Gandhi

by Ramachandra Guha

  5. Manishankar Upadhyaya to Gandhi, c. January 1930, Subject File No. 57, M.K. Gandhi Papers, First and Second Instalments, NMML.

  6. Satyananda Bose to Gandhi, Calcutta, 10 January 1930, Subject File No. 57, Gandhi Papers, First and Second Instalments, NMML.

  7. Shaukat Ali to Gandhi, 16 February 1930, Personal Correspondence Files, Gandhi Papers, First and Second Instalments, NMML.

  8. M.A. Ansari to Gandhi, 13 February 1930, reproduced in CWMG, XLII, pp. 518–22.

  9. Hasan, A Nationalist Conscience, p. 209.

  10. Gandhi to Ansari, 16 February 1930, CWMG, XLII, pp. 510–11.

  11. Motilal Nehru to Ansari, 17 February 1930, in A Bunch of Old Letters: Written Mostly to Jawaharlal Nehru, and Some Written by Him (Bombay: Asia Publishing House, 1958), pp. 81–83.

  12. CWMG, XLII, pp. 376–77, 382.

  13. ‘Independence Day’, YI, 16 January 1930, CWMG, XLII, pp. 398–400.

  14. See Fortnightly Reports for the second half of January 1930, File No. 18/II of 1930, Home (Political), NAI.

  15. Saifuddin Kitchlew to Gandhi, 27 January 1930; Satyapal to Jawaharlal Nehru, 27 January 1930, both in Subject File No. 57, Gandhi Papers, First and Second Instalments, NMML.

  16. ‘Clearing the Issue’, YI, 30 January 1930, CWMG, XLII, pp. 432–34.

  17. ‘The Salt Tax’, YI, 27 February 1930, CWMG, XLII, pp. 499–501.

  18. ‘Answers of Rammohun Roy to Queries on the Salt Monopoly (March 19, 1832)’, in Jatindra Kumar Majumdar, editor, Raja Rammohun Roy and Progressive Movements in India: A Selection from Records (1775–1845) (Calcutta: Art Press, 1941), pp. 467–69.

  19. Quoted in J.B. Pennington, ‘The Salt Tax’, Indian Review, December 1902.

  20. Malcolm Darling, Apprentice to Power: India, 1904–1908 (London: Hogarth Press, 1966), p. 81.

  21. Indian Opinion, 8 July 1905, CWMG, V, p. 9.

  22. CWMG, XLIII, pp. 2–8.

  23. CWMG, XLIII, p. 51.

  24. Four-page note prepared by A. Tottenham, of the Criminal Investigation Department, 8 February 1930, in File No. 59 of 1930, Home (Political), NAI.

  25. See CWMG, LXXII, p. 390.

  26. Sarojini Naidu to Padmaja Naidu, Ahmedabad, 15 February 1930, Padmaja Naidu Papers, NMML.

  27. Reports in BC (Sunday Edition), 2 March 1930.

  28. BC, 9 March 1930.

  29. CWMG, XLIII, pp. 27–28.

  30. Thomas Weber, On the Salt March (New Delhi: HarperCollins India 2000), pp. 92–96.

  31. For more details, see GBI, Chapter 20.

  32. ‘Satyagrahis’ March’, N, 9 March 1930, CWMG, XLIII, pp. 33–35.

  33. Interview with Valji Govindji Desai, Oral History Transcript Number 221, NMML.

  34. CWMG, XLIII, pp. 48–49.

  35. CWMG, XLIII, pp. 454–55; Weber, On the Salt March, pp. 490–95.

  36. See interview with Anand T. Hingorani, Oral History Transcript Number 512, NMML.

  37. Pratap, 16 March 1930.

  38. CWMG, XLIII, pp. 62–63.

  39. CWMG, XLIII, pp. 66, 72.

  40. ABP, 16 March 1930.

  41. BC, 16 March 1930.

  42. CWMG, XLIII, p. 89.

  43. CWMG, XLIII, pp. 101–02.

  44. ABP, 21 March 1930.

  45. ‘The Ashram Without Mahatmaji’, ABP, 22 March 1930.

