CHAPTER THREE
THE QUEST
The Panorama of India's Past
DURING THESE YEARS OF THOUGHT AND ACTIVITY MY MIND HAS BEEN
full of India, trying to understand her and to analyse my own
reactions towards her. I went back to my childhood days and
tried to remember what I felt like then, what vague shape this
conception took in my growing mind, and how it was moulded
by fresh experience. Sometimes it receded into the background,
but it was always there, slowly changing, a queer mixture deriv-
ed from old story and legend and modern fact. It produced a
sensation of pride in me as well as that of shame, for I was
ashamed of much that I saw around me, of superstitious prac-
tices, of outworn ideas, and, above all, our subject and poverty-
stricken state.
As I grew up and became engaged in activities which pro-
mised to lead to India's freedom, I became obsessed with the
thought of India. What was this India that possessed me and
beckoned to me continually, urging me to action so that we
might realize some vague but deeply-felt desire of our hearts?
The initial urge came to me, I suppose, through pride, both
individual and national, and the desire, common to all men,
to resist another's domination and have freedom to live the life
of our choice. It seemed monstrous to me that a great country
like India, with a rich and immemorial past, should be bound
hand and foot to a far-away island which imposed its will upon
her. It was still more monstrous that this forcible union had
resulted in poverty and degradation beyond measure. That was
reason enough for me and for others to act.
But it was not enough to satisfy the questioning that arose
within me. What is this India, apart from her physical and
geographical aspects? What did she represent in the past? What
gave strength to her then? How did she lose that old strength?
And has she lost it completely? Does she represent anything
vital now, apart from being the home of a vast number of human
beings? How does she fit into the modern world?
This wider international aspect of the problem grew upon
49
me as I realized more and more how isolation was both undesir-
able and impossible. The future that took shape in my mind
was one of intimate co-operation, politically, economically, and
culturally, between India and the other countries of the world.
But before the future came there was the present, and behind
the present lay the long and tangled past, out of which the pre-
sent had grown. So to the past I looked for understanding.
India was in my blood and there was much in her that instinc-
tively thrilled me. And yet I approached her almost as an alien
critic, full of dislike for the present as well as for many of the
relics of the past that I saw. To some extent I came to her via
the West, and looked at her as a friendly westerner might have
done. I was eager and anxious to change her outlook and appear-
ance and give her the garb of modernity. And yet doubts arose
within me. Did I know India? — I who presumed to scrap much
of her past heritage? There was a great deal that had to be
scrapped, that must be scrapped; but surely India could not
have been what she undoubtedly was, and could not have con-
tinued a cultured existence for thousands of years, if she had not
possessed something very vital and enduring, something that
was worthwhile. What was this something?
I stood on a mound of Mohenjo-daro in the Indus Valley in
the north-west of India, and all around me lay the houses and
streets of this ancient city that is said to have existed over five
thousand years ago; and even then it was an old and well-
developed civilization. 'The Indus civilization,' writes Professor
Childe, 'represents a very prefect adjustment of human life to a
specific environment that can only have resulted from years of
patient effort. And it has endured; it is already specifically
Indian and forms the basis of modern Indian culture.' Aston-
ishing thought: that any culture or civilization should have this
continuity for five or six thousand years or more; and not in a
static, unchanging sense, for India was changing and progressing
all the time. She was coming into intimate contact with the
Persians, the Egyptians, the Greeks, the Chinese, the Arabs, the
Central Asians, and the peoples of the Mediterranean. But though
she influenced them and was influenced by them, her cultural
basis was strong enough to endure. What was the secret of this
strength? Where did it come from?
I read her history and read also a part of her abundant ancient
literature, and was powerfully impressed by the vigour of the
thought, the clarity of the language, and the richness of the
mind that lay behind it. I journeyed through India in the company
of mighty travellers from China and Western and Central Asia
who came here in the remote past and left records of their travels.
I thought of what India had accomplished in Eastern Asia, in
50
Angkor, Borobudur, and many other places. I wandered over
the Himalayas, which are closely connected with old myth and
legend, and which have influenced so much our thought and
literature. My love of the mountains and my kinship with Kash-
mir especially drew me to them, and I saw there not only the life
and vigour and beauty of the present, but also the memoried
loveliness of ages past. The mighty rivers of India that flow from
this great mountain barrier into the plains of India attracted me
and reminded me of innumerable phases of our history. The Indus
or Sifidhu, from which our country came to be called India and
Hindustan, and across which races and tribes and caravans and
armies have come for thousands of years; the Brahmaputra,
rather cut off from the main current of history, but living in old
story, forcing its way into India through deep chasms cut in the
heart of the northeastern mountains, and then flowing calmly
in a gracious sweep between mountain and wooded plain; the
Jumna, round which cluster so many legends ofdance and fun and
play; and the Ganges, above all the river of India, which has held
India's heart captive and drawn uncounted millions to her banks
since the dawn ofhistory. The story ofthe Ganges, from her source
to the sea, from old times to new, is the story of India's civiliza-
tion and culture, of the rise and fall of empires, of great and
proud cities, of the adventure of man and the quest of the mind
which has so occupied India's thinkers, of the richness and fulfil-
ment of life as well as its denial and renunciation, of ups and
downs, of growth and decay, of life and death.
I visited old monuments and ruins and ancient sculptures and
frescoes — Ajanta, Ellora, the Elephanta Caves, and other places
— and I also saw the lovely buildings of a later age in Agra and
Delhi, where every stone told its story of India's past.
