Delhi (52 page)

Gandhi fasts every Monday. That day he also keeps his mouth shut. Instead he grins at everyone who comes to see him and scribbles notes on bits of paper.

Monday morning, January 1948. It is very cold and since it is the Old Man’s day of silence, instead of going to Birla House, I stay snugly wrapped in my quilt till the sun is up. Then I bask in the sunshine and feel good. I have a mug of tea and a stale
chappati
, then saunter across to Birla House. Old Gandhi is in the garden soaking in the sun and scribbling something. His secretary Dr. Susheila Nayar is seated on the grass by his chair taking charge of scraps of paper he hands to her. I like Susheilaji. She is fair and buxom, her hair is curly and she has dimples in her cheeks. Although she is much older than me, I would like to make love to her. She reads something the Old Fellow has written, jumps up as if a wasp has stung her on her big buttocks. She runs and tells her brother, her brother tells someone else who tells someone else till everyone knows about it. A meeting is summoned and Susheilaji reads out a statement on behalf of the Old Man. Tomorrow, when he opens his mouth, he will begin a fast to death.

I can’t remember everything that was said but it was about two kinds of fasting ! You may fast if you are fat; or you may fast if you have done wrong to someone and want to punish yourself. The Old Man wants to fast because we have done wrong to the Mussalmans. He says he’s been feeling impotent of late. He’s been brooding over it for three days and knows that if he fasts he will become potent again. He says, ‘No man, if he is pure, has anything more precious to give than his life. I hope and pray that I have that purity in me to justify the step. God sent this fast. He alone will end it, if and when He wills.’ Whatever he says about God, it is clear he doesn’t want to die. He says if there is a re-union of hearts between Hindus, Sikhs and Mussalmans he may change his mind and start eating again.

I take a taxi to the headquarters.

They have heard the news over the radio. ‘Let the Old Man die; Hindu
dharma
is eternal,’ says the chief. ‘But we must watch the situation very carefully.’ ‘You,’ he says pointing to me, ‘you must remain on duty at Birla House and report everything immediately. Take a taxi if you have to.’ (Thank you for that! Six to seven rupees for me for the next few days, I calculate). ‘We must organize demonstrations to counteract the mischief of these Gandhi followers.’

I get back to Birla House.

The crowd is bigger than ever. The regulars strut about looking very important; besides them there are lots of others including whites and some Negroes as well. Though it is still Monday, Gandhi is yakking away. I push through the crowd and get nearer him. Lots of chaps scribbling in their notebooks. Lots of questions to flatter the Old Man to show how concerned they are.

His son, Dev Das, is also there and the two go at each other. The son calls the father impotent. The father calls the son’s thinking impotent and superficial. Then tells him to mind his own business. You can see the father and son don’t like each other. Gandhi does not like any of his three sons.

‘I claim that God has inspired this fast,’ repeats the old humbug many times to many people. ‘No human agency has ever been known to thwart nor will it ever thwart Divine Will.’

I do not think this is worth reporting so I go home to get a good night’s sleep.

Next morning there are more policemen and soldiers about Birla House than ever before. And more newspaper chaps. And Nehru and Patel and Maulana Azad and Sheikh Abdullah of Kashmir. I gather they are planning demonstrations in Gandhi’s favour. I rush to the headquarters, make my report and am back in Birla House.

There is a prayer meeting at 11.30 a.m. It begins with the Old Man’s (and my) favourite hymn:

He who feels the pain of others

Is truly a man of God.

Susheilaji sings something in English. I don’t like the way she imitates white women’s
whoo, whoo, whoo
. Then comes the hymn about God being both Ishwar and Allah. The Old Man speaks into the microphone. He tells the Muslims he is fasting for them. He tells the Hindus and Sikhs he is fasting for them. He tells the Kashmiris he is fasting for Kashmir. And he tells God he is fasting because God told him to fast. Even now he is on lime and orange-juice.

In the evening our chief sends three busloads of refugees to Birla House. They march up from one end of the road chanting ‘
Khoon ka badla khoon
sey lengey
(We will avenge blood with blood).’ Nehru looks up but says nothing. They chant: ‘
Gandhi Budha murdabad
(Death to Old Gandhi).’ Nehru becomes like one possessed of the jinn. He rushes towards them flailing his arms. ‘Who dares to say
Gandhi murdabad
?’ he demands. ‘Let him who dares repeat those words in my presence. He will have to kill me first.’ He vents his temper, glowering at everyone. Then he drives off in his limousine, followed by a jeepload of armed policemen.

