E-Book - Mahatma Gandhi

Mahatma Gandhi – His Life & TimesGandhi hurried across the continent to Calcutta. To get Pakistan, Bengal wouldhave to be partitioned between Pakistan and Hindustan. If he could impress theBengal Moslems with the painful results of such vivisection and if he wouldcheck the rising Hindu sentiment for the division of Bengal, he might preventPakistan.'When everything goes wrong at the top,' Gandhi asked in Calcutta, 'can thegoodness of the people at the bottom assert itself against the mischievousinfluence?' This was his hope.Bengal has one culture, one language, he argued. Let it stay united. They hadreunited Bengal after Lord Curzon partitioned it; could they not rebuff Jinnahbefore he partitioned it?After six days in Calcutta, Gandhi went to Bihar. Despite the torrid heat, hetravelled to the villages. His refrain was the same: 'If the Hindus showed thespirit of brotherliness, it would be good for Bihar, for India and for the world.'On May 25, in response to a summons from Nehru, Gandhi again returned toNew Delhi. Mountbatten, his mind made up, had flown to London. Rumour hadit that India would be partitioned, that the plan would be announced soon. Butwhy, Gandhi wondered. The Cabinet Mission had rejected partition andPakistan on May 16, 1946. What had happened since then to alter the situation?The riots? Were they yielding to hooliganism? 'I must cling to the hope,' Gandhisaid, 'that Britain will not depart a hair's breadth from the spirit and letter ofthe Cabinet Mission's statement of May 16 of last year...''He is burning the candle at both ends,' Dr. Sushila Nayyar reported. He was stillstriving to reverse the tide towards partition. If the effort killed him what did itmatter? 'In the India that is shaping today there is no place for me,' he said; hisvoice shook with emotion. 'I have given up the hope of living 125 years. I maylast a year or two. That is a different matter. But I have no wish to live if Indiais to be submerged in a deluge of violence as it is threatening to do.'www.mkgandhi.org Page 530