Gandhi: The last 200 days (Day 11) - 'Poorna Swaraj is so far off'

Date: 25-07-1997 :: Pg: 14 :: Col: d

Friday, 25th July, 1947

The slightly-built venerable man of titanic heart and evervigorous resolution who had sent shivers down the spine of one of the most powerful of European empires, was not in the best of spirits even as his efforts to remove British rule from India were about to yield full fruit and India's independence approached on winged feet. Full fruit, yes, but the tree that bore it was to be split down the length of its old and hoary trunk, and this fact was very hard for Bapu to bear. Not only the imminence of India's being split into two countries, but also the tragedy of the communal killings that were spreading with a vengeance to more and more areas weighed him heavily down.

In Sylhet in the north-east, a referendum had shown that the majority wanted the area to join Pakistan. Following the anouncement of the referendum result, all hell had broken loose in Sylhet. Gandhiji received a telegram from Mr. Birendra Nath Das, Joint Secretary of the District Congress, saying frantic communal propaganda was provoking violent orgies of assault, looting, arson, and rape against the minorities. Mr. Das pleaded, ``Highways and even towns are unsafe. Situation deteriorating. Great panic. Places evacuated. Please send representative to study situation, and telegraphic message to keep up the people's morale.'' No wonder, then, that even Gandhiji's irrepressible cheer suffered dwindling .In a letter he wrote to an old associate and friend, Hariprasad Desai, who had expressed joy over the coming of August 15, Gandhiji said, ``Why so jubilant? Poorna Swaraj is so far off. Have we got Swaraj? Did Swaraj mean only that British rule should end? To my mind it was not so. For me Sabarmati is far off, Noakhali is near''.

Hariprasad Desai reminded him that, on the eve of his famous march to Dandi to make salt defying an iniquitous British Indian law against it, Bapu had pledged that he would return to his favourite Sabarmati Ashram in Ahmedabad only when India had become free of foreign rule, and requested the apostle's return to the Ashram. But Sabarmati, for the Mahatma, was receding far.

The previous day, a large number of the members of the Constituent Assembly had given a signed request for Mahatmaji to be present and deliver an address in the Assembly at the midnight birth of Indian independence on the 15th of August. Gandhiji felt himself far, far away from accepting that request either - in view of the heaviness he bore in his heart.

The Mahatma was irrevocably convinced that the people of independent India should be linked by Hindustani, a language comprising the scripts and resources of both Hindi and Urudu, and that English should only be of secondary importance. He was not for a national language heavily Sanskrit-Hindi or greatly Persian-Urdu in character. In a piece he wrote for the Harijan this day, Gandhiji quoted a letter received by him from Mrs. Perinbehn Captain, a grand daughter of the Grand Old Man of India, Dadabhai Naoroji. Mrs. Captain had sought Gandhiji's advice on how Hindustani should be promoted in the land, and ended with this touching request, ``Please try and prevent our friends (Congressmen wanting Hindi written in Devnagari) from losing their vision through hatred, and losing all hopes of linking in true friendship the whole of our country from Kashmir to Kanyakumari, and from Assam to Sind.'' Sharing her anguish, Bapu hoped that the Constituent Assembly would in two months' time take the right decision on India's lingua franca. It seemed to him of the utmost priority that in this matter and in others, the Congress and the Hindus of India, ``by their conduct, direct and indirect, should disprove the Muslim League statement that we, the Hindus and Muslims of India, are not one nation but two, and that too because of our respective religions.'' Referring to the fact that celebrated Congressmen right from the party's inception had been drawn from all religions, Gandhiji paid tribute to exemplars Dadabhai Naoroji, Phirozeshah Mehta, and Badruddin Tyabjee, and commended the oneness of India they had ever stood and worked for.

In two other brief letters he wrote this day, Gandhiji emphasised that dark as the horizon appeared to be, there was yet hope for a new dawn, if only everyone worked selflessly to achieve it. He said, ``It is true that a great calamity has befallen us, but if we think deeply we will see that it contains a unique opportunity for working for the prosperity and moral regeneration of our country. How I wish we realise this!'' Striking a more personal note, he told another colleague, ``Why are you so sensitive? He who wishes to serve cannot afford to be sensitive''.

In his prayer meeting, Gandhiji again roundly criticised the hypocrisy of Hindus who sold their cattle for the animal to find their way to butchers, and yet demanded a Government ban on cow slaughter. He advocated extensive tree-planting, as the foliage of trees in abundance would attract precipitation from the clouds like milk from a cow. Advocating constant, warm and loving tolerance between the religions, Bapu concluded, ``If we can become brave, and love the minorities, they will return love for love... Can we make crores of minority people slaves?... We should remember that he who would make slaves of others does himself become a slave.''