when the Calcutta miracle of 14–15 August has been belied, with what face would he go to Punjab? That the one sole weapon that had faithfully served him throughout his life was the fast. He was relying on it once again. Gandhi said all this in a public statement at 8.15 p.m. before commencing his fast, adding that if the people of Calcutta wanted him to go to Punjab and help the people there then they would have to create conditions for his fast to end soon. Only after good sense prevailed over insanity in Calcutta would his fast end. 97

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Pinpointing the moment when Gandhi arrived at his Herculean decision in the two-and-a-half hours between writing the letter to Patel and commencing the fast would not be so easy. But once the decision was made, he was not prepared to countenance any delays. Rajaji, whom Gandhi considered his conscience keeper, was scheduled to arrive soon. But Gandhi did not wait even for him. He had begun his fast by the time Rajaji arrived. He argued with Gandhi till 11.30 p.m. One aspect of their lengthy debate is particularly worth mentioning in the present context. To Rajaji’s query – why this great hurry, why couldn’t Gandhi ‘[w]ait and watch a little’ –24 Gandhi replied: It would be too late afterwards. The minority Muslims cannot be left in a perilous state. My fast has to be preventive if it is to be [of] any good. I know I shall be able to tackle the Punjab too if I can control Calcutta. But if I falter now, the conflagration may spread and soon, I can see clearly, two or three powers will be upon us and thus will end our short-lived dream of independence.25 Rajaji countered him with another question: ‘But supposing you die, the conflagration would be worse.’ Gandhi replied, ‘At least I won’t be there to witness it. I shall have done my bit. More is not given a man to do.’26 For Gandhi – notwithstanding any unknown frailties or despite an inner temptation to achieve some good solely through his faith in God – living merely for the sake of living was never an inducement. It made no difference to him that his conscience keeper was employing this logic. The swiftness with which Gandhi sat on the fast unto death was matched by the rapidity with which its impact became apparent. Peace was restored in just three days – a comprehensive peace that could be termed the return of reason or the end of frenzy. Irrespective of what occurred on the second day of the fast, the entire day of 3 September passed without any disagreeable incident. In fact, such was the impact in Gandhi’s locality that the same Hindus who had driven away their Muslim neighbours persuaded them to return. That was not all. Gandhi’s appeal to people to go in the midst of rioters so as to bring about peace in a non-violent manner, even if they lost their lives in the process, did not go unheeded. Two young volunteers – Sachin Mitra and Smritish Bannerji – who were believers in ahimsa, lost their lives contending with communal frenzy. Gandhi, who was ever prepared for death himself, believed that such innocent deaths were essential for bringing Hindus and Muslims closer. Gandhi’s magic had not been exhausted. After merely 73 hours of fasting, 78-year-old Gandhi concluded his fast by drinking mausambi juice offered by Suhrawardy on 4 September at 9.15 p.m. 98

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It is likely that nobody, Gandhi included, had imagined such a miracle. While Rajaji’s prudence had made him fear for Gandhi’s life, Gandhi himself had surrendered entirely to God’s protection. There was not an iota of exaggeration in Mountbatten’s famous comment that Gandhi’s one-man boundary force in Bengal had achieved what 55,000 army troops in Punjab were powerless to do. Another significant aspect of Gandhi’s miracle, as pointed out by Rajaji, was that it had not only established peace; it was a victory of good over evil. This victory was considered by Rajaji to be among the most illustrious of Gandhi’s many achievements. The fast achieved one more remarkable turnaround: the countless Muslims, who had looked upon Gandhi with suspicion to the extent of considering him their biggest enemy, actually started seeing him as their greatest well-wisher. They were the same Muslims who, along with Suhrawardy, had publicly and relentlessly taunted Gandhi at one time, demanding that he leave Noakhali and go to Bihar. Their change of heart had begun 20 days ago when, led by Suhrawardy, they had made the Noakhali-bound Gandhi stay on in Calcutta for their protection. But this fast transformed their hearts totally. On his part, Gandhi, who in the past used to say sorrowfully that ‘the Muslims . . . consider me their enemy’,27 started saying that the Muslims trusted him. In fact, in the five or so months of Gandhi’s remaining life, the sequence of events which commenced in Calcutta – as we shall see shortly – gathered more force. But there was another dimension to this development also. Just before the fast’s conclusion, Suhrawardy told Gandhi that the Muslims considered him their friend and well-wisher. Rajaji, who happened to be there, commented significantly: ‘If I may vary the language, I would say that he is safer today in the hands of the Muslims than in those of the Hindus.’28 Suhrawardy was referring only to Muslims in the context of Gandhi. That Rajaji felt it necessary to connect the statement with Hindus is fraught with meaning. To what extent Rajaji realised the truth of his comment at that time is hard to say. But there could not have been, in his comment, a presentiment of what came to pass four months later, on 30 January 1948. At any rate, what is undisputed is the fact that in those 73 hours, a miracle was effected in Calcutta. And this was Gandhi’s doing. I am aware that the attitude of many a people towards Gandhi – not only at that time but also later, and for a host of reasons – has largely been one of indifference or hostility. But I get overwhelmed whenever I think about the Calcutta miracle. There wouldn’t be many instances such as this in the entire world. Nevertheless – and this ‘nevertheless’ is very important – I am unable to attribute this miracle to Gandhi’s ahimsa. It was more a miracle of his moral prowess and courage, acquired chiefly through ahimsa, though. To that extent, it may be argued, the pure ahimsa of Gandhi’s definition may also have had a role in the making of that miracle. But more than that – or along with it – there was the contribution of moral coercion. That moral 99

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coercion which Gandhi – by attaching his life to the fast – had knowingly or unknowingly exerted on the very people whose change of heart had been his fast’s purpose. I have consciously used the word ‘coercion’ with moral instead of pressure or burden. When the life that has been staked happens to be Gandhi’s, change of heart or not, how many people would have been in a position to strike any kind of bargain? People’s hearts may have harboured mixed, even mutually contradictory thoughts and emotions relating to communalism and violence, but at that moment only one thought, only one emotion – whatever it takes to save Gandhi – would have wittingly or unwittingly dominated all other thoughts and emotions, overriding them all. Gandhi had a direct, simple logic with regard to communal relations that we have completely forgotten. That is, a peace brokered by the police, army or suchlike external force – symbolic of the sword to Gandhi – between two communities actually deepens the rift between them. But Gandhi, being under the impression that he was bringing about a change in people’s hearts and bringing their goodness to the fore, could not see that he was actually coercing them into maintaining communal peace. He could not see that this, too, could result more or less in what the use of force by the police or army usually does. However commendable Gandhi’s objective may have been from a moral standpoint, to hold that the emotional blackmail which provided the means to accomplishing the purpose of his fast did not constitute violence is somewhat incomprehensible. Gandhi himself did not subscribe to this view, as we shall see later in the context of yet another fast unto death. When efforts were under way to persuade Gandhi to conclude his fast on 4 September on the ground that peace had been restored in the city, an unexpected and instructive dispute came up. That dispute allows us to see how far – or little – people had experienced a change of heart as well as the extent to which they were acting out of compulsion. It so happened that representatives of the government and people streamed in through the day to assure Gandhi that peace had been established in the city. Towards the evening, a group of distinguished individuals came to him with a collective appeal to end his fast. They comprised Hindus, Muslims, Sikhs, Pakistanis, Muslim Leaguers, members of the Hindu Mahasabha and the Congress. Among them were prominent personalities like Rajaji, Acharya Kripalani, Prafulla Chandra Ghosh, Suhrawardy, the president and secretary of the Hindu Mahasabha, N.C. Chatterjee and D.N. Mukherjee. The exertion caused by conferring continually with delegations during the day, in spite of being advised against it by the doctors, had left Gandhi exhausted. Still, comprehensive discussions with these representatives were necessary. The fact that the city had remained peaceful for 24 hours in itself was not reason enough to break the fast, he said. No matter how pleased he had been with the fraternal feelings and goodwill that had 100

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suddenly emerged among the city’s Hindus and Muslims after 14 August, he had not been able to shed his misgivings and doubts completely. Then, as suddenly, violence had recurred. In such circumstances, Gandhi needed to be sure that this time the peace was real, not mere pretence. Accordingly, Gandhi put two questions to his visitors. First, could they in all honesty give him an assurance that communal frenzy would never recur in Calcutta? Second, had the city’s residents truly undergone such a change of heart with regard to communal violence that they would neither encourage nor tolerate it? Gandhi added that if the representatives did not have satisfactory answers to his questions, they should let him continue his fast. Because, if there was a flare-up of communal violence again after the fast was broken, he would have to sit on an irrevocable fast unto death. Gandhi did not stop there. Taking his questions to their logical conclusion he said: [I]f trouble breaks out – since you are not omnipotent or even omniscient – would you give me your word of honour that you would not live to report failure but lay down your life in the attempt to protect those whose safety you are pledging? You should remember, too, that if you break your pledge after giving it to me, you will have to face an unconditional fast unto death on my part. . . . If you deceive me, if you say one thing and mean another in your heart, my death will be upon your heads. . . . Your assurance must be in writing.29 And that ‘[i]f you cannot give that guarantee, you should rather let me continue this fast. It won’t hurt me. When a man fasts like this, it is not the gallons of water he drinks that sustains him but God’.30 The distinguished individuals were in a dilemma. They had come to save Gandhi’s life, and here he was intent on pledging their lives as surety instead. However logical Gandhi’s position may have been from the standpoint of one who was fasting, could even one of those individuals have honestly stated that communal frenzy would never recur in Calcutta? Or that the peace that had come about was owing to a change of heart among people? If Gandhi’s continued presence in the city was not proof against a sudden upsurge of violence within 16 days of a joyous public demonstration of communal amity, on what grounds could anyone state – truthfully – that there would never again be a repeat of that violence? At the same time, despite knowing that it was impossible to give a satisfactory and honest answer to Gandhi’s questions, who among the deputationists could be reckless enough to endanger that precious life further? A choice had to be made between truth and Gandhi’s life. Further, being aware of the limits of their moral resources, they could not easily agree to Gandhi’s demand either. A drowning man clutches at a straw. 101

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So, one such attempt was made by Suhrawardy to get out of this dilemma. He reminded Gandhi that while commencing his fast he had placed only one condition for ending it. That was the return of ‘sanity’ to the city. That condition had been met. By demanding a written undertaking from them now, Gandhi was putting forth a new condition. That was not valid, said Suhrawardy. ‘What I have spoken now is only a home truth,’ replied Gandhi: to make you know what is what. If there is complete accord between your conviction and feeling, there should be no difficulty in signing that declaration. It is the acid test of your sincerity and courage of conviction. If you sign it merely to keep me alive, you will really be compassing my certain death.31 Maybe to allow a completely worn-out Gandhi some rest, and certainly for a candid discussion among themselves, the delegation retired to another room. Who knows what happened there. In the end Rajaji prepared a statement which N.C. Chatterjee and Suhrawardy, along with some others, signed there and then. It was decided to add some more signatures to it later. The statement read: ‘We the undersigned promise Gandhiji that now that peace and quiet have been restored in Calcutta once again, we shall never again allow communal strife in the city and shall strive unto death to prevent it.’32 Gandhi broke his fast following this written pledge. Due to the paucity of available facts and testimonies, nothing much can be said with certainty about the closed door consultation which resulted in this written pledge. How useful it would have been for us to know the distinct responses and states of mind of the concerned individuals. Even so, the little we know is enough to manifest the dilemmas of the gentlemen who felt compelled to surrender before Gandhi’s insistence. Whatever we speculate about the leaders, it seems, would also, by and large, apply to the popular state of mind. Calcutta submitted to Gandhi, but that submission was not devoid of the desire to resist. Granted, that submission was not akin to being compelled at sword-point; there was faith in Gandhi – ‘how so very distinct from us’ – and the realisation that this man was ready to sacrifice himself for others. But there was resistance also, and that resistance could not have ended, albeit temporarily, if it had not found itself faced with the violence latent in Gandhi’s ahimsa. Calcutta submitted, but what Gandhi had thought and desired did not happen. The riots in Calcutta were not his sole concern when he commenced his fast. He was confident that a peaceful resolution of the Calcutta riots would enable him to contend with communalism in Punjab too. This confidence was not without basis. His objective in undertaking a fast unto

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death was to show that his life was less valuable than communal peace. Why only in Calcutta, there must not be a breach of peace anywhere. While the terms governing the fast’s conclusion were linked to Calcutta, the message of the fast was for everybody, especially for those who swore by Gandhi and cared for him. That did not happen. The Calcutta miracle remained a local miracle. Gandhi’s magic was waning. Mountbatten had unwittingly pointed towards one increasing similarity between Gandhi and the police/army. Armed forces are required to go in the midst of rioters to do their job. The moral force of a figure like Gandhi works differently. Sometimes, physical presence might become necessary in a moment of crisis, but its influence is never only local. But a new process commenced with Noakhali. Now, much like the police and the army, Gandhi’s influence began to be felt, to the extent it was, only in the place where he was present. This similarity had become so striking that when Gandhi, upon breaking his fast, remarked that he would leave for Punjab the following day, Suhrawardy panicked. He told Gandhi it could not be so. He would have to stay for two more days so that the peace that had been restored in the city could be established on a firm footing. The others present there also reinforced Suhrawardy’s plea. No one seemed to have noticed the irony of the situation – or they kept quiet if they did. The irony was that those who, on the strength of a day’s peace, had assured that communal violence would not recur in the city were so full of foreboding that they were not prepared to let Gandhi leave. At any rate, Gandhi stayed back for another two days. Gandhi was pleased that Calcutta had vindicated his ahimsa and shown that he had not become completely bankrupt. His word still carried weight with the people. Now he would be able to go to Punjab with renewed strength and self-confidence. As for the other dimension of the Calcutta miracle, namely the latent violence that had made the non-violent fast effective, Gandhi did not, maybe could not, see it.

II Gandhi was bound for Noakhali when he left Delhi just prior to independence. He had to stop in Calcutta and stay there for an entire month. This time he set off from Calcutta for Punjab, but was forced to stop in Delhi – for the final four-and-a- half months of his life. Till the very end he hoped to be able to go to Punjab – not just East Punjab but West Punjab as well. That did not happen. Eventually, he was compelled to repeat in Delhi the ultimate gamble that he had risked in Calcutta.

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He reached Delhi on the morning of 9 September only to find that ‘the Capital has become a city of the dead’.33 He said: When I reached Shahdara I saw Sardar Patel, Rajkumari [Amrit Kaur] and others who had come to receive me. The usual smile on Sardar’s lips was missing, as was his joviality. After alighting from the train I found the policemen and people I met reflecting the same sadness that was visible on Sardar Patel’s face.34 Delhi, Gandhi was informed, was squarely in the grip of communal violence. This could only mean that dire misfortune had befallen the city’s Muslims. With Delhi burning, going to Punjab – especially West Punjab – was impossible. A Calcutta-like situation had arisen in Delhi too. Leaving the Muslims in Delhi to die, how could he move on? What justification would he then have to tell the Pakistan government to not treat the Hindus and Sikhs as second-class citizens, and to let them live with comfort and dignity in their country? The issue for Gandhi was not of losing face before Pakistan, for he had never accepted Partition. In his eyes there was no such distinction as Hindu or Muslim, India or Pakistan. As he said in a prayer discourse in September: For me everybody is alike. It’s not as though being a Hindu Gandhi is concerned only about Hindus and not Muslims. I say I am a Hindu and a true Hindu, moreover, a sanatani Hindu. That is precisely why I am also a Muslim, a Parsi, a Christian and a Jew. To me they are like the branches of one tree. Which branch should I choose, which one should I leave? Which one’s leaves should I pick, and which ones should I discard? To me everybody is alike. I am made this way. What can I do about it? If everybody started thinking like me, there would be total peace everywhere.35 It is not as if Gandhi did not perceive the pain of those who had suffered the cruel violence of Partition. Nor was his hope – ‘If everyone started thinking like me’ – so unnatural or impossible as to be beyond the comprehension of those affected by violence. Just before expressing this hope, Gandhi said in the same discourse: You can accost me; many Hindus, their eyes bloodshot with anger, tell me, you stayed put in Bengal, you stayed put in Bihar. Just come to Punjab and see for yourself what the Muslims have done to Hindus and Sikhs and what they have done to the girls.36

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In response he had said: It is not that I don’t understand all this. But I want to place both things alongside. Atrocities are undoubtedly being committed there. But if my brother turns mad and kills everyone, should I also become insane like him and be angry? How can this be!37 For all his understanding of ‘all this’, there was something – ‘How can this be!’ – that was beyond understanding. It was certainly beyond the understanding of this man who was incapable of the kind of total cynicism that leaves people unsurprised by atrocities that we naturally tend to describe as – deep down even believe to be – ‘inhuman’. What was happening was precisely what Gandhi was unable to understand. It was forcing him, in his old age, to run from pillar to post to somehow bring this contagious madness under control. His difficulty was that, in the face of fast spreading hysteria, neither his words nor his actions were being seen from the humane viewpoint on which rested their raison d’être. Gandhi saw all as one. But they saw him from their respective, narrow viewpoint or through their madness, consequently believing him now to be their own and now the ‘other’. With only a few believing that he belonged to everyone, Gandhi could not, through his speech and actions, influence people the way he wished to. That, however, was no reason for Gandhi to be mute or inactive. He kept repeating the same thing – the sole right thing – and began staking his life to counter his growing helplessness. Carrying further his argument, Gandhi said: I went to the Old Fort today. I saw thousands of Muslims there. Many more vehicles crowded with Muslims were making their way towards the Fort. They were all refugees. Who were they afraid of that they were forced to stay in the Fort? Are they afraid of you? Are they afraid of me? I know that I don’t intimidate, but my brothers certainly do, those who consider themselves Hindu, and those who consider themselves Sikhs. When they intimidate, it means that I have intimidated and you have intimidated. I cannot bear the thought that they should have to flee to Pakistan out of fear. It is not that Pakistan is heaven and India is hell. Why should we cast ourselves into this hell? I know that neither Pakistan nor India is hell. If we so choose, we can transform them into heaven; we can as well, by our actions, transform them into hell. . . . In India, the Hindus who are in a majority can create hell. When both become hell, it would become impossible for any free human being to live there. After that there is only slavery left in our fate. This thought is consuming me.