In my own city of Allahabad or in Hardwar I would go to
the great bathing festivals, the Kumbh Mela, and see hundreds
of thousands of people come, as their forebears had come for
thousands of years from all over India, to bathe in the Ganges.
I would remember descriptions of these festivals written thirteen
hundred years ago by Chinese pilgrims and others, and even
then these melas were ancient and lost in an unknown antiquity.
What was the tremendous faith, I wondered, that had drawn our
people for untold generations to this famous river of India?
These journeys and visits of mine, with the background of
my reading, gave me an insight into the past. To a somewhat
bare intellectual understanding was added an emotional appre-
ciation, and gradually a sense of reality began to creep into my
mental picture of India, and the land of my forefathers became
peopled with living beings, who laughed and wept, loved and
suffered; and among them were men who seemed to know life
51
and understand it, and out of their wisdom they had built a
structure which gave India a cultural stability which lasted for
thousands of years. Hundreds of vivid pictures of this past filled
my mind, and they would stand out as soon as I visited a parti-
cular place associated with them. At Sarnath, near Benares, I
would almost see the Buddha preaching his first sermon, and
some of his recorded words would come like a distant echo to
me through two thousand five hundred years. Ashoka's pillars of
stone with their inscriptions would speak to me in their magni-
ficent language and tell me of a man who, though an emperor,
was greater than any king or emperor. At Fatehpur-Sikri, Akbar,
forgetful of his empire, was seated holding converse and debate
with the learned of all faiths, curious to learn something new
and seeking an answer to the eternal problem of man.
Thus slowly the long panorama of India's history unfolded
itself before me, with its ups and downs, its triumphs and defeats.
There seemed to me something unique about the continuity of
a cultural tradition through five thousand years of history, of
invasion and upheaval, a tradition which was widespread among
the masses and powerfully influenced them. Only China has had
such a continuity of tradition and cultural life. And this panorama
of the past gradually merged into the unhappy present, when India,
for all her past greatness and stability, was a slave country, an
appendage of Britain, and all over the world terrible and devastat-
ing war was raging and brutalizing humanity. But that vision of
five thousand years gave me a new perspective, and the burden
of the present seemed to grow lighter.
The hundred and eighty years of British rule in India were
just one of the unhappy interludes in her long story; she would
find herself again; already the last page of this chapter was being
written. The world also will survive the horror of to-day and build
itself anew on fresh foundations.
Nationalism and Internationalism
My reaction to India thus was often an emotional one, condi-
tioned and limited in many ways. It took the form of nation-
alism. In the case of many people the conditioning and limiting
factors are absent. But nationalism was and is inevitable in the
India of my day; it is a natural and healthy growth. For any sub-
ject country national freedom must be the first and dominant
urge; for India, with her intense sense of individuality and a past
heritage, it was doubly so.
Recent events all over the world have demonstrated that the
notion that nationalism is fading away before the impact of
internationalism and proletarian movements has little truth. It is
52
still one of the most powerful urges that move a people, and
round it cluster sentiments and traditions and a sense of common
living and common purpose. While the intellectual strata of the
middle classes were gradually moving away from nationalism,
or so they thought, labour and proletarian movements, deliberately
based on internationalism, were drifting towards nationalism.
The coming of war swept everybody everywhere into the net of
nationalism. This remarkable resurgence of nationalism, or rather
a re-discovery of it and a new realization of its vital significance,
has raised new problems and altered the form and shape of old
problems. Old established traditions cannot be easily scrapped
or dispensed with; in moments of crisis they rise and dominate the
minds of men, and often, as we have seen, a deliberate attempt
is made to use those traditions to rouse a people to a high pitch of
effort and sacrifice. Traditions have to be accepted to a large
extent and adapted and transformed to meet new conditions and
ways of thought, and at the same time new traditions have to be
built up. The nationalist ideal is deep and strong; it is not a thing
of the past with no future significance. But other ideals, more
based on the ineluctable facts of to-day, have arisen, the inter-
national ideal and the proletarian ideal, and there must be some
kind of fusion between these various ideals ifwe are to have a world
equilibrium and a lessening of conflict. The abiding appeal of
nationalism to the spirit of man has to be recognized and pro-
vided for, but its sway limited to a narrower sphere.
If nationalism is still so universal in its influence, even in coun-
tries powerfully affected by new ideas and international forces,
how much more must it dominate the mind of India. Sometimes
we are told that our nationalism is a sign of our backwardness
and even our demand for independence indicates our narrow-
mindedness. Those who tell us so seem to imagine that true inter-
nationalism would triumph ifwe agreed to remain as junior part-
ners in the British Empire or Commonwealth of Nations. They
do not appear to realize that this particular type of so-called
internationalism is only an extension of a narrow British natio-
nalism, which could not have appealed to us even if the logical
consequences of Anglo-Indian history had not utterly rooted out
its possibility from our minds. Nevertheless, India, for all her
intense nationalistic fervour, has gone further than many nations
in her acceptance of real internationalism and the co-ordination,
and even to some extent the subordination, of the independent
nation state to a world organization.
India's Strength and Weakness
The search for the sources of India's strength and for her deter-
53
ioration and decay is long and intricate. Yet the recent causes
of that decay are obvious enough. She fell behind in the march
of technique, and Europe, which had long been backward in
many matters, took the lead in technical progress. Behind this
technical progress was the spirit of science and a bubling life
and spirit which displayed itself in many activities and in ad-
venturous voyages of discovery. New techniques gave military
strength to the countries of western Europe, and it was easy for
them to spread out and dominate the East. That is the story not
only of India, but of almost the whole of Asia.
