Gandhi

by Ramachandra Guha

  When another Gujarati friend complained that Gandhi’s war work was an abdication of ahimsa, he answered that he was not shooting, merely nursing. He hoped to get a chance to attend to wounded Germans so that he ‘could nurse them without any partisan spirit’.11

  V

  Gokhale had now returned to London and had long conversations with Gandhi. Each was anxious about the other person’s health. Gandhi worried that his mentor was overweight and did not exercise enough. Gokhale, on his part, thought Gandhi’s pleurisy a consequence of his fruit-and-nut diet.

  Gokhale was keen that Gandhi join his Servants of India Society, which focused on education and social reform. Perhaps he could start a chapter of the society in his home province of Gujarat. However, he advised Gandhi to refrain from public work for a year after his return. He should use this period of ‘probation’ to travel around a country he scarcely knew.12

  Gokhale sailed for Bombay on 24 October 1914. The Gandhis would have followed him immediately, except that the British government had refused to grant permission to Kallenbach to accompany them to India, for he was technically a German citizen, and now an ‘enemy alien’. Gandhi made several representations, saying that since he had lived for many years in South Africa, Kallenbach considered himself a naturalized Briton. Influential Englishmen whom Gandhi knew were asked to plead on behalf of Kallenbach. The Colonial Office was unmoved; Gandhi’s ‘German’ friend could not go to India; he was shipped off to an internment camp on the Isle of Man instead.13 The Gandhis had to return home without Kallenbach.

  What would Gandhi do on his return to India after two decades in exile? An interesting prediction was offered by C.F. Andrews, an English priest and friend of Gokhale’s who had taught for many years at St Stephen’s College in Delhi. In January 1914, Andrews had worked closely with Gandhi in mediating a settlement with the South African authorities, which abolished a poll tax levied on Indians and also lifted some other restrictions on them. In December of that year, Andrews wrote to Gokhale that

  I have been thinking a great deal about what Mr. Gandhi will do on his return. Perhaps it is no use thinking as he is bound to take his own course, whatever it may be. He is not one who can be bound. I do feel positive about one thing, that he could not for long [fit] in with the general work of the Servants of India [Society]. He might take up some special sphere, such as work among the depressed classes [i.e. the ‘untouchables’], but he would need to be quite independent.14

  VI

  The ship carrying Gandhi and Kasturba back home, the S.S. Arabia, landed in Bombay at 9 a.m. on Saturday, 9 January 1915. A large crowd had gathered at the port. When the Gandhis stepped ashore, they were ‘cheered again and again, and the press of people was so great that it was with difficulty that they reached their motor car, and by the time they did so they were almost hidden by garlands’. Eventually, they got into the car, which drove off, with ‘many of the crowd pursuing it for some distance’.15

  Bombay in 1915 had a thriving textile industry, an energetic press (operating in many languages), and many prosperous (and some very philanthropic) merchants. Whereas Calcutta was to a large extent a Bengali city, and Madras a Tamil town, Bombay was a microcosm of the subcontinent, home to migrants from all over India and of all religions and ethnicities.

  Bombay was an active centre of politics and of social reform. Gandhi’s work in South Africa had been widely discussed among its intelligentsia. Gokhale had done much to make his protégé better known; as had Henry Polak, who in 1909–10 had spent time in the city, writing and speaking about Gandhi’s struggles.16 Bombay was also home to a large Gujarati community, whose pride in their man was provincial and very intense.

  Gandhi and Kasturba stayed at the home of a friend in the northern suburb of Santa Cruz. On 9 January itself, Gandhi met up with Gokhale, and gave an interview to the Times of India. The next day was spent visiting relatives, some of whom had, many years before, opposed his decision to cross the oceans to study law in London. That was in 1888, when he was young and obscure; now, having won fame in a foreign land, he was proudly owned by his caste and community. When Gandhi entered the Gujarati locality of Bazar Gate, he was given a rousing welcome. ‘The windows of chawls were full with people and they were showering flowers. Everyone was equally enthusiastic. The shops of the Parsis were also decorated with flowers.’17

