The Life and Death of Mahatma Gandhi (The Robert Payne Library)

by Robert Payne

  G. D. Birla was a millionaire in good standing, and one of Gandhi’s occasional supporters. He was driving with Gandhi to St. James’s Palace on the second day of the conference when it occurred to him that it was quite possible that Gandhi had not taken the trouble to prepare his speech. The previous day had been a Monday, his day of silence, and therefore he had contented himself with passing a few notes around the table. “I suppose,” G. D. Birla said, “you have thought of what you want to say.”

  “I am absolutely blank,” Gandhi replied. “But perhaps God will help me in collecting my thoughts at the proper time. After all, we have to talk like simple men. I have no desire to appear extra intelligent. Like a simple villager all that I have to say is: ‘We want independence.’ ”

  G. D. Birla was disturbed. It was inconceivable to him that a man should appear at the Round Table Conference unprepared, with not a single note to help him refresh his memory. He need not have been disturbed. Gandhi spoke eloquently, demanded freedom now, and by inference accused all the Indian leaders of dragging their feet. The British government was convinced with some reason that Gandhi was speaking only for himself and the Congress; if any vote could be taken, he would have been outvoted.

  The tragedy of the Round Table Conference was that so little could be conferred about. Gandhi spoke like a lawyer, not like a villager, hut he was not conferring. He was saying things that needed to be said, laying down laws, issuing veiled ultimatums; and neither the British government nor the Indian delegates felt comfortable in his presence. Gandhi said he was oppressed with a sense of unreality when he studied the list of delegates. Whom did they represent? What were they demanding? And the delegates themselves were oppressed with a sense of unreality when they studied Gandhi, who appeared so theatrical in the studied negligence of his dress. He had the audacity to ask the British government to lay all their cards on the table, and he half hinted that all their cards were jokers.

  On the technical questions raised at the conference, he spoke out in a series of subcommittee meetings. He advocated indirect elections, adult suffrage, a single-chamber legislature, complete autonomy for the Frontier Province, and he was prepared to let the British Army remain in India for as long as it was necessary to train the Indian Army. “Having clipped our wings,” he said, “it is their duty to give us wings wherewith to fly.” He refused to accept the principle that there should be no discrimination against the British commercial community, because this would bind any future Indian government to offering hostages to fortune. He was emphatic in demanding that the conference accept the Congress as the representative of the 115,000,000 farmworkers in India.

  One of his major themes, expressed openly but without emphasis, was the resurgence of terrorism in India. The ideas that had haunted him when writing Hind Swaraj would appear briefly and insistently, and then vanish, to reappear at another meeting of one of the subcommittees. Peace or war, freedom or terrorism: it was in the power of the British to choose the kind of India they wanted. He spoke gravely of “the disciplined and organized terrorism” which would arise if the just demands of India were not met. He said: “A nation of 350 million does not need the dagger of the assassin, it does not need the poison bowl, it does not need the sword, the spear or the bullet It needs simply a will of its own, an ability to say ‘no,’ and that nation is learning to say ‘no.’ ” Again and again he said that the British were like jailors and a jailbird has the right to break free. He was not threatening terrorism, but he spoke often about non-cooperation, and hinted that there were other weapons available to the Indians if swaraj was not granted. He had no liking for dominion status, and said he wanted nothing less than equal partnership with Britain.

  In Britain there were new elections, and although the Conservatives won a landslide victory, Ramsay MacDonald, the Labour leader, became the Prime Minister in an essentially Tory government Confronted with growing unemployment at home, the coalition government was in no mood for adventurous changes abroad. Inevitably the attitude of the government hardened against Gandhi. He had no gift for infighting in the subcommittees, and the government was not unhappy to see him attacked by his own countrymen. There were twenty-three representatives from the princely states, and sixty-four from British India. Gradually he came to realize that he was a voice speaking in a wilderness.

  He made altogether twelve speeches at St. James’s Palace, most of them without notes. The absence of any preparation was no great loss; he spoke better extempore. But every day there were speeches and interviews to be given, and his days were so crowded that it was almost impossible to keep up with him.

  Here, from Gandhi’s diary, is a summary of a typical day’s work:

  OCTOBER 16, 1931

  1:00

  A.M.

  Reach Kingsley Hall

  1:45

  A.M.

  Finish the spinning quota of 160 yards

  1:50

  A.M.

  Write up the diary

  2:00

  A.M.

  to

  3:45

  A.M.

  Sleep

  3:45

  A.M.

  to

  5:00

  A.M.

  Day begins with wash and prayer.

  5:00

  A.M.

  to

  6:00

  A.M.

  Rest

  6:00

  A.M.

  to

  7:00

  A.M.

  Walk and give interview while walking

  7:00

  A.M.

  to

  8:00

  A.M.

  Morning ablutions and bath

  8:00

  A.M.

  to

  8:30

  A.M.

  Breakfast

  8:30

  A.M.

  to

  9:15

  A.M.

