E-Book - Mahatma Gandhi

Mahatma Gandhi – His Life & TimesSoon after Nehru's return from London he made the long journey from NewDelhi to the village of Srirampur in Noakhali and, on December 27, 1946,reported to the Mahatma on the historic failure to agree in Downing Street.But Gandhi repeated his advice to Assam and to the Sikhs, to remain aloof fromthe constitutional sections and groups. He regarded them as devices to splitIndia and refused to countenance anything that contributed to division.The All India Congress Committee, however, resolved on January 6, 1947, by avote of 99 against 52, to accept the sections.Gandhi's influence in Congress was waning.Gandhi had gone to Noakhali to reinforce the human bond between Hindus andMoslems before politics and legal enactments tore it asunder. He dreaded theconsequences of the bisection of India. In New York, on October 16, 1949,Prime Minister Nehru stated that he would have fought to the end against theestablishment of Pakistan if he had foreseen the dire results that flowed fromit.Perhaps Gandhi intuitively anticipated these results. The division of Indiacaused the violent death of hundreds of thousands of Indians. It caused fifteenmillion refugees to wander unhappily from their homes into distant uncertainty.It provoked the war in Kashmir. It brought gigantic economic losses to all partsof the country. It fed a continuing religious- nationalistic bitterness withdisastrous potentialities.Even though the Congress leaders were not as perceptive as Gandhi they knewthat no good could come of partition. Why then did they acquiesce in Attlee'sDecember 6 statement?In 1942, Congress President Maulana Azad said to me in Nehru's presence thatCongress abhorred the idea of the division of India but could not reject itindefinitely if the Moslems wanted it. He was opposed, however, he said, to'divorce before marriage.' First they must try to live together in a unitedindependent India and if it did not work then there would be time enough toseparate.www.mkgandhi.org Page 519