Why this should have happened so is more difficult to unravel,
for India was not lacking in mental alertness and technical skill
in earlier times. One senses a progressive deterioration during
centuries. The urge to life and endeavour becomes less, the crea-
tive spirit fades away and gives place to the imitative. Where
triumphant and rebellious thought had tried to pierce the my-
steries of nature and the universe, the wordy commentator comes
with his glosses and long explanations. Magnificent art and
sculpture give way to meticulous carving of intricate detail
without nobility of conception or design. The vigour and rich-
ness of language, powerful yet simple, are followed by highly
ornate and complex literary forms. The urge to adventure and
the overflowing life which led to vast schemes of distant coloni-
zation and the transplantation of Indian culture in far lands:
all these fade away and a narrow orthodoxy taboos even the
crossing of the high seas. A rational spirit of inquiry, so evident
in earlier times, which might well have led to the further growth
of science, is replaced by irrationalism and a blind idolatory of
the past. Indian life becomes a sluggish stream, living in the past,
moving slowly through the accumulations of dead centuries.
The heavy burden of the past crushes it and a kind of coma seizes
it. It is not surprising that in this condition of mental stupor and
physical weariness India should have deteriorated and remained
rigid and immobile, while other parts of the world marched ahead.
Yet this is not a complete or wholly correct survey. If there
had only been a long and unrelieved period of rigidity and
stagnation, this might well have resulted in a complete break
with the past, the death of an era, and the erection of some-
thing new on its ruins. There has not been such a break and there
is a definite continuity. Also, from time to time, vivid periods of
renascence have occurred, and some of them have been long and
brilliant. Always there is visible an attempt to understand and
adapt the new and harmonize it with the old, or at any rate with
parts of the old which were considered worth preserving. Often
that old retains an external form only, as a kind of symbol, and
changes its inner content. But something vital and living continues,
54
some urge driving the people in a direction not wholly realized,
and always a desire for synthesis between the old and the new.
It was this urge and desire that kept them going and enabled them
to absorb new ideas while retaining much of the old. Whether
there was such a thing as an Indian dream through the ages,
vivid and full of life or sometimes reduced to the murmurings
of troubled sleep, I do not know. Every people and every nation
has some such belief or myth of national destiny and perhaps it
is partly true in each case. Being an Indian I am myself influenced
by this reality or myth about India, and I feel that anything that
had the power to mould hundreds of generations, without a break,
must have drawn its enduring vitality from some deep well of
strength, and have had the capacity to renew that vitality from
age to age.
Was there some such well of strength? And if so, did it dry
up, or did it have hidden springs to replenish it? What of today ?
Are there any springs still functioning from which we can refresh
and strengthen ourselves? We are an old race, or rather an odd
mixture of many races, and our racial memories go back to the
dawn of history. Have we had our day and arc we now living in
the late afternoon or evening of our existence, just carrying on
after the manner of the aged, quiescent, devitalized, uncreative,
desiring peace and sleep above all else?
No people, no races remain unchanged. Continually they are
mixing with others and slowly changing; they may appear to die
almost and then rise again as a new people or just a variation of
the old. There may be a definite break between the old people and
the new, or vital links of thought and ideals may join them.
History has numerous instances of old and well-established
civilizations fading away or being ended suddenly, and vigor-
ous new cultures taking their place. Is it some vital energy, sonic
inner source of strength that gives life to a civilization or a people,
without which all effort is ineffective, like the vain attempt of an
aged person to plav the part of a youth?
Among the peoples of the world to-day I have sensed this vital
energy chiefly in three — Americans, Russians, and the Chinese;
a queer combination! Americans, in spite of having their roots
in the old world, are a new people, uninhibited and without the
burdens and complexes of old races, and it is easy to understand
their abounding vitality. So also are the Canadians, Australians,
and New Zealanders, all of them largely cut off from the old
world and facing life in all its newness.
Russians are not a new people, and yet there has been a comp-
lete break from the old, like that of death, and they have been
reincarnated anew, in a manner for which there is no example
in history. They have become youthful again with an energy and
55
vitality lhat are amazing. They are searching for some of their
old roots again, but for all practical purposes they are a new people,
a new race and a new civilization.
The Russian example shows how a people can revitalize itself,
become youthful again, if it is prepared to pay the price for it,
and tap the springs of suppressed strength and energy among
the masses. Perhaps this war, with all its horror and frightfulness,
might result in the rejuvenation of other peoples also, such as
survive from the holocaust.
The Chinese stand apart from all these. They are not a new
race, nor have they gone through that shock of change, from top
to bottom, which came to Russia. Undoubtedly, seven years of
cruel war has changed them, as it must. How far this change is
due to the war or to more abiding causes, or whether it is a mixture
of the two, I do not know, but the vitality of the Chinese people
astonishes me. I cannot imagine a people endowed with such
bed-rock strength going under.
Something of that vitality which I saw in China I have sensed
at times in the Indian people also. Not always, and anyway it is
difficult for me to take an objective view. Perhaps my wishes distort
my thinking. But always I was in search for this in my wanderings
among the Indian people. If they had this vitality, then it was
well with them and they would make good. If they lacked it
completely, then our political efforts and shouting were all make-
believe and would not carry us far. I was not interested in making
some political arrangement which would enable our people to
carry on more or less as before, only a little better. I felt they had
vast stores of suppressed energy and ability, and I wanted to release
these and make them feel young and vital again. India, constituted
as she is, cannot play a secondary part in the world. She will either
count for a great deal or not count at all. No middle position
attracted me. Nor did I think any intermediate position feasible.
