Read: The fading memory of South Asia’s partition

At the time, Churchill was out of office and seeking to rebuild his political career by working up British sentiment in defense of the empire. By the time he was prime minister a decade later, leading the fight against the Nazis, he remained implacably opposed to independence for Gandhi’s people. His senior cabinet colleague Leo Amery recalled how Churchill had once referred to Indians “as a beastly people with a beastly religion.” He might have added that their leader was, in his opinion, the beastliest of them all.

In August 1942, Gandhi launched his last great popular struggle, the Quit India Movement. He was immediately arrested and taken to a prison in Poona (now known as Pune). Churchill also convinced himself that Gandhi was acting on behalf of the Axis powers. Archived British documents show that in September 1942, Churchill wrote to Amery, “Please let me have a note on Mr. Gandhi’s intrigues with Japan and the documents the Government of India published, or any other they possessed before on this topic.” Three days later, Amery replied, “The India Office has no evidence to show, or suggest, that Gandhi has intrigued with Japan.” The “only evidence of Japanese contacts [with Gandhi] during the war,” Amery continued, “relates to the presence in Wardha of two Japanese Buddhist priests who lived for part of 1940 in Gandhi’s Ashram.”

The Quit India Movement was marked by protests across the country. A British government report blamed Gandhi for the violence that followed his arrest. Gandhi was hurt by the accusations, since he had always preached and practiced nonviolence. When the Raj refused to retract the accusations, Gandhi began a three-week fast in prison. Once again, Churchill developed unfounded suspicions about Gandhi, this time convincing himself that the Indian was secretly using energy supplements, and therefore not really fasting.

On February 13, 1943, Churchill wired the viceroy, Lord Linlithgow: “I have heard that Gandhi usually has glucose in his water when doing his various fasting antics. Would it be possible to verify this.” Two days later the Viceroy responded, “This may be the case but those who have been in attendance on him doubt it, and present Surgeon-General Bombay (a European) says that on a previous fast G. was particularly careful to guard against possibility of glucose being used. I am told that his present medical attendants tried to persuade him to take glucose yesterday and again today, and that he refused absolutely.”

As Gandhi’s fast entered its third week, Churchill again wired the viceroy:

Cannot help feeling very suspicious of bona fides of Gandhi’s fast. We were told fourth day would be the crisis and then well staged climax was set for eleventh day onwards. Now at fifteenth day bulletins look as if he might get through. Would be most valuable [if] fraud could be exposed. Surely with all those Congress Hindu doctors round him it is quite easy to slip glucose or other nourishment into his food.

By this time, the viceroy was himself exasperated with Gandhi. But no evidence showed that he had actually taken any glucose. So the viceroy now replied to Churchill in a manner that stoked both men’s prejudices. “I have long known Gandhi as the world’s most successful humbug,” Linlithgow fumed, “and have not the least doubt that his physical condition and the bulletins reporting it from day to day have been deliberately cooked so as to produce the maximum effect on public opinion.” Then, going against his own previous statement, the viceroy claimed that “there would be no difficulty in his entourage administering glucose or any other food without the knowledge of the Government doctors”—this when the same government doctors had told him exactly the opposite. “If I can discover any firm of evidence of fraud I will let you hear,” Linlithgow wrote to Churchill, adding, “but I am not hopeful of this.”