prasad1
Active member
[FONT="]In the first week of that December 1946, as Gandhi walked across East Bengal’s shattered villages, Nehru and Jinnah flew to London together, at the invitation of Attlee’s government, to find a solution to the great discord between the Congress and the Muslim League (ML) on the scope of the new Constitution. ‘The last ditch’ is a phrase that could be said to have been devised to describe that effort. Can an undivided India be saved? Jinnah was clear. For him saving undivided India from division was not the aim. Creating Pakistan was. Jinnah was as a clenched fist. Tight, firm. The talks, held over December 3 to 6 failed. London said it would not contemplate “forcing… a constitution upon any unwilling part of the country”. There was no chance for the talks to have succeeded. On the 6th, failure was officially announced and the two leaders flew back, Jinnah ebullient, Nehru in deep gloom.[/FONT][FONT="]On the 28th, he did what was the most natural thing for him. With Congress president Acharya Kripalani, he went to Gandhi, carrying with him his great burden of care, of worry. Fear he did not know. But gloom he did. He carried with him all his churning emotions to place them before the Mahatma, and seek from him the gift of some light in the dark, some hope in the hopelessness. He reached Srirampur around midnight and turned in to meet the Mahatma first thing in the morning. But the 77-year-old host was up by 2.30 am to check if the few rudimentary arrangements he had made for Jawaharlal in that little village had worked for the guest’s comfort.[/FONT][FONT="]No, he was told. Why? Jawaharlalji refused to have any special comforts made for him. Kripalaniji, likewise. But I had told you to, he up-braided people around him. What could we do, Bapu, when we told Jawaharlalji that Bapu has ordered us to give you these essentials he said: ‘Disobey him!’[/FONT]
[FONT="]Gandhi smiled at this. “That is Jawaharlal”, he said “so let it be”.
Seventy years on, we have become good at faulting that old, tried servant of the nation. And adept at not consulting him.
http://www.hindustantimes.com/columns/india-has-become-good-at-faulting-gandhi-and-adept-at-not-consulting-him/story-sjTqT9BS3UWgGM9PmzywLJ.html[/FONT]
