Rajaji

by Rajmohan Gandhi

  ‘You are then conceding nothing and claiming infallibility,’ charged C.R. Replying with some heat, Gandhi said: ‘You shall not thus undermine my conviction and my faith . . . I cannot agree to any examination of me by doctors.’

  Regretful some hours later that ‘even on the eve of a purificatory fast I gave way to anger against my dear friends,’ Gandhi wrote out an apology:

  My dear C.R., You are dearer to me than life itself. I wounded you and Shankerlal deeply. It is no use my saying, ‘Forgive me.’ Your forgiveness I have before the asking. But I will do the very thing that I resisted like an ass. I will submit to the examination, . . . provided, of course, the Government permit it . . .

  Next day C.R. went laughing to Gandhi and said:

  There was no occasion for the apology, the irritation was more on our side than on yours, and we have now decided to have no examination (Harijan, 13.5.33)

  Asking India to pray, C.R. added: ‘Let prayer melt into sleep and sleep wake up with prayer. Let us not waste time in foolish merry-making’ (Harijan, 20.5.33).

  The day his fast began, 8 May, Gandhi had been released — because, the Raj said, of ‘the nature and objects of the fast and the attitude of mind which it discloses.’8 The Mahatma’s response to the release was to suspend civil disobedience for a month and to ask the Government to free its prisoners and withdraw its ordinances.

  To have used the release to prosecute a fresh campaign of defiance would have been ungracious and also unrealistic, for the forces of Congress were tired. Breadwinners had gone to jail for long periods in 1930 and 1932; many were still inside. Donations to Congress were banned, and its funds seized or exhausted.

  It was time for a fresh look at Congress strategy. Shortly after the fast ended, Gandhi and C.R. had two sessions together. They reached four conclusions.

  One, the mass struggle should come to an end. Two, it might be necessary before long, though not immediately, to ‘think of taking power in our hands,’ even under ‘the constitution they (the British) are framing.’ Three, a small number should keep up the struggle on a higher level of intensity. Finally, a letter asking for an interview should go from Gandhi to Willingdon, even though ‘we will get the same reply from the Viceroy.’9

  Even a selective protest would of course lead to imprisonment again. The Mahatma and C.R. decided that while the two of them and Kasturba were out of prison, the marriage of Lakshmi and Devadas should take place. C.R. wrote a letter:

  My dear Ba, . . . We do not know how long Bapu may be free and available to us, and when a similar chance may, if not utilised now, occur again. So, however hurriedly and quietly it may have to be done, we decided that the wedding may be gone through now . . . I hope you will approve of the idea. I am bringing Lakshmi and Papa when I go to Poona about 12th June and with your concurrence I hope God will enable Lakshmi to become formally and finally your own child on some auspicious day thereafter. With love and regards, I am, ever yours affectionately, Raja.

  On 16 June 1933 the marriage was solemnized in Poona in the home of Lady Premlila Thackersey. The Mahatma insisted on shortening the guest-list; even Ramdas, Devadas’s brother, was not invited; and Lakshmi was asked by Gandhi to return the silk saris that friends had presented to her.

  Yet a dream that had felt so true and yet seemed so elusive was fulfilled. Lakshmi’s joy, and that of Devadas, knew no bounds.

  At twenty past midnight on 15 July, C.R. went to a Poona telegraph office to transmit Gandhi’s request for an interview with Willingdon. The Viceroy replied that he was unable to grant it.

  To this expected rebuff, the response of Gandhi, C.R. and M.S. Aney — Congress’s Acting President since January 1933, when his predecessor, Rajendra Prasad, was arrested — was selective civil disobedience. On 1 August, Gandhi, Kasturba, Mahadev Desai and 30 others marched together from Sabarmati to the village of Ras. This was in violation of a law against unauthorized processions; they were all arrested.

  Three days later Gandhi was released but ordered to reside within the limits of Poona city. On his refusal to do so he was arrested again and sentenced for a year. Released early because he seemed seriously ill, Gandhi, recovering slowly, declared that he would restrict himself to the Harijan movement, abjuring protest or politics until August 1934, when his sentence would have ended.

