CHAPTER 9: FAST UNTO DEATH

 

1   “The caste system supported”: Ajoy Bose, Behenji, p. 83.

2   Eventually he concluded: Tendulkar, Mahatma, vol. 7, p. 154.

3   honor killings of daughters and sisters: Jim Yardley, “In India, Caste Honor and Killings Intertwine,” The New York Times, July 9, 2010, p. 1.

4   “I agree that Bapu”: Narayan Desai, My Life Is My Message, vol. 3, Satyapath, p. 179.

5   “My life is one indivisible whole”: CWMG, vol. 55, p. 199.

6   This from the man: “The Removal of Untouchability,” Young India, Oct. 13, 1921.

7   The man he addressed: CWMG, vol. 19, p. 289.

8   a status he’d sometimes compared: Gandhi, Removal of Untouchability, p. 11.

9   By the time the award: Tendulkar, Mahatma, vol. 3, pp. 159–60.

10   Gandhi assumed but wasn’t sure: Mahadev Desai, Diary of Mahadev Desai, p. 295.

11   “prepared to go”: “Suicide Threat,” Times of India, Sept. 14, 1932.

12   “Our own men will be critical”: Mahadev Desai, Diary of Mahadev Desai, pp. 293–94, 302. Nehru, who was in jail in this period, admitted in a note in his diary after the conclusion of Gandhi’s fast, “I am afraid I am drifting further and further away from him mentally, in spite of my strong emotional attachment to him. His continual references to God irritate me exceedingly. His political actions are often enough guided by an unerring instinct but he does not encourage others to think.” Cited in Brown, Gandhi, p. 270.

13   “What if I am taken”: Mahadev Desai, Diary of Mahadev Desai, p. 4.

14   “Sudden shock is the treatment”: Ibid., p. 301.

15   “Untouchable hooligans”: Ibid.

16   “What does MacDonald know”: Verma, Crusade Against Untouchability, pp. 38–39.

17   Then he thought temple entry: Ravindran, Eight Furlongs of Freedom, p. 79.

18   William L. Shirer: Shirer, Gandhi, pp. 208–10.

19   “With the Hindus and Musalmans”: Pyarelal, Epic Fast, p. 6.

20   “Do not believe for one moment”: Verma, Crusade Against Untouchability, p. 27.

21   Patel regularly speculated: Narayan Desai, The Fire and the Rose, pp. 568–69; Rajmohan Gandhi, Patel, pp. 226–28.

22   “He would not be satisfied”: Pyarelal, Epic Fast, p. 30.

23   “If God has more work”: Narayan Desai, The Fire and the Rose, p. 569.

24   “If we cheaply dismiss”: Tagore, Mahatmaji and the Depressed Humanity, pp. 11, 18.

25   Tagore arrived: Ibid., p. 22.

26   “Mahatmaji, you have been”: Pyarelal, Epic Fast, p. 59; Narayan Desai, The Fire and the Rose, p. 575; Verma, Crusade Against Untouchability, pp. 43–44.

27   “No one shall be regarded”: Verma, Crusade Against Untouchability, p. 44.

28   A parallel gathering: Pyarelal, Epic Fast, p. 239.

29   Even Nehru, who acknowledged: Nehru, Toward Freedom, p. 237.

30   “I will never be moved”: Times of India, Sept. 14, 1932.

31   He’d been in a fix: Pyarelal, Epic Fast, pp. 188–89.

32   Kasturba raised the glass: Ibid., pp. 79–80.

33   “The entire audience”: Tagore, Mahatmaji and the Depressed Humanity, p. 29.

34   The idea that untouchability: Pyarelal, Epic Fast, pp. 79–81.

35   In his speeches to untouchable: Keer, Dr. Ambedkar, pp. 234, 221.

36   “the one thing that alone”: CWMG, vol. 53, p. 131.

37   “To open or not to open”: Keer, Dr. Ambedkar, p. 229.

38   “not necessary for him”: The Times (London), Nov. 7, 1932.

39   Eventually, they would both reject: Tendulkar, Mahatma, vol. 7, p. 151.

40   “The Congress sucked the juice”: Mankar, Denunciation of Poona-Pact, p. 109.

41   When they met in February 1933: Ibid., p. 160.

42   Ambedkar had agreed to join: Verma, Crusade Against Untouchability, pp. 62–63.

43   But within a year: B. R. Ambedkar, What Congress and Gandhi Have Done to the Untouchables, p. 135.

44   “Sin and immorality”: Keer, Dr. Ambedkar, p. 229.

45   As late as 1958: Verma, Crusade Against Untouchability, p. 196.

46   In May 1933: Tendulkar, Mahatma, vol. 3, p. 201.

47   The time had come: Omvedt, Ambedkar, p. 61.

48   If any admiration: B. R. Ambedkar, Annihilation of Caste, pp. 84–86.

49   “Obviously, he would like”: B. R. Ambedkar, What Congress and Gandhi Have Done to the Untouchables, p. 277.

50   But there’s suggestive: Rajmohan Gandhi, Gandhi, p. 597.

51   “a flair for action”: Nehru, Toward Freedom, p. 240.

52   He also knew that: This is made clear in a discussion between Nehru and Mahadev Desai, on August 23, 1934, summarized in an as-yet-unpublished English translation of a portion of Mahadev Desai’s diary on file at the Gandhi Memorial Library, pp. 121–24.

53   This provoked the Bengali: Tendulkar, Mahatma, vol. 3, p. 205.

54   “Life ceases to interest me”: Ibid., p. 215.

55   “If Mr. Gandhi now feels”: Ibid., pp. 215, 217.

56   He was thus maneuvered: Ibid., p. 216.

57   An early conclusion: The reports by colonial officials on the Gandhi tour are on file in the archive of the Nehru Memorial Museum. Many but not all of these reports have been excerpted in Ray, Gandhi’s Campaign Against Untouchability.

58   “I am quite sure”: Tendulkar, Mahatma, vol. 3, p. 281.

59   “We can’t even say”: Unpublished English translation of a portion of Mahadev Desai’s diary, for autumn 1934, on file at the Gandhi Memorial Library. See p. 162.

60   “The only way we can”: Tendulkar, Mahatma, vol. 3, p. 280.

61   Near the end of the tour: Ray, Gandhi’s Campaign Against Untouchability, p. 220.

62   It so preoccupied him: Rajmohan Gandhi, Gandhi, p. 362.

63   “Anything more opposed”: Nehru, Toward Freedom, p. 301.

64   Tagore said Gandhi’s logic: Rajmohan Gandhi, Gandhi, pp. 362–63.

65   “Our sins and errors”: Tendulkar, Mahatma, vol. 3, p. 250.

66   “I would be untruthful”: Ibid., p. 251.

67   The sanatanists were: Nayar, Preparing for Swaraj, pp. 207–8.

68   In Poona, near the end: Ray, Gandhi’s Campaign against Untouchability, p. 178.

69   “Dr. Ambedkar complained”: Ibid., pp. 46–47.

70   “the growing pauperism”: CWMG, 2nd ed., vol. 65, pp. 178–79.

71   “I have lost the power”: CWMG, vol. 59, p. 218.

72   He ended the tour at Wardha: Tendulkar, Mahatma, vol. 3, p. 282.

73   “The sanatanists are now”: Ibid., p. 283.

74   “a profound error for me”: Ibid., p. 297.

75   He was going in the opposite: Ibid., pp. 280, 296.

76   “None of them knows”: CWMG, vol. 61, p. 403, cited in Brown, Gandhi, p. 292.

77   “What I am aiming for”: Tendulkar, Mahatma, vol. 4, p. 304.