Opinion Ram Madhav writes: In his last days, a dilemma the Mahatma couldn’t resolve

Gandhi took inspiration from two prominent figures — Buddha and Jesus — for his principle of peace. Interestingly, all three met with unnatural deaths. While Buddha accepted death by consuming contaminated food because he didn’t want to offend his host Cunda, Jesus accepted death because the rulers failed to understand him. In Gandhi’s case, the reason appears to be both. Gandhi never wanted India to be partitioned. But in June 1947, he stood in defence of his colleagues who accepted it, as a fait accompli.

Gandhi tried to convince Jinnah to give up the demand for Partition in 1945, but failed. When the Cabinet Mission arrived in 1946 with the proposal to divide the country into three parts on purely communal lines, Gandhi again conveyed his opposition to the Congress Working Committee. But the Congress leadership — that included Jawaharlal Nehru, Sardar Patel and Maulana Azad — had made up its mind to accept the Plan because it came with the first-ever offer of transfer of power to them. Dejected, Gandhi left the meeting saying, “I admit defeat. I shall now leave with your permission. You should follow the dictates of your reason”. On earlier occasions, when Gandhi said something like that, the leaders would have urged him to stay, with the promise that they would follow his instinct. But not that day. Pyarelal gives a graphic account: “‘What do you desire? Is there any need to detain Bapu any further?’ the Maulana Saheb asked. Everybody was silent. In that hour of decision, they had no use for Bapu. They decided to drop the pilot”.

Gandhi was aghast when he came to know about Viceroy Mountbatten’s proposal in March 1947, with a definite indication of Partition. He hoped that the Congress would reject it after consulting with him. It did not. In the CWC meeting held in the first week of March 1947, Congress demanded the partition of Punjab on communal lines. Later, at a press conference at Madras, J B Kriplani indicated that the same principle could be applied to Bengal.

Agitated by the news of Congress recommending the partition of Punjab, Gandhi wrote letters of protest to both Nehru and Patel. A terse reply came on March 24. “It was adopted after deepest deliberation. Nothing has been done in a hurry or without full thought”, it said, adding, “It is difficult to explain to you”. “Such a thing would have been inconceivable in olden days”, rued Pyarelal.

Gandhi rushed to Delhi, and, in a desperate final attempt to prevent Partition, met Mountbatten on March 31. He proposed that power over all of India could be transferred to Jinnah. Nehru and Patel were strongly opposed to this, while Jinnah dismissed it as “one of those wily tricks of Gandhi”.

The new proposal for partition was presented by Mountbatten before the Indian leaders Nehru, Patel and Acharya Kripalani from Congress, Jinnah, Liaquat Ali Khan and A R Nishtar from the League, and Sardar Baldev Singh, on June 2, 1947. Once those leaders agreed, Mountbatten immediately called a press conference to announce the Partition plan, known as the “June 3rd Plan”.

Gandhi faced the same dilemma that Buddha faced several millennia ago. Unable to publicly disown the decision of his junior colleagues, although he was opposed to it, he blamed the “circumstances”. “Sometimes, certain decisions, however unpalatable they might be, had to be taken. Out of evil, sometimes good came out”, he contended before the agitated Congress leaders in June 1947.

Gandhi cannot be completely absolved of his role in creating “circumstances” that led to the Partition. But could he be singularly held responsible? Godse thought so, but the country did not. Indian politics, “in the absence of Gandhiji”, would surely be better, Godse opined. He was proved wrong. India became a vibrant polity, but not in Gandhi’s absence but through his eternal presence.

The writer, president, India Foundation, is with the BJP