Remarkably, Gandhi did not know that Ambedkar was born in an ‘untouchable’ home. In Maharashtra, people of all castes took surnames after their village of origin, so ‘Ambedkar’ could merely mean ‘from the village of Ambed’. (Indeed, this was not Ambedkar’s original surname; he had been given it by a Brahmin teacher in his school.) Gandhi seems to have thought that—like Gokhale and Tilak before him—B.R. Ambedkar was an upper-caste reformer who took an interest in the uplift of the ‘untouchables’. Having worked for decades for the same cause, Gandhi was patronizing towards someone he saw as a fresh convert, a johnny-come-lately, whereas Ambedkar was in fact an ‘untouchable’ who had experienced acute discrimination himself. Gandhi’s tone offended Ambedkar, souring the relationship at the start.58
The day after Ambedkar met with Gandhi, he was interviewed by the Times of India. ‘To place the interests of Bardoli above those of India and refuse on that account to go to England to take part in the deliberations of the Round Table Conference,’ he told the newspaper, ‘seems to me to be the height of folly. To bother about the petty tyrannies of village officers and to be unmindful of the bigger problem, the settlement of which will enable us to exercise control on those very officers, is a thing which I cannot understand.’
Ambedkar thought Gandhi should attend the Round Table Conference. And he seemed ‘somewhat sore’ about one aspect of their conversation. Himself in favour of separate electorates for the Depressed Classes, he was upset that Gandhi ‘refused to uphold the view and said that if he went to the Round Table Conference he would tell them that the Conference might do what they liked, but in his opinion the suggestion was absolutely suicidal so far as the depressed classes were concerned’.59
The day before Gandhi met Ambedkar, he had told the press he was not going to London. But a week later he had changed his mind. He sent the viceroy a telegram, saying that he was ‘most anxious to avoid a breach on side issues or misunderstandings and am therefore prepared even to proceed to Simla if you think discussion necessary’.
Lord Willingdon asked Gandhi to come to Simla. Reaching the imperial summer capital on 26 August, he had a three-hour chat with Willingdon which, he told the press later, ‘was fairly satisfactory’. They met again the following day. On the evening of the 27th, Gandhi took the narrow gauge mountain railway down the hills, and the next morning caught the Frontier Mail bound for Bombay.
Gandhi’s Collected Works gives no clue as to the details of the conversations in Simla. All we have is a bland statement issued on 28 August by the viceroy’s office, to the effect that as a result of their discussions, ‘the Congress will now be represented by Mr. Gandhi at the Round Table Conference’. How did the viceroy persuade him to change his mind and attend the Round Table Conference? Did Willingdon promise to lean harder on the Bombay government to render justice to the peasants of Gujarat? Did he remind Gandhi of the chance the conference afforded him of putting his point of view before the British public?60
Apart from whatever Willingdon could have told Gandhi in Simla, his meeting with B.R. Ambedkar in Bombay may also have persuaded Gandhi that he must attend the Round Table Conference. Ambedkar was surely right in arguing that if a just constitutional settlement was reached, officials would find it harder to harass peasants in Bardoli (or anywhere else in India). Ambedkar’s advocacy of separate electorates for ‘untouchables’ would have unnerved Gandhi; could he afford to let this go uncontested in London?