  Selective disobedience was not popular. It did not find favour, the Madras Government reported to New Delhi, at ‘a secret Congress meeting’ held in Trichy where C.R. ‘tried to ascertain’ the party’s mood.10

  But C.R. knew where his duty lay. Early in August he wrote to Stanley, the Governor:

  No one would have been gladder than myself had an honourable settlement been reached, but . . . I am one of those who have pledged themselves to struggle.

  Charging that the Raj’s officials had sabotaged the Gandhi-Irwin settlement which they ‘did not like,’ C.R. said that as the interview with the Viceroy sought by the Mahatma ‘was refused, . . . the struggle had to be resumed’ (The Hindu, 7.8.33).

  C.R. informed the Governor that he would be violating the law on 7 August in Tiruchengode. Before five that morning, C.R. and 16 others, including a Muslim, a Harijan, and two women, walked from the Ashram to the foot of the Tiruchengode temple. There, C.R. advised a boycott of foreign cloth. Then, followed by a police party, the group marched along the town’s principal streets, distributing handwritten leaflets.

  When they were walking outside the Taluk Office, the local seat of the Raj, a voice from behind them announced their arrest. ‘Turn right,’ the voice ordered. They obeyed, and entered the building, where a trial was immediately held. Asking people not to buy foreign cloth was his right, C.R. told the court. All the accused were sentenced, under the Criminal Law Amendment Act, to rigorous imprisonment for six months. A bus under police escort took the party to Salem prison; from there the men were sent to Coimbatore Central Jail and the women to Vellore.

  The day after his conviction, C.R. learned that Devadas had been arrested at New Delhi station, where he had arrived with Lakshmi, and sentenced for six months. Devadas explained to the police that he had come to Delhi to take up a post with the Hindustan Times, but refusal to sign a pledge against disobedience fetched him a prison term.

  Lakshmi, 21 and married for no more than seven weeks, would now be on her own in a strange city, but friends provided shelter. C.R. wrote to his daughter:

  I send my love and joyful appreciation of the brave manner in which you have accepted what has happened. Man proposed but the Chief Commissioner (of Delhi) disposed. God knows better than we do what is good for us. We should be grateful for the wonderfully devoted and affectionate friends that surround us everywhere. (12.8.33)

  To Devadas he wrote:

  God always arranges things better than we can ever hope to do with our limited vision. You will always be near me in spirit until we meet again in body. I am full of joy at Lakshmi’s chance to show courage. (12.8.33)11

  In Coimbatore Jail C.R. had the time to translate the Kural into English and to continue the Sanskrit studies he had begun on his 1932 ‘vacation.’ In a letter to Devadas he said: ‘I will not be at any time anything more than a baby in [Sanskrit]. Yet I do feel satisfied with even the baby’s knowledge.’

  Newspapers sympathetic to Congress were not allowed inside prison. However, C.R. wrote that he was ‘thriving on the bitter tonics’ of the Madras Mail and the Times of India, which were British-owned.

  His letters from prison — he was permitted to send one every fortnight — contained ideas for promoting Hindi, pushing khadi sales, and providing relief to flood-hit Harijans in Salem, and messages for MLAs regarding the Temple Entry Bill.

  It was also, inevitably, a contemplative time, producing some sensitive lines. To a missionary acquaintance he wrote (24.9.33):

  My dear Rev. Popley, . . . I have had plenty of time and opportunity for reflection since we met last. How absurd it was for me to spoil your nice and kind visit to the Ashram with
that controversy over conversions. I am really ashamed.

  We do not know what that controversy was. To someone called Tirunarayana Iyengar who seemed to nurse a grievance, C.R. wrote (1.11.33):

  I give you my word of honour that I have not... done anything to injure you . . . On the contrary, I ever tried to be helpful to you. I do not ask for gratitude for this, for I am more beholden to you than you to me if all accounts are cast.

  His temperance friends, Herbert Anderson and Mary Campbell, had sent good wishes. Their word, C.R. replied, had ‘softened these walls and these bars and these locks.’ Solitude drawing out his warmth, he wrote to his Ashram flock:

  Behave like brothers . . . See one another’s good points and do not emphasise bad points.

  Be kind and considerate to the poor and illiterate folk . . . They toil for the country in a truer sense than we do. Time is their most important asset; therefore, they should not be kept unnecessarily waiting . . .