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My heart trembles when I think as to which Hindu, which Sikh, which Muslim will I persuade in such a state?38 What Gandhi is saying here in everyday language may seem to many of us as mere idealistic sentimentalism. Quite possibly, Gandhi’s very reasoning may appear to us as meaningless. How can he say ‘When they intimidate, it means that I have intimidated and you have intimidated.’ Clearly, it is the goondas and other antisocial elements who engage in intimidation, assault and killing. How can we be responsible for such acts? Gandhi is not ready to permit us or himself such innocence. He rouses us, cautions us, that we alone will make for ourselves heaven or hell. That if we created hell, we would lose our humanity and our independence. Gandhi says all this merely a month after independence. India and Pakistan are not different for him. He had wanted to avoid the country’s partition. Failing in that he engaged himself in preventing the division of hearts, emphasising that even as the country had been divided, the hearts must not be divided. Also knowing that if the hearts had not been divided, the country could never have been divided and contending with this paradox, because he understood that neither India nor Pakistan stood to gain in the absence of mutual friendship. Should one become hell, the other can never be heaven. Seventy years have since gone by. In the meantime, the division of hearts has perhaps deepened in both countries – across the border and within the border as well. People’s hearts have experienced new divisions. Gandhi’s warning has assumed greater relevance today compared to earlier periods. But only if we are able to see, which is not easy. And when people cannot see, saying or doing something to reach out to them becomes that much more difficult. Why was Gandhi running in his old age from pillar to post? To be immortalised in history? To save the Hindus and the Sikhs from the Muslims? To save the Muslims from the Sikhs and the Hindus? Or to save humans from humans, by saving their humanity for them? Gandhi was able to see. He could see that making anyone understand was becoming difficult. The Hindus and the Sikhs were burning with rage, and the Muslims were no different. In the same September discourse he said: Many Muslims at the [Old] Fort flew into a rage. They were checked by others in whose hearts I saw love as they reasoned [with the enraged ones], saying this old man who has come here has come to serve us.39 Gandhi was seeing everyone, not just one community, and getting distressed: No one would like to abandon their home and belongings. Like those Muslims, the Hindus too are lying helpless as refugees today. 106

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They had to leave their homes and properties behind. Some have died and some have just about reached here alive. Where here is food or water? Where is home? They are lying wherever they can. This is not a good thing. It is for all a matter of shame. I was trying to make them understand this too. Through you I would like to reach out to as many people as my voice [via radio] can reach.40 Gandhi wanted his voice to reach one and all. He knew that external pressure – the fear of the police and the army – alone would not mend things. Things would mend only when people’s hearts healed, when ‘there is no anger in the heart of any Hindu or Sikh against the Muslims’.41 Without that happening, no government, no matter how powerful, would be able to do much. In any case, the government that had assumed power after independence was not particularly powerful. Explaining this point, Gandhi said: Sardar has always walked with his head held high, but today his head is lowered. Jawaharlal, brave and fearless Jawaharlal with the buoyant gait, has been rendered helpless today. Why has he become helpless? We have made him helpless. . . . If one individual becomes insane he can be treated, but when everybody becomes insane and fanatical, who will provide the healing touch? Jawaharlal is no god; Sardar is no god either. Their ministers too, are no gods; they do not possess any divine powers. For that matter they do not possess any worldly power either.42 Gandhi’s sentence – ‘We have made him helpless’ – can be misconstrued. It can be taken to mean that he is trying to protect his old and beloved associates by covering up their lapses. With regard to Sardar Patel it may even give rise to the suspicion that Gandhi is ignoring the mounting accusations that Patel was antagonistic towards the Muslims. That is not so. Gandhi’s statement needs to be seen in the context of a significant concern that he is trying to express. He is drawing attention to people’s obligation to be responsible. Evading that primary civic obligation, if people lapse into collective madness, little possibility remains of an effective intervention by the government and the administration. Gandhi argued: Assume that all the Muslims here are disaffected and all of them have arms and ammunition. That they have stenguns, brenguns and machineguns, and all of them are ready to kill. But even so you don’t have the right to kill them. When every individual becomes a power unto himself, then effectively there is no government left. However, if each and every individual accepts the authority of the government of his own making, then everything can be accomplished.43 107

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Gandhi, in this instance, was not talking about his ahimsa, which was being considered impractical now. He was making a straightforward reference to the fundamentals of a democracy. He was talking about the supremacy of the rule of law. Asking ‘After all, whose government is it?’ Gandhi said: It is yours, made by you. Gone are the days when the English ruled on the strength of their army. Today true power rests in you alone. You have made the council of ministers powerful; you can render them inconsequential.44 To be partial towards any one was not acceptable to Gandhi. He desired that both communities should say he was a friend to both so as to trust him and be ready to heed him. And that, for all his appeals and actions, was what he was not being able to achieve. Just three months ago, Gandhi had expressed his anguish that the Muslims ‘consider me their enemy’, and added, ‘[B]ut the Hindus and Sikhs do not see me as their enemy.’45 After the fast unto death in Calcutta from 1 September to 4 September, Muslims began to view Gandhi as their wellwisher. At the same time, ironically, more and more Hindus and Sikhs were getting irritated by Gandhi, believing him to be unduly favouring the Muslims. Gandhi’s helplessness was such that he was reduced to admonishing everybody by turn because everybody was succumbing to the prevailing frenzy. He knew, and was repeatedly saying so, that between the Hindus and Muslims [f]or one to refrain from becoming an animal is the only straight way to get out of this violence.46 But no one was ready to heed him, to refrain from becoming an animal. When he admonished the Hindus and the Sikhs, he was told to see what the Muslims in Pakistan were doing, and also that the Muslims staying on in India were traitors. Gandhi would listen attentively and respond publicly. But such had become people’s mentality in the midst of that collective hysteria that Gandhi’s slightest concern for the Muslims seemed like outright favouritism to the Hindus and Sikhs, and when he criticised the Muslims or gave them advice, he was disregarded. For instance, in that significant September discourse he said: I get to hear that the Muslims are fifth columnists, that is, they are traitors, with no loyalty to the present-day government. . . . I concede that the Muslims have considerable arms. Some I have taken away, some remain with them. What will they do with them? Will they kill me, kill you? If they do so, they will have to reckon with the government. . . . It is the duty of eminent Muslims to declare, we are not so worthless. We are loyal to India and will remain so; we will battle the entire world for India’s sake. Then they are true Muslims; otherwise they become bad Muslims.47 108

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It was futile to hope that those who, in that mounting communal frenzy, were unable to hear such clear statements would be able to understand Gandhi’s morality. ‘It is my hope that there are no such bad Muslims in India, and if there are, we need to become good, not bad, to make them good.’48 Speaking even more lucidly two days later, Gandhi laid stress on, along with humanity, civic responsibility in a democracy: Had man not become so ruthless as to commit atrocities against his brother, these thousands of men, women and innocent children [in refugee camps] would not have been so helpless, and in many cases hungry. . . . Was all of this inescapable? A strong voice came from within me: ‘No’. Is this the first fruit of a month of independence? . . . Have the citizens of Delhi become mad? Do they not have even a shred of humanity left in them? Does the love for their country and its independence not appeal to them at all? I may be forgiven for putting the blame primarily on the Hindus and the Sikhs. Can they not be worthy as humans to halt this tide of hatred? I would strongly urge Delhi’s Muslims to let go of their fear, put their trust in God and surrender all their firearms to the government. Because the Hindus and the Sikhs are afraid that the Muslims possess firearms, it does not mean that they do not have weapons of their own. It is only a question of degree. Some may have less, some more. To obtain justice, the minorities will either have to depend on God or on the human created by Him, or they will have to depend on their guns, pistols and other weapons to protect themselves against those whom they do not trust. My advice is firm and unchanging. Its truth is self-evident. Have confidence in your government that it will protect every citizen from those who commit injustice, no matter how many more and superior weapons they may have. . . . By their actions the people of Delhi will only make the task of seeking justice from the Pakistan government difficult. Those who want justice will have to do justice. They should be guiltless and true. Let the Hindus and Sikhs take the rightful step and ask the Muslims who have been chased out of their homes to return. If the Hindus and Sikhs have the courage in every way to take this rightful step, the refugee problem will become very easy to handle. Then not only Pakistan but the whole world will acknowledge their claims. They will save Delhi and India from disgrace and destruction.49 ‘Those who want justice will have to do justice.’ This was not mere idealism. Gandhi was providing a formula for a viable morality. 109

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In any civilised society, said Gandhi, if avenging ill-will is considered proper, it can be done so only through the agency of the government, certainly not through individual interventions. Gandhi was totally opposed to the exchange of populations. At a time when minorities in both countries were in dire peril and there was an endless flow of refugees both ways, Gandhi was insisting: ‘If all the Muslims go to Pakistan and all the Hindus and Sikhs there come here, we will become enemies forever.’50 He wanted both India and Pakistan to grant their minorities’ protection, respect and equality as citizens. Any lapse in this regard was unacceptable to him. Time and again he reminded Jinnah and the government of Pakistan of its formal declaration that it would treat all its citizens on par. That reneging on such a worthy declaration would neither show it in a good light nor be in its interests. Beyond appealing to Pakistan’s interests and morality, there was little that Gandhi could do. In India, however, he was prepared to go to any length to save the Muslims from injustice. He had demonstrated in Calcutta the lengths he could go to in this regard. In Delhi, too, he made it amply clear that if people did not come to their senses, he – Gandhi – would not hesitate to gamble with his life yet again. He said: Those who wish to go to Pakistan may leave. But those who fled to the Old Fort or Humayun’s Tomb out of fear of the Hindus – why should they have to stay there? I have told those who are in their homes to stay put and not move even if the Hindus attack to kill. I too will get killed for their sake. It is my life and I will willingly sacrifice it. I will either do or die.51 Gandhi believed that if the safety of the Muslims was assured in India, he would be able to go to Pakistan and do a great deal for the minorities there. Continuing in this vein in the same discourse, he said: What shall we do about the Muslims who have left? I have stated that we will not bring them back right now. We will certainly not bring them back by means of the police and military. We will bring them back only when the Hindus and Sikhs tell them, you are our friends, please return to your homes, you don’t require the military or police, we are your military, we are your police, all of us will live as brothers. If we are able to accomplish this in Delhi I assure you that our way will become absolutely clear in Pakistan. And with that will commence a new life. When I go to Pakistan I will not let them off easily. I will die for the Hindus and Sikhs there. I would be happy to die there. I would be happy to die here, too. If what I say cannot be achieved here, then I must die.52 110

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That a new life should commence was Gandhi’s desire. He was desiring this amid the barbarity of 1947. It was either this or else a vow of self-annihilation. How did Gandhi’s mind work? How could he visualise and project, in that impossible situation, the possibility of a humane beginning? Did he have any notion of the impossible? Was Gandhi’s desire plain impossible? We must, each one of us, reflect on this question in our individual ways. We must also reflect on how that desire came so naturally to Gandhi. In that savage time, how could he even think that, regardless of the happenings in Pakistan, India’s Hindus and Sikhs would recall the displaced Muslims, and do that with love and respect? If we could somehow understand this, we would have little difficulty in accepting that such an eventuality would actually have made it possible for Gandhi to go to Pakistan and, without dying, do much for the Hindus and Sikhs there. If the law of action and reaction drives human nature as powerfully as we think it does, the justice and respect accorded to the Muslims in India would surely have made an impression on the Muslim rulers and people of Pakistan. This is not mere logic. Take the change of attitude towards Gandhi that the Muslims demonstrated following his fast unto death in Calcutta. It provides ground for supposing that if the condition of Muslims had improved across the country, their attitude towards the common Hindus and Sikhs, too, would have undergone a similar change. We shall see ahead that Gandhi’s fast unto death in Delhi was quite effective in creating goodwill in Pakistan. The question was, as it invariably is in such human predicaments, whether anybody was willing to take the initiative to break the vicious cycle of action and reaction – the initiative to stop being an animal. The initiative of believing in what Gandhi called the ‘[e]ffect of decency’,53 and acting accordingly. When an initiative towards decency begins to seem impossible, what remains possible? Only that the police will step in and suppress the violence of citizens. In course of time, the police too will be seized by the communalism that affects the citizens. Paramilitary forces will then be created and pressed into action in such situations. They will also undergo a similar psychological transformation, causing the army to be summoned to maintain civil peace. How long will the troops remain untouched by communal rancour? Assuming that they do remain unsullied, will the rulers who are elected democratically by a society steeped in communalism call them out and leave them free to do their work? These are not mere academic questions. Gandhi could not even think of employing the police or the army as a solution to the problem of communalism. Today our very first response is to want the army to be deployed to control communal violence, even though we may later talk about the need for far-reaching interventions. In fact, the question of far-reaching interventions is nothing more than an academic exercise in the prevailing state of affairs. Indeed, the argument today is that the police, defence and other armed forces, 111

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and administrative services will, in the absence of adequate minority representation within them, continue to be influenced by majoritarian communalism and hence will be incapable of discharging their duty honestly. So dependent have we become on the armed forces for controlling communal conflagrations that our energies remain almost entirely focused on devising methods to make those forces effective instruments for maintaining social peace. What we have started believing to be possible – is that really possible? It is, perhaps, our limited and illusory idea of the possible that prevents us from accepting Gandhi’s idea of the possible. Our idea of the possible further prevents us from seeing that what we believe to be possible is itself impossible. It is the problem, not the solution. Our inability to distinguish between the possible and the impossible has, by and by, brought us to a point where communal violence results not from the frenzy of citizens alone but is orchestrated under the direction of a state’s popularly elected government. Where a coalition of political parties ensconced in power at the centre chooses to maintain a deafening silence on the misdeeds of that state government. Where, not just in the immediate wake of that violent frenzy but five years later as well, in a comparatively restrained atmosphere, the people of that state reward such misdeeds by reelecting the same government to power with a heavy majority. Gandhi used to emphasise a basic principle: ‘A civilised society should not need the protection of guns to uphold fundamental rights.’54 But here even guns are failing to protect the fundamental rights of the minorities – not just the Muslims – and of the weaker sections of society. They will remain unprotected so long as Gandhi’s possible – which is no more than an essential requirement of a democratic polity – continues to be impossible for us. Though not in its present virulent form, the problem of the communalisation of the armed forces, the administration and the council of ministers was not entirely absent in Gandhi’s time. In the discourse in which he expressed the hope of the beginning of a new life, Gandhi mentioned a ‘big complaint’ that had come to him: Our police and military, which comprise Hindus, Sikhs, Christians and Gorkhas, are supposed to be protectors, but they have become predators instead. How true this is I don’t know. But I want to communicate to the policemen that they should be upright. I have heard that in some places they themselves have indulged in looting. I was told today about an incident in Connaught Place where the soldiers and policemen stationed there started looting. Perhaps the information is false. But if there is an iota of truth in it then I would remind the police and the military that the days of the British are past. Then they could do as they pleased but today they are soldiers of India; they must not become enemies of the Muslims. When they are ordered to protect them, they should protect them.55 112

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Gandhi’s hope of a new life, without which any democracy would be inconceivable, has not become any more possible in our public life than it was in his lifetime. If anything, the relationship between the possible and the impossible in the past 60 or more years has got inverted in much too vulgar a manner. What Gandhi considered possible – the practicability and utility of which many of Gandhi’s contemporaries, too, had begun to appreciate – has started appearing all but impracticable and impossible today even as it seems useful and necessary. On the other hand, we have made possible what to Gandhi was inconceivable. In the course of this inversion, the good has been pushed in the direction of the impossible, and the bad has been made eminently viable. For instance, the path of ahimsa, which Gandhi considered a difficult but the only straight and clear path, has seemed increasingly impossible and impractical. There is another aspect of this inversion which can be understood through a remark made in the same discourse. Referring to the Muslims who had fled their homes and sought refuge in Delhi’s relief camps as well as those who had gone to Pakistan out of fear, Gandhi said: The world’s largest mosque, the Jama Masjid, is situated here. What will happen to this mosque if we kill most of the Muslims, and the ones who survive go to Pakistan driven by fear? Will you send the mosque to Pakistan or raze it or convert it into a Shiva temple? Suppose that some Hindu presumes to build a Shiva temple there or the Sikhs consider building a gurudwara there. That, if you ask me, would be but an attempt to bury the Hindu and Sikh religions. Religion cannot be preserved this way.56 Gandhi has no more than an inkling of the kind of presumption that he cautions against, warning that this would destroy religion itself, not just the Hindu or Sikh religion. He was afraid that, forgetting the essence of religion under the impact of communal frenzy, people – average Hindus and Sikhs – might actually translate their vain presumption into public action. His fears soon started materialising. Two months later, he was obliged to say in his prayer discourse: As per the information I have received, about 137 mosques of Delhi have been virtually destroyed in the recent riots. Some of them have been turned into temples. One such mosque is near Connaught Place, which no one can escape noticing. An Indian flag is flying over it today. It has been turned into a temple and an idol has been placed in it. To despoil mosques in this manner is to put Hindu and Sikh religions to shame. In my opinion this goes against every tenet of religion. . . . The magnitude of this act cannot be mitigated by saying that Muslims in Pakistan have also despoiled Hindu temples or turned them into mosques. In my view, any such act would destroy the Hindu religion, the Sikh religion and Islam.57 113