Behind the past quarter of a century's struggle for India's
independence and all our conflicts with British authority, lay in
my mind, and that of many others, the desire to revitalize India.
We felt that through action and self-imposed suffering and sacri-
fice, through voluntarily facing risk and danger, through refusal
to submit to what we considered evil and wrong, would we re-
charge the battery of India's spirit and waken her from her long
slumber. Though we came into conflict continually with the
British Government in India, our eyes were always turned towards
our own people. Political advantage had value only in so far as it
helped in that fundamental purpose of ours. Because ofthis govern-
ing motive, frequently we acted as no politician, moving in the
narrow sphere of politics only, would have done, and foreign and
Indian critics expressed surprise at the folly and intransigence of
56
our ways. Whether we were foolish or not, the historians of the
future will judge. We aimed high and looked far. Probably we were
often foolish, from the point of view of opportunist politics, but at
no time did we forget that our main purpose was to raise the whole
level of the Indian people, psychologically and spiritually and also,
of course, politically and economically. It was the building up of
that real inner strength of the people that we were after, knowing
that the rest would inevitably follow. We had to wipe out some
generations of shameful subservience and timid submission to an
arrogant alien authority.
The Search for India
Though books and old monuments and past cultural achievements
helped to produce some understanding of India, they did not
satisfy me or give me the answer I was looking for. Nor could they,
for they dealt with a past age, and I wanted to know if there was
any real connection between that past and the present. The present
for me, and for many others like me, was an odd mixture of medi-
aevalism, appalling poverty and misery and a somewhat super-
ficial modernism of the middle classes. I was not an admirer of
my own class or kind, and yet inevitably I looked to it for leader-
ship in the struggle for India's salvation; that middle class felt
caged and circumscribed and wanted to grow and develop itself.
Unable to do so within the framework of British rule, a spirit of
revolt grew against this rule, and yet this spirit was not directed
against the structure that crushed us. It sought to retain it and
control it by displacing the British. These middle classes were too
much the product of that structure to challenge it and seek to
uproot it.
New forces arose that drove us to the masses in the villages,
and for the first time, a new and different India rose up before
the young intellectuals who had almost forgotten its existence
or attached little importance to it. It was a disturbing sight, not
only because of its stark misery and the magnitude of its problems,
but because it began to upset some of our values and conclusions.
So began for us the discovery of India as it was, and it produced
both understanding and conflict within us. Our reactions varied
and depended on our previous environment and experience.
Some were already sufficiently acquainted with these village masses
not to experience any new sensation; they took them for granted.
But for me it was a real voyage of discovery, and, while I was
always painfully conscious of the failings and weaknesses of my
people, I found in India's countryfolk something, difficult to define,
which attracted me. That something I had missed in our middle
classes.
57
I do not idealise the conception of the masses and, as far as
possible, I try to avoid thinking of them as a theoretical abstrac-
tion. The people of India are very real to me in their great variety
and, in spite of their vast numbers, I try to think of them as
individuals rather than as vague groups. Perhaps it was because
I did not expect much from them that I was not disappointed;
I found more than I had expected. It struck me that perhaps the
reason for this, and for a certain stability and potential strength
that they possessed, was the old Indian cultural tradition which
was still retained by them in a small measure. Much had gone in
the battering they had received during the past 200 years. Yet
something remained that was worth while, and with it so much
that was worthless and evil.
During the 'twenties my work was largely confined to my own
province and I travelled extensively and intensively through the
towns and villages of the forty-eight districts of the United Pro-
vinces of Agra and Oudh, that heart of Hindustan as it has so long
been considered, the seat and centre of both ancient and mediaeval
civilization, the melting pot of so many races and cultures, the area
where the great revolt of 1857 blazed up and was later ruthlessly
crushed. I grew to know the sturdy Jat of the northern and western
districts, that typical son of the soil, brave and independent
looking, relatively more prosperous; the Rajput peasant and petty
landholder, still proud of his race and ancestry, even though he
might have changed his faith and adopted Islam; the deft and
skilful artisans and cottage workers, both Hindu and Moslem;
the poorer peasantry and tenants in their vast numbers, especially
in Oudh and the eastern districts, crushed and ground down by
generations of oppression and poverty, hardly daring to hope that
a change would come to better their lot, and yet hoping and full
of faith.
During the 'thirties, in the intervals of my life out of prison,
and especially during the election campaign of 1936-37, 1 travelled
more extensively throughout India, in towns and cities and villages
alike. Except for rural Bengal, which unhappily I have only rarely
visited, I toured in every province and went deep into villages.