  I hope the hospital and the store are worked so as to be more and more useful to them. Little children however dirty and ill- clad should be treated as you want your own children to be treated by others.

  Annie Besant, the doughty Irishwoman, died in September. Another blow to C.R. was the repeal of prohibition in the U.S.A. To Anderson he sent a message: ‘America is gone. It is a great calamity to those who are struggling to outlaw Alcohol through State action.’

  The Mahatma, meanwhile, was launched on a tour in the Harijan cause. C.R. sent word out bidding him South, where orthodoxy continued strong. He wanted ‘the appeal of [Gandhi’s] personality’ to reach ‘the common folk so that the opposition of the sophisticated hypocrites may be undermined.’

  Accepting the invitation, Gandhi also indicated that his visit South would continue beyond C.R.’s release. On the morning of 6 February 1934, C.R. was discharged. He motored at once to Tiruppur, fifty miles away, where his friend the Mahatma was.12

  Gandhi’s southern tour arrested the slide in Congress morale. The tour’s primary aim, to sap orthodoxy on the Harijan question, was not political. But the tour drew such crowds that Congressmen found their confidence returning.

  Having urged the tour from behind bars, C.R. was delighted. He called it, in a letter to Devadas, ‘an unprecedented success, . . . a royal triumphal march, . . . a crushing reply to those who thought that Bapu was becoming unpopular,’ and felt sure of its impact ‘in regard to politics also’ (27.2.34).13 To his friend Herbert Anderson C.R. wrote:

  Far from Mahatmaji’s attitude in regard to the untouchables reducing his hold over the masses, what I have seen in every place with my own eyes indicates that at no time was his hold over the people greater than now. (28.2.34)14

  In Bihar, the Raj and Congress worked together for relief after a calamitous earthquake in January 1934. The Mahatma had gone there, and the funds collected on Congress’s behalf were larger than what the Government could gather.

  A horrible asthma attack caused C.R. to write to Devadas that ‘bathing is an exertion, sitting is tiresome, talking is a trouble and on the whole living is a punishment’ (15.3.34). He was still recovering when, from Bihar, Gandhi announced that disobedience would be suspended.

  Though Gandhi reserved for himself the right to disobey, he asked the Congress to suspend disobedience, and to allow those of its members inclined to enter councils to do so. In a cable to Andrews in England (6.4.34), Gandhi said that civil resistance, ‘an appeal not to fear but to heart . . . should evoke not resentment but sympathy.’ Yet it had ‘evoked repression.’ He would now confine it to himself.15

  C.R. was informed by Chandrashanker Shukla, who was serving as Gandhi’s secretary, that it was Gandhi’s belief that the suspension would give ‘much-needed respite to civil resisters who are today tired’ and enable them to emerge ‘stronger and more equipped for the next battle whenever it comes.’16

  To Vallabhbhai Patel, Gandhi wrote, referring to the charm that councils held for many Congressmen, that it was but ‘right that those who daily attend legislatures in their thought should do so physically as well’ (18.4.34).17

  The switch in strategy did not surprise C.R. We have seen that he and Gandhi had agreed on it in their talks in Yeravada almost a year earlier Wiring his agreement to Gandhi, C.R. proposed that Congress should control the councils, and Gandhi should control Congress. Merely allowing Congress’s Swarajists to enter councils was insufficient and even hazardous. C.R. affirmed this in a letter to Gandhi (21.4.34):

  My dream is that if this parliamentary party is organised properly and guided by you it can work out a state of things in the provinces equivalent to that we brought about under the Gandhi-Irwin Pact, of which the Civil Service has such a wholesome fear.18

  Gandhi agreed to C.R.’s suggestion for an AICC meeting for endorsing the new line, even though Patel, the President, was still in prison.

  Yet could the AICC, a banned body at this time, meet? Treating Gandhi’s announcement as a truce offer, which is doubtless how the Mahatma wanted it treated, the Raj let it be known through Haig, the Home Member in Delhi, that an AICC meeting called to ratify Gandhi’s decision would not be disallowed.

  The AICC met in Patna in the Mahatma’s presence, confirmed the suspension of disobedience, and agreed that Congress, rather than Swarajists on behalf of Congress, would enter the legislatures.