I slip into Gandhi’s room. He is lying on a
charpoy
, wrapped up in a shawl with only his bald head and face showing under the light of the table-lamp. The room is full of people. He asks, ‘What are they shouting about?’ Susheilaji replies ‘
Gandhi
murdabad
!’ and brushes a tear off her cheek.

Gandhi says, ‘
Ram, Ram, Ram
’ and hides his face under his shawl. So passes another day.

The next morning the Old Man is brought out on a
charpoy
so that the crowd can see him. The crowd shouts ‘
Mahatma
Gandhi ki jai
.’ He joins the palms of his hands and bares his gums. He doesn’t look like a man who has not eaten anything for two days.

The entire government of India is now on the lawns of Birla House. Pandit Nehru and his ministers sit on chairs round a table. They decide to give Pakistan thirty-five crore rupees so it can buy guns and bullets to kill Hindus. They go to Gandhi and say: ‘We have done what you wanted us to do, now will you give up your fast?’ He shakes his head and replies, ‘No, not yet. I want much more. My sole guide, even dictator, is God, the infallible and omnipotent.’

*

The Ganga has begun to flow in the opposite direction — upstream from the sea towards its source in the mountains. That is the only way I can describe what is happening. Three days ago we were driving the Muslims out of Delhi and everyone was with us. Now the Muslims are coming back to Delhi and everyone seems to be against us. People who looted Muslims’ shops come to Birla House to give up their loot; men bring women they abducted to Birla House and ask them (the women) to forgive them in front of Gandhi. Men who spilled Muslim blood cut their own hands and with their own blood sign petitions asking Gandhi to give up his fast. Everyone is going Gandhi-mad. An old sahib, who has been editor of an English paper, starts to fast and says if Gandhi dies, he will also die. How can anyone fight this kind of madness?

The chief wants me to be at Birla House all the time because something big is to happen. He has given me his residence telephone number so I can ring him at night. As soon as the sun goes down it turns very cold. I curl up on a sofa in the verandah. I have my pullover and coat, warm socks and a shawl over me; yet I shiver so much that I cannot keep my teeth from chattering. The Old Man rises at 3.30 a.m. The sky is black and full of stars. Lights are switched on. Hymns are followed by silent meditation. The old fellow gets to work. I can see him under the light of his table-lamp picking up one letter after another and mumbling something which a fellow takes down on a piece of paper. This goes on for some hours. Then the Old Man has his Bengali lesson. What is the point of learning a new language if he really means to die? By then the sun is up and the sunshine streams into the verandah. I stop shivering. I try to get a little sleep. But there is so much jabbering around me that I have to get up. The doctors are examining the Old Man. They give him orange-juice and waggle their heads. The Old Man joins the palms of his hands and sends them away. You take it from me it is all a put-up show, a
tamasha
.

The Old Man is his own doctor. He takes no medicines or injections or anything. ‘The name of Rama is my nature cure,’ he says. It is taken down on paper by a dozen scribes. It is, as I said before, a put-up
tamasha
.

Hymns, recitations from the
Ramayana
, the
Gita
, the
Quran
and the
Granth
go on all day. And all day there is a continuous stream of people with the sorrows of the world on their long-drawn, stupid faces. Nehru is in tears. He says if Gandhi dies, India’s soul will die with him. Maulana Azad is in tears (later in the day he blabbers to 1,00,000 people for one hour. He loves his own voice).

In the evening the Lord Sahib Viceroy Mountbatten, his Lady Sahiba and Missy Baba come to Birla House. The Old Man makes some joke about his fast bringing the mountain to Mohammed. The tall handsome Maharaja of Patiala comes and says he saved thousands of Muslims. The Old Man does not believe him. The Nawab of Malerkotla comes and says he saved the lives of thousands of Sikhs and Hindus by threatening to kill ten Muslims for each Sikh or Hindu killed. The Old Man believes him.

Everyone in Delhi has turned a Mussalman-lover. A procession of 1,00,000 come to Birla House chanting:

Hindu, Muslim, Sikh, Isaee

Bharat mein hain bhai-bhai

They yell ‘
Mahatma Gandhi ki jai
.’ Hotels, cafes, shops close down. It is like a big holiday. I tell you it is Delhi’s biggest
tamasha
of all time.

