39 As interpreted by D. R. Nagaraj: Nagaraj, Flaming Feet, p. 39.
40 From the standpoint: Ibid., pp. 24–25.
41 The impatience of the Ezhavas: Tendulkar, Mahatma, vol. 4, p. 97.
42 “Would you preach the Gospel”: Ibid., p. 101.
43 In his weekly: CWMG, vol. 65, p. 296.
44 Indignant over the foreigner’s: Harijan, June 12, 1937.
45 “None of our Hindu subjects”: Mahadev Desai, Epic of Travancore, p. 40.
46 So the old man now recalled: Interview with the maharajah of Travancore, Jan. 15, 2009.
47 “truly captivating”: CWMG, vol. 64, p. 255.
48 At nearly every stop: Mahadev Desai, Epic of Travancore, pp. 218–19.
49 “I must tell you”: CWMG, vol. 64, p. 248.
50 Ever since his provocative: Ibid., p. 62.
51 “What a wide gap”: Ibid., p. 132.
52 “No worker who has not”: Ibid., p. 61.
53 “Gandhi’s asceticism”: Parekh, Colonialism, Tradition, and Reform, pp. 205–6.
54 “I can suppress the enemy”: Ibid., p. 207.
55 In Bombay, recuperating: CWMG, vol. 62, pp. 428–30.
56 In less graphic terms: Ibid., p. 212.
57 “the revolting things”: Saint Augustine, Confessions, translated by Garry Wills (New York, 2006), p. 27.
58 “He remains the same wreck”: Dalal, Harilal Gandhi, p. 105.
59 “That degrading, dirty”: CWMG, vol. 67, p. 61.
60 “For the first time”: Ibid., p. 37.
61 “I am after all”: Cited by Thomson, Gandhi and His Ashramas, p. 228.
62 “Not only have I not”: CWMG, vol. 64, p. 175.
63 “I am told that you are indifferent”: Ibid., vol. 65, p. 301.
64 By speaking of failure: Ibid., p. 240.
65 “There is a hiatus”: Thomson, Gandhi and His Ashramas, p. 219.
66 an ideal he brought home: Gandhi started advocating spinning before he’d ever touched a spinning wheel. The idea, he later said, came to him during his 1909 trip to London “as in a flash.” He didn’t even know the difference between a spinning wheel and a handloom. In Hind Swaraj, written on his 1909 voyage back to South Africa, he writes of “ancient and sacred handlooms” when, so it seems, he’s thinking of the charkha. See an extended footnote on this point by Anthony J. Parel in his edition of Hind Swaraj, p. 230. Narayan Desai makes the same point in the first volume of My Life Is My Message, p. 459.
67 “I am utterly helpless”: CWMG, vol. 65, p. 231.
68 “Unfortunately the higher castes”: CWMG, 2nd ed., vol. 70, p. 461.
69 “a strange medley”: Slade, Spirit’s Pilgrimage, p. 191.
70 “Quite a few are only temporary”: CWMG, vol. 67, p. 327.
71 “show the results”: Mark Lindley, J. C. Kumarappa: Mahatma Gandhi’s Economist (Mumbai, 2007), p. 144.
72 “Whatever I do”: CWMG, vol. 73, cited in Thomson, Gandhi and His Ashramas, p. 209.
73 As late as 1945: Pyarelal, Mahatma Gandhi: Last Phase, vol. 1, p. 48.
74 It’s not difficult to feel: Thomson, Gandhi and His Ashramas, p. 227.
75 “We cannot command”: Tendulkar, Mahatma, vol. 5, p. 79.
76 “Let no one say”: Ibid., p. 245.
77 “How I should love”: CWMG, vol. 96, pp. 277, 284.
78 “There is something frightening”: Pyarelal, Mahatma Gandhi: Last Phase, vol. 1, pp. 104–5.
79 The moment of reunion: Harijan, May 29, 1937.
80 Kallenbach wore a dhoti: Sarid and Bartolf, Hermann Kallenbach, p. 73.
81 “There are few people”: Shimoni, Gandhi, Satyagraha, and the Jews, pp. 28–29.
