The 15th of August was Independence Day. In cities across India, ran one report, ‘lusty crowds have burst the bottled-up frustrations of many years in an emotional mass jag. Mob sprees have rolled from mill districts to gold coasts and back again. Despite doubts about the truncated, diluted form of freedom descending on India, the happy, infectious celebrations blossomed in forgetfulness of the decades of sullen resentment against all that was symbolized by a sahib’s sun-topi.’34
One man who was not entirely pleased with Independence Day was Lord Mountbatten. He had hoped to continue as governor general of both the newly independent dominions, India and Pakistan. But while Nehru and Patel were happy to have Mountbatten stay on, Jinnah was determined that he would himself be head of state. Mountbatten now wrote bitterly to Stafford Cripps:
My private information is that Mr. Jinnah’s immediate followers are horrified at the line he has taken; and it seems almost incredible that a man’s megalomania should be so chronic as to cause him to throw away such material advantages to his own future Dominion for the sake of becoming ‘His Excellency’ some eight months earlier than he would in any case have assumed that title.
Jawaharlal Nehru is convinced of this view, but Vallabhbhai Patel ascribes more sinister motives to Mr. Jinnah and thinks that he wishes to set up a form of Fascist dictatorship with ultimate designs against the Dominion of India.35
In truth, this was a clash of two egomaniacs, Jinnah and Mountbatten. The latter felt cheated that, after 15 August, he would be governor general of merely one of the Raj’s successor states, not both. Someone who had more (substantial) reason not to see this day as one of joy or triumph was, of course, Gandhi. He was devastated that the freedom for which he had so long struggled had resulted in two nations, not one, these formed against a backdrop of bloody violence. On 10 August, when the new chief minister of West Bengal, Dr P.C. Ghosh, asked him how the 15th should be celebrated, Gandhi answered that it should be spent praying, fasting, and at the spinning wheel. ‘What else could they do,’ he remarked, ‘when all around the country was burning, when people were dying from lack of food and clothing?’36
But when the day came, Gandhi was slightly less depressed. For, in Calcutta on 15 August, the violence miraculously stopped. Muslims and Hindus together flew the tricolour, together shouted patriotic slogans. Gandhi was, inevitably, reminded of Khilafat days.
At hand, to see and record the violence slowly ebb away and finally end, was Horace Alexander. In Calcutta on the 15th, he wrote: ‘The fears and enmities of yesterday seemed to have vanished like a black cloud or a hideous nightmare. The dawn of freedom was also the dawn of goodwill. Freedom and peace had kissed each other. Hindus and Muslims crowded into lorries together, waved the new tricolour flags and shouted “Jai Hind” all over the city. In “Bustees”, where for months people had not dared to cross a road separating one community from the other, and where the women had kept indoors, men and women were fraternising.’
What explained this transformation? As Alexander saw it,
the change from fear and dread to joy and peace was so sudden as to seem spontaneous. Probably the truth is that the common people were all longing for peace and reconciliation. But someone had to touch the hidden spring. Only a great soul could do that. The Mahatma’s decision to take Suhrawardy into close and affectionate partnership was the symbolic act that touched the spring. But he knows better than any man that the work of reconciliation is only just begun. The partners must strive day by day to consolidate the ground they have won.37
The new governor of West Bengal, C. Rajagopalachari, told the city’s Rotary Club that ‘Mahatma Gandhi has achieved many things in his lifetime, but I do not think he has achieved anything so great, so grand, as he has achieved in Calcutta’.38
VII
As Hindus and Muslims were fraternizing in Calcutta, a reconciliation of a different kind was being effected in New Delhi. When, on 15 August, Jawaharlal Nehru handed over the list of Cabinet ministers in his new government to the viceroy, it included the name of B.R. Ambedkar, as law minister. This bitter, long-standing opponent of the Congress had been inducted into a Congress-led government. How did this happen?
After his party’s rout in the 1946 elections, Ambedkar had sought to mend fences with the Congress. He had long talks with Vallabhbhai Patel in July/August, but these finally broke down. Then, while in London in November 1946, he had indicated to mutual friends that he would like to be reconciled with the Congress, asking, however, that the first approach be made by Gandhi.
