Page 104 - GANDHI A Biography for Children and Beginners

GANDHI – A Biography for children and beginners

release, from India and outside. The fortunes of the war had turned in favour of

the Allies. The Government was no longer in a state of panic. They decided to

release Gandhi.

On his release streams of visitors began to converge at Gandhi's residence. He

found that he was too weak even to talk. He had to conserve his energy by

observing silence. But he rallied soon, and began to pick up the threads of his
preoccupations.

The members of the Working Committee were still in prison. So were most
others who had been detained. A way had to be found to lead the country out

of the deadlock. He wrote to the Viceroy and the Prime Minister Churchill

offering his services "for the sake of your people and mine, and through them

those of the world". He met with a rebuff.

He saw that political progress was being blocked by the persisting differences

with Jinnah and the Muslim League. He decided to try to reassure Jinnah and

narrow down differences. He sought a meeting with Jinnah. Gandhi and Jinnah
parleyed at Jinnah's residence at Mount Pleasant Road in Bombay for nearly two

weeks. But the ice could not be broken. Jinnah refused to relent or even

specify his demands. In 1940 the Muslim League had met at Lahore and passed a
resolution demanding the partition of the country and the creation of a new

State (to be called Pakistan) consisting of the areas in which Muslims were in a

majority.

Jinnah was not willing to concede the right that he demanded for the Muslim

minority in India to the non-Muslim minority in the areas that he claimed as

part of the projected Pakistan. The talks broke down.

The phase of defiance had quietened down. But the other part of the

programme, the constructive programme which, in Gandhi's eyes, was as

essential as Civil Disobedience could be carried out, had to be carried out.
Many new ideas had occurred to him while in prison. He, therefore, convened

meetings of workers who were engaged in the fields of Khadi and Village

Industries, Nayi Talim or Basic Education, Harijan Seva, Tribal Welfare,

Hindustani Prachar, organizations of women, students and labour and so on,

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