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Sam Dalrymple’s Followers (60)
Sam Dalrymple
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Shattered Lands: Five Partitions and the Making of Modern Asia
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“Like many Hindus, Gandhi identified India with Bharat – the holy land of the ancient Mahabharata Hindu epic. Neither Burma nor Arabia featured in the epic, and thus many Hindu nationalists felt that these regions should be separated off from India. Gandhi’s support for this stance had caused a rift with his Burmese acolyte Ottama, who tried to publish a rebuttal in Gandhi’s magazine.62 But Gandhi refused to publish the article, writing, ‘The Burmese should certainly have my sympathy if they wished to secede.’ Indeed, when he visited Burma that spring, he declined to meet Ottama at all, telling him, ‘I am sorry indeed that anybody should have mentioned anything to you about my proposed visit to Burma.’
When Mahatma Gandhi arrived in Rangoon, therefore, Mahatma Ottama was conspicuously absent.
Gandhi went swiftly on a ‘procession through the streets’, then set off on a series of rallies.64 When his hosts tried to take him to a theatre one evening, he startled them by declaring theatres ‘satanic’ and refusing to go. His speeches nonetheless attracted thousands and at a meeting with Rangoon’s Gujarati community, he addressed the question of separation, declaring that Burma was ‘not what we call Bharatvarsha [the land of Bharat]’65 – not a part of ancient India’s Hindu geography – and that Indians should act like guests in a foreign country there. A few days later he expanded upon his thoughts, explaining that it would only”
― Shattered Lands: Five Partitions and the Making of Modern Asia
When Mahatma Gandhi arrived in Rangoon, therefore, Mahatma Ottama was conspicuously absent.
Gandhi went swiftly on a ‘procession through the streets’, then set off on a series of rallies.64 When his hosts tried to take him to a theatre one evening, he startled them by declaring theatres ‘satanic’ and refusing to go. His speeches nonetheless attracted thousands and at a meeting with Rangoon’s Gujarati community, he addressed the question of separation, declaring that Burma was ‘not what we call Bharatvarsha [the land of Bharat]’65 – not a part of ancient India’s Hindu geography – and that Indians should act like guests in a foreign country there. A few days later he expanded upon his thoughts, explaining that it would only”
― Shattered Lands: Five Partitions and the Making of Modern Asia
“be worth the while of Burma to remain part of India if it means a partnership at will on a basis of equality with full freedom for either party to secede whenever it should wish. The main thing is that Burma should have an absolute right to shape her destiny as she likes.66
To his surprise, crowds muttered in disapproval, and the protests only got louder as he headed into the surrounding towns, snaking his way down the coastline by train to the Eurasian colony of Moulmein, then turning north to Prome, Paungde and the old capital of Mandalay. ‘At all places, the Burmese leaders uttered a note of protest against the talk of separation from India’,”
― Shattered Lands: Five Partitions and the Making of Modern Asia
To his surprise, crowds muttered in disapproval, and the protests only got louder as he headed into the surrounding towns, snaking his way down the coastline by train to the Eurasian colony of Moulmein, then turning north to Prome, Paungde and the old capital of Mandalay. ‘At all places, the Burmese leaders uttered a note of protest against the talk of separation from India’,”
― Shattered Lands: Five Partitions and the Making of Modern Asia
“The morning that Gandhi’s ship pulled into Rangoon on 7 March 1929, the sea was calm and the deck resounded with recitations of Tulsidas’ poetic epic ‘The Ramayana’. With the rising dawn, Gandhi could see the distant smoke billowing from the city’s factories, mills and oil refineries, and soon he made out a ‘monster cosmopolitan gathering’ of people from across the Raj jostling on the extensive waterfront jetties to greet him. ‘The crowd cried out, “Long live Mahatma Gandhi!”’ recalled a Burmese writer who was present, and ‘a young boy watching up a palm tree clapped his hands with glee, and fell down’.”
― Shattered Lands: Five Partitions and the Making of Modern Asia
― Shattered Lands: Five Partitions and the Making of Modern Asia
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