LOVE HATE AND MAYHEM: HOW INDIA’S INDEPENDENCE IS SWATHED IN BLOOD

The three men who were not supposed to come back stood in the sparsely furnished confines of Retiring Room number six of the Old Delhi railway station watching the bustle of tongas, carts, creaking buses, swarming by in the street below. The Indian police had an inkling and they wanted to save the life of Mahatma Gandhi. They did not have time, possibly only hours, at their disposal. Godse, Apte and Karkare had just fixed in that dim railroad station room their rendezvous with history. They had chosen the precise time when they would kill Mohandas Gandhi.

                                  They would assassinate him at five o’clock the following day.

The three men asked for a sumptuous meal: rice, vegetables, curds, chapatis and sweets. Since the waiter did not have sour curds and sweets to offer, Nathuram (Godse) called the waiter and gave him five rupees:

Look, this is a very important meal for us. We want curds and some sweets, you go anywhere you have to go but at any cost bring us curds and sweets.

                         After the curds and sweets arrived, they had had a meal to remember.

As Apte and Karkare started to leave the room, Karkare turned back for a last glance at Godse. The man who was going to kill Gandhi was already stretched out on his bed reading one of the two books he had brought with him to Delhi. It was an Agatha Christie detective story.

Meanwhile in a remote place in Punjab love blossomed. Joginder Singh had been gone from his home about an hour. He had only left when the sounds of the goods train told him it was safe to go. Lying on the field, Jogi stretched out his hands over his head and behind him, groping, the girl dodged him. Jogi caressed her cheeks, eyes and nose that his hands knew so well. He tried to play with her lips to induce them to kiss his fingers.

The girl opened her mouth and bit him fiercely, Joginder jerked his hand away. With a quick movement he caught the girl’s head in both his hands and brought her face over to his. Then he slipped his arms under her waist and hoisted her into the air above him with her arms and legs kicking, then he brought her down flat upon him limb to limb.

The girl slapped him on the face and angrily mouthed crashing words which Jogi enjoyed thoroughly.

Joginder Singh crossed his arms behind Lazmi’s back and squeezed her till she could not talk or breathe. Every time she started to speak, he tightened his arms around her and her words got stuck in her throat. She gave up and put her exhausted face against his. He laid her beside him with her head nestling in the hollow of his left arm. With his right hand he stoked her hair and face.

Joginder’s hands strayed from the girl’s face to her bosoms and her waist. She caught it and put it back on her face. His breathing became slow and sensuous. He stretched his left arm that lay under the girl’s head and caught her reproving hand. Her other arm was already under him. She was defenceless.

In a state of frenzy, she dug her nails into his thinly bearded cheeks. The stars above her went into a mad whirl. Sands gritting in her hair, the breeze trespassing on her wind spattered limbs, she pushed the moment away and started heading home. It was an evening of wild love making !

That night, in this little town of Majora, five armed dacoits disembarked from a train coming from Lahore. There was no stoppage at Majora, as the train slowed the armed men silently slipped into the darkness. It would not be before morning the train reached Delhi station.

Rehmat, the leader, had come to finish Joginder Singh as he had heard enough of his flirtations with his sister Lazmi. That night, Jogi was fatally wounded and Lazmi silently took her mother and left Majora for good. She was heading for Calcutta where she would find a job at the theatre for a living.

                       In the summer of 1941 Jogi had vanished into the gunshots of Majora !!

In the pre-Independence era Punjab and Bengal bore the largest brunt of mayhem and bloody killings.

The Jallianwala Bagh massacre took place on 13 April 1919. A large, peaceful crowd had gathered at the Jallianwala Bagh in Amritsar, Punjab, during the annual Baishakhi fair to protest against the Rowlatt Act and the arrest of pro-independence activists Saifuddin Kitchlew and Satyapal. 

Through it, just as the meeting had begun, marched Amritsar’s Martial Law Commander, Brigadier R.E. Dyer, at the head of fifty soldiers. The Jallianwala Bagh could only be exited on one side, as its other three sides were enclosed by buildings. After blocking the exit with his troops, Dyer ordered them to shoot at the crowd, continuing to fire even as the protestors tried to flee.

For ten full minutes, while the trapped men, women and children screamed for mercy, the soldiers fired more than 1600 rounds. The bullets killed and wounded more than 1500  people. Convinced he had done a jolly good thing, Dyer marched his men back out of Bagh !!

Dyer was reprimanded for his actions and was asked to resign from the army. He was, however, allowed to retain full pension benefits and other rights due to him. His demonstration was applauded by most of the British in India. In clubs all across the country, his admiring countrymen took up a collection on his behalf, amassing the then prodigious sum of 26,000 pounds to ease the rigors of his premature retirement. Does modern Britain loathe him? I wonder !

This typical British distaste for all things Indian was nauseating, where an aura of inhumanity attracted cheers and applause. Many British families those days would come to India for a visit – they wanted to see and know how India looked like, how the Indians are different from theirs and how Britain poured enormous sums of profit to its coffers from this Jewel in their Crown.

