Mahatma Gandhi’s last years were the most tumultuous of his life. They marked his greatest triumphs, his greatest losses and the crumbling of his dream. India achieved Independence in 1947, but at the cost of Partition and enormous suffering.
Gandhi’s final years show us why India took the path that it did. They are a study in how one of the most effective mass leaders the world has seen turned into a lonely pilgrim. This series, Gandhi – The Final Years, launches on his death anniversary.
This episode begins in 1942. Gandhi had given two clarion calls: “Quit India” and “Do or die”. World War 2 had swept through Europe, plunging the world into danger and uncertainty. The British Empire was shaken and it was accepted that it was no longer sustainable. Gandhi’s broadside against the Raj unnerved the British and he was arrested on August 9, 1942.
We are in conversation with Tushar Gandhi, great grandson of the Mahatma, a great chronicler of the Mahatma’s life and a peace activist.
[00:00:00] It was January 20, 1948. There was an attempt to assassinate Gandhi, the last unsuccessful
[00:00:18] one. Gandhi was staying at Birla House, Delhi, where he also conducted prayer meetings. Madanlal
[00:00:24] Paava and Nathuram Gowtse had hatched a plan to assassinate Mahatma Gandhi by using a bomb
[00:00:29] to create a distraction and later shoot him during the chaos that would have followed.
[00:00:34] A guard nearby became suspicious of them but let it pass. The bomb explodes around 25 yards
[00:00:40] away from Gandhi, but thankfully no one is hurt. Gandhi continues with his prayer meeting. This
[00:00:46] was not the first attempt on his life. 10 days later, on January 13, 1948, Gowtse ended
[00:00:53] the Mahatma's journey of the mortal world. Gandhi stood true to what he believed in.
[00:00:58] He had once said, If I am to die by the bullet of a madman, I must do so smiling. There
[00:01:03] must be no anger within me. God must be in my heart and on my lips.
[00:01:11] This is an All-Indians Matter in-depth limited series, Gandhi the Final Years. I am Ashraf
[00:01:17] Engineer. In this series we will cover the last phase
[00:01:26] of the saga that was Gandhi's life. In many ways, the most dramatic of his extraordinary
[00:01:31] journey and also perhaps the most significant for a nation about to be born. His end
[00:01:37] was India's beginning. That's why these years are so important. Gandhi's last years
[00:01:43] were perhaps the most tumultuous of his life. They were to mark his greatest triumph but
[00:01:47] also his greatest losses and the crumbling of his dream.
[00:01:52] India achieved independence from British rule in 1947, the result of a remarkable non-violent
[00:01:57] struggle that inspires and guides movements across the world even today. But it was
[00:02:03] also a time of partition which cleaved the country into two and resulted in some of the
[00:02:08] worst bloodletting the world has ever seen. Gandhi's dream of a united free India turned
[00:02:14] to dust before his eyes and he could do nothing but watch helplessly. His implorations fell
[00:02:19] on deaf ears. On August 15, 1942, he had lost Mahadev Desai,
[00:02:24] his personal secretary who was often referred to as Gandhi's fifth son. He passed away
[00:02:30] while Gandhi was incarcerated in the Agakhaan palace in Pune. Shortly after, he lost his life
[00:02:35] long companion, his wife, Kasturba, during the same incarceration. It was almost as if
[00:02:41] the bricks of Gandhi's life were being knocked out of the wall one by one. The obstacles
[00:02:46] that Gandhi surmounted were not always on the physical plane though even those were
[00:02:50] formidable. They were often on the moral plane and they often came not from those
[00:02:55] who opposed him but from those he had worked with through the freedom struggle. In his last
[00:03:01] few years, he touched a fall on lonely path alone in the crowds that always surrounded
[00:03:05] him and ignored by those he had guided. Gandhi would have felt under siege, backed into a
[00:03:11] corner, unable to bring to life what he had imagined. Today, once again, Gandhi is
[00:03:16] under siege from the extreme right wing that has taken over the reins of the country
[00:03:20] and is seeking to destroy his legacy through falsehoods and by eroding everything that
[00:03:25] he stood for. This includes patently false claims like the one about Gandhi urging
[00:03:30] V.D. Savarkar to write mercy petitions to the British and the one about him receiving
[00:03:34] a monthly allowance while he was imprisoned at the Agakhaan palace. A study of
[00:03:39] Gandhi's last years is important to understand why India took the path that it did and
[00:03:44] also to set right so many of the claims being made about him now. They offer a
[00:03:49] study of how one of the most charismatic and effective mass leaders the world has
[00:03:53] seen became the lonely pilgrim that he was when he was shot dead. This series, Gandhi
[00:03:59] the final years launches on his death anniversary. To talk us through those
[00:04:03] final years, we have Tushar Gandhi, great grandson of the Mahatma, an author and
[00:04:07] peace activist who's written the extraordinary book Let's Kill Gandhi, a
[00:04:11] chronicle of the conspiracy to assassinate the Mahatma. He's also
[00:04:15] written The Lost Diary of Kastur Maiba, translating a diary found forgotten
[00:04:20] at the Kastur Ba Ashra Menendor. We've done a special series around both and my
[00:04:24] hope is we can have such a conversation every year because Gandhi's life is an
[00:04:29] ocean and no matter how many times we dip into it, a lot will remain to be
[00:04:33] explored. This series is based on Tushar's book Let's Kill Gandhi as well
[00:04:38] as the extraordinary chronicle by Pyarelal Nayar, Gandhi's secretary titled
[00:04:42] The Last Phase. I have relied heavily on volume 9, books 1 and 2 and
[00:04:47] volume 10 of Nayar's work. Tushar, once again, welcome.
[00:04:52] Thank you, Ashraf and very, very good day to all the listeners of all
[00:04:58] Indians' manner.
[00:05:00] Our story begins in 1942. Gandhi has just given two clarion calls, quit India
[00:05:06] and do or die. We are in the midst of World War Two that has swept Europe
[00:05:10] and much of the rest of the world into danger and uncertainty. The British
[00:05:15] Empire is shaken and it's widely understood that it's not sustainable.
[00:05:20] Gandhi is called for a fresh broadside against the Raj, unnerves the British
[00:05:24] and he's arrested early on August 9, 1942. This is part one of the series.
[00:05:33] Tushar, why was the quit India called so worrying for the British?
[00:05:38] Ashraf, we must remember that till then the British were dealing with a very
[00:05:43] ethical protester, somebody who would stick to the ethics, not take
[00:05:50] advantage of the other person's weakness. This was the first time that
[00:05:54] Bapu realized that you can't be gentlemanly with somebody who is so
[00:06:00] conniving and for the first time in his movement he decides to be
[00:06:07] politically scheming and he realizes the British Empire is on the
[00:06:11] back foot. Let's push it back further and get the wicket and that's what he
[00:06:16] does. That's where when earlier, right from his South Africa days,
[00:06:21] even though he was protesting against the Empire, he kept assuring them
[00:06:26] that he was protesting as a loyal citizen. Now he said, I've trusted
[00:06:31] you enough. You've betrayed me enough. Now you're down and I'm going to
[00:06:36] rub you down into the ground further to get what we require.
