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

by Robert Payne

Mohammed Usman, a former mayor of Calcutta, was afraid the Hindus would celebrate Independence Day with a general massacre. There had already been massacres in various parts of the city. Houses had been fired, shops looted, women and children murdered on the streets. Wherever the Muslims lived, their premises were invaded and sacked, and there was the promise of more invasions to come. Mohammed Usman believed that if Gandhi could be induced to stay in Calcutta for a few more days, the city could be brought to order and the political leaders would have time to heal the wounds.

  Gandhi agreed to stay in Calcutta only if the Muslims could guarantee the peace in Noakhali. They must send telegrams to all their representatives and agents in Noakhali to stop them from taking any action against the Hindus. This was to demand from the Muslims in Calcutta almost more than they could grant, but the telegrams were sent out and in addition they promised at the first sign of rioting in Noakhali to send their own emissaries to keep the peace. With this promise Gandhi felt he could scarcely refuse to stay for a few days.

  That same evening Shaheed Suhrawardy flew in from Karachi and begged Gandhi to stay longer. A square-faced, heavily-built man, a widower with an only daughter, one of the main pillars of the Muslim League and widely believed to be the man responsible for the “Direct Action” of the previous year, he represented everything that the Hindus detested. Gandhi liked and on the whole trusted him, though he felt one had to be on guard in his presence. Suhrawardy was a powerful orator with a decisive and somewhat overbearing manner. Could anything be hoped for from such a man?

  Gandhi said he was prepared to stay longer in Calcutta on one condition—that he and Suhrawardy should live together under the same roof, and that they should appear everywhere together. If necessary, they would die together. They would live in one of the abandoned houses belonging to Muslims in an area where there had been looting and murdering. Suhrawardy was given a day to make his decision. “Go back home and consult your daughter,” Gandhi said, and he made it clear that the old political Suhrawardy, the man who inspired fear, would have to give place to the poor mendicant who would inspire only love. Both Gandhi and Suhrawardy were aware that they risked assassination at the hands of goondas.

  When Suhrawardy sent a message to say that he entirely agreed to carry out the frightening experiment, there was a quick search for a suitable house. A house called Haidari Mansion, belonging to an old Muslim lady, was chosen. The house stood in the predominantly Hindu Beliaghata district on the edge of a canal. Beyond the canal lay the Muslim slum of Miabagan, recently raided and looted by young Hindus armed with homemade hand grenades and Sten guns borrowed from former soldiers. There was no one left alive in Miabagan.

  The house stood in its own grounds, open on all sides, surrounded by a sea of mud, a damp and evil-smelling place. Three rooms had been set aside for Gandhi: an office, a living room, and another room for members of his party and for guests. So much bleaching powder had been poured over the floors that everyone was in danger of being asphyxiated. There was only one latrine, and this was used by visitors, by the police, and by the crowds who came to receive darshan.

  Crowds of youths were waiting when Gandhi drove up to the gate on the afternoon of August 13, two days before Independence Day. He had expected Suhrawardy to drive up with him, but for some reason the Muslim leader was detained and arrived later. The youths shouted: “Why have you come here? You did not come when we were in trouble. Why don’t you go to the places where the Hindus have fled?” A few minutes later Suhrawardy drove up. The crowds were angry and threatened him until Gandhi sent some members of his party to reason with the demonstrators. Then Suhrawardy was allowed to pass through the gates.

  Haidari Mansion was now under siege, surrounded by shouting crowds. Stones were thrown at the windows; the sound of broken glass mingled with the curses coming from outside. Some of the youths tried to climb in at the windows not far from where Gandhi was sitting with Suhrawardy and an English friend, Horace Alexander. Finally, when the clamor subsided a little, Gandhi agreed to receive a deputation.

