In the twenty-odd years since Gandhi emerged as the nation’s leader, continued Bose, Indians had ‘learnt national self-respect and self-confidence’. They had also ‘now got a country-wide organisation representing the whole nation’. The ‘service which Mahatma Gandhi has rendered to India and to the cause of India’s freedom’, said Bose, ‘is so unique and unparalleled that his name will be written in letters of gold in our National History—for all time’.
Subhas Bose ended his radio address with these words: ‘Mahatma Gandhi has firmly planted our feet on the straight road to liberty. He and other leaders are now rotting behind the prison bars. The task that Mahatma Gandhi began has, therefore, to be accompanied by his countrymen—at home and abroad.’14
Bose did not overstate Gandhi’s role in stoking Indian political consciousness. Yet, coming from him, the tribute was uncommonly generous. For, just four years previously, Gandhi had forced Bose out of the Congress presidency and out of the party itself. Now Bose had, in the larger interest of India’s freedom, set aside those old quarrels, and handsomely praised Gandhi for consolidating a diverse and divided population into a nation-in-the-making.
In his speeches on Azad Hind Radio, Subhas Bose referred to Gandhi as the ‘Father of the Nation’. This seems to be the first time Gandhi was called this. The usage soon became ubiquitous.
IV
Towards the end of 1943, Kasturba Gandhi’s health began to deteriorate. In December, she had two mild heart attacks. She had difficulty breathing, and was now, more or less, confined to bed.
Devadas Gandhi rushed to Poona from Delhi to visit his mother. Afterwards he wrote to his father-in-law (Rajaji) that Kasturba was ‘bedridden with breathlessness and a heart which has little vitality left now….Bapu takes a serious and fatalistic view of Ba’s condition and she herself is in great despair…But I was glad to see Bapu in fairly good health. His smack of my back had more than the usual punch.’15
In early January, Gandhi wrote to the jail superintendent that his wife ‘has got into very low spirits. She despairs of life, and is looking forward to death to deliver her. If she rallies on one day, more often than not she is worse on the next.’ He asked that she be allowed to see her relatives more often, as this ‘may give her some peace’. In particular, he asked that their nephew Kanu Gandhi, both an expert nurse and an accomplished singer, be allowed to stay with them in prison. If that was not possible, he hoped that Kanu could at least visit daily and sing some bhajans for his aunt.16
The government allowed Kanu Gandhi to visit every day, and also permitted Kasturba’s sons to come from time to time. While Devadas and Ramdas came often, Harilal’s visits were rationed by the government. The government thought Harilal was ‘an irresponsible man’, and would leak out the security details of the palace. When Gandhi heard this, he laughed and said: ‘Perhaps [the Government thinks] I may take advantage of Harilal’s weakness and ask him to do something [illegal] for me.’17
Later in January, the patient asked for Kanu Gandhi to attend on her day and night. The permission was refused on the grounds that while ‘the request for Kanu Gandhi might be perfectly genuine, Mr. Gandhi regards it as merely a thin end of the wedge, and proposes to ask for more favours’.18
The high officials of the Raj intensely disliked Gandhi. With Kasturba on her deathbed, they struggled to balance elementary humanity with their hatred for her husband. With the war against the Japanese entering its climactic phase, they were more prone than ever to regard him as a mortal enemy.
Passed on the correspondence, the home member of the viceroy’s executive Council, R.M. Maxwell, said that, if more help was needed, the Bombay government should provide professional nurses. ‘I do not know,’ commented Maxwell angrily, ‘why it is assumed that anyone connected with the Gandhi family is so sacred that they can only be nursed by Congressites.’19 However, after Kasturba had another heart attack in the last week of January, Kanu was allowed to move into the palace prison.
