67. Nayar, Mahatma Gandhi’s Last Imprisonment, pp. 33–34.
68. ‘Mahatmaji’s Arrest’, H, 16 August 1942.
69. Reports in BC, 10 August 1942; File No. 1110(3) of 1942, Home (Special), MSA.
70. CWMG, LXXVI, pp. 463–64.
71. See Lord Moran, Churchill: The Struggle for Survival, 1940–1965 (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1966), p. 57.
Chapter Thirty: A Bereavement and a Fast
1. See File Nos 111085, 1110(85)-D, 1110(85)-F and 1110(85)-H of 1942–43, Home (Special), MSA.
2. These details on the Aga Khan Palace draw from the notes and letters in IOR/R/3/1/290, APAC/BL.
3. Gandhi to Lord Linlithgow, 14 August 1942, CWMG, LXXVI, pp. 410–11.
4. These paragraphs are based on remembrances by Sushila Nayar and Sarojini Naidu in H, issues of 17 February and 18 August 1946.
5. Nayar, Mahatma Gandhi’s Last Imprisonment, pp. 65–66.
6. This account of Mahadev Desai’s cremation draws on Narayan Desai, The Fire and the Rose, Chapter 1.
7. Nayar, Mahatma Gandhi’s Last Imprisonment, pp. 76, 78.
8. These paragraphs are based on Subject File No. 404, Part I, Gandhi Papers, First and Second Instalments, NMML.
9. CWMG, LXXXV, p. 151.
10. The untitled two-page reminiscence by Muriel Lester, c. 1942/43, Gandhi Papers, First and Second Instalments, NMML.
11. ‘Mah[a]dev Desai’, MG, 19 August 1942.
12. Verrier Elwin, ‘Mahadev’, in D.G. Tendulkar, M. Chalapathi Rau, Mridula Sarabhai and Vithalbhai K. Jhaveri, editors, Gandhiji: His Life and Work (Bombay: Keshav Bhikaji Dhawale, 1944), pp. 14–18.
13. Gandhi to Mahadev, 14 September 1938, CWMG, LXVII, p. 338.
14. See Bombay: Six Months of the Congress Movement (New Delhi: Government of India Press, 1943), printed document marked Secret, copy in IOR, R/3/2/357, APAC/BL; Jim Masselos, ‘Bombay, August 1942: Re-readings in a Nationalist Text’, in Masselos, The City in Action: Bombay Struggles for Power (New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2007).
15. See IOR, R/3/2/33, APAC/BL.
16. N.C. Chatterjee to B.S. Moonje, 14 August 1942 (intercepted letter), in ibid.
17. Translation of a Bengali article published in Harijan Patrika, 16 August 1942, in ibid.
18. See the forty-eight-page transcript entitled ‘A General Survey of the Political and Economic Condition of Assam since August, 1942 to June, 1944’, in Volume 23, Series 5, Gandhi Papers, Twelfth and Fourteenth Instalments, NMML.
19. Narrative Account of Congress Disturbances in the Different Districts of the Province of Orissa, August–December 1942, thirteen-page printed document marked Secret, copy in IOR, R/3/2/367, APAC/BL.
20. See Chandi Prasad Nanda, ‘Mapping the Mahatma: Literary Tracts and Rumours in Late Colonial Orissa’, in Martin Brandtner and Shishir Kumar Panda, editors, Interrogating History: Essays for Hermann Kulke (Delhi: Manohar, 2006).
21. See ‘Memorandum of the Andhra Pradesh Youth and Students’ Congresses’ (handwritten), Bezwada, 4 July 1944, in Volume 7, Series 5, Gandhi Papers, Twelfth and Fourteenth Instalments, NMML.
22. Karnatak in Revolt, a forty-four-page pamphlet published by the Karnataka Pradesh Congress Committee in 1944, copy in ibid.
23. Vijay Anand, c/o Vizianagaram Palace, Banaras, to Gandhi, 21 June 1944, in Volume 1, Series 4, Gandhi Papers, Twelfth and Fourteenth Instalments, NMML.
24. A cyclostyled sheet, entitled ‘Congress Newsletter No. 18’, Delhi, 2 October, issued by Delhi PCC with the instructions: ‘PLEASE PASS ON THIS NEWSLETTER AFTER READING’, in IOR, R/3/1/310, APAC/BL.
