As much hurt by Quit India as Gandhi had been by the Raj’s twisting of it, as loyal to Churchill and the Empire as Gandhi was to India and the Congress, Linlithgow threw the ball back into Gandhi’s court:
7 Oct. 1943: Dear Mr Gandhi, I am indeed sorry that your feelings about any deeds and words of mine should be as you describe. But I must be allowed, as gently as I may, to make plain to you that I am quite unable to accept your interpretation of the events in question. As for the corrective virtues of time and reflection, evidently these are ubiquitous in their operation, and wisely to be ignored by no man. Yours sincerely, Linlithgow.178
Events outside. In November 1942, newspapers that Gandhi and the Working Committee read in their respective ‘camps’ quoted Churchill’s remarks at the Lord Mayor’s annual banquet in London:
I must say quite frankly that I hold it perfectly justifiable to deceive the enemy. (cheers)… Let me make this clear. Let there be no mistake about it in any quarter. I have not become the King’s First Minister in order to preside over the liquidation of the British Empire.179
The following month witnessed the death of the Punjab’s premier, Sikandar Hyat Khan of the Unionist party. Commanding the allegiance of many of his province’s Muslims, Sikandar had criticized the idea of dividing India by religion. His departure further strengthened Jinnah, who had profited from the removal from the political scene of the Congress’s ministries and leaders.
In 1942 the Muslim League formed (in alliance with other groups) a ministry in Sindh and another in the Muslim-minority province of Assam, where the Congress ministry had resigned in 1939. Helped by a British governor and defecting legislators, an additional League ministry took office in 1943. This was in the NWFP, where the former premier, Dr Khan Sahib, and his brother Ghaffar Khan were under arrest for Quit India. Governors and advisers controlled all the other provinces where the Congress had ruled.
In September 1943, after having organized clandestine resistance for nearly a year, Jayaprakash Narayan was arrested near Lahore. Despite Quit India, the British were still around, the League had spread itself, and the Congress was behind bars.
To shore up opposition to the Congress, two foes of Gandhi were included in the Viceroy’s Executive Council in July 1942. Ambedkar was one. The other was N.B. Khare, a former Congressman who had joined the Hindu Mahasabha after he was removed for indiscipline from the Congress.
From time to time Rajagopalachari, identified with the Congress despite his resignation, pushed at the Raj’s closed doors to see if they would yield, but neither Linlithgow nor his successor, Wavell, encouraged him. They saw no need to revive a Britain-Congress understanding: by the fall of 1943, Japanese forces seemed halted well to the east of India. By this time, however, Bengal’s rice shortage had reached its peak, and the province faced the subcontinent’s worst famine since 1770.
In April 1944, full thirteen months after Gandhi had agreed to his formula, C.R. met Jinnah in Delhi and said that if the League joined the Congress in demanding a national government, Gandhi would ask the Congress to accept plebiscites over Pakistan. After studying Rajagopalachari’s formula for a couple of minutes, Jinnah said to him, ‘Your scheme does not satisfy me.’ When Birla asked C.R. how his meeting with the League leader had gone, the reply was, ‘Jinnah is too old.’180
INSIDE THE KEEP
For Azad, Nehru, Patel and nine other Working Committee members held in Ahmednagar Fort, there was no knowing how long they would remain confined. ‘We saw no child or woman to break the monotony of our lives,’ Kripalani would later recall,181 and Nehru wrote from the Fort to his sister Krishna:
We have sight of [the planets and stars] and they never lose their freshness. But of the men we see the range is limited and I fear we grow less and less fresh to each other. And women? It struck me as an odd and arresting fact that for [a long time] I had not seen a woman even from a distance.182
Books were written: Discovery of India by Nehru; a study on Gandhi by Kripalani; a collection of unsent letters by Azad, who heard in the Keep that his wife Zuleikha had died; a history of his province by the Orissa leader, Hare Krishna Mahtab; a reconstruction by the UP socialist, Narendra Deva, of a lost Sanskrit text from its French translation; and Feathers & Stones by Andhra’s Pattabhi Sitaramayya.
