People across the country were angry with Mahatma Gandhi, for they held him responsible for the partitioned freedom that had left in its gory trail brutal carnage and untold sufferings for millions across the sub-continent.
When the nation is preparing to observe Mahatma Gandhi’s death anniversary it is interesting to recall what Dilip Kumar Roy, son of the legendary Dwijendralal Roy, wrote about what was happening at the Mahatma’s prayer meetings in Delhi in those fateful days in his book, ‘Among The Great.’ Roy was a gifted singer aside from being a renowned writer. He was also a yogi, a dearly loved disciple of Sri Aurobindo and a very intimate friend of Subhas Chandra Bose.
The final one of their several meetings happened in the last week of October in Delhi-just three months before the Mahatma fell to the assassin’s bullets.
“Next evening I arrived at the Birla House a good quarter of an hour before time. The audience was even more impressive... but the atmosphere was disquieting. I was told that someone had registered an objection to Quran verses being inflicted on a predominantly Hindu audience and so it was on the cards that Gandhiji might not be holding the prayer at all. They pointed out to me the trouble-maker: it was a Sikh stalwart with white beard and sombre face.
As I fixed him with my gaze he looked up and our eyes met. Instantly he hoisted himself out of his seat and almost ran up to me in a breathless state. ‘Sir!’ he roared angrily. ‘You are a sadhu and so must adjudicate. I appeal to you on bended knees to be fair. Tell me, is it right to foist on us, the Hindus, verses from the scriptures of those who have massacred us ruthlessly, desecrated our homes…Won’t it be a slur on our honour and our manhood to have to listen after all this to this abomination…’ I restrained him in the middle of his fiery speech. ‘But be quiet, my kind sir,’ I demurred. ‘But why shouldn’t IIJ’ he flashed back.
‘I came here to hear Mahatmaji, not Quran verses.’ ‘But you knew he insists on reading the Quran verses. So the better course for you would have been to stay away since you feel as you do…’ Then placing hand on his shoulder, I added: ‘You will at least hear me sing the name of God, won’t youIJ’ ‘I’d love to, provided you do not bring in the Muslim God.’ I couldn’t help but laugh and answered: ‘But there is only one God, you know.’ ‘I do,’ he returned,’ ‘but…’ ‘Calm yourself, my friend,’ I replied helplessly; then I asked him to take his seat, adding that I was going to sing of Krishna.His face brightened.
‘Splendid,’ he cried. ‘And I’ll listen the whole night…’”
Roy was convinced that the Gandhian shibboleth of bringing about Hindu-Muslim harmony through preaching of the oneness of God was bound to prove a chimera. Yet, Mahatma, ploughing his lonely furrows in the wasteland of communally frenzied India, seemed to him a beacon of light. “When I left him, my eyes were moist with tears. I was moved by him as never before. And though I tried hard, I could not shake off the suggestion that I would never see him again.”
Roy was deeply worried about the Mahatma too. “The reason was this. Some years ago, somebody in our Ashram (at Pondicherry) had seen a prophetic vision…The vision was not concocted after the event; it had been published in the 1920s in a well-known (Bengali) book entitled ‘Unapanchasi’ whose author, a celebrated writer and a quondam disciple of Sri Aurobindo, is noted as a man of keen intellect and great integrity of character…The vision he had recorded was that directly after the liberation of India from the foreign yoke a very eminent man ‘in white homespun’ would be shot dead in a public meeting. As I heard his (Gandhi’s) address (at the prayer meetings) I could not dismiss the vision,” Roy wrote.
“…I had a feeling that with all his brave attempts to hide it, he was weary to the bones…world-weary and…longing for sleep,” Roy recounted.
Roy was giving a lecture-demonstration on Indian and Western melodies at Calcutta University on January 30 1948. “The meeting was dissolved and a boy went hysterical. Gloom descended on us all. On my way back home I was struck by a coincidence: the song I had composed and was going to sing was a mystic dialogue between Mother and Child:
I will now sleep in thy love’s deep And toy no more with things that pall.
I have at last heard thy far call.”