The Muslim League ministry in Bengal should be able to control the outbreak of disorders in East Bengal, said Mahatma Gandhi on 21 October 1946 in an interview to Preston Grover of Associated Press of America. The Mahatma expressed his sadness on the turn of events in which thousands had been driven from their homes and an undetermined number killed or kidnapped. He said, if the Muslim League wanted to control it, I should think that it could. The Muslim League has the overwhelming percentage of Muslim voters on their side. Mahatma Gandhi described the Bengal outbreak as ‘heartbreaking’. His comments on the outbreak of robbing, burning and looting in East Bengal (from Volume 86 of the Collected Works of Mahatma Gandhi) were made in his small room in the Harijan colony in New Delhi where he had lived since the arrival of the British Cabinet Mission in March that year.

The Mahatma announced his intention of visiting troubled areas in Bengal after his meeting on October 23 with Pandit Nehru and the Working Committee where they would discuss problems created by the entry of the Muslim Group into the Central Ministry, stating: The fact that I go there will satisfy the soul and may be of some use. Preston questioned him, Will the Muslims listen to you? Replied Gandhiji, I don’t know. I don’t go with any expectation, but I have the right to expect it. A man who goes to do his duty only expects to be given strength by God to do his duty. You may be certain these disturbances will end. If the British influence were withdrawn, they would end much quicker. While the British influence is here, both parties, I am sorry to confess, look to the British power for assistance.

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Turning to the affairs of the Interim Government, Mahatma Gandhi regretted the statement of Raja Ghazanfar Ali Khan of the Muslim League that the League was going into the Interim Government to fight for Pakistan. Gandhiji said, That is an extraordinary and inconsistent attitude. The Interim Government is for the interim period only and may not last long. While it is in office, it is there to deal with the problems that face the country ~ starvation, nakedness, disease, bad communications, corruption, illiteracy. Any one of these problems would be enough to tax the best minds of India. On these there is no question of Hindu or Muslim. Both are naked.

Both are starving. Both wish to drive out the demon of illiteracy and unIndian education. There is not much time to elapse between this Government and that to be set up by the Constituent Assembly. The time will be shortened if both apply their will to the completion of the work of the Constituent Assembly. The Constituent Assembly is based on the State Paper. That Paper has put in cold storage the idea of Pakistan. Despite his despondency, Gandhiji’s political and legal insights were as sharp as ever. Asked for his reaction to the decision of the Madras Ministry which had decided against any expansion of the cotton mills industry in the Province in order to promote the Gandhian plan for home spinning and weaving, the Mahatma said, I think it is the finest thing going. If you want to follow this logically, then you must follow it through. Would that mean that mills in the Province would be stop – ped? He replied if in time, through the progressive programme, the mills came to have no customers, then they would quit ~ unless they chose to sell outside India.

He assailed the Natal Sugar Mills industry as responsible for bringing indentured Indians there to work and thus creating the segregation problem. When asked if he had any message for America, the Mahatma said, Dislodge the money God called Mammon from the throne and find a corner for poor God. I think America has a very big future but in spite of what is said to the contrary, it has a dismal future if it swears by Mammon. Mammon has never been known to be a friend of any of us to the last. He is always a false friend. At the prayer meeting the same evening, Gandhiji pointed out that the coming Diwali could not be an occasion for feasting. How could there be feasting in a house where there were any number of the starving and the naked? On top of that they were quarrelling amongst themselves. To burn oil or ghee today when there was not enough to eat was unthinkable. Real India did not reside in cities like Delhi. It resided in the seven lakhs of villages. For the hungry and naked villagers there could be no Diwali illuminations or any other kind of festivity. It was their duty to abstain and save all the ghee, oil and money they could. On 23 October, Andrew Freeman of The New York Post asked the Mahatma whether the spinning-wheel had a message for America.

Can it serve as a counter weapon to the atom bomb?, he questioned. Gandhiji replied, I do feel that it has a message for the USA and the whole world. But it cannot be until India has demonstrated to the world that it has made the spinning-wheel its own, which it has not done today. The fault is not of the wheel. I have not the slightest doubt that the saving of India and of the world lies in the wheel. If India becomes the slave of the machine, then, I say, heaven save the world. India has a far nobler mission, viz., to establish friendship and peace in the world.

Freeman said, it seems so tragic. India must lead the way and India is in turmoil. If any country can really take up the wheel, it is India. Do you think it will?, he asked. Gandhiji replied, It is doing so, but I confess the process is very slow. Pandit Nehru called khadi the ‘livery of our freedom’. Freeman’s questions veered towards spirituality and religion. He asked Gandhiji, Something has to be found that would save civilization from destruction. Life must be simplified. Gandhiji re plied, Human personality cannot be sustained in any other way. I stand by what is implied in the phrase ‘Unto This Last’ (referring to the work of John Ruskin). That book marked the turning point in my life. We must do even unto this last as we would have the world do by us. All must have equal opportunity. Given the opportunity every human being has the same possibility for spiritual growth. That is what the spinning-wheel symbolizes. Gandhiji posed a counterquestion: Has America with all its Mammon-worship abolished unemployment, poverty, corruption, Tammany Hall (a political organisation)? Has England? Has it not still to grapple with the problems that baffle her? It is a very curious commentary on the West that although it professes Christianity, there is no Christianity or Christ in the West or there should have been no war. That is how I understand the message of Jesus. There is much ignorance and superstition in India. But deep down in us is that faith in God ~ the instinct for religion. Gandhiji said, I have said so openly. Where is Mohammed and his message which is peace?

I said recently at a public gathering that if Mohammed came to India today, he would disown many of his so-called followers and own me as a true Muslim, as Jesus would own me as a true Christian… I might give the answer that Jesus gave to one of his followers: ‘Do the will of my Father who is in Heaven, not merely say Lord, Lord’. That holds true of you, me and everybody. If we have faith in the living God, all will be well with us. I hope not to lose that faith even to my dying day. For Mahatma Gandhi, as he concluded the interview with Freeman, the charkha was playing the role of a therapeutic agent. He said, I have read some literature on the subject sent to me by a Glasgow professor.

A retired superintendent of a jail in Bengal wrote to me describing the use of the spinning-wheel for curing lunatics, particularly by virtue of the soothing effect of its rhythmic motion. Seventy-seven years after Independence, issues which were agonizing Mahatma Gandhi continue to fester, deepen and worsen while nation-building exercises are underway.

(The writer is an author-researcher on history and heritage issues and a former deputy curator of Pradhanmantri Sangrahalaya)