For a valuable compilation of government records on the spread of the Quit India movement after Gandhi’s arrest, see Partha Sarathi Gupta, editor, Towards Freedom: Documents on the Movement for the Independence in India, 1943–44, Part 1 (New Delhi: Indian Council of Historical Research, 1997). See also File Nos 3/16/42, 3/31/42, and 3/79/42, Home (Poll.), NAI.
25. Clipping from Daily Herald (London), 4 September 1942, copy in Mss Eur F 158/40, APAC/BL.
26. As reported in telegram dated 20 January 1943, from New Delhi to India Office, in ibid.
27. See The Empire at Bay, p. 832.
28. See IAR, 1942, Volume I, pp. 344–66.
29. Sir Stafford Cripps, ‘Britain and India’, New York Times Magazine, 23 August 1942.
30. Polak to Joyce of the India Office, 6 July 1940; Joyce to Polak, 30 July 1940, copies in E.S. Reddy Papers, NMML.
31. This account is based on a printed transcript of the discussion, in Box 50, Sydney Hertzberg Papers, NYPL.
32. ‘The daily routine of Mr. Gandhi’, a note in IOR, R/3/1/313, APAC/BL.
33. Nayar, Mahatma Gandhi’s Last Imprisonment, p. 123.
34. Anon, Congress Responsibility for the Disturbances, 1942–3 (New Delhi: Government of India Press, 1943), pp. 15, 21, 39, etc.
35. Gandhi to Linlithgow, letters of 31 December 1942 and 29 January 1943, CWMG, LXXVII, pp. 49–53, 54–56.
36. Linlithgow to Gandhi, 5 February 1943, CWMG, LXXVII, pp. 446–47.
37. Governor of Bombay to Viceroy, 10 February 1943, in IOR, R/3/1/298, APAC/BL.
38. Untitled, undated, notes by Mirabehn, in Subject File No. 300, Gandhi Papers, First and Second Instalments, NMML.
39. See Subject File No. 13, H.P. Modi Papers, NMML.
40. CWMG, LXXVII, p. 65.
41. See Subject File No. 406, Gandhi Papers, First and Second Instalments, NMML.
42. Notebooks/Diaries, Serial No. 1, in the Gandhi Papers, Third and Fourth Instalments, NMML.
43. ‘Note of Mr. Gandhi’s Fast, February 10th to March 3rd’, Sd R.H. Candy, Surgeon General, Bombay Presidency, 5 March 1943, in R/3/1/298, APAC/BL.
44. Note dated 17 February 1943 by R. Tottenham, in IOR; Viceroy to Governors, 18 February 1943; Viceroy to Secretary of State for India, 19 February 1943, all in R/3/1/298, APAC/BL.
45. ‘Leaders’ Conference Demand Turned Down: Churchill’s Reply: Endorsement of Viceroy’s Attitude’, Hindustan Times, 25 February 1943.
The appeal that Churchill rejected was signed by, among others, the liberals T.B. Sapru, H.N. Kunzru, Bhulabhai Desai, M.R. Jayakar and N.M. Joshi, the Hindu Mahasabha leaders B.S. Moonje, S.P. Mookerjee and N.C. Chatterjee, the communist B.T. Ranadive, the industrialist J.R.D. Tata, the former Prime Minister of Sindh, Allahbuksh, C. Rajagopalachari (now an ex- or expelled Congressman), and several women social workers, among them Saraladevi Chaudhurani, described as ‘President, Women’s Hindu–Muslim Unity Committee’.
46. ‘Report on Visit to Poona, Feb–March 1943’, in Temp Mss 577/82b, Friends House, Euston.
47. Notebooks/Diaries, Serial No. 1, in Gandhi Papers, Third and Fourth Instalments, NMML.
48. Note by R. Tottenham, 24 February 1943, in R/3/1/298, APAC/BL.
49. Notebooks/Diaries, Serial No. 2, in Gandhi Papers, Third and Fourth Instalments, NMML.
50. Note by R. Tottenham, 1 March 1943, in R/3/1/298, APAC/BL.
51. This table is reproduced in R/3/1/298, APAC/BL.
52. ToP, II, pp. 961, 978–79.
53. ToP, III, pp. 659, 669, 730, 737, 744.
54. Roosevelt to Gandhi, 1 August 1942, copy in IOR, R/3/1/326, APAC/BL.
55. Phillips to Roosevelt, 22 January 1943, in Mss Am 2232 (33), William Phillips Papers, Houghton Library, Harvard University.