  On the morning of 12 January, Gandhi paid his respects to Dadabhai Naoroji, the Parsi veteran whose role in Gandhi’s early career was second only to Gokhale’s. The same evening, a grand party was thrown for the Gandhis at the mansion of the fabulously wealthy Petit family. As a reporter on the spot wrote: ‘Every single sect and community in this cosmopolitan city was represented, and few more influential gatherings have been witnessed in Bombay.’ Among those present were high court judges, European civil servants and the city’s most prominent Parsis, Hindus and Muslims. The main speech was delivered by Sir Pherozeshah Mehta, who praised the returning hero’s courage, selflessness and patriotism. While they were proud of Mr Gandhi, said Sir Pherozeshah, they were prouder of Mrs Gandhi, for ‘standing shoulder-to-shoulder with him in the fight and in the sufferings and privations he was prepared to undergo’ in South Africa.18

  On 13 January, Gandhi attended a gathering hosted by the Bombay National Union, a less westernized group of activists and professionals. Here, Bal Gangadhar Tilak praised Gandhi for having ‘fought for the honour of India in a distant land’.19 Tilak was the foremost ‘Extremist’ leader of the Congress much as Gokhale was its foremost ‘Moderate’. Both factions had now temporarily united to praise the leader of the struggle in South Africa.

  There were more meetings in Bombay, of which two were especially significant. The first was hosted by the Gurjar Sabha, the representative body of the city’s Gujaratis. The proceedings were opened by the young lawyer-novelist K.M. Munshi, who called the gathering ‘a public expression of the feelings of reverence to and admiration for the greatest son of modern Gujarat’.20

  The main speech here was made by Muhammad Ali Jinnah. Some aspects of Jinnah’s career resembled Gandhi’s. Born in 1876, like Gandhi he was from Kathiawar; he had likewise studied law in London and sought to build a career at the Bombay Bar. In 1897 he was in correspondence with Gandhi in South Africa. The letters they exchanged are lost—they may have been about a legal partnership the two were hoping to build in Durban.21

  Jinnah eventually stayed on in Bombay, and built a successful practice. He became active in the Congress and simultaneously in the Muslim League (Jinnah was a Shia). An eloquent speaker in English, he was much in demand at public meetings. In 1909, still in his thirties, he was elected to the Imperial Legislative Council, an elite body of policymakers which had only sixty members from across India.22

  Jinnah had spoken several times in support of Gandhi’s struggle in the Transvaal. They were acquaintances rather than friends. Each knew of the other’s reputation. Even so, Jinnah must have had mixed feelings on hearing Gandhi being described as ‘the greatest son of modern Gujarat’. As a member of the Imperial Legislature, he enjoyed an exceptionally high status himself. In terms of proximity to power and authority, Jinnah would, in 1915, probably have counted as the most influential Gujarati alive.

  Jinnah’s speech to the Gurjar Sabha was carefully crafted. He praised Gandhi’s ‘strenuous and hard labour’ on behalf of the Indians in the diaspora, and ‘the trials, the sufferings [and] the sacrifices’ he had to undergo on their behalf. But he wondered if Gandhi’s return to India was not ‘a terrible loss to South Africa’. The condition of the community was still precarious, and with Gandhi’s departure, ‘there was nobody who could take his place and fight their battle’.

  The caveat stated, Jinnah welcomed the hero home, calling him a ‘worthy ornament’ to the nation-in-the-making. He then drew Gandhi’s attention to the relationship between their respective communities. Hindus and Muslims had
been ‘absolutely one, on the South African question’—the ‘first occasion’ on which they had stood so solidly together. The challenge now was to bring ‘that frame of mind’ to Hindu–Muslim relations within India itself. Jinnah asked Gandhi to pay special attention to this central problem: ‘namely, how to bring about unanimity and co-operation between the two communities so that the demands of India may be made absolutely unanimously’.23

  Jinnah had spoken in English. Gandhi made a brief reply, in Gujarati. That a Muslim had been the main speaker in a meeting dominated by Hindus was for Gandhi a happy augury. Now that he was back, he would first ‘study all the Indian questions and then enter upon the service of the country’.24

  The last meeting for the returnees was composed exclusively of women. Its guest of honour was Kasturba Gandhi. A 1000-strong crowd heard speeches in praise of Kasturba by two wives of Parsi knight-millionaires, the widow of the reformer M.G. Ranade, and a representative of the famous Tyabji family. A printed tribute, presented in a silver casket, spoke of Kasturba’s ‘rare qualities of courage, devotion and self-sacrifice [which] had so signally justified and fulfilled the high traditions of Indian womanhood’.