  46. Reports in ABP, 21 and 22 March 1930.

  47. ABP, 25 March 1930.

  48. As reported in ToI, 25 March 1930.

  49. CWMG, XLIII, pp. 117–18.

  50. ABP, 26 March 1930.

  51. ABP, 28 March 1930.

  52. BC, 30 March 1930.

  53. Source Material, Volume III, Part III, p. 25.

  54. Winston Churchill to Irwin, c. first week of January 1930; C.F. Andrews to Irwin, 3 February 1930, both in Mss Eur C 152/19, APAC/BL.

  55. Irwin to Lionel Curtis, 6 March 1930, in ibid.

  56. Fortnightly reports for the second half of March 1930, in File No. 18 /IV of 1930, Home (Political), NAI.

  57. Lord Irwin to Archbishop of Canterbury, 31 March 1930, in Mss Eur C 152/19, APAC/BL.

  58. Letter of 31 March, in File No. 18/IV of 1930, Home (Political), NAI.

  59. TS, quoted in ABP, 13 March 1930; ToI, 13 March 1930.

  60. Ashmead Bartlett, quoted in ABP, 16 March 1930.

  61. Report in Time, 24 March 1930.

  62. See Shahid Amin, ‘The Pedagogy of Nationalism’, Seminar, issue number 686, October 2016, p. 37.

  63. See IAR, 1930, Volume 1, p. 76.

  64. Reports in ABP, 2 and 3 April 1930.

  65. ABP, 4 April 1930.

  66. ToI, 5 April 1930.

  67. K.C.B., ‘The Great Trek: Personal Impressions’, BC, 20 April 1930.

  68. CWMG, XLIII, pp. 179–80.

  69. ‘All About Dandi’, ABP, 8 April 1930.

  70. ABP, 7 April 1930.

  71. Sarojini Naidu to Padmaja Naidu, Dandi, 6 April 1930, Padmaja Naidu Papers, NMML.

  72. This account is based on the letters, memos and clippings in File 223 of 1930, Home (Political), NAI.

  73. Reports in BC and ABP, 7 April 1930.

  74. Mahadev Desai to Jawaharlal Nehru, 7 April 1930, Jawaharlal Nehru Papers, NMML.

  75. Shaukat Ali to Gandhi, 7 April 1930, Subject File 18, Gandhi Papers, First and Second Instalments, NMML.

  76. Gandhi to Shaukat Ali, 17 April 1930, CWMG, XLIII, pp. 280–81.

  77. Fortnightly Report for Bombay, second half of April 1930, in File No. 18/V of 1930, Home (Political), NAI.

  78. Letter to Gandhi from ‘A Muslim’, Bombay, 30 April 1930, SN 16760, SAAA.

  79. ‘To the Women’, YI, N, 6 April 1930, CWMG, XLIII, pp. 189–90.

  80. See CWMG, XLIII, p. 269.

  81. BC, 13 April 1930.

  82. Vithalbhai Patel to Irwin, 20 April 1930, Mss Eur C 152/24, APAC /BL.

  83. Jinnah to Irwin, 20 April 1930, in ibid.

  84. Statement to Associated Press, Navsari, 21 April 1930, CWMG, XLIII, p. 301. Ironically, the men in the Chittagong raid had raised slogans of ‘Mahatma Gandhi ki jai’. See Manini Chatterjee, Do & Die: The Chittagong Uprising, 1930–34 (1999; reprint New Delhi, Picador India, 2010).

  85. Gandhi to Narandas Gandhi, 26 April 1930; ‘Speech at Chharwada’, 26 April 1930, CWMG, XLIII, pp. 325, 330–32.

  86. Irwin to Geoffrey Dawson, 7 April 1930, Mss Eur F 152/19, APAC/BL.

  87. Sykes to Irwin, 23 March 1930; Notes of a meeting held in New Delhi on 27 March 1930, both in ibid.

  88. Governor of Bombay to Viceroy, 15 April 1930, Mss Eur Mss C 152/19, APAC/BL.

  89. Irwin to Sykes, 21 April 1930, Mss Eur F 150/2, APAC/BL.

  90. Lord Irwin to Sir Arthur Hitzel (Undersecretary of State for India), 21 April 1930, Mss Eur C 152/19, APAC/BL.

  91. Bombay Government to Government of India, telegram dated 26 April 1930; Government of India to Bombay Government, telegram dated 29 April 1930, both in Mss Eur F 150/2, APAC/BL.

  92. J.E.B. Hotson, Member of the Bombay Executive Council, to Private Secretary to Governor, Mahableshwar, 29 April 1930; Bombay Government to Government of India, telegram dated 30 April 1930; Government of India to Bombay Government, telegram dated 30 April 1930, all in ibid.

