OBSTRUCTION IN INDIA.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXVIII, Issue 20947, 10 August 1931, Page 8

OBSTRUCTION IN INDIA.

The message sent by European groups in the Legislative Assembly of India and the Bengal Legislative Council to the leaders of political parties in Britain manifests grave anxiety about Indian affairs. Its comment on the activity of a certain element in the National Congress is definite and emphatic: this element is seeking to force the Round Table Conference, when it resumes, to agree to India's secession, under a threat of terrorism. Events endorse this forecast. Founded a generation ago as a voluntary and unofficial means of uniting discordant sections of the population, fostering the gradual regeneration of the whole people and consolidating the union of Britain and India by minor modifications of governmental policy, the National Congress has eventually become a partisan instrument of revolutionary extremists. For a time recently it was under the dominance of Mr. Gandhi, and for its defiant attitude to the law of the land throughout last year his leadership must be held responsible, although control was slipping from his hands. Its illegal activities were a direct challenge to the Government, particularly in relation to tho flagrant lawlessness organised to defeat British rule. Refusal to co-operate in the Round Table Conference was met by conversations between representatives of the Viceroy and certain Congress leaders, including Mr. Gandhi. After a period of deadlock, during which these leaders professed their scorn of the negotiations in London, although they were obviously watching theso very closely, a promising agreement was reached at Delhi, and Mr. Gandhi has intimated his intention of going to London and his disapproval of the extremists' policy of lawless violence. But his change of attitude has left them unmnved and implacable: their determination lo promote friction is evidently as bitter and unscrupulous as ever. The message now sent by European legislators in India indicates a continuance, even an increase, of criminal outbreaks at the instigation of the irreconcilable element, with the plain purpose of embarrassing the conference. This active opposition may fail in its immediate objective, but it bodes ill for the success of any reasonable plan to extend self-government and impresses the necessity for very strict control during the inevitably long and difficult transition to any workable form of independence.