  Sitting in prison, Jawaharlal Nehru thought that Congress had lost face. In his diary he wrote that Gandhi’s announcement ‘bowled him over,’ and he feared he would have to break with the Mahatma.19

  Patel, on the other hand, fell in with the decision. As for C.R., his reaction was expressed in a letter to Mathuradas Tricumji (24.4.34):

  I do not think we look small at all. Withdrawing a movement of sacrifice is often necessary and should not be deemed a matter for shame . . . Our record is good . . . It is the government that ought to be ashamed and will be ashamed when history is written.

  The situation is now different from what it was in 1922. I think we should now go into the elections on behalf of the Congress . . . Nobody can prevent the adoption of civil resistance by the Congress at any future time.20

  He was urged to enter the Central Assembly, for which elections were due at the end of 1934. Lala Dunichand, a Punjab Congressman, wanted to ask Gandhi to ‘spare’ C.R. for the Assembly,’21 and K.M. Munshi made a similar plea to the Mahatma. To Munshi, Gandhi wrote: ‘Rajagopalachari, Rajen Babu, etc., will probably stay out.’22

  But speculation did not die down. To scotch it, C.R. allowed himself to be quoted in The Hindu (18.5.34): ‘There was no chance of his being persuaded to stand for the Assembly and there was no occasion therefore to seek Mr Gandhi’s advice on the subject.’

  But he would guide Congress on parliamentary matters. One of the trickiest issues was the Raj’s Communal Award, which granted a separate electorate to Muslims and allotted them a third of the Central Assembly seats. While most Muslims wanted Congress to endorse this Award, a section of Hindu Congressmen led by Malaviya and Aney wanted an explicit rejection of the Award.

  Congress responded by ‘neither accepting nor rejecting’ the Award. This was not good enough for the Malaviya group, which broke away to form the Nationalist Party.

  Wisdom was also needed on Congress’s stand towards its Socialist group, constituted in 1934 at the initiative of Jayaprakash Narayan and others. On the Socialists’ behalf, M.R. Masani sought the cooperation of C.R., who replied that the Government was the common foe; the Socialists should ‘do nothing to lose the support of any important section.’23

  In June 1934, the Raj lifted its bans on various constituents of Congress, but the NWFP’s Red Shirts, led by the Khan brothers, were not covered by the withdrawal. Pointing out that each Red Shirt volunteer was ‘sworn, Quran in hand, to nonviolence,’ C.R. alleged that the Raj wanted to tell Muslim supporters of Congress that, ‘nonviolence or not, they must suffer for joining Congress.’24

  What did the unpredictable Gandhi mean by r
etaining his own right to disobey? Would he court arrest again after August? Meeting Gandhi in Wardha, C.R. argued that he should not, and he urged Ansari, chairman of the Congress Parliamentary Board, to ‘prepare tasks of great importance that enlist Gandhiji’s presence outside prison.’25

  Though agreeing not to seek arrest—‘It is fairly certain that he will NOT go to prison,’ a relieved C.R. informed Devadas (30.8.34) — , the Mahatma said that he was ‘thinking of retiring from Congress.’

  One of Gandhi’s reasons was the ‘stifling effect’ of his personality on expression of opinion in Congress. Members did not say what they felt about khadi, councils or socialism. Gandhi wanted them to be frank, and he wanted Congress’s different factions to find their levels.

  As he wrote to Bhulabhai Desai (24.8.34), C.R. was afraid that Congress’s election programme ‘will crumble to pieces’ if Gandhi were to quit.26 To the Mahatma he wrote:

  If you can think you can retire from the Congress now and keep it and yourself both or either politically important, . . . you will surely be disappointed (28.9.34).27

  Gandhi had explained himself to C.R.:

  I do not retire to a cave. I hold myself at everybody’s disposal. Where is the difficulty? Can you not see the unnaturalness of the present position? Everybody feels the suffocation . . . I wish you will not worry (13.9.34).28

  As so often before, C.R. acquiesced. ‘Mahatmaji’s proposed withdrawal from the Congress,’ he explained to an English friend, was more ‘in the nature of a judicial separation than a divorce.’29

  In June 1934, a bomb attempt on Gandhi’s life misfired. Orthodox foes of his Harijan campaign were behind it. Prophesying, C.R. claimed that the bomb’s message was clear: