MR GANDHI, INDIA’S STORMY PETREL.

Western Star, 10 February 1922, Page 4

MR GANDHI, INDIA’S STORMY PETREL.

In dramatically announcing his purpose of fasting once a week as a penance, Mr Gandhi remains true to the methods by which he has won the allegiance of ignorant ...millions in. India. Of all the fanatics who have become leaders of popular discontent" since the war, none is so remarkable and .probably none so dangerous as lie. It may seem difficult to believe that this man, who is thought of as a Hindoo of the Hindoos, has lived for nearly 20 years in British South Africa, and. is acquainted with most of the capitals of Europe. But he came to be regarded among his own people, not primarily as ,a politician or a social reformer, but as a. saint, a mystic, a prophet. He captivates the audiences which drink in his words by his quiet voice, his earnest gaze, and his ascetic appearance. He sets to his followers a dramatic example of fasting and penance, and even mortification of the flesh," and is credited with miraculous powers. i i Years ago he made up his mincl that Western civilisation ' was the curse of_the world, and' that the mechanism; resulting from the application of science to' industry was the cause of oppression and poverty. He found; no constructive .remedy to overcome the evils intermixed with civilisation; with crude directness he concluded that there was no way but to Oppose civilisation itself. . In India the British were the representatives of this Western civilisation which he detested, and he gathered round himself all the forces of discontent, including Mohammedans, to resist the administration. He appealed to Urn* Nationalists, he appealed to, the poor, lie appealed to the fanaticism of the sects, hg-appcal-ed to therm who were primarily agitators. He saw that the method of violence defeated its own ends; so he called upon all classes to use the method of the strike.

“Non-co-operation” was liiis motto. Gradually he” became more andi more absorbed in the purely political conflict against authority. He had preached abstention from citizenship; but his doctrine led to violence. ..Hie creed was abstinence, .restraint, sacrifice, but his disciples indulged in riots, plunder, murder. “ The barbarous method,” he said, “is warfare open or secret." But the astute politician in him led to the qualification: “ This must be ruled out only because it is impracticable. . . . My argument to-day against violence is batsed' upon pure expediency. i.e., its mere futility.”