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The situation went from bad to worse. Twenty days later, in the month of December 1947, Gandhi said: I hear speeches are being given – I will not disclose the names right away for all the particulars have not come to me as yet – that only a few Muslims remain here and they will not be allowed to stay on. Whatever mosques remain will be occupied for Hindus to live in them. What they will do next, God alone knows, I do not . . . We are committing acts of destruction.58 Gandhi really did not know. Who knows if God did? We do know. Now. Gandhi was seized by an unimaginable fear. We have made possible what for him was unimaginable. It has taken us a little over 40 years to turn into a virtue what to Gandhi and his time was reprehensible. Granted, more than a 100 mosques were vandalised – temporarily – during the riots in Delhi and there was similar – and more lasting – destruction in other parts of the country. But, Gandhi apart, even the collective conscience of the country had not surged with pride on account of those misdeeds. Many were seized by the hysteria of revenge then. Yet, there was within a feeling of shame, a feeling that what had happened was not right. There was also a realisation that what Gandhi said was right. There wasn’t that ideological fervour which, forgetting Gandhi’s simple question – ‘will you raze the mosques’, today honours the destroyers of mosques as supreme well-wishers of Hindu religion and the Indian nation (the two being inseparable); rewards and enthrones them; or renders them incapable of grasping Gandhi’s warning: ‘If we raze their sacred sites, we too will be obliterated.’59 Gandhi’s fear ran very deep. If the worsening situation was not brought under immediate control, it would have inconceivably dangerous consequences. His idea of control, as we have seen, did not mean keeping communal violence under check by whatever means possible. It was imperative to change people’s way of thinking. So, determined to do or die, Gandhi devoted every moment of his to reason with the people. Gandhi reached Delhi on 9 September. For three months he did everything he could, but the ‘atmosphere’ of Delhi did not change. Finally, he was convinced that the time to ‘die’ had arrived. As earlier in Gandhi’s life, this time also when the decision to ‘die’ actualised following prolonged brooding, it happened very suddenly. And it happened at a very personal level – without any discussion with anybody. At the final command of his inner voice. Gandhi commenced his fast unto death on 13 January 1948. Until his announcement at the previous evening’s prayer meeting, nobody had even a whiff that Gandhi was going to gamble with his life yet again. The compulsive inevitability of his decision can be surmised from his prayer discourse of 12 January. That being a Monday, Gandhi’s ‘weekly day of silence’, he had written his discourse (in English) in advance to be read out after the prayer. 114

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After the habitual opening of ‘brothers and sisters’, Gandhi came straight to his subject: One fasts for health’s sake under laws governing health or fasts as a penance for a wrong done and felt as such. In these fasts, the fasting one need not believe in ahimsa. There is, however, a fast which a votary of non-violence sometimes feels impelled to undertake by way of protest against some wrong done by society and this he does when he, as a votary of ahimsa, has no other remedy left. Such an occasion has come my way. When on September 9 I returned to Delhi from Calcutta, I was to proceed to West Punjab. But that was not to be. Gay Delhi looked a city of the dead. . . . At once I saw that I had to be in Delhi and do or die. There is apparent calm brought about by prompt military and police action. But there is storm within the breast. It may burst forth any day. This I count as no fulfilment of the vow to ‘do’ which alone can keep me from death, the incomparable friend. I yearn for heart friendship between Hindus, Sikhs and Muslims. It subsisted between them the other day. Today it is non-existent. It is a state that no Indian patriot worthy of the name can contemplate with equanimity.60 Recounting how he had arrived at such a difficult decision, Gandhi said: Though the voice within has been beckoning for a long time, I have been shutting my ears to it lest it might be the voice of Satan, otherwise called my weakness. I never like to feel resourceless; a satyagrahi never should. Fasting is his last resort in the place of the sword – his or others. I have no answer to return to the Muslim friends who see me from day to day as to what they should do. My impotence has been gnawing at me of late. It will go immediately the fast is undertaken. I have been brooding over it for the past three days. The final conclusion has flashed upon me and it makes me happy.61 Gandhi had spoken about the fast and provided the reasons for undertaking it. He had not disclosed the duration of the fast yet. How many among the audience, one wonders, would have at that point shuddered to think of what was coming next. Be that as it may, Gandhi continued: No man, if he is pure, has anything more precious to give than his life. I hope and pray that I have that purity in me to justify the step. I ask you all to bless the effort and to pray for me and with me. 115

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The fast begins from the first meal tomorrow (Tuesday). The period is indefinite and I may drink water with or without salts and sour limes. It will end when and if I am satisfied that there is a reunion of hearts of all communities brought about without any outside pressure, but from an awakened sense of duty.62 Most people, Gandhi was aware, had no faith in his fasting method. Addressing them in his discourse he said: Let no friend or foe, if there be one, be angry with me. There are friends who do not believe in the method of the fast for reclamation of the human mind. They will bear with me and extend to me the same liberty of action that they claim for themselves. With God as my supreme and sole counsellor, I felt that I must take the decision without any other adviser. If I have made a mistake and discover it, I shall have no hesitation in proclaiming it from the house-top and retracing my faulty step. There is little chance of my making such a discovery. If there is a clear indication, as I claim there is, of the Inner Voice, it will not be gainsaid. I plead for all absence of argument and inevitable endorsement of the step. If the whole of India responds or at least Delhi does, the fast might be soon ended. But whether it ends soon or late or never, let there be no softness in dealing with what may be termed as a crisis.63 Gandhi’s appeal to others to display no weakness – that is, succumb to his fast for fear that he might die – and to be kept free of that weakness was deeply connected to the use of the fast as a non-violent weapon. This is also connected to the reservation I have expressed earlier with regard to the moral coercion – hidden violence – latent in Gandhi’s fasts unto death. (Gandhi’s reasoning a propos the weakness of others and his request to be kept free of it will also figure in connection with the fast that finds mention at the end of this chapter.) Making his meaning clearer, Gandhi said: Critics have regarded some of my previous fasts as coercive and held that on merits the verdict would have gone against my stand but for the pressure exerted by the fasts. What value can an adverse verdict have when the purpose is demonstrably sound? A pure fast, like duty, is its own reward. I do not embark upon it for the sake of the result it may bring. I do so because I must.64

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‘I do so because I must.’ This plain and powerful statement reflects the working of that inner consciousness which transformed Mohandas into Mahatma Gandhi. A consciousness that, having renounced living for itself, could feel and see in its essence the pain of his fellow human beings and the sorrows of the world. That such exceptional consciousness comes about once in a long while is something we all know. But how it comes to be in a world which is what it is remains an extraordinary psychological mystery. It was this consciousness that was propelling Gandhi in his old age from Delhi to Noakhali, from Noakhali to Bihar, then to Calcutta, and from there to Delhi. For whom? Gandhi was right in saying that he fasted only when he felt he must. This ‘only’ is full of meaning. It intimates that with the coming of this ‘only’, no other course is left. The fast materialises like the inevitability of observing dharma. An incongruity arises here. The fast comes like the observance of dharma, carrying its reward in its very adherence. Gandhi, therefore, does not wish to fast in order to produce a result. But he is obliged to do precisely what he does not wish to do. Not for himself, but for others. If at all he wants something for himself in the midst of this all-pervading madness, it is to await death while being engaged in the desired action till his last breath. Gandhi’s announcement of his fast unto death, starting from 13 January, ends thus: Hence I urge everybody dispassionately to examine the purpose and let me die, if I must, in peace which I hope is ensured. Death for me would be a glorious deliverance rather than that I should be a helpless witness of the destruction of India, Hinduism, Sikhism and Islam. That destruction is certain if Pakistan does not ensure equality of status and security of life and property for all professing the various faiths of the world and if India copies her. Only then Islam dies in the two Indias, not in the world. But Hinduism and Sikhism have no world outside India. Those who differ from me will be honoured by me for their resistance however implacable. Let my fast quicken conscience, not deaden it. Just contemplate the rot that has set in[,] in beloved India and you will rejoice to think that there is an humble son of hers who is strong enough and possibly pure enough to take the happy step. If he is neither, he is a burden on earth. The sooner he disappears and clears the Indian atmosphere of the burden, the better for him and all concerned. I would beg of all friends not to rush to Birla House nor try to dissuade me or be anxious for me. . . . Those who remain at their post of duty and perform it diligently and well, now more so than hitherto, will help me and the cause in every way.65

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Gandhi sat down to his meal at 9.30 a.m. on 13 January, which, owing to a steady stream of visitors, took almost one-and-a-half hours to complete. In less than four-and-a-half months this was Gandhi’s second fast unto death, proof of the two newly partitioned countries’ rapid march towards destruction. In his message of the previous evening, Gandhi had clearly explained that even though Delhi seemed calm on the surface, a storm was brewing underneath, and in that situation he was left with no option but to fast unto death. So glaring was the gap between the way he thought and the way average people did that he was asked in spite of his clarification: ‘You have undertaken the fast when there was no disturbance of any kind in any part of the Indian Dominion.’66 Gandhi had a good understanding of where those who asked such questions were coming from. In fact, it was with such people in mind that he said on the second day of the fast: ‘They tell me – even as they swallow their words – that this man is mad. He goes on a fast for the slightest of things.’67 But when he was asked a pointed question, insinuating that he was making a mountain of a molehill, he thought it necessary to fully explain the seriousness of the situation in Delhi. The question was: ‘You have undertaken the fast when there was no disturbance of any kind in any part of the Indian Dominion.’ Gandhi replied: What was it if it was not a disturbing disturbance for a crowd to make an organised and a determined attempt to take forcible possession of Muslim houses? The disturbance was such that the military had to reluctantly resort to tear-gas and even to a little shooting if only in the air, before the crowd dispersed. It would have been foolish for me to wait till the last Muslim had been turned out of Delhi by subtle undemonstrative methods, which I would describe as killing by inches.68 No matter how agitated Gandhi was by communal riots, his attention was focused on the constantly deteriorating communal mentality of which the riots were mere symptoms. Consequently, the superficial calm established by the armed forces was in itself inadequate in his eyes. That is why there was no room in his thinking for considering oneself blameless by blaming specific individuals or groups like the goondas and other antisocial elements. The day he started the fast, he said: [W]e are all guilty. That does not mean that any one individual is to blame. . . . Hindus, Sikhs, Muslims, all must bear the blame. Now the three guilty parties have to become friends again. . . . In the name of religion we have become irreligious. If all of us walk the religious path, no one need be afraid.69 118

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But it was not easy for people to accept blame. To understand Gandhi’s ‘prayer’ that ‘none of you should think what another is doing, but each of you should examine your own self and purify yourself to the extent you can’.70 It was difficult for them to share Gandhi’s belief that ‘if people in large numbers purify themselves it will do them a lot of good and it will also do me good. India then will benefit and maybe I shall be able to give up my fast sooner’.71 Rather than looking inward and purifying themselves, people were more interested in linking Gandhi’s fast to the politics of the moment and speculating according to their particular ideological inclinations. For instance, the same day on which Gandhi was asked, in a tone of surprise, as to why he felt it necessary to sit on a fast unto death, the following question was also put to him in writing: You have stated that you could not give any reply to the Muslims who came to you with their tale of fear and insecurity and who have complained that Sardar Patel, who is in charge of [the] Home Affairs, is anti-Muslim.You have also stated that Sardar Patel is no longer a ‘yes-man’ as he used to be. These factors create the impression that the fast is more intended to bring about a change of heart in the Sardar and thereby amounts to a condemnation of the policy of the Home Ministry.72 Holding everybody responsible for the hatred and violence that had erupted all around, Gandhi wanted everyone to introspect and purify themselves. But people were not able to understand his vision and reasoning. Gandhi was tormented by what was happening, whereas people were on the same account angry and intensely vengeful. There was no possibility left, under the circumstances, for understanding Gandhi’s restlessness as to what answer he should provide to the Muslims who looked upon him as their sole saviour. A deep duality had come to divide the ‘people’ and the Muslims. Whatever may have been the ideological claims of secular Indian nationalism, in the hearts of the ‘people’, Muslims had become the ‘other’. It was easy, in such a state of mind, to be exasperated by Gandhi, and difficult to heed him. So Gandhi’s fast unto death, which was undertaken for people’s self-purification and the welfare of the country, became for those with that kind of communal mentality, nothing but an ill-conceived condemnation of Patel and his ministry. Even though people were unable to listen to and/or understand him, and reading his actions all wrong, Gandhi had to persevere with patience. So he fully read out the question at the prayer meeting and gave an elaborate reply that ‘in isolating him [Patel] from Pandit Nehru and me, whom they gratuitously raise to the sky’73 people were making a mistake. Gandhi, for all his patience, also felt discomfited that, no matter how hard he tried, he 119

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was inexorably becoming a victim of widespread misunderstanding. His discomfiture was reflected in the way he commenced his reply: As to this I feel that my reply was precise, not admitting of more interpretations than one. The suggested interpretation never crossed my mind. If I had known that my statement could bear any such interpretation, I would have dispelled the doubt in anticipation.74 What would – could – he have clarified? In that overpowering madness how could he have influenced the people’s imagination to be even marginally like his own? ‘Can a man do more than give his life?’75 Gandhi had asked this question of ‘dearest’ Charlie [C.F. Andrews], his alter ego, in the course of a 21-day fast undertaken for the sake of Hindu-Muslim unity. That fast, too, had taken place in Delhi. Twenty-four years later, in the same city and for the same purpose, Gandhi was again obliged to go on a fast – a fast unto death this time. Yet again asking of the people – what, more precious than one’s life, could one sacrifice? What more could he have done? Even after offering this supreme sacrifice, he was unable to explain to people its reason and purpose. He just could not have explained. No matter how simply and directly he spoke, people were beginning to find Gandhi’s way of understanding more and more strange and alien. It was imperative for Gandhi that a grave decision like a fast unto death be taken following the command of his sole adviser, God, without consultation with anyone. We have already seen how, until the moment he commenced his fast unto death on the night of 1 September in Calcutta, nobody had the slightest inkling of it. The same pattern was repeated this time in Delhi. In fact, Prime Minister Nehru and Home Minister Patel, who used to come for daily consultations with Gandhi, had been with him till just before the prayer meeting. They had left Gandhi with no apprehension of what he was about to announce, immediately after bidding them farewell. Had Gandhi himself known then? When, in 1924, Gandhi started his 21-day fast as suddenly, he was staying with the Ali Brothers – Maulana Mohammad Ali and Maulana Shaukat Ali – as their guest. Shaukat Ali was not in town at the time, but Mohammad Ali was aggrieved at Gandhi’s decision to risk his life without taking him – Mohammad Ali – into confidence. Offended, too, that Gandhi had not trusted him enough to talk to him on such a matter, he had tearfully complained: What is this, Bapu? Is this the kind of mohabbat (love) you have for us? You have simply cheated us. You will take every step only after consultation with us – that was our understanding. Has it evaporated?’ Gandhi had replied, ‘But can there not be some things about which I have to render my account to Khuda first and last? . . . All 120

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my former fasts had been undertaken without anybody’s previous consultation.76 Mohammad Ali’s reaction was perfectly natural and legitimate. It helps us understand that howsoever authentic it may have been for Gandhi himself, his method of fasting could discomfit others – particularly those whose credibility was likely to be adversely affected by the fast, causing them explicit or implicit humiliation, as was happening with Patel in 1948 in spite of all the public statements made by Gandhi in his defence. Seen in the light of its effect on people, the question put to Gandhi regarding Patel and the home ministry was not entirely without basis. Gandhi was also asked a third question. This too shows that all manner of ulterior motives were being attributed to his fast – motives other than the straightforward purpose reiterated by Gandhi that ‘the fast . . . is meant to bring sanity to all those who inhabit both the Union and Pakistan’.77 These motives related to specific individuals, communities and the Indian, as opposed to Pakistani, nation’s welfare and interest, but not to humanity in the awakening of which Gandhi saw the only true solution to the entire problem. The question was as follows: Your fast has been undertaken on the eve of the meeting of the United Nations Security Council and so soon after the Karachi riot and Gujrat [West Punjab] massacre. What publicity the latter incidents received in the foreign Press is not known, but undoubtedly your fast has overshadowed all other incidents and Pakistan representatives would not be worth their past reputation if they do not seize the opportunity to declare that the Mahatma has undertaken the fast to bring sanity among his Hindu followers, who have been making the life of the Muslims in India impossible. Truth takes a long time to reach the four corners of the globe. But in the meantime your fast may have the unfortunate effect of prejudicing our cause in the eyes of the United Nations.78 The question resonates with deep anger and with the conviction that Gandhi is proving fatal for the Hindus and the country. Because of Gandhi, not only would a curtain be drawn over the massacre of Hindus and Sikhs in Pakistan; India would appear guilty to the entire world. It is possible that the questioner may not have thought through the question in so clear a manner. Equally possibly, he did plainly consider Gandhi an enemy of the Hindus and the country, but chose to couch his question in a milder language. Whatever it was, wittingly or unwittingly, this question reflects that persistent mentality which considers Gandhi a well-wisher of the Muslims and responsible for the partition of the country. 121

