In the bitter winter of January 1948, just months after Independence and the traumatic Partition of India, Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi undertook what would become the final fast of his life. At 78, already weakened by earlier hunger strikes, the Mahatma began refusing food on 13 January at Birla House in New Delhi. His stated goal was not political leverage in the conventional sense, but a deeper moral demand: a genuine “reunion of hearts” among Hindus, Muslims and Sikhs. The fast lasted six days. One of its most tangible and controversial outcomes was the Indian government’s decision to release the remaining Rs 55 crore owed to Pakistan under the Partition settlement of financial assets. The episode remains one of the most debated moments of Gandhi’s final weeks, illustrating the collision between principle, politics and the raw wounds of Partition.
The context was grim. Partition in August 1947 had triggered one of the largest and bloodiest mass migrations in history. Communal violence tore through Punjab and Bengal. In Delhi, the capital of the new Indian Dominion, the situation was explosive. Tens of thousands of Hindu and Sikh refugees flooded in from what had become Pakistan, many carrying stories of massacre, abduction and loss. Mosques and Muslim homes were occupied. Muslims who remained faced attacks, economic boycotts and pressure to leave. Although open large-scale rioting had been checked by police and military force, Gandhi sensed a deeper danger. He spoke of a “storm within the breast” that could erupt at any moment. An apparent calm enforced by arms was not peace.
On the evening of 12 January, during his regular prayer meeting, Gandhi announced his decision. He would begin fasting the next day. He would take only water, with or without salt and sour lime. The fast would end only when he was satisfied that a reunion of the hearts of all communities had been brought about without outside pressure, but from an awakened sense of duty. He framed it as a protest against the wrong done by society and a final attempt to prevent the destruction of the moral fabric of the new nation. “Death for me would be a glorious deliverance rather than that I should be a helpless witness of the destruction of India, Hinduism, Sikhism and Islam,” he said. The fast formally began after his last meal on the morning of 13 January.
While communal reconciliation in Delhi was the public and primary purpose, another issue weighed heavily on Gandhi’s mind: the unpaid financial dues to Pakistan. Under the terms of Partition, the cash balances and sterling assets of undivided British India were to be divided. Pakistan’s share was fixed at Rs 75 crore. India had already transferred Rs 20 crore. The remaining Rs 55 crore was withheld after Pakistan-backed tribal forces invaded Kashmir in October 1947. The Indian government, particularly Deputy Prime Minister Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel, argued that releasing the money while the two countries were effectively at war would be reckless. The funds, they feared, could be used against Indian forces in Kashmir. Nehru’s cabinet largely shared this view.
Gandhi saw the matter differently. For him, a debt once agreed upon remained a moral obligation regardless of the state of relations between the parties. Withholding what was rightfully due, even from an adversary, violated the ethical standards he believed the new India should uphold. Historians such as Ramachandra Guha have noted that while the deteriorating communal situation was the stated reason for the fast, Gandhi was also deeply troubled by the government’s decision on the sterling balances. The two issues became intertwined in the public mind and in the calculations of the government.
On 15 January, the third day of the fast, the Cabinet met and decided to release the Rs 55 crore. The official statement described the payment as a spontaneous gesture of goodwill, a contribution to Gandhi’s non-violent effort for peace, and an attempt to remove one cause of friction between the two Dominions. The money was to be paid minus certain expenditures already incurred by India on Pakistan’s account. Gandhi did not break his fast. He made clear that the financial decision, while welcome, did not address the deeper problem of communal hatred and insecurity in Delhi.
As his health declined, Gandhi outlined specific conditions. These included the restoration of mosques occupied by refugees, free movement and return of Muslims to their homes, protection from economic boycotts, and the peaceful holding of the Mehrauli Urs festival. He insisted that peace must come from a change of heart, not merely from official assurances or police action. Leaders from across the political and religious spectrum—Congress figures, Muslim representatives, Hindu Mahasabha and even RSS members—met repeatedly. On 18 January, after a seven-point declaration was signed pledging to protect Muslim life, property and faith, return occupied places of worship, and ensure that the recent violence would not be repeated, Gandhi ended the fast. He accepted a glass of orange juice from Maulana Abul Kalam Azad. The fast had lasted approximately 121 hours.
The immediate effect in Delhi was a temporary easing of tensions. The gesture of releasing the money and the public pledges created a fragile atmosphere of relief. Yet the underlying bitterness remained. Many refugees and sections of Hindu opinion were outraged that India was transferring funds to a country whose forces were fighting Indian troops in Kashmir. Critics, including Nathuram Godse, later argued that the real purpose of the fast had been to compel the payment. Godse would cite the episode among his justifications when he assassinated Gandhi on 30 January 1948 at the same Birla House.
Primary contemporary evidence, including Gandhi’s own prayer meeting statements and the accounts of those closest to him, shows that communal peace in Delhi was the central and publicly declared aim. The payment of the Rs 55 crore was a related moral issue that the fast brought to a head. The government released the money as a goodwill measure while Gandhi was still fasting; he continued until broader assurances of reconciliation were given. The episode revealed the limits of moral authority in the face of nationalist anger and the unresolved trauma of Partition.
Gandhi’s last fast stands as a stark illustration of his method. He used his own body as the final instrument of persuasion when all other means seemed exhausted. In doing so, he forced the new Indian state to confront both its obligations to a neighbour it was fighting and its responsibility to the Muslim minority within its own borders. The Rs 55 crore was paid. Temporary calm returned to Delhi. Twelve days after the fast ended, Gandhi was dead. The questions the fast raised—about the relationship between principle and security, between moral debt and political reality, between communal reconciliation and national self-interest—have never fully disappeared from the subcontinent’s history.
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