MR. GANDHI’S DENIAL.

Taranaki Daily News, 21 December 1931, Page 4

MR. GANDHI’S DENIAL.

Mahatma Gandhi, leader of the most ardent section of Hindu Home- Rulers in India, is either a •fiict-clasa. liar or a grossly misrepresented patriot. It will be remembered that he was asked to join the conference of Indians in London that has been trying to hammer out details of a new constitution for India. Though it is said much good work has been accomplished by the conference it could not agree upon a method of giving the smaller communities in India Parliamentary representation, nor could, it arrange a satisfactory settlement between Moslem and Hindu claims. Mr. Gandhi and his stand for Hindu supremacy, and they have been willing tt> try peaceful but unconstitutional methods, such as passive resistance to taxation and the boycott of British goods. There is more than a suspicion that the boycott is a lefthanded. way of increasing the trade in Indian manufactures, and. the “Congress,” the Hindu association from which Mr. Gandhi had to obtain appointment as its representative before he could proceed to the conference, has not hesitated to include rapine and murder in its so-called political campaign for Home Rule for India. Apparently Mr. Gandhi’s presence at the conference has not done all that was hoped for. He remained meditative and hopelessly ineffective in practical details. But no sooner had Mr. Gandhi left England on his return to India than, according to an Italian newspaper, he gave in the name of “Congress” the most disloyal statement it was possible to conceive from any Indian politician. Defiance of Great Britain all along the line was to be the Hindu policy. No taxes would be paid and no British goods purchased. Hindus knew that the might of Britain was great and that the penalty for defying it would be severe, but they were prepared to pay the price. Such statements from a man who it was hoped would assist to reconcile Hindus to a practical working agreement with other races and creeds and to the fact that Home Rule in India must slowly evolve as the country learned fitness for selfgovernment were very disquieting. Since their publication Mr. Gandhi has denied makino- the statements, and the Italian newspaper asserts that he did and in the presence of witnesses. It is an unhappy endin«■ to the experiment of asking Mr. Gandhi to join the London conference. The pity of it is that, right or yreng, the publication of such inflammatory remarks is calculated to hinder the cause which moderate opinion in India is really anxious to further and Britain to assist.