Through the winter of 1946–47, Ambedkar saw himself increasingly isolated from the political process. Independence was imminent; the British were soon to depart India for ever. What then would be his political future? In the second week of February 1947, the writer Kanji Dwarkadas met Ambedkar in Bombay. He found him ‘for a very strong centre’, and also ‘very anti-Jinnah [and the] Muslim League stand’. Ambedkar told Dwarkadas that ‘in spite of all the differences with the Congress, he was a nationalist first and would not behave as Jinnah is behaving. I found that he was willing to come to terms with the [Congress] high command and I think very soon the Congress and Dr Ambedkar and his party will make common cause.’39
In the Constituent Assembly, Ambedkar met and spoke with many Congress members. One of them was Rajkumari Amrit Kaur. In the middle of April, Amrit Kaur wrote to Gandhi that she has ‘seen a good deal of Dr. Ambedkar during the fortnight[ly] sittings of the Fundamental Rights Committee. He has been very reasonable in these sittings.’
On 15 April, Ambedkar sent a message through the economist K.T. Shah, saying he wanted to talk privately with Amrit Kaur. They had a long meeting, the gist of which she now passed on to Gandhi. Ambedkar told her that he ‘would like to come to an agreement with Congress’. He said his party’s minimum demand was for separate electorates, with the present reservation of seats in the legislatures. Amrit Kaur then ‘pleaded with him for joint electorates with no reservations now that untouchability is going to be abolished by law. In the second instance, as second best, I pleaded for joint electorates with reservation of seats. His plea is that the recent elections have proved that the Hindu vote overwhelms the Sch[eduled] Caste vote & the true representatives of the latter don’t come to the top.’
Amrit Kaur conveyed her conversations with Ambedkar to Nehru, Rajaji and Kripalani. Patel was out of town. She now asked Gandhi: ‘What is your reaction? Please let me know as I am on the Minorities Committee. What would be the maximum you would concede to him? He wants the concession for 20–25 years at the most. If he doesn’t get his way he says he will have to walk out.’40
Gandhi replied to Amrit Kaur’s letter that he was ‘quite clear that Dr. Ambedkar’s demands cannot be conceded’. Gandhi held to his position that joint electorates with reservation of seats was the best solution. ‘Such evil as there is in joint electorate[s],’ he told Amrit Kaur, ‘can be obviated only by right type of education and enlightenment. If Dr. Ambedkar’s objections were upheld for any length of time, be it ever so little, it would undermine [a] solution.’41
The next reference in the archives to this subject is dated 11 July, when Nehru wrote to C. Rajagopalachari that he had spoken to Ambedkar, who had agreed to join the Cabinet. He asked Rajaji to persuade another veteran critic of the Congress, R.K. Shanmukham Chetty of Madras’s Justice Party, to come aboard too, as finance minister.42
What happened between April and July to make Gandhi change his mind and give the go-ahead to Ambedkar’s reconciliation with the Congress? We do know that, on his side, Ambedkar dropped his demand for separate electorates, agreeing instead to joint electorates with reservation of seats, which is what finally found its way into the Indian Constitution. But it appears that the advice of his close disciple, Amrit Kaur, made Gandhi more amenable to mending fences with his long-time opponent. The Congress Harijan leader Jagjivan Ram also seems to have playe
d a role in effecting this reconciliation. He met Ambedkar several times, writing to Gandhi that if their old adversary would join hands with them, this might ensure that ‘the problem of the Scheduled Castes is solved before it takes a serious turn and goes adrift like the Muslim question’.43
To allow Ambedkar to serve in the Cabinet, however, he had first to be made a member of the Constituent Assembly. When that assembly was first convened, in December 1946, Ambedkar was elected a member from the then undivided province of Bengal, whose eastern wing had a strong Scheduled Caste presence. But with Partition, Ambedkar lost his seat. Vallabhbhai Patel prevailed upon the chief minister of the Bombay Presidency, B.G. Kher, to ‘make arrangements for Dr. Ambedkar’s election’ from that province. Kher did the needful, by making a Congress member vacate his seat and getting Ambedkar elected in his place.44 Ambedkar was now appointed law minister in the first Cabinet of free India, as well as chairman of the drafting committee of the Constitution.
