Walking Alone-Gandhi and India’s Partition (

Author: Bhashyam KasturiPublisher: Vision/Orient paperbacksYear: 1999Language: EnglishPages: 152ISBN/UPC (if available): 8170943280 DescriptionThis book explores the political and personal life of Mahatma Gandhi through the traumatic period, 1946-48, which saw the partition and independence of India, and the worst-ever communal holocaust in the subcontinent. A central attempt of the book is to understand how partition came about even as Gandhi’s strongest convictions were against such a division. It traces Gandhi’s role within and outside the Congress and describes how the Mahatma was politically sidelined from the very start of the negotiations for the transfer of power. The author suggests that Gandhi’s political marginalization arose from his differences with the Congress over India’s future. The end result was that when the Congress agreed to the partition of Bengal and Punjab in March 1947, it did not even consult the mahatma; he was in the picture, but out of accord with congress