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C H A P T E RONEAHMADNAGARFORTTwenty MonthsA h m a d n a g a r Fort, 13th April 1944IT IS MORE THAN TWENTY MONTHS SINCE WE W E R E BROUGHT H E R E ,more than twenty months of my ninth term of imprisonment.T h e new moon, a shimmering crescent in the darkening sky,greeted us on our arrival here. T h e bright fortnight of the waxingmoon h a d begun. Ever since then each coming of the new moonhas been a reminder to me that another m o n t h of my imprisonment is over. So it was with my last term of imprisonment whichbegan with the new moon, just after the Deepavali, the festival oflight. T h e moon, ever a companion to me in prison, has grownmore friendly with closer acquaintance, a reminder of the loveliness of this world, of the waxing and waning of life, of lightfollowing darkness, of death and resurrection following each otherin interminable succession. Ever changing, yet ever the same, Ihave watched it in its different phases and its many moods in theevening, as the shadows lengthen, in the still hours of the night,a n d when the breath a n d whisper of dawn bring promise of thecoming day. H o w helpful is the moon in counting the days a n d themonths, for the size a n d shape of the moon, when it is visible,indicate the day of the m o n t h with a fair measure of exactitude.It is an easy calendar (though it must be adjusted from time totime), and for the peasant in the field the most-convenient one toindicate the passage of the days and the gradual changing of theseasons.Three weeks we spent here cut off completely from all newsof the outside world. T h e r e were no contacts of any kind, nointerviews, no letters, no newspapers, no radio. Even our presencehere was supposed to be a state secret unknown to any except tothe officials in charge of us, a poor secret, for all I n d i a knew wherewe were.T h e n newspapers were allowed and, some weeks later, lettersfrom near relatives dealing with domestic affairs. But no

interviews during these 20 months, no other contacts.T h e newspapers contained heavily censored news. Yet theygave us some idea of the war that was consuming more than halfthe world, and of how it fared with our people in India. Littlewe knew about these people of ours except that scores of thousands lay in prison or internment camp without trial, that thousands h a d been shot to death, that tens of thousands h a d beendriven out of schools and colleges, that something indistinguishable from martial law prevailed over the whole country, that terrora n d frightfulness darkened the land. T h e y were worse off, farworse than us, those scores of thousands in prison, like us, withouttrial, for there were not only no interviews but also no letters ornewspapers for them, and even books were seldom allowed. M a n ysickened for lack of healthy food, some of our dear ones died forlack of proper care a n d treatment.T h e r e were m a n y thousands of prisoners of war kept in India,mostly from Italy. We compared their lot with the lot of our ownpeople. We were told that they were governed by the GenevaConvention. But there was no convention or law or rule to governthe conditions under which I n d i a n prisoners a n d detenus had toexist, except such ordinances which it pleased our British rulers toissue from time to time.FamineFamine came, ghastly, staggering, horrible beyond words. InM a l a b a r , in Bijapur, in Orissa, and, above all, in the rich a n dfertile province of Bengal, men and women and little childrendied in their thousands daily for lack of food. T h e y dropped downdead before the palaces of Calcutta, their corpses lay in the m u d huts of Bengal's innumerable villages and covered the roads andfields of its rural areas. M e n were dying all over the world a n dkilling each other in battle; usually a quick death, often a bravedeath, death for a cause, death with a purpose, death whichseemed in this mad world of ours an inexorable logic of events,a sudden end to the life we could not mould or control. Deathwas common enough everywhere.But here death had no purpose, no logic, no necessity; it wasthe result of man's incompetence and callousness, m a n - m a d e , aslow creeping thing of horror with nothing to redeem it, lifemerging and fading into death, with death looking out of theshrunken eyes a n d withered frame while life still lingered for awhile. And so it was not considered right or proper to mentionit; it was not good form to talk or write of unsavoury topics. Todo so was to 'dramatize' an unfortunate situation. False reports16

