Freedom at Midnight by Larry Collins, Dominique Lapierre
Authors: Larry Collins, Dominique Lapierre
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forbidden gift of the sea, the newest symbol in the struggle for Indian independence.
Within a week all India was in turmoil. All over the continent Gandhi's followers began to collect and distribute salt. The country was flooded with pamphlets explaining how to make salt from sea water. From one end of India to another, bonfires of British cloth and exports sparkled in the streets.
The British replied with the most massive roundup in Indian history, sweeping people to jail by the thousands. Gandhi was among them. Before returning to the confines of Yeravda prison, however, he managed to send a last message to his followers.
'The honor of India," he said, "has been symbolized by a fistful of salt in the hand of a man of nonviolence. The fist which held the salt may be broken, but it will not yield up its salt."
London, February 18,1947
For three centuries, the walls of the House of Commons had echoed to the declarations of the handful of men who had assembled and guided the British Empire. Their debates and decisions had fixed the destiny of half a billion human beings scattered around the globe and helped impose the domination of a white, Christian European elite on more than a third of the earth's habitable land surface.
Silent witness to an empire's now fading grandeurs, the oak panelings of the Commons had resounded to the phrases of William Pitt announcing the annexation of Canada, of Senegal, of the Antilles; the colonization of
Australia; the departure of the explorer James Cook, off to circumnavigate the globe with the Union Jack atop his mast. They had resonated to Benjamin Disraeli's announcements of the occupation of the vital artery linking Britain and her Indian Empire, the Suez Canal; the conquest of the Transvaal; the defeat of the Afghans; the submission of the Zulus; and the apotheosis of empire, his decision to have Queen Victoria proclaimed Empress of India. They had heard Joseph Chamberlain describe the scheme to bind Africa in a belt of British steel with the Cairo-to-Capetown railroad.
Now, tensely expectant, the members of the House of Commons shivered in the melancholy shadows stretching out in dark pools from the corners of their unheated hall to hear their leader pronounce a funeral oration for the British Empire. His bulky figure swathed in a black overcoat, Winston Churchill slumped despondently on the Opposition benches. For four decades, since he had joined the Commons as a young cavalry-officer-become-journal-ist-politician, his voice had given utterance in that hall to Britain's imperial dream, just as, for the past decade, it had been the goad of England's conscience, the catalyst of her courage.
He was a man of rare clairvoyance but was inflexible in many of his convictions. He gloried and exulted in every corner of the realm, but for none of them did he have sentiments comparable to those with which he regarded India. Churchill loved India with a violent and unreal affection. He had gone out to India as a young subaltern with his regiment, the 4th Queen's Own Hussars, and done all the Kiplingesque things. He had played polo on the dusty maidans, gone pigsticking and tiger hunting. He had climbed the Khyber Pass and fought the Pathans on the Northwest Frontier. He was, forty-one years after his departure, still sending two pounds every month of the year to the Indian who had been his bearer for two years when he was a young subaltern. His gesture revealed much of his sentiments about India. He loved it, first of all, as a reflection of his own experience there, and he loved the idea of the doughty, upright Englishman running the subcontinent with a firm, paternalistic hand.
His faith in the imperial dream was unshakable. Despite the perception he had displayed on so many world issues, India was a blind spot for Churchill. Nothing could shake
his passionately held conviction that British rule in India had been just, and exercised in India's best interests; that her masses looked on
Within a week all India was in turmoil. All over the continent Gandhi's followers began to collect and distribute salt. The country was flooded with pamphlets explaining how to make salt from sea water. From one end of India to another, bonfires of British cloth and exports sparkled in the streets.
The British replied with the most massive roundup in Indian history, sweeping people to jail by the thousands. Gandhi was among them. Before returning to the confines of Yeravda prison, however, he managed to send a last message to his followers.
'The honor of India," he said, "has been symbolized by a fistful of salt in the hand of a man of nonviolence. The fist which held the salt may be broken, but it will not yield up its salt."
London, February 18,1947
For three centuries, the walls of the House of Commons had echoed to the declarations of the handful of men who had assembled and guided the British Empire. Their debates and decisions had fixed the destiny of half a billion human beings scattered around the globe and helped impose the domination of a white, Christian European elite on more than a third of the earth's habitable land surface.
Silent witness to an empire's now fading grandeurs, the oak panelings of the Commons had resounded to the phrases of William Pitt announcing the annexation of Canada, of Senegal, of the Antilles; the colonization of
Australia; the departure of the explorer James Cook, off to circumnavigate the globe with the Union Jack atop his mast. They had resonated to Benjamin Disraeli's announcements of the occupation of the vital artery linking Britain and her Indian Empire, the Suez Canal; the conquest of the Transvaal; the defeat of the Afghans; the submission of the Zulus; and the apotheosis of empire, his decision to have Queen Victoria proclaimed Empress of India. They had heard Joseph Chamberlain describe the scheme to bind Africa in a belt of British steel with the Cairo-to-Capetown railroad.
Now, tensely expectant, the members of the House of Commons shivered in the melancholy shadows stretching out in dark pools from the corners of their unheated hall to hear their leader pronounce a funeral oration for the British Empire. His bulky figure swathed in a black overcoat, Winston Churchill slumped despondently on the Opposition benches. For four decades, since he had joined the Commons as a young cavalry-officer-become-journal-ist-politician, his voice had given utterance in that hall to Britain's imperial dream, just as, for the past decade, it had been the goad of England's conscience, the catalyst of her courage.
He was a man of rare clairvoyance but was inflexible in many of his convictions. He gloried and exulted in every corner of the realm, but for none of them did he have sentiments comparable to those with which he regarded India. Churchill loved India with a violent and unreal affection. He had gone out to India as a young subaltern with his regiment, the 4th Queen's Own Hussars, and done all the Kiplingesque things. He had played polo on the dusty maidans, gone pigsticking and tiger hunting. He had climbed the Khyber Pass and fought the Pathans on the Northwest Frontier. He was, forty-one years after his departure, still sending two pounds every month of the year to the Indian who had been his bearer for two years when he was a young subaltern. His gesture revealed much of his sentiments about India. He loved it, first of all, as a reflection of his own experience there, and he loved the idea of the doughty, upright Englishman running the subcontinent with a firm, paternalistic hand.
His faith in the imperial dream was unshakable. Despite the perception he had displayed on so many world issues, India was a blind spot for Churchill. Nothing could shake
his passionately held conviction that British rule in India had been just, and exercised in India's best interests; that her masses looked on
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