The Life and Death of Mahatma Gandhi (The Robert Payne Library)

by Robert Payne

  As a Hindu, I do not believe in war, but if anything can even partially reconcile me to it, it was the rich experience we gained at the front. It was certainly not the thirst for blood that took thousands of men to the battlefield. If I may use a most holy name without doing any violence to our feelings, like Arjuna, they went to the battlefield, because it was their duty. And how many proud, rude, savage spirits has it not broken into gentle creatures of God?

  To a generation accustomed to remembering Gandhi as an apostle of non-violence, it may be strange to see him celebrating the English soldier and still stranger to hear him expounding the heresy that war brings men to God In those days and for many years afterward Gandhi approved of war. Whenever war broke out, he was in the forefront, calling upon Indians to volunteer.

  The Indian Volunteer Corps was temporarily disbanded at Estcourt, to be reformed and reorganized two weeks later after the men had rested. Dr. Booth continued to drill them, teaching the stretcher-bearers how to lift the wounded onto the stretchers and how to carry them without causing too much pain. He led them on long marches across the veldt. He had once been a missionary in India and could talk some Hindi. Tall, heavily-built, with an Elizabethan beard, he commanded the corps with good humor and discipline and a kind of Christian unconventionality which endeared him to his men; and Gandhi, who had once quarreled with an English missionary in Rajkot and had little liking for missionaries in general, adored him.

  At the battle of Spion Kop—another disastrous engagement for the British—the Indian Volunteer Corps arrived during a hailstorm. After the hail came the rains, and the stretcher-bearers who had marched with their mule-trains twenty-five miles during the day were exhausted. A message came, asking the Indians whether they were prepared to take the stretchers to the base at Spion Kop, well within the Boer lines. They would have to cross a pontoon bridge over the swollen Tugela River, and there was a possibility that the Boers would drop a few shells on the bridge. According to the original agreement none of the volunteers were to work under fire, but they were now so desperately needed that the medical officer in charge hoped they would break the agreement. Gandhi was delighted. It showed that the authorities had a high regard for the volunteers, and for the rest of the day, and for many days, the Indians were bringing water to the men lying on the veldt, roughly bandaging their wounds, and carrying them to the field hospitals and, then to the base hospital. The weather cleared. The sun broke hot on the dusty plains around the hill, and wherever you looked there were the stretcher-bearers with their quick loping strides or the solitary Indians leading the mules with the huge water bags. The sun was scorching and the roads were hard.

  Gandhi took a quiet enjoyment in the war, happy in the midst of danger. A correspondent of the Pretoria News found him after a night of stretcher-bearing sitting by the roadside and contentedly munching a regulation army biscuit. “Every man in Buller’s force was dull and depressed, and damnation was heartily invoked on everything,” wrote the reporter. “But Gandhi was stoical in his bearing, cheerful and confident in his conversation, and had a kindly eye.”

  The kindly eye was sometimes red-rimmed with sleeplessness, for after Spion Kop came Vaalkranz, another British defeat, and the Indians were once again marching twenty-five miles a day, carrying the wounded. Sometimes shells dropped within a few yards of them. Gandhi was one of the stretcher-bearers who carried the dying General Woodgate to the base hospital, hurrying through the dust and heat, fearful that the general would die before they could reach camp.

  For their services Gandhi and thirty-seven other Indian volunteers were awarded the War Medal. On one side of the medal was the elderly Queen Victoria: VICTORIA REGINA ET IMPERATRIX. On the other side a hel-meted Britannia calls all the sons of South Africa to her. What Gandhi wanted to know was whether the Indians of South Africa were included among Britannia’s sons.

  As the war dragged on, he began to wonder quite seriously whether there was any future for the Indians in South Africa. He would write petitions, organize the Indian community, engage in political work which brought him in close touch with the government, and demonstrate on every occasion the unyielding loyalty of the Indians to the Crown, but he had the sinking feeling that at the end of the war they might be in a worse situation than before. In October 1900 he wrote a letter full of doubts and perplexities to Dadabhai Naoroji. He recited all the achievements of the Indians in South Africa. Indian soldiers had fought beside the British, humble Indians had distinguished themselves in the defense of Ladysmith, rich merchants had given gifts of money for the prosecution of the war, and a thousand volunteers had worked as stretcher-bearers. Nevertheless the Indians might still be treated like social lepers when the war was over.

