How Gandhi brought peace and united Hindus and Muslims a year after the mass violence in Calcutta

Author’s note: The excerpt below is from Chapter 4 titled “A Short-Lived Nine-Day Wonder”, from my recently published book, Gandhi: The End of Nonviolence. It describes Gandhi’s sojourn in Calcutta between August 9 and September 7, 1947. When Hindus and Muslims came out together in the streets of Calcutta to celebrate independence on August 14, Gandhi’s efforts to bring peace to the city that saw unprecedented mass violence exactly a year ago was described a “miracle”. Gandhi called it “a short-lived nine-day wonder” after he witnessed the death of two Muslim migrants on 1st September in a place close to Hydari Manzil/Mansion. Fresh riots were reported from Park Circus, Bada Bazar and Bau Bazar. The shadow of political violence fell over a temporary “miracle.”

On 20 August, the prayer meeting was held at Bara Bazar (a place that had a mosque, temple and church on three sides) where the Calcutta violence had begun and where truce was declared on 14 August. At dinner, Manu [Gandhi] confronted Suhrawardy on his not sleeping at the Hydari Mansion with Gandhi and his associates as decided but that he preferred the comforts of home. Manu disparaged him with striking intimacy and boldness,

‘I have no faith in you. You don’t keep your word. You have a new excuse every day.’

On August 21, the prayer meeting at Park Circus started with the singing of Iqbal’s Sare Jahan se Achchha, with Gandhi recollecting that a fellow Muslim prisoner had sung it, and also on his request, Sarala Devi Chowdhurani (the daughter of Tagore’s sister, from Jorasanko, Calcutta). He tried to pacify the Muslims of Murshidabad and Malda for being left behind in India, the Hindus of Khulna and Gopalganj and the Buddhists in the Chittagong Hills. On the 23rd, at the prayer meeting in Woodlands, the Alipore residence of the Maharaja of Cooch Behar, Gandhi told his audience that although Allah-o-Akbar was used on occasions as a war cry by Muslims that terrified Hindus, the original meaning is soul-stirring and noble, and should be adopted by the Hindus too. He also remarked that Vande Mataram was not a religious but a political cry. He wished it to be “sung together by all on due occasion”, but cautioned that it should “never be a chant to insult or offend the Muslims.”

Suhrawardy was alarmed at Gandhi’s mention of Vande Mataram and felt that it might be “misconstrued” and people might be “coerced” into singing it. Gandhi gave him his characteristic assurance: “If Muslims are coerced into saying that, I would face that challenge.”

On 24 August, Gandhi informed at the prayer meeting that Khwaja Saheb Nazimuddin, the then chief minister of East Bengal, had written to him for help in procuring 500 tons of rice from the shipment coming from Burma. He was willing to help and asked Dr Rajendra Prasad to allow that amount from the cargo to be delivered at the Chittagong post. Gandhi hoped that rumours that officials involved in flood relief would only distribute the rice to Muslims weren’t true.

A report by Nikhil Chakravarty, the Calcutta correspondent of People’s Age (published from Bombay), appeared in the weekly’s 24 August issue, titled “Day One in Calcutta”. Some excerpts from the report are worth noting:

“Everybody felt nervous about August 15. Weeks ahead authorities were on tenterhooks; more police and military were being posted to ensure peace … East Bengal Hindus were nervous that one little spark in Calcutta might throw the entire province into the flames of a civil war; Muslims were panicky that they might be finished off in Calcutta and many had left the city …. 

Gandhiji had already moved his camp to one of the most affected areas – Belliaghata – and cancelling his East Bengal trip, had decided to spend a few days here with Suhrawardy. But even he was disturbed by rowdy goondas, backed by communal groups, accusing him of being an enemy of Hindus …

Discordant voices there were, but they did not matter. The Hindu Mahasabha first raised the slogan of black flags, but then piped down and declared non-participation. But all the prestige of Shyamaprosad [Syama Prasad Mookerjee] could not make any impression on the very people whom he had swayed during the Partition campaign. 

Forward Bloc and Tagorites also opposed the celebration on the ground that real freedom was yet to be won … 

As the zero hour approached, the city put on a changed appearance. On the streets, people were busy putting up flags and decorating frontage. Gates were set up at important crossings, bearing names of our past titans like Ashoka or our martyrs in the freedom movement … 

The first spontaneous initiative for fraternisation came from Muslim bustees and was immediately responded to by Hindu bustees. It was Calcutta’s poor toilers, especially Muslims, who opened the floodgate … 

[The] very storm-centres of most gruesome rioting of the past year – Raja Bazar, Sealdah, Kalabagan, Colootolah, Burra Bazar – Muslims and Hindus ran across the frontiers and hugged each other in wild joy. Tears rolled down where once blood had soaked the pavements.”

It is striking how arbitrarily ordinary people respond to political moments that have a bearing on their fate. When Jinnah declared Direct Action, the Muslims were instigated into committing violence and drawing the Hindu community into it, without any material or political benefit for either. At Independence, after futile bloodshed, people expressed equally exaggerated emotions of fraternity. Did they really repent, or was it all what Nirad C Chaudhuri called “weak repentance”?

History is a trail of unresolved emotions and feelings. People don’t always act according to self-interest, but interests manufactured by political leaders and ideologies. The ideological machinery creates the people they want to lead, control and use. Politics is a field of manipulation. Politics has the unique ability to transform genuine grievances (related to forms of exploitation and oppression) into a discourse of conflict that often intensifies the problem with the claim to solve it from the root. Often doctors make a similar claim to patients about their medication. Liberation theologies, including the secular kinds, often pretend to deliver people from historical suffering using radical methods. The precise nature of the original grievance is lost in ideological fire and smoke.

It is noteworthy that despite dedicating his body to the service of peace, Gandhi was suspected of partiality by people and politicians from both communities. These were largely motivated suspicions because each side wanted Gandhi to turn his eyes away from the crime committed by them and focus on the other side. Does such hypocrisy disappear through non-violence?

Excerpted with permission from Gandhi: The End of Non-Violence, Manash Firaq Bhattacharjee, Penguin India.