[00:06:41] So that got the British by surprise. They didn't believe that the Mahatma
[00:06:47] would actually do that. And so the response was also that in that manner
[00:06:55] to them because they kept thinking we are in trouble and as usual, Mr.
[00:07:00] Gandhi will help us. He'll fight us later on. We'll fight him later
[00:07:03] on. But at the moment we are in trouble. Mr. Gandhi is definitely
[00:07:07] going to help us. And then suddenly they get this yorker which they can't
[00:07:12] play. It's quite interesting that you're using cricket and analogies
[00:07:14] because I don't think Gandhi was very much in favor of Indians being so
[00:07:17] addicted to the game. Am I right? But he did at one time at Lodz, he did
[00:07:22] bowl the first ball of the county season. He was invited to do that.
[00:07:27] He went and bowled the first ball. I believe that the Lodz museum
[00:07:31] still has that ball in its museum. I had no clue about that.
[00:07:35] So maybe he was so addicted after that.
[00:07:38] He wasn't dogmatic. He said, I am opposing the empire. I'm not opposed to
[00:07:46] the people. Fight the sin, not the sinner. And so he was very clear about
[00:07:52] that. He goes to the roundtable conference to oppose everything that
[00:07:56] the British Empire is going to propose over there. And yet he's mingling
[00:08:01] with the British people like their friend, embracing them, talking
[00:08:04] to them, going in their midst. So we must realize that aspect of Gandhi.
[00:08:09] I think pragmatism is the word that comes to mind. But we'll talk a lot
[00:08:12] more about Gandhi, the politician. I want to talk right now about Gandhi's
[00:08:17] incarceration at the Agakhan Palace. That's where our story begins.
[00:08:20] And the question is why was Gandhi not taken to a regular jail?
[00:08:25] Why was he put up in a palace?
[00:08:28] Ashok, we must remember that at this time, the British realized that
[00:08:33] Gandhi needs to be isolated. He cannot be in touch with his people,
[00:08:39] neither the leadership nor the common people, because they suddenly
[00:08:43] realized that it's not just the leadership. Gandhi communicates
[00:08:48] directly with the masses and the masses follow him.
[00:08:51] So if he was kept in a regular prison, they couldn't insulate him
[00:08:57] as well, because he would have their channels running because by
[00:09:02] that time, there was a big section of the Indian administration in
[00:09:07] the British who were sympathetic to the independence cause.
[00:09:10] The British didn't trust them. INA threatening to happen.
[00:09:15] So the British were quite scared of what was going to happen.
[00:09:19] And so it was very important for them to isolate Gandhi in such
[00:09:25] a way that he had no contact with the outside world.
[00:09:29] And so the Agakhan Palace was selected because it was ideally situated.
[00:09:35] They had three parameters of security ringing that place.
[00:09:40] And you know, when we talk about palace, it conjures up all those
[00:09:44] fantastic dreams of lavish palaces and things.
[00:09:47] But if you go and look at where they were kept, just three rooms
[00:09:51] on the ground floor of the establishment were demarcated as
[00:09:57] the prison cells for Bapu and Bai and his party.
[00:10:00] Absolutely. I've been to those rooms often, in fact.
[00:10:04] And for those of our listeners who haven't, I can tell you that
[00:10:08] they are absolutely Spartan.
[00:10:11] They were Spartan.
[00:10:12] They were isolated.
[00:10:13] And except for the fact that there were no bars on the doors
[00:10:16] and windows, they were as incarcerated as if they were kept
[00:10:22] in the cellular prison.
[00:10:23] There was no difference between that.
[00:10:25] They were allowed to come out into the lobby.
[00:10:29] Yes.
[00:10:29] But the grounds below were out of reach, except for the two
[00:10:34] periods during the day where even in prison, prisoners are
[00:10:37] allowed to come out and exercise in the yard.
[00:10:40] That's right.
[00:10:41] So everything else was a prison.
[00:10:44] They were cut off from the people.
[00:10:46] Correspondence was strictly prohibited.
[00:10:50] Only immediate family was allowed to correspond with him.
[00:10:54] Newspapers were denied to him much later that access to
[00:10:58] newspapers was allowed later on and things.
[00:11:01] So we must remember that today they can campaign that look
[00:11:05] Savarkar was kept in the cellular jail and Gandhi was
[00:11:08] kept in a palace.
[00:11:10] But Savarkar received much more comforts and things and
[00:11:15] leniency from the British in the cellular jail than Gandhi
[00:11:19] ever did in the Agakhan Palace.
[00:11:21] Absolutely.
[00:11:21] And actually that was going to be my next question.
[00:11:25] There's this great misconception that life was great in the
[00:11:28] palace and what was life like in the palace?
[00:11:31] First of all, and now there is talk that Gandhi got a
[00:11:36] regular allowance from the British during his stay there.
[00:11:40] Is there any truth to that?
[00:11:41] The truth is that the British sanctioned one department of
[00:11:46] the British administration sanctioned 100 rupees as
[00:11:50] expenditure for Gandhi while he was in prison.
[00:11:53] The money was given to the department managing the
[00:11:57] prisons.
[00:11:58] So it wasn't coming to Gandhi?
[00:11:59] It was going?
[00:12:00] It was not given as an allowance to Gandhi.
[00:12:03] It was an allowance made for his maintenance in prison.
[00:12:07] And Bapu immediately wrote and said, this is too great a
[00:12:12] princely sum.
[00:12:13] I don't require this much money to be spent on my
[00:12:16] person.
[00:12:18] And he rejected it.
[00:12:19] Unlike Savarkar, where there are records that he continuously
[00:12:24] from time to time kept appealing to his patrons, the
[00:12:27] British colonial administration to increase his
[00:12:31] pension.
[00:12:31] Yes.
[00:12:32] So the allowance to given sanctioned for Gandhi was not
[00:12:35] for Gandhi.
[00:12:37] It was for keeping him a prisoner.
[00:12:40] It was a prison budget.
[00:12:41] It was a prison budget allocation that was made.
[00:12:44] But I can understand, you know, I can understand these
[00:12:47] campaign, the poor chaps.
[00:12:49] They don't have truth on their side.
[00:12:51] So they have to keep fabricating and manufacturing
[00:12:54] these kinds of accusations and attempting to make them
[00:13:00] stick.
[00:13:01] Unfortunately, they are succeeding in having it stuck
[00:13:04] on people's memories like the fourth bullet and all
[00:13:08] those, you know, absolutely imaginary things that
[00:13:11] they have spun off from time to time.
[00:13:13] Now that fourth bullet story to show is fascinating.
[00:13:16] I must tell our listeners that those of them who are
[00:13:19] interested in that particular story can check out our
[00:13:22] earlier series called Murder of the Mahatma is
[00:13:24] available wherever they get their audio.
[00:13:26] But I want to come back to Agakal Palace.
[00:13:30] It's also a tragic time because he loses the two
[00:13:35] people closest to him, his secretary, Mahadev Desai and
[00:13:39] his wife, Kasturba.
[00:13:41] We'll talk about Kasturba, but first tell us
[00:13:43] about Mahadev Desai's role in Gandhi's life and
[00:13:46] also how he died.
[00:13:48] Ashraf Mahadev Bhai endeared himself to Bapu over
[00:13:53] 25 years of togetherness.
[00:13:55] It all started in his initial call for people
[00:13:59] to come join him.
