"It was the cry of outraged womanhood that has peremptorily called me to Noakhal, ... My present mission is the most difficult and complicated one of my life ... I am prepared for any eventuality. 'Do or Die' has to be put to the test here. 'Do' here means Hindus and Mussulmans should learn to live together in peace and amity. Otherwise I should die in the attempt ... No one can escape death. Then why be afraid of it? In fact, death is a friend who brings deliverance from suffering."
             Mahatma Gandhi was a freedom fighter and leader of India who strongly opposed any violence among Hindus and Muslims. As mentioned above, he preferred to teach the world that Hindus and Muslims should learn to live together. Gandhi opposed the partition of India from the beginning to the end.
             "In May 1947, he was called to Delhi where the new Viceroy Lord Mountbatten had succeeded in persuading the congress leaders to accept Jinnah's insistent demand for the partition of India as a condition precedent for British withdrawal. Gandhi was against partition at any cost but he was unable to convince the congress leaders of the wisdom of his stand.
             On August 15, 1947, India was partitioned and became free. Mahatma Gandhi declined to attend the celebrations in the capital and went to Calcutta where communal riots were still raging. When Gandhi returned to Delhi in September 1947, the city was in the grip of communal hysteria. Ghostly tales of what had happened to Hindus and Sikhs in West Pakistan had kindled passions which burst into a conflagration when the uprooted victims of this tragedy poured into the city. In a frenzy of vengeance, Hindus and Sikhs had taken the law into their hands and were looting Muslim houses, seizing Mosques, and stabbing innocent passers-by." (Prasad, 1954 p.24)
             Despite the numerous communal clashes which claimed a number of innocent lives, the separation of India still went ahead.
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