A series of articles appeared in the Indian press urging the government to release Kasturba. One newspaper wrote sarcastically that, while in London, the authorities had released the Fascist Oswald Mosley, ‘Britain’s Enemy Number 1’, they would not release this old lady, perhaps believing that doing so ‘would bring a catastrophe to the rule of “law and order” in India’. Another newspaper likewise remarked that while ‘frail, weak, old Kasturba loved by millions of Indian people is good where she is’ (in jail), ‘the fat, strong Oswald Mosley hated by all people, suffering from slight indisposition was not good in detention and had to be released’.20
On 5 February, Devadas Gandhi met the senior home department official R. Tottenham in Delhi, and asked him to have Kasturba released from prison, and allow her to move to Sevagram or Delhi, since ‘the change of air or scene might be good for her’. Devadas’s proposal was endorsed by H.V.R. Iyengar of the Bombay government, who thought it possible that ‘freedom will give her [Kasturba] happier psychological environments and make her last days easier’. The Indian ICS man made a ‘radical’ proposal, which was to release Kasturba, let Gandhi out on parole, and allow both to stay in Lady Thackersey’s bungalow in Poona, on the condition that Gandhi did not leave its premises, stayed away from political discussions, and gave no interviews.
Tottenham rejected Iyengar’s proposal, since it would, from the government’s point of view, ‘give rise to far too many complications. Mrs Gandhi might live for many months yet; parole [for Gandhi] might have to be indefinitely extended; Lady Thackersey’s bungalow might become a centre of attraction to an extent to which even she might object; and even if Mr. Gandhi did not agree to talk politics, it is difficult to give that word a precise definition and anyhow he would be continually in the public eye.’21
As Kasturba’s condition further deteriorated, her three sons in India—Devadas, Ramdas and Harilal—came to see her every day. (Manilal was in South Africa.) Kanu Gandhi gave massages and sang bhajans for her. In the first week of February, the Bombay government, as advised by the prison authorities, ordered three oxygen cylinders and sent them to Poona for Kasturba’s use.22
The physician in charge of Kasturba was Dr M.D. Gilder, an old Congressman jailed for supporting the Quit India movement. An Ayurvedic physician from Lahore had come to Poona as well. He stayed at the Thackersey mansion, Parnakuti, and visited the Aga Khan Palace during the day. Gandhi’s old and trusted naturopath, Dinshaw Mehta, was also attending on Kasturba twice daily, giving enemas and massages to help her sleep better.
These treatments gave some relief but then, in the third week of March, Kasturba came down with pneumonia. Gandhi now agreed to go back to allopathic treatment. Dr Gilder asked whether the government could procure the new wonder drug, penicillin, for Kasturba. The Bombay government made inquiries, and were told that only the military had stocks. The British Army had exhausted their supplies, so a request was made to the American Army’s headquarters in India. The Americans located some stocks in Calcutta and agreed to fly them to Poona.23
V
As Kasturba’s health began to fade perceptibly, Sushila Nayar began maintaining a daily, hourly diary on her health, as she had done during Gandhi’s 1943 fast. This diary was in Hindi, not English—in keeping both with the linguistic preferences of the doctor and the special relationship she had with her patient. Sushila’s entries record the physical suffering and the emotional restlessness of this elderly woman prisoner. At 5.10 a.m. on 18 February, Sushila wrote of Kasturba: ‘Chathi mein dard honé laga. Bhitar jalan si honé lagi.’ (The chest pained; the insides burnt.) Five hours later she noted: ‘Bechaini rahi’ (the restlessness remained). Kasturba dozed off briefly in the afternoon, but at 3.20 p.m. her devoted doctor-attendant noted: ‘Khansi aane sé neend tooti’ (a coughing fit woke her up). For the rest of the night, her sleep was interrupted at regular intervals.
Through the 19th, Kasturba was restless. She slept fitfully thro
ugh the day, alternately mumbling to herself and dozing. To still her coughing, she was given doses of the bronchodilators deriphyllin and ephedrine. Her last hours were approaching, and Gandhi had been reconciled to making them as painless as possible, even if this meant departing from the natural methods he had so often advocated and practised.
The next morning, Kasturba was calmed by the singing of her husband’s favourite Ramdhun. She was taken into the veranda and into the garden, which pleased and further calmed her. But in the evening the sense of agitation (bechaini) returned.
That night, at 10.45, Sushila administered her ‘neend ka dawa’, a sleeping pill, though the diaries do not record which one, and whether it was made from synthesized Western chemicals or organic native herbs. A chest massage was also administered. For two hours, she fell into ‘gehri neend’ (deep sleep). But in the early hours of the morning, once more the restlessness returned. A great weakness (bahut kamzori) manifested itself. She complained of a burning stomach (pet mé jalan) and of pain in the liver. Sushila pressed a wet cloth gently on the aching parts. But an hour later, it was reported that ‘bechaini kaafi rahi’ (the restlessness remained). The head also ached. Now a handkerchief soaked in cologne water was placed on her head. Gandhi came and sat next to her, and she calmed down again.
