E-Book - Mahatma Gandhi

Mahatma Gandhi – His Life & Timeswho aspire to occupy responsible posts in the government of the country canonly do so if they Pass the required test.'This was logical, fair and sensible, but completely ^satisfactory to the Moslems.And since the economic backwardness of India made government employmentone of the major, if not the major, industries of the country, the reservation ofofficial jobs for Mohammedans remained a sore point as long as British rulelasted.The seven hundred thousand villages of India, Hindus and Moslems had alwayslived together in peace. The Hindu- Moslem tension of the twentieth centurywas a man-made, middle-class, urban disease. Indians are often ambitious anddynamic. A city like Bombay throbs with vitality. The inhumanly crowdedtowns, with their herring-barrel tenements and frustration which comes fromanimal-like poverty and the very limited opportunities to earn, learn andadvance, make urban Indians easily excitable—especially in the maddening heatof the long summer. In cities, Gandhi's non-violence contended with nature aswell as human nature.Gandhi, the optimistic Karma yogi, regarded difficulties as spurs to greaterexertions of will. The editor who gave an entire issue of his magazine to aproblem was the doer who would give his whole life to solve it. On September18, 1924, therefore, Gandhi started a twenty-one-day fast for Hindu- Moslemfriendship.Gandhi had been ill for months in jail. Then came the urgent appendicectomy.The wound suppurated and healed slowly. Convalescence was retarded. Weeksof tense talks followed by weeks of strenuous touring wore him out. Thepolitical situation depressed him; years of work seemed to have been lost. At aconference of the All-India Congress Committee in June, when he realized howmany of his associates really did not believe in non-violence, he wept in public.The steady stream of reports on Hindu-Moslem fighting and the atmosphere ofbickering, hate and gloom weighed heavily on his body and spirit. He was fiftyfive.He knew that a twenty-one-day fast might be fatal. He did not want todie. There were too many unfinished tasks. He reveled in life. Suicide waswww.mkgandhi.org Page 250