I spoke of political and economic issues and judging from my
speech I was full of politics and elections. But all this while, in a
corner of my mind, lay something deeper and more vivid, and
elections or the other excitements of the passing day meant little
to it. Another and a major excitement had seized me, and I was
again on a great voyage of discovery and the land of India and
the people of India lay spread out before me. India with all her
infinite charm and variety began to grow upon me more and more,
and yet the more I saw of her, the more I realized how very diffi-
cult it was for me or for anyone else to grasp the ideas she had
58
embodied. It was not her wide spaces that eluded me, or even her
diversity, but some depth of soul which I could not fathom, though
I had occasional and tantalizing glimpses of it. She was like some
ancient palimpsest on which layer upon layer of thought and
reverie had been inscribed, and yet no succeeding layer had com-
pletely hidden or erased what had been written previously. All
of these existed in our conscious or subconscious selves, though we
may not have been aware of them, and they had gone to build
up the complex and mysterious personality of India. That sphinx-
like face with its elusive and sometimes mocking smile was to be
seen throughout the length and breadth of the land. Though
outwardly there was diversity and infinite variety among our people,
everywhere there was that tremendous impress of oneness, which
had held all of us together for ages past, whatever political fate or
misfortune had befallen us. The unity of India was no longer
merely an intellectual conception for me: it was an emotional
experience which overpowered me. That essential unity had been
so powerful that no political division, no disaster or catastrophe,
had been able to overcome it.
It was absurd, of course, to think of India or any country as
a kind of anthropomorphic entity. I did not do so. I was also fully
aware of the diversities and divisions of Indian life, of classes,
castes, religions, races, different degrees of cultural development.
Yet I think that a country with a long cultural background and a
common outlook on life develops a spirit that is peculiar to it and
that is impressed on all its children, however much they may
differ among themselves. Can anyone fail to see this in China,
whether he meets an old-fashioned mandarin or a Communist
who has apparently broken with the past? It was this spirit of
India that I was after, not through idle curiosity, though I was
curious enough, but because I felt that it might give me some key
to the understanding of my country and people, some guidance
to thought and action. Politics and elections were day to day
affairs when we grew excited over trumpery matters. But if we
were going to build the house of India's future, strong and secure
and beautiful, we would have to dig deep for the foundations.
'Bharat Mata'
Often, as I wandered from meeting to meeting, I spoke to my
audience of this India of ours, of Hindustan and of Bharata, the
old Sanskrit name derived from the mythical founder of the race.
1 seldom did so in the cities, for there the audiences were more
sophisticated and wanted stronger fare. But to the peasant, with
his limited outlook, I spoke of this great country for whose free-
dom we were struggling, of how each part differed from the other
59
and yet was India, of common problems of the peasants from
north to south and east to west, of the Swaraj that could only be
for all and every part and not for some. I told them of myjourney-
ing from the Khyber Pass in the far north-west to Kanya Kumari
or Cape Comorin in the distant south, and how everywhere the
peasants put me identical questions, for their troubles were the
same — poverty, debt, vested interests, landlords, moneylenders,
heavy rents and taxes, police harassment, and all these wrapped
up in the structure that the foreign government had imposed upon
us — and relief must also come for all. I tried to make them think
of India as a whole, and even to some little extent of this wide
world of which we were a part. I brought in the struggle in China,
in Spain, in Abyssinia, in Central Europe, in Egypt and the
countries of Western Asia. I told them of the wonderful changes
in the Soviet Union and of the great progress made in America.
The task was not easy; yet it was not so difficult as I had imagined,
for our ancient epics and myths and legends, which they knew so
well, had made them familiar with the conception of their country,
and some there were always who had travelled far and wide to
the great places of pilgrimage situated at the four corners of
India. Or there were old soldiers who had served in foreign parts
in World War I or other expeditions. Even my references to foreign
countries were brought home to them by the consequences of
the great depression of the 'thirties.
Sometimes as I reached a gathering, a great roar of welcome
would greet me: Bharat Mata kt Jai — 'Victory to Mother India.'
I would ask them unexpectedly what they meant by that cry,
who was this Bharat Mata, Mother India, whose victory they
wanted? My question would amuse them and surprise them, and
then, not knowing exactly what to answer, they would look at
each other and at me. I persisted in my questioning. At last a
vigorous Jat, wedded to the soil from immemorial generations,
would say that it was the dharli, the good earth of India, that
they meant. What earth? Their particular village patch, or all
the patches in the district or province, or in the whole of India?
And so question and answer went on, till they would ask me
impatiently to tell them all about it. I would endeavour to do
so and explain that India was all this that they had thought,
but it was much more. The mountains and the rivers of India,
and the forests and the broad fields, which gave us food, were
all dear to us, but what counted ultimately were the people of
India, people like them and me, who were spread out all over
this vast land. Bharat Mata, Mother India, was essentially these
millions of people, and victory to her meant victory to these
people. You are parts of this Bharat Mata, I told them, you are
in a manner yourselves Bharat Mata, and as this idea slowly
«0
soaked into their brains, their eyes would light up as if they
had made a great discovery.
The Variety and Unity of India
The diversity of India is tremendous; it is obvious; it lies on
the surface and anybody can see it. It concerns itself with phy-
sical appearances as well as with certain mental habits and traits.
There is little in common, to outward seeming, between the
Pathan of the North-West and the Tamil in the far South. Their
racial stocks are not the same, though there may be common
strands running through them; they differ in face and figure,
food and clothing, and, of course, language. In the North-
western Frontier Province there is already the breath of Central
Asia, and many a custom there, as in Kashmir, reminds one of
the countries on the other side of the Himalayas. Pathan popu-
lar dances are singularly like Russian Cossack dancing. Yet,
with all these differences, there is no mistaking the impress of
India on the Pathan, as this is obvious on the Tamil. This is
not surprising, for these border lands, and indeed Afghanistan
also, were united with India for thousands of years. The old
Turkish and other races who inhabited Afghanistan and parts
of Central Asia before the advent of Islam were largely Bud-
dhists, and earlier still, during the period of the Epics,
Hindus. The frontier area was one of the principal centres of
old Indian culture and it abounds still with ruins of monu-
ments and monasteries and, especially, of the great university
of Taxila, which was at the height of its fame two thousand
years ago, attracting students from all over India as well as
different parts of Asia. Changes of religion made a difference,
but could not change entirely the mental backgrounds which
the people of those areas had developed.
