Gandhi's Passion by Wolpert Stanley;

Author:Wolpert, Stanley;
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Published: 2001-11-12T05:00:00+00:00

16

Imprisoned Soul of India

GANDHI NEVER despaired behind bars. Adversity only cheered his passionate nature and intensified his resolve. The 1932-33 prison interlude brought the purifying rays of his inner light to focus on Hinduism’s gravest injustice, the crime of untouchability.

On March 11,1932, Gandhi wrote to India’s new secretary of state, Sir Samuel Hoare, to remind him of a warning he had issued in the closing days of the Round Table Conference “that I should resist with my life the grant of separate electorate to the Depressed Classes.”1 Now he explained at length why he opposed Britain’s announced intention of awarding separate electoral status, which would grant a bloc of separate seats on all the new councils to candidates born only in untouchable communities. Gandhi insisted that untouchable castes remain integral parts of Hinduism’s body politic. So strong was his opposition to any political vivisection of his faith that Gandhi informed Sir Samuel, “I must fast unto death” if Britain went ahead and created separately elected representation of untouchables.

When Nehru in his own distant prison cell later learned of Gandhi’s decision, he felt “annoyed with him for choosing a side issue for his final sacrifice.”2 Jawaharlal was angry with Bapu for taking this religious, sentimental approach to a political question. “And his frequent references to God—God has made him do this—God even indicated the date of the fast. . . . What a terrible example to set!” the agnostic Nehru noted. Hoare, however, was neither annoyed nor angry. “The dogs bark,” he said, “the caravan moves on.” His reply to Gandhi was that realizing “fully the strength of your feeling upon the question we intend to give any decision that may be necessary solely and only upon the merits of the case.”3

As soon as Charlie Andrews learned of Gandhi’s resolve to fast unto death, he wrote to try to dissuade his friend. “I understand and even appreciate the moral repulsion against ‘fasting unto death,’” Gandhi replied. “I will make myself as certain as it is humanly possible to be, that the will that appears to me to be God’s is really His, and not the Devil’s.”4

To Mira, who was at this time also jailed far away, he wrote more intimate details: “Had I learnt to use the body merely as an instrument of service and His temple, old age would have been like a beautiful ripe fruit. . . . My only consolation in thinking over the past is that in all I did I was guided by nothing else than the deepest love for you.”5

To son Devdas, also then in another prison, he wrote of the daily routine he and Mahadev and Vallabhbhai followed: “We are happy here. . . . All three of us get up at 3.45 A.M. After we have prayed together, Mahadev goes back to sleep and we two take honey and water and then have a walk. Afterwards I sleep for about a quarter of an hour. At 6.30 all the three have our breakfast.”6 Gandhi’s only other daily meal was at 4 P.

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