82 firm position on the subject: See CWMG, vol. 19, p. 472, where Gandhi, on March 23, 1921, disputes the British right to make a commitment on Palestine to the Jews.
83 “The sender’s name”: Shimoni, Gandhi, Satyagraha, and the Jews, p. 35.
84 “I quite clearly see”: CWMG, vol. 96, pp. 290, 292.
85 “In my opinion the Jews”: Sarid and Bartolf, Hermann Kallenbach, pp. 75–76.
86 Buber writes: Shimoni, Gandhi, Satyagraha, and the Jews, pp. 40–47.
87 “Will you listen”: Tendulkar, Mahatma, vol. 5, p. 160.
88 The letter to Hitler began: Rajmohan Gandhi, Gandhi, p. 400.
89 “I can’t imagine anyone”: Mansergh and Lumby, Transfer of Power, vol. 5, p. 41.
90 “If there ever could be”: Rajmohan Gandhi, Gandhi, p. 400.
91 However, when Britain finally: Ibid., p. 425.
92 “I am in perpetual quarrel”: CWMG, vol. 70, p. 162.
CHAPTER 11: MASS MAYHEM
1 “Congressmen, barring individual”: CWMG, vol. 70, pp. 113–14.
2 As early as 1939: Ibid., p. 114.
3 To a bluff British general: Wavell, Viceroy’s Journal, p. 236.
4 “My life is entirely”: Tendulkar, Mahatma, vol. 6, p. 156.
5 It’s the first time: CWMG, vol. 70, p. 113.
6 Ten months later: Rajmohan Gandhi, Gandhi, p. 436.
7 Through all his ins and outs: Tendulkar, Mahatma, vol. 6, p. 125.
8 On August 8, 1942: Mansergh and Lumby, Transfer of Power, vol. 2, p. 622.
9 “the biggest struggle”: Tendulkar, Mahatma, vol. 6, p. 153.
10 “Mob violence remains”: Mansergh and Lumby, Transfer of Power, vol. 2, p. 853.
11 Indian nonviolence had always been: Tendulkar, Mahatma, vol. 6, p. 129.
12 In 1942, days before: Jaswant Singh, Jinnah, p. 308.
13 “Give your blessings”: Tendulkar, Mahatma, vol. 6, p. 271.
14 “I thought you had come”: Pyarelal, Mahatma Gandhi: Last Phase, vol. 1, p. 88.
15 Not only had the Congress: Jaswant Singh, Jinnah, p. 540.
16 Putting it in writing: Ibid., p. 541.
17 “I am amazed”: Pyarelal, Mahatma Gandhi: Last Phase, vol. 1, p. 88.
18 His aim, Gandhi remarked: Ibid., p. 91.
19 “I have failed”: Tendulkar, Mahatma, vol. 6, p. 276.
20 “Though I represent nobody”: Ibid., p. 279.
21 This is so, at least: See, for instance, Jalal, Sole Spokesman.
22 “I could not make any”: Fischer, Life of Mahatma Gandhi, p. 437.
23 “Is there any reason”: Narayan Desai, My Life Is My Message, vol. 4, Svarpan, pp. 225–26.
24 “In that hour of decision”: Pyarelal, Mahatma Gandhi: Last Phase, vol. 1, p. 239.
25 “India is not with me”: Fischer, Life of Mahatma Gandhi, p. 424.
26 “I’m not going to discuss”: Pyarelal, Mahatma Gandhi: Last Phase, vol. 1, p. 252.
27 “Sword will be answered”: Ibid., p. 464.
28 The district, known even then: Gandhi’s first involvement in the affairs of Noakhali district came in 1940 when he was approached by Hindus there who represented themselves as being threatened by Muslim violence. He urged them to defend themselves by nonviolent means but then added what was for him an unusual but not unprecedented piece of advice: “If the capacity for nonviolent self-defense is lacking, then there need be no hesitation in using violent means.” Tendulkar, Mahatma, vol. 5, p. 249.
29 Hindus had been beheaded: Scores of Hindu women were said to have been forced into marriage with Muslim men, but when Phillips Talbot caught up with Gandhi there, so he reported, just two cases of abduction and marriage had been proved. Talbot, American Witness to India’s Partition, p. 203.