were issued by those in authority in India and in England. Butcorpses cannot easily be overlooked; they come in the way.While the fires of hell were consuming the people of Bengaland elsewhere, we were first told by high authority that owingto wartime prosperity the peasantry in m a n y parts of India hadtoo much to eat. T h e n it was said that the fault lay with provincial autonomy, a n d that the British Government in India, orthe India Office in London, sticklers for constitutional propriety,could not interfere with provincial affairs. T h a t constitution wassuspended, violated, ignored, or changed daily by hundreds ofdecrees and ordinances issued by the Viceroy under his sole a n dunlimited authority. T h a t constitution meant ultimately theunchecked authoritarian rule of a single individual who wasresponsible to no one in India, a n d who had greater power t h a nany dictator anywhere in the world. T h a t constitution was workedby the p e r m a n e n t services, chiefly the I n d i a n Civil Service andthe police, who were mainly responsible to the Governor, whowas the agent of the Viceroy, and who could well ignore theministers when such existed. T h e ministers, good or b a d , lived onsufferance and dared not disobey the orders from above or eveninterfere with the discretion of the services supposed to be subordinate to them.Something was done at last. Some relief was given. But a millionhad died, or two millions, or three; no one knows how m a n ystarved to death or died of disease during those months of horror.No one knows of the m a n y more millions of emaciated boys a n dgirls a n d little children who just escaped death then, but arestunted and broken in body a n d spirit. And still the fear of widespread famine a n d disease hovers over the land.President Roosevelt's Four Freedoms. T h e Freedom fromW a n t . Yet rich England, a n d richer America, paid little heedto the hunger of the body that was killing millions in India, asthey h a d paid little heed to the fiery thirst of the spirit that isconsuming the people of India. Money was not needed it wassaid, a n d ships to carry food were scarce owing to war-timerequirements. But in spite of governmental obstruction a n d desireto minimize the overwhelming tragedy of Bengal, sensitive andwarm-hearted m e n a n d women in England a n d America andelsewhere came to our help. Above all, the Governments ofChina a n d Eire, poor in their own resources, full of their owndifficulties, yet having h a d bitter experience themselves of faminea n d misery a n d sensing what ailed the body and spirit of India,gave generous help. I n d i a has a long memory, b u t whatever elseshe remembers or forgets, she will not forget these gracious andfriendly acts.17

The War for D e m o c r a c yIn Asia a n d Europe and Africa, and over the vast stretches ofthe Pacific and Atlantic and Indian Oceans, war has raged in allits dreadful aspects. Nearly seven years of war in China, overfour and a half years of war in Europe and Africa, and two yearsa n d four months of World W a r . W a r against fascism and nazismand attempts to gain world dominion. Of these years of war Ihave so far spent nearly three years in prison, here and elsewherein India.I remember how I reacted to fascism and nazism in their earlydays, and not I only, but m a n y in India. H o w Japanese agression in China had moved India deeply and revived the age-oldfriendship for China; how Italy's rape of Abyssinia had sickenedus; how the betrayal of Czechoslovakia had hurt and embitteredus; how the fall of Republican Spain, after a struggle full of heroicendurance, had been a tragedy and a personal sorrow for me andothers.It was not merely the physical acts of aggression in whichfascism a n d nazism indulged, not only the vulgarity and brutality that accompanied them, terrible as they were, that affectedus, but the principles on which they stood and which they proclaimed so loudly and blatantly, the theories of life on whichthey tried to fashion themselves; for these went counter to whatwe believed in the present, a n d what we had held from ages past.And even if our racial memory had forsaken us and we had lostour moorings, our own experiences, even though they came tous in different garb, and somewhat disguised for the sake of decency,were enough to teach us to what these nazi principles and theories of life a n d the state ultimately led. For our people had beenthe victims for long of those very principles and methods of government. So we reacted immediately and intensely against fascismand nazism.I remember how I refused a pressing invitation from SignorMussolini to see him in the early days of March, 1936. M a n y ofBritain's leading statesmen, who spoke harshly of the fascist Ducein later years when Italy became a belligerent, referred to himtenderly and admiringly in those days, and praised his regimeand methods.T w o years later, in the summer before Munich, I was invitedon behalf of the Nazi government, to visit Germany, an invitation to which was added the remark that they knew my opposition to nazism a n d yet they wanted me to see G e r m a n y for myself. I could go as their guest or privately, in my own n a m e orincognito, as I desired, and I would have perfect freedom to go18