  Kingsley Hall to Knightsbridge

  9:15

  A.M.

  to

  10:45

  A.M.

  Interview with a journalist, an artist, a Sikh member of the delegation, and a merchant

  10:45

  A.M.

  to

  11:00

  A.M.

  To St. James’s Palace

  11:00

  A.M.

  to

  1:00

  P.M.

  At St. James’s (conference)

  1:00

  P.M.

  to

  2:45

  P.M.

  Luncheon with American journalists

  3:00

  P.M.

  to

  5:30

  P.M.

  With the Mohammedans

  5:30

  P.M.

  to

  7:00

  P.M.

  With the Secretary of State for India

  7:00

  P.M.

  to

  7:30

  P.M.

  Rush home for prayer and evening meal

  8:00

  P.M.

  to

  .9:10

  P.M.

  Conference of Temperance Workers. Talk on the drink problem in India

  9:10

  P.M.

  Leave for an engagement with the Nawab of Bhopal

  9:45

  P.M.

  to

  Midnight

  With the Nawab of Bhopal

  This was not an unusual day, for all his days in London were crowded in the same fashion, and sometimes Mahadev Desai, who followed him everywhere, would sigh: “How can it possibly last? He is burning the candle at both ends.” Gandhi might have answered that he was accustomed to burning the candle at both ends and sometimes in the middle as well. For him this was not an unnatural pace, for he had trained himself precisely for such feats of endurance.

  He seemed scarcely to be aware that he was running hard, for wherever he went he carried with h
im an atmosphere of calm. It was observed that he was generally kinder and less authoritarian than in India, perhaps because he was no longer in charge of a large ashram but among congenial companions. They were a small, close-knit community—Gandhi, his son Devadas, Mahadev Desai, Pyarelal, Sarojini Naidu, Mirabehn. He had only one aim in London: to fight for Indian independence. Simply to be present in London, available to everyone, constantly seen in public and photographed in the newspapers, was something of a triumph. By his mere presence he was turning the attention of Londoners to Indian independence.

  “I am here on a great and special mission,” he observed, and it was true. In his person were represented the Indian masses. The dark skin, the simple loincloth, the toothless smile, the imperturbable good humor, and even the dollar watch hanging from his waist—all these helped to dramatize the presence of India in the capital of the empire, but even more impressive was his air of relentless determination. He meant what he said, and there was no denying the urgency in the voice. On the subject of Indian independence no one was permitted to have any illusions at all.

  Inevitably there were occasional contretemps, and he was often misunderstood. With the rest of the Indian delegation he was invited to tea at Buckingham Palace with King George V and Queen Mary. It was suggested that for the occasion he might be induced to wear more ceremonial clothes; in a polite letter to the Lord Chamberlain accepting the invitation he replied that he would wear his usual costume. He had some qualms about attending the tea party which was to be held in the palace gardens. He described his dilemma at a Friends’ meeting. “I have an invitation to attend His Majesty’s reception,” he said. “I am feeling so heartsick and sore about the happenings in India that I have no heart in attending such functions, and if I had come in my own right I should not have hesitated to come to a decision. But, as I am a guest, I am hesitating.”

  Nevertheless he attended the party with good grace, wearing his tom woolen shawl which had been mended with khadi cloth. It was somewhat soiled by the London weather, and so he wore it inside out Mahadev Desai, wearing spotless white khadi, and Sarojini Naidu in an embroidered white silk sari escorted him. The maharajahs came in their jeweled turbans, with rows of medals, but Gandhi was inevitably the center of attention.

  King George V was a gruff man, not in the best of humors, and for many years he had been reading private letters from his Viceroys about the behavior of “the little upstart” who was creating so much commotion in India. He decided the time had come to give him a well-deserved lesson. Like a headmaster addressing a refractory pupil, he told Gandhi that he had behaved well in South Africa and up to 1918, but thereafter he had acted with quite extraordinary thoughtlessness. The King was especially grieved that Gandhi had organized the boycott of the Prince of Wales. “Why did you boycott my son?” he asked sternly. “Not your son, Your Majesty, but the official representative of the British Crown,” Gandhi answered. There followed a long sermon about Gandhi’s behavior in more recent times. “I won’t have you stirring up trouble in my empire,” the King said. “My government won’t stand for it.” Though tempted, Gandhi maintained a dignified silence. “Your Majesty must not expect me to argue the point,” Gandhi said a little later, like a lawyer addressing a judge. Then, since there could be no further possibility of communication between them, the King abruptly dismissed him.

  Gandhi was understandably annoyed by the confrontation with the King, and when questioned, he would say that the tea party had been a boring affair and that the King showed not the slightest understanding of the problems facing India, which he appeared to regard as his own private possession. Once someone asked him whether the King had given him any encouragement, and he replied: “Encouragement is given not by kings but by God.”