The Pathan and the Tamil are two extreme examples; the
others lie somewhere in between. All of them have their dis-
tinctive features, all of them have still more the distinguishing
mark of India. It is fascinating to find how the Bengalis, the
Marathas, the Gujratis, the Tamils, the Andhras, the Oriyas,
the Assamese, the Canarese, the Malayalis, the Sindhis, the
Punjabis, the Pathans, the Kashmiris, the Rajputs, and the great
central block comprising the Hindustani-speaking people, have
retained their peculiar characteristics for hundreds of years,
have still more or less the same virtues and failings of which
old tradition or record tells us, and yet have been throughout
these ages distinctively Indian, with the same national heritage
and the same set of moral and mental qualities. There was
something living and dynamic about this heritage which showed
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itself in ways of living and a philosophical attitude to life and
its problems. Ancient India, like ancient China, was a world in
itself, a culture and a civilization which gave shape to all things.
Foreign influences poured in and often influenced that culture
and were absorbed. Disruptive tendencies gave rise immediately
to an attempt to find a synthesis. Some kind of a dream of unity
has occupied the mind of India since the dawn of civilization.
That unity was not conceived as something imposed from out-
side, a standardization of externals or even of beliefs. It was
something deeper and, within its fold, the widest tolerance of
belief and custom was practised and every variety acknowledged
and even encouraged.
Differences, big or small, can always be noticed even within
a national group, however closely bound together it may be.
The essential unity of that group becomes apparent when it is
compared to another national group, though often the differ-
ences between two adjoining groups fade out or intermingle
near the frontiers, and modern developments are tending to
produce a certain uniformity everywhere. In ancient and medi-
aeval times, the idea of the modern nation was non-existent, and
feudal, religious, racial, or cultural bonds had more importance.
Yet I think that at almost any time in recorded history an Indian
would have felt more or less at home in any part of India, and
would have felt as a stranger and alien in any other country. He
would certainly have felt less of a stranger in countries which had
partly adopted his culture or religion. Those who professed a
religion of non-Indian origin or, coming to India, settled down
there, became distinctively Indian in the course of a few genera-
tions, such as Christians, Jews, Parsees, Moslems. Indian converts
to some of these religions never ceased to be Indians on account
of a change of their faith. They were looked upon in other countries
as Indians and foreigners, even though there might have been a
community of faith between them.
To-day, when the conception of nationalism has developed
much more, Indians in foreign countries inevitably form a national
group and hang together for various purposes, in spite of their
internal differences. An Indian Christian is looked upon as an
Indian wherever he may go. An Indian Moslem is considered an
Indian in Turkey or Arabia or Iran, or any other country where
Islam is the dominant religion-
All of us, I suppose, have varying pictures of our native land
and no two persons will think exactly alike. When I think of
India, I think of many things: of broad fields dotted with in-
numerable small villages; of towns and cities I have visited; of
the magic of the rainy season which pours life into the dry parched-
up land and converts it suddenly into a glistening expanse of
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beauty and greenery, of great rivers and flowing water; of the
Khyber Pass in all its bleak surroundings; of the southern tip of
India; of people, individually and in the mass; and, above all,
of the Himalayas, snow-capped, or some mountain valley in
Kashmir in the spring, covered with new flowers, and with a
brook bubbling and gurgling through it. We make and preserve
the pictures of our choice, and so I have chosen this mountain
background rather than the more normal picture of a hot, sub-
tropical country. Both pictures would be correct, for India stret-
ches from the tropics right up to the temperate regions, from
near the equator to the cold heart of Asia.
Travelling through India
Towards the end of 1936 and in the early months of 1937 my
touring progressively gathered speed and became frantic. I
passed through this vast country like some hurricane, travel-
ling night and day, always on the move, hardly staying any-
where, hardly resting. There were urgent demands for me from
all parts and time was limited, for the general elections were
approaching and I was supposed to be an election-winner for
others. I travelled mostly by automobile, partly by aeroplane
and railway. Occasionally I had to use, for short distances, an
elephant, a camel, or a horse; or travel by steamer, paddle-boat,
or canoe; or use a bicycle; or go on foot. These odd and varied
methods of transport sometimes became necessary in the interior,
far from the beaten track. I carried a double set of microphones
and loud speakers with me, for it was not possible to deal with
the vast gatherings in any other way; nor indeed could I other-
wise retain my voice. Those microphones went with me to all
manner of strange places, from the frontiers of Tibet to the border
of Baluchistan, where no such thing had ever been seen or heard
of previously.
From early morning till late at night I travelled from place
to place where great gatherings awaited me, and in between
these there were numerous stops where patient villagers stood
to greet me. These were impromptu affairs, which upset my
heavy programme and delayed all subsequent engagements; and
yet how was it possible for me to rush by, unheeding and care-
less of these humble folk? Delay was added to delay and, at the
big open-air gatherings, it took many minutes for me to pass
through the crowds to the platform, and later to come away.