  The youths were angry, disheveled, splattered with mud, obviously overwrought. They asked why he had come to Calcutta when the Muslims were in danger, but not when the Hindus were in danger. There was no simple answer, and he deliberately avoided the question. “I have not come for the good of the Muslims alone,” he said. “If I am to be killed, it is you who can kill me. After all, I am an old man now. I have very few days to live.” He said he had come to bring about peace, and nothing they did or said would deflect him from his purpose. “You want to force me to leave this place. I never submit to force of any kind whatsoever! It is not in my nature. You can stop me doing my work, you can imprison me if you like, or kill me. I shall not call in the help of the military or pray to be spared!” When they shouted that he was an enemy of the Hindus, he said: “How can I, who am a Hindu by birth, a Hindu by creed and a Hindu of Hindus in my way of living, be an enemy of Hindus? Does that not show intolerance on your part?”

  These last words seemed to have a profound effect, for the youths grew quiet, though still resentful. It was now eight o’clock, and Gandhi was exhausted. Some of the youths offered to keep watch through the night, for Gandhi had suddenly become very frail and defenseless, yet his dominance over them was still complete. Manubehn remembered one of them saying: “God knows, the old man is a wizard—everyone is won over by him.” So it was, but there were more battles with the youths to come.

  On the next day they came again, in greater numbers and more determined than ever to extract from him a confession of failure, an admission that he was more interested in the fate of the Muslims than of the Hindus. At the prayer meeting, which was held in the muddy compound of Haidari Mansion, he spoke of Independence Day, which would begin at the stroke of midnight, but only briefly. Independence Day was also Partition Day, and there was no joy in it. What concerned him was peace in Calcutta. The two communities must live in peace, even if independence had come, even if there was freedom. “If communal strife spreads all over India, what use is our freedom?” he asked, and there was no answer. He could only wait on events, and throw his small strength into the battle.

  After the prayer meeting the clamor outside grew louder. Gandhi returned to the house, which was surrounded by crowds of shrieking youths. They were screaming for Suhrawardy. Suddenly Gandhi went to one of the windows and dramatically threw open the shutters, and soon there was silence, broken only by the cry: “Where is Suhrawardy?”

  “He is here,” Gandhi said quietly, leaning on Manubehn’s shoulder, and he beckoned Suhrawardy to come and stand beside him.

  Suhrawardy addressed the crowd, saying that Gandhi had blessed Calcutta by his presence and it was now possible for Hindus and Muslims to live peacefully side by side. Someone in the crowd shouted: “Are you not responsible for the great massacre last August?”

  “We are all responsible,” Suhrawardy answered.

  “Please answer the question.”

  “Yes, it was my responsibility.”

  This was the flash of lightning that cleared the air. Quite suddenly, with this admission, the atmosphere changed, and the man who was so bitterly detested was cheered by a crowd of Hindu youths.

  A moment later someone brought to Haidari Mansion the news that Gandhi had long expected, because he had been long working for it Some five thousand Muslims and five thousand Hindus were marching in procession through the city. There was peace at last. On the eve of Independence Day there was fraternization throughout the city between the Muslims and the Hindus, with processions marching and banners flying. Suhrawardy announced the news, and later that evening he drove Gandhi in his automobile through the crowded streets to the lake and back again to Haidari Mansion. This was their victory parade, and characteristically Gandhi took no pleasure in it. “How can I afford to waste time like this?” Gandhi said gruffly, when he returned to the house.

  “It is only ten o’clock,” Suhrawardy said.

  “Wel
l, for you the day has only just begun, but for me half my night is over, because I have to get up at half-past three,” Gandhi grumbled.

  Even on the eve of Independence Day he disliked changing the normal ritual of his life.

  Independence Day dawned clear and bright with the new national flag fluttering from all the houses and the people chanting in the streets: “Hindu Muslim bhai bhai!” “Hindus and Muslims are brothers!” Gandhi had awakened earlier than usual, at two o’clock in the morning. All day there were visitors, and every half hour he had to appear at the door of the house to give darshan. The ministers of the Bengal government came to pay their respects, and he warned them that they had no easy task in front of them. “You wear a crown of thorns,” he said. “From now on you must be more truthful, more non-violent, more humble and more forbearing. You are there to serve the villagers and the poor!” This was unpalatable advice, but it was given with the utmost seriousness.

