Gandhi: Going to Wipe their Tears

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The Last Phase by Pyarelal Nayar covers the last phase of Mahatma Gandhi’s life in which the results of all the experiments that he carried out throughout his career were put through their severest and final test. Pyarelal was acutely aware of Gandhi’s state of mind. Indeed, of all Gandhi’s associates, Pyarelal is the most sensitive and articulate in describing these moods.

The present work represents an attempt by one who had the opportunity at first hand the insight to represent the events correctly—Pyarelal, secretary to Gandhi. The Last Phase deals with the last 21 months of Gandhiji’s life beginning with his release from detention in the Aga Khan’s palace in May 1944. It describes in fair detail the political developments of those years resulting from the British govermnent’s intention to relinquish power in India, Pyarelal says: "During those fateful days, like a Titan he rushed from one danger spot to another to prop up the crumbling heavens."

The author has attempted to condense the epic story of those days in 1946-47. The last volume of Pyarelal’s biography of Gandhi has been condensed by Meghani into an easy-to-read, lucid account to make it more accessible to the general reader.

Mahendra Meghani was born in Mumbai and educated in Bhavnagar, Mumbai and Ahmedabad. He studied journalism at Columbia University. He is an editor and journalist and has translated Victor Hugo’s Ninety-Three, Thor Heyerdahl’s Kon-Tikiand Heinrich Harrer’s Seven Years in Tibet into Gujarati.

The present book covers the last years of Mahatma Gandhi’s life, in which the results of all the experiments that he carried out throughout his career were put to final test. The author’s writings in Young India and Harijan and several works on Mahatma Gandhi have well established him as a faithful and authoritative chronicler and interpreter of Gandhiji’s life and philosophy.

It is only in a detailed account of what Gandhiji did, how and why he did it, that a soul-stirring picture of his life and teaching can be found. The present work represents such an attempt by one who had first—hand knowledge of the events he has described and has the insight to interpret them correctly.

What made Mahatma Gandhi almost unique among leaders was l his capacity to harmonize widely different points of view so that they became contributory to the prosecution of the common goal. An outstanding instance was the way in which he dealt with his colleagues in the Congress organization who differed from him. While holding to his own principle, he allowed his colleagues full scope to serve the country according to their light. As a result of this, not only did most intimate relations continue between them, but also those who differed from him ultimately came round and worked under his leadership. Gandhiji was uncompromisingly opposed to the Partition of India, which he had called her vivisection. The Muslim League agitation for the Partition of the country resulted in serious rioting. Partition, based on a wrong theory and brought about by such questionable means, Gandhiji was certain, would do irretrievable harm to both Hindus and Muslims—in India and Pakistan. But he left it to the Congress Ministers in the Central Government, who were in charge of running, the administration, to act according to their judgment. Once they had decided in favour of Partition, he did not oppose them, although he never concealed his own opinion.

Instead of carrying on propaganda against his own colleagues, ho set about with an amazing energy In repair the vast damage Io communal harmony and peace which preceded and followed the Partition. His words became commands, his mere presence sometimes sufficed to check the blaze where the police and army could have succeeded only after much bloodshed. It is this last phase of his life which is particularly dealt with in this book with insight, understanding and restraint, and with meticulous regard for accuracy Some of the most fascinating pages of the book are devoted to describing the functioning of his mind in search of new techniques for setting India on the road to the new social order of his dreams. The time had arrived when, with all the experience and prestige acquired in the course of the Indian struggle for freedom which he had conducted for more than 30 years, Mahatma Gandhi could extend the ambit of his activities and prove that ahimsa could work wonders even in the most adverse of circumstances. At this stage he was taken away but the ideas and forces he has released may yet accomplish things even more marvellous than were witnessed in his lifetime.