[00:14:01] And Mahadev Bhai was upcoming young person, very
[00:14:06] talented, very capable, like people of his generation
[00:14:10] aiming to get into the British administrative
[00:14:12] services and making a place for himself.
[00:14:16] Who gets, I'm going to use the term brainwashed
[00:14:19] because a lot of them got brainwashed by Bapu
[00:14:23] and his charisma.
[00:14:24] And there's a great story about him joining
[00:14:26] Bapu, but we'll talk about that later.
[00:14:28] And so from there onwards, the journey begins.
[00:14:31] And he's such a fantastic chronicler of Bapu.
[00:14:35] Mahadev Desai's diaries talk about every day of those
[00:14:41] 25 years that they spent together, talk about
[00:14:44] everyone they met, everything that happened in
[00:14:47] such great details.
[00:14:49] It's unbelievable that this man was so dedicated
[00:14:53] and he endeared himself to Bapu so much.
[00:14:56] It wasn't all very smooth sailing between them
[00:14:59] because they were both very argumentative and
[00:15:03] they would be engrossed in arguments over
[00:15:07] trivial things, English grammar, English spelling,
[00:15:10] dietary habits, all sorts of things.
[00:15:13] I think Gandhi rebelled in this sort of thing.
[00:15:15] Yeah, I think what Bapu was doing was instilling
[00:15:21] the concept of questioning in everybody who was with him.
[00:15:26] He didn't want Yes, man.
[00:15:28] That's right.
[00:15:28] He wanted them to question everything.
[00:15:31] And that's what he did with his regular day to day things.
[00:15:34] It used to be so irritating that in Yarvada jail,
[00:15:37] when all three Sardar Patel, Bapu and Mahadev Desai
[00:15:41] were detained together, Sardar Patel used to plead
[00:15:45] with them saying, stop this nonsensical argument
[00:15:48] about English grammar.
[00:15:50] Let's talk about the future kind of thing.
[00:15:54] And so this was the kind of relationship it had is ups and downs.
[00:15:59] One of the greatest threat to this relationship
[00:16:02] emerged when Bapu had gone to Orissa on his Harijan emancipation
[00:16:08] Yatra's, where he was canvassing for those villagers
[00:16:12] to open up access to the common wells to the Dalits of today
[00:16:18] and also urging them to allow them to enter temples and things.
[00:16:23] And Orissa was quite dear to him.
[00:16:27] Many of his campaigns were based over there,
[00:16:30] especially the Harijan campaigns.
[00:16:33] On one of these, Ba and a whole entourage
[00:16:38] from the Ashram accompanied him.
[00:16:41] And they were very close to Puri.
[00:16:44] They were on the outskirts of Puri.
[00:16:47] And Puri Jagannath Puri temple had not allowed access
[00:16:52] to the Dalits into the temple.
[00:16:55] There was a town limit beyond which they were not allowed to go further.
[00:16:59] And Bapu had declared that as long as that exists,
[00:17:03] I will not cross that limit also.
[00:17:07] But for Ba, who was a very devout Hindu and practicing one at that,
[00:17:13] the lure of darshan at Jagannath Puri was too much to resist.
[00:17:19] So on the pretext of going sightseeing in Puri,
[00:17:23] Ba accompanied by my grandmother Sushila and Mahadev's wife.
[00:17:30] They go to Puri and then Ba can't resist the lure of going into the temple.
[00:17:36] And so she enters the temple
[00:17:39] and Mahadev Ressai's wife also follows her into the temple.
[00:17:44] And they do the darshan and the puja and all that, come back.
[00:17:48] They know that they are going to get into trouble for this.
[00:17:51] And they do get into a lot of trouble.
[00:17:53] Bapu is devastated by this betrayal, what he calls betrayal.
[00:17:57] And he castigates all of them publicly.
[00:18:01] But he is more severe on Mahadev.
[00:18:05] Saying my wife is uneducated.
[00:18:07] You know, she's still under the influence of all this spiritual mambo-jambo.
[00:18:13] And I can understand her doing this.
[00:18:16] But your wife, she's so enlightened, she's educated.
[00:18:19] She also goes, so you are also lacking in making them understand the gravity of the whole situation.
[00:18:27] So he publicly castigates Mahadev Ressai.
[00:18:31] And for the first time in 24 years of togetherness,
[00:18:35] Mahadev Ressai is so devastated by this public reprimand
[00:18:41] that he ends in his resignation.
[00:18:43] And he says, I know I have sinned.
[00:18:45] I must atone and my punishment is banishment from you.
[00:18:48] I cannot now be with you anymore.
[00:18:51] And then Bapu comes back and he says, always treated you like my son.
[00:18:56] Are you going to leave me now?
[00:18:58] Don't I have the right as a father to reprimand you when I feel that you are deficient
[00:19:05] in coming up to the standards I set?
[00:19:08] And at that time Mahadev Ressai writes a nice couplet
[00:19:12] saying it's beautiful to be in paradise with the saint
[00:19:16] but a torture to live with the saint on earth.
[00:19:20] I was going to say actually that the relationship that you described,
[00:19:24] while it may be argumentative, can only happen with somebody you are extremely close to.
[00:19:29] So that's actually an indication of how close they were.
[00:19:32] They were because in one point Bapu was also regretting
[00:19:38] the distancing that he had done from his biological sons, keeping them away.
[00:19:44] Being always cautious of not being accused of nepotism and things.
[00:19:48] And in that, like everything else, he went to the extremes of pushing them as far away as possible.
[00:19:56] And so that vacuum of a father-son relationship was always there
[00:20:01] and then Mahadev fills it up for him.
[00:20:04] So it was very natural that that would happen.
[00:20:07] There was a lot of resentment in the ashrams.
[00:20:09] Initially, Babu was also English.
[00:20:11] Then you've got four sons and you've pushed them away and you've taken the stranger
[00:20:17] and you treat him like your son.
[00:20:19] Why can't you do the same thing for your sons?
[00:20:22] Babu says, everybody is my son.
[00:20:24] So there was this turmoil also in the whole relationship.
[00:20:27] And yet towards the end, Ba is more attached to Mahadev.
[00:20:34] Ba is more attached to Mahadev's son and wife.
[00:20:39] They are closer to her even than her daughters-in-law.
[00:20:43] And so this is the closeness of the relationship as well as the complexity of the whole thing.
[00:20:50] Since we're talking about Ba, describe Kasurba's last days.
[00:20:55] Tragic.
[00:20:56] It's very tragic to describe her last days because
[00:21:00] the real trauma that she suffered,
[00:21:04] even more than the trauma of the dramatic transformation of her husband
[00:21:09] that she had to endure in the earlier part of her life.
[00:21:12] The real tragedy was in her last years.
[00:21:15] And that was because her most beloved son, Harila, was causing all that pain.
[00:21:23] And especially in the end when she also had realized that this was the end.
[00:21:28] She wasn't going to survive.
[00:21:30] That she had realized even before she was brought to Aga Khan Palace.
[00:21:34] There was a very poignant movement described by Sushila Nayar,
[00:21:37] who was accompanying Ba at the time of her arrest in 1942.
[00:21:43] Where while looking out of the speeding police van,
[00:21:49] Ba says, I must fill my memories up with these visuals of the free world.
