CHAPTER V
"ENDURING CEASELESS SUFFERING"
GANDHI IN THE SALT OF LIFE
66
"ENDURING CEASELESS SUFFERING" ;
GANDHI IN THE SALT OF LIFE
After describing the first mass movement
led by Gandhi and his awareness of the necessity to
make the people fearless so that another Chauri Chaura
may be averted, Chaman Nahal continues the Gandhi Saga
in The Salt of Life (1990).
His latest novel in the
main deals with the epoch-making Dandi March of Gandhi*
Nahal is the first Indian English novelist to highlight
Gandhi's faith in his followers to show the way out when
in a crunch.
He is also the first to describe Gandhi's
successful attempts in making women realize their true
potential and play a more effective role in the freedom
struggle.
Nahal's purpose is to present a realistic
image of Gandhi.
Nahal begins the novel with a description of
Gandhi's sense of defeat and disappointment in 1929.
He narrates how Gandhi feels that he has achieved nothing
because all his efforts to bring about a change in people
have proved futile.
foreign goods*
People are still going in for
There is no communal harmony.
have not given up untouchability.
People
The spinning wheel
over the years has become a status symbol.
People
Including Jawaharlal Nehru are going in for the finer
67
variety of'khadi'. The distinction made between finer
and coarser varieties of‘khadi’pains Gandhi.
His word
to the people that India would be a free country or he
would be a dead man by the end of his six year term
remains a boast because he is alive and the British are
still ruling India.
Kusum, an inmate of the'ashram',
breaks her vow and sleeps with a man.
All his protests
to the Government against repression bring more repression
and no relief.
Another factor that makes Gandhi feel disappointed
is that many people, including Jawaharlal and Kasturbai
consider him enigmatic.
When the monkey menace is on
the increase, he decides to kill them with poison.
People are angry with this votary of hhimsa’ for asking
them to kill the ‘avatar* of Hanuman.
Many people do
not appreciate his disapproval of the
actions of Bhagat
Singh and his comrades.
of his adversaries.
Even Ba
speaks the language
Gandhi is surprised to note that
even Kasturbai fails to understand his idealogy.
The
reason for their failure to understand him is that he was
far in advance of his impulse-ridden times.
Or, perhaps, he was too far behind them, a
relic from by gone centuries when high ideals
prevailed. 1
1. Bhabani Bhattacharya, Mahatma Gandhi (New Delhi :
Arnold Heinemann, 1982), p. 220.
68
Nahal hastens to add that though many people
have failed to understand clearly Gandhi's ideology,
they have unflinching faith in him as their leader by
pointing out their readiness 'to do his bidding*.
Gandhi feels relieved to notice this.
Influenced by
him, people in different parts of the country keep
on giving vent to their disapproval of the British
rule in India.
Gandhi realizes that though he has not
succeeded in driving the British out of India, he is
on the right track.
He decides that their suffering
at the hands of the alien government and their ambition
to win freedom must be expressed in a new vocabulary.
He must launch a new movement that will electrify the
national consciousness.
But he is not sure of his
plan of action.
Gandhi reciprocates the faith people have in
him by having affection and regard for every one of them.
He believes that there is something to be learnt from
every other person.
how to make salt.
He hears Kusum telling her students
He remembers the British monopoly on
the manufacture of salt in India.
He will launch a salt
agitation and it will be his 'new vocabulary*.
Kusum is his redeemer.
He says :
He feels
69
Salt is another name for honour, for dignity,
for patriotism, for valour.
The British have
eaten the food that is grown here. Yet they
have not quite eaten the salt of India as they
are scared of it. And they are soiling the
salt of India by making it the instrument of
imperial control. Salt is nature*s gift to
man, almost as free as air. The British have
made it difficult for the average Indian to
eat the salt of his own land unless he first
pays a cut or tax to these invaders. 2
While acknowledging the faith people have in him, Gandhi
declares his commitment to win freedom.
He says i
I will be walking to the seashore and I won’t
return to Sabarmati until India’s freedom is
won. 3
After the Lahore Congress of December 1929 declares
complete independence as the goal of the national
struggle, Gandhi commences the Dandi March with the
high seriousness of a spiritual adventure.
Gandhi’s
Salt Satyagraha is startling in Its concept.'
It is as
simple as it is unusal, but undeniably logical and un­
precedented :
Oftentimes did he (Gandhi) say that he saw
no light and was praying for it. And when
he sees the light it appears strange to his
people, for his remedies are unprecedented
and awe-lnspring. 4
2. Chaman Nahal, The Salt of Life (New Delhi : Allied
Publishers, 19W,.p.5'6.
All the references to the novel are from this edition.
