Gandhi ‘should not be released on the account of a mere threat of fasting’, Churchill told the Cabinet. ‘We should be rid of a bad man and an enemy of the Empire if he died.’ He was quite prepared to facilitate the process, suggesting that the Mahatma should be ‘bound hand and foot at the gates of Delhi, and let the viceroy sit on the back of a giant elephant and trample [the Mahatma] into the dirt.’
