the Maharaja to accede to India and not

to Pakistan," Gandhi wisely announced on

the eve of leaving for Srinagar.
Kashmir's procrastinating Hindu Maharaja
Hari Singh could not make up
his mind about whether to join India,
whose radical leaders, though Hindu,
he feared, or Pakistan in which most of his
predominantly Muslim populace
would have felt far more at home. "The
real sovereign of the State are
the people of the State. If the ruler is not a
servant of the people then he is
not the ruler."14 Gandhi's conviction was
that "now the power belongs to
the people," and therefore, "The people of
Kashmir should be asked
whether they want to join Pakistan or
India. Let them do as they want. The
ruler is nothing. The people are
everything."15 How many lives would
have
been saved by India and Pakistan and
most of all by the people of Kashmir,
if only Nehru had been wise enough to
listen to the man he once had considered

1
his political guru. Had independent India
the courage to endorse
Gandhi's faith in self-determination for
Jammu and Kashmir State, it
should have agreed to hold a plebiscite
there immediately, rather than fighting
futile wars over the next half century
without reaching any agreement
with Pakistan as to the fate of Kashmir's
long-suffering people.
From Kashmir, Gandhi and Manu left by
train for Calcutta, via Lahore
[ 239 ]
Gandhi's Passion
and Patna. At Lahore station he was
greeted by Congress workers, who
asked when he would come to stay there.
"The rest of my life is going to be
spent in Pakistan," Gandhi promised,
"maybe in East Bengal or West Punjab,
or perhaps, the North-West Frontier
Province."16 But he could not stop
just yet, rushing on to keep promises to
Noakhali to return before August
15. To him "the whole of India" remained
his country, for, as he told Bihar's

2
university students in Patna two days
later, he could not reconcile
himself "to the idea of partition. . . . He
wanted to live both in Hindustan
and Pakistan. . . . [B]oth were his
homelands."17 He urged everyone who
heard him now to join him in a fast on
August 15. "We do not have food
grains, clothes, ghee or oil. So where is
the need for celebrations? On that
day we have to fast, ply the charkha
[spinning wheel] and pray to God."
Gandhi reached Calcutta on Sunday,
August 10. He had planned to
move on to Noakhali the next morning, but
"many Muslim friends"
pleaded with him to stay, fearing renewed
attacks by Hindu mobs as that
premier city of Clive, Kipling, and Curzon
was about to begin its much
diminished incarnation as the mere capital
of partitioned West Bengal. Calcutta's
former Muslim majority had by then fallen
precipitously to under
a quarter of its multimillion population.
That Monday evening, August

3
11, Suhrawardy came to add his voice to
the moving appeals of West Bengal's
other Muslim leaders. "I would remain if
you and I are prepared to
live together," Gandhi challenged his old
friend. "We shall have to work till
every Hindu and Mussalman in Calcutta
safely returns to the place where
he was before."18 This time Suhrawardy
agreed. Then they moved into
abandoned old Hydari House, symbolizing
by their courageous cohabitation
the spirit of Hindu-Muslim unity that had
so long eluded civil wartorn
South Asia.
"I am stuck here and now I am going to
take