30 “Shaheed sahib, everyone”: Pyarelal, Mahatma Gandhi: Last Phase, vol. 1, p. 358.
31 The impression he retains: Interview with Barun Das Gupta, Kolkata, Oct. 2009.
32 Before it burned out: The Muslim League claimed that fifty thousand Muslims had been slaughtered in Bihar. The official figure put the toll at under five thousand. The American Friends Service Committee estimated ten thousand, a tally Gandhi accepted on at least one occasion.
33 Suhrawardy didn’t press: Pyarelal, Mahatma Gandhi: Last Phase, vo
l. 1, pp. 387, 397.
34 “If Noakhali is lost”: Ibid., p. 405.
35 The answers, though Gandhi: Ibid., p. 356.
36 At his first large prayer: Ibid., pp. 370, 373.
37 Within a week, he found: Ibid., p. 378.
38 “If India is destined”: Ibid., pp. 379, 383.
39 “If the Hindus could live”: Ibid., p. 381.
40 In an analogous quest: Nirmal Kumar Bose, My Days with Gandhi, p. 47.
41 “I find myself in the midst”: Ibid., pp. 46–47.
42 But four days after: Ibid., p. 63.
43 “Hardly a wheel turns”: Talbot, American Witness to India’s Partition, p. 202.
44 If the size of the Hindu population: The figure generally given for the number of Hindus remaining in Bangladesh as a whole is on the order of 12 million, which would be about 10 percent of the country’s total population. In Pakistan, a country with a population nearly half again larger—about 170 million—only about 3 million Hindus remain. India’s Muslim population of 140 million—out of a total of 1.2 billion—is exceeded by those of only Indonesia and Pakistan.
45 “That’s due to lack”: Interview with Abdue Wahab, Joyag, Bangladesh, Oct. 2009. The chairman of the local Jamaat was not necessarily expressing a heretical view in speaking well of Gandhi. Faisal Devji notes that the movement’s founder, Abul Ala Mawdudi, “sang the Mahatma’s praises.” Devji, Terrorist in Search of Humanity, p. 133.
46 According to Narayan Desai: Narayan Desai, My Life Is My Message, vol. 4, Svarpan, p. 271; CWMG, vol. 86, p. 162.
47 “My unfitness for the task”: Pyarelal, Mahatma Gandhi: Last Phase, vol. 1, p. 431.
48 “I can see there is some”: Ibid., p. 470.
49 The telegram to her father: CWMG, vol. 86, p. 215.
50 “Manu’s place can be nowhere”: Narayan Desai, My Life Is My Message, vol. 4, Svarpan, p. 303.
51 It soon became obvious: Nirmal Kumar Bose, My Days with Gandhi, pp. 73–75.
52 A perfect brahmachari: Pyarelal, Mahatma Gandhi: Last Phase, vol. 1, p. 591.
53 None of this would go on: Gandhi’s yajna with Manubehn has been discussed in varying degrees of detail in Nirmal Kumar Bose, My Days with Gandhi; Narayan Desai, My Life Is My Message, vol. 4, Svarpan; Pyarelal, Mahatma Gandhi: Last Phase, vol. 2; Mehta, Mahatma Gandhi and His Apostles. It can also be followed in the correspondence in Gandhi’s Collected Works, especially vol. 86.
54 “I don’t want to return”: CWMG, vol. 86, p. 224.
55 “Of course she knows her art”: Ibid., vol. 96, p. 295.
56 “a deeply anguished”: Nirmal Kumar Bose, My Days with Gandhi, pp. 95, 101.
57 “Stick to your word”: Narayan Desai, My Life Is My Message, vol. 4, Svarpan, p. 304.
58 “I like your frankness”: Nirmal Kumar Bose, My Days with Gandhi, p. 118.
59 Pyarelal was also drawn: CWMG, vol. 85, p. 221.
60 “I can see that you will not”: Ibid., vol. 94, p. 337.
61 “After a life of prolonged”: Nirmal Kumar Bose, My Days with Gandhi, p. 135.
62 He’d read Havelock Ellis: Pyarelal, Mahatma Gandhi: Last Phase, vol. 1, p. 588.
63 “What is Freudian philosophy?”: Nirmal Kumar Bose, My Days with Gandhi, p. 158.
