MASS GRIEF

Ashburton Guardian, Volume 68, Issue 137, 22 March 1948, Page 4

MASS GRIEF

Death of Gandhi

CONDITIONS IN INDIA The shock with which the news of Gandhi's assassination was received throughout India was described by Mr Edward Burgess, technical director of a British firm of agricultural manufacturers, as a very severe one. Mr Burgess, who is at present visiting Ashburton, was in New Delhi when Gandhi was shot, and heard the news within a quarter of an hour of the occurrence.

In an interview this morning he said he was particularly impressed by the appalling grief the Indians had shown. Never before nad he seen sueh grief in the mass. Mr burgess also saw something of me funeral while he was in New Delhi, and the crowds had amazed him.

The people who received the blame for Gandhi’s death were the right Wing Hindus, Mr Burgess said, and the organisation „■known as the Hindu Mahasabha was now being dissolved as a political body, though it was being retained ,as a cultural organisation.

The Hindu Mahasabha had been opposed to Gandhi’s policy of pacification towards the Moslems and to his ideas of the development of cottage industries and socialisation, Mr Burgess continued. Gandhi’s shooting could not be laid at the door of the Hindu Mahasabha, but undoubtedly the odium of the whole thing had fallen, rightly or wrongly, oil the party. “I do not beliCve Gandhi’s death will have any immediate substantial effect on Indian politics or life’in general in India,” Mr Burgess said. “The people believe a saint has died, and they still have before them the inspiration of, his example - and guidance.” ' : 2 t.L

Mr Burgess said he wasvery pleased to find that the Indian business man was very pro-British, and in spite of many signs to. the contrary, he thought the British manufacturer would do well to regard the Indian market as one of his largest markets for many lines of equipment. A. country with a population of nearly 400,000,000 could not be ignored. India had been regarded as the largest single market for British industry for the last 75 years, and so far as his own company was concerned, it did not intend to run out of it, he added. It had had a house in India for 75 years and now had a very large organisation there, with branches .throughout the country.