Gandhi

by Ramachandra Guha

  II

  With the collapse of the non-cooperation movement, demoralization had set in within the Congress. Gandhi’s own misjudgements had contributed to this; notably, his hasty promise that if Indians followed his call, the country would be free within one year of the beginning of the struggle. Young men who had joined the Congress in the hope that swaraj was around the corner had now abandoned it to make their peace with the workaday world. The leadership remained divided, between those who wished to take part in council elections and those who stuck doggedly to the old policy of boycott.

  In the last week of March 1924, Motilal Nehru travelled down to Juhu to meet Gandhi. The two had long discussions, each failing to convince the other of their point of view. The firmness of the elder Nehru’s belief, acknowledged Gandhi, was a manifestation of genuine commitment. If the swarajists were so passionate in their convictions, he concluded, ‘their place is undoubtedly in the Councils….If their work prospers and the country benefits, such an ocular demonstration cannot but convince sceptics like me of our error and I know the Swarajists to be patriotic enough to retrace their steps when experience disillusioned them.’17

  Motilal Nehru was back in Juhu a month later, this time with C.R. Das in tow. These two formidable barristers were the leaders of the swarajists. For a long, hot week in May, Gandhi and his visitors talked and argued. Afterwards, the two parties issued separate press statements. Gandhi’s was shorter, saying that since he had failed to convince his swarajist friends, ‘their place is undoubtedly in the Councils’. The ‘No-changers’ (who still upheld the 1920 non-cooperation credo) would adopt an attitude of ‘perfect neutrality’ towards council entry.

  In their statement, Motilal Nehru and C.R. Das expressed regret that they had failed to convince Gandhi of the soundness of council entry. Their plan within the councils was to vote against proposals which consolidated the bureaucracy’s power and led to the drain of wealth from India, and, on the other side, to ‘introduce all resolutions, measures and bills which are necessary for the healthy growth of our national life and the consequent displacement of the bureaucracy’. Outside the legislatures, they planned to give ‘whole-hearted support to the constructive programme of Mahatma Gandhi’.18

  III

  In his first months as a free man, Gandhi became increasingly preoccupied with the deteriorating relations between Hindus and Muslims. This had the potential of being even more damaging to the nationalist cause than the persistence of untouchability or a rift within the Congress.

  In the summer of 1924, there was a series of religious riots across northern India. ‘Daily the gulf was widening’, commented one journal of record: ‘Vernacular papers cropped up like mushrooms simply to indulge into the most unbridled license in ridiculing the religion and social customs of the opposite community, and they sold like hot cakes.’19

  Several factors contributed to the rising tension. The Hindu missionary organization, the Arya Samaj, had launched an aggressive programme of ‘re-converting’ Hindus whose forefathers had, long ago, converted to Islam. Muslims were demoralized after the abolition of the Khilafat, an outcome which also led them to suspect the (mostly Hindu) Congress leaders who had promised to help restore it.

  In the last week of April, the Delhi Congress leader Asaf Ali wrote to Gandhi deploring ‘the disgraceful outburst of distrust and passion which has engulfed us in the North’. He laid a large share of the blame on partisan newspaper accounts, where ‘every street brawl is a communal fight, and every worthless delinquent who bears a Hindu or Muslim name is held up as a type of the civilization which each name is supposed to represent’.20

  Gandhi was reading the newspapers, and also speaking to Congressmen from the districts most seriously affected. In the last week of May, he published a long essay in Young India entitled ‘Hindu–Muslim Tension: Its Cause and Cure’. He began by narrating some of the complaints he had been receiving. A Hindu had written to say that Gandhi was responsible for the recent riots in Multan, because he had asked them to make common cause with Muslims, and now ‘the awakened Mussalmans have proclaimed a kind of jehad against us Hindus’. A Muslim wrote to say that through Gandhi’s advocacy of the boycott of colleges the great university in Aligarh had been ‘utterly spoilt’. The Muslim boys left their colleges, but the Hindus stayed on to study. This embittered reader further claimed that Mohammad Ali, who was ‘doing solid work for the Muslim community, was won over to your side, and he is now a loss to the community’.

