Word: hindus
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Dates: during 1940-1949
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...point at issue was one of those legal technicalities on which the fate of whole nations sometimes depends. The British Cabinet Mission had divided India's provinces, for purposes of writing the provincial constitutions, into three groups. In Group A, which comprised the bulk of British India, the Hindus would have a huge majority. Group B was the predominantly Moslem Northwest. The trouble narrowed down to Group C in the East, consisting of Bengal and Assam. Nehru said that the vote in the Assembly should be cast by provinces, which would let him take advantage...
...bridge the gap between Hindu and Moslem, the Mahatma each day visited at least one Moslem family to discuss the spiritual causes behind communal strife. More & more Moslems (including 20 special bodyguards) were attending his prayer meetings. All the doctors in the section were Hindus and had fled during the rioting; Gandhi, whose medical theories include sunbaths, hip baths, milk and fruit-juice diets was tending the Moslem sick...
Asked how long he would stay in this retirement, Gandhi said: "There is no limit. ... It may even be a lifetime. My object is to make Hindus and Moslems brothers and sisters. I can but make an attempt, success can be granted only by God. I shall do or die in Noakhali . . . even if all the Hindus go away, I shall be the solitary Hindu in Noakhali...
Meanwhile, saber-swinging mobs in the Noakhali district of east Bengal, where Moslems outnumber Hindus 5-to-1, burned, looted and massacred on a scale surpassing even the recent Calcutta riots. In eight days an estimated 5,000 were killed, with scores of Hindu girls abducted...
Indian leaders sadly admitted the difficulties. Said External Affairs Minister Jawaharlal Nehru: "What are we aiming at? Freedom? Yes. Higher standards? Yes. But we are ultimately aiming at feeding, clothing, housing, educating and providing better health conditions for 400,000,000." Said Gandhi: "If Hindus and Moslems must fight, let them be brave and fight it out amongst themselves." He was geometrically hopeful: "Euclid's line is one without breadth, but no one has been able to draw it and never will. All the same, it is only by keeping the ideal line in mind that we have made...