Gandhi was perhaps also influenced by a letter he received in August from an Indian whose judgement he greatly valued. This was Sir Mirza Ismail, the reform-minded diwan of Mysore. ‘I do hope you are going to London for the R.T.C.,’ wrote Sir Mirza, adding: ‘A prophecy—you will endear yourself to the people of England, and you will do honour to them—next only to your own countrymen. It is a grand opportunity for bringing about peace and harmony and goodwill between the two countries—and to put an example to the rest of the world. And it is you and you alone that can do it.’61
Sir Mirza’s prophecy would surely have moved Gandhi. For all his opposition to British imperialism, he had an enormous fondness for the British people. And London was a city he was deeply attached to. He had spent two years there as a law student, and two summers there lobbying for Indians in South Africa. He had also spent several months in the city en route to returning home in 1915. Now, the idea that he, and he alone, could bring India and England together drew him to London once more.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
At Home in London
I
Accompanying Gandhi on the boat to London were his secretaries Mahadev Desai and Pyarelal, his son Devadas, and his English disciple Mira. After the intense political activity of the last few months—and with more of the same awaiting him in London—Gandhi welcomed the respite the few weeks on the ship afforded him. ‘Bapu is thoroughly enjoying himself,’ wrote Mahadev Desai to Jawaharlal Nehru, ‘if I may use the word “enjoy” about anything that he does. He sleeps on the floor on the deck without scandalising any one…’1
The ship halted en route at Aden and at Marseille, where the local post office agent was ‘snowed under with demands from journalists, wire pullers and such for exclusive interviews with the Mahatma and seats on the P&O Special. The Fox Movietone had mobilised two cars of cinema equipment, one from Barcelona, to do justice to the occasion…’2
The S.S. Rajputana arrived in Marseille at 7 a.m. on 11 September. The crowd waiting on the quay recognized the ship’s famous passenger, and a few shouted ‘Vive Gandhi!’ Journalists were allowed on board, one asking whether Gandhi intended to see the king of England, and if so, what dress he would wear. Gandhi answered that if invited, he would certainly go meet the king, his dress depending on the climate.3
II
In London, Gandhi was to stay at Kingsley Hall, a Quaker settlement in the East End run by Muriel Lester, who had visited him in Sabarmati in 1926. Born and raised in a middle-class family, Miss Lester had moved to one of London’s poorest boroughs at the age of nineteen, ‘bringing hope and aid to those who lived in the squalor and poverty of the East End’. In 1915, she and her sister Doris opened Kingsley Hall, which was named after their brother, who had been killed in the War. The sisters liked to refer to the settlement as a ‘teetotal pub’. It served as a community centre for adults and as a school for children, open to all regardless of religious denomination or racial background.4
Some of Gandhi’s friends were opposed to the idea of his staying with English Quakers. The industrialists Walchand Hirachand and G.D. Birla were keen that he live ‘under Indian surroundings’ in London. The place they had in mind was Arya Bhuvan, a vegetarian guest house run by and for Indians in Belsize Park.5 Gandhi, however, did not share in this xenophobia, and chose to accept Miss Lester’s offer to host him in the East End. ‘We can arrange everything for you and your friends,’ she told him: ‘special food bathing prayer times flat room telephone.’6
As she awaited her guest, Muriel Lester read with amusement what the penny papers were saying about him. One report authoritatively stated that, along with Gandhi and his party, the S.S. Rajputana was carrying a pile of Ganges mud from which Hindu idols were to be made and worshipped in London. Another reported that a full flock of goats would be tethered on the roof of Kingsley Hall, to provide a regular supply of milk for the visitor. The Communist Party of Great Britain was distributing leaflets claiming that by staying in the East End, Gandhi was ‘attempting to throw dust in the eyes of the British workers’. The communists believed that Gandhi’s ‘whole life has been a mass of deceit’; and that he was coming to London merely ‘to enter into a closer alliance with the British imperialists and to secure further rights for the Indian capitalists’.7
Gandhi arrived in London at 4 p.m. on Saturday, 12 September, travelling by car from Folkestone. It was raining when he reached the city of his youth. He drove to Friends House in Euston, where he spoke to a mixed audience o
f Indians and English people.
Later that evening, Gandhi was taken to Kingsley Hall. Here, he briefly met the press, telling them: ‘I am going to write to Mr. Winston Churchill and Lord Rothermere [proprietor of the Daily Mail], asking if they will kindly give me an interview. That is not a joke. I have always to see those who have opposed me, so that I could explain my position.’