[00:21:56] Because I'm not going to come back and see this.
[00:21:59] And throughout that stay in Aga Khan Palace,
[00:22:03] she keeps referring to it as reaching the end.
[00:22:08] Reaching the end, you know, there's a refrain from her every time of reaching the end.
[00:22:13] And that's where, although she has survived many health emergencies in her life
[00:22:19] and many critical moments when people had said,
[00:22:21] the doctors had given up and said, you know, only a miracle can save her.
[00:22:25] She bounced back.
[00:22:27] But when she fell ill in Aga Khan Palace, I think she had given up.
[00:22:33] She said, no, now my work is over on this planet and it's time for me to go.
[00:22:38] So it was very tragic.
[00:22:39] And the last week of her life was very tragic because when she realized that
[00:22:48] you know, she's not going to now live long.
[00:22:51] Her one wish was to at least once be close to her son, Harilal.
[00:22:58] And Harilal was lost.
[00:23:00] Nobody knew where he was.
[00:23:01] He'd become a complete derelict and there were no traces of him.
[00:23:06] Bapu made an appeal to the British administration saying, my wife is dying.
[00:23:12] She would like to be with her eldest son.
[00:23:16] Can you please help tracing him and bringing him to the prison?
[00:23:20] So that, you know, my wife can have some solace.
[00:23:24] And dramatically Harilal surfaces in Pune and is brought to the prison
[00:23:29] but he's in a completely disheveled state,
[00:23:33] completely vagabond, dirty dressed in rags, reeking of alcohol
[00:23:38] when he walks into Ba's room.
[00:23:41] And Ba is shattered by, you know, seeing what he has.
[00:23:45] And like every time that they have crossed paths after Harilal
[00:23:49] moved away from the family and rebelled,
[00:23:52] her plea has always been come back.
[00:23:54] Come back. We'll heal all the scars but come back to us.
[00:23:59] That's the plea she makes to him again.
[00:24:03] And Hari doesn't respond.
[00:24:06] And then there are two more meetings before the end.
[00:24:09] And in both she is devastated because in the last one he's so inebriated
[00:24:15] that he has to be carried into the room.
[00:24:18] And she is completely shattered, saying,
[00:24:20] you couldn't even be sober for one day for my sake.
[00:24:25] And Harilal couldn't even speak.
[00:24:28] Of course we must remember that he was also suffering.
[00:24:32] It wasn't callousness on his part.
[00:24:35] He was suffering. He was sad. He was sorrowful.
[00:24:38] He realized that he was causing pain to his parents.
[00:24:42] But he just couldn't avoid doing that.
[00:24:45] Gone beyond anybody's control.
[00:24:49] And so living with that and not having, you know,
[00:24:53] the last minute of making peace with every loose end in her life
[00:24:59] was the tragedy that Ba had to suffer.
[00:25:02] Tushar Kasturba passes away on February 22, 1944.
[00:25:07] And Gandhi is released just a couple of months later on May 6.
[00:25:12] What do you think went through his mind as he drove out of the gates of the Agakan Palace?
[00:25:16] There is this...
[00:25:18] I read that he spotted a pile of wood
[00:25:21] that had been kept aside for his pyre in case he passed away.
[00:25:24] And he did come close to dying twice.
[00:25:27] Yes, Ashraf. He came very close to dying twice.
[00:25:31] Once when he went on a 21-day fast against the...
[00:25:36] It wasn't actually against the British. It was against...
[00:25:40] Although it was against the British, it was also for his own...
[00:25:46] Atonement as he called it always.
[00:25:48] You must remember that except for the last two fasts in Calcutta and Delhi,
[00:25:54] he never fasted to punish anybody or arm twist anybody else.
[00:26:00] It was always because he took responsibility himself
[00:26:03] for what was happening around him
[00:26:05] and for all the errors that were happening.
[00:26:09] And he said, I have to punish myself and atone for it.
[00:26:13] And so his fasts were always fasts of atonement.
[00:26:17] And so on that occasion the British had thought because the doctors who were monitoring his health
[00:26:22] were sending out alarming signals to the administration.
[00:26:26] One of the medical reports says he's not going to survive even 24 hours
[00:26:31] if he continues this way.
[00:26:33] And it was the 18th day.
[00:26:35] So three more days of fasting.
[00:26:38] So it was the 18th day of the fast. Three more to go.
[00:26:42] Bapu survived that.
[00:26:43] That was the first time the British prepared
[00:26:46] because they also did not want to announce his death
[00:26:51] before they had disposed of his body.
[00:26:53] They did not want that his body would be taken out of prison
[00:26:57] and then it would become a national rallying point for the people
[00:27:01] to rise up in anger.
[00:27:03] And so they had kept provisions for his funeral to happen
[00:27:08] in the premises itself.
[00:27:10] And then to announce that Gandhi is no more
[00:27:14] and deal with the situation then.
[00:27:16] They could not have dealt with a physical association with Bapu's death.
[00:27:22] It would have been easier for them.
[00:27:23] So they made all the provisions.
[00:27:25] The next time they did it was also when he was suffering from malaria
[00:27:29] and he'd become very serious about it.
[00:27:31] At that time it was a very funny thing that happened
[00:27:34] that they didn't only make provisions for his funeral
[00:27:38] and last rights in the prison compound itself.
[00:27:42] But they even the British State Department or the government
[00:27:46] was sent out to all the embassies and the councillor
[00:27:50] offices all over the world telling them how to respond to the news.
[00:27:56] And even a press statement on Bapu's death
[00:28:00] was drafted in London and sent out.
[00:28:03] And this came to the notice of Sarvapalli Radhakrishnan
[00:28:06] who was travelling through China.
[00:28:09] And I think he was in the Shanghai councillor of the British Empire
[00:28:13] where he saw this tellex lying on the whoever
[00:28:17] the councillor representative.
[00:28:19] He reported it like you know the British were prepared for Bapu's death.
[00:28:24] So as he is being driven out of Aga Khan Palace
[00:28:29] he sees that pile of wood.
[00:28:32] And I'm sure with his sense of humour he must have said,
[00:28:35] okay, I didn't oblige.
[00:28:37] But there was also a regret that
[00:28:41] I didn't oblige but lost
[00:28:43] two important parts of his life.
[00:28:46] You know it wasn't important persons.
[00:28:48] Those two people were like
[00:28:50] himself parts of himself.
[00:28:53] And from then onwards he was going to be
[00:28:58] thinking of himself as being incomplete.
[00:29:01] Without those two anchoring rocks of his life.
[00:29:05] So as he emerged into freedom
[00:29:10] he also told himself he's leaving
[00:29:12] a very important part of him in that prison
[00:29:16] and he writes to the governor of Bombay state,
[00:29:19] province that time.
[00:29:21] And he said I want to make a memorial to my wife
[00:29:24] in Aga Khan Palace
[00:29:25] and I want to have regular daily prayers
[00:29:29] said at that memorial.
[00:29:31] Please allow me to do that.
[00:29:33] And those memorials still stand there.
[00:29:38] So Shahzad of war,
[00:29:40] World War II
[00:29:41] finally ends in 1945.
[00:29:44] Now in the meantime
[00:29:46] Gandhi continues negotiating with the British.
