Great Soul: Mahatma Gandhi and His Struggle With India (64 page)

1
   
He was more “at home
”:
CWMG
, vol. 13, p. 5.

2
   “
teach them why India
”: Ibid., p. 195.

3
   
He makes a point
: Hindustani, the spoken language of the North Indian street (and Bollywood), derives its vocabulary from both Sanskrit and Persian, through Hindi and Urdu.

4
   “
I should have thought
”:
CWMG
, vol. 21, p. 14.

5
   “
In India, what we want
”: Ibid., p. 73.

6
   “
I do not believe
”: Ibid., vol. 16, p. 282.

7
   “
the malady of foot-touching”:
Ibid., vol. 20, p. 511.

8
   “
In the mere touch
”: Mahadev Desai,
Day-to-Day with Gandhi
, vol. 3, p. 286.

9
   “
At night
”: Fischer,
Life of Mahatma Gandhi
, p. 233.

10
   
Later, his devoted English follower
:
News Chronicle
(London), Sept. 7, 1930.

11
   
Gandhi’s first Indian Boswell
: Mahadev Desai,
Day-to-Day with Gandhi
, vol. 3, p. 265.

12
   “
We have come for the darshan
”: Ibid., p. 264.

13
   “
the people got frightened
”:
CWMG
, vol. 19, p. 374.

14
   “
the four pillars
”: Ibid., vol. 23, p. 53.

15
   
The throngs that turned
: See Amin, “Gandhi as Mahatma,” pp. 290–340.

16
   “
No Indian who aspires
”:
CWMG
, vol. 14, p. 201.

17
   “
morality in action
”: Brown,
Gandhi
, p. 82.

18
   
Those Gandhi called
:
CWMG
, vol. 14, pp. 80, 201.

19
   
Fewer than 1 million
: Ibid., vol. 14, p. 203.

20
   
Seen that way
: Ibid., vol. 13, p. 200.

21
   
Writing to Hermann Kallenbach
: Ibid., vol. 96, p. 212.

22
   “
I am an outsider
”: Nanda,
Gandhi
, p. 165.

23
   
But Gandhi had large ambitions
:
CWMG
, vol. 13, p. 33.

24
   
At Gokhale’s death
: Nanda,
Three Statesmen
, p. 170; also Heimsath,
Indian Nationalism and Hindu Social Reform
, pp. 241–43.

25
   
They took seven vows
:
CWMG
, vol. 13, p. 91.

26
   
About half its original intake
: A thumbnail sketch of Imam Abdul Kader Salim Bawazir, originally of Johannesburg’s Hamidia Mosque, is provided by Gopalkrishna Gandhi,
A Frank Friendship
, p. 75.

27
   “
The object of the Ashram
”:
CWMG
, vol. 13, p. 91.

28
   “
I cannot imagine
”: Ibid., vol. 23, p. 102.

29
   “
an instrument for the revival
”: As quoted by Rajmohan Gandhi in
Eight Lives
, p. 150.

30
   “
I believe that Hindus
”: Cited in Rajaram,
Gandhi, Khilafat, and the National Movement
, p. 8.

31
   
Muhammad Ali, a polished
: Nanda,
Gandhi
, p. 202.

32
   “
I came to observe
”: Gandhi,
Autobiography
, p. 349.

33
   
Soon he drafted
: Tendulkar,
Mahatma
, vol. 1, p. 162; Pyarelal and Nayar,
In Gandhiji’s Mirror
, p. 101.

34
   “
A humble and honest
”: Narayan Desai,
My Life Is My Message
, vol. 2,
Satyagraha
, p. 17.

35
   “
I have taken in a Pariah
”:
CWMG
, vol. 96, p. 223.

36
   “
I have told Mrs. Gandhi
”: Ibid., vol. 13, pp. 127–28.

37
   “
she’s making my life hell
”: Ibid., vol. 96, p. 225.

38
   “
I had to undertake
”: Ibid., p. 227.

39
   “
I have been deserted
”: Ibid., p. 225.

40
   
Most will trickle back
: Pyarelal and Nayar,
In Gandhiji’s Mirror
, p. 102.

41
   “
Your not being with me
”:
CWMG
, vol. 14, p. 190.

42
   
He speaks of moving
: Ibid., vol. 13, p. 128.

43
   “
She has beautifully resigned
”: Mahadev Desai,
Day-to-Day with Gandhi
, vol. 1, p. 153.

44
   “
She cannot bring herself
”:
CWMG
, vol. 25, p. 514.

45
   “
wall of prejudice
”: Ibid., vol. 26, p. 295.

46
   “
This great and indelible crime
”: Ibid., vol. 13, p. 233.

47
   “
Not a chest of indigo
”: Pouchepadass,
Champaran and Gandhi
, p. 6.

48
   “
We have begun to convince
”:
CWMG
, vol. 14, p. 538.

49
   “
All of us who worked
”: Prasad,
At the Feet of Mahatma Gandhi
, p. 148. In recent years, a Swiss journalist with deep experience of India revisited the Champaran district to see how the initiatives Gandhi and his colleagues began decades earlier had developed. He found virtually no trace of them; instead, a climate of rampant political corruption and oppression. See Imhasly,
Goodbye to Gandhi?
pp. 57–86.

50
   
By one estimate
: Shankar Dayal Singh,
Gandhi’s First Step
, p. 5.

51
   
Later he would call it
:
CWMG
, vol. 19, p. 88.

52
   
Referring back to the Natal strikes
: Ibid., vol. 13, p. 210.

53
   
India needed to adopt
: Ibid., p. 232.