  A happier confrontation took place between Gandhi and Charlie Chaplin, who was in England to attend the opening of City Lights. Gandhi had never heard of Chaplin, had never seen a film, and was without any interest in actors. Told that Chaplin was a film actor who had invented the character of a little tramp beloved around the world, he remained unimpressed, and it was not until he heard that Chaplin was born of a poor family in the East End of London that he relented. The meeting took place in a small room belonging to an Indian doctor off the East India Dock Road.

  Chaplin launched into a brief speech on the use and abuse of machinery. He could not understand why Gandhi objected to machines which released men from the bondage of slavery and gave them shorter hours of labor and more time to enjoy the good things of life. Gandhi nodded and smiled. As Chaplin well knew, this was a subject very close to his heart and he had often spoken about it at interminable length.

  “I understand,” he said quietly. “Machinery in the past has made us dependent on England, and the only way we can rid ourselves of that dependence is to boycott all goods made by machinery. That is why we have made it the patriotic duty of every Indian to spin his own cotton and weave his own cloth. This is our form of attacking a very powerful nation like England—and, of course, there are other reasons. India has a different climate from England, and her habits and wants are different In England the cold weather necessitates arduous industry and an involved economy. You need the industry of eating utensils; we use our fingers.”

  As the winter came on, Gandhi became more and more aware of these differences. Sir Samuel Hoare invited him to the India Office in Whitehall. It was one of those cold, rainy, blustery days with a black fog coming down. Gandhi was dressed in his usual costume, shivering in the cold. He climbed the steps to the India Office and was ushered into the office of the Secretary of State for India. “Well, let’s go and sit down by the fire,” Sir Samuel Hoare said, and watched Gandhi luxuriating in the heat. They spoke about country life and farming, for the Secretary of State regarded himself as an expert farmer, and then he said: “I’m just as anxious for complete self-government as you are; but I tell you, we simply cannot do it in one bound.” He spoke about dominion status. “You can rely on me to push it along as quickly as I can.” For the first time Gandhi felt that the Secretary of State meant what he said. It was not the whole cake, but it was better than nothing.

  He did not stay in London, for whenever the occasion arose he would escape into the country. He visited Chichester, to meet Bishop Bell and C. P. Scott, who had edited the Manchester Guardian for fifty years. They were men who had studied his works and possessed sympathy and understanding for India. C. P. Scott was eighty-five, magnificently assertive and self-possessed. He said bluntly: “Don’t you think it is due to British rule that there is unity in India?” Gandhi replied that overwhelming pressure from above had indeed produced unity, but there were disruptive forces at work threatening that unity as never before. He went to Oxford where Lord Lindsay, the Master of Balliol, had gathered together a group of intellectual friends for a weekend of discussion. There was a memorable meeting with Gilbert Murray, the translator and scholar. “You must not think we do not suffer when thousands of your countrymen suffer,” Gilbert Murray said, and Gandhi said: “I want you to suffer because I want to touch your hearts.”

  He was touching hearts wherever he went, for there were few who could resist him. He went to Cambridge, and was pleased to find himself walking in the gardens of Trinity College with Charlie Andrews. Nehru had attended Trinity College; so had Newton, Bacon and Tennyson, but Gandhi was not concerned with them. He was delighted to be walking along the paths Nehru had trodden, and when he visited Eton, thinking that Nehru had been a schoolboy there, he was disappointed to learn that Nehru had never been there. But it was his journey to Lancashire which caused the greatest surprise. He half expected the mill hands would detest him, for Indian homespun cloth threatened the English market in cotton goods. Instead, the mill hands came out and cheered him, listening sympathetically when he declared that India was pledged to a total boycott of all foreign cloth, and that the dole received by an unemployed worker in England was a fortune compared with the income of an Indian peasant. “I am
one of the unemployed, but if I was in India I would say the same thing that Gandhi is saying,” one of the mill hands said. These words would have been very nearly incomprehensible to the great dignitaries meeting in St. James’s Palace.

  By his mere presence Gandhi had changed the attitude of the English people to India. That precise, nervous voice spoke to them directly, touching them to the core; and his very strangeness as he strode down their rain-soaked streets only endeared him to them. He became a popular figure in their imagination, sharing the place of honor with Charlie Chaplin, Greta Garbo, and Bernard Shaw, who had all become legends in their own lifetime. Shaw called himself “Mahatma Minor” when they met, but Gandhi knew too little about Shaw to realize that this was a singularly modest selfappraisal.

  The Round Table Conference solved nothing. Charlie Andrews described it as “a magnificent failure,” but most of the magnificence had been provided by Gandhi. After eighty-four days in England, Gandhi returned to India by way of France and Switzerland. He would never see England again.

  Kasturbai in 1934.

  Gandhi and Rabindranath Tagore, February, 1940.

  Gandhi and Indira Nehru.

  Last moments of Kasturbai, February 22, 1944.

  Manubehn, Sushila Nayyar, Kasturbai, Gandhi.

  Gandhi keeping vigil.