The room Gandhi was staying in was seven feet by eight feet, had a stone floor and bare walls, a table and a chair, and a wooden plank which served as a bed. That first night, Gandhi went to slept late but woke up early. After a breakfast of cereal and goat’s milk, he went to the building’s roof garden. Here, in the warm morning sunshine, Gandhi began to spin.8
On this, his first full day in London, Gandhi spoke to an American radio audience over the Columbia Broadcasting Service. The talk was unscripted. Gandhi argued that whereas the national myths and anthems of other countries ‘contain imprecations upon the so-called enemy’, Indian nationalism had ‘reversed the process’. It was not opposed to other nations, not even to the English. Nor would it adopt violent means. ‘I, personally,’ insisted Gandhi, ‘would wait, if need be, for ages rather than seek the freedom of my country through bloody means.’
Gandhi alerted Americans to the struggle against untouchability, and the participation of women in the freedom movement. He ended with an ‘appeal to the conscience of the world to come to the rescue of a people dying for regaining its liberty’. The last sentence of his first-ever radio broadcast delivered, Gandhi said, ‘Well, that’s over.’ These words were also heard by the millions of listeners across the Atlantic.9
Three days after Gandhi reached London, Mahadev Desai wrote to Jawaharlal Nehru that ‘Bapu has had an amazingly good reception, and the idea of staying with Miss Lester at [the] East End was almost inspired, I should say. Thousands crowd the entrance of the Hall at all probable hours of his entrance or exit and there is a friendliness all around for which I was not at all prepared.’10
Scotland Yard had assigned a police party to guard Gandhi. Two constables were on all-night duty outside the room where he slept, while four others lurked in the street. Gandhi thought their presence unnecessary. ‘They are making a real prisoner of me,’ he told a visitor.11
The policemen had been deputed to ensure ‘no untoward events’ happened during Gandhi’s stay. Scotland Yard feared actions ‘such as students dressing up in loin cloths and leading a goat’, which, ‘although innocuous in this country, would be bitterly resented by a vast number of his [Gandhi’s] compatriots in India’. The constables loyally stuck to their man through all his peregrinations. As their superintendent exasperatedly remarked (in a note to his superiors): ‘It is difficult to gauge what he [Gandhi] will do from one hour to another and little if any reliance can be placed on any of his suggested arrangements.’12
III
Gandhi’s lodgings were bare, and his daily schedule punishing. He woke up at 4 a.m., and after an hour of prayers, walked through the streets, passing milkmen, newspaper boys and the odd stray dog. He then had breakfast with Mahadev and Devadas, and gave a few interviews. On most weekdays, he was at the Round Table Conference from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Then he came back to Kingsley Hall, to more interviews and an evening prayer meeting.
The Round Table Conference was so named because there were many parties to it. They included the Congress and the Muslim League, of course, but also representatives of the Sikhs, the Depressed Classes, and the European community in India. There were also several delegates representing the princely states.
The Quaker settlement where Gandhi was staying was some six miles away from the conference venue. His friends therefore rented a house in Knightsbridge, which served as his office, and where he would repair to between sessions, to meet with colleagues and draft statements. (However, he always returned to Kingsley Hall for the night.) Manning this town office were C.F. Andrews, Henry Polak’s sister Mrs Cheesman, and a Sinhalese follower of Gandhi named Bernard Aluwihare. The first two were earnest and industrious, while the last-named added to these characteristics a wicked sense of humour. Asked to spell out Gandhi’s name on the phone, when sending telegrams on his behalf, he would answer: ‘G. for God, A. for Ass, N. for No one, D. for Donkey, H. for Hell, I. for Idiot.’13
At the Karachi Congress in March, Gandhi had been nominated the party’s sole representative to the conference. Even while he was in India, however, Gandhi began having second thoughts about this. To now ask for more representatives would be to lose face, and also perhaps to play favourites—if the government agreed, who among Nehru, Patel, Rajagopalachari, Kripalani and Rajendra Prasad would he take along, and who leave behind? Instead, he asked both Willingdon and Irwin to nominate Dr M.A. Ansari as a delegate from the Nationalist Muslim Party. They declined, the viceroy writing that ‘I’m afraid I can do nothing about Dr Ansari but if the S[ecretary] of S[tate] chooses to nominate him of course I should raise no objection’.14
Shortly after reaching London, Gandhi told a representative of the Bombay Chronicle that ‘whoever committed the blunder of preventing Dr. Ansari from being selected as a delegate was responsible for committing a fatal blunder’.15 In truth, he had contributed to the blunder himself. For, Dr Ansari was a member of the Congress. Once that organization had decided to have only Gandhi as its representative, it was hard for Ansari to be invited.
