On September 4 at 9.15 P.M.

he
drank a glass of diluted orange
juice,
after telling those crowded into his
bedroom: "I am breaking this fast so
that I might be able to do something
for the Punjab. I am doing so at
your
assurance and ... I expect that the
Hindus and Muslims here will not
force
me to undertake a fast again."29 To
the apologetic young men, who
bowed
silently before him, Gandhi said:
"Act as peace squads without
arms."30 To
those who requested a message
from him for their "Peace Army
Party"
(Shanti Sena Dal) he said: "My life
is my message." On September 7,

1
1947,
he entrained for Delhi, eager to
move on to Punjab.
[ 242 ]
24
Great SouPs Death in Delhi
IKNEW NOTHING about the sad
state of things in Delhi when I left
Calcutta," Gandhi confessed after
returning to India's capital on
September
9, 1947. He had heard so many
stories of Delhi tragedies that
day to resolve that "I must not leave
Delhi for the Punjab until it had
regained
its former self."1 Hindu and Sikh
refugees from West Punjab
brought with them tales of such
horror and woe that Delhi itself
turned
into a killing field against Muslims,

2
whose families had lived there in
peace
for centuries. "Retaliation is no
remedy," Gandhi warned. "It makes
the
original disease much worse."
Sardar Patel and Rajkumari Amrit
were waiting with several Cabinet
ministers and thousands of others
to greet him at old Delhi's jammed
Shahadara
Station. "After alighting from the
train I found . . . others equally
sad. Has the city of Delhi which
always appeared gay turned into a
city of
the dead?"2 Gandhi wondered, as
he was driven from the station
around
the old city. He saw tens of
thousands of squatters on the roads
and in

3
crowded dark alleys and heard
horror stories in Delhi's Muslim
university,
the Jamia Millia. Its vice-chancellor,
Dr. Zakir Hussain, who became
India's
first Muslim president a quarter
century later, told of how he was
almost
murdered in Punjab. Gandhi
lowered his head in "shame" as he
listened
to such reports. Then he went to
where Hindu and Sikh refugees
stayed and heard of the murders of
their families by Muslims in Punjab.
"They asked me how I could
comfort them. ... I would like to tell
the refugees
that they should live truthfully and
without fear . . . not entertain any
thoughts of revenge or hatred [nor]

4
throw away the golden apple of
freedom
won at a great cost."3 So Gandhi
tried in Delhi what he had done in
[ 243 ]
Gandhi's Passion
Calcutta and before that in Bihar,
appealing openly, equally to Hindus
and