  Unlike her husband, Kasturba was unused to public speaking. Her speech was brief but graceful. She thanked ‘the women of this great and historic city’ for their generosity. She said the honour being accorded to her was really due to the Indian women of South Africa, ‘some of whom had even died in jail’.25

  VII

  After a week in Bombay, the Gandhis proceeded to their native Kathiawar. On 17 January they reached Rajkot, where Gandhi had gone to high school and where the couple had spent their early married years. The reception at Rajkot, wrote one observer, ‘crossed all limits. A pandal was erected at the station. The coaches and engine were decorated with flowers.’ After the Gandhis disembarked from the train, they were taken in a horse-driven carriage through the town, cheered by the large crowd that lined the streets.26

  The Gandhis then proceeded to Porbandar, where both of them were born. Gandhi’s father and grandfather had served as diwans of the state. The residents of Porbandar had closely followed his struggle in South Africa, and raised money for it. Now, streets were decorated with arches, and homes with colourful banners. Schools and colleges were closed for the day. The car carrying the returning couple was preceded by horsemen of the state’s cavalry, and followed by a contingent of the infantry and the military band. Even the ruler came out of his palace to watch the show.

  The next day, a crowd in excess of 5000 (including many women) heard a local merchant speak of the simplicity of their home-town hero. The shawl Gandhi was wearing perhaps cost two rupees, he said, but due to wear and tear it was now worth less than two annas. However, since it had been worn by Mohandas Gandhi, he would pay 100 rupees for it. Gandhi handed over the shawl and asked the merchant to donate the money to charity.

  After depositing Kasturba in Rajkot, Gandhi proceeded to Ahmedabad, the largest city in the region, and under direct British rule. At a well-attended public meeting, Gandhi thanked Ahmedabad for having provided some of the best satyagrahis for his struggle in South Africa. He wished, if the citizens would accommodate him, to make the city his base in India.27

  In the first week of February, Gandhi travelled to Poona to meet Gokhale. His mentor was welcoming, but the other members of the Servants of India Society were discomfited by his presence. As Gandhi recalled: ‘There was a difference between my ideals and methods of work, and theirs.’ He was unhappy with the dependence of the Servants on servants for their cooking, cleaning and washing; Gandhi, by contrast, preferred to perform these tasks himself.

  Gandhi told Gokhale he hoped to settle down in Gujarat, where he would start an ashram on the model of Phoenix, the settlement he had established in South Africa. The older man promised to raise money to support the initiative. As for the Servants of India Society, said Gokhale, ‘whether you are formally admitted as a member or not, I am going to look upon you as one’.28

  Gandhi and Kasturba now travelled across the subcontinent to Bengal. C.F. Andrews had asked him to visit Santiniketan, the rural settlement established by the poet Rabindranath Tagore, who, two years previously, had become the first Asian to win a Nobel Prize. Tagore was not at home when the Gandhis arrived. Gandhi had hoped to stay several weeks in Santiniketan, but news reached him that Gokhale had died in Poona. At a spontaneous memorial meeting in Santiniketan, Gandhi spoke movingly of his mentor. He praised Gokhale’s contributions to politics and social reform, his ‘fearlessness’, ‘zest’, ‘truthfulness’, ‘thoroughness’, and his ‘love and reverence’ for the motherland. ‘I was in quest of a really truthful hero in India,’ said Gandhi, ‘and I found him in Gokhale.’29

  Gandhi retraced his steps westward, reaching his mentor’s home town on 22 February. Arriving in Poona on the same train as Gandhi was the Madras scholar V.S. Srinivasa Sastri, an active member of the Servants of India Society. Sastri and Gandhi were born in the same year, 1869, and both were devoted to Gokhale. There the similarities ended. Sastri was Brahminical in both the good and bad senses of the term: deeply learned in the scriptures, but entirely dependent on the labour of others for his sustenance. As a constitutionalist, he abhorred Gandhi’s use—in South Africa—of strikes, fasts and boycotts to make his case.30

  An entry in Sastri’s diary for 27 February reads:

  At night there was a meeting with Gandhi and a scene.

  Spoke up for Society but rather warmly.

  Hariji figured well, remarkably so and struck out the phrase ‘moral intoxication’.