[00:29:49] Give us an overview of these negotiations
[00:29:51] that there's some interesting correspondence
[00:29:53] between Gandhi and Churchill.
[00:29:55] So tell us about that too.
[00:29:57] In the war ends
[00:29:59] but before the war ends
[00:30:00] the British have realized that
[00:30:03] post-war
[00:30:04] it's not going to be possible for them to
[00:30:07] hold on to their colonies any longer.
[00:30:10] They're not economically in that position.
[00:30:13] They are not militarily in that position.
[00:30:16] And that understanding has started not
[00:30:19] in the 40s Ashraf
[00:30:21] but right from the 30s
[00:30:22] right from
[00:30:24] the Dandi Kuch and the Namak Satyagra
[00:30:26] they realize that at time
[00:30:29] is limited.
[00:30:30] Indians
[00:30:31] are not going to tolerate us any longer
[00:30:34] if the Second World War hadn't happened in Europe.
[00:30:37] They would have conceded
[00:30:39] freedom to us much earlier.
[00:30:42] But
[00:30:43] the Second World War gave them the pretext to continue
[00:30:46] that colonization for further
[00:30:49] but beyond the Second World War
[00:30:51] they knew that they had to go.
[00:30:53] And also the Second World War
[00:30:55] gave them the pretext to use Indian soldiers
[00:30:57] in the fighting.
[00:30:58] They needed those Indian soldiers in their fighting
[00:31:00] but for the first time
[00:31:02] again a very important event takes place.
[00:31:05] The Indian
[00:31:06] taken Indian soldiers taken prisoners of war by the
[00:31:10] Japanese on the Eastern
[00:31:12] Battlefront
[00:31:13] are recruited by Subash Chandra Bose into his INA.
[00:31:17] And the British are shocked
[00:31:18] because they think
[00:31:20] Indian soldiers are our loyal
[00:31:22] cannon fodder.
[00:31:23] We'll keep getting them and we'll keep pushing them
[00:31:26] into the worst battles
[00:31:28] and let them die. We don't care about it.
[00:31:30] Suddenly
[00:31:31] that whom they considered to be the extreme loyal
[00:31:35] you know, foot soldiers of their empire
[00:31:37] have turned against them.
[00:31:39] So they are apprehensive on all fronts
[00:31:42] and that is where Subash Chandra Bose
[00:31:44] and INA come into their importance also
[00:31:47] although they got defeated
[00:31:49] in the war against the British.
[00:31:51] But what they did
[00:31:53] was equally important for the eventual
[00:31:57] freedom that we got.
[00:31:59] And everybody acknowledged that.
[00:32:00] It's only nowadays when the song
[00:32:03] tries to keep telling people that he was
[00:32:06] discarded, he was you know, we sinned against him purposely
[00:32:10] and he was kept not given his dues.
[00:32:12] Nobody ever didn't give
[00:32:15] Netaji his dues.
[00:32:17] Yeah in fact when the INA soldiers were put to trial at the Red Fort
[00:32:21] Nehru was actively involved in the defense.
[00:32:23] And it's not just important that Nehru was involved
[00:32:27] in the defense.
[00:32:29] It's also important to state
[00:32:31] that none of the Sanghis
[00:32:33] bothered to defend
[00:32:35] the INA soldier as a matter of fact
[00:32:37] Shama Prasad Mukherjee and Savarkar
[00:32:39] continued to aid the British war effort
[00:32:42] even after knowing
[00:32:44] that INA and Subash Chandra Bose
[00:32:46] were waging war against the British.
[00:32:49] They were still recruiting for the British
[00:32:52] army and the war effort and Shama Prasad Mukherjee in his letters
[00:32:55] had also told the British how
[00:32:59] to strategize to defeat
[00:33:02] the INA before it invaded India.
[00:33:04] And things so this is more important.
[00:33:07] Yeah.
[00:33:07] The fact that Nehru was in the forefront of defense of the INA,
[00:33:12] the fact that Bapu
[00:33:14] when he was invited to negotiate with the British, he said
[00:33:18] pardon the INA soldiers, release them.
[00:33:21] I will only come to talk to you after that has been done.
[00:33:24] And he ensures that they are released.
[00:33:27] That is not important.
[00:33:28] They were always going to do that.
[00:33:30] They were not the vindictive types.
[00:33:32] What is important is what
[00:33:34] today's patriots
[00:33:36] did not do at that time for the INA
[00:33:39] while the Prime Minister
[00:33:41] inaugurates the statue of Subash Chandra Bose
[00:33:44] at the India Gate Memorial.
[00:33:48] Very appreciable.
[00:33:49] But he's doing that because he's got a guilty conscience
[00:33:53] of what they didn't do in the past.
[00:33:55] Not out of reverence for that person.
[00:33:58] And speaking of the song and the extreme right wing Hindu
[00:34:02] Tawadis, the British did something interesting after the war.
[00:34:06] They supported Hindu extremists
[00:34:09] on the Savarkar on the one hand,
[00:34:11] but also the Muslim League on the other.
[00:34:13] Why?
[00:34:14] Both of them were their loyal subjects throughout the second world war.
[00:34:18] The Muslim League caught it.
[00:34:20] The Congress is called for not associating with the British war effort.
[00:34:25] So the Muslim League and the Hindu Maa Sabha
[00:34:28] and Savarkar
[00:34:31] had proved to be loyal to the British at the time of their need.
[00:34:36] The royalists in the British politics
[00:34:40] were not going to abandon them,
[00:34:42] although they knew that when the time of transfer of power comes,
[00:34:47] they have to negotiate with the Congress.
[00:34:49] There's no alternative to that
[00:34:51] because it was the Congress under Bapu,
[00:34:54] which represented entire India.
[00:34:57] The British were compartmentalizing India into various different sections
[00:35:03] and they would have loved if they could have, you know,
[00:35:06] separately negotiated with each of those sections
[00:35:09] and given them whatever they wanted and fragmented India.
[00:35:13] But the Congress was the glue that kept it all together
[00:35:16] and stopped the British from actually fragmenting the idea of India.
[00:35:22] And so they knew that they had no option but to negotiate with the Congress.
[00:35:27] But Churchill was so vindictive and vicious.
[00:35:30] He said, if you're going to rub my face into the dust,
[00:35:35] you do that, but I'll extract my price from you.
[00:35:38] And so he sets up a whole scheme of conspiracies
[00:35:43] to ensure that when the Congress won, the victory would be pyrrhic.
[00:35:48] And that's what they did.
[00:35:49] And speaking of Churchill, you didn't tell us about the letter Gandhi writes to Churchill,
[00:35:53] which I mentioned in the question.
[00:35:54] The letters were very cordial.
[00:35:56] Bapu keeps reminding him and addressing him as my dear friend,
[00:36:01] Churchill and things doesn't get replies directly from Churchill
[00:36:05] because Churchill believes as the king's representative,
[00:36:09] he cannot converse with the half-naked Fakir.
[00:36:12] Yeah, that was the term that Churchill had coined.
[00:36:14] That was the term that Churchill had coined.
[00:36:16] We must also remember that throughout his prime ministership in his drunken rants,
[00:36:22] he used to abuse MI6 and MI7 and all those intelligence units
[00:36:27] why they could not come up with a foolproof plan of doing away with Gandhi.
[00:36:33] This was a refrain which has been recorded.