  93. CWMG, XLIII, pp. 389, 399.

  94. Irwin to Baldwin, 13 May 1930, in Mss Eur F 150/2/APAC/BL.

  95. Reports in Time, 31 March, 28 April, 5 and 12 May 1930 respectively.

  96. Hailey, quoted in Sarvepalli Gopal, ‘Drinking Tea with Treason: Halifax in India’, in Imperialists, Nationalists, Democrats: The Collected Essays of Sarvepalli Gopal, edited by Srinath Raghavan (Ranikhet: Permanent Black, 2013), p. 89.

  Chapter Seventeen: The Prison and the World

  1. Source Material, Volume III, Part III, pp. 135–37, 141–44.

  2. Gandhi to
Mira; Gandhi to Narandas Gandhi; both written on 12 May 1930, CWMG, XLIII, pp. 402–03. Gandhi’s cellmate Kaka Kalelkar helped with the Marathi translations; whereas for the Bengali songs, Gandhi used versions rendered into English by Tagore.

  3. Gandhi to R.V. Martin, 11 June 1930, CWMG, XLIII, p. 435; same to same, 8 July 1930, CWMG, XLIII, pp. 10–11.

  4. Gandhi to Mira, 7 July 1930, CWMG, XLIV, p. 7.

  5. Gandhi to Valji G. Desai, 2 September 1930, CWMG, XLIV, p. 113.

  6. This exchange was reprinted as ‘The Importance of Vows: A Correspondence’, Gandhi Marg, Volume 3, Number 2, April 1959, pp. 127–31.

  7. Gandhi to Pyare Lal Govil, 19 November 1930, CWMG, XLIV, pp. 324–25.

  8. Source Material, Volume III, Part III, pp. 201–02, 219–20, 224.

  9. Ibid., pp. 380–85.

  10. P. Subba Rao to Gandhi, 9 July 1930; Tata Vasudevan to Gandhi, 4 June 1930, Source Material, Volume III, Part III, pp. 278–79, 504–05.

  11. Upton Sinclair to Superintendent, Yerwada Jail, 9 August 1930, Source Material, Volume III, Part III, p. 279.

  12. Gandhi to Upton Sinclair, 30 October 1930, CWMG, XLIV, p. 263.

  13. Source Material, Volume III, Part III, pp. 531–32, 643.

  14. Jayaram Jadhav to Gandhi, 23 May 1930, addressed to ‘Dear and Revered Bapuji’, in ibid., pp. 595–96.

  15. FR for Bombay, combined for second half of May and first half of June, in File No. 18/VII of 1930, Home (Political), NAI.

  16. Webb Miller, ‘630 Hurt as Police Beat Salt Raiders in 2 India Clashes’, New York Herald Tribune, 22 May 1930. Cf. also Webb Miller, I Found No Peace: The Journal of a Foreign Correspondent (Harmondsworth: Penguin Books, 1940), Chapters XI and XII.

  17. Farson’s report was reprinted in Time, 7 July 1930.

  18. Confidential letter from Chief Secretary, Government of Bombay, 17 June 1930, in File No. 214 of 1930, Home (Political), NAI.

  19. See reports in File No. 18/VIII of 1930, Home (Political), NAI.

  20. FR for western India states for first half of August 1930, in File No. 18 /IX of 1930, Home (Political), NAI.

  21. See Anon, ‘Women Join the Struggle’, Current, 9 November 1960.

  22. This account is based on CWMG, XLIV, pp. 81–84, 117–21, 470–72; IAR, 1930, Volume II, pp. 83–96.

  23. Irwin to Baldwin, 13 September 1930, in Mss Eur C 152/19, APAC/BL.

  24. A summary of the proceedings is in IAR, 1930, Volume II, pp. 288–324.

  25. Nawab of Bhopal to Irwin, London, 21 November 1930, in Mss Eur C 152/19, APAC/BL.

  26. H.G. Haig to Lord Irwin, 18 December 1930, in Mss Eur C 152/19, APAC/BL.

  27. Nawab of Bhopal to Irwin, 19 December 1930, APAC/BL.

  28. Iqbal’s Presidential Address is printed in full in Nadeem Shafiq Malik, editor, The All India Muslim League and Allama Iqbal’s Allahabad Address 1930 (Lahore, Iqbal Academy, 2013), pp. 372f.