  Replying to both kinds of critics, Gandhi said he was ‘totally unrepentant’ about his role in the Khilafat agitation. He believed that ‘in spite of the present strained relations between the two communities, both have gained. The awakening of the masses was a necessary part of the training. I would do nothing to put the people to sleep again. Our wisdom consists now in directing the awakening in the proper channel.’

  Gandhi then examined what he saw as ‘two constant causes of friction’ between Hindus and Muslims: the persistence of cow slaughter and the playing of music before mosques. First addressing the Hindus, Gandhi remarked that they said nothing about the daily killings of animals by Englishmen, yet ‘our anger becomes red-hot when a Mussalman slaughters a cow’. Besides, ‘living as they do in glass houses, [Hindus] have no right to throw stones at their Mussalman neighbours….In the history of the world religions, there is perhaps nothing like our treatment of the suppressed classes.’ Then, addressing the Muslims, Gandhi pointed out that ‘just as Hindus cannot compel Mussalmans to refrain from killing cows, so can Mussalmans not compel Hindus to stop music or arati at the point of a sword’. If there was to be a durable peace, this could come only through voluntary restraint on both sides.21

  The simmering rift within the Congress, and the open breach between Hindus and Muslims, delighted the Times of India, a newspaper then solidly behind the British Raj. ‘The Gandhi Raj has broken up,’ it chortled in delight, ‘and on all sides we see fighting swamis, truculent maulvis, Bengali admirers of assassins and uncertain quantities like Mr. [Motilal] Nehru vigorously getting back to realities.’ Gandhi, said the newspaper, ‘should realize that he can no longer carry the country with him’. Since ‘huge sections of his followers have already deserted him’, it advised Gandhi to retire from politics altogether.22

  IV

  After eight weeks by the sea in Juhu, his doctors permitted Gandhi to return to Ahmedabad. He reached the Sabarmati Ashram on 29 May 1924, two years and two months after his arrest. He had now also been allowed to resume spinning, an act that for him was not merely an individual practice, but part of a larger programme for social and national renewal.

  Amidst the clash of factions, castes and religions, Gandhi took a quiet satisfaction in the spread of khadi. In Young India, he reproduced a report on the steady promotion of khadi in Bengal, led by the chemist P.C. Ray and the social worker Satis Chandra Dasgupta. ‘If the whole nation, irrespective of parties, co-operates in the spinning programme,’ remarked Gandhi, ‘it will be found that we can banish foreign cloth and with it pauperism from our midst in an incredibly short space of time.’23

  Gandhi was also pleased with the progress of the Gujarat Vidyapith, the autonomous body he had established to provide schooling outside the sphere of the state. By 1924, the vidyapith had 140 institutions affiliated to it, of which three were colleges and the rest high schools. There were 800 teachers in these national schools, instructing 30,000 children, of which as many as 500 were girls.24

  In the last week of June, the AICC met in Ahmedabad. Here, Gandhi moved a resolution making it mandatory for all Congress representatives/office-bearers to spin for at least half an hour a day except when travelling, and to send to the All India Khadi Board at least ten tolas (about 1.8 kg) of ‘even and well-twisted’ yarn every month. The resolution passed, by seventy-eight votes to seventy. Among those resolute in their opposition were Motilal Nehru and C.R. Das. The narrowness of G
andhi’s victory suggested that he no longer had complete control over the Congress.25

  Friends continued to be anxious about Gandhi’s health. Motilal Nehru, whose affection for the Mahatma had survived political differences, thought that he should stop all work, even writing, editing and answering letters till he had completely recovered. ‘I should cut you off from all communication with India for a time,’ wrote Motilal, ‘and send you out in the open sea for a fairly long cruise without any land being in sight for six weeks.’26

  Other Congressmen were, however, asking Gandhi to play a more active role in party affairs. Leaders from several provinces had asked him to be the president of the next Congress, to be held in the southern town of Belgaum in December. Writing in Young India, Gandhi said that since he was a sort of partisan, ‘an out-and-out advocate of the old programme of non-co-operation’, the president should be someone more neutral. He himself thought that the best candidate would be Sarojini Naidu, since she was identified with neither camp, and stood ‘for solid Hindu–Muslim unity’. Besides, the Congress had not yet had an Indian woman as its president (Gandhi was here counting Annie Besant as foreign-born), making this ‘the fittest opportunity for paying our Indian sisters the compliment that is long overdue’.27

  V

  In the third week of August Gandhi travelled to Delhi, his first long trip since his release from jail. He was now travelling second, and not third, class on trains, on his doctor’s advice. In Delhi, Gandhi addressed a public meeting and met with Hindu and Muslim leaders. He returned to Ahmedabad on 23 August, spent a week in the ashram, and then was off again, to Bombay and Poona. Meanwhile, more reports of riots were coming in.

