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

by Robert Payne

  The government did not want him to die on their hands; but where could a Satyagrahi die more honorably than in prison? Gandhi was perfectly logical when he fought for the untouchables from prison. In the realm of the imagination only the dispossessed can fight for the dispossessed.

  Reluctantly, he found himself being driven to Lady Thackersay’s hilltop house in Poona, into surroundings magically different from the famous mango yard in the prison. It was a vast mansion with thirty servants, splendidly equipped. Vallabhbhai Patel, Mahadev Desai and Sarojini Naidu accompanied him, and Devadas was waiting for him. Gandhi insisted on continuing the fast. There was much wringing of hands, for a twenty-one-day fast undertaken by an old, sick and headstrong man was not conducive to anyone’s peace of mind. Doctors made their way up and down the hill. Kasturbai, under arrest in Sabarmati Jail, was suddenly released. She hurried to Poona.

  Mirabehn had also been imprisoned in Sabarmati Jail. The news of Gandhi’s fast brought her to a state of near collapse. She wrote imploring letters to Gandhi, who answered briefly, urging her to be calm. He promised that Mahadev Desai would send frequent reports to her, and sometimes he wrote little notes to her on the back of these reports. Five days after embarking on the fast, he wrote a sad little note to the woman he regarded as his adopted daughter:

  You will be brave to the end. No joke to be my daughter Being there you have to pass through a more searching ordeal than But then my children to be worthy have to do better than I. Have they not—God be with you.

  Love

  BAPU

  Among the hundreds of surviving letters to Mirabehn, this is perhaps the most moving. The hand shakes, the sentences break off, the mind races the pen, and when the letter is finished, we find we are in the presence of an abstract portrait of the man. He wrote a bad hand, but it was sometimes an expressive one.

  The doctors were in despair, for Gandhi had no reserves of strength. The famous “epic fast” had lasted only six days. How could he survive twenty-one days? Yet he seemed calm, uncomplaining, certain that whatever happened was for the best. He looked like a skeleton, and there were days when he was lost in a trance, did not know what was happening around him, and could not recognize Kasturbai, who watched by his side. At noon on May 29, he broke the fast with a glass of orange juice. He had strength enough to write a short note to Mirabehn, who had suffered torments of anxiety in her prison cell. He wrote: “I have just broken the fast. The next task commences. He will find the ways and means.”

  The next task confronting him was to get well, and he went about it with his usual industry. This time there was no longer any dispute over milk; the doctor insisted that he drink huge quantities of milk every day. He was soon drinking twelve pounds of milk a day without discomfort. For seven or eight hours during the day he would be sitting up in bed, drinking his cups of milk at regular intervals. But it was three weeks before he was strong enough to take his regular tub bath, and a month before he could walk more than a few tottering steps across the room.

  He was still recovering when his son Devadas married Lakshmi, the daughter of Rajagopalachari, who was a high-caste Brahmin. Intercaste marriages were still rare, and Gandhi had at first objected to it. Devadas had fallen in love with Lakshmi in 1927, and all the following years had only confirmed him in his love for her. Each year Gandhi would be asked to give his blessing to the marriage, and each year he refused. Finally, Devadas was able to overcome his objections, and now, at the age of thirty-three, he was married in Lady Thackersay’s house in a brief ceremony which was all over in a few minutes. There was no pomp, no feasting. Gandhi himself had rewritten the texts of the ceremony, curtailing them until only the bare bones remained. The Vaishnava song was sung. In Gandhi’s eyes this song became the central element in the sacrament of marriage; and he gave his-blessing to the lovers only on condition that they obeyed the commands implicit in the song. The religious ceremony took place on June 16. Because the customary Hindu usage was not followed, there was a civil ceremony five days later.

  For Gandhi, it was a year of intense excitement, much suffering and many changes of direction. Quite suddenly in July he announced to his followers that he proposed to disband his ashram, which had been his home for eighteen years.