3. Ibid., p.46.
4. B, Pattabhisitaramayya, ’’Gandhi in His Many Aspects",
Mahatma Gandhi : Essays and Reflections on His Life
and Work, ed.~S.Radhakrlshnan (feombay : Jaico
Publishing House, 1956), p. 17o.
70
Gandhi begins the Dandi March on the twelfth
of March 1930.
...a dark man in a loincloth of hand-spun
'Jchadi', a pocket watch dangling by his side*
a staff in his hand, not to steady himself
but to affirm his bearing as an ascetic,
set out early in the morning from his 'ashram '
in Sabarmati, with seventy-eight followers,
the youngest being only thirteen, .to walk
20 miles to Dandi on the seacoast, .. to set
into motion the second of his mass movements
against the British.
5
Gandhi hears his inner voice telling him that
he has taken the right decision.
So, a thin smile of
impending triumph spreads on his face.
He is so happy
that he begins to sing the national anthem and feels
that he no longer needs the help of the staff.
But,
they do not want to hear a political song or a religious
song.
India.
So he says that he will sing them the Song of
He would sing them of the winds of India, rivers,
great mountains, temples, the music of India, humble
peddler and travel that leads the peasants to their
favourite haunts like Hardwar.
He will also sing of
those who failed to have a full run, the untimely dead,
the warrior dead, and those who sing of such dead.
He
will also sing of the Red Fort, where now the Union Jack
flies but where one day will fly the tricolour.
5. Chaman Nahal, The Salt of Life, p. 175.
71
Nahal presents Gandhi's concern for the
neglected and humiliated section of society by descri­
bing how Gandhi does not forget his duty to them even
in such a happy state of mind.
Gandhi drops the idea
of going to the Himalayas on pilgrimage.
Instead, he
will be making pilgrimage to the places where people
are being segregated and humiliated.
As we all know Gandhi is only a 'man in a
loincloth* because renunciation is the highest form of
religion to him.
..he has divested himself of possessions
and knows, like Thoreau, the joy of possessing
all and owning nothing.
6
Still people have unflinching faith that he will liberate
them from the British yoke.
The reason, in Ampthill's
words, is s
men and matters are Inseparably connected
in all human affairs and the proper compresion of political affairs in particular ever
depends on a knowledge of the character and
motives of those who direct them. 7
People's faith in Gandhi is revealed when 75»000 meet
on the sands of the Sabarmati river to pledge allegiance
6. Carl Heath, "M.K.Gandhi : Apostle of Light and Truth Force", Mahatma Gandhi : Essays and Reflections on
His Life and Work ed. S.Radhakrlshnan. p.67.
7. Ampthill, "Introduction", M.K.Gandhl. An Indian Patriot
in South Africa (Delhi : Publications Division, I9S7),p.1.
72
to Gandhi.
Ingenious as he always is, Gandhi asks the
people who are near the sea to reach the shore and merely
pick|up a lump of natural salt from the beach and violate
the law by possessing contraband salt.
People living in
far off places can boil tap water which contains a grain
of salt and when they do it, they would be breaking the
salt law.
He tells Miraben to raid the Government owned
salt depots marching in the form of Magic Square instead
of Just the square.
Magic square is one in which the
total niaaber, combined vertically, diagonally or hori­
zontally, remained the same.
In spite of Police coming
down upon them with heavy clubs the volunteers moved in
the form of Magic Square.
fend off the blows.
No marcher raised, an arm to
To crown it all :
People still acted as united Indians rather
than Hindus, Muslims or Sikhs; they still
believed of themselves as a single nation. 8
Thus Gandhi achieves a resounding success in Salt Satyagraha by the dint of his steadfast discipline, hard
work and, above all by his unparallelled capacity to
carry the masses with him.
Nevertheless, Chaman Nahal the realist does
not simply Idealize Gandhi.
He is interested in presenting
8. Chaman Nahal, The Salt of Life, p. 263.
73
an objective and realistic image of Gandhi.
After
narrating Gandhi’s highly successful Dandi March,
Nahal reveals how Gandhi is once again seized with a
sense of disappointment*
The Dandi March
no doubt mobilises the people but the final outcome
was not completely satisfactory*
As a result of
Gandhl-lrwin Pact the Salt laws were repealed but
Gandhi’s plea that the lives of Bhagat Singh and others
should be spared was Ignored.
how
However, Nahal shows
Gandhi’s second mass movement has contributed
greatly to the mass social emanicipation of Indian
women by giving an example.
Oneday
at Wazirabad
Railway Station, the coupe reserved for Kusum is
occupied by Percy and Jennifer Wand.
them to vacate, but in vain.