  The people of Calcutta were in a delirious frenzy. Early in the morning they rushed to Government House, virtually imprisoning the new governor, Rajagopalachari, in his office. They jammed the streets, shouting themselves hoarse. Once more Suhrawardy drove Gandhi through the crowds, to the deafening cries of “Mahatma Gandhi zindabad!” “Long live Mahatma Gandhi.” Suhrawardy wanted him to see the illuminations, but Gandhi seemed to draw into himself, strangely untouched by the excitement. On that day he wrote to a friend that the celebration of such a great event could be done best by penance, fasting and prayer. To Mirabehn he wrote a few days later: “The joy of the crowd is there, but not in me is any satisfaction. Anything lacking in me?” He wrote in the same terms to Rajkumari Amrit Kaur, who had been appointed Minister of Health in the Indian government. Something had gone wrong. Everywhere the crowds were applauding him, thousands of congratulatory telegrams were being received, and wherever he went people showered him with rose petals and incense and greeted him as the Father of the Nation, but the pleasure was turning to ashes in his mouth.

  He remained in Calcutta, scarcely knowing what to do or what Was demanded of him, afraid that if he left the city there would be renewed outbreaks between the Muslims and the Hindus. The rains came, and instead of walking through the mud, he took long walks inside Haidari Mansion, and once, seeing Manubehn resting when she should have been walking beside him, he flared with anger. Someone telephoned to say there were rumors that he had been shot, because he had not appeared outside the house. His spirits rose, and he was laughing when he said: “From whom can I have the rare fortune of being killed by a bullet?”

  Outwardly there was peace, but no one knew how long it would last. The appearances of Gandhi and Suhrawardy together helped to bring about a precarious feeling of communal unity, but there was no certainty that it would last. Lord Mountbatten, formerly the Viceroy and now Governor General, wrote to Gandhi a letter congratulating him on single-handedly bringing peace to Calcutta. “In the Punjab we have 55 thousand soldiers and large scale rioting on our hands,” he wrote. “In Bengal our forces consist of one man, and there is no rioting.” Gandhi was well aware that he was not a one-man boundary force, and that at any moment the rioting would break out. Hindus and Muslims were still at each other’s throats, not yet exerting the full strength of their hatred. Anything at all— a child yelling at night, the backfiring of an automobile, a house on fire— might have precipitated a riot that would make the riots of the previous year look like the quiet playing of children.

  In those days Gandhi seemed to be going through the motions of peacemaking without believing in them. He was mortally tired, suffered from a bad cold, slept badly, and sometimes forgot to eat his meals. One moment he would talk of going to Noakhali, the next moment of going to the Punjab, where murder and assassination had taken on the aspect of a civil war. Once when he visited a science college and found Suhrawardy’s name scribbled on a blackboard with derisory epithets, he burst out in anger, addressing the students as though they were all criminals, for they at least should have been an example to the people of Calcutta. And once, going to a hospital to comfort the patients, and seeing a small crowd of people waiting for his darshan and the few words he generally spoke to such people, he gazed at them for a while in silence and then said abruptly: “May God save you!” Then he walked quickly away.

  As August came to an end, he gave the impression of a man at the end of his strength. He was sending a stream of letters to high government officials, granting ten or eleven interviews a day, holding prayer meetings every afternoon, and rising early each morning to deal with his correspondence. But he wrote with a heavy heart, without conviction.

  On the night of August 31, just after he had gone to bed, a crowd of youths belonging to the right-wing Hindu Mahasabha gathered round Haidari Mansion, shouting at the top of their lungs. They brought with them a man who was heavily bandaged, and said he had been stabbed by Muslims. They seemed determined to begin a large-scale riot, using the wounded man as evidence of Muslim bad faith. It was learned later that the man had suffered no stab wounds; he had fallen off a tram and sustained some superficial injuries; youths from the Hindu Mahasabha had then bandaged him. But all this was unknown to the handful of people who were spending the night at Haidari Mansion. Suhrawardy, Pyarelal and Nirmal Bose had left the house to make arrangements for the trip to Naokhali, and only Gandhi, Manubehn, Abhabehn, and two servants were present in the house when the youths came shouting and throwing stones at the windows. They forced their way inside. Hearing the uproar Manubehn and Abhabehn went out to face them, telling them that Gandhi was sleeping, it was his day of silence, and he was still suffering from a bad cold; there was therefore nothing he could do, and if they had any messages, they should speak with Abhabehn, who knew Bengali.