56. Diary entries for 17 and 22 February 1943, in Mss Am 2232 (33), William Phillips Papers, Houghton Library, Harvard University.
57. Letters dated 22 February and 3 March 1943, in ibid.
58. Diary entries for 7 and 10 April 1943, in Harvard, Mss Am 2232 (34), William Phillips Papers, Houghton Library, Harvard University (emphasis in the original).
59. Report in TS, 26 April 1943.
60. E.J. Thompson to Norman Cliff, 2 April 1943, in Mss C 798, APAC /BL.
Chapt
er Thirty-one: The Death of Kasturba
1. Gandhi to M.A. Jinnah, 4 May 1943, CWMG, LXXVII, pp. 75–76.
2. Letter of 13 May 1943, press communiqué of 27 May 1943, both in IOR/R/3/1/300, APAC/BL.
3. As reported in Dawn, 29 May 1943.
4. Sayeed, Pakistan, p. 179.
5. See Jamil-ud-din Ahmad, editor, Some Recent Speeches and Writings of Mr. Jinnah (Fourth edition; Lahore: Shaikh Muhammad Ashraf, 1946), pp. 519–20.
6. Gandhi to Additional Secretary, Home Department, Government of India, 15 July 1943, CWMG, LXXVII, pp. 105–99.
7. Gandhi to Lord Linlithgow, 27 September 1943, CWMG, LXXVII, p. 201.
8. See, among other works, Amartya Sen, Poverty and Famines: An Essay on Entitlement and Deprivation (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1981); Paul Greenough, Prosperity and Misery in Rural Bengal: The Famine of 1943–1944 (New York, Oxford University Press, 1983); Madhusree Mukerjee, Churchill’s Secret War: The British Empire and the Ravaging of India During World War II (New York: Basic Books, 2011).
9. As reported in ToI, 13 January 1940.
10. See R/3/2/21, APAC/BL.
11. Cf. Romain Hayes, Bose in Nazi Germany (Delhi: Random House India, 2011); Christopher Sykes, Troubled Loyalty: A Biography of Adam von Trott zu Solz (London: Collins, 1968), Chapter 14, ‘The Story of Bose’.
12. Peter Ward Fay, The Forgotten Army: India’s Armed Struggle for Independence, 1942–1945 (Delhi: Rupa & Co., 1944).
13. Cf. M. Sivaram, The Road to Delhi (Rutland, Vermont: Charles E. Tuttle and Co., 1967), Chapter 7 and passim.
14. K.M. Tamhankar, editor, On to Delhi: 23 Enthralling Speeches of Subhas Chandra Bose (Bombay: Phoenix Publications, 1946), pp. 1–7.
15. Devadas Gandhi to C. Rajagopalachari, 6 December 1944, in IOR/R/3/1/313, APAC/BL.
16. Gandhi to Ardeshir Kateli, 6 January 1944, CWMG, LXXVII, pp. 215–16.
17. Note dated 29 January 1944, in File No. 76-I of 1943–44, Home (Special), MSA.
18. Bombay Home Department note, 22 January 1944, File No 76, 1943–44, Home (Special), MSA.
19. Note by R.M. Maxwell, 22 December 1943, in IOR/R/3/1/313, APAC/BL.
20. Clippings in File No 76-IV, 1943–44, Home (Special), MSA.
21. R. Tottenham, Additional Home Secretary, Government of India, to H.V.R. Iyengar, Home Secretary, Bombay Government, 7 February 1944; Iyengar to Tottenham, 12 February 1944; Tottenham to Iyengar, 15 February 1944, all in File No 76-IV, 1943–44, Home (Special), MSA.
22. See Files Nos 76-I and 76-II of 1944, Home (Special), MSA.
23. H.V.R. Iyengar to R. Tottenham, 7 February 1944; Notes by R. Tottenham, dated 16 and 21 February 1944, all in IOR/R/3/1/313, APAC/BL.
24. See Notebooks/Diaries, Serial Nos 4 and 5, Gandhi Papers, Third and Fourth Instalments, NMML.
25. Devadas Gandhi, ‘Last Moments with Kasturba’, BC, 29 February 1944; Nayar, Mahatma Gandhi’s Last Imprisonment, p. 341.
