Page 103 - GANDHI A Biography for Children and Beginners

GANDHI – A Biography for children and beginners

of February. The Viceroy dismissed it as political black mail. But as Gandhi

embarked on his fast there was deep agony in India. He was in poor health, and

in no condition to undergo the rigours of a 21-day fast. Soon he entered the
'danger zone'. The doctors who attended on him said that he would suffer an

irretrievable breakdown, and would die if he did not take glucose. Every

moment seemed crucial. None of his Indian colleagues could dare suggest to

Gandhi that he should take glucose in the water he was drinking. Yet they too
knew that nothing else could save him. They were disconsolate. The Surgeon-

General who was an Englishman was so moved and so keen to try to save

Gandhi that he decided to try and persuade Gandhi. He broached the subject.
Gandhi managed a smile, and signalled that he was in the hands of God. When

Gandhi's colleagues entered the room, they found the Surgeon-General wiping

his tears on the verandah. The nation was on an anxious vigil. The British

Government, on its part, had made up its mind to let Gandhi die. They
assembled a pile of sandal-wood inside the precincts of the Aga Khan's Palace

for the funeral pyre. But the miracle occurred. Gandhi came back from the

brink of death, much to the surprise of the doctors, much to the chagrin of the

Government, and much to the joy of the Indian people. There was a spurt in
programmes of defiance all over the country. The nation's agony was so intense

that three Indian members of the Viceroy's Executive Council disassociated

themselves from the policy of the Government, and resigned.

Kasturba Gandhi had been in indifferent health from 1943. The illness did not

respond to treatment. In February 1944, she breathed her last with her head in

Gandhi's lap. A few days earlier, she had told Gandhi : 'Now, I am going.' As
Gandhi said, 'They were indeed a couple out of the ordinary.' She had been his

partner for over sixty years in a saga of ordeals, suffering, discovery of self,

and sadhana for truth and nonviolence. It was another irreparable loss that he

sustained while in the Aga Khan's Palace.

All these began to tell on Gandhi's health. He was laid low with malaria. He had

also contracted amoebiasis. As reports of his health came to be known, and his
condition deteriorated, there were increasing and insistent demands for his

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