Gandhi Page #33

ADC:

Sir -- it's Mr. Kinnoch.

Lord Chelmsford turns expectantly.

CHELMSFORD:

Yes?

KINNOCH:

(hesitant, stunned)

Nothing... nothing is working, sir --

buses... trains... the markets...

(Personal, incredulous)

There's not even any civilian staff

here, sir... Everything has stopped.

CHELMSFORD:

(curt, firm)

Is it simply Delhi and Bombay?

His firmness doesn't restore Kinnoch's normal aplomb. He

holds the telegrams forward.

KINNOCH:

No, sir -- Karachi, Calcutta, Madras,

Bangalore. It's, it's total.

He glances at the general.

KINNOCH:

(the ultimate)

The Army had to take over the

telegraph or we'd be cut off from

the world.

That takes the wind out of all of them. Grimly, Lord

Chelmsford looks out across the palace's ordered lawns and

gardens.

CHELMSFORD:

I can't believe it...

KINNOCH:

He's going to sell his own paper

tomorrow in Bombay. They've called

for a parade -- on Victoria Road.

CHELMSFORD:

(clenches his jaw and

turns to the General)

Arrest him!

THE JAIL - BOMBAY - INTERIOR - DAY

A prison door opens. Gandhi, in prison clothes, is led along

a small corridor to a room. The door is held open by a prison

guard.

ROOM - THE JAIL - BOMBAY - INTERIOR - DAY

Nehru waits for Gandhi. He rises when Gandhi enters. The

guard signals Gandhi to a chair across a small wooden table

from Nehru. The guard closes the door, but remains in the

room. Nehru's face is a map of concern, but he manages a

small smile of greeting.

NEHRU:

Bapu...

Gandhi, who also looks worn, rises his eyebrows whimsically

at the use of that name.

GANDHI:

You too...

He means "Bapu" -- "Father."

NEHRU:

(a real smile, but

the same affection)

It seems less formal than "Mahatma."

Gandhi sighs, and their faces and minds go to more somber

matters.

NEHRU:

Since your arrest the riots have

hardly stopped. Not big --; but they

keep breaking out. I run to stop

them... and Patel and Kripalani --

they are never at rest. But some

English civilians have been killed,

and the Army is attacking crowds

with clubs -- and sometimes worse.

Gandhi has listened to it all with a growing sense of despair.

GANDHI:

Maybe I'm wrong... maybe we're not

ready yet. In South Africa the numbers

were small...

NEHRU:

The Government's afraid, and they

don't know what to do. But they're

more afraid of terrorists than of

you. The Viceroy has agreed to your

release if you will speak for non-

violence.

GANDHI:

(a sad smile)

I've never spoken for anything else.

THE STREETS OF AMRITSAR - EXTERIOR - DAY

The golden dome of the Temple fills the screen, shimmering.

The sound of a car, and marching feet. The camera pulls back

from the dome, revealing the rooftops, the trees and then

suddenly, center of frame, the face of General Dyer -- blunt,

cold, isolated in a cocoon of vengeful military righteousness.

He is traveling slowly, steadily in an armored car at the

head of fifty armed sepoys -- Gurkhas and Baluchis --

immaculate, precise, awesome. Behind them a staff car with

Dyer's English ADC and a British police officer. It is a

relentless, determined procession, filling the dusty street

with a sense of menace and foreboding.

JALLIANWALLAH BAGH - AMRITSAR - EXTERIOR - DAY

A large public garden, enclosed by a thick, old, crumbling

wall. A large crowd is gathered around a speaker on a platform

at one side of the park. It is political, but the crowd is

mixed. We see Muslims and Hindus, many of them Sikhs, old

men, little children, women with babes in arms. Some donkey

carts, a sense of fair-time gaiety.

We close in on the speaker -- a Muslim. He clutches a copy

(we need not see the title) of Gandhi's journal.

SPEAKER:

...England is so powerful -- its

army and its navy, all its modern

weapons -- but when a great power

like that strikes defenseless people

it shows it brutality, its own

weakness! Especially when those people

do not strike back.

(He holds aloft the

clenched journal.)

That is why the Mahatma begs us to

take the course of non-violence!

Rate this script:5.0 / 3 votes