26. Reports in BC, 25 February 1944.
27. Devadas Gandhi, ‘Last Moments with Kasturba’.
28. See Subject File No. 409, Parts I to V, Gandhi Papers, First and Second Instalments, NMML, which has some 600 telegrams/letters of condolence to Gandhi on Kasturba’s death.
29. ‘Mr. Gandhi’s Bereavement’, D, 24 February 1944.
30. Letter dated 25 February 1944, in My Dear Bapu, p. 234.
31. Copies of these telegrams from Polak are in the so far unclassified E.S. Reddy Papers, NMML.
32. Lord Wavell, The Viceroy’s Journal, edited by Penderel Moon (Oxford: Oxford University Press), pp. 3–4, 12.
33. Ibid., pp. 19, 23, 25, 33.
34. Gandhi to Lord Wavell, 17 February 1944, CWMG, LXXVII, pp. 22–23.
35. Gandhi to Lord Wavell, 9 March 1944; Wavell to Gandhi, 28 March 1944; Gandhi to Wavell, 9 April 1944, CWMG, LXXVII, pp. 244–50, 462–64, 257–60.
36. CWMG, LXXVII, pp. 262–63, 487–88.
Chapter Thirty-two: Picking up the Pieces (Again)
1. The New York Times, quoted in M.S. Venkataramani, ‘The United States and the Release of Mahatma Gandhi, May 1944’, in V.D. Rao, editor, Studies in Indian History: Dr A.G. Pawar Felicitation Volume (Kolhapur: Dr Appasaheb Pawar Satkar Samiti, 1968), p. 373.
2. Gandhi to C. Rajagopalachari, 26 May 1944, CWMG, LXXVII, p. 291.
3. Gandhi to Wavell, 17 June 1944, Wavell to Gandhi, 22 June 1944, CWMG, LXXVII, p. 317.
4. The list of books is in Volume 147, Series 4, Gandhi Papers, Twelfth and Fourteenth Instalments, NMML.
5. Saraladevi to Gandhi, 20 July 1944, in Volume 13, Series 5, Gandhi Papers, Twelfth and Fourteenth Instalments, NMML.
6. CWMG, LXXVII, pp. 338–41.
7. See CWMG, LXXVII, pp. 393–94.
8. Gandhi to Wavell, 26/27 July 1944; Wavell to Gandhi, 15 August 1944, CWMG, LXXVII, pp. 425–26, 480–82
9. G.E.B. Abell to Gilbert Laithwaite, 31 July 1944, in Mss Eur F 138/161, APAC/BL.
10. Gandhi to Ambedkar, 6 August 1944, CWMG, LXXVIII, p. 13.
11. Gandhi to Jagdish Munshi, c. 12 August 1944, CWMG, LXXVIII, pp. 23–24.
12. M.C. Chagla, Roses in December: An Autobiography (1973; reprint Bombay: Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan, 1994), pp. 55, 80.
13. Gandhi to Jinnah, 18 August 1944, CWMG, LXXVIII, p. 39.
14. A journalist who followed his career for many years remarked that Jinnah, ‘apart from being an egotist, was also a narcissist. He spent a lot of time looking at himself in the mirror. He liked dressing up in Western clothes and with meticulous care. He wore a stiff collar, in fashion or out of fashion, in season or out of season. His trousers were creased to sabre-point sharpness. His thinning hair was pressed downwards. He wore a monocle for effect, while a pair of “spring” glasses were held from a black band for reading…His well-made shoes were shined to a mirror glossiness…’
J.N. Sahni, ‘Pakistan’s Quaid-e-Azam’, Illustrated Weekly of India, 26 December 1976.
15. See CWMG, LXXVII, Appendix VIII, p. 456.
16. D, 10 September 1944.
17. CWMG, LXXVIII, pp. 87–90.
18. CWMG, LXXVIII, pp. 401–03, 92–93.
19. D, 13 September 1944.
20. CWMG, LXXVIII, pp. 96–97.
21. BC, 14 September 1944.
22. Gandhi to Jinnah, 15 September 1944, CWMG, LXXVIII, pp. 101–03.
23. ‘Pakistan’, an anonymous typescript deposited in Mss Eur C 313/18, APAC/BL, most likely written by a senior British civil servant.
