Thirty policemen, armed to the teeth, arrested Gandhi on the 4th of May 1930 when he extracted salt in the village of Karadhi, near Dandi. He was taken to Yeravda Prison in Poona. It was not the last time he was thrown into jail in this part of India.
Between 1917 and 1932, Mumbai/Bombay and Poona (a 4 hours train journey inland) were important places in Gandhi’s long struggle for peace (including Ahmedabad). In Poona he was also imprisoned in the Aga Khan palace, since he had returned empty-handed from the negotiations in London and on New Year’s Eve 1931-32 initiated a non-violence action for Independence. At midnight, between the 3rd and 4th January, he was arrested on the roof (where he was sleeping) of his house in Mumbai, which is now a beautiful Gandhi museum – “Mani Bhavan” – at No. 19 Liburnum Road.
In Mumbai he learned how to spin and drink goat’s milk. He initiated strikes against English laws, started one of his many newspapers and worked as a social worker. In 1934, he decided that he would stop paying membership fees to the Congress Party and concentrate upon the situation of the Untouchables. In 1942, in a square in Mumbai, he started the all-Indian, “Quit India” campaign directed against the British. For this he was imprisoned again on the 9th of August and interned in the Aga Khan Palace together with his wife Kasturba, his secretary and close friend Mahadev Desai. Desai died a few days after the internment; Kasturba died in Gandhi’s arms in February 1944. Gandhi was released first, on the 6th of May 1944.
The “Mani Bhavan” Museum, a wonderful big villa on a quiet street in Mumbai visited by some 200-300 people every day, became my oasis. They have a little shop that sells Gandhi stamps and books, as well as a library with 50,000 volumes which visitors are free to read or borrow. There is also a research institute with conference rooms. All of the walls are covered with pictures, original documents, letters, photographs, etc. – intimate, informative and meditative. There are small balconies onto which people can go out and reflect in the shade of the surrounding, high trees.
Gandhi himself lived on the second floor and his simple workroom looked pretty much the same as the one he had in Birla House in Delhi, with just a few important differences. Here he had a telephone! In addition, there is an oil painting and a statue of Gandhi.
Mani Bhavan is a must for those who want to follow Gandhi’s steps.
The same goes for the Aga Khan Palace in Poona, which however is somewhat less well-kept. Palaces are expensive to maintain and the Indian government has reduced their funding to the Gandhi museums. Gandhi’s room is quite big, with an elegant bathroom and a view overlooking a wonderful park. It feels much more like a hotel room than a prison. There is also a memorial grove for Kasturba and another one for Desai.
I met Gandhi activists and people from the Jesuit Seminary of the town who intend to repair the palace and equip it with a conference hall, a lecture room, a library and an ecological garden in the park.
Upon arriving in Poona, I decided to go and see Yeravda Prison where Gandhi was held upon several occasions, just as in Nehru and Desai. But it is not open to the public. The fortress, built by the British, now houses 3,400 prisoners of all kinds. Local Gandhi activists have been detained here because of their demonstrations – the latest during Clinton’s visit.
I knocked on the door of the prison together with Poona’s only peace researcher, Delia Maria Thomas. We then had to visit different departments of the unbelievable prison bureaucracy and finally received an affirmative paper.
We were escorted through a picturesque prison garden surrounded by small cottages, with a giant mango tree in the middle. I asked jokingly if I could get interned here for a couple of days because it all looked so nice. The garden is well-swept, everything is newly painted and there are fresh flowers everywhere.
The mango tree is famous. The English suggested, in 1932, that the India constitution should contain a provision for the positive, special treatment of the Untouchables; they should have their own electorate. Gandhi protested. He intended to fast until death against this proposition, lying on an iron bedstead under the mango tree. He saw the matter from a religious and moral aspect, not from a political. This reorganisation would sharpen the divisions among Hindus. The British wanted to give the Untouchables greater influence, but in Gandhi’s opinion the proposition would only entrench their position as Untouchables, and thus make the abolishment of the caste system even more difficult. The religious Gandhi wished to see a secularised India, where everyone would be treated justly.
The conflict was settled in the “Yeravda Pact”, in which the almost dying Gandhi succeeded in convincing Dr. Ambedkar, leader of the Untouchables, of his principles. The entire population of India now rose up against the British.
As usual, Gandhi was most interested in an overall solution. He maintained that the “means are goals in the making”.
I, myself, wonder what Gandhi would have thought of today’s minority and human rights policies, as practised by the West in, say, Kosovo and Macedonia. The policies do not show consideration for each and every citizen, and neither do we find individuals who bother to hunger-strike against these dishonest and unprincipled policies.
Translated by Alice Moncada
Translation edited by Sara E. Ellis