  29. Ibid., pp. 38–41.

  30. Andrews, as quoted in the Daily Boston Globe, 1 November 1930.

  31. Review in The Saturday Review of Politics, Literature, Science and Art, 4 October 1930.

  32. Edward Thompson, ‘The Voice of Gandhi’, Christian Science Monitor, 25 October 1930.

  33. Review in The Times, 23 September 1930.

  34. Review by Lewis Gannett, in the New York Herald Tribune, 25 September 1930.

  35. The Methodist Review, July 1930.

  36. Time, 5 January 1931.

  37. Holmes to Rolland, 26 May 1930, Box 3, John Haynes Holmes Papers, Library of Congress.

  Chapter Eighteen: Parleys with Proconsuls

  1. Source Material, Volume III, Part III, pp. 169–70.

  2. BC, 29 January 1931.

  3. CWMG, XLV, pp. 425–27.

  4. CWMG, XLV, pp. 127–28, 130.

  5. FR for Bombay City for second half of January 1931, in File No. 18/1931, Home (Political), NAI.

  6. CWMG, XLV, pp. 136–38.

  7. BC, 5 February 1931.

  8. B.R. Nanda, The Nehrus: Motilal and Jawaharlal (London: George Allen and Unwin, 1962), pp. 337–39.

  9. CWMG, XLV, pp. 175–76.

  10. Polak to Gandhi, 28 January 1931, SN 16940, SAAA.

  11. See Alan Campbell-Johnson, Viscount Halifax: A Biography (New York: Ives Washburn, Inc. 1941), pp. 313–14. Irwin’s contemporary response is at odds with some recent works that claim that Gandhi did not do enough to save Bhagat Singh’s life. For a fair-minded analysis of this controversy, see V.N. Datta, Gandhi and Bhagat Singh (New Delhi: Rupa and Co., 2008).

  12. This account of the Gandhi–Irwin meetings is based on CWMG, XLV, pp. 185–207; and Irwin’s notes of his interviews with Gandhi on 27 February and 1 March 1931, Mss Eur C 152/6, APAC/BL. Cf. also S. Gopal, The Viceroyalty of Lord Irwin, 1926–1931 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1957), Chapter VI.

  13. CWMG, XLV, pp. 432–36, 250–56.

  14. See Subject File 81, Gandhi Papers, First and Second Instalments, NMML.

  15. Chinniah, Secretary of the Depressed Classes Prajanika Sangam, Madras, to Gandhi, 19 March 1931, in Subject File 78, Gandhi Papers, First and Second Instalments, NMML.

  16. Mohammed Kitayatullah, President, Jamiat Ulamai Hind, Delhi, to Gandhi, 22 March 1931, in Subject File No. 2, Gandhi Papers, First and Second Instalments, NMML.

  17. M.C. Chagla to Gandhi, 16 March 1931, in ibid.

  18. These mails are based on Subject File 78, Gandhi Papers, First and Second Instalments, NMML.

  19. Raymond Chagnon to Gandhi, 30 March 1931; Chas. S. Field to Gandhi, undated, c. May 1931; Blake A. Hoover to Gandhi, 27 April 1931; Charles Frederick Waller to Gandhi, 17 April, 1931; all in Correspondence File Number 18, Gandhi Papers, First and Second Instalments, NMML.

  20. Arthur Sewell to Gandhi, 26 January 1931, Correspondence File No. 19, Gandhi Papers, First and Second Instalments, NMML.

  21. James D. Pond to Gandhi, 8 April 1931, in ibid.

  22. Sailendra N. Ghose to Gandhi, 8 April 1931, in ibid.

  23. John Haynes Holmes to Gandhi, 17 April 1931, in ibid.

  24. John Haynes Holmes to Gandhi, 23 April 1931, in ibid

  25. CWMG, XLVI, pp. 70–71.

  26. See Martin Gilbert, Winston S. Churchill: Volume V, 1922–1939 (London: Heinemann, 1976), pp. 355–57.

  27. Winston S. Churchill, India: Speeches and an Introduction (London: Thornton Butterworth, 1931), pp. 37–38, 75, 120–28.

  28. Quoted in Gilbert, Winston S. Churchill: Volume V, p. 390.

  29. GBI, pp. 22–23.

  30. See Churchill, India, pp. 138–39.

  31. A four-page pamphlet issued by the Communist Party of India, Subject File 81, Gandhi Papers, First and Second Instalments, NMML.

