GANDHI'S BLUNDERS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXVII, Issue 20560, 10 May 1930, Page 1 (Supplement)

GANDHI'S BLUNDERS.

BY REV. T. E. RIDDLE.

CAUSES OF INDIAN POVERTY.

Ten years ago Sir. Gandhi admitted that he had committed " a Himalayan blunder" when the " soul-force" that was to havo dominated his campaign of non-violent non-co-operation failed to keep his followers from riots and brutal murder. Tho perversity with which he still keeps his eyes closed to facts ,-that do not jit in with his idealistic theories for tho economic and political salvation of India has become almost equally Himalayan in its greatness. At the Now Year ho once more stepped into the limelight when ho won over the Indian National Congress to pledge itself to a new non-co-operation movement that had in addition the further definite objective of non-payment of taxes, or, as he calls it, of mass civil disobedience. The renewal and extension of this movement, at a timo when whole sections of his followers aro openly opposed to any non-violent programme, has created a doubt as to his sincerity in many minds that formerly wero whole-heartedly sympathetic to him. Mr. Gandhi views tho cruel poverty of the Indian masses from his own particular viewpoint, and declares that it is all due to systematic exploitation by the British Government. A month or so ago, on the eve of his march to the coast to begin his civil disobedience by making sa.lt. in defiance of the Government salt monopoly, ho wrote that ho opposed the British Government " because it has impoverished dumb millions by a system of progressive exploitation and ruinous civil and military administration," and again ho stated, " By heavy taxation the British system is crushing the life out of tho agriculturalist, on whom tho tax on salt fails the heaviest." Benefits of British Rule. The cost of civil and military administration in India is undoubtedly heavy, but it has brought order out of chaos and has established security of life and property to millions who never knew it before. It has given seventy years of unbroken internal peace. It guards a thousand miles of frontier from a country thai looks on tho plains of India as its God-given preservo for loot and rapine; Would Mr. Gandhi withdraw the troops and, by soul-force, restrain the gentle tribesman ? And does he forget that Mahmud of Gaznawi nineteon times led devastating . armies of wild Pathans through all Northern India, and that nothing but tho presence of a strong and watchful military garrison prevents similar irruptions in these days? Tho salt tax, says Mr. Gandhi, is helping to crush tho lifo out of the agriculturalist.' How grievous that burden is can be seen from the fact that salt is retailed in tho bazaars of Northern India at tho same price a3 it is in Auckland! It certainly looks as if Mr. Gandhi is out to pull the wool over his own or someono else's eyes. Causes of Poverty. The causes which more than any others aro responsible for tho impoverishment of the Indian peasant are found in the working of the Hindu and Mohammedan law of inheritance, and in tho pressure of an ever-increasing over-population. Indian customary law decrees that all sons havo a right to inherit equal shares of the land of their father. This has led to the " fragmentation" of land; that is, the division and subdivision of inherited land havo so distributed the fields that a farm consists of a collection of tiny fields so widely scattered that the farmer can neither irrigate nor guard his crops. Further, in many districts the twelve or fifteen acres at present held by a farmor aro sufficient for the . simple needs of his family, but after one generation that will be divided among four or five sons, and will again bo subdivided among their sons, and will be inadequate for tho support of their families. Consolidation of fragmented holdings only postpones the coming evil to a minor degree. A second fundamental cause of India's poverty is the ever-present excess of births and deaths. In the Punjab the yearly increase from this cause is four hundred thousand, and for all India, in forty-nine years up to 1921, the population increase was fifty-four millions. Before the British connection was established wars, famines and epidemics kept tho population down, but now internal wars have for three generations been unknown, railways bring food to areas of scarcity, and Government relief and grain shops save tho people from the honors of famine. Tho Department of Public Health and the Medical Service, with their free vaccinations and inoculations, fairly effectively check plague, cholera and smallpox. With this progressive improvement in health work checking deadly epidemics, tho population keeps on increasing and accentuates the pressure of poverty. Again, strango as it may seem, education has been a distinct factor in the increase of poverty, especially among the middle classes. Early in tho British connection an Order-in-C'ouncil of tho Gover-nor-General announced that, if Indians would educate themselves along tho lines of English education, they would be given positions in tho Government of the country. English education was tho door by which entrance could be made to positions in the Civil Service, in the Medical Service, in the colleges, in engineering, in canals, in law, and in all the clerkships attached thereto. False Idea of Education. Indian parents quickly realised the value of service for their sons. It was an investment for tho parent, or for the united I Hindu family, that assured a satisfactory income to supplement tho family earnings. But tho number of those who now present themselves at the annual examination with a view to entering Government service has grown beyond all reckoning. The Punjab province is backward educationally, but twenty-two thousand students pass tho university entrance examination 'each year, and in other provinces tho number is far greater. For all these there aro at most a few thousand vacancies available in any year, and literally hundreds of thousands of young men and their families havo to faco disappointment. This tragedy of a false idea of education has involved a considerable section of the middle classes in poverty and debt. Their boys havo been educated above the village conditions, and tho feeling of resentment that remains is not solely because of their financial loss. They feel that Government has let them down. When we add to this tho ferment of new ideas of political freedom, tho growing hopelessness with which tho agriculturalist views his diminishing rural holdings, and tho really alarming general increase of tho population, we get a good jumping-off ground for tho political agitator. The danger in tho present National Congress programmo of civil disobedience lies not in\he leadership of Gandhi, for he no longer dominates in the political field, but it lies in the relief that the uneducated masses will seo to tho spectre of gaunt poverty that stands in the foreground of all their outlook on tho future. Tho benefits that havo accrued from tho Government of India's immense developments of irrigation, railways, hydroelectric schemes, trade and commerce, havo been largely negatived, and aro being increasiugly made ineffectivo by the causes named, not by any alleged maladministration*