On the 21st, Kasturba coughed badly during the day. At 1.30 in the afternoon, she was put on an oxygen cylinder. Two hours later, asthmatic pills were also administered. Gandhi stayed close to her throughout. The entry for 4.30 to 5 p.m. is bilingual: ‘Bechaini. Excitement over Harilal Bhai. [Her eldest, long-estranged son, who had come to see her, apparently in a drunken state.]’
At 7.45 p.m., Sushila gave Kasturba a cup of hot Horlicks, followed by an injection of deriphyllin. She slept, and wetted her bed. Sushila changed her clothes and the sheets without her waking up. At 1.30 in the morning of the 22nd, Kasturba woke up, complaining of ‘sirr mé chakkar’ (a whirling head). Then she dozed off again. At 3.45 a.m., M.D. Gilder checked Kasturba’s pulse. At 6.30 a.m. her husband came to see her. That calmed Kasturba, and for three hours she had a spell of peaceful rest. By noon, she was once more overcome by a great weakness. By now, she was too far gone to be revived, whether by pills or the presence of her husband and sons. The last page of Sushila Nayar’s diaries has this entry for the afternoon of 22 February 1944: ‘Swashtya jaada bigad gaya tha’—her health had deteriorated massively.24
Devadas Gandhi had reached Poona on the 21st evening to find his mother in a ‘semi-conscious’ state. She seemed ‘greatly comforted’ when her husband came and attended on her for an hour. The next morning she refused her medicines, but opened her mouth for a drop of Ganga water. At 3 p.m., she called for Devadas and told him, ‘I must go some day, why not today?’ She then joined her hands in prayer, her words translated from the Gujarati by her youngest son as ‘God, my refuge, thy mercy I crave.’
At about 5 p.m. on the 22nd, word came that the penicillin had finally arrived. Was it now too late or too dangerous to inject her with the drug? Devadas was in favour of the injections, but Gandhi was not. ‘You can’t cure your mother whatever wonder-drugs you may muster,’ he told his youngest son, ‘I will yield to you if you insist….[But] remember you are seeking to cause physical pain by an injection every four or six hours to a dying mother.’
Gandhi then turned to Sushila. ‘Are you and Dr. Gilder sure that it should be given?’ he asked. ‘Are you sure it will help her?’ Sushila later recalled how she felt at being asked the question directly: ‘I could not say yes. Ba’s condition was so grave that we could not be very sure that it would help her….I was sorry that we could not try penicillin, which might have helped her. I was also somewhat relieved, as the prospect of giving her repeated injections had not been very pleasant.’
So the injections were not given. Later that evening, Kasturba called for Gandhi. He leaned her against his shoulder and sought to comfort her. Shortly afterwards, she passed away.25
VI
The day after Kasturba died, all shops and businesses closed as a mark of respect for her memory in Bombay, Ahmedabad, Surat, Broach, Miraj, Nasik, Jabalpur and other towns. Condolence meetings were held in many parts of India, organized by schools, colleges, merchants’ associations, and a range of political parties, from the Communist Party of India on the left to the Hindu Mahasabha on the right. There were also meetings in her memory in Durban and in Johannesburg, where 5000 pounds was raised on the spot, to commemorate her life and spirit in the form of a girls’ school in the Phoenix Settlement.26
On 24 February, Kasturba’s body was cremated in the grounds of the palace. The next day, Devadas collected her ashes to immerse in the Ganga in Allahabad, for, as Gandhi told him, ‘what crores of Hindus do as a sacrament is what would please your mother’.
Devadas ended his essay on his mother’s last days by describing what they had meant to his father:
He was looking obviously fagged. He grieves over this tragic gap which has come into his life, for she in large measure is responsible for what he is to-day. But he maintains a philosophic calm…The atmosphere around him was one of sadness without gloom and when my brothers and I parted company with the camp on Friday [the 25th], he cracked his customary jokes as a substitute for tears.27
Gandhi and Kasturba had been married for sixty years. They had made homes together in Rajkot, Durban, Johannesburg, Bombay, Ahmedabad and Wardha. They had raised four children together. Their own relationship had passed through many phases, from Gandhi seeing her as an object of his lust, to demanding that she follow him blindly in his activist and personal choices, to a maturing accommodation where they came to respect and love one another—this companionship briefly interrupted by the Saraladevi episode, now well in the past.
