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Riot. The first Bombay riots were as fierce as those in Delhi. Later they became better organized. Nearly all schools having a majority of Hindu students were on strike. Some Moslem students joined in. Hindus forgot caste and opened their homes to injured rioters of varying degrees of touchability. Members of the Communist-dominated Students Union distributed hastily printed pamphlets urging Congress members and sympathizers not to dissipate themselves in "anarchistic" outbursts.
In the midst of the confusion strange events occurred: a cricket match took place within earshot of a Shivaji Park protest meeting; the Bombay Rotary Club met and heard a lecture on acoustics. The great bar in the Taj Mahal Hotel was as busy as ever, but Americans, numbering 724 in the Bombay consulate area, were warned to leave.
The U.S. State Department announced that U.S. troops were to remain aloof from the trouble. Some Indians hailed this notice as evidence of good will and support from the U.S. Lauchlin Currie conferred with the harassed Viceroy. There were other straws in the wind, pointing either toward further trouble or possible settlement.
Reverberations. One man was heavily sentenced for raising the Congress flag, but an editorial comment pointedly criticizing the British attitude was allowed to appear. As fearfully as Hindus waited for word that Gandhi might try a fast-to-the-death, the Moslems waited for word from Mohammed Ali Jinnah, leader of the Moslem League. In his marble-floored Malabar Hill villa, Jinnah talked for two hours with TIME Correspondent William Fisher. He regretted the interruption in the war effort, said he would be agreeable to any proposition for formation of a national government, provided it gave Moslems "a fair break." This week he threatened to end his "cooperation"'if the British "betrayed" him by making peace with the Hindu-dominated Congress party. Said Jinnah (whom Pandit Nehru attacks as a tool of wealthy landowners and a stooge for the British): "I would do it even if the British shot me down. I would do it even if it meant my own death. All I would have to do would be to give the word to my 80,000,000 followers."
Chakravarthi Rajagopalachariar ("C.R."), who resigned from the Congress party in protest against Gandhi's threatened campaign, and the great Indian Liberal Sir Tej Bahadur Sapru urged mediation. Dr. Bhimrao Ramji Ambedkar, Labor spokesman for India's 40,000,000 Untouchables, backed Britain but held aloof. Communists wavered on their party line. Bombay big-business interests begged the Viceroy to attempt negotiation.
The Congress party went underground, changed its headquarters from day to day. Minor leaders still out of jail printed pamphlets urging that the fight be carried on passively. They drew new support and sympathy when Gandhi's Boswell and private secretary, Mahadev Hiralal Desai, died in custody at Poona (see p. 42).
Gandhi's terrible meekness had sent terrible tremors through Mother India.