  An age was coming to an end. Early in the New Year Queen Victoria died after a short illness, to the very real grief of millions of her Indian subjects, who had known her as Empress of India for a quarter of a century, although she gave the impression of being an Empress in permanence. Gandhi immediately sent a cable to London: “British Indians Natal tender humble condolences to the Royal Family in their bereavement and join Her Majesty’s other children in bewailing the Empire’s loss in the death of the greatest and most loved Sovereign on earth.”

  He led a procession of Indian mourners through the streets of Durban, and telegraphed to friends in other cities to do the same. He laid wreaths, made speeches, and printed cards with her portrait to honor her memory. These cards, which were given to children, showed a map of India as it was at the beginning of her reign and as it was in the end. The difference was striking. In 1838 the British ruled over a patchwork; in 1901 the entire subcontinent and Afghanistan were under their rule. The portrait showed the Empress in her widow’s weeds, and there was an inscription reading: “At the age of twelve when the young Princess Victoria was informed that she was the future Queen of England, she said to her governess: T will be good.’ ”

  Gandhi liked goodness, and in the intervals of his public work he would spend a good deal of his time contemplating goodness in all its disguises. For him the private quest for virtue was just as important as the public quest for ensuring that the Indians in South Africa were not treated like social lepers. But there had been little time or opportunity for studying himself, and as the years passed he showed less interest in religion. He was a politician, a professional man, a lawyer immersed in a thousand little duties. Suddenly in May there came an unexpected reminder that the spiritual world existed. He learned that his friend Rajchandra had died of a lingering illness.

  He was not overwhelmed by the news. He was in fact far too busy to be overwhelmed by the death of anyone, and if Kasturbhai or any of his children had died, he would have gone on with his work calmly. He wrote to a friend:

  It was hard to believe the news. I can’t put it out of my mind. There is very little time in this country to dwell on any matter. I got the letter while I was at my desk. Reading it, I felt grieved for a minute and then plunged immediately into my office work. Such is life here. But whenever there is a little leisure, the mind reverts to it. Rightly or wrongly, I was greatly attracted to him and I loved him deeply too. All that is over now. So I mourn out of selfishness. What consolation then can I give you?

  Rajchandra, whose full name was Rajchandra Ravjibhai Mehta, the poet and seeker after truth, had died in his early thirties. To the very end of his life, even when his body was reduced to a mere skeleton, he had devoted himself to contemplation, always hoping to see God face to face. Of all the men Gandhi encountered, he was the most lucid and intelligent, combining an intense moral fervor with an absolute conviction of the divine presence. He had read everything, remembered everything, pondered all problems, and appeared to be as much at home in heaven as on earth. To him Gandhi owed more than he could ever say.

  “I felt grieved for a minute,” Gandhi had written to his friend; but as the years passed, his grief was prolonged. Twenty years later, on the anniversary of Rajchandra’s birth, he spoke with a
sense of haunting grief about his long-lost friend, finding among his many qualities two which were especially important—compassion for all living creatures and the desire for the vision of God.

  Being a Jain by birth and upbringing, Rajchandra could be expected to be compassionate toward all living creatures, for compassion was the essential core of his religion. But his compassion went far beyond the rather mechanical compassion embraced by the faithful. In his eyes the people who dusted the floor in front of them with a little whisk for fear of treading on insects were merely performing the outward rituals of compassion. Every lie, every act of hypocrisy, every oppression and hurt administered to another person was death-dealing. A truly compassionate man would do his utmost to prevent anyone at all from being hurt. “The grief which we feel at the death of our own brother or sister he used to experience at the existence of suffering and death in the world,” wrote Gandhi. “If someone argued that the people suffered from their own sins, he would ask what drove them to sin.” In the logical mind of Rajchandra, there was not a single hurt, a single cry of pain, which could not be prevented if men were compassionate enough. But there was a price to be paid for these victories: a man of true compassion would inevitably suffer unendurable torment.