Meryl Reetherspoone had come to India for a week’s visit along with her mother Adela, hosted by local British officer Charles Hope. While Charles, who had an eye on Meryl, offered a drink on arrival, Meryl refused and announced that she was desirous to see the real India. And meandering through discussions Miss Meryl said she avoided speaking to Indians unless they were her own servants, but amused everyone by saying I want to know India and I want to see Indians!

Mrs. Jennifer Morton, well known to Adela, had long been to India. A stupid British woman, Jennifer spoke without hindrance and more often than not left the audience bite the dust for her shameful utterances. You would come to know how silly she was !

When Meryl stepped to visit the place and know Indians, Jennifer was left astounded:

“Wanting to see Indians? What I mean is I was a nurse before my marriage and came across Indian natives a great deal. So, I know. I really do know the truth about Indians. A most unsuitable position for any Englishwoman – in my native State one’s only hope was to hold sternly aloof."

“Even from one’s patients?” Adela asked wickedly.

“Why, the kindest thing one can do to a native is to let him die !!”

“How if he went to Heaven?” asked Adela with a queer smile.

“He can go where he likes as long as he doesn’t come near me. They give me the creeps!”

When Jallianwala Bagh happened General Michael O’Dwyer was Punjab's Lieutenant Governor. As a result, his actions were considered among the most significant factors in the rise of the Indian Independence Movement. O'Dwyer endorsed Reginald Dyer’s action at Jallianwala Bagh and made it clear that he considered Dyer's orders to shoot at the crowds was correct.

He subsequently administered martial law in Punjab on 15 April and backdated it to 30 March 1919. In 1925, he published India As I Knew in which he wrote that his time as administrator, Punjab was preoccupied by the threat of terrorism and the spread of political agitation.

On March 13,1940, in retaliation for the massacre, O'Dwyer was assassinated at Caxton Hall, London by the Indian revolutionary and freedom fighter Udham Singh. 

After leaving Godse in the room, Apte and Karkare decided to go to a cinema. It was a film based on Charlie Chaplin. At the lobby during intermission, they went back to what Nathuram had said: It’ll be all over by tomorrow or day after tomorrow. Karkare was nervous, Will he be able to do it? Godse had several unsuccessful attempts at killing Gandhi.

Apte drew up close, “Karkare, I know Nathuram better than you do. I'll tell you what happened , when we left Delhi on 20 January, we went down to Cawnpore (now Kanpur) in the first-class compartment. We were chatting for a long time and not having a good sleep. At about six in the morning, all of a sudden, Nathuram jumped down. He shook me "Apte, are you awake?" he asked. '’Listen," he said, "It's I who am going to do it, and no one else. This must be done by one man who is ready to sacrifice himself. I will be that man. I will do it alone.”

That day, Apte found to his relief and surprise the entrance of Birla House posed no problem. The guard had been increased, but there was no one to search for weapons. He was relieved. Godse had made his entrance safely. Karkare and Apte walked out to the end and there they saw Nathuram mingling with the crowds. He seemed composed and in a spirited mood. The crowd was scattered around the lawn. At five o'clock, as the time for the prayers grew near, people began to move together. Apte and Karkare took their places as was discussed in the retiring room amidst several alternatives!

Karkare's eyes were on Nathuram lest he falters; he shook the pistol softly in the brass bowl and put his fingers to get a feel of it. He had decided to pay respects to the man who had rendered admirable service to his country. When Gandhi was only three strides from him, Nathuram stepped into the corridor with the brass bowl in his hand.

                        He bowed slowly from the waist, and said to him Namaste Bapu.

As Manu - Gandhi’s aide, stooped to lift Godse, at that instant Nathuram's left arm shot out, thrusting her aside. The black Beretta pistol hidden in the brass bowl lay exposed in his right hand. Godse pulled the trigger three times. Three sharp shots shattered the stillness of the prayer ground. Nathuram Godse had not failed.

All of the three rounds tore into the chest of the slender figure advancing towards him. On 30 January, 1948 around 5.17 pm Mahatma Gandhi was assassinated  by Nathuram Godse !!

On February 10, 1949 Godse and Apte were convicted and were sentenced to death. Karkare was given life sentence and subsequently released from prison in October 1964 !!

In 1943 Archibald Wavell was appointed by Churchill as the Viceroy. He was supposed to sit tight and keep India quiet through World-War II. But to Churchill’s great irritation he did something what his earlier political masters had never done – he came up with a policy precisely opposite of what history and instincts would have suggested, but it was correct and it was what his successor, Mountbatten would do.

Wavell saw that nothing the politicians had been doing had prepared India to look after herself as there was no economic preparation. The choice was to stay for another generation – which Wavell thought would be impossible.

Lord Mountbatten, an officer of impeccable record was sent to Delhi to hand over India undivided and unscathed to Mohandas Gandhi. Moreover, his plan had to be approved by Gandhi’s inner circle of politicians; Pandit Nehru, Md. Ali Jinnah, Sardar Patel, Maulana Azad and Frontier Gandhi.