  32. CWMG, pp. 313–15, 319, 333.

  33. TT, 25 March 1931.

  34. TT, 26 March 1931.

  35. Brijkrishna Chandiwala, At the Feet of Bapu (Ahmedabad: Navajivan Publishers, 1954), pp. 67–68.

  36. See reports in TT, 27 March 1931.

  37. See editorial in TT, 28 March 1931.

  38. CWMG, XLV, pp. 370–71, 403–04.

  39. CWMG, XLV, p. 363.

  40. ‘Bhagat Singh’, N, 29 March 1931, CWMG, XLV, pp. 359–61.

  41. CWMG, XLVI, pp. 397–99, 29–31.

  42. Lord Willingdon to Florence Brooks, 29 April 1931, in Mss Eur F 237/3, APAC/BL.

  43. Lord Willingdon to Florence Brooks, 21 June 1931, in Mss Eur F 237/3, APAC/BL.

  44. See clippings and notes in L/PO/6/24, APAC/BL.

  45. CWMG, XLVI, pp. 409–13.

  46. H.W. Emerson, Home Secretary, Government of India, to Malcolm Hailey, Governor of the United Provinces, 16 May 1931 (copy), in IOR, R/3/1/289, APAC/BL.

  47. C.F. Andrews to Gandhi, 10 June 1931, in Correspondence File No. 19, Gandhi Papers, First and Second Instalments, NMML.

  48.
‘I do not see how Mr. Gandhi can be in London without you,’ wrote the Punjab politician Fazl-i-Husain to Mrs Naidu. Letter dated 15 July 1931, in Waheed Ahmad, editor, Letters of Mian Fazl-i-Husain (Lahore: Research Society of Pakistan, 1976), p. 163.

  49. ‘A Twentieth-Century Sati’, YI, 21 May 1931, CWMG, XLVI, pp. 73–75.

  50. ‘Caste and Communal Question’, YI, 4 June 1931, CWMG, XLVI, pp. 302–04.

  51. CWMG, XLVI, pp. 309, 381.

  52. Ganga Singh, Maharaja of Bikaner, to Gandhi, letters of 4 and 9 July 1931, Subject File 84, Gandhi Papers, First and Second Instalments, NMML.

  53. CWMG, XLVII, pp. 146–47, 149–50, 177.

  54. Lord Willingdon to Florence Brooks, 25 July 1931, in Mss Eur F 237/3, APAC/BL.

  55. Gandhi to H.W. Emerson, 24 July 1931 (from Bardoli), CWMG, XLVII, p. 200.

  56. Gandhi to Amritlal Sheth, 29 July 1931, CWMG, XLVII, p. 235.

  57. CWMG, XLVII, pp. 445–46, 281, 287.

  58. See Dhananjay Keer, Dr. Ambedkar: Life and Mission (first published in 1954; reprint of fourth edition, Mumbai: Popular Prakashan, 2015), pp. 165–68; The Diary of Mahadev Desai: Volume I: Yeravda-Pact Eve, 1932, translated from the Gujarati and edited by Valji Govindji Desai (Ahmedabad: Navajivan Publishing House, 1953), p. 52, which quoted Gandhi as saying, on 1 April 1932: ‘Till I went to England I did not know that he [Ambedkar] was a Harijan. I thought he was some Brahman who took deep interest in Harijans and therefore talked intemperately.’

  59. ‘Dr. Ambedkar on Mr. Gandhi’s Folly’, ToI, 17 August 1931.

  60. CWMG, XLVII, pp. 330–31, 357, 449–50.

  61. Mirza Ismail to Gandhi, 30 July 1931, Personal Correspondence Files, M.K. Gandhi Papers, NMML (emphasis in the original).

  Chapter Nineteen: At Home in London

  1. Letter dated 31 August 1931, Jawaharlal Nehru Papers, NMML.

  2. British Consul General to Foreign Office, 12 September 1931, in L/PO/6/73, APAC/BL.

  3. The Times, 12 September 1931. Gandhi’s arrival at Marseille is captured on film in www.youtube.com/​watch?v=Se0kpkJIhH8.

  4. Obituary of Muriel Lester in The Times, 13 February 1968. Lester’s life and work are also discussed in Seth Koven, The Match Girl and the Heiress (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2015).