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This question was posed to Gandhi on 15 January, the third day of his fast, when just the previous day he had already stated: ‘I have never tried to hide the fact that Pakistan has committed crimes against Hindus.’79 In fact, even before he had been asked about the violence in Karachi and Gujrat, Gandhi had already said: What has happened in Karachi? Innocent Sikhs have been killed and their properties looted. Now I hear that a similar incident has happened in Gujrat too. Those poor people were coming from Bannu or somewhere else, I don’t know for sure. They were all refugees. To save their lives they were fleeing that place to come here. They were hacked to death on the way.80 Gandhi had even warned: I want to tell the Muslims that if such things keep happening in Pakistan in your name, how long will the people of India tolerate it? Even if a 100 people like me sat on a fast they would not be able to avert the insanity that may be unleashed as a result.81 Gandhi repeated the warning while replying to the third question: ‘It is impossible to save the Muslims in the Union if the Muslim majority in Pakistan do not behave as decent men and women.’82 Gandhi, it is obvious, was under no delusion that he could, by staking his entire moral capital of a lifetime, make his people do anything. Nor did he suffer from the delusion that a one-sided practice of ahimsa could continue for long if the civility of the followers of ahimsa failed to improve the conduct of others. Accepting ahimsa – for himself in actual practice and for others in principle – not just as a means but also as an end, Gandhi understood that there was a limit to what people could endure. Once that limit was crossed not even a hundred Gandhis like him could stem the tide of violence. For now, though, despite the growing exasperation towards him, Gandhi’s magic was not exhausted. Whether they liked it or not, people did succumb to Gandhi after a point. No matter how ineffectual he believed himself to be, his life was still invaluable to people. Everything got transformed the moment that life was staked. That is what happened – like in Calcutta a little more than four months before – during the Delhi fast. The fast’s first and dramatic effect appeared as early as the third day when the Indian government reversed its decision to remit the Rs 55 crore (Rs 550 million) due to Pakistan only after the Kashmir issue was settled. The cash reserves at the time the British handed over power totalled Rs 375 crore (Rs 3,750 million).

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Of this, Rs 75 crore (Rs 750 million) belonged to Pakistan. Rs 20 crore (Rs 200 million) was handed over to Pakistan on 14 August 1947. Before the remaining amount could be transferred, the Kashmir issue escalated into a war. Since it was a given that the money would be put to use in the conflict against India, the Indian government decided to withhold the payment. Gandhi was unequivocally opposed to this decision. He wanted that the money, over which Pakistan had a legitimate right, should be handed over immediately, without any prevarication. That action, he believed, would remove at least one reason for the hatred and acrimony between the two countries. Even from the viewpoint of the country’s prestige, he felt that he who does not value his word is worthless. As against Gandhi, Sardar Patel, the Iron Man of India (Lauha Purush), was declaring publicly that India would not let Pakistan spend even one paisa on making bullets to kill Indians. But when the Father of the Nation wielded his ultimate weapon, even the Iron Man felt compelled to resile from his Machiavellian course. On the night of 15 January, the third day of the fast, Nehru’s cabinet decided to hand over Rs 55 crore to Pakistan. That the country’s government should take such a militarily suicidal decision while being in a state of war was no ordinary matter. Dwelling on this the following day, Gandhi said: It is never a light matter for any responsible Cabinet to alter a deliberate settled policy. Yet our Cabinet, responsible in every sense of the term, has with equal deliberation yet promptness unsettled their settled fact. They deserve the warmest thanks from the whole country, from Kashmir to Cape Comorin and from Karachi to the Assam frontier. And I know that all the nations of the earth will proclaim this gesture as one which only a large-hearted Cabinet like ours could rise to. This is no policy of appeasement of the Muslims. This is a policy, if you like, of self-appeasement. No Cabinet worthy of being representative of a large mass of mankind can afford to take any step merely because it is likely to win the hasty applause of an unthinking public. In the midst of insanity, should not our best representatives retain sanity and bravely prevent a wreck of the ship of State under their management?83 Gandhi accepted, without any trace of self-congratulation, that the Indian government had changed its decision only because of his fast. He said: What then was the actuating motive? It was my fast. It changed the whole outlook. Without the fast they could not go beyond what the law permitted and required them to do.84

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He did not, however, see the decision as the result of helplessness on anybody’s part. What he saw was as follows: But the present gesture on the part of the Government of India is one of unmixed goodwill. It has put the Pakistan Government on its honour. It ought to lead to an honourable settlement not only of the Kashmir question, but of all the differences between the two Dominions. Friendship should replace the present enmity.85 A true understanding of one’s responsibility and its proper discharge, in Gandhi’s view, constituted a great driving force, one that could see the most formidable tasks through. The real issue here was not the appeasement of Muslims but the execution of one’s obligations. The job of the democratic Indian government was not to give in to political grandstanding but to put a stop to people’s fury. Its immediate task was to find a mutually honourable settlement for the differences between India and Pakistan, and turn enmity into friendship through prudence and reciprocal trust. There the matter rests. Gandhi was seeing, and seeking to show, this fundamental issue with utmost clarity. But there was also something that he was not able to see, due to which his grasp of reality tended to falter. This is evident in his prayer discourse of 16 January. Before turning to that discourse, it is necessary to talk about another immediate effect of this fast unto death. The fast had barely started on 13 January when its impact started becoming apparent in Pakistan. Mridula Sarabhai was in Lahore at the time. She conveyed to Gandhi telephonically the response she was witnessing in Pakistan. Gandhi mentioned it in his discourse on the second day of his fast. (Earlier he had talked about the telegrams he had received, many of them from Muslims, assuring, among other things, that ‘we will do everything, just end your fast’.)86 He said: Mridulaben . . . says, all Muslims, including officials, are asking me that since Gandhi is doing what he is for our sake, can you ask him what he expects of us?87 This, Gandhi told his listeners, had ‘pleased’88 him. Also that he had arranged to have a message to the people of Pakistan conveyed telephonically. Those were different times and, besides, the communication system had been badly disrupted. There was no certainty that the telephone call would go through immediately: ‘It (the message) may or may not have reached; one night will not make a difference, it is bound to reach by tomorrow.’89 Giving an idea of what his message to the people of Pakistan was, Gandhi said: 124

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This is a yajna for Delhi but also for the entire country, so there is no need to wonder whether this yajna is for one or for all. This fast is for self-purification. Where Satan is enthroned today, enshrine God in a way that He cannot be dislodged. There must be some sign of it too. . . . The Hindu says, kill the Muslim; the Muslim is ready to kill the Hindu, and the Sikh says, kill the Muslim. If Sikhs, Hindus and Muslims fight like this, it will be damaging to everybody. You can only partake in the yajna by becoming brothers, feeling love instead of hatred. . . . Mere words will not suffice; you have to show it in deed too. If all the Muslims of Pakistan live like this, it will have an effect here as well.90 The repatriation of Rs 55 crore by India and the articulation of a sense of responsibility in Pakistan represented the two notable, immediate results of Gandhi’s fast unto death. But seen in terms of the effect of ahimsa, there was a marked difference in the nature of the fast’s two results. This difference Gandhi was not able to see. Even though the Indian government acted swiftly to annul its considered decision concerning the repatriation of Rs 55 crore, the annulment was prompted solely by Gandhi’s fast unto death. On 15 January, Gandhi had woken up as early as 2.30 a.m. and requested a hot tub bath. From the bath he had dictated to his secretary Pyarelal a statement urging the Indian government to hand over the Rs 55 crore to Pakistan. The government accepted his demand the same day. The alacrity on the part of Nehru’s government was undoubtedly an outcome of its helplessness and lack of alternatives. But Gandhi saw in it a change in the government’s thinking. The next morning it was Patel’s turn to get up long before the break of dawn to write a letter before leaving Delhi for Kathiawad at 7 a.m. A storm raged in his heart, and it was impossible to remain silent about it. So he sat down in the wee hours of the morning (brahmamuhurta) to write to Gandhi: [T]he pain of having to leave at a time when your fast is on is intolerable. Even so, there is no escape from the call of duty. Saw your anguish yesterday. It has since left me shaken, and in deep thought. The weight of work has increased so much that bearing it is killing me. I have realised that by carrying on like this I can do no good to the country. Harm can follow. Jawahar’s burden is even greater than mine. His heart is choking with grief. It is possible that on account of my age I am no longer of any use. So it is not as if by being at his [Jawahar’s] side I can ease his burden. Maulana [Azad] in any case is angered 125

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by my work. And you have to defend me repeatedly. Under these circumstances it would benefit me and the country if you relieve me soon. This is the way I work; I cannot work in any other way. Despite having become, by my way of working, a burden on lifelong associates besides causing you immense distress, if I do not quit this position, I would feel I’m blinded by the lust for power. I should be released early from this unbearable situation. I understand that we cannot discuss this while your fast is on. Neither can I in any way help end the fast. I am at my wit’s end. Should you expedite this decision [of relieving Patel] by ending your fast soon then even the reasons for your fast may perhaps be removed. Therefore, I implore you to end your fast soon.91 The Iron Man says a great deal in this pathetic letter. Even more, perhaps, he restrains himself from being explicit. In describing his situation as ‘intolerable’,92 he certainly manages to pray for an early release, but no more than points to that ‘intolerable’ sorrow which is spilling over with the realisation of having been humiliated, misunderstood and, more than that, publicly tarred as a villain. The letter does reveal the Iron Man’s agitation, but explicitly only in relation to Gandhi’s fast. Patel’s letter is very important for understanding the role of ahimsa in Gandhi’s fast unto death. When Gandhi announced his decision on 12 January, Patel’s first reaction was one of annoyance. It was a perfectly natural reaction. For, irrespective of whatever Gandhi might state in public, Patel was bound to be held responsible for the fast. His annoyance was the annoyance of a wounded heart, the heart of a devoted and loving associate who in the course of an unbroken association of 30 years had become very close to Gandhi. This was also the heart of an Iron Man fretting that where it mattered so much he had been rendered incapable of any effective intervention. For all its pathos, however, the letter shows confidence and pride in the conscientious discharge of public duty. It could say plainly, without any histrionics: ‘This is the way I work; I cannot work in any other way.’ The storm had started brewing in Patel’s heart as early as the evening of 12 January, from the time Gandhi announced his fast. But after 15 January, following the government’s decision to repatriate the amount of Rs 55 crore to Pakistan, the agitation within became unendurable, prompting this heart-wrenching letter. In his typical way of functioning – about which he had no reservations whatsoever – Patel had declared that he would not allow even one paisa of Pakistan’s share of Rs 55 crore to be used for making bullets against India. However, his boundless love and reverence for Gandhi left him with no option but to give in to Gandhi. Yet the fast went on – hence the request to be altogether relieved. 126

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Not everyone could have had the composure and discernment of Patel, even though they might have been reverential toward Gandhi. Even that reverence had ebbed in that moment of crisis, a moment blinded by anger and frenzy. For these people, regardless of the anguish he was suffering with regard to Gandhi, the man of the moment was Patel, not Gandhi. This popular valorisation of Patel is what had inspired the unnamed journalist to question Gandhi about needlessly defaming Patel and his ministry by his untimely fast. Still, the journalist’s language had been civil, which was more than could be said of the increasing number of Indians who were finding it impossible to maintain even a modicum of civility toward Gandhi. Some people even landed up at Birla House shouting slogans such as ‘Let Gandhi die’ and ‘Blood for blood’.93 Chandiwala, who was constantly attending to Gandhi, has described that juncture: The atmosphere had turned very ugly. People appeared disgruntled and inflamed, especially over the matter of giving 55 crores to Pakistan. Their hearts were full of violence and revenge. Those were terrifying days. The letters that came for Gandhiji were full of abuses. . . . It was harrowing to read those insulting expletives. In addition, there were haranguing telephone calls.94 Satan, to put it in Gandhi’s language, had occupied people’s hearts. He was, by the force of his fast, seeking to dislodge Satan and seat God there. He, therefore, wanted that his ‘fasting for the spirit’ should in no way be obstructed. ‘No one need disturb this happy state,’ he said, ‘unless he can honestly claim that in his journey he has turned deliberately from Satan towards God.’95 Gandhi was asking for self-purification. But people had no inkling of their impurity. They had forgotten their humanity. Gandhi was working for the recovery of that forgotten humanity. He believed, ‘The cleansing, if it is honest, does not cease to be when the cause which induced it ceases. . . . Cleansing of the heart once achieved only dies with one’s death.’96 If only! Gandhi did not wish to die. Since the sudden announcement of the fast on 12 January, he had been saying that it would be better if people created, at the earliest, a propitious environment to end his fast. At the same time, he was in no hurry to end the fast. On the fifth day of the fast, he said: The meaning of this fast is that our hearts should be cleansed and awakened. In that alone lies the good of all. Please do nothing out of pity for me. I shall fast for as many days as I can and if it is the will of God that I should die then I shall die.97 127

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But people were in a hurry. Out of pity for themselves they were in a hurry to avert Gandhi’s death. As early as 17 January, the doctors examining him regularly had issued a warning: ‘[I]t is our duty to tell the people of all communities to take immediate steps to produce the requisite conditions for ending the fast without delay.’98 Even prior to this, peace meetings had started in Delhi and other places. In one of the public meetings in Delhi, Nehru had cautioned the people: ‘The loss of Gandhiji’s life would mean the loss of India’s soul.’99 Telegrams were pouring in from all over, telling Gandhi that people desired to maintain peace. Messages were coming even from Pakistan, urging Gandhi to end his fast and assuring communal harmony. Ghazanfar Ali Khan, Pakistan’s minister for relief and rehabilitation, was moved by the fast to exhort people in both countries to open their eyes and feel remorse for their foul deeds. Events gathered speed from 17 January. Maulana Azad, after a conversation with Gandhi, announced at a huge public gathering that Gandhi had laid down seven conditions for breaking his fast. That very evening, a central peace committee headed by Rajendra Prasad was set up with more than 100 members, and the committee even managed to have its first meeting. By the next day, almost all the members had signed a written statement agreeing to all the seven conditions. The move to have a written pledge ready was meant to pre-empt the kind of haggling that had preceded the breaking of Gandhi’s fast in Calcutta. Indeed, this is exactly what Gandhi demanded when, as chairman of the committee, Rajendra Prasad met him an hour before his prayer discourse: ‘Let all the representatives give [their assurances] under their signatures. I shall publish them. I regard verbal assurances as worthless, only the written ones carry weight with me.’100 A day earlier than the formation of the committee, leaders and people’s representatives had started making a beeline for Gandhi to tell him that the atmosphere of the city had improved. Their numbers further swelled on 17 January. At around 11 a.m. a few Muslim clerics arrived. The situation in the city had improved they said, and also mentioned that several Muslims who had fled to Karachi had sent them telegrams voicing a desire to return. The clerics were followed by some traders from Subzimandi who came to tell Gandhi that they had decided to end their boycott of the Muslims and resume business with them. In the evening an immense crowd surged forth. Slogans of ‘Hindu-Muslim bhai-bhai’ and ‘Gandhi zindabad’ resounded in the air. In the same crowd were also those who shouted ‘kill-kill’.101 The sequence of the ending of the fast commenced just after 11 a.m. on 18 January. The seven-point pledge of peace carrying more than 100 representative signatures was presented, at Gandhi’s insistence, in both Devanagari and Urdu. It read as follows: We wish to announce that it is our heartfelt desire that the Hindus, Muslims and Sikhs and members of the other communities should once again 128

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live in Delhi like brothers and in perfect amity and we take the pledge that we shall protect the life, property and faith of Muslims and that the incidents which have taken place in Delhi will not happen again. We want to assure Gandhiji that the annual fair at Khwaja Qutub-udDin Mazar will be held this year as in the previous years. Muslims will be able to move about in Subzimandi, Karol Bagh, Paharganj and other localities just as they could in the past. The mosques which have been left by Muslims and which now are in the possession of Hindus and Sikhs will be returned. The areas which have been set apart for Muslims will not be forcibly occupied. We shall not object to the return to Delhi of the Muslims who have migrated from here if they choose to come back and Muslims shall be able to carry on their business as before. We assure that all these things will be done by our personal effort and not with the help of the police or military. We request Mahatmaji to believe us and to give up his fast and continue to lead us as he has done hitherto.102 Among the signatories were representatives of the Hindu Mahasabha, Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, Sikhs, Muslims, refugees and the Delhi administration. Gandhi’s room in Birla House was packed to capacity. The first to speak was Rajendra Prasad, and he spoke on behalf of everybody: Last night everyone gathered at my residence and after a thorough discussion decided to sign the pledge there and then. Because the representatives of some organisations were not present at the meeting, we felt that instead of coming to you straightaway with the pledge we should wait until the rest of the signatures were obtained. Accordingly, we had another meeting in the morning during which those who were absent at last night’s meeting added their signatures.103 Rajendra Prasad also disclosed that there had been a slight hesitation in the minds of some people at the previous night’s meeting. By morning they, too, were ready to accept all the conditions necessary for Gandhi to break his fast, and the responsibilities emanating from them. After recounting all this, Rajendra Prasad appealed to Gandhi: ‘I hope you will break your fast now.’ Next to speak was Lala Deshbandhu: This morning a procession of Muslim brothers was taken out in Hindu localities, and the Hindu residents offered them fruits and breakfast with great affection. All this shows that people’s hearts have undergone a change. You are the leader of India’s 40-crore population. Therefore, end your fast, we beseech you.104 129