  He gave many reasons for abandoning the Sabarmati ashram, not all of them convincing. It had grown up in the shadow of the Ahmedabad textile mills until it represented a substantial investment. Gandhi described it as “a fair-sized garden colony,” and put its total worth at 650,000 rupees. Over a hundred people were permanently living there, and nearly a thousand had been trained in its workshops. He had a deep affection for the place, for it embodied an advanced form of communal living; here he had begun his first experiments with the spinning wheel; here, or close by, he had addressed the strikers and led their revolt against the millowners. Gandhi regarded the deliberate abandonment of the Sabarmati ashram as a penitential sacrifice. He was offering up what was nearest and dearest to him as an act of penance.

  But many other reasons contributed to his dissatisfaction with the ashram. From time to time the government had demanded that the ashram should pay taxes on its revenues. For the last two years Gandhi had refused to pay them, with the inevitable result that the bailiffs came in and seized property equivalent to the value of the unpaid taxes. He claimed that the government had a perfect right to do this, but it was obviously difficult to manage an ashram in such precarious circumstances.

  Gandhi’s solution to the problem was to offer the entire ashram with its land, buildings and crops to the government. The government did not take up the offer, and the question of the ownership of the ashram was left in abeyance.

  Gandhi was in a mood to provoke a head-on collision with the government. He detested foreign rule more violently as his health returned; enforced inactivity had only made him more determined to be active. He decided to lead another march in order to court arrest. The marchers would consist of thirty-three of his companions in the ashram, and they would walk from village to village, spending no more than a day and night in each place, always on the move and continuing until the last of them had been arrested. As Gandhi had half expected, all thirty-three were arrested before they could set out on their journey. He was at once taken back to Poona and lodged in Yeravda Jail, only to be released three days later under a restraint order which permitted him to reside only within the limits of Poona. He rejected the restraint order, was arrested again, and this time was sentenced to a year’s imprisonment. During the brief trial he gave his occupation as “a spinner, weaver and farmer,” and his permanent address as “Yeravda Jail.”

  In prison he was refused permission to continue his work on behalf of the untouchables. He threatened a fast unto death unless this privilege was restored to him. The government replied that he was dictating the terms of his imprisonment, and could not expect in view of his recent behavior to be treated indulgently. He demanded permission to conduct work for the untouchables “without let or hindrance.” The government saw no reason to accommodate him unless he abandoned civil disobedience altogether and concentrated all his energies on social work. Gandhi refused to compromise and embarked on another fast unto death on August 16,1933. This time there was no quiet, composed withdrawal from the world. His body reacted violently to starvation, and within three or four days he was a physical wreck. Five days after beginning the fast he was removed to the Sassoon Hospital, so ill that his doctors despaired of his recovery.

  He had lost the will to live, refused to sip water, and was evidently preparing himself for his inevitable end. For the first time in his life he was refusing to exert his willpower. In hospital, he was still a prisoner. On August 23, because it was thought that he was dying, the government decided to release him. Shortly before he left the hospital, he was making disposition of the few personal articles in his bedroom, giving some to the nurses.

  Never had he seemed so ill, so gray, so lifeless as when he was carried away for the second time to
Lady Thackersay’s hilltop house. His eyes were deep-sunken, he could scarcely talk, he was in a fever. He was carried into the house from the ambulance on a stretcher, with Charlie Andrews, who had just arrived from England, walking beside him. “You must will yourself to live,” Andrews said, and Gandhi, smiling weakly, promised to obey.

  It was the end of one period of his life, the beginning of another. The Sabarmati ashram, civil disobedience, the cat-and-mouse game with the government, his connection with the Congress—all these were abandoned. Nehru came to visit him at Lady Thackersay’s house, and they discussed their future plans and prospects. Gandhi wanted to withdraw from the Congress altogether, leaving it in the hands of younger men, but Nehru prevailed upon him to maintain a few small tenuous threads. He would make no proposals, but would offer advice when asked. For the rest, he saw that his duty lay with the untouchables.