Gardening occupied some, notably Nehru and Patel. Badminton and bridge were other recreations: Pant, the former UP premier, Kripalani, Mahtab, and Prafulla Ghosh of Bengal were among the bridge enthusiasts, though the one keenest to win, and generally able to do so, was Patel, who was also the company’s most voracious reader of books and of newspapers, which were let in some weeks after the party found themselves in the Keep. It was agreed that, as their president, Azad would see the papers first, followed by Patel and Nehru, in that order, and then the rest.
Shankarrao Deo of Maharashtra, Syed Mahmud of Bihar, and Asaf Ali of Delhi completed the Keep’s dozen. An important Working Committee member, Rajendra Prasad, had missed the Bombay meetings because of illness; he was arrested and confined in his province, Bihar. The fourteenth member, Sarojini Naidu, was detained in Poona’s AKP. A fifteenth member, Bombay’s Bhulabhai Desai, had resigned on health grounds in July 1942.
Relations among the twelve were correct, even cordial, but there was tension at times and a division into groups, one led by Nehru-Azad and the other by Patel, who at sixty-seven was the Keep’s oldest prisoner. Kripalani, Deo and Ghosh were seen as being in Patel’s group, and Mahmud and Ali in the Nehru-Azad one. The remaining four (Pattabhi, Pant, Narendra Deva and Mahtab) were non-aligned.
When Lord Archibald Wavell, the new Viceroy, privately sent Nehru a copy of a book of poems, Jawaharlal informed Azad of the gesture but not Patel, thinking that Vallabhbhai ‘would draw unwarranted conclusions’.183 The Working Committee never met as such in the Keep, and common discussions were rare. Nehru walked out when, during one such discussion, Patel and Kripalani heatedly objected to Nehru’s praise of Azad’s intervention at the May 1942 Working Committee meeting that had induced Prasad to withdraw his draft in favour of Nehru’s. Later, Nehru apologized.
What divided and made the dozen touchy was Quit India, which had brought imprisonment to them, suffering to thousands, and gains to the Muslim League. The question was never directly discussed, but Azad’s disapproval of Quit India became quite obvious, and Nehru too seemed to question some of Gandhi’s moves, though he was impressed, he wrote in his diary, by the running debate that a handicapped Gandhi was conducting with the Raj—Vallabhbhai had managed to obtain a cyclostyled copy of Gandhi’s correspondence with the government and shown it to Nehru.
At least seven of the twelve (Patel, Kripalani, Pattabhi, Narendra Deva, Shankarrao, Ghosh and Mahtab) continued to think that Quit India was necessary and unavoidable. Azad, Asaf Ali and Mahmud thought it a blunder. Nehru and Pant seemed undecided. A possible approach to the Raj was proposed once by Azad and on another occasion by Pant, and Nehru seemed to lend his support, but Patel shot down the idea, saying that Gandhi would know what move to make and when.184
A momentous thought, however, had taken shape inside Patel’s mind, and also inside the minds of Nehru, Azad and several others. Unexpressed in conversation or letters, it was a thought of independence from Gandhi. The path opened up by his instinct led to too many upheavals. The latest was a prolonged incarceration while the world changed outside and they grew older. Next time around, they would think twice before obeying Gandhi’s instinct.185
Life in AKP. Isolated elsewhere in the same Marathi country, Gandhi was battling away. The prison officer supervising Gandhi’s confinement in AKP, a titled Parsi called Khan Bahadur Ardeshir Eduljee Kateli, provided the following confidential report to his seniors (15 December 1943):
1. Mr Gandhi discusses political questions with other inmates, especially with Mr Pyarelal and Miss Slade; Miss Nayyar is always there. Very rarely with Dr Gilder. This takes place generally when they are reading newspapers.
2. The dai
ly routine of life of Mr Gandhi: He gets up about 6.30 a.m. and, after finishing morning ablution and breakfast, he reads books or newspapers. From 8.15 to 9.0 a.m. morning walk in the garden with Pyarelal and Misses Slade, Nayyar and Manu. While walking, they talk on political and other subjects. Doctors Gilder and Nayyar give him massage for about forty-five minutes and then bath upto 11.15. From 11.15 to 12 noon he takes his food, and Miss Slade talks or reads books to him.
From 12 noon to 1.0 p.m. teaching Sanskrit to Miss Nayyar. 1.0 to 2.0 p.m. rest. From 2.0 to 3.0 p.m. Mr Pyarelal reads papers to him and discusses on several points arising from the papers, while he is either spinning or filing cuttings from the papers.