where I liked. Again I declined with thanks. Instead I went toCzechoslovakia, that 'far-away country' about which England'sthen Prime Minister knew so little.Before M u n i c h I met some of the members of the British Cabinet and other prominent politicians of England, a n d venturedto express my anti-fascist and anti-nazi views before them. Ifound that my views were not welcomed and I was told that therewere m a n y other considerations to be borne in mind.During the Czechoslovak crisis, what I saw of Franco-Britishstatesmanship in Prague and in the Sudetenland, in Londona n d Paris, a n d in Geneva where the League Assembly was thensitting, amazed a n d disgusted me. Appeasement seemed to be afeeble word for it. T h e r e was behind it not only a fear of Hitler,but a sneaking admiration for him.And now, it is a curious turn of fate's wheel that I, a n d peoplelike me, should spend our days in prison while w a r againstfascism a n d nazism is raging, and m a n y of those who used tobow to Hitler and Mussolini, and approve of Japanese aggression in China, should hold aloft the b a n n e r of freedom anddemocracy a n d anti-fascism.In India the change is equally remarkable. T h e r e are thosehere, as elsewhere, 'governmentarians', who hover r o u n d theskirts of government and echo the views which they think willbe approved by those whose favour they continually seek.There was a time, not so long ago, when they praised Hitlerand Mussolini, a n d held them up as models, and when theycursed the Soviet Union with bell, book, a n d candle. Not sonow, for the weather has changed. T h e y are high governmentand state officials, a n d loudly they proclaim their anti-fascismand anti-nazism a n d even talk of democracy, though with batedbreath, as something desirable but distant. I often wonder w h a tthey would have done if events h a d taken a different turn, a n dyet there is little reason for conjecture, for they would welcomewith garlands and addresses of welcome whoever happened towield authority.For long years before the war my mind was full of the war t h a twas coming. I thought of it, a n d spoke of it, and wrote a b o u tit, and prepared myself mentally for it. I wanted I n d i a to takean eager a n d active part in the mighty conflict, for I felt thathigh principles would be at stake, and out of this conflict wouldcome great and revolutionary changes in India and the world. Atthat time I did not envisage an immediate threat to I n d i a : anyprobability of actual invasion. Yet I wanted India to take herfull share. But I was convinced that only as a free country andan equal could she function in this way.19

T h a t was the attitude of the National Congress, the one greatorganization in India which consistently for all these years h a dbeen anti-fascist and anti-nazi, as it h a d been anti-imperialist.It had stood for Republican Spain, for Czechoslovakia, andthroughout for China.And now for nearly two years the Congress has been declaredillegal—outlawed and prevented from functioning in any way.T h e Congress is in prison. Its elected members of the provincial parliaments, its speakers of these parliaments, its ex-ministers, its mayors and presidents of municipal corporations, arein prison.Meanwhile the war goes on for democracy and the AtlanticCharter and the Four Freedoms.T i m e in Prison : The Urge to ActionT i m e seems to change its nature in prison. T h e present hardlyexists, for there is an absence of feeling a n d sensation whichmight separate it from the dead past. Even news of the active,living a n d dying world outside has a certain dream-like unreality, an immobility and an unchangeableness as of the past.T h e outer objective time ceases to be, the inner a n d subjectivesense remains, but at a lower level, except when thought pullsit out of the present and experiences a kind of reality in the pastor in the future. We live, as Auguste Comte said, dead men'slives, encased in our pasts, but this is especially so in prisonwhere we try to find some sustenance for our starved a n d lockedup emotions in memory of the past or fancies of the f u t u r e .T h e r e is a stillness a n d everlastingness about the past; itchanges not and has a touch of eternity, like a painted pictureor a statue in bronze or marble. Unaffected by the storms andupheavals of the present, it maintains its dignity and repose a n dtempts the troubled spirit a n d the tortured mind to seek shelterin its vaulted catacombs. There is peace there and security, andone m a y even sense a spiritual quality.But it is not life, unless we can find the vital links between ita n d the present with all its conflicts a n d problems. It is a kindof art for art's sake, without the passion a n d the urge to actionwhich are the very stuff of life. Without that passion and urge,there is a gradual oozing out of hope a n d vitality, a settling downon lower levels of existence, a slow merging into non-existence.We become prisoners of the past and some p a r t of its immobilitysticks to us.This passage of the mind is all the easier in prison where action20

