History · Ch 11 — Mahatma Gandhi and the Nationalist Movement — Civil Disobedience and Beyond
The Last Heroic Days
The Last Heroic Days
Mahatma Gandhi was not in Delhi for the Independence Day celebrations on 15 August 1947. He was in Calcutta, but even there he did not attend any function or hoist a flag. Instead, he marked the day with a 24-hour fast. The freedom he had fought for had come at a price he found unacceptable: a divided nation, with Hindus and Muslims in violent conflict.
Through September and October, Gandhi visited hospitals and refugee camps, giving consolation to distressed people. He appealed to Sikhs, Hindus, and Muslims to forget the past, not to dwell on their sufferings, and to extend the right hand of fellowship to one another, determined to live in peace.
At the initiative of Gandhi and Nehru, the Congress passed a resolution on the rights of minorities. The party had never accepted the two-nation theory. Forced against its will to accept Partition, it still believed that India is a land of many religions and many races, and must remain so. The resolution declared that whatever the situation in Pakistan, India would be a democratic secular state where all citizens enjoy full rights and are equally entitled to the protection of the state, irrespective of the religion to which they belong. The Congress wished to assure the minorities in India that it would continue to protect, to the best of its ability, their citizen rights against aggression.
Many scholars have written of the months after Independence as being Gandhi’s “finest hour”. After working to bring peace to Bengal, he shifted to Delhi, from where he hoped to move on to the riot-torn districts of Punjab. While in the capital, his meetings were disrupted by refugees who objected to readings from the Koran, or shouted slogans asking why he did not speak of the sufferings of Hindus and Sikhs still living in Pakistan. Gandhi was equally concerned with the sufferings of the minority community in Pakistan. He would have liked to go to their succour, but as his biographer D.G. Tendulkar writes, “with what face could he now go there, when he could not guarantee full redress to the Muslims in Delhi?”
There was an attempt on Gandhi’s life on 20 January 1948, but he carried on undaunted. On 26 January, he spoke at his prayer meeting about how that day had been celebrated in the past as Independence Day. Now freedom had come, but its first few months had been deeply disillusioning. However, he trusted that “the worst is over”, and that Indians would henceforth work collectively for the “equality of all classes and creeds, never the domination and superiority of the major community over a minor, however insignificant it may be in numbers or influence”. He also permitted himself the hope that “though geographically and politically India is divided into two, at heart we shall ever be friends and brothers helping and respecting one another and be one for the outside world”.
Gandhi had fought a lifelong battle for a free and united India. Yet when the country was divided, he urged that the two parts respect and befriend one another. Other Indians were less forgiving. At his daily prayer meeting on the evening of 30 January 1948, Gandhi was shot dead by a young man. The assassin, who surrendered afterwards, was Nathuram Godse. …
The photograph captures Mahatma Gandhi walking along a dusty path, heading toward a village torn apart by communal violence in 1947. He is dressed in his usual simple attire — a dhoti and shawl — and is accompanied by a small group of followers. The image is not staged; it shows him in motion, his face calm but intent, his walking stick in hand. There are no grand buildings or flags in the frame — just the bare landscape and the grim purpose of his journey.
This was the period after Partition, when Gandhi had refused to celebrate Independence Day in Delhi. Instead, he was in Calcutta, fasting and praying. From September to October 1947, he moved through Bengal, then to Bihar, and finally to Delhi, visiting hospitals and refugee camps. The photograph belongs to that phase — specifically, it shows him on his way to console victims in a riot-affected village. The caption in the textbook, "On the way to a riot-torn village, 1947", is deliberately understated. It does not name the village, because the point is not the specific location but the pattern of his actions: day after day, he walked into the worst-hit areas, offering not speeches but presence. …
The popular print titled The death of the Mahatma is a visual representation of how Gandhi was remembered and mythologised after his assassination on 30 January 1948. The print does not aim for historical realism; instead, it uses religious and symbolic imagery to present Gandhi as a saintly, almost divine figure who continues to guide the nation even after death.
At the centre of the composition is Gandhi’s funeral pyre, the physical site of his cremation. Flanking the pyre on either side stand Jawaharlal Nehru and Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel. These two leaders are not merely mourners — they represent the two major political strands within the Indian National Congress. Nehru, on one side, stood for a more socialist, secular vision of India; Patel, on the other, was associated with a more conservative, nationalist approach. By placing them together at Gandhi’s pyre, the print suggests that Gandhi’s unifying presence held these divergent tendencies together. Above the pyre, in a heavenly realm, Gandhi himself appears at the centre, blessing both Nehru and Patel. This deification — showing Gandhi as a celestial figure — reflects the popular sentiment that he was not just a political leader but a moral and spiritual force whose authority transcended earthly divisions. …