From 3.0 to 4.0 p.m. teaching Miss Manu. From 4.0 to 5.30 p.m. indexing of newspaper cuttings on various subjects. He is assisted in this work by Pyarelal, Drs Gilder and Nayyar. They remove the selected and marked portions from the papers, paste them on slips of paper and give them to Mr Gandhi for indexing and filing.
From 5.30 to 6.30 p.m. Miss Slade reads papers to him and discusses on various political and other subjects. From 6.30 to 7.15 p.m. evening walk with other inmates in the garden.
From 7.30 p.m. to 8.15 p.m. spinning, while Pyarelal reads to him some books. From 8.15 to 9.0 p.m. prayer. From 9.0 to 10.0 p.m. reading and talking with Mr Pyarelal and Miss Nayyar.
He goes to bed at 10 p.m. He changes his time according to climatic conditions.
3. Mr Pyarelal does the typing work of Mr Gandhi. When the big letter was sent to the Government of India regarding the reply to the Congress Responsibility, Dr Gilder typed the major part of the letter.
I have the honour to be, Sir, Your most obedient servant,
(Signed) OFFICER I/C, AGA KHAN’S PALACE186
Kateli’s report omitted the dawn prayers that also were part of Gandhi’s routine. The Miss Manu he mentions was Gandhi’s fifteen-year-old grand-niece who had lost her mother in childhood. Her father was Jaisukhlal Gandhi, one of Ota Gandhi’s numerous descendants. In May 1942 Gandhi had brought ‘little’ Manu, as he then called her, from Bombay to Sevagram, where, at the age of fourteen or so, she helped Kasturba. On 30 July 1942, writing to her father from Sevagram, Gandhi had said:
Manu is a very sensible and smart girl. She serves Ba devotedly. She has become friendly with all. There is no complaint against her. She is quite good in her studies too. I see that she is happy. She comes every evening to massage my legs. Of course she also accompanies me in my walks. There is no need for you to worry about her.187
By March 1943 Manu was in AKP, after getting herself arrested for Quit India, and continuing to help Kasturba, who was unwell from the moment of her imprisonment and had specially asked for Manu.
By the end of 1943 Kasturba’s illness was serious. Devadas was allowed to visit her and talk also with his father, though not on politics and only in the presence of Kateli, who reported:
Some talk took place about the Bengal famine, and Mr Devdas said that latterly some good arrangements were being made and the funds raised were used through public hands and not through Government.
Mr Devdas asked his father how he passed his time. Mr Gandhi replied that he taught Sanskrit to Dr Nayyar and Miss Manu, and the major part of his time was passed in preparing an index in all subjects from the various newspapers and filing the cuttings from the papers.
Mr Gandhi said that there was some correspondence between him and Government of India on Congress Responsibility, and he had asked the Government to release the correspondence but Government had refused.
The report (7 December) added that Gandhi had said to his son that he expected to ‘be kept in custody for five years more’ and that the persons about whose health Gandhi enquired included the prisoners Jayaprakash, Vallabhbhai and Yusuf Meherally.188 Earlier, in his answer to Congress Responsibility sent in July 1943, Gandhi had defended Jayaprakash, for whose capture a large reward had been announced:
[M]y differences [with Jayaprakash], great as they are, do not blind me to his indomitable courage and his sacrifice of all that a man holds dear for the love of his country. I have read his manifesto which is given as an appendix [in Congress Responsibility]… [I]t breathes nothing but burning patriotism and his impatience of foreign domination. It is a virtue of which any country would be proud.189
Though reading, filing, indexing, thinking and writing for his contests with the Raj took much of his working day, Gandhi also sent repeated letters to officials regarding the health of Kasturba and of Mira, who suffered from acute pain in her back and arm, and the treatment they required, and about a baby left motherless in Delhi by the death of Shakuntala, the young sister-in-law of Pyarelal and Sushila.
Proposals. In October 1943 Gandhi made a pair of proposals to the government, both in the context of the Bengal famine. One related to the detained leaders and workers of the Congress:
[I]f the Government think that it is only my evil influence that corrupts people, I submit that the members of the Working Committee and other detenus should be discharged. It is unthinkable that when India’s millions are suffering from preventable starvation and thousands are dying of it, thousands of men and women should be kept in detention on mere suspicion, when their energy and the expense incurred in keeping them under duress could, at this critical time, be usefully employed in relieving distress.