As with Mahadev, with Kasturba too hundreds of messages of sympathy came pouring in for Gandhi—though it is not clear whether he was shown them at the time. These condolences came from, among others, many district Congress committees; the staff and students of numerous schools and colleges across India; merchants’ bodies; trade unions; youth associations. The Harijans of Vizag district condoled the ‘model mahila’s expiration’; the Pan Cigarettes Shopkeepers Union of Lahore expressed ‘great sorrow of death of Mata Kasturba’ (which was generous, since her husband so strongly disapproved of the goods they sold); the Cloth Merchants Association of Chakwal hoped that ‘mother’s tragic death may terminate the period of slavery’; the Kathiawar Political Conference, Wadhawan, called Kasturba the ‘embodiment of self-effacement [and] pure service’, adding that ‘she met nobler death as prisoner of war’; the All India Momin Conference (representing millions of lower-caste Muslims) said Kasturba’s death was a ‘stunning blow’ to their community as well as to the ‘entire humanity’.
As with Mahadev, the grief felt was spontaneous and widespread, coming from different castes and communities, and all over the subcontinent. This was an indirect tribute to Gandhi, to his cross-class and pan-Indian appeal, so that in his loss his compatriots could, burying past and present differences, unite to console him.
There were also messages from outside India. The Muslim and Tamil communities of Galle (who had seen Kasturba on her visit to Ceylon with Gandhi in 1928) sent a wire, as did the Cape Indian Congress; the Transvaal Indian Congress; the Indian communities of dozens of towns in South Africa, and some in East Africa and New Zealand too.
An astonishing number of associations in Ahmedabad—home to Kasturba between 1915 and 1934—wrote letters, reflecting the social diversity of the city, here united in tribute: the staff and students of the H.L. Commerce College and the S.L.D. Arts College; the Chawl Owners Association; the Ahmedabad Share and Stock Brokers Association; the Mahagujarat Dalit Harijan Samaj (saying that ‘Harijans mourning this irreparable loss as if they have lost their own mother’); the Gujarat Committee of the Communist Party of India; and many more.
The individuals who w
rote in included the veteran social worker Hridyanath Kunzru, for whom Kasturba ‘typified in herself the highest ideals of Indian womanhood’; a Bombay palmist and astrologer named M.S. Rao, for whom Kasturba’s ‘death has caused a shadow of sorrow in every Indian Home and coming as it does so soon after Mahadeva Desai’s death, the blow is too great for words to describe’; the photographer Umrao Singh Sher-Gil, who had lost his own gifted painter-daughter, Amrita Sher-Gil, some years previously, and now hoped that Gandhi, with his ‘real spiritual outlook’, would ‘be able to bear it with greater equanimity than people like us can bear our sorrows’. A letter from the Poona writer and nationalist S.L. Karandikar acutely observed that while Gandhi himself was ‘the support of millions’, Mahadev and Kasturba ‘were supports to you. Cruel death has snatched away both these supports! The highest degree of courage and patience would be required to struggle with the sense of bereavement. I earnestly pray to God that He should give you both on this occasion as He has done on many an occasion before.’28
Condolence messages also came from the former British Prime Minister David Lloyd George; the former Viceroy Lord Irwin (now Lord Halifax); the Archbishop of Canterbury—showing that (select) sections of the British establishment still retained the common courtesies despite the deep rift between Gandhi and themselves.
So far as one can tell, there were no messages of condolence from Linlithgow, Ambedkar, Savarkar or Jinnah. However, the Muslim League’s newspaper published an affecting tribute to Kasturba, praising her ‘silent, uncomplaining heroism’ in keeping faith with Gandhi’s radical personal and political choices, with the cults that surrounded him and his own ‘inner voice’, with the ‘extraordinary courses of action’ he would periodically embark upon. ‘For any woman,’ wrote Dawn, ‘to watch by the side of a husband undertaking prolonged fasts, sometimes according to capacity, sometimes unto death, must be a harrowing ordeal, but she endured all…’29
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