Page 114 - GANDHI A Biography for Children and Beginners

GANDHI – A Biography for children and beginners

might have had their reasons. The British Government wanted partition. Jinnah

wanted partition. Gandhi was isolated. His colleagues had deserted him.

He was still prepared to fight. But he knew that he had no time to build up a
new alternative leadership. He told his attendants : "Today I find myself all

alone. Even the Sardar and Jawaharlal think that he was wrong, and peace was

sure to return if partition was agreed upon. Nevertheless, I must speak as I feel
... we may not feel the full impact immediately, but, I can see clearly that the

future of independence gained at this price is going to be dark. Should the evil I

apprehend overtake India ... let posterity know what agony this old soul went
through, thinking of it.... Let it not be said that Gandhi was party to Indian

vivisection." It was a Monday, his weekly day of silence on which Mountbatten

met Gandhi to talk of the Congress's acceptance of partition. Mountbatten was

astonished by Gandhi's 'self-effacement' and 'self-control'.

It seemed to him that his colleagues and the Government had no need of him,

anymore. He decided to leave Delhi, and go where he was needed. He was

needed in Calcutta, in Noakhali, in Bihar, in the Punjab, — everywhere where
people were in anguish, where they had been blinded by anger and had sunk to

the level of brutes. He had to assuage their suffering, give them solace, atone

for their sins, cool their passions, teach them to live with each other. Hatred
could not quench hatred. Only love could. So the lone pilgrim, the messenger of

peace and love set out for Noakhali where he had left his work uncompleted.

On the way when he was in Calcutta, trouble broke out in the city. The former
premier Suhrawardy and many others requested Gandhi to stay and restore

peace. He agreed to do so if Suhrawardy would stay with him under the same

roof and work with him.

A house was chosen in a locality that had been badly affected. On the day on

which Gandhi moved in, an angry mob of youngsters surrounded the house,

pelted stones, broke panels, forced their way in, and confronted him with
blood-shot eyes, brandishing lathis. Gandhi stood in their midst with arms

folded, fearless, — cool in his courage and compassion, ready to be set upon,

and lynched. The anger abated. The assailants retreated. It appeared as though

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