24. Jinnah to Gandhi, 17 September 1944, CWMG, LXXVIII, pp. 406–08.
25. Gandhi to Jinnah, letters of 23 and 24 September 1944, Jinnah to Gandhi, 21 September 1944, CWMG, LXXVIII, pp. 116–17, 122–23, 409–10.
26. ‘The Harijan Problem’, BC, 21 September 1944.
27. Indian Express, 25 and 26 September 1944, clippings in File No. 3, C.B. Khairmonday Collection, University of Mumbai.
28. Gandhi to Jinnah, letters of 19 and 22 September 1944, Jinnah to Gandhi, 26 September 1944, CWMG, LXXVIII, pp. 124, 130–31, 415–16.
29. BC, 27 September 1944.
30. Gandhi to Jinnah, 26 September 1944, Jinnah to Gandhi, 26 September 1944, CWMG, LXXVIII, pp. 131–32, 416–17.
31. ‘Not the End’, BC, 29 September 1944.
32. ‘Lessons of Failure’, D, 29 September, 1944.
33. Gandhi to Sapru, 26 February 1945, CWMG, LXXIX, pp. 168–69.
34. ‘Mr Jinnah’s Interview to the Representative of the “News Chronicle”, London, on 4 October 1944’, in Jinnah–Gandhi Talks (September 1944): Text of Correspondence and Other Relevant Documents, etc. (Delhi: All India Muslim League, November 1944), pp. 75–78.
35. A.F.S. T[alyarkhan], ‘Bull’s Eye’, Blitz, 30 September 1944, in Volume 27, Series 4, Gandhi Papers, Twelfth and Fourteenth Instalments, NMML.
36. Wavell, The Viceroy’s Journal, p. 91.
37. See Volumes 21 to 25, Series 4, Gandhi Papers, Twelfth and Fourteenth Instalments, NMML.
38. CWMG, LXXVIII, pp. 149–51.
39. See File No. 40 of 1944, Home (Special) MSA.
40. See clipping in Volume 21, Series 4, Gandhi Papers, Twelfth and Fourteenth Instalments, NMML.
41. See correspondence in Volumes 8 and 29, Series 4, and in Volumes 125 and 135, Series 5, Gandhi Papers, Twelfth and Fourteenth Instalments, NMML.
42. ‘Statement to the Press’, 1 December 1944, See CWMG, LXXVIII, pp. 371–72.
43. Birla, Bapu, Volume IV, pp. 349–50.
44. Mridula Sarabhai to Indira Gandhi, 12 January 1945, in Reel No. 57, Mridula Sarabhai Papers, on microfilm, NMML.
45. See reports in File 212-III of 1945–47, Home (Special), MSA.
46. CWMG, LXXIX, p. 301.
47. CWMG, LXXIX, p. 299.
48. CWMG, LXXIX, pp. 383–84.
49. CWMG, LXXX, p. 63.
50. Ambalal Sarabhai to Gandhi, 16 April 1945, in Volume 49, Series 4, Gandhi Papers, Twelfth and Fourteenth Instalments, NMML.
51. Gandhi to Sarabhai, 21 April 1945, CWMG, LXXIX, p. 405.
52. CWMG, LXXX, pp. 222–24.
53. CWMG, LXXX, pp. 440–42.
54. Adrian Fort, Archibald Wavell: The Life and Times of an Imperial Servant (London: Jonathan Cape, 2009), pp. 382–86.
55. Statement to the press by Vallabhbhai Patel, Panchgani, 17 June 1945, in Volume 148, Series 4, Gandhi Papers, Twelfth and Fourteenth Instalments. NMML.
56. Gandhi to Wavell, 16 June 1945, CWMG, LXXX, pp. 335–36.
57. Wavell, The Viceroy’s Journal, p. 14.
58. ‘Interview to Preston Grover’, 29 June 1945, CWMG, LXXX, p. 383.
59. The telegrams quoted here are in Subject File No. 36, Gandhi Papers, First and Second Instalments, NMML.
60. Cf. note by Evans Jenkins, c. late July 1945, in R/3/1/108, APAC/BL.
61. See Bimal Prasad, editor, Towards Freedom: Documents on the Movement for Independence in India, 1945 (New Delhi: Indian Council of Historical Research, 2008), pp. 365–68.
62. Azad to Wavell, 15 July 1945, copy in Volume 150, Series 4, Gandhi Papers, Twelfth and Fourteenth Instalments. NMML.
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