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Then, in a low voice Gandhi spoke: I am happy to hear what you have told me, but if you have overlooked one point all this will be worth nothing. If this declaration means that you will safeguard Delhi and whatever happens outside Delhi will be no concern of yours, you will be committing a grave error and it will be sheer foolishness on my part to break my fast. You must have seen the Press reports of the happenings in Allahabad, if not, look them up. I understand that the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh and the Hindu Mahasabha are among the signatories to this declaration. It will amount to breach of faith on their part if they hold themselves responsible for peace in Delhi, but not in other places. I have been observing that this sort of deception is being practised in the country these days on a large scale.105 Turning, then, to communal and religious amity, Gandhi said: ‘What will be the fate of India [both the Indian Union and Pakistan] if we continue to quarrel with one another?’106 Here Gandhi suddenly fell silent. There are two different descriptions of this silence. According to one, it was out of sheer exhaustion that he paused before continuing. According to the other, he was overcome with emotion and started weeping. Whichever description one accepts as reliable, there is no doubt that Gandhi was speaking from the depths of his heart. When he resumed speaking after a brief silence, he repeated his statement about Satan and God to warn: ‘What greater folly can there be than to claim that Hindustan is only for Hindus and Pakistan is for Muslims alone?’107 For his part, Gandhi wanted to make every possible effort to ensure that it was only after looking closely unto themselves that people asked him to break his fast. He said: I am not one to be afraid of fasting. Time and again I have gone on fasts and if occasion arises I may again do so. . . . The Muslim friends frequently meet me and assure me that peaceful atmosphere has been restored in Delhi and Hindus and Muslims can live in amity here. If these friends have any misgivings in their hearts and feel that today they have perforce to stay here – as they have nowhere else to go to – but ultimately they will have to part company, let them admit it to me frankly. To set things right in the whole of India and Pakistan is no doubt a Herculean task. But I am an optimist. Once I resolve to do something I refuse to accept defeat. Today you assure me that Hindus and Muslims have become one but if Hindus continue to regard Muslims as yavanas and asuras, incapable of realising God, and Muslims regard Hindus likewise, it will be the worst kind of blasphemy. . . . 130

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After listening to all that I have said, if you still ask me to end my fast I shall end it. Afterwards you have to release me. I had taken the vow to do or die in Delhi and now if I am able to achieve success here I shall go to Pakistan and try to make Muslims understand their folly. Whatever happens in other places, people in Delhi should maintain peace. . . . There are good men as well as bad men in all the communities. Taking into consideration all these implications, if you ask me to break my fast I shall abide by your wish. India will virtually become a prison if the present conditions continue. It may be better that you allow me to continue my fast and if God wills it He will call me.108 Gandhi had said so much. He had given unvarnished expression to the mutual fears that both Muslims and Hindus habitually entertained about what they believed to be the other’s normal thinking process. He had also expressed – with uncanny prescience – the suspicion that, because the conditions for breaking his fast literally related to Delhi, some people – Hindus – might believe themselves to be perfectly honest in signing the peace pledge even as they meant to teach the Muslims elsewhere in India a lesson. While mentioning such deception, Gandhi may have had in mind the notion of aapad dharma (duty in times of crisis). A person follow­ing aapad dharma would consider it legitimate to think in the following manner: For now let’s get past the crisis created by this fast unto death by sticking to one’s word in a strictly literal sense, without relinquishing one’s ‘duty’ of revenge and violence. In this context, Gandhi’s reference to the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh and the Hindu Mahasabha is significant, particularly his remark that as he understood both these organisations ‘are signatories to this declaration’. He was not ready to permit any subsequent claim that the members of these organisations who had signed the pledge had done so not on behalf of the Sangh or the Mahasabha but in their individual capacities. Equally forthrightly Gandhi also cautioned the Muslims against any cryptic intentions they might be harbouring. Even at the 11th hour he was insisting that people should not conspire to bring his fast to an end by keeping him or themselves under any illusions. Gandhi did everything he could, and should have done. The weakness and exhaustion natural on the sixth day of a fast were, of course, there. But he would not let that in any way affect a discussion so significant for the termination of the fast. He was stating his point of view in great detail, with all the necessary reiteration, and giving a patient hearing to the others. But the others were focused on just what they had come to accomplish. Their cryptic intentions were in no way going to come out now. Still, what was said on this occasion in the presence of Gandhi deserves serious consideration. It would have revealed much more if we also had a similar detailed account of the meetings held at Rajendra Prasad’s residence 131

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on the night of 17 January and in the morning on 18 January. We would then have also known what was said – and how it was said – during those meetings but held back from Gandhi while persuading him to end his fast. It is not difficult to imagine that. For instance, Rajendra Prasad’s passing reference to a slight ‘hesitation’ during the previous night’s meeting, which vanished during the morning’s meeting, appears to be hiding within it a big story. A story of clashing viewpoints, sentiments and vested interests and of still getting people to somehow stand together. In fact, even some of what was said in Gandhi’s presence, after he had spoken, seems to reveal a good deal, for example the statement of Maulana Habib-ul-Rahman who said: There are only two things about which I can speak. One, it is completely wrong that my coreligionists do not consider India their own country. We used to come here [Gandhi’s prayer-meeting] at five o’clock; we have worked under the Congress flag for 30 years. When we are told to reiterate our loyalty towards India, we consider it an insult to our national identity. I recall that on one occasion during the recent riots our friends and colleagues in the Congress had suggested allotting us a safe place outside Delhi. They were not confident of saving us from the rioters. But we rejected the offer, and, trusting God, preferred to live and move around the city. As far as the Jamiat-ul-Ulema is concerned I can state that its members are firm supporters of Maulana Azad and the Congress. Those who have gone to Pakistan have done so only to save their lives and on account of worse fears. All of us wish to live as citizens of India with pride and dignity, not on the pity of others. I can say with confidence that in the event of an attack on India, we will defend our country to the last man. We have repeatedly stated in clear words that those who are not ready to do this should leave India and go to Pakistan. We see today’s turnaround in the situation as a good augury. We are assured that the tide has turned and that now its flow is in the direction of harmony and peace between communities, whereas earlier its flow was in the direction of rancour. Whereas earlier it was rancour which led to the riots, now that the assurances of people’s representatives have received the government’s formal approval, we are satisfied that these assurances will be acted upon. Now I request our respected Mahatmaji to break his fast.109 Habib-ul-Rahman understood the delicacy of the occasion. Besides, he loved and respected Gandhi. In addition he may have harboured some guilt that he too was personally responsible for this fast unto death. During the widespread violence in Delhi he, along with select Muslims, had visited 132

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Gandhi regularly to apprise him of the condition of Muslims. One day he had exclaimed: It would be better if you now got us tickets to England. We have toiled for the Congress to this day, made sacrifices. Today the Congress does not acknowledge us as its own; and there is no place for us in Pakistan.110 Missing the anguish hidden in the reproach, Gandhi had erupted in anger: I know that your compatriots are harassing you. That is precisely why I am staying put here. . . . After all, how long can this go on? Just because you have suffered a little misfortune for a few days in independent India, slavery seems appealing to you? Never mind that this rot owes its very existence to their [the British] policy. Even so, would you prefer to remain a slave rather than die at the hands of your compatriots? Is this your idea of self-rule and self-respect?111 Gandhi had continued in this vein on the second day of his fast unto death as well: ‘Are you happy now? I have organised the tickets for your foreign travel and I will say that Muslims disloyal to India are leaving for foreign shores.’112 Despite this, Habib-ul-Rahman continued to visit Gandhi and attend his prayer meetings along with his associates. After all he, like Gandhi, had a 30-year-old relationship with the Congress and the freedom movement. Here he was on his feet, after Gandhi had finished talking, to request Mahatmaji to end his fast. He was choosing his words with care, keeping the right balance in view of the delicacy of the moment. Even so, he could not stop himself from telling Gandhi and the rest of the country of the shame of being persistently singled out to prove their loyalty to the country. Even if his claim that no Muslim had gone to Pakistan willingly lacked accuracy, there was a big truth in his mention of fear for life and worse. He couldn’t hold back this terrifying reference, albeit mentioning it in passing. Where Gandhi was emphasising the need for the purification of hearts, Habib-ul-Rahman, who would not let Muslims be located safely away from Delhi, found it possible to believe that the assurances given by the people’s representatives would be acted upon because they were formally backed by the administration. The five speakers who followed Rahman, including Pakistan’s high commissioner, Zahid Husain, and Delhi’s deputy commissioner, Randhawa, spoke in a manner entirely appropriate to the solemn occasion. It is possible that, carried away by the extraordinary moment, they even believed what they said. However, reading today what was then said, it is difficult to avoid the impression that neither the truth of much of what was said nor the belief in that truth was likely to endure beyond that moment. Sincerity – what 133

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there was of it – born out of fear for Gandhi’s life was unlikely to last once that fear was removed. Two examples would suffice to make this clear. Harishchandra of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh said: In your presence we vow to fully obey your command. There are tearful scenes in our homes because of your fast. We take the pledge that there shall be complete peace; we will demand neither houses nor jobs. We will live the way God keeps us.113 Harbhajan Singh, the Sikh representative, said: It is Guru Gobind Singh’s birth anniversary today. I have just returned from the gurudwara where a prayer for you was held. Your message was read out to everybody there. I did not come across a single Sikh who wants to kill Muslims. Actually everybody says that we have to save Mahatmaji’s life. Please break your fast. The Sikhs who are here will fully obey your command.114 Finally, when all the statements had been made, Rajendra Prasad told Gandhi: ‘I have signed on behalf of the people, please break your fast.’115 Whatever Prasad may have meant while stressing that he had ‘signed on behalf of the people’, Gandhi said after having heard everyone: ‘I shall break my fast. Let God’s will prevail. You all be witness today.’116 Gandhi spoke these three brief sentences on the afternoon of 18 January 1948. In the light of what occurred just two days later and has been happening since, we cannot read these sentences without feeling acute despair. An irremovable suspicion regarding humans and an unbreakable faith in God – hope in the midst of despair – is what these sentences reverberate with, in our ears. Gandhi, though, felt elated at the conclusion of his fast. He got back his desire to live for 125 years. Rather, he now started talking of living for 133 years. That evening he said: As I write, comforting telegrams are deluging me. How I wish that God will keep me fit enough and sane enough to render the service to humanity that lies in front of me! If the solemn pledge made today is fulfilled, I assure you that it will revive with redoubled force my intense wish and prayer before God that I should be enabled to live the full span of life doing service of humanity till the last moment. That span according to learned opinion is at least 125 years, some say 133.117 Gandhi had a fair idea of his moral capital, and his unique way of deciding when to gamble with it. He also had an astute understanding of how 134

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much he stood to gain by that gamble. Hence, whatever literal meaning one may attribute to Satan and God in the earlier mentioned discourses or in other statements, Gandhi had not commenced his fast under the impression that it would bring about a miraculous, permanent and complete transformation in human nature and human relationships. As he constantly emphasised, it was not something that could be accomplished in a day’s work. In his prayer discourse of 18 January he spoke about a new beginning: ‘From now on I hope we shall begin to move towards God.’118 He also sounded a note of caution that the seven conditions laid down by him had beyond their literal wording, a spirit without which mere adherence to words would be meaningless: ‘[B]eyond the letter of fulfilment of my solemn vow lies its spirit without which the letter killeth.’119 Gandhi was well aware that his fast was for a new beginning which constituted the fundamental condition for the well-being of both India and Pakistan: to establish ‘sincere friendship between the Hindus, Muslims and Sikhs of the Union and a similar friendship in Pakistan’.120 He said after breaking his fast: I am not a prophet but God has granted me the power of reason and a heart. My reason and my heart tell me that if for some reason or other we are unable to forge friendship between Hindus and Muslims, not only here but also in Pakistan and in the whole world, we shall not be able to keep India for long. It will pass into the hands of others and become a slave country again. Pakistan too will become a slave country and the freedom we have gained will be lost again.121 Gandhi was comprehending not only the present of ‘independent’ India and Pakistan but also the kind of future they would inevitably be doomed to if that present remained unchanged. That clarity of vision led him to undertake a Herculean effort – which he alone could have done – to change that present and save the two countries from that future. His was an effort that was completely beyond the imagination of others. Besides, had someone even wished to emulate it, what befell Gandhi would have served, for the lesser-willed, as a demonstration of its impracticability. Like in Calcutta, Gandhi’s Herculean effort had an instant effect in Delhi as well, even though here it took two days longer to work. The city was at peace again. All seven of Gandhi’s conditions were agreed to without requiring – not in Gandhi’s presence at any rate – the rather unsavoury haggling that had preceded the termination of the Calcutta fast. Still, the manner in which the doctors examining Gandhi on 17 January had warned of the impending danger and the way an all-party central peace committee was hastily cobbled together the same night, papering over differences to resolve the matter by 11 a.m. the next morning, constitute evidence of 135

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the immediate effect of Gandhi’s effort as much as they cast doubt over the effectiveness of the spirit of that effort. The selfsame spirit without the observance of which mere adherence to words would be meaningless. Granted, what mere adherence to words had accomplished was not meaningless; it was incomparable, in fact. Still, it was a betrayal by the people of themselves and of Gandhi. In spite of its overall and immediate effect of well-being, this achievement was essentially without merit. For Satan, who was entrenched in people’s hearts, was cowed only for the moment, under the pressure of circumstances, and eager to seize the hearts again at the first opportunity. As for Patel, he was, indeed, suffering, but more for Gandhi than for himself. Impatient to submit his resignation and create circumstances whereby Gandhi’s fast could break. Reassured, too, that he was doing nothing wrong. Even the 130 members of the peace committee had overnight accepted Gandhi’s conditions in their entirety. Almost instantly, in the blink of an eye, 200,000 women and men had signed on a separate peace petition. But, and it is no ordinary but, in the context of evaluating Gandhi’s success or otherwise, how many among them had undergone a change of heart? A change that could so weaken the conflict between hatred and love, enmity and friendship, distrust and trust as to eventually make love, friendship and trust stronger than hatred, friction and distrust. Maulana Azad was right when speaking with Gandhi on 17 January he had insisted that there was no way of ascertaining whether or not people’s hearts were changing. On this ground he had persuaded Gandhi to set such conditions as could visibly demonstrate that the people were sincerely with Gandhi and desirous of creating an environment in which the fast could be broken. Gandhi, too, on his part was right in saying: Rashtrapati [president of the Congress] Dr. Rajendra Babu brought over a 100 people representing the Hindus, Muslims, Sikhs, representatives of the Hindu Mahasabha, the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh and representatives of refugees. . . . I could not disbelieve their pledge that, come what may, there would be complete friendship between the Hindus, Muslims, Sikhs, Christians, Parsis and Jews, a friendship not to be broken.122 Even while not disbelieving, he made it a point to add that any attempt to renege on the pledge while he was alive would have terrible consequences. At any rate, neither in Gandhi’s time nor in subsequent developments has there been any evidence of even the beginning of a change of heart. There had been two fasts unto death within four months. What would have happened thereafter can be a subject for interesting speculation except that the very possibility of Gandhi acting on the warning he had issued at the time of breaking his fast in Delhi was eliminated. Within 53 hours of the conclusion of the fast, a bomb was thrown at the same spot with the 136

