ABSTRACT

Saving India" would mean 'the regaining of India's dwindling prestige and her fast-fading sovereignty over the heart of Asia and therethrough the world' but if India were lost, 'the loss of her soul by India will mean the loss of the hope of the aching, storm-tossed and hungry world'. Gandhi comes back to this problem the following week, in his prayer meeting on 23 September 1947, after some semblance of order and normalcy have been restored. As he repeats in his prayer meeting a month later, saving India and too is his top priority: if for some reason or other we are unable to forge friendship between Hindus and Muslims, not only here but also in Pakistan and in the whole world, we shall not be able to keep India for long. This, perhaps, is one of the most important projects of his last days and saving India was its cornerstone.