64 Bose’s basic point: Ibid., pp. 150–51.
65 “I do hope you will acquit me”: Ibid., p. 153.
66 “I saw your strength come back”: Ibid., p. 161.
67 Given that the Congress: Rajmohan Gandhi, Gandhi, p. 551.
68 According to one account: Maksud, Gandhi, Nehru, and Noakhali, p. 41.
69 “I can never be disillusioned”: Rajmohan Gandhi, Gandhi, p. 554.
70 “I feel a little out of my depth”: Brown, Nehru, p. 169.
71 “Jawaharlal is the only man”: Hingorani, Gandhi on Nehru, pp. 12–13.
72 his heir would never score high: Gandhi and Nehru had exchanged letters laying out their differences in October and November 1945. See Nehru, Bunch of Old Letters, pp. 509–16. Also see Tendulkar, Mahatma, vol. 8, pp. 302–6.
73 “He says what is uppermost”: Hingorani, Gandhi on Nehru, p. 12.
74 “He has made me captive”: Pyarelal, Mahatma Gandhi: Last Phase, vol. 2, p. 251.
75 “My voice”: CWMG, vol. 86, p. 295.
76 Basically, it said Gandhi: Pyarelal, Mahatma Gandhi: Last Phase, vol. 2, p. 483.
77 When a member asked: See Amrita Bazar Patrika, Jan. 6, 1946.
78 “I suggest frequent consultations”: Pyarelal, Mahatma Gandhi: Last Phase, vol. 2, p. 482; CWMG, vol. 86, p. 286.
79 “Remember Bihar”: Pyarelal, Mahatma Gandhi: Last Phase, vol. 1, p. 557.
80 “You don’t know the joy”: Ibid., p. 509.
81 “It failed miserably”: From the diary of Nirmal Kumar Bose, p. 991, archive of the Asiatic Society, Kolkata.
82 “What in your opinion”: Fischer, Life of Mahatma Gandhi, p. 451.
83 Twice in nine weeks: Pyarelal, Mahatma Gandhi: Last Phase, vol. 1, p. 380.
84 He could only demonstrate: From the diary of Nirmal Kumar Bose, p. 887, archive of the Asiatic Society, Kolkata.
85 “Our community today suffers”: Pyarelal, Mahatma Gandhi: Last Phase, vol. 1, pp. 518, 520.
86 Early on he talked: Ibid., pp. 386, 372.
87 “There will be no tears”: Ibid., p. 321.
88 “If some ruffian”: Ibid., p. 505.
89 Speaking to dispossessed: CWMG, vol. 86, p. 305.
90 “He had told us”: Pyarelal, Mahatma Gandhi: Last Phase, vol. 1, p. 417.
91 “Giving equality”: Fischer, Life of Mahatma Gandhi, p. 436.
92 “If they still went on”: CWMG, vol. 86, p. 305.
93 The next week he twice urges: Ibid., pp. 348–50, 459.
94 “He has not always held”: From the diary of Nirmal Kumar Bose, p. 1251, archive of the Asiatic Society, Kolkata.
95 “listened quietly”: Talbot, American Witness to India’s Partition, p. 202.
96 There Gandhi stayed: Pyarelal, Mahatma Gandhi: Last Phase, vol. 1, p. 559.
97 In Haimchar, which turned out: CWMG, vol. 87, p. 17.
98 Though little was said in public: Tidrick, Gandhi, p. 315.
99 Thakkar is finally persuaded: CWMG, vol. 87, p. 63.
100 According to a less: Pyarelal, Mahatma Gandhi: Last Phase, vol. 1, p. 587.
101 He’d said he was prepared: Ibid., p. 356.
102 Nehru had been so appalled: Fischer, Life of Mahatma Gandhi, p. 445.
103 “But if I leave”: Manubehn Gandhi, Lonely Pilgrim, p. 157, cited by Narayan Desai, My Life Is My Message, vol. 4, Svarpan, p. 287. Rama is an incarnation of Vishnu, and the hero of the Ramayana, the Hindu epic. Gandhi takes his name as a synonym for “God.”