On 15 September, Gandhi spoke at the Federal Structure Committee, this his first formal presentation to the Round Table Conference. He said that his party, the Indian National Congress, ‘is what it means—national’. Gandhi spoke of how the Congress had originally been conceived by an Englishman, had Muslim, Parsi and women presidents, and ‘taken up the cause of the so-called untouchables’. Once a city-based forum, the Congress had since extended deep into the villages, and was now ‘essentially a peasant organization’.16
The Congress, said Gandhi, ‘claims to represent all interests and classes’. This claim had (as Gandhi well knew) long been contested by the Muslim League. Now came along a fresh challenge to the Congress conceit that it represented all of India. This was articulated by B.R. Ambedkar. As a delegate to the first Round Table Conference, Ambedkar had urged that proper attention be paid to the Depressed Classes, the so-called ‘untouchables’, whom he (correctly) argued were the most disadvantaged section of Indian society. To assist them in their emancipation, he thought that reservation of a percentage of seats for the Depressed Classes in any future provincial or national legislature was necessary.17
Ambedkar repeated this argument at the second Round Table Conference, where (unlike the first time) Gandhi as the leader of the Congress was present. The Congress had reconciled itself to separate electorates for Muslims and Sikhs. Ambedkar wanted this extended to ‘untouchables’, but Gandhi was not convinced. ‘So far as the untouchables are concerned,’ he remarked, ‘I have not yet quite grasped what Dr. Ambedkar has to say; but, of course, the Congress will share the honour with Dr. Ambedkar of representing the interests of the untouchables. They are as dear to the Congress as the interests of any other body…throughout the length and breadth of India.’18
IV
The conference worked Monday to Friday only. Gandhi chose to spend most weekends outside London. The first trip outside the metropolis was to the textile-mill districts of Lancashire, where there was widespread unemployment. C.F. Andrews had urged Gandhi to visit the mill region, and offer a compromise—with boycott of lower counts to continue (to be replaced by khaddar), but that of higher counts, used by rich townspeople in India, to be withdrawn.
Andrews made Gandhi’s path smoother by publishing a laudatory profile in the region’s leading newspaper, the Manchester Guardian. He called Gandhi a ‘man of his word’, with a ‘trained lawyer’s mind’ that made him ‘very precise’ in his public utterances. Once a prosperous advocate, he had given up his profession and embraced a life of such simplicity that he had become
‘entirely one with the villagers of every part of India’. In sum, remarked Andrews rather unpersuasively, Gandhi’s ‘character is not unlike, in many ways, the North-country type of Englishman’.19
On the evening of Friday, 25 September, Gandhi took a train to Lancashire from Euston station. Andrews, Mira and Mahadev were with him. The party travelled third class. A crowd of about a hundred had gathered at Manchester’s Victoria station; when the train stopped, they ‘clustered round Mr. Gandhi’s coach, and he came to the window in the corridor to smile at them’.
Just before midnight, Gandhi arrived at Darwen, where a large crowd greeted him at the station. On alighting, he ‘entered a saloon car which was illuminated so that people could see him wave his hand in return of their welcome’.20
Gandhi stayed at Spring Vale, a garden village near Darwen built by the Davies family for their millworkers. He went for long walks, his loincloth and sandals attracting excited comment (especially among the children). He had several meetings with workers and their representatives. The Lancashire constabulary was out in full force, lining, at fifty-yard intervals, the roads he drove or walked on. They feared a hostile demonstration by unemployed workers. In fact, the people of Lancashire, rich and poor, were disarmed by Gandhi’s gesture of coming into their midst. Wherever he went, ‘the crowds behaved with the greatest good humour, and even the local Conservative Associations, in all the circumstances, with admirable restraint’.21
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