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 long bamboo sticks from the road and threw them into the fields.

I asked Gandhi for his opinion about the proposals of C. Rajagopalachari, who had participated, as Congress representative, in the negotiations with Sir Stafford Cripps in April. Rajaji, as the Indians call him, is one of the wisest men in India, an old friend and associate of Gandhi’s, and the father of the wife of Gandhi’s youngest son, Devadas. Ever since the failure of the Cripps proposals, Rajaji had been making many speeches urging the Congress Party and the Moslem League to get together on the basis of a Congress acceptance of Pakistan—a separate Moslem state. When I asked Gandhi about Rajaji’s program, he said, “I don’t know what his proposals are. I think it unfortunate that he should argue against me and that I should argue with him, so I have given order that, as far as we are concerned, the discussion should be suspended. But the fact is that I do not know what Rajaji proposes.”

“Isn’t the essence of his scheme,” I asked, “that the Hindus and Moslems collaborate and in common work perhaps discover the technique of peaceful cooperation?”

“Yes,” Gandhi replied, “but that is impossible. As long as the third power, England, is here, our communal differences will continue to plague us.