Gandhi: The Years That Changed the World, 1914-1948

by Ramachandra Guha

not be interrupted or d...

Irwin’s release of, and settlement with, Gandhi enraged Churchill, for whom it seemed to signal a prelude to a larger retreat of Britain from its imperial possession...

claimed that ‘to abandon India to the rule of the Brahmins [who in his view dominated the Congress party] would be an act of cruel and wicked negligence’. If the British left, said Churchill, ‘India will fall back ...

privations of the Mid...

Churchill targeted Gandhi personally. ‘I am against these conversations and agreements between Lord Irwin and Mr. Gandhi,’ he thundered. ‘Gandhi stands for the expul...

the permanent exclusion of British trade from India. Gandhi stands for the substitution of Brahmin domination for British rule in India. You will never be able to come to terms with Gandhi.’27 Churchill’s...

month later, to the West Essex Conservative Association. Here, he spoke with disgust of how it was ‘alarming and also nauseating to see Mr. Gandhi, a seditious Middle Temple Lawyer, now posing as a fakir of a type well...

Viceregal palace…to parley on equal terms with the representative of the King-Emperor’. In words as telling (if less quoted) he described his revulsion at the prospect of ‘heart-to-heart discussions…between this ...

‘I do not believe in caste in the modern sense,’ remarked

Gandhi. ‘It is an excrescence and a handicap on progress. Nor do I believe in inequalities between human beings…. Assumption of superiority by any person over any other is a sin against God and man. Thus caste, in so far it connotes distinctions in status, is an evil.’

That said, Gandhi continued to believe in varna insofar as it defined and marked ‘four universal occupations—imparting knowledge, defending the defenceless, carrying on agriculture and comm...

These occupat...

common to all mankind, but Hinduism, having recognized them as the law of our being, has made use of it in regulati...

Remarkably, Gandhi did not know that Ambedkar was born in an ‘untouchable’ home. In Maharashtra, people of all castes took surnames after their village of origin, so ‘Ambedkar’ could merely mean ‘from the village of Ambed’. (Indeed, this was not Ambedkar’s

original surname; he had been given it by a Brahmin teacher in his school.) Gandhi seems to have thought that—like Gokhale and Tilak before him—B.R. Ambedkar was an upper-caste reformer who took an interest in the uplift of the ‘untouchables’.

Gandhi was perhaps also influenced by a letter he received in August from an Indian whose judgement he greatly valued. This was Sir Mirza Ismail, the reform-minded diwan of Mysore. ‘I do hope you are going to London for

the R.T.C.,’ wrote Sir Mirza, adding: ‘A prophecy—you will endear yourself to the people of England, and you will do honour to them—next only to your own countrymen. It is a grand opportunity for bringing about peace and harmony and goodwill between the two countries—and

and to put an example to the rest of the world. And it is you and you al...

Sir Mirza’s prophecy would surely have moved Gandhi. For all his opposition to British imperialism, he had an enormous fo...

London was a city he was deeply attached to. He had spent two years there as a law student, and two summers there lobbying for Indians in South Africa. He had also spent several months in the city en route to ret...

could bring India and England together drew him to ...

The most famous individual Gandhi met in London was Charlie Chaplin. Remarkably, Gandhi had never heard of the actor. Chaplin knew something about Gandhi’s fetish for the spinning wheel. He was in sympathy

with India’s demand for freedom, but ‘somewhat confused’ about Gandhi’s own attitude towards machinery. The Indian answered that he was not opposed to machinery per se, but only to machines that rendered people jobless.

He added that ‘in cloth and...

nation should be self-contained. We were [once] self-contained and wan...

While in London, Gandhi also heard from the great scientist Albert Einstein, who expressed admiration for his work, and hoped he might pass through Berlin on his way back. Gandhi—who certainly knew of Einstein—answered that he likewise hoped ‘that we could meet face to face and that too in India at my Ashram’.47 A meeting that gave Gandhi great pleasure was

with the animal rights activist Henry Salt. Back in 1888–89, as a young law student in London, Gandhi had read Salt’s works, and joined his Vegetarian Society, and contributed essays on Indian food to its journal.48 Now, forty-odd years later, the world-famous Mahatma

addressed the society, with the octogenarian reformer in attendance. He remarked that while he had been brought up to eschew animal flesh, that was because of the caste and culture he was born into. It was only He...

on vegetarians not to live upon fello...

A last luminary Gandhi encountered was another fellow vegetarian, George Bernard Shaw. They met at Kingsley Hall, with Mahadev Desai taking notes as ...

variety of topics—ethnographical, religious, social, political, economic—and his talk was illumined by his sparkling wit and sardonic humour’. Gandhi was sardonic too at times; when Shaw asked whether the Round T...

requires more than the patience of Job. The whole thing is a huge camouflage and the harangues that we are treated t...

As Shaw came out of Kingsley Hall, a reporter asked him what he thought of Gandhi. He ...

second greatest man in the world.’ This was not said entirely in jest, for it seems that he had told Gandhi that he felt in him something of ‘a kindred spirit’, adding: ‘W...

When he got into his car, a fellow pa...

Shaw what he felt about the visit to Gandhi. ‘He is a phenomenon and I have hardly recovered from t...

At one stage, Rolland’s sister told Gandhi of her love for the city and university of Oxford. Gandhi conceded that the students were ‘fine young men’, adding, however, that for him the beauty of Oxford’s buildings and grounds (and cellars) was marred ‘by thoughts of the world-wide exploitation

which caused these riches to flourish’.66

On the evening of 13 December, Gandhi visited

Mussolini in the Palazzo Venezia. Let the Rome correspondent of the Manchester Guardian take up the story:

It was a strange picture when the Indian leader, wearing only his self-woven toga of white wool, below whic...

be seen, and with coarse sandals on his feet, stopped in front of the monumental porch of the Palazzo Venezia, where the two Blackshirts on guard presented arms. He went up the ceremonial staircase to the Duce’s official apartmen...

Renaissance condottiere, and at length appeared before the uncrowned king of Italy, the semi-naked Oriental ascetic face to face with the prophet of the new Imperium Romanum. The conversation, in English, lasted twenty min...

It was significant that on coming away the general, who knew no English, had understood nothing but the fr...

The next day, the Guardian correspondent asked Gandhi about what had transpired in his con...

the reporter’s paraphrase, Gandhi answered ‘that it would not be correct for him to speak about it; then, like a new St. Francis from the East, he added: “But why not talk about Italy’s domestic an...

Gandhi had also wished to see the Pope, Pius XI, but the pontiff did not grant him an audience. The reason officially stated was ‘other pressing engagements’, but in truth it was ‘the Indian leader’s scant raiment’ that put him off. The king of England had relented in this

matter, but the Bishop of Rome would not.70

‘Mussolini is a riddle to me. Many of his reforms attract me. He seems to have done much for the peasant class. I admit an iron hand is there. But as violence is the basis of Western society, Mussolini’s reforms deserve an impartial study. His care

of the poor, his opposition to super-urbanization, his efforts to bring about co-ordination between capital and labour, seem to me to demand special attention. I would like you to enlighten me on these matters. My own fundamental objection