Page:Fischer - A Week with Gandhi.pdf/69

 win the war and make the world better, they must purify themselves by surrendering power in India. Your President,” Gandhi continued with a low voice, “talks about the Four Freedoms. Do they include the freedom to be free? We are asked to fight for democracy in Germany, Italy, and Japan. How can we when we haven’t got it our selves?”

At this point Chaplin of the International News Service and Belden of Time and Life, who had spent several years in China and had recently trekked out of Burma with General Stilwell, entered the hut in shirts, shorts, and shoes, to interview Gandhi by appointment. Gandhi said I could stay if I wished to listen, and then he turned to them and said, “Can you squat?” When they did so, he said: “One American has been vivisecting me. Now I am at your disposal.” He talked to them for half an hour and then I escorted them to my hut, served them cold water, and insisted that they take a splash bath in my water room.

During the afternoon, Mahadev Desai, apparently Gandhi’s most important secretary, brought me Gandhi’s replies to the questions I submitted to him yesterday at his request. The replies were typed on two long sheets of white paper with corrections in Gandhi’s own hand.

My questions to Gandhi were contained in the following letter.