  Out of Rajchandra’s ideas on compassion there would grow Gandhi’s philosophy of non-violence, but he was not yet ready for it. The overworked lawyer, restless and ill at ease, was beginning to wonder whether he had not misused his life. It was a feeling which overcame him when the Indian Volunteer Corps was disbanded early in the year, and the feeling remained with him through the summer and the autumn. “On my relief from war-duty I felt that my work was no longer in South Africa but in India,” he wrote in his autobiography. He was quite prepared to uproot himself and to start afresh. Suddenly in October, taking his wife and children with him, he sailed for India, telling his friends in Natal that he would return only if there was some overwhelming reason for his assistance.

  Just before Gandhi left South Africa, he was showered with gifts. There were presentation scrolls and speeches, and he would stand on the platform listening to a recital of his virtues and then he would make a brief and simple speech in reply, not quite believing everything that was said about him. There had been gifts in 1899, but this time they were even more impressive and expensive. The Gujarati Hindus presented Kasturbhai with a gold necklace worth fifty guineas; a diamond pin, a diamond ring, a gold watch, a gold chain, a gold purse with seven gold coins, a silver cup and plate, all these were presented to him, until he seemed to be weighed down with gold, silver and diamonds.

  He asked himself what he should do with them, and concluded that neither he nor Kasturbhai had any right to them. Altogether there was about a thousand pounds worth of gold and jewelry, and he thought they should be sold to provide a fund for the use of the Natal Indian Congress. But there was Kasturbhai’ to be reckoned with. He decided to play an elaborate game with his children. Thirteen-year-old Harilal and eight-year-old Manilal would be asked to adjudicate. Surely, he explained to them, these baubles served no purpose. Harilal agreed. “If I ever want jewelry, I’ll work and buy it,” he said, showing that he was an obedient son. Manilal enthusiastically shared his older brothers opinion. Gandhi presented Kasturbhai with an ultimatum: the three male members had come to a unanimous conclusion, which was beyond dispute, that the baubles should be given back to the community. Kasturbai was outraged. The gold necklace had been presented to her, not to her husband, who was depriving her of one of the few pleasures left to her.

  “They dance to your tune,” she cried, when he pointed out that her sons had independently arrived at the same conclusion. “What about my daughters-in-law? They’ll need my jewelry, and who knows what will happen tomorrow?”

  She had the normal Indian woman’s delight in ornament, and felt cheated. Gandhi reminded her that her sons were not yet married, and he would probably be able to offer some jewelry to his daughters-in-law. When the time came, she had only to ask him.

  “Ask you?” she answered. “You are the one who is taking the jewels away! No, I won’t give up my necklace!”

  He had a very simple answer to this. “Was it given to you for your services, or for mine?” he said sternly.

  Kasturbhai bowed to the inevitable. The necklace was taken from her, and with all the other gifts it vanished into the vaults of the African Banking Corporation for the use of the Natal Indian Congress when no other funds were available. Gandhi reserved the right to sell the jewels for any beneficial purpose he pleased, if they were not used by the Congress.

  A legal document was drawn up to ensure that the jewels were administered properly. These jewels, he wrote, were “a tribute to the Congress principles,” and therefore he returned them to the Congress. Kasturbhai was heartbroken, and Gandhi had the pleasure of knowing that his eldest son Harilal was following in his father’s footsteps.

  Thereupon he sailed for India, taking his family with him. He had not yet found himself. In a life that consisted of many false starts and unfulfilled promises, he seemed to have no steady aim, no real vocation. As a lawyer or politician, he would fight valiantly for a year or two against the restrictive laws applied to Indians, and then he would weary of the conflict. When he returned to India, his ambition was to open a law office in Bombay. It was his third attempt to become a Bombay lawyer and nearly as unsuccessful as all the others.

