Page:Fischer - A Week with Gandhi.pdf/126

 banded. But a moment earlier he has said: “Naturally there will be no prohibition against any Indian giving his own personal help by way of being a recruit or/and of giving financial aid.” And at another time, (in Harijan, August 6, 1942) he wrote: “Cannot a limitless number of soldiers be trained out of India’s millions? Would they not make as good fighting material as any in the world?” What does it all mean? Is Gandhi simply contradicting himself? No. He wants to disband the Indian army which consists of men who have “volunteered” because they were hungry and expected to eat well as soldiers or who were impressed into the services. But then India can recruit its own national army. This shows, however, with what ease Gandhi can be mischievously misquoted out of context.

Part of the pleasure of intimate intellectual contact with Gandhi is that he really opens his mind and allows the interviewer to see how the machine inside works. When most people talk they try to bring their ideas out in final perfect form so that they are least exposed to attack. Not so with Gandhi. He gives immediate expression to each step in his thinking. It is as though a writer were to publish the first draft of his story, and then the second draft, and ultimately third and last draft. Readers might protest, and claim that the plot had been changed, that the popular lover had been