Every minute counted, and the minutes piled up on top of each
other and became hours; so that by the time evening came I was
several hours late. But the crowd was waiting patiently, though
it was winter and they sat and shivered in the open, insufficiently
63
clad as they were. My day's programme would thus prolong
itself to eighteen hours and we would reach our journey's end for
the day at midnight or after. Once in the Karnatak, in mid-
February, we passed all bounds and broke our own records. The
day's programme was a terribly heavy one and we had to pass
through a very beautiful mountain forest with winding and none-
too-good roads, which could only be tackled slowly. There were
half-a-dozen monster meetings and many smaller ones. We
began the day by a function at eight in the morning; our last
engagement was at 4 a.m. (it should have been seven hours earlier),
and then we had to cover another seventy miles before we reached
our resting place for the night. We arrived at 7 a.m., having
covered 415 miles that day and night, apart from numerous meet-
ings. It had been a twenty-three-hour day and an hour later I
had to begin my next day's programme.
Someone took the trouble to estimate that during these months
some ten million persons actually attended the meetings I addressed,
while some additional millions were brought into some kind of
touch with me during myjourneys by road. The biggest gatherings
would consist of about one hundred thousand persons, while
audiences of twenty thousand were fairly common. Occasionally
in passing through a small town I would be surprised to notice
that it was almost deserted and the shops were closed. The explana-
tion came to me when I saw that almost the entire population
of the town, men, women, and even children, had gathered at the
meeting-place, on the other side of the town, and were waiting
patiently for my arrival.
How I managed to carry on in this way without physical
collapse, I cannot understand now, for it was a prodigious feat
of physical endurance. Gradually, I suppose, my system adapted
itself to this vagrant life. I would sleep heavily in the automo-
bile for half an hour between two meetings and find it hard to
wake up. Yet I had to get up and the sight of a great cheering
crowd would finally wake me. I reduced my meals to a minimum
and often dropped a meal, especially in the evenings, feeling the
better for it. But what kept me up and filled me with vitality
was the vast enthusiasm and affection that surrounded me and
met me everywhere I went. I was used to it, and yet I could never
get quite used to it, and every new day brought its surprises.
General Elections
My tour was especially concerned with the general elections all
over India that were approaching. But I did not take kindly to
the usual methods and devices that accompany electioneering.
Elections were an essential and inseparable part of the democ-
64
ratic process and there was no way of doing away with them.
Yet, often enough, elections brought out the evil side of man,
and it was obvious that they did not always lead to the success
of the better man. Sensitive persons, and those who were not
prepared to adopt rough-and-ready methods to push themselves
forward, were at a disadvantage and preferred to avoid these
contests. Was democracy then to be a close preserve of those
possessing thick skins and loud voices and accommodating con-
sciences ?
Especially were these election evils most prevalent where the
electorate was small; many of them vanished, or at any rate
were not so obvious, when the electorate was a big one. It was
possible for the biggest electorate to be swept off its feet on a
false issue, or in the name of religion (as we saw later), but there
were usually some balancing factors which helped to prevent the
grosser evils. My experience in this matter confirmed my faith
in the widest possible franchise. I was prepared to trust that
wide electorate far more than a restricted one, based on a pro-
perty qualification or even an educational test. The property
qualification was anyhow bad; as for education it was obviously
desirable and necessary. But I have not discovered any special
qualities in a literate or slightly educated person which would
entitle his opinion to greater respect than that of a sturdy peasant,
illiterate but full of a limited kind of common sense. In any event,
where the chief problem is that of the peasant, his opinion is far
more important. I am a convinced believer in adult franchise,
for men and women, and, though I realize the difficulties in the
way, I am sure that the objections raised to its adoption in India
have no great force and are based on the fears of privileged classes
and interests.
The general elections in 1937 for the provincial assemblies
were based on a restricted franchise affecting about twelve per
cent of the population. But even this was a great improvement
on the previous franchise, and nearly thirty millions all over
India, apart from the Indian States, were now entitled to vote.
The scope of these elections was vast and comprised the whole
of India, minus the States. Every province had to elect its
Provincial Assembly, and in most provinces there were two
Houses, and there were thus two sets of elections. The number
of candidates ran into many thousands.
My approach to these elections, and to some extent the
approach of most Congressmen, was different from the usual
one. I did not trouble myself about the individual candidates,
but wanted rather to create a country-wide atmosphere in favour
of our national movement for freedom as represented by the
Congress, and for the programme contained in our election
65
manifesto. I felt that if we succeeded in this, all would be well;
if not, then it did not matter much if an odd candidate won or
lost.
My appeal was an ideological one and I hardly referred to the
candidates, except as standard-bearers of our cause. I knew
many of them, but there were many I did not know at all, and
I saw no reason why I should burden my mind with hundreds
of names. I asked for votes for the Congress, for the indepen-
dence of India, and for the struggle for independence. I made
no promises, except to promise unceasing struggle till freedom
was attained. I told people to vote for us only if they under-
stood and accepted our objective and our programme, and were
prepared to live up to them; not otherwise. I charged them not
to vote for the Congress if they disagreed with this objective or
programme. We wanted no false votes, no votes for particular
persons because they liked them. Votes and elections would not
take us far; they were just small steps in a long journey, and to
delude us with votes, without intelligent acceptance of what they
signified or willingness for subsequent action, was to play us false
and be untrue to our country. Individuals did not count, though
we wanted good and true individuals to represent us; it was the
cause that counted, the organization that represented it, and
the nation to whose freedom we were pledged. I analysed that
freedom and what it should mean to the hundreds of millions of
our people. We wanted no change of masters from white to brown,
but a real people's rule, by the people and for the people, and an
ending of our poverty and misery.