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intention of finishing him off. Ten days after that failed attempt, at the same spot, deliverance from Gandhi’s mortal form was achieved. However much one may reflect on the Delhi fast, it is hard to believe that its effect was different from that of the Calcutta fast. Here, too, it was the victory not of ahimsa but of the anxiety that something might happen to Gandhi. The danger in Delhi was not only of Gandhi dying but also of his being physically or mentally disabled. Both dangers were terrifying. In that situation Gandhi alone could have said with a feeling of detachment: ‘I hope you will believe me when I say that I dread neither death nor permanent injury even if I survive.’123 He alone could have reminded everyone: ‘My sole guide . . . was God. . .  If He has any further use for this frail body of mine, He will keep it in spite of the prognostications of medical men and women. I am in His hands.’124 But people were afraid, so afraid as to be able to deceive both Gandhi and themselves. The fast unto death had created circumstances in which people were bound to be pressured into saving Gandhi. Whatever Gandhi might say against deception and in favour of truth, people could not have had the capacity to disregard the pressure to save that precious life. Consequently, no matter what conditions were laid down for saving Gandhi, people had no option but to accept them literally. But no similar pressure could be brought upon them to ensure adherence to the spirit of those conditions. More so as people by and large lacked the sense to appreciate that spirit, and those who did appreciate the spirit lacked the capacity to abide by it. Who deceived Gandhi? And themselves. To what extent? It would help to know. But we have no reliable method for such a computation. In this regard, however, it is worth mentioning that the Delhi fast brings into sharp focus the intimate correlation between the possible effectiveness of moral power and people’s self-interests which we have already noticed in the case of Gandhi’s Calcutta fast. The big change that had come over the attitude of Muslims towards Gandhi as a consequence of the Calcutta fast not only deepened with the Delhi fast but also spread as far as Pakistan. We have seen how, as soon as the fast commenced, people in Pakistan conveyed to Gandhi through Mridula Sarabhai their desire to accomplish in their country what Gandhi had started his fast for, and asked for guidance. When he stated at the commencement of his fast that it was for India’s Muslims and, for that very reason, also for Pakistan’s minorities – that its purpose was to restore to the people of both countries their sanity – Gandhi had not anticipated so prompt and positive an effect in Pakistan. We have also seen how movingly a prominent Muslim League leader like Ghazanfar Ali Khan had spoken about Gandhi’s fast and asked people in both the countries to be penitent. And also that the high commissioner of Pakistan came and spoke at the conclusion of the fast. It is worth noting in the same context that while there was an apprehension in India that the fast would weaken the country’s stand on Kashmir 137

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at the United Nations Security Council, Pakistan’s foreign minister, Sir Muhammad Zafarullah Khan, said in the Council that ‘a new and tremendous wave of feeling and desire for friendship between India and Pakistan is sweeping the subcontinent in response to the fast’.125 Gandhi himself had not envisaged this. Replying to the journalist’s question about Kashmir and the Security Council, he had simply said: ‘The United Nations know that my fast aids them to come to a right decision and to give the right guidance to the two newly-made Dominions.’126 He was thinking of international mediation, whereas Pakistan’s spokesperson, taking his cues from Gandhi, was refusing to reap the sort of benefit from the fast about which there was so much apprehension in India. During the Delhi fast, leaders of the Muslim League in the West Punjab Assembly (Pakistan) expressed such heartfelt sentiments that made it hard to believe they were the same people who had left no stone unturned to incite the violence of 16 August 1946, going as far as to state that the exploits of Chengiz Khan and Halaku would pale in comparison with what was about to happen. But now, for example, Malik Feroz Khan Noon was saying: ‘No country in the world has produced a greater man, religious founders apart, than Mahatma Gandhi.’127 The chief minister of West Punjab, Khan Iftikhar Hussain, Nawab of Mamdot, sent a long telegram to Gandhi: The government of Western Punjab expresses its heartfelt appreciation for the step that you have taken to carry this good deed forward and values it sincerely. . . . This government accepts that minorities should get the same rights as citizens. We assure you that this government will now act on this policy with redoubled force. Our only concern is that the situation immediately improves in all places in this small part of Hindustan so that you may conclude your fast. In this province there shall be no laxity in our efforts to save a valuable life such as yours.128 That said, there was obviously a limit to Gandhi’s influence in Pakistan, in particular on the Pakistan government. For example, just as the high commissioner of Pakistan was leaving Birla House after the conclusion of the fast, Gandhi conveyed to him through his secretary Pyarelal his desire to go to Pakistan. The reply was one that dejected Gandhi. The high commissioner said: ‘No, not yet. But I hope that conditions will have changed for the better sufficiently before long.’129 Nonetheless, what Gandhi did in the midst of that madness was, indeed, a miracle. And at least in Pakistan what he had achieved was the effect of ahimsa, not of compulsion. Ahimsa, to be ahimsa, depends not only on its practitioner(s). Its being ahimsa is determined, in some circumstances, also by those against whom it is being practised. 138

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III At the end of this chapter, probing the possibility of ahimsa, I would like to move away from the two fasts of 1947–1948 and mention a set of twin fasts in 1932–1933. The first of the latter two fasts is the most famous of Gandhi’s public fasts. Its status, be it in public memory or academic discourse, is supreme. Whether it is Gandhi’s admirers or critics, that fast becomes at one point or another the focal context for praising or criticising him. Today, owing to the Dalit discourse, that fast has got caught squarely between two mutually antagonistic passions. This is the famous Poona or Yeravda fast of 1932. The second of the twin fasts was undertaken by Gandhi seven-and-a-half months later, in 1933. There is not even a trace of this fast in public memory. Rarely does it find mention in academic discourse. From the perspective of ahimsa, however, this all but forgotten fast is Gandhi’s purest fast – and utterly ineffectual, if seen in terms of its effect on others. Kept for a fixed duration of 21 days, this fast began on the afternoon of 8 May and went on till 29 May. It came about in a very mysterious manner. Gandhi was then imprisoned in Poona’s Yeravda Jail. As usual, he turned in early on the night of 28 April with no thought of beginning a fast. According to his statement the following day: At about 12 o’clock in the night something wakes me up suddenly, and some voice – within or without, I cannot say – whispers, ‘Thou must go on a fast.’ How many days? I ask. The voice again says, ‘Twenty-one days’. When does it begin? I ask. It says, ‘You begin tomorrow.’130 He made up his mind that very instant and slipped back into sleep. Irrespective of whether the midnight voice that woke him up came from within or outside, Gandhi was convinced that the command for a fast had come from God. And a divine command had to be obeyed at all costs. The only departure from the command was that the fast was begun on 8 May instead of the very next day. The reason for the postponement was that if Gandhi, a prisoner, had started the fast without sufficient prior notice, the British Indian government and its officials would have been extremely inconvenienced. And Gandhi’s ahimsa demanded that the opponent be saved from unnecessary trouble. The 21-day fast may have been conceived on the night of 28–29 April, but it was umbilically connected to the Poona fast of seven-and-a-half months ago. The Poona fast was begun in Yeravda Jail on 20 September 1932 as a fast unto death. Its purpose was to ensure the annulment of the provision of separate electorates which the British Prime Minister Ramsay MacDonald had proposed for the Dalits, or ‘untouchables’ as they were then known, 139

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under the Communal Award. The fast threw the country into a commotion. Frantic parleys were begun with startling swiftness. Even the most vehement of Gandhi’s political critics, setting aside their interests, beliefs, values and ideologies to the extent possible, got involved in an attempt to forge an agreement that would save Gandhi’s life. Assembling in Bombay and Poona, leaders of various social groups and parties worked tirelessly to prepare the agreement. This seemingly impossible task was accomplished in just five days. The British government displayed a matching eagerness to save Gandhi from the consequences of his fast unto death. When the draft of the Poona agreement reached London via telegram, Prime Minister MacDonald was away in Sussex to attend a funeral. As soon as he received the information he returned to London where, after deliberating well into the night, his council of ministers finally approved the agreement withdrawing its decision to provide separate electorates for the Dalits. Gandhi’s fast unto death ended on 26 September. While ending the fast, he publicly announced that if the pact, on the basis of which he was breaking his fast, was not acted upon in a forceful manner and implemented within a stipulated period of time, he would be obliged to ‘resume’ this fast. That was the umbilical cord tying the twin fasts. Barely had the fast unto death ended when a clamour began for modifying the Poona Pact. Complaints erupted that what the pact had given the Dalits as compensation for giving up their separate electorates was needlessly in excess of what Ramsay MacDonald had proposed. These complaints were an unmistakable violation of the spirit in which Gandhi wanted the Dalit issue to be resolved. Once, in his view, society had accepted the propriety of providing reservation for a backward section, the decision regarding the quantum of reservation had to be left to that section. It was in accordance with this underlying spirit that the reservation accorded to the Dalits in the Poona Pact exceeded not only what MacDonald had proposed but also what Ambedkar claimed. On the surface, Gandhi’s fast was surely against the MacDonald scheme. But its driving force was much larger – namely the eradication among both the upper castes and the Dalits, of the very feeling of untouchability. Of course, a swift change in the social, economic, political and psychological condition of the Dalits was necessary to bring this about. But it was equally necessary that upper-caste Hindus should, in true penitence, oppose the injustices and atrocities perpetrated on the Dalits over the centuries. In a fast inspired by such a sentiment and in the agreement brought about to conclude that fast, there should have been no room for any petty calculations or decimal proportions derived from demographic statistics. For Gandhi, the Poona Pact was not a political tug of war. He had undertaken the fast unto death because he wanted to create between the Dalits and the upper castes a new bond of mutual trust and amity. 140

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The alacrity shown by caste Hindus in supporting Gandhi’s fast in order to avert the danger of separate electorates for the Dalits and in demanding, as soon as the crisis was overcome, amendment to the Poona Pact reveals the fundamental difference between their thinking and the thinking of Gandhi. They did not take seriously Gandhi’s warning that if untouchability was not eradicated, the destruction of Hindu religion and culture was certain. They could see the disintegration of their society in separate electorates for the Dalits, not in the continuation of untouchability. The most dramatic example of this is Rabindranath Tagore. After having decided on his fast unto death to oppose separate Dalit electorates, Gandhi, as was his wont, wrote to seek blessings from certain individuals he trusted and respected. Tagore was among them. In a long and fervent telegram he said: ‘It is worth sacrificing precious life for the sake of India’s unity and her social integrity.’131 Although he had his doubts whether the foreign ruler would even comprehend its significance, Tagore was hopeful that such a huge sacrifice would undoubtedly impact the conscience of his compatriots. In addition, he was confident that the national tragedy that could result from this fast would be stopped before it reached its logical conclusion. ‘Our sorrowing hearts,’ wrote Tagore, ‘will follow your sublime penance with reverence and love.’132 Not content with sending the telegram, Tagore set off for Poona. Fortuitously he reached Gandhi a few hours before the fast was broken. For a while he buried his face in the bosom of a weary Gandhi lying supine on a cot. Maybe he was weeping. Later, during the prayer that preceded the conclusion of the fast, he even sang one of his songs. Following his return, four days later, to Santiniketan, Tagore wrote to ‘Mahatmaji’: ‘Our people are wonderstruck at the impossible being made possible in these few days and there is a universal feeling of immense relief at your being saved for us.’133 Enthused by the miracle Gandhi had wrought from inside a jail, Tagore suggested a bold sequel. Gandhi, he wrote, should now attempt something similar for Hindu-Muslim unity. He wrote: [T]here is a deep-rooted antipathy against the Muslims in most of our people and they also have not much love for ourselves . . . [You] know how to move the hearts of those that are obdurate, and only, I am sure, have the patient love that can conquer the hatred that has accumulated for ages.134 Something Tagore said in this letter is particularly germane to the present context. He wrote: I do not know how to calculate political consequences, but I believe that nothing can be too costly which would enable us to win their [Muslims’] confidence and convince them that we understand their difficulties and their own point of view.135 141

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The same Tagore, so overwhelmed by Gandhi’s conversion of the impossible into the possible from inside prison as to implore him to repeat the magic – no matter what it cost – and transform Hindu–Muslim relations, suddenly turned hostile to the Poona Pact. He did this because of the fear among upper-caste Hindus, especially in Bengal, that the pact would affect their representation adversely. Not even finding it necessary to discuss the matter with Gandhi, he promptly released a public statement that the Poona Pact was detrimental to the ‘country’s permanent interest’.136 Deploring the British government as well as Indian leaders, he lamented that nobody was inclined to amend the pact. As for his initial enthusiasm for the pact, he gave the following elaborate explanation: At that moment a situation was created which was extremely painful, not affording us the least time or peace of mind to think quietly on the possible consequences of the Poona Pact, which had already been arrived at and in the [C]onference, of which no responsible representatives of Bengal took part. Upon the settlement of this question Mr. Gandhi’s life depended, and the intolerable anxiety caused by such a crisis drove precipitately to a commitment which I now realise as a mistake from the point of view of our country’s permanent interest. Never having any experience in political dealings, while entertaining a great love for Mr. Gandhi and a complete faith in his wisdom in Indian politics, I dared not wait for further consideration, which was unfortunate as justice has certainly been sacrificed in the case of Bengal. I have not the least doubt now that such an injustice will continue to cause mischief for all parties concerned, keeping alive the spirit of communal conflict in our province in an intense form and making peaceful government of the country perpetually difficult. That the British Government refuses to reconsider this subject of vital importance to us, while all other proposals contained in the White paper are being freely rehandled does not surprise or hurt me too much, but that the Indian members of the Conference belonging to provinces different from ours should not only remain apathetic but actively take part in Bengal’s misfortune is terribly ominous, presaging no good for our future history.137 Intellectually, Tagore was vehemently against every insular idea and identity, including nationalism. But, in this specific context, he appears – knowingly or unknowingly – to stand by an insular mentality. This is, in the context of Dalits, an upper-caste Hindu mentality; and in the context of Muslims, a ‘Hindu’ mentality. In its self-image and claims, however, this mentality is ‘Indian’. (The use of the present tense here is intended to draw 142

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attention to the fact that this mentality has since continued and grown.) If a sensitive great man like Tagore could so react under the influence of such a pervasive and deeply entrenched complex mentality, it is not difficult to imagine how, once relieved of the crisis, the average upper-caste Hindu must have tended to view Gandhi’s fast unto death – not as a sacrifice but as a pressure that had compelled them to accept the Poona Pact. Gandhi, throughout his fast unto death, was convinced that he had done the Dalits no injustice. When the compulsion to save Gandhi brought Ambedkar to the Yeravda Jail for talks, his first sentence was: ‘Mahatmaji, you have been very unfair to us.’ To which Gandhi had replied, ‘It is always my lot to be unfair. I can’t help it.’138 But now he was able to see that the inspiration behind the Poona Pact was never that awareness – the removal from every heart of the very idea of untouchability – on which he had laid stress all along. The caste Hindus’ apathy and cruelty towards the Dalits was intact. Time went by. Gandhi kept thinking, failing to understand what to do. His closest associates knew that he would at any moment act upon his pledge at the conclusion of the earlier fast. Alarmed, Pyarelal promptly published The Epic Fast (Ahmedabad 1932) to soundly warn the country that if the Poona Pact was not acted upon seriously and sincerely, there would be no escaping this misfortune. Rajaji too cautioned people against forgetting Gandhi’s pledge. Where Gandhi’s deeds and words were ineffectual, what would books and statements by others have achieved? For seven months Gandhi kept making moving appeals to his compatriots to remove the stigma of untouchability. In one such appeal he said: The Government are now practically out of it. Their part of the obligation they fulfilled promptly. The major part of the resolutions of the Yeravda Pact has to be fulfilled by these millions, the so-called caste Hindus, who have flocked to the meetings I have described. It is they who have to embrace the suppressed brethren and sisters as their very own, whom they have to invite to their temples, to their homes, to their schools. The ‘untouchables’ in the villages should be made to feel that their shackles have been broken, that they are in no way inferior to their fellow-villagers, that they are worshippers of the same God as other villagers and are entitled to the same rights and privileges that the latter enjoy. But if these vital conditions of the Pact are not carried out by caste Hindus, could I possibly live to face God and man?. . . [T]he criminal neglect of caste Hindus to implement its conditions. . . . would mean a betrayal of Hinduism. I should not care to remain its living witness.139 For seven months Gandhi kept relating his distress. He kept telling people about the anguish of his soul. All in vain. 143

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And then came God’s midnight message for the 21-day fast. A day later, Gandhi released a lengthy statement: A tempest has been raging within me for some days. I have been struggling against it. . . . As I look back upon the immediate past, many are the causes too sacred to mention that must have precipitated the fast. [T]hey are all connected with the great Harijan cause. . . . The evil is far greater than even I had thought it to be. It will not be eradicated by money, external organisation and even political power for Harijans, though all these three are necessary. But to be effective, they must follow or at least accompany inward wealth, inward organisation and inward power, in other words, selfpurification. This can only come by fasting and prayer. We may not approach the God of Truth in the arrogance of strength, but in the meekness of the weak and the helpless.140 Speaking of a difficult, mundane problem in simple everyday language, Gandhi suddenly reaches an altogether different level and starts talking a language that, transcending ordinary reasoning and knowledge, relates to some deep faith. Comprehending that language is difficult for the likes of us who remain constrained within that familiar reasoning and knowledge. If, however, we believe that Gandhi is important enough for us to exercise a little patience to attempt some understanding of his language and meaning, we may realise that Gandhi is trying to reach the essence of the problem – that the root of the problem is essentially not just political. A solution that is merely political cannot, therefore, adequately deal with the problem. Nothing will happen if the thinking on both sides of the inhuman divide of untouchability does not change. Rather, the problem would become more ominous. I realise that my use of the words ‘not just political’ for the problem of untouchability happened in lazy conformance to my deep-seated way of thinking. In fact, for Gandhi the problem was never political. As he categorically stated in the wake of the midnight voice, the problem, its solution and his movement to implement that solution were religious in nature: I know that many of my sanatanist friends and others think that the movement is a deep political game. How I wish this fast would convince them that it is purely religious. . . . And may I ask my sanatanist friends to pray that, whatever be the result of the fast for me, the golden lid that hides Truth may be removed?141 Very few people understood Gandhi’s suffering and the inevitability of his fast. Among them, not surprisingly, were Romain Rolland and C.F. 144

