The last village where Gandhi stayed in Noakhali was named Haimchar. Before he left the hamlet, and the district, he was visited by the popular and charismatic Bengali politician, A.K. Fazlul Huq. Back in the 1920s, Fazlul Huq had been a Congressman, as well as a member of the Muslim League, a dual affiliation not uncommon at the time. Later, he formed his own Krishak Praja Party, becoming prime minister of Bengal between 1937 and 1943. For much of this period, he was in alliance with the Muslim League; he had even been chosen by Jinnah to move the ‘Pakistan Resolution’ in Lahore in March 1940.
Huq later broke with the Muslim League (and with Jinnah). Huq thought Jinnah did not adequately recognize the place and importance of Bengali Muslims, seeking only to consolidate his position among the Muslims of North and West India.15 The elections of 1946 brought a League government to power in Bengal, and Huq’s rival, Suhrawardy, became chief minister. Out of power, Huq continued to command a large following in Bengal.
Fazlul Huq came to meet Gandhi in Haimchar on 2 March. Huq’s next stop was the town of Mymensingh, where he spoke to the local bar association. After characterizing Gandhi’s work in East Bengal as ‘really praiseworthy’, Huq ‘announced his intention to spend the rest of his life in preaching goodwill among Hindus and Muslims just as Mr. Gandhi was doing’. This, he added, ‘would make Bengal really happy and prosperous’.16
That the mover of the Pakistan Resolution was now speaking of how Hindus and Muslims could and must live together represented a major change of heart. Or perhaps of tactics, for one does not know how much Huq was moved by Gandhi’s mission, how much by his own political compulsions. Even so, that Fazlul Huq now spoke as he did counted as a moral triumph for Gandhi.
IV
Gandhi reached Bihar’s capital, Patna, on 5 March. He met government ministers, and also Muslim refugees. In a speech the same day, he said, ‘Bihar has sullied the fair name of India.’ He felt embarrassed, or even ashamed, of his party as well as his country, for ‘any sin committed by India comes to the door of the Congress’. This assertion was at once problematic and admirable; an increasing number of Indians no longer felt that the Congress represented them, yet for Gandhi the emotional equation, Congress=India, still held, so in his eyes, crimes committed by one set of Indians on another had still to be redeemed by his party alone.
Gandhi spent three weeks in Bihar. Some days, he stayed in Patna as a stream of Muslim refugees came to him and narrated their woes; on other days, he travelled through the countryside to see the devastation the riots had left in their wake. He saw Muslim homes burnt, mosques vandalized, the looms of Muslim weavers destroyed. His speeches at prayer meetings mixed sorrow with anger. When he had first heard of the loot and murder, he remarked, ‘I thought the version was greatly exaggerated. I did not believe that man could be so depraved or that Biharis could stoop so low. But today I witnessed it with my own eyes. When Muslims fled you either looted their property or destroyed it. They had not harmed you in any way.’
Gandhi conceded ‘that the Muslims behaved very viciously in Calcutta and Noakhali. But how can that be avenged in Bihar?’ Amidst the carnage, he took solace in the residents of a village named Bir, who had formed a peace committee and ensured that ‘Hindus and Muslims lived like brothers despite the prevailing lawlessness’. Gandhi asked Hindus in Bihar to rebuild Muslim homes, clean up village streets and sink new wells, for then, and then only, would the Muslims trust them enough to return from the camps.17
Gandhi had hesitated for a long time in coming to Bihar, thinking he was needed more in Noakhali. But, he now told Satis Chandra Dasgupta, ‘I see how vitally necessary it was for me to come.’18 He had to rebuke the Hindus here as he had rebuked the Muslims there, to seek security for the Muslims here as he had done for the Hindus there. For, as he told a meeting in the town of Jehanabad, ‘to me the sins of the Noakhali Muslims and the Bihar Hindus are of the same magnitude and equally condemnable’.19
V
Gandhi’s grand-niece, Manu, was also with him in Bihar. But his experiments in the practice of brahmacharya had ceased. As he wrote to Vinoba Bhave: ‘Nowadays Manu does not sleep in my bed. It is her own wish and is due to a pathetic letter from [Thakkar] Bapa.’20
The experiment had been stalled, but Gandhi was not sure it was misplaced in the first place. Writing to his disciple Amrit Kaur, he said that despite the criticisms of some of his closest co-workers,
you will have no difficulty in accepting at its face value my statement that not one of our company knows the full value and implications of brahmacharya, and that among these ignoramuses I am the least ignorant and the most experienced. With one solitary exception I have never looked upon a woman with a lustful eye. I have touched perhaps thousands upon thousands. But my touch has never carried the meaning of lustfulness. I have lain with some naked, never with the intention of having any lustful satisfaction. My touch has been for our mutual uplift. I would like those who have felt otherwise, if there are any, truly to testify against me. Even the one solitary instance referred to by me was never with the intention of despoiling her. Nevertheless my confession stands that in that case my touch had lustfulness about it. I was carried away in spite of myself and but for God’s intervention I might have become a wreck.
