I HAVE COME to stay here with you as one of you," Gandhi told Bengali

refugees gathered at Laksham Junction. "I have vowed to myself

that I will stay on here and die here if necessary, but I will not leave
Bengal till the hatchet is finally buried and even a solitary Hindu girl is not
afraid to move freely about in the midst of Mussalmans."1
On the eve of his Noakhali pilgrimage, Gandhi was told of murderous
riots by Bihar's Hindu majority against Muslims in "retaliation" for the attacks
against Hindu women in Eastern Bengal. "Bihar of my dreams seems
to have falsified them," he wrote just before leaving Calcutta for his rural
pilgrimage. "A bad act of one party is no justification for a similar act by
the opposing party."2 Bengal's Chief Minister Suhrawardy had intended to
accompany Gandhi to Noakhali but was detained by urgent business in
Calcutta; he sent his Labour minister to facilitate Gandhi's journey. They
traveled East initially by rail and boat, stopping to allow Gandhi to talk
with refugees and villagers along the way. "Let us turn our wrath against
ourselves," he told Hindus gathered to hear him at every stop.3 His mantra
for this pilgrimage was "Do or Die." He anticipated months of walking
from village to wounded village to impart hope and courage to all who saw
and heard him and witnessed his unarmed, intrepid bravery. "The work
here may perhaps be my last," he confessed to Brother Vallabh. "If I survive
this, it will be a new life for me. My non-violence is being tested here
in a way it has never been tested before."4
Gandhi resolved to live in Muslim villages, attended only by his Bengali-
speaking interpreter N. K. Bose and his secretary, Parasuram. Abha
had come with him to Bengal, but not to the villages, and young Manu fell
[ 224 ]
Walking Alone
ill shortly before he left Delhi obliging her temporarily to remain at home.
In each village Gandhi tried to establish a Peace Committee, comprised of
at least one Hindu and one Muslim. He taught them Satyagraha and the
values of Ahimsa. He prayed with them and told them of his early experiences
in rural Bihar and of his struggles in South Africa, where most of his
followers were Muslims. "War results when peace fails. Our effort must always
be directed towards peace, but it must be peace with honour and fair
security for life and property."5
Back in Delhi, Nehru urged Wavell to convene India's Constituent Assembly
in December. Jinnah refused, however, to join it, and Gandhi rejected
Nehru's appeal to him to return to the capital, determined to do or
die in Bengal. Nehru, sick of arguing with Wavell, after having thought no
less than "fifty times" of resigning from the viceroy's council, accepted Attlee's
invitation to London in early December 1946.6 Jinnah was also invited,
going with Liaquat Ali Khan who became Pakistan's first prime minister.
Nehru took his soon-to-be Sikh Minister of Defense Baldev Singh to
London, rather than Vallabhbhai Patel, with whom he never felt at ease.
The brief summit in London did not bring Nehru and Jinnah any closer,
however. So Nehru flew home to convene India's Constituent Assembly on
December 9, 1946, in the circular central hall of New Delhi's new Parliament
House, all the Muslim League seats on the floor of which remained
ominously empty.