  The Young Revolutionary

  It is not at all impossible that

  we may have to endure every hardship

  that we can imagine, and wisdom lies

  in pledging ourselves on the

  understanding that we shall have

  to suffer all that and worse.

  An Interlude in India

  THERE ARE sometimes years in a man’s life when nothing happens, when he is cut off from the sources of his being, and at the end of this period he can say truthfully that he breathed, walked, went to bed, rose in the morning, ate breakfast, lunch and dinner, walked in gardens and talked to his friends, and all to no purpose. In the lives of men who are intensely charged with electricity there come these inexplicable periods of aimless wandering. Suddenly the batteries run dry: they can be charged only by a long quiescence. Then the strength returns, the eye grows clear, the lost aims are found, and the man springs back into life with renewed vigor and determination.

  So it was with Gandhi He left South Africa in a mood of perplexity and disillusion, having failed to find himself. He had, he thought, abandoned South Africa for ever and he had no intention of returning. He had promised himself that he would attend the forthcoming annual meeting of the Congress in Calcutta. He would pay his respects to Gokhale, travel around India, visit some of the holy places, and in good time he would open a law office in Bombay. He expected to devote a good part of his life to public service, and in time—for he had powerful friends—he would probably become an officer of the Congress, but beyond that he had no aims, and even these aims were diffuse and uncertain.

  It was a long journey from South Africa, for he stayed nearly three weeks on the island of Mauritius. He liked the island and the Indians greeted him with affection, for they had heard of his exploits in South Africa. One night he was the guest of Sir Charles Bruce, the Governor of the colony. He had the happiest memories of Port Louis and the islanders, but when a ship bound for Bombay called at the port, he herded his family on board. He settled his family in Rajkot on December 14 and three days later he hurried to Bombay to consult with lawyers. The Congress would open for three days at the end of the month and he wanted to make a speech about the Indians in South Africa.

  Sir Pherozeshah Mehta was busy and could not see him; Bombay was a busy metropolis, and in comparison Durban was little more than a large village. He learned that Sir Pherozeshah would be traveling in a private saloon to Calcutta, and arranged to be on the same train. That year Din-shaw Wacha was president of the Congress, and since he was the chief legal assistant of Sir Pherozeshah, t
hey traveled together. Gandhi was invited to travel in the saloon between stations. He spoke of his desire to address the Congress and to have a resolution passed on behalf of the Indians in South Africa. Sir Pherozeshah was not too hopeful.

  “Gandhi, it seems nothing can be done for you,” he said. “Of course we will pass the resolution you want. But what rights have we in our own country? I believe that so long as we have no power in our own land, you cannot fare better in the colonies.”

  Gandhi was disappointed, but there was nothing he could do. He had been promised that any resolution he wanted would be passed, and did not know that the Congress was accustomed to passing many resolutions mechanically, with scarcely anyone listening to them. The passing of resolutions had become a ritualistic gesture, and was quite meaningless.

  The Congress was held in an immense tent, and the president was treated with the respect usually reserved for Maharajahs. Delegates were put up in the local colleges. Although he was not a delegate, Gandhi was given a bed in the same college as Lokamanya Tilak, the veteran revolutionary whose trial for sedition and subsequent imprisonment were still vividly remembered. Sitting up in bed, Tilak held court, receiving his crowds of visitors with majestic tolerance. Gandhi was impressed and respectful, but never fell under Tilak’s spell. He was less impressed by the other delegates living in the college. They were overbearing, continually clapping their hands and demanding that the Congress volunteers perform services for them. The sanitary arrangements in the college were also disturbing. The latrines were choked and filthy. Gandhi took a broom and cleaned out one of the latrines to the astonishment of the delegates who would prefer to live in a miasmal stench than lift a broom. In later years he remembered with a peculiar horror the sight of the little heaps of human excrement left by the delegates in the grounds of the college; they had carefully avoided the latrines and defecated wherever they pleased. Gandhi was not favorably impressed by their behavior.