The Auckland Star: WITH WHICH ARE INCORPORATED The Evening News, Morning News, The Echo and The Sun. WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 20, 1932. UNREST IN INDIA.

Auckland Star, Volume LXIII, Issue 16, 20 January 1932, Page 6

The Auckland Star: WITH WHICH ARE INCORPORATED The Evening News, Morning News, The Echo and The Sun.

WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 20, 1932. UNREST IN INDIA.

» ' For the cause that lads assistance, For the wrong that needs resistance, For the future in the distance, And the good that we can do.

Though the situation in India seems to be well under control, there is plenty of evidence to prove that nothing but the strong repressive policy adopted by the has prevented very serious trouble. In the NorthWest Province and in parts of the Punjab the disturbances have been due partly to the marauding of frontier tribes, partly _to religious differences between Moslem, Sikh and Hindu, and partly to Bolshevik propaganda, which seems to be particularly active in this part of India. In this quarter vigorous measures have been adopted to maintain order and to keep the peace. But in the other great provinces, and more especially in Bengal and Bombay, the efforts of the Nationalist agitators to work up a boycott of British goods and to incite the people to refuse to pay rent or taxes have been, on the whole, a complete failure. A week ago the Governor of Bombay explained to a conference of European and native merchants that the British authorities were resolved to maintain freedom of trade for all, and that they would "extend the fullest protection against molestation." This declaration seems to have given courage to the mass of the people, who have no desire to sec the country's trade brought to a standstill, and the boycott has had but very limited success. As to the no-rent and no-taxes campaign, this has received a serious setback through the arrest of Mrs. Gandhi. The authorities, having plenty of trouble on their hands already, had no desire to interfere with the Mahatma's wife. But she and her friends left them no alternative, and her sentence to imprisonment for six weeks has acted as a useful deterrent to the agitators who have chosen this line of action.

No doubt the repressive methods which the Government has adopted are producing a ; salutary effect upon public opinion in India. Gandhi's imprisonment at first seemed likely' to arouse much bitter feeling-, but even those who sympathise with the aims of the Nationalists are beginning to ask why Gandhi, who professes the "golden rule" of the New Testament, should be willing to ruin and starve all who do not share his views. Tlierefusal of the authorities to temporise longer with Gandhi, or to take him at his own valuation as a saint and a martyr, has done more to bring his followers to reason than all the generous concessions that Avent before. Moreover, the outrages perpetrated by Nationalists have opened the eyes of the people to the dangers of irresponsible violence and anarchy. "It is for gunmen," . : the Calcutta "Statesman" has said, "that Congress has rejected the path of constitutional freedom." This development makes it all the more difficult to understand why European clericals should support the Nationalists; but the arrest and deportation of several British and American missionaries during the past few days may serve to convince the malcontents that the British Raj is determined to enforce its edicts against all offenders without fear or favour.