I met him in a humble little house in the slum district off the East India Dock Road. Crowds filled the streets and the Press and the photographers packed both floors. The interview took place in an upstairs front room about twelve feet square. The Mahatma had not yet arrived; and as I waited I began to think of what I would say to him. I had heard of his imprisonment and hunger strikes, and his fight for the freedom of India, and vaguely knew of his opposition to the use of machinery.
When at last he arrived there was hooraying and cheering as he stepped out of the taxi, gathering about him the folds of his loincloth. It was a strange scene in that crowded little slum street, that alien figure entering a humble house, accompanied by cheering throngs. He came upstairs and showed himself at the window, then beckoned to me, and together we waved to the crowds below.
The room was suddenly attacked by flash-lights from the cameras as we sat on the sofa. I was on the Mahatma’s right. Now came that uneasy, terrifying moment when I should say something astutely intelligent upon a subject I knew little about. Seated on my right was a persistant young lady telling me a long story of which I did not hear a word, but I nodded approvingly, wondering all the time what I would say to Gandhi. I knew I had to start the ball rolling, that it was not up to the Mahatma to tell me how much he enjoyed my last film, and so forth – I doubted if he had ever seen a film. However, an Indian lady’s commanding voice suddenly interrupted the verbose young woman: ‘Miss, will you kindly finish your conversation and let Mr Chaplin talk to Gandhi?’
The packed room grew suddenly silent. And as the Mahatma’s mask-like expression was one of waiting, I felt that all India was also waiting on my words. So I cleared my throat. ‘Naturally I am in sympathy with India’s aspirations and struggle for freedom,’ I said. ‘Nonetheless, I am somewhat confused by your abhorrence of machinery.’
The Mahatma nodded and smiled as I continued: ‘After all, if machinery is used in the altruistic sense, it should help to release man from the bondage of slavery, and give him shorter hours of labour and time to improve his mind and enjoy life.’
‘I understand,’ he said, speaking calmly, ‘but before India can achieve those aims she must first rid herself of English rule. Machinery in the past has made us dependent on England, and the only way we can rid ourselves of that dependence is to boycott all goods made by machinery. That is why we have made it the patriotic duty of every Indian to spin his own cotton and weave his own cloth. That is our form of attacking a very powerful nation like England – and, of course, there are other reasons. India has a different climate from England; and her habits and wants are different. In England the cold weather necessitates arduous industry and an involved economy. You need the industry of eating utensils; we use our fingers. And so it translates into manifold differences.’
I got a lucid object lesson in tactical manoeuvring in India’s fight for freedom, inspired, paradoxically, by a realistic, virile-minded visionary with a will of iron to carry it out. He also told me that supreme independence is to shed oneself of unnecessary things, and that violence eventually destroys itself.
When the room cleared, he asked me if I would like to remain and see them at prayers. The Mahatma sat cross-legged on the floor while five others sat in a circle with him. It was a curious sight: six figures squatting on the floor in that small room, in the heart of the London slums, as a saffron sun was rapidly sinking behind the roof-tops, and myself sitting on a sofa looking down at them, while they humbly intoned their prayer. What a paradox, I thought, as I watched this extremely realistic man, with his astute legal mind and his profound sense of political reality, all of which seemed to vanish in a sing-song chant.
*
At the opening of City Lights it rained torrents, but the goodly crowd was there and the picture went over very well. I took my seat in the circle next to Bernard Shaw, which caused much laughter and applause. We were made to stand up together and bow. This caused renewed laughter.
Churchill came to the première and to the supper party afterwards. He made a speech to the effect that he wished to toast a man who had started out as a lad from across the river and had achieved the world’s affection – Charlie Chaplin! It was unexpected and I was a little bowled over, especially when he prefaced his remark with ‘My Lords, Ladies and Gentlemen.’ However, imbued with the formality of the occasion – besides other things – I responded in like manner: ‘My Lords, Ladies and Gentlemen, as my friend the late Chancellor of the Exchequer –’ I got no further. There was quite a gahoff. And I heard a booming voice repeating: ‘The late, the late! I like that, the late!’ Of course it was Churchill. When I recovered I remarked: ‘Well, it seems peculiar to say the “ex-Chancellor of the Exchequer”.’
Malcolm MacDonald, son of the Labour Prime Minister, Ramsay
