I HAVE DECIDED to leave tomorrow for Hyderabad, the capital of the native state of Hyderabad where the Nizam, richest man in the world, rules some sixteen million people with British help. I could stay here for several more days, and Gandhi yesterday asked me to stay on, but I had come to Sevagram with the intention of remaining only two or three days and now I must be on my way. By five-thirty A.M. I had shaved and breakfasted and went over to where Gandhi was having his mango meal. “At one time,” he said, “in Bengal, when I was working very hard, I lived entirely on mangoes.”
“An Englishman or an American, if he were working very hard,” I said, “would have lived entirely on beefsteak.”
“That’s the difference,” Gandhi said. “The British have no variety in their vegetables either. It is always potatoes and cabbage.”
While we talked Kano Gandhi, the Mahatma’s nephew, took photographs of us.
When we started on our walk, I said, “I have found you so objective about your work and the world that I want to ask you to be objective about yourself. This isn’t a personal question but a political question: how do you account for your influence over so many people?”
“I can see the spirit in which you ask this,” Gandhi said. “I think my influence is due to the fact that I pursue the truth. That is my goal.”
“I do not underestimate the power of truth,” I argued. “But this explanation seems to me inadequate. Leaders like Hitler have achieved power by telling lies. That doesn’t mean that you cannot be come influential by telling the truth. But truth in itself has not always availed others in this country or elsewhere. Why is it,” I continued, “that you, without any of the paraphernalia of power, with out a government or police behind you, without ceremonies or even a tightly knit organization, for I understand that Congress is in no sense a disciplined, tightly coordinated body, how is it that you have been able to sway so many millions and get them to sacrifice their comforts and time and even their lives?”
“Truth,” he said, “is not merely a matter of words. It is really a matter of living the truth.” He stopped, and I felt he meant me to think of the simple life which he led. “It is true, I have not much equipment. My education is not great. I do not read much.” He paused.
“Isn’t it,” I suggested, “that when you advocate independence you strike a chord in many Indians? A musician does something to the members of his audience. You play a note which Indians are waiting to hear. I have noticed that people applaud most the arias they have heard often and liked. A lecture audience applauds views it agrees with. Is it that you say and do what your people want you to say and do?”
“Yes,” he said, “maybe that is it. I was a loyalist in respect to the British, and then I became a rebel. I was a loyalist until 1896.”
“Weren’t you also a loyalist between 1914 and 1918?”
“Yes, in a way,” he affirmed, “but not really. By 1918 I had already said that British rule in India is an alien rule and must end.” He remained silent as we trudged along. Finally he said, “I will tell you how it happened that I decided to urge the departure of the British. It was in 1916. I was in Lucknow working for Congress. A peasant came up to me looking like any other peasant of India, poor and emaciated. He said, ‘My name is Rajkumar Shukla. I am from Champaran, and I want you to come to my district. He described the misery of his fellow agriculturists and prayed me to let him take me to Champaran, which was hundreds of miles from Lucknow. He begged so insistently and persuasively that I promised. But he wanted me to fix the date. I could not do that. For weeks and weeks Rajkumar Shukla followed me wherever I went over the face of India. He stayed wherever I stayed. At length, early in 1917, I had to be in Calcutta. Rajkumar followed me and ultimately persuaded me to take the train with him from Calcutta to Champaran. Champaran is a district where indigo is planted. I decided that I would talk to thousands of peasants but, in order to get the other side of the question, I would also interview the British commissioner of the area. When I called on the commissioner he bullied me and advised me to leave immediately. I did not accept his advice and proceeded on the back of an elephant to one of the villages. A police messenger overtook us and served notice on me to leave Champaran. I allowed the police to escort me back to the house where I was staying and then I decided to offer civil resistance. I would not leave the district. Huge crowds gathered around the house. I cooperated with the police in regulating the crowds. A kind of friendly relationship sprang up between me and the police. That day in Champaran became a red-letter day in my life. I was put on trial. The government attorney pleaded with the magistrate to postpone the case but I asked him to go on with it. I wanted to announce publicly that I had disobeyed the order to leave Champaran. I told him that I had come to collect information about local conditions and that I therefore had to disobey the British law because I was acting in obedience with a higher law, with the voice of my conscience. This was my first act of civil disobedience against the British. My desire was to establish the principle that no Englishman had the right to tell me to leave any part of my country where I had gone for a peaceful pursuit. The government begged me repeatedly to drop my plea of guilty. Finally the magistrate closed the case. Civil disobedience had won. It became the method by which India could be made free.”
“This,” I said, “is perhaps another clue to your position in India.”
“What I did,” he interrupted, “was a very ordinary thing. I declared that the British could not order me around in my own country.”
“It was ordinary,” I commented, “but you were the first to do it. It’s like the story of Columbus and the egg.”
“What’s that?” he asked.
“Have you never heard the story of Columbus and the egg?” I asked Gandhi.
“No,” he confessed, “tell me.”