The ‘solitary exception’, of course, was Saraladevi Chaudhurani, with whom Gandhi’s relations were, for a brief, intense period, shot through with (in the end unconsummated) passion.
Gandhi’s letter to Amrit Kaur continued:
My meaning of brahmacharya is this:
One who never has any lustful intention, who by constant attendance upon God has become proof against conscious or unconscious emissions, who is capable of lying naked with naked women, however beautiful they may be, without being in any manner whatsoever sexually excited. Such a person should be incapable of lying, incapable of intending or doing harm to a single man or woman in the whole world, is free from anger and malice and detached in the sense of the Bhagavadgita. Such a person is a full brahmachari. Brahmachari literally means a person who is making daily and steady progress towards God and whose every act is done in pursuance of that end and no other.21
Let us give the last word to the anthropologist Nirmal Kumar Bose, an admirer (not disciple), a scholar (not ideologue), who was with the great man when he conducted the strangest of all his experiments. Of Gandhi’s obsession with brahmacharya, Bose wrote to a friend that ‘from a serious study of Gandhiji’s writings I had formed the opinion, which was not perhaps unjustified, that he represented a hard, puritanic[al] form of self-discipline, something which we usually associate with medieval Christian ascetics or Jain recluses’.
Bose also knew that many of Gandhi’s disciples had ‘a kind of emotional unbalance’; some even ‘regarded Gandhiji as their private possession’. When Bose first heard of Gandhi’s most recent prayog, or experiment, he was ‘genuinely surprised’. It seemed an extreme (Bose did not, but could have said, ‘unbalanced’) form of self-trial; and a blind devotion on the part of those who participated in it. ‘Personally, I would never tempt myself like that,’ remarked Bose, adding: ‘Nor would my respect for women’s personality permit me to treat her as an instrument of an experiment only for my own sake.’
‘Whatever may be the value of the prayog in Gandhiji’s own case,’ wrote Bose, ‘it does leave a mark of injury on the personality of others who are not of the same moral stature as he himself is, and for whom sharing in Gandhiji’s experiment is no spiritual necessity.’22
When he wrote this, Bose may not have known that (if we are to believe Gandhi) the experiment was at least in part a product of Manu’s own need to be seen as sexually pure. Even if that were so, the asymmetry in age, familial relationship, and social power, meant that it was to some extent forced on the young girl for whom, as Bose put it, the experiment was ‘no spiritual necessity’.
Had Kasturba been aroun
d, she would have taken care of Manu in the ashram while Gandhi was on the road. Had Mahadev Desai been around, he would have been with Gandhi, and quite conceivably argued him out of it. That Mahadev’s friend Narhari Parikh was disapproving adds to the weight of this speculation. Like Vallabhbhai Patel, Mahadev would have been keenly aware of the political fallout of a possible sensationalization of the experiments. But he might have seen them as spiritually unnecessary too.
Had he been with Gandhi in Bengal, C. Rajagopalachari would have also surely advised against the experiment. Rajaji had been instrumental in subverting Gandhi’s ‘spiritual marriage’ to Saraladevi, convincing him that it would hurt the nationalist cause. He might have made the same objection again, perhaps adding that such tests were unnecessary to prove one’s spiritual sincerity.
One can’t see Charlie Andrews endorsing the experiment either. In his confusion, Gandhi saw Horace Alexander as a proxy CFA, but Alexander was too young and too deferential towards Gandhi to challenge or question him. Facing his ideal of a united, harmonious India crumbling around him, and without Kasturba, Andrews and Mahadev to console or assist him, Gandhi sought to tame the (stark, manifest) violence without by taming the (probably non-existent) passions within.
CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
Independence and Division
I
Gandhi had wanted to stay longer in Bihar, and even undertake (as in Noakhali) a walking tour through the villages. But a new viceroy had now taken over in Delhi, and it was important for them to meet. Lord Mountbatten was as flamboyant as his predecessor was dour, as loquacious as Wavell was taciturn. A career naval officer, Mountbatten had been the supreme commander of the Allied Forces in South East Asia. He was also related to the British royal family, being the uncle of Prince Philip, who would shortly be engaged to be married to Princess—later Queen—Elizabeth.1
Mountbatten’s appointment as viceroy was preceded by a major declaration by the British prime minister, Clement Attlee. Speaking to the House of Commons on 20 February 1947, Attlee announced that the British would leave India not later than June 1948. They would put in place arrangements to hand over power to Indians so that they could—at last—realize their long-cherished dreams of self-government. Although Attlee did not spell out the details of how and to whom power would be transferred, the fixing of a definite deadline for the end of British rule was noteworthy.2
Mountbatten arrived in Delhi on 22 March. The same day, he wrote to Gandhi that he hoped ‘we shall be able to meet soon’. He understood that ‘it may be difficult for you to come to Delhi at once in view of your preoccupations in Bihar’, but asked that Gandhi come when he felt able to.3
Gandhi reached Delhi on 31 March, staying at the sweepers’ colony. The next day, he made the trek to the Viceregal Palace. Mountbatten asked Gandhi some questions about his early life, his education in London and his struggles in South Africa. The conversation then turned to the present. Gandhi made a startling suggestion—that the viceroy invite Jinnah to form a government at the Centre, to which the Congress would give full support. It is not clear when Gandhi thought up this idea—perhaps even as recently as on the train from Patna to Delhi. But it was clearly inspired (if that is the word) by the horrific communal violence he had witnessed in Bengal and Bihar. If the price of Hindu–Muslim harmony was a Muslim League government in Delhi headed by Muhammad Ali Jinnah, Gandhi was willing to pay it. But would the Congress agree? It appears that, at this stage, they had not even been consulted. This was Gandhi’s idea, and Gandhi’s alone.
Mountbatten asked Gandhi to put his proposal in writing. Gandhi drafted a one-page note, which suggested that Jinnah be asked to form a Cabinet, and appoint the ministers of his choosing. Despite having a majority in the Central Assembly, the Congress would cooperate with this ministry ‘freely and sincerely’, so long as its proposals and actions were ‘in the interests of the Indian people as a whole’, with—in case of a dispute—the ‘sole referee’ of what constituted the interests of India being Lord Mountbatten. As prime minister, Jinnah would be free to present for acceptance his scheme for Pakistan even before the formal transfer of power, provided he did so by appealing ‘to reason and not to the force of arms which he abjures for all time for this purpose’. Finally, Gandhi’s proposal asked that ‘if Mr. Jinnah rejects this offer, the same offer be made mutatis mutandis to Congress’.
Gandhi now took the proposal to the CWC. Nehru and Patel rejected it, as did all other members, except Ghaffar Khan, the Pathan whose commitment to non-violence and religious harmony was exceptional and exemplary. Gandhi conveyed the news back to Mountbatten.4
It is not clear whether the proposal was ever formally put to, or even informally discussed with, Jinnah himself. If it was, any attraction he may have felt for reasons of personal vanity would have vanished on considering the larger political implications. Could he trust Gandhi, and more importantly, the Congress Party? Would they not use their majority in the assembly to block or thwart him? By now, relations between the Congress and the League had broken down completely. The mutual hatred and animosity of recent years would have been hard, if not impossible, to put behind.
Gandhi’s proposal was a grand but futile gesture, admirable in theory but hopelessly unworkable in practice. On 6 April, Jinnah and his sister Fatima had come to dine at the Viceregal Palace. Afterwards, Lady Mountbatten wrote in her diary: ‘Two very clever and queer people…I rather liked them but found them fanatical on their Pakistan and quite impracticable.’5
II
In Delhi, Gandhi held daily prayer meetings as was his wont. These did not always go smoothly. One day, a young man objected to the reading of passages from the Koran. He came closer to Gandhi, shouting his dissent. Finally, he was removed from the premises, without Gandhi’s consent. He would have wished to listen to and answer his criticisms.