[00:36:35] And he kept accusing them.
[00:36:37] They said, get rid of that man, that pest.
[00:36:40] Then we will be able to do what we like
[00:36:42] because they knew that the greatest stumbling block for them was going to be Gandhi.
[00:36:49] Not because of Gandhi's ability,
[00:36:53] but because of Gandhi standing in the international community
[00:36:57] as well as the British electorate.
[00:37:00] Gandhi had not only commanded the respect of the Indians,
[00:37:06] but he had commanded the love and respect of even the British common citizenry.
[00:37:12] The working class, essentially.
[00:37:12] The working class in Britain who had suffered because of the war and all of it.
[00:37:18] And British politicians knew that now Gandhi does not just influence Indian politics,
[00:37:26] he influences British elections also.
[00:37:29] Yeah, and I also don't think that Gandhi's sense of self-deprecating humor
[00:37:33] went down very well with Churchill
[00:37:34] because I remember reading this letter a little after Churchill calls him the half-naked fakir
[00:37:39] and Gandhi writes to him saying something to the effect that, you know,
[00:37:42] I'm striving to be a fakir and half-nakedness is kind of,
[00:37:47] I'm not sure I'm there yet or something like that.
[00:37:49] That's what he says.
[00:37:50] He says that the half-naked part of it is the struggle,
[00:37:55] the destination of my ambition is to be a fakir.
[00:37:58] And thank you for acknowledging that.
[00:38:00] So, you know, here we must also remember that he's doing a psychological thing on his opponent.
[00:38:07] Exactly.
[00:38:07] He's irritating him.
[00:38:10] He knows that this man is going to get bugged with the tone of my letter.
[00:38:15] He writes that letter.
[00:38:16] And every time Churchill falls prey to that.
[00:38:21] And so this correspondence becomes a very important thing.
[00:38:25] But Churchill is also working on the other side.
[00:38:29] You know, he's instructing the colonial administration to keep telling Gandhi to come and negotiate with them.
[00:38:36] So there is a parallel correspondence between Wevel, the vice-roy and Bapu.
[00:38:43] And Wevel keeps telling him, come, let's talk.
[00:38:46] We want to now start the process of, you know, transfer of power or something like that.
[00:38:51] Let's sit and talk.
[00:38:52] And but he says before we talk, withdraw the Quit India non-cooperation resolution.
[00:38:59] End that.
[00:39:00] Cooperate with us.
[00:39:02] And this is just before the war ends.
[00:39:04] So they still want official Indian cooperation in the war effort.
[00:39:08] And he says, do that and we'll sit and talk.
[00:39:11] And Bapu said, the resolution is not mine.
[00:39:14] It was the Congress CWC that resolved past that resolution.
[00:39:19] So if you wanted withdrawn, release them.
[00:39:22] Talk to them.
[00:39:24] Let them withdraw it.
[00:39:25] I don't have the authority to supersede their thing.
[00:39:28] Or else, allow me to go into and one of the lines to Churchill and Wevel is find
[00:39:34] the keys to the Aurangabad fort.
[00:39:37] Aurangabad fort is where the entire Congress leadership has been incarcerated.
[00:39:42] So he keeps telling them, find the keys to the Aurangabad fort and then we can
[00:39:46] start negotiating.
[00:39:48] So he's saying, you know, he's putting down his terms.
[00:39:52] Yeah.
[00:39:52] Telling them, you redress all the mischief that you've played so far.
[00:39:57] Then we'll sit and talk.
[00:39:58] Yeah.
[00:39:58] So I'm going to come to the negotiations at the Shimla conference in just a second.
[00:40:02] But before that, still on that fakir bit, you know, Gandhi was original.
[00:40:07] I'm the fakir.
[00:40:07] I need to do out of the car.
[00:40:09] I think it was actually, you know, actually, see the thing is glasses and, you know,
[00:40:16] my suits that cost several lakhs.
[00:40:19] The Jola today of today's fakir is really what Sarojini Nairu said at that time.
[00:40:25] It's very costly to keep him in poverty.
[00:40:28] India really is bleeding to keep this fakir in his cave.
[00:40:34] The one who sits in Delhi and rules over us and loves to call himself a fakir.
[00:40:39] The only thing that he can be called is a designer fakir, who's
[00:40:45] penchant for fancy dress and the top class fancy dress ever is really
[00:40:52] bleeding the Indian exchequer.
[00:40:54] Yeah.
[00:40:55] So what happens next to Shah is that Gandhi negotiates with Jinnah,
[00:40:59] offers great concessions to the Muslim League.
[00:41:01] And there's also a plan presented by Siraja Koppala Chari.
[00:41:05] That's not accepted.
[00:41:06] I won't let's not go there.
[00:41:07] But then comes the Shimla conference, which is a great inflection point.
[00:41:12] What was it for?
[00:41:13] And what came of it?
[00:41:15] The Shimla conference was the first admission that now it's the time to talk.
[00:41:22] So all the Congress leadership was released.
[00:41:25] Everyone, all the political prisoners all over the country were released.
[00:41:29] Now you must remember one thing that except for Jinnah,
[00:41:33] the other, the Hindu far right is not admitted into the talks immediately in Shimla.
[00:41:41] The Congress, the entire Congress is invited to Shimla.
[00:41:46] And Bapu, who is nobody in the Congress, is sent a special
[00:41:50] missive from the vice-roy imploring him to attend the conference because the vice-roy knows
[00:41:56] why don't include him.
[00:41:59] And if he doesn't agree with what is offered, this man is the only guy who will
[00:42:04] relaunch a nationwide struggle.
[00:42:07] So he wants him in involved in that.
[00:42:10] So Bapu gets an invite in Panjkini informing him that the vice-roy has,
[00:42:15] you know, requested his presence.
[00:42:17] And Bapu says, I'm nobody in the Congress.
[00:42:20] And then he realizes that the Congress president has not been invited because
[00:42:24] it's Moulana Azad and Jinnah hates Moulana Azad for being a Muslim who's sitting
[00:42:30] in the Congress camp.
[00:42:32] So he said, OK, since there is a place for me,
[00:42:36] I am giving it up for the Congress president.
[00:42:39] Call him. I'm not coming.
[00:42:41] Bevel says no, let him come and you two come
[00:42:44] because he wants Gandhi in there.
[00:42:47] Possibly they thought that he's the only guy that can actually make things happen.
[00:42:51] No, I don't think they honored and respected him because they thought
[00:42:56] that he's the only guy who can make things happen.
[00:42:59] They were afraid of him thinking, knowing that he was the only guy capable
[00:43:04] of undoing everything that he did.
[00:43:07] And that is why they had to pander to him.
[00:43:10] Because if you look at how the Shimla conference is conducted and from there
[00:43:15] onwards, you will see that there is a design
[00:43:19] to unravel Bapu's connect with the political leadership
[00:43:25] and isolate him from there.
[00:43:27] They are treating from there onwards.
[00:43:29] They're treating their second round Congress leadership in a different
[00:43:34] manner and Bapu in a different manner.
[00:43:36] If you look at that entire string of events, you will notice
[00:43:40] that slowly they're creating that divide
[00:43:45] where they have realized that it will be easier to negotiate with this group.
[00:43:49] But not if this man is at the helm.