  The climax of the rising Hindu–Muslim tension was reached in the town of Kohat, in the North-West Frontier Province (NWFP). In the second week of September, a Hindu preacher in Kohat published a pamphlet with hostile references to Islam and the Koran, whereupon angry Muslims torched the homes and shops of Hindus and Sikhs. The latter fought back, but as they were less than 10 per cent of the population, it was an unequal battle. More than a hundred people perished, with the entire Hindu (and Sikh) population of the town fleeing to Rawalpindi, 100 miles from Kohat, and in the province of the Punjab.

  Gandhi wanted to visit Kohat, but the government denied him permission. On 17 September, Gandhi started a twenty-one-day fast in the house of Mohammad Ali in Delhi. Mahadev Desai communicated to the press a short statement dictated by his master, which said the fast was a ‘prayer both to Hindus and Mussalmans, who have hitherto worked in unison, not to commit suicide’.

  Mahadev had himself pleaded with Gandhi not to fast. He had understood the decision to fast after Bombay in 1919 and Chauri Chaura in 1922, when the violence that broke out was in some ways a (degenerate) byproduct of the movements Gandhi had initiated. With Kohat, however, Mahadev could not see what Gandhi’s own fault was that he had to undergo this penance. Gandhi replied that he had ‘committed a breach of faith with the Hindus. I asked them to befriend Muslims….Even today I am asking them to practice ahimsa, to settle quarrels by dying but not by killing. And what do I find to be the result? How many temples have been desecrated? How many sisters have come to me with complaints?’ So this fast was addressed in the first instance to Muslims, the main perpetrators of the violence in Kohat.28

  After the fast began, there was no deviation in Gandhi’s daily routine. He slept at 10 p.m., and awoke six hours later for his prayers. He met visitors, gave interviews, spun for at least half an hour a day, and wrote articles for Young India and Navajivan. He also sometimes took a drive in the afternoon through the streets of Delhi.29

  The day after the fast began, Maulana Shaukat Ali met Gandhi and tried to persuade him to give up his fast. Gandhi was unmoved, saying ‘it is a matter between me and my Maker’.30

  On 20 September, his wife Kasturba and his son Ramdas arrived from Ahmedabad. So did Gandhi’s trusty lieutenants Anasuya Sarabhai and Shankarlal Banker. He was comforted by their presence; the chatter around his bedside was now mostly in Gujarati, while the ashramites also helped Mahadev regulate the unceasing flow of visitors.

  On 22 September—four days after the fast began—Gandhi issued a statement explaining why he had chosen to fast in the home of a Muslim friend. ‘I know instinctively what is necessary for Hinduism,’ he remarked. ‘But I must labour to discover the Mussalman mind. The closer I come to the best of Mussalmans, the juster I am likely to be in my estimate of the Mussalman and their doings.’31

  Gandhi’s fast was closely covered in the press. One Hindi paper, Aaj, ran a daily health bulletin and op-ed column devoted to Gandhi, commending his call to the conscience of the ordinary Indian. ‘Ishvar Se Toh daro’, ran the title of one column—‘At Least Fear the Lord’, before continuing: ‘Aaj Mahatmaji ke upvaas ka chautha din hai. Aap aur hum khaate hain, sote hain, haste hain, khelte hain. Mahatmaji faanke kar rahe hain, rote hain aur param karunik parmatma se raat-din lagaatar prarthna kar rahe hain.’ (‘Today is the fourth day of the Mahatma’s fast. The rest of us eat, sleep, laugh and play, while the Mahatma grieves [for our sins] and prays to the Lord day and night.’)32

  In response to Gandhi’s fast, a ‘Unity Conference’ was held in Delhi on 26 and 27 September. Mohammad Ali was the first speaker, while Motilal Nehru was in the chair. The meeting unanimously passed a resolution condemning ‘any desecration of places of worship to whatsoever faith they may belong, and any persecution or punishment of any person for adopting or reverting to any faith’. It further condemned ‘any attempt by compulsion to convert people to one’s faith or to secure or to enforce one’s own religious observances at the cost of the rights of others’.