Communal violence had broken out in the Punjab, where a coalition ministry, of which the Congress was a part, had just collapsed. A partisan governor had hastily sworn in a Muslim League-minority government. This enraged the Congress, as well as the Sikhs and their militant leader, Master Tara Singh. On 4 March, while the assembly met, a large Muslim crowd gathered outside shouting pro-Pakistan slogans. Hindus and Sikhs led by Master Tara Singh shouted counter slogans. The police intervened to calm the situation.
The following week saw many demonstrations in the streets of Lahore, some for Pakistan, others against. Soon there were clashes between Hindus and Muslims, followed by police firing and curfews. The violence quickly spread into the countryside. The caretaker government resigned, the governor took charge of the administration—but the flames lit on the 2nd could not now be doused. The violence spread into the countryside, Hindus and Sikhs on the one side pitted against Muslims on the other. Both Punjabi Muslims and Punjabi Sikhs had fought in large numbers in the recent World War; often, the mobs were directed in the use of arms and arson by these ex-soldiers.6
Friends in the Punjab wrote asking Gandhi to come and calm tempers. Meanwhile, he continued to receive ‘doleful wires’ from Noakhali, suggesting ‘increasing lawlessness’ there.7 Eventually, Gandhi chose to return to Bihar. This may have been because while in Noakhali Muslims were the aggressors, and in the Punjab it was a three-way fight between Hindus, Muslims and Sikhs, in Bihar the majority of riot victims were Muslims, the majority of perpetrators, Hindu. And Gandhi thought that if he could tame and contain the violent elements in his own faith, he could make his mission more credible in the eyes of Muslims. As he put it in a speech in Patna on 15 April, ‘whatever may be the deterioration in the situation in the Punjab, Bengal and Sind, Hinduism will be saved if Bihar at any rate follows the right path. Even if the Muslims in the Punjab, Bengal and Sind harm the Hindus there, and if Bihar shows true courage in protecting and comforting Muslims and their children, Bihar will have raised India in the estimation of the world.’
Gandhi spent the second half of April in B
ihar, meeting ministers and refugees, and addressing public meetings. There was an occasional note of despair, as when he told an audience that ‘if you can carry my voice to Bihar Sharif [a town that had witnessed much violence], tell the Hindus there that they should not go on troubling an old man like me’.8
While he was in Patna, Gandhi received a long ‘Open Letter’ from a Hindu lawyer in Calcutta, accusing him of working for Muslim interests. Gandhi, he claimed, had advised Hindus to face death and Hindu women to take poison when attacked, but he daren’t advise Muslims similarly. ‘Is it your idea,’ asked the critic, ‘that all Hindus in Bengal will die, so that the flag of independence can be safely unfurled in Pakistan?’
The angry Hindu continued: ‘What have you done in Noakhali and Calcutta? You succeeded in winning the hearts of Hindu miscreants in Behar but did you win a single Muslim heart in Noakhali?…You are the cause of death and ruin of so many Hindus, who went back to their houses according to your advice. But you need not fast, as the Muslims will never repent for their misdeeds.’
Gandhi replied to the Bengali in hurt tones. He was ‘surprised’ that an educated solicitor could write such a letter. Had he studied the facts beforehand, he would have been ‘unable to prove me guilty under any of your many counts’. For, ‘whatever I am saying here to the Hindus, I said unequivocally to the Muslims of Noakhali’.9
Before he came to Bihar himself, Gandhi had sent a former major general of the Indian National Army, Shah Nawaz Khan. Shah Nawaz and six other INA men worked with Muslim refugees, rebuilding their homes and villages. Shah Nawaz ‘had been told by Mahatmaji that the success of our work in Bihar would have a good effect on the whole of India and might even be a cure against the poison of communalism which is destroying the country’. Some officials obstructed their work, but this stopped when Gandhi arrived. ‘Mahatmaji’s presence and speeches in Bihar,’ observed Shah Nawaz, ‘have had a good effect on the masses of Bihar. Their attitude with me was very cooperative. They were prepared to listen to Mahatmaji and make his work a real success.’10
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