Page 116 - GANDHI A Biography for Children and Beginners

GANDHI – A Biography for children and beginners

Gandhi reached Delhi on his way to the Punjab. But at Delhi, he found that the

flood of human misery that had gathered in the Punjab and Sind had reached

Delhi. Millions of people who had been uprooted from their homes and lands
and lost their all had arrived at Delhi on their trek to safety. It was undoubtedly

the biggest exodus that history had seen.

Their misery, agony, bitterness and anger were beyond description.

There were among them people who had seen the gory murder of their parents

or spouses, their sisters and brothers and children. Many women had been
raped. Many had been abducted and kept as slaves or forcibly married. Children

had been picked up by their feet and killed by being dashed on the ground.

Houses had been burnt and looted in village after village, city after city. People

had escaped detection and fled from their homes and lands, carrying whatever
they could salvage, not knowing where to go, not knowing where they could

find safety. Caravans of those who sought refuge formed themselves; husbands

were missing; wives were missing: parents and children were missing. There

were also orphans and helpless old people who had lost their grown up
children. Aerial surveys showed that some caravans were sixty miles or more in

length. They had no rations to survive on. Many died on the way. Those who

came later had to wade through corpses. The stench of corpses and swarms of
vultures were in the air. Worse still, sometimes caravans were ambushed, and

subjected to murder, loot, rape and abduction. At some places, those who

sought water were given poisoned water, and they died on the way. The

caravans had no assurance of security, even when they survived. They had to
start life again in refugee camps, living on rations, living in squalor. How could

they resume their lives and find their human dignity again? All this happened to

columns that moved from one country to the other.

To Hindus who poured into India from what had become Pakistan, and to

Muslims who were fleeing for safety to Pakistan.

What else could one find in the camps and concentrations of refugees except

anger, misery and the spirit of revenge? They were angry with the leaders

whose actions had brought them to a state of misery and despair. Gandhi felt

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