be non-sectarian, even as he denied allegations in the press that there were
serious differences between the two men.
Gandhi, the creator of the ‘duumvirate’, was no longer involved in the
government’s activities, except for the occasional, and often idiosyncratic,
intervention on what he believed to be a matter of principle. In the last
months of his life, the Mahatma, in his late seventies, poured an immense
amount of energy into the cause of reconciliation between Hindus and
Muslims. Events had passed him by, he believed, and the best he could
now do was to contribute to a cause he had always held to be central
to India’s future. Holding prayer meetings in the cause of communal
harmony became a central activity for the man anointed in his own life-
time as a saint and as the father of a ‘nation’; yet there were limits to his
abilities. At the height of violence, Nehru had appealed to Gandhi to go
to the Punjab from Bengal, but Gandhi did not feel that would be useful
at the time. He came to Delhi from Calcutta on September 7, 1947, but
his presence there did not have the expected magic touch.
On January 13, 1948, Gandhi began a fast to attempt to restore
peace between the communities. ‘I urge everybody dispassionately to
examine the purpose [of my fast] and let me die, if I must, in peace which
I hope is ensured. Death for me would be a glorious deliverance rather than
that I should be a helpless witness of the destruction of India, Hinduism,
Sikhism and Islam.’^8 To Muslims who complained to him of the Home
Minister Vallabhbhai Patel being anti-Muslim, he merely replied that
Patel was no longer a ‘yes-man’ (leaving open the question of whose
‘yes-man’ he believed Patel had previously been); but he denied that
his fast was intended as condemnation of the Home Ministry’s handling
of the communal situation. During the armed conflict with Pakistan over
Kashmir, he urged the government not to attempt to blackmail Pakistan
by withholding payments due to it as a consequence of the division
of Indian finances. His public appearances were increasingly becoming
a security concern for the new government, as Hindu fundamentalist
groups such as the RSS publicly blamed Gandhi for having ‘emasculated’
Hindus by his ideology of non-violence and having thereby ‘surrendered’
Pakistan to Muslims, and Hindu extremist papers published exhortations
to their readers to murder Gandhi and Nehru. (Nehru had responded
emotionally to a young man who had shouted ‘Death to Gandhi’, stepping
forward to confront him and declaring ‘kill me first’.^9 ) But Gandhi refused
to take his own security seriously. Having called off his fast on January 18,
CONSOLIDATING THE STATE, c. 1947–55 173