[00:43:52] Yeah. And so the conference failed.
[00:43:55] The conference was bound to fail because it was dishonest.
[00:43:59] And Bapu didn't mince his word.
[00:44:01] He said, if you're honest, you will pick the side which is most capable
[00:44:08] to be handed over to and not try to ride two boats,
[00:44:14] which were going in opposite streams.
[00:44:17] What he was saying was choose the Congress or the Muslim League,
[00:44:20] whichever you want, but go with them entirely.
[00:44:24] Don't try to balance everything.
[00:44:27] And the conference fails because even though the Muslim League
[00:44:32] is in a very antagonistic mood at that time,
[00:44:36] the vice-roy keeps making concessions to them,
[00:44:40] keeps offering concessions to a point where it becomes
[00:44:44] unnegotiable for the Congress leaders.
[00:44:47] And so the conference fails because the intention was dishonest.
[00:44:53] Hmm. And you write in a book that the situation across the country was grim.
[00:44:58] What did you mean by that?
[00:44:59] And what was its effect on Gandhi?
[00:45:01] The situation across the country was grim because both the right wing forces
[00:45:07] had launched a campaign of attrition, a campaign of hate and antagonism.
[00:45:14] The Muslim League was in overdrive in that.
[00:45:17] But the Hindu extremists also were because they saw it as an opportunity
[00:45:24] that if the Muslim League succeeds, then part of our agenda,
[00:45:28] the most important part of our agenda also succeeds in having a very clear cut division.
[00:45:36] Muslim Free India and all Hindus and the Hindu Rashtra begins at that time.
[00:45:42] So they said, let's get into the act.
[00:45:45] The only person who was the hurdle in both their agendas was Gandhi
[00:45:51] because the Muslim League also had the support of the Muslim nobility,
[00:45:58] the Muslim elite.
[00:45:59] And the Hindu Rashtra was always for the Brahmins.
[00:46:03] They only had the Hindu elite and the bottom part of both the communities
[00:46:11] which was the most important and majority portion
[00:46:16] couldn't be broken away from Gandhi.
[00:46:19] And so Gandhi became the biggest hurdle.
[00:46:22] And so from then onwards, the conspiracy to isolate him,
[00:46:29] the conspiracy to make him immaterial to everything
[00:46:34] and the conspiracy to get rid of him were put into overdrive.
[00:46:38] So Tushar then a cabinet mission comes to India,
[00:46:41] a British cabinet mission and Gandhi is invited to meet them in Delhi.
[00:46:44] Now he decides to stay in a colony of sweepers.
[00:46:49] During his public meetings, protests are staged by Hindu extremist organizations
[00:46:53] and it's made to look as if it's refugees who are protesting.
[00:46:58] Was this part of the buildup to Gandhi's eventual murder?
[00:47:02] Absolutely.
[00:47:02] There's no doubt about the fact that the conspiracy to murder
[00:47:07] Bapu was long-term and it was in stages.
[00:47:11] It was very well planned.
[00:47:12] And as you said, that his prayer meetings since 46 were disrupted
[00:47:19] and was made to look as if it was disgruntled and angry refugees
[00:47:23] who were responding to the prayers from the Quran being chanted by Bapu.
[00:47:29] And so from just slogans being raised and anger being shown,
[00:47:36] progressively they were made more and more angry and violent in stages.
[00:47:42] The buildup was, and if you look at it from the failed attempt on the 20th of January 1948,
[00:47:48] you realize that the murder attempt was timed
[00:47:52] to be when the Muslim prayers would start in the prayer.
[00:47:57] And that was when Madan Lal Paava was to explode the bomb.
[00:48:02] That was when Badge or whoever was going to kill.
[00:48:06] Would take their shots at Bapu.
[00:48:08] That was where the others would hand grenade at where Bapu was sitting to finish off the job.
[00:48:16] And if that had happened Ashraf, we would have been made to believe
[00:48:20] that it was a part of that refugee anger because in the media at that time also
[00:48:26] stories were being circulated about how refugees were angry.
[00:48:31] There was a lot of discontent.
[00:48:32] There was talk about how refugees were conspiring to get away rid of Bapu and things.
[00:48:38] And yet the funny part of it was that all his prayer meetings,
[00:48:44] the majority groups who were attending voluntarily the prayer meetings were refugees.
[00:48:50] Who were so grieved, who were so hurt, who were so wounded
[00:48:54] that those few words, soothing words of assurance that Bapu could offer
[00:49:00] acted as a bomb for them.
[00:49:03] And so these conspiracies were happening and Bapu was sort of making it easy for them.
[00:49:10] He went into the sweeper's colony, lived over there.
[00:49:13] Of course he used to live there very often.
[00:49:15] It was only later on when these negotiations went into high pitch
[00:49:21] that the congresspeople realized and the British realized
[00:49:24] that it used to take a great effort to reach Bapu.
[00:49:28] Every time they needed his support or opinion to go into the sweeper's colony
[00:49:32] because it was also getting infiltrated by refugees and it was overflowing with them and all that.
[00:49:38] And so finally in the last hundred days of his life,
[00:49:42] they convinced him to move to Birla House, which was more convenient.
[00:49:47] So Dushar, the cabinet mission fails too.
[00:49:50] And the failure of the talks means there's a growing divide
[00:49:53] between the Congress Working Committee and Gandhi, whose advice is increasingly being ignored.
[00:50:00] The final blow comes when Jinnah declares August 16, 1946 as direct action day for the creation of Pakistan.
[00:50:08] All of this would have been a hammer blow for Gandhi's emotional state, isn't it?
[00:50:13] Absolutely. He was devastated in his last few years of life.
[00:50:18] The cabinet mission was also bound to fail because they were still carrying forward
[00:50:23] the same legacy of Winston Churchill and Wavell and all that.
[00:50:27] And Bapu right from the beginning kept telling them,
[00:50:30] take brave decisions. Don't try to be diplomatic.
[00:50:33] This is a situation which has only two ways, the right and the wrong.
[00:50:39] There's nothing in between. Don't straddle two horses.
[00:50:43] Every meeting he has with the cabinet mission, with Cripps before that,
[00:50:48] the Cripps Commission that had come previously,
[00:50:52] he's realized what the British are up to and he's telling them
[00:50:56] that you are genuinely wanting to find a solution, be brave
[00:51:01] and do the right thing.
[00:51:03] Now here you must also understand Ashraf that the colonial department,
[00:51:08] the political department of the colonial administration,
[00:51:12] is also worried because as soon as independence happens
[00:51:17] and they are disbanded, they are unemployed.
[00:51:21] There's no job possibility when they go back to England.
[00:51:24] So they have a great resentment because the days of their
[00:51:29] Nawabi are coming to an end because of this half-naked Fouquil.
[00:51:33] So they're as angry with him as Churchill is.
[00:51:36] And if you look at it, there is evidence to prove that
[00:51:41] even the British government in London proposed things.
[00:51:46] But by the time it came to Delhi for implementation,
[00:51:49] the colonial department and the political department of the
[00:51:52] colonial administration would sabotage it.
[00:51:54] There is a very interesting letter that an Indian from Britain
[00:51:58] wrote to Babu and it's been reproduced in parallel
[00:52:03] smoke and where he says that London proposes
[00:52:06] but it all comes unraveled in Delhi.