  In September he was well enough to be removed to Wardha, a small town in the Central Provinces standing at the very heart of India. Vinova Bhave had established a small ashram there, and Gandhi had developed a fondness for the place largely because he had a fondness for Bhave. From Wardha, in November, he set out on a long pilgrimage on behalf of the Harijans, which would take him to the southern tip of India and to the remote regions of the north.

  This astonishing pilgrimage marked the beginning of a new attempt to understand the problems of India. Gokhale had told him in 1915 to travel around India for a year before coming to any conclusions. So now, once again, he traveled continually for a period of nine months; from town to town, from village to village, holding meetings, opening the doors of temples and inviting the Harijans to enter, collecting money for the Harijan Fund, and demanding more than money. “Mere money will not avail,” he said continually. “I must have your hearts also.” Women would give him their jewelry, and he would urge them never to wear jewelry again; and each necklace, earring and anklet would be solemnly entered in the voluminous accounts kept by an ashram helper. Opposition came from a group of orthodox Hindus led by a certain Pandit Lalnath, who would sometimes appear with a small army of young men waving black flags and threatening to lie down in front of the temples to prevent the untouchables from entering. Pandit Lalnath was employing non-violent resistance against Gandhi, who was sometimes puzzled how to deal with it.

  There were days when non-violent resisters fought non-violent resisters to a standstill. Pandit Lalnath had learned all the refinements of nonviolence and was perfectly prepared to accept Gandhi’s theory that such a technique was worthless unless it involved suffering. “We want to be hurt by the police or by your volunteers,” the Pandit declared, and Gandhi answered grimly: “I see that you want to provoke the police to violence.” The British had said the same thing about him, but he was in no mood to treasure ironies. The harassment continued, and Gandhi never found any simple way to oppose it. When he found Pandit Lalnath’s men lying in front of his car, he could always abandon the car and walk to the next village, but when they lay outside the temples or formed a wall outside his hut, what weapons do you use in order to pass through them? It was the first time he had encountered serious opposition from Hindus.

  “Untouchability is doomed,” he would say. “The monster is now breathing its last breath.” So, perhaps, it was, but the monster had a hundred lives. There would be the ceremonial opening of the temples to the Harijans, and when Gandhi had gone on to the next town, the temples were sometimes closed again. People flocked to him to have his darshan, more concerned to see his living flesh than to obey his commands, listening politely when he thundered against the high-caste Hindus who filled the lives of the Harijans with despair, but otherwise paying little attention to him. Most of the money for the Harijan Fund came from women.

  On January 15, 1934, an earthquake destroyed a large part of northern Bihar. In three minutes whole towns were laid flat, rivers changed their courses, sand spewed out of the earth and buried the fields. An area of thirty thousand square miles was affected. As soon as Gandhi heard of the earthquake, he announced that it was a punishment sent by God to chastize the Hindus who oppressed the Harijans. Rabindranath Tagore, in a carefully worded letter, asked why God should choose Bihar for His displeasure. Surely, no one had the right to assume that natural catastrophes were harnessed to moral ends! Surely, there were limits to an unreasoning belief that God punished whole peoples! Fifteen thousand had died, and an incalculable number were badly hurt: were they all sinners? Gandhi held to his unreasoning faith. All droughts, floods, earthquakes, plagues arose from God’s displeasure. He had no objection to the orthodox Hindus’ suggestion that perhaps God was displeased with his teaching on untouchability: everyone had a right to interpret God’s purpose as he pleased. For himself, he was absolutely certain that the devastation in Bihar was caused by men’s sinful refusal to permit the untouchables into their temples.

  The Harijan tour was abandoned in March 1934 for a month-long tour of the stricken areas. He traveled over broken roads to Motihari, a town he had known well during the Champaran campaign, now reduced to rubble with only a few cracked houses standing. Sand covered the fields and choked the rivers; huge fissures and craters had appeared; the air sparkled strangely with a fine glittering sand. Gandhi brought a message to the stricken peasants: “Work, work, do not beg, ask for work and do it faithfully!”

