INDIAN AFFAIRS.

Press, Volume LXVI, Issue 20083, 12 November 1930, Page 9

INDIAN AFFAIRS.

HOME RULE ADVOCATED.

LECTURERS' CONTENTIONS

Ardent advocates of Indian Home Rule are Dr. G. S. Arundalo and his Indian wife, Mrs Rukmini Arundal% who lectured on "India: Her Power and Purpose," at the ltadiant Hail last evening, to a large audience. The ■lecture was a public one, and the Mayor (Mr J. K. Archer) acted as chairman. "I notice that Dr. Arundalo has created some slight commotion since he arrived in Christchurch," said the Mayor when introducing the lecturers. "That is altogether in his favour. I am supposed to create a commotion on occasions, and feel that wo are sometiiing ot kinured spirits." Mrs Arunuaie, or, to use her Indian name, cJhrimati Rukmini, gavo her address in a cultured voice.

''Foreign peoples are in extreme ignorance of India," she said. "People arc as unconscious of her real problems as they are of the extent of her culture, and do not know that in the possession of great men and women of the past she has not fallen short of any other country. The East possesses in its own way a vast treasury of knowledge, of philosophy, culture, science, and art equal to that of the West." India had need to advertise herseli in the way the West had done, she said. The West had endeavoured to change India's simplicity to a life of complications, but Western civilisation was now itself seeking after that simplicity. Mrs Arundale then explained some of the features of the early life of India—the much-envied village or community system, and the marriage system. Child marriage, she stated, was unknown in India until a few hundred years ago, and was now dying out. The lecturer's remarks on the idiosyncrasies of Englishmen resident in India caused some amusement. Her address concluded with an exposition of the Indian people's desire for Home Rule.

In opening his lecture, Dr. Arundale admitted that he was an ardent, fiery, and enthusiastic advocate' of Home Rule for Tndia.-and that as such many Englishmen considered him a traitor to his country. But he was British and mi ardent believer in the British Empire. He expounded later his belief that only by granting India Home Rule could Britain save her from-total secession and the disintegration of the Empire. . "Britain eanie to India and brought valuable peace, and ereat traditions of peace and justice. But this reminded India of her own' splendid traditions of peace and ..justice; to which she? wishes to return."

During the remainder of h'S r.ddress, Dr. Arundale dealt with the