As I have said in my letter of 15th July last, Congressmen abundantly proved their administrative, creative and humanitarian worth at the time of the last terrible flood in Gujarat, and equally terrible earthquake in Bihar.190
The second proposal was that he should be moved from AKP to an ordinary prison:
The huge place in which I am being detained with a large guard around me, I hold to be waste of public funds. I should be quite content to pass my days in any prison.191
In March 1944 he repeated the thought:
Virtually the whole of this expense is, from my point of view, wholly unnecessary; and when people are dying of starvation, it is almost a crime against Indian humanity. I ask that my companions and I be removed to any regular prison Government may choose…
I cannot conceal from myself the sad thought that the whole expense of this comes from taxes collected from the dumb millions of India.192
A third proposal was conveyed earlier, to Linlithgow, in response to the Viceroy’s demand that Gandhi should reconsider the Quit India resolution. Only the Working Committee could reassess one of its resolutions, said Gandhi (19 Jan. 1943). If a review was desired, ‘put me among the members of the Working Committee’.193 None of the proposals was accepted.
Engaging Wavell. The months of February, March and April 1944 saw correspondence between Gandhi and the new Viceroy. As with previous Viceroys, Gandhi tried to win Wavell:
9 March 1944: Years ago, while teaching the boys and girls of Tolstoy Farm in South Africa, I happened to read to them Wordsworth’s Character of the Happy Warrior. It recurs to me as I am writing to you. It will delight my heart to realize that warrior in you…
You are flying all over India. You have not hesitated to go among the skeletons of Bengal. May I suggest an interruption in your scheduled flights and a descent upon Ahmednagar and the Aga Khan’s Palace in order to probe the hearts of your captives? We are all friends of the British, however much we may criticize the British Government and system in India. If you can but trust, you will find us to be the greatest helpers in the fight against Nazism, Fascism, Japanism and the like…194
As Linlithgow too had done, Wavell asked Gandhi to withdraw the Quit India resolution if he wished to negotiate. Gandhi stuck to his ground and insisted in letters to the Viceroy that the Congress was far from being crushed:
9 March 1944: Had Government stayed action till they had studied my speeches and those of the members of the Working Committee, history would have been written differently…
17 Feb. 1944: The spirit of India demands complete freedom from all foreign dominance… The Congress represents that spirit in full measure
. It has grown to be an institution whose roots have gone deep down into the Indian soil.
He cautioned Wavell against appearing to support the two-nation theory:
9 March 1944: In the middle of page two, you speak of the welfare of ‘the Indian peoples’. I have seen in some Viceregal pronouncements the inhabitants of India being referred to as the people of India. Are the two expressions synonymous?..
Through the Viceroy, the Raj was reproved for its treatment of Mira:
9 March 1944: I may be considered an impossible man—though altogether wrongly I would protest. But what about Shri Mirabai? As you know, she is the daughter of an Admiral and former Commander-in-Chief of these waters…
The only reason for burying her alive, so far as I can see, is that she has committed the crime of associating herself with me.
I suggest your immediately releasing her, or your seeing her and then deciding. I may add that she is not yet free from the pain for the alleviation of which the Government sent Captain Simcox at my request…195
Wavell’s call for a change in heart in Gandhi was duly sent back to the Viceroy’s court:
And unless there is a change of heart, view and policy on the part of the Government, I am quite content to remain your prisoner. Only I hope you will listen to the request made by me through the proper channels to remove me and my fellow-prisoners to some other prison where the cost of our detention need not be even one tenth of what it is today.196
DEATH OF KASTURBA
When, on one occasion, fellow-detainee Gilder was allowed to receive some mangoes for his wedding anniversary, Kasturba asked Gandhi, ‘How many years have we been married?’ ‘Why,’ Gandhi replied, ‘do you also want to celebrate your anniversary?’ Kasturba, who was seventy-four in 1943, laughed along with the others,197 but she found her time at AKP difficult. Shocked at what she thought was her husband’s premature arrest, Kasturba was devastated soon thereafter by the sudden death of Mahadev, whom she loved.
Mohandas: True Story of a Man, His People Page 67