ABSTRACT
Hindu nationalists and supremacists considered Gandhi's efforts at securing Hindu-Muslim amity as attempts to appease and favour the Muslims. During his last four-and-a-half months in Delhi, almost the entire focus of Gandhi's deliberations on ahimsa was Hindu-Muslim relations. Gandhi is forced to admit that the demand for Pakistan could not be ignored; Hindus and Muslims could not work out a compromise to live together in one country; the British, who were the rulers of India, granted the League's demand for Partition. On 16 January 1948, three days into Gandhi's fast, the Government of India reversed a Cabinet decision to withhold the 55 crores owed to Pakistan as a part of its share of the finances of undivided India. In the last few days of his life, Gandhi continuously emphasized the idea that Hindu-Muslim friendship was the only guarantee to safeguard the future of the two new nations.