That was the burden of my speeches, and only in that imper-
sonal way could I fit myself into the election campaign. I was
not greatly concerned with the prospects of particular candi-
dates. My concern was with a much bigger issue. As a matter
of fact that approach was the right one even from the narrower
point of view of a particular candidate's success. For thus he and
his election were lifted up to a higher and more elemental level
of a great nation's fight for freedom, and millions of poverty-
stricken people striving to put an end to their ancient curse of
poverty. These ideas, expressed by scores of leading Congressmen,
came and spread like a mighty wind fresh from the sea, sweeping
away all petty ideas and electioneering stunts. I knew my people
and liked them, and their million eyes had taught me much of
mass psychology.
I was talking about the elections front day to day, and yet the
elections seldom occupied my mind; they floated about super-
ficially on the surface. Nor was I particularly concerned with
the voters only. I was getting into touch with something much
bigger: the people of India in their millions; and such message
66
as I had was meant for them all, whether they were voters or
not; for every Indian, man, woman, and child. The excitement
of this adventure held me, this physical and emotional com-
munion with vast numbers of people. It was not the feeling of
being in a crowd, one among many, and being swayed by the
impulses of the crowd. My eyes held those thousands of eyes:
we looked at each other, not as strangers meeting for the first
time, but with recognition, though of what this was none could
say. As I saluted them with a namaskar, the palms of my hands
joined together in front of me, a forest of hands went up in salu-
tation, and a friendly, personal smile appeared on their faces,
and a murmur of greeting rose from that assembled multitude
and enveloped me in its warm embrace. I spoke to them and
my voice carried the message I had brought, and I wondered
how far they understood my words or the ideas that lay behind
them. Whether they understood all I said or not, I could not say,
but there was a light of a deeper understanding in their eyes,
which seemed to go beyond spoken words.
The Culture of the Masses
Thus I saw the moving drama of the Indian people in the present,
and "ould often trace the threads which bound their lives to the
past, even while their eyes were turned towards the future.
Everywhere I found a cultural background which had exerted
a powerful influence on their lives. This background was a mix-
ture of popular philosophy, tradition, history, myth, and legend,
and it was not possible to draw a line between any of these. Even
the entirely uneducated and illiterate shared this background.
The old epics of India, the Ramayana and the Mahabharata and
other books, in popular translations and paraphrases, were widely
known among the masses, and every incident and story and moral
in them was engraved on the popular mind and gave a richness
and content to it. Illiterate villagers would know hundreds of
verses by heart and their conversation would be full of references to
them or to some story with a moral, enshrined in some old classic.
Often I was surprised by some such literary turn given by a group
of villagers to a simple talk about present-day affairs. If my mind
was full of pictures from recorded history and more-or-less ascer-
tained fact, I realised that even the illiterate peasant had a picture
gallery in his mind, though this was largely drawn from myth
and tradition and epic heroes and heroines, and only very little
from history. Neverthless, it was vivid enough.
I looked at their faces and their figures and watched their
movements. There was many a sensitive face and many a sturdy
body, straight and clean-limbed; and among the women there
was grace and suppleness and dignity and poise and, very often,
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a look that was full of melancholy. Usually the finer physical
types were among the upper castes, who were just a little better
off in the economic sense. Sometimes, as I was passing along
a country road, or through a village, I would start with surprise
on seeing a fine type of man, or a beautiful woman, who reminded
me of some fresco of ancient times. And I wondered how the type
endured and continued through ages, in spite of all the horror
and misery that India had gone through. What could we not do
with these people under better conditions and with greater oppor-
tunities opening out to them?
There was poverty and the innumerable progeny of poverty
everywhere, and the mark of this beast was on every forehead.
Life had been crushed and distorted and made into a thing of
evil, and many vices had flowed from this distortion and contin-
uous lack and ever-present insecurity. All this was not pleasant
to see; yet that was the basic reality in India. There was far too
much of the spirit of resignation and acceptance of things as they
were. But there was also a mellowness and a gentleness, the cul-
tural heritage of thousands of years, which no amount of misfor-
tune had been able to rub off.
TWO LIVES
In this and other ways I tried to discover India, the India of the
past and of the present, and I made my mood receptive to impres-
sions and to the waves of thought and feeling that came to me
from living beings as well as those who had long ceased to be.
I tried to identify myself for a while with this unending procession,
at the tail end of which I, too, was struggling along. And then
I would separate myself and as from a hill-top, apart, look down
at the valley below.
To what purpose was all this long journeying? To what end
these unending processions? A feeling of tiredness and disillu-
sion would sometimes invade my being, and then I would seek
escape from it in cultivating a certain detachment. Slowly my
mind had prepared itself for this, and I had ceased to attach
much value to myself or to what happened to me. Or so I thought,
and to some extent I succeeded, though not much, I fear, as there is
too much of a volcano within me for real detachment. Unexpec-
tedly all my defences are hurled away and all my detachment goes.
But even the partial success I achieved was very helpful and,
in the midst of activity, I could separate myself from it and look
at it as a thing apart. Sometimes, I would steal an hour or two,
and forgetting my usual preoccupations, retire into that cloistered
chamber of my mind and live, for a while, another life. And so,
in a way, these two lives marched together, inseparably tied up
with one another, and yet apart.
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