54
   “
The essence of his teaching
”: Nehru,
Mahatma Gandhi
, p. 23, a passage taken from Nehru’s
Discovery of India
.

55
   “
This voice was somehow different
”: Nehru,
Mahatma Gandhi
, p. 12, a passage taken from Nehru’s
Glimpses of World History
.

56
   
Elsewhere he acknowledges
:
CWMG
, vol. 14, p. 392.

57
   “
I have traveled much
”: Ibid., p. 298.

58
   “
Without any impertinence
”: Ibid., vol. 19, p. 104.

59
   “
did not descend
”: Nehru,
Mahatma Gandhi
, p. 23.

60
   
The political bargain
:
CWMG
, vol. 14, pp. 377–82.

61
   “
I love the English nation
”: Ibid., p. 380.

62
   
The recruiting agent in chief
: Ibid., p. 443.

63
   
What better means
: Ibid., p. 476.

64
   “
They will be yours
”: Ibid., p. 454.

65
   
Fighting for the empire
: Ibid., p. 440.

66
   “
It is clear
”: Ibid., p. 485.

67
   
Finally, in August 1918
: Ibid., p. 473.

68
   
He would later describe himself
: Ibid., vol. 23, p. 4.

69
   “
My failure so far
”: Ibid., vol. 14, p. 480.

70
   
Eventually, he goes through
: Rajmohan Gandhi,
Gandhi
, p. 202.

71
   “
How can twenty-two crore Hindus
”:
CWMG
, vol. 16, p. 306.

72
   
One of these was a movement
: Kepel,
Jihad
, pp. 44–45.

73
   
a complex religious
: A sworn enemy of the Saudi royal family—the last caliph’s eventual successors as keepers of the holy places—bin Laden wasn’t fixated on Turks. A Saudi with family roots in Yemen, he held to the ideal of spiritual and temporal authority combined in one potentate and one theocratic state representing all believers. In a videotape made after the 9/11 attacks, bin Laden said what Americans were finally experiencing was what “our Islamic nation has been tasting for more than eighty years of humiliation and disgrace.” The eighty years refer to the dismantling of the Ottoman Empire, undermining the caliphate. In other words, he’s reviving the Khilafat cause, for which Gandhi campaigned. Faisal Devji has a provocative discussion of these connections in
The Terrorist in Search of Humanity
, in particular on pp. 120–30. “The Mahatma,” he writes, “was undoubtedly the most important propagator of the caliphate in modern times.”

74
   “
Bhai sahib!
”: Jordens,
Swami Shraddhananda
, p. 114.

75
   
the month after the first Khilafat
: Gandhi,
Autobiography
, p. 439.

76
   “
cheers, tears, embraces
”: Minault,
Khilafat Movement
, p. 82.

77
   
In June the Central Khilafat Committee
:
CWMG
, vol. 17, p. 543.

78
   “
It is the duty
”: Ibid., vol. 18, p. 230.

79
   
Three months later
: Nanda,
Gandhi
, p. 238.

80
   
Mohammed Ali Jinnah
: Rajmohan Gandhi,
Gandhi
, p. 234.

81
   
He left the Congress
: Nanda,
Gandhi
, p. 242.

82
   “
After the Prophet
”: Rajmohan Gandhi,
Gandhi
, p. 237.

83
   “
We laid the foundation
”: Mahadev Desai,
Day-to-Day with Gandhi
, vol. 3, pp. 290–91.

84
   
Ultimately, the maulana
:
CWMG
, vol. 23, p. 567.

85
   
By August 1921
: Ibid., vol. 21, p. 10.

86
   
That was hardly an excuse
: Minault,
Khilafat Movement
, pp. 145–49; Nanda,
Gandhi
, pp. 311–20.

87
   
Gandhi was pointing
:
CWMG
, vol. 21, pp. 180–81.

88
   “
I wish to be in touch
”: Ibid., vol. 24, pp. 456–57.

89
   “
It is against our scriptures
”: Nanda,
Gandhi
, p. 289.

90
   “
I can wield no influence
”: Rajmohan Gandhi,
Eight Lives
, p. 111.

91
   
For him, it was less
:
CWMG
, vol. 20, p. 90.

92
   
It was a cause
: Ibid., vol. 19, p. 92.

93
   
While it had nothing
: Ibid., vol. 25, p. 200.

94
   “
I am striving
”: Ibid., p. 202.

95
   “
the rest of the letter
”: Dhupelia-Mesthrie,
Gandhi’s Prisoner?
p. 175.

96
   
Shortly after the Mahatma
: Payne,
Life and Death of Mahatma Gandhi
, p. 355.

97
   “
Consider the burning
”: Rajmohan Gandhi,
Gandhi
, p. 241. The economist
Amartya Sen offers a contemporary view of the debate between the Mahatma and the poet over homespun versus manufactured cloth. “Except for the rather small specialized market for high-quality spun cloth,” he writes, “it is hard to make economic sense of hand-
spinning, even with wheels less primitive than Gandhi’s charkha.” But Gandhi’s central point had as much to do with social justice, Sen recognizes, as economics. Sen’s discussion is in
The Argumentative Indian
, pp. 100–101.

98
   “
To a people famishing
”:
CWMG
, vol. 21, p. 289.

99
   “
I got the votes
”: Nanda,
Gandhi
, p. 347.

100
   “
Our defeat is in proportion
”: Quoted in ibid., p. 346.

101
   “
Gandhi is like a paralytic
”: Quoted in Minault,
Khilafat Movement
, p. 185.

102
   “
I personally can never
”:
CWMG
, vol. 23, pp. 350–51, cited in Nanda,
Gandhi
, p. 344.