The core of Gandhijis teaching was meant for all mankind and is valid for all time. He wanted all men to be free so that they would grow unhampered into full self-realization. He wanted to abolish the exploitation of man by man in any form, because both exploitation and submission to it are a sin against the law of our being. He had been invited by many foreigners to visit their countries and deliver his message to them directly but he had declined since, as he said, he must make good what he claimed for Truth and Ahimsa in his own country before he could launch on the gigantic task of converting the world. With the attainment of freedom by India by following his method, in spite of all the imperfections in its practice, the condition precedent for taking his message to other countries was to a certain extent fulfilled. And he might have been able to tum his attention to this larger question y But Providence had ordained otherwise. May some individual or nation arise and carry forward the effort launched by him.

The Last Phase presents a full, detailed and authentic story of the ultimate phase of Gandhijis life, in which his spiritual dynamism was at the height of its power. The book deals with the period from his release from detention in the Aga Khan’s Palace, in 1944, up to the end of his life.

An amazing story of the mingling of streams- of Eastern and Western thought from which he derived his spiritual nourishment, and a meteoric rise to recognition and fame unfolds to a student of Gandhijis life. A shrinking, shy immature youth, unsure of himself and baffled by life’s jigsaw puzzle, he finds himself—an utter stranger in a strange land, where a freak of fortune had thrown him-suddenly confronted by the challenge of racial and political prejudice at its worst. Armed with nothing save unsoiled integrity undeterred by fear of where it might lead him, he takes up that challenge, and in the short span of two years becomes a factor to be reckoned with. Practically single-handed, he changes the course of political events, inspiring many with awe and even affection. Whence came this strength and what was the secret of his alchemy?

His capacity for compromise-rooted in the habit he had cultivated of seeing a problem from the opponents viewpoint—and for trust which begets trust, enabled him to win the respect and goodwill even of those with whom he was locked in a fierce conflict and to convert determined antagonists into personal friends.

The transformation in South Africa was due almost entirely to the unremitting toil of one man, member of a despised race, with no official status or authority save what his selfless service and the moral pressure generated by it gave him-MK Gandhi, the Mahatma—to—be. Gandhijis work in South Africa can be properly studied only as a prelude to India’s struggle for independence. No better apprenticeship for it could have been found than what South Africa provided. There, he had to raise from the dust a people who had come to regard insults and humiliations in pursuit of a living as their lot, who were torn by dissensions and divided into factions. The authorities were only too eager to exploit their differences. In short, every one of the problems that Gandhiji had to tackle later, in the course of Indies non-violent struggle, had its prototype in this microcosm of South Africa. All this experience proved to be a most valuable asset to him in his confrontation with the British Empire during Indies fight for liberation. None of his Indian colleagues in the struggle had the advantage of this vast and varied experience.

What I have drawn upon, in the first instance, are Gandhijis office records, his own writings in Young India and Harijan, statements to the press and personal correspondence. I had, besides, my own notebooks and diaries, as well as notebooks of other members of the party I have relied upon his own journal which he began specially for me—to make up for my absence from him at the time of the second Simla Conference in May 1946-and which was continued till July 1947.

In giving quotations from Gandhijis speeches and interviews, I have taken the liberty to amplify or revise the language of the published version with the help of the original notes. I have spared no pains to check up and verify information by reference to the actors in the drama. In support of my conclusions, I have cited appropriate chapter and verse; hence the close documentation which has added to the bulk of the volume.

I have, in some cases, departed from the dates and sequence of events, relating to certain incidents in Gandhijis career as given in his own writings. In every such case, I have fully justified my reasons with evidence. I have also taken the liberty in some places to give my own translation of some of the quotations from Gandhiji’s Autobiography, originally in Gujarati, where I felt that the corresponding version given in The Story of My Experiments with Truth was either faulty or not sufficiently clear.

Almost the first thing a foreign visitor does on arrival in India is to visit Rajghat, to pay homage to the Father of the Nation. Before he leaves, he invariably ends up asking: "Where is Gandhi in the India of today?” That is a question which every one of us owes to himself to the India for whom Gandhiji lived and died, and to the world, to ask and answer. This book is an attempt to help us turn thee searchlight inward and find the answer.