I told him. He laughed. “That’s right,” he said, “it was an ordinary thing to say that I had the right to go peacefully anywhere in my own country. But no one had said it before.”
By this time we had returned to Gandhi’s house.
At three o’clock I came for my regular interview. Gandhi, who had been talking to Nehru for an hour, asked me to excuse him for ten minutes. He had to go to the lavatory, he explained. When he came back he lay down on his pallet, and one of his secretaries handed him a letter that had come in the mail. Gandhi took it and smiled as he read it, then turned two pages and I saw a folded sheet of music. Turning to Kurshed who was in the room, he said laughingly to her, “Here, sing this for me.” She hummed the notes and read some of the verses, and then I asked for the letter and the music. She gave them to me and I brought them to America with me. The letter was dated “United States of America, Hollywood, California, 1535 North Hobart Boulevard, March 10, 1942.” It was addressed to “Mahatma Gandhi, Indian National Congress, India,” and signed by Marius Mannik. The letter read, “My Dear Mahatma Gandhi: Am sending you this song in a democratic spirit and hope you will receive it as such. I have long been one of your admirers. Most sincerely yours.” The song was entitled “Let’s Beat the Axis” and was dedicated to “General Douglas MacArthur and his forces.” The chorus read:
“So let us grind our Axes to beat the cruel Axis,
Our Faith and Work and Taxes must stay the foe that whacks us;
Then let us grind our Axes and beat the cruel Axis
Till tyranny relaxes from Nome to old Damascus.”
When the laughing subsided, Gandhi turned to me and said, “Now fire.”
“That would be violence, Mr. Gandhi,” I said.
“And have you any objection to violence?” he asked.
“But you have never heard a word from me as to whether I am for or against violence,” I said.
“You don’t have to tell me,” he said laughingly. “I look at you and know.”
“In case your impending civil disobedience movement,” I asked, “develops a violent phase, as it has sometimes in past years, would you call it off? You have done that before.”
“In my present mood,” he replied, “it would be incorrect to say that no circumstances might arise in which I would call off the movement. In the past, however, I have been too cautious. That was necessary for my own training and for the training of my collaborators. But I would not behave as I have in the past.”
“Since I am going away soon from your village,” I began, “I want to be quite sure that I understand your ideas correctly. Would there be any chance of a compromise between what you want and what the British authorities are ready to offer? Might some kind of a modified Cripps proposal be accept able to you?”
“No,” Gandhi said. “Nothing along the lines of the Cripps offer. I want their complete and irrevocable withdrawal. I am essentially a man of compromise because I am never sure that I am right. But now it is the unbending future in me that is uppermost. There is no halfway house between withdrawal and non-withdrawal. It is, of course, no complete physical withdrawal that I ask. I shall insist, however, on the transfer of political power from the British to the Indian people.”
“What about the time factor?” I inquired. “When you launch your civil disobedience movement, and if the British yield, will it be a matter of the immediate transfer of political power?”
“The British,” he said, “would not have to do that in two days or in two weeks. But it must be irrevocable and complete political withdrawal.”
“Suppose the British say they will withdraw completely after the war?” I asked.
“No,” he said. “In that case my proposal loses much of its value. I want them to go now so I can help China and Russia. Today I am unable to pull my full weight in favor of them. It is my philanthropy that has made me present this proposal. For the time being, India disappears from my gaze. I never wanted independence for India’s sake alone. I never wished to play the role of frog-in-the-well.”
“You have not felt this way before, Mr. Gandhi,” I suggested.
“The whole idea,” he explained, “keeps blossoming out within me. The original idea of asking the British to go burst upon me suddenly. It was the Cripps fiasco that inspired the idea. Hardly had he gone when it seized hold of me.”
“Exactly when did the idea occur to you?” I asked.
“Soon after Cripps’s departure. I wrote a letter to Horace Alexander [a British friend of India] in reply to his letter to me. Thereafter the idea possessed me. Then began the propaganda. Later I framed a resolution. My first feeling was, We need an answer to Cripps’s failure. What a diabolical thing if the Cripps mission were without any redeeming feature. Suppose I ask them to go. This idea arose from the crushed hope that had been pretty high in our minds. We had heard good things about Cripps from Jawaharlal and others. Yet the whole mission fell flat. How, I asked my self, am I to remedy this situation? The presence of the British blocks our way. It was during my Monday day of silence that the idea was born in me. From that silence arose so many thoughts that the silence possessed me and the thoughts possessed me too and I knew I had to act for Russia and China and India. My heart goes out to China. I cannot forget my five hours with Chiang Kai-shek and his attractive partner. Even for China’s sake alone I must do this. I am burdening my thoughts with the world’s sorrow.”
“Why will it not wait until after the war?” I asked.
“Because I want to act now and be useful while the war is here,” he replied.
“Have you any organization with which to carry on this struggle?” I inquired.