She protests bravely
and this inspires other passengers.
residents Join them.
Frontier Mail.
She requests
Soon the nearby
They block the prestigious
Kusum who, till then, has been thinking
of herself 'a wronged wife, a wronged daughter and a
wronged mother' stops pitying herself.
She realizes
that she is infinitely more than that.
She says :
The power that was being hailed today, that
was being harnessed, being appealed to, the
women as^Shakti.' 9
9o Ibid., p. 277.
74
They bring cauldrons from nearby houses, boil water and
break the Salt Act on the platform.
rities apologize to Kusum.
Finally, the autho­
Though Kusum is angry with
Gandhi for taking her son, Vikram, away from her, she
leads the non-violent struggle at Lambini.
by Gandhi she opens co-educational schools.
As advised
Abha,
daughter of Rakesh and Shyama, successfully leads the
satyagraha against the sale of the Kashmiri girls.
Kusum makes her husband, Raja Vishal Chand lease their
land in New Delhi to the Congress for arranging an
exhibition, knowing fully well that it would invite
the wrath of the government.
Thus, Gandhi makes the
women realize their potential to serve the motherland.
Hie Salt of Life presents Gandhi essentially
as a mass leader, winning the hearts of people through
his selfless work and love for them.
Time and again
Gandhi is surprised to notice the faith and implicit
trust people have reposed in him.
in rapt attention.
They listen to him
To live upto their expectations,
he immerses himself in more work.
As a result by the
thirties
there was not a village in the whole of India
in which the Congress did not operate, and
its membership, from a mere half million at
varying levels of its struggle, had by the
end of 1939, risen to be a full five million.
75
For most villagers there was no other national
flag than the Congress tricolour, no other
national anthem than the Vande Mataram. The
badge or courage these days was not to carry
a gun or sword. It was to wear'khaddar* and
to sport a Gandhi cap.
People swelled with
pride to be dubbed as freedom fighters. 10
It is surprising to notice that Gandhi, the
votary of truth and one who has been working for political
emancipation of India and eradication of the heinous
crime, untouchability, has some adversaries.' But even
they have a word of praise for him because his intense
commitment to truth and the correction of social in­
justice touch their hearts and of people who are living
in far away countries.
the utmost regard.
Bhagat Singh holds Gandhi in
All her riches fail to bring peace
of mind to Carol Schnicke of Australia.
She starts an
'ashram' on the model of Gandhi's 'ashram '. ’When Matthew
Craig, an American, is denied entry into a Hindu temple,
he offers 'satyagraha' and succeeds in securing entry
into the temple.
Nahal presents Gandhi not only as a practical
realist but also as a visionary.
visionary powers.
He reveals Gandhi's
Gandhi foresees the mischief the
British are playing, their attempts to institutionalize
religion and divide India.
10. Ibid., p. 375.
As he visualizes, Jinnah
76
throws a spanner into the works by demanding a separate
state for Muslims.
It is a paradox that Jlnnah who has grown-up
as a secular nationalist in his younger days
and who apparently has little interest in
religion is working to found a State based
on religion, while Gandhi wholly religious,
is working to establish a secular State. 11
Gandhi is once again seized with a sense of defeat and
disappointment•
This leads the novelist to present yet another
facet of Gandhi's personality.
He has the capacity to
remain unruffled and calm even in the midst of a stormy
situation.
Nahal shows how hatred and anger are totally
unknown to him and how he remains calm, amiable
genial.
and
He still loves each and every creation of God.
This is illustrated through a suitable example.
Gandhi
watches a bitch laying litter with immense pleasure.
He looks to Kusum to come out with a new idea, a new
platform to follow in his present impasse.
upto his expectations.
Kusum lives
She comes out with a novel mode
of individual satyagraha.
She sits in a gherao outside
the house of the acting Superintendent of Police of
Wardha.
In spite of »lathi* charges, the'satyagraha*
continues.
11. Louis Fischer, Life of Mahatma Gandhi (London :
Jonathan Cape, 1951), p.^30.
77
Nahal's presentation of Gandhi in The Salt
of Life, we may say, is unique.
He shows how Gandhi
finds answers to his problems from little things which
we usually tend to ignore as of no importance.
He hears
Kusum telling her students about salt, and comes out
with Salt Satyagraha.
Now, from the show 'God or Gandhi*
he understands what he should do in the none too happy
situation.
Ten years ago he marched to Dandi thinking
that it was the panacea for the ills of India.
only resulted in more repression.
But it
Till date he has
not come out with a new course of action.
After seeing
the show 'God or Gandhi', Gandhi realizes that the
ultimate remedy lies in salt only in that they must
endure 'ceaseless suffering' till India gains independence.