  H.N. Apte too did well. Poor Gandhi—he sat like a man rebuked.31

  There are no recorded minutes of the meeting. A police report claimed that Gandhi and the society had fallen out because of their ‘different’ and ‘irreconcilable’ ideals. Gandhi, inspired by Tolstoy, wanted to found a rural community ‘where the youth of India will be taught the dignity of manual labour’. The society, on the other hand, wished its members to ‘take part in every movement of modern life, educational, political and economic’. Noting the lack of support for his views, Gandhi withdrew his membership application.32

  C.F. Andrews had warned Gokhale that Gandhi might find the methods of the Servants of India Society confining. So it turned out. Later in 1915, V.S. Srinivasa Sastri succeeded Gokhale as the society’s president.

  VIII

  Gandhi now returned to Santiniketan, to spend a few days with Tagore and Andrews. The residents of Santiniketan had been told beforehand about Gandhi’s capacity for hard physical work. He lived up to this image, telling the students of Tagore’s school that they should dispense with paid cooks and do all the cooking and cleaning themselves.33

  Gandhi’s next stop was Rangoon, where his close friend and patron Pranjivan Mehta was based. A prosperous jeweller, Mehta had been a fellow student with Gandhi in London, had financially supported his work in South Africa, and was the first person to call him ‘Mahatma’.

  Pranjivan Mehta had long wanted Gandhi to leave South Africa for India. Mehta believed Gandhi needed a larger theatre for his work; and the motherland needed him. Now, having turned his back on the Servants of India Society, Gandhi wished to consult Mehta about what direction his work might take.34

  From Rangoon, Gandhi took a boat to Calcutta before journeying northward to the holy town of Haridwar, on the banks of the Ganga. He arrived at the time of the Kumbh Mela, ostensibly a great show of faith, yet with ‘very little goodness on display’. The akhadas of the sadhus—crowded, unkempt, reeking of marijuana—disappointed him. He was more impressed by the Gurukul Kangri, a school set up by a visionary preacher and friend of C.F. Andrews named Swami Shraddhananda.35

  After a week in Haridwar, Gandhi proceeded to Delhi, where he spoke at an institution where Andrews had taught, St Stephen’s College. He refused to offer the students advice on Indian probl
ems, since Gokhale had told him to first spend a year acquainting himself with a country that he, at this time, scarcely knew. Addressing an audience of Hindu and Muslim students in a Christian college, he focused on his mentor’s ecumenism. Gokhale, said Gandhi,

  was a Hindu, but of the right type. A Hindu Sannyasi once came to him and made a proposal to push the Hindu political cause in a way which would suppress the Mahommedan and he pressed his proposal with many specious religious reasons. Mr. Gokhale replied to this person in the following words: ‘If to be a Hindu I must do as you wish me to do, please publish it abroad that I am not a Hindu.’36

  From Delhi, Gandhi travelled across the subcontinent to Madras, continuing his education into the habits and mores of his countrymen. In this city he was even more of a hero than in Bombay. A majority of those who went to prison in the South African satyagrahas had been Tamils. Some were women, which is why Kasturba accompanied him on this trip.

  When the train carrying the Gandhis reached Madras Central Station, a large crowd was waiting to receive them. They made for the first-class compartment, only to be directed by the guard to the back of the train, where they found their hero, ‘thin and emaciated’ after four days of continuous travel. The Gandhis ‘stepped out of a crowded third class [coach] with no posh travel trunks but bundles of old clothes, like a family of peasants’. With shouts of ‘Long Live Mr and Mrs Gandhi’, the admirers conducted the visitors to a waiting carriage, from which the horses had been unyoked. The coach was pulled through the streets, ‘being cheered all the way’.37

  Gandhi’s host in Madras was G.A. Natesan, editor of Indian Review. Natesan was an early admirer, raising money for Gandhi in South Africa, publishing pamphlets by and about him. Gandhi attended several receptions in his honour, variously organized by Gujarati, Christian and Muslim groups, with one all-embracing ecumenical party hosted by Natesan himself. At a meeting of the local Social Service League, Gandhi gently criticized the orthodoxy of the Madrasi Hindu. He himself approved of Panchama (Untouchable) and high-caste students studying together, insisting that ‘neither the Panchama boys nor the caste boys would be prejudicially affected in any way’.