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Andrews. Responding to Gandhi’s request for a blessing, Romain Rolland messaged movingly: ‘Ever with you.’ No less touching was Andrews’s assurance: ‘Accepts and understands.’142 Patel, not so unsurprisingly perhaps, was also among those who understood this fast. Not many would have suspected this hard pragmatist of the subtle empathy with which he grasped the essence of Gandhi’s fast. It was to Patel in the Yeravda Jail – he called it Yeravda Mandir (temple) – that, after the prayer at 4 a.m., Gandhi had placed a little note about the coming fast. Would Gandhi, already in his 64th year, survive for 21 days without food? The question threw Patel into a state of agitation. Yet, he realised that it would be wrong to argue with Gandhi. To attempt to make him break his ‘religious vow’ would be a ‘sin’ – and futile too. Patel persuaded himself that ‘there was no other course for me then but to say God’s will be done’.143 He could see, there is none like Gandhi in his understanding of and fidelity to the Hindu religion. Had there been, we would not be in the state we are today. Considering the kind of propaganda several sections of Hindu society, not just the orthodox, had started immediately after the Poona Pact, Patel observed, the fast was bound to come sooner or later. Falsehood and deceit were being resorted to in the name of protecting Hindu religion. But it was ‘Bapu’ who was being called deceitful. How long, in such circumstances, could he have stayed away from his pledge for the crores of poor and illiterate ‘untouchables’? No other way was left to save Hindu religion. Gandhi, who had more concern for religion than for life, could only have done that which he was now about to do. Patel knew of Gandhi’s firm belief that God would accomplish the fast without any obstructions. But he lacked the kind of faith Gandhi had. So he consoled himself with the stoic thought: ‘[W]hy grieve over that which is unavoidable?’144 Gandhi’s 21-day fast threatened no one – it set no tangible objective. There was no fear of the dire consequences of not meeting the objective that might coerce people to do what they otherwise would not do, and later curse Gandhi for making them do so. The fast was for a specified period, and no matter what happened, it would not end earlier. Moreover, Gandhi had requested people not to ask him ‘to postpone, abandon or vary the approaching fast in any way whatsoever’.145 In fact, even in the public warning issued at the termination of the 1932 fast, Gandhi had made it clear that if he was required to undertake a fast yet again, that fast would not be for the purpose of exerting pressure on those who opposed reform. Even as he was starting his non-coercive 21-day fast, he reiterated: Sanatanist Hindus scent further coercion in this fast. When they realise that it cannot be broken before its period, even if every temple was opened and untouchability wholly removed from the heart, they will perhaps admit that it cannot be regarded as in any way 145

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coercive. The fast is intended to remove bitterness, to purify hearts and to make it clear that the movement is wholly moral. . .  May God bless the ordeal and fulfil its purpose.146 Nowhere does Gandhi’s dearest wish emerge in such a poignant manner as in this letter to ‘dear Jawahar’: As I was struggling against the coming fast, you were before me as it were in flesh and blood. But it was no use. How I wish I could feel that you had understood the absolute necessity of it. The Harijan movement is too big for mere intellectual effort. There is nothing so bad in all the world. And yet I cannot leave religion and therefore Hinduism. My life would be a burden to me, if Hinduism failed me. I love Christianity, Islam and many other faiths through Hinduism. Take it away and nothing remains for me. But then I cannot tolerate it with untouchability – the high and low belief. Fortunately Hinduism contains a sovereign remedy for the evil. I have applied the remedy. I want you to feel, if you can, that it is well if I survive the fast and well also if the body dissolves in spite of the effort to live. . . . And surely death is not an end to all effort. Rightly faced, it may be but the beginning of a nobler effort. But I won’t convince you by argument, if you did not see the truth intuitively.147 In reply, Nehru promptly sent a telegram from prison on 5 May and also wrote a letter on the same day. The telegram read: What can I say about matters I do not understand? I feel lost in strange country where you are the only familiar landmark and I try to grope my way in dark but I stumble. Whatever happens my love and thoughts will be with you.148 Possibly the most interesting and complex reaction to this fast came from Tagore. Like before the 1932 fast, this time also Gandhi wrote to seek the blessings of ‘Dear Gurudev’: It is just now 1.45 a.m. and I think of you and some other friends. If your heart endorses contemplated fast, I want your blessings again.149 This time Gandhi received nothing like the effusive telegram that had blessed the fast of which this fast was a sequel. He received, instead, a letter, telling Gandhi how handicapped Tagore felt because he did not have before him ‘the entire background of thoughts and facts against which should be placed your own judgment in order to understand its significance’.150 The difficulty of not knowing enough to be able to make up his mind one way or the other, however, 146

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did not prevent Tagore from opposing the proposed fast. He lectured Gandhi on the duty of not courting death ‘unless there is absolutely no other alternative for the expression of the ultimate purpose of life itself’.151 The letter also warned: It is not unlikely that you are mistaken about the imperative necessity of your present vow, and when we realise that there is a grave risk of its fatal termination we shudder at the possibility of the tremendous mistake never having the opportunity of being rectified.152 This rational–philosophical reply provides an instructive contrast to the profuse blessings of the previous year. Tagore, the poet, is this time surprisingly untouched by the outpourings of Gandhi’s agonising soul. Nor, as his protestation against courting death would suggest, does he see merit in Gandhi’s repeated reiteration that he would continue to live beyond the dissolution of his mortal body. Especially when, as in this letter, he was being philosophical, how could he miss the power of Gandhi’s argument that death does not signify the end of a person – ‘I’ shall not die, so what if the body no longer remains? The 21-day fast also, like the fasts unto death in Calcutta and Delhi, substantiates the hypothesis that often the extent to which people will be affected by a particular ideal is significantly determined by their individual and collective interests. This is not to suggest that interests play a decisive, or any, role in every situation. An excellent example of this is Madan Mohan Malaviya in 1933. When Gandhi was being hounded by orthodox Hindus who could see nothing but deceit even in this fast, Malaviya, the very epitome of sanatanism, cabled to express his full support to the fast: God bless you. . . I am fully convinced that He has guided you in your decision. I have been praying that He may grant you strength to go successfully through your great vrata and have faith that He will. . . . Will meet you as soon as health permits.153 Gandhi, as he had hoped, survived the fast rather well, although he lost 22 kg and became a skeleton in those 21 days. But none of the hopes he might have had from this fast – barring possibly his own purification – appear to have been met in any way. As for his belief that the impurity prevailing all around was on account of some residual impurity within him, and that his purification through the fast would purify his people also, there is no evidence of any improvement in the atmosphere all around. In stark contrast to 1932, no immediate efforts on the issue of Dalits were visible. There were no rushed parleys, no emergency huddles of disparate leaders, no display of fraternisation with the Dalits, no throwing open of schools, wells or temples to them. Even the Guruvayoor temple of Kerala 147

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remained closed to the Dalits. This was the temple where K. Kelappan (popularly known as Kerala Gandhi) had undertaken a fast on the issue of temple entry for Dalits in August 1932 following a 10-month-long satyagraha and, at Gandhi’s persuasion, had ended it without achieving any success. Gandhi’s intervention had carried the assurance that, if necessary, he, too, would sit on a fast with Kelappan. During the 21-day fast, there was reason to hope that the Guruvayoor management would open the temple to the Dalits to avert the risk of Gandhi undertaking another fast soon after such a long one. If anything at all happened, it was a feeling of relief that Gandhi had survived. But the relief was also tinged with irritation that Gandhi had created trouble unnecessarily. The fast produced considerable discontent even among his own Congressmen. That discontent was also on account of the fact that, following his release from prison prior to his fast, Gandhi had appealed to the party president and got the Civil Disobedience Movement suspended. But for small incidents, the movement had petered out by then. But its formal suspension made many within the Congress believe that Gandhi had pushed back the political struggle by needlessly bringing the Dalit issue to the fore. Two prominent leaders who were away in Europe – Vithalbhai Patel and Subhas Chandra Bose – even demanded that the party be delivered of Gandhi’s leadership. Patel would laughingly complain to Gandhi that his ahimsa was full of violence, his love full of cruelty. Affectionate or vexed complaints within personal relationships apart, why did Gandhi, in his public struggles against his own people, succeed only when his ahimsa contained that element which can be called violence? And why could the fasts unto death of 1932, 1947 and 1948, all concluded within a mere three to seven days, accomplish so much? Why did his great 21-day fast of 1933 turn out the way it did? Gandhi had great faith in the power of silence. Beyond words, the language of silence. And he had faith in the silent influence of exemplary life. A life that just by being, like the rose, spreads fragrance in all directions. The rose he became from 8 May to 29 May 1933 – it is not easy to say this – he could not be even in his awe-inspiring final moments. If any such fragrance spread, we have little evidence of it. What indestructible flaw of human nature had rendered that incomparable ahimsa so ineffectual?

Notes 1 Chandiwala, Gandhiji ki Dilli Diary, part iii, p. 449. 2 PP, vol. i, pp. 161–162. 3 Bose, My Days with Gandhi, p. 211. 4 Young India, 29 January 1925, CWMG, vol. 26, p. 51.

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5 Bose, My Days with Gandhi, p. 224. 6 Pyarelal, Mahatma Gandhi: The Last Phase, vol. x, part ii, p. 364. 7 13 January 1948, PP, vol. ii, p. 299. 8 Pyarelal, Mahatma Gandhi: The Last Phase, vol x, part ii, pp. 364–365. 9 Ibid., p. 365. 10 Ibid., p. 366. 11 Ibid. 12 Ibid., p. 367. 13 Ibid., p. 368. 14 Ibid., p. 369. 15 Ibid. 16 Ibid. 17 Ibid. 18 Ibid. 19 Ibid., p. 371. 20 Bose, My Days with Gandhi, p. 235. Pyarelal has a different version: ‘After a discussion with us, on the evening of [the] 31st August, Gandhiji announced that he would be leaving for Noakhali on the 2nd September, 1st September being Monday, his day of silence and rest.’ Pyarelal, Mahatma Gandhi: The Last Phase, vol. x, part ii, p. 402. 21 Pyarelal, Mahatma Gandhi: The Last Phase, vol. x, part ii, p. 406. 22 Gandhi’s advice to a deputation of leading members of the Marwari community, 1 September 1947, CWMG, vol. 89, p. 129. 23 28 December 1947, PP, vol. ii, p. 247. 24 CWMG, vol. 89, p. 132. 25 Ibid., pp. 132–133. 26 Harijan, 14 September 1947, ibid., p. 133. Pyarelal’s version of the first two sentences differs slightly: ‘At least I won’t be a living witness of it. I shall have done my duty.’ Pyarelal, Mahatma Gandhi: The Last Phase, vol. x, part ii, p. 408. 27 16 June 1947, PP, vol. i, p. 165. 28 4 September 1947, CWMG, vol. 89, p. 153. 29 Ibid., p. 152. 30 Ibid. 31 Ibid. 32 Ibid., p. 153. 33 10 September 1947, PP, vol. i, p. 294. 34 Ibid. 35 13 September 1947, ibid., p. 307. 36 Ibid. 37 Ibid. 38 Ibid., pp. 307–308. 39 Ibid., p. 308. 40 Ibid. 41 Ibid., p. 309. 42 Ibid. 43 14 September 1947, ibid., p. 315. 44 Ibid. 45 16 June 1947, ibid., p. 165. 46 10 April 1947, ibid., p. 41. 47 13 September 1947, ibid., pp. 309–311. 48 Ibid., p. 311. 49 15 September 1947, ibid., pp. 317–319.

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0 5 November 1947, ibid., vol. ii, p. 49. 5 51 18 September 1947, ibid., vol. i, p. 323. 52 Ibid., p. 324. 53 20 September 1947, ibid., p. 333. 54 22 September 1947, ibid., p. 337. 55 18 September 1947, ibid., p. 325. 56 Ibid., p. 323. 57 21 November 1947, ibid., vol. ii, p. 104. 58 10 December 1947, ibid., pp. 191–192. 59 12 June 1947, ibid., vol. i, p. 151. 60 CWMG, vol. 90, pp. 408–410. 61 Ibid. 62 Ibid. 63 Ibid. 64 Ibid. 65 Ibid. 66 15 January 1948, ibid., vol. 90, p. 427. 67 14 January 1948, PP, vol. ii, p. 303. 68 15 January 1948, CWMG, vol. 90, p. 427. 69 13 January 1948, PP, vol. ii, pp. 294–295. 70 15 January 1948, CWMG, vol. 90, p. 426. 71 Ibid. 72 Ibid., p. 427. 73 Ibid. 74 Ibid. 75 Gandhi to C.F. Andrews, 17 September 1924, Mahadev H. Desai, Day-to-Day with Gandhi, (Secretary’s Diary), Sarva Seva Sangh Prakashan, Varanasi, 1969, vol. iv, p. 184. 76 Ibid., pp. 192–193. 77 15 January 1948, CWMG, vol. 90, p. 429. 78 Ibid. 79 14 January 1948, PP, vol. ii, p. 302. 80 Ibid. 81 Ibid. 82 15 January 1948, CWMG, vol. 90, p. 429. 83 16 January 1948, ibid., pp. 435–436. 84 Ibid., p. 436. 85 Ibid. 86 14 January 1948, PP, vol. ii, p. 301. 87 Ibid. 88 Ibid. 89 Ibid. 90 Ibid., pp. 301–302. 91 Narayan Desai, ‘Maru Jivan Ej Mari Vani’ (Gujarati), vol. 4, Swarpan, Navajivan Publishing House, Ahmedabad, 2003, pp. 432–433. 92 Patel did not detail his ‘intolerable’ plight. Just two comments by an eyewitness help us have an idea of how Gandhi’s fast must have singularly embarrassed Patel. Maragaret Bourke-White, an American photojournalist who was equally articulate with her images and words, writes: ‘[S]ince last night’s dramatic announcement, people were saying that Patel was the man who could be most embarrassed by Gandhi’s undertaking of this fast.’ Reporting an incident that occurred outside the Birla House, where Gandhi was fasting, she writes:

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Mr Birla’s door opened and out walked Nehru, Patel and Maulana Azad, the scholarly Muslim who was India’s Minister of Education. Each of the three hurried into his respective car, Nehru – it happened – the last. The first two cars had swung into the road, and Nehru’s was just turning through the gate when the crowd took up its medley of chants again, some people shouting, ‘Long live the Sardar, Sardar Patel zindabad,’ and others yelling the incredible ‘Gandhi murdabad!’ As the slogan reached Nehru’s ears he jumped out, pale with rage. ‘How can you say such a thing!’ he shouted. ‘Kill me first.’ The crowd fell silent and began melting away.’ (Halfway to Freedom, Asia Publishing House, Bombay, 1950, pp. 41, 50) Nehru could do that. Patel, no less loyal and devoted to Gandhi, had to suffer the mortification of being valorised vis-à-vis the man he adored. 93 Pyarelal, Mahatma Gandhi: The Last Phase, vol. x, part ii, p. 711. 94 Chandiwala, Gandhiji ki Dilli Diary, part iii, p. 519. 95 17 January 1948, CWMG, vol. 90, p. 440. 96 Ibid., p. 439. 97 Ibid., p. 438. 98 Ibid. 99 D.G. Tendulkar, Mahatma, Publications Division, Ministry of Information and Broadcasting, New Delhi, 1954, vol. 8, p. 342. All references from this work have been accessed at http://www.mkgandhi.org/imp_bks_mahatma.html (last accessed on 15 May 2016). 100 17 January 1948, CWMG, vol. 90, p. 437. 101 Chandiwala, Gandhiji ki Dilli Diary, part iii, p. 529. 102 18 January 1948, CWMG, p. 444. 103 Chandiwala, Gandhiji ki Dilli Diary, part iii, pp. 533–534. 104 Ibid., p. 534. 105 Gandhi’s speech before breaking his fast, 18 January 1948, CWMG, vol. 90, p. 445. 106 Ibid. 107 Ibid., p. 446. 108 Ibid., pp. 446–447. 109 Chandiwala, Gandhiji ki Dilli Diary, part iii, p. 536. 110 Ibid., p. 504. 111 Ibid. 112 Ibid., p. 516. 113 Ibid., p. 537. 114 Ibid. 115 18 January 1948, CWMG, vol. 90, p. 448. 116 Ibid. 117 Ibid., p. 453. 118 Ibid., p. 451. 119 Ibid., p. 453. 120 Ibid. 121 Ibid., p. 451. 122 Ibid., pp. 452–453. 123 16 January 1948, ibid., pp. 436–437. 124 Ibid., p. 436. 125 Tendulkar, Mahatma, vol. 8, p. 363. 126 15 January 1948, CWMG, vol. 90, p. 429. 127 Pyarelal, Mahatma Gandhi: The Last Phase, vol. x, part ii, p. 714.

