CHECKING INDIAN INTRIGUE.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXVII, Issue 20605, 2 July 1930, Page 10

CHECKING INDIAN INTRIGUE.

The Indian National Congress has been declared illegal, and will not be allowed to meet.. In one respect, possibly two, this body has been unfortunately named. It is a nationalist rather than a national institution, and as a "congress is not a part of the system of government but an assembly for the discussion and expression of partisan views. It is a party-political, not a constitutional, body. It has stood, in fact, more for the direction of a campaign of revolt than for the fostering of any system of law and order. Again and again, in the forty-five years or so of its existence, it has proved a thorn in the side of tfie Viceroy and a; menace to peace; yet its activities have varied in their'paftici'ilar^--objective in accordance with the changing domination 111 it of either moderate or extreme leaders. There was a time in recent years when Mr. Gandhi, impatient with its refusal to support his non-co-operation movement, did not hesitate to denounce its preference for other ways of expressing nationalist ambitions and grievances." Itself devoted to agitation, it has on occasion b'cen an arena for competing schemes of" disturbance, and intrigue lias pjared no small part in'its inner counsels.' In the main, while providing a recognised avenue of contact between con-i stituted authority and the nationalist malcontents, it has deliberately and persistently fomented Indian distrust of British rule* -and its suppression has : before ; now 'seemed essential to eventual harmony;-What-has at length been done might pear harsh, were it not for the fact that British toleration of the congress and its sinister influence has been very patiently extended for a very long period. In the beginning, it had an excellent opportunityto become a legal.-channel-for the expression of grievances, and but for its frequent domination "by implacable opponents of British law, this possibility might easily have been realised, Instead, it developed in lawless ways, and its falling under a legal ban has been made inevitable.