Gandhi proceeded to Bombay but was too weak from an attack of influenza

to attend the Congress meeting. After talking for hours with Nehru,
both in Poona and Bombay, Gandhi wrote to him about "the sharp difference
of opinion that has arisen between us." Gandhi reaffirmed his own
faith in everything he had written thirty-five years ago in Hind Swaraj, and
wrote of how troubled he was by Jawaharlal's rejection of virtually all he
believed. "I believe that if India, and through India the world, is to achieve
real freedom," Gandhi informed Nehru, "we shall have to go and live in
the villages—in huts, not in palaces. Millions of people can never live in cities
and palaces ... in peace. Nor can they do so by killing one another, that
is, by resorting to violence and untruth."7 His "ideal village" still only existed
"in my imagination," Gandhi conceded. Nonetheless he outlined its
noble virtues and characteristics: "In this village of my dreams the villager
will not be dull. . . . He will not live like an animal in filth and darkness.
Men and women will live in freedom. . . . There will be no plague, no
cholera and no smallpox. Everyone will have to do body labour." He passionately
confessed his dream to Nehru, knowing that Jawaharlal was
young enough and strong enough to carry it to fruition in freedom after the
British left. They disagreed on many things, but "we both live only for India's
freedom," Gandhi told the man destined to be prime minister.
"Though I aspire to live up to 125 years rendering service, I am nevertheless
an old man, while you are comparatively young. That is why I have
said that you are my heir. ... I should at least understand my heir and my
heir in turn should understand me."8
Nehru was eager to oust the British by force, if they lacked sense
enough to leave quickly. That October in Bombay, Nehru called upon a
cheering crowd to "prepare" for the last "battle for freedom."9 Amrit told
Cripps that Gandhi alone could keep India's masses nonviolent, but he had
less control over Congress youth ready to fight at the behest of Nehru. The
British now made the political mistake of bringing captured officers of
Bose's Indian National Army to trial for treason in Delhi's Red Fort. Nehru
led their defense in a flamboyant trial, rousing popular revolutionary fervor
among Delhi's Hindus, Muslims, and Sikhs, since all three religions were
represented by the INA defendants. Wavell feared that Nehru might try to
use Netaji Bose's popular militant mantra, Jai Hind! ("Victory to India") to
rouse his former troops in support of Congress's demands for the more
rapid transfer of power. Hindu-Muslim rioting rocked the slums of North
India's most crowded cities, from Bombay to Calcutta, as preparations began
for national assembly elections scheduled to start in December.