  By this time some Hindus friendly to Gandhi had reached the house and slipped into his room. Most of the Hindu Mahasabha youths had left and were gathered in the compound, shouting and jeering. They had changed their tactics and were no longer talking about the bandaged man. They were demanding that the Muslims in the house be immediately surrendered to them. Gandhi decided to confront them, hoping that when they saw him and listened to his appeal, they would go quietly away. He went to the door and stood there with his hands raised in the traditional Hindu salutation, and when they saw him, they shouted all the louder, and became even more excited and more threatening. Gandhi was so incensed that he cried: “What is all this? Kill me, kill me, I say, why don’t you kill me?” Then he tried to rush into the crowd, but was held back by Manubehn and Abhabehn. It was his day of silence and contemplation, but he had always given himself permission to break silence whenever urgent matters had to be discussed.

  Someone swung a lathi, but missed him. A brick aimed at him struck a Muslim standing at his side. Sadly, knowing there was nothing more he could do, Gandhi returned to the house. The police dispersed the mob with tear gas, and when some ministers of the Bengal government arrived and said they intended to arrest the head of the local branch of the Hindu Mahasabha, he said: “You should not arrest them. Throw the responsibility on their heads. Ask them what they want, peace or riots? Tell them you want their help.”

  The Hindu Mahasabha had already decided to stage a series of riots the next day. Throughout the afternoon and all through the night there were stabbings, bomb explosions, bursts of fire from Sten guns. Some poor Muslims came to Haidari Mansion and asked to be evacuated. Gandhi thought for a moment and then asked his Bengali secretary Nirmal Bose to arrange for them to be evacuated in a truck. A truck was found, a Hindu driver volunteered to take the refugees to a predominantly Muslim quarter, and Gandhi stood in the road watching the truck as it moved away. A few seconds later, when the truck had gone about 150 yards down the road, there was the sound of an explosion. Hand grenades had been lobbed from the roof of a vacant house at the truck passing below. Two poor Muslim workmen were killed instantly. By the time Nirmal Bose reached the scene, the two dead workmen were lying on the ground and a woman who was the
mother of one of them was sitting beside them, her clothes smeared with the blood and flesh of her son. The hand grenades had exploded against the workmen’s chests, which were open wounds. A four-anna piece, which had slipped out of the folds of a bloodstained dhoti, was lying on the road. The dead were very dead, and the flies were hovering over them like a black cloud and settling in the places where their eyes had been.

  Gandhi had not seen the attack on the truck, but he had heard the explosion, and now he came walking slowly along the long road with Manubehn by his side. For a long while he gazed down at the dead bodies and then at the woman wailing there, and then he turned to Nirmal and said: “Tell her that God gave her a son in His pleasure, and in His pleasure He has taken the son away.”

  “I cannot tell her that,” Nirmal answered, and there was a long silence.

  They gazed at the truck, the dead bodies, the woman wailing. There was a cemetery nearby, and fifty yards down the road a large crowd of Hindu youths was watching intently. Nirmal Bose went up to them and asked them what they knew about the men who had thrown the hand grenades. They knew the two men, who had run away, and they wanted to protect the remaining Muslims. “Tell Gandhi,” they said, “that we will protect the Muslims by means of guns and bombs against our own comrades. This is what we are going to do, because we do not understand nonviolence. And if the police arrest us, tell Gandhi he must set us free.”

  It was growing dark now, nearly six o’clock, and as Nirmal Bose returned to Haidari Mansion he pondered the strange request, wondering how he could bring himself to ask Gandhi to give his blessing to armed Hindu youths.

  He found Gandhi walking in the garden of the mansion. He had been shaken by the sight of the dead bodies, and was in a strange mood. Nirmal Bose told Gandhi about his conversation with the youths and their promise to defend the remaining Muslims with guns and bombs, of which they evidently had a plentiful supply.