WHEN FAST IS A FARCE

Mahatma Gandhi has embarked upon another fast unto death to bring about, as he explains it Hindu Muslim Unity. He is perfectly at liberty to do with himself whatever he likes. But this is certainly not the path to the cherished goal for which he wants to lay down his life. On the contrary, it is an escape altogether from that issue. A number of times before Mahatmaji has resorted to this method but the gulf between Hindus and Muslims has been widening. Why? Because Mahatmaji does not face the real issues that are involved. Instead of that he side-tracks those issues by turning the limelight on his own saintliness and his peculiar philosophy. Once more he is saying what has been abundantly proved to be futile.

If Mahatma Gandhi really wants to bring Hindus and Muslims together, the obvious course for him is to remove the causes that have put them at loggerheads against one another. That he has never done. That he has always shirked to do. And that exactly is the thing he is avoiding now to face fairly and squarely by seeking refuge in this so-called fast.

The issue has been plain enough for a man who runs to see. Mahatmaji, however, has been, not only blinking that issue himself; he has been at pains to confuse that issue in the eyes of the world. In a way, therefore, he has to share responsibility for the recent abominable happenings both in India and Pakistan. If Master Tara Singh’s Kirpan was the immediate cause of kindling the flames of communal bitterness, Mahatmaji’s fasts have only served as ashes to cover and keep alive the embers of those flames.

What is the root issue that has brought the relations between the communities to such a deplorable, nay detestable pass and which is threatening worse things to come? The Hindu’s dream to dominate Muslims by any means and at any cost. This is now as clear as day light. The mass massacre of Muslims in East Punjab, in Sikh states and at Mahatmaji’s doorsteps in Delhi were pre-planned in cold blood to implement that dream.

Pandit Nehru himself had the fairness of mind to admit this in so many words in his public utterances, turning his people against the dangerous consequences of such a frame of mind.If instead of fasting, Mahatma Gandhi had set his face against this foolish dream of the Hindu mind he would have done real service to the country and the country would have been saved the present catastrophe. Perhaps even partition would have been avoided, had Hindu mind seen sense in good time, treated Muslims fairly and thereby inspired in them a sense of security. Hindu leaderships, however, allowed its fancy to run riot, get the better of all sense of realities with the result that the country has been plunged into chaos. And Mahatma Gandhi has definitely contributed in his own way to the creation of this situation.

Now that the country has been divided, there should have been no cause for further friction between the two Dominions and they should have lived together as good neighbours, wishing and promoting each other’s well-being. Here again the same tragedy came in to play havoc. The Hindu mind still hugged the fond dream of the reunited India with Hindu majority dominating Muslims. Pakistan was grudgingly conceded in the belief that short work would be made of it at its very inception. And schemes even elaborately laid to maim and cripple and finally strangulate Pakistan.

The Red shirts demand of independent Pathanistan, the browbeating of states not to accede to Pakistan, the Junagarh escapade, the Kashmir scandal and finally the attempt to defraud Pakistan of her due share of cash balance – all are links in the same chain. This is now the issue that has led to the bad blood between India and Pakistan, to the side-show of warfare in Kashmir and threatening to engulf the two Dominions in a regular war. How is Mahatma Gandhi’s fast going to help this situation? The fast may mean purification for Mahatmaji but so long as the bone of contention is there, no improvement can be expected in the general position of inter-communal relations.

Kashmir is a predominantly Muslim state. It is contiguous to Pakistan for hundreds of miles. With India it has but nominal contiguity. And yet India, intoxicated with her assumed superior power, swooped upon this integral part of Pakistan bloc of territory on pretexts which only crooks would justify or condone. And Mahatma Gandhi himself who is now shedding crocodile tears over Hindu Muslim feuds, went all the way to Kashmir to play his role, in his own way, in this coming pre-planned coup d’etat in Kashmir. And even that noble Lord Mountbatten, who, as representative of the good name of Britain, should have known better, was made use of in this ignoble game. Mahatmaji may now do a thousand penances and appear before the world in ashes and sack cloth but that cannot exonerate him from his share in the mass massacre of Muslims, the rape of thousand of Muslim women and the untold tortures inflicted on Muslims in Jammu. He has a responsibility in that campaign of cowardly cold-blooded butchery of Muslims and no fast can whitewash those blood stains on his saintly hands. When the history of this part of chamber of horrors into which the Punjab was converted for Muslims according to a well-prepared plan, Mahatmaji with all his saintly poses will figure in this ghastly drama as one of the chief actors behind the scenes.

If there is an iota of sincerity behind the fast, why does not Mahatma Gandhi publicly condemn the action of India in her unwarranted attack on Kashmir to uphold a rule whose tyranny was proverbial and to suppress a people fighting for their liberties? Why does he not say a word against India’s forcible occupation of Junagarh which has acceded to Pakistan? Why is he mum over Pakistan’s good money of 55 crates which India has the cheek to withhold after solemn settlement? Instead of doing this, the only right thing to do, he has staged the tamasha of a fast. His silence over these issues is a sin, a crime against God and man. Can a mere fast cover this big bundle of sins?

The fact is, in the case of Muslims, the saint has proved more deadly than the villain and Mahatma Gandhi’s fasts and similar pious poses and prayers have done more to undermine Muslim interests than Tara Singh’s open Kirpan. Of lip sympathy Mahatma Gandhi is treating Muslims all too generously but when it comes to brass tacks, the concrete interests of Muslims, even his little finger refuses to move. It may play to the UNO gallery but so far as the real issue is concerned, viz. Hindu Muslim bitterness, this tom-tomming of personal piety leaves it where it was. It may be noted that even in this apparently pious undertaking, Mahatmaji plays a role. In his prayer talk, announcing the fast, he exhorts India to show good-will and toleration and not to follow in the footsteps of Pakistan. Ah, Mahatmaji what a volume of propaganda you have summed up in this harmless sentence which you have let drop! Only a Mahatma could have the courage to throw such obvious dust in the eyes of the world, as to paint Pakistan as the aggressor in this grim drama! After the systematic extermination immediately before and after Aug. 15 had started in East Punjab, only a Mahatma could make such a preposterous statement. And with this record of work and this frame of mind, Mahatma Gandhi wants to win over Muslims and restore Hindu Muslim unity.

This wouldn’t do! Fasts are but farces unless backed up by action. Mahatmaji has all along been hand in glove with those who have been wrecking Muslims. Even in this dying statement which his fast unto death announcement amounts to has given a parting kick to Pakistan by painting it as the chief villain in the story. What a way to befriend Muslims and Pakistan? Has the Quaid-i-Azam at all exaggerated when he described Mahatma Gandhi as saying what he does not mean and meaning what he does not say?

M.Y.K.

(The Light – Friday, January 16, 1948)