[00:52:09] In a very diplomatic manner he says that the government in London
[00:52:13] at home is willing to do the right thing.
[00:52:17] But when it comes to this, these people, they just sabotage everything.
[00:52:22] And the sabotage is that viciousness that the British are very well known for.
[00:52:28] OK, you defeat us.
[00:52:31] We'll extract a very heavy prize on you.
[00:52:34] They've done that everywhere that they were humiliated.
[00:52:37] It's a story of colonialism.
[00:52:38] Yes.
[00:52:40] Tushar, I want to end this part of the series by coming back to what I started with
[00:52:45] Quit India.
[00:52:47] What we know about the Quit India movement.
[00:52:50] Tell us who coined the slogan.
[00:52:52] Ashraf, that is a very important milestone in our history and in current context
[00:52:59] where this whole campaign against Muslim is orchestrated
[00:53:03] by the people who were the first collaborators of the British.
[00:53:06] The Sangh, the Hindu right wing.
[00:53:09] And today they are trying to project an image of Muslims being the threat to India.
[00:53:18] The fact is that Muslim leadership was in the forefront of the freedom movement
[00:53:24] defying the British.
[00:53:26] The Quit India slogan where everything else was tried out and Bapu rejected
[00:53:32] many more slogans at that time was coined by Yusuf Mahareli.
[00:53:37] And he came and said, how about just telling them to quit India?
[00:53:41] It was like, you know, it was as simple as get out.
[00:53:45] And Bapu said this sums up what we want.
[00:53:49] We don't want anything else.
[00:53:51] We don't want to hear anything else.
[00:53:52] Just quit India, pack up and go.
[00:53:56] Without conditions, without telling us what we're doing.
[00:53:58] Nothing else.
[00:53:59] Quit India.
[00:54:01] No more.
[00:54:03] If it was possible, he would have said the ships are lined up.
[00:54:05] Pack your bags, go away.
[00:54:07] Back to your island.
[00:54:09] That was what it signified.
[00:54:11] Look at the charisma of that slogan.
[00:54:15] The most uneducated person in the outback farms and villages and hamlets
[00:54:23] felt so important when he stood up to a British officer and said,
[00:54:27] Chale Jao, we don't want you.
[00:54:31] End of the matter.
[00:54:33] What could be a greater campaign than that?
[00:54:38] Then the other thing that comes in,
[00:54:40] Karengi ya Marengi?
[00:54:42] Do or die.
[00:54:44] It's not you do it or you die.
[00:54:47] Not karo ya maro.
[00:54:49] It doesn't put the responsibility on the listener
[00:54:52] and absolves the guy who gives that command.
[00:54:55] He says, Karengi ya Marengi?
[00:54:58] We will both try and we will both die trying to do that.
[00:55:03] Now this assurance, think of the power when a common person
[00:55:08] hears this and says my leader is going to stand in the front line
[00:55:12] when we protest.
[00:55:14] Then I don't mind receiving the blows myself.
[00:55:17] And so when the whole leadership is taken away,
[00:55:21] the Indian says now I'm the leader.
[00:55:24] I'm going to do that.
[00:55:25] And I stand up and the price that we paid,
[00:55:29] there was no Jaliyawala bag.
[00:55:32] But in the three years from 42 to 45,
[00:55:37] India paid a huge human price
[00:55:41] in the people whose lives were destroyed,
[00:55:44] the people who were injured,
[00:55:45] the people who were killed by the British.
[00:55:49] It wasn't an insignificant thing, Ashraf at all.
[00:55:53] And it was only because before he was removed from the scene,
[00:55:58] Gandhi instilled the idea into the hearts of the people,
[00:56:02] you want freedom?
[00:56:04] You got to be responsible for it.
[00:56:06] And who coins that masterfully for him?
[00:56:09] Yusuf Mehraali, the man who had also coined the slogan
[00:56:13] much earlier when there was protests against Simon,
[00:56:18] the Simon commission to India.
[00:56:20] And he coined the slogan saying nothing else.
[00:56:22] Simon, go back.
[00:56:24] And that became an iconic slogan of the freedom movement.
[00:56:29] You know, Yusuf Mehraali would have been paid a fortune
[00:56:32] by today's ad agencies to coin these slogans.
[00:56:36] But think about it.
[00:56:37] Think about it.
[00:56:39] The whole public movement is summed up by this brilliant mind
[00:56:45] in such a frugal manner.
[00:56:47] The power lies in the simplicity.
[00:56:48] The simplicity and the frugality of the words used.
[00:56:52] He's addressing it to mostly illiterate people.
[00:56:57] He says, I don't want to put too many words.
[00:56:59] They might not remember it.
[00:57:00] Just two words.
[00:57:02] Simon, go back, quit India, karengeya, merengi.
[00:57:05] And that is the revolution.
[00:57:07] And then what happens?
[00:57:08] They arrest the entire leadership on the night between the 8th and 9th of August.
[00:57:14] And in the morning of 9th of August at August ranti madan,
[00:57:17] the workers are perplexed.
[00:57:19] There is no leader to give them the message.
[00:57:21] Although they all know the message,
[00:57:23] but that symbolic gesture of, you know, the starter's gun kind of thing.
[00:57:29] There's nobody to do that.
[00:57:30] And then Aruna Asafali emerges.
[00:57:34] Now Yusuf Mehraali misses Asafali.
[00:57:38] In today's context, these were names become very important.
[00:57:42] They are the people who are being demonized today.
[00:57:46] And they translate the message of Gandhi to the masses.
[00:57:52] And who gives it the finishing touch?
[00:57:54] Kasturba.
[00:57:55] That evening because there's another dilemma,
[00:57:57] big public meeting has been arranged.
[00:58:00] Nobody to address them.
[00:58:01] Bapu's message has to be given there.
[00:58:04] And then nobody is looking at Kasturba.
[00:58:07] He said, okay, she's there, but what can she do?
[00:58:10] And she stands up and says, I'll go and deliver my husband's message.
[00:58:15] And she goes to the public meeting.
[00:58:16] She addresses the meeting,
[00:58:19] gives the message that her husband wants to be given
[00:58:22] and is arrested because of her defiance of the British.
[00:58:26] When she is taken to Agakhan Palace eventually,
[00:58:29] Bapu asks her, oh, so they brought you to take care of me.
[00:58:33] And she said, no, I have been arrested on my own doing.
[00:58:37] I'm a prisoner on my own right.
[00:58:39] And I'm in this prison because of my defiance.
[00:58:43] And Bapu says, then you are a Satyagrahi.
[00:58:47] And she tells her when she dies,
[00:58:50] he mentioned that she died as a Satyagrahi.
[00:58:55] She did not die as only my wife.
[00:58:58] That is the importance.
[00:59:01] Tushar, thanks so much for taking us through this trying
[00:59:03] personal and political phase of Gandhi's life.
[00:59:07] Thank you.
[00:59:08] Thank you, Ashraf.
[00:59:09] In the next part of this series,
[00:59:10] we will talk about Gandhi and the tragedy of Naukhali.
[00:59:13] Thank you all for listening to the first episode of this series.
[00:59:16] If you liked what you heard,
[00:59:17] please follow this podcast and share this episode
[00:59:20] with your friends and family.