Gandhi's Legacy

No city in India is more closely associated with Mahatma Gandhi's bloodless revolution against the British Raj than the prosperous, crowded (pop. 922,000) mill town of Ahmedabad, 275 miles north of Bombay. It was in Ahmedabad that Gandhi set up his chief ashram (model community). The shrewd, industrious Gujaratis (Gandhi was one himself) gave his independence movement its first mass following. In Ahmedabad last week two of Gandhi's most effective weapons against the British--satyagraha (soul force) and fasting--rose up to plague the new nation they had created.

The trouble in Ahmedabad was part of the trouble that is afflicting all India these days--the often violent urge to redivide India's states along linguistic lines. Many thought the worst was over three weeks ago, when India's Parliament passed a bill to create a huge new bilingual State of Bombay, to include both the Gujaratis and the Marathas. The Marathas envy and resent the Gujaratis' acumen and prosperity. As for the Gujaratis, they would be heavily outnumbered by people they consider inferior. Rioting broke out in Ahmedabad.

Strange Allies. At first the helter-skelter mobs that raged through Ahmedabad's streets were led by Gujarati students. But as the days wore on and the death toll mounted to 18, there emerged a strange coalition of forces, united only by their interest in fishing in troubled waters. Indian Communists, who a few weeks earlier had been denouncing the Gujaratis as "moneybag oppressors" of the Marathas, now rushed to champion the Gujarati cause. Local Socialists jumped on the bandwagon. And huffing and puffing alongside these leftist troublemakers were Gujarati businessmen and mill owners who foresaw difficulties in handling Maratha labor in a state dominated by Maratha voters. Between them, these strange allies produced a breakdown of law and order in Ahmedabad.

In a last-ditch attempt to stop the violence, local Congress Party leaders called in one of Gandhi's most respected followers, Morarji Desai, an ascetic, deeply religious Gujarati, who as Chief Minister of Bombay has proved himself one of India's best administrators and a likely successor to Nehru.

"Prepare My Pyre." To spike Desai's guns, Ahmedabad's students promptly called a janata, i.e., a "people's curfew," for the day he was to speak. At dawn large bands of students began to swarm through Ahmedabad's streets warning shopkeepers to close up for the day. Only people with "passes" signed by local Socialist leaders were permitted on the streets and pigtailed girls of 15 or 16 stopped pedestrians to check on their passes. By midafternoon the student curfew was almost 100% effective, and at 4:15, shortly before Desai was due to speak, a messenger hurried up to tell him that no one was at the meeting ground and no one was expected.

Shocked and angry. Desai declared in a strained voice: "So long as the citizens of Ahmedabad do not hear me peacefully, I shall not take food. If Gujarat is eager to cremate me, I am ready. Let it prepare my funeral pyre." Then Desai, who normally eats only one meal a day anyway, hurried off to his brother's Ahmedabad home and began fasting.

Niqht Call from Delhi. While Desai fasted, his supporters gradually rallied. In Ahmedabad's 66 mills 120,000 workers who had kept apart from the rioting started each day with a prayer for the Chief Minister's success. In Bombay his well-wishers formed huge lines at the telegraph office. And from New Delhi Prime Minister Nehru called nightly to inquire after Desai's health.

With his only nourishment a glass of bicarbonate of soda every 24 hours, Desai within a week had lost 8 1/2 Ibs. He was, announced the eight doctors who hovered over him, "extremely weak." At week's end, on the urging of 40 leading citizens of Ahmedabad, who assured him that the people would now listen with respect, Desai took his first nourishment in eight days--a glass of orange juice--and once again tried to make his speech. The leading citizens turned out to be sadly mistaken. While Desai spoke, a surly, milling crowd of 1,000 Gujaratis threw stones at the dais and interrupted him repeatedly with cries of "Long Live Gujarat." Before the day was over. Ahmedabad's police had twice opened fire on frenzied mobs, and at least a hundred were injured.

The Great Debate. Meanwhile, all India had gravely debated whether Desai's fast was in the true Gandhian tradition. Gandhi, who stoutly maintained that his own methods of fasting were "noncoercive," regarded fasting as a form of self-sacrifice and renunciation so extreme that it astounded one's opponents and led them to reconsider their own attitudes. "Fasting for the sake of personal gain is nothing short of intimidation," said Gandhi. "I fasted to reform those who love me ... you cannot fast against a tyrant."

Indians judge fasts severely. For one thing, the faster should be prominent enough so that if he dies, the shock will affect many consciences. His motives must be worthy: a Communist leader recently fasted for three days, but seeing that no one cared, gave up; police arrested a faster outside Parliament last week, charged him with attempted suicide.

Some Indians argued that Desai's objective--"to make people attend a speech"--did not involve an issue "important enough for a fast." Others suspected that it had an unworthy political purpose: to reestablish Desai's threatened leadership of the Gujarati people.

What few Indians cared to recognize, however, was that both the student curfew and Desai's fast represented a dangerous retrogression in Indian politics. In Gandhi's day, soul force and fasting were directed against an alien government. Today India's mobs are using soul force (and physical force) in an attempt to overturn decisions of their own Parliament, and Indian leaders who fast to assert their power are countering with another perversion of Gandhi's legacy.

Jawaharlal Nehru, who finds himself out of patience with many of his countrymen's cherished practices, considers fasting "an incomprehensible thing." But he kept a discreet silence last week through his friend Desai's ordeal.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.