Beginning of the End

One Indian leader after another entered the pink and white viceregal palace in New Delhi. Inside, he was whisked to the second floor by an elevator, and ushered across an acre of anteroom to a small council chamber furnished simply, except for one gold brocade settee. There, hour after hour, the one-eyed, stocky Viceroy, Lord Wavell, aged, infirm Lord Pethick-Lawrence, jolly A. V. Alexander and smiling, schoolmasterish Sir Stafford Cripps heard their visitors out. They were listening avidly for the answer to one question: would India's passionately disunited factions unite to receive and use their freedom?

On the afternoon of the third day, the elevator brought Mohandas K. Gandhi. He had come to New Delhi by special train, rode in a Packard over a driveway made especially for him to a colony of bhangis (sweepers), who belonged to the underprivileged but politically potent caste of Untouchables. When the living idol of some 200 million Indians emerged from his meeting with the British ministers, he smiled a Gandhi smile.

On the fourth day, the elevator brought Mohamed AH Jinnah, leader of India's Moslems and the most dangerous threat to Indian unity. He had repeatedly threatened that unless the Moslems were granted the separate state of Pakistan and complete independence from India's Hindu majority, he would sabotage all further negotiations, even if it meant civil war. After a three-hour conference, Jinnah was wan and grim, but he forced a tight-lipped smile for the photographers.

The temperature in New Delhi rose to 107DEG. The Cabinet Commission prepared for a brief Easter holiday in cool Kashmir. Then they would return to sweltering Delhi and its sizzling political issues.

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