310 GUJARATA AND ITS LITERATURE

Indian nation at the second sessions of the Indian
Round Table Conference. About the end of 1931 the Mahatma
returned to India and, soon afterwards, Government intro-
duced the ordinance regime. Government arrested him on
the 4th of January 1932 and a strenuous struggle began
between the Congress and the Government of India. Lock-
ed up in the Yeravda jail and single-handed, he then
began to combat tremendous forces by sheer force of spi-
ritual strength. On the 20th of September 1932 he went
on 'his fast unto death' in order to undo the wrong which
the British Premier had inflicted upon the Hindu com-
munity by cutting it into two. It moved India and many
parts of the world to its innermost depths; the cons-
cience of the Hindu community was awakened; and the
British Premier was compelled to revise his award so as to
leave the Hindu community one and undivided. The
Yeravda Pact is, perhaps, the greatest event in the history
of Modern India,

Thereafter, the Mahatma organised from jail a campaign
to remove untouchability. In May 1933 he held communion
with God and went on a self-purificatory fast of twenty onS
days. He had to be released in consequence, but, on his
decision to resume individual Civil Disobedience, Govern-
ment arrested him again on 1st of August, and refused to
give him the permission he had enjoyed during his last im-
prisonment to carry on the Harijan campaign unrestricted in
jail. He went on a fast again and was released. Pursuant
to his vow, he then conducted a whirlwind campaign
throughout the country for the removal of untouchability;
and within so short a time as one year defied time and
space and the demands of health to carry to the most
remote villages his message of hope to the socially sub-
merged. History knows of a Buddha preaching his gospel
of Nirvana far and wide in the course of a long life and
a Peter the Hermit delivering his fiery message of the
Crusades across Europe; but this generation has seen with
its eyes what centuries have found it difficult to imagine:
a prophet in one year by his quickening inspiration stimu-
lating the conscience of so vast and slow-moving a
society and re-shaping the life of millions. On the 28th