  Whenever he appeared, the crowds gathered in multitudes. People would come running out of crumbled villages to cry: “Mahatma Gandhi ki jai!” They wanted the comfort of his presence, but he had long since grown weary of their distressing desire to stare at him. But the devastation terrified him. He had never seen such havoc, and there came to him the terrible cry of Kunti, the mother of Arjuna: “Oh Lord, send me misery and misfortune always, lest I forget thee!”

  The orthodox Hindus were still hounding him with their non-violent processions and their waving black flags. On April 26, 1934, at a place called Jassidi in South Bihar, they smashed the back window of his car and prevented it from continuing along the road. Gandhi stepped out, and began to walk between lanes of orthodox Hindus who jeered at him. The experience did not unnerve him. On the contrary, he derived profit from it, insisting that henceforth they should abandon the car and make the journey by foot.

  So the small party went from village to village, sometimes spending the night under a villager’s roof, but more often in the shade of a mango or palm grove. Mirabehn, tall and stately in her white sari, was in charge of Gandhi’s personal requirements; she saw that he was properly fed, and rested at the proper times, and slept peacefully. At every halt there would be visitors offering mangoes and green coconuts. The villagers told them they should never pour the coconut milk into glasses; it tasted better if you drank it from the nut. She remembered the dusty roads and the shady groves, and the sharp chopping sound as a coconut was sliced open. At night men with lanterns would come from the next village to welcome them, and then, under a palm tree, Gandhi would speak to them: “Awake, arise, put away the sin of untouchability, otherwise we shall all perish.”

  In June, when they reached Poona, Gandhi was on his way to the town hall to receive an address of welcome when an attempt was made on his life. A bomb was thrown at the lead car in the procession; seven people, including two police constables, were injured. Gandhi was untouched, for he was in the following car. No one had the least doubt that the bomb was intended for him. In his car were Kasturbai and three girls, and he shuddered to think about what might have happened. “Let those who grudge me what yet remains of my earthly existence know that it is the easiest thing to do away with my body,” he said. “I have no strong desire for martyrdom, but if it comes it will help my work for the Harijans.”

  There were more black flag demonstrations, more public burnings of his portrait. At Ajmer, Pandit Lalnath was addressing a meeting condemning the Harijan movement when he was struck on the head with a lathi. Gandhi, arriving shortly afterward, took the sin upon himself and promised a penitential fast as soon as he rea
ched Wardha. A few days later, having completed a tour of 12,500 miles and raised 600,000 rupees for the Harijan Fund, he began the fast. He had recovered his health and there were no ill effects.

  At the age of sixty-five he had the litheness, the gleaming skin, the bright eyes and clear laughter of a much younger man. He moved easily, and there was no diminution of his mental powers. Although in theory he had severed his connection with the Congress, he still ruled it. Alone in his hut, he wielded vast powers. Diplomacy was not his forte; he always spoke bluntly; and he had no patience with fools. He expected to be obeyed; he had the autocrat’s impatience to see the fruit of his commands; and there were withering rebukes for those who failed to live up to his expectations. But his temper was too genial, too human, to permit his autocratic temper to interfere with his ordinary daily affairs. He was never able to believe for any length of time in the myth of the Mahatma.

  A visitor in 1935 would find him sitting quietly in the midst of a whirlwind. In the comer of a large empty room he would be found sitting on an oblong cushion with a low writing desk in front of him, books and papers scattered around, his watch ticking away noisily, his spectacle case and a jug of water always within reach, his patient acolytes always nearby. He wore only the white dhoti, which left his stomach and knees bare, and he was usually without sandals, for he liked to be barefoot when he worked. He was nearly bald now, with only a Hindu-lock, a tiny dark love curl, on the top of his head.