“The organization is the Congress Party,” he answered. “But if it fails me, I have my own organization, myself. I am a man possessed by an idea. If such a man cannot get an organization, he becomes an organization.”
“Have you sufficient confidence in the present mood of the country? Will it follow you? This civil disobedience movement may involve heavy sacrifices for the people. Has anybody opposed your idea?”
“I had a letter today from Rajagopalachari,” he told me. “He is the only one opposed. I know his views. But how does he expect the Moslem League to work with him when he wishes to work with the Moslem League in order to destroy Pakistan?”
“Do you think Jinnah is set on Pakistan? Perhaps it is a bargaining counter with him which he will give up if Hindu-Moslem cooperation can be achieved.”
“As I have told you before,” Gandhi stated, “he will only give it up when the British are gone and when there is therefore nobody with whom to bargain.”
“So you intend to tell the British in advance when you will launch your movement?” I said.
“Yes,” he confirmed.
“You had better not tell them too far in advance,” I laughed.
“Is that a tip from you?” he laughed.
“No,” I said.
“They will know in good time,” he assured me.
“If you look at this in its historic perspective,” I said, you are doing a novel and remarkable thing—you are ordaining the end of an empire.”
“Even a child can do that,” he said. “I will appeal to the people’s instincts. I may arouse them.”
“Let us try,” I suggested, “to see the possible reaction throughout the world. Your very friends, China and Russia, may appeal to you not to launch this civil disobedience movement.”
“Let them appeal to me. I may be dissuaded. But if I can get appeals to them in time, I may convert them. If you have access to men in authority here, tell them this. You are a fine listener. No humbug about you. Discuss this with them and let them show me if there are any flaws in my proposal.”
“Have I your authority,” I asked, “to say this to the Viceroy?”
“Yes, you have my permission,” he said firmly. “Let him talk to me; I may be converted. I am a reasonable man. I would not like to take any step that would harm China.”
“Or America?” I suggested.
“If America were hurt, it would hurt every body,” he said.
“Would you wish President Roosevelt to be in formed about your attitude?”
“Yes,” he said. “I do not wish to appeal to anybody. But I would want Mr. Roosevelt to know my plans, my views, and my readiness to compromise. Tell your President I wish to be dissuaded.”
“Do you expect drastic action when you launch the movement?” I asked.
“Yes,” he answered. “I expect it any day. I am ready. I know I may be arrested. I am ready.”
Mahadev Desai, Gandhi’s secretary, came to see me this afternoon and brought me a copy of Gandhi’s autobiography. He said Gandhi had talked to him about what I might do after my departure, and he and Gandhi had agreed that I could convey to Roosevelt and to the Viceroy any part of my conversations with Gandhi. Desai declared that Gandhi wished to discuss the situation with the Viceroy.
At dinner today Gandhi said two things would happen when I was gone: “Kurshed Ben will miss you because she will have nobody to take care of, and I will miss you during the hour which has been reserved for you every afternoon.” I told Gandhi that I should have liked to stay for a long time and maybe I would return when the Congress Working Committee assembled at Wardha to act upon his decision to launch the civil disobedience campaign. “It will meet within a fortnight,” Gandhi informed me. “But come back whenever you like.” Then he asked me whether I had slept well in Sevagram. I replied that I had slept better than I had for many years.
“It is good to sleep under the stars,” he said. “The best thing. But I suppose,” he added, “that would be impossible in Russia.” I told him it was very hot in some parts of Russia.
“Oh,” he exclaimed, “I thought it was always cold in Russia.”
I sat in the guest house with Kurshed and Nehru. Both had been in Indian prisons many times. I got them to talk about life in prison. They said that important leaders received good accommodations and that Gandhi was always well treated and was able to obtain the food he wished. Also Gandhi’s correspondence with people outside jail was not interfered with. Others, however, could not communicate freely with free people. Members of Congress who were in prison never tried to escape, Nehru explained, because Congress members deliberately courted arrest by openly practicing civil disobedience. There was nothing underground or secret in any one of Gandhi’s campaigns of resistance to the British raj. Congress first proclaimed its intention to resist and then resisted, and if a Congress prisoner were to escape, it would only be to commit a further immediate act of civil disobedience and be put back in jail again.
Nehru was now in complete agreement with Gandhi about the coming campaign. He had hesitated to follow Gandhi because he had hoped that President Roosevelt or Chiang Kai-shek or some body else would intervene in the Indian situation, break the Anglo-Indian deadlock, and make organized opposition to the British unnecessary. Nehru had been anti-Axis long before many high officials in democratic countries. He had opposed the appeasement policies of democratic governments and was on record as being actively anti-Japanese, anti-Mussolini, and anti-Hitler. He did not wish to embarrass the British in their war against the Axis. But he felt that the British had to be forced to take the steps which would save them from reverses in India similar to those they had suffered in the Far East. He did not feel that the British could successfully defend India with the military strength available to them. They should therefore have the wisdom, he said, to adopt measures which would enlist the support of the Indian people in the defense of their country.