As Jinnah kept on pestering for a separate Muslim State, Gandhi had no option but to offer him the Prime Ministership of Independent and undivided India. If Gandhi’s political allies refused to endorse his scheme, as Gandhi reasoned with his colleagues, the new Viceroy - Mountbatten - might get thrust into a corner and the only win-win situation for him would be partition.

Only Gandhi knew, as he walked barefooted vast expanses of villages in Noakhali and Bihar, appeasing the people, that the best way to get Independence was through peaceful means.

He had understood, more than those political leaders he worked with, the tragedy partition might lead to. He had seen in the huts and swamps what havoc communal fury, once unleashed, could wreak. Partition, he argued, risked unleashing those passions, not dampening them. Desperately he reasoned with his followers to accept his idea as their last chance to keep India united and to prevent that tragedy.

But Nehru and Patel stood their ground. There was a limit to the price they were prepared to pay to keep India united and handing over power to their arch-rival, Jinnah. They did not share Gandhi's conviction that partition would inevitably lead to nation wide violence. Broken-hearted, Gandhi would have to report to the Viceroy that he had not been able to carry his colleagues with him.

The real break was still some distance ahead, but Gandhi and those men he had so patiently groomed had drifted far apart. Gandhi's journey was nearing its final steps and it would only stop in the stillness of his soul.

                                                                       And so it seemed !

Amidst all this, Jinnah turned out to be a real villain. Mountbatten had an ugly spat with him when Jinnah spoke nonchalantly leaving Mountbatten flabbergasted: “India has never been a true nation. It only looks that way on the map. The cows I eat, the Hindus stop me from killing. Every time they shake hands with me, they have to wash their hands. The only thing the Muslims have in common with the Hindus is British slavery.”

Jinnah wanted Pakistan at any cost as he continued preaching Mountbatten, “India has to be divided, and that division would have to produce a viable state and that meant two of India’s great provinces, The Punjab and Bengal . These would have to go to Pakistan despite the fact that each contained enormous Hindu population.”

When Mountbatten shouted angrily that the partition would entail endless bloodshed and agony, Jinnah assured him nothing of that sort would happen.

Mountbatten was stunned at the absurdity and rigidity of Jinnah. “I never would have believed”, he later recalled, “that an intelligent man, well-educated, trained in the Inns of Court, was capable of simply closing his mind as Jinnah did. It wasn't that he didn't see the point. He did, but a kind of shutter came down. He was the evil genius in the whole thing. The others could be persuaded, but not Jinnah. While he was alive nothing could be done.”

Jinnah was hopelessly self centred and brutally anti-Hindu, which Mountbatten found to his chagrin. Jinnah could have divided India into many parts – not two – to get his claim to an independent Pakistan. A protector of Muslims(?), sadly No. Jinnah, who never went to a Masjid to offer prayers, hardly read Quran, smoked heavily, drank beer and wine with pork – how could he be the saviour of thousands of Muslims who looked up to their Quaid-e-Azam, who believed he would protect them from the Hindu onslaught if Pakistan happened, who believed they would get a beautiful, prosperous country to live in the name of Pakistan. Alas, how wrong were they !! During Partition around 2 million people died in which around sixty percent were Muslims.

There is nothing sadder in India’s Independence than the way it traversed its way. At three minutes before midnight on 14 August 1947 the unity of the Indian subcontinent was broken. Pakistan was established as an independent, sovereign state. Exactly five minutes later India became independent.

Here is an explosive secret capable of changing the course of history.  Mountbatten came across a medical report of the doctor who treated Jinnah. The report described in detail a chest X-ray; the plate confirmed the advanced stages of tuberculosis. In spring of 1947, Mohammed Ali Jinnah, the inflexible Muslim leader who had quashed all of Mountbatten’s efforts to preserve India’s unity knew he had only a few months left to live !!

Mountbatten was astounded. “If I had only known this at the time, the course of history would have been different. I would have delayed the granting of independence for several months. There would have been no Partition. Pakistan would not have existed. India would have remained united. Three wars would have been avoided.” And Gandhiji would not have been assassinated !! There would be no Pakistan, there would be no POK, there would be no Bangladesh !!

                                                             Jinnah died on September 11, 1948.

Dear Reader, this article is not about Mahatma Gandhi – the Father of Nation – but about his pain and sufferings, about his inability to instil sense into his trusted colleagues who desperately wanted to get rid of Jinnah. This is about his assassination by a maverick who thought Gandhi was siding with the Muslims and was the reason for partition.

Do you think Gandhi knew that Jinnah was going to die in a few months? Maybe yes !!

 References:

1.        India’s Struggle for Independence – Bipin Chandra

2.       India After Gandhi – Ramchandra Guha

3.       A Passage to India – E. M. Forster

4.       Train to Pakistan – Khushwant Singh

5.        Gandhi my Father – Amazon Prime

6.       Freedom At Midnight – Larry Collins & Dominique Lapierre

Disclaimer: The names Joginder Singh, Rehmat, Lazmi, Adela, Meryl Reetherspoone, Charles Hope and Jennifer Morton are imaginary and do not hold any resemblance to any person(s) dead or alive.