Sam Dalrymple

“Like many Hindus, Gandhi identified India with Bharat – the holy land of the ancient Mahabharata Hindu epic. Neither Burma nor Arabia featured in the epic, and thus many Hindu nationalists felt that these regions should be separated off from India. Gandhi’s support for this stance had caused a rift with his Burmese acolyte Ottama, who tried to publish a rebuttal in Gandhi’s magazine.62 But Gandhi refused to publish the article, writing, ‘The Burmese should certainly have my sympathy if they wished to secede.’ Indeed, when he visited Burma that spring, he declined to meet Ottama at all, telling him, ‘I am sorry indeed that anybody should have mentioned anything to you about my proposed visit to Burma.’
When Mahatma Gandhi arrived in Rangoon, therefore, Mahatma Ottama was conspicuously absent.
Gandhi went swiftly on a ‘procession through the streets’, then set off on a series of rallies.64 When his hosts tried to take him to a theatre one evening, he startled them by declaring theatres ‘satanic’ and refusing to go. His speeches nonetheless attracted thousands and at a meeting with Rangoon’s Gujarati community, he addressed the question of separation, declaring that Burma was ‘not what we call Bharatvarsha [the land of Bharat]’65 – not a part of ancient India’s Hindu geography – and that Indians should act like guests in a foreign country there. A few days later he expanded upon his thoughts, explaining that it would only”
― Sam Dalrymple, Shattered Lands: Five Partitions and the Making of Modern Asia