  At the end of the conference, its participants trooped to Gandhi’s bedside and begged him to give up his fast. Gandhi calmly answered that the matter was between him and his God. The fast would continue. The doctors, meanwhile, reported that Gandhi was physically weak, but his face looked brighter and happier.33

  Among those attending the Unity Conference was C. Rajagopalachari. He stayed on afterwards to be with Gandhi. Writing to Devadas Gandhi as a disciple to a son, he reported that the Mahatma was having a daily oil massage, and drinking plenty of water. Now well into the second week of his fast, Gandhi’s ‘facial symptoms are most satisfactory as far as an anxious layman can judge’. Having given these personal details, Rajaji continued:

  I am a changed man now as regards the Mussulman leaders. I don’t like them at all. I see no change of heart in them. They have not realized the least bit the psychology of the fast—that Bapu is in deepest grief over the ingratitude of the Mussulmans and the sufferings of the Hindus and the indifference and heartlessness of the Mussulman leaders, and gropes with unvarnished faith still towards God crying for light and help in his great anguish. I see no change whatever in the hardened hearts of the Mussulman leaders.

  Rajagopalachari ended his letter on a despairing note: ‘One thing is clear, that a long period of suspension of all Swaraj activities is before us.’34

  While Rajaji placed the burden of the blame on the Muslims, many Muslims, on their part, thought the Hindus were more guilty. A clerk in Simla wrote Gandhi a long letter charging that across northern India, Hindu mobs were attacking ‘unarmed peaceful Muslims’. He blamed the Arya Samaj in particular for their aggressive campaigns of ‘Shuddhi’, or reconversion.35

  As Gandhi’s fast entered its third week, there was increasing anxiety about his health. The doctors urged him to at least stop spinning; he refused. On 1 October, Gandhi’s urine was analysed, and large amounts of poisonous acids detected. The doctors pleaded with Gandhi to at least take a spoon of glucose every day. He declined. Now, Dr Ansari stayed by his bedside the whole night.

  A second urine analysis a day later showed the poisons had now largely disappeared. Gandhi, his body—or will—having trumped the doctors, went out into the veranda to enjoy the sunlight. A ladies’ d
eputation from Bombay came to see him. They inevitably asked him to give up the fast, and he, just as inevitably, refused.36

  Gandhi broke his fast at 12.30 p.m. on 9 October, after completing the three-week period he had set himself. Among those present when Dr Ansari handed him a glass of orange juice were Anasuya Sarabhai, Sarojini Naidu, Swami Shraddhananda, Hakim Ajmal Khan, Motilal Nehru, C.R. Das, the Ali Brothers, Charlie Andrews, and his old friend from South Africa, Imam Abdul Kadir Bawazir. Gandhi asked Imam Kadir to read a prayer from the Koran, this followed by a Christian hymn from Andrews, and a Hindu hymn from Anasuya Sarabhai. Afterwards, Mohammad Ali presented Gandhi a cow that he had purchased from a butcher so that the Mahatma could present it to a pinjrapole, a shelter for cows.37

  VI

  After the fast was broken, Gandhi did not resume his normal diet at once. Instead, he sought to replenish his energy with orange juice, honey and glucose. Later, he graduated to goat’s milk and bread. The doctors had asked him to have a prolonged period of ‘mental rest’. Gandhi refused, attending to his work, meeting colleagues, and telling Mahadev (more pliant in this respect than the doctors) to brief him daily about the news and to place all important correspondence before him.38

  On 15 October, Gandhi again asked the viceroy for permission to visit the riot-torn town of Kohat in the company of Shaukat Ali. The viceroy answered that the ‘time was not propitious’.39 So Gandhi turned his attention to the still simmering dispute within the Congress itself. He travelled to Calcutta to meet C.R. Das, and also had long conversations with Motilal Nehru. On 6 November, the three of them issued a joint statement asking the Congress to suspend the non-cooperation programme, except insofar as it related to the wearing of foreign cloth.