Prologue continues...

“We have a Muslim minority who are so large in numbers that they cannot, even if they want to, go anywhere else. They have got to live in India. This is a basic fact about which there can be no argument. Whatever the indignities and horrors inflicted on non Muslims there, we have got to deal with this minority in a civilizedmanner. We must give them security and the rights of citizens in a democratic state.”

Nevertheless, certain sections of Hindu organizations were extremely upset

over partition of the country and the formation of Pakistan. Curiously

enough, they blamed Gandhi for it. It is a fact of history that Gandhi had

opposed partition with all the force at his command till the end.

He had visualized a united India where Hindus and Muslims would always live

like brothers and share joys and sorrows together. Gandhi fought for

independence not of a truncated India, but a united India. But the rabid

communal politics unabashedly practised and propagated by certain leaders

of the Muslim League under the patronage of the British imperialist

government inexorably led to the partition of India.

All these events broke

Gandhi’s heart and shattered his dreams. A man who totally controlled

the minds of millions of Indians and the course of the freedom struggle

found himself unable to control or influence men on both sides when the

proposal for partition of the country came up. It was one of the tragic

contexts in the history of India. Gandhi devoted his life entirely to the

cause of freedom of the country. At last when freedom came, he was not

there to participate in the celebrations in the capital city of Delhi; he was

walking through the villages of faraway Bengal dousing the flames of

communal carnage. He was the Bapu (father) of Indians and they were all

his children.

To be continued...