Evening Post. FRIDAY, MARCH 28, 1930. GANDHI'S DISAPPOINTMENT

Evening Post, Volume CIX, Issue 74, 28 March 1930, Page 10

Evening Post. FRIDAY, MARCH 28, 1930. GANDHI'S DISAPPOINTMENT

Just three weeks ago Gandhi issued his ultimatum to the Viceroy of India in terms more suggestive of the demagogue than the saint. On behalf of the "dumb millions" of India who had been impoverished "by a system of progressive exploitation and a ruinous civil and military, administration," he was about to raise the standard of revolt and to organise a campaign of "unadulterated non-violence" as the only way to "check the organised violence of the British Government." The severing of the British connection was his objective as the only cure for its intolerable evils, but if these were removed he was graciously pleased to add that "the path is' opened to friendly negotiations." If that path were not opened by the Viceroy, he must look out for trouble. It is open for you to frustrate my design by arresting me, said Gandhi in conclusion, but I hope that tens of thousands are ready to take up the work after me. This letter is 'not intended as a threat, but as a sacred duty. The Viceroy made no attempt to imitate the prolixity of Gandhi's'eloquence in his reply. He merely expressed his regret in a single sentence that Gandhi was contemplating a course of action which is clearly bound to involve a violation of the law and will be a danger to public peace. Tuesday, the 11th, was the time limit fixed by Gandhi for compliance with his ultimatum, and on the 12th he opened his civil disobedience campaign. Gandhi's immediate objective had been stated simultaneously with the issue of his ultimatum. He personally will lead the first batch of volunteers, consisting of men disciples from his settlement at Ahmedabad, who will m^reh to the sea coast. He refuses to take ■women disciples, saying that it would be a cowardly action to place theni;in the forefront of the battle, knowing that Englishmen would never harm them. With deeds of derring-do in contemplation it was obviously the right thing to leave the women behind, but why were the rest of the disciples to be taken to the coast? General Sherman's famous "March to the Sea," in which 60,000 men followed him from Atlanta to Savannah—a distance of 300 miles—was one of the crucial events of the American Civil War, because it cut the Southern States in two. What- comparable advantage had the Mahatma in view when he decided upon a march to the sea as the first move in his nonviolent campaign against British rule? Was he intending a demonstration against Britain's sea-power, or a threat of emigration from a land where every prospect pleases and only the white man is vile? The first of these alternatives must be dis-. missed as outside of his beat. If the second represented a possible solution, we might be sure that Lord Irwin would be speeding the going Gandhi and his followers instead of harassing them with his myrmidons. Be we are really doing the Viceroy an injustice in suggesting that he is "harassing" Gandhi. He.is, on the contrary, embarrassing Gandhi very seriously just by refusing to harass him. Gandhi aspired to be* a martyr, but through the masterly inactivity of the authorities he bids fair to become a fizzle. On the eve of his departure Pandit Malaviya said that "100,000 men were ready to follow Gandhi to gaol," but it is impossible for them to follow to where Gandhi does not lead. Gandhi's scheme was to set out with a hundred followers, and after he and they' had been arrested to have another hundred ready to fill the gap. The process would have to be repeated, not by any means "ad infinitum," but merely 7000 times, and the overthrow of British power in India would be complete. In his own words, addressed to "a vast gathering" at Sabarmeti on the eve of his start for the coast, he could secure independence for India immediately if 700,000 volunteers were available. Yet he was well short of the first hundred when he started, and six miles proved to be long enough for the first day's march. Gandhi, we were told oa the 15th, is finding the villagers apathetic towards his disobedience campaign, and when he and his seventy-eight volunteers started on their second day's trek none were present to give him a send-off. His appeal for volunteers is falling flat. There has been only one recruit hitherto. The Government had not interfered, as Gandhi's expectation of Government interference had been disappointed, and the same- message informed us that beyond making arrangements for the preservation of order along the route and posting soldiers in places regarded as dangerous no action would be taken. A few days later the single recruit reported had been balanced by the loss of one of the campaigner's who had been sickened with smallpox. Neither that casualty nor the deaths of three children in Gandhi's settlement from the same cause could be attributed to what he is accustomed to describe as the "Satanic" rule of Britain, but rather to the saint's fierce objection to vaccination. Yesterday's report brought the welcome news that at the end of the second week "it is understood that Gandhi is disappointed with the results of his march." The; details supplied by

the same message showed that there were very solid grounds for his disappointment. He received little hospitality or support from the villagers in the Broach district, and a largo number of village headmen, who resigned under pressure from Gandhi, have now applied to the Government for reinstatement. This has caused bitterness among tho Mahatma's followers, whose morale is already suffering by reason of the fact that nearly thirty of their number have fallen out owing to sickness. Nearly thirty in hospital, not a single man in gaol, not a single one of the forty or fifty still on the. march sustained by the hope of ever getting there, and a frosty reception instead of the expected enthusiasm—what a sorrowful opening for a campaign that was to have brought the Indian Government to its knees! The combined firmness and patience of the Government promise to be fully justified. But the Nationalists of the Punjab are made of sterner stuff than Gandhi and his followers, and their. threat to hoist the Indian national flag over the Town Hall of Gujranwala on the 6th April in defiance of Government orders presents a much tougher problem.