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128 Chandiwala, Gandhiji ki Dilli Diary, part iii, p. 543. 129 Pyarelal, Mahatma Gandhi: The Last Phase, vol. x, part ii, p. 732. 130 Tendulkar, Mahatma, vol. 3, p. 269. 131 Telegram sent by Tagore to Gandhi, 19 September 1932, in Sabyasachi Bhattacharya, compiled and edited, The Mahatma and the Poet: Letters and Debates between Gandhi and Tagore, 1915–1941, National Book Trust, New Delhi, 2011, p. 133. 132 Ibid., p. 134. 133 30 September 1932, ibid., p. 135. 134 Ibid. 135 Ibid. 136 Tagore’s Press Statement on Bengal and the Poona Pact, 24 July 1933, ibid., p. 200. 137 Ibid., pp. 199–200. 138 Tendulkar, Mahatma, vol. 3, p. 232. 139 4 November 1932, CWMG, vol. 51, pp. 342–343. 140 30 April 1933, ibid., vol. 55, p. 74. 141 Ibid., p. 75. 142 Tendulkar, Mahatma, vol. 3, p. 273. 143 P.N. Chopra, ed., The Collected Works of Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel, Konark Publishers Pvt Ltd, Delhi, 1994, vol. iv, p. 21. 144 Ibid. 145 30 April 1933, CWMG, vol. 55, p. 75. 146 8 May 1933, ibid., p. 157. 147 2 May 1933, ibid., p. 96. 148 5 May 1933, ibid., pp. 96–97. 149 2 May 1933, Bhattacharya, Mahatma and the Poet, p. 140. 150 9 May 1933, ibid., p. 141. 151 Ibid. 152 Ibid. 153 The Hindu, 11 May 1933, CWMG, vol. 55, p. 93.

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5 AN IMPOSSIBLE POSSIBILITY?

A kind of process has set in which makes us see always in a twisted way. Gandhi, 15 July 19471

In the act of looking at the last days of Gandhi, this book has been looking at itself constantly. It is now nearing its end. The book started with Gandhi’s powerful wish to be removed from this world, from his sorrow of not being heard: ‘I will be gone saying what I am saying, but one day people will remember that what this poor man said, that alone was right.’ The sorrow of not being heard kept growing. A similar statement made by that poor great man 42 days before he was killed reflected even greater depths of despondency: I don’t have much longer to live. Soon I will leave this world. Afterwards it will dawn on you that everything the old man said was right.2 After the ‘success’ of his fast unto death in Delhi, as on earlier occasions, the aged Gandhi’s desire to live on and serve returned; this time, unlike earlier, not only for 125 years but with an added eight years, for 133 years. Quixotic as he was, he happily let himself, just 12 days before being killed, be tricked by impish history. Had he survived, would his desire – to live and serve for 133 years – have persisted or would he have resumed his prayers for his departure from this world? It is hard to say. But even if he had lived on, he would have, more likely than not, remained unheard – as he is even today. If he had lived on, he would have continued his characteristic utterances and actions. And that, in the circumstances then prevailing, would have meant struggle. Precisely the kind of struggle he claimed had been written into his destiny and no longer wished to wage. But struggle he had to. The fasts of Calcutta and Delhi were part of the same struggle. There was no knowing how much more he would have had to struggle. 153

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If he had lived on longer after the attainment of formal independence, he would definitely have commenced the struggle for real independence which he had been obliged to defer indefinitely on account of his unqualified engagement with the communal question. What form that struggle would take and when it would begin could not have been clear, then, even to him. His struggles, the little that we have seen of them, were so unexpected and surfaced so suddenly that they took even his most intimate associates by surprise. There was always something more behind his grand decisions than what is referred to as the intellect and logical thinking. That ‘something’ can be imagined from one of his statements about the fast unto death which began on 13 January 1948. Gandhi who considered himself ‘a prisoner of God’ –3 ‘It was only when in terms of human effort I had exhausted all resources and realised my utter helplessness that I laid my head on God’s lap’ –4 wrote: In all solemnity and after much thought it has been started. Even so its driving force is not thought but rather the lord – call him Ram or Rahman – of all thoughts.5 After the summary rejection in November 1945 of the vision of independent India that he had nursed over the decades, Gandhi fell silent. He did not forget his ‘God, the poor’ (daridra narayan), however. While announcing that he would not oppose the Congress’s acceptance of Partition, he had made another significant pronouncement. He would revolt against the Congress, he had said, ‘only when I see that the Congress has become a capitalists’ party.’6 Since our discussion has veered towards ‘if’ and ‘then’, we may as well calculate that had Gandhi lived to the age of 133, he would have departed in 2002. Long before the onset of the so-called liberalisation and globalisation, he would have recognised the fate of daridra narayan in the country and worldwide. Why say he would have – he had already recognised it. And that is why the villages and the poor – signifying real independence – were a constant concern for him. An opponent of government control and rationing who had cautioned the country against the dangers of the ‘permit raj’, Gandhi would not have seen the good of the people in Nehru’s socialistic system. The stench spreading within the Congress and across the country was choking him. He could not have held himself back from rebelling against the Congress. The meeting of workers that he had planned for early February in Wardha could have spelt the beginning of the struggle for real independence. Had Gandhi survived, we may possibly have been a little different today. We may not have perpetrated the kind of enormities we have, and still do, with growing impunity. But then, equally possibly, the impatience and vexation vis-à-vis Gandhi that had built up before independence might have 154

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kept mounting, making the country supremely indifferent towards him. In that case the same enormities would have continued or maybe even aggravated. He would have, had he lived to be 133, witnessed all the enormities right up to Gujarat 2002. What would it all have meant to one who in 1947 had kept up an eight-day-long lament about his ‘home’ Kathiawad and his ‘son’ Samaldas? How many more times in those additional 60 odd years would we have killed him? Like we had even before Nathuram Godse did. Even after killing him, though, we fail to finish him off altogether. Maybe we want to keep alive the good that still survives within us. Also, the path we – and our world – have taken will continue to be dogged by such troubles that every once in a while, from time to time, sooner or later, we will be forced to remember Gandhi. Whatever the reason behind our inability to altogether forget Gandhi, we have reached a point where beyond prompting a heartfelt ‘alas’, his memory is unlikely to form the basis for any big transformation in public life. In stating this I am in no way forgetting the large movements led by Martin Luther King Junior and Nelson Mandela. Besides, the possibility of Gandhi’s ahimsa being workable in today’s circumstances is even less than what it was in Mandela’s times. Having traversed the crooked path of falsehood, trickery, Machiavellian diplomacy and violence for millennia, we have started thinking of it as the only way possible. It was not without reason that Nehru’s concern at the first glimpse of power was if people like him would make successful politicians. That is, keeping aside the straight and non-violent method of truth, would they be able to become adept at real politics? Once thought turns in this direction, it becomes difficult to grasp the simple truth of Gandhi’s formulation that, like in Euclidian geometry, in human life also the shortest distance between two points is the straight line between them. Gandhi had learnt to recognise the straight line. He could get to the heart of things and state it in a simple, straightforward language. We have seen a fair amount of what Gandhi said in this book, and it gives a good idea of his straight gaze. Still, I would like to give three specific examples. These would provide an idea of what he considered important. Towards the end of November 1947, Gandhi went to speak at Delhi’s Sikh Sabha. That evening he said in the course of his prayer discourse: ‘It pained me immensely that I did not see even a single Muslim on the way. Not a single Muslim to be seen in Chandni Chowk – what can be more shameful for us?’7 The second example is from his prayer discourse a day later, in which Gandhi said: We may spend a paisa, but whether it goes to India’s huts or not is all the calculation I need. Of the crores of rupees that are extracted from the huts of India, how much can we send back to them?8 155

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The third example is related to Gandhi’s ahimsa. He says: ‘There is talk of wielding the sword for self-defence, but to this day I have not met one man in the whole world who has not struck a blow that goes beyond self-defence.’9 All the three issues, so simply enunciated in everyday language, can be academically expounded at length. No exposition will be able to belie Gandhi. The most that can be done is to proffer some real and some imaginary arguments, facts and figures and prove that the condition of minorities in our country is excellent; that there has been unprecedented improvement in the condition of our poor and our villages; and that we are making progress in the matter of social justice. Sure, there may be some unease on the question of violence. We may search the whole range of human history, from everyday life to extensive international relations, but we will find nothing to contradict Gandhi’s plain proposition. And yet we will not accept it. Invoking the vicious, ceaseless cycle of history – avoiding thereby the difficulty of having to falsify Gandhi – we will employ the same logic of self-defence which Gandhi is showing to be illusory. This vicious cycle of history has become so invincible, and seeing it continually has so distorted our gaze, that if someone like Gandhi shows us that ‘a crooked path cannot lead to the right concern,’ such a person seems to us quixotic. The only exception arises when our own helplessness – such as when disarmed Indians were pitted against British might – obliges us to cloak that plain proposition with the veneer of idealism and use it to serve our ends. That accomplished, the same thing begins to seem impractical again, if not vacuous. What yet again becomes practicable, indeed inevitable, is the same modern system of development. So inescapable that Gandhi’s proclaimed heir, after admitting that ‘the world, or a large part of it, appears to be bent on committing suicide’, chooses that very self-destructive path for the country, and the country listens to him, not to Gandhi. The impulse which has inspired this book perhaps requires that it now be brought to an end. There is much that is left to say. But rather than get into this intimate, personal book – personal enough even in its English avatar – it wishes to take the form of a proper academic discourse. As if, unwilling to come to an end, this book is asking for a new form. Anyway, books get started – they never end. They keep going on in various ways – when they are read by all manner of people and due to the ever-changing circumstances in which they are read, and so on. The way Gandhi’s story – and ours – has emerged here, a strange feeling, like wistfulness, grips the heart. We were the ones who made possible this great protagonist’s unprecedented epic. What happened to us then that the country started smelling so foul? We didn’t have to always agree with that great man. Nor did he expect us to. But we could at least have become capable of normal civic life after attaining political independence. Even he, having recognised our reality, had started telling us to be just that during those last days, no more. 156

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Even now we are not able to hear that minimum bit. The big changes will come when they come – do big changes ever come without small changes? – but for now maybe we could just heed what he said: ‘[E]ach one must look at oneself,’10 without worrying whether others are looking at themselves. We, who once made Gandhi possible because we believed in him, have made him impossible by not believing in him – and this at a time when we – and the world – need him more than ever before.

Notes 1 PP, vol. i, p. 251. 2 18 December 1947, ibid., vol. ii, p. 220. 3 Chandiwala, Gandhiji ki Dilli Diary, part iii, p. 517. 4 M.K. Gandhi, Letter to Devdas Gandhi, 14 January 1948, CWMG, vol. 90, p. 421. Devdas, in his letter to Gandhi, had said that this fast had been undertaken in haste. Believing that Gandhi should exercise greater patience, Devdas had requested his father to end his fast. 5 14 January 1948, Chandiwala, Gandhiji ki Dilli Diary, part iii, p. 515. 6 5 June 1947, PP, vol. i, p. 127. 7 28 November 1947, ibid., vol. ii, p. 134. 8 29 November 1947, ibid., p. 143. 9 13 June 1947, ibid., vol. i, pp. 153–154. 10 25 May 1947, ibid., p. 84.

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INDEX

democracy 54, 108–9, 113 Desai, Mahadev viii, 43n30, 45, 47, 150n75, 150n91 Deshbandhu, Lala 129

aapad dharma 131 ahimsa vi, vii, viii, 20–1, 29, 31, 40, 45–50, 53, 60, 65, 67, 74, 84–7, 96, 98–9, 102–3, 108, 113, 115, 122, 125–6, 137–9, 148, 155–6; failure of vi, vii, viii, 47 Ali, Qasim 89 All India Congress Committee 85 anathema 18 Attenborough, Richard 88 Azad, Maulana 125, 128, 132, 136, 151n92

emotions 23, 32, 35, 48, 52, 63, 100, 130 The Epic Fast 143

Besant, Annie 48 Bhagavad Gita 62 Bombay Chronicle 73 Bose, Nirmal Kumar 45 Bose, Pyarelal, N.K. vii, x, 19, 88, 125, 138, 143 Bose, Sarat Chandra 30 148 British Broadcasting Corporation 71 Burrows, Frederick 89 Calcutta vii, 4, 22, 47, 50–4, 71, 87–91, 93–9, 101–4, 108, 110–11, 115, 117, 120, 122, 128, 135, 137, 147, 153 Calcutta fast (1947) vii, 135, 137 Chandiwala, Brij Krishna x, 45, 127 Chatterjee, N.C. 100, 102 civilisation, modern 27, 33, 39, 40 collective self vi, 19 communal violence vii, viii, 2, 22, 37, 45, 50–2, 70–1, 78–9, 95–6, 101, 103–4, 111–12, 114 country’s partition vii, 44–5, 55, 60–1, 63, 65, 72, 78, 106 Dawn 73–4, 79 daridra narayan 154

Gandhi (film) 71 Gandhi, Mahatma: ahimsa 61– 2, 99, 103, 139, 155–6; ahimsa, politics of 20; about anger 58–9; about corruption 80; creation of Pakistan 55, 56, 58, 59, 61; decency effect 111; epigrammatic warning 79; facing oneself 18–24; fasting 98, 144; letter 28, 30, 32–3, 98, 127; modern civilisation and 33–5; obscurantism of 38; political guru of 19; political wilderness 45; prisoner of God 154; quixotic 61, 84, 86, 153, 156; religion and 64, 92, 113–14, 118, 132, 141, 145, 146; satyagraha 19, 20, 47, 49, 66–9, 148; self-purification 68, 119, 125, 127; sorrows of 1, 7, 44–6, 53–4, 73, 84; success and failure vii, 20; swaraj of 25–43; violence, control of 50 Gandhi, Manu 94 Gandhi, Samaldas 74–5, 77–9, 155 Gandhi–Nehru exchange 38 Ghosh, Prafulla Chandra 88, 96, 100 Gokhale, Gopal Krishna 19 gurudwara 63 Hind Swaraj 7–8, 14–16, 27–9, 31–5, 38–41, 67 Hinduism 117, 143, 146 Hindu Mahasabha 77, 100, 129–31, 136

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INDEX

Hindu-Muslim unity 2, 64, 86, 120, 141 Hindu religion 113, 114, 141, 145 Hindus 4, 25, 50–8, 64–6, 68, 73–4, 77–9, 87–95, 97–101, 104–6, 108–115, 118, 121–2, 125, 128–31, 135–6, 138, 140–3, 145, 147; uppercaste 140, 142–3 Hindustani Sabha 30 Hindustan Times 73 Hussain, Zahid 138 Hydari Mansion 91–3 Indian Dominion 118 Indian nationalist struggle 21 Jagriti (film) 23 Kasturba, Gandhi 45, 47 Kasturba Trust 30 Kathiawad 73–9, 125, 155 Khan, Chengiz 138 Khan, Ghazanfar Ali 128, 129, 137 Khan, Muhammad Zafarullah 138 Khilafat movement 95 King, Martin Luther Jr. vii, 155 Kripalani, Acharya 85, 86, 100

Rafi, Mohammad 23 Rajaji 97–100, 102, 143 Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh 77, 129–31, 134, 136 religion 64, 92, 113–14, 118, 132, 141, 145–6

lok rajya 67 Mahabharata vi, viiin1, 57, 60, 78 Mahmud, Syed 54 Mohammad Ali, Maulana 120, 121 Montagu–Chelmsford Reforms 26 moral authority 5, 86, 87, 89, 97 Mukherjee, D.N. 100 Muslim League 33, 50–3, 78, 88–9, 95, 100, 137–8 Nazimuddin, Khwaja 95 Nehru, Jawaharlal ix, 7–8, 14–16, 19, 24, 26–8, 30–5, 37–40, 58, 67, 70, 85, 119–20, 123, 125, 128, 146, 154–5 Nehru Memorial Museum and Library 19 Noakhali 22, 25, 45–6, 49–54, 65, 69–71, 78, 86–90, 92–3, 95–6, 99, 103, 117 Non-cooperation Movement ix, 20, 25, 36, 86 non-violence vii, 2–4, 7–8, 20, 30–1, 115 obscurantism 38

Pakistan viii, ix, 47, 50, 54–9, 61–6, 68–70, 73, 75–9, 88–9, 95, 100, 104–6, 108–11, 113, 117, 121–8, 130–3, 135, 137–8; creation of 55–6, 58–9, 61 Pakistan Times 73, 79 parliamentary swaraj 40 partition vii, 44–5, 55–7, 59–65, 69–70, 72, 78–9, 87, 89–90, 104, 106, 118, 121, 154 passive resistance 2, 47, 49, 50, 67 Patel, Sardar Vallabhbhai 58, 70, 73–9, 91, 96, 98, 104, 107, 119–21, 123, 125–7, 136, 145, 148 physical labour 29 Poona Pact 140–3, 145, 152n136 pragmatism 64 Prarthana Pravachan x, 19, 24n2 Prasad, Rajendra 70, 128–9, 131–2, 134 Punjab 25, 45, 54, 64, 66, 78, 86–7, 96–9, 102–4, 115, 121, 138

Sahib, Jinnah 56–7, 59–60, 62 Sahib, Liaquat Ali 75 Sarabhai, Mridula 124, 137 Sarwar, Mian Ghulam 89, 92 satanic civilisation 39 satyagraha 19, 20, 47, 49, 66–9, 148 satyagraha movement 47 self-destruction 15, 33 Sewagram 22 Shaukat Ali, Maulana 120 Sikhs 47, 51, 56–8, 63, 65–6, 77–8, 97, 100, 104–13, 115, 118, 121–2, 125, 128–9, 134–6, 155 Singh, Harbhajan 134 Suhrawardy, Shaheed 50–2, 54, 90–5, 98–100, 102–3 Tagore, Rabindranath 141–3, 146 Tendulkar, D. G. x, 88 untouchability 9–12, 140–1, 143–6 Usman, Muhammad 88 Venkatappayya Garu, Konda 80

159