104 By June 1948: Chatterji, Spoils of Partition, pp. 112–19.
105 The gathering ended: The song they sang was a variation on an old devotional hymn, “Raghupati Raghav Raja Ram,” often described as Gandhi’s favorite hymn. Routinely, he would attach a line that proclaimed: “God or Allah is your name / Lord, bless everyone with this wisdom.” The words continue to recite many names for God, ending in a call for unity. On this occasion the improvised lyric included references to Buddhists and Christians.
CHAPTER 12: DO OR DIE
1 “The rest of my life”: CWMG, vol. 89, pp. 10–11.
2 The only way he could cling: Ibid., p. 21.
3 “Today he himself”: Narayan Desai, My Life Is My Message, vol. 4, Svarpan, p. 393.
4 By then, hundreds of thousands: The influx of refugees is well described by Guha in India After Gandhi, pp. 97–108.
5 “The country was partitioned”: Lohia, Guilty Men of India’s Partition, p. 44.
6 An impatient Nehru said: Tunzelmann, Indian Summer, p. 388.
7 A pressing invitation: Tendulkar, Mahatma, vol. 7, p. 162. He had also proposed giving the Viceregal Lodge to the Harijans.
8 Since Hindus and Muslims: Campbell-Johnson, Mission with
Mountbatten, p. 110.
9 It was part of Gandhi’s proposal: Collins and Lapierre, Mountbatten and the Partition of India, pp. 34–35.
10 Mountbatten, understandably, declined: Campbell-Johnson, Mission with Mountbatten, p. 55.
11 “Thus I have to ask you”: Pyarelal, Mahatma Gandhi: Last Phase, vol. 2, p. 85.
12 When the viceroy first heard: Campbell-Johnson, Mission with Mountbatten, p. 52.
13 “Jinnah won’t be able”: Collins and Lapierre, Mountbatten and the Partition of India, p. 33.
14 Often the killings: CWMG, vol. 87, p. 52.
15 “I hate to hear”: Pyarelal, Mahatma Gandhi: Last Phase, vol. 2, p. 52.
16 “spent bullet”: Ibid., p. 309; Nirmal Kumar Bose, My Days with Gandhi, p. 208; see also M. K. Gandhi, Delhi Diary, p. 147.
17 “It is just possible”: Pyarelal, Mahatma Gandhi: Last Phase, vol. 2, p. 85.
18 “He realized that if his vision”: CWMG, vol. 89, p. 62.
19 “I do not like much”: Pyarelal, Mahatma Gandhi: Last Phase, vol. 2, p. 329.
20 “We have as much claim”: Ibid., p. 363.
21 “I am quite willing”: Ibid., p. 183.
22 “We don’t need your sermons”: Ibid., p. 367.
23 “Can’t you understand”: Ibid., p. 365.
24 When the BBC asked: Nirmal Kumar Bose, My Days with Gandhi, p. 224.
25 “I’ve run dry”: Tendulkar, vol. 8, Mahatma, p. 80.
26 “What if this is just”: CWMG, vol. 89, p. 55.
27 “One might almost say”: Ibid., p. 49.
28 “All this is due”: Gopalkrishna Gandhi, A Frank Friendship, p. 501.
29 “In the Punjab”: Ibid., p. 517.
30 “What is all this?”: Narayan Desai, My Life Is My Message, vol. 4, Svarpan, pp. 422–23.
31 “The Calcutta bubble”: CWMG, vol. 89, p. 131.
32 “fiery weapon”: Ibid., p. 134.
33 The day after the attack: Dalton, Mahatma Gandhi, p. 154.
34 “When the heart is hard”: Narayan Desai, My Life Is My Message, vol. 4, Svarpan, p. 434.
35 His old comrade: Dalton, Mahatma Gandhi, p. 158.
36 “This sudden upheaval”: CWMG, vol. 89, p. 49.
37 wonderfully dry description: Bourke-White, Halfway to Freedom, pp. 81–82.
38 When he had to leave: Ibid., p. 90.
39 But rowdy Hindu hecklers: CWMG, vol. 89, p. 195.
Great Soul: Mahatma Gandhi and His Struggle With India Page 50