The credit for effecting this reconciliation with Ambedkar lies largely with Amrit Kaur, through her discussions with him on the sidelines of the Constituent Assembly. She was a Christian of Sikh background, and a woman too. Ambedkar would surely have perceived Amrit Kaur in less antagonistic terms than he had those powerful upper-caste Hindu males: Gandhi, Nehru and Patel.
VIII
It is now seventy years since Independence and Partition, yet a fierce historiographical (as well as popular) debate still rages on the subject. Which was most responsible for Partition, this debate asks, Hindu intransigence or Muslim separatism? Who contributed most to this process of estrangement: Gandhi, Jinnah or Nehru? Should the blame be put rather on the British Raj, for whom divide and rule was a strategic imperative? Was the real villain of the piece the policy of separate electorates, which made religious identity so central to democratic politics?
One reason this debate is so intense is the sheer scale of the violence. More than a million people died in the Partition riots, and more than ten million were rendered homeless, with Hindus and Sikhs fleeing from Pakistan into India and Muslims fleeing from India into Pakistan. Five provinces of British India: the Punjab, Bengal, Bihar, United Provinces and the NWFP, were absolutely ravaged by the violence. Sindh and the Bombay Presidency also witnessed much suffering, and there was episodic rioting in the Central Provinces as well. Among the major provinces of British India, only the Madras Presidency escaped relatively unscathed.
A second reason the debate has carried on for so long is the enduring enmity between India and Pakistan. The two countries have fought four wars since Independence and Partition; even in times of ‘peace’, soldiers of both sides are regularly killed in cross-border firing, and hostile propaganda (again, on both sides) continues unabated. Meanwhile, the communal question has scarcely been solved by Partition; with Muslims being victimized within India, and Hindus and Christians being persecuted within Pakistan.
This persistence of national rivalry and sectarian conflict means that the question of who (or what) caused Partition has never gone away. And it has promoted this follow-up question: could Partition have been avoided? Had the Congress been generous enough to form a coalition government with the Muslim League in the crucial state of the United Provinces in 1937, would this have arrested the growth of separatist sentiment? Had the Congress (or Gandhi specifically) not launched the Quit India movement in 1942, and supported the war effort instead, would this have encouraged the British to hand over power to a single national government (headed by the Congress) after the war had ended?
The idea, or thought, or hope, that Partition could have been avoided raises a further set of questions still. What would have happened to Indian unity if the Cabinet Mission Plan of 1946 had been accepted? Would not that have left the large areas occupied by princely states quasi-independent? Would this not have made travel across India difficult, impeded the growth of a national market and hence economic development, and also fragmented the idea of nationhood itself? Would Hindus and Muslims have lived peaceably ever after, or would they have had further conflicts, even a civil war? Would they ever have agreed on a common national language?
The idea that India could have been constituted and run as a single country was vigorously disputed by Jinnah and the Muslim League; and, long before them, by many British officials as well. In Chapter 8, I quoted a home secretary as saying that Gandhi, in seeking to build a compact between Hindus and Muslims in the 1920s, had ignored ‘the essential differences which divide the two great religions—differences due to conflicting ethical standards as much as to political jealousy’. These differences had been given formal legal sanction by the creation of a separate electorate for Muslims in 1909. Is that year the point of no return then, after which Hindus and Muslims were fated to become distinct and opposed political entities, resulting in the creation in 1947 of the distinct and opposed nations of India and Pakistan?
I have my own answers to these (admittedly) important questions, but this is not the place to offer them. The biographer’s task is to document what happened at the time, not to pose counterfactuals. Earlier chapters have outlined the process by which the Congress and the Muslim League, Hindus and Muslims, Jinnah and Gandhi, diverged in their perceptions and priorities so that in the end Partition became inevitable. Once it happened, however, Gandhi was determined to stem the flow of blood that it caused. He had, it seems, succeeded in Calcutta; he had now to take himself and his mission to other parts of the subcontinent.
CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN
The Greatest Fasts
I
Through July and August 1947, Congressmen in the Punjab were sending Gandhi gory details of the massacres and the looming refugee crisis.1 From Delhi, Amrit Kaur, herself a Punjabi, wrote saying ‘your “miracle” in Calcutta is a bright spot in an otherwise gloomy picture. The Punjab situation is bad beyond measure. A Sikh said to me that “Pindi has been avenged fourfold”….The tragedy is that most of us inwardly rejoice when our community gets its own back on the other….I am filled with fear as to where we are drifting.’2
‘When do you think’, wrote Gandhi to Nehru on 24 August, ‘I should go to the Punjab if at all?’ Nehru replied that he ‘should go [to the Punjab] but not just yet’.3 So, Gandhi went back to his original plan, which was to return to Noakhali. He planned to leave on 2 September, but then, on the last day of August, a fresh round of rioting broke out in Calcutta. A series of stabbings were reported. As night fell, the violence reached the Hydari Manzil itself. A crowd surrounded the house, and began throwing stones at the windows. A few panes cracked and broke. Then there was an attempt to cut off the electricity supply. Gandhi went outside and spoke to the demonstrators, in Hindustani, a language which few of them understood. Two policemen arrived, and the mob finally dispersed. As Gandhi wrote later to Vallabhbhai Patel, ‘every one suspects the Hindu Mahasabha’ was behind the attack.
The same evening, Gandhi commenced an indefinite fast. In a press statement, he said that ‘if India is to retain her dearly won independence all men and women must completely forget lynch law’. His fast would ‘end only if and when sanity returns to Calcutta’.
The new governor of West Bengal, C. Rajagopalachari, tried hard to persuade Gandhi not to go on a fast. If he died, said Rajaji, ‘the conflagration would be worse’. Gandhi calmly answered: ‘At least I won’t be there to witness it. I shall have done my bit. More is not given a man to do.’4
Rajaji then appealed to the people of Calcutta. They must, as soon as possible, restore communal peace and goodwill in the city, as ‘Mahatma Gandhi had hard work before him in the Punjab, for which he must be spared’. Indians, he added, could ‘throw the blame on no outsider or foreign Government if [Gandhi’s] precious life ebbs away in Calcutta. This time it is not aliens, but we…that have it in their power to save his life or let him die.’5
The leading English newspaper in the city, the British-owned Statesman, had long b
een hostile to Gandhi. But after his work in Noakhali and Bihar, it began to soften its stance. It had once referred to him only as ‘Mr Gandhi’; after 15 August, it began to adopt the name most Indians used for him, ‘Mahatma’.6 Now, on the day that Gandhi began his fast, the Statesman issued a further mea culpa:
On the ethics of fasting as a political instrument we have over many years failed to concur with India’s most renowned practitioner of it, expressing our views frankly. But never in a long career has Mahatma Gandhi, in our eyes, fasted in a simpler, worthier cause than this, nor one more calculated for immediate effective appeal to the public conscience. We cordially wish him unqualified success, and trust that happy termination of the ordeal may be speedy.7
From the morning of 2 September, Gandhi received a steady stream of callers asking him to end his fast. The chief minister of West Bengal came and assured him the government was taking ‘stringent measures’ to maintain public order. The Hindu Mahasabha leader, S.P. Mookerjee, came and said ‘the general feeling here now is in favour of peace’. A brother of Subhas Chandra Bose came and promised Gandhi that ‘there would be no more incidents’.8
On 3 September, Gandhi woke up as usual at 3.30 a.m. He participated in the morning prayers, but then—in a departure from past practice—refused to have a shave, saying he would only have one after the fast ended. His last fast had been in the Aga Khan Palace back in 1943. He had, he told his assembled disciples, wanted to survive that fast, ‘which was directed against the despotism of Linlithgow’. But now he did not care whether he lived or died. Of course, he hoped that peace would come to Calcutta, but, he said, ‘this fast will not go beyond ten days. There shall either be peace within that period or else I shall die.’ He was not without hope; for, he knew ‘from personal experience of a number of instances where ruffians had been converted to peaceful ways’.9 Perhaps Gandhi had in mind here a ‘personal experience’ from 1908, where a group of ruffians tried to kill him in Johannesburg but later repented, asked for forgiveness, and joined his non-violent campaign for greater rights for Indians in South Africa.10
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