I HAVE NO ready-made plan," Gandhi told reporters soon after his release

from jail. "It is nothing less than a new life for me."1 He had
been so severely nauseated on the last day of his fast that he gave away
all his worldly possessions, thinking he would die. He now planned to retire
from Congress completely and to devote himself only to Harijan work
and other constructive programs of social uplift: spinning, weaving, and
prohibition.
Jawaharlal, also just released from prison, went to Poona to meet with
Gandhi in mid-September of 1933. They conferred alone long enough to
agree on how much they disagreed and how best to advance common goals
they still shared for the good of the nation and its masses. "Vested interests
in India will have to give up their special... privileges," Jawaharlal insisted
soon after leaving Bapu, agreeing with him, however, that "divesting
should be done as gently as possible and with every effort to avoid injury."2
Nehru wanted such change to be accomplished as swiftly as possible.
Gandhi was more concerned with the morality of the means rather than the
swiftness of achieving the end. Both agreed the Round Table Conferences
were "useless," Nehru calling them "a fascist grouping of vested and possessing
interests." Having participated in one such conference himself,
Gandhi was less harsh, unwilling to label its members "fascist."
While Gandhi stressed the importance of "uttermost truthfulness and
non-violence," Jawaharlal also favored "secret methods," his faith in the
class struggle and most Marxist-Leninist doctrine convincing him of the
utility of secrecy in fighting British imperialism to the death.3 They parted
[ 174 ]
Return to Rural Uplift Work
company as well over Gandhi's insistence on communal unity, hand spinning,
weaving, and the abolition of untouchability as prerequisites to independence.
Nehru focused his dynamic mind and youthful energy on the primacy
of winning political freedom, strongly supporting other international
socialist forces in Europe and Asia. Nevertheless, Gandhi agreed to help
Nehru and Congress with his sage advice, whenever they called on him for
assistance.
Gandhi devoted the last quarter of 1933 and much of 1934 to Harijan
relief, appealing to caste Hindus and Harijans alike from Bombay to the
remote villages of Gujarat, Maharashtra, and Bengal to touch, marry, and
serve every Indian of one's own faith as a blood brother and sister. To many
Congress leaders, Gandhi knew, "I stand thoroughly discredited as a religious
maniac and predominantly a social worker. "4 He felt certain, however,
that political reform prior to social reform would only replace insensitive
British rule with insensitive Indian rule. In a village in Ahmedabad District,
Gandhi disgustedly reported that high-caste Hindu men had "horsewhipped
some Harijans . . . because one of them had the temerity to bathe
in a public tank."5