The Timaru Herald FRIDAY, AUGUST 22, 1930. THE FUTILITY OF GANDHI.

Timaru Herald, Volume CXXV, Issue 18652, 22 August 1930, Page 8

The Timaru Herald FRIDAY, AUGUST 22, 1930. THE FUTILITY OF GANDHI.

It is of intense interest to keen students of the march of events in India to learn that Mahatma Gandhi has acquainted the Viceroy of India with his terms for the cessation of the civil disobedience campaign. Friends who were permitted to visit the fanatical Indian leaders during their incarceration in prison, have provided the medium through which the views of the Indian Nationalist extremists can be conveyed to the King’s representative in India. The report states that Gandhi recognises, “in view of the strength of the Conservative and Liberal opposition, that the Labour Government may not be able to guarantee Dominion status as a result of the round-table conference, but he demands that the Government should definitely adopt a policy of substantive independence as its own at that conference, giving, as a pledge, amnesty to political prisoners upon which the non-co-operation movement will be called off.” The idea that one of the Indian Nationalist leaders should be permitted to dictate to the British Government will not appeal to the British people. It is true that the Labour Government has made extravagant promises which cannot be honoured without risking the very existence of national stability in India, but already the British Press is remarking that Gandhi has yet to learn that Great Britain is not prepared, under any political circumstances, to sanction the crime of plunging India into chaos. Recent developments have shown that the violence of Gandhi’s nonviolent crusade has dethroned the Nationalist leader from the high place he attained in the confidences of Imperial statesmen. “ The prisons are no longer an attraction to us,” declared Mahatma Gandhi, in a scathing declaration of the British authorities in India, before he was sent to prison. “Let us have some more shooting and head-breaking, please.” Leading commentators find it difficult to reconcile these utterances with Gandhi’s long preached doctrine of non-violence and his reputation for saintliness. But the dire effect of the Indian leader’s brandishing of the flaming torch of violence, has been seen in the spread of disorder and the outbreaks of lawlessness in many districts. Not unnaturally the growing gravity of the situation in India has caused perturbation in Britain, and the campaign of civil disci’ -dience in India has been regarded in London as incomparably the biggest responsibility of the present political situation. In the Old Land slum clearance, unemployment and even the Socialists’ budget, fade into the background before this prime Imperial problem. British character and British statesmanship may be used in India in the near future as sternly as they have been tested in the history of the race. This is the first fact to keep in mind, and it is generally conceded that whatever the superficial appearance of events and atmosphere in India at the present moment, the development of relations between that great country or mixture of countries, and Britain’s has reached a critical point. It will need all British wisdom and genius for statecraft to handle the ugly situation. Months ago it was confidently stated that so serious was the situation that wellinformed commentators were forecasting that it would not be surprising that the Simon Commission reported against anything in the nature of Dominion status. Moreover, it is very generally stated that the vast majority of the Indian people have no enthusiasm for Gandhi, and would hear with joy the news that the Indian Government had done its plain duty and shipped him off to the Andamen Islands. Once Gandhi abandoned his peaceful non-co-operation movement and lifted high the torch of force, he forfeited all right to be regarded as the mouth piece of Indian opinion. The Simon Report indicated quite plainly that Gandhi’s campaign of violence had neither impressed nor intimidated them. The Commissioners, in their general conclusion, say: “In writing this report, we have made no allusion to the events of the last few months in India. In fact, the whole of our principal recommendations were arrived at and unanimously agreed upon before those events occurred. We have not altered a line of our Report on that account, for it is necessary to look beyond particular incidents, and to take a longer view.” It is interesting to mention, however, as the Simon Commission reminds the British people that “it has only been the existence of British rule in India that has rendered such a development possible.” The Simon Report goes on to say that “the movement I has been growing steadily for the last fifty years, and with a greatly accelerated pace in the last decade . . Whatever may be its shortcomings and however distasteful some of its manifestations, it appears to be the one force in Indian society to-day that may perhaps contain within itself the power to overcome the

deep and dangerous cleavages that threaten its peace. Nationalism is a force with immense power for good or evil, and the task in the future is to utilise that force for constructive ends. Moreover, the Commissioners say without hesitation that “in all its variations of expression and intensity, the political sentiment which is most widespread among all educated Indians is the expression of a demand for equality with Europeans and a resentment against any suspicion of differential treatment.” Hence the Commission, facing the big problems of India have been forced to recognise that “while the member of a minority community, putting the safety of his community first, will stipulate for safeguards; and while the moderate may look askance at extremist methods which he will not openly denounce, all alike are in sympathy with the demand for equal status with the European and proclaim their belief in self-determination for India.” nence the stern facts have to be faced. The destiny of India reposes in the Indian heart, and notwithstanding the violence of the extremists and the recourse to lawlessness advocated by Gandhi, in his more recent appeals, it must be confessed, to quote the Simon Commission, that “the most formidable of the evils from which India is suffering, have their roots in social and economic customs of long standing, which can only be remedied by the action of the Indian people themselves.”