On the sixth day of his fast, the Old Man complains he can’t piddle. I would like to ask him: ‘What happened to all the orange and lime-juice you drank?’ He babbles as if only half-awake. The radio says he is dying. Thousands turn up as if their real fathers were dying. They tell him that they have been fasting with him — their fathers, mothers, wives and children too. They submit petitions saying they will not molest Muslims; they will get out of mosques and Muslims’ homes, even welcome Muslims returning from Pakistan.

They bring Muslims from wherever they can find them, put garlands round their necks and parade with them in the streets. They force tea and lemonades and sweets down the Muslims’ throats. They form Peace Committees. The chief says if everyone is going mad, we should also pretend to be mad. The RSS puts its name down on the Peace Committee. The Old Fox is only waiting for this. As soon as he hears that the RSS has joined the Peace Committee he agrees to give up his fast.

It is Sunday, 18 January. It is also the birthday of Guru Gobind Singh the last of the Sikhs’ ten Gurus. The Mussalmans had killed his father, his sons, thousands of his followers and then murdered him. We had planned to celebrate the day by driving every remaining Muslim out of Delhi. Our chief had said, ‘Once we start it, the Sikhs are sure to join us.’ But as I said, the Ganga is flowing the wrong way. There are hundreds of thousands of Sikhs at Gurdwara Rikabganj where the Guru’s father’s body was cremated a hundred-and-seventy-two years ago. Amongst them are hundreds of Mussalmans paying homage to the Sikhs’ holy book. The Old Fox says it is an auspicious day and since he’s got what he wanted he is going to break his fast. At 12.45 a.m. he takes a glass of orange-juice from the hands of the goatee-bearded Maulana Azad, says
Ram Ram
and drinks it up. The hypocrite! So the work we have done over the months, the blood we have spilled undone by the Old Man in six days!

You can see how he enjoys his victory! Nehru comes running to congratulate him. He replies: ‘Live long and continue to be the Jawahar (jewel) of India.’ He has the sahib editor rung up to give up his fast because the battle has been won. In the afternoon, Mussalman women draped in their tent-like
burqas
arrive in shoals and say, ‘We’ve been fasting with you.’ The old fellow grins. ‘Oh, have you? Let me see your faces. No woman veils her face before her father. I am your
Bapu
.’ The
burqa
flaps are thrown back. The old lecher has a good look at the sallow-faced Mussalmanis. ‘This shows what real love can do,’ he says very pleased with himself.

He rubs more salt in our wounds. He tells us Hindus and Sikhs to read the
Quran
.

In the afternoon the sky clouds over and it begins to rain. The gods in heaven shed tears at the fate of Bharat.

*

I don’t remember who started it but the boys are saying that the gods desire human sacrifice before they will restore
dharma
to its rightful place. The chief says that such honour is reserved for a
Karmayogi
who the
Gita
says must act without expectation of reward. What reward can anyone expect for such sacrifice except the gallows? However none of the Delhi boys is considered good enough for the task. One tried and failed.

It is two days after Gandhi has given up his fast. The prayer meeting is over. The Old Fox is at his usual
buk buk
about loving everyone including those who hate you and poke your mothers and sisters. There is a loud
puttaakha
. It must be the fart of a passing motor car, I say to myself. But there is smoke and Gandhi
chelas
running about as if Hanumanji has set fire to their tails. ‘Listen! Listen everybody!’ screams Gandhi. ‘If we panic like this over nothing, what shall be our plight if something really happens?’

No one listens to the Old Man. They run as fast as they can. I run too, out of Birla House, get into a taxi and tell the driver to take me
phuta phut
to the headquarters. When I tell them about what happened, all the chief says is ‘
Buss
, that’s all?’

He orders that all the papers in the office should be burnt immediately and he orders me to return to Birla House and not budge until summoned. ‘More is yet to come. Victory to the Hindu
dharma,
’ he intones.

*

Gandhi talks a lot about his ‘inner voice’ and God telling him everything. But he does not know anything about the explosion. He thinks it was the police at target practice. As a matter of fact it was one of our boys aiming at a target which happened to be the Old Man himself. He is a Hindu refugee from the Punjab. His name is Madan Lal Pahwa. The police had thrown him out of a mosque in which he had been staying since he had come out of Pakistan. Pahwa threw a bomb. He had another with him when a policeman caught him.