is denied and we become slaves to the routine of jail-life.Yet the past is ever with us and all that we are a n d that wehave comes from the past. We are its products a n d we live immersed in it. Not to understand it and feel it as something livingwithin us is not to understand the present. To combine it withthe present a n d extend it to the future, to break from it where itcannot be so united, to make of all this the pulsating a n d vibrating material for thought and action—that is life.Any vital action springs from the depths of the being. All thelong past of the individual and even of the race has preparedthe background for that psychological moment of action. Allthe racial memories, influences of heredity and environmentand training, subconscious urges, thoughts a n d dreams a n dactions from infancy and childhood onwards, in their curiousand tremendous mix-up, inevitably drive to that new action,which again becomes yet another factor influencing the future.Influencing the future, partly determining it, possibly even largelydetermining it, a n d yet, surely, it is not all determinism.Aurobindo Ghose writes somewhere of the present as ' t h e purea n d virgin m o m e n t , ' that razor's edge of time a n d existence whichdivides the past from the future, a n d is, and yet, instantaneouslyis not. T h e phrase is attractive and yet what does it m e a n ?T h e virgin m o m e n t emerging from the veil of the future in allits naked purity, coming into contact with us, and immediatelybecoming the soiled a n d stale past. Is it we that soil it a n d violateit? Or is the m o m e n t not so virgin after all, for it is bound upwith all the harlotry of the past?W h e t h e r there is any such thing as h u m a n freedom in thephilosophic sense or whether there is only an automatic determinism, I do not know. A very great deal appears certainly tobe determined by the past complex of events which bear downa n d often overwhelm the individual. Possibly even the innerurge that he experiences, that apparent exercise of free will, isitself conditioned. As Schopenhauer says, 'a m a n can do whathe will, but not will as he will.' A belief in an absolute determinism seems to me to lead inevitably to complete inaction, todeath in life. All my sense of life rebels against it, though ofcourse that very rebellion m a y itself have been conditioned byprevious events.I do not usually b u r d e n my mind with such philosophical ormetaphysical problems, which escape solution. Sometimes theycome to me almost unawares in the long silences of prison, oreven in the midst of an intensity of action, bringing with thema sense of detachment or consolation in the face of some painfulexperience. But usually it is action and the thought of action21

vhat fill me, and when action is denied, I imagine that I ampreparing for action.T h e call of action has long been witn m e ; not action divorcedfrom thought, but rather flowing from it in one continuoussequence. And when, rarely, there has been full h a r m o n y between the two, thought leading to action a n d finding its fulfilment in it, action leading back to thought a n d a fuller understanding—then I have sensed a certain fullness of life and a vividintensity in that moment of existence. But such moments are rare,very rare, and usually one outstrips the other a n d there is a lackof h a r m o n y , and vain effort to bring the two in line. T h e r e wasa time, m a n y years ago, when I lived for considerable periodsin a state of emotional exaltation, wrapped up in the actionwhich abso

Books fascinate Jawaharlad Nehru Hl soughe. ou ideastt . He wa extraordinarils sensitiv to literar y e beauty Iyn hi .s writings he aime ad describint hi motivesg ans appraisald as s meticulously as possible Th. purpose wae nos self-justificatiot n or rational