The Dominion SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 9, 1929. INSPIRED UNREST IN INDIA

Dominion, Volume 22, Issue 116, 9 February 1929, Page 8

The Dominion SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 9, 1929. INSPIRED UNREST IN INDIA

It is impossible to read the reports of unrest and riots in India without feeling that experienced agitators have been at work. The latest news indicates the existence of a serious situation. In Bombay eighteen people were killed and one hundred and twelve injured as the result of terrorist riots originating in a silly canard effect that Indian Moslems had organised a campaign of kidnapping their religious enemies. . Riots in Ceylon, at the other extremity of India, resulted in a death-roll of five, and a casualty-list of injured totalling one hundred and thirty*five. Here again the outbreak originated in meie rumour —that a native Labour leader allegedly had been assaulted by a policeman. Every native constable', in the disaffected area was stoned oi assaulted as soon as he appeared in the streets, with the result that the Ceylonese police had to be withdrawn, and the area patrolled by vbhinteers. . . All this is in line with the tactics designed in Communist Moscow for preparing a ground-work of unrest and disorder before advancing to more overt agitations for disrupting communities. The persistence of these disturbances in various centres led the Government of India in August last to provide legislation empowering the authorities to expel from the country ‘ Communist agents other than British-Indian subjects or subjects of Indian States. Such agents are required tb sign a bond giving security for good behaviour. until their removal from the country.. If they break their bond they may be arrested, fined, and imprisoned. The prosecuting authority is the Governor-General-in-Council only, no removal order can be questioned in any court, and officers, acting under the law are protected against legal proceedings for actions performed in 3 good faith. , This is very drastic, but it is significant of the Governments conviction that it has to deal with a serious menace to the public safety. The Statute, in fact, is entitled “An Act for the Public Safety.” Commenting on the persistence of strikes in India, the London Times in an editorial of July last discerned quite clearly the hand of the foreign agitator:

“The low-paid industry of the East offers itself as a happy huntingground for the political agitator,” said that journal. “The forms and words of trade unionism can be borrowed as easily as the forms and words of representative democracy, and there has been only too much evidence of the increasing activity of Communist agents. Perhaps the most disquieting feature of the present unrest is that agreements which are painfully reached are lightly and quickly abandoned. This is one of the fields where the destructive critic, anxious only for more and wider disturbance, finds it fruitful to concentrate.”

/ In May last, The Times correspondent at Sirpla reported to his journal that although the mass of the population had not yet been affected by Communist propaganda, “new features in the situation are the arrival of Communist agitators from England, the insinuation of Communist ground-bait into ordinary political party programmes, a general failure through the political inexperience of the educated class of native to perceive the danger of subversive propaganda, and the need to be on guard against Communist agents.” By August, the situation had assumed a character and significance which led the same correspondent to report that “the most significant feature is the intimate association of the Communists and the Labour unions. An immense development is to be observed in the organisation, of both, and it is impossible not to attribute this to the leadership of experienced clever emissaries from overseas. The organising of disruptive activities is openly proceeding in Bombay, foreshadowing the development of widespread and serious troubles.” Present events show that the foregoing was by no means an alarmist prediction. With the spread of education and of Western ideas changes in the political and economic structure of India are inevitable, but the process must in the peculiar and immensely difficult circumstances of the country be slow. In this period of expectancy, whatever changes are made, are likely to afford matter for much argument by interested persons. It is, here that the Communist agitator-who knows his disreputable business finds opportunity for the circulation of false rumour and deliberate misrepresentation, calculated to. provoke suspicion, discontent, and open disorder.